Carr Immortal Dynasty (Completed)

[Chubling]

Explosions! Fast Carrs! Romance! The dynasty does it all! Robin is a stunner and I love Morgan and his even more retro vibe. He and Nio binding with explosions is adorable

[hazelnut]

Morgan just had to be even more retro. (Morgan cars have wooden frames, for heaven's sake!)

I very much want Robin to be the mother of gen 6 but it might not happen.  Morgan has a lot of requirements to get through and he's such a dork that he may not get round to making any advances before they're both too old.

[starlives]

Your screenshots as always are so good. Loved seeing Nio and Portia together and Robin is lovely. Morgan and his explosions were fun to see too. Love this story/dynasty and always reading your updates even if I don't always comment.

[Trip]

I'm interested to see how playing the long game with mortal dynasty artists plays out, since that's Robin's purpose (I'm holding out hope for a baby because her donor isn't reproducing fast enough in my LP save, Piper get goin'!) I've never been sure when the effort of training them overshadows value.

Good luck with inventing too! Even if it's not your first rodeo with it.

[hazelnut]

Your screenshots as always are so good. Loved seeing Nio and Portia together and Robin is lovely. Morgan and his explosions were fun to see too. Love this story/dynasty and always reading your updates even if I don't always comment.

Thanks, @starlives.  I really don't expect comments every update - although it's lovely to get them  .

I'm interested to see how playing the long game with mortal dynasty artists plays out, since that's Robin's purpose (I'm holding out hope for a baby because her donor isn't reproducing fast enough in my LP save, Piper get goin'!) I've never been sure when the effort of training them overshadows value.

Good luck with inventing too! Even if it's not your first rodeo with it.

I've been wanting to get Piper's genes into one of my games ever since the Apocalypse Challenge, when Arthur failed to pair up with her.  As for the mortal artists, I realised somewhere in Portia's adulthood that it had probably reached the break-even point for paintings.  Austin is now the primary dynasty painter, although I am still training up mortals in case they get the Local Artists' Gallery opp, which would make them a better bet for now.  I'm pretty sure it's worth persisting with mortal sculptors and photographers for as long as possible.

This is my first time with inventing as a designated supermax in a dynasty.  It is a bit nail-biting.  On the other hand, I deliberately set out to do some different things this time and inventing was certainly one of them.

[Trip]

I had a different experience with photographers but the appreciation on photos can fail while I've never seen a painting or sculpture never appreciate, so maybe that was always skewing my perception. The mortal sculptor is definitely good strategy though, those death bonuses are never not ridiculous.

[hazelnut]

Vorsprung durch Technik

Morgan showered off the soot and picked out a new wardrobe.  He wanted to get back to his inventing bench but Minnie had other ideas.  She insisted that he had to waste a day or two posing for the artists.



The next day, Nio ran out of time.  Maybe getting blown up at the junkyard had been too much for his ageing body.  He was 98, after all.



People have different ways of dealing with grief.  Most of the family mourned around Nio's urn and tried to console each other.  Robin decided to take out her anger on its cause – the Grim Reaper himself.



Austin, impressed by her guts and originality, took a photo and Robin proudly pinned it up on her bedroom wall next to her prom picture.  After all, not everyone could say they'd fought the Reaper.



Morgan, of course, channelled his grief into inventing, reading engineering books at the library…



…and then putting his new knowledge into practice at his bench, creating a whole series of new widgets.



He worked from early in the morning…



…until he was too exhausted to carry on at night.



Even meal breaks were an unwelcome distraction – although he was forced to stop and deal with the problem when he accidentally set himself on fire.



Within a few days of his father's death, he'd moved on from widgets to major inventions…



…and maxed the inventing skill shortly afterwards.



That night, he had a call from VW's former colleagues, with an irresistible offer: to work with them on 'The Ultimate Invention'.  The materials they said they needed were already in one of the family's storage chests, so he drove over to the lab at once.

He left, thoughtfully, in the early hours.  Could it be done?  Was it really possible to create artificial life?



Despite his excitement, he forced himself to get a good night's sleep and eat breakfast.  Then he unpacked the 'life core' and started work.  It took all of that day and most of the next to assemble the parts.  Even the time machine hadn't been this difficult.



But at last, he stepped back from the bench and the thing – no, the 'SimBot',  sat up.  It… she was alive!

[hazelnut]

No Stopping

After releasing his strange metallic daughter into the wide, wild world, Morgan rushed upstairs to tell everyone all about her.  There she was (or, rather, wasn't anymore): his lifetime dream made real.  The first person he met was Robin, who was suitably impressed.



They'd been best friends since childhood but now he realised how attractive she was – someone who truly appreciated his genius.  Robin, of course, had always fancied Morgan and had been waiting for years for him to notice her.



In the heat of the moment, she grabbed his arm and kissed him.



"That's wonderful!  So now that you've invented everything, you can leave the workbench and, you know, start having a life!"



"What do you mean?  I've got a life.  And discovering every invention is just the start.  Now I need to keep practising, iron out the bugs and go into mass production, so that I can really start making money.  I do have a career to max, you know!



"I made quite a few widgets as a kid but I have to make 250.  250!  That's nearly 200 more.  And I'm not even into double figures with the big inventions yet.  And then there's the detonations and scrap-collecting.  I've barely made a start on those!"



"Morgan!  You're so driven.  Can't you stop and think about other things sometimes?"
"We're a dynasty.  Carrs are supposed to be driven."
"That was an awful joke.  And I suppose next you're going to say…"



"That Sparks should fly?  You should.  Why are you still cooped up in that studio if you think we should be doing more with our lives?  Go out and see the world!"
I would if I had a travelling partner to see it with.  "Oh, you're impossible!"  And she stormed off back to her sculptures.

Morgan shrugged.  Girls!  At least it was peaceful in his workshop.



After a while he ran out of scrap to invent with and decided he might as well get back to blowing things up.  The family had recently bought the empty plot next door but one and it seemed like the perfect place to try a chain reaction.



Hmm… partial success.  A lot of destroyed dishwashers and a lot of scrap, which were good, but also a fire, which was bad.  Fortunately, there was an alarm and the fire brigade eventually turned up to deal with the remains of the blaze.

The next day he tried again.  Two fire engines turned up this time (although shouldn't there have been a third one, to rescue the victims of the crash?)




I'd put in the fire alarm because I was hoping that Austin could get the firefighter photo for his collection, although it turned out that 'running', 'my friend' and 'fighting fire' were the only options, and those were all swaps.  After two attempts, I deleted the alarm and bought Fireproof Homestead as one of Morgan's unique rewards.

Except it seems that it only works on the main home lot, not on additional ones… .


The third fire was the most impressive yet.



The spare tombstones from the family inventory had been offloaded onto a corner of the lot and the noise and light disturbed the ghosts.  VW, excited as ever, hurried over to chat to them and to ask for DNA samples.  Ghost DNA!  That would be a real scientific advance!

Sadly for VW, the ghosts were far too busy discussing the fire and taking selfies to pay attention to a mere mortal.  Or even an immortal.



At last, she did manage to persuade a couple of them to donate their ghostly DNA.



She hurried home to clone a sample.



Disappointingly, the baby looked entirely normal.

Specimen 3641, renamed Opal, grew up into a cute red-haired toddler.



And there was toddler spam.



Robin adored her new little housemate.



She'd love to have a small one of her own.  But what were the chances of that ever happening when Morgan was such a dork?




Morgan's driving me nuts.  He's essentially asexual.  In any other game, I'd leave him to his inventing and choose another heir.  In this case, that's not an option.  Poor Robin is going to have to make all of the running.

I noticed the day after that first kiss that Robin had the 'first kiss' and 'first romance' moodlets but Morgan had neither.  Had he been hiding something from me?  I knew he hadn't been to prom – it would have happened on the evening of his YA birthday but he'd had an early-morning cake because he had other priorities.  Had he somehow had a high-school romance on the sly?  Fortunately, because the game's going through a buggy patch, I'd been saving frequently.  I went back and checked.  Yes, it was his first romance: both moodlets were present and correct initially.  But the 'first kiss' disappeared after three or four hours and 'first romance' a few hours after that.  Probably another bug but it seems weirdly appropriate.  He just doesn't care that much about human interactions  .

[Chubling]

Poor Robin! Destined to love a man that is more interested in his widgets. Hopefully she gets her baby and they find some time to go on adventures together! Get it together Morgan!

[Trip]

Glad you figured out the ghost DNA thing! I still don't know why cloning is generous enough to forget that little detail for its clones.

Inventing is the only skill I can think of where you can easily tank relationships with detonation and mining (at least sometimes, it's tricky!) so Morgan's a double-loser in this empty town.

[starlives]

Good look with the Robin and Morgan "romance". Looks like Morgan will need to be forced to do his duty and then revert back to his introvert life style! Love all the detonation events. I always enjoyed the dramatics of them when I was playing Sims3, especially with the aliens and their ability to call for meteor hits.

[hazelnut]

Poor Robin! Destined to love a man that is more interested in his widgets. Hopefully she gets her baby and they find some time to go on adventures together! Get it together Morgan!

I feel so sorry for her.  Part of me wants to just concentrate on the inventing supermax and wait for Opal to grow up, on the off-chance that Morgan might find her more attractive.  But I really like Piper's Robin's looks (and love her facial expressions), so I don't want to give up on her that easily.

Glad you figured out the ghost DNA thing! I still don't know why cloning is generous enough to forget that little detail for its clones.

Inventing is the only skill I can think of where you can easily tank relationships with detonation and mining (at least sometimes, it's tricky!) so Morgan's a double-loser in this empty town.

I'm OK with ghost DNA producing normal babies.  The ghost overlay does seem to behave differently from other supernatural life states.  It was an interesting experiment, though

Nobody's done any mining in this game.  They already had all of the SimBot materials, thanks to foreign travel, Minnie having unlocked the heart cut and VW's ability to clone almost anything.  Morgan's rolled the odd wish for an underground adventure but I've been ignoring him.  Apart from the resident ghosts, no-one's objected to the explosions.  The advantages of living right on the edge of town, maybe.

Good look with the Robin and Morgan "romance". Looks like Morgan will need to be forced to do his duty and then revert back to his introvert life style! Love all the detonation events. I always enjoyed the dramatics of them when I was playing Sims3, especially with the aliens and their ability to call for meteor hits.

Still not sure how it's going to work out but it seems unlikely to be the Great Fairytale Romance.

I've only used the alien ability to summon meteors once, with the Dents, and it still smarts.  I came so close to losing the whole family and the house was wrecked.

[hazelnut]

Bumpy Road

Things carried on very much as usual.  Morgan spent almost every waking minute in his workshop and hardly spoke to anyone other than VW.  He and Robin rarely met but seemed unbothered by the situation.  Neither rolled a single wish about the other.

Eventually, Robin's birthday arrived (with a cake, for once).





She plunged straight into a midlife crisis and who could blame her?

She and Morgan found themselves sitting together at the table.  It was awkward.  After a brief chat about how nice the cake looked and her (lack of) plans for the day, Morgan found himself stuck for conversation.



I can't say, 'Gosh, Robin, you're looking old suddenly.'  Even though she is.  Am I going to be the same soon?

"Fish!" he blurted out.



"What?!"
Why did I say that?  "Umm…  Fish!  Didn't you used to like fishing as a kid?  Ask Gran to take you along to the river.  She seems to like it."
Robin choked on her cake.  Was that his idea of a birthday treat?  It was bad enough getting middle-aged and wrinkly without Morgan being stupid.



Morgan left his cake unfinished and went back to the workbench.

A few hours later, he realised that he'd missed out on breakfast as well as cake.  His stomach was rumbling.  On his way to the fridge, he met his mother.

"Morgan, you're an idiot.  I overheard you this morning.  What was all that blather about fish?"
"It was just that she looked so old.  I couldn't think of anything to say."
"Like 'Happy Birthday' for instance?"
"But…"



"Yes, I know.  Birthdays are happy for us because each one means we're getting nearer to immortality.  But normal people celebrate too."
"Even though they're just getting older and running out of time?"
"Yes.  They still celebrate entering a new stage of life.  There are good things about every age, even for mortals.  Now go and find Robin and apologise for your appalling behaviour."


"Ummm…  Happy Birthday, Robin!"



"And, er, this is for you."



"For me?   What is it?"
"Super-compact folding easel.  Maybe you can take it with you if you ever get round to doing that travelling."
"Oh!  Thank you."
"Um, I'm sorry about this morning.  I just get embarrassed sometimes.  Can't think what to say.



"And, er, Robin…"
"Yes?"
"Would you like to be my… you know… girlfriend?"



"Yes, of course I would!"  Although I wish you weren't such a weirdo.



And then they settled back to ignoring each other.  Sigh.

[hazelnut]

Bumpy Road (cont'd)

The next event of note was Opal's child birthday.





She happily settled into her role as artist-in-training.



On the eve of his adult birthday, Morgan took Robin out on a date to the casino.  I'd like to say it was a spontaneous act but that would be a lie.  More like a direct watcherly order.



Robin sat down and tried to distract the robot croupier from whatever it was that her boyfriend was doing under the table.



(Again, not autonomous – I'd just discovered he had the option to hack the table and wanted to see what happened.)

He succeeded – and looked positively evil.  Where did that come from?



He joined Robin at the table and the robot, now with a strange green glow in its eyes, dealt the cards.



Robin won.



And won again.  And again.  The robot couldn't believe its programming.



Neither could Morgan.  He was the one who was supposed to be winning!  This wasn't fair.  He started moaning about how tired he was and Robin reluctantly abandoned her winning streak and went home with him.  Not the greatest date ever.



Despite his supposed exhaustion, Morgan was up early on his birthday morning.



Maybe it was the lack of sleep that tipped him into a midlife crisis.

Romeo started work on a new batch of sculptures but hadn't even finished the first one when he started feeling light.



He begged Grim for time to complete his work – but failed to persuade him to change his mind.



Later that afternoon, Robin found Morgan looking miserable.  Or maybe more like a sulky little boy.



"Are you OK?  Still upset because I beat you at blackjack?"
"No, of course not.  It's Romeo.  I didn't know him all that well but he had been around all my life.  The house feels wrong without him."
"I know what you mean.  We spent all that time sculpting together but we weren't close.  Well, not since he caught me setting a booby trap when I was a teenager.  I never really forgave him for the telling-off.  I wish now that we'd made friends again."

And she burst into tears on his shoulder.



Morgan couldn't cope with this.  What did you do with a crying female?  Then he had an idea.  This ought to cheer her up.

"Robin Sparks, will you marry me?"



What?  After all this time?  And you choose a moment like this?

But she said yes, of course.


I can't work these two out.  As usual, I was delaying the wedding until they wished to get married.  Neither of them needed the happiness points particularly but it's become a habit.  I just realised that it's now been nearly a week in-game and neither of them has rolled the wish.  Or any other romantic wishes about the other, in fact.  It's beginning to feel as though I'm forcing something to happen that isn't meant to be.  Maybe I should just give up and try again with Opal as a potential spouse.

To end on a happier note, two moments that made me smile.



What was going on there?  Portia's face says it all, really.  (I like to think she could see the thought bubble.)

And Minnie's clearly been alone too long.  I found her autonomously complimenting Grim's appearance.

[starlives]

I feel your frustration with the Robin and Morgan lack of mutual attraction. I have never liked pairing up sims when they don't throw any romantic wishes towards each other. I can see that the next heir maybe a problem unless Morgan falls for Opal when she is older!  She is lovely by the way.

Going back to aliens and summoning meteor showers. Whenever I started playing an alien (which I did quite often) I always made them do this before pretty much anything else. I took them to an empty lot, usually at night, and it was always a success. I even had them do it on a community lot sometimes so they could get scrap as well as rocks. I remember one memorable time when one of my aliens summoned a meteor strike outside Abu Simbel in Egypt. I got such wonderful screenshots.