Since identifying the speeches as having the distinctive morphology of a Hamito-Semitic language, I have been working tirelessly to translate the two recordings into English by comparison with Egyptian and various early Semitic languages, as well as the modern Berber and Cushitic languages, with interpretation and inference as necessary.
Sco-1934-1:
Five days ago, the cavity reached our sun ring. The outer cosmic settlements that were in its path were consumed. That caused the panic to finally reach its peak. Suddenly, [unknown] workers would not come to work. Our plan to move against it was bad enough as it was, but almost half of our men abandoning us overnight sealed its fate. 1,193 call towers shut down in one day.
It was two days after it reached its first cosmic settlement that it reached its first world. Images started coming out before I had even woken up. I was woken up by my manservant who was in tears. He showed me everything. Do you know what that ravenous abyss does to a world? If it just swallowed everything in an instant, then it was all over, that would be a mercy. Instead it tugs at your life until your soul is stretched too thin for you to even think, then it just keeps pulling. We are at war with the waters themselves.
Two days ago, I decided to pull the entirety of my army. Nobody was surprised that I was the first to “surrender” as they put it as if it was some sort of shameful defeat. There is no shame in admitting defeat, and what I decided to do was not that. I see it as a different type of victory. The outcome seems to be the same in either case: everybody dies. At least if we do it my way we can give billions of innocent people a quick and painless end as opposed to being [unknown] alive.
Yesterday only 49 call towers were still open when I woke up. When I went to bed only 11 were. Half of our worlds were turned into [unknown]. Three of the others finally saw it my way. The rest had already given up the idea that they were heroes on a righteous quest to take back their world, but they still refused to take the obvious next course of action. I think that it is quite funny. I was always the sad one. Now, the waters are up to our necks and I am the one who still finds a reason to get up in the morning.
Today, there were only five open call towers when I woke up. I watched that number drop to four, then three, then, ours fell. That is why I am sending this the old way. Two more of the others came to my side. We only need one more. Do you know how much I dread that moment? Once that happens, the other six will just have to sit and watch as I set into motion a weapon that will tear our sun ring to shreds. As much as I envy the weakness it takes to resign yourself to such indecision, I do not envy the position that any of them are in right now. One of them makes up their mind and decides to rule our world a lost cause, then it is all over.
I have personally dubbed the incursion described in this broadcast "the Manowar" from the Greek word "μανός" meaning "sparse" or "thin." I am rather proud of that stroke of genius. Aside from that I have nothing to say that cannot wait until after the translation of the second message.
Sco-1934-2:
First I will tell you this: I am clearly not asking for permission to use the [unknown]. The only people with the power to make that decision have finished deliberating. If you are listening to this, you have to have already come to our sun ring and seen what happened. I just want to justify to you what I will have already done. If you were in our position, you would see that there was only one path.
You have seen the plans. I believe that you, or your intellect, already knows that they are right. I think you just wanted for there to be another way. I do not fault you for that. It is a noble goal, however futile your struggle was. If that is not the case, and the plans do not justify themselves to you, then I am sure that you at least have enough faith in the elders to trust that their judgements are sound. This weapon is more than enough to do the job. Just watch as physics does the work.
The reason I choose not to wait for your permission, or even your response, is because I do not know how much time there is to waste. It seems that when the cavity is not rooted to something, it can move incredibly quickly, and as the people of our worlds are killed, the time for it to uproot and begin moving again draws nearer. It could be outside of the effective range within three [unknown (unit of time?)]. Furthermore, I do not know how quickly after it reaches our world there will be nobody left to use the [unknown]. I fear that every moment I waste, the more likely it becomes that it is already too late to stop the cavity from spreading.
One thing I can say for certain is that our people are already doomed. The brief flicker that was our existence has already faded. At most, one in sixty of us are still alive, and that is a generous estimate from before we lost our call tower. I know how much you want us to live on. I know how much this weapon's mere existence is an insult to everything you believe in, but we are a moribund people. Denying us the peaceful cradle of extinction by our own hands would be an injustice of the highest degree.
Do not look upon our deaths as a senseless tragedy. Objectively, we were horribly unlucky and lost everything for no reason, but when this is all over, the cosmos will be a more just place for having gotten rid of the cavity, and this will at least have given us a chance to try out our new weapon against the real thing. For the first time, you will have actual data to show the kind of damage this thing can wreak. For the first time, you will see what it looks like to fill emptiness with emptiness. The thing that saddens me the most about dying here is that I will never get to see those numbers myself.
I am clearing a path for you. I am giving you everything you could ever ask for without you having to do any of the work, and thus you are greatly indebted to me. As your creditor, I see it fit to indenture you so that you may never rest again. There are more things that lurk at the edges of our sight, and although no two of such things are the same, I believe having some information is better than none. You are about to watch as the innards of an unknown animal are scattered across the sky, and it would be unbecoming of a scientist such as yourself to not rummage through its remains.
It is quite the gift to be able to hear a language that was probably spoken by humans thousands of years ago. Just one of the countless things I love about working at the foundation. Opportunities like this cannot be found anywhere else.
I wonder if the scientist this message was addressed to ever heard it. No matter how thorough our techniques are, some information may be forever beyond our reach. That saddens me somewhat, but that is life.
As for the main contents of the message, I believe it is worth keeping watch in Scorpio. It seems that the threat was neutralized, but I do wonder what remains of the “cavity” and the planetary system that it invaded. Considering we received this signal less than three decades ago, from our point in the galaxy we should be able to view its remains while they are still fresh in an astronomical time-scale.
— Dr. Rosetta Stone
