It was with some trepidation that I agreed to assume the task of producing a new translation of “Nine Meditations in the Temple of Chromatic Enlightenment”. The difficulties are well known and numerous. As soon as the first copies began to circulate in samizdat format, most likely sometime in the year 1973 A.H. there was an immediate and rich flowering of divergent versions of the original source material. Sympathetic and hostile forces alike contributed to this unusually fecund period of textual mutation and both sides made alterations to suit their political goals.

Students of history will already appreciate that Their Majesties sought to distort the document using a variety of viral A.I. modifiers with spin bias settings designed to spread confusion and reinforce orthodoxy. Several scholars¹ have noted differences in emphasis between the King and Queen of Earth and there is no doubt that a careful study of their various alternative versions reveals much about the internal strains within the monarchy. It is more seldom realised that the advocates of change who used the “Nine Mediations” in their rallying cries, were equally guilty of adapting the text where it suited them. These agents were not necessarily in complete agreement. Some of their changes were defensive, deployed as origin propagation camouflage during a time of severe repression. Some served to promote their authors’ preferred programs. And some were unintentional - internet transmission corruptions of varying complexity. With the benefit of modern technology, it is hard to appreciate that when the “Nine Meditations” was written, the Earth net was still plagued with rogue “signature thieves”, “payload riders” and “mutex bacilli”.

There is no extant copy of the “Nine Meditations” where there can be any confidence that changes of some form have not been applied. Deriving an Urtext from this confusing panoply of sources requires careful dating of every document and a close examination of the history of variation. The techniques involved are akin to those that are employed by students of biological evolution in cladistic analysis.

To these problems we can add the general difficulties of rendering 20th century classical Arabic into pan stellar. It is widely recognised² that linguistic divergence of emerging Bubble norms had begun to cause communication problems by the beginning of the 19th century. 

Being aware of these factors at the outset, I understood at once that to embark on this undertaking would be a considerable intellectual challenge and must take the better part of a standard year of concentrated effort. Nevertheless, when I was invited by the Faculty of United S'arys to produce a new translation of the “Nine Meditations” to celebrate a millennium of their deep scholarship, I accepted with alacrity. Whilst the precise impact of the “Nine Mediations” on the events which followed may be open to question there can be no doubting its interest. The time seemed ripe for a reassessment of this important work. Recent xenopological missions to Low Glade and Usaraxa³ have taught us much about the history and legacy of the Light Guards and the opening of the Antarctic archives has shed independent light on official 5th dynasty records. Whilst travel to Silusia Alpha is still prohibited and direct corroboration is therefore impossible, it no longer seems possible to believe, as some of the more extreme conspiracy theorists have argued⁴ that the Nine Meditations is a complete fabrication from beginning to end.

X.J. Thyrall, Faculty of United S'arys, 3808 CE

(1) Most notably R.S. Kwaram in “4th Dynastic Studies”

(2) “Languages of the Bubble”, T.A. Ealis et.al; “Extra Solar Linguistic Evolution”, J.D. Innim & A.P. Baker

(3) “Thinderin Dialogues”, T. Damalack et al.

(4) “The Great Fraud; How the Nine Meditations came to be”, J.Y.L Grenning