The Anointed Partners
The anointed partners have the unenviable task of trying to translate and understand the notorious complexities of the Codex of Yoth-Sathlyu
The first anointed partners were appointed directly by the envoy of the Intervention Angels in 2721 AF, beginning with Malcolm Octam, a professional linguist. Their numbers increased rapidly in the early days following the envoy's departure as many scholars were eager to contribute to the study. This was a time of rapid progress and there was a sense of optimism. Three of the nineteen languages of the Codex, seemed to be relatively easy to understand. These were dubbed, the Literal, Classical and Symbolist texts. It all became much harder in the fourth language, known as the Metaphorical encoding. Of the fifth language, referred to as the Poetic, only a little could be understood and beyond that, nothing.
Soon the deep frustrations of the difficulty of the project began to affect the morale of the anointed partners and this was also coupled with a sense of urgency, because no one knew when the intervention angels might return to check on the progress of the translation or what the consequences of failure would be.
By 2731 AF, factional infighting resulted in a number of schisms within the annointed partners and these boiled over into physical conflict in the short lived Grammar Wars which lasted until 2734 AF.
After the Grammar Wars, one particular faction fled into exile at Anoomenon and became known as the Bad Theologists.
Over time, an orthodox interpretation began to emerge amongst the victors of the Grammar Wars. This consensus viewpoint, ascribes provisional meaning at multiple levels to the entire Codex, seeking to bypass the details of the nineteen languages in a gestalt summary based on divine inspiration and a theory of synchronicity in semantics. The bad theologists dissent from this approach and its conclusions.
Realising that the task of true translation would not be achieved in one generation, the anointed partners established a long term program of study which, notionally, continues to work on the problem even today in 3180 AF, more than four hundred years after the Codex came to Earth. The bad theologists have done the same. It must be said that of these two competing research programs, only the one pursued by the bad theologists continues in any significant way. Interest in the problem within the orthodox lineage of the anointed partners has waned over the years and their ongoing studies are desultory where they have not been abandoned completely.
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