Is there a cure for the Upside-down Face Plague? Read about what independent scientists have discovered, and learn how your neighbourhood can protect itself!

The plague goes on, Sims all over SimNation still live in fear of the disease which this far has ruined an endless amount of neighbourhoods. It's time we get a cure, or at least that someone share their experience and understanding helping us to understand this phenomena.

A week ago I promised to check around, to bring more information on the plague. And you all are lucky, because out there in the neighbourhoods there are scientists independently and tireless doing their research. I invited them to share their observations!

In the Principality of Simkeep the Minister of Education, Mr Mortimer Goth, has been investigating the disease for a long time. He has a long career as a scientist, and together with his wife, Bella, 2 years ago he established a school where young Sims come to study. With help from his advisors, Mr Goth might have found a cure or at least one strategy that will help many neighbourhoods. The advisors were Gilda MacRinn, Solran MacLeod who is serving as regent for their Principality, Sinagod McTavish, and Bella Goth, who is the historian for Simkeep.

I was also contacted by Cari Soong from Dramaville, who is known to be a very knowledgeable Sim on this epidemic. Her family is the only one left after the plague struck Dramaville. She now hopes that her insight will help frustrated communities all over SimNation prevent or live through this epidemic.

Finally, in Simmerville members of the team known as Sims Science has been doing research ever since Simmerville got the plague 1 month ago, ruining everyone's Christmas celebrations. Simbille Ballong is ready to add to the facts with Sims Science's observations during this past month.

What is the upside-down face plague?
Tell us Mr Goth, what exactly is this dangerous plague. How will the victims know if they have been infected?

Mortimer Goth: The upside-down face plague is when a Simmish person who has gone through his whole life with a normal appearance suddenly has his face take on the appearance of what to me seems like an upside down clown face. They have a very hideous appearance as if they were wearing a scary mask and going to a costume ball. I have heard some folks say that it should be ignored and it will go away. Maybe in some instances it has. But we have noticed that left untreated the disease will progress either slowly or rapidly until neighbours are no longer able to enter their home. The afflicted simmish are isolated and it only gets worse.

Really scary, I think, Mr Goth. And I also heard that the upside-down face will change to express the victim's mood. Hah, as if a very sick Sim would ever be in a good mood? If I meet a Sim who has got the plague, is there any chance that I can get infected, too? Is it contagious?

Mortimer Goth: It seems like it spreads through some communities with a virulence that might suggest it is contagious, but I don't believe you catch it by being with someone who is afflicted. I think that it is actually a genetic abnormality that is now striking Simmish communities that have engaged in the great westward expansion since last fall. I know that some may disagree with me, but it seems to me that the new lands brought some horrible disease which strikes at random changing our genetic structure.  Some communities are hardly affected at all, while many have faced total devastation and loss from this plague.

Cari Soong: This disease starts small, but causes a cascade motion that will eventually make it impossible for the community to function properly. To my knowledge the most common way of getting this plague is if some of the houses in your neighbourhood have "interesting" architecture. Like a floating house, that will corrupt files cursing the upside down faces. Sometimes the upside down face disease isn't threatening to a neighbourhood. It is just a minor inconvenience for some.

Simbille Ballong: First we had a couple victims who lived on like normal, but after one family got isolated and we no longer was able to enter their home, we became aware this was something serious. Thanks to our contact with Mr Goth of Simkeep, we were able to start treating those infected.

The plague threatening the neighbourhood
So, Mr Mortimer Goth, Cari Soong and Simbille Ballong, you all have experienced how this plague almost destroyed your respective communities. Please share with us how this occurred and proceeded.

Mortimer Goth: Simkeep was affected almost immediately after our expansion to the new territories in the west. We had just begun to enjoy new neighbours and the joy adopting pets into our families when some of the residents were stricken with the plague. Even the Prince and Princess of Simkeep were not immune. They had just built a new home in the new lands when they came down with the disease after visiting a pet adoption center.  They returned home and the whole royal family was afflicted. There was a great scare that went through our community because we felt if they could be afflicted, everyone could. From his isolation at home, Selrax appointed me with my best pupils to find a remedy that would work for us. We were lucky that we had instituted a program of saving our residents genetic material on a regular basis in case of a great catastrophe. So we began our research and found a way to "cure" the disease so Simkeepers could lead normal lives while hopefully a permanent solution is being worked out by the scientists at Maxis.

Simbille Ballong: In Simmerville the damages were larger than in Simkeep. After receiving Mr Goth's helping information, we tested all our residents, and about half our population were infected! Only a few of them had developed the upside-down face though, but we believed it was only a matter of time. So we made a very though decision, as we deported absolutely all Sims living here. Even houses were torn down, and all the lots were disinfected. Technically you might say the old Simmerville was deleted, and a new neighbourhood was created and ready to be rebuilt, lot by lot, install by install. It's only a week ago that the first families were allowed to move back. We created exact copies of their homes which were pasted into the cleaned neighbourhood, then the household members were imported. This treatment was much safer and easier than we expected, as everyone kept their jobs, skills and personality, their new homes were exactly as they used to be, and after a while we even got our old photo albums back as well. There was a catch though, everyone had forgot their relations outside the household, it was just like if we had been hypnotized to forget all our friends. It was scary in the start, but as we got time to read our albums and diaries, we soon figured what contacts to rebuild. Today only 3 households are still isolated, and we feel sorry for them, although they might soon be allowed to move back into their homes.

Cari Soong: Forr Dramaville it turned out real bad, and the entire neighbourhood is now lost because of this plague. And it started with one Sim, and eventually everything went down.

Secure your neighbourhood
Many Sims are terrified that the plague might come to their region. I think they would be very grateful if someone found a cure, or at least provided information on how the neighbourhoods can test themselves for the virus and what precautions can be taken. What can be done to secure a neighbourhood and it's residents?

Mortimer Goth: Save the genetic information for all of their residents.  Then they can use this to replace the diseased genetic material if their residents are afflicted. If your community is healthy now, then save your residents genetic code. Each resident has an assigned number that corresponds with his genetic code. Each Sim has his/her own genetic file code kept in: Maxis/The Sims/Userdata/Characters. This entire file should be saved in a safe place, regularly.

Simbille Ballong: Yes, store those records in a safe place. You could actually store the entire "UserData" folder which will even secure the houses and personal photo albums. It doesn't take much extra time or work, but it might make the difference between a family dying or surviving. We did this in Simmerville, and it's the reason that most families have survived.

Cari Soong: I have learned that one way of securing genetic information is to store the unaffected sim families onto the Sims Exchange provided on web by Maxis, and if one or more persons will contract the disease their info can be recalled from the Sims Exchange. If the infected household is to badly damaged, this might not work though, instead you might not be able to enter your neighbourhood at all.

Simbille Ballong: Just remember to store each back-up in a differently named folder, or you will overwrite previous version. And of course, each time you do the back up, check the amount of all residents' files. If the amount of data increases it might be a very bad sign!

Finding the genetic code
So, let's hear more about how to find a Sim's genetic data?

Mortimer Goth: Your scientists will need a method of viewing what numbers nature has assigned to each of your neighbours so you will have access to the diseased neighbours genetic data. This can be done in "search remedy" which is part of a technical examination named "Windows" or through many other technical programs which show what numbers have been assigned to individuals in the community.

Simbille Ballong: Note that if your neighbourhood gets expanded in any way, all genetic data files numbers will be reassigned, meaning you can't use the old records. Therefore, always make a new back up right after the install of the new expansion.

Mortimer Goth: For example, my number in my community is 00083.  If I should become afflicted with this terrible syndrome which the first sign is an upside-down head, the medical technicians in Simkeep would immediately go to my saved genetic material in the characters numbered 00083 and use it to replace my diseased genetic material.

How to tell if a genetic code has been infected
Ok, this is starting to make sense. Neighbourhoods need to back up genetic information, and if someone gets the disease, their stored and healthy genetic information needs to replace the infected data. But how can one see if such a genetic code is infected with this virus?

Mortimer Goth: The amount of material in my normal code is about 55kb. When a Sim becomes so afflicted that neighbours can no longer enter their residence the code has increased to say 100kb or so. We don't know what causes it but when this happens the genetic material is corrupted and it eventually leads to all worse case scenarios. But when the diseased genetic material is replaced with the normal healthy one we can again visit the home and find our neighbour in normal good health in every way. Knowing this information can prevent many homes from being destroyed because as soon as the diseased genes are gone, the resident is cured and their house can once again be entered. And you will find them completely normal.

Simbille Ballong: In Simmerville the amount of data was 55kb for many residents. Then there were a few having 57-58kb, and we are not sure if they were infected, but they probably were. Then there were many 104kb files, they definitely were infected, but we were still able to visit them and for most of them there was no visual sign of the plague. But we were very surprised to find that 3 of our residents had more than 400kb data, one actually had 552kb! Compared to 55kb that is a very large amount of genetic information, and this Sim had only been living in Simmerville for 3 days, had not met many neighbours, and had no pet. We have no idea why he had 10 times as much data in his genetic data as the healthy Sims. After a few days he got the plague and was deported as we had no back-up of his data.

Cari Soong: The upside-down face thing, it starts with a single corrupted person file. It all depends of how much the file has been corrupted. This can happen in many ways, some of which is shutting down the neighbourhood incorrectly, or if a lot of computer programs are running at the same time. If you have access to Downtown (HD) importing new townies can cause this to happen if someone in the neighbourhood knows the townie who is being replaced.

Simbille Ballong: I'd like to add that the strays and the townies also have genetic codes. We have experienced that the townies normally have a little more data than the local residents, somewhere round 60kb. The stray cats have 316kb, and the stray dogs have 357kb. In Simmerville even a stray once got the upside-down face! So check on them as well. There is a possibility the normal data amount will be affected by the neighbourhood's expansions and facilities. You will see for yourself how much genetic data the majority of your residents do have.

The Cure
The 3 of you hold valuable information. Let's learn how to treat a household that was already infected! I know most Sims will find this too technical and medical, but on behalf of neighbourhoods having scientists that are familiar with medical terms and knowing the aspects of backing up the residents genetic information, technically: Could you provide a "what to do list" in detail for these scientists to adopt?

Mortimer Goth: Our method of treatment involves replacing the diseased genetic material with saved healthy genetic material. If you have the disease, maybe a scientist in your community has saved genetic material previously that can be used. Then if a resident becomes diseased, replace the diseased code with the healthy one. You do this by going to the saved genetic file which is healthy and replacing the diseased genetic material.

Simbille Ballong: We followed the example from Simkeep, and even if we started too late, we have used their method to keep an eye on the development, and it really makes sense. I think this methode is a very  essential part of the plague, and a good way to control the developments. These days we do check the size of the genetic code files almost daily, and this far we saw no abnormality.

Mortimer Goth: We treated several residents many times with the method I described above. Each time the upside-down head disease appeared this method was used. It worked every time even when the home was closed. Everything was restored when the treatment was done. We have not had a recurrence for almost two months, I think we have been lucky because while we have a treatment that works, it does not mean it will not return. But we live our lives normally and know each instance of the plague will be remedied as it may arise.

A hope for the future?
If you have read this far, you will know there IS a hope for your neighbourhood even if you already got the plague. And if you don't already have the disease, start backing up your genetic codes right away! Scientists, what are your hopes for the future?

Mortimer Goth: It is my sincerest wish that the great scientific team at Maxis will work on this problem that is ruining so many lives and find a cure. I know that they have the expertise to help our communities.

Simbille Ballong: I am rather convinced that the plague problem is caused by the Old Town expansion. Mrs Swims told me that children has been born with the upside-down face for ages, but as a rare thing to happen, and it normally corrected itself. I think that the problem is bigger for neighbourhoods that are expanded, than for brand new neighbourhoods founded after the Old Town access was established. It remains to see if Simmerville is cured, and if it will last. My hope is that Maxis will provide information on what they know about this dangerous upside-down face. If we knew the exact reason for the disease and how it spreads, it would help us all.

Cari Soong: I suggest all neighbourhoods to check my list of 5 ways to avoid the plague technically, and I really hope my knowledge can help others.

Cari Soong's list is written in the grey box on left side column of this page. The text is the same colour as the background in order to protect sensible Sims who should not read it - as it should appeal to Humans as well as Sims. To read it, just drag your cursor over the hidden text.

Let's hope the terrible plague will withdraw, that the methodes shared by Mr Goth, Mr Ballong and Mrs Soong will help, and that he scientists at Maxis will soon see how serious this diseas is, and that they will provide information and medicine. Thank you!

Photo 1: Mr Mortimer and Bella Goth of Simkeep studying in their library.
Photo 2: Mr. Mortimer Goth's scientific team taken in my home when we discussed this problem. Pictured are Solran MacLeod, Gilda MacRinn, myself, Bella, and our spokesperson, Sinagod McTavish.