A translation is provided by UNIT Alien-English software of a Journal of the (Sycorax) Ship's Scribe (whose duty it is to record a journal of the ships events). The journal recounts how the Sycorax were first made aware of the planet Earth through its probes that it sent out into "the darkness between the stars" (space). The Mars probe sent in 2006 intercepted by the Sycorax confirmed the presence of "soft, primitive, fleshy cattle" that could be sold for slaves and precious minerals within the planet that could be plundered – along with human blood samples which their shamen (who practised the forbidden arts of Astrophia) could use to exercise blood control over one third of the cattle, encouraging them into an easy surrender and submission – before being humiliated with the reveal that i