Nucleus Colony

One encoder sits at the centre and signals its needs outward. Decoder cells grow around it and either hear the centre directly or receive the signal relayed cell to cell. Optionally, decoders can turn into new encoders and found territories of their own. The farther a signal travels, the more bits flip, so cells far out decode worse and starve. Watch the colony grow, mutate and build redundancy to push its edge outward.

Colony

41 × 41 sites, encoder at the centre

Rings: medium bit-flip chance at that distance from the centre

Tick

Decoders

Radius

Accuracy

Synonyms, selected

Encoders

Run

Speed 6 ticks/frame

Signal route

Relay copying error per hop 0.010

Differentiation

Decoders can become encoders

Trigger

New encoder's table

Distant environment

These reach the colony through its surroundings: the medium the signal crosses, the exposure at the edge, the needs the encoder must signal.

Needs to signal32

Turbidity (bit-flip chance per site) 0.0080 Harshness at exposed edges 0.30

Cells

Encoder may mutate (kept only if decoders do no worse) Decoder mutation per entry 0.010 Lifetime trial and error 0.05 Energy cost of a cell 0.50

A decoder survives when its accuracy covers its energy cost. Lower turbidity, fewer needs or more synonyms all raise accuracy far from the centre, so the colony can spread.

Losses

Accuracy by distance from a cell's encoder

Colony nowSame channel, no synonymsEnergy cost

Growth

Colony radius and encoders over time

Radius holding 90% of decoders (sites)EncodersDisturbance

Coding

Accuracy and redundancy over time

Mean accuracySynonyms per need ÷ 6

Emergent code

Encoding and decoding tables

Encoder · need → codeword → majority decoding · synonyms

Majority decoder · all 64 codewords → need

Outlined codewords are what the encoder sends. A synonym is a codeword one bit-flip away that still decodes to the same need, so that flip costs nothing.

Events