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Has anyone managed to decipher the first five sentences of the preamble? I imagine you need AI to interpret what on earth the setter means. It undoubtedly has nothing to do with cosmology, but that is what the theme indicates. The sixth sentence mentions the grid orientation, one of four possibilities; tossing a coin would be as good as any of finding the correct position. The numbered clues are doable, but even when all of these are written in, no help to complete is forthcoming. I object to crosswords being compiled with instructions so esoteric that most of the solving time is wasted.
Any enlightenment will be absorbed with grand curiosity.

My interest was piqued by your post, so I had a crack at the puzzle. I need to think more about whether I have the grid orientation correct, but the rest of it certainly works.

The preamble certainly is a mess, though. I’ll happily explain how I interpreted it to make the gridfill work if you wish.

I’m guessing at this stage that “Going west, what’s carried by Ohio River current” could be the directional indicator. But I’m troubled by the lack of a reversal indicator in “Sumatra nature reserves shrew”.

Hi both
I had a go at this last week and also struggled to make sense of the preamble. I'm sure it does but I'm sure all will be revealed in January.
All my entries fit, going in different directions, east/west, clockwise/anti- and I have accomodated the central cells of the outside galaxies and the unclued entries, so I prefer not to try dig too deeply into the preamble.

West depends on how you hold up the grid; upside down it's east. I've taken this to be the prefix, the opposite of what's carried. If correct, this stretches the realm of reasonableness. Have you therefore flipped the grid 180 degrees? Not that this changes anything imo.
For Sumatra, I've considered re-serves, serving again or backwards.
I'm certainly interested in your interpretation of the instructions as completion is currently a mirage.

Even after completing this to my satisfaction, whether correct or not, I still struggled with the preamble!
I started by cold solving most of the numbered clues, entering them starting from the numbers in the grid and then back-filling the galaxies where it looked like they fit. I started with the "Once more, arrange ...." in the NE segment (as it is currently oriented). and worked my way round the outside of the grid.

Yes, I settled on “reserves” meaning “keeps back” to justify it, rightly or wrongly.

I cold-solved the entire puzzle before attempting the gridfill. Out of interest, muraria, did your final grid contain jumbles, even though those galaxies retained the thematic shape of the others? It sounds like I pretty much followed your approach, ignoring the first half of the preamble.

I think when you’ve completed it the orientation will make logical sense. As it’s a prize puzzle, I don’t want to give too much away on a public forum, but if you email me at patmark291atyahoodotcom I’ll send my alternative preamble

Struggling with the second and third 9-letter ones. Are the defs city and succeeded? And the boiled rice is sticky too. I’m guessing that boiled is an anagrind.

Jockie, “succeeded” is the definition, but it’s “rare shellfish”, not “city”. Boiled is an anagrind, and the answer is Romanian

My! Romanian, eh? We learn something new every day. Thanks.

If you like obscurity, the 5-letter wordplay of the galaxy clue beginning “Standard …” will appeal