Lotos Blossom Vendor 1.0 for Creatures 3 and Docking Station -- hm_lotos.txt - April 11, 2001

VERSION 1.0

If you have C3, to use this agent you must have the C3 update two!

To see if you have the update press ctrl-shift-enter to put Creatures 3 
into windowed mode. The window should say 'Creatures 3 - Engine 1.162'.
You must start a new world for the update to take effect. Worlds 
created prior to the update will not inject agents correctly, even if 
you have installed the C3 update. Press ctrl-shift-enter to get back 
to full-screen mode.

If you are using Docking Station, don't worry, everything should work fine.


--- Installation ---
For C3 standalone:

Put hm_lotos.agent into your My Agents folder. Start Creatures 3 
and go to the Agent Creator Machine. Make sure you have gotten the 
Creator Efficiency power-ups and have at least 100 units of Bioenergy. 
Click the arrows until you find the Lotos Blossom Vendor for C3, then 
click the round create button. 

To remove this agent from your world you must use the 'remove agent'
function of the Agent Creator Machine. The Lotos Vendor can also be
recycled!

For Docking Station:
(Capillata only or docked with C3)

Put hm_lotos.agent into your Docking Station\My Agents folder. Go
to the Comms center and click the Agent Injector Button. The Lotos Vendor
for Docking Station should appear in the available agents list. Select
it by clicking its name, the press the check mark to inject it into your 
world. Injecting the Lotos Vendor will also place an icon for my website 
on your Websites screen!

If you click the 'C3' tab on the Agent Injector, you will see the Lotos Vendor
for C3 listed as well. It's okay to inject this agent too, there won't be any
errors.

If you have a Docking Station capillata that has been docked with C3, you can 
use the Creator Machine in Engineering to create the Lotos Vendor, just as you 
would in C3 by itself.

Please let me know if you have a problem with this agent.



Bugs and Known problems:
None so far...



DESCRIPTION:
_______________________________________________________________

The Lotos Blossom is a flower with magical properties. Feed it
to your creatures and they will never suffer from toxins or
disease. Tell your creatures to "eat flower".

There is a secret to the Lotos Blossom. To find out what it is,
read the poem below:

              The Lotos-Eaters
          -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

     "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
     "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
     "In the afternoon they came unto a land
     In which it seemed always afternoon.
     All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
     Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
     Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
     And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream
     Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

     A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
     Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
     And some through wavering lights and shadows broke,
     Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
     They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
     From the inner land; far off, three mountain-tops,
     Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
     Stood sunset-flushed; and, dewed with drowery drops,
     Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
     The charmed sunset lingered low adown
     In the red West: through mountain clefts the dale
     Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
     Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale
     And meadow, set with slender galingale;
     A land where all things seemed the same!
     And round about the keel with faces pale,
     Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
     The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

     Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
     Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
     To each, but whoso did recieve of them
     And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
     Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave
     On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
     His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
     And deep-asleep he seemed, yet all awake,
     And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

     They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
     Between the sun and the moon upon the shore;
     And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
     Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
     Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,
     Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
     Then some one said, "We will return no more";
     And all at once they sang, "Our island home
     Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

                    CHORIC SONG
                         I
     There is sweet music here that softer falls
     Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
     Or night-dews on still waters between walls
     Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
     Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
     Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes;
     Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
     Here are cool mosses deep,
     And through the moss the ivies creep,
     And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
     And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

                        II
     Why are we weighed down upon with heaviness,
     And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
     While all things else have rest from weariness?
     All things have rest: why should we toil alone--
     We only toil, who are the first of things--
     And make perpetual moan,
     Still from one sorrow to another thrown;
     Nor ever fold our wings,
     And cease from wanderings,
     Nor sleep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
     Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings,
     "There is no joy but calm!"
     Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?

                      III
     Lo! in the middle of the wood,
     The folded leaf is wooed from out the bud
     With winds upon the branch, and there
     Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
     Sun-steeped at noon, and in the moon
     Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
     Falls, and floats adown the air.
     Lo! sweetened with the summer light,
     The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
     Drops in a silent autumn night.
     All its allotted length of days
     The flower ripens in its place,
     Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
     Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

                     IV
     Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
     Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
     Death is the end of life; ah why
     Should life all labor be?
     Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
     And in a little while our lips are dumb,
     Let us alone. What is it that will last?
     All things are taken from us, and become
     Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
     Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
     To war with evil? Is there any peace
     In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
     All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
     In silence -- ripen, fall, and cease:
     Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.

                      V
     How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
     With half-shut eyes ever to seem
     Falling asleep in a half-dream!
     To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
     Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height,
     To hear each other's whispered speech;
     Eating the Lotos day by day,
     To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
     And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
     To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
     To the influence of mild-mannered melancholy;
     To muse and brood and live again in memory,
     With those old faces of our infancy
     Heaped over with a mound of grass,
     To handfulls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!

                       VI
     Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
     And dear the last embraces of our wives
     And their warm tears: but all hath suffred change:
     For surely now our household hearths are cold:
     Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
     And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
     Or else the island princes over-bold
     Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
     Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
     And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
     Is there confusion in the little isle?
     Let what is broken so remain.
     The Gods are hard to reconcile:
     'Tis hard to settle order once again.
     There is confusion worse than death,
     Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
     Long labor unto aged breath,
     Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
     And eyes grown dim with gazing on pilot-stars.

                    VII
     But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly
     How sweet -- while war airs lull us, blowing lowly--
     With half-dropped eyelid still,
     Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
     To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
     His waters from the purple hill--
     To hear the dewy echoes calling
     From cave to cave through the thich-twined vine--
     To watch the emerald-colored water falling
     Through many a woven acanthus-wreath divine!
     Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
     Only to hear were sweet, stretched out beneath the pine.

                   VIII
     The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
     The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
     All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
     Through every hollow cave and alley lone
     Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
     We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
     Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
     Where the wallowing monster spoute his foam-fountains in the sea.
     Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
     In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
     On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
     For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled
     Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled
     Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world;
     Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
     Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
     Clanging fights, flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
     But they smile, they find a music centered in the doleful song
     Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
     Like a tale of little meaning though the words are strong;
     Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
     Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
     Storing yearly little dues of wheat and wine and oil;
     Till they perish and they suffer -- some, 'tis whispered -- down in hell
     Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
     Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
     Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
     Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
     Oh, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.


Or, in other words, TANSTAAFL.
_______________________________________________________________
Files added by agent:
hm_lotos.c16
hm_logo.c16
hm_lotos.catalogue

dr10.wav - native to DS, do not delete from ..\Docking Station\Sounds

The Lotos Vendor will not extract files that are already present
in the appropriate folders. In fact, if you have C3 installed,
it seems not to extract the sounds into the Docking Station 
Sounds folders at all. Very strange.


SCRIPT NUMBERS:

Lotos Blossom Vendor (dispenser)
2 23 54004 1
2 23 54004 2
2 23 54004 6
2 23 54004 9

Lotos Blossoms (flower)
2 7 54001 6
2 7 54001 12
_______________________________________________________________
If you have any problems installing the Lotos Blossom Vendor, 
I'll be glad to help you. Please e-mail me at: Hausmouse1@aol.com