Generation

## Overview

A **Generation** consists of all current baby, adult, and elder hominids in your clan. This is a snapshot in time of all of your hominids. Generation is also a tab under the Evolution menu.

Generation consists of two important concepts:

* **Reinforcements** - The ability to make acquired skills permanent.
* **Change Generation** - The ability to move forward in time by 15 years.

## Reinforcements

Evolution is no walk in the park and even if you have personally acquired a neuron, it does not mean the children will have it. As a consequence, before skipping a generation, it is necessary to reinforce certain neurons. If you reinforce one neuron, it will be acquired by the future generation with any neurons required to learn the reinforced one.

Neurons that can be reinforced will glow a bright white color. Genetic mutations and prior reinforced neurons will not be available to reinforce. Instead a dull bluish circle will appear in that place instead.

Selecting a neuron for reinforcement will add a light blue circle around the glowing white neuron. It is also possible to deselect and choose different neurons at this time.

Reinforcing the final neuron on a branch of unreinforced neurons automatically selects all of the required neurons for reinforcement. It isn't possible to only reinforce the advanced final neuron without reinforcing all of the neurons that connect to the final neuron.

It is normal to not have enough reinforcements for all of your unreinforced neurons, but it is worth noting that the new generation will have that neuron already matured and so you will only have to spend neuronal energy to learn it again, extremely speeding up the neuron acquirement process for those neurons already learned with a previous hominid.

There are two ways of getting reinforcements: having babies in your clan and discovering  meteorites.

* Each baby that you have in your clan will give you a reinforcement point.
* Each meteorite you find adds up to six additional reinforcement points. These points are dependent upon the number of babies that were with you when you discovered it. Each baby with you is worth one reinforcement point.

It is possible to accumulate a large amount of reinforcement points for a single generation with meteorites but don't waste these points. Make sure you have enough neurons to reinforce before discovering meteorites so you don't end up wasting reinforcement points.

## Change Generation

Generation is a key component used to move forward in time to reach your full evolutionary potential.

During you exploration, your hominids will grow and learn. Time will pass but this time frame is short in comparison to the life of a hominid. At a certain point in the game, you will have reached a place where you no longer can learn or grow at your specific snapshot in time. You will need to change a generation to jump forward in time.

It is important to note that changing a generation is permanent. 15 years of time will pass and multiple things will happen:

* All babies will grow up to be adults
* All adults will grow up to be elders
* All elders will die
* All pregnant adults with unborn babies will lose the babies
* All babies with Genetic Mutations will reveal those mutations
* All adults with genetic mutations will keep those as elders
* Any elders with genetic mutations will die and they will be gone
* Any reinforced neurons will be permanent
* Any neurons not reinforced will be reset but they still will be revealed. It no longer takes as much Neuronal Energy to relearn these neurons.

Once the Attachment Need (BB HB 01), Attachment Need (HB 01), and Attachment Need (HB 02) neurons are learned, changing a generation will automatically form couples and babies will be born to those couples.

## Genetic Mutations

*Main article:* Genetic Mutations
It is important to note that without changing a generation it isn't possible to make genetic mutations permanent.

The easiest way to understand acquiring and passing on genetic mutations is this:

* A baby is born with a genetic mutation. It isn't activated until they are an adult. (Dull gold small circle neuron)
* You pass a generation and the baby grows up. The genetic mutation is revealed but is not yet in effect, not even for the adult that "has" it. (Bright gold small circle neuron)
* You can pass one more generation and your adult grows up into an elder. Your elder hominid still "has" the mutation but it is still not active. (Bright gold small circle neuron)
* You complete an evolution and jump forward into time. As long as your Adult or Elder hominid was alive when you completed the evolution, your genetic mutation is now permanent and activated. (Bright gold large circle neuron)
* If your baby/adult/elder with a genetic mutation dies before you complete an evolution, the mutation is lost. You will have toGive Birth to a new baby to get the mutation back, pass a generation to get them to grow into an adult, and then complete an evolution to make it permanent for all future hominids.