Commentary by Dr. Drenchat Egarszoon Holian, PhD, DDiv, Director of the Lyons Imperial University Center for Heresiographical Research. Edited by Natalla Drenchatsdochter Pfalz-Holian, Adjunct Professor of Literature, Lyons Imperial University.
This hagiography — or "hagiogram" — was composed c. 695 BIE (ShipYear 540 in the local calendar) by the Freedreamer sect of the generation-ark Tsiolkovsky. The Freedreamers had their origins in the Casteless Movement, a revolutionary political party that replaced the ship's corporate oligarchy with an egalitarian democracy and eliminated its hereditary caste system. Milksaint Carvery — then known as Milkwright Carvery — was one of the primary architects of the Casteless Movement, and soon after their assassination in 810 BIE (SY 425) became one of the first saints of the nascent Freedreamer sect. The text is written in FreeCant, a non-Standard dialect used by the Freedreamers as a liturgical language; with the glosses included in the commentary, it should be relatively intelligible to most modern readers. If you still cannot understand it, look for the translated version in the Young Reader's Edition of Holian's Heretical Hagiographies, coming to children's bookstores some time next year. (Natalla, can I actually write this? I think it would be hilarious. Remind me to cut this sentence, by the way.1)
throbbing withways. hekatomb branching nightmare2. name STEEL name STONE name MILKSAINT CARVERY. ectopic mothergutter, wombripped glasscradler3, soothsaid olivetwister4. (paternity null: dadatest negative, bribeprince5 / stoway / genepurged6.) clan CARVER belonged mothername, suffixed bastardwise CARVERY. praenomen ungiven.
ninermonth hatched. wetnursed avtomat. halfyear kidraffle7, castenamed MILK agcaste dairyguild8. creched + schooled SEVENHULL, SIGMADECK, THREEAFORE SIXAPORT9. (shrined thoroughness + walldrug10 very.) apprenticed ephebic, mastername H MILKWRIGHT KIM (cognomed postly “PENITENCE KIM”, saintblessed + misericored11). cruelty apprenticewise KIM, starver, forceworker, mostall shocklasher12, sadesoul deepness. fifteenyear CARVERY sidesees lash, saintlife engaged:
>MIRACLE ALPHA13
»shocklash incoming
»MILKSAINT martyr intercepts
»niner-by-niner
»unmarked unbled unweeping
»stonesuffers nervepainswift retribution. bilgebanished, ALPHADECK, hullscrape chainganging vaccslave14. toiled sixyear, freedreaming, joycraving, hopeholding fulltime. rebelsong heartbeat, MILKSAINT, rebeltale tongue; forthflowed flightplots, sleepcycle schemesmithed, escapevangel. windcatch overseen. counterplotted hagicide15.
>MIRACLE BETA
»oxydecouple
»MILKSAINT chaingang fellowslaves
»threekilosec tank
»duration doubledoubled
»shepherdsafe homewarddoubledozen voidsaved, heromyth stat. actuarial imminence16, unchaining necessity, maydayed swiftness, rogered17 railroaders, nightflight victorious. TWELVEHULL refugeed, cognomed FREEHULL + HOPEHULL + foewise SCUMHULL18. farfamed MILKSAINT spartacussing19, casteless freeguilds20 encraving; soothsaid crosspath Ω FREEQUEEN, SAINT-OF-SAINTS21.
Ω prequeenly; metcute22 pubwise, tonguetouching23 freeschemes, emancipates, revolutes; + postlastcalled, tounguetouching24 eachother. daywise rabbleroused, nightwise starcrossed25, shipwide casteless insurgency. halfagainyear finality; revoleve26 councilmeet infiltrated, decapintended27, Ω regicide almost:
>MIRACLE GAMMA
»flechettes incoming
»MILKSAINT martyr intercepts
»niner-by-niner
»heartbled unbowed soulweeping
»stonesuffers deathblowsaintlife complete.
The original Freedreamer sect is no longer extant; the last record of them can be dated to c. 220 BIE, two centuries after the Tsiolkovsky reached its final destination (Vortigern, a verdant moon of a gas giant in the Dumnarth system), when the last remaining Freedreamer communities were purged as dissidents by a local dictator. Their sacred texts were preserved by the library of Vortigern Planetary University (now Vortigern Imperial Technical Institute)28. A small reconstructionist Freedreamer community has been active on Vortigern for about half a century, although by their own admission many of the actual practices of the Freedreamers have been lost. I give them another two generations, max.