So there is this song, Chiron Beta Prime by Jonathan Coulton, where he tells the story of a family that is on a mining asteroid Chiron Beta Prime and working for the robots there. It is written as a letter for christmas to a relative. And there is a point where there is "message redacted" spoken over the track. Is there a "canon" text, that belongs there?
3 Answers
I love Jonathan Coulton and this is an interesting question. However, I think this is just regular Coulton humour.
The family is obviously forced by the robots to stay and work on the asteroid, that's what the lyrics are all about:
Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime,
Where we're working in a mine for our robot overlords.
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime.
The robots are apparently redacting the message preventing the family to send out a "hidden" emergency message:
That's all the family news that we're allowed to talk about.
We really hope you'll come and visit us soon.
I mean we're literally begging you to visit us.
And make it quick before they [MESSAGE REDACTED].
The above lyrics snippets are from the official lyrics site, and I highly doubt that there are any "hidden" lyrics behind it. After all, MESSAGE REDACTED is part of the lyrics.
It's not canon, but I've always suspected it's "blow up the moon". It rhymes, it fits the meter and it also fits the theme very well.
That's all the family news that we're allowed to talk about.
We really hope you'll come and visit us soon.
I mean we're literally begging you to visit us.
And make it quick before they blow up the moon
But, as the accepted answer points out, the words [MESSAGE REDACTED] are the actual lyrics and the idea that they failed to get the message out is funnier than anything that could be there instead.
"Before they send us to the Moon" which scans as well as rhymes. Assuming the Moon is a scrapyard where there will be no more Andersons
