Translation Walkthrough with Plastic Farmers, Part I

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Dear Readers,

  I often discuss how I "translate" sources into narratives.  Those of you who read regularly know that I post both personal accounts and "stories" which put you into the shoes of someone in one of the various time streams that I study.  When I do put up a primary source, it's carefully selected to be something that I know can read like a real tale rather than a tax register.

  Do you have any idea how many tax registers Augury pulls in?  It's more than a lot.

  But those sources are some of the most useful things in my work.  They help me establish continuity and understand how people lived their lives.  It's not easy, but sometimes the most boring sources can give me an idea of someone's day to day life.

  But, I'm a trained Anachronist, and it takes that training to try and extract a hypothetical narrative from a book of government petitions or otherwise census-type data.  I try to save you the time through the stories that I write, so that you get the world without all the work.

  I think, though, you might all like a little insight into how this works, so I've decided to give you an example today.  See below as I take you with me to the Pacific Gyre during the 28th century, then have a great weekend.

  Always,
 
  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople

 
All right, let's begin.
I have three sources from Seward, a port town in Alaska (it's not quite going by that name at the time, but I'll spare you that today).

They are:

• A crew manifest for a plastic trawler.
• A blog entry/proclamation from the Mayor and Defender of the port town in question.
• A customs document summarizing crew status and cargo returned by the plastic trawler during its three month voyage in the Pacific Gyre.

All are dated approximately 2750.  As far as the particular time stream goes, dates and documents are unreliable, so it is hard to say how exact the numbers really are.  It's somewhat impressive that these documents were even written down.

Let's look at the crew manifest first.  I've translated it from the strange language that has developed by that time period:

"Ship: Girl Gone Wild

Skipper: Bill Hungrymoffoson
First Mate: Jeff Blogston
Mayoral Guest: Stephen Coke, Mayor-Elect of Seward

And 12 miscellaneous dock-acquired crewmembers, names not recorded to avoid liability.

Stated purpose of voyage: acquisition of raw materials for plastic from Pacific Gyre."

From this we know a few things: some of the cultural standards have decayed.  For some reason, the mayor sends the mayor-elect on the boat.  Have they had a falling out?  The surnames are strange, as well.  Branding, slang, and internet culture seem to have influenced what people are called.  A post-internet age.  I find it kind of remarkable that their first names seem similar enough to modern day that I can translate them into things like "Bill" and "Jeff."  The names are listed in short version, except Stephen.  Possibly because he is an aristocrat.

It's also interesting that those without official positions are just pulled off the dock and not even listed in name.  This implies that there is sufficient unemployment that people are waiting on the dock for work, and that the authorities do not care much if they do not all come back.
Oh, and a final note: the ship is a "plastic trawler" collecting "raw materials" from the Pacific Gyre.  It's known that the Pacific Gyre is a sea of discarded sea-junk during even your own day, a soup of plastic hundreds of miles across and without a single bacterium to break it down.

Second document, which arrived in HTML and I have translated to sensible English:

"BY DECREE OF MAYOR AND DEFENDER ERNEST COKE:

The MAYOR ELECT and NEXT DEFENDER his Hon. Stephen COKE has revealed through recent actions involving a HO that he needs more training before he can ascend to his position.  MAYOR AND DEFENDER Ernest COKE hereby requests passage for Stephen COKE as a mayoral guest aboard a plastic trawler bound for PACIFIC GYRE.  Send all inquiries to Mayoral Mansion, Seward."

This is a real gem.  So we have it that Stephen Coke is likely the son of the current mayor.  I'll bet there aren't elections in Alaska anymore.  We also have it that the mayor of this town can make decrees to exile even his own son after embarrassing events.  We can also assume that Stephen Coke doesn't really want to be on board the vessel; this seems like a punishment meant to teach the mayor's son a lesson.  Could make for interesting interactions between the crew.

The third document:

"FILE IMMEDIATELY UPON RETURN
ATTN: Seward Mayoral Customs Office
SHIP: GIRL GONE WILD

Crew Status: [This part is very difficult to read in the original]...argument led to...injuries severe in one...eventual resolution from use of...crew survival within acceptable regs.

Cargo Status: 200 tons farmed plastic chips, estimated value: 700 troy oz gold."


This source really excites me.  What happened aboard this vessel?  They have collected a lot of plastic, and it is apparently worth a lot of gold!  And yet, what happened to dollars?  Apparently they are not worth what they used to be.

To sum up, we have a world where it seems like there is little central control, the economy has regressed significantly, and it is far more cost effective to trawl plastic than it is to make it originally.  Society involves ingrained aristocrats and these commoner farmers who seem subject to their whims.  And yet, strangely, this collapse has led to recycling by force.  Interesting to me, at least.  And furthermore: something happened at sea!  We will have to address that in the story.

Stay tuned for next Monday, when I post the narrative that I've put together from these sources.