UR SLATE / SECTION I - 17463.space/ur_slate_sec1.png

UR SLATE / DISTRANS TELEKOMM REPORT - 17463.space/ur.txt

2021.01 OBSERVATION REPORT: So, exciting to finally be able to stand in the same room as this crazy artifact, much less get paid to write about it. Writing this now, I've only been able to spend a few hours each night with it for the last week, but even within that small span of time, so many interesting things have happened. I've been asked to spend at least 3 weeks specifically analysing each separate section of the text inscriptions, and report anything else that "happens" while I do this, although I signed so many papers handing off my rights that I'm admittedly terrified at the prospect of being here at all. Distrans is pretty open about letting me publish my papers online though, so what could the harm be? Probably just a healthy corporate fear of litigation is all. Right. So, what does this section say? Factoring out the three characters that don't line up with any known cuneiform characters, it's still been possible to determine the "spirit" of the text based on the Bronze age languages we do already know. The Slate has four sides that all look identical so it's impossible to know if "section one" is truly the beginning of the entire passage, or even if all twelve are designed to be separate and self-contained thoughts? There are no other markings or indentations on the object that imply direction. This passage mentions a "dim morning hour, when stillness and quiet are the only things", bringing to mind aspects of the Tao, right off the top. A description of emptiness? A blank slate (ha!) or an empty canvas? In and of itself, it seems to mock definition and resist any kind of assertive declaration, although the second half of the passage reads something like "I awoke alone in another dream without boundary", which gives us perspective - this has been dictated or is completely autobiographical somehow. This aspect of the Slate's text differs greatly in that it isn't like many other old world inscriptions which speak with omniscient or third-person views, the Slate implies that whoever or whatever created it is speaking directly, although, as evidenced by monotheistic religious texts, this could also be representative of a deity and some kind of creation myth, but the complete lack of any other objects or examples of this text means that any such cultural observations are likely lost to the ages. Still, there are no mentions of other collective perspectives, no "we" or "us", and the final line outright explains that absence of other voices with "I knew the void for what it was" - unsettling stuff! A writer, waking alone, but still within a dream, a different dream than the one they were previously having, surrounded by an endless empty space that they themselves seem to have some higher awareness of, or relationship to. I'm reminded of early man, nomadic tribes wandering the earth, certainly concerned with nothing but survival and as yet unable to consider the world around them as anything but endless and empty, wondering about their place and purpose within such a landscape. We can never really know what life would have been like, or what the world even looked like in those times, but humanity made it this far, the void never took us, not completely, so this passage really is an interesting place to start, almost mirroring the human struggle in an indirect way. If there is or was a God, did he perhaps relate to us? Did he make us at all? Whether he did or didn't, could God feel sadness for us? Would we even know, and if we did, would we even be able to fathom or recognize Godly emotion? Or would it all be as purely alien as this weird black obelisk standing here under all these cameras, lights and sensors?

Speaking of those, I'm submitting my first report with an audio recording produced via connecting six piezoelectric microphones to the surface of the Slate that contains the aforementioned passage. These microphones were recorded over a full 24 hour period and the resultant recording was sped up immensely to produce several tones in the audible range. They all seem to be sinewaves, and can be observed separately via a wide band parametric equalizer. All but two are constant singular frequency bands, while the two that are not stationary sweep from 83Hz to 37Hz, and 124Hz to 762Hz respectively. It's been fairly well-known that the Slate vibrates by itself, much like the Earth, at frequencies that are imperceptibly low, so I'm sure Distrans has a lot of recordings like this one, but it's still utterly fascinating to hear.