#高塔藏书库第四期#
- 个人翻译，供学习讨论
- 欢迎命学爱好者多多交流
- 不是翻译专业，纯粹爱好，水平有限请见谅
- 会在文末附上原文
Introduction
介绍
人们总说没有什么是永恒的。
无论你认为自己有多强大，总有一些力量在他们自己的追求中，甚至不会考虑你在努力坚强不被遗忘。
每当一个伟大的社会曾经崛起，就有一千个文明堕落，被时间的巨口吞噬而遗忘。
但在这些破碎的遗迹里，新的花园生长，播种在鲜血和摧毁殆尽伟大战争的故事中。
如果你仔细观察——充分尊重历史——你会发现没有什么东西会完全消亡。
能量转变，名字改变，但故事不变。时间链是无限的，远远超出我们微薄的理解力。
每一个环节都有教训——它们变成了神话和传说，形成了一个圈，在这个圈中，真正的意义往往被正义的主张所丢失。然后，他们把自己对真理的要求凌驾于他人之上，就像真理一直是他们的一样。
它们的故事揭示了我们如何对抗毁灭的警示，如何在敌人之间找到联盟的过程，或者教导你如何在两个不在乎任何形式主张的大国之间平衡你的存在。
不管他们怎么称呼自己，或者别人怎么称呼他们，我们永远是一样的，不管是好是坏——直到一个新的神升起，另一个王国降临。
来自
一位无光者，永远为最后一位敢于说出不可言喻的人服务
Prologue
序言
The Golden Age
黄金时代
旅行者改变了一切。它决然地重塑了我们的太阳系，就像它粉碎了我们的科学和哲学框架一样。对我们的前人来说，这一定是一记重击——一瞥超越预期可能性的地平线，进入了一种超然力量的领域。
旅行者点燃了黄金时代。但是黄金时代是我们亲手建起的。我们自豪地铭记这一点，即使之后失去了这么多其他的东西。我们安顿了我们的太阳系，并用我们的努力修缮家园。
今天，隐士和学者们致力于将黄金时代的传说提炼为真理。我们知道人类活得更长，飘流的更远，知道得更多。
我们知道，无数古老的疾病和仇恨被永远扑灭了。人类的渴望催生了巨大的工程项目，席卷社会的运动，甚至新的生活形式。
黄金时代并非没有挑战。问题来源涉及到了内部冲突、哲学裂痕——特别是围绕机器智能和“思维分叉”的问题——以及持久的科学谜团。但是人类和它的机械孩子们用骄傲、活力和富有感染力的多元同情心来解决这些问题。
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原文：
Introduction
They say nothing lasts forever.
That no matter how strong you think you are, there are forces in their own pursuit that won't even regard your effort to steel yourself against oblivion.
That for every great society that has ever risen, another thousand have fallen, swallowed and forgotten by the great maw of time.
But in those shattered remains, new gardens grow, sown across the blood and stories great wars were fought to destroy.
If you look closely—and honor history well enough--you'll see that nothing ever dies... completely.
The energy alters form, the names change, but the story remains the same. The chain is infinite, far beyond our meager comprehension.
There are lessons in every link—they morph into myths, legends, forming a circle where true meaning is too often lost to a claim of righteousness. Then they hold their claim to truth over others, like it was theirs all along.
They offer cautionary tales of how to stand against destruction, processes of how to find alliances among enemies, or teachings of how to balance your existence between two powers that care nothing about claims of any kind.
Whatever they call themselves, or others choose to call them, we are forever one, for better or worse—until a new god rises and another kingdom comes.
From,
A Lightless One, Forever in Service to the Last Speaker, Who Dared to Speak the Ineffable
Prologue
The Golden Age
The Traveler changed everything. It reshaped our solar system as decisively as it shattered our scientific and philosophical frameworks. To our ancestors it must have been a hammerblow--a glimpse beyond the horizon of expected possibility and into a realm of transcendent power.
The Traveler kindled the Golden Age. But we built it. We remember this with pride, even after so much else has been lost. We settled our solar system and filled it with our work.
Today Cryptarchs and scholars work to distill the legends of the Golden Age into truth. We know that humans lived longer, flew further, and knew more.
We know that countless ancient diseases and hatreds were extinguished forever. Human aspiration gives birth to vast engineering projects, sweeping social movements, and even new forms of life.
The Golden Age was not without challenges. Sources speak of internal strife, philosophical rifts- particularly around questions of machine intelligence and 'mind forking' —and enduring scientific enigmas. But humanity and its machine children tackled these problems with pride, vigor, and a contagious sense of pluralist compassion.