Norns, their role and place

 Are norns what they can be and need to be?

Starting at the beginning, norns, or nornir were a lost race in the mythos concept. Their people had for some unspecified reason completely disappeared, leaving behind buildings, machines. All that was left were a handful of eggs, which the player had to hatch and guide into repopulating albia.

Despite the origins of the norns, the machines and their looks all were changed during development, this “goal” never did. Obviously norns were never intelligent enough to form a civilisation, at best they keep themselves alive by foraging. For them to effectively operate machines, do productive farming and to build/repair houses they would have needed pre-programmed behaviors, which would defeat the purpose of artificial life obviously.

So the goal really would be to set up a breeding population, plant enough self replenishing food in the world and to somehow teach or breed anti-grendel attitudes into them.

Diseases, mutations and environmental harm cannot be completely mitigated without modding, though setting up connected agents in c3 would allow for guidance without direct intervention.

So are norns what they need to be? They are likable idiots that need to do little more than breeding, and the games goal is more or less attainable with them. Because they have always been the main attraction in the game, most 3rd party and official breeds are norns rather than ettins or grendels. This leaves very few niches unfilled.

The next question is what the shee would wanted them to be. Generally it is thought they were only pets to the shee, servants perhaps for domestic tasks. This seems also to be what the lone shee stories seem to suggest and in game they certainly arent suited for much else. 

Might they have left the norns behind to fill their shoes? Walk the slow march of evolution to the point that they could replace the shee? That would have been somewhat close to what the mythos document suggests, where nornir would have had a civilisation.

My expectations as a kid when I bought creatures 2 were maybe a bit high. I remember telling my mom that I wondered whether they(the norns) would eventually develop a religion. My expectations werent set in stone though, and I thoroughly enjoyed the game. I played it frequently and quickly bought creatures exodus.

What players desire from norns might seem to differ, but always the norns are toys. Some players enjoy using them as lab rats, some try to play like a video game and quickly explore and unlock player abilities. Others enjoy viciously torturing norns, others viciously torture grendels out of love for their norns. In the end it is always a pastime. 

What behavior or attributes could be given to norns to fit the needs of players? Interaction is their most important part, in lore or in game. I experienced in every creatures game that a creature would just lie there and do nothing. In c3ds you could usually interact freely with the rest of the world, carry your norn to a different spot or chat with other players, but in c0, 1 and 2, this would usually be quite frustrating.

Do norns fill their potential, and the potential of the game engine? Not straight from the box, at least. Updates to their genes have been done by creature labs and by players since the beginning, and considering how the true warmblood norns were developed more than fifteen years after release, there might still be many improvements possible.

As for roles or jobs they would have on the ark and on albia, they seem better equipped to defend than the ettins do. They are more social and could be suited as guides and messengers because of it, but I admit I don't see much work for them that I wouldn’t rather see done by an ettin.

What do you think, do you have ideas on their origin or supposed use? Do you think they live up to their potential or know of improved genes I should know of? Let me know in the comments