Here is a rich background (and foreground) for the Dune Chronicles including scholarly bypaths and amusing sidelights Some of the contn buttons are sure to arouse controversy, based as thev are on question able sources Others round out long speculation Specialists have had their field day here with problems geological, biological astronomical and mystical, with pronounciations, major biographies histories and accounts of little-known figures The range of topics is catholic cf from games for amusement to games of life and death (Cheops or Pyramid Chess to "The Assassins' Handbook' )
The history of the Financial Synod which spawned CHOAM gets its first airing in these pages In fact, many secrets hidden in the Dune Chronicles are answered here
How did Irulan first gam and then arouse the displeasure of Ghamma7 Who was Jehanne Butler and why does the Butlerian Jihad carry her name? What are the hidden origins of the Spacing Guild? Where did spice-trance navigational techniques develop? What was Leto ll's private opinion of Holy Sister Qumtimus Violet Chenoeh? Does Cheops have something in common with the three-body problem?
I must confess that 1 found it fascinating to re-enter here some of the sources on which the Chronicles are built As the first Dune fan, I give this encyclopedia my delighted approval, although I hold my own counsel on some of the issues still to be explored as the Chronicles unfold
Frank Herbert Port Townsend, WA November 1983
THE DUNE ENCYCLOPEDIA
A Berkley Book/published by arrangement with the author
PRINTINO HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition/June 1984
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1984 by Dr. Willis E. McNelly
Designed by Jeremiah B Lighter
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
ISBN 0-425-06813-7
A BERKLEY BOOK * TM 757,375 Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. The name "BERKLEY" and the stylized "B" with design are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation. ,
HUNTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
INTRODUCTION
Snippets of poetry from the Impcnum, a Sample folk tale from the Oral History, bnef biographies of over a dozen Duncan Idahos, two differing approaches to Paul Muad'Dib himself and to his son, Leto II, Fremen recipes, Fretnen history secrets of the Bene Gessent, the songs of Gurney Halleck—these are just some of the treasures found when an earthmover fell into the God Emperor s no room at Dar-es-Balat, and are now included in The Dune Encyclopedia
Dozens of scholars have rushed into print with their translations of one or more of the nduhan crystals, and the popular press on many planets has been filled with hypothesis, conjecture, and outright fabrication In the meantime literally hundreds of scholars, ranging from anthropohnguists and cultural historians to professors of every facet of science, have been laboring quietly and patiently with the incredible amount of material left hidden by Leto II nearly eighteen hundred years ago
The labors of the Library Confraternity have finally brought some order to the chaotic randomness of the no-room artifacts While only a very small percentage of the extant material has been either unearthed or translated and little has received any kind of scholarly evaluation, nonetheless enough progress has been accomplished to present this initial volume of The Dune Encyclopedia This book has been the work of literally dozens of scholars who have contributed their efforts so that readers on worlds from one end of the galaxy to another may finally have a clear, coherent picture of the legendary days of Paul Muad'Dib and his son Leto Atreides, known during his 3,500-year lifetime as the "God Emperor "
Readers of The Dune Encyclopedia should understand Us limitations it is not designed as a definitive study of the entire eras encompassed by the Atreides Impenum Yet the thousands of descendants of Duncan Idaho and Siona Atreides can now, after the recovery from the dcletenous effects of the Starvation and the Scattering, learn something of their ancestors and the conditions that produced the God Emperor They may also become aware of the undercurrents that resulted in his Fail However, if readers of this volume are searching for the formulae which cover the electronic intricacies of the Spacing Guild trans-light Ixian Navigational systems, they will be disappointed This type of material already exists elsewhere and need not be duplicated on these pages Rather it has been the aim of the editors and the Library Confraternity to present in this volume a broad spectrum of material concerning those events and people which shaped our present worlds
In addition, we must also consider something of the eccentricities of Lord Leto who was solely responsible for accumulating, assembling, and secreting what is now known as the Rakis Hoard If Leto was interested in some topic the material was saved If he was not, its absence in the Rakis digs is obvious Furthermore if he was amused by some scrap of information, he preserved it, even though raan>
contemporary scholars feel the information may well have been false or misleading in the first place.
We have made 110 attempt to separate Leto's truths from his foibles or to indicate which is which. Such judgments are best left to scholars or to the general reading public at whom this book is aimed. In addition, Leto assembled much material from the centuries post-dating the Butlerian Jihad, and we present some of it in this book, including newly discovered information about the hitherto legendary Jehanne Butler who gave her name to the jihad she so nobly led.
Thus some of the entries in The Dune Encyclopedia were written by people who actually lived at the time of Muad'Dib; others were prepared by contemporary scholars based upon older materials, and still other entries represent preliminary papers prepared by the many investigators at Dar-es-Balat.
Selection of the final material was most arduous, but the entire governing aim is to present as well-rounded a picture of the early days of the Atreides Imperium as possible.
I would like to acknowledge the specific contributions made to The Dune Encyclopedia by Gweteder Miiarz and Kriteen Gwuutan, whose labors were singularly devoted. Professors Gwilit Mignail and Zhauzaf Kluursh contributed many hours to the book. Poet Rebeth Vreeb and her husband Rebeth Farnark were instrumental in helping sort out some of the voluminous material found in the Hoard and both gave unstintingly of their time and advice. In addition my husband Zhenaweev Benotto was both patient and long-sufiFering. I owe him more than words can say. All of these people caught many errors that would otherwise have crept into the pages of The Dune Encyclopedia, but final responsibility for the text must ultimately be my own.
HADI BENOTTO, Editor 15540
A CHRONOLOGY OF SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS IN HUMAN HISTORY
BEFORE GUILD
19000-16500 Early civilizations on Terra.
16500 Aleksandr creates FIRST EMPIRE
16400-16000 ROMAN EMPIRE arises and conquers the known world, except for China, which resists until 14400.
15800 Imperial Seat moved to Byzantium in retreat before provincial rebellions and minor jihads.
14700-14608 THE GREAT STRUGGLE: The Century Without an Emperor.
14608 Discoveries in America allow Madrid to attain the status of the Imperial Seat,
14512 BATTLE OF ENOLICHANNEL. Seat of Empire moved from Madrid to London.
14500-14200 THE GOLDEN AGE OF INVENTION- Development of radio,
television, atomics, rocketry, genetics, and the computer. ' 14255 first atomics demonstrated in an intraprovmcia! wai. Seat of
Empire moved to Washington. 14100-13600 THE LITTLE DIASPORA: The solar system is colonized, and
the population of Terra is eventually outnumbered by 20 to 1. 13402 Ceres gains the imperial Seat after a planetoid strikes Terra. 13402-13399 THE RESCUE OF THE TREASURES from Terra 13360 Terra re-seeded and set aside (by Imperial edict) as a natural
park.
13004 SUSPENSOR-NULLIFICATION EFFECT discovered. 12200 THE EMPIRE OF TEN WORLDS. Communications becoming
strained. 11200 THE EMPIRE OF A THOUSAND WORLDS (an empire in
name only, because Imperial power was so diffuse as to be
nonexistent). 11105 AGE OF PRETENDERS begins when Ceres is destroyed by
rebellion, and the Imperial Seat ceases to exist as a single
entity. 11100-7562 THE AGE OF TEN THOUSAND EMPERORS (sometimes called
"The Great Dark Ages"). 7593 I.V. Holtzman born on Liesco n. 7565 Holtzman disabled and cyborged. 7562 Holtzman reveals the "wave-effect" nature of the suspensor-
nullification device. 7556 Holtzman severely damaged and thrown into a cometary
orbit. Communications with him are lost.
7562-5022 - THE WARS OF REUNIFICATION, consequent on the immediate communication made possible by Holtzman Effect. 5022 THE EMPIRE OF TEN THOUSAND WORLDS united under
Ladislaus the Great
5022-3678 THE FIRST GOLDEN AGE. 3832 Holtzman reappears at Liesco, and presents the theory for
construction of the DEFENSIVE SHIELD
3678 THE SILICON PLAGUE: the "Death of the Machines." 3678-2000 THE LITTLE DARK AGES, ending with the development of
plague-resistant conductors.
A CHRONOLOGY OF SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS IN HI MAN HISTORY (Conr d )
2000-1800 THERETURN OF THE COMPUTERS (sometimes called 'The
Second Reunification")
1970 Holtzman reappears, and presents his UNIFIED THEORY 1800-400 THE SECOND GOLDEN AGE Circa 700 the first anti com
pttter pogroms occur 711-200 Tensions increase between programmitcs and humanity first
ers, tensions which Jehanne Butler was to exploit 200-108 THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD
108 Holtzman returns and is destroyed by forces of the Jihad ca 100 Ixians,- refugees from the Jihad, led by Aurehus Venport,
discover TUPILE the Sanctuary Planet(s) 88 THE BATTLE OF CORRIN 86 FOUNDATION OF HOUSE ATREIDES when Demetnos Atreides
is made Baron Tantalos m reward for aiding the Corrmos 84 First MELANGE-guided journey through hyperspace, by
Norma Cenva UBG-
70 A G The Reign of SAUDIR I "The Great " 10 Corpus Luminis Praenuntiantis (the future Spacing Guild)
begins negotiations with the Empire 10-5 THE GREAT FINANCIAL SYNOD, on Aeranum IV, creates
CHOAM 0 THE LION THRONE, THE SPACING GUILD, and CHOAM (as
the arm of the Landsraad) combine to establish the form of
human society for the next ten thousand years
AFTER GUILD
123-184 Reign of NEGARA II 207 Thomas Atreides helps restore Elrood II, and is made Duke
of Jaddua.
337 THE GREAT CONVENTION is ratified 385-388 THE LISHASH REBELLION the last significant armed re
sistance to the Empire
388 Saudir m designates SALUSA SECUNDUS as PRISON PLANET 390 Wallach I begins use of Salusa Secundus as a training
ground for the SARDAUKAR 1234 THE ORDER OF MEN!ATS is founded by Gilbenus Albans,
originally on the planet Septimus, and moved to Tleilax a
decade later
1487 The Cornnos shift the Imperial Seat to Kaitain 2800 Elrood V gives Poritrin, third planet of Epsilon Alangue,
to House Marcs Sindar Charles Baron Mikarrol, planetary
governor of Terra, sends two million ZENSUNNI to Pontrin,
beginning the Zensunm Migration 4492 POntnn is given to House Alexm, and the Sardaukar are
sent to remove the Zensunm, sending five million to BELA
TEGEUSE and five million to SALUSA SECUNDUS 5122 First FACE DANCERS appear as entertainers at the Court
of Comn XIV
5295 Ezhar VII releases the Zensunm on Salusa Secundus, sending them to ISH1A, second planet of Beta Tygri 6049 Zensunm on Bela Tegeuse are transported again, with the
majority sent to Harmoothep, and the remainder to ROSSAK,
the fifth planet of Alces Minor
A CHRONOLOGY OF SOME IMPORTANT EVENTS IN HUMAN HISTORY (Cora d )
ca 6600 A.Sayyadma on Rossak discovers a planl whose mgestion
unlocks the "voices within ' ca 6800 Harmonthep, a satellite of Delta Pavoms, is destroyed by
unknown causes 7193 Zensunni on Rossak buy passage to ARRAKIS from the
Spacing Guild By this time, all Zensunm from both Ishia
and Rossak have reached Arrakts 8711 The Atreides family is awarded the Sindar Dukedom of
CALADAN
9751 ELACCA drug in relatively common use
9846 Invention of HUNTER SEEKBR
ca 10000 Invention of the DISTRANS on Ix
10092 Semuta extraction process discovered
10140 LETO ATREIDES (Duke Leto I) bom
10154 LADY JESSICA bom
10155-10165 GURNEY HALLECK a Harkonnen slave on Oiedi Prime
10158 DUNCAN IDAHO (the human) born
10175 PAUL ATREIDES born
10179 First successful implant of the distrans in a human
10190-91 House Atreides moves to ARRAKIS
10191 The Sardaukar attack on Arrakis tails Duke Leto, Paul and
Jessica go into the desert with the Fremen ALIA ATREIDES
born
10193 Paul regains control of Arrakis and its spice monopoly 10196 SHADDAM IV abdicates, Paul becomes Emperor 10196-10208 PAUL'S JIHAD 10200 FARAD'N (KENOl-A) bom to Wensicia and Count Dalak
Kenola 10204 Count Dalak dies suspiciously in 'thopter accident, Farad n s
last name is changed to Comno
10208 GHOLA HAYT (JJuncan-10208) is created and presented to Paul
10209 LETO II and OHANIMA born CHANI dies Paul goes into the desert, and Alia becomes regent
10210 Alia dissolves the FEDAYK1N Paul's Death-Commandos
10218 Duncan-10208 delivers Lady Jessica to House Comno
10219 LETO n ascends to the throne
10246 HARQ AL-HARBA born
10271 REVOLT OF THE FREMEN crushed, and its leader, Duncan
10235, is put to death
10941 Duncan 10895 reveals the ritual of SIAYNOQ 11745 THE ORDER OF MENTATS is suppressed by Leto II 12335 The execution of THE NINE HISTORIANS 12725 The Festival City of ONN is built according to the design
of Duncan-12720
13724 The death of LETO II 14702 THE CROMPTON RUINS discovered 15525 The finding of THE RAKIS HOARD 15540 The publication of THE DUNE ENCYCLOPEDIA
Compiled by W D I and W E M
ABOMINATION
ABOMINATION
ABOMIHATION. A Bene Gessent term de-scnbing behavior severely "out of character" for an individual, and not ethically or morally a part of the individual's norm The Sisterhood viewed severely disruptive psychotic behavior as a mystic condition involving the "possession" of tfae host psyche of a "pre-born' by the overwhelming personality of a genetic, ancestral pseudo-tife The term "pre-born" is defined in the Bene Gessent Azhar Book as "that soul resting quietly within its womb-bed whose entire life is destroyed by a pre-birth knowledge of its ancestors* personae We cause such a chaotic state if we aHow a breeder to take of the Water of Life when she is with child " The resultant possibility of Abomination tests on the Bene Gessent premise that certain individuals carry the genetic capability to bring the personalities of their ancestors to a conscious level m a living mind. The Azhar Book judges the condition thusly "It is with reason and tem-ble experience that we call die pre-born Abomination For who knows what lost and damned persona out of our evil past may possess the living flesh7 '
The Azhar Book outlines the conditions necessary to a state of possession (Mahrana IV H-K) First a pregnant Bene Gessent breeder must ingest the Water of Life, apparently an hallucinogenic chemical which varied during the history of the order This chemical, earned m her Mood to the womb, activates the fetal psychic awareness and produces a babble of sound and sensory imagery which the un-born is unable to comprehend or assimilate At birth, this "awakened1 ' baby supposedly sees with adult comprehension because of the active, intelligent,
adult memories it now carries at a conscious level The child, therefore, appears to the uninitiated as extremely precocious but to the knowledgeable as a possible Abomination Only bnght Bene Gessent children were suspect, precocious lay children were safe from scrutiny
In order for the pseudo life to gain access to the child's consciousness, the child must initiate active communication by "calling" individuals The more frequently the child "calls" a persona, the stronger the persona becomes, eventually being able to intrude upon the host consciousness at will At some relatively early stage, the personae can be discerned to be either benign or malignant The malignant individuals vie for dormna uon of the host, but the benign can be persuaded to form a union called a ' 'mohala-ta " Bene Gessent training and encouragement can support the formation of a mohalata which then can serve as a protective bamer between the individual malignant persona and the host If DO mohalata is formed, the host is in danger of possession The dominant malignant persona must first take control of the mind, then the nervous system, and finally the musculature At this stage the body and mind no longer function at the host's will but are forever in the control of the pseudo-life To those not of the Bene Gessent, the actions of such a possessed" person can be construed as combinations of classic psychotic behavior, pnmarily involving schizophrenia, paranoia, and manic depression The Bene Gessent and their myth-dominated subcultures, however, do not call upon psychologists or psychiatrists to aid the afflicted person Instead, ritualistic forms of
ABOMINATION
trial determine Possession or Abomination, a guilty verdict brings death
The Bene Gessent believing the state of Abomination and Possession to be the most evil within which a person can live, give five*' 'commandments'' by which the Sisterhood hopes to avert any occurrence of this condition They are found in The Azhar Book as "Protections Against Abomination"
No woman who has become one with the Water of Life may thereafter bear a child
No woman may ever feel safe from the threat of possession, being more susceptible than a man
No woman with cfcUd can participate in any form of die Water of Life ceremony on pain of death
No child born trader the accursed conditions shall be suffered to live
No adult found to be possessed, even if born outside of the condiaoo of abomination, shall be suffered to live
Almost all information on Abomination comes from Bene Gessent documents Yet, even though die Sisterhood created the appellation, there ate questions which remained unanswered For example, most one be an Abomination before one can be possessed'' If so, why are all the Bene Gessents trained in precise nerve end muscle control7 The B G Basic Thttnmg Manual states in its introduction that 'only through profound prana-btodu control can we be protected against possession " Perhaps possession and abomination were terms used indiscriminately to classify violent abnormal behavior or behavior threatening to the group as a whole, allowing the Bene Gessent to avoid more expensive and time-consuming methods of diagnosis and treatment
In die Bene Gessent open files in the Wallach IX library, Abomination Inquiry folios show surveillance of seven hundred suspected people between the Great Revolt and the God Emperor, five hundred and twenty of whom were executed The file on Aha Atreides indicates that the most serious cases arose after the introduction of the ftranen Water of Life into the Sisterhood's rituals This information corresponds with the recent hypothesis that die Atreides line earned a defective chromosome introduced by the Mduam line, a defect susceptible to the
chemical composition of melange and the fluid of the dying ' Little Maker" of the Fremen culture Leto n acknowledges a dominant pseudo life (a 'Harum") m his recently discovered Journals but so far there is no evidence to show that Ghanima was afflicted {For an extensive discussion of the Bene Gessent view of the Alia Case, see ATREIDES,
ALIA, AS ABOMINATION )
Further references AZHAR BOOK Anon The Azhar Book ed K R Barauz AS 49 (Grumman United Worlds) Pyer Bmzvair ed iumma of Ancient Belief and Prac nee (Bolchef Collegium Tamo) Sin Quadnn Static Barriers of the Cerebral Cortex (Richese U of Bailey Press) Psechhlat Manm The Correlation of Mystic States and Psychotic States m Ancient Mythos Abomination, Possession or Psychosis'* Antares Journal of Medicine 99 135-168
AGARVES, BOER. (10185-10219) One of the chief aides to Alia Atreides during her regency Buer Agarves was born at Sietch Tabr, the only son of Zagros and Nacher in a family of four daughters As a relative of Stilgar Naib of Sietch Tabr, Buer was welcome m the yah of Paul Muad'Dib and thus counted Sulgar's and Harah's sons among his playmates As a child he attended classes m language and other skills, learned the ways of the desert cm long sojourns into the sand wilderness, and enjoyed the games and activities of child hood in and around the sietch In his Diary, of which only a fragment remains, Agarves speaks nostalgically of hunting scorpions by light of a handglobe and of playing in the soft sands at the cliffbase
His childhood seems uneventful except for one fateful incident Agarves notes m his Diary that, although he was only six years old at the time, he remembered vividly the upheaval in the sietch when Stilgar and his group returned with two outworlders Usul and his mother Jessica
Agarves was also present at Sietch Tabr, a young man of twenty-four, when Paul Muad'Dib returned with Chain to await the birth of their children A small man, Agarves had by mis time the round-faced sensual good looks that were later to attract Alia, a characteristic nervousness of manner, and an unshakable faith in the divinity of the Atreides Agarves heard an account of the dramatic events attending the birth of the Atreides twins, including the sudden death of Scytale,
the Face Dancer, from a crysknife thrown by the blind Paul This act, as Agarvcs' rapturous comments m hts Diary attest, greatly increased his fear and awe of the Atreides
Following Muad'Dib's disappearance into the desert, Agarves was brought to Arrakeen by Stilgar and given a position in die Temple Commissary It did not take Agarves long to succumb to the softness of life in the city According to one anonymous observer, he took to the luxurious life of the Keep "like a worm to the sound of a thumper" In the years that followed—years that saw Agarves go to water-fat—4e held a variety of minor positions in the Office of the Minister of Finance and did a short stint in the Agriculture Experimental Center He then came to the attention of Zia, Aha's Amazon akb and commander of the Temple guards, and was brought into Alia s service Agarves' Diary does not elaborate on his relationship with Alia But apparently it was common knowledge that he soon took lavid's place ui Aha's bed and became her "little plaything "
One of Agarves' first duties was to accompany land to Sietch Tabr with messages from Alia He returned to recount the appalling outcome of that fatal mission aid to cany Stilgar's "final obedience " According to the TerKple Records, Agarves reported that he had been summoned by Stilgar to behold the dead bodies of Javid and Duncan Idaho being prepared for Huanui Stilgar told him that Idaho had slam Javid and that Stilgar had killed Idaho
This account, however, does not jibe with Agarves' own version of the affair as given in his Diary In his notes, Agarves recalls that he attended Javid the morning they went to Stilgar's quarters As he stood aside to allow Javid to enter, he saw Idaho turn and sink his knife into the unsuspecting Javid Although Agarves drew his own knife, he feared to challenge the fabled Duncan Idaho, he could only watch, frozen in indecision, as Idaho goaded Stilgar into a killing, mind-obhterating rage
Agarves confesses that he gave the Temple Records account "the small he," as he called it, from fear of Alia's reprisal if she learned he had stood by and done nothing He feared Alia had penetrated his lie when she asked, "Was there nothing you could do?" But
Agarves felt justified m the deception "For who knows,' he writes m the final entry of his fragmentary Diary ' what the Heavenly Regent wanted me to do0 Kill Idaho for killing Javid1' Or Stilgar for Idaho'' Who can know the mind of the Womb of Heaven7 ' Apparently Agarves had seen too many of Alia's rages to nsk bemg the target of one
Alia did, in fact, command Agarves to kill Stilgar Although shocked by an order to slay his old Naib, Agarves energetically ap plied himself to the tdsk of finding Stilgar, who had fled into the desert With the limit ed resources Alia allowed him, however, Agarves' efforts proved fruitless His plan was further hampered by Aha's frequent messages recalling him to Arrakeen
On one of his trips to Arrakeen, Alia confessed to Agarves that her initial com mand to kill Stilgar had been born of her ravaging grief She had now forgiven him and needed Stilgar to return to Sietch Tabr Having no reason to doubt Aha's sincerity, Agarves agreed to arrange a meeting with Stilgar and left for Red Chasm Sietch with no suspicion of the transmitter that Alia had secreted m the new boots she gave him as a parting gift
Nurel, Stilgar's friend at Red Chasm Setch, was persuaded to send a distrans to Stilgar requesting a parley When Stilgar consented, Agarves and nine companions were taken blindfolded to the abandoned djedida where Stilgar and his party had taken refuge
Although he did his duty m delivering Alia's terms of pardon to Stilgar, Agarves was by this time revolted by Aha's excesses He denounced her openly, saying She fouls me " Agarves had only a moment to revel m his new freedom, however, before Alia's forces, whom he had unwittingly led to the djedida, swarmed into the meeting room Stilgar had just enough time to bury his crysknife in Agarves' chest before he and his band were overwhelmed Further references Buei Agarves Diary Lib Conf Temp Series 377 Stilgar The Stilgar Chronicle tr Mityau Gwuiador AS 5 (Grumman United Worlds) Ojah ben Badwi al Zuqayqa Templt Records Rjkis Ref Cat 1T74 T75
AL-HARBA, HARQ. (also Aitu Cmolil Bom Yorba (Cygm Alpha 3) 10246, died Roes (Luytens-2) 10317 married Vela Cmoli
10286O, four children The "Dramatist Laureate ' of the Atreidean period
In a period noted for the richness and variety of its dramatic accomplishments, Hanq al Harba was counted among the first rank of playwrights of his dav Since his death, his reputation has grown and today he is recognized as the absolute master of his time Prior to the discovery of the Rakis Hoard, his plays were the best known account of the turbulent era from 10150 to 10219
LIFE Harq al Harba was bora Aitu Cmoh (which translates into the Frejnen "Harq al-Harba") in the town of Nelopus on the planet Yorba in 10246, the son of a well-to-do tailor and his wife, a music teacher About his early life and education, nothing is known According to tradition^ he left home at twenty and spent the next ten years traveling between planets as a salesman of minumc filmbooks for the Gwent-Orlov publishing house on Yorba (The account books of the company have survived but since they list their personnel by employee identifi cation numbers, they shed no light on this part of al-Harba's life) If the tradition is correct, al-Harba's job was to depart on the circuit of planets in his territory, carrying with him the latest publications of Gwent-Orlov imprinted on shigawire On arriving at his destination, he would contact publishers and negotiate with them for the reprint rights to the Yorban works If he was successful in selling them, the works were transcribed from his mimnuc film, and he would men seek out local works, buy the reprint rights for them, have them copied onto his compact wire, and travel to the next planet U was a job that required a good deal of both independent judgment and nsk capital, because at no time were the travelers assured'of a sale, and their material—the shigawire for the minimic film—was both fragile and extremely expensive
In 10276 he apparently decided that he could write as well as the authors whose works he was buying and selling, for he severed his attachment wife Gwent-Orlov, and headed for the Imperial capital on Arrakis, where he spent the next thirty seven years of h» life In 10278, he was discovered by
Ghanima Atreides and Farad n Comno, who remained his patrons for thirtv years
His first play, The Sandrider met with acclaim in Arrakeen in 10280 and a hand written letter from that year thanking a critic for a favorable review is preserved in the private papers of the Hoffmch family In 10281 his signature appears (with that of "L Fen Whately,' of whom nothing is known) on the authorization card for an account at the Bank of Arrakeen In the archives of the University of Aleppo on Grumman is a letter dated 13 nAvlardim 10291 to hib publisher, H H Kanadel, raising a question about royalty payments In 10295 he purchased half interest in an Arrakeen restaurant (not a tavern as is sometimes claimed), and the contract bears his signature In 10306, he gave a deposition as a witness in a plagiarism suit brought by a fellow Arrakeen playwright against an author on Salusa Secundus The original would have been taken to Salusa Secundus for the proceedings where it has apparently been lost, but the document in the Arrakeen records is a copy attested and sealed by the Court Prothonotarv This comprises the entire documentary evidence of the life of Harq al-Harba in Arrakeen All else is contained in his works themselves or in statements by contemporaries and near contemporaries
Tradition has it that he frequently stated in letters (now lost) to fnends that he could work only in absolute solitude seldom Jeav mg his room, and almost never leaving his house It has been suggested (by Dauwar Gwiltan) that al-Harba became afflicted with agoraphobia from his many space journeys, and the neurosis forced him to turn to writing While this theory is attractive, and explains many personality quirks of the writer, it has no independent support
In 10313 he left Arrakeen and the writing of plays, and retired to an isolated home on Fides, where he died in 10317
WORKS Al Hdiba received more public acclaim for his history plays than for any other genre but he was equally skillful in tragedy and comedy Although he seems never to have written one of the melodramas so popular in Arrakeen, his plays contain many of the elements that gave the melo-
AL HARBA QUESTION
AL HARBA QUESTION
dramas their appeal Twenty-one plays are generally accepted as his authentic works, all but two of them included m the famous Works volume, edited by his wife Vela Cinoh, and published on Fides in 10320 In their order of composition, they ate
10280 The Santrider (History)
10281 Kmnar Divided (History)
10283 Stiaddam /V (History)
10283 The History of Duke Lao, Part I
10285 The History of Duke Leto Part 11
10288 Soak He Sou! (Comedy)
10289 Players a OK Game cf Pebbles (Comedy)
10292 The Dusty Palms (Comedy)
10296 Hasumr (Historical Tragedy)
10297 The Shumkee Progressions (Comedy)
10298 Plenty of Time for Lore (Comedy)
10299 Carthage (Tragedy) 10300' Not the Worm Oaroboros (Comedy, not incl m Works)
10302 Water for the Dead (Tragedy)
10303 Lichaa ^Historical Tragedy)
10304 Ampoltmt (Tragedy)
10304 The Arrakeen Tarat (Tragedy)
10305 Stilgar's Dream (Tragedy)
10306 Own. (Historical Tragedy! 10310 troubadour Another Melody (Comedy) 10312 Don I Drink the Water (Comedy, not mcl in Works}
Most of the works were originally performed in Fremen, and may indeed have been corn posed in that language, in which al-Harba was fluent His native tongue, however, was the Yorban dialect of Oalach, and it is thought by some that the translation into' Galaeh of the Works is not a translation at all, but al-Harba's original version of the plays, which he then used as the basis for the Fremen versions Al Harba's deep insight into hu inanity, his understanding of society m its virtues and vices, and above all his profound compassion have made him a writer not of an age, but for all time WEM
Further references' THE AL HARBA QUESTIQK Blugvor Evmiiz ed , The Compku Worts if Htirq at-Harta (Gfumman Tern), Shuuralz H Sbtttak, Tfo Stage History ^ai-Harfxj'jPtosdjlramann Pi,«rec)M»uita Stand Al Harba 3 Arrakeat (Gnunmaa fan), the stesdaid biography
AL-HARBA QUESTION, THE If Harq, al Harba the playwright had not been such * supreme embodiment of the dramatist's art, if what we know of the biography of Harq al-Harba
the mimfilm salesman had not been so little and if what we do know had not seemed at odds with the qualities we associate with genius, there probably would never have been an al Harba Question Other humble people have nsen to greatness and even less is known about some of the great Atreideans than is known about the Yorban dramatist But the interplay of these three factors was certain sooner or later to lead astra) minds with a peculiar cast of thought How, they asked, could the salesman and the poet have been the same man''
It was not until 10630, more than three hundred years after al Harba s death that anyone challenged his authorship of the plays that bore his name The controversy began with Avelarad Svif Josif a minor noble of House Rembo, who expressed doubts that a salesman could have possessed the ability to write the plays credited to him This reserva tion was expounded at length by Kurt Zhuurazh, who asserted, in his Al Ada and al Harba (10635) that Harq al Ada (Farad n Comno) was the true author of the plays Admirers of the Royal Scribe have attributed various other Atreidean works to him and the most liberal adherents of the theory cred it him with (besides al Harba's plays) Pander Oulson's St Aha Huntress of a Billion Worlds Duncan Idaho's The Ghola Speaks and The Hayt Chronicle and all the works of Pnn cess Irulan to this considerable total, Cybele Hank (The Prince/The Playwright) adds the authorized translation of the O C Bible and even Stilgar's Chronicle in Fremen
Thirty years passed (10666) before an other contender was proposed J T Duub nominated Count Hasimir Fennng in Half a Dozen Harbas Duub s chief obstacle was Fennng's death in 10225, twenty one years before Harq al Harba was born but as we shall see, this proved no insuperable obstacle to Fennng s proponents
A third powerful contingent entered the field in 10710, when A J Knlwan claimed (m The Man Who Was al-Harba) that the plays were actually written by the emperor LetoII
COMMON ARGUMENTS All these schools of thought share certain arguments denigrating the reputed author Harq al Harba These
AL-HARBA QUESTION
AL HARBA QUESTION
arguments received their fullest expression in Al-Ada is al Harba (10638), a handsome volume by a retired aimy officer from Kartain, Bsh Joon Futpinail He starts with the skimpi-ness of the documentary evidence for al Harba, questioning the likelihood that the foremost dramatist of the day would have left so little trace He men adds four objections, which have reappeared in all later claims
1. The Fremen Naib Guaddaf wrote m his Judgment on Arrakeen a collection of sermons, that al-Harba died of an intestinal hemorrhage following a prolonged bout of drunkenness Piitptnail asks if this behavior is consistent with the author of the lines Take m all things a Uttie less than all, For surfeit fogs the eye and dulls the brain Better a beggar crouched beside the- curb Than a splendid sot beneath it (DP IV, iv, 107-10)
'To ask one to believe that these lines came from the pen of the drunken drummer-deformity from Yorba asks one to believe in creation ex mhtlo ' (Putpinail, p 33 )
2. The actress Karene* Ambem describes a meeting with al Harba* ' immediately on his coming inside, I knew why Harq al-Harba had never attended a single performance, or allowed the public to contact him m any way It is still hard for me to accept that such a poetic mind could be trapped inside such a hideously deformed body I had never imagined that that kind of caricature of a human being could exist" (Pntpinail, p 41, from Champagne in My Slipper the Autobiography of Karene Ambern, as told to Ruuvarz Dillar, orig pub 10324, repr Zimaona Kinat)
3. Al-Harba was a secret computer enthusiast This strange charge develops thus if, as tradition has it, al-Harba was a filmbook salesman, then his living depended on what, for his time, was high technology Pntpinail asks if a "mechanotheist" (his term) could have written
Machines hard and coM as Rossak, sterile as
the second
Of Salusa they have gmtntd us under wheels Of iron have frozen up oat blood They stop the building letters, still the voice Creative Death to King Machine!
(Aw I, i, 35 39)
4. The final argument is that al Harba s fellow playwrights considered him a brainless clod The first evidence comes from a play, Arrakeen Corners (II m, 11 19), by Tonk Shaio Elder and Staple, two of the characters, are discussing newcomers to Arrakis
ELD Now our chief has come the one who
wants to be The button on our cap STA You mean the rube9 The boondock traveler turned to flogging
plays7
ELD The same He started out with theft, By patching up the holes in worn out plays But now his needle work s improved he
thinks
That every writer s suit belongs to him And when he's told this to his face he laughs
The second evidence comes again from Guaddaf s Judgment
What justice is there in millions paid to witless actors and their hangers on when poor starve in their sietches1' What virtue in raising up to greatness those who live by telling empty lies? What profit in prattmg stones of a cursed shapeless past that never yet gave man woman or child anything but make believe to gawk at9
" 'Cursed shapeless past' is as clear a reference as we could wish to the play Lichna and its central character of Scytale, the Tleilaxu Face Dancer" (Putpmaii, p 49)
These four claims have an air of retrospection about them having determined by act of faith that X X or Z wrote the Harban plays, one then searches about for scraps with which to discredit the recognized author To the first—the drunkenness story—we may note mat Guadddf compiled Judgment on Arrakeen in 10366 Granting that he composed the sermons at various times between the beginning of his career 10335, and the publication of the volume, still, the earliest could not have been closer to al Harba's death than eighteen years Moreover, the sermons are an attack on the stage in general, with their harshest m\ecti\e reserved for actors, and al-Harba was not an actor Finally, every other event the sermons descnbe takes place on Arrakis, yet if the account of al-Harba's
AL-HARBA QUESTION
AL HARBA QUESTION
death is true, the drinking bout would have had to be on Fides But suppose that the account is factual, what difference does it make'' History preserves the names of great, middling, and wretched writers who drank more than they ought, if the quotation from The Dusty Palms shows anything, it shows that the writer thought a drunken stupor an undesirable state, an observation that might occur to alcoholic or teetotaler alike
Putpinail seems unaware that his second and fourth charges contradict each other Karene" Ambern says al-Harba was a recluse, Tonk Shaio says al-Harba was called a plagiarist to his face Moreover, if al-Harba was a traveling salesman, as arguments 3 and 4 presuppose, then he would have neces sanly appeared in public, not just on one world but on many The contentions fit together so poorly because their authors grasp at every straw that can possibly be interpreted as anti-Harban Nevertheless let us consider each separately
Champagne in My Slipper was published in 10324, seven years after al-Harba's death The playwright was unable, and his wife, off on Hde$, unlikely to challenge a misstatement Also, one must consider the credibility of the book in general Apparently m an at tempt to recoup her shrinking share of the limelight, Karene" Ambem claimed in her book to have shared the bed of every important man (or woman) of the pnor sixty years, including Police Commander Bannerjee, the ghola Duncan Idaho, Harq ai-Ada, and Leto II himself Some of her stories may be true, the difficulty lies in knowing which ones No historian accepts anything stated in Ambero's book without independent corroboration, and literary historians should be no less cautious There is certainly no supporting evidence for her claim that al Harba had a ' 'hideously deformed body "
Was al-Harba a secret computer enthusiast7 This charge is rather clearly more far-fetched than the others, and need not detain us long Other than a traditional belief about al-Harba's earlier occupation, no shred of evidence sup-ports the third point Until such evidence is forthcoming, mere is nothing to answer
Finally, what was al-Harba's standing among the playwrights of his time1' Certainly Shaio's
play preserves some literary squabble of the times, it may even refer to al-Harba Such flytmgs were plentiful and, for the most part, mere showmanship But the poet al Mashrab, an occasional playwright himself, said in his memoirs that he loved al-Harba ' for his understanding and quiet ways ' The artist and set designer Anam Strosher said of al Harba and the writer Au'Riil that "staging their plays has been the supreme joy of my life s work, but if I had to choose between knowing them and staging their plays, I would rather have known them (Both quota tions from F S Mank, Monuments of Atreidean Drama III, 454 \ 628 )
THE CLAIMANTS FARAD'N CORRINO If al Harba did not write the plays bearing his name, who did9 Rtrdd'n Comno was the first to be suggested Like the two later contenders he was of noble birth, furnishing his supporters with their first argument Wnt ing openly for the theater, they daim was beneath the dignity of a nobleman and statesman, and knowledge of his authorship would have lowered his prestige at Court This point furnishes a good example of the selective thinking so often shown in the controversy Duke Mintor, the father of Duke Leto Atreides, performed publicly many times in the bullnng and, in fact, died there, Feyd Rautha Harkonnen killed over a hundred slaves in public gladiatorial contests, many of them while he was na-Baron, and often with members of the Royal House in attendance If activities like these did not lower Atreides or Harkonnen's prestige it is hard to see why writing a play would lower Farad n s
The most original evidence m support of Farad'n Comno was produced for the world in Izhnaikas Bauf s The Great Cryptogram (10647) Bauf discovered what he named the Plowing Cipher in the play Carthage and its method was elegantly simple Bauf would locate a passage m which the tirst letter of the first word was F (for Farad n) and the first letter of the last word was 0 (for Comno) Between these points, the first letter of an) word could be selected, moving alternately along the lines from left to right and from right to left (hence the term plowing ), skipping over words which did not contain the next needed letter When the end of the
AL-HARBA QUESTION
8
AL-HARBA QUESTION
passage was reached, Bauf proceeded back up to the top, and if necessary, back down
again. Here is the passage Bauf takes from ACT III, Scene ii of Carthage, lines 235-47:
As the example shows, Bauf finds the name "Farad'n Cotrino" in the passage, and adds: "One could scarcely fail to note—indeed it must seize the most casual observer—thai not only has the name been spelt out, but that three words are used twice: and that when those words are extracted from the cipher (as these hundreds of years past their author had intended that they be) they form
the message 'recognize—not—our.' We cannot choose but be impressed with the clarity and force with which al-Ada speaks to us over the centuries, telling us that we will recognize that these plays are not the work of the besotted salesman" (p. 248).
The Plowing Cipher is no cipher at all; with enough lines, any name can be extracted. To demonstrate, reconsider the passage.
AL-HARBA QUESTION
AL HARBA QUESTION
Using the same method, we discover the message "Fremen cielagos too," showing that Farad'n had help from the small bats native to Arrakis
HAS1M1R FbNRING Supporters of Hasimir Fenring as the hidden author accept the "loss of status ' argument of the al-Adans, but add another of their own They state that the climate of Leto II's reign made the voicing of unorthodox political opinion very risky Since many of the plays were histories, their author seeded the protection of secrecy In their version, Fennng did not die in 10225, but went underground His death was an nounced to forestall inquiries, but he lived for another eighty eight years, writing plays under the name "Harq al-Harba" When Fennng actually died in 10313, his fictitious cover identity was fictitiously moved to fides, there to die a fictitious death four years later
There is some truth to the observation about the danger of expressing an unpopular opinion The best known example of that danger is, of course the burning of the nine historians, but that event occurred over two thousand years later, m 12335 Until the records of criminal proceedings of die early years of Leto's reign are uncovered, we will not know for certain if the murder of the historians represented a bloody aberration or part of a pattern throughout his occupancy of the throne
According to J T Duub's Half-a-Dozen Harbas, Fennng headed a group which wrote the plays collectively with the failed Kwisatz Haderach as their head Duufa relies heavily on the reminiscences of Shishkali, one of Leto's early chamberlains, about a conversation with the emperor shortly after a rebellion led by al-Ataud in UK early years of Leto's. reign As> Dunb notes, the play Shaddam IV, with its famous deposition scene, was performed in Arrakeen on the morning of the rebellion to stir the populace to revolutionary fervor Until then, al-Ataud had been Chief of Customs for Arrakis, a post awarded him by Leto Duub describes the conversation
The Emperor opened with a pensive remark, "Dear Shishkah' I am Shaddam IV, do you not know that''" To which the Chamberlain replied, "Such a wicked imagination was determined and attempted by a most ungrateful man, the
most adorned creature that your Majesty ever made ' He might have meant al Ataud but the Emperor in his reply seems to have meant "al Harba' (Fennng), by saying darkly ' He that will forget God will also forget his benefactors, this tragedy was plaved openly forty times Al Ataud, of course had nothing to do with those forty productions Fennng came close here to losing his life and only the Emperor's remembrance of Fennng sparing the life of Leto s father Paul Atreides saved the Count from imprisonment or worse {Pp 80-81)
Now, Duub cannot have it both ways either Fennng s pseudonym is a secret to protect him from Leto (pp 35-47), or it is no secret and Leto's knowledge protects Fennng dur ing political tight spots (the passage quoted) If the secret is not intended to protect Fennng from Leto (as Duub has already claimed), who does it protect him from"? This unap predated contradiction is typical of Duub's reasoning
LETO II In 10710 A J Knlwan s book The Man Who Wap al Harba made the claim that the al-Harban plays were wntten by Leto H, a theory that has surpassed the others in populanty and permanence Essen tially it follows them in demeaning al-Harba, coming down especially heavily on the pur ported intimate political knowledge of the plays, and claiming that only one who had, so to speak, firsthand knowledge of the events portrayed could have been the author
Knlwan returns to the play Carthage not for cryptograms but rather for lines that she says are meaningful only if the writer was Leto II She argues
The God-Emperor must frequently think of him self as unique, entirely separate from humanity essentially an alien as he laments in Thy expected alien am I" (III i, 1) and 'Why am I singled out Ihen/For this alien role— ' (130-31) With the memories of his ancestors ever within he says, "This day, an alien awoke in me' (III n, 5), telling us of his first spice awareness Later die experience became u>rnmonpl<ice My kjud walked among Greek;, and Roman!. (HI i, 47), or again, We ve seen it all before you know /Carthage, Assyria (137 38) Twice in the same scene he weeps over the burden of his long memories
I have my distant moods though When jour history collapses
AL-HARBA QUESTION
10
AL-HARBA QUESTION
And I forget—
Not the day—
Not the year—
But the age*
Which eon is this' (HI u 248-54)
And again,
I have to remember who I am
And when
It's awfully easy to mix up two thousand
years,
Just one big kaleidoscopic blur, Confuses me all to hell' (III, n, 341-45)
Could any mortal have written those lines'' (pp 217 18)
If that question is not just rhetorical, the answer must be, "Yes, one could " Whether or not Leto II was Harq al-Harba, Leto was surely not the writer of every history ever penned, and what attitude comes more naturally to the historian than the feeling of watching the past? Fanciful theories are plentiful no one has yet claimed that Harq al-Harba was a reincarnation of someone who lived in antiquity, yet the theory of metempsychosis, as old as mankind, can explain every reference anywhere to interior "voices* as well as every, instance of an accurate historical work
But we can go further, actually strengthening Ktilwan's case for her The second scene that she quotes from, in, 11, contains these lines
Make way for a better instructor— Assur nasir-aplt, cruelest of the cruel, Whose reign began with patricide (11 125-27)
Among the materials discovered in the Rakis Hoard were the originals of The Stolen Journals In one (Rafas Ref Cat 31-A125) we read this "Our ancestor, Assur-nasir apli, who was known as the cruelest of the cruel, seized the throne by slaying his own father and starting the reiga of the sword " And we can go even further still another crystal records the gist of a conversation with one Malky, an baan ambassador Leto had asked Malky if he knew the words Taqmyya or ketman The ambassador did not know the first, but, fluent in Fremen. he defined the second as "die practice of .concealing the identity when revealing it
might be harmful ' Pleased at his response Leto then stated that he had written several histories under a pseudonym including those of Noah Arkwright, and even \rkwnght s biography
What capital the Letoites could have made of this1 Their candidate states that he wrote histones (not plays, to be sure, but the next best thing) under a pseudonym, and m one of the Harban plays we find a quotation that closely parallels a passage in Leto s Journals
However, the support provided by the quotation is illusory Students oi Atreidean literature have long known that Harq al Harba used sources, most of which have survived In the case of the play Carthage, al-Harba followed Tovat Gwinsted's The Chronicles of the Conquerors legends of pre Butlerian times collected in 9222, and translated on Arrakis in 10295 The relevant passage from the Chronicles reads as follows "In this he had a better teacher, Assur nasir apli, cruelest of the cruel, v*ho slew his father to take possession of the throne'' Here is all the information, down to the epithet that al-Harba needed for the passage in question And it was beyond the powers even of Leto D to ghost-write a book a thousand years before he was born
Finally, consider the definition of ketman that Leto praised ' concealing the identity when revealing it might be harmful ' Harmful to whom1* What power could conceivably have harmed Leto that he might wish to have kept his authorship of some plays unknown1* The Spacing Guild, the Great Houses, the Ixians, the Bene Gessent, the Tleilaxu, all tried to 'harm" him, and all tailed Yet in no instance is it recorded that they were angry because they had discovered that he had covertly written stage dramas This theo ry is simply silly
But there is another solution, one that has no more substantiating evidence than Knl-wan's, but no less either Harq al Harba was something new something unexpected in the reign of Leto We know that as the emperor continued his rule, he clutched the power to surprise ever more jealously to himself It sometimes seems that his reign was dedicated to reducing humanity on ev ery planet to a uniform grayness Would he
AMPOLIROS
not then have supported, perhaps even fathered the notion that he was Harq al-Harba? We find in Kiilwan's book no evidence, compel Img or otherwise, for believing that Leto II was Harq al-Harba, but it has aroused suspicions about the identity of A J Kulwan
In sum, the al-Harba Question is a question only in the minds of those clouded by snobbery, delusion, hero-worship, and ignorance of Atreidean literary history No professional Harban scholar has ever lent it credence, and for good reason there is more evidence that Harq al-Harba wrote the plays attributed to him than for the works and existence of Virgil. Rabelais, Milton, McCaitney. Shum-wan, Astiki, Camwold, and a host of others put together There ts much more documentary evidence about al-Harba and his life than exists for any of his contemporaries except those of Great Houses, with their professional historians The Rakis Hoard has done nothing to upset the conclusion that the Harban plays were the fruits of the genius of Harq al-Harba WE M
Further references: HARQ AL-HARBA Karen£ Ambem Champagne in My Slipper The Autobiography as told to Ruuvars Dillar {Zimaona Ktnat), Izhaaiicas Bauf The Great Cryptogram Rakis Rcf Cat 31-BL904,J T Duub,fla(f-a Dozen Harbas Rakis Rcf Cat 42 BL65 Cybete Hank The Prince/The Playwright (Ztoaona Kinat) Tovat GwmstaJ, Chronicles of the Conquerors (Caladan INS), A J Kulwan, The Man Who Wai alHarba Rakis Ref Cat 75-BL791 F S Mank Monuments ofAtreideon Drama 5 v (Grumman Hartley Univ Press), Pander Oulson, Si Aba Huntress of a Billion Worlds Rains Ref Cat 2 A439 Naib Guaddaf Judgment on Arrokeen Rakis Ref Cat 29-7182 B«h Jnon Piitpmail A! Ada h al Harba Rakis Ref Cat S-BL469 Tonk Shaio Arrakeen Corners Rakis Ref Cat 61 BL757 Kurt Zhuurazh, Al Ada and altiarba Rakis Ref Cat 27 BL637
AMPOLJROS, LEGEND OF. A pre-Guild legend appearing on many planets, including Arrakis, Ix, Kronin, Reenol, Ecaz, Caladan, Bela Tegeuse, Giedi Prime, Gamont and all the planets of Niushe It tells the story of the "starsearcher ' spacecraft Ampoliros, m reality a limited-range interplanetary causer of class three, power amplitude 7 In the legend the Ampoliros takes on grander proportions, becoming a class nine, power amplitude 35, long-range explorer with the military capability of a support fighter
In the legend's simplest form. Captain Fregonokon and her crew of fourteen had set off toward the Ntushe system in the year 480 BXj , a significantly difficult journey in those days before faster-than-hght travel About two-thirds of the way to their destination they came upon an abandoned cargo ship adnft tn space Upon returning from examining the empty ship they resumed their journey Two weeks later the entire crew was stricken by what must have been an anticytologic rmcrospore Ihe manifestations were high fever, sweating, dizziness and dementia magnum In a word, the crew went mad They experienced the rarest form of psychosis, group paranoia In a matter of three weeks they became convinced that all of civiliza tion had been destroyed by an invasion force of hideous aliens who attacked with unstoppable weapons from imisihle starships They radioed this information to all receivers using the widest spectrum of emergency bands
The crew told of their decision to strap themselves to their guns and fly until they ran out of stores, searching for the invisible aliens, hoping to attack and destroy at feast some of them before starvation or the aliens killed them The Ampoliros was never found It is said to be still searching the stars ever ready to attack, the time-dilation effect of near-light speed travel making the crew almost immortal
The legend was often used to explain to children how allowing themselves to be car ned away by imaginary fears could lead to real difficulties It was also used to suggest to adults that too much idle time was destruc tive to a well-tuned army or skJled work force "Forever prepared and forever unready' was often a phrase used to deride the crew of the Ampoliros and the state of any tactical force that has waited too long to be tested m a real tight
The legend was at tunes embellished by such changes as having some of the crew die of fever or abandon ship alone m deep space Another version says they went mad not from microspore infestation but from the colossal, crushing loneliness of deep space In its various forms the legend describes the crew as suffering real or fanciful symptoms such as emotional seizures tremors of the
AMTAL
ANTEAC
eye muscles, ego hemorrhagmg and brain-cell fusion Often the story speaks of the crew engaging m attacks on other friendly vessels, planets, asteroids, and even imaginary targets such as scanner blips and psycho-projections
The legend is first recorded as being part of the folk culture of Bela Tegeuse, from there it was earned to most of die planets of the pre-Guild system Of course, in the post-Guild era it spread to scores of other planetary systems The legend is said to have been still popular well into the second millennium of Lord Leto ITs reign But its popularity diminished as space travel came to be less of a factor in the daily lives of most communities
Further references. Zberaulaz Kilt, Ballads from the Border Stars Studies in Atrodean HiJtoty 263 (Pasco Inst of Galacto Freiaeo Culture), Ratal Anifca Zhaivz, Pre-Gmld Stories for CkUn* (Cakdan. INS), Dranuns PronimuE and G Dtise More Leaves from the Golden Bough (Fides Malthas)
AMTAL or AMTAL ROLE. A philosophical concept with the basic premise that in order to know a thing well, one must know its limits In other words, only when ail object is pushed beyond its limits will its true nature be seen For societies that live in the harshest of environments, Amtal is the only logical test of objects upon which people depend for survival On Airakis, for example, dunng the years before Paul Muad'Dib, the Fremen were strict practitioners of Amtal Whether it be a stillsuit to hold the body's water, a thumper to call the great worms of Dune, or a maker hook for capturing and steering the worms, every design as well as every piece of material was tested until it was literally destroyed
It is not difficult to understand why such societies would so zealously apply Amtal Theory could not be depended on if one's own life and the life of the community was at stake However, such societies rarely viewed Amtal as merely a practical way of reducing the dangers of failure For the Fremen, Amtal became religious ritual To mem, life on Arrakis was die ultimate test in which all things were known by how they were destroyed The hostile nature of the environ-neot was supersititiously personified by Shai-
Hulud, the indestructible giant sandworm Only Shai-Hulud appears to have been exempt from Amtal, and the reason seems to be that this deity was the ultimate tester, the final applier of Amtal to all things on Arrakis
With such a mythology, Amtal, in even its simplest forms, takes on a metaphorical dimension In any of its applications it represents life itself, and is applied finally to human beings as well as to objects If a failed stillsuit meant certain death for an individual Fremen, the failure of a Fremen to carry out a necessary task meant the death of an entire community All Fremen were, as a consequence, subject to Amtal at all stages of their lives Every act became a further test to prove the worth of each individual to the community If an individual failed that test, the consequences were the same as if an object had been pushed beyond its limits The individual was destroyed
It must be pointed out, however, that an individual's failure and death did not neces sanly mean shame For the Fremen, how the individual faced that failure was highly significant After all, it was m the ending, in the extension beyond natural limits that the truth was revealed Thus for societies like the Fremen living on Arrakis thousands of years ago, Amtal was the very cycle of life and death
Further references FREMEN CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT Defa 1 Famm Taaj ! Fremen 12 v (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) Anon The Traveler s Introduction to Arrakis Rakis Ref Cat 6-Z295
ANTEAC, REVEREND MOTHER TERT1US EILEEN. A figure treated with curious ambi guity m the mythos of the Holy Church and m the legends of the Oral History, R M Tertius Eileen Anteac has become an historical actuality through material discovered in the Rakis Hoard and through subsequent information released from the Bene Gessent Archives R M Anteac has been known m the legends variously as ' the witch" who m some way contributed to the death of both the God Emperor and his Lady Hwi Noree and as the martyr who gave her life in an attempt to follow the God Emperor's orders From recent information we now see a woman trained as a Bene Gessent Truthsaver, who
found herself caught between conflicting commitments, both of which were ultimately crucial to her Sisterhood She stands in the Compendium Matres as a martyr for the Sisterhood and is recorded there as being not only a Truthsayer but also a member of the Sisterhood's General Council, a Mater Fe-hcissima for the final ten years of her life In this same record, there is an indication she had also received some menial training, officially illegal dunng Leto ll's Impenum
Bene Gessent records list Paquita as Anteac's birthplace Though there were no official Bene Gessent headquarters on that planet during the later part of Leto's empire, some of the professors at the University were Bene Gessents of Hidden Rank, and apparently one of their "unofficial" duties was to watch for girls who showed signs of having special abilities such as strong analyti cal skills or empathetic sensitivity Eileen came to the attention of a Sister dunng a not in the square facing the University entrance gates A group of children and adults were stoning three little girts calling mem "witch's spawn" and accusing them of placing spells on the townspeople By the time the Sister had called reinforcements and had scattered the crowd, only one of the girls still lived— Eileen
Eileen was cared for at the University, and when she was strong enough, she was sent to the Chapter House on Wallach IX for training All her life Anteac earned a scar on her forehead as a reminder of the day she was almost killed for being a "witch " Aca denuc records show that Anteac was a bnl hant analyst, and her training soon special ized in data collection, synthesization, and analysis She was given parallel work however, m Truthsayer apprenticeship, her empathetic skills being abnormally high She became one of the youngest women to be initiated as a Reverend Mother and was apprenticed to the legendary R M Manus Luanna Gattalane, the woman who challenged Leto II and regained a small measure of the me lange deposit hidden by the Bene Gessent on Bela Tegeuse dunng the Comno era From RM Cattalane Anteac learned the diplomatic skills for which she was to becomfi famous By the time she was fifty, Anteac had be-
come one of the most important members of the annual delegation to Arrakis, working closely under her superior, R M Syaksa
The Bene Gessent Annals also note that Anteac's philosophy showed a strong sense of the absurd and that she had the sometimes inconvenient habit of expressing her perceptions openly Some Reverend Mothers, members of an ultraconservative sect within the Sisterhood, attempted to censure what they labeled her "unconventional and disconcerting sense of humor, ' but were unsuccessful Anteac was also known as a defender of the younger Sisters when they attempted reforms within the organization The political support which elected her to the General Council seems to have come from the liberal and radical factions The records show Anteac as being an intelligent woman fully capable of making independent decisions taking the responsibility for them, and giving her life m support of their execution
Further references Bene Gessent Annual Chapter House Reports Bene Gessem Compendium Moires BeneGesserit Ordmes Matres Leto Atreides II Journals IT Hadi Benotto Rafas Ref Cat
ARAMSHAM, OTTO. The Sardaukar captain discredited m the Arrakis action of 10193 Having infiltrated Gurney Halleck's crew of melange smugglers, he and his patrol failed to assassinate Paul Atreides when Paul and Gurney were reunited Later used as an Atreides messenger to House Cornno, he was returned to Salusa Secundus in disgrace He became obsessed with his failure and with his cowardly refusal to commit suicide when captured by the Fremen His guilt led to his authorship of The Sardaukar Strike (Salu&a Secundus Ogden) a manic and highly jingoistic history of the soldier fanatics More significantly, he founded an extremist group of disenchanted Sardaukar known as the * Final Force " which advocated a return to the spartan regimen of past glones Some one hundred years later (11099 11103) this group joined with Duncan Idaho in an unsuc cessful attempt to assassinate the God Emperor Aramsham died a bitter man feeling that he had never atoned for his sin While the circumstances of his death are uncertain one account indicates he died in 101% of wounds
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received when he attacked Count and Lady Fennng as they returned from Rakis with the deposed Shaddam IV (see LADY MAROOT FENRING) However, the time involved m his return, his wntmg of The Sardaukar Strike, and his formation of the ' 'Final Force" make his death at such an early date unlikely Another, more acceptable record indicates he committed ritual suicide
ARRAKEEN, Conservatory. When she explored the old government mansion at Arrakeen, the Lady Jessica discovered a wet-planet conservatory concealed beyond an airlock, with a palm lock on the oval outer door This room, about ten meters square, was not part of the building's original construction but had been added to the roof as a bridal present from Tsimpo, one of the early governors of Arrakis, K> his fourth wife, Hawtma, who came from the water planet Humidis Filter glass was used to convert the harshrwhjte sun of Arrakis into a softer yellow light source Every available space in the room was crowded with exotic wet-climate plants, mostly dwarf varieties kept in pots or severely pruned The plants included mimosa, a flowering quince, dwarf cypresses and cedars, a sondagi, the fern tulip of Tupah, a green-blossomed plemscenu. grown for its rich fragrance, a green-and-white-stnped Akarso from Sikun, false orchids, a golden kowhai, flowering fogwood from Ecaz, giant mosses and broad-leaved aspidistras Abo\e all there were fabu lous roses of several varieties, pink, white, blue, variegated In the center of the room was a small tow fountain with fluted lips Water was distributed among the fern trees and thirsty rubber plants by a simple clock-set servok with pipe and hose arms A more elaborate robotic mulcher and dresser, the design of which was well outside die Butlenan limits, performed automatic gardening routines, it was programmed to remain concealed with in die wall when humans were present
Lady Jessica's predecessor as chatelaine, Margot, Lady Fennng, left a warning mes sage to her Bene Gcsserit sister in this private room Jessica found a note which cryptt cally directed her to a hidden message on the under surface of a fan leaf overhanging the table The warning was found too late to
prevent the hunter seeker attack on Paul, but the fountain was useful in shorting out the deadly sliver's motor
The function of the wet-planet conservatory as a haven for the home-sick wives of governors on a desert planet, as a supremely luxurious enclosed garden of delights, was less important to the Alreides family than its political significance On a planet where the natives resented date palms for the amount of water they consumed, the idea of d sealed room in which water that could support at least a thousand persons was wasted on exot ic plants was anathema The conservatory was known to the Fremen as the "weirding room''—fit only for witches—and it is recorded that the head housekeeper of the mansion, the Shadout Mapes regarded the room with loathing The conspicuous waste of water was a deliberate status symbol, a statement of the power and wealth of the Imperial government Duke Leto properly terminated the grossly humiliating custom of water slopping at government dinners, but when the water-shipper Lmgar Bewt challenged him to extend the principle to the conservatory, the Lady Jessica intervened with a response that made a significant impres sion on the planetologist, Liet-Kynes Bewt had said I m curious what you intend about the conservatory attached to this house Do you intend to continue flaunting it m the people s faces m'Lord1?" Jessica replied "Mv Lord, the Duke, and I have other plans for our conservatory We intend to keep it, certdinly, but only to hold it in trust for the people of Arrakis It is our dream that someday the climate of Arrakis may be changed sufficiently to grow such plants anywhere in the open This response chimed so well with the most precious dream of Liet-Kynes, the gradual transformation of the desert plan et to a paradise flowing with water, that he asked her directly whether she brought "the shortening of the way ' Jessica's response completely changed the attitude of this influ ential Fremen to the Atreides government
In the message left for the Lady Jessica by Margot, Lady Fennng lay a deeper warning or lesson conveyed by the conservatory 'The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulge On that path lies danger Liet-
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Kynes said something to Jessica of similar import 'Remember that growth itself can produce unfavorable conditions unless treated with extreme care " The Frcracn coveted water greedily to put it crudely, they were dupes for the ecological dreams of Liet-Kynes as fulfilled by Paul Muad'Dib and they did not understand the danger to diem in the dream's so-rapid fulfilment Conse quently, they were destroyed as a race Packed into Jessica's wet-planet conservatory was genocidal dynamite
The Freraen awe at the idea of duplicating the conditions of the conservatory over a whole planet sprang forth after Paul and Jessica reoccupred the Airakeen house Jessica went to the "weirding room" and Paul explained to Stilgar mat she was ' sick with longing for a planet she may never see Where water falls from the sky and plants grow so thickly you cannot walk between them ' Stilgar's reverent response showed to Paul how much he had become a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, the Giver of Water Stilgar was thereb} lessened It was also an omen of the jihad that would send the Fremen oaplanet to goggle at m eis, lakes oceans and jungles— and then to seek their reduplication on Dune
After the jihad years, Paul was content plating a moonlit enclosed garden at Arrakeen, with its fish pond, its sentinel trees, their broad leaves and wet foliage, when he momentarily saw the garden through Fremen eyes alien, menacing, dangerous in its use of water It is recorded mat he thought men of the Water Sellers, their way destroyed by the lavish dispensing from his hands, who hated him because he had slain their past Others hated him for changing the old ways Muad'Dib's presumption in making over a whole planet had yet wider implications The universe beyond would hate the name of Aireules when Arrakis had become itself a larger wet-planet conservatory, although it would be bathed and coveted not for its water but for its desert-derived spice and the power it symbolized
Further references ARRAKIS KYNES PARDOT Attteides Lady Jessica The Years on Arrakis tr Zhaiv Aullan (Caladan. Apex)
ARRAKEEN. Palace Construction at The palace at Arrakeen, the single most colossal structure known in all of human history was built during the twelve year reign of Paul Muad Dib and the Fremen Jihad Its construction was financed by spice trade the jihad and the demands placed on the Guild navigators, encouraged by deliberate Impen al policy inflated the already high value of spice so greatly that Arrakis became the wealthiest planet of the Impenum The labor for the building of the palace was in largest part supplied by the transport to Arrakis of huge workforces from planets conquered by the jihad Also, many whole structures from subjected planets were brought in heighhners to become part of the palace The most important eye witness accounts of the mteri or of the Imperial Keep are those of Farok who was entertained there with other Fremen warriors at a feast celebrating the Mohtor victory, and more extensively those of R M Gams Helen Mohiam Farok was not over-impressed "It was cold m all that stone despite the best Ixian space heaters He has trees m there you know—trees from many worlds And somewhere deep inside, I am told, he and Cham live a nomadic life and that all within the walls of their Keep Out to the Great Hall he comes for the public audiences He has reception halls and formal meeting places a whole wing for his personal guard, places for the ceremonies and an inner section for communications There is a room far beneath his fortress I am told, where he keeps a stunted worm surrounded by a water moat with which to poison tt There he reads the future The Emperor entered and left the Keep by a 'diopter landing jutting from an inner wall The Reverend Mother Gams Helen Mohiam after being first softened up in a tiny cell carved with cutterays from the veined brown rock beneath Paul s Keep was forced to hobble a great distance to the Imperial Presence She went along seemingly endless vaulted passages lit by triangular melaglass windows and paved with tiles figuring water creatures from exotic planets She was impressed by the immensit\ of this citadel then oppressed by it The place reeked to her of terrifying physical power No planet no
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*IWi ftl.it *ow»fcTtV
civilization in all human history had ever before seen such man-made immensity A dozen ancient cities could be hidden m its walls!" She passed oval doors with winking lights, recognizing them for ixian handiwork pneumatic transport orifices
As she got nearer to the Grand Reception Hall, the passages grew larger by subtle stages—tricks of arching, graduated amplifi cation of pillared supports, displacement of the triangular windows by larger, oblong shapes Finally, m the far wall of a tall antechamber loomed the double doors of the Hall. "The doorway stood at least eighty meters hjgh, half that in width " The doors swung inward, operated by Ixian machinery, immense and silent The interior of the Hall itself could have boused the entire citadel of any ruler in human history
Mohiatti was impressed by the architectural subtleties of the Hall's construction even
more than by its immensity "The open sweep of the room said much about hidden structural forces balanced with nicety Trusses and supporting beams behind these walls and the faraway domed ceiling must surpass anything ever before attempted Everything spoke of engineering genius"
In spite of the huge scale of the Hall, its focus—the throne of the Emperor and the Emperor Paul himself—was not dwarfed Paul's green throne had been cut from a single Hagar emerald the most precious pos session of a subject planet Paul conducted Mohiam into a private chamber beyond a passage behind the throne This was a twenty meter cube lit by yellow glowglobes, with the deep orange hangings of a desert stilltent on the walls Paul liked to think of his fortress, that awesome pile of plasteel, as his "sietch above the sand "
Through the gnllwork which vented it,
ARRAKEEN PALACE
ARRAKEEN PALACE
Paul's sleeping chamber looked over a deep abyss to the gentle arc of a footbridge constructed of crystal-stabilized gold and platinum, decorated by fire jewels from far Ccdon The bridge led to the galleries of the inner city across a pool and fountain filled with waterflowers with blood-red petals In another direction he could see the lower buildings of the government warren Within Paul s view also were coloss&I structures showing every extravagance of architecture a demented history could produce and a rapacious hand could seize terraces like mesas, squares as large as cities parks, premises, bits of cultured wilderness, a postern from most ancient Baghdad, a dome dreamed in mythical Damascus, an arch from the low gravity of Atar, all creating an effect of unrivaled magnificence mixed with barbarity, in which superb artistry would abut inexplicable prodigies of dismal tastelessness Here were orchards and groves, open plantings to rival those of fabled Lebanon, thanks to the prodigality with which Paul spent water On an escarpment near to Paul s Keep was established a fitting companion, Aba's Temple, built during the same twelve-year anm mirabites It had two-thousand meter sides and doors large enough to have admitted an entire cathedral from one erf the ancient religions, designed to reduce a pilgrim s soul to motedom Aha's Temple was itself one of the wonders of the universe
While it certainly would have been a prodi gious feat to have built the entire palace in the twelve years it seems to ha\e taken, it would not have been impossible given the resources available to Paul Atreides However, a curiously persistent, if apocryphal, tradition among the Qizarate (cited in Yiam-el Dm) holds that the great citadel was completed in very much less than twelve years
And tt came to pass when the tone was ripe for building that Muad'Dib surveyed the battle plain where the Sardaakar legions were obliterated, and he measured the battle plain with a rule "Here will I build my palace on the place of chaos and death," he declared 'And the name of the palace shall be Paul s Keep and tt shall be a great citadel a sietch above the sand to dwarf all other Impenal monuments And be side it will I build Aba's Temple, and pilgrim;; will come from all over the universe to worship
there And I will build my city m seven weeks according to the plan of the ancient scriptures So will I be known to future ages as the Dune Messiah the Mahdi who will lead his people to Paradise And it was done as he had said
The Qizarate believed that the "ancient scriptures'' referred to are to be found in the OC Bible, Prophets LXXXIX 24-26 Known 1o have been a favonte with Muad Dib, it is the text before all others which prophesies of the Messiah Unfortunately like other pro pheuc scriptural texts, it is far from easy to interpret It concerns the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the coming and cutting off of the Messiah Three groups of weeks are mentioned, one of seventy one of seven and /one of sixty-two The Qizarate interpreted seventy weeks as the time granted to the Fremen for completing their conquest of the Sardaukar, seven weeks for the building of the palace, and sixty-two weeks for the cut ting off of the Mahdi, but they do not regard the three periods of weeks as continuous The O C Bible Commentaries which suggests a substitution of years for the stated weeks, was disregarded Rather the Qizarate point to the significance of the seven week period as a symbolic re ^nactmcnt of the seven days of Genesis
Supposing that we entertain this wild hypothesis, that Paul's Keep was built in only seven weeks what does it suggest to us concerning the forces at Paul's command^
There is another apocryphal tradition that should be mentioned here It is supposed that Muad Dib modeled his building not orfly on the story ot Jerusalem but also on that of Solomon s Temple A curious myth regard ing the construction of Paul s Keep tells that he employed giant sandworms to bore through the rocks to lay the foundations and that what we take for the work of cutteravs and even what we think to be plasmeld structures are really the production of sandxv orm teeth and sandworm furnaces The superstitious Fremen believed that there was a sort of emperor among the sandworms the Graridfa dier of the Desert the oldest and laree\t sandworm—Shai Hulud Muad Dib is supposed to have formed an alliance with this god among worms or rather he gained an ascendancy over it for the apocnphal Dune Gospels recast the encounter ot Jesus with
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Shaitan in the wilderness of temptation in terms of a fantastic duel between Muad'Dib and Shai-Hulud in the deep desert It is supposed that Muad'Dib had a particular reason for wishing to employ Shai-Hulud and his subject sandworms in the construction of hts citadel, probably reflecting the obscure Fremen tradition that Solomon employed a worm called Sharrur to cut the stones for tits Temple
Many are the myths of Solomon, however, and the fahar Book contradicts that of Shamir the Worm by tracing one concerning a shameer that was a magic pebble1 The main purport of the Temple*bui$dmg myth is simply mat Solomon employed multitudes of djmn m its construction. Had Muad'Dib a similar command over spirits? Was it possible for him to materialize his ancestors, drawing: them up from his inner being and giving them tangi Me form7 Or rather did he call spirits from the vasty deep of space, like a galactic Glenctower? Alternatively, did he have some means of fixing time, so that years of work could be performed m a few days? These questions cannot now be answered, the true powers commanded by Paul Muad'Dib are unknown to us
It is recorded in the OC Bible that Solomon the Magnificent took seven years to build his Temple It would be in accordance with the Imperial spmt of Muad'Dib that he should pointedly take only seven weeks to build an overwhelmingly greater structure It would also be characteristic of Paul's real humility that he did not, as even the apocryphal records tell us, take only seven days M T
Further refcKBCCs; Process Initan Atnades-Comno, Muad'Dib The NmayJthc Wonders of the Universe tr G W Maw, Amtas Studies 9 (Grumman Untied Worlds) and Conversations with MuoffDtb Lib Conf Temp Series 346, R M Gams Helen Mohtaro, Dianes lib Conf lfenq> Senes 133, Amm , Jfcim el-Din The Book of Judgment tr D D Shuurd, Arrakis Studies 43 (Gnimman. United Worlds); Pyer Bnizvair, et al, A Variorum Edition of thi Orange Catholic Bible 6v (Bolchef Collegium Tamo), Anon , The Dime Gospels Rakis Ret Cat J-T2, Anon , The Alter Book, ed K R Baraji, Airukrt Studies 45 (Grumman United Worlds i
ARRAKIS, AstronortdcoJ aspects of. As the techniques for studying the physical sciences have improved, the universe and the orga-
nized matter contained therein become more complex and wonderful The deeper one looks into space, the more strange and var led the objects one finds become The unimagmed becomes real, the impossible becomes reality This is certainly true for the Canopus planetary system, a system with many unique properties The data contained within the following has been gleaned from the multitude of scientific papers authored by Arrakian scientists over hundreds of years
CANOPUS—GALACTIC LOCATION Canopus is located in the secondary trailing spiral arm of the great barred spiral galaxy, Starspen Its position places Canopus at a distance of 129,000 light years from the nucleus of the galaxy Being ot the barred spiral form, the galaxy is well up on the galactic evolutionary track, indicating a cosmic age of 12 billion years Hence, the Starspen galaxy has entered middle age
The Starspen galaxy rotates once every 300,000 years, which is slower than most galaxies of this type In physical appearance the galaxy is typical except for dust content Because of the extensive central dust and gas clouds, the nuclear region ot the galaxy is totally obscured Penetrable only by energetic microwaves, the physical nature of the galactic nucleus was totally unknown until 15557 when Nilen developed the microtronic detector Almost immediately the central re gion was found to be dominated by a 100-million-stellar-mass white hole The vast outpouring of mass and energy replenishes the energy and mass reserves of the galaxy It is now, of course well known that all galaxies are powered by a central, massive nuclear white hole Where this mass and energy originates has not been established with any certainty, but there is considerable support for the Arrakian theor> that mass and energy (i e photons) are drawn into a gravitational singularity, or black hole, m an alternate universe and enter this universe by way of an inverse gravitation singularity, or white hole Clearly, the physics of such objects and the resulting spatial and temporal distortions of dimensional space are indeed bizarre
CANOPUS—LOCAL STAR GROUP The region occupied by Canopus is relatively sparse-
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ly populated Fifty-seven stars he within a ten-light-year radius (8,000 cubic light years) The majonty (forty-four) of these stars are class PO red dwarfs Averaging an absolute magnitude of +16, they are intrinsically extremely faint and very old, low-mass stars whose lives will end as cold black dwarfs
Of the other thirteen stars, eight are residents of class R4 to R9 These average-mass, yellow stars are all known to have three or more planets orbiting them with conditions on some suitable for habitation by organic life The nearest member of this group of stars is 7 76 kght years from Canopus
Four of the five remaining nearest stars are class T and T3 super giant variables These enormous energy machines undergo not only variations m stellar radius but in color, also Trios, the least massive of the T3 variables, undergoes a change in color from deep violet to red m 1 35 days This color variation is accompanied by changes in energy generation
The remaining star is not really a star at all This object is Canopus B, the white hole companion to Canopus Canopus and its companion are gravitationally bound and mutual ly orbit each other every 5 1 days The ratio of the mass of Canopus to Canopus B is very high, 11520 to 1, with the center of mass of the binary system 79,000 km below the photosphere of Canopus The mass of Canopus B and mass ratio explain why Canopus B passes within 40 km of the photosphere of Canopus at the near point of the orbit
The age of Canopus B is of course unknown, but probably dates to the galactic origin This unique object would probably be unknown today had it not been for the serendipitous discovery by Ravan m 14491 During an investigation of the region near the innermost planet Seban, a cruiser carry mg Ravan and his investigation team expen enced a temporary propulsion system failure bringing them closer to Canopus than anyone had been before Ravan observed and recorded a slender thread of coronal material spiraling upward along distorted magnetic field lines This thread terminated at a point 25,000 km above the surface of Canopus At this point, Ravan was awestruck when it
became clear that the coronal thread was originating from a brilliant white object less than 12 000 meters m diameter and that the material flow was not upward but downward toward Canopus What Ravan was observing was Canopus B, the white hole, transferring mass and energy to Canopus, the tiny feeding the mighty
CANOPUS—PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION Canopus is a white mam sequence star of spec tral class Q5 The star has a mass of 2 1 x 1034 grams and an equatorial diameter of 1 7 X 1Q6 km Shining with an absolute magnitude of - 3 it is the center of a planetary system with six bodies of planetary mass in orbit about it
As with all class Q5 stars, analysis of the spectral characteristics reveal that the emission lines ot triply ionized Tendmm (Tr+ + +) and singly ionized Zeon (Ze+) predominate The temperature at the top of the photosphere is 7400°K and the central temperature is estimated to be in excess of 70 million degrees At this temperature, spectral lines of the lighter elements are present bat of low intensity
Splitting of the tertiary Korane absorption doublet was discovered by Quanal in 14797 and established the presence of a general magnetic field Magnetic field measurements have been made using refined techniques and have set a mean level of field strength (5) 92 kilo reyvals This field strength is atypical of class Q5 stars which have general magnetic fields that rarely exceed 75 Kr No definitive explanation for this anomaly has been put forth, but a possible explanation lies m the abnormally high terellmm content Terellium is thought to possess abnormally high magnetic capacity under conditions of extreme density and high temperature a condition not obtainable as yet under laboratory conditions There is also a small, discrete region of very high field strength that is a result of the presence of the binary companion white hole Canopus B
Canopus is a star of high stability with energy generator! varying less than 1 2 x 10 s over the period of a year Rarelv do star spots form in the photosphere those that do last at most a few davs The corona is not extensive but does ha\e slight periodic
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variations These variations are manifested in a change in charged particle density in the stellar wind and m the stellar-wind velocity
The gravitational field of Canopus is sufficiently strong to hold its retinue of six planets myriads of asteroidal fragments, and the dust and gas clouds situated near the outer periphery of the planetary system Because of the primary's high mass the veloci ty required to escape the gravitational hold of Canopus is 53 5 km/sec, thus the need for high energy propulsion systems for interstellar space vehicles
PLANETARY SYSTEM Seban The innermost planet, Seban, has a mean radius of 2,380 km and orbits Canopus at a mean distance of 52 million km While Seban is massive enough to hold an atmosphere, the extreme physical proximity to Canopus and the intense coronal winds effectively drive any existing atmosphere tato space This coronal wind is so intense at times of closest approach to Canopus that a cloud of ionized metals and gases form and populate the trading orbital space This cloud is very tenuous and is composed chiefly of highly kinetic ions of iron, irerauffl, and melarmm The existence of this ionic cloud was not known until its discovery by the second Dren series plane tary probe during a survey of the Seban near space No life has been detected on Seban, conditions are far too harsh
Menans Menans, the second planet inward, is much larger m radius (7,862 km) man Seban Menans orbits Canopus at a mean distance of 68 million km The orbit of Menans is highly elliptic and has an axial tilt of 79° Thus, Menans nearly rolls in its orbit with contrasting seasonal effects, one hemisphere eternally hot and the other eternally cold although the atmosphere mitigates the temperature effects to some extent
Menans possesses a dense atmosphere of carbon dioxide with traces of nitrogen dioxide The latter component is responsible for the yellow brown tint Largely because of its oxidizing atmosphere, there are no known life forms on Menans
Arrakis Menans, in combination with Extans (fourth planet m the Canopus system) is responsible for the highly eccentric orbit of the third planet, Arrakis Because of this
joint effect and similarities of size and orbit, Menans and Extans are informally referred to as ' the Twins Fffects due to the other inner and outer planets as well as the two moons are negligible Because of the large axial tilt, the polar axis of rotation processes a full revolution every 43,000 years Currently, the star nearest the north celestial pole is the + 9 magnitude star Yuspen
Arrakis has a density of 4 95 g/cm3 and an acceleration due to gravity of 864 cm/sec2 With a gravitational attraction of thib magni tude the light gases such as hydrogen and helium have all but escaped into space Atmosphenc pressure at the equator is 760 mm, about average for a planet of this diame ter and mass
Arrakis is the only planet in the Canopus planetary system to harbor organic life forms Life on Arrakis has been subject to harsh conditions during its history Along with the local star group there is an extensive dust cloud that permeates the Canopus near space This dust cloud was first detected by the Arrakian astronomer Chelin m 12704 The consequences of the cloud were not fully recognized until 12984 when evidence was found that correlated ice age-like penods with the dust cloud opacity The peculiar velocity of Canopus carried it and the plane tary system through regions of varying cloud opacity This had the resulting effect of reduc ing the radiation incidents on Arrakis thus triggering near ice age conditions A similar but even more severe shift in conditions occurred when Arrakis s third moon was destroyed by an asteroid/comet some 200 000 years ago
Krelln—-first satellite Krelln is the larg est of the two Arrakian satellites Krelln has a mean radius of 488 km and orbits the parent planet at a mean distance of 324 077 km
The satellite has a density of 3 97 g/cm3 and is composed of titanium rich silicates in the crust and mantel The silicate mantel extends to a depth of 170 km There is no apparent differentiation in composition which implies scant reheating following satellite formation The presence of a small rocky core has been established by seismic studies
Large numbers of craters dot the surface
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ARRAKIS, ASTRONOMY
of Kiel In. Crater diameters range from 40 km to small pit-like features less than 1 mm in diameter Since Krella has no atmosphere, the landscape is stark with the only erosion due to thermal stress and particle impact. A layer of meteoritic dust covets the surface of KreKn to a depth of 11 cm.
Krelln orbits Arrakisonce every 25.5 days with nearly the same face toward Arrakis. Libration of 16 degrees occurs once each oibit. Because of the small angular diameter of Krelln (10 36 arc minutes), total eclipses of Canopus do not occur
Krelln has been of limited commercial use; however, ritanite mining operations were established Krelln has also functioned as an observational facility for deep space surveillance
Arvon—secottd satellite. Arvon is the smaller of the Arrakian satellites with a radius of 201 km. The satellite orbits Arrakis in 5 7 days and occupies a nearly circular orbit with a perigee distance of 103,000km Arvon orbits Arrakis in less man one-fourth the time required for JCrelte. Arvon subtends an
angle of 13 42 arc minutes Having a diameter larger than Krelln, total eclipses of Krelln occur every 547 2 days.
The physical characteristics of Arvon differ from those of Krelln A density value of only 2.02 g/cm3 results from the presence of large amounts of subterranean water ice and frozen carbon dioxide Cratenng is evident, but is less pronounced due to the more fluid crustal structure Arvon has no measurable magnetic field and is geologically inert No evidence of tectonic activity has been detected by Arrakian scientists
Extaris The fourth planet, Extans, is the smallest of the outer planetary bodies with an equatorial radius of 8,112 km Extans has a mean density of only 1 31 g/cm3, such a low density is characteristic of the outer planets.
The primary constituents of Extaris's atmosphere and their relative abundance are atomic helium 0.83, Zeon 0 15, carbon monoxide 0 01, and trace amounts of Zenon, Krypton, and cyanogen
Atmospheric pressures exceed 250 stan-
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22
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dard atmospheres, yet Extaris's weather is essentially benign. This is due to three factors; one, the orbit is nearly circular (eccentricity 0.015); two, the axial rotation is slow, with the Exlaris day equal to 42 hours; and three, the upper atmospheric layer of Zeon ice refects 97% of the incident radiation from Canopus back into space. These effects minimize the transfer of thermal energy to the lower atmosphere. The resulting lack of thermal gradients prevent the formation of significant cyclonic or amicyclonic circulation. >
Unlike the inner high-density- planets. Extaris and the other outer planets have several satellites. Extaris has five satellites that orbit die primary at distances from 117,000 km to 399,000 km. The four inner, icy satellites are in circular orbits and were probably formed from the same molecular accretion as Extaris. The rocky outer satellite, however, occupies an extremely elliptical orbit (eccentricity 0.55) which is inclined to the equatorial plane by 19°. Furthermore, this satellite, Aja by name, orbits Extaris in a retrograde manner. These . orbital characteristics clearly imply that Aja was gravitationally captured eons ago. No record of first observations of Aja has been found.
The four inner satellites are composed of a thick ice mantel surrounding an outer core of silicate material. At the center of the outer core is a very small, dense, inner core of nicfcel-iroa. This inner core has no fluidity which accounts for the lack of measurable magnetic fields generated by internal dynamo activity.
Vfen.Ven, the firth planet, is the giant of the Canopus planetary system with an equatorial radius of 210,500 km. Together, Yen and CanopiiK account for 99.9% of the total mass and angular momentum of the system. The planet orbits in a mildly elliptical orbit (eccentricity 0.11) at a mean distance of 2.58 x 10* Km.
The planet kjust under the mass limit that separates planet from star. Temperatures at the cloud Jops, however, never exceed 57° Kelvin. At this temperature die only atmospheric components that can exist in the gaseous state are hydrogen, helium, and monopflaspnerine. The latter molecular specie is responsible for the soft pink appearance of Yen.
From a distance, Yen presents a very pleasant, tranquil appearance. However, upon closer scrutiny Yen is found to be a most inhospitable planet. Crushing atmospheric pressure coupled with sub Kelvin temperatures preclude the existence of organic life. An extraordinary feature not observed elsewhere in the planetary system is the complete absence of organic molecules. Extensive laboratory studies by Krai, et al. (15188), showed that monophospherine has strong catalytic properties that can distort and eventually break down the covalent bonds of organic molecules. The resulting carbon, nitrogen, zeon, and other residue lie kilometers deep on the liquid nitrogen surface of Yen.
Almost a star, Yen radiates strongly in the very far infrared and millimeter regions,of the electromagnetic spectrum. The emitted radiation is not uniformly distributed over the planet, but is observed to be emitted from discrete regions. The radiation emanates from three localized areas, one in the subpernal zone, and two in the upper mid-temperate band. The emissions from these active regions are periodic with each region having a different, but constant, period. Periods range from 790 microseconds to 12 milliseconds. Unfortunately, all attempts to locate these discrete sources with remote sensing probes have been unsuccessful. While speculation abounds, no reasonable explanation for the natural occurrence of such phenomena has been established. Most Arrakian scientists felt that these radiating sources were placed deep within the body ot the planet by intelligent beings in the remote past—perhaps to provide a navigational guide beacon for deep space vehicles.
Revona. Orbiting at a distance of 7.7 x 109 km is Revona. The planet is so remote that Canopus appears as just a very bright first-magnitude star.
Revona has a radius of 2,225 km and occupies a unique pkce in the Canopus system. The planet is composed entirely of helium existing in different phase states. A dense atmosphere of atomic helium covers the planet to a depth of 70,000 meters. Temperatures in this layer vary from 11°K at the upper helium boundary to 4.2°K at the quasi liquid surface. It was the discovery of this interface by Daret in 14390 that stunned the members
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of the Planetoscience Council on Arrakis Just beneath this interface, the pressure is sufficient to alter the phase state of helium from gaseous to liquid The result of this phase-state change ts a pale blue sea of liquid helium forming just below the interface
At a depth of 3,900 meters, the liquid temperature reaches 2 6°K and the helium abruptly changes to the zero-viscosity heh urn 3 This abrupt change occurs as the liquid helium passes through the tri-alpha transition This transition is only a few meters thick and is characterized by high dynamic turbulence
Hypo-seismic studies have shown that Revona possesses a solid central core the composition of which is not* known Most planetologists agree that the most plausible core material is helium existing in the supra metallic state
Revona is not alone in its remote position It shares space with one satellite, Laran Laran is 553 km in radius and orbits Revona at a mean distance of 37,000 km Laran's composition is strikingly dissimilar to Revona The satellite has no atmosphere and has a solid crust and interior of carbonaceous material Permanently stationed geoseismic monitors have recorded no internal activity, only occasional meteontic bombardment This data, together with the satellite's composition, suggest that Laran is a captured body and has an age measurable in eons
Laran serves two very useful functions that of being the most remote outpost in die system, and of being toe site of the Revonan helium conversion facility This facility pro vides the liquid helium. 3 required for supercooling the reactive colls of the hypo gravimetric power generators used on'Arrakis WH
ARRAKIS, Atmosphere of before the Atreides COMPOSITION Major gaseous constitu ents were nitrogen (74 32% by mass), oxy gen (23 58%), and argon (1 01%) The most important trace gases were water vapor (less than 0 5%, variable), carbon dioxide (0 035%), and ozone (0 52%) The numerical values are those given by Kynes in his pioneering studies of the planet' Present differences are due to compositional changes that have oc curred over the five intervening millennia
and in no way reflect inaccuracies m Kynes' measurements
The composition was quite similar to that of other Neta 2C 53B planets except that the amount of ozone was anomalously high and that of water vapor anomalously low The excess ozone was of considerable sigmfi cance to many atmospheric phenomena A notable example is the so-called "Conohs storm'' The role of ozone in this and other aspects of the atmosphere is discussed in subsequent sections
Considerable dust was present in the atmosphere at all times This of course, was the result of the dessicated surface and the violent storms that swept the planet The sky thus had an almost uniform dullness due to light scattenng by the dust However, in the polar regions the sky often appeared bluish while in other areas it did so occasionally The atmospheric dust content was within the bounds of the Neta 2C-53B classification
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS Surface
pressure, mean wind and temperature were also compatible with Neta 2C 53B guidelines e g 1000 ± 5 millibars mean pressure (planetary), 286 ± 2 degrees absolute plane tary mean temperature (annualized), and a mean global wind speed standard height of 20 ± 3 kilometers per hour It should be noted that all Neta 2C planets regardless of after-fixes are habitable
CLIMATE The climate over most of the planet was best described as hot and dry Sub-freezing temperatures occurred only at the poles where surface temperatures were almost always below the water freezing point Nights were generally cool (in a relative sense)
The planet had little in the way of seasons since its orbit about Canopus was nearly circu lar and the planet s axis of rotation was direct ed almost perpendicular to its ecliptic plane Because of this the small polar ice caps appeared to remain unchanged (orbital observation) However extensive scientific stud ics have shown that the caps did exhibit a very slight advance and retreat with the sea sons and hence a slight amount of water vapor was transported between the poles Ptahtercicah (9527) investigated the mecha nisms of water vapor transport in terms of the minimum amount lequired to sustain any
ARRAKIS ATMOSPHERE
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ARRAKIS ATMOSPHERE
life The correctness of these theoretical calculations was confirmed using Arrakis as the test case Her work is the base from which the planetary classification system, particularly for Neta class, evolved
WEATHER PHENOMENA Thin, cirrus clouds occurred seasonally in the vicinity of the polar caps, but dust clouds (and the generating storms) were the dominant fea tare of Arrakis's weather Every day dust was injected into die atmosphere by small vortex or pseudo-vortex systems Ancient lore tells us that these slender pillars of dust represented the spirits of ancestors However, scientific investigation showed that these manifestations were a result of severe heating of the ground surface with cooler temperatures above and light wind The hot air rose and pulled down the cooler air The presence of a light wind was critical to the process since it was needed for the vortex to form These whirls are common to the desert portions of all Neta-class planets They do not normally present a hazard to humans
Nefad (9156) proposed that the Conohs storms were but a manifestation nf the accumulation of multiple vortices associated with die turning of the wind vector by planetary rotation ^ It is now known that Nefad's early considerations were overly simplistic and in part incorrect Hohshas (11301) provided the basis from which our present understanding of these storms has been derived 4 Conohs forces did indeed play a major role, but the seventy of the storm involves several factors All had to combine in harmony to produce the greatest of these storms An almost constant temperature difference (annual mean) of 27 degrees Celsius existed between the equator and the poles This temperature difference caused atmospheric flow between equator and poles On Arrakis the flow was quite sluggish The cooler air from the poles, being more dense, flowed along the surface, but was warmed quickly by surface radiation In the northern hemisphere this flow was detected westward, in the southern hemisphere: eastward (Conohs effect, planetary designation 3) Planetary rotation is in the B class, meaning that the general circulation was broken up otto eddies These are called cyclones and anti-cyclones, using the ancient
Terran names On all Neta-type planets with a 3 classification the cyclones produce storms But the cyclones on Arrakis produced violent storms, primarily because of excess ozone
Ozone was concentrated only two kilometers above the surface It was produced by Canopus's strong ultraviolet flux and ab sorbed much of the flux The atmosphere thus experienced considerable heating at this low altitude Temperature was high dt the surface, decreased with altitude, but then increased when the ozone layer was encountered Convection and advection associated with the cyclones was thus normally confined within two kilometers of the surface This confinement greatly intensified storm seventy
Surprisingly, the greatest Conohs storms on Arrakis were not produced in mis manner A truly great storm occurred only when the ozone heat barrier was broken' Nefad almost recognized this fact The strength of the ozone heat barrier depended upon the ultravio let flux from Canopus, which vanes The strength of the cyclones vaned also but most important were the convecttve vortices As we now know from the Rakis Finds, these were most prevalent during a daytime fruntdl pd!>!>dge The stronger the cyclone the more vortices that were produced Each vor tex earned surface heat upward to the ozone barrier On those occasions when conditions were nght the heat transported upward could produce temperatures immediately below the ozone layei which were greater than that within the layer itself The barrier was destroyed when this occurred The reaction was self-perpetuating and explosive in its impact and a truly great dust/sand storm evolved as the atmosphere in a real sense was overturned
Wind speedb as high as 800 kilometers per hour were recorded withm these storms by certified instruments (which also managed to survive the storms' fury) Pachtra (10002) reported a single measurement of wind speed in excess of 1000 kilometers per hour This is generally discredited since his instrument was out-of certification at the time 5 Addi Oonally, such a speed would exceed the speed of sound ground level on Arrakis Supersonic winds have never been confirmed on
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25
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any planetary surface Yet, as Ghralic so aptly puts it' 'The residents of Arrakis reported fearfully loud noises during UK greatest storms Could it be that the winds exceeded Mach -1 at times'* The entire subject merits an attempt at laboratory duplication under controlled conditions"
Electrical phenomena were an integral part of the surface environment The dust whirls and storms generated considerable dust charging through tnbo-electnflcafion Lightning discharges occurred frequently within the clouds and occasionally bolts struck the surface Ozone was produced but this was only a minor contributor to total atmospheric ozone
Sand size (and larger) grams remained mostly in the lower levels of the Conohs storms Those closest to the surface caused severe erosion If the planet were not so geologically active (see ARRAKIS—GEOUXJY) its surface would have been entirely flat except for the ubiquitous dune fields
During the decay phase of die storms much of the dust sealed back onto the surface Water vapor absorbed on the grains was earned downward also (a phenomenon locally called El Sayal) lomzation by ultraviolet rays gradually released the water back to the atmosphere Return was complete within a few days
SURFACE EFFECTS Surface erosion from storms and the presence of dune fields are noted above The processes involved have been understood since antiquity and no elaboration is needed here However, the dust chasms (sometimes called tidal dust basins) and the drum sands merit special attention
The chasms or basins were produced by geological processes, being subsequently filled with dust They were a hazard to unwary travelers because the dust had a quicksand* like behavior The dust packing was so under-dense that tidal motions much like oceanic tides were readily observable (locally called sandtides) The question of considerable scientific interest is why the dust should have exhibited almost negative packing, hence fluid-like behavior, since similar situations have rarely been found os any other planet We are indebted to Aster^k (15104) whose brilliant insight provided the final and correct
answer by successfully producing the effect in the laboratory e The sequence of events is as follows
a Dust deposited after each storm was highly charged Also, grain surfaces contained absorbed water vapor
b The number of negative electrons and positive ions was initially about equal within the dust mass
c The electrons attached themselves to the highly polar water vapor molecules
d The water vapor molecules migrated upward along the atmospheric density gradient The ultraviolet rays then desorbed the water vapor, returning it to the atmosphere together with the negative charges
e The positive ions were tightly bound to the distorted surface lattice of the dust grains and remained behind
f As a result the dust had a strong and highly stable positive charge The repulsive electrostatic forces almost equaled the gravitational forces, hence the fluid-hke behavior
g The dust layer built up m depressions and chasms after this fashion until they were filled Of course as the layer thickness increased, the weight of the overburden caused compaction Hence the quicksand like behavior was confined to the upper five meters (approximately) of the deposit
The above phenomena were not observed in exposed areas since any charge inequality on dust deposited there was quickly neutralized by subsequent motion over the surface and prolonged exposure to ultraviolet Of course neutralized dust was present m the chasms and basins, but it accounted for only a small percentage of the total The charged zones had no influence on the l)ehavior of neutralized dust or sand moving over them hi fact the first few tenths of a millimeter of the dust oceans was neutralized by ultraviolet exposure
Pdchtrd is generally given credit for discerning the mechanism responsible for the sound emitted by drum sand 7 The record is a bit fuzzy here, but the academic discussion of who should receive credit is of little
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26
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import and as Ghralic states, 'It is the advancement of our knowledge that counts '' The use of the terminology "drum sand" was unique to Arrakis, but sound-emitting sands have been found on many Neta type planets, particularly those of the C and SO to 60 sub-classifications Local nomenclature depends upon die nature of the sound emitted, natives almost invariably naming the sands after the tonal quality closest to that of an indigenous musical instrument
Most musical sands produce a single tonal sound which decays exponentially with time after being stepped upon or otherwise impacted A second step produces a similar sound with similar monotomc decrease in intensity Drum sand, however, emits a series of low-frequency beats from a single step These beats do die oat exponentially, but the pulsating (drumming) character is quite distinctive
It was knows long before Hohshas's time that four conditions are necessary for a sand to sing First, the sand grains must be of approximately equal size Second, the grains must be bonded together This bonding is most commonly produced by the chemical deposition of water-soluble salts on the gram surfaces Third, the packing density must be uniform Finally, the underlying bedrock must be essentially parallel to the sand surface Any impact produces vibrations, but when the above conditions are met this impulse can create resonance and a tone is produced The sand layer vibrates as a unit If the ratios of mean grain spacing to grain diameter and mean grain spacing to bed thickness fall within prescribed limits, the tone will be audible to human ears These several conditions are not normally met and thus singing sands are not particularly common But if these conditions are met men we have an excellent analog of a musical instrument, albeit without the marvelous tonal and expressive capabilities of true musical instruments (including the human voice)
Pachtra recognized that under certain conditions the ratios noted above could have values that resulted in a pattern of constructive and destructive interference in the sound waves This would cause a pulsating sound from a single impact or step Pachtra was not
only a masterful applied mathematician but also an excellent experimentalist He spent several years on Arrakis performing on site investigations in spite of the obvious dangers This combination of field experimental and theoretical research has endeared him to planetologists (actually to all scientists) It is unfortunate that his brilliance and courage were not recognized until recently
MAGNETIC FIELD Arrakis has its own magnetic field (see ARRAKIS—GEOLOGY for details) However, Canopus emits an abnor mally high flux of charged particles with imbedded magnetic field segments This severely contracts the planet s own magnetic field and allows particles to impinge directly on atmospheric molecules No known effect on Arrakis weather has been proven to be a result of this interaction However magnetic disturbances make the main field unreliable for navigation Alternative means for direc tion finding, such as the paracompass were developed to overcome this problem Today our techniques far exceed these rudimentary nagivational efforts
WEATHER PREDICTION Modem techniques make weather prediction by the Arrabans (about 5000 years ago) seem extremely primitive However their method was well suited to the conditions on Arrakis Indeed, the predictions were remarkably accurate and thus merit note Who would believe that emplacement of poles without sophisticated monitonng equipment could predict weather9 But it did work on Airdkib because all weath er phenomena m inhabited regions were associated with dust storms This simplified the problem over that on other planets A line of poles (or double line) was placed on the lower slopes of garres and ridges Each line ran along the direction of the slope Siting was particularly important The slope had to face a large open area as well as the direction from which storm winds blew had to be devoid of large boulders which could produce eddies required a slope angle of 15 ± 5 degrees and had to be backed by a steep walled topographic feature rising at least 500 meters atx^e the surroundings When these specific conditions were satisfied the upslope winds impacting the topographic feature were not only deflected upward sud
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27
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denly but also crested a wind shadow zone on the upwind side of the obstacle This is not meant to imply that a calm prevailed within the shadow zone Rather, with the specific geometry chosen, die winds are slightly less with the degree of difference increasing as wind speed increased Poles within the shadow zone were thus slightly less exposed to wind action than those down the slope
Hie prevailing winds always earned dust The Franco chose the most easily abradable material they could find (known today as ambonte) to coat die poles This coating would be slowly worn away by even die lightest of winds Measurement of the mass loss each day in itself gave the integrated product of wind speed and dust content to an accuracy somewhat greater than could be determined with instruments in existence at the time By taking the ratio of this product for the down-slope poles to the shadow zone poles, one obtains a wind-speed ratio The accuracy of this determination far exceeded capabilities of other instruments, and even today is better than some of our present instruments (manufacturer claims not withstanding)
One can calculate wind speed from the wind-speed ratio and knowledge of the surface geometry, but mere is no record that the Fremen dtd so or had the mathematical knowledge to do so However, there was no need to make this calculation since the speed ratio was all that was needed for weather prediction on Arrakis It is well established that Arrakian storms were preceded by an extremely small decrease in integrated wind speed (also die speed ratio, which in that case was directly proportional to wind speed) On most other habitable planets this decrease is large, readily noticeable, and is commonly called "the calm before the storm " On Arrakis, the decrease occurred one day before a minor storm, increasing to two days for a major storm, and five days for the greatest Conolis storms The size of the storm to be expected was proportional to the squareof the magnitude of the decrease It is still a source of wonder to many scientists how the Fremen were able to discern these relationships J R
NOTES
'Pardot Kynes Atmosphere of Arrakis ' Bulletin of Planetology NS 127 135 55
^arta Ptahtercicah Water Vapor in the Life Cycles of Organisms Imperial Biology Papers Ser 5, 15 106 68
*L L Nefad, Rotation and Conohs ' Bull Planet OS 784 86 117
4Joon F Hohshas Internaction of Temperature Rotation, and Radiation m Conohs, Bull Planet NS 1301 48 68
5Dont Pachtra Storm Effects on Arrakis Bull Planet OS 1630 230
"R V Aster3k Macro Effects in Charged Dust Particles, Soil Science (Caladan) 27 422 99
7Dont Pachtra Transmission of Sound in Sand Under Conditions Unique to Arrakis Bull Planet NS 5 80-108
Further reference Th Zed Ghralic Arrakian Climato logical Studies from Atreidean Times to the Present M rological Forum whole issue 59
ARRAKIS, Ecological Transformation of. Pardot Kynes (10121-10175) was appointed Plane tologist for Arrakis by Elrood IX in 10149 The 28-year old ecologist was considered too young for the post by his enemies and overdue such an appointment by his supporters Public opinion aside Kynes had already prov en himself one of the leading practitioners in his field with his handling of the Cartha outbreak on Ecaz , and was Elrood s logical choice
From his arrival on Arrakis, Kynes's relations with the Harkonnens then holders of that fief were not good The ecologist cared nothing for politics or intrigues, he simply wished to be left alone to study the desert planet and to report his findings to his emperor This the Harkonnens constantly interfered with, not least by their insistence that one or more of the House guard accompany Kynes at all times Kynes, m turn, protested the restrictions this placed on him avoided them whenever possible, and determined that the rulers of ' his' planet would obtain as little information from him regarding its workings as he could provide
Another division between the two was the Harkonrten's insistence on viewing Arrakis as a hellhole, fit only for producing its pnceless spice and helping to keep its native workforce subdued Kynes on the other hand
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soon became caught up m a vision he be came more and more convinced with each new study he conducted that Arrakis could be transformed into a gentler world, one on which humans could live without the constant threat of death from thirst haunting them
By 10151, he had decided that only the Fremen, already capable of meeting the de sert on its own terms could possibly help him implement his scheme In addition to their own innate ecological sense the Fremen were the only people on Arrakis who did not bow m terror to the Harko&nens They paid no fai no water tribute, to the tyrants, and they were not above guiltlessly killing any outsiders foolish enough to invade their privacy He would convert the Fremen, Kynes decided, as soon as the opportunity Co enter one of their sietches presented itself
In the spring of that same year, on a rare walking excursion without his Harkonnen guards, Kynes stumbled upon his entree Behind the section of the Shield Wall nearest the village of Wmdsack, he found half a dozen fully armed and shielded Harkonnen bullies toying with three Fremen youths, evidently planning to kill them leisurely, for sport Kynes waded into the fray and killed two of the Harkonnen men with a slip-tip before anyone was aware he had joined the battle By this time, the Fremen had downed two of the bullies on their own, but one of the youths was down as well, with a severed artery Kynes dispatched one more Harkonnen, then, leaving the single survivor to his fate at the hands of the two Fremen, gave the third boy the medical attention he needed
To the youths, not yet experienced in the ways of brutal necessity, the Geologist repre sented a water burden they did not know bow to repay Confused, they took Kynes back with them to their unnamed sietch overlooking Wind Pass Let the elders decide what was to be done with this most uncom-moa Imperial servant1
Once in the sietch, Kynes felt himself completely in his element He lectured the amazed Piemen on a number of subjects— the best ways of anchoring dunes with grass, with fruit-beanag trees might best be planted m the resulting greenbelts, pros and cons of
qanat (open trench) irrigation—but always returned to one magic topic water The Fremen listened even as they debated what to do with this insane stranger who had saved three of their number, and marvelled at his complete disregard for his own safety
Kynes was clearly admired by most of the troop, and it was for that reason that his death sentence was delivered with a touch of regret Still, the security of the sietch over rode all other considerations and Uliet one of the troop s most experienced fighters was sent with a consecrated knife to carry out the sentence Two watermen followed him pre pared to release the intruder s water for use by the sietch
It was an efficiency of which Kynes might have approved, had he taken time out from his lecturing to pay attention As it was the ecologist merely paused between sentences when Uliet approached ' Remove yourself he told his appointed executioner, then turned leaving his back open
Uliet hesitated and in that moment of hesitation, made a decision mat would change the destiny of his people Instead of striking the ecologist he took three steps and fell on his crjsknife, 'removing' himself as ordered The stunned watermen earned him off to the deathstill, and Kynes continued his lecture as if nothing had occurred
Not one member of the troop entertained the notion of questioning such an obvious message from Shai-Hulud Kjnes was meant to lead them they, to follow him
Beginning with a one kilometer square area located m the deep desert (around 40° south latitude) Kynes ordered that the tribes begin the work of settling into the hitherto-uninhabited region The first tribe sent out died, almost in its entirety, leaving only a pair of messengers to report back Kynes listened to them, took careful notes and sent out another group this one better prepared Numbering one hundred fifty on departing for the south, the tnbq was reduced by half within the first six months But the settlement was established
Kynes, during this time, was not idle Under the unsuspecting noses of his Harkonnen overseers he smuggled desert Fremen into his Biological Testing Stations The Fremen
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studied, conducted tests, took tools and equipment back to their sietches with them for use in setting up hidden wmdtraps and water basins With agonizing slowness, the basins began to fill, the water gleaned from the air being supplemented by that from the death stills With the sole exception of combat water, which by Fremen law belonged to the victor of a hand-to-hand fight, all water obtained by the sietches found its way into one of these basins No Fremen would dnnk of it, no matter his extremity, on pain of losing his soul It was the Water of Paradise, sacred beyond words
The Harkonnens knew nothing of Kynes's plan, nor of his Fremen Behind the ecology's back, jokes were made about his pleasure m associating with the ' desert scum"—jokes which became even more vicious when it was discovered that he had taken Mitha. a woman from Sietch Tabr, as wife—but no one dared mock him openly Impend servants whatever then1 peculiarities, had power Kynes had more than most, based on his popularity with die emperor and the natives of Arrakis He was given a wide berth
The first core samples taken from the tnal zone, in 10152, revealed that the sand itself could provide most of the nutrients the Fremen's plantings would require, since much of it was produced as a byproduct of sand worm digestion Dust presented'a very real danger even a relatively mild sandstorm could bury the tnal zone It was decided that some old, reasonably stable dunes would give the plantings their best chance—provided the problem of holding down the dust could be resolved
While one group of Kyneft-trained Fremen wrestled with the sand-fixing puzzle, others were studying weather patterns, area climates, and the myriad other pieces of the ecological puzzle
Particularly curious was the existence of a few plants the Fremen discovered and cultivated A rare native root plant, for example, which grew above the 2500-meter level in the northern temperate zone, was often called "Gift to the Thirsty" because of its high water content a tuber two meters long yielded half a liter of water, many umes over the moisture that could be obtained from an
equivalent weight in other vegetation The water the Fremen assumed was not being drawn out of the atmosphere somehow the tubers were responsible for pulling it in Where was it found''
Kynes worked like a madman, correlating data between groups, performing his own research, and doing the social dances re quired to keep the Harkonnens—and the emperor—ignorant of the real purpose of his weak If the strain tired him, he never revealed it to his Fremen, who had come to consider him one of their umma the brotherhood of prophets It made no difference to Kynes what he was called so long as progress was made
Two last discoveries, arrived at within a month of one another provided the data needed to begin the real work The first gave confirmation that what they planned to do was indeed powhle the verification by Kynes himself of the existence of a salt pan m the deep bled This proved that there had been open water on Arrakis at one time, what had been, could be again
The second discovery concerned the sand worm These mighty creatures began their lives as sand plankton, then matured into the sandtrout form before becoming worm It was the sandtrout phase—in which the water-stealers swam freely through the sand and sealed off all available water in the porous lower strata—which most worried Kynes If these animals could seal water so effectively, what was to prevent them from completely drying out any area his Fremen chose to plant?
His fears were proven groundless when captured sandtrout were loosed in one of the Testing Station gardens Try as they might, the sandswimmers could not perform their usual function m an environment choked with plant roots They exhibited two reactions flight and death
More groups of Fremen were sent out to establish other tnal zones along the 40° line With them they earned a vanet) of sophisti cated drilling equipment and sandtrout-proof sheaths, as well as the usual material for constructing wmdtraps and temporary hold ing basins If there was water to be found under the sand in their areas they were
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prepared to dig for it, if not, the wmdtraps alone would have to suffice
They also took seeds for a growth called poverty grass, a mutated version of the plant which had been engineered b) Salim one of Kynes's first Fremen students Tested in the Station facilities, the new grass had shown an encouraging ability to survive on only basic nutrients, airborne moisture, and a mini mum of supplementary watering In each of the dozen planting zones, it was planted along the downwind sides of old dunes, where it stabilised the sand against the pre vailing westerly winds This started a cycle each stabilized area accumulated a higher windward crest after each sandstorm, which would in rural be planted with poverty grass, until s$s, barrier dunes of more than 1,500 meters height were produced
The work involved with the plantings was hackbreakmg, but moved quickly In all but four of the test zones—in which the grass refused to take root—the barrier dunes were ready in a matter of months
Kynes, in the meantime, had undertaken some new labors After weeks of careful inquiry and widespread bribery he had arranged for an interview with Altenes and Gank of Ix, the two men responsible for governing the Spacing Guild Without ex plaining his reasons, but using the Guild s sensitivities concerning its melange supply, Kynes arranged that the Guild not permit observation satellites to be placed above the deep desert on Arrabs The large amount of spice which the Guild demanded as payment was not permitted to weigh against the need for the planted areas, known as palmanes
With tile barriers in place, planting in the eight areas continued Species from alt over the Impenum were brought in and tried, beginning with chenopods, pigweeds, and amaranth Tough, stringy, and difficult for even Arrabs to kill, this trio took only two years to provide bands of growth that were stable and, in the protection of the sifs expanding outward
This was the signal for slightly—but only slightly—-more fragile plantings to be at templed Scotch broom, low lupine, vine eucalyptus (originally adapted for the north-em reaches of Caladan), dwarf tamarisk, and
shore pine were placed at each site The mortality rate of these newcomers was high er than that of their predecessors in spite of the care the Fremen lavished on them but those plants managing to survive were toughened by the trial and promised to pro duce strong seed
Even such limited results were only ob tamable at a tremendous expense of time and labor Each plant was carefully tended pruned and cautiously watered each was provided with its own dew collector to keep the additional moisture needed to A. minimum (Dew collectors were smooth chromoplastic ovals which were placed over the pit containing the plant's roots During the day the chromo plastic was gleaming white—at night, trans parent It cooled rapidly following the change and condensed air moisture which then trickled down to the roots) Aside from the work directly involved with the plantings, there was much support production needed dew collectors, stillsuits, cloth and all the other necessities for the sietch had to be manufac tured
Every member of the troop at the earliest possible age, was expected to contribute Fremen children scarcely taller than the plants they policed were taught to check dew collectors and remove dead or dying growths, and began instruction in the workings of Arrakis s ecology at age five
Kynes's own son, known by his troop name of Liet was no exception Mitha, the boy's mother died shortly after his birth m 10156, and Kynes allowed the child to be brought up among the odier children of Sietch Tabr Liet along with his peers, divided his time between in sietch education and work at the various plantings
Kynes knowing himself to be under more or less constant surveillance by the Harkon nens, stayed away from the palmanes But his was still the guiding hand, and when the reports from his Fremen (in 10160) indicated that the second-stage plantings were now thriving he ordered the process advanced
Candellilla, saguaro, and bis naga or barrel cactus, were next in line, followed in 10163 by camel sage onion grass, gobi feather grass, wild alfalfa, burrow bush, sand verbena, evening primrose, incense bush,
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smoke tree, and creosote bush Not all vane-ties took equally well at every site, but by 10167 each of the palmanes had more than tripled its original groundcover area, with increasingly large amounts of water being successfully tied into the root systems
Animals were imported next kit fox, kangaroo mouse, desert hare, and sand terrapin to burrow and keep the soil aerated, desert hawk, dwarf owl eagle, and desert owl to keep the bmrowers from overrunning the sites, scorpions, centipedes, trapdoor spider, biting wasp, and wormfly to fill other necessary ecological niches, and the desert bat, to keep the insects under control
Finding the proper balances among the new arrivals took only two years—-the ecolo-gtst Flymen having learned their lessons well— and the palmanes were readied for their most crucial stage More than 200 selected food plants, including coffee, date palms, melons, cotton, "and various medicmals, were smuggled in from off-planet and dispersed among the palmanes
Knowing how vital to their goal the surviv al of these plants was, the Fremen worked harder than ever In some cases, round-the-clock watches were set up over newly planted areas to ensure their safety from raids by the nocturnal rodents Whenever a plant failed, the remains were as carefully examined as an aulopsied emperor
Information was routed back to Kynes chiefly through his son, who had become a sandnder at die usual age of twelve Liet's powers of memory and observation were good, and over the next three years he carried increasingly encouraging reports to his father Of the varieties planted, over a hun dred had been successfully cultivated without major change Of those which remained seventy five had been discovered to be adapt able to Arrakis, through grafting, crossbreeding, or alteration of seeds by various external stimuli (The rremen Sahm, beyond doubt Kynes's star pupil, had assembled a group specializing in this type of treatment) Only thirty-odd plants proved absolutely incapable of surviving
As the cultivated areas expanded farther, however, a strange phenomenon was noticed Protein incompatibility was poisoning the
sand plankton which came in contact with the new hfeforms At the desert edge of each palmary, a barren zone was formed, saturated with poisonous water which none of the Arrakis life would touch
This was an unforeseen development, and one which Kynes did not feel competent to handle on other than an on the-spot basis Fabricating a story about an obscure type of plant he wished to investigate at an outlying sietch, the planetologist managed to elude the Harkonnens and arrange transportation to the south (He made the twenty-thumper trip in a palanquin, earned by his Fremen, as though he were a wounded man or Reverend Mother, since he had never become a sandnder }
For three days after his arrival at the barren zone, Kynes locked himself into his yah his personal quarters where no other would dare disturb him, and examined sam pies of the poisoned soil On the morning of the fourth day, looking as haggard as a man who had walked in from the Great Flat, he emerged, and delivered electrifying news to the anxious Fremen
The poison was a disguised blessing, a gift from Shai-Humd' The addition of fixed nitrogen and sulfur to the chemicals pro duced b) the decomposed sand plankton would convert the barren zone to rich soil in which then1 plantings could thrive The speed with which the palmanes could expand would now be determined solely by the amount of labor the Fremen could afford them, and by the volume of water available
The new advance cut down Kynes s pro jected timetable for the transformation con siderably—to a mere three and one-half centuries But the Fremen were a people who had learned patience at the hands of men with whips, they were content to wait, knowing that their labors would buy glory for themselves and a living paradise for their descendants
The palmanes continued on the course Kynes had set tenderly cared for by the Fremen and unknown to any outsiders for almost half a century Kynes s death in 10175, in a cave in at Plaster Basin caused no deviation from the plan Nor did the Har konnen-Atreides warfare the demise of Liet
ARRAK1S, ECOLOGY
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Kynes (who had inherited his father's place with the tribes) in 10191, nor even the ascension of Paul Muad'Dib Atreides in 10196. When the soldiers of the Jihad left Arrakis it was with the knowledge that those left behind were also fighting for their cause by tending the paimaries.
Not until 10221, when Leto II allowed himself to be transformed into the superhuman being who would rale for over three thousand years, was Paidot Kynes's plan brooked. As wise raid as farsighted as the planetologist had been, he had never imagined that his timetable might conflict with that of a god.
Leto H, just beginning his reign, needed time. He knew that he would continue, and perhaps hasten, the transformation which Kyncs had initiated, but be had not yet decided at what pace it would be done. In 10221 he purchased a breathing space of several decades by destroying the qamts of four of the eight paimaries: Gara Rulen, Windsack, Old Gap, and Harg.2
Deprived of their water, the still-fragile plantings withered and died. This left only half the original number of green areas— Wind Pass, Chin Rock. Hagga Basin, and Tsimpo—4o harbor Kynes's, and bis Eremens', dreams.
The Fremen, terrified by the sudden destruction, but unable to face abandoning their work, concentrated their efforts on the remaining sites and hoped for peace.
Leto II. once his rule was firmly 'established, gave them rather more man that. He brought the decades-old secret into the open, acknowledged the paimaries' existence, and made their advancement an Imperial priority. The Fremea were able to go on with their work at a pace which would have astonished and gratified Pardot Kynes.
By 10260, fifty paimaries, each larger than any of the original sites, were in various stages of completion; a century later, they had spread over enough of the Arrakis surface to establish the "self-sustaining cycle" which Kynes had originally predicted would occur. (He had estimated mat three percent of the green plant element would have to be involved in forming carbon compounds to start the cycle working, and he was very
nearly correct. The actual figure was 3.92 percent.)
As the greenbelts and groves took over larger and larger segments of the planet, the native lifeforms, including the sandworms, were driven off into increasingly smaller reservation;*. The establishment of Kynes's cycle signaled the end for them: the last sandworra sighting occurred in 10402,' and the sandworm was in its death throes.
The God Emperor stepped in once again, ordering the placement of Ixian weather-control satellites over the small area of the planet which remained desert. While weather satellites had been in use on Arrakis to one degree or another since the rule of Leto IPs father, these were intended for a use unique in the planet's history. Earlier satellites had been brought in to help gentle the fierce climate; these were intended to bring back some of that lost ferocity, to preserve one small piece of Arrakis, the Sareer, in as close to its original form as possible.
The work for which the paimaries had been designed was completed, well ahead of the fondest expectations of the man who had first evisioned them. Arrakis, Dune, the Desert Planet, in a sense existed no longer.
C.T
NOTES
'In 10148, Cartha fungus threatened to destroy Ecaz's entire fogwood crop; Kynes recommended importing spores of Kuenn's Fungus, a benign growth which crowded out the Cartha, saving the valuable wood.
^The eight paimaries were named for eight of the Imperial Testing Stations; in this way, it was hoped, they could be mentioned without alerting the Harkonnens.
Further references: ARRAKIS, ATMOSPHERE OF BEKJRE THE ATREIDES; Pardot Kynes, Ecology of Dune, tr. Ewan Gwatan, Arrakis Studies 24 {Grumman. United Worlds), Harq al-Ada, The Story ofliel-Kynes (Work-in-Progress, Arabs Studies, Temp. Ser. 109, Lib. Conf.)
ARRAKIS, Geology. (A multitude of papers have appeared during the last several thousand years discussing the origin, evolution, and present state of planets and planetary systems. The geologic history of Arrakis is fascinating, but no more so than of a great number of other planets. No good or recent
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review of its geology exists The information presented here is cuBed from many published reports, too numerous to list The only references given are to those papers which contain information of special interest)
GEOMETRIC ASPECTS Arrakis revolves about Canopus at a mean distance of 87 million kilometers, significantly closer than most C subclass planets, C designating third major from the primary TT« planet's orbtt about Canopus was roughly circular about 5,000 years ago However, the second (B) and fourth (D) planets circling Canopus, neither habitable, are much larger than Arrakis The inner, Menans, has a mean equatorial radius of 7,862 kilometers while the outer, Extans, has a radius of 8,112 kilometers Arrakis by com parjson has & conespontim£ radius of only 6,128 kilometers (actually 6127 9621438 talome ters as of year 14521 tot those readers inter-
ested in such details) Menans and Extans also have highly elliptical orbits lying well outside the ecliptic plane defined by the orbit of Arrakis about Canopus As a result of the gravitational pulls of these planets informally called the Twins, Arrakis ih now known to achieve a highly eccentric orbit maxi mum elhpttcity 2 1, every 12,323 years The Twins also have a profound impact upon Anakeen geology and tectonics
The length of the year vanes from 295 standard days to 595 At present it is 353 days When Arrakis is in its most elliptical phaseseasonal changes are extreme Winters are extremely severe all over the planet Throughout historical times the orbit has been roughly circular for the most part widi very little in the way of seasonal change Only the geological record and theoretical calculations tell us that conditions dunng the
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ARRAKIS, GEOLOGY
past were drastically different from those we now experience.
Arrakis has two natural moons. A third was destroyed by impact from an on-rushing asteroid/comet. A ring structure was formed, circling the planet, but most of the debris impacted the planet's surface. Since the moon lay in Arrakis's ecliptic plane, die ring of dust caused a major reduction in star energy striking the surface. Hence surface temperatures were reduced and aft ice age occurred. Many life species perished while others assumed dominance. Many believe mat oft-told legends refer to this event, and would place it at about 33,000 years before the present. But geological data suggest mat the event occurred at least 200,000 years ago.
The two remaining moons cause major changes in Arrakis's rotation about ks own axis. The Twins also contribute, but their effects are long-term. Arrakis averages 22.4 standard hours per day. However, the shortest days of record occurred from J2310 to 12420 with the absolute shortest day being 5.28 hours in duration. This occurred on 5 n£l-roodim 12370 Imperial. The longest day recorded thus far was 43.2 standard hours (25 nAtaaaim 15052 Imperial). Theoretical calculations show mat under special circumstances the day can be as short as 3.81572 hours and as long as 51.36405 hours. These changes in rotation rate, as well as the effects of Menaris and Extaris have had profound impact on the geologic evolution of Arrakis.
MORPHOLOGY. The first complete mapping and interpretation of the surface of Arrakis was done by Kyncs (10901), who claimed to be an eighth generation descendant of the famous planetotogist of the same name who lived during the time of Paul Maud'Dib. Dramatic changes have occurred since then and these changes as well as present topography are detailed by Xcnach (15029). At present many mountain ranges and deep valleys (grabens) exist in all regions of the planet, a situation similar to that of the earliest known phase of me planet's history. During the middle phase, as existed during tones's time, extensive desertification had occurred. The earlier mountains had been severely eroded, primarily by sand
blasting, and the surface was mostly flat except for isolated garres and ridges, a few volcanic peaks such as Mt, Idaho, Mt. Kynes, and Observatory Mt., and the dune fields.
It is only because the planet is so geologically active that any elevation difference, other than the sand dunes, existed at all during the middle phase. Arrakis is the most geologically active of all Neta planets and the rate of mountain building almost managed to keep pace with rapid erosion by sand blasting. Today with much-reduced eolian erosion as a result of the greening of Arrakis, and with little in the waj of water erosion, mountains are rising rapidly (rapidly m a geological time sense). Mt. Idaho is still the highest peak. Its summit is currently 9,524 meters above the bled, compared to only 7,393 meters seven thousand years ago. Several mountain ranges now have peaks exceeding 7,400 meters in elevation.
There are numerous deep valleys (grabens), the greatest nf which is Grose Valen, with maximum depth of 1,250 meters, maximum width of 2,800 meters and a length of about 730 km. During the desertification phase of the planet's history, most of these were filled with dust and called tidal dust basins or dust chasms by the natives. Today many of these chasms have re-opened through geological processes, and many more have formed. The major grabens are not formed by running water; rather they are a result of the dynamic development of the planet, discussed in the next section. Filling of the chasms today results primarily from'landslides and rockfalis. The chasms provide much more of an obstacle to surface travel than the mountain ranges since they can be crossed only by very long and expensive bridges, and they expand and contract so rapidly that no bridge lasts very long Hence most travel is by air
Few permanent rivers or bodies of standing water #re present on Arrakis and drainage systems are poorly developed even after the ecological transformation completed by Leto II. Flash floods occur occasionally in mountainous areas, hut all m all Arrakis is still quite water poor. Water ice is present in the polar caps, as is the case with all Neta-2C planets, but the total amount is small compared to that of other planets of the group.
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Garres are plentiful, and are easily distinguished by their flat tops They are the oldest exposed areas on the planet, being remains of ancient plateaus formed by widespread lava flow very early m the planet's evolution when water was plentiful and water erosion dominant Ancient water courses are still visible on their tops and their sides
One of the most interesting aspects of Arrakeen surface rnotphology is that the mountain chains and grabens run either north-south or east-west (geographic coordinates) This geometry is noted on a number of Neta-2C planets but never as clearly defined as on Arrakis As will be seen shortly, this geometry is intimately connected with the nature of tectonic processes on the planet
The small polar caps lie below bled level This "polar sink" is uncommon but geological evidence has shown that the ice caps were much more massive in the distant past even existing as such during the early periods of human habitation (Hackelrhued) Periodic episodes of ice advance occurred with massive glaciers and continental glaciation from the north polar cap extending as far south as 62° N latitude while that from the southern cap had furthest advance to 58° S These massive ice movements from the poles scoured much of the rock in the polar areas, earned it to more temperate climes where the ice melted and deposited its mix of rock flour The polar sinks were thus created Since the present ice caps exist in depressions it has been suggested that energy from Canopus be focused with large solar satellite arrays to form polar lakes The water from these lakes would then be drained through tunnels to provide irrigation to those areas of Arrakis most m need of the water Ghrahc has provided compelling arguments against such a project, concluding that the present climatic balance on the planet would be seriously disturbed with possibly disastrous results
GEOLOGIC HISTORY, TECTONICS Arrakis, as a Neta 2C class planet, evolved after formation much as other planets of the classification The oldest rocks on Arrakis have been dated, isotopically, as being 1 1 eons in age (1 eon = 1 billion standard years) These older rocks have been found only by deep drilling ami furthermore have
been located only in a few places, existing as small fragments contained in much younger rock Almost all other planets of the same classification have rock exposed at the surface with ages greater than 2 I eons The evidence that geologic processes on Arrakis are much more dynamic in the destruction of ancient rock and the formation of new rock and surface features is thus convincing
The ancient Terrans held a simplistic view of planetary genesis still accepted today in most respects Thev believed that planets were formed by accretion of smaller fragments dust, gas and ices remaining about a star after or during stellar formation As each planet grew, its interior warmed through gravitational contraction with heat released by radioactive decay The surfaces and mten ors of Neta-class (modern terminology) plan ets soon became molten After about one eon sufficient cooling occurred to form a solid crust Convection in the planet's mol ten mtenor caused continued breakup of the crust and formation of new crust i^mubt like scum floating on the surface of a bubbling pot of molten fanmetal) As cooling contin ued the crust thickened to the pomt where it became stable and a basically permanent feature This typically occurred about 1 5 eons after formation
Eventually the mtenor became only quasi molten However, heat generated by radioac live decay continued to cause a slow convec tion which m turn produced on-going dis turbances within the crustal material These included volcanic eruptions quakes and move ment of portions of the crust with respect to the other portions such phenomena coatmu mg to the present The Terrans called these crustal motions piate tectonics and, as noted above, ascribed the heat energy from radioactivity to be the driving energy source From the relatively few scientific records remaining from Terran times it appears that this explanation was universally accepted However, oi the tojr Neta-class planets in their planetary system only one exhibits plate tectonics behavior
Today we know exactly what causes plate tectonics, why only some Neta planets exhibit plate tectonics behavior, and hence why Arrakis is more technically active man any other
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ARRAKIS GEOLOGY
Neta planet Bnaceret has summanzed cur rent understanding Heat from radioactive decay by itself iis insufficient to cause crusta] (plate) movements Also, internal heat is not necessary although in all cases internal heating results from action of the mechanism primarily responsible for plate motions
Two mechanisms are known convection currents resulting from severe internal heating and external gravitational torques In some cases both mechanisms play a major role The former is the sole mechanism for only a few planets, none of which exist in the Terrans' planetary system The required heating conies in part from radioactive decay but mostly from neutrinos emitted by the host starts) Absorption of neutrinos by the planet produces the heat Since neutrinos have no mass or charge most will pass through a planet without interaction Hence, in the absence of large external gravitational torques, the severe internal heating required occurs only when the neutrino flux is very large Very few stars produce a sufficiently large flux Suffice it to saj that Canopus does not produce a large flux of neutrinos
Gravitational torques are the dominant mechanism for most planets exhibiting plate tectonics behavior Requirements are (1) adja cent planet! s) with mass considerably larger than the planet in question and/or one or more moons with mass of an appreciable fraction of the host planet, and (2) orbits of the adjacent planet(Y) and/or the moon(s) which he appreciably outside the ecliptic plane of the planet, and are preferably eccentric The resulting gravitational torques generate large stresses which tn turn cause crustal movement with associated tectonic phenomena The planet is heated internally by friction, but this heating is secondary to the entire process
Arralas, as noted earlier, has larger planets on each side, Menans and Ex tans, both of which Mve highly elliptical orbits with orbital planes lying well outside that of Arrakis Plate tectonics on Arrakis is thus caused by gravitational torques The unusual closeness and large size of Menans and Ettam cause ArraJos to exhibit exceptional geologic activity Quakes are common and the amount of volcanic activity is on the high side, but certain ly not extreme Portions of the crust are
displaced with respect to other crustal seg ments by the astounding amount of 30 centi meters per year (planetary mean) New moun tains are formed and old ones destroyed at a geologically rapid rate Over one 2 000 year penod the Trambhsch Range rose 3 125 meters Grabens open, oscillate, and close at equally rapid rates The north south and east west trends of all mountain ranges and gra bens is a result of the particular geometry of the Menans Extans-Arrakis system and stress field orientation so produced
Arrakis is a favorite planet for planetary geologists because one can literally see geo logic proteges m action with only a short time of observation Mapping however, is a problem and the planet is a civil engineer s nightmare
INTERIOR The crust of Arrakis is rather thin, averaging only 10 kilometers in thickness An mcipiently molten region, the source region for volcanic activity lies immediately below The remainder of the planet is basical ly solid except for a small, fluid central core Arrakis has a relatively weak magnetic field which is produced in the core It is of interest to note that even after many thou sands of years of study the exact mechanism by which the magnetic field is produced is still not fully understood
It has been known for some time that the chemical composition of a planet depends upon Us distance from the mom btar and that same planets consist primarily of silicates some primarily of hydrogen (quasi stars) some primarily of sulfides while some are mostly metallic The Neta class is defined specifically as comprising those planets with a composition of 60 ± 10% silicates (by mass), 30 ± 10% metals, 10 ± 5% sulfides and less than 5% hydrogen The crust and upper layers of Arrafas are composed almost entirely of silicates the middle and lower layers are primarily silicates, but with significant amounts of metals and sulfides, while the core is primarily metallic with a small amount of sulfides I he precise chemical composition of Arrakis is 69 723% silicates 21 388% metallics 7 691% sulfides and 1 198% hy drogen and miscellaneous J R
Further references ARRAKIS ATMOSPHERE OF BEFORE THE ATREIDES Th Zed Ghralic The Geology of Arrabs Present Views Geological Record 90 748 73 H K
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ARRAKIS, OXYGEN SAGA
Praeshan, Arrakeen Archeology (Topaz Carolus UP), ZG Kynes, 'Surface Feature Summary of Arrakis, Bulletin of Planetology NS 901 39-49, A G Xcnach, "Comparison ofRakeen Datums, 10000-15000," Geo logical Record 79 35-40, Zhuurazh Hackelrhued, "The 'Polar Slide' Phenomenon of Airakis," Geological Rec ord 85 573-95, PR Bnacewt, The Mechanisms of Plate Tectonics, Science Occasional Papers (Loomar R1T Press)
ARRAKIS. Oxygen Saga. All known "intelligent" forms of life requite oxygen, and the atmospheres of all habitable planets con tain at least 19% oxygen The history of oxygen on Arrakis is unique, including one proved oxygen-depletion catastrophe and one near-catastrophe, the latter occurring in historical times, making Arrakis worth special note.
The major source of atmospheric oxygen is plant photosynthesis. If life evolves on a planet at all, rudimentary plant life is first seen in the fossil record about one-and-a-half to two billion years after planet formation Two billion years or so pass before the required 19% oxygen is reached. By this time advanced plant hfe forms are widespread. Fossil remains of lycopsids ami spheaopstds are especially common Arrakis followed this sequence, its atmospheric oxygen content reaching 19% about 900 million years ago.
Arrakis followed die normal evolutionary sequence for the next 850 million years. By this time a great diversity of marine and land life had evolved Land-dwelling mammals and reptiles were abundant. However, the fossil record makes it clear that die very large reptiles found on some planets even today never evolved
The oxygen catastrophe on Arrakis occurred about 49.7 million years ago Only a few sedimentary rocks are found less than 49 7 million years old, and their formation ceased about 48.5 million years ago. Since sedimentary rocks almost invariably require the presence of standing water in order to form the evidence shows that the oceans largely disappeared 49.7 million years ago The small, remnant oceans and all traces of standing water disappeared within the next million years.
A nearly complete extinction of life occurred concurrently Very few remains of land life have been found in wind-deposited sediments formed since; most animal and
vegetable life species on Arrakis today are generally believed to have been imported by the Fremen during their original colonization of the planet Sediments show an almost complete lack of oxygen, an amount certainly far below that required for intelligent life This dramatic oxygen decrease was followed by a gradual rise By the time the Fremen arrived some eighty-five hundred years ago, the oxygen amount was well above minimum requirement, and three species of small, oxygen-breathing animals had reappeared
The fossil record in the marine sediments deposited after the event indicates that the only survivors were several species of worms, mostly of the burrow ing type, phylum proto-chordata, and several micro-organisms of the protozoa phylum together with some vane-ties* of plankton Of these, only class shai-huludata, phylum protochordata, survived to recent times The fascinating story of the evolution of this worm from a small marine creature to the water aversive Shai-Hulud (sandworm) of present-day Arrakis is given by Satonma As a bottom-burrowing urgdmsm, the worm was able to survive the initial cataclysmic event It was thus given time to adapt to the gradual evaporation of what remained of the ongmal oceans The worm's predators had undergone mass extinction In addition, lack of competition for food provided conditions which helped the adaptation By the time desertification was complete, Shai-Hulud had become perfectly adapted to an and environment Scientists generally believe that sandworms could evolve once again into marine-dwelling creatures, given a few million years of gradual change in environment But the worm cannot withstand sudden contact with water today any more than it could have withstood sudden contact with air 49 7 million years ago For many centu lies it was believed that Shai-Hulud was responsible for the desertification of Arrakis However, many scientists now believe that sandworms are the product, not the cause
It is strange that even today, with all the scientific data that have been accumulated, we still do not know what caused this catastrophe However, the cumetary hypothesis is the most probable answer "This theory involves cometary impact or near-miss The comet sweeps away the bulk of Arrakis'
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atmosphere, the oceans gradually evaporate, but at a rapidly slowing rate as water vapor causes a partial rejuvenation of the atmosphere However, water vapor is continually lost to space Volcanic activity adds gases to the atmosphere and eventually over a million years or so a new equilibrium is established Meanwhile the oxygen has been lost and cannot be replenished because the vegetation has been tailed, as have almost all living species The planet, severely depleted in water vapor, can no longer sustain the residual ocean mass
Arrakis would probably not be suitable for man today if it were not for sandworms After recognition that an oxygen catastrophe had occurred on the planet, scientists were puzzled as to where the present oxygen came from Dragan et al solved die problem when they discovered that as part of its metabolic processes Shai-Huluci produces oxygen If this fact had been known earlier, the recent near-catastrophe in oxygen deprivation could have been avoided
Man produced this near-catastrophe by interfering with the natural course of events Specifically, about five millennia ago, the famous planteologist Pardot Kynes started to plant the deserts of Arrakts, thereby transforming the planet into a site much more hospitable to hfe The process was very slow in getting started, for political and other reasons, and it was not uaul about 4,000 standard years ago that massive plantings began In hindsight, the caution that should have been taken is evident Vegetation requires water, but water kills sandworms Both vegetation and sandworms produce oxygen Atmospheric oxygen is rapidly depleted by chemical combination with rock on a planet as technically active as Arrakis Hence unless the rates at which vegetated areas are expanded and worms are killed are carefully controlled, the amount of oxygen can dip below the minimum required This dire event almost happened
The first recognition that something was amiss occurred in 12820 A wildlife survey, completed that year, showed a dramatic de crease m the numbers of birds and mammals, and die general health of several species was poor Concurrently, scientific studies showed
that the atmospheric oxygen content had dropped from 20 12% to 19 68% As a result, Lord Leto appointed a Planteology Commis sion to head a scientific task force
Eight years were required to produce the final report In the meantime oxygen content had dropped to 19 23%, dangerously close to the critical level Humans were exhibiting signs ot oxjgen-deficienc} distress and several hundred deaths ha\e been attributed to this problem If local manufacture and large scale transport of oxygen for human consumption had not been started, the death toll would hdve been much higher
Since that time the areas under cultivation and those reserved for desert have been care fully managed The atmospheric oxygen con tent reached a minium of 19 07% in 12840 and started to rise perceptably by 12845 Today the oxygen is controlled at 23 58%, and present plant life is sufficient to maintain this level J R
Further references SANDWORMS Anra Satorima Adversit\ to Supremacy The Evolution of Shaihuludata (Loomar RTT Press) WN Dragan CD Urabo and AH Hautan Oxygen as Waste Product m Shaihuludata Science (Loomar) 70 442 453
ASSASSIN'S HANDBOOK Originally a third-millennium compilation of information on poisons to aid professional assassins, The Assassin s Handbook was expanded in the fifth millennium (5345 5348) by a commit tee appointed by Emperor Kelal Djordjevich to discuss the theory and practice of legal ized murder under the rules of the Great Convention and the conditions defined by the Guild Peace The expanded Handbook resulting from the committee s deliberations was widely circulated and read dunng the Old (pre Atreides) Imperium, for it was held in high regard by mercenaries and master assassins employed by the emperor and the Great Houses Also used by several training schools for professional assassins the Handbook fell into some official disrepute during the reign of Paul Muad Dib and the Regency of his sister Aha, although its principles continued to be employed During the long reign of Emperor Leto Atreides, the Handbook was officially held to be as contemptible a^ the profession of assassin, and Emperor Leto s Imperial guard, the warrior females or Fish
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ASSASSIN S HANDBOOK
Speakers'' were ordered to confiscate copies of the Handbook whenever they found it, although privately they were instructed to master its principles As a result of this suppression, far fewer copies of the Handbook survive than might be desired A few may be found m museums on Giedi Prime and Grumman, while the remainder appear to be located in private collections
The authorship of the original version of the handbook is a matter for controversy, but a consensus seems to assign it to Keshas Zhorzh, a third millennium assassin employed by House Montaiu Zhorzh was suspected of several murders of prominent aristocrats, es pecially members of House Gmaz, House Atreides, and House Herzog Oddly, Zhorzh himself succumbed to chaumurky probably administered by an Imperial servant, in 3756 On Zhorzh's life, see The Practice of Death by Zhautu Kuuraveer
The expanded version of The Assassin's Handbook is attributed by most authorities to the committee of rune appointed by the Pro lector Kelai Djordjevich, it was later ratified by the Landsraad (5359), by which time several of the authors, themselves mentals and master assassins employed by the Great Houses, had become victims of the vreissi tudes of their profession One of the com mrttee, however, deserve;, special note the Imperial representative, Count Otho Fenrmg, himself known lo have been an able assassin— indeed, some have argued, one of die su pfeme artists of his profession Count Fennng's influence on the final draft of the The Assassin s Handbook appears to have been considerable, especially when fee text is com pared to his monograph on The Fine Art of Professional Homicide, the passages concern ing methods of circumventing the rules of kanly without detection In the early millen ma after the Butlenan Jihad, assassination flourished, but assassination m general was often crude and impulsive, tacking in the finer artistry and subtlety which the master assassins of the old Irapenum attained The accomplishments of these highly skilled pro fcssionals must be m large part attributed not only to years of careful refinement of their ait, but to the tutelage of such repositories of conning as The Assassin's Handbook
The handbook was divided into four major parts, the first dealing with poisons—a lega cy from the first version—the second with other weapons and their uses, and the third section with a discussion of strategies and odds, as well as methods of circumventing the Great Convention, and the rules of kanly The fourth section of the Handbook de scribed certain professional standards and rules of prudence
In the section devoted to poisons, the various po^-abilities of chaumurky and basiha receive the greatest attention Chaumurky was a genera! term for any poison administered in a drink and was thus a logical agent for murder for a political world heavily dependent on festivals and ceremony Basiha is a poison which aUs swiftly when injected into the bloodstream and which was therefore often placed on the tip of a knife or sword Since basiha was also nearly invisible to the naked eye, it was a favorite with many professional assassins in the Old Impenum though its use depended usually on some context where the rules of hand to hand combat would apply
Yet another poison of note discussed in the manual was knmmon, a gas capable of being earned in a tray capsule, which upon its release might well prove lethal to the occu pants of a large room, even an auditorium Students of the history of the Atreides family will recall that Duke Leto was armed by his traitorous physician with a tooth containing knminon When Duke Leto depressed the false tooth, at his last audience with Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the expanding cloud killed the baron s master assassin and very nearly brought about the baron s death
Finally a poison of particular interest be cause of its painful side effects is given a bnef but special eminence in the Handbook Most of the poisons m the book were \alued because of their switt action, and their ability to be disguised But one seldom-used poison zenobia or the 'throat of hell " was highlj respected because of the excruciating pain it imposed on the victim when ingested m food or dnnk Zenobia was recommended for those special occasions when the prospective victim was completely at the assassin's mercy, and the killer wanted to
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impose a remarkably horrifying demise on his—and often her—enemy Generally the professional assassin was advised to eschew personal feeling and to approach his work with a suitable objectivity and craftsmanship beyond mere vulgar expressions of personality, but the Handbook acknowledged that there were some occasions when even the professional using the logical approach stressed by mentat training might well find it pleasurable to allow himself some of the enjoyment of personal revenge
The second section of the Handbook devot ed itself to die discussion of conventional weapons, primarily swords and lasguns, and their functional advantages and disadvantages for the assassin As with the poisons, subtlety was recommended, for as the Hand book comments, "Any mindless mercenary can commit indiscriminate homicide which will probably rebound upon himself" (In passing, it might be noted mat the manual was written m a style mat was often tren chant raid sometimes characterized by a nch sense of irony) Assassins were instructed to acquire swordmaster training as a matter of course, and, tf at all possible, to develop considerable competence in marksmanship, although tile Handbook implies that the master assassin would whenever possible, leave slaughter with lasguns to ordinary journeymen
Section mice of the Handbook provided a detailed analysis of the odds for success in given situations where the assassin might be expected to perform his work The best strategies, for instance, for murdering guests at a formal dinner were evaluated, as well as the methods of avoiding swift reprisal Much space was given to the problems of infiltrating a ducal palace or launching attacks at pubhc events and ceremonies, especially sporting events
The fourth part of the Handbook's com meatary presented the rules of the Great Convention and the code of kanly and provid ed numerous suggestions of how these might be circumvented or turned to the advantage of the assassin A favorite method involved bflbmg the judges or Imperial representa lives at various transactions between the great houses The use of poisoned swords at single combat was brought up again here, although much had already been said of this tactic in
earlier sections Various means of infiltrating the defenses of ducal castles despite the use of shields and other protections, were also considered at length here
This section also presented the conven tions and ritual formulas involved in a War of Ai»&dt>i>iite, from the formal declaration of intent with the Imperial Registrar and the Landsraad Secretariat to the final moment when victory was declared for one side or the other The Handbook however, seemed to imply that even such formal wars were best carried out on a small scale and waged with subtlety by experts rather than becoming engagements involving large groups of soldiers A frequent metaphor in the Handbook is that of the Cheops master and the authors seemed to regard the art of assassination as a profession rather like that of the grand master of Cheops
A final note at the end of the Handbook concerned the assassin s need for self-protection He was enjoined to learn much of his employer s pnvate crimes, and to store the information in places beyond the employer s reach, with provisions that would allow it to become public in the event of his own death The assassin was also warned to make himself as valuable as possible to his master yet never to believe himself irreplac-able Most important, the Handbook advised the assassin to respect his profession and to avoid the temptations of political ambition or personal involvement in his work Although many famous assassins found the first easy enough, some authorities doubt mat most of them were able to avoid the second pitfall
One fascmdtmg aspect of the study of the Handbook is the discovery of two surviving copies with annotations One that once belonged to the Harkonnen family contains many terse and interesting comments on practical matters of technique, together with a surprising passage near the end where the author, m a vengeful tone, makes several animadversions on a Bene Gessent witch ' The last entry is indeed astonishing, because many of the earlier annotations had remarked on the folly of emotional involvement in the theory and practice of assassination The presence of the initials T H in several places makes the identification of the author as Thufir Hawat, as assassin in the employ
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of the Atreides House, and later a servant of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, extremely plausible, as Harq al-Ada contends in a note in House Atreides. A Historical Overview. However, Kuuraveer argues in The Art of Legal Murder that such an attribution is too obvious, and puts forward an alternative case for Tomar Haanigan, a contract killer and owner of several bordellos on Silverado where the Harkonnen slave raiders went in search of fresh victims.
The other copy of the Handbook contains two sets of annotations. Apparently lodged in the Fremen Museum on Arrakis at one time (several of the first set of notes refer to Fretnen weapons and rituals), it seems that later during the Duncan Days it was taken elsewhere, and is now located m & museum on Grumman. The second group of notes, much later than the first annotations, discuss the vagaries of feminine warriors, with some obvious allusions to the Fish Speakers. Even more curious is the fact that the two sets of annotations were made centuries or even millennia apart, yet there exists a curious similarity between the handwriting of each set. This strange phenomenon has seemed good grounds for some scholars, even including Kuuraveer, to credit the notes in this book to two different incarnations of Duncan Idaho.
It may safely be concluded from a study of the Handbook and its role in the stormy history of me Imperium, both in pre-Atretdes times and in the days of the Atreides emperors, that it is in many ways a symbol of the barbaric work! of those times. Contemporary readers may well rejoice that they live in a more enlightened era, when the practice of legalized murder is no longer tolerated. E.G.
Farther references; WAR of ASSASSINS; HALLECK, OURNEY; Zhauta Kiwraveer, The Practice of Death and The Art of the Duel, both from Kiitam Varna; Otho, Count Fennng, The Fine An of Prtgessional Homicide, ei. and tr. Tovat Gwtnsted {Grumman Tern); Margot Lady Boring, Arralds and After, Arrakis Studies 12 (Grumman. United Worlds); Jaspar Kobura, House H&rkomen. A Historical Sketch (Stoddard: Brujovia); Zhautu Kuuravwr, The Art of legal Murder (Grumman: Ttra); H»q al-Ada, House Atreides; A Historical Overview, tr, Zhaulya Muurazharai (Ubermanm Pmetrae); Landsraad-liupmal Committee on Conflict Containment, I he Assassin's Handbook, Lib. Coof. Temp. Series 88
ATREIDES, LADY ALIA (also "The Womb of Heaven," "The Accursed One," "Saint Aha-of-the-Kmfe"; 10191-10220).
BIOGRAPHICAL DATA. Born in 10191, within a year of her parents' move from Caladan to Arrakis, the Lady Alia was the first of the Atreides pre-born. Her consciousness was permanently altered during the Water of Life ceremony which made her mother, the Lady Jessica, a Fremen Reverend Mother The desert folk did not know of Jessica's pregnancy, and so had no way of knowing that they were creating more than a new Reverend Mother when they fed Lady Jessica the '' illuminating poison''; the recently-widowed Lady knew the effect the raw Water of Life would have on her unborn daughter, but could not refuse the ceremony. The result was the creation of something Jessica's Bene Gessent superiors had long feared: a child born with ful! awareness and knowledge of her ancestral memories.
The superstitious Fremen were affected by the child from the moment of her birth. After only a few moments of crying, the newborn looked around the birthing room as
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if taking in every detail with her already-focused eyes, and with a curious smile, drank the Water of Conception fed her by her godmother Harah. Some of the other women present at the birth were unnerved by this behavior and spread the word among their people that their new Reverend Mother had given birth to a child who would bear careful watching. The Bene Gesserit were not the only group in the Injperium with legends of Abomination,
Alia's precocity in other matters did nothing to soothe the firemen's unease. By the time she could walk, only eight months after her birth, she was exercising their water discipline as thoroughly as any adult among them. Her access to Fremen memories, in addition to those of her own ancestors, meant she did not have to leant the discipline but simply implement what she already knew. Her first words to her godmother and narse were not the nonsense syllables the Fremen women would have expected from a baby, but a recognizable sentence: "I love you, Harah." But most unsettling was the child's habit of sitting atone at the edge of the desert, practicing adult Bene Gesserit exercises.
Only the stature of her mother and brother among the tribes saved the child Alia from being put to the Test of Possession. The Fremen seldom used the ritual, for it evoked a feeling of communal guilt as no other action could; but the sight of a child behaving so much older than her known years was enough to make them consider it.
In 10193, during the last engagements between the forces of Shaddam IV and Muad'Dib's Fremen, the two-year-old Alia permitted herself to be captured by the Emperor's Sardaukar rather than take responsibility for telling her brother that his son had been killed in the fighting. Taken before the Emperor, his Truthsayer R.M. Gaius Helen Mohiam, and the Baron Harkonnen, the little girl exhibited such poise and intelligence that she unnerved all three. The Reverend Mother demanded that she be killed at once, claiming that she was the Abomination the Sisterhood had long known was possible, a development feared above all other consequences of their breeding program. Shaddam IV insisted that she reveal her brother's where-
abouts and tried futiiely to frighten her as though she were any other child. The old Baron, already known to the girl as her maternal grandfather, made the most foolish mistake of ail by seizing her, believing that she was helpless and easily dispatched. The "helpless" child struck him with a poisoned needle; the Harkonnen died moments later
As she grew older Alia often mentioned her loneliness and isolation from the rest of humanity. Not even Muad'Dib, for all his own prescient abilities, shared her unique position as a pre-born, Jessica, while she understood what had happened to her daughter as well as one who had not experienced such an awakening could, provided little comfort to the girl who increasingly came to view her mother as the person to blame for her condition.
In another sense, she was never alone. Maintaining an individual identity amid the barrage of memories was a constant drain, made more difficult by Alia's part in her brother's legend, As he was Muad'Dib, the Mahdi who would lead his Fremen to paradise over the bodies of the unbelievers, so she became transformed into Saint Alia-of-the-Knife, the divine huntress who sought out the faithless, who could not be deceived. For Alia herself—as child, adolescent, or young woman—there was little room.
Following her brother's disappearance into the desert in 10209, Lady Alia was appointed as Regent for his twins, Leto and Ghanima. One of her first acts in that capacity was to order the deaths of those who had conspired against the Emperor, sparing none but the repentant Princess Irulan. Interestingly, in light of Paul's having ordered that the old woman be spared, Alia's orders included the execution of Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. It was assumed at the time that her action resulted from a simple desire for revenge, but recent revelations concerning the possibility that the Reverend Mother was Lady Jessica's biological mother make such an uncomplicated explanation suspect. This violation of her brother's express command marked the Lady's first departure from usual Atreides' behavior.
Within a month after becoming Regent, Alia married the first ghola of Duncan Idaho,
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the Atreides swordmaster The marriage cere moay was performed before an audience of hundreds of thousands of Impend subjects m the capital city of Arrakeen as befitted the bnde s rank, but the ceremony was unfamil lar to most of the watchers Aha had chosen to observe die Fremen ntes omitting only those sections of the ritual which involved removing her crysfcnife from its sheath at her waist She was still too much under the Fremen influence to unsheath a cryskmfe before a crowd of out-freyn and already adept enough a politician to realize how such an action would have alienated the people who made up her power base
During the earnest years of her Regency Lady Alia seemed little changed from the young woman who had led crowds of pil gnms in prayer and prophesied for them during the Muad'Dib days As rebellions were put down and problems solved, however, she found herself more often subject to die demands of her ancestral memories for a second chance a new life gained at her expense The Bene Gessent htanies and ntu als helped to silence the inner voices for a time, as did the Zensunnl ntuals Aha knew from her background of F&men memories But the interior personalities grew stronger with time and were strengthened still further by the Regent s frequent recourse to heavy doses of melange
Her decisions as Regent, as well as those affected by them, suffered Aides whispered to one another of their misffess s divine rages , those closest to her, including her husband urged her to spare herself more to rest Driven from within she ignored their advice
One of the schemes most important to her involved the twins placed m her care With the Lady Jessica safely out of the way in Castle Caladan, and their Piemen guardian Snlgar contest to defer to her in all things Alia was m complete control of Leto and Ghamma She knew that they were pre bora as she had been, and that they had avoided taking large doses of melange because they feared its effects on them If they could be persuaded to attempt the spice trance a greater degree of prescience might be available to them than was to her And to whom could
they relate their visions if not to their wait ing and sympathetic aunt9 She encouraged them to experiment with the spice from their earliest years in her care never realizing that they were capable of seeing what such a course had done to her and determined to avoid it at all costs The twin s lack of cooperation left their aunt puzzled annoyed and fmall) infuriated It was another barrier to her exercising full control over the Impen um she had been given to command another unneeded drain on her diminishing personal resources
By 10217 the strain of dealing with her inner voices fmal!v became too great for Alia to handle alone To avoid total personal] ty fragmentation she made an alliance with the memory of old Baron Harkonnen the family enemy she herself had killed many years earlier With this strong personality acting in concert with hers she was able to shut out the maddening internal voices and act decisively once again It is not known whether the Regent realized or cared that her relationship with her grandfather s memory self had to change the direction her actions would take
From this year onward Aha s decisions grew increasingly more self protective less representative of the old Atreides codes Her use of Bene Gessent techniques to maintain her young body dated from this time Her change soon prompted the Sisterhood to send a delegation to the Lady Jessica on Caladan asking her help in investigating tier daughter Jessica accepted at once if Alia indeed were slipping into a state of Abomination she wanted to be the one to confirm it and perhaps help her daughter save herself Jessica knew her B G sisters well they would think only to destroy an Abomination
Her mother learned firsthand just how true were the rumors concerning Alia Within weeks of her arrival m Arrakeen Jessica was a captive of House Comno young Leto was presumed dead and an engagement be tween Ghamma and Farad n Comno was in the works Aha was free to act with even greater \igor in expanding her control of the Impenum and of the voung woman her niece who was ostensibly to inherit it The Regent tightened her grip wherever possible
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not realizing that other plans were in progress to bring about her ruin.
Those plans—among them those of Jessica, Gurney Halleck, Leto, Farad'n, Ghanima, and Duncan Idaho—blossomed within weeks of one another in 10220. 'Alia was put in the position of having to take more and greater risks when her assassin failed to kill Halleck, her husband's death forced Stilgar to take Irulan and Ghanima with him as he fled into the desert, and her internal ally, the old Baron, spent more time lusting after the young men in her court than he did helping her. Despite her eventual success in securing Irulan and Stilgar in her dungeons and in persuading Ghanima to feign acceptance of Farad'n, she had spread herself too thin. When Leto, now protected-and strengthened by his sandtrout skin, arrived at Alia's temple, he faced an adversary he could now overcome, in spite of her legendary prowess at hand-to-hand combat. Subdued by Leto, Alia exerted the force of her own personality one final time. In spite 'of the protests of her inner voices, she chose to take her own life rather than to submit to a Frernen Thai of ft>iisession. As she flung herself to the Temple courtyard, she performed her first independent act in years.
ALIA AS GODDESS: "THE WOMB OF HEAVEN." The first recorded Cult of Alia was established in Arrakeen in 10970. Members of this and succeeding Cults should not be confused with those who worshipped Alia during her lifetime. The first group believed that Alia possessed a godhead of her own; the second saw her only as a reflected image of her brother, carrying on die work Muad'Dib had begun. While "The Womb of Heaven," one of her most popular titles in life, was adopted by the Cults y it took on far more hallowed connotation. Her lesser titles, including "Saint Alia-of-the-Knife," were discarded.
The formation of the Cults may well have been a reaction against the rale of the Lord Leto. Humanity by this time understood that they were being ruled by a being who would outlive their most distant posterity, and many found the idea repellent Turning to the worship of an older, safely dead goddess was one way of rebellion against die new deity. It
could also be a dangerous one, if word of an individual's membership in the Cult got back to one of Leto's priests or priestesses. The heresy was not encouraged,
The Book of Alia is believed to have been composed by Cyns Nels (10942-11013), a failed candidate for the God Emperor's society of priestesses. Whether or not Nels was truly the author of the Book, whoever wrote it had access to considerable historical data concerning both Alia and the rest of her family, Leto II included. This familiarity would point to authorship by someone affiliated with the religion of the God Emperor; by this point in Leto's reign, these were the only persons allowed access to the written histories, and the Oral History did not contain the wealth of detail present in the Book.
The Cult's view of the relationship between Alia and her brother was unorthodox Noting that Paul Atreides often denied his own divinity while not denying that of his sister, the Book of Alia offers its own interpretation;
Muad'Dib, we see, was a messenger, a prophet. Great powers of divination and prophecy were his, but not for use on his own behalf: it was his glorious duty to prepare the way for the Womb of Heaven."
If the seeker doubts this and would see Maud'Dib as a god in his own right, let the prophet's own life provide instruction. He was unaware at birth, an infant like any other. While some degree of prescience was within his power from his youth, not until Blessed Mother Jessica gave birth to his sister did he realize how dim were his feeble peenngs into the future. He submitted to the Water of Life to brighten them Even wilh the knowledge of the future thus gained, he permitted himself to be blinded, made a widower, and abandoned to the desert where he wandered for eleven years before his return to Arrakeen and his execution by his sister's priests.
Contrast this pitiable existence with that of our Lady, divine and aware from her earliest months in the Blessed Mother's womb, dying only to return when the cleansing of her people is completed, and it can clearly be seen by all that Muad'Dih was rin god. Woe to those who persist in believing that he was!
On the subject of Alia's death the Book departs furthest from theological norms. It is
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now known that the body of Alia Atreides was removed from the courtyard of her Tern pie following her suicidal leap and processed through the nearest deathstill The water thus obtained was earned into the desert and allowed to evaporate m the fierce sun This Fremen way of disposing with the water of one convicted of Possession indicates the low opinion held of the Regent at the time of her death In The Book of Alia, a far different explanation is given
Her servants, all unknowing, were performing the Lady's wilt m en&urag that neither her body nor its water would be preserved For when the lime of Thai is ended and die Usurper removed from his position of slaveraaster to her people, the Womb of Heaven will return to sit in judgment over all in a divine form bearing no relation to that she occupied in hie Remind en of that shell of tesh would serve no purpose
The true nature of Aha Atreides—*-Abomination, goddess, victim of history—may never entirely be known The possibility exists, too, that she had no one distinct nature and that Lady Alia was'capable of encompassing each of the contradictory personalities with which she has been credited in The' Dune Catastrophe, Harq al-Ada makes this very point, citing the opinion of Ghamma Atreides "My aunt chose her own course at many junctures, but the opportunity to choose was not always given her Leto and I pitied her even as we feared her, and I believe mat she often felt the same mix of emotions toward herself" JAC
Furtfeer reference: ATREIDES PAULMAUp»E,ATRfiiDEs
OHAN1MA, ATR£H)6S, LETO n MOfflAM, REVEREND MOTH
ER OAIUS HELEN, Anon, The Azhar Book, ed K R Barsux, Arrakis Studies 49 (Gnimtmin: United Worlds), Pyer Bmzvur, ed , Summa ofAnaem Belief and Prac nee (Botehef Collegium Tamo), K M Lucius Ellen Caltea and R M Haflus Deborah Seates, eds Report on Aim Amides Lib Conf Temp Series 169, Nels, Cyris (•>), The Book of Alia Ub Conf Temp Series 242
ATREIDES, AUA. AS ABOPUHATION: 'THE ACCURSED OWE**. The Bene Gessent were the First to refer to Ow daughter of Lady Jessica and Duke Leto Atreides as "The Accursed One " Reverend Mother Gams Helen Moniam m 10193 told the Bene Gessent General Council of the existence and nature
of Lady Jessica's second child m a report which caused great consternation The first reaction of the B G hierarchy was to order secret assassinations of both mother and daughter m spite of the enormous risks involved More rational thought prevailed, however and the Sisterhood decided on a safer course They would undertake the study of this Abomi nation while wooing her mother back into the ranks In this way, the precious genes the Bene Gessent had cultivated for so many centuries need not be thrown uselessly away, and studying Aha might provide them with information they would need to destroy her A number of B G spies (the Princess Irulan being the most public and therefore least eftective ot them) were introduced into Muad'Dib's household following his defeat of Shaddam IV Posing as retainers, these spies remained close to the Lady Aha for many years, some of them served her during her years as Regent, staying with her until her death in 10220 Their observations, along with those of various Reverend Mothers who came into contact with the Emperor's sister during her lifetime, provided the basis for the Report on Alia Atreides The Report led to the Bene Gessent Judiciary Council decision in 10211 to declare Alia an "Abomination to be Abhorred" The overall tone of the report is condemnatory
Had the Lady Jessica arranged the birth order of her child as she was supposed to do, the question of Abomination would never, however innocently have arisen The fetus she was carry ing in 10191 was to have been male not female
The document saves the bulk of its condemnation for Alia herself, however The Sisters who assembled the final draft of the Report after Aha's death were unanimous in their opinion that Alia Atreides willfully chose Abomination's way for herself, spurning all attempts to save her humanity
Much has been made of the effect her isolated position had m shaping Aha s destiny It cannot be too strongly emphasized that it was her pattern to choo&e isolation Even Ladj Jessica recalls times from her daughter s childhood in Sietch Tabr when Alia took herself off to the desert, away from her companions, in order to listen to her voices within
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ATREIDES, LADY ALIA
Such instances occurred with increasing frequency as Alia grew older until, as reported by Princess Irulan, she absented herself from her brother and the rest of the Court whenever her presence was not commanded. Following her elevation to the Regency, the public record indicates that she was unavailable except for official duties, such as greeting pilgrims and sitting in judgment of cases brought to her for trial.
During the same years in which she held herself aloof from family and friends, Alia indulged m massive doses of melange, ostensibly for the purpose of broadening her prescient vision. Since we have reliable accounts of her confession that she lacked her brother's prescient ability, and that the spice-trance most often failed her, it seems reasonable to assume that her purpose in entering the spice-trance with such regularity was" quite different from that staled.
The same drug which had initially keyed her sensitivity to her ancestral voices could be depended upon to keep those same voices from becoming blurred or unavailable. Alia's heavy melange consumption was just another means of maintaining contact with her internal advisors.
{The Bene Gesserit were not alone in this view, Bronsoof Ix, in The Atreides Imperium, dismisses Alia as "a self-made disaster." A simitar opinion is held by LOTS Karden, author of Truth and Fancy in the Oral History, published some eight hundred years after the B.G. Report.)
Alia's actions during her Regency are depicted in the Report as those of a power-hungry woman aided by the memories of generations of ambitious rulers and princelings. Her every maneuver, including her marriage to the fust Duncan Idaho ghola. is seen as having been performed in order to solidify her own position, and her manipulation of the children in whose names she ruled is declared the most devious maneuver of all:
Not content with having destroyed herself, she set about to lead her niece and nephew into similarly destructive ways. Since the most direct way of achieving this goal involved the children's becoming enmeshed in their ancestral memories, Alia continually tried to interest diem in the spice trance.
Tne Regent's suicide relieved the Sisterhood, aad their Report carries this tone despite the Lady Jessica's vigorous attempts to change it
(Jessica's contribution to the final report was her last act of involvement with her former Sisters):
The kind of ruler Leto II will become cannot at present be known. He has undergone a strange transformation that we do not fully understand, and the danger of his following his aunt's path must still be present, regardless of his assurances of the contrary.
That is> unimportant at the moment Of far greater importance was the freeing of the Impe-rium from the control of the Lad) Alia. Had it not been for her death—reported b> witnesses on the scene as an obvious suicide, perhaps as a result of a final takeover by her inner voices— she could have continued to rule for several centuries by regenerating her cellular structure. As with all Abominations, the only cure is death.
The Report concludes here, but an appendix indicates that the Sisterhood had already begun investigations of two other possible Abominations: Leto IT and Ghanima
Further references: R M. Lucius Ellen Callen and R M Hallos Deborah Scales, eds , Report on Aim Atreides,
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Lib Conf Temp Series 169, Bene Gessent Judiciary Files File No 2078475, pp 2889-2999 (available only upon application to the Bene Gessent)
ATREIDES, LADY CHATQ (10177-10209) Born in Sietch Tabr in 10177, Chani was the daughter of Liet-Kynes, the Impena] Plan-etologist and secret leader of the Fremen, and Falra, a Tabr woman with whom Ltet-Kynes had been raised Stilgar, Naib of the sietch and blood-brother to her father, stood as godfather to Chani while the Naib's wife Misra stood as godmother and performed the Water of Conception ritual for the newborn
Liet-Kynes was away from the sietch far more than he was present, and Chani was cared fgr chiefly by Falra, with some assistance from Misra and the other woman (Although Fremen children were raised by their individual households and not communally, every adult m a community accepted some responsibility for the welfare of every child, the nearer the adult's relationship to the child's parents, of course, the greater the obligation ) She quickly learned the earliest lessons Fremen children were taught that crying was not allowed since it wasted the body's moisture, and thai wasting water, in any form, was an unpardonable sin She naturally grew more and more independent, for independence was encourage in all sietch youngsters so that they not burden the tribe The Fremen had learned centuries earlier that weak, dependent children could jeopardize an entire sietch by demanding time and attention their parents could not spare, while contributing nothing to the tribal welfare
Even as early as age three, men, when Falra was killed in a rockshde and Chani was taken into Stilgar's household, she was far better able to cope with the loss than many an outworld child of the same age might have been Chani attended the spint-releasing ceremony for her mother without weeping, although only dimly understanding what was taking place Within a few weeks, she had so completely become a part of the Naib's family that he and1 his wives would have found it difficult to imagine her not being with them
Liet-Kynes visited his daughter whenever
possible sometimes stealing a day from his work at the palmanes to journey to Sietch Tabr Her quick intellect was a source of tremendous pnde to him, and he occasionally took her out to the planting sites with him, to show her how the palmanes were expanding and would eventually change the harsh face of Arrakis Chani accepted the extra tutoring as a gift and remembered everything she was shown
Hts greater gift to her, so far as her father was concerned, was that of an undivided heritage After talking the matter over with Stilgar, Liet Kynes had decided not to introduce Chani to the other aspects of his life, the world which included dn Imperial com mission and all the duties it entailed While Liet-Kynes was satisfied with the way in which his own father had arranged his life— letting him be raised among the Fremen, as one of them, but never allowing him to forget that he was destined for Imperial service—he did not choose to do the same for his daughter Fremen women often held positions of great influence particularly the Sayyadma, but it was unlikely that a woman would ever be accepted in Liet Kynes s position as a leader Furthermore, he did not think that dam's generation of Fremen would require a leader with one foot m each world They would be capable of carrying on the ecological transformation on their own Chani would be free to live entirely as a Fremen
Aside from her special relationship with Liet-Kvnes, Chani lived like every other fe male child m Sietch Tabr By the age ot tive, she was helping to care for the sietch gardens, capturing sandtrout to be run through the deathsttll for their water and helping to dis patch enemy wounded after battles (Their bodies would be destined for the same fate as those of the sandtrout) Dunng the next years, she learned to weave to make coffee, to make and mend stillsuits—m short to perform all of the occupations she would be required to know as an adult
When she reached puberty, Chani was taken with a small group of girls her own age to retreat with Sietch Tabr's Reverend Mother Ramallo On their last day with the Reverend Mother, the girls went on a hajra a short pilgrimage to one of the tribal hold-
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ing basins Reverend Mother Ramallo. with her pupils seated around her, altered a small quantity of the Water of Life and bid each of diem drink from it Then, as the girls entered the sharing nance the drug induced, she spoke briefly to them about the water in the basin, reminding them that it held the future life of all their people within its depths as surely as each of them held a smaller portion of that future within their own bodies
The talk was a cover, designed to relax the girls while turning their minds to consideration of serious issues While they pondered the future of tfieir tribe, the Reverend Mother studied, probed, observed in hope of finding one in the group who might eventually take her place The matter of finding such a candidate had become most urgent to Ramallo she was an old woman and had suffered the ill luck several years before of having her apprenticed Sayyadma killed in an explosion in a sietch factory
Chant, the ok) Reverend Mother saw, demonstrated many of the traits necessary for a Sayyadma She possessed courage, intelligence, and compassion, she was capable of considering her own mortality while dis counting it in the light of her people's survival With enormous relief, RanUlk) decided to initiate her during the next tnbal assembly
In 10191, less than three months after her return to Sietch Tabr, Chani was caught up in die shattering of the peace that followed the Harkonnen-Sardaukar attack on House Atreides Sietch Tabr was well outside the combat areas, but Stilgar had received an order from Liet-Kynes to take a band out into the desert in search of Paul Atreides and his mother, the Lady Jessica Included in the command was a request that Stilgar take Chani along as part of the group, and the Reverend Mother seconded mat request The Lady Jessica was known to be one of the Bene Gesserit, and messages sent back to the sietch by the Shadout Mapes had indicated that Jessica might be something more as well Whatever the outcome of their hunt for the two fugitives might be, the Reverend Mother wished to hear Chani's impressions of die encounter, since it was impossible for her to witness it herself (Ramallo had not
left the sietch, except m a palanquin for many years)
Both at that first meeting, and on the journey back to the sietch, Chani found herself more impressed by Lady Jessica than by her son The Atreides was a handsome boy, not much older than she was herself and the murmunngs of his being the Lisan al-Gaib filled her with wonder But the woman, Ihe out-freyn Sayyadma, had bested Stilgar—Stilgar'—in single combat using her weirding ways No other female to Cham's knowledge, had ever even contemplated equal combat against a Freman Naib She studied the outworld woman with a combination of fear and awe, and had much to tell her instructress on her return home
When Paul killed Janus after the hot-tempered Fremen called him out by challenging Jessica's part in the legend, Chani was forced to reconsider After all, this supposedly soft outworlder had managed to slay an adult Fremen with a knife while receiving hardly a scratch himselt But it was not until his mother "passed within" to become a Reverend Mother and take Ramallo's place (the old woman had not survived long enough for Chani to succeed her) that Chain realized how Paul would dominate the rest of her life
The new Reverend Mother had converted the Water of Life for the tnbe distributing it among them to induce the spice orgy—the touching of minds which bound the Fremen more tightly to one another Sensitive to the wishes of the others, Chani drew away Usul, as Paul was now known, allowing the tnbe to enjoy their communion without the discor dant note of a still alien mind The two of them retreated to Cham's private quarters, where the presence of the rest of the tnbe could scarcely be felt
Chani, now a complete orphan, reminded him that they were alike m one thing each had lost a father to the Harkonnens Paul revealed to her the visions that had shown him far closer connections with her Lost in the spice trance, Chani shared those visions and found that she had entered a state of Fremen tau with this newcomer, the two of them had been inseparably joined
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The next two years were both the most joyous and the most frightening of Chain's life She had her Usul, her mate, despite the Reverend Mother Jessica s misgivings qon-ceming their "mamage of youth" She watched the legend and the power grow around him, rejoicing m his strength and exulting in his victories She added to his stature among the tribes at times by fighting challengers she considered unworthy of facing him, and sending them to the deathstitls herself It was during the period, too, that she presented him with his firstborn son, whom they named Leto in honor of the martyred Duke But there was terror ra those years as well Usul, though not a Prcmen born, had to behave as one or lose his hold on the tribes—this adaptation required him to learn, much later in life &an was usual, the ways of the free people Chain was the Sayyadma of the Rite the mormftg Usul became a sandnder, calling and controlling the huge sandworm that terrified all but the Fremen and awed even them. She was one of the most anxious observers of the struggle between her mate and Stilgar. her uncle and Naib
The most frightening moment of all came when she was summoned to help revive Paul after his three-week sleep m the Waters of Life He regained consciousness only after Chain tested his reaction to the illuminating poison m its raw state, which Jessica had never thought to try The younger woman, raised cm the legends of fee Fremen mahdi, both recognized the look of the coma and realized that trying to convert the raw Water himself was a battle Usul might very well win
This tumultuous period ended with the final battle for Arrakis in 10193, when Paul Atreides wrested control of the planet and its spice from Shaddam IV and torced his abdication. Cham could take comfort only from Paul's presence, not his triumph with their Leto dead, a casualty of mat battle, she could take no joy in the victory
When she brought die news of the boy's death to her Usul—who knew it already, and shared her grief—she reduced the Fremen waiting with him to silence The loss of her
son had broken a reserve that had withstood the deaths of her mother, her father, and sietchmates past counting Cham gave water to the dead, letting the tears flow as if such a precious sacrifice could persuade Shai Hulud to free her from her pain
During the three years of negotiations proceeding Paul's formal acceptance by the Landsraad and the Spacing Guild, Cham assisted Lady Jessica in bargaining with the outgoing emperor (Jessica often said, after the seemingly endless round of talks drew to a close, that she hoped never to have to negotiate any kind of terms against a Freman, since their ferocity in battle paled before their determination at a conference table While Jessica's own skills in such matters were not to be doubted, we can safely as sume that many of the concessions were won for the new Fmperor by his Fremen concubine )
Chani had other worries during these years beyond those of a negotiator Five times during this period, attempts were made on the Royal Concubine s life, once the would-be assassin managed to infiltrate her apartments and might have succeeded m his aim had his knifcwork been just a fraction more expert Chani managed to dispatch him with her cryskmfe and stormed into the Council Chamber without pausing to change her robe The sight of her bursting into the room, stained with her assailant's blood, her hand still poised on the sheathed cryskmfc's handle, threw the table into an uproar Amid the confusion, Lady Jessica—as Cham had antici pated she would—focused her attention on Irulan, soon to be Paul's Consort-m-name The Princess was genuinely stunned, but what convinced Jessica of Irulan's innocence was the brief expression of surprised pleasure that escaped her before her Bene Gessent training could conceal it Although this was none of Irulan's doing, she was enough angered by her secondary place that she was delighted the attempt had been made
For twelve years after the beginning of her mate's legal reign m 10196 Cham served him as wife, companion, and advisor—but never, in spite of their efforts as mother of his royal heirs That neither of them were
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sterile was certain Cham's pregnancy with Leto had been initiated quickly and free of complications that might have rendered her barren And while (hey had practiced contraception in the Fremen way during the years when Cham's full attention was required for the negotiations, they had not done so since, and their continued childlessness was a source of mystery and much pain
So distressed was Chain by her inability to provide an heir for House Atreides that she at last considered and finally decided on, another course for her mate to take In spite of revulsion at the thought of Paul s making the Princess Irulan his wrfe-m-fact, dam suggested that he allow Irulan to have her chance at producing a child Although angry and suspicious that Irulan might have used Chani to advance her schemes for power, the emperor was quickly convinced that his con cubme wished only to secure the throne for a line of Atreides Emperors and saw Irulan as the logical source for progeny if their childless state continued *
Paul refused to consider the idea, turning Cham's arguments in its favor aside Irulan, he told her, was too dangerous, her position, should she bear his child, would be too secure (This was before the Princess's com plicity in the plot to overthrow him—proof, certainly, of his beliefs concerning her—was known) Only Chani would provide the heir he wanted, and he was willing to wait for their child
Convinced that die Imperial physicians could be of no further help, Cham reverted to the traditions of her people She visited the deserts edge and prayed to Shai-Hulud for a child She consulted older women from among the tribes, listened to their advice, and embarked OB a special diet, one supposed to promote fertflity The ingredients she needed were brought 10 her personally by a trusted friend from Si etch Tabr, "kid Cham prepared the meals herself, not allowing anyone else to touch the food
The diet worked, Cham was pregnant with in weeks of abandoning her regular food However, during her first session with the doctors following the conception, traces of a potent contraceptive drug, now being cleared
from her system by the new regimen, were found
Long-term ingestion of the contraceptive had harmed Cham, primarily by interaction with the melange with which her body was saturated From the moment the fetuses occu pied her womb, Cham s metabolism had sped up to a terrifying rate Her physicians told her that she would have to eat three or four times the food she would ordinarily consume along with increasingly larger doses of the spice Nine months was far longer than this pregnancy would last assuming that she could survive, Cham's children would be born in less than six months
No mental was needed to see who had tnost to gam from Cham's barrenness, or who, residing in another portion of the Keep, had the best opportunities to slip the drug into the Royal Concubine's food Had her Usul not asked her to spare Irulan Cham would not have rested until she had found the Comno Princess's life with a crysknife blade But foregoing revenge did nothing to calm the hatred Cham felt toward the Royal Consort
Most of the next half year fled quickly as a dream for Chain External problems—the advancement of the plot against the emperor Usul's blindness in trie wake of the stonebumer attack—persisted and could not be ignored Still everything affected her as from a distance having first to break through the self preoccupation the lightning fast pregnancy forced upon her Her emotions changed so quickly thdt bhe vould no longer be certain even of what she was feeling, or why Once after snapping at Paul for wearing a shabby old jacket and having been told that even an emperor has his favorite clothing, she had found herself giving water to the dead And her a Fremen' A fog surrounded her limiting her vision unUl she could see only as far ahead as the birth Her life she once told Paul would have to begin again from that day His silence following the remark only added to her confusion
Paul returned with her to Sietch Tabr for the children to be born in sietch, as she had been certain he would The moment came unexpectedly when she was conversing with the ghola of Duncan Idaho and with his
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ATRE1DES GHANIMA
guidance she made it back into the sietch from the spot she had chosen for a look out over the desert Her last thought, before she abandoned herself to the rnindlessness of labor, was that she had never remembered to ask Usul if he knew she earned twins He had always spoken of their child, in the singular, surely it was impossible that he did not know the troth?
Less than an hour after the onset of contractions, Cham's son and daughter had beea bom Thin, but healthy-looking, they divided their first few minutes of life between crying and sipping at the Water of Conception fed them by their godmother Harah These were minutes their mother did not share Chum, calling for her Usul, had died giving buth to the children Paul named Leto and Ghanima
Even with Cham s death, her role as a pawn in the game of empire did not end It was with the prospect of restoring her flesh as a ghola that Scytale, the face dancer bargained first with Alia, then with Paul Bijaz, trie dwarf intended to (rigger Dancan Idaho into attacking Paul, again offered a revival of that flesh after Paul killed the Face Dancer Not until Duncan Idaho slew Bijaz puffing his master out of temptation's reach, was Cham s body taken to the deathstill
At die ceremony held that evening to release her sprit, the Princess frulan astonished the friends of Chant who had gathered for the File by joining their circle There was muttering at her presence, and anger, since it was believed that she would defile the ritual and bring disaster to all (hose attending
Their concern proved unfounded When her turn came, the Royal Consort rose from her seat, walking to the pile of Chant's possessions mat lay heaped on the cavern floor, and picked up a small stone pendant "I was a friend of Chain's," she said, and usually ironclad control slipping from her voice during the unfamiliar words "She taught me that nobility and noble birth are two things, and I have learned something about myself " Then speaking ftemen halt mgly, she said, ' Ish yarn al-ahdab had bat-u '—a hunchback does not see his own honch
It was the first sign of Irulan's defection,
the shifting of sides that would end in her becoming one of the adults responsible for Paul's and Chain's twins And even Aha whom Harah had restrained from driving Irulan out of the cavern on sight, had no quarrel with the fitness of the epitaph C T
Further references ATREIDES LADY JESSICA ATREIDBS
PAUL MUAD DIB FREMEN MLNSTRLATION FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS CORRINO PRINCESS IRULAN STILGAR
Princess Irulan Atreides Corrmo Muad Dib Family Commentaries Lib Conf Temp Series 437 Princess Irulan MuatfDib The Man tr Mffyau Gwulador Airakis Studies 4 (Grumman United Worlds) at Ada Harq The Mother of God (Grumman Tern)
ATREIDES, GHANIMA. (10208 10516) The twin sister of Leto II, remembered as "Our Lady and Mother Ghanima' From the materials found at Dar-es-Balat, we now have proof that Ghanima is more than a legend, having lived during three hundred years of her brother's Impenum Whde officially his wife, records and memoirs show that she was his wife m name only Her primary function m Leto s empire was to begin a breeding program which united Houses chosen by Leto Atreides Corrmo Harkonnen Fennng arid Liet Kynes Houses chosen for their genetic characteristics There has always been some question about who fathered this new family line (the legendary descriptions of the God Emperor give no indication that he was capable of breeding and the folk tales of his sexual prowess with descriptions of his sexual apparatus, arc difficult to believe—a special tooth indeed) The newly discovered materials show that although Ghanima was wed to Leto she was mated to Farad'n Corrmo (Harq al Ada) and bore ten children
Of the many documents dealing with Ghanima, The Book of Ghanima re\edls. the most intimate record of her dailv life Recent linguistic and philological analyses indicate that Volume One of the memoirs is m Ghanima1 s voice She tells of her childhood in Sietch Tabr with Naib Stilgar and Harah who served as her surrogate parents During this dme she and Leto shared both their external and internal environments, often hv mg not only as themselves but as extensions
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of their real parents, Muad'Dib (Paul Atreides) and Chain Liet-Kynes, a "possession" game they eventually found difficult to control It was during these possessions that Ghanima established the bond with her mother that would become !*o important to her welfare Though the children were labeled "abominations" by the Bene Gessent Sisterhood, and though Ghanima was fearful of possession by one of the memory lives within her consciousness, she retained mastery of her own personality all her life In her report to the Sisterhood, Lady Jessica said that this control was established by Ghanima through "a state of constant hypnotic suppression which was induced under stress and which can be manipulated at will by Ghanima through die intercession of her benign ancestor, her mother, who leads the mohalata which protects Ghanima'
In her later life, Ghanima worked actively with her inner voices, producing the extensive history of the Bene Gessent, The Book of Voices, as well as an appendix, a collection of songs and poems from various Voices throughout history In the process of this work, Ghanima discovered the identity of her paternal great grandmother—Gaius Helen Mohiam—though recent discoveries show the information was probably suppressed by Leto II for political and personal reasons At the instigation of Harq al-Ada she also contacted philosophers from her past and, while he worked with the men, she produced a comprehensive overview of women philosophers, The Women Who Knew the Good Later in her life she also produced her Commentaries to the Voices, incisive analytical reactions to the historical overview which she had developed during her original investigations Some of the poetry included m this work appears to be her own
After a tumultuous childhood which included assassination attempts on the twins, kidnappings, threats of possession, and threats of obliteration whenever she disagreed with her Aunt Aim, Ghamma settled into what some historians refer to as "a relatively normal adult existence " After her marriage, at nine, to her brother, she resumed her studies under the tutelage of Harq al-Ada, the Atreides scribe and former Comno pnnce
who was destined to be her loving companion From him she learned academic disciplines (neglected by both Alia and Irulan m their instructions), and gamed a love of history and philosophy, arts and science which would sustain her throughout her long life Later both she and al-Ada became patrons of the Impenum's leading poets, musicians, dra matists, and artists, establishing a renaissance m culture for Leto's empire In 10278, they became acquainted with the work of H<irq dl-Harbd and for the next thirty years served as his patrons Ghanima particularly liked his comedies, while al-Ada served as consultant for the histories and Leto eventually declared him "Dramatist Laureate for the Impenum Apparently while al-Harba enjoyed the help and the company of the royal family, he felt somewhat out of place at court, refusing the suite of rooms offered to him by Ghanima He did allow her to attend rehearsals though, and even occasionally let the royal children play walk on parts, much to their delight But al Harba was just one of the many creative people supported by the royal trio
For aristocrats, Ghamma and al Ada lived an unusual family life—they spent a considerable amount of time with their children Leto also participated frequently in family events, though as his transformation continued, he found it increasingly difficult to be with little children who could not resist touching him Eventual!} Leto removed himself to separate living quarters, but the family retained a large gathering hall in which Leto could join them In spite of their love for each other, Ghanima and al-Ada also established separate sleeping quarters, adjoining then-mutual library and work rooms and separated from the nursery and schoolroom areas by the general living and dining rooms The decision to have separate sleeping areas resulted from their very different backgrounds Ghanima felt most at home in quarters resembling the sietch of her childhood while al-Ada was more comfortable among the antiques of his youth As Ghanima says in her memoirs, "Poor Farad'n gets claustrophobia among my rugs and pillows—and he says the incense makes him sneeze On the other hand, I think his old furniture with its wood and
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glass and its prickly embroideries is cold and sterile—it's like being in a museum. Thank heaven we have Grandmother's arboretum to have our 'evenings' in. He certainly doesn't mind candlelight and cushions there!" Gha-nima also insisted that Irulan have living quarters separate from the family, and that she stay oat of Ghanima's work room and the children's school rooms. She did join the family for dinners and often accompanied the group to picnics at Sietch Tabr,
Probably the fact that neither Ghanima nor al-Ada had lived secure childhoods led them to develop a close family framework in which their children could flourish. The oldest child, Trebor, was the delight of both his parents and Leto. A rusty-haired cherub, he seems to have accompanied his father even into die privacy of al-Ada's library. Ghanima remembers that "We couldn't believe we had produced this silly, darling little boy. After the intense childhood (or really the lack of any real childhood) I had, I saw his Hghthearted existence as idyllic. Farad'n and I probably spoiled that child—we had so much more time to give to him than we did to the other children who followed—but to this day I can still see his beaming face as his chubby little legs hurried to keep up with his father's long strides." Eventually the other boys were born, Lliwis, Regor, Tisamenus, and Boris; but Trebor remained Leto's favorite, becoming the first in the long line of Atreides stewards to serve the God Emperor,
The first three girls, Eleanor, Helene, and Elaine, were born during the period when Ghanima was working with Voices from the immediate past. (Years later, when she discovered the identity of her paternal great-grandmother, Ghanima realized what had inspired their names.) leunne, die next to the youngest child, was named for al-Ada's sister, and the last child, Noree, was named for a figure who haunted al-Ada's dreams in hopes of "exorcising" her from Us nights. All the children were trained in academic disciplines and in prana-bindu control. The boys were given training in sword and knife attack and defense while the girls were trained in the Bern Gesserii "weirding" way of hand-to-hand combat. This insistence on martial arts training seemed out of place in Leto's peace-
able kingdom, but both Ghanima and al-Ada feared a recurrence of assassination attempts and wanted the children prepared to defend themselves. To balance their martial training, the children also perfected various creative talents and skills, and Ghanima notes with pleasure the family evenings of music and drama. She even persuaded Harq al-Harba to write a masque which the family produced privately for the court, each person proudly playing his or her own role. Leto appeared, appropriately enough, as the voice of God. Unfortunately the text of this masque was not preserved, and Harban scholars have argued that the story is merely apocryphal. Though Ghanima enjoyed a loving relationship with all of the children, her most frequent companion was Elaine. Recent evidence supports the theory that Volume Two of the Book of Ghanima is in Eiaine's voice, and from her we get a portrait of the middle-aged Ghanima:
Mother was always slender and wiry, never becoming, as the Fremen used to say, water-fat. Her crinkly red hair curled around her forehead, always a bit adrift and never sleekly in place like the rolls and tendrils of beautiful Aunt Irulan. But Mother's steady blue, reasonable gaze brought instant trust and respect, and her dignity was warm, unlike Irulan's cold green eyes and remote aristocratic manners. Uncle Leto says that Mother was more Liet-Kynes than Atreides, but I'm not sure what that means. He seemed to mean it as a compliment, though. To me she will always be the most beautiful woman in the world—her loveliness coming as much from her kindness and wisdom as from her pretty freckled face.
The only other family woman whom Ghanima trusted besides Elaine seems to have been her mother Chani even though her mother had been "dead" for years. After an initial period of conflict when Ghanima was young and the Cham-persona within Ghanima still wished to be with Muad'Dib, the two women formed a coalition of support which lasted Ghanima's lifetime. Ghanima had loved Harah, her living mother-substitute, but Alia separated them when Ghanima was three, jealous of their relationship. Jessica, her grandmother, was a rather remote figure who Ghanima saw rarely. Farad'n's respect and
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affection for Jessica helped to strengthen Ghanima's relationship with her grandmother, but Jessica spent most of her later life on Caladan. Thus, Alia and Irulan had vied for control of die young Ghanima. Ghanima was both terrified of and empathetic to Alia, seeing her as a mirror of the possessed soul Ghanima could so easily become. Though the rest of the family refused to speak of Alia after her waters had been emptied on the sand, Ghanima taught her children about their aunt to show them the problems and die pain of being human and in contact with one's active past.
Frulan presented a more complicated problem for Ghanima. The woman was not only her grandfather's official wife, she was also the twins' tutor and tried in her own way to show them affection. Bat when Ghanima began speaking with her mother, she soon learned the part that Irulan had played in Chant's death. Ghanima was also suspicious of Irulan's Bene Gesserit ties and of her connections with Wenskia's assassination plot. After Ghanima pledged herself to al-Acla, her relationship with Irulan became even more complex, though al-Ada seems to have had little affection for his aunt. Though she remained friendly with Irulan for some twenty more years, Ghanima would not allow the Bene Gesserit Sister to tutor the children, and instead eacouraged Irulan in her literary pursuits. The break between them came when Ghanima learned of Irulan1 s attempt to seduce the sixteen-year-old Trebor, & handsome but rather innocent youth. Inilan's action made Ghanima lose her temper:
I finally had to speak to Farad'n about Irulan. She must be getting senile! She has just gone through one of her violent rejuvenation periods and she seems determined, at her age, to finally lose her virginity. Well she is not going to contaminaie poor Trebor! And I won't have my first grandchild produced by my father's wife. Even she should see how ridiculous she is (and she certainly can't blame this folly on her bitchy sisterhood).
Farad'n and I have arranged for a new suite of Booms for hep—on the other side of Leto's apartments (she certainly won't bother him). Farad'n, who seems to be getting soft in his maturity, has also made her Director of the Atreides Archives—that should satisfy her de-
sires for creativity. She can churn out some more stones for idiots about her "beloved" Muad'Dib—who wouldn't stay in a private room with her for more than five minutes. She seems determined that every child in the Impenum will know the tales of poor Paul. And her wonderful "lectures on Muad'Dib's jihad strategy" have old Tyek helpless with laughter. I am usually more understanding of her frustrations and her fantasies, and I will probably be compassionate again once I calm down. She simply has to leave the children alone!
When Irulan retired to Wallach IX in 10249, taking not only her own library but most of the Atreides Archives along with her, both Ghanima and al-Ada were relieved.
Even though her children took much of her attention, her complicated relationships with Leto and al-Ada consumed most of her time With al-Ada she shared the children, their mutual work, and a highly satisfactory relationship as friends and lovers. But with Leto she shared a relationship unique to them. In his Journals, Leto terms their unity "a timeless web of closeness" which would last as long as their consciousness was carried within his body. And Ghanima remembers the hours they spent as children, trying to come to terms with their overwhelming abilities and their awesome fate:
Never once have I envied Leto's position of power With that power comes so much agony, so much pain, and the complete annihilation of his basic human body As we talked, night after night, I realized that he would have to make the sacrifice. I felt so weak, such a coward, but the thought of that grossness overpowered me, and I had to volunteer to breed rather than to lead Leto loved me and never wanied to hurt me, but I think I saw the pity in his eyes.
The Golden Path is the way to preserve humanity, to eliminate "abomination" and "possession" but the choice was so difficult, and he still suffers from it. I worry about his growing attachment to that old Harum of his. Cham says he's one of the benign, but Leto is becoming more dependent on him than on Father. Only Farad'n seems to understand why I worry so about Leto.
During the early years of his transformation, Ghanima was the only person who could give Leto the love and compassion he so desperately needed, the only one who could empathize with him as he gradually lost the
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sensations of his human body and also lost the ability to communicate emotion through touch As when they were young, Ghanima again spent many nights sitting with him in his tower In Volume Two of The Book of Ghanima Elaine tells of seeing her mother and Leto '"Hie two of them would sit like statues in the darkness, quietly talking in their secret languages In the morning moth er would be emotionally exhausted She tiled to make me understand what it is> hke to be Leto, now unable to touch her or to be touched because his skin is so sensitive Touching is so important That must be why she and father still sit together for hours like young lovers' * Ghanima expressed her own feelings about her two "men" in a poem found m the Commentaries to the Voices
Love Eternal—twice have I
The first a sturdy ship afioat
Across the tides of time—
The second a fragik passion flower
Whose essence never dies
Both golden—precious,
One will richness to the other bring
Between the two drift I
Forever Love hes m remembering
When Ghanima finally decided to join her ancestors, it was because she had tired of living
Farad'u has been gone so long, and the children's children are having children of then own Leto still wants me with him, but we seem to have less and less to speak of I still believe in his Golden Path—it is the only nght way—but he has grown so cold about it ail At times it s almost as though my Leto had gone replaced by an entity I don't really know He speaks to me of truth, bat sometimes all I hear is his ambition So much death seems to be the center of his plans—being a living god must change one
Now I know what my dear Farad'n meant when he said he was bred The world around me has become Leto's creation, and I am no longer a necessary part of it I DOW will discov er what my mother already knows, what it feels like to be submerged m someone else's con sciousness That part is a bit frightening, but it will be bettor than my present bfe
At her death, Leto declared a period of Imperial mournmg, and from the urn holding
her water, he caused the voices of the Atreides to speak, convincing the multitude of his godhead But his final words at the end of Volume Three of The Book of Ghanima show his love and his longing for Ghanima
My sister/wife Ghani—my other soul—the freshness I have always been too old to have— how I will miss your daily visits Without you here beside me I have little to remind me of our youth when I was truly human As this new body tightens around me, the piercing emotions you kept alive in me are beginning to fade You will be a part of me always—we will live together in a closeness no other two can ever feel—but I do long for one more glimpse of those steady blue eyes in your sweet, tender face Sleep well, my beloved J A C
Further references HARQ AL ADA CORRINO IRU LAN Gwenemera Apluros Home Life of the God Em peror (Tleilax Mental) Ghanima Atreides Commen twies to the Voices Rakis Ref Cat 37 BG132 Ghanima Elaine and Leto Alreides The Book of Ghanima Rakis Ref Cat 13 A 700 Leto Atreides II Journal vol III Bene Cement Special Reports File no A G 20368 20375 Lors Karden Truth and Fancy m the Oral History (Yorba Rose)
ATREIDES. HOUSE. Foundation of. The
House of Atreides was also called the House of Pelops, successively Lords of Tantalos Counts of Thuestes, Counts of Aramanh, Counts Chalcedony, Sindar Counts of Hoosak Norn, in the Cleo System, Sindar Counts of Hestia, Dukes of Atreus, Sindar Dukes of Gallatm Sindar Dukes of Caladan, Sindar Dukes of Arrakis, and Emperors of the Known Universe, junior titles include Barons Pelops, Barons Menelaus. Barons Aigisthos, Counts Atreides, Counts Gamnomdes, distaff titles include Barons Mukenai, Lords Theseides, and Counts Delos The House of Atreides (sometimes called the House of Atreus) claimed descent from the mythical Greek heroes, Pelops and Atreus, then- actual descent, however, can only be proven from the time of the Butlenan Jihad
EARLY HISTORY The first mention of an Atreides in histoncal records occurs in Camdle de Bry's The Great Revolt A Popular Histo ry of the Jihad which drew on eyewitness accounts, diaries, surviving documents, and oral tradition to produce a rather lund rendition of the heroic struggle between man and machine Bry s work mentions one Aga-
ATREIDES, HOUSE
56
ATREIDES, HOUSE
memnon d'Atreides, Governor of the Brunig District, who was assassinated about 175 B.C. while defending the use of computers before the rioting masses. Hie location of the "Brunig District" was not mentioned by
leading some to speculate that die incident (and the person) were invented by an overac-tive imagination.
It is certain that Demetrios Atreides participated in the Battle of Corrin as a junior officer, serving with the soon-to-be emperor's forces in the struggle against the Landsraad. Demetrios Atreides is blown to have enlisted as a Sardaukar Auxiliary in the Sixth Draco Wing, which represented a number of the planets in the Mockmuhl Cluster near Upsiton Dracotiis. Demetrios was made a gunnery officer on the ship Lu-to. and assumed command of his vessel early in die three-day battle after all the senior officers were killed. During one phase of the battk, when Sulaimaii al-Hajj Kunaitra threatened to turn Sheuset Costm's left flank after the desertion of Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen, Atreides rallied Costin's forces, and spearheaded & desperation attack that took Kunaitra by surprise. Kunaitra's command ship was heavily damaged, Kunaitra himself killed, and communications disrupted. Most military historians point to this action as the key turning point of the struggle. Atreides was ennobled after Shetiset's coronation as Baron Tantatos, and was given large estates oti the planet Enskog in recognition for his services to the Imperium (86 B.C.).
Deffietrios Atreides had three sons; Pausanias (bom ca. 85 B.G.), Theseus {born ca. 81 B.C.), and Konstantinos. named for the Etnperor's father (bora 79 B.G.); from these three mea descend all die branches of the House Atreides. Pausanias succeeded to the Barony on his father's death in 58 E.G.; Theseus Atreides was ennobled as Baron Pelops in 43 E.G. during the wars of expansion conducted by Henoor I: Konstantinos or Costin Atreides became Baron Menelaus the year before he died, in 1I E.G.; Pausanias's son, Demetrios 11, was further ennobled in 6 B.C. as Count Thuestes. The family fortunes fell, however, with the assassination of Elrood I in 104, and his replacement by
Alman bin Haig; a bill of attainder was brought before the Landsraad by Alman in 122, accusing Elias Atreides of supporting the exiled Emperor's forces; but Alman himself was assassinated before the bill could be acted upon. Elias Atreides was restored to his estates by Saudir IT, and reconfirmed in his titles. Elias's son, Demetrios IV, was murdered by Alman II shortly after his accession in 184, and the Atreides lands redistributed. Thomas Atreides was instrumental in restoring Elrood H in 207, and received the title Duke of Jaddua and a planetary fiefdom, both of which were attainted by Alman IV in 346, when Thomas II Atreides was executed. Alkman Atreides successfully petitioned for restoration of the County of Thuestes before the Regent Henli al-Qair in 381. Thereafter, the Atreides generally attained the status of a House Major as the imperial feudalism developed from necessity into a workable system of government.
Further references: HOUSE ATREIDES, PROMINENT MEMBERS; HOUSE ATREIDES AND IMPERIAL RULE; Camille
de Biy, The Great Revolt: A Popular History of the Jihad, tr Lewia Bun (345; rpt Topaz Ludlow)
ATREIDES, HOUSE, Prominent members.
Between its establishment and the middle of the fifth millennium, House Atreides produced many sons and daughters who gained fame from their unique talents, flamboyant actions, or spectacular vices. This entry sketches only a few of the most noteworthy. The mobt prominent member of the family during the first millennium of imperial rule was lason Atreides, son of Count Pausanias III, who was instrumental in settling the differences between various branches of the Imperial House, thereby instituting a long period of stable rule. In the year 603, he persuaded Harmon II al-Qair, who ruled with the title of Protector, to step down in favor of Audrii I, the son and heir of Shaddam I, Concentrating most of the imperial power in his own hands, lason Atreides set about reorganizing the Imperial government and reestablishing the principles of The Great Convention. Thus, what had been a government of personal rule, with all its attendant chaos, became a trierarchy in which the Imperial seat was merely one source of pow-
ATREIDES, HOUSE
57
ATREIDES HOUSE
er counterbalanced by the Landsraad, whose meetings became regularly scheduled for the first time, and CHOAM <md the Spacing Guild, previously dealt with through the Emperor The Imperial power was further diluted by making the Emperor responsible for his actions to the Imperial Family, which itself was controlled and balanced by the Imperial Household (the immediate relatives of the reigning Emperor), the Imperial Cousmes (offshoots of the Imperial Household, distaff members of the Family, and collateral houses), and the Saidaukar Over-Bashars (whose daughters became royal concubines) For his contributions to Imperial rule, lason was named Count Aramanli m 635, and was given the hand of Audrii Comno's daughter, Phncess Salusa thereby making him a member of the Household Thus began the long and close association between die two houses Count Heraklios II Atiddes (ruled 681-715), lason's son, maintained the family grip on the imperial power by having himself named Imperial Chancellor by the Landsraad, he was murdered by Ivan Harfeonnen while mak mg love to one of Ivan's twenty four mis tresses* Count Demetnos VIII Atreides, younger brother of Heraklios, succeeded to die family estates, but distinguished himself only as a sportsman and hunter taking little interest in imperial politics His grandson Ko&stantinos IV, was renowned in his day as an advocate of art and music which he supported by subsidizing performers on his
In 1027 during a rupture within the Sardaukar forces, a Bashor named Feyd usurped the throne, killing all close imperial relations and suspending the Landsraad Two of the Atreides counts, Demetnos IX and Paulos II, attempted to organize resistance to Feyd's rule, and were quickly branded as traitors The now-rebel Sardaukar joined a hasuly-organiBed Atreides forces, and attacked Feyd's homeworld, Ibleam ffi The arrival of the Imperial Fleet reserves during the course of the battle doomed the revolution, and Demetnos, bib son Pausamas, and Paulos's son Isaak, were all killed Paulos Atreides was attainted, stopped of all titles and lands, and condemned to death on sight Count lakobos Atreides, representing the third ju
mor line, was banished from his estates, Baron loannes Atreides, of the House of Atreides Pelops, was executed for high treason, his son Konstantmos being sold into slavery, Baron Aimihanos Atreides was forced to cede half of his lands to the Impenum, Lord Alexandras Atreides was dismissed from his imperial posts, Lady Dunarms Atreides was sent to dn Imperial brothel for one year, and several Atreides children including Odusseus Atreides, were apprenticed to tradesmen and sheepherders Baron Andreas von Wikkheizer received the mam Atreides fief of Aramanh Paulos Atreides fled beyond the bounds of the Impenum with the last survnors of the Imperial House, including the recognized heir, a five-year old grandson of Emperor Wallach II From the edges of known space they conducted intermittent running battles with the Impenal forces, with very little gain Paulos was killed in 1044 during a surprise attack on rebel headquarters, his underage son, Alexios escaped with the Impenal heir Pnnce Comn Emperor Feyd I died in 1051 as secure on his throne as any previous ruler had been, his son and successor, Estil II was a weak and indecisive man, although not without intelligence, the Civil War degenerated into stalemate with the rebels controlling the outer colonies the Im penal Fleet controlling the main trading worlds and the Spacing Guild selling transport to both sides Odusseus Atreides escaped his menial existence by enlisting in the Impenal forces under the name Uulavar Treys, commandeering a ship and selling it at Beta Conolanus There he bought the assistance of the Spacing Guild for a surprise raid on Ibleam III and IV that remains a classic example of the hit-and-run tactic and is often cited m military textbooks to this day Odusseus's raid (1096) was the beginning of the end for the Feyd regime soon thereafter the Impenal forces began losing ground to the rebel attacks, until at Estil's death of natural causes m 1099 only a few worlds remained in Impenal control Estil s son and successor, Feyd II, was murdered by his own officers after two weeks of rule, and Josif I, son of Prince Cornn was named Emperor, with his father as Regent Only two Atreides heirs survived Alexios Atreides was restored
ATREIDES. HOUSE
58
ATREIDES HOUSE
to all of his ancestor's titles, and further named Siridar Count of Hoosak Norn, Odus-seus Atreides was named Count Chalcedony, and given vast estates in that system
At the termination of the Regency in 1680, two decades of internecine war were used by Achilleus Atreides to further family interests The chaos of this period was such that an Impenunvwtde economic depression forced many of the Houses Minor, and several of the Houses Major, into bankruptcy or severe economic decline Achilleus Atreides, sometimes called the "Merchant Count," sold the family estates on Chalcedony, used the money to invest in CHOAM shares of undevel oped worlds, and then developed the raw resource**, selling the processed goods back to the Houses at huge profit By the time of the inauguration of Emperor Coffin IV, in 1701, AehiUeus was the richest man m the Impertum; he used his wealth to reduce the power of die Emperor His grandson, Phillipos m, together with his brother. Markos Atreides, forced a rapid turnover m the occupants of the Imperial Chair, hoping in this way to prevent any one person from achieving great power Historians call this period "The Era of the Princes " Atreides economic ascendancy ended in 2191, when Emperor Sidir XIII had Count Maximos Atreides killed during an Imperial audience, within two months Maximos's son, Peleus Atreides, had Sidir XHI poisoned in his own bed The Lasdsraad refused to recognize any Imperial claimants for a period of six years Peleus Atreides signed it truce with Baron Shahnifch Kennc, a cousme of the late emperor, and Shahnikh was named to the Imperial Chair in 2197 As a reward for his services, Peleus received the Imperial Sister as a bride, and was named Siridar Count of Hestia and Duke of Atreus in the year 2201
Duke Demetnos XV0 Atreides (2355-2409) objected to the murder of Emperor Basil III at-Tam by his Sardaukar Commander, Hartn-Kab (who reigned as Menemtahe VI), and made his feelings known to the Landsraad, Harmhab suspended mat body, had Demetnos arrested, and then ordered the Duke publicly whipped, blinded, and gelded, on successive days Demetnos was stripped of his titles and lands, and sent to the Imperial zoo,
where he was ordered displayed "as a prime example of that endangered species, Homo perduellioms reus " Harmhab was soon deposed by a revolt of his household staff, the surviving Imperial heir, Kennc in, called al-Kam (the Clever), ordered Harmhab to be planted in the street up to his neck, where passers-by were offered the opportunity of sawing on his neck with a piece of paper Demetnos was released from his public pns-on and restored to his estate and titles In his later years, he became known as gourmet of exotic foods and dnnk, he would spend exorbitant sums merely to sample a dish that had been extraordinarily praised, or would travel great distances to obtain delicacies that could not survive transport He died at the age of 99, his weight exceeded his age at his death by a factor of five
Prominent m the middle years of the empire were such Atreides as the poet-Duke Paulos VII (died 2829), Baron Minos Atreides Theseides, the "Great Librarian", Kharalam bos Atreides Pelopides, an expert on ancient weapons, of whom it was said that he could put three shots into one hole at a distance of 100 meters Duke Atreus IV (died 3401), who outlived six wives and died in the arms of a seventh, Count Ansteteles Atreides Aigisthodes, who invented three new knots, was a master of perfumes, concocting one entirely new fragrance, and wrote an epic poem m Homeric Greek on the history of his family, Duke Agis III (died 3977), a master of the epee, a man obsessed with power, who was ultimately accused of high treason by blrood VI, was tned by the Landsraad, and executed, without forfeiture of his titles or estates, Duke Archelaos II (died 4315) the finest gourmet of his time, of whom it was said he had "a palate given by the gods", and Duke Kleomenes VI, executed in 4381 dunng the chaos that inaugurated the First Republic R R
Further references HOUSE ATREIDES FOUNDATION OF
HOUSE ATREIDES AND IMPERIAL RULE AJVaT HoOHlWll
The House of Atretdes m Historical Perspective 22 v (Caladan. Apex)
ATREIDES, HOUSE, and Imperial Rule. Suffering like the other Houses Major and Minor in the massacres of the Republic, the
ATREIDES HOUSE
59
ATREIDES HOUSE
Atreides withdrew for a time from their home at Hestia to the colony planet of Galla&n by the year 4400 most of the bloodshed was over, although the revolt of Ezhar V in 4404 caused great concern Count Atreus Atreides Atreides (born 4498), a descendant of Emper or Estil I in the female line, rallied the Sardaukar around his claims, and mounted a coup d'etat m early 4552, proclaiming him self emperor as the first ruler of the House of Atreus Cornno His. Cousine, Duke Panamas VIII, was created Sindar Duke of Gallatin in the first year of Atreus's reign, other surviving members of the family received lesser titles Atreus made a serious attempt to reform the federal bureaucracy, and to merge the institutions and reforms of the First Re public with the old imperial structure, his reforms lasted as long as he was personally seated on the throne
His son and heir, Emperor Mikael II, called "The Depraved," seem to follow his father's direction during the first lew years of his rule, but after nearly dying from chaumurky, Mikael began to harms the Landsraad, accumulated personal rule, and began a reign of terror unparalleled m Imperial history A massive popular revolt forced him to leave the throne in 4670, under the pretext of "rearing to a monastery' , in actual fact, he disappeared before the message was released to general rejoicing and sentiments of revenge, his fate remaining a mystery for hundreds of years The Republic was restored, and remained in place until 4813, except for the sporadic revolts of various pretenders Mikael was restored from cryogenic suspension in 4813, and ruled until 488$, when his eldest son of his second reign, having been imprisoned most of his life, deposed his father There followed the bnef reigns of the brother-Emperors, Mikael m, Mikael IV, Mikael V, and Mikael VI The father, Mikael II, escaped from his prison cell in the spring of 4913, rounded up a handful of guards, and had his surviving sons murdered (one historical account quotes him as saying "I can always breed new sons ') Two years later, while lakjng a bath, Mikael was murdered by one of tas daughters, who threw a large piece of pure sodium into the water His remains were left in the sun to
rot outside the doorway to his palace The Comno heir, Comn XIII was proclaimed Emperor in 4935 Thereafter, Atreides Dukes stayed out of Imperial politics for several millennia
In 7425 the Atreides supported the demi House of Hajus Comno against the corrupt line of Irulon Corrmo Sindar Duchess Hippoiute Atreides threw her resources be hind Fredhnck al Hajus m 7425, and when several of the other Houses Major followed her lead Fredhrick was acclaimed Emperor the following year For her efforts Hippoiute was made Imperial Consort, her children Fredhrick n and Aha VII, ruled jointly after their father's death m 7456 At Hippolute's death m 7477, her sister, Duchess Clio II, succeeded, she expired childless m 7501, leaving her niece Empress Aha, to inherit the Ducal throne at Aha s death in 7519, her son Sidir XVIII became Emperor, and her second son, Saurophon, succeeded to the Duchy Saurophon s son, Sindar Duke Prince Nestor IV, was stripped of his Imperial titles when he cast an avaricious eye upon the Imperial Seat a second such episode cost him his life in 7553 The rivalry between the two sibling Houses continued until 8008, when the Atreides clan supported Tuopa il Roonaladh m overthrowing Emperor rredhnck IX, one historian quotes reigning Smdar-Duke Telemachos Atreides as saying 'If I can't have the bloody throne, neither can my quivenng Cousme1' Telemachos was impeached before the Landsraad in 8015, and executed after a trial that lasted just two days During his defense, he had but one statement to make Evidently I was wrong "
The Atreides redeemed themselves m 8705, when they supported a revolt by the mam hne of the Cornnos, an action which resulted in the inauguration of Elrood VIII as Emperor m 8708 The Atreides were reconfirmed in all their dignities, and further awarded the Sindar-DukedomofCaladanin8711 Sindar-Duke Paulos XVI Atreides sold many of his other estates, and moved his entire family to this singularly beautiful planet (occupying Castle Caladan upon its completion in 8722), establishing his Cousmes on nearby planets and systems The ensuing centuries saw such distinguished soldier politicians as Sindar
ATREIDES, JESSICA
ATREIDES, JESSICA
Duke the Lord High Admiral of the Fleet Agesipolis IT Atreides, Count Thomas Atneides-Gamnonides, Baion Platon Atreides Gallatinos, LordChrusostomosAteides-KaUinikes, Bashar Count Klemes Atreides Hestiades, and many others. A complete list of the Siridar-Dukes of Caladan follows. With the marriage between Siridar-Duke
Paulos XIX Atreides and the Imperial Heir, Princess Regent Irulan III, in 10196, the House of Atreides once again became merged with the Imperial fortunes. The succession in 10208 of Emperor-Duke Leto II, 269th Head of the House of Atreides, maintained the Atreides Imperium until 13724. R.R.
SIRIDAR-DUKES OF ATREIDES CALADANIDES AND ARRIKIDES |
||||
1. Paulos XVI (8677)8711-8749 |
25. |
Pansanias XXII (n) |
9458-9541 |
|
2. Kallistos III (i) |
8749-8799 |
26. |
Ansiakes n (s) |
9541-9567 |
3. Basilios 11 (b) |
8799-8818 |
27. |
Pleistarchos (u) |
9567-9569 |
4. Pantos XVII (s) |
8818-8820 |
28. |
Konstanunos VII (s) |
9569-9584 |
5. Delos(u) |
8820-8825 |
29. |
Aristakes III (s) |
9584-9652 |
6. Theseus VHI (n) |
8825-8862 |
30. |
Philodelphos or Minos V |
(b) 9652-9675 |
7. Demctrios XXX (s) |
8862-8904 |
31. |
Pausanias XX111 (s) |
9675-9711 |
8. Slcplianos (c) |
8904-8925 |
32. |
Demetrios XXXII (s) |
9711-9740 |
9. Basilios III (a) |
8925-8961 |
33. |
Aristakes IV (b) |
9740-9744 |
10. Philippos XI (s) |
8961-8977 |
34. |
Kuros (2nd c) |
9744-9769 |
11. Minos IV (b) |
8977-8978 |
. 35. |
Elias III (s) |
9769-9800 |
12. Herakles (b) |
8978-8989 |
36. |
Minos VI (s) |
9800-9851 |
13. Odusseus IV (h) |
8989-9004 |
37. |
Orestes IV (s) |
9851-9876 |
14. Nestor VII (b) |
9004-9055 |
38 |
Minos VII (s) |
9876-9913 |
15. Philippos XH (s) |
9055-9116 |
39 |
lakobos II (b) |
9913-9929 |
16. Perseus VII (b) |
91 1« |
40 |
Kalman (b) |
9929-9942 |
15. Philippos Xfl (restored) |
9116-9123 |
41. |
Minos VIE (s) |
9942-9988 |
17. Deroetrios XXI (s) |
9123-9173 |
42. |
Philippos XV (s) |
9988-10035 |
18. Philippos XHI (s) |
9173-9222 |
43. |
Minos IX (s) |
10035-10077 |
19. Otestss H (s) |
9222-9249 |
44. |
Paulos XVIII (s) |
10077-10116 |
20. Mewlaos V (b) |
9249-9268 |
45. |
Minotauros (Mintor) (b) |
10116-10163 |
21. Alexandras Vffl (b) |
9268-9301 |
46. |
Leto I (s) |
10163-10191 |
22. Orestes m (s) |
9301-9355 |
47. |
Paulos XIX (s) |
10191-10218 |
23. Philippos XTV (s) |
9355-9449 |
48. |
Leto II (s) |
10219-13724 |
24. Ansiakes 1 (c) |
9449-9*58 |
  |   |   |
Farther reference*: HOUSB ATRSIDES, FOUNDATION OF; HOUSE ATREIDES, PROMINENT MEMBERS; ATREIDES, PAUL "MUAD"DIB"; ATREIDES, DUKE LBTD; ATREIDES, EMPEROR LETO n;HerkE!anus, The Tree cf Atreides (Caladan. Apex)
her name. By application of the material in Ghanima's records, it now appears that Lady Jessica, Ghanima's grandmother, can best be understood as the fulfillment of Archetypes prophesised by the ancient seer, her ancestor. From the Jhungian perspective Jessica is—in her own right, as in her own person—the long-awaited incarnation of all the major masculine and feminine Archetypes Thus, even more than the justly famed Jehanne Butler, she is Dune's, indeed the Imperium's, truest hero as well as its greatest woman,
The ancient seer envisioned four feminine Archetypes: the Mother, the Hetaira, the Amazon, and the Medium Jessica's Bene
ATO1DES-HARKONNEN, JESSICA. Mother of Paul Atreides and grandmother of Xeto II and Ghanima, Lady Jessica is the most important woman in Dune's lengthy history.
One of the most fascinating discoveries of the Rakis Hoard is RRC 13-A700, The Book of Ghanima. Among the document's most revealing entries is Ghaxihna's study of the roots of her own name. Intrigued by the "anima" aspect of her name, Ghanima set about a systematic exploration of her ancestral memories to discover everything said of the "anima." As a result she learned that a remote Terran ancestor, perhaps named Seegee Jhung, had outlined a theory which explained
ATREIDES, JESSICA
ATREIDES, JESSICA
Gesserit lineage and upbringing fitted her to mother. In fact, as she sometimes complained, she was raised to be a mere brood mare, an instrument of Bene Gesserit eugenics, rather than a person. Herself the product of an eugenic exercise, the one-night mating of a Bese Gesserit (almost certainly Gains Helen Mohiam) with the Siridar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Jessica grew up oa Wailach DC, the Bene Gesserit home plane), where she endured fourteen years of education in "mothering," Bene Gesserit style. To the Sisterhood destiny was biology and maternal influence the strongest of all life-forces. Accordingly, Jessica was thoroughly trained for motherhood: she learned to understand and control her own organism so as to be the fittest possible biological mother, and—still more essential to the Bene Gesserit design— she learoed to observe, understand, and hence control others, and by this means to keep everybody, men, women, princes, and potentates, psychological "children" to her perpetually dominant "motberliaess."
Jessica, however, confounded her teachers by transcending their concept of maternity.
The Bene Gesserit thought her a shockingly unSisterly rebel against their careful discipline, but actually Jessica did not so much revolt as evolve into another dimension of selfhood, that of Hetaira. Because she became a true companion to her mate, Duke Leto Atreides, she freed herself for a much fuller, more substantive motherhood than the Bene Gesserit projected; as Hetaira Jessica chose to bear the son her lover wanted, not the daughter planned by the Sisterhood, for as Hetaira Jessica knew that the loving intimacy of equal, free selves was the only true generative force in the universe. Jessica's Hetaira role was emphasized by the fact that Duke Leto made her his Lady concubine but never his Lady wife; few societal sanctions supported (or confined) her Archetypal compamonate vitality.
Lady Jessica remained Hetaira all her adult life. She never stopped loving her Duke, not even decades after his death, and she returned to the Atreides' home planet, Caladan, whenever she could. More significantly, she instilled the need to be Hetaira into all her descendants: into Paul Atreides, who welcomed Chani as his "companion;" into Leto II and Ghanima, twin Hctairae to each other; and most notably and tragically into Alia, whose Hetaira nature betrayed her to the Baron Harkonnen's seductive intrapersonal companionship.
Ironically, it was against this Abominable companionship that Jessica displayed her fullest, most irresistible Amazonian strength. Lady Jessica first discovered her Amazonian potential when she fled, pregnant, into the Arrakeen wilderness. Fremen women, thoroughly liberated to the world of men, showed Jessica that she, too, could survive Dune's rigors. As Amazon she mastered both the shifting sands of Dune's deserts and the shifting tides of Imperial politics. As Amazon she retired to Castle Caladan during her son's reign, and there, in those familiar surroundings, used the Amazon's resourceful objectivity to outthink and at last outgrow her Bene Gesserit conditioning. The depth and range of her matured Amazonian powers were especially evident during those anxious, almost disastrous years between Muad'Dib's disappearance into the desert and Leto II's
ATRE1DES, JESSICA
62
ATRE1DES JESSICA
assumption of the Imperial throne: throughout that near-decade Jessica proved herself a formidable diplomat, intriguer, and (mostly psychological) wamor, effectively countering even her own daughter's plots agonist A&eides ideals
Alia would not have dwindled into Abomination, nor Paul into Muad'Dib and then The Preacher, had they, like their mother, wholly embraced the Archetypal role of Medium As Medium Jessica bndged the unconscious world and the human community, mediating these vast collectivities bv her perfectly balanced and tuned self-consciousness Lady Jessica became Medial because the Fremen, seeking a new Reverend Mother, sent her into a perilous spice-trance Melange catalyzed her evolution, but Jessica's already Archetypal psyche stabilized and vivified it as Helaira she infused her Medial wisdom with personal caring, while as Amazon she preserved independent individual selfhood against the onslaughts of the collective unconscious Conversely, as Medium she maintained a healthily cosmic perspective on her personal and social involvements Her Medial energies saved Jessica from the centripetal egotism which crushed her children
On the other hand, Jessica's Medial experiences introduced her to her psyche s very core—to the genuine, Archetypal Motherhood that die Bene Gessent had almost persuaded her did not and could not exist Even after she had understood her way past the Sisterhood's other pronouncements, she con tinued to believe the Bene Gessent dogma that Archetypes were public relations illusions whose only use was to manipulate the gullible Jessica's residual skepticism was seriously debilitated when as Medium she encountered the Great Mother within herself, her doubts fefi utterly away when as Mother centered in her new Material self-awareness, she sensed the Great Mother as an extenor presence as well—when she knew the grand, essential shaping force mat Liet-Kynes, his Fremen followers, and above all her God Emperor grandson so passionately sought Mother Jessica realized mat humans (not to mention Worms) neither originate nor control generalivity in any of its manifestations
She understood that all life-forms and all life-processes—including her own roles as lover, leader, and mother—really are channels for the Great Mother s creative and sustaining energies This was the teaching she imparted to Farad n, the teaching to which she devoted her mature life
In our age when Arrakeen culture is imbued with the Motherly spirit, one can scarcely believe, much less comprehend, the resistance which Mother Jessua confronted in her contemporaries In that desolate era masculinity still ruled throughout the Impenum, though onlv as the debased confraternity of brutal pragmatism (expressed by the Har-konnens and Sardaukar) and mechanistic ra tionahty (the spirit of the Mentals and Tleilaxu) Most people then retained the tra ditional belief that intelligence, power, order— indeed, civilization itself—were essentially masculine property, but they knew, too, that even the best most vitally Archetypal man hood was somehow insufficient, for Duke Leto Atreides, who perfectly incarnated whole Archetypal manliness, died defeated So Jessica lived at the time when masculinity was losing its exclusive hold on people's psyches and feminine consciousness was just begin ning to come into its own
Given its long-term investment in male chauvinism, the popular mind understand ably hesitated to acknowledge the importance of being feminine Partial glimpses were easiest women were tolerable as Hetaira (witness Gamont), or (more reluctantly) as Amazons (witness the Fish Speakers), or (most reluctantly) as Mediums (witness the Fremen Reverend Mothers) Motherhood, in its pure Archetypal glory, was simply unthinkable The reasons for these psychological blocks have been well explained merely masculine thinking is esoteric, directed toward discovering and working with the facts of the external, (especially) physical world By contrast, feminine consciousness is esotenc, or interior, it deals with the inwardness of reality Meeting the Great Mother, as Jessica did, means realizing that the inward shapes and sustains the outward—that the physical universe has a spiritual core Such a realization is inevitably shattering to the esotenc
ATREIDES, JESSICA
63
ATREIDES JESSICA
outlook from the merely masculine per spective the only Mother is the Temble Mother
Jessica's children and grandchildren were the most pitiable yet instructive victims of the then-pervasive anti-Maternal bias Paul, first modern man to liberate his feminine intelligence, nonetheless imprisoned himself and the Bremen in Muad'Dib's stereotypical masculinity and eventually blinded himself rather man face the ultimate Motherhood he feared Aha rejected Motherhood because she identified it with Jessica's invasion of her pre-born mind and the consequent Medial awareness that made her a freak, she used her Hetairal energies to escape Motherhood and her Amazonian energies to fight rt Leto II wat> comfortable with the Hetaira, Amazon Medium, and Mother within himself, but was sure that the Terrible Mother governed all natural events, he sacrificed his subjective humanity to buy time from the objective monster Mother Nature he imagined. Ghanmia agreed with her Bene Gessent ancestresses that "motherhood' was preferable to "Motherhood' , to preserve her sense of personal identity she needed to control, even to diminish the Archetypal, viewing tt in safely per sonal terms
For Jessica, however, Motherhood could not be evaded, rejected, distorted, or diminished, because for her the Great Mother was irresistibly attractive Her entire life was a quest for the Mother It was a long and arduous ordeal, requiring great personal growth, constant psychological balance, and unremitting courage, vigor, and determination She had both to become Mother and to be Mother in a time when neither had been done before and among a people to whom "Mother" meant "witch "
Important though this quest was for Jessica, it was absolutely vital for Dune Jessica arrived on Arabs at precisely the moment when the fantasy of the subject-object gap threatened to devastate that planet with powerplay after powerplay Liet-Kynes and the piemen intuitively knew that there needed to be a more balanced, conscious relation ship between humans and nature and that the way to that relationship was understanding
the life force that binds 'subjective' and ' objective" m a single interpenetrating continuum But these ecological visionaries lacked the Archetypal cxpenence to reach their goal It was left to Jessica to complete the quest and by so doing show others how they might meet Mother themselves
First Jessica and later, through her School, more and more of her followers became initiates Each initiate underwent an excruciating alienation from his or her original mindset transformed his or her thinking by direct protracted awareness of the Great Mother, and labored to refashion every ele ment of Arrakeen culture m accord with Motherly views and values Jessica, the very first such initiate, sacrificed much more than her successors did She endured alienation from her Sisters, her children and grand children most of her Atreides associates, and all of Dune's common folk She refused to play 'mother" in the Bene Gessent way of frightening others into psychological childhood, but instead let people make up their own minds about the Archetypal reality she embodied, and so she sacrificed the satisfaction of knowing whether her transformation had really benefited anyone but herself
Jessica's sacrifices were genuine and (unlike Leto ITs) net-essary for as she well knew Archetypal Motherhood was bound to con found the very thought that most languished for lack of it There is, however, a deep and horrible irony in the dismal fact that while Jessica was living Archetypal Quest, Initiation, and Sacrificial heroism (the major masculine Archetypes) and, simultaneously, incarnating the tour ma]or feminine Archetypes as well, her contemporaries mostly reviled or ignored her and focused their hopeful attention on the grand but misguided careers of her chil dren and grandchildren Even Dune's histon ans were shockingly slow to recognize that the real Dune story is Jessica's J H
Farther references ATRBIDES GHANIMA, ATREIDES
DUKE LETO ATREIDES LETO II ATREIDES PAUL MUAD
DIB MOHIAM R M GAius HELEN Hatq al Ada The Mother of God tr Harq al Lutag Atretdes (Grumman. Tern) Ghamma Elame and Leto n Atreides The Book o/Ghanima RRC 13 A700
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ATREIDES, LETO I
ATREIDES, DUKE LETO I (10140-10191). Last Duke of House Atreides to rule on Caladan; falter of Duke Paul Muad'Dib; prescribed over the change from Caladan to Arrakis. Duke Leto I was bom on Caladan in 10140, the only child of Duke Mintor out of the concubine Bekah, who died in delivery. Leto took the reins of power at the age of twenty-three, and it is a tribute to his determination and magnetic personality that he wore the Ducal Ring for twenty-eight of the most turbulent years in the long history of House Atreides,
Leto was only partway through his military training, under the general tutelage of the famed household mental Thufir Hawut, when Duke Mintor was killed in the Corrida ill 10163. The new Duke demanded the right to avenge his father's death on the horns of El Mtterte, an act which was not only symbolic, but also politically astute. By this one action, Duke Leto revealed his bravery, won the iiQagmatioa and support of the populace and proved that he was completely prepared—both psychologically and physically—to take over the Dukedom. Leto killed
the bull using his father's estoque, thus linking his power with that of his ancestors; he never entered the Corrida again
Leto trained as a matador, received combat training in operations on Wallor Tertius, and served on the Atreides flagship Van Atreides as a subaltern. He was granted authority early in life, when then-Duke Mintor sent the sixteen-year-old Leto as the Designated Observer for House Atreides to the revolt at Mask Prime. Leto unilaterally withheld the House contingent from a planetary assault whose strategy he felt was weak. He was proved correct in his assessment when three brigades and at least two cruisers of Houses Harkonnen and Kaastaar were destroyed, and an Imperial Inquest concurred that the attack plan was badly flawed.
The Atreides forces were among the only survivors of the carnage at Mask Prime. A new contingent of Imperial levies was sent to their aid, but by the time of their arrival the na-Duke was in the Palace of Mask, in complete control of the rebellious planet. His patient and lifesaving tactics of siege, psywar and sabotage had worked brilliantly. His judgment and strong leadership won him the immediate loyalty of the Atreides forces, a loyalty which was to grow to somewhat legendary proportions over the course of Leto's reign.
Soon after ascending the Ducal throne, Leto had the chance to cement the loyalty of his troops forever. By sheer force of personality and evidence of his unbreachable integrity, Leto put down a mutiny within his own troops on the planet Pinskau. Leto took the time and care to uncover the true reason for his troops' holding prisoner their own officers and to ensure that their totally justifiable grievances were dealt with Throughout his lifetime, Leto showed the same faith in and care for his troops and commanders on hundreds of lesser occasions. His fairness and wisdom gained him a House force which was known as the most loyal, trustworthy and honorable in the Imperium.
From 10158 until 10174, Duke Leto continued to make a name for himself as one of the most honorable of the nobility. Typical of the adventures he embarked upon during this period was the retaliatory, "black" (no flags
ATREIDES LETO I
ATREIDES LETO I
or insignia, no declaration of war, no admission of participation afterwards) raid on the Harkonnen home planet of Giedi Pnrne in 10165, which Leto led himself in response to a Harkonnen raid on House Tipnear, a close ally of House Atreides A combined force of Atreides Guards and household troops of Houses Chusak (another victim of Harkonnen raids) and Tipnear landed on Giedi Prune and took over the slave-market city of Baathaas approximately twenty thousand slaves were freed, and immease damage was done to the Harkonnen slaving fleet based at Baathaas The slaves were taken to Caladan where they were given their freedom and were offered passage to any of the systems mat had taken part m title raid (This, by the way, was the action that brought Guraey Hal leek into the service of House Atreides)
Leto's reputation brought him a considerable amount of trouble, as those less worthy than himself continually sniped at Leto, thinking his example to be a subtle insult against themselves This attitude was not helped by the duke's refusal to many for political reasons, nor was it eased by the Duke's victory in the Battle of Thar system (10167), for which he was granted the title Chevalier of the Impen-um by Emperor Shaddam IV The award was only the third in Shaddam IV's reign, and was taken, rightly, as a sure symbol not only of Leto's undeniable bravery, but also of Shaddam's growing respect for this old-fashioned, outspoken, hawk-faced man
Shaddam IV, a devotee of the Corrida, had taken a mild interest in Leto ever since his ascension to the Ducal throne on Caladan After the mutiny on Pinskau, Leto was summoned to a private audience with the emperor It is reported that the emperor wished to discuss nothing but the battle with El Muerte, and, when he dismissed Leto, did so only upon repeated urguigs of his social secretary, whose schedules were being thrown off by the emperor's extended audience with the Duke It is further reported that, later that day, the emperor told his personal secretary that "if they were all simply as correct and as sure of their place as die Duke, the Empire would be a paradise "
The emperor's acknowledgement of Leto as an exemplar of correct Noble behavior
very likely led paradoxically, to Leto's death and the near-destruction of his house, since the emperor's obvious affection for Leto caused intense jealousy among those not so favored The Court, never a very friendly place for outsiders in the best of times, was almost universally ill disposed toward this upstart Duke from some unknown backwater planet where the only export was some distasteful item called ' 'pundi nee ''
Nevertheless, the Duke continued being Leto the Just, administering Caladan as best he knew how One of his kinder actions, and one which greatly increased his prestige, was his habit of taking promising young orphans into the Household where they were raised as members of his own family At times, there were up to a dozen children m Castle Caladan, who would stay at the castle until they were apprenticed off to a good master
In 10175 one of the Duke's buyers, after careful investigation by the mental Thufir Hawat, brought the Duke a present from the Bene Gessent school on Caladan Her name was Jessica, and she had been offered by the headmistress at the school as a Bound Concubine for the duke's household The Duke had no concubine m Castle Caladan at the time (he had the habit of selling his concubines their own contracts after a short time, usual ty for a penny) The Duke also had a habit of dismissing his buyers with distressing regularity when they brought him a lady who eventually bored him
It was thus with some trepidation that the latest buyer introduced Jessica to Leto and discreetly removed himself from their presence What took place between the Duke and the concubine during the next few hours is unknown but when the Duke arrived for his meal a few hours later, he did so with the new concubine on his arm (a privilege never granted any other concubine) and during the dinner, he included Jessica in the table conversation The next day, Leto summoned the buyer to him and announced that the buyer was dismissed The buyer was stunned, and began stammering his apologies to the Duke, only to fall into shocked silence as the Duke continued telling the buyer that he, the Duke no longer required the services of
ATREIDBS LETO I
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a buyer at all, but that he did need a quartermaster-general to take charge of all trade to and from Caladan, and would the former buyer please consent to take the post1'
It was announced five months later that the Lady Jessica (as she came to be known) was to bear the Duke's first child A boy was born four months later, and was named Paul
The arrival of Paul and Leto s obvious love for Jessica led the Duke to adopt a more domestic lifestyle As he said, ' I have all that an honest man could want—the love of a woman, the loyalty of my subjects, the respect of my peers, and a son " TTiough he still went on campaign with his troops whenever the Levy was summoned, and fought bravely m then* front, he no longer paced the castle like a caged animal when there w<ts peace, instead, he threw himself fully into the education of his son, determined that he would grow up worthy of the Atretdes crest With the able assistance of Warmaster Halleck and Swordmaster (later Warmaster) Idaho, Leto began framing Paul in command as soon as Paul could speak Thufir Hawat gave Paul his general education, and Lady Jessica also took quite an active role in Paul's training
Unfortunately, storm clouds were massing on the horizon The emperor's affection for his "Red Duke," as he called Leto in reference to his Chevalier's Title, had led to a steady and consistent effort by jealous nobles to undermine Leto's position at the court Their whispering campaigns began to have their effect, especially when, in the battle of Grumman (10176), Leto's Atreides forces again saved die day Shaddam IV, like all emperors, was a suspicious man, and realized that too much success on the battlefield is much worse than too tittle he knew, and his counselors agreed, that Duke Leto might become too powerful, too popular, to hold in check His incredibly loyal troops and his almost perfect rapport with diem made him a threat to the throne, in spite of his obvious loyalty
Thus it was that by 10190 Shaddam IV was responsive fo a plan, hatched by enemies of House Atreides, to require the trans plantation of House Atreides from Caladan to Airakis, in the guise of a reward By
10191 Duke Leto was dead—the victim of a hideous plot by House Harkonnen which included forcing Dr Wellington Yueh, a trusted Atreides retainer to betray his Duke—and his House destroyed Leto s beloved Jessica now pregnant with a daughter Leto would never see, and son Paul were able to flee into the desert and escape the Harkonnen forces This, of course, is the beginning of the story of Paul Muad'Dib WA I
Farther references ATREIDES HOUSE KJUNDATION OF
ATREIDBS HOUSE PROMINENT MEMBERS ATREIDES HOUSE AND IMPERIAL RULE ATREIDES PAUL MUAD
DIB Alvar Hoomwil The House of Atreides in Histort col Perspective 11 v (Caladan Apex)
ATREIDES, LETO II- GOD EMPEROR OF DONE (10209-13724) Older than the fabled Noah more godlike than an) previous messiah, be it Mdometh his father Paul Muad Dib, or even Jehanne Butler, Leto II has proved more mercurial, more difficult of understand ing, even in the centimes since his timely/untimely death than any other figure in the entire history of humanity on hundreds of star systems or thousands of planets He is a myth enshrouded in legend and it may be that he himself created both myth and legend It may be in fact that we will never know the truth about this erratic genius, this preda tor of the galaxy, this wormhke, wormy god the epithets could be multiplied exponentially and we will never come near the final truth
What then are the facts of his life9 Born to Paul Muad'Dib, the first Atreides emperor, and his consort, Chant Liet Kynes, he overthrew the tyrannical rule of the Abomination, Alia Atreides, his aunt, took on the sand-worm skin in a move that fundamental religionists have always hailed as the Incarnation, and ruled as God Emperor for over 3,500 years He died in a fall from a bridge, although the Church of the Divided God claims mat the stunted sandworms that still may be found m one small spare desert on Rakis are embodiments of Him—they use the capital letter—and that He will return as the fully grown, terrifying, majestic Shai Hulud, Old Father Eternity, to restore Arrakis, His home world, and the Fremen, Hib faithful disciples, to greatness
We know of course, of the anarchy that
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followed his death, the Starvation and the Scattering that eventuated in our present civilization But we do not know Him The Rakis Finds, of course, have been immensely helpful m our quest for knowledge of his era We had long since studied and restudied the invaluable, priceless Stolen Journals, but they pale to virtual insignificance beside the richness of the materials m the Dar-es-Balat diggings So voluminous are they that several decades will elapse before even their cata logmg is completed, to say nothing of their analysis
Of the God Emperor, severe) things are certain Hts voluminous dictatel recordings ate largely self-serving and completely lacking in objectivity Consider his famous statement, one he reiterated again and again, before any audience "Only fools prefer the past'" Yet has there been any person—if one may refer to Leto as a person—in the thousands of years of recorded history who was so totally dominated by the past as Leto himself? Did not his conversation continually concern the knowledge he had derived from his thou sands of ancestral voices'7 Did he not refer, again and again, to legendary, perhaps mythic Terran figures such as Chaucer or Alexander1? Have we forgotten the wisdom—for such it was, no matter our final assessment of Leto— contained in The Stolen Journals 'If you know all of your ancestors, you were a personal witness to the events which created the myths and religions of our past Recognizing this, you must think of me as a mythoiaker"
What then did Leto mythologizc7 First of ail, himself He created more legends con cernmg his immutability, his omniscience, his omnipotence, indeed, his eternal nature, than anything else Yet, in reality, it was the brute physical strength of the biologic adapta tion of the saadworm that he had become that was the original source of his imperial power He capitalized on ttiat strength—and how many legends he created of his inhuman abilities'—to cement his position as emperor and to terrify entire populations From that moment on, religious awe and blind superstition, combined with the longevity of the saadworm he was becoming, made his rule inevitable
An early Duncan Idaho the consummate Atreidean supporter, rebelled against Leto s increasing authontanamsm and questioned Leto's abuse of that same loyally Idaho-11099 initiated the last, sad Sardaukar campaign against the emperor, a move that resulted in Idaho s death, the final destruction of the Imperial Legions, and the founding of the Fish Speakers Historians, perhaps some of those incinerated by Leto on the pyre of their own works, have remarked on the almost tragic irony involved in this abortive campaign To be S.UTC, the very notion of any Duncan Idaho leading the hated Saudarkar in an ill-fated, yea, grandiose, campaign battle against an Atreides is the stuff of which a latter-day Harq al-Harba could have made great tragedy Yet we cannot simply dismiss that Idaho's action as a mere mental aberra tion and classify it in the same breath as the infamous Dr Wellington Yueh s treason Rath er we should consider what colossal emo trons were required to enable Idaho to over come his ingrained, almost genetically incul cated, ioyalty to any Atreides And yet just as some revisionist historians have been able to explain even Yueh s triumph over his pyretic conscience by adducing the incalculable passion of his love for his beloved Wanna so we should now examine Leto's treason— not Duncan-13724's—to the Atreidean way, his treason to his grandfather Leto I, the Red Duke to his father Paul Muad Dib and to himself
Leto then was false to himself and to the ancient Atreides line and its sense of truth honor, and devotion It is imperative to re member that he was but an adolescent when he assumed both the throne and the sand-worm skin He never had the opportunity to grow up, to mature He had never enjoyed a normal life He was forced to overcome temptation, test after test Struggles for his very life were for him simple rites of passage even before he was a teenager And as an early teen, he exhibited all of the outlandish, ridiculous activity we have associated with both adolescence and adolescents for centuries In fact, one psychologist, Professor Istrafan Koye of the University of Ix, has maintained quite cogently in his monumental The Last of rfie God Emperors (subtitled There But For
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the Grace of God Goes God, 3 vol , Salusa Secundus Karshak) that the key to Leto's character is quite simply that he was an adolescent for the entirety of his 3,500-year reign and that if one wants to understand "His Annehdity" (the phrase is Koye's) one must approach him as one might approach any other juveiuie delinquent, with birch rod firmly in hand How else can we understand Leto's repeated temper tantrums over the fact that his Duncans might disagree with him on even trivial matters or that his major domos might dare to suggest that 'His Ouroborosity" might occasionally have feet (or is the proper word "segments'"*) of clay
Who but a classic "brat kid" could be so unaware of the discrepancy in his own life between appearance and reahty, between shadow and substance1* We know, for example, from his last dictate! messages recorded shortly before his demise, that he had developed a mad—some would call it "adolescent" —passion for the "incomparable" Hwi Noree White he admitted that sexual union with her was impossible beause his wormself had subsumed his human gemtalia many centuries earlier, he nonetheless mooned over her like a teenage boy in beat To be sure he had his ancestral memories of rampant sexuality to sustain him, he said again and again and again and again, until an Idaho or a Moneo, even a blindly adoring Nayla, might not wonder if he were protesting a bit 100 much In fact Koye cogently argued thai if memory of sexuality could sustain Lcto, why did he not apply the same principle to food and refuse to eat Surely if memories of ancestral licentiousness could satisfy his sexual need, so also memories of gluttonous banquets stretching back in time for unity or more centimes should satisfy his physical self
Koye also was the first to articulate the incredible contradictions between Leto's famed Golden Path and the breeding program he had taken over from die Bcne Gessent The two seem at opposite ends of the scale you cannot plan to breed humanity into some higher type and at the same time give humanity the essential freedom which is supposedly at the heart of the Golden Path Koye even argued, with some accuracy, that the Bene Gessent were far more successful with their
ages long breeding program than Leto was with his The Sisterhood, we now recognize, had twice nearly produced the Kwisatz Haderach according to all indications Jehanne Butler s aborted baby, Sarah Butler, would have produced the Kwisatz Haderach, but, tragically, her death dela>ed his arrival until Paul Atreides Leto s father, was bom
How then can we explain the eccentricities, the foibles, the genuine accomplishments of the famous/infamous God Emperor1* Because he was worm, he no longer seems human Because he was human we tend to forget he was worm However, we must never forget that he was also, in the grand mythic sense of a long-abused word, King He ruled over his desert kingdom for nearly four millennia, attempting to birth a civilization, a people, and a culture that did not need to fear itself
One persistent myth, perhaps dozens of centimes old from legendary Terra, may help explain him It is the myth of the Fisher King who ruled over a Waste Land, a land so desolate that crops did not grow, humans did not reproduce, and despair was endemic Wounded in the genitals, the Fisher King s kingdom was stenle, with both ruler and subjects awaiting a Redeemer, a pure Knight who would heal the King and return fertility to the land
Leto Atreides II was that Fisher King His Arrakeen desert made any historic or mythic Waste Land seem fertile by comparison Yet his vision of Arrakis was inevitably limited, perhaps because of his youth perhaps because of incarnate nature, perhaps because of his very perversity, perhaps because of his essential lack of humanity as evidenced by his lack of genital activitv If his \ision for his home planet was limited, so was it also for the Impenum Because he fancied himself as the Redeemer of his planet and the Impenum, he attempted to become the Knight of particular purity who would heal himself
He failed in one sense
He triumphed in another
He was the once and future King His vision for hss planet and his kingdom failed because, as Leto himself was more than once forced to admit, he was not God in any ulumate sense
Yet he succeeded because he died, and
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ATREIDES LETO U"
Redeemers must die for their people When
he died, his limited vision of the Golden
Path also died Thus after the Starvation and
the Scattering, we are now free—free from
Leto, free from the Golden Path, and free
from fee threat of ourselves
Who knows what waits beyond the stars''
WM
ATREIDES. LETO II, as enigma. Leto would have taken extreme pleasure in the idea of futurfe generations attempting to write ency clopedia articles concerning him Certainly he held such waters m contempt during his lifetime, boasting to many that he had burned alive many a historian upon pyres made of their own works No historian could dare to claim equal knowledge of the past with Leto, for, after all, Leto was directly responsible for over 3,500 years of the past Moreover, given his claim that he had withm him the memories of every single one of his ancestors, one could reasonably suggest that the words Leto and history are one and the same
Leto's contempt for history and historians supplies a clue to the nature of this ultimately unknowable man and god Leto in The Stolen Journals wrote of history
You cannot understand history unless you understand its Sowings, its currents a&d the ways leaders move within such forces A leader tnes to perpetuate the conditions which demand tus leadership Thus, the leader requires the outsider I caution you to examine my career with care 1 3m both leader and outsider Do not make the mistake of assuming that I only created the Church which was the State That was my function as leader and I bad many historical models to use as pattern For a clue to my role as outsider, look at the aits of my tune The arts arc barbaric UK favorite poetry1' The Epic The popular dramatic ideal? Heroism Dances? Wildly abandoned From Moneo's viewpoint, he -is correct ia describing this as dangerous It stimulates the imagination It makes people feel the lock of that which I have taken from them What did I take from them'' The right to participate in history
Leto damned the one thing that he believed was essential to the freedom of his subjects He usurped timr right to create their own past by living m a free present The worlds
ran strictly according to the whims of the God Emperor and he made clear to all thinking creatures that to h\e apart from him was unthinkable Leto was God and, as God, all was created in his image With such a view of the universe, he would not allow anyone to interpret the past or even to describe it Only Leto knew the one and only path, the Golden Path, and his sole owner ship of the path demanded that he possess all the maps as well The p«u>t, or beginning of the Golden Path, had to remain in his hands because it was a key to what he intended for the future
Thus, Leto's attitude toward historians was a mixture of ironic jest and tyrannic policy On the one hand, Leto knew that those who worshiped the past could understand so little of it that they were laughable in what they took for truth On the other, he had no wish that anyone, even by accident, appear to so interpret the past that the key to the future be even briefly touched by another As the above quotation indicates, his answer to the necessity of historical movement was to usurp all the rotes By becoming the historical dialectic, he became history itself, and therefore, the future as well
What kind of a being would have such an ego that he would even dare conceive of such a plan9 What kind of a being would have such power that he could actually carry that plan out' The answer is clear only the true Kwisatz Haderach, the Bene Gessent male whose organic power could bridge space and time Leto Atreideb was, the true God Emperor of Dune because he had been bred to the role
By calling Leto II the true Kwisatz Haderach, it should not be understood that the Bene Gessent intended to create Leto or that they had a hand in guiding him to the path he took While his grandmother, the Rever end Mother Lady Jessica Harkonnen, the conbubine of Leto Atreides I must have played some role in Leto's early life, she did so against the desires of the Sisterhood To the Bene Gessent, Leto and his twin sister, Ghamma, were both Abominations Both were fully conscious in the womb of their mother, Cham Liet Kynes, the Fremen concubine of Paul Atreides, Muad'Dib, and both
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awoke to consciousness filled with the personalities and memories of all their ancestors The Bene Gessent would have preferred Leto dead and were responsible for a large num her of the plots against his life during the more than 3,500 years he lived
However, Leto was not Abomination Unlike Alia Atreides, accurately called Abomination, Leto learned to control all of the personalities living within him and to make use of them As a boy he overthrew Alia and then created an empire that cast that of his father, Muad Dib, into shadow
As incredible as any of these facts might appear even to those who have every reason to believe their truth, they pale when compared to the biological transformation that Leto allowed himself to undergo Immediately before his overthrow of Alia, he took a child's game of the Fremen to the extreme Fremen children once amused themselves by placing sandtreut on men- hands and watching them mold themselves to the shape, they would then shake the trout off and admire the "gloves" thus formed Leto, however, placed saudtrout over his entire body allowing open space only for his mouth and nose The result was strength beyond imagining and a life that lasted inconceivable centuries With the transformation of Arrakis, moreover, Leto became the last Shai-Hulud or, at least, the last potential Shai-Hulud,
Consider then the combination that Leto represented he contained within himself the complete history of the worlds, his father's memories and knowledge, and the strength of Shai-Hiilud, the great sandworra of Arrakis How it is possible to believe that Leto was anything but a god?
And what a god Leto must have been, because within him was both Atreides and Harkonnen blood that had been reared in one of the last of the Bremen sietches of Arrakis Indeed, many of the personalities that inhabited Leto's body were Fremen personalities received from his mother, Chani Thus, it is worth raising once again an earlier question What kind of being would possess such an ego that he would eves dare to conceive of becoming all of history'5 One such being might be an Atreides who snared with his ancestors an unquenched blood-lust, even if
individual Atreides were not as cruel or as violent as the general type Leto's father was one of the gentler Atreides He was never comfortable with the actions performed in his name Some scholars have even suggested that it was this gentle aspect that determined Muad Dib s course when he walked as a blind man into the Arrakeen desert He was sick of his life as the leader of the Second Jihad But Leto was not of the same nature as his father He could take on the skin of the bdndtrout, and history has ample records to prove that Leto did not shy away from the exercise of raw, bloody power
Another such being with ego strong enough might be a Harkonnen While equally bloody as the Atreides, the Harkonnen also equally gloried in the use uf power It was the Harkonnen talent to gain and exercise power by diplomatic intrigue with a frequent assassination thrown in While I eto's great grandfather, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is best known for the luxury he surrounded himself with and for his death at the hands of Aha Atreides, it must be remembered that he was also a diplomatic genius He was able to manipulate a number of business ventures into a rapid restoration of his famil; 's power after an earlier Harkonnen had seemingly destroyed the family by an act of cowardice Given the constant power struggles during the rule of the Padishah Shaddam IV, such a feat is remarkable And, once again, history reveals that Leto knew well how to apply the velvet glove of diplomacy where it was needed
A third being capable of such an ego might be a Fremen who was convinced that what was at stake was the tau of his sietch Given what is known of Fremen culture and the Fedaykin it is not difficult to see the smgleniindedness in Leto as an expression of Fremen devotion to oneness Leto not only invented the Golden Path, he believed in it as well To him it was the one true way to preserve the worlds from vast, overwhelm ing destruction A Fremen faced with the potential destruction of the sietch, would act to preserve the tau by any means within his grasp Leto acted to preserve the tau of humanity, but the means within his grasp far exceeded those available to a mere Fremen
Finally, there is a fourth being capable of
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such an ego Shai-Hulud "The Old Man of the Desert," "Old Father Eternity," and "The Grandfather of the Desert " By Shai Hutud, it is not meant here any of the sandworms of Arrakis or the stunted ones that now exist on Rakas No, this is the Shai-Hulud that the Fremen used to personi fy the very elemental forces of the planet those forces that were so great, so over powering that they stood fur all tune Shai Hulud was, to the Fremen, the only true eternal force So vast, so incredible ware the powers of Shai-Hulud that the Fremen believed it to be beyond reason Shai-Hulud lived only for itself, uninterested in and incapable of understanding Ac petty crea-< tures that shared its world And clearly Leto was equally capable of such monumental indifference Moneo Atreides. the last steward of the God Emperor, frequently saw Leto in such moods He called them "the stirrings of the worm "
Atreides, Harkonnen, firemen, Shai-Hulud— any of these might be a being with ego powerful enough to dare become the history and future of the universe But Leto was all four, he had to dare because it was an essential part of his nature Leto had no choice Because of what he was, he was destined to pick up where his father failed and become the true Kwisatz Haderach And because he was destined to be the Kwisat? Haderach, he perforce must become the God Emperor, for they are one and the same
A second quotation from The Stolen Journals will serve well as an illustration of this point
When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path, I promised them a lesson then bones would remember I know a profound pattern which humans deny with their words even white their actions affirm it They say they seek security and quiet, the condition they call peace Even as they speak, they create the seeds of turmoil and violence If thev find their quiet security, they squirm to it How bonng they find it Look at them now Look at what they do waite I record these words Hah' I give ftem enduring eeos of enforced tranqmhty which plods on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos Believe me, the memory of Leto's peace shall abide with diem forever They
will seek their quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation
Within this passage are all four personages Here can be seen the cjmcism of the Atreides, the delight m gamesmanship of the H<trkon-nens, the harsh world view of the Fremen, and the laughter of Shai Hulud No wonder then that so many scholars propose so many different versions of Leto Atreides II Some would see him as a blood thirsty tyrant who loved to toy with his Duncan Idaho gholas through a perverted sense of "the good old days Others would see him as a corrupted politician whilmg away his time in obscene pleasure with Hwi Noree Yet others would see Leto as the compassionate but harsh teacher of mankind, instructing Siona Atreides to take on his mantle and lead mankind further on to the Golden Path And still others would see him as God laughing at all his creation simply because he wanted to
When Leto toppled from the bridge to be dissolved m the water below, who or what is it that died1? It is House Atreides that died, and House Harkonnen, and the Fremen, and Shai-Hulud, and that being that was the synthesis of them all (he Kwisatz Haderach Each died singly and as a unified entity because that is how Leto lived He was warnor, pleasure seeker, teacher, and God No one thing he did was for a single reason, for eaciL action was done to please each personality that lived within him No human will ever know Leto Atreides II, the God Emperor of Dune The very best that can be hoped for is that mankind will understand why such knowing is impossible S G
Further references ATREIDES PALI. MUAD DIB KWISATZ HADERACH Leto Atreides II Journals RRC 65A 302 RRC 70A 392 Herk hlanus The Tree of Atreides 5 v (Caladan Apex) Gweiewera Apturos Home Life of the God Emperor (Tleilax Mental)
ATREIDES, LETO II, Journals of. The col
lection of 2 126 nduhan crystal volumes, secreted in a primitive Ixian no room, con tains the preserved writings of Leto II, the God Emperor, this is the central find of the library discovered at Dar es Balat and known as the Rakis Hoard Each of the Journals consists of one thousand 50 x 30 cm sheets
ATRHDES, LETO n
ATREIDES LETOII
of ndulian crystal paper impnnted by an Ixian dictatel and bound between covers of ridultan-based hardboard Owing to the ex-treme thinness of the paper (ndulian crystal can be processed into sheets only several molecules thick) the volumes are only 1 5 cm thick from cover to cover Static charges prevent the pages from touching each other and aid the automatic page turner embedded in the spine In sheer size—each of the ndulian crystal originals requires forty paper volumes of ordinary size to reprint—such a single-author collection is awe-mspinng, given the nature of that author, however, it becomes histoncaJfy overwhelming First to last, these books record 3,500 years of history and autobiographic ruminations set down by the one being who has survived such a period of time Their importance cannot be overstated, as is evident from their frequent citing as source material throughout this encyclopedia
It is impossible to summarize, no matter how briefly, the contents of even a fraction of the/ourasf volumes Until such time es it becomes possible to issue a full translation (and a hundred-volume set of excerpts will not be ready for publications for a minimum of three years) overviews such as this one will have to suffice Regrettably, only the most significant items can be discussed in so short a space, deeper analyses are certain to come later
Perhaps the most fascinating revelations contained in the Rakis Hoard are those pertaining to the God Emperor himself Because of &e Oral History and the teachings of die Church of the Divided God, humanity has already been given two views of Leto II inhuman tyrant and omnipotent God Now his Journals offer a third view, one that will undoubtedly be difficult to reconcile with those preceeding it The Lord Leto, it appeals, did not possess infallible prescience, he could suffer distortions of his future vision not only when dealing with the "missing" persons his breeding program produced, but also when attempting to view the extreme future as well
He also feared mat time would distort his reputation Many references show his anxiety to explain himself and his reign, as we
read in a soliloquy from Rakis Reference Catalog 1 A42
You, encountering my chronicles after ihou sands of years beware Do not feel honored in reading the revelations of my Ixian storehouse You will find much pain in it I am not sure what the events in my journals may signify to your times I only know that my journals have suffered oblivion and that the events which I recount have undoubted!} been subjected to historical distortion for eons Much of the material making up the Journals was composed in the same intro spectwe mode, and by studying samples tak en at random from the collection we can observe a trend in the Lord Leto s wntmgs While the earliest wntmgs noted even the most trivial events—minor rebellions quelled for example, in cities whose names became meaningless within the God Emperor s lifetime—later volumes contained more autobiographical matenal and anecdotes concerning the "inner voices ' or ancestral memories with whom Leto often shared consciousness Another shift can be observed when such excerpts are carefully read For several centuries after his acceptance of the sandtrout skin which changed his form, the God Emperor avoided writing much about the transforma tion itself or about his own reaction to it Self descriptions become more frequent in those wntmgs covenng the second and third millennia of his rule, and remain clinical until well into the third Not until the volumes written during the last two hundred years of Leto's reign does the reader discover the God Emperor's own feelings about his changed body One of the best examples also comes from RRC 1 A42
I have ordered all mirrors removed from the Citadel My servitors wonder at this but say nothing they know the foolishness of question ing God
How much greater their wonder would be if I had followed my initial impulse after catching a glimpse of myself in the great entry hall mir rors yesterday, and smashed them to slivers with a single blow from this many-segmented body which traps me' But this grotesquerv has its purpose as surely as do the centimes I have spent this way They prevent a greater smashing an irreparable smashing
3 must remember that
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As more evidence of the God Emperor's slipping humanity comes to light, his reference to his Journals causing pain far their reader may well be proven right It is diffi cult to avoid sympathizing with one who could fear his own reflection although he controlled the known universe
Information concerning other members of House Atreides—in particular, the God Emperor'8 father, Paul Muad'Dib, and his aunt, the Lady Alia—has also surfaced dur ing the Journals' translation Leto reveals, for example, that he was not the first to be shown the Golden Path or to be offered the transformation he accepted His father, he states, faced the same choice several years before Leto's birth but picked a different way (The effects on humanity of Muad'Dib's Jihad and Leto's Peace may have to be evaluated before an informed opinion of the better choice can be offered )
He also delivers one of me few sympathetic opinions of Lady Aha Atreides He was in a better position than any other historian to do so not only had lie escaped the possession that befell his aunt by forging an internal alliance in which he was the controlling force (a method which differed from hers less than might be supposed), but he had access to the same ancestral personality that had ruined Alia In Leto's community of voices, the Baron Harkonnen was kept firmly under control, but Leto could appreciate how his aunt had been taken over
As a treasure trove of historical data the Journals are completely unparalleled For example, the Oral History abounds with descriptions of the Atreides descendants' extreme sensitivity to melange and its effect on their ancestral memories The reason for this sensitivity had been shrouded in mystery since the earliest centuries of the Lord Leto's reign (at least from the general public, the Bene Gessent Sisterhood, it was said, never forgot it) and not until the Journals were discovered was it relearaed A full description can be found in the entries pertaining to the God Emperor and to his mother, the Lady Chain, but tile phenomenon known as pre-buth was brought about by a combination of genetic factors and maternal addiction to melange Because they were descended
from one who had been pre-born, all of the later generations of Atreides possessed the ability to achieve contact with their ' inner voices ' when under the influence of the spice Records found m the Journals indicate that this forced awareness was part of the testing Leto conducted when choosing his Atreides administrators and that nearly a third of those who underwent the spice test died or went mad when the new awareness was thrust upon them (This percentage dropped onl> slightly through millennia of careful breeding, and Leto therefore kept a number of second-choice candidates in reserve whenever testing one of the breeding lines )
The eventual publication of all the Journals and the influx of new findings, will not only affect the scholarly world but also the Oral History, which has served m conjunction with the Stolen Journals as a basis for law and custom on all of the known worlds, will undergo probing reconsideration The Church of the Dmded God, and by extension its billions of followers, has already been profoundly affected by the information un earthed at Dar es Balat, as witnessed by its new directives concerning the status of Holy Sister Qumtmius Violet Chenoeh and Nayla the Betrayer
The full effects of the Rakis Hoard on society as we have known it will not be seen in our lifetimes—and possibly not m the lifetimes of many generations of our posterity As regards their continuing effect, a still popular Bene Gessent expression comes most readily to mind "Each day, sometimes each hour, brings change " C W
Farther references ATREIDES LETO n ATREIDES LADY
CHANI ATREIDES L\DY ALIA RAKIS FINDS DISCOVERY DKTTATEL CHENOEH HOLY SISTER QUINTINIUS VIOLfeT NAYLA MULLN JOURNALS A13D BaTtkC Survey Of IXIOR
Technology 10900 13500 (Finally Mosaic) TB Jones Past Horizons The Discovery of the Imperial Library on Rakis Arrakis Studies 1 (Grumman United Worlds) Adib 1 Haddad 1 Fell Into the Past Arrakis Studies 17(Grumman United Worlds)
ATREIDES, WIHOTAUROS, (10059-10163) Popularly called by his nickname, Duke Mmtor, called in his later years "The Old Duke, ' also Smdar Duke of Caladan, Count Chalcedony, Count Thuestes, and Lord of
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Tantalos, 266th Head of the House of Atreides, soil of Duke Minos DC by his concubine (Lady) Katlin Kalun, demi-brother of Duke Paulos XVIII, awarded the Emperor's Cross m 10109, named Count Chalcedony and Heir Presumptive in 10077, named to the special panel convened by the emperor in 10134 to decide the succession of House Khumah
Born in the Old Palace on Caladan in the year 10059, one of seven brothers and sisters by different wives and concubines, Mintor was raised by his mother in her own household on the small island of Nagge on the eastern continent of Caladan He rarely saw his father, and had little converse with his brothers and sisters, except for his foil sister, lo, with whom he grew up Gerasimos Herakleidos, gardener at the Nagge manor, was fond of recalling Mmtor's early years during the ducal reign of his son, Leto I, when interviewed by an oral history project of the Atteides School on Caladan, he recalled 'Yes, I remember the lad well It was in '76, or maybe '77, not long before his father died, that he began asking me questions about my greens, what this one did, how I could make them grow higher that kind of stuff I was surprised, really, let me tell you that Here was the Duke's son taking an interest m what a gardener was doing And he was serious, too, all wrapped up in it But it didn't last Couldn't hold his interest, you know, He happened upon my friend, Serapheim Hippodes, working his horse through his paces m the field next to my rows, and he was caught up, you know, by the action I could see it in his eyes—and I knew then that this Duke's son was one of a kind"
Moatar qutckly learned all he could about horses, soon becoming an excellent nder He was also entranced by Serapheim's bulls, watching their majesty as they stalked around their domams Serapheim was happy to teach Mintor to ride horses, but was loathe to let the boy near the bulls, he didn't want to be responsible for injury to the Duke's son But Mintor was as persuasive as he was determined to handle the bulls as he had so often watched Serapheim do—with nothing- but a colored cloth and his own agility Eventually,
Serapheim relented and introduced young Mintor to the thrills of the bullring, to which Mintor became forever devoted
In 10077, Duke Minos died suddenly chok mg on a piece of beef and his eldest son Paulos succeeded Mintor the next eldest son, was heir presumptive but never expected to reach the throne since his brother was young vigorous and likely to have children of his own Therefore, he requested his brother's permission to represent the Duchy as a roving ambassador and to receive imh tary training at various academies throughout the Imperium His request was readily granted He spent the next ten years learning about weapons, shields, self defense politics and bull-fighting One of his companions from that period recalls He was loll, not quite handsome, a bit of a rake I remember that he had a very queer sense of humor he would laugh at things that none of the rest of us thought were funny, and would scarcely crack his lips at a side splitter Still, we all wanted him at our parties—he was a good conversationalist, and all the women loved him It was a great surprise to everyone when he married Louise Louise was Lovisa Rogier, the 25 year old bastard daughter of a duke, she was short and plain, but very bright, with the kind of intelligence that makes even a beautiful woman somehow undesirable to most men Mintor was capti vated by her wit, and abruptly gave up the joys of sampling fillies for a quieter life Before they were married Mintor brought his betrothed home to Caladan and rarely left the planet thereafter Mintor and Lovisa had no children After Lovisa s death m 10135, however Mintor took a concubine—Bekah— who bore Mmtor's onlj. son I eto in 10140 Along with the grand Comda, he had had built near his old home at Nagge, of course, Leto was Mmtor's greatest source of joy in the last decades of his long life
In 10116 Duke Paulos XVIII died of a lingering ailment without ever having officially mamed, although he spawned several unacknowledged bastards with no legal rights to the throne Mintor succeeded to the Ducal throne and ruled with great sagacity and integrity for forty seven of the most stable
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peaceful, prosperous and expansive years of Atreidean history He died in the bullring at the age of 104 S G
Further references. ATREIDES, DUKB LETO Jason lorga The Bull by the How The Duke us Mentor (Caladdn Apex), a popular biography of Duke Mmtor Virgo Hopraan The Old and the Young Duhss Mintor and Paul tr Zhaivz Aultan (10388 Caladaa Apex)
ATREIDES, MONEO mil FUAD AL-LJCHNA (13606-13724) Born to Lichna Ibn Fuad al-Kala Atreides and her mate, Jesea Carrand. this remarkable man was eventually to become the last majordomo in the service of Leto II, the God Emperor In many ways, Moneo would prove himself the ablest administrator of all who had filled that position in the thirty-five centuries of Leto's reign, as well as one of the longest-tenured (He served the God Emperor for eighty-nine years, the last seventy in the capacity of majofdomo )
Prior to his enny into Royal Service Moneo had used his formidable talents for organization and planning m quite a different cause from 13626 to 13634, he ran a highly efficient group of rebels dedicated to removing the God Emperor from his throne It was a tribute to Moneo s. skills that the rebellion achieved as many small successes as it did against the prescient Leto II
Moneo had been trained in logic and pragmatism by master*—as an Atreides, heir in name if not in flesh to Leto II himself, he had suffered no scrimping in his education— and had selected his position regarding the God Emperor with great care Leto, he reasoned,, was a monstrosity, one look at the gross pre-womi body proved that Humankind whatever its faults, deserved better than the tyrannic rule of a monster Leto, then, had to be eliminated
But Moneo was no usurper The genius of his scheme was that he never once suggested that he or any other mortal could take up the Imperial Godhead Instead, he explained to all woo would listen drat ridding humanity of its despotic ruler would plunge it into anarchy and chaos From that maelstrom, he insisted, would emerge a new race once again in control of its own destiny
Lichna was disturbed by her eldest son's
heresy and often discussed it with the God Emperor He assured her m turn that Moneo was merely demonstrating those traits which would eventually make a competent adminis trator of him and that her only duty to the boy lay in advising him of the possible outcome of his actions (He also pointed out that he would not be considering Moneo as her replacement at all if he had not shown this sort of initiative, Leto's complete lack of interest m her two younger, more docile children convinced Lichna that the God Emperor was telling her the truth )
There is much evidence in Leto's Journals to support the idea mat Leto found the young rebel's activities a source of genuine enter tainment There are references to several of Moneo's exploits during his rebellious years of particular interest to the God Emperor, for example, was his success in subverting a group of twenty-five Fish Speakers from the Onn garrison m 13631 No other rebel—and Leto had watched hundreds of them in the course of his reign—had managed to convince so many of the v> amor/priestesses at one time to abandon their beliefs
When word of the traitors m their midst got back to the Fish Speaker Command, several of the leaders were even more surprised than their ruler and far more upset Their emng sisters were not given the usual option of joining a death commando squad to atone for their sin Instead, they were executed secretly m a pnvate chamber be neath one of the Fish Speaker schools Fortunately for Moneo, no one concerned ever hinted who the driving force behind the traitors had been The young rebel attributed his escape to good fortune but the Journals indicate beyond doubt that Moneo's tracks had been covered by the monarch he was attempting to depose
In 13635 Leto finally decided the time had come to rein in his wandering Atreides There were many reasons for his action but two weighed most heavily First, there was the matter of Lichna Leto's current administrator, who was no longer m her youth and would be ready to retire by the time Moneo could be prepared to replace her Second was Moneo s own most recent action he had
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managed to bribe, cajole, and blackmail his way to several key Guild personnel connected with the weather satellites responsible for keeping the Sareer in its arid condition.
Moneo had made no move to affect the satellites' operations, and Leto could find no future amid his prescient vision which indicated that Moneo would ever be capable of doing so. Ever mindful, however, of the lesson taught the Bene Gesserit by,his father-that it was entirely possible for the breeding program's end result to materialize unexpectedly early—Leto thought it best not to chance Moneo's being outside the scope of prescience.
Lichna had long cautioned her wayward son about the futility of attempting to escape his destiny as an Atreides; Moneo had chosen to disregard her words, counting them as the mouthings of a co-opted toady in the Imperial Service, Despite his scorn, Moneo had retained enough of her information to be certain of what awaited him when Leto summoned him to his Citadel after a roundup of the compromised Guild technicians.
He was to be tested, to be sensitized to the God Emperor's Golden Path, or be left to die if found wanting. And the test, which Lichna had warned of repeatedly, would be one exquisitely tailored to the individual' No amount of preparation could help him escape judgment.
Frightened, but still his usual brash self, Moneo was ushered into the God Emperor's presence by a trio of hushed and terribly impressed young Fish Speakers. Leto dismissed the attendants and addressed himself to Moneo: he knew, Leto said, of every action Moneo's rebellion had made; he had watched Moneo waste eight years in absolutely meaningless activity; and now the charade was no longer entertaining.
The God Emperor's remarks had precisely the effect he desired. Moneo responded with a tirade of has own, damning Leto for having twisted the lives and minds of generation after generation of humans without partaking in any way of their humanity. Leto allowed | him to rant himself nearly to exhaustion, then countered with a single furious question.
"How"dare you be offended by me?" he demanded, peering out at Moneo from the
depths of his cowl. Before the young man could protest, Leto slid from the Royal Cart and herded him down into a cavern maze concealed beneath the Citadel and abandoned him in its center with a bag of food and a vial of spice-essence. For more than a day, Moneo wandered though the twisting maze, eating sparingly from his meager store and becoming more thoroughly lost with each passing hour.
The multiple ironies surrounding the spice-essence vial tormented him, monopolizing his otherwise unengaged thoughts. It was the only liquid provided him, and he would surely be driven to consume it unless he could quickly find a way out of the maze. That prospect, carrying as it did the certainty of exposure to the "internal multitude" the Atreides were said always to harbor, frightened him far more than the idea that he might die of thirst. And yet, among that terrifying throng, was it not likely that there existed a previous servant of the Lord Leto whose memories included the directions for escaping the maze?
After another twelve hours had passed, leaving him even deeper in confusion, Moneo realized that he had no choice. He tossed off the contents of the vial with all the enthusiasm of a man drinking hemlock, then sat down, his back in a comer, to await its effects.
They were not long in coming. The melange opened Moneo's awareness, not only to his ancestral voices, but to the prescient scenes of death and destruction that Leto— and his> father—had witnessed so long ago. They showed him the end ot humanity as well as the means by which that end could be averted- the Golden Path that the God Emperor had chosen. They showed him the reason for the monstrosity he had fought more clearly than he might have wished to be shown.
A timeless period later, when the effects of the spice wore off, Monen was left with two certainties. The first was the escape route he must follow back up to the Lord Leto's chamber, where he would be expected. The second was that he would obey the God Emperor faithfully for the rest of his life, if only out of gratitude that Leto and not he
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had been forced to make the choice he had seen
Over the next nineteen years, Moneo was groomed to take over his mother's administrative post He was given increasingly more responsible assignments to carry out for Leto maintaining an overall record of the farflung Fish Speaker garrisons, for example, and acting as Leto's intermediary with the Heilaxu When Lichna stepped down in 13634, Moneo was able to replace her without a npple being felt in the workings of the Court
Moneo took great pnde in his work, seeing his role of majordomo as the best and most appropriate use of his talents -And his list of accomplishments was impressive even when compared to those of his extremely competent predecessors In 13659* he uncovered a massive stockpile of melange on Kaitain, the planet House Cornno had used for its Court in the days of the Padishah Emperors, it was the largest such find made to that date and Moneo's agents discovered its exact location only days before representatives from the Bene Gessent and the Spacing Guild arrived on the same errand He saw that a rebellion in 13664 on Shandor (third planet of Theta Shaowei) was pat down with an absolute minimum of bloodshed, standing firm against the majority of the Fish Speaker Command who wanted a wholesale slaughter as an example to other would-be heretics
Had it not beea for these greater deeds, however, he would still have been valued by the God Emperor for the flawless way in which he kept the Court running No detail was too petty to attend to, no arrangement too minor to oversee, if it involved me interest of the Lord Leto Nor was any bribe large enough to make him waver from his duties, his incorruptibility earned Moneo a grodgmg admiration even among those to whose advantage it would best be to subvert him
Moneo desired only three things in return for his labors to enjoy the confidence of his ruler, to be allowed to abstain from any further experience with melange, and to preserve a quiet domestic life with Rhiani, a former Fish Speaker with whom he had lived since his entry into Royal Service Until 13667, he was given all three
It was m that year that Leto informed him that he was needed as part of the God Emperor s breeding program Moneo had known about the program from childhood, of course—all of the Atreides, and much of the population at large, knew that Leto was working toward some kind of change m the basic human stock—but Moneo had hoped that after so many years of childlessness with Rhiani he would be excused from participating
The exemption was not to be, and Moneo bid his Rhiani an emotional farewell after Leto commanded him to marry Seyefa, a Fish Speaker many years his junior It was the closest Moneo had come since his rebel days to breaking with the God Emperor, but the bonds so long established between them were too strong to permit then" rupture, and Moneo entered into an uneasy alliance which gradually evolved into a marriage
Siona Ibn Fuad al Seyefa Atreides, Moneo's only child, was born in 13698 She lived with her parents in quarters near Leto's Citadel until the age of ten, when she was sent to the Fish Speakers school m Onn Shortly after this separation, Moneo was made to face yet another loss, Seyefa died the following year
If he had been a dutiful servant before, Moneo was now fanatic in his devotion to Leto Anyone who threatened the God Emperor, threatened him personally—even, when she reached adolescence, Siona
Leto was. often dmused by the anger and solicitude Moneo lavished on his daughter The former rebel appeared to be unable to see his own youth in hers, he viewed her rebellion not as a temporary and necessary phase but as a permanent and dangerous change While the God Emperor also valued Siona (although for quite different reasons from those Moneo held) he recognized the uselessness of attempting to steer her every move Moneo sometimes did not, and needed reminding
In 13724, Moneo clashed with his daugh ter for the last time While journeying to Tuono Village for the Lord Leto s wedding to Hwi Noree, Moneo was trapped in the ambush staged by Siona Nayla, and Duncan Idaho Early in the attack, Moneo lost his
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footing on the collapsing Royal Road bridge and plunged to his death, shortly to be followed by Hwi Noree and the Lord Leto. In the space of a few minutes, life for the entire Imperium had been irreversibly altered.
Leto had once observed that Moneo was terrified of the idea of a world without the God Emperor—that he would rather die than face such an existence. Of all the choices made for him during his life, the timing of the majordomo's death may have been one of the kindest. C.T.
Farther references: ATREIDES, teto n, ATREIDES, SIONA IBN FUAD AL-SEYEFA; Leto D, Journals, Raids Ref Cat 65-A392.
ATREIDES, PAUL-EDITOR'S NOTE: The following three entries deal with the person of Paul Muad'Dib Atreides. None of them, however, is a straight-forward biography of his life; though certainly the facts of his life may have been gleaned from them, as well as from the myriad references to him in other essay* in this encyclopedia. Rather (hart offer dry facts, these entries—the first an investigatory report dating from the reign of Leto II (a time when historical information was severely suppressed), the second an "answer" to that report written at the time of the Rakis discovery, and the third a contemporary essay dealing with Paul as Kwisatz Haderach—provide a more interesting and more historically valuable view of the influence and significance of one of history's most extraordinary figures.
REPORT OF NEJA N'NAM-KRIB, ANTHROPOLOGICAL HISTORIAN OF MIRABAR, PREPARED FOR THE PRIVATE READING OF HIS EXCELLENCY, THF AttCHSlSHOP SPIL, CONTFRNTNG THE LEGENDARY PAUL. ATKBTDBS, THE KWISATZ HAOfiRACH, THE MJJAO'PIB, IN THE HOPE THAT THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN WILL BE OF VALUE IN THE TRIAL FOR HERESY OF THE ONE WHO CALLS HIMSELF BY NO NAME BUT IS KNOWN COMMONLY AS "THE PREACHER." THIS IS THE YEAR SINCE THE FIRST JIHAD 11781, AND SINCE THE SECOND, 1472; OF TOE IMPERIAL CALENDAR, 11673.
I
INTRODUCTION
The figure known to us as "Paul Atteides" is perhaps a more fitting subject for the romancer or the folldorist than for the historian. Many of the attributes claimed for him (i e , that he was prescient, that he survived the explosion of an atomic warhead) are clearly fantastic; others (i.e., that he was a great warrior) are common to virtually all mythic heroes Yet the legends about him are persistent and far-flung, and some of them have been recorded by ancient historians and biographers whose work in other areas is known to be absolutely accurate. The following report is an attempt not to de-mythologize the figure widely assumed to have been the Messiah; it is an attempt, rather, to account for him, to identify him.
II
LEGENDARY HISTORY OF PAUL
The mythological or legendary history of Paul Atreides runs, in brief, according to the
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following line He was born on Caladan in the year 10175, (he natural son of Blessed Leto Atreides I (10140-10191) the ' Red Duke" whose remains are traditionally as suraed interred in the long-sought Skull Tomb or Skull Place on Arrakis His mother was the Lady Jessica Harkonnen (10154-10256), the bastard daughter of Sindar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (10110-10193) and herself a Reverend Mother of the Bene Gessent He had one full sister, Alia Atreides-Idaho (10191 10219), and was father of Leto Atreides II, the Summa-Emperor, die Immortal (see genealogy chart)
In his youth on Caladan, Paul was well instructed in all of the martial arts, m voice, in political theory, music, and history His primary instructors were the family retainers Dunean Idaho1, Gurney Hal leek, and Thufir Hawat a mentat Others of his teachers included his mother already a Bene Gesseflt herself but not yet a Reverend Mother, and the legendary Bene Gessent Great Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, who may have been his maternal grandmother It was die Great Mother who, when he was fifteen years of age, personally subjected him to the test of the gom jabbar and declared him, following the test, to be Kwisatz Haderach (Fulcrum of History)
The Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (see genealogy chart) named Leto I planetary governor of Arrakis replacing the duke's concubine's father in 10190 The following year Paul and his mother came to live on the planet with which his story has become so closely identified In that same year the deposed Smdar-Baron Harkonnen, acting with the tacit approval of the Emperor, staged a coup d'etat assassinated the Red Duke, and forced Paul and his now pregnant mother into tothng among the Fremen of Sietch Tabr
Little is known of Paul's activities during the two years he spent among Fremen in the Great Desert3 However m 10193he emerged from the desert as Usul, at once the leader and symbol of die Arrakis Revolt He commanded both Fremen and what was left of the Atreides family forces in one of history s few truly masterful military campaigns In the Battle of Arrakeen he overwhelmingly
defeated the combined forces of the Padishah Emperor and the Baron Harkonnen driving Shaddam IV into exile on Salusa Secundus and effectively assuming control of both Landsiddd and CHOAM
Following the Battle of Arrakeen Paul was pronounced Muad Dib, or Messiah, by the Fremen who in his name earned the Second Jihad across the worlds He married Irulan Cornno, daughter of the exiled Emperor, but the marriage was a politically inspired formality In 10209, the thirteenth and final year of his reign, he sired the twins Leto and Ghamma out of his formal concubine the Fremen woman Chani Liet-Kynes of Sietch-Tabr, who died m childbed
The combination of his personal magnetism, capacity for leadership, vision of a green Arrakis, and reputed prescience turned Paul into an object of veneration a virtual deity 4 It was m his name that the Second Jihad (10196 10208) was earned across the heav ens and the ultimately unsuccessful transfer mation of Arrakis from desert into oasis was begun
An assassination attempt m 10205 was the result of a conspiracy among several increas mgly insecure political factions including the Spacing Guild, the House Cornno, and the Bene Gessent The attack itself was unsuc cessful in that Paul miraculously survived a stoneburner explosion He was blinded by it, however and apparently following the an cient Fremen custom that the blind he aban doncd in the desert Paul disappeared volun tanly from Arrakeen shortly dfter the births of his twin children It is believed bv many that he will one day return in triumph from the desert and by others that he has from time to tune and irregularly over the centu-nes re appeared as a portent, a nameless prophet of doom
This then, is the legendary history of Paul Atreides It is of no little significance, however that no conclusive archaeological evidence has been discovered either on Caladan or on Arrakis5 that would prove or disprove either his lineage or, indeed his very existence However, such circumstantial evidence as reason folklore, and historical' documents made available to the histoncal anthropologi cal invites some interesting and useful
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suggestions. This evidence may answer at least some of the more pertinent questions about Paul Atreides, the Kwisatz Haderach, Muad'Dib.
'A ghoia to whom Paul eventually gave his fourteen-year-old sister, Aha, as a reward for fealty'—j b.
^That part would haw to be in the myth, wouldn't it?—j.b.
^This is because there is not room enough in two years
for him to have done and learned all of the things he would have to have done and learned —j.b.
4These qualities together with his position as unchallenged ruler of the single vital planet in all the inhabited universe, the planet which was and is the sole source of melange.. —j.b
3Archaeologists have for centuries searched for the Skull Place, the legendary burial place of Leto Atreides. They've not found it. It confounds the mind to reflect upon what might be discovered if such a place ever comes to light'—t.d.f.
3
THE QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED
Was Paul Atreides an historical personage?
This, obviously, is the most important question. The answer is that almost certainly he was; and the answer is based on a number of considerations. In the fast place, Paul is the pivotal character both in noble and in Fremen folklore. This is particular significant. These two pools of folklore material, though possibly springing from a single pre-First ] Jihad source, were absolutely independent of '
each other at die beginning of the Second Jihad. Different motifs, different qualities praised in their gods and heroes, different moral orientations, different modes of existence both before and after the Second Jihad— yet Paul Atreides is at the center of both. The situation is unique.6 It seems much more likely that an actual, immensely popular and culture-catalyzing hero \vas adopted by the story tellers and balladeers of both groups than that two unrelated bodies of folk material happened to posit the same fictional, mythological hero at the same time.
Second, his legend is persistent, and many
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parts of it are consistent with known history. The Second Jihad, for example, would have required a single, immensely powerful focusing element, probably the lens of one man's visionary eye. A jihad will always acquire its own momentum soon after its launching, becoming as it grows an ungovernable whirlwind which must spend its fury before it will dissipate But a jihafcl always, too, requires its impetus from the spiritual force of one man's charisma. The Second Jihad developed almost immediately after the Battle of Arrakeen and very likely had as its center the same genius who had crushed House Harkonnen and the Imperium together with a rag-tag band of desert nomads.7 This genius would have been of heroic proportion; indeed, it is eaj,y to visualize a superstitious people naming htm Messiah. The name of Paul Atretdes would have suited him as well as any.8
Finally, the House Corrino quickly and deliberately attached itself to the man it called Paul Atreides. Virtually every surviving document whose author purports to have seen Paul in the flesh was written by a direct-line member of the House Corrino. It is not uncommon, of course, for a ruling or aspiring family to claim mythological descent. But ooae of the plethora of documents and fragments of documents still existing that are supposed to have been written by the Princess Irulan Corrino-Atreides claims that her family is genealogically tied to Paul's. Rather, they seem to indicate, somewhat haughtily, that she was his virgin wife; similarly, die writings of her nephew, Harq al-Ada, indicate no blood kinship between House Corrino and Paul Atreides.9 This is a very interesting revelation. In combination with the reasonable assumption Aat the Corrinos, like anyone, would have been able to claim lineal descent from a purely fictional god-hero, and for political purposes would have claimed it, leads to the conclusions, first, that Paul Atreides existed; and, second, that he was powerful enough for the Corrinos to have wished kinship ties with him.10
Granting, then, that Paul Atreides lived, what was his lineage7
The legendary lineage claimed for him (see genealogy chart) is clearly fantastic. It absolutely cannot be accurate; it should be
dismissed out of hand. Even the Harkonnen-influenced histories11 leave no doubt that his purported grandsire, the Siridar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, was impotent, could not conceivably have fathered the woman known to us as "Lady Jessica Harkonnen," Paul's mother. In fact, the Baron, having no direct heirs of either sex, was in the process of dividing Arrakis's governmental responsibilities between his nephews when the Fremen forces overran Arrakeen in 10193. Nor is mere much more likelihood that Paul was in truth connected to the Atreides family by blood, as the Red Duke was, together with all members of his immediate family then on Arrakis, assassinated in the 10191 coup.12 The Atreides retainers who escaped that coup were swallowed up into the general population and in fact fought against Paul's Fremen in the ensuing general re\olt Significantly, not until the revolt had gained some measure of success and some hope of ultimate victory did the scattered Atreides join it. Such a waiting is completely uncharacteristic of retainers whose blood Lord is engaged in guerrilla fighting and in obvious need of assistance Finally, the idea that a fifteen-year-old off-worlder who is the scm of a privileged class could galvanise hemen will, direct Fremen resistance, and, especially, lead Fremen forces in battle is considerably beyond the capacity of reasonable men to believe. To
6I wonder whether it is —t d f
7House Atreides had for all practical purposes ceased to exist with the assassination of its leader on Arrakis in 10191 None of its scattered retainers seems to have joined the Fremen in their revolt until the final, triumphant stages of it in 1019^ In fact, it seems that Atreides retainers fought against the Fremen m the initial stages of the revolt It is certainly reasonable to assume that leaderfess nobles of that time would have attached themselves to others ot the noble class and so gain Imperial pleasure rather than fight alongside insurgent Fremen —e d
"And better than most —j b
*This rationale is based on the assumption that Lilian C-A and Harq al-Ada are m fact authors of the niss they are purported to have written The assumption is questionable —t d f
"*It also suggests that Paul was base born, for the Comnos apparently did not wish to have their line connected to his by blood, but only by official mamage Not did they claim a common ancestor with him —j b
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believe that such a thing were possible is to betray ignorance of Remen custom, of Fremcn law, of Fremen mythology, and of Fremen reason
Paul was in all likelihood Fremen-hom, probably native to Sietch Tabr He may have been the son of Stilgar, then Sietch Naib, but there is no firm evidence to support this contention l4 He must have distinguished him self early in the areas of military planning and tactics, of political theory, and of both on- and off-world history Under the name of Usul and still in his teens, he had by the tune of the Harkoimea 0013? in 10191 amassed a large contingency of Fremen warriors under his immediate command When, in 10193, the Atreides retainers collected around him and proclaimed him their Duke, he immediately saw value in being so proclaimed, for without Great House support of some kind the Fremen revolt must assuredly have been doomed He consolidated Fremen and Atreides supporters and attacked, gaming at Amtkeen one of history's few truly decisive victories After the Battle of Arrakeea he was named Muad'Dib by the Fremen, Kwisatz Haderach by the Bene Gessent, and Emperor by the nobility At this point a suitable, that is to say fabulous, genealogy was constructed for him
If he was Fremen bom, why 4i4 the Atreides retainers gather around Paid?
There are several ways that Paul's Atreides support may be accounted for Obviously, he was the only likely candidate for their support on Arrakis the royal family itself having been exterminated If one understands
"Which art?—t d f
12It has been suggested that Leto I kept a Fremen concubine, and that Paul was his natural son by this woman Tins 13 an intriguing suggestion and one which if ttue would justify Paul s claim of Atreides kinship Unfortunately no evidence exists to suggest that Leto Atreides was on Airabs before 10190—when Paul was already a young man —e d
13> Insultingly' ts a better word —j b
l4Much has been made of his noble features If his actual facia! features were in any way remarkable it must be attributed 10 genetic chance No child of half off world parentage would have been allowed to live It is just possible that has mother was herself an oft worlder formally adopted into the sietch sometime during her own childhood Such a situation is rare but not unheard of—ed
anything of the completeness and depth of the enmity existing between Houses Harkonnen and Atreides,15 and then reflects on the fact that at the beginning oi the Fremen revolt the Atreides retainers were fighting as though to prove fealty to the Harkonnens he must conclude that the leaderless Atreides were in complete disarray, their spirit crushed They must have seen Paul not only as a rallying point but also as something of a savior" The Atreides surely would have realized that by switching allegiance to the Fremen they stood a better chance of defeating the Harkonnens than they would have had standing alone, and in any case they would hold the balance of power17
Too with the arrival of Imperial Sardaukar to fight with the Harkonnens on Arrakis the Atreides must have seen their hoped for val ue to the Sindar Baron evaporate Their choice at thdt point would seem to have been to ally themselves with the Fremen or be annihilated
Finally, it is assumed that the gift of Paul s fourteen-year old sister Alia to the Atreides leader, the reputed ghola Duncan Idaho, had something to do with the insurance of Atreides recognition of Paul s legitimacy as well l8
What was Paul s role m the Second Jihad7
The Second Jihad was earned out in the name of Paul Atreides and with his voiced approval Now Paul's military and political genius has already been pointed out and one of the lebsons history has to offer <my revolu tionarj leader who would be immortalized is that he must pot attempt to control his own people in their victory If one is the leader of a revolution, one is leader only so long as there is revolution Paul did not himself physically lead any contingent of wamng parties in the Jihad He seems, rather to have contented himself to remain on Arrafas and consolidate his power astutely allowing
15If one understands the depths of this enmity one must al«o scoff at the notion that (he Red Duke kept a Harkonnen concubme1—j b
l6Certamly they d recognized his formidability as an enemy quick!} enough —j b
''Neither the ghola nor the other one—Hdlieck—is reputed to have been stupid —j b
'8Nor were the Corrmos likely to have admitted publicly to base blood in Paul their Pnncess Irulan having been part of his price for peace —£ d f
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his followers—Jrcmen and off-worlders alike— to conquer in his name. At the same time he was cultivating his own charisma, building himself a legend, fostering belief that he was prescient and Messianic, and prophesying.20 His role in the Jihad was essentially that of a figurehead; but, unlike most figureheads, he did not allow himself to be manipulated by his hordes. Instead, he manipulated them as he consolidated, centralized, and practically immortalized his reign.
What of Paul's history after rfw Second Jihad?
Substantially better circumstantial evidence remains concerning the answer to this question than answering any of the others posed here. For one thing, the historians recording the events21 were witnesses to them, independent of rumor and legend. There is no reason to believe mat at least in regard to the demonstrable™ they had reason either to lie or themselves to be misled. For another after the jihad the history of Paul begins to coincide with the history of Leto II; and the latter has, of course, been well and often recorded.
An assassination attempt by a conspiracy of Spacing Guild, House Corrino, and Bene Gesserit confederates was staged in 10205.23 Paul survived the attack, but was blinded in it; aad, as well he knew, to be a blind Fremen was to be condemned to the desert, Paul, as Emperor, could not be banished into the desert to perish; but he must have sensed that his blindness must inevitably lead to a weakening of his position both in the eyes of his Fremen, to whom blindness is anathema, and in those of his off-world disciples, to whom his blindness must have appeared as proof of his vulnerability. Therefore, shortly after the birth of his twin children, Leto II and Ghanima, Paul voluntarily vanished into the desert where he undoubtedly perished, This disappearance was arguably the masterstroke of Paul Atreides' genius. It precluded the possibility of a witnessed death, and so
"CyaJeat, aren't we?—-j.t>.
"ft is easy to prophesy the decapitation of an enemy when one holds a sword and (he enemy lies bound at one's feet,—j-b.
kept alive the rumor of his immortality and assured the accession of his son.24
IV
CONCLUSIONS
Paul Atreides in fact lived. He was charismatic and a military and political genius; whether he might be termed a "Kwisatz Haderach" or a "Muad'Dib" depends on what those terms are assumed to mean.25 He was not a deity. He was Fremen, born of desert parents whose identities are now unrecoverable. He saw political advantage in assuming a House Atreides identity, and so he assumed one. After his. victor} in the Battle of Arrakeen he astutely allowed his Fremen followers to spend their centuries of pent fury on the universe in the Second Jihad, leaving him on Arrakis to rule in relative quiet. An attempt on his life in 10205 resulted in his blindness; he died shortly thereafter, having voluntarily exiled himself into the desert. For a century or more after Paul's disappearance it was not uncommon for sun-crazed blind Fremen, banished from one sietch or another, to stumble into the city claiming to be the returned Muad'Dib, Some of these "blind seers" even attracted cult followers and had much made of themselves. Such occurrences have grown increasingly rare over the centuries; still, die quickest way for any pitiful desert prophet to gain an appreciative audience even today is to pronounce himself Paul Atreides resurrected. D.M.
21If, indeed, the historians are to be trusted. —t d.f
"Wnat on earth does I/MI mean?—j b.
^According to legend, the method of assassination was to have been stoneburner. Obviously ftiul could not in actuality have survived such an attack *—t d f
*Nor could Arrakis have. .—j.b
^It also assured the retention of his honor among the Fremen, kept him from becoming merely an object of pity, and staved off the inevitable next attempt on his life.—e.d.
25Also on the fervor of the user.—j.b.
26According to Fremen custom If he had in fact been nobility he would simply have had Tleilaxu eyes in-slalled in his head. That he chose to die instead suggests Fremen, not Atreides instincts.*—t.d.f.
*I'd not thought of that.—j b
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"HOW MUAD'DIB GOT HIS NAME" A FOLKTALE FROM THE ORAL HISTORY
When Usul was still a boy, he became no longer content to stay in the sietch with his mother. He went to her to take leave, but she said, "Usul, your minha, the season for your testing, has not yet come. Stay with me a while." But he said to her, "Every hour seems like a day. I will go forth into the desert, where the time will not pass so slowly, and where I shall see wonders." So he went out of his sietch into the bled, and went on from morn till night, and whichever way his path led him, it was all the same to him.
It came to pass mat, as the sun was setting, he saw some little way off a castle made all of sand. The walls were sand, the towers were sand, even the doors were sand. Now Usul was tired from Ms journey and he longed to lie down, but he thought, "Who knows what will happen if I push one of these doors? The whole place may come down on me." So he readied himself to sleep outside, but as he did so, he saw to one side an open door, and he went in.
Inside the castle was a room, empty but for a table of sand on which stood a jug of liban aad a bowl with some apricots. Usul ate and drank, and when he had filled himself, he wrapped his cloak about him and lay down on the floor to steep. In the middle of the night, there came a great-clap of thunder, and a rowing wind filled the room. Usu! sprang up, and the thunder became a voice feat spoke on every side. "Welcome, little dessert. Dost thou know to which place thou hast invited thyself, and whose guest thou art?"
"No/* said Usul, "but I came into the feted to see wonders, and I am ready to pay for them."
"So thou shall," said die thunder. "This is Kalatorano, the Castle of Sand, and it is my sietch, the sietch of Alhen, Naib of All the Djinn."
"And I am Usul," Usul replied, "and your castie belongs to me, for Dune is my world, and when I am ready, all shall know it." Usul did not know that alhen means death, but he spoke bravely even though he was afraid, for he knew he was a king's son.
The roaring wind sounded hke laughter then, and a great marid appeared before him, rilling the room. As the demon laughed, his teeth showed like burning coals.
"Well," said the Marid, "empty boasts will not fill my stomach. Thou hast eaten my meal, and now thou must take its place." Usul then remembered what his mother used to say when someone threatened her, so he answered the demon with the words ' 'Jild an hayy ma tumal minn-u harakis (Shoes are not made of the hide of a living animal)." With that the demon roared again, and laughed so hard that the whole castle shook. When he stopped, he said to Usul, "Thou art a funny little fellow, and I shall be sorry to eat thee, but no one can come here and leave again. Thou, like all others, must pay the water tribute. But thou seem'st so small, I doubt thou wilt be more than a mouthful for me. Thou wilt be put to better use as a nosebag for one of my donkeys." And with that he grabbed Usul by the hair of his head and threw him into a pit in the center of the castle.
Usul sat at the bottom of the pit and thought that his yearning to see wonders had been satisfied in a way not altogether to his liking. As he thought of his own hearthfire, he heard a small voice near him: "Ya mawla, argab uanina!" He looked in the darkness and saw a small mouse with its head bent low. Usul said to the mouse, "Why do you call me 'mawla"? I am no one's lord And how can I intercede for you if, like you, I am myself a captive?" "Ya mawla," said the mouse, "my wife has given birth, and my tribe will starve if I cannot get out of this pit I have fallen into. I am everything to them, but to your strength I am nothing You can throw me out of the pit with ease."
"I will do what I can," said Usul, and lifting up the mouse in his hand, he threw it high overhead out of the pit. The mouse looked down, bowed its head, and said, "Tija al-sadaqa (The gift will return to the giver)." And with that the mouse departed, and Usul passed the rest of the night alone.
When morning came, the Marid Alhen returned. He reached his arm down into the pit and grabbed Usul by the hair once again. The heat of his breath singed the eyebrows of Usul as the demon said, "I have decided
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which of ray donkeys to give thee to " And he cast Usul into the middle of the great desert As he lay there full of pity for him self and of fear for the next moment, a mouse hopped to his ear and spoke to him "My name is Muxabbi, watch me and learn from me, for my gift to you is knowledge ' Hie mouse began to sniff the wind and to watch the spray of sand from the dune tops Usul saw toe mouse start to burrow^ then stop as the sand drifted down When the mouse found the shadow of the wind, where the burrow did not collapse, it tunneled deeper and curled up inside with its nose deep inside its fur The wind rose, and small drifts of sand hid the mouse from sight
The wind rose still more, and the sand scratched at Usul's hands and face All at once, before him there stood what seemed like a swirl of winds in the shape of a man, and a voice from it said, "I am Azfar, the Yellow Djinm, and thou hast been given me for my breakfast " And the wind howled and clutched at his cloak, it pushed him this way and that, and the sand stung his body Then Usul thought of the mouse He found the shadow of the wind on the lee side of a dune and crawled from place to place, testing the sand, as the wind tumbled and tossed at him When he found what the mouse had taught, he dug into the sand and scooped himself a burrow He covered himself with his cloak, draping it over his head and knee, tucking it in beneath him The wind screamed, and with one shriek sand would cover the mouth of Usul'i burrow, then with another the sand would be blown away as the gusts eddied and swirled in toe shadow of the wind
All the white Usul waited until toe storm blew itself out Then he heard the voice of Azfar again The djmm said, "You have won, Usul I am sorry you are a prisoner but I can do nothing about that If you should ever be free, call me and 1 will do you one service " But when Usul lifted his cloak to speak, he found himself not in toe face of a dune, but in the middle of a great cavern
As he sat there in wonder, a mouse hopped onto his knee and spoke to him "My name is Rauhanm," said toe mouse "Watch me and learn from me, for my gift to you is peace " "With that the mouse hopped to toe floor and crouched as if it were praying
Usul watched but the mouse did not move He stretched forth his hand and touched it, but it did not move He rolled it over and lifted it up, but still it did not move Usul, thinking that toe mouse was dead put it on the floor again only to see it rise, shake itself, and run off as a distant rumble was heard
The rumbles grew louder, as if someone marched toward him beating a great drum, and toe sounds echoed from the walls of the cave until Usul's head rang Between toe beats of the drum, Usul heard a rattling, clacking voice say, "I am Ahmar, toe Red Djmrii Thou art not a man Usul, nor even a very big boy, but thou wilt do for my dinner" And the beating of the drum became louder and louder until rocks cracked and shattered on toe walls of the cave Usui thought he could bear no more, and fell to his knees, clutching his ears and grinding his teeth
Then he thought of the mouse, and praying, he looked deeper and deeper inside of himself, for the small place where all is quiet He looked and breathed from the center of his soul, and as he looked, he heard toe drum lesb and less Then he found the silent place, and rested there in reverence
After what seemed only a beat of a bird's wing, he felt a touch on his shoulder and he knew all at once that a pebble had fallen on him He heard Ahmar's voice again, but weak and far off "Well, Usul you are more than you look Too bad you are a prisoner, but that is out of my hands When you are your own master, call me, and I will do you a service ' Usul opened his eyes to look for the demon, but saw none, nor even the cave in which he had been
Now he saw nothing but a gray floor, stretching as far as he could see all round him, with a gray sky over ail He stood up and marveled, "Is this what death is like1' Has Alhen eaten me after alP ' But he knew this was not so, for he saw something small move far off It was a mouse, which hopped to him and onto his shoe and said to him, "My name is Basbasiyah, watch me and learn from me With that the mouse lept to the floor and began to wiggle its tail First it hopped on one foot then on the other It jumped up and down it spun in circles, it stood on its nose It capered and swaggered
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and danced. Usul was at first surprised, then amused, then so delighted at the antics of the mouse that be laughed so hard he had to sit down. When the mouse made an end to its frolics, it said, "My gift to you is laughter; use it well." Then it scampered away, and just as it did, Usul started, for a drop of water had fallen on his face.
All round him from the gray air he heard the sounds of moans and wailing. He felt still another drop, and in the air above him hung a dark cloud, and out of the cloud came a sorrowful voiee, which said, "Usul, I am Abiad, the White Djinni. Though thou an not much, thou wilt do for an evening's sup." And at once Usul saw his mother in their sietch, worrying for him, and he saw his young sister with no playfellow. He heard sobbing and he saw his bed, and the pot of dates on the shelf, and with each thing he saw, his heart grew heavier until it seemed it would fait from his chest and break into pieces on the gray floor. And he heard mom wails and sobs and keening, and as if in a dream, he saw himself, small and helpless, far from friends and home, lost to his people forever. He bowed his head and, putting his face in his hands, he said, "Death can be no worse."
But as he cast his eyes down, he saw in die dust .the swirls and whirls and twirls left by Basbasiyah, and a smile blossomed on his lips. As he bethought himself of the hopping and the prancing of the mouse, the smile bloomed into a laugh, and before he knew it, the gray land was alive with his mirth and the echoes answered his laugh with giggles and chuckles, crows and snickers and peals. He laughed so hard he had to close his eyes to save his water, but he heard the departing voice of Abiad saying, "Well, Usul, and well again. Looks can deceive, and you are a ram, though misfortunately a captive. If you be free someday, call me, and I will not forget that you have bested me."
Usul opened his eyes then, and found himself once again at the bottom of the pit. But it was now evening, and worn out with learning, he put down his head and rested himself in sleep.
When Usul woke, he found himself in a position he had not enjoyed at first and
which had become no more welcome since— hauled from the pit by the hair of his head. He was brought face to maw with the Mand Alhen for the third time.
"Usul," the demon said, "my donkeys have shied away from thee, so mayhap thou art worth more than the nosebag thou seem'st. Wouldst thou perform a task for thy freedom?"
And Usul answered him, "In the pit or on the bled, I am always free in the place inside me where none can trespass," for Usul would ask no favor of this or of the greatest demon.
"A young shoot but a tough one," said the demon. "Here is what I offer thee, nonetheless. I have a taste for some portyguls from a garden across the sands from here. Do thou get me some—a trifle for a lion such as thou—and I will release thee. But know this, that I have laid a spell on thee: step aside from the task but one pace, and thou shall find thyself in a pit from which not even thy mighty arm can toss a .mouse."
"I will do it,'' said Usul, "but oniy because it pleases me to get some portyguls myself." He would not let the demon know that his heart beat fast at this talk of his release. So the demon threw him again, far into the desert. And Usul set off then with every bone singing for the joy of being his own master again, tempered only a little by the thought of the Marid's spell and the task ahead, which would be no easy one. And he thought as he walked along, "Forever I will call this day just past my al-awwal nahar, for in wonders and adventures it has surely been 'the first day'—for me, at any rate." And in spite of all that had befallen, his spirit was high as he thought of all that he had learned and the foes he had overcome. So with these things in his mind he crossed the sands, not as a child fresh from the sietch but as one who knows the ways of the desert.
By and by, his hajra ended as all journeys will, and he saw in the distance a garden, and in it many an imp and djinni gathering the dew from the plants with scythes (for he had walked through the night, and it was now near sunrise).
"Khala, folk of the air," he said to the djinn, "I have come in off the erg, a messenger of the Marid Alhen, who has sent me to fetch him some portyguls. Show me the tree
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that bears them " The djinn smiled aid bowed and brought him to the midst of the garden to a tree heavy with fruit First Usul ate his fill and refreshed himself, and thought he had never tasted anything better Then he plucked three for Alhen He rose to leave, and turned to d dijmni and boasted, "Fruit as excellent as this, and so poorly guarded1 Any outcast might fill his belly here "
The djmn answered, "Tt is guarded well enough If the outcast you speak of were not to reach his hearth by nightfall, he would become as we Many indeed have eaten these portyguls, and as you see, we are all still here And as for that, is your journey a long one9"
But Usul said no more, for he knew he had overreached himself, and cast about to find a way out of his new-made troubles It was clear that he could not return the way he came, for that would be a day and a night in its making, and he would either be m Alhen's pit or gathering dew with a scythe long before that So if he could cot go the safe way, he must go the straight way, and trust whatever had brought him thus far to bring him farther To that purpose he marked where the sun rose and set a course straight and fast for Alhen's castle
His path led him over a jagged rock wall, from which he looked at the sand basin before him, and all seemed well, he saw kaymuo, dust sand, tn the basm, but with a good suit that was no more than the buzzing of a fly He ran down the face of the slope, flying like die wind and thinking, "I shall surely make it on time '' But as he reached the level, he felt no ground beneath his feet, and he knew that what he had thought a sand basm was instead a chasm filled with bar almeda, and tn this dust he would sink lower and lower until he breathed no more
Usul felt the dust rise to his knees, and he pulled his cloak from him aid threw it across the dust before him, but it did him little good He sank more slowly, but still he sank, and now the dust was rising to his hips He looked round carefully, so as not to thrash and flounder, but saw nothing in reach— no spar of rock, no plant, no firmer sand Usul tried to inch his way onto his spread-out cloak, but the dust sucked him down,
and now it had swallowed him up to the arms
Then he raised his head and cned out, "Azfar, come to me'" and the Yellow Djmni swirled in a dust cloud above his head "Here I am," said the demon "What do you want of me9"
' Get me out of this dust," Usul commanded
"I offered you a service when you were your own master," the djinni replied, "but Alhen has spelled you—you are not free But I will do it for one of the portyguls of the garden which you carry'
* Take it then,' said Usul And the djinni, telling Usul to hold fast to his cloak, swept under the dust and rose inside the cloak, bearing Usul up out of the bar almeda and setting him down on firm sand on the farther side And taking his reward, Azfar departed
Usul brushed the dust away and settled his garments He saw a mouse nearby, and he puffed up his chest and said 'Well, brother, you see that the earth tried to swallow me up, but I defeated it " But the mouse shook its head and said, You had a djinni to help you If a hawk should snatch me from a scorpion, that does not make the scorpion my slave nor the hawk my ally" And the mouse scurried away
"For all that,' thought Usul, "I am still alive, and I still have two portyguls left" He saw that the sun was not far from its zenith, and he knew his present need was for haste, and he set a steady pace for the Castle of Sand
As he crossed a low range of dunes, he saw before him a plane of flat sand, and his heart rose, for he saw the sparkle of the grit and knew that this was firm sand, not dust beneath his feet He stepped steadily across the salt basin, heading for a ridge of rock on the far side When he came to the very middle of the place, his footfall went "Boom1" He took another step, and Boom'" "Drum-sand, ' he thought, "this atambal will call a worm'" And behind him, with the thought, he heard a hissing as of wind, but there was no wind The drumsand would give him firm footing, he knew, and he judged the distance to the rocks carefully He said to himself, "Shai-hulud moves through the sand like the
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falcon through the air He will surely catch me long before I get to safety " And without a second thought, he cried, "Ahmar' Come to me'" and at once the Red Djmni stood before him
"Ahmar," Usul said, ' walk off into the desert beating your drum This is the service I require of you''
"But Usul," said the demon, "are you not still under Alhen's spelP"
"I am, ' replied Usul
"Then you can command nothing of me But 1 will do what you ask m return for a portygul from the garden" "Done," said Usul And Ahmar took his fruit, and with his drum booming like two mountains mating, the demon sped off into the desert, with the worm following him like the wind
Usul made his way to the rocks and sat down to catch his breath He saw nearby a mouse nibbling on a blade of scrabgrass, but this time he was not minded to boast "Brother,' he,said to the mouse, "I am still alive And I have one portygul'' The mouse replied, "Make sure when you cross the desert you always have Ahmar's drum at your call and ao worms will bother you " "That I cannot do," said Usul, but he began to think that such a drum were something that more than one Fremen might use to speed his way But he put such thoughts off till a calmer time, for the day was well advanced and he still had far to go
As he walked on, Usul thought that while he had not beaten the uncaring earth nor the greedy worm, neither had they beaten him, whatever help he may have had This thought sparked him for many a league, but each passed slower than the last, for Al-Lat had long been in the sk>, and Usul grew thirstier with each step But he took no rest He still had a long way to go, and no desire at all to tend a demon's garden His mouth grew dry, and he thought of the portygul he earned and the smell of its rind His throat grew dry, and he thought of the fruit and the sweetness of its pulp Even hts eyes grew dry and his lids scratched when they blinked, and he thought of the fruit and the wetness of its juice, "But if I eat the portygul," he thought, "then I shall spend a few wretched hours in Alhen's pit before I make an appetizer for his supper "
And he found no way of putting an end to his troubles
So by and by Usul lay flat on the desert sands, too weak to move But he could still hear, and he heard the voices of two mice 'Is this Usul, ruler of Dune7" one asked 'No " answered the other, "it cannot be For Usul would have remembered his brave words to Alhen about how one is always one'si own master" And hearing this, Usul smiled though his lips were cracked, for he thought, "I am not dead yet," and he called m as ioud a croak as he could muster, "Abiad, come to me1" In a wink the mourn ful White Djinni was at his side
"Weep for me, ' Usul said, that your tears may slake my thirst
"Usul, ' said the djinni, 'I will not for while Alhen's spell is laid on you, you are not free "
"But! am free,' said Usul "I am free m my will to bear or to bow, to endure or lo submit, and the mightiest naib can say no more If I were to die in chains, I will still have a freedom that no one can take from me "
"That is as may be,' said Abiad, 'but I judge as the world judges I cannot see this quiet place within you, and to me your outside looks like a slave's But nevertheless, J will do what you ask in return for— '
"Silence' ' commanded Usul, and although his face was blistered, for he had foreseen this answer too, and he knew what was needed I will not give you the portygul, for I mean to eat it myself And once it has refreshed me, I mean to cross those hills and leave all thought of Alhen behind" Usul pushed himself to his feet, and spoke with all the strength he had ' Think you that I crossed these sands, fronted the djmn jumped out ot the bar almeda, gave the slip to Shai Hulud for the sake of Alhen's dessert9 No' This portygul's water will bear me to my own sietch where this very night 1 will sit before my hearth and my tribe will laugh at the fool I made of the Mand Alhen Naib of All the Djmn'
No sooner had the words left his mouth than he found himself at the bottom of a great pit, and above him, the arm of Alhen reaching down to haul him up In an instant
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he stood before the angry Mand. who shouted, "So1 Thou hadst no thought from the first to bring me the fruit but my spell brought thee back—smiling teeth and deceitful heart—all the samel"
1 Do you believe words or eyes''" asked Usu) "Here is your portygul I tort took the fastest way to fetch it here "
Well, with that the Mand smiled, and knew that like his donkeys, he had been bested by Usul And he said, "I give you your freedom, Usul, and I will give you besides whatever you ask, even if it be the whole planet" But Usul said no, "For I have learned that you can give me nothing that I hick or cannot get for myself The only gift I will take is the one I shall give myself—a name"
"And what shall that name be," asked the demon 'Sandswimmer' Shai-Hulud's Drummer1' Peacefinder?"
"No, ' Usul answered again "I shall take the name of my preceptors, whose teaching brought me through all my troubles I shall be called Mouse *"
"Well, and well again," said the Mand Alhen, Naib of All the Djinn, "Muad'dib it shall be " WE M
From Ibarhtmal Yazizh's Fremen Folktales from Onn SAR313
ATREIDES, PAUL, as Kwfeatz Haderach. Kwisatz Haderach means' 'Shortening of the Way," the label applied by the Beae Gessent to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution a male Bene Gessent whose organic mental powers would bndge space and tone, fulfilled by Paul Muad'Dib Atteides The reconstructed saga of the Kwisatz Haderach has proved to be a revelation This phenomenon was designed by a culture mat hated accident and worshipped prophecy He gradually became proficient—in a narrow context—with the psychology of temporal relationships He became addicted to prescience implausible as it may seem, his obsession actually led him to deny randomness "Knowing" more than anyone^vcr had, but thereby closing his senses to what he ignored, the Kwisatz Haderach committed his species, our species, to "certitude " The arrogance of ignorance prompted this disastrous (but,
under the circumstances, noble) choice After it was recognized and the beginnings of its consequences had been undone by Leto n, the Kwisatz Haderach's choice turned out to have generated that broader awareness of temporal relationships which is the basis of our civilization
To understand the episode of the Kwisatz Haderach we need to explore his ongin, his career, what he understood and what he was contextually unable to understand Paul Muad'Dib Atreides' accomplishments can be explained in terms of his outdated conception of temporal relationships, and his error can be understood m terms of the more inclusive notion which Leto II's corrective actions left for us
The quest for the Kwisatz Haderach may have been the longest single minded project in human history The Bene Gessent appears to have been the oldest continuous purposeful organization, and its purpose was to create a "human" who could tap both female and male reservoirs of ancestral memory At some point along the millennia of Bene Gessent history, their breeding program fo cused on power Thereafter they sought the perfect human, total male as well as total female, in order to control events and impose the Bene Gessent version of destiny on humankind The Kwisatz Haderach, who was for ages a goal sought for his own sake, became a means to a narrower end
The Bene Gessent records are not entirely clear about just how this was to be achieved The assumptions appear to have been so basic and to have evolved so gradually that they were never laid out m explicit, declara Uve form From the events in the histones, however, and by interpolation and inference from records m the Rakis Hoard, we have pieted together a plausible rationale Put simphstically, the Bene Gessent came to believe that perfect memory would provide total predictability Because the Bene Gessent preserved the belief in a single creator of the universe, and believed that only this Being knew the temporal design of events all the way to their end, they thought that to be able to predict the future was to possess the power of the creator
The connection between memory and pre-
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diction can be sketched just as briefly Since certain "laws' of 'cause and effect" were "known" to be universal and unchanging, and since such laws could be generalized from analysis of all previous events (or a large enough subset of' 'all' events), a mind whose memory included enough events and could subject diem to rigorous analysis could extrapolate accurate predictions The names "Laplace" and "Asimov," as well as data about them, appear often enough in the Bene Gessent records to suggest the importance of their ideas within the Bene Gessent program Laplace asserted that complete knowledge of exact position and direction of all "atoms" would let a large enough analyzing engine generate absolutely accurate predictions Asimov at one time made the "design' of future events, by the conscious manipulation of "laws" of mass behavior, seem plausible Enough testimony about the land of progaosti-cators called "econometncians" has survived to suggest that extrapolative prediction was once virtually worshiped by supposedly sophisticated people Hie Bene Gesserit truth-sayers themselves apparently used a microscalar version of such extrapolation from ambiguous information in the practice of their specialty
In brief, people once acted as if the past controlled flic future, white believing—at the same tone—that a "designed" future controlled the past The Bene Gessent absorbed mis contradiction and sought a "Shortening of the Way" who would know the future and thus provide them with control over human events The extent of their delusion became clear only after a Kwisatz Haderach had placed humankind on an undeviatmg and potentially fatal course
The Bene Gessent breeding program did not reach its exact goal Jessica Harkonnen was to have borne a daughter by Duke Leto Atreides That offspring was to have borne a (possible) Kwisatz Haderach by Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen What actually happened was variously called a mistake, a miscalculation a coincidence, or a "miracle " Paul Atreides was tile consequence of Jessica's acting (or not acting) to adjust either the chromosome match or the pH balance of her uterus The male-child's genes earned information that
approximated what the Bene Gessent sought Paul was trained secretly in both "weirding and Mentat skills He was habituated in other words to extrapolating the probable behavior of individuals from minute revelations At short range and on a small scale he could interpret the complex signals of embarrassment confidence and deceit and could guess accurately at the difference between declared and actual motives Furthermore, bei.tuu>e of his Mentat training, he could calculate probabilities involving large quanta of interdependent variables At long range and on a large scale he could quantify fuzzy factors, like ideologies, as well as so-called hard data, like demographic histories, to arrive at the probable consequences of choices affecting a single decision In both heredity and environment then, Paul Atreides was suited to be a Kwisat? Haderach But there was no reason that he had to be If he had stayed on Caladan, for instance he probably would not have encountered the spice drug that triggered full awareness of his latent prescience
The Kwisatz Haderach's career began in obscurity He dreamed we are told He withstood the Bene Gessent test of the gom jabbar, proving himself able to exert willful control over reflexes that try to avoid pain He appeared to tultill Missionana Protectiva prophecies for Arrakis He was surrounded by spice and began to feel the tendrils of prescience, but denied that he was the Kwisatz Haderach After tasting the Water of Life transformed bj Jessica, he swirted in the ambiguities of foreknowledge The peak of his career came when he risked annihilation by transforming the Water himself animus and anima merged, he became both giver and taker, he was indeed a Shortener of the Way, the Reconciler of Opposites
Then Paul risked combat with Feyd-Rautha at the blind spot, led the jihad, and became addicted to the future Choosing safety for others and isolation for himself he chose to set the Empire on a path of certitude Blind but knowing, he became the cast out Preach er and tried to undermine the religion that Muad Dib's prescience inspired His son Leto II, incipient worm showed Paul the-Preacher that the way the father chose would have led
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to race extinction, and that the Typhoon Struggle and Golden Path lay along the preferable route. Paul harangued the crowd at Alia's Temple one last time and fell to a priest-thrust knife.
Curtly described like this, the story of the Kwisatz Haderach is merely heroic, one leg-•end among many others now revived to be ground up in the mills of scholars. But as a cautionary tale of prescience-addiction it appears to have been crucial to the way our present civilization works. Paul was trapped by his addiction into choosing One Way for his species. Leto II broke the habit, sidestepped the single track toward extinction. Today we enjoy Lcto's legacy of surprise and uncertainty, although until the great hoard on Rakis was uncovered we did not know about either the addiction or how close it had come to cutting off our species. Therefore ii is important thai we try to understand mote than what the Kwisatz Haderach was supposed to do for the Bene Gesserit. We need to grasp what the addiction to prophecy was like.
The Kwisatz Haderach's first recognition of his peculiar relationship with the future came with awareness of "terrible purpose" and of dreams which—when he stopped to ponder them—had sufficient "reality" about them to make their coming true possible. His first waking prediction was Mentat-like, probabilistic. Huddled in the stilltent with Jessica he dealt with "data, evaluating, computing." His adolescent picture of time was spatial: a globe with radiating avenues, a road shadowed by hills, a surface resembling a windblown, undulating dune. In the terminology of the infinity calculus, he perceived n-paths from one point in one dimension. He mentioned "terrain" and "available paths," Probability, uncertainty, choke, multiple paths dominated his sense of seeing the manifold futures lhat branched before him. At this point Paul knew only existing facts, past events lhat would only later become known to others: he was Baron Harkonnen's grandson; Jessica would give birth to a daughter. All that Paul possessed of prescience then was a glimpse of the terrain of time, extrapolations from past events, and hints about two possible paths ahead (one of them the gene-mingling holy war). Genes,
skill, training and the ever-present spice converged to give Paul Muad'Dib the dreamlike vision of a rippling relief-map scanned at eye level.
From this spatial representation he moved, in prescient technique, into the complexities of memory concepts. After guiding the escape ornithopter through a sandstorm and landing it, he recognized the desert landscape as it had occurred in a vision he had had on Caladan. But the sensed image was subtly different from the visionary image: the original had been absorbed by memory, then altered in memory by experiences that had occurred in the meantime; what he saw in the present lay before him as if viewed "from a different angle." When he and Jessica moved toward the first encounter with Stilgar, Paul did not know what was going to happen: his presence in the "now" landscape had altered the memory of the "once-seen" terrain of the future. Such alteration of the farmer-vision by being a participant in present-fact is one source of the proto-Kwisatz Haderach's fallibility. There is also another difficulty: just the attempt to see the future affects the future. This problem was especially important when Paul tried to see himself in the future: not only was that vision dependent on choices he had not yet made, but also his choices depended on what he saw along the different paths toward his future. The feedback cycle, with decision altering decision, was a vortex, a trap.
Paul discovered a way to sidestep the trap. Instead of trying to peer forward and thus see ahead, the visionary imagined himself as being in the future and looking back from there. After he swallowed the Water of Life that Jessica had transformed, he saw that "the true test of prescience was to see the past in the future." To stand at time 10 and look ahead to time 50 was one thing; if he could be at time 10, envision time 50 and, from time 50 look back at time 40, then he would be assured that his over-the-shoulder vision-within-a-vision—seeing the past from the future—was accurate.
This procedure looked sensible, but the discovery occurred within the framework of a prescient vision. Therefore, it should have been treated skeptically. Yet the implication
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of determined path, the logical deduction that what he saw to have happened must have happened, and therefore will happen, appears to have underlain Paul's binding choice of an inevitable course when he became emperor. It is important to note here the seductiveness of prescience: Paul could extrapolate from existing fact, he could look ahead, he did go ahead to look back; at each stage he sought more accuracy about the future. He explained his increasing success to himself by way of the logic provided by his civilization's conception of time. It is also important to note that the ever-expanding discoveries occurred after larger and larger doses of the spice. He needed stronger and stronger triggers as he moved deeper and deeper into prophetic techniques.
Paul Muad'LWs prescience was not vol: untary. He could not see ahead in time by will alone. The drug was necessary. Whether his addiction was to the drug or to his visions is an unresolvable question. Melange is addictive, in the sense that ceasing to ingest it shortens the life it extends. But Paul's need seems to have been for ever-larger doses, which suggests that he had become dependent on knowing as much as he could of what was to come, frustrated by Gurney Hallcck's threat to Jessica's life—no line of the future he had ever seen carried that moment of peril from Gurney Halleck— Paul decided to drown a Maker. His body had become tolerant to the spice, his visions were fewer and dimmer, but more than ever he needed to see ahead. He would see if he could sarvive the final test for the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul did survive. He believed, at last, that he was the Kwisatz Haderach sought by the Bene Gesserit. Jessica beHeved, too. He reported that he had been many places, that he was both Taker and Giver, and that he saw the Now, not the future.
Seeing the Now, the limits of the present extended into the future and into the past, was the culmiaatioii of the .visionary sequence. At first, with the spice in his diet, he knew hidden facts in the past and thus saw a future mat differed from the expectations of people who did not know those secrets. After just drinking the Water of Life he glimpsed the future as history. When he executed the
transformation himself, Paul balanced at the assured Now, with the cause-effect paradox suspended. The past has created the present (implying that will and choice have some effect on what has happened and will happen), and Hie future has created the pretient (implying that what occurs is predetermined, happens only because of what is destined to eventuate). These mutually exclusive schemes of time coexisted in Paul Muad'Dib Atreides, Lisan al-Gaib and Kwisatz Haderach.
This poise at the knife edge, on the tightrope across a chasm, at the fulcrum, is what made Paul Giver and Taker, anima and animus, Yin and Yang, male and female, Decider and Decided, Reconciler of Opposites. As nearly as we can tell, he was almost what the Bene Gesserit sought: the Hero, the figure whose choices would decide the fate of the Universe. While the Kwisatz Haderach was in his post-transforming trance, the three-week interval while Jessica watched and sent for Chani, he went many places. He Shortened the Way so that he could be everywhere at the same time. And he managed (barely) to avoid becoming lost in the dimensionless Alam al-Mithal. Like a spinning dancer, he avoided ultimate dizziness by focusing, once in each revolution, on a single fixed spot, his Self. In going farthest from his center point and risking eternal absence, Paul took perhaps the ultimate nsk. But he returned with what was, for his prophecy-adoring civilization, the ultimate prize: complete knowledge—based on his past and his future—of the Now.
One common misunderstanding about the Kwisatz Haderach—at least about Paul—is dispelled by this figurative depiction of his perilous balance. He was never infallible, nor could he be. His early visions (of Dune landscape and of Chani) were close to correct, but they were fuzzy. He did not foresee the size of the Maker he rode; he did not know that Gurney would threaten Jessica. His broader, more massive premonitions were correct enough: the terrible purpose, the avalanche of the jihad. But he did not know precisely what would happen to him. As noted, his decisions affected events, and he could not see what his decisions would be; trying to glimpse them locked Paul into an unending regressive-reflexive-recursive feed-
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back loop The extreme example of unknowing is his combat with Feyd-Rautha His decision not to use the word that would give him the advantage, plus the catching of Feyd-Rautha's needle in the mosaic tile, were at the same time unpredictable and decisive The relationship between the apparent aceura cy of the Kwisatz Haderach's vision, especially just before he walked blindly into the desert, and the incompleteness of 1m prescience, is important This discrepancy is at the heart of the good but wrong choices that Paul made after his Fremen Jihad had ended and his empire had begun to stabilize
As Muad'Dib consolidated his hold after the Fremen Jihad, he perceived a dilemma if he used his prescience to control the empire's destiny, the empire would depend on him alone for guidance His supposed infallibility would rob the people of the need to make choices For him to keep control and respon sibility would not be good for humanity On the other hand, he could not, as a morally responsible human being, casually walk out from under this burden Although he wanted desperately to "disengage," quitting would leave a vacuum and brmg another chaotic struggle for power
The way the Kwisatz Haderach chose to get out of this dilemma was as noble as it was wrong He picked the path that would be, as far as he could foresee, the best route for humanity He decided to end the cycle of wars and leave humankind in peace He would remove Muad'Dib from the scene and thus give the people the illusion of free will Alia and the pnests and bureaucrats would believe they were running things In choosing this path Paul had to accept the loss of Cham, who meant more to him than any thing except his moral responsibility However, this choice let him reject what he saw as the alternative Kralizec, the Typhoon Struggle, chaos. Who, given the clear knowledge of exact outcomes which the Kwisatz Haderach believed his prescience gave him, would not have made the same choice9
Muad'Dib's error is easy enough to see— after the fact His addiction forced him to depend on prescience His leap into die Mam al'Mithal had brought the ability to see himself along the alternative routes
ahead he had transcended the infinite loop of prescience affecting decision affecting pre science Now that he had bludgeoned uncertainty into submission, he beheved he could pick a route for himself that he knew would work out the way he intended What he could not have known was the consequence of bringing absolute certainty to human affairs
Therefore, as Kwisatz Iladcrach he brought to the empire what the Bene Gessent had thought they wanted, complete control over human destiny What neither they nor he could have known, in spite of perfect prescience, was that complete control and its absolute certainty would mean the extinction of the human species Even ilie Kwibatz Haderach's prescience could not foresee this as he narrowed the path of humanity s future, bound himself and humanity to certitude he cut his prescience off from the larger uni verse of alternatives Muad'Dib thought he saw more and saw it bettei, he really ;»aw less in greater (and thus more convincing) detail
With hindsight we can see vividly the hints of his error When he was trying to synchronize actuality and his vision, while he waited at Otheym's house for the stone burner's J-waves to blind him, he felt for a moment like a prisoner in a cage He sensed that there were other oracles seeing other futures, and he was frustrated because events were not moving precisely as he had fore seen them But he seems to have passed the aberrations off as the product of the Tarot conspirators, not as flaws m his own view Later on, after Muad'Dib had again and again demonstrated the "perfection* of his vision by knowing where to step and where to put his hand to sign documents, he was surprised to discover that Chain had born twins The twins had not been m his vision at all
Muad'Dib gave up Cham and power m order to leave his people free He chose the path that he believed would ensure peace and security and certitude for his species But in selecting the single narrow path that he could see vividly, the Kwisatz Haderach wedged out all the other options, removed them from even his peripheral vision Because this narrowing brought a flood of detail,
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and because the foeus on one comdor of time blurred the existence of other corridors, he became unable—in spite of the fantastic power he did possess'—to see the broader context of infinite temporary strands He thought he had squeezed them together, but he had really just pared them away
The Kwisatz Haderach's last years were spent playing out the game his choice had designed He watched Alia submit to the inner voice of the Baron Harkonnen, watched the Quizarate and empire constrict their subjects in the tentacles of their own survival He had sought peace, he had tried to "close down the cycle of wars " Only later on did Leto II, in contrast, perceive that to exert purposeful control over Time was to succumb to the Great Temptation to Know All, and by knowing All to possess All Power Leto chose to deflect civilization from his father's incorrect path He usurped the future that the Kwisatz Hadcrach selected and strove to reestablish Accident as the cornerstone of Universal Time
We do not understand just BOW the Kwisatz Haderach actually "operated" The Bene Tleilax experiment left no substantial clues, for instance They may have shut down their project because the prototype failed their "human" test, or because it disobeyed them, or because it had no ancestral memories Nor is the nature of ancestral memory entirely clear The Bene Gessent considered it essential, but Paul did not possess it Alia did, but she was not a Kwisatz Haderach Leto fl brought ancestral memory under coatral, but his voices instructed him to avoid the abyss of prescience-addiction and the route of Kwisatz Haderachism The entire episode of the Kwisatz Haderach is strewn with this kind of inversion of expectation and outcome
The schools of the old Impenum are still foil of disputation on this whole matter Obviously, we can not sift all these questions to the bran—whether knowledge of the future constrains us necessarily to do a thing ("necessarily" meaning simple compulsion), or whether free choice is granted us to do a dung or not to do it, although the outcome was foreknown, or whether foreknowledge constrains not at all except by a conditional
necessity We are completely certain of only one thing neither we nor our descendants can possibly experience the Kwisatz Had erach s prescience Our culture is reflexively scared of the temptations that lead to prescience addiction Also the exact matrix of genetic variables and conditioning environ ment that produced Paul cannot happen again by accident Furthermore, we know better than to try to reproduce those tunditions Therefore, we undertake without hesitation to understand how the Kwisatz Haderach actually operated Because it is useful to know as much as possible about even what is forbidden, and because there are some con cepts that can help us understand what the Kwisatz Haderach did, we venture to explain what happened when the Kwisatz Haderach controlled the future Two of the concepts come from compartments within the ancient field of physics, now a subset of Systemics, and one is from a rudimentary segment of the infinity calculus
Relativistic physics suggests how a Kwisatz Haderach could shorten the way ' and gain knowledge of a future Time as we know has no reference point Anv place that ob serves recurring events can discover and measure "time —local time—in terms of patterns of event repetition Orbital motion, change from dark to light and back to dark, vegetation followed b> blossoms followed by fruit and seeds are familiar examples of repeating patterns Dependable information about such repetitions, and thus about time, comes from light, whose speed is constant If one could travel at the speed of light, one could gather all information about all local time references This collection would m elude information about what would have been the futures of all localities It would be available from the absolute vantage point of light speed travel Paul Muad Dib Atreides apparently could be in "many places at once," was able to achieve a mystico magical fusion with the speed of light/thought/mforma tion Thus he earned out the ultimate "shortening of the way" between all local time frames His reports about the Alam al Mithal, where all physical limitations are removed seem to support this hypothesis In his deepest trances, Paul felt dislocated,
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rootless He sensed no position, no place, no orienting permanence Some kind of merger with the Absolute is implied, and therefore a complementary disconnectum from Other Paul had to fight his way back from the Alam al-Mithal, to some Place where he could refer to Other, because connections with and references to Other are necessary if there is to be Self
Relativistic physics offers a clue to what the Kwisatz Haderach did, evea though it does not fully explain how he accomplished his mystico-magical leap into the abyss of the Absolute The extent of our ignorance about the process is underscored by the decline of those physics Even Harq al Ada recorded his reservations "Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future " The Kwisatz Haderach appears to have glimpsed, and temporarily frozen, a relatms tic path into the future What he could not have known, when he made that valiant effort, was that the two paths he saw and ' knew" were not the only futures He could not know that in limiting himself and our species to one of them he was locking us away from virtually infinite options
The second subset of ancient physics, con nected with 'uncertainty," does not permit even accurate knowledge of the Absolute that the Kwisatz Haderach appears to have believed he encountered Yet concepts from uncertainty physics, rather loosely applied, do help us understand the youthful Paul's difficulty m seeing himself in his visions of the future As is well known, it is impossible to know both the position and momentum of a subatomic particle The more confident one becomes about knowing one condition, the less one knows about the other When Paul attempted to see his own position on the rippling landscape of his prescience, the energy deflections of his information-gathering effort prevented his feeding through to a fixed picture of* a future situation The um verse remained contingent, he could see surroundings but, because his knowing what was to become of himself permitted a choice that could change that outcome, he could not know As Systemics has taught, but Paul did
not realize there is an information analogue to quantum-level uncertainty physics
The uncertainty paradigm also helps us understand what happened as Paul matured and became addicted to prescience In our random universe, anything can happen In fact, as the infinity calculus shows every thing does happen It was unlikely that Paul would be able to see himself in the future, but he did It was more unlikely that he could "shorten the way according to relativ istic physics, but he did It was impossible for him to narrow the spread of optional futures to two (let alone to think of options within the concept future), but the Kwisatz Haderach did that too He went even further he rejected one of the alternatives he saw and determined the other one Such a nar rowing of probabilities to one certainty is incredibly unlikely, but the nature of the Accidental Universe requires that certitude be one possibility
Finally, the infinity calculus helps us grasp quickly the magnitude of the Kwisatz Had-erach's boldness and the essence of his error The familiar idea of temporal matrices con tarns n-aggregates of n points in n-dimensions At every instant it is possible for the matrix to change n1 ways All possibilities do occur, a new temporal matrix evolves instantaneously Again, all possibilities happen The Kwisatz Haderach possessed a different, severely limited, notion It was conditioned by the concepts cause and effect and inevitability Within this conception his prescience saw one sequence of possibilities, picturing it as branches m two (or perhaps three) dimensions The branching sequence included several highly probable paths The Kwisatz Haderach nar rowed his prescient focus to two alternatives, and actually selected one that appeared preferable' By willing the restriction of probability he cut himself off from seeing the rest of the entire temporal matrix His conviction that there would be a single future was powerful enough to constrict the matrix, for him to deny accident was enough to insure that there would be no accidents This improbable restriction was one of the possible sequences within the Accidental Universe, what the Kwisatz Haderach could not have known (having limited his pre-
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science by narrowing and sharpening its focus) was that the chosen branch led to a dead end The Kwisatz Haderach did not know the infinity calculus, if he had, he would not have tried to deny it If he had not tried to deny it, however, we might never have learned it
As the Kwisatz Haderach, Paul Muad'Dib Atreides made choices They sometimes turned out to be the wrong choices, but they were nevertheless good choices Combining good and wrong this way is not really paradoxical His choices were good because they were freely made based on his best understanding of what would happen as a consequence of his choosing They were moral But they turned out, m retrospect, to have been wrong Or so we say, with hindsight, because Leto II said so and because we are inheritors of Leto's tradition and are locked into that heritage Paul chose well, but Paul was wrong Deductive logic presses these questions How could Paul have been wrong7 He "saw the future as now " Didn't he know all there was to know''
The answers to these questions are context-bound Yes, he knew all there was for him to know, but mere were some matters that coutd not have been known until after he had made his great effort He stepped beyond die limited "now ' of most mortals, through a door and into a comdor that he knew to be "the ' future (although it was actually just "a' future) because it was the only future he could see He could look ahead and back from any position along that single corridor He committed himself aad the Empire to mat comdor, that single path from that single point m that single dimension And he was trapped on that path In spite of his trait scendent vision he could not see outside of bis cage There were other corridors, infinitely more corridors, paralleling and diverging from the one he knew Although he could sense other oracles and other futures even as he chose to bind his universe, his choice of one certainty blinded him to the other contingencies Because he saw so much he could not realize how blind he was
So the paradox disappears Paul chose That was good He chose a single comdor, believing that it was the only corridor that
led where he wished humanity to go That was wrong He did not know, could not have known, that he was wrong when he made the choice Now thanks to his boldness, we possess the wisdom of Leto II, the infinity calculus and our abhorrence of prophecy Without his error we might not have any of them, or be here to appreciate our good fortune
The career of the Kwisatz Haderach makes a bittersweet story The Bene Gessent sought him for generations He reconciled funda mental contraries He went many-places at once and shortened the way and controlled the future But prophesying became addictive his free choice prevented freedom of choice, knowing the now almost eliminated the future of humanity As survivors we can be pleased that the Kwisatz Haderach experimented with prescience and everlastingly thankful that his experiments were failures Essentially, our reconstruction of Paul Atreides' story is a cautionary tale Its immediate consequence, in the time of Leto II and thereafter, was abhorrence of prescience Long hidden and now revealed the story helps us respect the challenges of the unpredictable E J
Further references ATREIDES LETO 11
IDAHO DUNCAN
ATREIDES PAUL
ATREIDES. PAUL MOAD'DIB. To attempt a discussion of the life of Paul Atreides is to confront immediately the entire issue of fact versus fiction While few scholars would dare to suggest that no such person ever lived, most dispute the accuracy of the tales purporting to recite his accomplishments It has m fact become rather popular among many historians to write lengthy articles and even books which ' debunk the legends and superstitions that have arisen concerning him Interestingly, all of these writings are based on a single report written m 11673 by the important anthropological historian Neja N'Nam-Knb who claimed that Paul Atreides could not have been a blood son of Duke Leto Atreides I nor could he have accomplished most of the great things attributed to him What is continually forgotten b> these historians is that the report was written by a hireling of the Archbishop Spil whose own
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power was on the wane because of the legends associated with Paul These legends were a constant source of rebellion against the Archbishop s own attempts to control the hearts and minds of his followers, and, therefore, he obviously needed some report which would prove that Paul Atreide!« was neiflier noble-born nor more than a rather gifted military strategist
But such a view flies in the face of any logical explanation of what we do know of that era some five thousand five hundred years in our past The Second Jihad and the Fremen role in it are historical facts The brief flowering of the desert planet Arrakis is well documented And the existence of Leto Atreides II, die God Emperor of Dune cannot be denied How can each of these be explained without accepting many of what are now considered the legends of Paul Muad'Dib7 Thus, it will be the purpose of this brief article to illustrate just how well and how consistently these legends explain the history of tine worlds in general and the events on Arrakis in particular
First, as to the birth and lineage of Paul Atreides Stones told by the Fremen, affirmed by Leto H m his ndulian crystals, and corroborated by the House Comno historians Irulan Comno-Atreides and Harq al-Ada insist that Paul Atreides was the son of Duke Leto Atreides I (10140-10191) and his concubine, the Lady Jessica Harkonnen (10154-10256) Moreover, there is precise agreement in alt three sources concerning his birthdate 10175 But these sources are not the only reasons for believing that Paul was of House Atteides The actions of the Fremen of Swtch-Tabr can only be understood if Paul was an off-wortder and had undergone the education afforded by being noble-bom and of House Atreides
According to Fremen culture, Stilgar, the Naib of Sietch-Tabr, should have put both Paul and the Lady Jessica to death upon finding them in the desert after the assassination of Dake Leto They were a threat to the sietch in two ways first, if left alive, the two nmgflt tead rivals to the vicinity of the sietch, second, as off-worldere unfamiliar with the ways of survival in the desert, they would be a drain on the resources of the sietch There was, moreover, a rather positive reason for
killing them as well the water recovered from their dead bodies would augment the supplies of the sietch
Many historians believe that the fact that neither Paul nor Lady Jessica were killed is confirmation of the theory that the two peo pie so named in the sourtes were not of House Atreides but themselves natives of Sietch-Tabr They reason that no other explanation could justify Stilgar's behavior But in opting for this simplest of explanations, these historians forever muddy the waters of al! later events Given Paul s lineage as that of a simple Fremen, why would members of the other sietches ever cast their lot with him1? The cultural and political development of the Fremen in the year 10191 does not allow for a sudden combining of all the forces of all the sietches, even against a common enemy No, the Fremen were too well-organized into sietches at that time for such conceited action And, most important, the tau, or oneness of a Fremen sietch was not the tau of the entire Fremen peoples Such oneness was flatly impossible to achieve given their nature
For the Fremen to rally under the banner of a single hero demanded that that hero not be of an alien tau, and not be too closely associated with a single sietch Paul Muad'Dib as a blood member of House Atreides fulfills the necessary conditions perfectly Consider that as the son of Duke Leto, Paul would have been trained by the finest warriors of the age Duncan Idaho and Gurney Halleck Moreover, his tutor would have been the Zensunm mental Thufir Hawat, a man who, given the fact that the Fremen themselves come from a Zensunm background, was in a unique position to give young Paul that cast of mmd that would fit in well with Fremen thought and belief
Moreover, one must remember that Paul was the result of the Bene Gessent breeding program for which most accurate records now exist The Lady Jessica betrayed that program by having Paul instead of a daughter Paul Atreides was, in other words, the result of a program that had been going on for thousands of years, a being who was to embody all the powers of the Bene Gessent and beyond Whether Paul Atreides was liter ally the Kwisatz Haderach or not is, of
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coarse, debatable However, it should be quite clear to all who would see that within Paul stood the essence of the ultimate warnor-chief (House Atreides) and the master politician (House Harkonnen) Such a man could and did rally the Frcmen, and lead die Second Jihad No other man could have, because the Frcmen simply would not have followed
Finally, even if the breeding records did not exist (one might term diem fabrications along the lines of the three sources already mentioned), there ts still reason to believe thai the Lady Jessica was Paul's natural mother It is obvious from the events surrounding Paul Muad'Dib that he had the powers of Voice and could practice the Lite ny against Fear Where else could he have obtained such training except from a Bene Gessent adept7 And why would a member of the Sisterhood give a boy such thorough training unless he were her son?
To conclude this section of die article then, it must be reasonable to accept Paul as Atreides-born No other theory so comfortably and consistently explains the known facts of the Fremcn and the rebellion of Arrakis that lead to the Second Jihad
What then of Paul Atreides' actions m die years 10191 through 10193^ While it is true mat not much is known about him during this period, it would be foolish to conclude that this lack of information proves dm Paul is more legend titan man While many historians who specialize ui ancient history and myths are quick to point out that such gaps are part of mythic patterns that avoid stretching credibility by silence, they are guilty of rushing to conclusions simply because Paul's life at that time runs parallel to die pattern of mydi Does this mean dial whenever fiction successfully imitates reality, the reality must be considered fiction0 Such a statement is, of course, absurd
It is not hard to see that there existed understandable reasons for this gap Paul, like the Fremen, was being hunted by the Harkonnen and the Padishah Shaddam IV (10134—10202) While both thought Paul and die Lady Jessica were dead, there was no hard evidence for this supposition and there was most certainly, every reason for Paul to conceal his existence Moreover, j
why would the Fremen want to keep records of the life of Paul during this period9 They were not a writing-oriented people nor would they have been aware of the cosmic significance of what was happening in those two years
But there are overwhelming grounds for believing that what Paul Atreides did during that time was indeed die stuff of legends dial is, his accomplishments were so awe-mspmng m the eyes of the Fremen that die stones they told were like legends And why would they not be9 Paul Atreides now Muad Dib, proved himself to partake of Fremen world view and to surpass it His personal magnetism gathered warriors from every sietch and created die Fedaykm And then, in 10193, he led die Fedaykin out of die desert and m a single stroke destroyed die combined forced of House Comno and House Harkonnen How could one man create tau among all die sietches of Arrakis and then turn a group of warriors once devot ed to resisting change into a force that changed not only their own planet but every known world m die Impenum and beyond' 1o say such a man was a military genius with the ability to inspire fanatic devotion in his fol lowers is to understate the case Yes Muad Dib was all of this But he must have been much more So magnetic wdb his personality so great must have been his deeds that he was able to convince an entire people devoted to "the ways of the fathers that Muad'Dib s way was that way The Fremen were indeed a superstitious people, but those supersti bons were a powerful force of conservatism A man could not simply walk into a Fremen sietch and state that he was the fulfillment of then: beliefs The Fremen would need proof and wonderous proof it would have had to have been Thus, the very fact that Muad'Dib was able to form the Fedaykin and smash two powerful armies is compelling evidence for the many stones that exist concerning his life among die Fremen Specific stones may, indeed, be fictional but the general nature of die events that are described must be true
Paul Muad'Dib s final years during die Second Jihad and the founding of universal government from the planet Arrakis are considered less dian believable by many scholars because they are laced with constant
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reference to his prescience and his final act of self-banishment after the abortive attempt on his life by the combined forces of the Spacing Guild, the House Comno, and the Bene Gessent
As to Muad'Dib's being prescient, there is little reason to suppose that he did not have some such power It must be remembered that he had ingested more melange than any other living being in his time It is documented that this mind-expandmg drug had as one of its effects the ability to reason through a series of complicated facts to accurate predic tions of future e\ents Both the Guild and the Bene Gessent used melange for exactly this reason In fact, it was Muad'Dib's control of this vital drug that led to these two group!*' participation in the assassination attempt Given Muad'Dib s place within the Bene Gessent breeding program and his mental training through Thufir Hawat, it is not impossible to conclude mat under the influence of melange he was capable of such vast reasoning power that his visions of die future were far greater and more vivid than these others, paler imitations This is not to argue that the future is some fixed chain of events which Muad'Dib was able to foresee It simply suggests that he was able to see with greater clarity than any other being the com plicated chain of events that led to future happenings and that he took advantage of this "sight" Prescience, in other words, was for Muad'Dib not the vision of the future normally associated with it, but the power to see how die future was created
Finally, concerning the death or non-death of Paul Muad'Dib much has been and can sail be written He managed to escape death at the hands of a stoneburner explosion only to be blinded by the flash of light associated with it Immediately after die birth of his twin children, Lcto II and Ghanima, and the consequent death of his beloved Bremen concubine, Cham Liet-Kynes, Paul Muad'Dib walked into the desert as Piemen culture dictated The blind were more than a burden to a Fremen sietch, they were looked upon as anathema, others within a sietch did not even want the water that could have been recovered from the dead bodies
Many historians see this final act of Paul Muad'Dib s as further evidence of his Fremen
birth and the fictional nature of his story They reason that if he were reaUy of the House Atreides he would have not exiled himself but simply have regained his sight by using Tleilaxu e>es Once again this kind of reasoning illustrates how sthulars single mmdedly devoted to proving their thesis will ignore all reason in their search for so-called truth Paul Muad Dib was Fremen He could not have been other than Fremen and still have created the Fedaykin But he was Fremen not by birth but by example He took the world view of the Fremen to its ultimate extreme and m the end accepted his blindness as 'the way things are ' To have done less would have been to expose himself as simply "playing" at being a Fremen But it is doubtful that he ever played at anything First, the Fremen would have been sure to detect acting, and, second, what is actually known of his life would not have been so consistent in so many different sources Muad'Dib took the only course open to a Fremen
There is one final issue that needs to be addressed concerning the life of Paul Atreides the old man who showed up years after Muad'Dib's walk into the desert and whom many people thought was Paul It should first be pointed out that both Irulan and Leto II did believe that this prophet' was Muad Dib, but even if he were not it is irresponsible to cast out all of the information on his life as fabulous simply because years after his death a madman claims to be Muad'Dib Indeed, over the thousands of years that followed 1m death many madmen have made just such a claim As has been earlier stated, it was exactly these claims that inspired Archbishop Spil to commission Neja N Nam Knb's report All such claims however, merely testify to the enduring pow er of Muad'Dib's fame They do not have anything to do with whether or not the stones are true
It is time to put the whole issue of Paul Atreides Muad'Dib the Kwisatz Haderach to rest There was such a man, born of House Atreides, who had remarkable power, so remarkable that through hit> acts, and those of his son, Leto II the hi stones of all the worlds were forever changed Both fact and common sense argue for this conclusion
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The only reason to suppose differently is that by calling into question the existence of Paul Atreides and his acts, many hundreds of university scholars have been able to publish countless articles and books so that they may receive promotion and tenure S G Further references ATREIDES, DUKE LETO ATREIDES
1ADY JESSICA HARKDNNEN KWISATZ HADEJUCH ATREIDES
CHANI Because tbe literature concerning Paul Atreides is so extensive the reader is referred to the partial listing contained in die Bibliography appended to this volume
ATREIDES, SIONA IBM FCIAD AL-SEYEFA (13698 13953) Daughter of Moneo Ibn Fuad al-Lichna Atreides, Leto n & last majordomo, and his commanded breeding partner, Seyefa Nycalle Siona led the rebellion which terminated in me God Emperor's Fall She was the end of Leto's millennia-long experiment in human evolution, the first of the new Atreides line, capable of disappearing from prescient view In her, Leto had created the means of humanity s continued survival and of his own destruction
Seyefa left Fish Speaker service when Siona was a year old, and the child remained with her parents in quarters near Leto's Citadel until she was ten She was then sent, at Leto's orders, to the Fish Speaker school in On a Valuable as parental guidance was, the training Moneo and Seyefa provided for their daughter served only as groundwork for the education she would receive from her Fish Speaker teachers and from Leto himself
Seyefa (bed a year after Siona's admission to the school Her death was the earliest event for which Siona held the God Emperor to blame, she was to tell her father many years later that her mother would have survived tiie fever which lolled her bad someone been at home to care tor her Since Leto monopolized Moneo's time and had ordered Siona sent away to school, her mother's death was his fault, Sioaa reasoned
Despite her gnef, Siona performed well at tbe school, for her teachers refused to accept anything less than her best Almost a century later she wrote
I saw papil after pupil make mistakes in the simplest exercises aad be given a gentle rcpn Hand or be completely overlooked If / made evea die slightest error—one target missed in a
gunning drill1—I was made to repeat the entire sequence This was the first hint I was given that the instructors had been told to give me special attention and I hated it
The Fish Speaker teachers had been given other orders as well More so than any of the other pupils Siona was exposed to the Oral History and its many contradictipns of the official ' 'received version of events While some of the faculty at Onn felt uncomfort able about teachings which so closely skirted heresy, Jhey could console themselves with the idea that Siona was, after all, an Atreides And the God Emperor alone decided what was best for his descendants
Siona spent nine years at the Fish Speaker school Throughout that time though she was primarily under the control of her in structors and the older students, she contin ued to be influenced by her father and by the God Emperor
From earliest childhood, before her fury at being sent off to school had sparked her distaste for him, Siona had been fascinated by Leto Notes m Leto's Journals indicate mat the girl often accompanied Moneo on informal visits held primarily on the Royal Road The God Emperor details several of these encounters describing with obvious amusement Siona's avid study of himself and her evident ignorance of the fact that she was being studied m return
While cunoMtj and a degree of religious awe may have marked these childish encounters, her moods shifted as Siona entered adolescence She became increasingly cym cal and critical sometimes calling her father to task for his service to "the Worm ' as she insisted on referring to Leto In the docu ment known as the Welbeck Fragment, Siona recorded one of the exchanges between herself and Moneo, an excerpt conveys its overall tone
SIONA How have you survived with him for so long a time, fattier'1 He kills those who are close to him bveryone knows that
MONEO No' You are wrong He kills no one
SIONA You needn't lie about him
This dialogue probably took place when Siona was fifteen years old Moneo, alarmed at reports that had reached him of his daughter s conduct, had visited her secretly to warn her
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that her heretical mockeries could lead to her destruction
Her refusal to take her father's advice was demonstrated in 13717, when she first organized a group of like-minded rebels Having been graduated from the Onn school, Siona recognized the uselessness of attempting to suborn her fellow Fish Speakers, instead, during her last months at the school, she had made contacts with outsiders from various walks of life Those who responded to her tentative advances (always made gingerly, since she could not be certain that the person who was listening to her might not be doing so for Leto's benefit) were primarily of Ftemen descent or scholars familiar with that people's history and sorry for its passing
During the first three yeats of its existence, Siona used the rebel network primarily to gather information Having Leto's majordo mo as a near relative was a great advantage since Siona often knew of appointments in the courtier's ranks and could advise her friends on how best to maneuver Her own proximity to the Fish Speaker Command permitted her to exploit still other sources
Moneo, recognizing Siona s activities, found himself m a most uncomfortable position His warnings were scorned by his daughter and treated with amusement by his master, who reminded him of his own rebellious days and emphasized his plans for Siona His majordamo Leto saw, had yet to realize dial Sioua's straggle with the God Emperor was an affair completely outside Moneo's sphere of concerns
Leto's approach to the situation differed from Moneo's Rather than warn Siona away from the course she was following or mterfer mg in any way with her actions, Leto simply stepped up his observations Since he could not accurately predict her actions with prescience, he depended rather more heavily than usual on his Ixian "eyes"—electronic sensors—and on his informers In 13720, he took the added precaution of introducing an agent of his own into Siona's group a fanatical Fish Speaker named Nayla Siona, not knowing that this new convert was actually a spy, accepted her gladly She had reached the point of considering some form of violence an eventual necessity, and Nayla seemed a
strong and dependable person to have on the rebel side
In 13723 weaned by inaction Siona led a raid on Leto s Citadel in the Sareer This raid, which brought about the deaths ot ev ery member of the party but its leader at the hands of Letn's 0 wolves also resulted in the theft of the Stolen Journals Siona al though shaken by the loss of so many of her trusted companions, exulted at having es caped not only with a pair of books which appeared to be important to Leto (and which she promptly sent off to the Guild the Bene Gessent, and the Ixians for attempted trans lation) but with thp complete plans for the Citadel as well At last she believed !>he was ready to take action against the Worm
Leto also believed her ready though for quite a different reason After permitting her enough time to receive and read the translat ed versions of his Journals he gave word to Moneo that she was to be brought to him for the testing he gave all his future administrators Moneo, fearful for her survival did not presume to argue with this particular command he knew, from his own experience, that Leto could not be dissuaded
It was a summoas Siona had expected The Oral History told much of Leto s behav ior toward his Atreides descendants and Moneo had confirmed many of the stones She recognized too that the extended "vacation' she had received on graduating from the Onn school—the time m which she had organized her rebellion—was a part of the pattern Leto always permitted his breed mg stock to run free before he brought them back into the fold
Moneo had told her very little about his own testing, saying that the experience was different for every individual and thai he did not wish to confuse her with his own perceptions He simplj delivered her to the Little Citadel Leto s retreat in the central Sareer as his master had commanded They were met by Leto Moneo departed the fol lowing morning after having prepared Siona with a stillsuit Leto had informed him of his intention to take Siona out into the Sareer, and Moneo did his best to ensure her safety before he returned to Onn
Moneo's preparations had been insufficient,
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as Leto had expected they would be Siona was generations removed from life in the Arrakeen desert stillswt discipline had not been instilled into her as it had been into her Freroen ancestors Two days into the Sareer, with six more travel days ahead, she was still walking the sands with the face mask of her suit down, allowing the moisture of her breath to escape into the air as she and the God Emperor argued about the Dune days and Leto's nght to rule Only Leto's reminder, in the words of the old Fremen admonition to children ("Guard every breath for it carries the warmth and moisture of your life*), made her seal the mask shut, but not until the morning of the third day With so far yet to travel Leto knew, Siona would never survive without additional moisture And she was not carrying water
On the fifth day, compelled by thirst and the still urgent, need to understand the one she opposed, Siona underwent the second phase of her testing Directed by Leto, she stroked the naps of die cowl which clung about his face, drawing drops of sptce-essence-laced water to the surface of his sandtrout skin Then fighting down the fear of the effect the spice would have on her, she drank
The melange affected her m less than a minute, sending her into a deep spice-trance She tapped at the front segment of Leto's pre-worm form, causing him to make a hammock of it for her as he had during their previous sleep periods, then climbed in and abandoned herself to the trance
Though she was later to write much about this period of history, Siona sever detailed her experiences during her hours of trance Leto, in his Journals, indicated only that she had seen fax more of the horrific futuie-that-mignt-have-bcen than any Atreides other than himself had Even the sight of those horrors had not convinced her that he had been nght to initiate the Golden Path She did not regain normal consciousness for slightly over ten hours
While she did not display the immediate shift of loyalty to the God Emperor as her father had done, Siona had been sensitized to the Golden Path and survived the ordeal, ( thus fulfilling Leto's demand The two of I
them completed their journey, arriving three days later at the Citadel Siona was given new clothes, refreshments, and a brief rest before she and Leto returned to Onn At no time during this recovery period, according to the Journals did she speak to her com panion
Her sensitizing had made Siona no less rebellious, if anything, the knowledge of this latest encroachment on her personal life enraged her When her father sent her to Tuono Village with Nayla and Duncan Idaho, intending to keep her as far away as possible from the God Emperor s wedding she left reluctantly Only when she discovered that the ceremony's location had been switched from Tabr to Tuono Village, giving her a chance to attack Leto, did Siona bnghten
The plotting and execution of the Fall in 13724 have been thoroughly studied elsewhere and need not be repeated here After those events concluded however, and Siona found herself in a new universe—one which did not include Leto II—she discovered that a successful rebellion required more than the overthrow of a ruler, however great a tyrant that ruler might have been It required a reassignment of power and the ability to control that power Siona, much to her chagrin, discovered that she could not channel the force she had released alone, she needed help
Duncan Idaho provided it Their partner ship took on a more personal shape in 10728 when they were married, using the ancient ritual from the Oral History Over the next twenty years, Siona bore the eleven children (nine daughters and two sons) who earned her ability to disappear from prescient view
Although history indicates that Idaho had come to love his mate very deeply, he refused to follow Siona s lead m ingesting large enough doses to melange to prolong his life (He is reported to have said that he had already lived far longer than he had any nght to—undoubted!) a reference to the long line of Duncan Idaho gholas the God Emperor had ordered produced ) He died m 13791, severing the last link to the days of Paul Muad'Dib Atreides one of his earliest acts following Leto's death had been the destmc tion of the cell cultures from which the
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gholas were produced, thus ensuring that it would be a final death.
Siona retired from public life after Idaho's death and lived quietly on Arrakis, producing one book, The Las! Days, but otherwise calling little attention to herself. She was 255 years old when she died. C.T.
Further references: ATREIDES, LETO H; ATRDEIDES,
MONEO, IBN FUAD AL-LICHNA; IDAHO, DUNCAN; NAYLAJ
STOLEN JOURNALS; Siona Atreides, The Last Days, Arrakis Studies 218 (Grumraan: United Worlds)
ATREIDES-CORRINO. PRINCESS IRGLAN
(10165-10248). Eldest daughter of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV and Anuril Corrino; wife of Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Atreides; author and editor of numerous historical works; object of veneration as St. Irulan the Virgin. As daughter to the emperor, Irulan was trained in the nuances and die obligations of command. As a Bene Gesserit she received additional training in techniques of observation, memory and self-control. However, suffering from peer pressures and her own intellectual inadequacies, she never excelled in either her courtly or Bene Gesserit studies.
Little is known of Irulan's childhood, but one tendency emerged early in life: her obsession with writing. Beginning at the age of five, she kept a journal and later confided her thoughts to a diary. As she entered Bene Gesserit training, she continued both the diary and the journal; the diary enabled her to develop her analytic capacities, especially in regard to human character, and the journal prepared the way for her growth as an historian. Her journalistic and her introspective tendencies were enhanced by the Bene Gesserit training with its emphasis on observation and analysis.
The Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers came to regard Irulan as one of the weakest links in their power structure; Irulan remained an independent thinker, and what she thought about most was an exception to the qualities usually demonstrated by the people in cloister around her. In a setting which promoted the sacrifice of personality to the political structure and the sacrifice ot family loyalty to power, she developed an admiration for and a faith in normal humanity and Ihe old-fashioned virtues of love and devotion.
Irulan's writings include very little about Anuril and it is clear that her non-relationship with her own mother did nothing to counterbalance the attitudes toward motherhood to which she was exposed Motherhood was not a virtue espoused by either the royal houses or the Bene Gesserit, since in either case it was merely a biological role made to serve other, larger purposes than love for and nurturing of a child. Her father, therefore, was the dominant figure in her life. She wrote much about the significance of fatherhood and clearly regarded her father (whose favorite child she was) as a source of instructive wisdom as well as affection.
The degradation of the mother role, a strong devotion to a male figure, the ability to find satisfaction in her writing, her training in royal command—all these laid the basis for Irulan's acceptance—with only small spurts of rebellion—of the position of virgin wife to Paul. In her position as Paul's virgin queen, she stood for the moral law of the community, a law which upheld order and status and continuity. But her passivity in the acceptance of her role indicates, also, a
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towered sexual threshold, confirmed by her decision to remain single after the death of Paul Further, these qualities explain her lat er assumption of the role of protectress of Paul s children Surrounded by a prescience she did not share—that found in Alia, Leto, and Ghanima—her major role naturally became that of supporting, rather than leading, actress
But since those 'children," Leto and Ghanima, were never really children, that time Irulan devoted to their rearing marked a quiescent period for her Standing beside Chani, and later beside Alia in the royal court, she contributed wherever and whenev er she could to the royal judgments and directions for the good of House Atreides Blonde, tall, and beautiful, she commanded by her appearance a certain awe from strangers, an awe which she, remote, refused to concede, she knew too well her role as royal pawn Without seeking power for herself, she could gain little respect from others, but all the while she was carefully observing and analyzing
As Leto II assumed command of the Bene Gtssent breeding program and the powers of the Bene Gessetit declined accordingly, they lost their reasons for secrecy, and a new age, of sorts, dawned in the empire—an age which historians centuries later called the Age of Enlightenment Irulan was a motivating force for this age, for she began thinking of founding an imperial library With the accession of FaiaiTii to the position of royal scnbe, she found a powerful ally
For many people die quality of Irulan's scholarship remained in dispute When she was a child ho1 father had given her access to certain rare volumes' in the royal archives, but during her lifetime no one was sufficiently interested in her work to investigate the value of tins background—even though she had certain important works copied for the new library After the accession of Leto U, she continued her own writing and also edited the works of others, producing biographies, collections of others' sayings, dictionaries, his tones, and the editions Among these were the Fremen Sulgar's private papers, and her editing of them vastly improved his style Over the years she became a skilled interviewer, the sympathy of her expression in-
spired confidence and no doubt explains the frankness of the intimations she elicited from her subjects Thirty years after Leto's accession, she returned to Wdllach IX, where she died in comparative obscurity
Irulan never had a sense of being 'drunk on too much time knowing only too well the crude jokes about the possible anagrams of her name, she sought refuge in quiet dignity and careful work From her research, she knew that Irene was an ancient Greek word meaning peace and, never using any of her royal titles as pen names, she signed many of her works with the simple logo "IR"
During her last thirty years on Arrakis, rumors persisted of romances, first with Duncan Idaho 10235, and later with the son of Ghanima and Farad'n, but these were ill founded Irulan ever remained the Virgin Queen A hundred years following her death, her works were ' discovered, ' and some time after that a movement of veneration for St Irulan the Virgin developed among the populace That Irulan could counter tradition and remain virginal gave her special signifi cance m the years after her death Not mere ly her scholarship but also her independence of viewpoint and her transcendence of physical demands led to an idealization of her Only through her did women come to realize that the Impenum standards were almost totally male chauvinistic, even the Lady Jessica, austere as she could be at most times, once descended to a remark about Alia s lovers and spoke of "horns on Duncan Idaho That unfounded rumors about Irulan s possible Io\ers were circulated during her lifetime only served to emphasize the neces sity for alternative thinking, and for a union of women who refused to acquiesce to the subservience of the breeding body The cult of the Virgin which developed with Irulan's inspiration and IruLan as model, a hundred years after her death, was an idea whose time should have come sooner, as later enthu siasts agreed With the eventual decline of the Bene Gessent, with the development of women militia—the Fish Speakers—under Leto II, a cult of the Virgin received much support from young women as an alternative to the traditional government sanctioned roles The new cult espoused scholarship, mdepen-
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dence of viewpoint the virtues of joy equanimity and compassion—and remained an anomaly in the Impenum
IRULAN AS HISTORIAN Now that the Raki& Finds have restored her body of work we can appreciate Inilan s enormous literary output All the works listed below have been identified and are numbered in the Rakis Reference Catalog Many have been published in the Library Confraternity s Temporary Senes and nuiny others have been licensed to commercial presses Since the number of these works in pnnt increases almost from day to day the interested readers should check the title of the desired book against the latest Confraternity Update available at any member library system
Analyses The Dunebuk of Irulan con sidered by some to be her most scholarly work an appraisal of and prognosis for the planet The Chakobsa Way largely derived from conversations with Ghamma The Irulan Report containing the much quoted chapter
St Aha of the Knife Analysis The Arrakeen Crisis a revision and updating of The Dunebuk Private Reflections of Muatf Dib mainly derived from Cham s reports The Wisdom of MuafTDib from Irulan s pro found respect for Paul Muad Dib The Reli gious Issues an investigation of the impor tance of religion fox the populace and an attempt to appraise without condemnation the problems of the Messiah role and Lecture to the Arrakeen War College her latest work of analysis a speech prepared to respond to the college t» recognition of her work in founding the national library
Biography These titles reveal Inilan s preferences because with reservations only about Count Fennng and Alia she generally admired her biographical subjects The titles are self-explanatory Cham Daughter ofUet A Child s History of Muad Dib Count Fennng APnfilt The Humanity of MttadDib In My Father's House (somewhat autobio graphical) The Lion Throne (Leto Paul and LetoH) sMMuatfDib the Man which has a preface by Sdlgar
Collections At times Irulan was forced to proceed somewhat as a folklorisi record ing the knowledge of the people Some of the maxims paragraphs and chapters in these collections she was able to attach names
to others are anonymous Some are derived from court records and other inscriptions made by the official scribe of the Impenum Book of Judgment court proceedings made public only with special consent of the emperor Collected Legends of Arrakis folklore Collected Mayings of Muad Dib some authenticated and some not Conversations with Wuad Dib derived from dianes and records of t>everal perhonb The Dunebook an annual encyclopedia The Dune Gospels compiled by religious leaders Muad Dib Conversations as recorded by fifteen ama teur scribes Muad Dib to His Fedayhn reh able official records Palimbasha actual lee tures given by Paul Muad Dib at Sietch Tabr The Preacher at Arrakeen written by the priests m the public square Proverbs of Muad Dib folklore collection Words of Muad Dib a collection of Paul s public utterances
Edited Texts The following titles are mainly self-explanatory but many later schol ars of Irulan s work held the opinion that her finest work was that of ed tor Alia s Com mentary Ancient Fremen Sayings The Em peror Paul Muad Dib (compiled with a chap ter by each of twelve other historians) The Hayt Chronicle Muad Dib The Ninety Nine Wonders of the Universe The Stilgar Chroni cle The Stilgar Commentary Stilgar s Re port to the landsraad A Time of Reflection by Paul Muad D b Words of the Mental (Duncan Idaho 10208) Another work The Commentaries was in two parts the first by Alia and the second by Farad n and edited by Irulan
Fine Writing Irulan s creative work in eludes Muad Dib an Island of Selfdom an elegy for Paul and one of the finest elegies ever written in both Atreidean Galach and Bremen Ormthopera which Irulan intended to read Ormth opera a drama and Shadows of Dune a collection of Irulan s poetr>
History Irulan s histories as distinguished from her biographies reveal her fine percep tions of causes and her ability to generalize with clarity from an extensive fund of details The first of these works remained the most popular
Arrakis Awakening the development of Dune from before Liet Kynes to the acces sion of Leto II History of Muad Dib wnt
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ten so objectively a reader can overlook Irulan's close personal association with Paul (Literary scholars agree that these works provided Harq al Harba with much of his source material)
Library Holdings Irulan -used her spe cial access to and knowledge of the Salusa Secundus royal library to enhance the collec lions on Arrakis She copied an index of the royal holdings and made the index available to Arrakeen scholars and arranged an inter library request system Also, she expanded the collection of voice tapes, including many from the Bene Gessent archives on Wallach IX She collected from several sources in the Impenuin whatever reference works she con sidered valuable and contributed her own personal copies for the public good The Library Holdings also include many small pamphlets and one-page manuscripts of important persons as well as various folk materials of uncertain classification—popular culture, Fremen songs, journals, epitaphs, ntuals, letters, etc , of which one valuable item is The Habbanya Lament This poem was a favorite of the Lady Jessica because of its celebration of Catadan, where she lived with her beloved Duke GWE
AXOLOTL TANK. The most essential Tleilaxu achievement, developed m redimetttary form long before Tleilax was discovered by the Guild, during the period when the Ttetlaxu genetically manufactured lower forms—thralls, thirgoya, and thoraxu—to "staff" their elaborate social order The axokrtl tank was thus the result of a long history of prior genetic research and development, in which the lower social forms served as experimental subjects Axolorl technology was not confined to the "tank" itself, which was little better that an artificial womb The tanks were actually vessels for the end products and hosted a wide spectrum of activities centered on 0NA recombination After the expert meat emerged from die axolatl solution, these results could be tested The nature of this solution and of the tank was determined by the product being manufactured The entire technology became increasingly refined and sophisticated as the TIeilaxu curiosity and the demands of the Impenutn increased
In the beginning such products as thralls and thirgoya had been difficult to obtain Later after the Guild made itself known the TIeilaxu marshaled their expertise to discov er and explore what has been called the DNA Touchstone Template (DTT), the key to the basic mechanism and functioning of the fundamental double helix Manipulation of the DTT naturally required the develop ment of an advanced technology the break through pre Butlenan societies had simul taneously dreamed of and feared Thereafter it was a simple matter for the Bene Tleilax to delve into the potential of double-helix recombination and manipulation
Development of the three lower classes of the Tleifaxu—thrall thirgoya and tharaxu— might be considered child s play compared with what the Bene lleilax later accomplished After the discovery of the DTT, the TIeilaxu were challenged by the Guild Could DTT manipulation produce a superior breed of steersmen and navigators with heightened spice-trance ability7
DNA recombination produced Guildsmen who were transferred directly from the axo lotl tank to the prescience chamber filled with a liquid enriched with oxygen and me lange gas These members of the Fraternity were produced with fish like gills, in addi Uon to lungs to aid in respiration The oxygen melange mixture in the prescience chambers was extremely heavy and the Guildsmen were further equipped with webbed hands similar to those of a frog to maintain their equilibrium The result was both effec tive and grotesque
A technocratic society the Bene Tleilax organized their genetic manipulations into product departments One dealt with twisted mentals, one with the Guild, one with sexua! surrogates, one with religious engineering, one with gholas one with face dancers, and still another with TIeilaxu archetypes and their kwisatz haderach program These several departments and more overlapped sharing knowledge and techniques each ultimately represented on the Bene Tleilax Commis sanum, the supreme forum
The axolotl tank itself is thus significant more in terms of symbol than technology Artificial wombs had been created before
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Humans had been nurtured in solution long ago The tank was not a Tleilaxu invention but no one has ever refined genetic engineer ing to the extent of the Tleilaxu For better or worse the DNA Touchstone Template appears to have been lost during the Scattering
Further references TLEILAXU SPACINO GUILD OPERA TIONS lUma Greaharee Tletiaxu Products and Plans in the Atre des Impenum (Chusuk Salrqina) T L Hcrt Rccombinant Research in the Tleilax Tradition Journal of Humanistic Biology 17812-831
AZHAR BOOK (also known as The Collec tion of the Great Secrets) A compilation by the Bene Gessent of religious mythos and dogma supposedly containing all the van ante of theology practiced by known sen-ttents in the history of the universe The word book is somewhat misleading al though selections from the collection in bound volumes are available to scholars in the Bene Gessent Library on Wallach IX and four volumes have been published publicly In its entirety, however the Azhar Book is an open-ended collection which fills several rooms of the Bene Gessent Archives and is indexed there m forty two volumes In the collection arc tales of gods and goddesses of every description and inclination tutelary figures from multiple environments, rituals performed in the dawn of Terran time and on the shores of the lost planet Lauvrant a compendium of all the attempts to reconcile universal chaos and a sentient love for order
Though traditionally the collection was thought to have been assembled during the period of the Commission of Ecumenical Translators (in order to preserve the secrets of the ancient faiths and to serve as a source for the developing Orange Bible) evidence discovered at Dar es Balat and information recently received from the Bene Gessent indicate that the collection began in the ancient long forgotten Terran libraries of what might be the distant ancestors of the Bene Gessent Sisterhood Recent work also suggests that the Azhar Book has been kept up to date and includes all religions now openly practiced
The actual use of such a collection is open
to debate Though Bene Gessent authonties insist that the collection is maintained for academic reasons to provide a compendium of theological works available for scholars philosophers and theologians many recent investigations indicate a more self serving purpose The Azhar Book is probably the main source of matenal for the Sisterhood s religious engmeenng projects From the oldest traditions the Sisterhood has developed adaptive methods and legends to seed m raw cultures a process which in turn has estab hshed new religions all supportive of the Bene Gessent cause The Azhar Book is to a theological historian or a mythologist much as 8 thousand meter chasm is to a geologist a slice which shows the mtncate layered accretion of matenal through time
Though anthropologists and mythologians as well as linguists of all vaneties particular!} appreciate the academic value of the collection the Bene Gessent has another practical use for the Azhar Book All the particularized traditions and rituals of the Sisterhood itself are contained therein For example the vana tions of the Bene Gessent Water of Life ceremony as it changed through time and locale are recorded as are the adjunct devel opments of this ceremony in seeded cultures such as the Fremen and the Mexo Quechuan The first volume gives regulations and prohi bitions of service with such entries as Abomination Kwisatz Haderach and menstruation rites carefully delineated Be cause the major portion of the collection is unavailable to general stholdrship however only the myths legends and ntuals de scnbed m the bound volumes have been assessed This small sample however mdi cates the vast riches waiting in the recesses of the Bene Gessent Archives for scholars to explore
Further references Anon The A har Book ed K R Barauz vol 1-4 Arrakis Studies 49 (Grumman United Worlds) Maro Ghappato M raculous Voices at Rakis (Diana Sviuny i) R M Cassius Ida Treac New Vews of in Old System Archves Quarterly Revew 15 199 253 R M Treac and Anna Judeh c The Rooti of Tomorrow (Wallach Soror)
BALJSET.
This brief history of the baliset contained in-one crystal was undoubtedly written at the time o/Muad'Dib. Why Let0 II chose to save it rather than other longer and more detailed descriptions of baliset making is unknown. One possible explanation might be that it was originally written either by Varota himself as a brief papular summary of his life's work, or that it might have been contained in some longer communication possibfy written by Gurney ffaUeck.—E4.
The baliset is a portable nine-stringed instrument played by an individual musician, usually a troubador or a member of the nobility. It is not unlike an ancient instrument popular on Old Terra at the beginning of known space travel called the "guitar." Like it, the baliset consists of a resonance chamber, neck, head, strings, and tuning knobs. Like it, the baliset can be slung from the shoulder or around the neck by means of a strap, The embellishments on the baliset strap, however, usually display the player's station and origins rather than simple decoration as was the case with the guitar.
Since the time of Ahdn-Hahd, who developed the techniques used to this day. the best balisets have been made entirely of a fibrous resin called stimic. Fifty-seven sheets of the material are treated with heat, an exacting process involving precision timing. The sheets are exposed to one hour of intense sunlight beginning precisely at high noon for one hundred consecutive days. The rays of the sun strike the heart of the stimic at the properly progressing angles, guaranteeing lasting strength and resonance. Varota on Chusuk, famed baliset maker, was known to state that carelessness or a mistake in this process would destroy the tone quality of the instrument,
At the end of the prescribed time, indeed precisely at the end of the final hour of exposure to the sun, the treated sheets are placed over the baliset master form, one by one. The covered form is returned to the sunlight where it remains until sundown. Thereafter it is turned hourly, day and night, for forty days. The warming during daylight hours and the cooling at night while Chusuk's
109
three moons complete their circuit account for the gradual melding of die layers of stimic into an harmonious whole
Each manufacturer has a master form on which the body ts made Before the tune of Ahdn-Hahd all balisets were made of elacca wood, but the proclivity of that substance to translate any atonal music into semuta music precluded its continued use The Butlenan Jihad and its scrutiny of all machines and instruments of any kind resulted in the prohibition of the use of elacca wood in the construction of balisets Not until generations later when Ahdn-Hahd began his work in stimic were balisets made in commercial quantities for sale Surviving elacca wood bahsets typically serve as forms, kept under tight security
The making of a balisct involves strict discipline and nearly mindless obedience These attributes in the workers are crucial The consummate artistry of a luthier such as Varota coordinates the efforts of his apprentices and produces an instrument which is itself a work of art
No matter how carefully the forming process has been earned out some qualitative differences of tonal substance will exist in new bahset bodies Through judicious buffing and planing, the still-incomplete bahset is given its own individual sound characteristics Beyond this the characteristic built into the body must be honored by the qualities of the nine strings A baliset of authoritative tone would reseat gentle strings, just as harsher strings on a more subdued instrument would be an indignity
The strings themselves are produced by stretching long filaments of stravidium until the proper dimension is achieved The speed with which the filaments are stretched die tates the tone quality of the string Rapid stretching produces a narrower, more stndent tone Slow stretching results in a kinder sound Another consideration exists in the fact that the filaments cannot be cut to the required length it must be stretched to measure If a particular filament is stretched too far or not far enough, it must be discarded and the process begun again
Each of the nine strings is capable of producing pitches between those of its
neighbors, including the highest note of its lower neighbor and the lowest note of the next higher The stnngs are tuned in a seven tone scale with no half-tones Seven of the stnngs are pitched in quarter intervals beginning with C The pattern evolves as follows C-F B E A-D C These tones are equally tempered, ensuring fidelity of pitch and tone The absence of half tones makes equal temper mandatory since even well-temper would destroy the characteristic harmonic factor Stnngs 8 and 9 arc drones places at the side of the neck of the instrument They are essentially bass stnngs, and are set to the pitch appropriate tor the mode desired by adjusting the noter attached to the body of the instrument They are particularly responsive to the particular harmonics involved in the chord being played This characteristic makes the baliset, even the stimic baliset, so effective in evoking semuta music In effect the atonal combination of pitches in semuta is given both support and surrealistic intensity by the drones
The lower pitched stnngs are wrapped in additional filaments with particular attention paid to the number of wraps per millimeter Each string is attached to the bahset at the foot by twisting it smartly around tiny hooks below the resonance aperture At the head each stnng is wrapped around its own tuning knob This accomplished, the fledgling bahset has only to be tine-tuned and inscribed with the birthname ot the mdi\idual who comniis stoned it This original tuning is of utmost importance because it informs the stnngs of their particular mission and ensures that only minor tuning adjustments will be needed in the future
The l>re lute, and zythra were early an cestors of the bahset Larger instruments lost favor when space exploration was young and space vehicles very limited m areas for storage Perhaps the most successful space traveler among instruments was the crohm-vellar—a small, stnnged tambounne with the advan tage of clinging to space-suit matenal no matter what the effects of speed, or weightlessness From these small beginnings the fardahggen and vintule developed Both of these were really small versions of the baliset, but both were overwhelmed with sometimes
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three, or four drone strings, far too many for the comparative crudity of the instruments The baliset grew out of the colonization of space communities were established and planets settled A slightly larger instrument soon developed At the same time, this instrument needed to be compact enough for individuals to take along on any mtra- or inter-planetary voyages The baliset grew out of expedience The future of the instrument is difficult to predict Scientists like Ahdn-Hahd and artists like Varota are discouraged with the loss of apprentices applying to their studios Troubadors are met infrequently on the road and heard rarely in town squares The noble families seem not to encourage young people to learn the intricacies of playing the baltset and few common folk can afford one. Word has come, however, that the birth town of Varota on the planet Chusufc is planning an annual bahset festival in honor of the famous artist Players from around the galaxy are expected to attend and perhaps this event will spur interest in the baliset again
Further references; UCAU.O, TAIAZOR, HALLECK GUEMEY E B Setro, Techniques of Instrument Making in the Reigh of the Padubahs (Chusak Salrejina) Anon The Baliset Rakis Bef Cat
BARADYE PISTOL UsuaBy found in a Fremen Fremkit for survival in the desert on Arrakis, this gun was not an offensive weapon but rather a means for measurement or signaling Its primary purpose was to mark off a large area for dye which could be used in the capture of sandworms, or to signal spice merchants approaching from the air Unlike the maula pistol, this device used a static charge Its invention, however, is another testimony to sophistication of Fremen tech-oology, and their ability to make use of whatever materials were at hand
Farther references; FREMKIT, Janet Oslo, Fremen Lives and Legend (Salusa Secnndus Morgan and Sharat)
BENE GESSERiT ARCHIVES.
In this and all entries drawn from Bene Gessent material the reader should keep in mind that B G institutions have politely but firmly rejected invitations to join the Library Confraternity Collation of Rakis material
with B G material has proceeded, when allowed subject to restrictions imposed by their order (as is, of course, their right) Nevertheless the reader should weigh carefully all claims made in such entries —Ed
The Archives (officially, the Archivae), as distinct from the Bene Gessent Library and the Chronicles of the Chapter House, is a private collection of the Sisterhood's records, files, papers, and literary collections, so private that only a select group of Reverend Mothers has access to it The Archivae is located on Wdllach IX, under the main Chapter House building in three levels of subterranean vaults In order to enter the Archivae, one must traverse a series of mazelike tunnels connected by shafts with lifts—obviously once powered by machinery but now traversed by one's own muscles In order to facilitate the Dar-es-Balat research work, the Bene Gessent has opened a portion of the Archivae to Ahna Judehic, linguistic historian, whose work is associated with that of R M Cassius Ida Treac Supervising and directing the translation work is R M Marcellus Irulan Moiam Only those sections of the Archivae containing documents pertaining to me history of the Atreides family and the more public aspects of the history of the Sisterhood have been made available for study
The three levels, each consisting of thirty-three rooms, are arranged by subject matter and by chronology The lowest level contains material collected before the Butlenan Jihad, some of it supposedly of Terran ongm The files, opened only briefly to the researchers, contained sheets of transparent film upon which are printed images of "book" pages reduced to microscopic size so that an entire volume is often contained on a single sheet All of these records need magnifying machines to be read, but no such machinery seems to be present The second level contains records from the Butlenan Jihad through Leto II Much of this level was opened for research, but since most of the records were in Bene Gessent codes translation is done only under R M Moiam's supervision The first, and highest, level contains a complex of reference rooms, a general reading room, a senes of work rooms, and twenty rooms of
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files These files purportedly contain only records from the time of the Starvation and the Scattering, but activity and continual evidence of recent filing indicate that these might be open files
The materials made available for research on level two were toe Atreides Collection, the Bene Gessent Private Files containing agent reports for the period of Elrood DC through Leto IT, and the official documents of the Bene Gessent from the Impenum era, documents which the order regards as historical rather than active The Bene Gessent files and documents are primarily transcriptions from mimmic film, shigawire, and im-pnnts on nduhan crystals The Agent fifes were particularly interesting, with much information available through Bene Gessents such as Anuril Comno, Margot Fennng, R M Gams Helen Mohiam, Irulan Atreides-Comno, and Wensicia Comno There are also annual reports filed by Jessica Atreides, ending abruptly in 10175, and extensive reports, summaries, histories and evalua tions (some four hundred folios) by Irulan Atreides, including her famous breeding report, "The Atreides Problem" Reports are also available from the second and third millennia of Leto's reign The Chenoeh Reports, The Syaska Reports The Anteac Reports, and Tne Moiam Reports to name a few As a generous courtesy, the Sisterhood has also opened the Jehanne Butler collection to schol ars specializing in the Butlenan Jihad At Judhic's request, R M Moaim has opened the R M Gams Helen Mohiam Collection Her memoirs reports, letters, and treatises are extensive, although incomplete, and seem uncensored, in sharp contrast to what is left of her papers in the Chronicles of the Chapter House
Of particular interest in the Atreides Collection ate the following documents
The Book of the Voices The Collected Works of Paul Muad'Dib The Preacher at Arrakeen " The. Apocrypha of Muad'Dib The Collected Works of Harq al-Ada The Commentaries to the }foices Eulogy for an Meat and Other Poems The Other Hatf of the Universe
The Book of Ghamma The Irulan Collected Works The Welbeck Apologia
Although much of this material duplicates that of the Rakis Hoard, there are some oddities and some discrepancies The Com mentanes to the Voices, though similar to the Rakis copy, is not identical The Archive copy contains an additional seventy-six crystals Some of the additional crystals are political arid philosophical commentary concerning the Emperor himself, some highly critical of him, and thus will prove useful to historians if their authenticity can be ascertained The collection of poetry, found with The Commentaries is anonymous but from the inscription techniques is thought to be from the second or third century of Leto's reign The philosophical tone and the mournful attitude support tentative affiliation with Leto himself, but the content of man) of the poem*; makes such an assumption highly controversial A second theory, rejected by some stylistic analysts but supported by a few linguistic analysts, is that the poems are by the Voices themselves and were transcribed by Ghamma Supporting this theory is the stylistic correlation between the title poem and poetry found in the collection of R M Gams Helen Mohiam's work
The two autobiographical or biographical texts on Ghamma also raise questions The Book of Ghamma traditionally has been attributed to Leto II but now with the Commentaries to use as a reference point, some stylists contend that the early portion was written by Ghamma herself the middle section by one of her daughters (Elaine) and only the later, more melancholy portion by Leto in memory of his sister/wife The Other Half of the Universe also causes controversy It is not listed in the Archivae reference index, no other copy is recorded in any known library collections, and none was found at Dar es-Balat A shigawire voice print, this haunting work is set in the universal mind of Ghanima l£to but expresses a "minority" opinion of the Emperor s actions in the early formation of his power Of particular interest are the sections highly critical of his Fish Speakers and of their growing religion Ini-
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tiatly attnbuted to Leto as a devil's advocate argument against his own policies, it is now tentatively attnbuted to Gharama or to an early Duncan Idaho The primary supporting argument for this theory is a stylistic analysis of word usage syntactical construction, and idioniatic expression as well as a voice pattern scan comparing this recording to Ghanima s voite pattern m The Book of the Voices A counter argument is that Leto held Ghanima s voice in his memory-lives after her death (which leads to a different theological or logical argument) Another argument against Leto's authorship is the placement of the only extant copy hidden m the Bene Gessent Archivae—how would the order come into possession of such a recording if it were Leto's voice"7 A third theory is that the shigawire is a Bene Gessent propaganda ploy that was never used, a weapon to be used against Leto after Ghamma's death The proof to this argument is lacking
Finally, The Wdbeck Apologia opens an interesting political history debate This manuscript appears to be the original of the "Welbeck Fragment" found at Dar es-Balat, a dialogue between Monco and Siona The Apologia might well be a piece of propaganda written by Leto himself In the same file with (he Apologia is a monologue of Bene Gessent authorship, The Captivity of Siona apparently distributed after the public release of the Apologia in order to counter Leto's persuasiveness Though the dating of these manuscripts is difficult, the Captivity may have been distributed m 13723, a year when Bene Gessent records show a •severe reduction in its annual allotment of melange But controversy notwithstanding, the documents within the Atretdes Collection provide a wealth of new information for historians and theolo gians alike
The reference matenal offered for use on the first level, while not dealing directly with the time of the Impenum, does open reference work m the area of Bene Ges^enl history and governance through this period No material pertammg to Bene Gessent matters after Leto II or to the modern Sisterhood is available For example, the Canons with which R M Treac and Judehic are working are ancient and incomplete, allowing an infer
ence that the modern Canons are not included Of historical mterest is The Annotated Vario rum Edition of the Founding Legends a twenty volume compendium of letters, reports, treatises, and myths transcribed in 402 B G from the ancient third-level files (presumably using appropriate transcription machinery no longer m existence) The six volume Legends available in the Chronicles, of the Chapter House are selections from this pnvate collection More mundane, and more trustworthy, are the Bene Gessent Papers of Incorporation detailing the development of the chapter house system, the General Chapter House Listings, and die Annual Chapter House and the Annual Mother House Reports which include roll calls and budgets Also in this reference section are the indices to the Bene Gessent Pnvate Papers, giving the researchers access to the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive files for the Impenum penod The files were not opened, but the researchers were allowed to request particular entries Other documents useful in understanding the structure of the ancient order are the Ordmes Matnum, which delineates the rank order of the Sister hood and the Compendium Matres, which is a chronological list of Reverend Mothers from the Great Revolt through Leto II The final historical document offered for use is the Credo—a chronological collection of creeds used by the order from its inception to the time of the Scattering This volume is particularly intriguing because through it can be seen the psychological evolution of the Sisterhood Two files were offered only for cursory inspection The Summa and The Mikkro Fiskedotte The Summa fills three rooms, floor to ceiling, in twenty meter racks, twelve to a room This enormous holding is the complete breeding index ot the Sisterhood, and from what little could be seen, it appears to stretch back to the Golden Age of Terra The Sisterhood claims that the index begins in the early dawn of humanity, but no proof was offered The Breeding Index d\<uldble to the general Sisterhood in the Chronicles is a selected one, showing only the breeding from the past which developed the kwisatz haderachs and the lineage of the Matres Executnce The Mikkro Fishedotte is the complete family-line mating chart which ongmated, supposedly,
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in complicated Terran aristocratic breeding lines There is an abbreviated Mating Index in the Chronicles for genera) use but the Mikkro Fishedotte itself fills two rooms In general, the difference between the Summa and the Mikkro Fishedotte is that the first is strictly genetic while the second appears to be political
Of most interest to ancient historians is the controversial Book of the Voices This collection of shigawire voice pattern recordings was made by Ghamma as she let the Voices of her memory lives speak through her Over 2,400 voices have been discnnu nated thus far, some speaking in languages which may never be translated, for some Terran languages were apparently never incorporated into Galach The Bene Ges^ent itself has teams of specialists in ancient languages working on translations Ghanima's project took her over two hundred years of patient work and it seems to be her major contribution to Leto's library That the voices are genuine is probable, such an extensive forgery being an almost prohibitive task Positive comparisons of the Book of Voices patterns of Lady Jessica Paul Muad'Dib, R M Gams Helen Mohiam, and Lady A mini with authentic shigawires of their voices ap pear to support the validity of the collection Much of the work done so far on The Book of Voices has been supervised by Anna Judehic with the help of anthropolmgimt Maro Ghappato and psycho-mythologist Mees Pentamettare
Also Of interest to historians is The Welbeck Assessment, the annual Bene Gessent overview of the state of the Impenum The only form of this compendium previously available was The Welbeck Abridgement available m the Chronicles reference section R M Mcaam has opened the Welbeck room con taming the volumes from Shaddam IV through Leto H for study
Judehic and R M Treac were shown the Aator Book Index and the Panoplia Propheticus Index but they were not allowed access to the holdings Since the Azhar Book is con tamed m three rooms and the Panoplia ProphetKus fills two rooms, obviously the volumes m the Library's General Collection are merely selections from the original The I
Azhar Book Index shows entries through the Holy Church into present theology indicat ing that rather than being a historical document, this is an open ended collection And though the Missionana Protectiva was supposed to have ended long before the Atreides time the Panoplia Prophettcas Index indicates that it too is an open-ended current collection Hadi Benotto Director of the Dar es Balat Project, has requested that both collections be opened for research Judehic noted the curiosity that the Tleilaxu Godbuk Index was with the other two indices—a strange associa tion since the Bene Gessent Library has this item included in its Xenocultural Collection When questioned about this idiosyncrasy R M Moiam refused comment
finally in the Research Section is a Medical Index which lists intriguing entries such as The Medical Aspects of Melange Rejection Cellular Activation and Regeneration Celiu tor Restructuring The Cases ofDiincan Ida ho and Hwi Noree and Cellular Interchange Leto II Benotto has also requested that bio-medtcal engineers be allowed access to this material
The Bene Gessent Archivae holds the se crets of all of our pasts Is the order c^n be persuaded to open its resources to academic scholarship our culture could benefit from its own past We could more easily discnnu nate between what we now think of as myth and what is actually history J A C
Further references R c, LIBRARV B r HISTORY Maro Ghappato Miraculous Voices at Rak s (Diana Synonym)
BENE GESSERTT CHAPTER HOUSE The Bene Gessent Chapter House on Wallach IX is all that remains of a once extensive network of twelve chapter houses multiple branch sisterhouses and a complete educational system This network was governed by the Mother House on Wallach IX and functioned from centuries before the Butlerian Jihad until the reign of Leto 11 General mforraa tion foand m the Chapter House Library for example The Founding Legends and special ized material from the Bene Gessent Ar chives (transmitted through Reverend Moth er Cassius Ida Treac Director of Educational Analysis for the Archives) describes Bene
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Gessent facilities on all of the House Major worlds and on some House Minor worlds This empire-wide institution flourished until Leto confiscated the goods and property of all the chapter houses except die one on Wallach K and then closed the Mother House itself
The Founding Legends as weH as the Papers of Incorporation indicates that the initial Bene Gessent complex was located on Wallach IX The planet itself originally was colonized by an early form of the Sisterhood connected in some obscure way with the agency responsible for the planet-seeding enterprise Apparently the initial facilities housed no more than 12,000 people and accommodated a small space flight station, a record holding facility, a thought machine complex, training schools for mytho-expan-siomsts (an early version of the Missionana Protective7), cultural ecologists. environmental socioplanners, and anthropohnguists The remnants of information from this period also indicate that men lived and worked on Wallach IX with the Sisters and lay women Within three hundred years the order had become large and powerful enough to form branch chapter houses and schools on six worlds Kornos being one of them Four thousand years before the Butlenan Jihad, Bene Gessent administration needed new facilities executive, legislative, judicial and ambassadorial offices, meeting rooms, and residential apartments Thus the original buildings on Wallach IX were given over to the Chapter House and school while a new city-like complex was developed as a Mother House Some of the newly discovered underground facilities on Wallach IX may have been part of the Mother House complex By the time of the Butlenan Jihad, the Sisterhood had established all of its outlying elev en chapter houses as well as most of its eight hundred school systems, only a few of which were openly attached to the order
The most complete records available date from the founding of the Impenum Unfortu nately, even they seem to have suffered m tile period of devastation wreaked on the Sisterhood by Leto II (best described in The Razing of the Houses, written by R M Brutus Ptrylhs Iianiat in 10575, B G Private Papers,
Folio 2583765) RM Treac and the linguistic historian Alma Judehic (Bene Gessent, Hidden Rank) have made an annotated compilation of the Impenum era records saved from the twelve chapter houses The Roots of Tomorrow, a free mixture of legend and his toncal data This work, however, is the most complete summary available at present of the Bene Gessent Archives source material From The Roots of Tomorrow we can at least determine the locations of the original chap ter houses, some of which still function, but as universities
Apparently d chapter house contained administrative offices both for the Bene Gessent chapter and for the school attached to it In each chapter house femaie off spring of Sisterhood breeders, unaffiliated with Houses Major or Minor, were cared for from birth in a special Kinder House Also attached to the chapter house was a primary school which educated both Bene Gessent children and females from upper class families The attached schools of higher education offered secondary level instruction to both groups of females as well as university instruction to Bene Gessent Sisters From what can be deduced from the Ordmes Matnum and from recent archaeological investigations, some of the chapter houses also supported special schools to tram Bene Gessent women in order-designated professions
The chapter house on Wallach IX was designated as the center for theological and philosophical training not only having the principal Missionana Protective school but also having the principal dar at hikman Um versity records and archaeological explorations also indicate that the University of Waliach is the descendant of the Bene Gessent university which contained the mam reference library The recently uncovered remains of a separate complex of buildings combin ing hospital and nursery facilities are proba bly the onginal Kinder House units, perhaps the same ones spoken ot by Reverend Moth er Gams Helen Mohiam in her memoirs The recent dig has also revealed a large subterranean room—a domed, circular ceremonial hail with carvings of the Horned Goddess and her retinue on the walls and mscnptions of karama from the Azhar Book set m a
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multicolored tile floor Present theory denotes this as the Hall of Ritual spoken of m early Bene Gessent legends From what can be seen, the Wallach facilities were obvious ly extensive, befitting the center of a compk cated organization New archaeological work on what appears to be die Mother House complex will give us more precise informa turn on the early Wallach IX facilities
Apparently the Bene Gessent school on Kaitain is all that remains of a chapter house dedicated to the education of House Major children Records indicate that this chapter house also trained breeders designated for marriage within the aristocratic families Bn rollment records for Kaitain found in the Archives read like an Imperial family tree R M Treac has translated fragments of these ancient documents, finding references to an earlier chapter house on Salusa Secundus, apparently open during the Premen captivity cm that planet Some connection may exist between that chapter house and the women mentioned both in Aramsham's The Sardaukar Strike and Sardaukar Victorious The Kaitain records date its chapter house ongin to approximately the same time House Comno moved its court to that planet Perhaps archaeological work beginning on Kaitain will support the Archive material The venfica tion of a chapter house on Salusa Secundus will be more difficult since all requests to do archaeological surveys have been denied
Discovery of a chapter house on Grumman one devoted to martial arts training, has led specialists in die Gmaz/Montam Feud histo ry to speculate on the relationship of the Bene Gessent to the early development of weaponry expertise m both Houses Harq al-Hattia in The History of Duke Leto Part I refers to the ' weirding conspiracy" and to the "women whose swords bear two edges" as chief proponents of die Assassin Conspiracy Until the discovery of the martial arts school and chapter house on Grumman, critics had accepted this reference as one of al-Harba s mythic allusions Perhaps his information was taken from the copy of Geoffroi's At Center Stage The lll-Fated House Gmai found in his private library, or it may have been that the Grumman chapter house was stili remembered in his time
Records are less complete on the chapter houses on Yorba, Chusuk, and Ciemahn Banqs, mentioned only m The General Chap ter House Listings (Bene Gessent Archives) The Listings show that Chusuk was the smallest of the three perhaps because its primary concern was music and the arts areas never very important in the Sisterhood curriculum The Yorba chapter house appears to have thrived as the center for business admimstra tion education and for the accounting ser vices which handled the revenue statements for all the chapter houses off Wallach IX The Listings show that the MBA degree, Mother of Business Administration, was awarded for over four hundred years with an average of five hundred recipients each academic year Obviously business, economics, and accounting were gnen higher priorities by the order than were the arts The Listing also gi\es some information on Ciemahn Banqs but no indication of the specialty of this chapter house The graduate school was called the School of Biological and Social Sciences, but all specific information about degree requirements and professional tram ing remains censored, sealed in the Archives There is however an indication that a part of the graduate library and entire files of research work were transferred to Ix before the Ciemahn Banqs chapter house was destroyed The Ixian Institute will not make any of these records available to us This lack of information is unfortunate because of the Ciemahn Banqs razing We may never know why Leto & orders for this chapter house were particularly severe, the resulting destruction being so complete that even aero nautical landform surveys show no trace of the buildings foundations
The chapter houses on Ix Paquita and Bela Tegeuse are far less difficult to study since the present academic institutions on these planets are housed in the original chapter house buildings For some unknown reason, when Leto ordered the physical destruction of the other chapter houses he spared these being satisfied to confiscate the property and disband the order on these planets The school on Ix descends from the original Primary Research and Genetic Science Institute estab lished there after the Great Revolt, however,
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until the recent studies began, this school had never been connected with the Bene Gessertt Paquita's school, on the other hand, has always been known as a Bene Gessent institution specializing in history and linguistics Anthropoccologists are presently studying the well-preserved chapter house there to learn more about the physical structure of that complex Finally, the Center for the Study of Ecological and Behavioral Sci ences on Bela Tegeuse also retains some of its original Bene Gessent facilities Though this planet's rugged environment and legendary connection with the Zensunm Wanderers have given it a place in our mythology, only recently have the Bene Gesserit actually been identified with its history Mytho historians are now debating the possibility of an early Zensunm encounter with the Sisterhood, before the one theorized in the Mtssionana Protectiva investigations Experts now speculate that the ancient interrelationship of the Bene Gessent and the Piemen Motherhood might be genetic as well as theological
Hie chapter house on Gamont apparently specialized in training breeders designated as concubines for the Houses Major and Minor Residency records for the chapter house found m the Archives indicate the Bene Gessent of all ranks frequently returned here for specialized training iti new techniques and for refresher courses Some of the Gamont training programs and manuals were m a sealed section of the Archives* indicating their value to the order The accommodations listed for this chapter house differ from the norm in haviag an extensive series of cottages, a men's residency hall entertainment centers, and health club facilities, indicating that Gamont might also have served as a Rest and Rehabilitation center for the order and that training there was probably more practical than theoretical
Information concerning the last two chapter houses is limited The Giedi Prime chap ter house apparently was the center for classified Bene Gessent actmnes, the files holding these records still being kept under heavy security and unavailable to us Historians have traditionally ascribed the violent destruction of Sisterhood facilities and the brutality associated with it to Leto s deep hatred
of the Harkonnens Peripheral material found in the Bene Gessent Legislative files however, indicates that the mam training of the Giedi Prime chapter house was espionage On this planet, survey work has located and opened an extensive camouflaged and reinforced underground maze of what appears to be an entire school, living quarters and all Some problems have arisen with local authonties, though, who claim the underground buildings are part of old Harkonnen fortifications and thus are protected from off-world researchers under the Giedi Prime Act for Historical Preservation of National Monuments Litigation has begun but all further research work has been halted Of the final chapter house, supposedly located on Tleilax, very little beyond the records in the Listings is known No school survives there, and the Bene Gessent claims to have no current contacts on the planet Interestingly enough though, Tleilax is one of the few worlds to still have folk myths current among its population about "weirding women,' assassins ' and "twisted mentats, leading linguistic mythologists to believe that the Bene Gessent has been active there at some rime in the planet's history Local tales are told of witches and sorceresses who practice their skills in the villages, and other tales associate the Tleilaxu face dancers with weirding women When contacted about these tales Bene Gessent histonans connect these myths with those seeded by the Missionary Protectiva Furthermore, Bene Gessent Administrators on Wallach IX expressed surprise that such a notion would be considered, stating emphatically that no association between the Sister hood and the Face Dancers has e^er existed J AC
Further references B c HISTORY R M Brutus PhylJis Tiamal The Razing cf the Houses tr ZhaivaGan BG Foundation Sludies 8 (Diana Tevis,) R M Casims Ida Treac and Ahna Judehic The Roots of Tomorrow fWailach Soror)
BENE GESSERIT GOVERNANCE. The rules of governance of the Bene Gesserit are given in The Bene Gesseri! Canons Though the Bene Gessent dunng the empire, projected a public image of being a religious service order the Canons detail an organizational
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structure more appropriate for an empire-wide corporation than for a mendicant order From the Canons' ratification date (303 BG) it appears that the order underwent extreme structural reorganization following the Butlenan Jihad Historical appendices to die Canons indicate that the order, prior to the Butlenan Jihad, was a loosely structured confederation of chapter houses The Canons set forth a well-defined system of governance incorporating ancient republican political theory and a tripartite matriarchal directorate The gov erning bodies, composed of regular members of the Sisterhood and Reverend Mothers, functioned efficiently until Leto II dissolved eleven of the twelve chapter houses in 10573 The Canons show a governance structure composed of an executive, a legislative, and a judicial branch, all intricately related The general legislature was composed of two houses Hie House of Sisters and die House of Mothers Each house was composed of thirty three women, the House of Sisters elected from the order at large and the House of Mothers elected by and from the Rever end Mothers—twelve from chapter houses, twelve from schools, and nine from the Reverend Mothers at large The legislature drew up the budget, determined general policy for the order, and taxed the Sisterhood using a system called the 'tithe " Although the prop-erty of the order (chapter houses, Mother house, and schools) was owned by the Sisterhood, individual Bene Gessents could possess private property and income The records show quite wealthy Reverend Mothers, and m some cases, those of Hidden Rank were among the wealthiest people in die empire Thus the legislature had an interesting source of revenue to tax The Treasury records (BG fitenos F22Q77547—F9563872) also indicate that both the order and some individual Sisters and Reverend Mothers were involved in CHOAM dealings Only in the reign of Leto II do these records show financial distress, particularly after he had confiscated most of the holdings of the order and some Of the wealth of individual Reverend Mothers At this point, the legislature appears to have become dependent on revenue derived from the schools now open to the general public
The execuuve branch consisted of a General Council of thirteen Reverend Mothers Ten of these women the Matres Fehcissimae, were elected by the Proctors General and the Proctors Superior from Reverend Mothers m these ranks The other three members of the Council, the Matres Executnce, held hereditary positions, supposedly in direct descent from the three Controlling Mothers directing the Bene Gessent prior to the Great Revolt Mother Glenna Riche, Mother Sabhaatha Mpyiam, and Mother Shanm bin Aqid The Council met regularly to consider and ratify motions from the legislature In the ratifica tion process the Matres Felicissunae, with majority consent held a general veto but mis veto could be overturned by the Matres Executnce, who also held individual vetoes on any action If (he Matres Exetutnce found severe disunity among themselves during a ratification process, they were privileged to adjourn to executive session, allowing privacy in which to resolve their differences
The five Matres Aequus of the Judiciary Council were appointed for life by the Matres Executnce from members of the Mater Superior rank The Judiciary Council had quarters within the Mother House on Wallach IX as did the members of the General Council The Matres Aequus were housed in the Judi ciary Wmg, which held their apartments, residential accommodations for their staff, their offices, the Canonical Library, and the Great Court Great Court sessions occurred three times a year for three weeks per session The Sisterhood maintained a subsidiary sys tern of local courts within the outlying elev en chapter houses to deal with minor infractions ot canonical law Appeals of the minor court judgments were held quarterly with single Matres Aequus presiding on a rotational basis A case concerning major canonical infractions was heard by the Judiciary Coun cil itself, with the Matres Executrice in attendance The Matres Executnce served as an appeals court for decisions made by the Judiciary Council and no decision of the Judiciary Council was final until approved by the Matres Executnce
The Bene Gessent Judiciary Files show decisions of interest to histonans concerned with the God Emperor period In 10177 the
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Judiciary Council found the Lady Jessica guilty of violating pellex instructions, in con ceivmg a male rather than a female from the Atreides line In 10192, however, the punishment cited by the Council was negated at the request of a Mater Executrix (who according to evidence from encoded hies and from The Book of Voices, might have been the mysterious R M Gams Helen Mohiam) In 10211 the Judiciary Council, this time with the complete support of the Mattes Executnce, found Aha of the Knife to be an "Abomination to be Abhorred'' Hie Council threatened severe punishment for any Bene Gessent who accepted her as a participant in the 'Waters of Life" cycle Records show a ruling of a later Judiciary Council which found Leto II guilty of bestiality m die 250th year of his reign From later notations, it appears that this decision was never made public Actually, none of toe work of the Judiciary Council seems to have affected history in any significant way, but the files add notes of historical oddity
The Executive Council itself met only when the Judiciary Council and the legislature were in session The Matres Executrice, however, were in residence at the Mother House and were in perpetual session From all the information available, it appears that these three women, for all practical purposes, ran the Sisterhood with the aid of their Familia. a 'kitchen cabinet" described in the Fanulia Manual From the following positions listed as permanent Familia offices, one can understand the ramifications of this execu tive system
Faecatnx Arboris—in charge of the breeding
index
Mater Cogsta Vera—-HI charge of the truthsayers Mater Arabafchtaz—in charge of the ambassador!
al service and the embassies Mater Peeuniam Collocate—in charge of the
HivestmeBt portfolios (also, usually the chief
negotiator with CHOAM) Mater Praefeeta Aerariae—m charge of the
finances Procaratnx—in charge of concubinage and ar
ranged marriages
Speculatnx—m charge of the espionage system DocUtix Vocis—in charge of Voice use in po
litical situations also use of "sealed tongue
commands and ' embedded' commands
Mater Salsa—m charge of the melange supply
and procurement Recordato Vitae—m charge of the Reverend
Mother memory transference records Mater Magna—in charge of the Mother House Mater Minima—m charge of the chapter houses
The officers of the Familia reported directly to and received orders directly from the Matres Executnce The Familia apparently functioned efficiently for millennia until Leto II, in 11295, dissolved the Mother House This was ihe final of three actions he took to cnpple the political activities of the Bene Gessent—the first being his seizure of the breeding indices in. the second year of his reign and the second action being his closure of all chapter houses except the one on Wallach IX in 10573
Through Leto s reign the order functioned primarily within its schools The closure of all but three of its embassies and Leto s refusal to allow a permanent Bene Gessent embassy on Arrakis severely limited its overt political activities Notations m the legisla ttve files from the final twelve hundred years of Leto s empire show a drastic reduction in the membership Reverend Mothers once numbering m the thousands were fewer than three hundred dunng any five >ear period at the end of the empire With membership decreasing, responsibility for governance was no longer limited to an elite group Rather than becoming specialists Reverend Moth ers had to become generahsts For example the \Velbeck Abndgement of the annual em pire assessments shows that by 13500 Rever end Mothers sent on ambassadorial missions also had to serve as emissanae espion and CHOAM negotiators
By this late period of Leto s empire the Bene Gessent had formed auxiliary canons for emergency governance situations Appar ently these canons were used to run what remained of the Sisterhood dunng the Scat tenng and the Starvation The auxiliary can ons detail a loosely structured Council of Proctors General and Proctors Superior who handled policy and judiciary matters as well as basic governance Unfortunately many of the records and documents ol this penod are fragmented and m disarra) It does appear, though that some governance was maintained
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through the school system still left to the Sisterhood Whether or not there is any connection between the governance of the historic Bene Gessent and that of the modern order is impossible to ascertain because the documents pertaining to the modem order are not available to us Rumors claim the Matres Executnce line still functions, but the portion of the Archives holding current canons is sealed, thus, the records which could support or deny the stones are unavailable
JAC
Further references: s o RANKS, a o HISTORY
BENE GESSERIT HISTORY. Discoveries m the Rakis Hoard particularly in shigawire tapes of Our Lady and Mother Ghamraa's Book of the Voices, present a possible Bene Gessent history which sketches back into Terran prehistory To those trained in Bene Gessent institutions, the varied and ancient traditions of the order described in these tapes prove fascinating, both professionally and personally
ANCIENT TERRAN HISTORY Apparently, the order whiqh became known as the Bene Gessent originated in the rituals of a Terraa group which migrated from the central plains of a major land mass, east and south around a sea through areas remembered by the Voices as Harappa and Mesopotamia, carrying with it the genetic capacity for group consciousness within the family type The Voices report that after millennia of migration the males eventually lost group consciousness abilities, but continued to carry latent genes for tile trait Anthropolmguist Maro Ghappato of the University of Paquita theorizes that the male latency was caused by psychological repression, since evidence indicates the trait was dominant Ghappato, in Miraculous Voices at Rakis, states that males, primary defenders of tire culture, were unable to function efficiently in battle when they could feel the immediate pain of their wounded or captured companions Ghappato also supports me validity of Voice reports that the men's conscious participation in birth pangs tended to produce impotence, thus preventing the reproduction ot male bearers with dominant active genes
As the number of women in whom the trait remained active also decreased, the family group developed rituals, traditions and eventually religious structures to perpetuate the memory of group consciousness Gradually, a senous problem arose the active females only retained the memories of past active females, thus losing half the personal history of the family Thus was born the desire to breed an active male strain to regain complete memory and consciousness
Ghappato conjectures that the culture was matriarchal for millennia, dominated by the active-trait females who controlled their socie ty through vanous Mother Goddess religious structures supporting both breeding program with detailed mnemonic records, and an extensive training and indoctrination program for active females Both programs were embedded within primary religio political structures, and both were disseminated through tnbal migration and interracial mamage, eventually dominating two continents Voice Inanna describes ntuals perpetuating the de sire for the whole and ntuals giving a tanta hzmg past through the memories of active females Voice Inanna shows the active fe males' attitude toward death in an axiom still found in Bene Gessent texts "Do not count a human dead until you've seen the body And even then you can make a mistake This belief in universal con sciousness through transferred memory was incorporated into Terran mythos through the idioms of demonic possession and remcarna tion
Voice Inanna also reports the establish ment of archives, one m a place named Nippur for records ot the breeding lines and of the mythos dissemination These locations also became training centers for gene earners sent into new temtones as ambassadors, historians scnbes, educators, and concubines, and later became schools for aristocracy of both sexes This Voice also speaks of a relatively new doctnne just becoming established m her unit the doctnne that an activated male consciousness would be able to understand the future as well as the past The doctnne was difficult to disseminate because it openly challenged the older ' permanence' doctrine of a Goddess- or God-
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directed fate She recounts that some tnbes used a son/husband resurrection figure, "saved" by (he mother/wife mythic figures she calls Au Set and Au Sar Ghappato notes that the matriarchal group's interaction with various patriarchal religions produced political and religious traditions as widely diverse as the hareem system, licensed and religious promiscuity of women, tightly censored sexual activities, and religious inhibitions against association with menstruating women
A later Voice, Euanthes, discusses the structure through which the breeding program and the training program were continued over these millennia of tribal dispersion According to her, the gene-earners were trained through tribal unite, but the units were con trolled by an intertribal group called The Mothers Within each tube, the leading gene-earner was designated the Great Mother, who represented the tribe in the mtertnbal group while retaining power over her own local unit The Mother title was hereditary, but used openly only in the few remaining matriarchal power structures Within patriarchies, the Mothers became a secret order, married to aristocratic leaders and usually having as then" Great Mother the wife or mother of the tribal leader Only some of the Mothers, of all the gene-earners, retained group consciousness, tribal memories., and perhaps limited prescience Through these "sybils" the "gods" spoke to (heir culture, and to the Motherhood the sybits formed a network which tied together all the major political powers north and south of the Great Sea Voice Euanthes also gives the details of memory transference techniques used by the Mothers, but the Order has confiscated mis portion of the tape, prohibiting its translation for academic use
We do retain the portion of tape, however, in which Voice Euanthes describes the ritualistic use of a male savior In all the tnbes the Mothers longingly proclaimed mis savior as a superhero who would "shorten the way" to a release from "silence" or "bondage" through "redemption," "rebirth," or "re juvenation," whichever terms were appropn ate to the specific mythos at hand Using a male savior accomplished two objectives protection for pregnant women, even those
who were foreign or "odd", and provision of a cultural reminder of a "better" past, of a history which held a different and preferable tribal consciousness Within their own order, the Mothers developed their own de sire for the power gamed from a savior who could understand the future In some southern tnbes, the term applied to this savior appears to have been Hdarak (meaning "to last, or to be everlasting ') a term which Ghappato links to the Bene Gessent term Kwisatz Haderach
THE BENE GESSERAT From Voice Vanghu conies the account of a near savior in her era, a man from northeast of the Great Sea the result of twelve centunes of careful breeding He conquered much of the territory surrounding the Great Sed, reuniting gene-camers separated for centimes During his empire, a great library was established staffed by southern women trained for mnemonic breeding chart retrieval These women inte grated the lost charts into their own, forming the tradition which later became the Bene Gessent Sumtm When the empire collapsed with the death of its emperor, commumca tion survived among a core of Mothers who continued to direct the reestablished breed ing charts This core was eventually directed by a unit from a northwestern territory, a unit originally outside of the coalition but a part of the power structure which would later dominate the same geographical area Voice Cornelia tells of what must be the prototype Bene Gessent group She cites the political oddity of her society, a republican form of government granting citizenship to aristocratic women, as the major reason these gene earners were able to organize a cohesne and lasting structure Her group was named the ' Bene Gesserat, ' a pun which publicly la beled them a service group, devoted to bear rag and reanng good citizens But to the members the name meant women who 'bear well " who strive to breed a savior, a living god to activate the female/mate consciousness of the past, the present, and the future These women seem well aware of the pohti cal power of such a person, a power which would eliminate both internal and external threats to their nation
The next Voice Claudia details the Bene
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Gesserat's elaborate training program for women who, with their military husbands, would colonize conquered territory These "mis sionanes" contacted a northern family unit which had retained active consciousness within selected men as well as within women Though Voice Claudia's nation enslaved the new-found unit, their bloodlines were introduced into the breeding charts From what Voice Cldudia explains of die Beoe Gesserat's intricate political and educational structures, it is understandable that they would domi nate the more loosely structured coalition of gene bearers
Voice Claudia also describes the history of a potential and probable, active-trait male in her territory He declared himself a living god-emperor, and through marriage to Bene Gesserat Livia produced several generations of active-trait males One appears to have been the first known Abomination, a man who heard "voices" and claimed to be both male and female, but whose actions were so perverse that Voice Claudia refuses to describe them She does say, however, that the Bene Gesserat then prohibited certain memory* transference practices and began new training procedures to safeguard active females against the possibility of personality "possession Voice Oaudia recited the "Prohibition against Abomination" "In the male and female consciousness there reside personalities of such evil and such power that they endanger the species They stand ready to dominate any untrained soul When one's soul becomes dominated, possessed by such an ancestral evil, one beeosjes an Abomination, a fleshly house inhabited by a monster Immediate death is the only release for such a soul The order will take precautions to guard a bloodline while extinguishing the power of the Abomination "
The period when the Bene Gesserat was active seems unusually wett populated by tnbal "saviors " From the southern unit came a savtot strong enough to produce disciples who proselytized deep mto the northern territories tater Voices continue reports of his power, but our analysis of this entity is inhibited by the Holy Church's impounding all references made to this figure m the tapes that have been translated Guard Bible spe
ciahsts are the only people allowed access to these translations Another active male is reported by Voice Morfudd to have known both the ancient past and the distant future His hneage shows a conjunction of the Bene Gesserat lines with the newer northern family lines This particular male, Voice Morfudd tells us, rejected the role of savior, choosing to be an adviser to a king rather than the king himself (she notes social prohibitions against his taking power, being outside the regularized marriage lines of either group) Voice Morfudd tells strange stones disputing this man's "death," dormancy mjths like those told of Leto II in the Holy Books of the Divided God She also notes that his powers were transferred through folk myth to the leader whom he served a man known for millennia in his culture as The Once and Future King '' Ghappato surmises from the Voices after Morfudd that these reincarnation and resurrection myths reflect a family group within which an active male strain existed for many centuries, at least When the gene alogies transmitted by these Voices are incorporated into the Summa breeding charts Bene Gessent Archivist Re\erend Mother Maunus Ins gCopaleen hopes to be able to trace some of the more influential lines into the active lines produced by our empire, perhaps even to Leto II himself
The next dozen or so Voices report an extensive period of female subjugation m both northern and southern cultures The southern culture was ruled by a heavily patn archal family empire its women s breeder groups functioning primarily through a hareem system built on communication links within extended families Any hope of these gene-camers for overt influence m their society was frustrated for several millennia But within the hareem, this group continued an extensive, though covert, training and breed ing system The northern unit had less success in maintaining contmuitv during this period When the empire governed by the Bene Gesserat s nation collapsed the north ern group was separated from the southern group, and its own internal communication deteriorated Political strife fragmented the territories held h> the empire and made continuity of training north of the Great Sea
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almost impossible Brief reunion with the south came when Mother Eleanor, accompanying her husband/king on an extensive political-religious excursion into the south, used her time (while her husband battled and pillaged) to restore some communications with the south Unfortunately, the linkage was brief, and after Mother Eleanor's death the northern groups fragmented, losing any union with each other as well as with the south The only continuity left at all was found IB two groups separated by sociopolitical boundaries The aristocracies continued to intermarry, and the remnants of the old Bene Gesserat attempted to continue secretly breeding aad training within the extended families Occasionally an aristocratic breeder would gain public power, such as the woman who briefly held a dominant ecclesiastical position But in genera), the order had to work through its members' husbands and sons A broader and stronger organization developed ID die trades and amoag the peasantry, a religious group called Wicca Voice Helga Matra suggests mat not only did this organization follow the programs established by die Bene Gesserat missionaries, but that it also practiced the "sciences" of the day particularly the medical skills But she also notes that political disruptions left pockets of uninitiated and untrained active women who, after centuries of alienation, were forced to interpret the evidence of their abilities within the patriarchal religious my-thos of their territory These women, hearing "voices," often went mad, and m the pro eess were either venerated or executed by their neighbors, their fates dependent on the interpretation of their local priests Voice Blanche Terese tells of one such woman whose "voices" drove her to become a national hero she was martyred for defending her prmce in battle
The northern branch also became active m conquering and colonizing territories newly discovered through more advanced navigational skiEs This activity brought both of the north-em gene-carrymg groups together under social conditions which allowed their reunion They also became involved with two more family types, each carrying similar genetic traits The family inhabitatmg the conquered
territory was almost annihilated by the conquerors, and the new genes were not successfully integrated into the general breeding pattern for several centuries (Certain genetic identifiers in this group have raised the possibility that it m some way, may be part of The Duncan s heritage Minority ge neticists have begun a careful study of this portion of the tapes) Voice Mawaganawa gives some history of the second family group, one set in a slave position within the conquering society She speaks of the long and painful period needed to resolve hostilities between the two groups of women The integration of the four groups not only renewed the vigor of the original breeding line but also added genetic characteristics which enhanced this cultures' eventual technological progress
THE BENE GESSERRETTE Voice Suzette comments on the rejuvenation of the Bene Gesserat by breeders in the northern territories Her era saw the formation of women s groups that sought openly to produce a savior Voice Lucienne says that eventually the north gained a self-proclaimed savior, a man born out of peasant gene-camers and educated in the ancient traditions He believed himself a god emperor and set out to gam an empire His conquests reunited the northern and south ern gene-earners reopening communication through the female espionage agents he planted within the hareem system He also sought through intermarriage of the anstorcracy of the north to reunite the two northern lines From women within the hareems and women within the northern Bene Gesserat was established the Bene Gesserrette its mother house located m Wallachia, an area at the junction of the northern and southern units Here the southern and northern breeding records were reunited in an updated Summa The old Bene Gesserat twining programs were reactivated across the north and sent to the newly occupied territories across a Western Ocean Voice Mana reports that within three centuries the northern and southern units had been inte grated Both units remained secret but while the southern unit retained its traditional hareem structure, the northern operated under the guise of an educational religious order pro viding cloistered education for aristocratic
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females and occupational training for working class females
THE BENE GESSERIT The northern cul ture experienced an improvement of tech nology, leading within less than a century to radical social revisions The Mother House recognized the usefulness of technology and trained women to gam powerful positions within the northern group, particularly m the advanced western group One women's group in the western territory became independent of the Mother House, calling themselves Daughters and trying to assert political claims by making their breeding charts the basis for social acceptability They publicized their breeding charts, set standards of etiquette, bred male children for political office, and viciously attacked units of die Mother organization They no longer believed in group consciousness, and they bred for a purely secular savior, trying to nullify the power of any other breeding group Within two and a half centuries, the Mother House had successfully excommunicated diem, deprived them of public validity, and retained only breeders who had not participated in the splinter group
For information concerning the technological era, the reports of three Voices become valuable Voice Maura Macume details the work done with early thought machines which the Sisterhood saw as an expedient means of streamlining the programming of its breeding programs The Mother House kept its own mnemonic records of the charts, into which the machine-programmed breeding charts were integrated, allowing more complex experimental breeding patterns Voice Sierre Kaikifani describes at length the infiltration of the controllers of the thought machine by the Sisterhood She was the chief programmer for the offTerran exploration undertaken by a political coalition of the northern, southern, and western powers From her commentary, it appears that the Mother House, through Voice Sierre and other worn en like her, used the expedition to develop the eventual seeding and breeding plans for off Terran colonization
Voice Gfenoa Riche tells of the first global attempt to regularize the structure and training of the "Benc Gesscnt," as it now was named Since Watlachta had lost its name
and political integrity, an extensive under ground network of women working within their separate political jurisdictions developed centers where breeders were educated, where breeding charts were maintained, and where new skills such as psychohnguistic analysis were developed At this time the southern unit had emerged from its millennia of politt cal stasis to compete as an equal political power strengthened by control of a major energ) source Thus the women of the south were finally free to join the Sisterhood as active participants
Another interesting point made by Voice Glenna concerns the process used for memory activation among the Reverend Mothers of her time Apparently a rapidly developing chemistry simplified the physiological and psychological memory transferences Until then, transferences were controlled primarily through non chemical physiological and psy chological training techniques Lnfortunately for our purposes, the major portion of this tape is still being studied by chemical ex perts at the Chapter House on Ix The por tion of the tape available to us does include Voice Glenna s description of a radical southern Bene Gessenl unit which developed a chemical stimulant to activate latent males, and in the process produced a savior figure who led a jihad to rid the world of "corrupt Modern Infidels ' After years of devastating war in the southern territory the Mother House finally directed an assassination which eliminated the core of the jihad Voice Glenna also comments, on a northern radical unit which sought a chemical process to activate the male memory within an active female This unit argued that men were extraneous unsuitable saviors, having failed in this role over the millennia of the family s development They planned to collect flash-freeze, and store breeder semen and then to eliminate men completely The Mother House dispatched this unit before they could implement their theory
Much time was needed to complete the global network, during which women gdmed some public power, even governing for brief periods here and there For the Mother House this was a time to establish strong educational units m politically powerful societies The
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schools developed basic training used by the Bene Gessent for millennia, well into our own time, in an interesting combination of eastern, southern and northern training techniques Reverend Mother Cassms Ida Treac, Director of Educational Analysis at the Archives, offers her interpretation ot Voice Glenna's information Treac primarily compares the philosophy of ancient and modem techniques, noting that training programs in the Archives refer obliquely to apparently the same sources Voice Glenna dibuis,s>es» Also, Treac notes that the implantation of chapter houses within educational mstitu lions was continued by the Bene Gessent into the empire We surmise that such an activity may still prevail today But Treac takes this opportunity to dispel a longstanding folk myth ' Neither our records nor the Book of the Voices links the Bene Gessent m any way with Terran-based, male-oriented educational institutions administered by the ancient Jhesuits, no matter what die records of the Holy Church purport. If anything, the Book of the Voices indicates that the male group derived some- of Us educational techniques and principles from the Bene Gessent, not the other way around " Treac's complete analysis of the Voices is in her "New Views of an Old System," Archives Quarterly Review, 15 199-253
OFF-TERRAN COLONIZATION The Bene Gessent WAS active, as Voice Sieire notes, during the Exploration period, and by the time of colonization had covertly taken control of programming the seeding machines Both Voice Maura and Voice Sierre give information increasing our understanding of how the Impenum was populated But during the same period, disputes raged over the basic purpose of me Sisterhood For instance, Voice Olenaa is caustic in her comments about the "primitive" breeders and their desire for a male savior As spokesperson for her northern unit, she disdains the notion of a dominant male power and sees the premise of universal consciousness as an ancient, "unsophisticated" folk myth For her, breeding for political and economic power is the order's primary goal But western philosopher Voice Donns says, "There are too many race memories and too many holo-
causts in our history for any sane person to assimilate " A southern Voice, however disagrees with both Voice Saadhnna argues that the "technocrats" are short sighted because of their separation from nature and because of their lust for machines rather than respect for ecology She calls her northern and western sisters 'water fat' and "machine lazy," asserting that they have lost their humanity and wish to breed with the thought machines For her, a male savior is, the primary goal The Voices continue this argument well into the Age of the Machine A poignant comment is made by Voice Sedihous ' 'We strive for one who ends our strife But in our striving, we work for that which will work against us Only by not knowing where we go tan we advance When we have found our future, we will be embedded m time as the fly is m the amber" Later Voices, however, speak disparagingly of Voice Sedihous calling her an 'Unheard Non-Breeder"
Though the Sisterhood became heavily dependent on thought machines, one branch remained devoted to mnemonic records— preserving the Summa and the Mikkro-Fishedotte through the Butlenan Jihad Other ancient \olumes such as the Azhar Book and the Panopha Propheticus were likely protected in the same v> ay R M Treac suggests that the Founding Legends always assumed to be apocryphal, may actually be historical For example, she notes that the Voices from this period consistently refer to Wallach IX as the Mother World, 'as if that planet had always been dominated b; Bene Gessent
A Voice Sabhaatha from a period well into colonization reports that the Sisterhood used thought machines to program an early missionary group sent to newly inhabited planets as cultural ecologists, but whose real purpose was to implant protective myths the Missionana Protectiva, tor luture breeders Throughout this period, the Sisterhood con tinued to dominate the programming for colonization, carefully establishing breeding charts and programs, though it tried with mixed success to retain a public image as a religious teaching order The noted cultural ecologist Combos Maliaronno theorizes that the Bene Gessent recogm?ed the relationship
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between ecology and social vitality, thus ehoos ing positive though varied ecological settings for the breeders From her work with the Voices tapes Maharonno surmises that off shoots of southern Terran cultures were particularly well situated on semi-and and and worlds, being historically compatible with the harsh climates and productive of hardy new cultures She finds evidence that the Zensunm Wanderers and their descendants, the Fremen, inhabiting worlds drawing on their socio-ecological heritages, produced particularly vital breeding groups (vital enough to be eventual breeders of the Kwisatz Haderach) Maharonno also argues thai temperate worlds produced more sophisticated but less hardy breeders, the Atreides being an exception rather than a norm She is also studying Voice Mahtmka from the Chapter House on Dendros because that purely agrarian world also produced hardy breeders
THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD From the records in the Rakis Hoard authenticating the Voice commentaries, we are now sure that Bene Gessent of Hidden Rank Jehanne Butler was the instigator and early leader of the Butlenan Jihad [See Harq al Ada's The Butlenan Jihad Lib Conf Temporary Series 28 or R Silk's The Emergence of Jehanne Butler (Thor Valkyrie) far older and newer views less certain of the Bene Gessera role in the Butlenan Jihad —Ed} Voice Mahanmh gives information about the culture and die Bene Gessent activities just prior to the Jihad One dominant, pseudo religious belief which developed during the early Exploration period was mat a powerful anuna, a feminine element governing intuitive understanding, was present in all psyches This belief was actually a distortion of an early Bene Gessent Mother Goddess ideology which had been submerged IB a scientific discipline, psychology With space exploration, humans venturing into the "heaven" of the gods, mythic beliefs were challenged by human technology, causing a conflict which the Bene Gessent missionaries used to their advantage as they promoted intuitive reasoning to counter strictly data-based technological reasoning This conflict between the rational and the intuitive continued well into the colonization period, but Voice Mahanmh points out that
as economic and political factions united m an inter-world trade federation the technocrats gained control dominating the less economi cally important 'humanistic forces Be cause the thought machines controlled the economies of the new worlds the people on these worlds became dependent on machine-thought"—objective, non emotional, non intuitive behavior The Bene Gessent likewise became highly machine dependent, teaching "rational thought' in its educational institutions, dnd limiting its intuitive work to the ideologists seeding mythos on new worlds During this penod the Bene Gessent Creed of Linked Rationality was adopted 'Before us all methods of learning were tainted by instinct We learned how to learn Before us instinct-ridden researchers possessed a limit ed attention span—often no longer than a single lifetime Projects stretching across fif ty or more lifetimes never occurred to them " Only when (he Mother House realized that machines were decreasing human control, breeding humans into non intelligent work animals, and systematically aborting any Bene Gessent breeder, did the Bene Gessent plan a revolt The order now added the famous "First Lesson ' to the training program "Humans must never submit to animals" —the machine bred non humans must be eliminated along with the machines The Chapter House on Komos became the center for planning being one of the few planets not yet controlled by the machines But the abortion of Jehanne Butler s daughter sparked the actual revolt Sarah Butter would have borne the Kwisate Haderach
Through the Jihad, the Bene Gessent was preserved by the geographical locations of its Mother House and chapter houses and by its public association with religion, education, and humanism Wallach IX, being a neutral planet, became a refuge for humanist intellectuals most of whom had been trained in Bene Gessent institutions The Summa was thus preserved the breeding records safe in mnemonic holders and in the ancient bound volumes in the Archives At this stage the Sisterhood abolished its own experiments with artificial insemination, declanng that For the Sisterhood mating mingles more than sperm and ovum We wish to breed and
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capture psyches, an accomplishment possible only through human to human interaction ' The Sutnma shows that the Bene Gessent continued its breeding program after the Ji had through planned marriage and selective concubinage, soon controlling the breeding lines of the Major and Minor houses which developed during the Impenum
Details of the post-Jihad reorganization of the order into a publicly acknowledged, influ ential agency are given by Voice Reverend Mother Tercitus Mananna Clanque The reorganization made public the primary ranks of the order, but the Sisterhood continued to use Hidden Rank as needed Some of the more important chapter houses became well known empire research institutions (the Komos Chapter Houie was reorganized as the Primary Research and Genetic Sciettce Institute on the newly named Ix) But the political strength of the Bene Gessent m its new public role came not so much from its educational institutions as it did from its ideology of "hu-manness'
The Sisterhood gained access to political centers by serving as "truthsayers " During the Machine era, leaders depended totally on "he-detectors" to determine veracity m any negotiation With the toss of these machines, and as Voice Clanque adds, "with no reestablishment of human trust," the Bene Gessent tnilhsaymg training made die Sister hood a necessafy pan of all major, and most minor, political and economic meetings The Bene Gessent was employed m this service within every major House and later also became involved with the Guild As Voice Clanque notes, there were few secrets from the Bene Gessent She adds that the order also made public its ' gom jabbar * test as a means of insuring that no machine-bred am mate were allowed to masquerade as humans The public remained hostile to these machine breeds for centuries a condition that allowed the Sisterhood more freedom to test its own breeding line for sensitivity and for Kwisatz Haderaeh potential The details also, of the Bene Gessent activity in the C E T and the influence of the Azhar Book on the Orange Bible are discussed by Voices who participated m the work Fatha Mecq expert on the Guard Bible contends that remnants of the
Sisterhood s influence can still be found in the Holv Church (see her monograph Azhar Echoes for Toda;' Sofia 489 191 250)
Later Voices also claim that the Bene Gessent was known throughout the Impen um as a religious service and teaching order women devoted to truth and virtue whose mission was to lead society out of the holo caust following the machine era into a new era based on the combined powers of intellect and intuition Late in the second Impen al millennium, the Sisterhood added an amendment to its Creed ' Reserve an attitude of distrust for anything that comes m the guise of logic " This addition carne partly in re sponse to machine thought but also as a counter to a new, competitive teaching order the Mentals (founded in 1234) who sought to replace machine thought with perfect human logic While the Sisterhood employed many of the same analytical methods as the Mentals, the order argued that the universe could not be completely or accurately under-Stood through isolated objective analysis Such analysis was useful in individual events, but synthesis was gained through intuitive interpretation Throughout this period, though, the Voices agree that though the overt image of the order was that of service the actual objective of the educational and breeding programs was to gain control of the power bases of the empire The ancient desire for a humanity united by an active male conscious ness apparently had been forgotten, sub merged in a single minded objective of breed mg a Kwisatz Haderdth who would rule the empire As Xlecthian of Ix said early in the God Emperor's reign The problem of get ting what one wants comes m discovering too late what one has asked for
In her Commentaries to the Voices Our Lady and Mother Ghamma discusses the irony that both the jihads in our history were begun by Bene Gessents but she also points out the differences between the two women Jehanne Butler began with a well-thought-out purpose and with the full support of the order but Lady Jessica, Our Lady's grand mother, deviated from the order s plans disrupted its purpose, worked against her own mother Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam and began a course of history which
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eventually deprived the Bene Gessent of most of its power Our Lady and Mother adds that the motherhne of the God Emperor had been obscure until her work with the Voices Leto II refused to acknowledge his connections with an order he so clearly detested, and Our Lady adds that her discovery was further hindered by the suppression of Mohiam's Voice by the Voices of both Jessica and Paul
When Lady Jessica produced a male rather than the prescribed female child, the order discounted the birth, even though Jessica's daughter would have been bred to produce a Kwisatz Haderach More importantly, when Mohiam tested her grandson with die gom jabbar, discovering an unusual degree of strength in him, she kept the te&t resuUb a secret, giving the Sisterhood no warning that a potential Kwisatz Haderach was among them [The Emperor Paul confirmed the gom jabbar test, but we have only the word of the Bene Gessent that the J? M G&ius Helen Motuam did not report as results Why should she not have informed her order about the possible success of a twenty-thousand-year plan7 One need not be overly skeptical to suspect that the B G failure to co-opt Paul is here being extenuated by making a scape goat of Gatus Helen Mohmn —Ed ]
Thus Maad'Dib's power came as a surprise to the order, and its attempts to control his breeding proved completely ineffectual Our Lady, in her Commentaries, is quite critical of fee Sisterhood
One must understand the stance of the Bene Gessent during Jessica's tune to appreciate how completely off guard they were to the possibih ty of an "accidental" Kwisatz Haderach For eight thousand years at least this group of women had been deeply embroiled in ttieir breeding charts and their marriage bartering, all in the name of producing their ' savior' The possibility of such an event actually occurring was tost in die immediacy of then- struggle to attain profane power Also, they had no real experience ID dealing with a "savior" The nearest they had come was Hasinur Fennng, a man they and everyone else took much too lightly Therefore, when Jessica produced a son rather than a daughter, the Sisterhood was more angry than alarmed And when this child was tested by me gom jabbar no one had enough
sense to pay attention lo the results They had reallv lost track not only of then purpose but also of their history unable to foresee the possibilities presented when this extraordinary boy was placed within an ancient culture prepared by tradition for the amva! of a super hero The order had ' mislaid" the Fremen and with them the seeded mythos preparing them for a savior The Bene Gessent received a well deserved fate
The Eulogy for an Ideal, an anonymous poem included with the Commentaries indicates that when Leto II gained ultimate power and preempted the Sisterhood's breeding program, the order lost its most valuable entree into the power structure The Journals also show his constant antipathy, if not out-nght hatred, of the order Leto managed to change what had been a potent political force into a subservient order of educators and historians Because Leto controlled the spice supply, the Bene Gessent had hide choice but to accede to his wishes, to humor him, and to serve him as efficiently as possible Through this period, though, the Journals indicate that the Sisterhood was never completely subdued There is evidence that the order was involved, periodically, in conspiracies to destroy him
Leto dlso took control of the Sisterhood's seeded mythologies, turning them into the basis for his new religion, and that action must have been the ultimate degradation to the order Only after the Scattering and the Starvation did the Bene Gessent regain some of its status Its ancient axiom had held true "Survival is the ability to swim in strange waters" From the records still guarded in the Archives, we learn that the waters following the God Emperor were strange indeed, and that the Bene Gessent went through many overt shape shiftmgs in its attempt to survive
The universal consciousness for which the ancient Sisterhood strove apparently was fulfilled in Leto II, but at super-human cost As The Holy Books of the Di\ ided God indicate, the universal consciousness which might have given stability to a tribe of Terran primal humans became, instead, the force that changed the texture and pattern of our complex universe We have learned enough from
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these initial investigations of the Bcne Gessent matcnal in the Rakis Hoard to show us how little we really know of a past more ancient than we had supposed possible J A C
THE BENE GESSERIT LIBRARY ON WALLACH IX,
The holdings of the Bene Gessent Library on Wallach IX and ike cooperation of its staff have been most valuable in understanding many of the crystals in the Rafas Finds Our thanks are due the Council of Reverend Mothers who have allowed outsiders access to pans of the restricted portion for the first tune Obviously, it was naive to have thought of the above ground General Collection as the entire holdings If the Sisterhood had shared onfy the recordings of the voice of Paul Muad'Dib, their contribution to the study of Lew II s diaries would have been significant, but there has been much more Admittedly, some members of the Dares-Baiat research team still insist that the Bene Gessent were acting sel/iskfy when they opened the Chapter House collections These critics cite Leto II's prohibition of mentat training and its crippling effect on the retrieval capabilities of the Sisterhood" s holdings as prime motivations for their new generosity Indeed, the God Emperor's conspicuous mental superiority over the most adept Reverend Mothers, even the legendary Gaius Helen Mohiam, drastically reduced the marketability of the Bene Gessent-tramed teachers and soothsay ers among the houses Major and Minor This loss of income, along with the GodEmperor's control of the Sisterhood's spice quota and the almost complete unavailability of it after the Scattering, prevented the Bene Gessent from purchasing all but the least sophistical ed oflxtan memory and retrieval devices And there is no question that researchers found the Bene Gessent holdings, even the most secret ones, in disarray A taskforce of the Library Canfratermty ts now cataloging ami indexing large amounts of unprocessed nunmic film and piles of written and coded reports using the very devices that the Sister hood has been unable to afford since the second century of Leto IPs reign -*-Ed
Even in obvious decline, the Bene Gessent Library still echoes the glory and comfort of
its prime Cleverly designed as a respite from the severe training and service duties imposed upon the acolyte, some of whom began their training as early as seven years old, the mam reading room js distinguished by its great metaglass windows that overlook the starkly beautiful landscape of the planet These twenty meter panoramas at one time alternated with massive murals and nchly colored hangings Sadly most of the murals and hangings were sold to support die order and the ones from Rakis were long ago consumed for their melange content AH that remain are numerous reproductions Here it is supposed, weary acolytes and retired agents came to find intellectual relaxation, the only kind the former were allowed One can imag ine an aging Margot, Lady Fenrmg seeking a moment away from her teaching duties to write or reread her own memoirs, Arrakis and After, amid the lush plantings from even the most exotic of worlds or a young har ned acolyte curled up in one of the hand crafted, fur covered chairs reading the illus trated plays of Harq al Harba And there is no doubt that the contents of the General Collection as distinct from the restricted holdings of the special collections of the Chronicles of the Chapter House were se lected for their combination of the inspirational and the entertaining with the instructional Featured were narrative highlights of the over 2,300 years of the Missionana Protecnva including those of Attus Marge Conna the first of the Sisterhood to make contact witii the Fremen Selected editions of the Orange Catholic Bible, along with other selections from the richer hoard of religious writings m the vaults, flanked the mam, crystal faced display case Opposite in an ornate case of jade-pink petrified elacca made supposedly from the desk of Baron Vladimir Harkonncn, were a set of the Master Breeding Records their cryptic codings reflecting over eleven hundred years of futile pursuit of the Kwisatz Haderach Missing from the General Collec tion set were the volumes depicting the cata strophic failures of Paul Muad'Dib and Feyd Rautha Harkonnen and the highly sensitive and secret Mating Index
Descending into the restricted and ancient catacombs, die visitor finds the scene has changed little The austere rows of identical
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plasteel carrels, each with its own solido projector (many now inoperable), embody a spirit of austere scholarship The numerous vaults each sealed with locks of varying degrees of antiquity, point to extreme secrecy The entry desk is thought to have been supervised by only the most adept Reverend Mothers and this compulsory duty partially explains the mysterious absences thai have been typical of the highest of die order since its beginning The sealed vaults are divided into three collections the Xenocultural Col lection, the complete Master Breeding Records and the Mating Index, and the Reference Collection and the Bene Gessent histories and records Only this last section is specif! cally named the Chronicles of the Chapter House, a title that has been mistakenly ap plied to the entire complex
The Xenocultural Collection astonished scholars with the extent of its contents and the startling smugness of the Bene Gessent definition of what constituted "ahen * material While it is not surprising to find complete copies of the original Frcmen Dunebuk (including one of the few remaining copies of tiie forbidden nte of human sacrifice to Shai-Hulud), the Tleilaxu, Godbuk, The Zensunm Codex The Meni&t Handbook, The Spacing Guild Manual, Thf Dune Gospels and the Qizarate Creed here—it is shocking to find that the Bene Gessent also classified the Orange Catholic Bible (O C B ) and the histories of Houses Major and Minor, including the Atreides, under tfee xeno- heading }
In the separate sub-section reserved for the O C B are a complete set of the vario rum edition and a copy of the Orange Ltiurgt cat Manual Researchers were delighted to discover the only known complete collection of the Commentaries of the Commission of Ecumenical Translators (GET) akmg with a large volume of working notes and drafts that were long thought destroyed by the C E T While the public histories of the Bene Gessent indicate that the Sisterhood used the penod of the O C B to refine its own philosophies and practices, especially the Missionana Protectiva, the Bene Gessent copies of its C E T holdings are filled with notations and cross-references suggesting the Sisterhood's malevolent collusion in the chaos and panic that surrounded the preparation
and release of the 0 C B However an) firm conclusion must wait unul the Ixian collators and analog retrievers can compare the O C B situation with the Sisterhood s own records
The lack of organization of the Atreides Collection seems directly related to the nse of that house and indicates the truth of the contention that the Bene Gessent had viewed that conflict as just another among similar power straggles Atreides records are much more carefully catalogued following the fall of House Comno This changed attitude supports other information pointing to a Uek of conscientiousness in the entire affair and ex plains the minor attention given to the Rever end Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam's vague report on Paul Atreides extraordinary performance under the gom jabbar Among the later, better-kept records are the numerous studies of Pnncess Irulan Comno, herself a product of the school on Wallach IX Also included in the Atreides portion of the Xenocultural Collection are the wntmgs of Harq al Ada—The Holy Metamorphosis The Book of Leto, The Dune Catastrophe and The Story of Liet-Kynes—as well as the invaluable recordings and brief memoirs of Paul Atreides, the Hayt Chronicles (Duncan Idaho 10208 ), and The Book of Ghamma pipbably wntten by the young Leto II 2
Many other volumes in the adjacent sec tions of the Xenocultural Collection are devoted to historical and analytical studies of all aspects of major events and institutions, including a definitive history of the development of the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, compiled and edited by Reverend Mother Sapphos Swene Altar, an expansive stud} °f House Harkonnen by Lady [Demos] Obnc Harkonnen (a Bene Gessent of Hidden Rank) and even a fully annotated and conected version of the discredited Pirate History of the House Comno
The existence of the Xenocultural Collection shows that the Sisterhood fanatically followed me edict to know thy enemy One may only speculate that their perspective on "alien" knowledge may have led to an intellectual isolationism contributing to their fall from power Nonetheless, Leto H often laughingly referred to the Xenocultural Col lection as "that ghafla dump "
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An entire wing of the large subterranean vault is devoted to the keeping of a complete set of the Swnma Master Breeding Records and its Mating Index Some evidence indicates an abortive attempt to shield this sec tioo with a primitive Ixian Globe in a futile attempt to hide information from the God Emperor Leto II Scholars have yet to examine these records, and no one knows whether the Bene Gessertt leadership will ever allow access even though the failures of the Paul Atreides/Feyd-Rautha Haifconnen attempts rcn der these records inconsequential However, they undoubtably contain documentation of Bene Gessent manipulation of major figures (i e , Count Hasimir Fearing), and there are unverified reports that both the records and the index are sttU open files and continue to the present These rumon* arc obviously absurd given die success of Leto El's breeding program and the Siona Atreides/Duncan Idaho union
The third major section of die vault is devoted to the Bene Gessent Reference Library and die Sisterhood's own records The Reference Library duplicates some items in the other sections, and many unique items, such as the complex code keys are of little immediate interest But the extensive religious materials are invaluable This mfor matioa, much of it unique, was the source material used to compile the astonishingly complete AzharBook* the bibliographic compendium that preserves the secrets of even the most ancient faiths Among these are priceless copies of the Zensumu Codex, a much more complete copy of the Fremen Dunebuk than the one m the General Collection (which was a popularized version edited by Irulan Comno), the Buddislarmc Codex the Navachnstian Bible, the Mahayana Lan-kavatara Blend Books, and the Muadh Quran as well as other duplicates from die Xenocul tural Collection and its Atreides section Appropriately, the Sisterhood's source books, anthologies, and instruction manuals for the Missionary Protectiva and the Panopha Propbeticits are also housed in this section whie the less sensitive teaching texts were readily available at varied locations on Walkch IX and in the branch chapter houses on other planets prior to their destruction by Leto II
Housed in seemingly endless tunnels branch ing out from the mam vault are the reports of the Bene Gessent field agents Much of this material has yet to yield to the Ixian analog scanners, but selective retrievals have revealed fascinating insights and anomalies Gams Helen Mohiam s folios appear incomplete and fragmentary, surprising for a Cogita Vera (soothsayer) and a Mater Executrix One scholar has called them censored and edited but the elaborte security systems that the library once had would have m<*de such overt alterations difficult once the material was tiled On the other hand, the accounts of Lady [Mingus] Margot Fennng are wonder fully full revealing that her role m the Atreides rise was greater than suspected The reports of the Lady Jessiea Atreides, who the Sisterhood still curse as the archtraitor, naturally stopped about the time of her aql in the Fremen Ceremony of the Seed on Arrakis The reports of Jehanne Butler an important person in Bene Gessent history whose child's abortion was her personal motive for the Butienan Jihad, are complete and calculating demonstrating the effective support of the Sisterhood in that transformation of human philosophy Of a particularly poignant nature are the often confused and always starkly honest accounts by the Reverend Sister Chenoeh and the Reverend Mother Tertius Eileen Anteac, which relate their stays in the court of the God Emperor Leto II and their interactions with him and their conflicts with the orthodox dogmaticism of the Soothsayer Marcus Claire Luyseyal
The disco\enes at Ddr-es.-Bdlat hdve had dramatic technological and economic benefits tor the Bene Gessent Library and have also significantly increased scholarly interest in its holdings There is hope that continued modernization and research, combined with only moderately cautious cooperation of the Sisterhood will reveal ftirther insighte into the Atreides phenomenon and correct the neglect of the library that has continued since the reign of 1 eto II and the Scattenng JAC
NOTES
'Available from the Rakis copies are Princess Imlan Atreides Comno ed The Dunebuk Rakis Ref Cat 7 Z331 Anor The Tleilaxu Codbuk Rakis Ref Cat
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3-TL42, Cj Aibans and O O Hayt, TAe Mental Handbook tr Dale, Reeve Mara (Finally Mosaic), Spacing Guild, The Steersman s Guide, tr PK Lonlaraz (Topaz Lndlow), Anon , JVie Dune Gospels, Rakis Ref Cat 1-T2
Available from the Rakis copies are al Ada, Tke Dune Catastrophe tr Miigal Reed (Mukan Lotiiar), and The Story of Liet Kynes Lib Conf Temp Scnes 109, Duncan Idaho-10208, The Hayt Chronicle tr Kershel Reeve Shautin (Finally Mosaic)
3K R BaraJ? ed The Azhar Book Vol 1-4, Arrakis Studies 49 (Grumman United Worlds)
BENE GESSERIT RANKS. The internal structure of the Bene Gesserit ranks of Sisterhood is found in the Orchnes Matnwn. The Ordtnes Matrium and the Private Files hold the records of membership and rank within the Sisterhood, some apparently dating from before the Butlenan Jihad, Only oae title used in these records remains in the modern Bene Gessent—Reverend Mother. But from current information it seems that the title itself held far more significance ill the past than it does now The mendicant teaching order now known as the Bene Gesserit appears to lack the facilities and resources to maintain the highly complicated structure of initiation, preparation, and rank structuring described in die historical documents
The Ordmes Matrium indicates that a woman was more apt to be chosen for than to choose the Sisterhood as her life's work. The breeding indices determined an individual's eligibility for membership. Only those females shown to be of a proven active-trait line, and whose recent ancestry showed at least one Reverend Mother, were accepted as initiates. And even these credentials apparently did not mean automatic acceptance Bene Gesserits, while doing their regular work, observed these particular female infante periodically for signs of active-trait characteristics As soon as sucb a child experienced her first menses, she was tested for sensitivity, using the gam jabbar test for human&ess Those females showing sensitivity and a certain degree of intelligence and interest were framed, either at a chapter house or by a Bene Gessertt tutor within their own homes, as "iflittae." The initiae trained within chapter houses could be identified both by their youth and by their clothing— dun-colored, long-sleeved shuts and leggings covered by short brown tunics.
After five years of training, the imtiae were tested extensively for sensitivity and actne-trait potential and separated into two groups the 'virgae''—potential Reverend Mothers, and the ' profictuae"—future members of the genera] Sisterhood If successful, they were presented to a gathering of Bene Gessent in the ' Ceremony of the Initial Oath ' A Proctor Superior administered the oath to each individual, touching her forehead and repeating the following words
I stand m the sacred human presence As I do now, so should you stand some day I pray to your presence that this be so The future re mams uncertain and so it should for it is the canvas upon which we pamr our desires Thus always the human condition faces a beautifully empty canvas We possess only this moment in which to dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence which we share and create
The candidate then faced the Sisterhood and repeated her first oath "I am a Bene Gessent I exist only to serve '' After this ceremony the young women moved from first form to second form, both in their training and in then living accommodations Their new status was shown by the sleeveless, hoodless abas they now wore, though someumes the) retained their dun shirts and leggings in cold climates
Profictus and virga forms lasted three years The protictuae received specialized educa tion to prepare them for their work as Sisters Though all were trained for the general duties of "pellices" (breeders), some received special training to become concubines or wives of the aristocracy Others, were trained tor careers ' praecetrix ' to teach and tutor, "ermssanae espion" to join the spiderweb of Bene Gessent information gatherers, histon ans and archivists to keep the order's records, accountants and scribes to run the order's businesses, and domestic managers for the chapter houses and the schools The virgae, however, prepared for their eventual roles as Reverend Mothers After three years of preparation, the two groups of novices came together in the Gathering Hall of the Mother House to take their vows as Bene Gessents The Matres Felicissimae officiated before a gathering of Bene Gessent of all ranks, who
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listened to their newest Sisters repeat the Credo
Religion is the emulation of the adult by the child Religion is the encystment of past beliefs mythology which is guesswork the hidden assumptions of trust m the universe, those pro nouncements which people have made in search of personal power, all of it mingled with shreds of enlightenment And always the ultimate un spoken commandment is Thou shalt not question' But we question We break that commandment as a matter of course The work to which we have set ourselves is the liberating of the imagination the harnessing of imagma lion to humankind s deepest creativity
The Sisters trained for the general order were then given posts in the field or placed in openings in the chapter houses and the schools The prospective Reverend Mothers, in the meantime entered the second level of their training, become ' filiae alvi'
As filiae alvi the postulants became workers as well as students The postulants functioned in chapter houses or in the Mother House primarily as messengers Any Reverend Mother traveling on business would take with her several filiae alvi trained m the memory? trance After working and being constantly evaluated for two years, the postulants were tested and judged by a review board of Proctors Superior At this stage, the postulants received one of three fetes reassignment for further training, disqualification for Rev erend Motherhood-~thus becoming regular Sisters, or advancement to the level of acolyte Those promoted to acolyte were assigned to specific Reverend Mothers for whom they became personal servants far one to six years, depending oa the individual's abilities
The third step preparatory to becoming a Reverend Mother was the rank of "Mater Acnor' During the ceremony accepting a woman as Mater Acrior, she acknowledged tiie "Interdict Banning Immortality" "Age slowly, but slowly age The world of time is inhabited by creatures who are worn bv time—and we must appear to be as they are Extend your tiree but do not exceed the limits of your culture It is better to die one's own death than to be killed as a sorceress' She also accepted the second part of the Credo "To suspect your own mortality is to
know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror At the conclusion of this ceremony the woman donned a sleeved but hoodless black aba Now the Mater Acrior began responsible work m her chosen field Often she would be apprenticed to a Rever end Mother for a training period, but eventually bhe dsf-umed her own role of worker within the Sisterhood Ihe length of time she remained at this level varied with the individual Some women lived their lives as Matres Acrior while others were ready for the final rites within five or ten years
At the initiation ntes of the Water of Life, a woman became a Mater Sapien Ussima or, to the general public a Rever end Mother To mark her status at this time she chose a three part name which showed both the antiquity of the order and the effi ciency of its breeding charts A woman kept her family name to designate her position in the breeding indices, but to it she added a name (alwa>s male) from the original order of the Bene Gesserat on ancient Terra and a name honoring a famous woman from the history of the Sisterhood For example if a woman's name had been Cora of the Cornno line, she might choose the name Marcus Jehanne Cornnus as her Reverend Mother designation The vestment of her new status was a sleeved black aba with a hood
The Reverend Mother title was generic used by all Reverend Mothers in public no matter what rank or position ot authority they held within the Sisterhood One should not confuse this general title with that of "Hidden Rank,' however, since they are two different designations Hidden Rank was used by a Bene Ges!>ent who lived or worked in a position in which her official rank Would prohibit her usefulness or endanger her life For example if a woman of Reverend Moth er status married into a Major or a Minor House, she kept her rank a secret by using the Hidden Rank designation (few men were eager to accept a Reverend Mother into their beds) Occasionally a Sister working as a pellex was forced to keep her affiliation secret acknowledging only that she had been trained in a Bene Gessent school For such a woman, even her Bene Gessent files recorded
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her as being of Hidden Rank Within the general designation of Reverend Mother, however, there were four specific ranks Regu lar R M , Proctor, Proctor General, and Proctor Superior There were several other desig nations limited to Reverend Mothers of any rank, also Two academic degrees could be earned only by Reverend Mothers ' Erudica ' and "Doctissima " And two professions could be filled only by Reverend Mothers, those of "Ambactae" (ambassadors) and of "Cogita Vera" (truthsayers)
Because they educated women of the Major and Minor Houses, the Bene Gessent also had actual and honorary ranks for laity Lay Sisters were allowed to work in schools and chapter houses, doing the mundane work necessary to the function of any institution Honorary titles bes-towed on Bene Gehserit-educated women of the aristocracy were awarded at academic exercises held annually in each Bene Gessent school The titles of "Mater Adfarata" and "Mater Custodia Viaram' appear, from the Bene Gessent files, to have been awarded frequently When one compares the annual awards to the historical records showing the power fluctuations among Houses, one could conclude that these honorary degrees were primarily a means of currying favor and maintaining patronage for the order
The Ordines Matrutm presents a Sisterhood which appears to be far more complicated than die present Bene Gessent There is no way of ascertaining the validity of this distinction, however, because the current m formation pertaining to present Bene Gessent ranks has not been made available for this study J A C
B O GOVERNANCE, B G HISTORY
BENE QESSERTT TRAINING. The essence of tire Bene Gessent training philosophy seems to be that, if one can control oneself, or "know thyself," ultimately one can control the universe Its first axiom is "My mind controls my reality'* The training itself is based on a series of progressive exercises, lasting approximately ten years, which give the student power to control herself mentally physically, and psychologically, and to con
trol others This control is used not to withdraw to an internal fantasy world but rather to observe and understand reality with de tached objectivitj Thus the prana-bindu training, begun if possible during the child's first year of life, assures the candidate that mastery of herself is mastery of illusion both of her own and of other people's Most of the information available concerning traditional Bene Gessent training is taken from an analysis of the texts and manuals found in the Irulan materials at Dar es-Balat The modern Sisterhood will not releabe iti con temporary material for research use, and has withdrawn the texts formerly available m the open collection of the WalJach IX library
But even reading the Irulan material al lows one to understand why the Sisterhood acquired a reputation as keen analysts, ex pert "seers," and fearsome fighters The "weirding ways" seen bv outsiders are actu ally the results of a long process of self-discipline which developed the ability to analyze and synthesize information not only m an environment of peace but also under stress Two precepts found in Reverend Mother Darius Kate Clenhanan's Amor Fan The Key to the Wav show this philosophy The first shows the necessity for discipline ' To use raw power is to make yourself infinitely vulnerable to greater powers," and the sec ond deals with practical application of the training "The mind can go in either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousncss at the positive end'' Thus the goal of the training if. to insure that the Sister will have her power under control whatever the situation Clenhanan also points out the fatal weakness inherent in this training great control can lead to great confidence, to overconfidence, and finally, to an ultimate loss of objectivity—to vanity and pride Therefore candidates were contin ually evaluated and given tasks which forced them to work with people more skilled than themselves Fundamentals of the Way A Bene Gessent Mental Exercise Book also includes exercises specifically designed to prevent vanity about the student's growing strength For example, the third year training
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section opens with this caution "All proof inevitably leads to propositions whi9h have no proof All things are known because we want to believe in them '
One interesting omission in all of the training wa& ethical or moral philosophy or theology The Bene Gesscnt was always known publicly as a religious order, a mystic Sister hood which espoused a belief in the supematu ral control of the Great Mother None of the available instructional material (and Imlan seems to have kept all of her texts and manuals for each section's training) even refers to a transcendent force or being In fact, in the Missionana Proiectiva material, religion is described as "the purposeful instruction of the masses ' The texts describe thousands of religio mythic variations on the theme of supreme, non human power, but no evidence indicates that the Sisterhood believed in any power greater than that of its own goal, the Kwisatz Haderach The Great Homed Mother is used more as a mascot man as a deity Historical evidence suggests that this atheistic tendency developed some-tune after the Butlenaji Jihad, but textual evidence, equafly convincing, indicates that toe Sisterhood has never been a religious organization
A two-part framing program was pursued simultaneously by a candidate the training of the mind and die training of the body Thus a small child would spend hours learning the man> languages in use in her culture, and later spend more hours sitting rock-still, lowering her body temperature or slowing her heartbeat, moving one muscle at a time as she catalogued the stimulus/response pattern of her body The physical training program, the prana-bmdu school, is perhaps the best way to illustrate the unification of these two primary branches of training
The clearest analysis to date of die system & in Reverend Mother Maxius Oaire Beeghler's Prarae and Binda Control for Power She identifies the basic premise of the training as that found m an ancient Terran religion m which the path to the truth was called Sabda and closely resembled what is known to the Bene Gessent as die "Way " Sabda allowed an internal realization of truth which identi fied the knower with art immutable reality
The Bene Gessent Way also identifies the knower with reality, but denies immutability Thus the Bene Gessent axiom "The pur pose of argument is to change the nature of truth" The same conditioning procesbes, however, are used to attain both Sabda and the Way The ke> to bulh is mhie\mg harmo ny and tranquihty through establishing balance within the mdi\idual This* balance is achieved through tapai (austere regimens which control and organize the psychic and physical forces of the body and concentrate one's powers) and upauna (Ihe meditation which allows one to go deep within oneself to fmd the link between the internal forces, the point of balance between knowing the body and knowing the mmd)
The mental self is trained through nayana—a discipline which controls reasoning Nayana pairs linguistics and logic m order that the individual can distinguish between language and meaning The student is constantly taught that a sentence means more than the mean ing of the individual words, that it includes the physical activity which accompanies the act of speaking The observer, therefore must be able to 'read' and ' register ' the gestalt of the speaker, must be able to understand the linguistic patterns of thought conveyed through, the immediate language, and must be able to synthesize all these channels instantly in order to understand completely what actually is being "said ' Thus, in the process of learning the student must always completely control the internal sources—her own physical, mental, and emo ttonal condition at the time of synthesis— and totallv perceive the external sources— the environment of the speaker, the physical and psychic gestalt of the speaker, the cultural undertones of the language and the actual overtones of the word sets being used In general, this technique of data collection, synthesis, and understanding was perfected after the Butlenan Jihad The aim was to replace thought machines with people who were not only capable of instantaneous logic computations, as were the machines, but who were also able to assimilate sensory and emotional information Through a rational/ intuitive process such people would come to conclusions that were human rather than
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mechanistic but objectively detached rather than egotistically biased
Specifically, prana (nerve) and bmdu (muscle) training prepared one for the state of concentration needed to understand the reality of a situation (This state of concentra tion is also essential to the Bene Gessent observational skills and martial art techniques) To gam the proper attitude for complete concentration, one must first remove onself, mentally if not physically, from all distractions To do this one uses relaxation techniques which eliminate the distraction from extraneous stimuli At this point in her studies the student also learns how to distinguish primary information from secondary or unessential information—"to see the facts and discard the ghafla' Once one has relaxed and has begun to observe the proper information, one must learn to observe closely and clearly In this state of observation one assimilates pertinent data from the present situation and recalls all pertinent data from memory
If possible, the observer next assumes a positive physical posture of relaxation and concentration When the analytical work is being done under private, leisurely conditions, the person relaxes in one of thirty three postures, each appropriate to a specific type of analytical work In public situations, the observer assumes an immediate but unobtrusive ritualistic posture which calls the muscles and tissues into alertness If under great stress or immobilized, one can alter mis posture to accommodate the restraints Next, one begini. controlled breathing for concentration, relaxation, and an oxygen supply sufficient to support accelerated mental activity Finally, as me last step before entering the concentration mode one withdraws sensory and emotional awareness from all internal areas of distraction In most cases the Sister performs a simple calmness ritual, but in great danger, she recites the litany against fear to subdue any instinctual, pnmal terror, particularly one stimulated by a race-memory fear
Fear is the mind killer Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration I will face my fear I will permit it to pass over me and through me And when it has gone past me I
will turn to see fear s path Where the fear has gone there will be nothing Only I will remain
At this point the observer can begin the concentration mode
The concentration mode involves three stages of observational analysis First, one must now severely limit the attention to only the past and present data concerning the topic Second one must enter a state of total contemplation in which the attention flows in a steady stream over the topic—the observer completely enclosing the topic Third, one must be conscious not of the techniques of observation, not of the presence of self but of the topic—one must become the topic At the moment of unity, the observer under stands the topic as she understands herself Thus, all knowledge depends on the observa tion of detail and on one's body being trained to support close observation on objective classification and cataloguing, and on maxi mum retention of data Only complete con trol of nerves and tissues muscles, blood and chemistry, can detach one enough from the demands of the self to allow objective detachment during the observation, analysis, and synthesis process The control of the body leads to the purification of the mind necessary to separate the real from the unreal
Although the process ot preparation, control, and analysis seems complicated and time consuming after a woman has trained for ten years first in the separate steps and then in the entire process she can if necessary, perform the entire function m less than a second One of the controls learned is the ability to release oneself from the artificial confines of the human notion of "time ' There is no "time" in the concentration mode—all activities can be managed simul taneously
Once the basic processes have been mas tered, second level functional states can be invoked such as Dao Prajna and Adah Dao is the dormancy trance, a type of bmdu suspension in which an adept can slow her physiological activities to a level just on the edge of life maintenance, a trance useful for survival under threatening conditions and also necessary to rejuvenate cells The Prajna meditation trance is used for deep under-
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standing and tor the special state of "seeing some Sisters are capable of performing (a state usually augmented with enhancement by chemicals such as melange) Adab, on the other hand, is a retneval process accessible to dll s-killed Bene Gessents, this state of recall is also called the demanding memory, a recollection of necessary data stimulated externally or by Ihe gestalt of a situation rather than being triggered consciously by the woman herself Adab is different from the consciousness impression/complete recall' method used regularly to store and process data The normal mnemonic process allows complete reproduction of any conversation, even simulating the tone and pitch control of the original speaker (a practice always used by Siiten. or novices who acted as messengers) But Adab not only stores material m the subconscious, it also uses the subconscious to integrate new with stored data thus producing completely accurate and logically assimilated memory, a memory so strong that when stimulated it will overwhelm the woman's consciousness
Prana-bmdu training is also used by the adept in all the daily functions of her life For example, the famous Bene Gessent martial arts, the "weirding ways of bottle," are based upon complete prana-bmdu control The hand-to-hand combat techniques retained from ancient Terran cultures depend upon supreme muscle control for their astonishing ferocity Not only the unarmed combat maneuvers depend on this training but the ex traordinary knife and whip skills also require this command of muscles and nerves Prana-bmdu control can heal wounds and retard aging The Bene Gessent knew their cellular structure so intimately that they could analyze and neutralize most poisons within their bodies The great test of this ability occurred during a woman's imtiaton as a Reverend Mother in neutralizing fte "Water of Life within her system Occasional women were found to have cellular allergies to and incompatibilities with the chemical and were unable to neutralize it» but fortunately this occurred rarely
The training program had a second objective the ability to control others whether as individuals, masses, or cultures The Bene
Gessent is taught to 'read and ' register" a person in order to manipulate him by Voice In reading ' one observes and identifies the clue tones which will control the other person In "registering" one uses a brief mnemonic trance to retain the clue tones, making that person controllable in future situations Finally, through the use of nhani decipherment, a Bene Gessent can recognize a registered individual no matter what overt change in behavior or appearance he assumes Rihani decipherment also al lowed sisters to unerringly identify Face Dane ers and gholas, even when they assumed the appearance of individuals unknown to the Sister herself The decipherment pattern al lowed her to discern the non-human characteristics
Through Voice a subtle manipulation of vocal tones, a Bene Gessent could manipulate individuals or large groups by triggering clue tones Certain voice patterns trigger primal human responses, and the registered person could be controlled in any situation Women specially gifted with The Great Con trol could manage an> number of people in any situation and could even control other Bene Gessents Particular subtleties ot Voice usage are the Lie Adroit—manipulation through concealed falsehood, the Zeruunru Codex—a play of words that confuses or obscures the truth, and the implantation of autosuggestive cue words (for example, the most common word thus implanted is "Uroshnor, * a word itself empty of meaning, but which, when spoken, triggers a state of immobilization) These techniques, however, are taught only tor specific professional work
In order to learn how to control large groups of people and even cultures, dunng her final three years of education a candidate enters a series of courses teaching the characteristics of mob behavior (e g historj, politics, anthropology, and mythology) Unless a woman is to be a political determiner when she graduates or is being groomed for political roles within the order, these courses are theoretical For those who enter the Missionary Protettivd, however, a special training pro gram teaches the manipulation ol cultural attitude through mvthos implantation Truth savers, economists and women prepanng to
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be MBAs are all trained m practical group manipulation as well as in theory
Of course as a secondary part of the entire training program candidates arc also taught survival techniques For example a rudimentary course is Hand and Finger Signals while a more advanced course in the same discipline is Tactile Encoding Methods Though the techniques of setting and breaking palm locks is designated as an advanced course there is evidence that each middle school girl prided herself m mastering the technique Such primary regimens as the waiting stance the sense cleansing regimen and the (ranqiulity mode were taught to chil dren m the kinder houses
In general the students were taught practi cal skills for the primary Bene Gessent occu pations of breeding and espionage Theprana bmdu skills the observational and analytical skills and the self preservation skills were all bases on which to develop the theoretical abilities needed in an organization whose goal was the accumulation and manipulation of economic and political power J A C
Further references: B c HISTORY R M Danus Kate Clenhanan Amor Faft The Key to the Way tr Zhana Feliin B G RHtndaton Studies 15 (Diana Ifevis) Riiuvars Shaigal ed Fiauiametaals of the Wav A Bene Gessent Mental Exercise Book (Gnimman Lodni)
BUTLER JEHANNE (And the history of the Butlerian Jihad.)- Parents unknown Born Komos (Endam A 4) 230 B G died 182 B G mamed T Butler 205 B G no children Leader of revolt of Komos vs Richese leader Button Jihad 200 B G —182 B G Jehanne Butler gave her name to the Butlerian Jihad one of the most enduring develop ments in me history of the race As leader of the revolt of Komos against Richese, and then of the Jihad for the first twenty years of its course, she left an imprint on the minds of her followers which bespeaks an extraordi nary personality powerful resolute intuitive and merciful to those who knew her she was little short of a saint and after her death she became one in the minds of millions As a result of the material produced by the excava turns on Rakis we are able to transform her from a legend into an historical personality Jehanne was trained as a priestess on Komos
and also as a Bene Gessent Rather than following the career of a priestess either from her own decision or that of her order she married Thet r Butler the Logistos of Xania one of the ten administrative districts on Komos In the same year as their marriage 205 B G ) Jehanne went to the capitol of Pylos to enter the hospital for the birth of a child Since both parents had married late m life for their culture they were especially eager for this birth When on the delivery table Jehanne was anesthetized when she awoke she and her husband were informed that their daughter Sarah had been aborted The hospital explained that the fetus had been too deformed to survive The abortion was described as therapeutic
Jehanne s control of her own bod) which as a result of her Bene Gessent training extended beyond those muscle s> stems usual ly thought of as automatic had permitted a deep knowledge of the growth of her child within the womb She was convinced that it was impossible tor her child to have been so grievously malformed as the hospital had described In time Jehanne came to believe that her child s death had at best been un necessary Using the access to official re cords provided by Thet r s position as Logistos she discovered within the archives of the hospital evidence that the hospital director— the first self programming machine on Ko mos—had instituted a program of unjustified abortions Armed w th this information she approached the priestesses of Kubebe for their aid in creating a movement against the domination by Richese
At the same time that these overtures were being made to the priestesses Jehanne and Thet r had begun the formation of a secular organization Using Thet r s administrative abilities and Jehanne s g fts of rhetoric am plified by her Bene Gessent schooling a Front for the End of Koman Exploitation was formed
Their movement was a speedy success as was their request of the priestesses for aid Contrary to some cjnical opinions the priestesses were tar too well entrenched with in a society of believers for their position to have been threatened Rather the priestesses likely entered the struggle for the same rea
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son that the rest oi the Komans did—they were appalled by the evidence Jehanne was able to put forward concerning the actions of the hospital director and they agreed that the time had come to move against Richesc
The coup on Koines was the first example of the organizational genius of Ihet r Butler and the tactical brilliance of Jehanne the choice of the tribute collection week as the occasion for the coup, the seizure of the tribute fleet for transport to Richese, the timing and execution of d lengthy and mtn cate plan which achieved total surprise and an almost bloodless victory
The Komans went to Rtchese with nothing more than a successful revolution in mind They discovered there the extent to which then: hospital director was simply a reflection of a state of society beyond their imagination The degree to which machines controlled the population of Richese, and had altered the emotional and intellectual characteristics of its inhabitants over centuries, was literally incredible to the Komans Many of them never entirely believed what they saw there
The revelations on Richese produced a Jihad but it was not Jehanne who made that decision The priestesses of Kubebe were the principal forces behind the change which occurred m the ranks of the rebels They were motivated by their interrogations of the chiet programmers and scientists of Richese, many of whom had been willing participants in the actions of the machines in altering the population of Richese Perhaps the critical moment m these interrogations occurred dur ing die questioning of a Doctor G Demlen by the chief priestess of Komos. Urania
Demlen was an especially arrogant and unrepentant man, whose disdain for his fel low man's intelligence was equalled only by his respect for his own—and that of his machines As his quite pndeful and voluntary description of his work on Richese droned on, Urania's feelings overcame her training and her face began to betray her revulsion Ultimately even Demlen noticed and interrupted his stream of self-coagratulatory can dor to ask what was upsetting her Urania told him his work violated fundamental pnn ciples of respect for human life, not to men non the offense to the worship of the Goddess
At the mention of the Goddess Demlen exploded in a fit of honest and atid outrage and in his fury after s iggesting that there was more worth reverence in one of his machines than in the worship of a sup posed goddess invented by a clutch of bucolic bumpkins on a pigsty of a planet Demlen turned toward the icon of Kubebe as if to spit on it Before he could commit the act Urania had killed him with her ceremom al knife
That night the priestesses met m council and the next morning Jihad began to be preached to the faithful of Komos, against
the thinking machines and all who find their gods within them
Far from being eager for this Jehanne argued against it Hei statements, insofar as we can construct them seem to have antici pated much of what was to happen in the coming years—the growing ruthlessness of the crusaders the atrocities the deaths of so many innocents But the priestesses were not deterred It was not that they did not believe that these things might happen Rather they resolved on the Jihad in spite of this belief Their horror before the discoveries of Richese and the certainty that they would be duphcat ed on other planets their deep rooted out rage at the insult to dieir Goddess and their religion—these made their minds firm Too many analyses of the origins of the Jihad have ignored this motivation—the people of Komos believed their religion So too did Jehanne, but her beliefs were tempered with mercv and foresight to a degree not true of the priestesses
Jehanne could not have been dislodged as the leader of the movement even had any one wished it But from this moment there was a certain tension within the leadership of the Jihad On the one hand there was Jehanne, urging mercy and restraint on the other was Urania whose goal was the extirpation of any hint of machine domination of humans and who was willing to sacrifice much and many to achieve it The tension was re solved m fa\or of Urania on Carthagos
The transformation of the Jihad after Jehanne s death has been discussed at length in the various histories of the movement These discussions have focused upon the
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growing ruthlessness of the crusade, and in so doing have failed to remark upon certain changes in tactics which bear directly upon the question of the nature of Jehanne's participation as leader.
Certain characteristics of the plans of the fleet did not change after Jehanne's death. The various actions of the horde, whether investing an entire planet or striking at an outpost, continued to show the effects of meticulous planning and brilliant staff work. Logistical support for all operations remained virtually flawless, and the timing and arrangements of often complicated maneuvers involving hundreds of vessels showed a degree of foresight and sound training seldom equaled in military history. These observations, coupled with the survival of Thet'r Butler have prompted many to conclude that the true leader of the rebellion was Thet'r, and not Jehanne. A full analysis of the tactical history of the Jihad will not support this argument, however.
One of the prominent features of many of the operations of the fleet during the first two decades of the Jihad is best illustrated by the attack on Illerda in 199 B.C. Simply through the use of extraordinarily clever shifts in the disposition of their forces^, the crusaders forced the Illerdans to abandon their moon, and then to surrender their entire planet. The casualties were limited to the crews of two scout vessels that attempted to run the planetary blockade just before the capitulation occurred. The operation1 has remained a textbook example of the distinction between the use of power and the use of force, as these terms are understood in strategic analysis.
Examination of the history of the Jihad until the attack on Carthagos shows that this preference for the use of power over the use of force is at the heart of the planning of the Jihad during these years. Rather than crushing opponents by the overwhelming application of the force of the vessels and troops of the Jihad fleet, the threat of such an attack was used to compel me surrender of the enemy. Intelligent use of "power" treats force as a tool best used when it remains implicit. One's superior strength is used, not to obliterate an enemy, but to force surrender, ideally without battle.-While mis ideal was
only approached in the campaign off Illerda, many of the actions of the Jihad through the early years show this principle in their conception. The attack on Thapsus in 196 E.G., and that against Parion in 191 B.G., are cases in point: the combined casualties to the Jihad forces in these actions could not have exceeded ten thousand, and may have been considerably lower.
Indeed, Jehanne's military career began and ended with operations of this sort. The attack on Carthagos presented the same tactical situation as had that on Illerda, and was already unfolding along identical lines. The Sarah HI was leading a maneuver designed to place the forces defending the moon of Carthagos in an untenable position, while leaving the path of retreat to the planet open. Once the Carthagans were isolated on their planet, blockade would have produced the same result as on Illerda—surrender. The extinction of the planet's population resulted from the flagship's encounter with an undetected mine and the tidal wave of rage that swept the fleet when Jehanne's fate was learned. It was not part of the plan of the campaign.
Thus, the last operation Jehanne directed bore this characteristic stamp. And so too did the first. The ravaging effects of the war on Richese have obscured the fundamental nature of the plan which the Komans followed. But, if one considers the situation on Richese within two days of the arrival of the tribute fleet, the tactical position of the Komans versus the forces of Richese shows the same sensitivity to the uses of force and of power.
In only three days standard, virtually the entire population of Komos had been transported to Richese, and the Richesan navy had been captured by the Komans. The army of Richese then faced the prospect of a war with an opponent several million strong, on the territory of Richese, and in control of the only space vessels. Under such circumstances, in spite of the far greater size of the Richesan army, the prospects for victory were extremely limited, and clearly any war would be protracted and severely damaging to the planet. In mm, an excellent basis for a negotiated settlement had been established, and under normal circumstances would in all likelihood
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have been reached One did not ensue be cause of the machine domination of Richese, which introduced an utterly unexpected ele ment into the relations between the two armies But tf the opponents of the Komans had been normal and human, the outcome of the war might well appear to us as another instance when the planning of a military genius had achieved a victory with extraordinarily low loss of life
The pattern is clear from her first battle to her last, the actions Jehanne participated in bear an unmistakable imprint These are battles planned and led by a tactical genius, whose concern for the lives of her soldiers and of her enemies is the dominant element And, in spite of the fact that Thet'r survived his wife, after the disaster off Carthagos this stamp disappears from the campaigns of the Jihad
As noted, though, the staff work retained its characteristic level of efficiency Hits should not be surprising, for Thet'r continued as chief of staff for the Jihad New generals were sought and within the next few years several different individuals led die crusade, but the execution of their plans remained m the same superbly capable hands
The arguments which oppose this view are not founded upon examination of the evi dence of the events of the Jihad Rather, they base themselves upon certain assertions regarding the inability of a woman, or of women, to lead such a force as the Jihad, or to plan such actions as tbe attacks on Richese and Illerda These arguments have in com mon their iterance of the society of Komos, and the position of women within it
Unlike many societies, that of Komos had for centimes granted to women an especially important function, one aot bounded by the home and hearth One refers, of course to the maintenance of the religious well being of the people Not only was the worship of the chief deity of the planet in the hands of women, but the sacred life of the family which was the center of Roman society was tile charge of the women- of the family The mates controlled the Me of the farm or the ranch, and the land was passed on through the male hne but the women saw to the religious health of the famil) a power which
to the Koman way of thinking involved nothing less than the survival of the family
The point of this should be obvious the Konum were used to following the leader ship of the women of their society especially when matters of religion were involved This was the case with the rebellion which began because of the abortions performed by the hospital director and which struck directly at a religious issue, the survival of the fami 3y line Once the movement had spread to Richese, the religious basis expanded The actions of the machines were seen by the priestesses and by the Komans as an affront not only to principles of humanity, but also to their Goddess, Kubebe It wds the priestesses who first preached Jihad Indeed had there been no religious basis for this movement, it would by definition not have been a Tihad And for die Komans religious matters neces sanly involved the leadership of women We should be surprised, then if the leadership of this Koman crusade had not been female These points, which should be transparently simple, have been obscured hy the socio-sexual biases of most of those who have approached the problems posed by the leader ship of the Jihad (One must hasten to add that by no means all of these scholars are male)
The concentration upon the matter of sex in the leadership of the Jihad has also distracted attention from other more important questions One should ask not Why a woman1* but rather Why this woman' and Why did she succeed; The answers to these questions must be sought within Jehanne herself and within her society
The simplest answer to the question Why this woman9 is of course that it was her child who was murdered But this is obvious ly inadequate These abortions had been going on for two years but Jehanne was the first we know of to suspect the hospital and act on that suspicion There may have been others but Jehanne is the one we know of because she succeeded Thus stated the mat ter of the death of Sarah Butler is placed in perspective it was the motivation for Jehanne and Thet r but it was not the reason for their success Their rebellion which produced Jihad the secret of her leadership—those are to be
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found in the combination of the social characteristics of Komos and the character of Jehanne Butter
One has only to remember the descriptions of Jehanne s presence and its effect on others Her personality seems to have had such a strong impact on those she encountered that it could be felt physically, many compared meeting her for the first time to the sensation of being struck The emotions pro duced m others were not those associated with fear however The words most often used to describe her presence asserted a combination of compassion and intelligence so great as to produce what one observer, in a phrase later known to billions, saw as "a living fiame of a woman '
But this was not fire as the devourer, it was flame as the beacon, the guide This flame led the crusade for twenty years When it died the Jihad became the flame itself, and this would be the fire of destruction
Two points remain to be made First of all, no matter how unusual a person Jehanne might have been, the genesis and success of the Jihad are not explainable solely by reference to any individual Even such a person as Jehanne could not have led a successful crusade of this sort had it not been for the peculiar combination of conditions offered by the planet of Komos and its relation to Richese How many such rebellions led perhaps by men or women as unusual as Jehanne, failed for lack of the circumstances that produced the "agar for rebellion' that obtained on Komos7 We shall never know, for they did fail, and even the folk-memory of Leto II cannot rescue them from time
But this is not to deny Jehanne her due Nothing can deny her mat She is the equal of Jessica, the mother of Paul Muad'Dib, in her effect on human history, and this comparison brings us to our second and final point
Both of these women, for the most intense of personal reasons, defied their order, the Bene Gessent To please her Duke, out of her love fctf him, Jessica bore a son rather than the daughter that had been enjoined Out of her gnef for her dead daughter, Jehanne embarked upon a rebellion which she pro posed to lead This violated one of the most ancient of Bene Gessent proscriptions, that
against the public involvement of their mem bers as social leaders of any sort The dangers of exposure of the order under these circumstances were manifest, yet Jehanne persisted After Richese, with the launching of a Jihad, the exposure of the order became a virtual certainty but by then all the priestesses of Komos were involved also
Twice m the history of the order, then, the severest strictures of the Bene Gessent have been violated by one of their own Sisterhood, acting in response to intense personal motivation It would seem that even the most compelling program of education and mottva tion ever devised, that of the Bene Gessent, is not enough to completely extinguish the independence of mankind Our history has taught us to be thankful for this FM
Further references BUTLERIAN JIHAD LorsKarden The Flame and the Flower A Short History of the Butlenan Jihad (Yorba Rose) Th Breno Patrick The Kubeban Heresy Vol 52 Patrologia Dwporae (Libermann Miller) Harq al Ada The Butlenan Jihad (Work in Progress Aitatos Studies Temporary Series 283 Lib Conf)
BOTLERIAN JIHAD ("THE GREAT REVOLT) ITS CAC1SE AND EFFECT. Before the rise of the Atreides, histonans argued endlessl) wheth er great people made great events or great events made great people The impact on history of Muad Dib and the Emperor Leto renders the question moot but before those tremendous personalities, the question is legitimately raised We face the question specifically when we consider events as piv otal as those that occurred between 200 and 108 B G Did a vast sea-change in the human ocean produce Jehanne Butler (see BUTLER, JEHA.NNE) or did this remarka ble and luminescent woman by her will shift the currents of humanity''
Even the name we use for the period implies an answer to the question If we call those events The Butlenan Jihad ' we side with the histonans who define as ' great those individuals who move the mass of humankind in a new direction if we use the term The Great Revolt, we ally ourselves with those who see leaders as simply the front rank of a humanity moving in the direction the masses determine
Histonans close to those events also specu
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lated on this same question The writings of one of them, recently discovered, shows how that turning point was viewed m the calm immediately following it Kruwl Sheivvun (c 113-185) served as Imperial Historian under Saudir n In his major work, The Founding of the Empire, Sheivvun speculates on the Jihad, employing the metaphor of waves as affected by the tides At flow, each wave breaks and recedes, but the senes of waves creeps higher and higher on the beach until high tide u> reached Should someone wish to divert the waters of the high dde for human purposes, the task would be impossible during the ebb Likewise in human affairs, he argued A popular readiness for change is aimless without capable leadership; but the great leader without ready support ends in obscurity However, when human genius combines with movement in fee fades of the people, new directions result Such a combination was the Butlenan Jihad
Sheivvun was the first historian to point out that the Empire rested on a tnpedal structure, consisting of House Comno (backed by the Sardaukar), the Spacing Guild, and CHOAM The Jihad cleared the way for the establishment of all three of the organizations, none of which had existed before the Great Revolt In researching the conditions that led to the foundation of the Empire, Sheivvun was necessarily drawn to considering the events that had cleared the path He began by examining the systems of commerce and government
Trade depends, of course,, on transportation, and politics on communication Bom of these functions, prior to the Great Revolt, were coordinated by computers—both the patchwork of larger and smaller groups of planetary systems and the traders who served them depended on faster-than-kght ships whose progress through hyperspaee was controlled by computers
For example, consider Transcom, a trading corporation lasting for almost seven thousand years the aU-biifr-overwheming amounts of data processed m split-seconds during hyperspatial travel led Transcom to direct its ships from a central computer-bank, Centrans, located on an artificial satellite, Xenophon As a ship entered hyperspaee, its destination
was transmitted to Centrans via Holtzman Waves During the ship's progress to pre-designated points en route, Centrans processed the information and prepared course corrections When the ship reached the first "mail drop," it reentered normal space and received course updates from Centrans The computer-bank simultaneously handled routing for Tramcom's more-than-twelve-thousand ships, during its long history, various mercantile associations subscribed to Transcom's service—the Van Rijn combine, A&ionel, Far Traveler Couriers, and many others With a clear perception of the indispensabihty of the communications satellites, the crusaders of the Jihad struck early at Xenophon and similar establishments The result was immedi ate and final the utter collapse of regular interstellar trade Had Transcom (and companies like it) not been destroyed by the Jihad, there would have been no transportation vacuum for the Spacing Guild to fill
As with trade, so with government Political organization before the Jihad took many forms, although few planets were absolutely independent Most together with their nearest neighbors, formed federations, confederations, unions, pastorates heterarchies, feudocracies, neofeudocracies coalitions, commonwealths, colonial empires, autonomous dominions— every form ol defoliation thai the ingenuity of ten thousand worlds could create These groupings varied in size from a handful of worlds to mighty parliaments of hundreds of systems Yet every one depended on communication should one member of a federation be endangered, the tall for help was sent forth b) automatic and self-repairing machines Without those machines, communication was slow and chancy, and planets were left to their own resources
The Great Houses survived the political chaos of the Great Revolt (indeed, some profited from it), and many saw the thousands of divided planets as ripe fruit for plucking Almost as many reached for the fruit and warfare raged for a century as would be emperors scrambled for an imperial crown The Corrmos emerged as victors, but the early members of that house little realized what a debt they owed to the Butienan Jihad even the legendary Sardaukar would
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have been little match for a unified and organized counterattack from a confederacy of hundreds of worlds But the Jihad, smash mg first interstellar communications, razed large and small governments planet by planet, leaving only rubble, ready for reassembly by the nimblest barbarian
The Butlerian Jihad, then, prepared the way for the establishment of the Empire, in the same way, the Great Revolt was itself prepared for by centuries of smaller waves nsmg to high tide
A shadowy figure of whom we know only a name—Duldert—enters the historical record m 111 B G as the founder of a group called "Humanity First," organized to pro mote less reliance on computers and to advocate appeal from the judgments of the machines Exactly what circumstances pro-voked this group is not known, but for five hundred years thereafter, tensions increased Some few planets—Sarash-Ziltish, for one— had computer pogroms of their own well before the birth of Jehanne Butler
When she appeared on the scene, then, independent support for the movement she would create was already m place on thousands of worlds, waiting only for some great unifying cause to unite it
After her conquest of Kotnos, bra native world, and its mother plaaet Rictiese (detailed in the entry for BUTLER, JEHAKNE), a frenzy swept over the victorious forces, a frenzy fueled by almost equal parts of hysterical fanaticism and calculating greed When Jehanne died in 182 B G , the cause did not so much lose a leader as it gained a martyr The generals who continued in her name were moved by a zeal she herself could not have matched she knew her own fears and weaknesses, detects that were forgotten by her worshipers
Kruwl Sheiwan was the first to discover that the forces of the Jihad had another motive, too wealth Sheivvan found that the
greater part of the Jihad forces on any given planet were mercenaries usually recruited on the last planet conquered The most ad venturous and the most dispossessed were easily tempted by the thought of spoils on a planetary scale
And Sheivvun made one final discovery, one not fully appreciated until now the Butlerian Jihad was not a monolithic cam paign that swept irresistibly through the human gdUxy On the Lonlrary, it was the composite of thousands upon thousands of separate forces lasting almost a century To conceive of the Jihad, one should not think of the Imperial Army or Paul's Fremen, but rather of pirate fleets, moving when and where their commanders will, with little in common but the name of Jehanne Butler and a hatred for the machines the> could neither understand nor replace Many, many times— on the planet Wencolley, for instance—local resistance was absent, yet the planet was devastated by fighting between two groups of crusaders, each bent on proving the purity of their faith by the magnitude of their cruelty
With Jehanne gone, the Jihad had no higher objective than the destruction of the computers It was successful beyond expectation in that aim, and the movement dwindled as it found fewer and fewer targets for its wrath In its wake, or to continue Sheivvun's metaphor, as it ebbed, it left both poverty and opportunity it burned a hatred and fear of thinking machines so deeply into the hu man psyche that one wonders if that wound has, yet completely healed Yet at the same time there is no denying that all the expan sions of individuals and society that followed— the Mentat training, the Spacing GuiJd the Empire itself—was made not just possible but necessary by the Jihad To weigh the gains against the losses, the newfound tal ents and resources against the suffering that preceded them, demands a scale that has not yet been invented FM
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CALADAN, Education on. Muad'Dib once said of his birth planet, Caladan, "We had no need to build a paradise of the mind on Caladan—we could see it physically all around us'' And m paradise what need is there of education?
FORMAL EDUCATION One can readily grasp the frustration experienced by many who attempted to bring serious education to the quiet villages and towns of Caladan They all failed except Doctor Louis Katsher IV, artist, musician, dancer and director
Dr Katsher (5844-6951), recognized the lack of motivation among the people of Caladan for any form of education that was n6t in itself intellectually or artistically interesting The need for vocational training simply did not exist on the water-nch tropical planet Food was readily available from the fertile seas and from the lush plants full of fruit, bemes and wholesome legumes Shelter was not a serious concern because the temperature was mild and the weather was seldom severe Nor were military arts a necessity given the peace imposed on Caladan by its planetary governors, who had put a virtual end to tnbal battles Village rivalries were settled by sporting contests
The economic base of Caladan was not extensive, limited mostly to tourism and the export of whale fur The tourist trade used some skilled persons, but the majority of jobs it supported were either m ancillary, family-owned small busmeses or in minimal ly trained staff personnel Often the great inter-planetary hotel chains handled all necessary job-training programs The small businesses that catered to the needs of the tour ists were little more than cottage industries
The whale fur industry was also a series of family-operated small scale efforts with the essential training taking place on the job and not in schools The population felt no need for formal training in business methods or marketing Most people of Caladan felt little need to work at all
Into this paradise came Dr Katsher, champion of arts and letters He gave the people of Caladan a great gift by starting the first Caladan Artists Conservatory His art colony grew m numbers, respect and quality After a few years it was evident that the people of Caladan not only could appreciate fine music, poetry, theater and the arts but that they were ready to participate Under Katsher's leadership the arts flourished The planetary governors, supported his work eagerly be cause it helped the local population aspire to excellence and attracted tourists from many other planets
The first colony was located at Epidaurus in the province of Orange and was soon followed by others Within 250 years the entire planetary population had relatively easy access to some form of reading room, studio, theater, or auditorium A prodigious number of productions m dance, music and theater were presented The people particularly pre feired what Dr Katsher called the ephe meral' arts such as music, oral readings of poetry, short stones, theater water colors, and paper folding (known as "oreegahamee") However, there was some interest also in sculpture, composing, oil painting, film and philosophy Nevertheless, the people had a saying, Art is a flower, enjoy it now, for tomorrow another comes "
In her Conversations Princess Irulan quotes
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Muad'Dib as saying that the people of Caladan paid the pnce one always pays for paradise in this life "We went soft, we lost our edge'' With no viable military force the planet was extremely vulnerable to invasion For protection, the ruling House often relied on mercenaries and outside "military advisors" to support the ill-prepared and disinterested local groups
The aristocracy, chiefly the six minor families who ruled on each of Caladan* s three continents, and the four hundred provincial regents under these minor families, were given some specialized education Their children were sent to the Governance School in the capital city for a four-year program in statecraft lactic?, leadership, management, and civilian control But even this program was hardly as rigorous or demanding as it might have been, for after all, the problems the students would face would not be great and there was time to learn in the way that Caladan had always learned, from "watching and doing "
The education of Paul Atreides, like the many before him who were groomed for real authority, was naturally an exception Paul underwent a constant and demanding program of training from his earliest childhood He learned weaponry from the swordmasters Idaho and Hal leek, be teamed the Atreides battle language from his father, he learned the subtleties of Voice and observation from his Bene Gessent mother Paul was taught about poisons, transport, military tactics, and wilderness survival He learned to appreciate Gurney Hal leek's music, as his people did Paul was trained as a mental by Thufir Hawat and as a healer by Dr Wellington Yueh He learned to lead others arid to fol low orders, with the objective of preparing him to rule the planet Ironically, it was not enough It took the hard knowledge gained on harsh dry Dune to prepare him to rule the Empire
INFORMAL EDUCATION Few histories are kept in paradise, time is of no concetti and few worry long about the errors of the past Without the aid of written records our ability to reconstruct the informal educational system is limited But we do know that there was great reliance on "family teaching" and
on "watching and doing ' A child could learn how to live in paradise by simply participating m normal family life A little time spent on the family vegetable plot, maybe a few hours spent fishing or swimming, or tending the family garden preceded an evening of quiet stones or campfire dances One day was much like another
Of primary concern in the informal training of the young v/as preparation for the dangers of their water rich environment Children were taught to swim before they learned to walk They learned the dangers of mud slides, flash floods, and the various methods of water transport, the most popular of which was sail rafting They learned to fish both for pleasure and for food They also learned how to find their way through the dense, fast-growing vegetation that covered most of the land masses on the planet Beyond the survival skills for children and basic econom ics of the family business for youngsters there was little else to be concerned with in Caladan, "the paradise planet of the miracle seas" PF
Furtker reference FRFMEN EDUCATION
CAIADAN WINES. The following entry iv an excerpt from a dining guide composed proba bly at the court of the Padishah? m the century before Paul Muad Dib ascended to the throne It is presented here as an interest ing sidelight on the gracious In ing of the Great House aristocracy and their ventures into a variety of commercial activity—Ed
Although Caladan does produce some tew fine wines, bv far the bulk of the planet's small wine production is of no more than ordinary quality, locally made for local consumption Viniculture simply has not been developed as an art form anywhere m the Delta Pavoms system, this condition owing as much to a yeast-mmbiting radiation spec trum thrown by the star itself as to the history and traditions of the system's native peoples Average per capita annual wine con sumption on Caladan is a meager 1 5 liters and there is no commercial off-world export industry
However five hundred years of oenological
CALADAN WINES
146
CALENDAR
experimentation patronized by the ruling Atreides family have not been without some positive results Imported vines simply will not grow in Caladan soil under the Delta Pavoms rays On the other hand native root-stocks take grafting readily, the traditional problem has been that these rootstocks mtro duce a strong musuness into the Savor of the wines produced by whatever fruitstocks are grafted onto them Between this difficulty and the absence of a natural fermentation yeast in the planet's atmosphere, the trials facing the vintner on Caladan are formidable indeed Perhaps no commercially feasible solution to the problems will ever be found, but laboratory and hothouse work m the areas of plant hybridization, climate control, bacteriology, and nontraditional wmemaking technique have at least made it possible for the Atreides nobles to grace their tables and to cement then: ceremonies with wines of three varieties These are
CASYRACK A dry, full-bodied, intensely flavorful and long-lived red wine, developing nuances and subtle complexities in the bottle for as long as fifty or seventy five years after corking when it is produced in a favorable climate However, Caladaman Casyrack is dun and harsh when young, though the harshness tends to mellow out before the dimness becomes downright anemia The rule of thumb is that it should not be drunk before it is five years old, but must be consumed before its eighth birthday Rarely, an exceptional bottling will last much longer According to legend, the original fruitstock was brought by the Atreides family among its heirlooms when first it came to Caladan Casyrack remains the favorite Atreides ceremonial wine, more perhaps because of tradition than because of continuing quality The wine does not travel well, and the best Caladaman Casyrack does not leave the Atreides family compound
BORNOLLA The most promising wine produced on Caladan A light red wine, always a trifle rough and highly alcoholic (usually around 16%), its origins are unclear It seems to be the result of uncontrolled hybridization over a period of some centimes among hothouse and native grape vaneties Well-made Bornolla is fresh-tasting and slightly
yeasty, a remarkably fruity wme The Cala daman mustiness which is the bane of vintners the planet over is almost totally absent from Bornolla until the wine enters into its third year hence it should be drunk while it is still quite young Oenologists continue to experiment with nontraditional vmifying techniques in the attempt to eliminate that characteristic mustiness altogether If ever they are successful, and if the wine then proves capa ble of travel and long term aging Caladan may finally join the ranks of first-class wme producing worlds The Atreides family clearly would like to see this happen
DELKAI Never much better than ordinary, Delkai can be a pleasant and fruity-enough sweet white wine It is the only commercially available wme on Caladan which is produced entirely from native grapes remarkable enough for that reason alone There are a dozen or more different methods of producing the wine, each one a chemical process that is the jealously guarded secret of a single family Depending on the producer the wine may vary from emerald green to straw colored and from syrupy s.weet to medium dry (the greener, the sweeter) The Atreides oenologists have developed a sparkling Delkai from the dry end of the range that if disgorged annu ally after the third year m the bottle ages well and seems to improve with travel This sparkling Delkai ts not surprisingly the wme which the Atreidet> family must frequently serves when ritual or propriety indicates that a Caladaman fla\or is desired D M
SUUGEE [A word must be added for Suugee the highly alcoholic beverage dis tilled from Pundi Rice Although mainly a cheap and effective drink reserved to the peasantry it enjoyed a brief vogue among the most discriminating classes during the Pauline Imperium —Ed ]
Further reference Biizal ven Tinuum A Gastronome s Guide to the Great Houses tr Suun Sen Yao (Caladan INS)
CALENDAR, STANDARD IMPERIAL The sys
tem of chronology used for official purposes throughout the Impenum since 5000 Its ba sis is the time in which Kaitam completes one revoluUon around its primary 360 days, 3 56 seconds The units of measurement are
CALENDAR
147
CALENDAR
60 standard seconds to a standard minute, 60 standard minutes to a standard hour, 24 standard hours to a standard day, 6 standard days to a standard week, 5 standard weeks to a standard month, 12 standard months to a standard year
ORIGIN When House Comno shifted its capital from Salusa Secundus to Kaitain in 1487, the emperors already knew that they were not only moving to a much more pleas ant world but to a stable and regular planet as well The saying "You don't need a watch on Kaitain" was doubly significant it re ferred not only to the mote leisurely pace of the planet but to the ease of keeping tune by natural means
The Alman Comno emperors followed the immemorial custom, when arriving on Kaitain, of dividing the natural day into twenty-four parts, those parts into sixty, and those again into sixty They retained the terms hour minute, and second for these divisions even though the Kaitamian hour, for example, differed from the Salusan hour (as it did by lesser or greater amounts from the "hours' of the great majority of inhabited worlds)
ProUdmationi., edicts, bulletins, aid the like—anything warranting both dating and preservation—were promulgated throughout the Impenum bearing the Kaitamtan date followed by, e g , ' 'given in the seventeenth day, fourth month, tenth year of Saluso VII" Only the Spacing Guild had a continuing need to reference the local dates of one planet to those of another, and they employed their own method—pulsed, regular tones on the Hdizman Waves aimed at the mail drops— as the standard to which local times were compared Those outside the Guild who had the occasional desire or need to relate the day, month, and year of one planet to those of another—factors, merchants, travelers—had to depend on Chronology Tables, or, where the need was recurrent (as in CHOAM) relegated the duty to meatats For thousands of years, local chronologies served local needs and Ate Kaitaiman calendar served bureaucratic needs
THE IMPERIAL UNION STANDARD CAL ENDAR In 4996, Mgonpo Shesrab, Chain berlatn of Coma XHl* conceived the idea of standardizing the calendar throughout the
Impenum, in honor both of the emperor, who by chance bore the name of the House, and of the approaching fifth millennia! cele bration of the foundation of the Impenum
For the weekdays, Shesrab selected Sadai, Madai, Gwenzai, Zhanzai, Fnizai, and Sud-arazai (the names already in use on hundreds of worlds), the etymologies of all these are lost m antiquity except for Sun's day, "Moon's day," and of course "Jehannes day"
For the names of the months of the year Shesrab took those already established by centuries of tradition with one exception All derived ongmally from Galach phrases meaning "in Sheuset s month, 'in Saudir's ' month, and so on The only one not named for a great former emperor (at that time) was neFrekim, from Fredhnk Comno, the father of Comn XIII Beginning the year with the Spring equinox, Shesrab made official these names
neSheustim ntlioodim
naSaudnm mMikhm
neFrekim nEzhnni
nAvlardim nlstaivim
naShadmim nAlmanim
noCormm nAudnm
The division of months into five weeks of six days each had already been used for thousands of years, but was made a part of the "Imperidl Calendar' presented tu Corrm XIII Cornn was known to prefer more concrete gifts but he did authorize the calendar for Kaitain and such other planets as wished to adopt it
Many planets did When the lengths of the sidereal years ot planets inhabitable by hu mans are graphed, their distribution forms the normal probability curve Adding local leap days at penods determined by the amount of variation from Kaitain s sidereal year kept the years in step for those who adopted the calendar But few felt the desire and fewer still the need to sacrihce the local names of months for those of Kaitan
Shesrab (supported by his master's indifference to the subject) indulged his passion tor order and regulanty He devised a way to have days of the week and months of the year instantly related throughout the Impenum
CALENDAR
148
CALENDAR
no matter what the length of the planet's sidereal year this scheme was the "Imperial Union Standard Calendar"
To understand how the IUSC was intended to work, consider a hypothetical case of four
planets, A, B, C and D, with years (in Kaitaiman measure) of 6 months, 9 months, 14 months, and 18 months For simplicity of illustration, we assume that the days of these four are exactly equal to Kattam's day
  |   |   |
C 14 MONTH |
D 18 MONTH |
STSTANDA |
A 6-MONTH YEAR |
B 9 MONTH YEAR |
YEAR |
YEAR |
neSheustim |
GwaneSheustim |
same as A |
same as B |
same as C |
naSaudnm |
TaunaSaudniB |
same |
same |
same |
neFrefcim |
FreeneFrekiai |
same |
same |
same |
nAvlardim |
FbnAVlac&ra |
same |
same |
same |
naShadimm |
RinaShjdmim |
same |
same |
same |
noCornim |
SmoComan |
same |
same |
same |
nElroodim |
GwanEJroodim |
SeunElroodim |
same |
same |
mMiklim |
IkuiuM&hm |
AiiuMiklim |
same |
same |
nEzhnm |
FrcenBzhrim |
NitnEiknm |
same |
same |
nlstaivim |
Fonlstaivim |
GwanlsUavim |
Tenlstaivim |
same |
nAlmamm |
FunAUnaiHBi |
TaunAlmamm |
ElvnAImaram |
same |
nAudnm |
StnAudrim |
FreenAudnm |
TwelnAudnm |
same |
neSheustim |
GwaaeSheusam |
FoneSheustim |
FarneSheustim |
same |
naSaudnm |
liunaSaudriffl |
FiinaSaudnm |
FornaSaudnm |
same |
neFrekim |
FrecnePrekim |
StneFrekim |
GwaneFrekim |
FipneFrekim |
nAvlardim |
fbnAvlardim |
SeunAvlardim |
TaunAvlardim |
SignAvlardim |
naShadnum |
FimaShadmtm |
AinaShadmim |
FreenaShadmim |
SvenaShadmim |
noCornim |
SmoConwn |
NunoCornm |
FonoConum |
hnoCornim |
nElroodim |
GwanElfoodiin |
same |
FimElroodim |
GwanElroodim |
mMiklim |
Tsur.iMiklim |
same |
SimMiklim |
TaumMiklim |
  |   |
etc |
  |   |
By referring to the table, we see that on Kaitam, the first month of the year is of course ne$heastim, on the other four, the first month is named GwaneSheustim (or "one of Sheuset's") Then follow "two of Saudir's," "three of Frtdbrik's,*' "four of Avelard's," "five of Shaddam's," and "six of Comn's " The next month on Kaitam is nElroodina, but planet A's year has ended, on planet A, therefore, the next month is GwanElroodim, or "one of Blrood's " while on B, C, and D, it is SeunElroodim "seven of Elrood's " Thus, d number prefix was added to the name of the month, throughout the worlds the name was constant, but the fanner an planet A, who sowed his seeds every sppmg, planted ui the "Gwan " months, whatever the last part of the name may have been
The names of the months were the same on B, C, and D until nlstatvim, which marked the beginning of the new year for B, hence when it was Gwanlstaivim on B, it was Tenlstaivim ("ten of Istaivaa's") on C and D The last two planets parted company at
the end of the fourteenth month, the next following was one of Fredhnk's' on C, but ' fifteen of Fredhnk's ' on D
Parts of the IUSC were adopted on those planets with sidereal yean varying from that of Kditam by less than a few standard days Leap days of local placement brought the calendars into step as needed But even a planet off by as little as ten standard days, say one with 370 m a sidereal year, found itself at variance of a whole month m only three years 'Leap months' were a nuisance to implement to save a svstem that offered little more benefit to the a\erage citizen than the knowledge of what month it was on Kaitam Theoretically the concept of com bimng the local and Imperial systems by number prefixing could have been extended to the week the day, the hour even to the second No effort was made to promote these refinements, and little was made to bring monthly names into uniformity
The IUSC was a concept of convenience to a relative handful of worlds Some scores of planets use it still, but even on those few
CANTO RESPONDU
149
CANTO RESPONDU
its development would dismay Shcsrab Lan guage change has so altered the names that little remains in common with the Imperial terminology Planet "B" in the example above is Topaz, whose sidereal year in standard units is 270 days, 3 minutes, 18 02 seconds Topaz still employs the IUSC terminology, but compare the names of the months on Topaz with those of Kaitain
Kaitain Topaz
ncSheusbm Gwasheu
naSaudnm Tausau
neFrekim Reerre
nAvlaidim Rmav
naShadnum Fiisha
noConum Sicor
nElroodim Scunel
niMitlim AUBik
n£zhnm Niinezh
nlstatvim Gwasheu
nAlmamm Tutsan
nAudrun Freefre
Note that the people of Topaz, over the millennia, came to think Of the first month of the year as named not "Gwan + the emperor's name in its cycle of twelve" but simply as the whole word "Gwasheu " Thus, the names of the months on Topaz coincide with those on Kaitain only one year out of every three, and this is on one of the best of all possible worlds
Offering neither tradition nor convenience, the IUSC was bound to fail the Spacing Guild never used it, the Bene Gessent never used it, its adoption among the Landsraad seemed toadying Only for House Corrino and its bureaucracy did it find employment, and with the ascension to power of House Atreides, who brought along the native fremen calendar, it eaded its official life WE M
Furftef references. Mgoiipo Shesntb Memorandum to His Imperial Majesty Lord Comn on the Occasion of Five Thousand Years of the Blessings of His House RakisRef Cat 185-B22! Bmrhis Elspna, The Stars m Their Courses The Calendar in History (Kaitain. Lintiinn UP)
CANTO-RESPONDC]. A part of an ancient nte first developed by the Bene Gessent Missionana Protectava According to the Rev eiend Mother Gams Helen Momam m her detailed notes on the history of the Bene Gessent breeding program, it was the func-
tion of the Missionana Protective to develop on those planets upon which members of the Sisterhood might have dealings local mythologies which afforded them protection if the need arose These mythologies often took the form of popular religions that sanctified the persons of the Bene Gessent as prophets of some long-awaited mahdi (or messiah)
Such mythologies were manifested and kept fresh in the minds of the superstitious natives by rites known as the panopha propheticus, which seems to imply that they were so designed to serve whatever needs a Bene Gessent could have in a time of emergency
One example ot the panopha propheticus is recorded in the nduhan crystals discovered cm Rakis The significant passage is part of a manuscnpt concerning the early life of Paul Muad'Dib and was recorded by Leto II Since Leto II claimed to have withm him the personalities and memories of all his ancestors, his descnption of the nte in which his grandmother, the Lady Jessica participated has at least some claim to accuracy
Pressed on every side lo justify to the Piemen her right to their protection Lady Jessu-d put into practice her long held belief that the Fremen had been visited by the Missionana Protectiva and ventured to lead the sietch in the panopha propheticus Allowing the trance ot deepest memory to take her consciousness she began "Ibn qirtaiba as far as where the dust ends And then went on to recite a verse which began * Mine enemies are like green blades eaten down/ That did stand in the path of the tempest The verse created an immediate response among the Fremen and with the Lady Jessica clearly controlling die nte it continued
The Fire of God mount over tiiy heart
she said The Fire of God set alight came the
response
Thine enemies shall fall she said Bl la kaifa they answered
What seems to be described here is the invocation part of the rite which scholars believe to be the Canto-Respondu section In effect it establishes the right of the leader to partake of the panopha propheticus and when that nght is recognized by the congregation,
CASTLE CALADAN
150
CASTLE CALADAN
the speaker also wins a mystical standing with the community
Leto II also seems to imply m this passage that the Bene Gessent planted some very powerful words within the Canto-Respondu which had a hypnotic effect upon those who responded These words, combined with the superstitious awe of the respondents, appeared to produce a trance in which the leader of the nte achieved almost godlike status in the congregation Thus, in the hands of a Bene Gessent who would also have the power of Voice at her command, the Canto-Respondu must have been irresistible The noted scholar Pyer Bnizvair has noted that ancient religions often used forms like the Canto-Respondu to knit a congregation together m its faith Given, however, the power of the Bene Gessent and the heightened sense of community held by the Fremen, such ancient ntes eouid have only been pale copies of what went on between the Lady Jessica and the sietch which finally adopted her as their Reverend Mother
Further references. MISSIONARIAFRO-IECTIVA,PANOPLIA pROFHEncire Pyer Bnizvea, ed , Summa of Ancient Beliefs and Practice (Bokhef Collegium Tamo), R M Gaius Helen Mohiam, Protegemma io the Sacred History of the Council of Note Lib Con Temp Series Leto Atreides n Journal Rakis Ref Cat 55 A89
CASTLE CALADAF1. This impressively crafted manse was the home of House Atrcides throughout their tenure as Sindar-Dukes of Caladan (third planet of Delta Pavoms) and for six generations earlier The Castle was ordered built for Weste Atreides, younger brother of ruling Duke Philippos of Gallatm in 8711 The younger Atreides, no longer wishing to live m the shadow of his sibling, had obtained permission to relocate himself and his family to that pleasant world
Istaivan Hiivaladan, one of the most illus tnous architects of the era, was commissioned to design the Castle, it has been described as his finest work Certainly it was his longest-lasting, as portions of the central keep and much of the perimeter wall are standing to mis day
The estate surrounding die Castle included approximately five hundred hectares of arable land enclosed by a wall two meters thick
and fifty meters m height built of varicolored Caladanian granite and strengthened by flying buttresses
Within the wall lay fields of pundi nee, both for home consumption and export wheat and other grains, al] manner of vegetables and fruits, and a complete array of livestock, both native and imported The Castle was, in short, capable of total self sufficiency m keep ing with the desires of its original owner (Wesle was a lifelong student of history and wished to pattern Castle Caladan after the manor of a feudal lord of Old Terra)
Various dwellings, comfortable it not grand, were provided on the estate for the retainers who tended all of its flora and fauna A military barracks housed the detachment of Atreides soldiers Wesle had been granted by his brother
The Castle proper was centered on this tract of land and was constructed of the same beautifully tinted stone that made up the boundary wall In its heyday the building was a marvel it contained twenty fully outfitted bedroom surtes, a kitchen capable of leedmg four thousand if completely utilized, conser-
CASTl£ CALADAN
151
CATCHPOCKET
vatones with plants from a hundred worlds, and a library which had been favorably compared to that of the Court on Kaitam More than two hundred servitors were employed in its maintenance When the Castle was com pleted in 8722, the Sindar-Duke now Paulos XVI, moved his household to occupy the new residence
From 8721 to 9350, the Atreides' lived quietly if splendidly on Caladan Many of Paulos's descendants followed his example and became noteworthy scholars (in particular Orestes II [r 9222-9249], whose theories on the ongms of novae remained unchallenged for six centuries) Others followed artistic or even religious vocations, bat whatever then-pursuit, each generation held one charactens tic m common a marked disinterest in recapturing the Imperial throne Nowhere in their history ts it indicated that any of the Caladaman Atreides felt the urge to rule Castle Caladan, with its emphasis on comfort its priceless art collection, and its persistent lack of any military touch—aside from that token garrison—reflected this serenity
In 9355 following the assumption of the Dukedom of Phihppos XIV1, all of this was changed The Castle underwent a series of alterations walls were removed and rearranged to provide room for the extra servitors needed by a ruling House, the military barracks increased tenfold, and the already sturdy defenses were strengthened to full capacity, at which any but an all-out planetary attack could be rebuffed
The quarters which Piultppos and his heirs occupied slowly evolved from their luxurious state to more utilitarian—occasionally Spartan—forms Drawing rooms and studies became military headquarters and training rooms for the younger family members who were now born into the family of a political ly ambitions Dake and destined to face all of die dangers such a birthright made unavoidable
The studios and galleries so central to the lives of the earlier inhabitants became divertissements for the Atreides ladies rather than places in which the lords of the manor would spend their days Within a century even the great library had fallen into disfavor, its volumes conscientiously dusted but seldom studied
As the nerve center of their fief, Castle Caladan served the Atreides for another twenty-two generations It was left in the hands of numerous caretakers following the assign ment of Arrakis as fief entire to Duke Leto Atreides (Although Count Hasimir Fcnnng was appointed Smdar m Absentia of Cdladan after Leto s departure, he did not relocate to Caladan and there is no evidence to indicate that the Count or his Lady ever so much as visited the Castle)
Upon her return to Caladan m 10196, the Lady Jessica took up residence m Castle Caladan again and remained there—with one interruption, from 10218 to 102202—until her death in 10256 Following the Lady's burial m the Atreides Family cemetery on Caladan, the Castle was declared an Imperial monument
Many generations of Imperial citizens toured the building and grounds which made up the birthplace of Paul Maud'Dib Atreides treating them as things to be venerated for themselves In tune, the fact that Castle Caladan had once been a stately and gracious dwelling was almost completely forgotten, dwarfed by comparison to its importance m the Atreides legend
NOTES
'in this year [he Siridar Duke s brother Count Gamck and all his family were taken hostage when a rebel force attacked Hestia The invaders wished to bargain with the lives of the Atreides—known loyalists to the Crown—in order to obtain passage to Tupile from Ezhar XI the ruling Cornno Emperor The emperor replied with his usual firmness after sending a rather cryptic message of apology to the captives he ordered his troops to raze Hestia completely Nothing on the entire planet was left
2This was the period m which she trained young Farad n Cornno in the Bene Gestent Way
Further references ATREIDES DUKE LETO ATREIDES
HOUSE PROMINENT MEMBERS ATREIDES LADY JESSICA
CAtADAN Orestes Atreides A Life in Transition Lib Conf Temp Series 166 Princess Imlan Atreides Cornno MuadDib The Ninety Nine Wonders of the Universe tr G W Maur (Grumman United Worlds)
CATCHPOCKET. A compartment to hold dis tilled water waiting to be consumed or measured Most catchpockets were used m stillsuits A series of two and sometimes three were interconnected so that overflow from the primary would not be wasted The
CEREMONY OF THE SEED
152
CEREMONY OF THE SEED
heel pump, besides aiding in the distilling process, moved distilled water to appropriate carrying points where the catchpockets were built into the stillsuit The wearer sucked on an attached catchtube to drink the water from the primary reservoir
Valves were rarely used in catchpocket system of the sullsuit, but a few surviving suite contain a capillary type, flapped suction valve on the primary pocket Dating suggests that suits developed by non-Fremen in the villages first used these valves They served as a back-up precaution, behind the catchtube plug, to prevent accidental spillage Use of the valve seems to have skipped over the sietches closest to the villages, but to have caught on in the deep desert settlements fairly late in the Dune era
The capacity of stillsuit catchpockets varied between 25 and 5 liters (combined capacity) It seems unlikely that a conscientious user ever needed that much storage Stilltents have been found with total capacities approaching two liters, but most could store onlj about one liter
Variations on the fundamental catchpocket were used as waiting basins on the portable deaths tills and, temporarily, in connection with windtraps
CEREMONY OF Tfffi SEED. The Bremen rite of passage for potential Reverend Mothers, involving ingesttoa of "the Water of Life, ' (massive doses of a form of melange) the desired racial memory and prescience The Fremen Ceremony of the Seed has its origins in so many unrelated cultures and among so many scattered peoples that its genesis can only be the result of the pressure of the immense accumulated memories of sentient beings both before and after the Butlenati Jihad Certainly, the movement to mental training to handle the vast knowledge of sentient experience and the search for the Atom tU Mithal (a mystical world where there are no physical limitations) by numerous agencies contributed to die increased successes of the Ceremony of the Seed, especially m the cases of the L.ady Jessica Atreides and Paul Muad'Dib Atreides Thus, what may have begun in antiquity as the ineffectual search for racial memory, superstitious ances
tor worship, and feeble attempts at fortune telling prior to the Butlenan Jihad became a powerful source of prescience knowledge, and prophecy
Central to the Ceremony s successftil access to past lives and to Alam al Mithal was the discovery of melange, the geriatric spice on Arrakis, the third planet of Canopus Among the first groups to use melange was the Bene Gessent Sisterhood in the early days of its Missionana Protectiva Some millennia later, Bene Gessent missionaries struggled then- way to the deserts of Dune, as it was then known They were quick to note the similarity between the Fremen Cere mony of the Seed and their own tentative attempts to produce Reverend Mothers soothsayers and the fabled Kwisatz Haderach The Fremen of Rakis had been using the melange in combination with die Ceremony with increasing sophistication since their ar nval on the desert planet as Zensunm Wanderers Their Ceremony assimilated the lore of the Bene Gessent Missionana Pro tectiva and was functional long before the melange was exploited by House Harkoimen and the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles (CHOAM) The Fremen used the Ceremony to produce their own Reverend Mothers and were thus provided with the ancestoral leadership necessary to endure even the ravages of Harkonnen rule Of almost equa! importance, the Ceremony was used to produce sietch tau orgies essential psychological outlets for the oppressed Fremen sources of sociological unity and occasions for the random couplings that produced the Fremen hybnd vigor The final impact of the sietch tau orgies and the Ceremony was that they reduced the frustration of the span nungsbogen that was an unavoidable part of Pardot Kynes s reshaping of Arrakis s ecology
When the Lady Jessica and Paul Atreides first encountered the Ceremony after their flight from the treacherous overthrow of House Atreides by combined Harkonnen/Sardaukar legions, the Ceremony had fully evolved from its most immediate Maometh Sdan on gin and was ready for mythic exploitation by the Atreides Central to the Fremen Ceremo ny of the Seed was the drowning of a stunted sandworm to produce the Water of Life
CEREMONY OF THE SEED
153
This deadly poison was the exhalation of the drowning ' little maker'' A Reverend Moth er changed the water into a harmless and powerful awareness-expanding aphrodisiac by altering its molecular structure through sub atomic p&ythokmeuc manipulation Each sietch kept a number of little makers imprisoned in small caches, restricting their growth to nine meters for the Ceremony During the mih tary triumphs of Paul Muad'Dib's Bjday-kin, sietches were hard pressed to produce the numbers of little makers that were demanded Much later, during the reign of the God Emperor Leto II, the Ceremony of the Seed and its tail content were sustained despite the absence of the little makers, in the Siaynoq sharing among the God Emperor the eternal ghola Duncan Idaho, and the Fish Speakers
Within the context of the festoration of the House Atreides after its fall at Arrakeen on Rakis the most important moment in the Ceremony's long history was the initiation of the pregnant Lady Jessica into the league of Fremen Reverend Mothers Relying on The Dunebuk the compendium of Piemen folkways, we can assume that Lady Jessica's induction into the Sayyadma and ascension to Reverend Mother status was conducted in the usual manner In this case the Ceremony was orchestrated by the Reverend Mother Ramallo whose career was undistmguishedly diligent with the exception of this one moment She was uadoubtably assisted in the menial portions of the Ceremony by a Sayyadma acolyte Partial infermatioa indicates that Chant (Liet-Kynes Atreides) filled this position in Lady Jessica s Ceremony The acolyte would serve the Water of Life, forceably if necessary, and recite the htany 'Here ts the Water of Life, the water that is greater than water— Ran, the water that frees the soul If you be a Reveread Mother, it opens the universe to you Let Shai-HuUid judge now "
As numerous documents show, the Lady Jessica did emerge from the ritual as a Rever end Mother, thus securing her and Paul's influence among the Premen However, the ritual's effect on the fetus that was to become Aha was to shape the Atreides tormented rate eataelysmically For, just as the Ceremony gave Jessica access to fee lives of
all Fremen Reverend Mothers, it also subjected the psychically defenseless fetus to the same awareness This inadvertent assault on Alia was the cause of her alienation from even the child chenshmg Fremen and her later Abomination via possession by the personality of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen during her tragic regency
A relatively short time later, the first Atreides Emperor Paul Muad'Dib also found it necessary to pursue the prescient vision provided by the Water of Life, tf only to gain independence from the Bene Gessent and the Spacing Guild It should be noted that Paul's success was directly influenced by Jessica's pioneering experience His con sumption of only one drop of the Water of Life was clearly a pivotal moment m the ascendency of the House Atreides and provided the awareness that was the basis of the Atrcides/Fremen Empire Emerging from a three-day coma when Chani revived him with the raw Water of Life it was obvious that Paul was the Kwisatz Haderach able to see in the direction-thai is dark, the place which is inaccessible to the Bene Gessent
Ironically, even though the Ceremony of the Seed allowed Paul and the Atreides freedom from and dominance over the Bene Gessent, the Spacing Guild and House Corrmo the prehuente gained became the bane of the Atreides It took all of Leto II s immense reign to breed Siona Atreides and free his descendents from the fatalistic Arafel and Ijaz of melange awareness and restore chance to the universe
Further references Harq al Ada The Dune Catastrophe tr Mngal Reed [Mukan Lothar) K R Barauz cd The Azhar Book Vol 1 4 Arrakis Studies 49 (Grumman United Worlds) Regor Kluursh The Ceremony of the Seed (Diana Synonym) Princess Irulan Atreides Comno ed The Dunebuk Rakis Ref Cat 7Z111 Prmcess Imlan Atreides Comno Muad Dib The Man tr Mityau Gwiilador Arrakis Studies 4 (Grumman United Worlds) andMuatFDib The Religious Issues Lib Conf Temp Senes 133 Pander Oulson St Aha Huntress of a Btl lion Worlds Rakis Ref Cat 2 A439 Q zara Tafwid ed The Pillars oj Wisdom Rakis Ref Cat 6 A698
CEVNA, NORMA (148 78 B G ) Ixian ship wnght and navigator Foster mother of the Spacing Guild Norma Cevna was the most ongmal and brilliant of the Ixian refugees
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who left that planet in search of a world on which to solve the problem paramount in their minds the reunion of mankind by devel oping a computerless interstellar navigation system Cevna's common sense and mtelh gence complemented the ferocious energy of her lover Aurehus Venport, and the two of them made possible the later organization of the Spacing Guild, with all the effect on mankind which that implies
On one of the stops during the wanderings of the Aurehan exiles Cevna accepted among their number a woman who claimed to be outcast from the Bene Gessent, one Dardamus Leona Shard The identity, purpose, and influence of the alleged ex-Reverend Mother are some of the many mysteries surrounding the early history of the Spacing Guild but it is clear that Leona and Cevna became close friends, establishing a comity that was later to direct the course of the exiles research
On reaching lupile, the exiles began to develop a navigation system that would overcome the greatest handicap caused by the Butlcnan Jihad—-Use loss of computers Cevna devoted her time to the design of hyperspace ships, she also became the first known pilot to experiment with the use of melange in ship direction Through her friendship with Leona, Cevna learned the ways of the Bene Gessent, but only those techniques that would realize the navigational potential of spice-trance prescience These studies strained her relationship with Vedport, as the anonymous Aureliaa Memoirs relate Venport supposedly said, 'You spend altogether too much time with the Gessent witch, it works to our hann," to which Cevna replied, *No, it works to our help, not only will I give you your shjp, I will show you how to guide it—pick the farthest star, and I will take it there and bnng it back' (p 166)
And she kept almost all of that grandiose promise Using the industry rebuilt by Venport, she designed die first Guild ship, The Gold en Advent (legend has it that Cevna christened the ship for Venport's dream of the return of travel, and in his honor, playing on the meaning of his name, Venport, so the legend goes, wanted to call it die Jehanne Be Damned} When die ship was completed m 84 B G , ambitious, even revolutionary m
its design, Norma Cevna piloted it on its maiden voyage and in this promise she failed m part through too heavy a reliance on technological traditions
As both designer and accomplished pilot, Cevna was to serve as both captain and navigator but she was suspicous of the reha bility of melange and unable to free herself entirely from the allure of man/machine interfacing Simply put, she intended to short cut her way through die many problems still to be solved by replacing the computer with her own spice-heightened brain Terminals were implanted m both hemispheres of Cevna s cerebral cortex she was thus physically linked to the guidance subsystems slaved to the .ship's Holtzman Drive generators While the right hemisphere dropped the ship into The Void at the spice-directed exact moment the left hemisphere navigated by shifting mass-compensators mounted on a universal gear The Golden Advent reached the test destination on schedule but Cevna suffered increas ingly (and silently) from the strain imposed by her dual roie, as the others on board thought The real cause was much worse electrical "rmnicharges' were sympathetical ly induced in her brain by the implanted electrodes, and her spice prescience caused her to 'foresee, ' albeit subconsciously the trauma Ihese charges would cause The physio logical effects are a matter of medical conjecture, but experiments on laboratory animals suggest that in such a situation spice-awareness causes functions to be shunted from one hemisphere to the other in an attempt to maintain the functions and to minimize damage But Ce\na s constant connection made a feedback loop unavoidable and the condition spiraled upward in intensity When the return voyage was nearly completed Cevna went into convulsions like those of grand mal epilepsy Venport had to drop the ship into normal space and complete its return on back-up systems
Doctors on Tupile eventually diagnosed her condition as induced cortical epilepsy but her seizures continued despite their best treatments As a last resort, they separated the two hemispheres by cutting the corpus callosum to halt the continued shifting of functions The seizures stopped but Cevna s
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abilities were permanently crippled She fell into depression and retired from active life, when Venport failed to return from his test flight of 79 B G , she declined rapidly and died the following year
Norma Cevna's contributions to the Spac ing Guild cannot be overestimated Although little remains of her onginal designs, she showed that melange could stimulate the human mind to replace the forbidden computers To gain this knowledge, she paid the greatest possible price
Further references SPACING GUILD FOUNDATION SPAC
ING GUILD OPERATIONS INTERSTELLAR FLIGHT PRE-OU1LD
VENPORT AURELIUS Anon AnrebonMemoirs Lib Conf Temp Series 684
CHAKOBSA. Any of several languages used for purposes of secrecy by various groups Originally, the cant of the hoed assassins of the first War of Assassins
Although the term chakobsa is encountered many times m the various records of the Rakis Hoard, it may have different specific meanings depending on the time, fee situation, and the speakers The earliest references yet uncovered make it appear that chakobsa was a common noun in the partially reconstructed language Bhotani, having the meaning "jargon" or 'shop-talk" Thus there presumably may have been a falconers' chakobsa, and a carpenters' chakobsa, and so on The particular chakobsa that survived its parent language, however, was that of the Assassins, who used it much Idee a thieves' cant Its usefulness for secret communications as well as its large vocabulary of the many specialized devices and techniques of the assassins caused it to endure when its parent language was no longer spoken as a native tongue
The word therefore changed in meaning, undergoing specialization from "jargon" to "Assassins' jargon", with the passage of tune, it underwent a second change (s& Bhotani became obsolete) from "Assassins' jargon" to "Assassins" secret language " There was still a thud change to come however
It must be remembered that during the days of the Empire, each Great House had the requirements and responsibilities of a national government, including that of a military establishment The army of the Impen-
um and those of each Great House needed not only secure channels of communications but also secure codes It appears that the example of the Assassins led to an adoption of their method The word chakobsa under went a thud change of meaning (probably not before 6000), through the process of commomzation, it came to mean an) secret language especially for military purposes
In most cases, these various chakobsas also resembled that of the Assassins m nature they were simply intense variants of the mother language heavily loaded with words used m specialized senses Of course, armies with memberships of diverse linguistic back ground (such as the Sardaukar) had chakobsas that amounted to a separate military language Such a chakobsa became part of the unit's esprit de corps furnishing a badge of membership
With the metamorphoses of the word in mind, let us examine a particularly thorny example of its use one taken from Princess Irulan's In My Father s House
Irulan reports the reminscences of Muad Dib of bis and his mother s acceptance into the Fremen, and their attendance at the ritual in which the water of his antagonist, Jamis was credited to his account Cham blessed the water and added these words "Ekkeri akain, this is the water fillissin fnllasy of Paul Muad'Dib' Kivi a kavi never the more nakalas1 Nakelas' to be measured and counted, ukair an' by the heartbeats jan jan jan of our friend Jamis Paul is then quoted as saying that his mother ' had recognized fragments of the ritual identified the shards of Chakobsa and Bhotani-jib in the words
Jessica was certainly in a position to identify the language one of the first Fremen she met on Arrakis was the Shadout Mapes Harq al-Ada reports the conversation of the two women in his House Atreides A Histon cal Overview from notes kept by Jessica herself She had indicated that she recog nized that Shadout was a title and that she knew its meaning In response to Mapes question, Jessica replied, Tongues are the Bene Gessent's first learning I know the Bhotam Tib and the Chakobsa all the hunt ing languages '
Her reply to Mapes shows that she is
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using chakobsa in its original sense the chakobsa of the Fremen was not just the code of hunted clans living on the margin of the law, a slang of their own devising for security, but the language of the Assassins That first Bhotam-denved code worked admirably for their purposes, but one wonders how the Fremen came to know it Note too that the Fremen used it not only for secrecy during clandestine activities (such as when Stilgar s patrol located Paul and Jessica) for also for ntual purposes, as the water ceremony shows
Where then had the Frefflen encountered Bhotam'7 The Zensunnt had originated on Terra, and various tribes dwelled for times on Pontnn, Bela Tegeuse, Salusa Secundus, Ishia, Rossak, and Harmottfhep before their reunion on Arrakis Gwiht Mignail has conjectured that the Sardaukar (whose chakobsa was also a complete language, not just a jargon) used Bhotam-Jib, and that the Fremen came to appreciate its usefulness and acquire mastery in it during their sojourn on the prison planet This theory has an attractiveness in another respect, too suppose that during the Harkonnen administration of Arrakis the Fremen use of Bhotaiu was discovered Shaddam IV had already been uneased by the competence and loyalty of Duke Leto's army, when Leto took possession of Arrakis, the Duke would not only have a much larger supply of trainable fighters in the Fremen, he would also have, coinctdentally, the Sardaukar's military code If such were the case, it was a small bat substantial additional reason to lend the use of the Sardaukar to crush Leto Unfortunately for this handsome conjecture, there is no shred of evidence to support it the chakobsa of the Sardaukar has been completely lost, and the guess that the Fremen learned Bhotani from them is no more than a guess Until additional light is shed on the provenience of the Fremen ntual and hunting language, guesses are all we have
CHAUMURKY. One of the most famous and popular poisons of the old Impenum. often used by assassins Chaumurky was a colorless and odorless liquid, nearly always administered in drinks Because of its lack of distinguish
ing characteristics chaumurky was difficult to detect by even the best poison testers and master assassins Its action was extremely swift, its victims usually succumbed within a minute No antidotes were known to be effective, although the Oral History claimed that two or three primitive ones had some success
Chaumurky has been called the aristocrat ic poison par excellence One of its most famous victims was the Emperor Elrood IX, murdered in 10156, the immediate predeces sor of Shaddam IV It is widelj believed that Shaddam IV was responsible for this poisoning, although he was not of course, the immediate dgent involved Seven Imperial servants were executed as a result of the death
The list of the distinguished victims of chaumurky is too long to cite here, but it should be mentioned that the poison was a favorite of House Harkonnen E C
Further references HARKONNtN BARON VLADIMIR Zhautii Kuuraveer The Ar! of Legal Murder (Grumman Tern)
CHENOEH, HOLY SISTER QGINTINIUS VIOLET (13670 13728) The woman who became the focal point of one of the most persistent religious cults of post-Imperium history, born on Wallach LX to a Bene Gessent proctor aide, sister Alexius Gayle Chenoeh Her father Shimon Rasmc was a servitor with House Comno who had accompanied his master on a tour of the Bene Gessent school
Mank Cornno (13628 13695) had been lured to Wallach IX by an invitation from the Sisterhood knowing of his search for a suitable wife, they offered him the chance to examine some prospects among their students The Cornno found none of the women at the school to his liking, which did not trouble the B G in the least There was no place m their program limited as it was at this point by the God Emperor's rule for Mank He was already exhibiting the earliest symptoms of Yankovith's Syndrome, the degenerative nerve disease which would kill him at sixty seven (extremely early for one with Mank s access to melange)
The Sisterhood was far more interested in obtaining a cross between one of their mem-
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bers and Shimon Rasmc, Mank's secretary andscnbe A careful study of Rasmc's ances try revealed an unbroken line of exceptional ly intelligent men, most of whom had served House Cornno either as scribes or as tutors Many of them had exhibited mentat capabilities in spite of Leto II's injunction against the training of mentals and Rasmc appeared to be one of the most promising His talents— or more accurately, the possible talents of his offspring—-were far too valuable for the B G to ignore
Sister A G Chenoeh was considered the best choice available to provide the other half of the genetic material Her own lineage was recorded in the Wallach IX archives as far back as Margot Lady Fearing, and she was of a physical type especially appealing to Rasmc Her seduction of the Comne aide was accomplished as effortlessly as her hypnotic command that he immediately forget the encounter
Although born in the school hospital, Quintmms Violet Chenoeh was not considered a Bene Gessent until she officially entered her training in the Sisterhood at five The young Sister, in addition to the usual course given to the B G pupils, was assigned special tutoring in the areas of mnemonics, history, and psychology The earliest reports on file from her teachers indicate mat she fulfilled and exceeded their expectations in every area Her removal from the school dormitories to private service with Reverend Mother Tertius Mane Hargus in her tenth year is a good indicator of her progress, such an assignment was most often made three to five years later to a student's career
In 13686, Sister Chenoeh was taken on her first off world journey, a tnp to a Bene Gessent conclave on Grumman She served as personal aide to Reverend Mother Hargus, but her true function was mat of apprentice recorder (Another, more experienced sister was also part of the delegation and submitted her own report of events) Her report, reviewed by a committee of proctors on the Wallach IX delegation's return, was considered sans factory while the sixteen-year-old had allowed an unfortunate amount of excitement to color her evaluations, her reportage of facts was nearly flawless In those sections
of the report in which R M Hargus had demanded she record speeches or papers verbatim, no error could be found
Only emotional reactions stood between the young sister dnd the level of expertise to which she might aspire The Sisterhood was confident of their ability to remove those barriers or force the girl over them They had the knowledge of centuries of such manipulation, both m their files and in the memories of their Reverend Mothers
In the same year as her daughter s tnp to Grumman, Sister Alexius Gayle Chenoeh achieved the status of Reverend Mother She was appointed B G representative to the Ixians and transferred to that distant planet never to see her child again Alexius's survival of the melange overdose was duly noted on Sister Q V Chenoeh s file, a candidate's chance of surviving the initiation as a Reverend Mother was always considered better if a near relative had previously emerged from it safely
The young mnemomst was frequently sent off-world after her initial assignment By 13696, a decade after her first trip to Grumman, she was serving as senior recorder on some of the Sisterhood's most sensi tivc missions, including a ' diplomatic" visit to Giedi Prime to revive another Cult of Alia (The Cult would come to Leto II s attention in 13718 as the B G s latest attempt to locate spice hoards For over twenty years however, the Sisterhood s hand in the revival would remain unknown )
Sister Chenoeh s services to the B G did not stop at those of recorder hi 13694 and again in 13710 she bore daughters as part of their breeding program The elder girl, Clansse, proved far less talented than her mother and was eventually married to a minor official in the God Emperor's court The second daughter—unnamed—-was taken from her mother and killed by a delegation from the Fish Speakers garrison on Wallach K only moments after her birth
Since the Sisterhood could not be certain of the reasons for Leto II s objection to the second birth, it was decided not to risk needlessly so valuable a member of the community Sister Chenoeh had no more children
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In 13722, she was sent as one of a pair of recorders to observe the God Emperor and his court on Arrakis in preparation for the Bene Gessent's decennial report (This report served m part to brief those who would form the B G Embassy to Leto II) Along with her co-worker, Sister Tawsuoko, Sister Chenoeh confirmed the execution of the nine "false historians" the God Emperor had or dered in 12335, much of their case rested on a handwritten account of the incident penned by Ikonicre, the Lord Leto's majordomo in that year Sister Tawsuoko, according to their report, was responsible for the document's discovery
A chance for even more important disco\ -enes was given Sister Cbenoeh, however, when the God bmperor invited her on one of his infrequent peregrinations At one point in their ramble along the Royal Road, the sister was invited to trot alongside the Royal Cart and converse personaBy wttfa fee God Emperor, which honor she immediately accepted
It was during this brief walk that Sister Chenoeh was gives die information which appears in the Welheck Abridgment (Lib Conf Temporary Series 578) as well as that which was found among her papers after her death and assembled as tfre Chenoeh Report The first, intended for immediate relay to her superiors, was a declaration of the God Emperor's knowledge and purposes he used Sister Cheaoeh to inform her Chapter House that he was aware of their attempts to suborn his Fish Speakers, that it was his intention to restore the "outward view" that humanity had lost, and that a parallel could be drawn between the Sisterhood's failed attempt to produce their Kwisatz Haderach and his own "achievement" of Siona
The second, secret message was far murkier and more troubling to the Sister The Lord Leto described briefly the sensation of having been pre-born. and the way in which he and his sister bad learned to assert command over their "internal multitudes " He made one of the earliest known references to his secret journal!*, explaining their function as a record for his posterity, millennia later He also predicted—accurately—both his own evolution from living god to dead tyrant to living myth, and Sister Cheaoeh's death prior to her reaching Reverend Mother status
In a final bit of irony, the God Emperor suggested to Sister Chenoeh that her failure to become a Reverend Mother should not trouble her, because her status as an 'integral part of his myth would be far greater Despite the bitter message contained in those words, the Sister felt a peculiar sense of friendship between herself and the Lord Leto and was not frightened by the prophecy
Nur, in obedience to his command did she inform the Sisterhood of all that had passed between them She carefully tran scribed their dialogue and mixed the record of it in among her personal papers before returning to the Wallach IX school for debriefing, providing her superiors with only the public information Her report was very well received
Six years later she was recommended for initiation as a Reverend Mother Even this news, which she could interpret only as a death sentence, could not provoke Sister Chenoeh to disobey Following a day of meditation, and in the presence of all the Reverend Mothers of her Chapter House, Sister Chenoeh was given a drink containing a massive dose of melange The initiation went poorly from the beginning instead of achieving the sense of heightened awareness of self that the spice dose was intended to produce, Sister Chenoeh lost consciousness and slipped almost immediately into a deep coma All efforts by her companions to re vive her were useless Her death six hours after her mgestion uf the drug, was attributed to 'melange incompatibility, a reaction with which the Bene Gessent were all too familiar
Her pm ate report was found when a group of her Sisters cleared her belongings from her quarters Its contents were made known at once to the B G hierarchy
Sister Chenoeh was forgotten, save by the Sisterhood, for almost nine hundred years hi 14715, howe\er wilh the establishment of the Church of the Divided God, the Lord Leto's prediction of her place in his myth was proven true Holy Sister Qumtmius Violet Chenoeh, as she was now known, was seen as an enlightened visionary, a confi dante of God Shnnes and churches were erected in her honor Prayers to the Blessed Sister were popular among the devout
Among those familiar with antique religions,
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Sister Chenoeh was given another title She wasAuliya God s handmaiden in the Temunni Wanderers' liturgy It was widely believed that she had special influence over the Divided God and could intercede with him on behalf of her petitioners
Not even the Reformation some four centuries later sweeping as it was could entirely dissolve the Cult of Sister Chenoeh Let the Church authorities lecture as they would con cermng the Sister's mortal status, the faithful would listen, nod where necessary, and return to then: devotions as if nothing had been said Her churches were torn down or rededicated The Bene Gessent permitted Church elders access to their records to provide confirmation that this "Holy" member of their Order had worked no wonders, performed no miracles (By this time, the Sisterhood was as worried by the attention their charismatic member had-drawn to herself, and them, as was the Church } Still the Call persisted
It can be argued that the discovery of the God Emperor's Journals has given a measure of justification for this tenacity While Sister Chenoeh saw herself as no more than a simple oral recorder, however talented, and a loyal Bene Gessent above all, mentions of her in the Journals indicate that the Lord Leto saw her as something more A few lines from one of the last entries, believed to have been made only days before the God Emperor s death, conveys mat vision
"This silence from the Bene Gessent puzzles me They must certainly have found Sister Chenoeh s records by this time, and yet they say nothing, ask nothing, demand nothing I remember how quickly Luyseyal and Anteac came before me to claim their reward after informing my Fish Speakers of the Tleilaxu plot and marvel at the Sisterhood's present shyness
"For that one Sister, I would be willing to confer greater treasures on them than they dare to dream She has begun the woric my journals will finish " C T
Further references. ATRHDES LETO H BENE GESSERIT JOURNALS OF LETO a hffiLANGB. tsaak SekJon, Hofr$ Sister Chenoeh Her Place IK History (Diana Synonym)
CHEOPS <or "iVamid Chess"). The following is a complete entry from Teckocks' Book
of Games, believed to be published on Kaitam m 10190 —Ed
Cheops is a game of intellectual skill, demanding an alert mind and a high order of concentration It is played throughout the Old Impenum, although in some remote parts it has few devotees While the game s on gins are lost in the mist of antiquity the earliest reference to Cheops is found in a fragment of the poet Guorsun who lived only two generations after the Butlenan Jihad Partial descriptions of the game exist from the third millennium and a picto disc from the eighth millennium shows a game in progress in the background of a diplomatic conference, perhaps a Landsraad meeting with Emperor Istaivan II (r 7711-7746), an aficionado of the game and no mean player himself, according to contemporaries
Rodge of Narbog was the first player to gam wide recognition as a great master of the game His system of play was copied by others in the period from c 9100 to c 9700, and Nola \ard suggests in his early manual Cheops Praxis (9121 Antioch PuulvorPei), that Rodge was the first to use an undercheck The game, "Little Chess," employing only a 64-squared monoplane, has flourished as a game for children, although ddulls occasion ally engage in it as well It is now believed that Cheops developed from Little Chess Haral Khal s thesis that Little Chess is merely a simplification of Cheops is generally discredited
The name "Cheops ' is not that of the inventor of the game as is sometimes supposed Molot rai Karen has suggested in his History of Architectural Form (Bolchef Collegium Tarno) that Cheops was a prehistoric builder of monumental pyramids of unknown function, although his natne planet has not, at this writing, been determined
Stekko is remembered as the winner of the first tourney of consequence In 9340 he defeated all competitors and remained the greatest player until his death He is also noted as the first of many fine players who were slaves The hobby of many wealthy players has been to acquire skilled slave players and organize them into teams to compete with other such teams
Modern play dates from the career of
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CHOAM
Engar 0 Mahl (9696 9770) In his day, rever sionary attacks, never previously employed, became a standard part of the game Thangula-tion and eclipses date from his period as well In fact, the semicheck is the only major development since his time For die past century or a little more controversy has raged over the relative merits of the old-fashioned "formauonal" play and the later "linear" play Many masters try to effect a compromise between the two, producing what diey toll the eclectic" style The real test of any style lies in the play, however, and so far linear play wins most master tourneys, while informal or casual play is usually formational
Several types of erroneous play are usually found among beginners The commonest is undoubtedly excessive verticality Morogan frequently entertained onlookers with amusing demonstrations of tins weakness, and some of his traps are memorized early by every learner of the g&me Other common errors are underpostmg the Queen, premature eclipse, and allowing the opponent to control two centra-diagonals Even the great Garan Akbar committed a premature eclipse and thereby lost a Great Tourney when he was at the height of bis skill
An extensive literature of the game exists, beginning with die earliest known study, Bsh Samierz Kroyd's Playing Pyramid Chess (8993 Antioch Puulvor Pei) There are numerous manuals of instruction, die most popular being Diven's Cheops How to (Dendros Cheopsium), and many intensive examinations of selected features of the game have also been published Since the rise of the Great Tourneys there has been a flood of published records of games of the master players Conventtoas for friendly games may differ from world to world, such as whether the Rook recoil counts as one move or two, but official Masters play is governed by the Interplanetary Cheops Code Its present form dates from 8342, when pawn captives en gravissant were allowed
Players who have won at kast one tourney are termed1 "master players," and are enrolled as members of the Cheops Guild which conducts all tourneys and ranks the masters Areal, regional, and zonal tourneys are held
fairly frequently but the Great Tourneys are held only once in every ten standard years The Great Tourneys are limited to the highest ranking Worldmasters, and all qualified players must compete Only twice in history has a qualified player failed to compete in a Great Tourney, in each case he was promptly re duced in relative standing while the best player who had failed to qualify was promot ed to take his place The winner of the Great Tourney is, Shdhmasier until the title is lost in a match or in the next Great Tourney
Cheops is a game that appeals to all Every habitat has produced master players of high caliber Slaves have attained the Galactic Championship Women have likewise held the Championship, even though male mas ters outnumber female masters by about five to one Ot the Shahmistresses, the most memorable is Victoria Lad} Wong who successfully defended her tide for eleven years before losing to the incomparable York Diven in 10141 Among recent Shahmasters, some have died undefeated like Garan Akbar (10002 10031) and Hnrat Torun (10110-10123) One was stripped of his title for refusal to compete in a Great Tourney (Ah Wolewan, 10086 10090) York Diven possi bly the greatest player of all time, held the title from 10141 until 10173, when he retired and gave up the game complaining of a lack of adequate competition, he subsequently devoted his life to the contemplation of the essence of the game His conclusions al though never published, seem to indicate that the game has much in common with the three-body problem Interested readers are referred to his Twelve Steps to the Apex (Grumman Whitehead) or his Cheops Mas tery (Grumman Whitehead the edition with annotations of the games by Boreet Ryauva-wish is especially helpful) CAP
CHOAM. The Combine Honnete Ober Ad vancer Mercantiles is usually thought of as an economic entity and so it was But the degree to which it was created by political and military forces, sustained by them, and in turn maintained those powers, is a far more important side of CHOAM CHOAM was a creation of the empire, brought about as a reaction to the formation of the Spacing
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Guild CHOAM's creation marked the true beginning of the Impenum, and became one of its chief elements CHOAM and the Impen um were inseparable
Prior to the Butlenan Jihad, in the absence of a single ruling power among the inhabited worlds, there was no single economic organization Indeed, such an organization would not have been possible As virtually every state had access to interplanetary trade and interstellar travel, none could be excluded from trade 4t Any level Trade between the planets, systems and the stars was essentially anarchic and space piracy was common
After the Jihad, trade was almost unknown at interstellar or intersystem levels Without machines to guide ships through hyperspace, trade from system to system or star to star became very slow and extremely expensive The economic forces governing trade of this sort resembled the ancient great caravan routes which had sprung up on various planets with rich, widely separated cultures
While many of these routes dealt with different commodities, they had certain aspects m common They dealt only m the most expensive and least bulky items available Thus almost all the trade was in luxury goods Such was also toe case with what trade survived the Butlenan Jihad Spices (not melange as yet), jewelry (the jewelry planet, Hagal, whose deposits were legendary ten millennia later, was worked out in three and one half centimes, and fifty of those years were before the development of CHOAM), luxury clothing materials (ancient silk, modern schlag skm>—these became the stuff of the caravan trading which was all that connected many Vorlds between the Great Revolt and the coming of the Guild'
The Guild brought itself to die attention of the Impenum and Emperor Saudir I m 12 B G (see SPACING OLILD, FOUNDATION OF) Swiftly realizing that the only feasible way to deal with the Guild was on a basis of mutual advantage, Saudir called for a Financial Synod to convene on Aeranum IV in 10 B G and include representatives of the Guild, Landsraad and the Imperial House Depending on what arrangements could be agreed upon, each participant had much to gain
and/or lose from the existence of the Guild and the advent of swift, easy interstellar travel and trade
Through a masterstroke of purposeful misdirection, the Guild was able to keep secret their dependence on the spice-trance for their navigational abilities By leaking the wonder of melange's geriatric properties, they ensured that their co-participants in the Synod would look no more deeply into the spice's workings
The news of the age-controlling properties of the spice served only to enhance the feelings of the feudal states of the Landsraad toward the Guild and the return of extensive trade They were aware of their vulnerability to the effects of trade, now they had an added reason to wish to control the Guild It gradually became apparent that the Guild and the feudal houses had interests that ran in tandem Both wanted the return of trade, but only in a fashion which would permit each institution to survive As long as the Guild itself remained a secret, closed group, m control of the lanes of commerce, they cared little what political systems survived on the worlds the} served The feudal houses, on the other hand, cared about the economic benefits of trade, and just as deeply about the possible socio political effects of cultural interaction They wished to enjoy the former, without suffering from the latter For years neither the Guild nor the feudal powers could find a way to accomplish all their aims
One of the problems was the ambitions of the most powerful of the Great Houses Most of these houses pre dated the rise of the House of Cornno, and regarded the success of the barbarians from Salusa Secundus as a freak of history which could and should be rectified Rectification, it was understood, would be accomplished by the rise to the throne of whatever house was speaking Those houses that still harbored such ambitions saw in the Guild an opportunity to elevate themselves if they could seize control of this new means of trade Thus threatened, the Guild refused to deal with many of the Great Houses, and compromise between the feudal powers m general and the Guild proved impossible for years But both the Guild and the emperor proved themselves skilled ne-
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gotiators While the Synod remained unable to resolve its problems matters were never permitted to deteriorate so that the gathering broke up The Guild was especially con cemed mat this not happen for they knew that the outcome of the Synod would deter mine whether or not they survived
The deadlock was broken only after two and a half years by the brilliant stroke of emperor Saudir and his chief financial officer the Dioicetes Asetindes During the latter half of the third year on Aeranum when it began to appear that the deadlock might destroy the Synod the emperor called the delegates into full session and presented to them the plan for the formation of CHOAM
Neither the surviving records of CHOAM nor what has now been discovered and trans lated of the Imperial histories permit a full understanding of the structure of CHOAM But some outline is possible It seems cer tain that the plan Saudir proposed to the delegates envisioned the creation of a devel opment corporation which would have a monopoly on interstellar and intersystem trade One percent of the gross profits from this trade would be collected each year and placed in & fund to be distributed to the members of CHOAM on the basis of the shares they held m the corporation Such distributions would occur only after deductions from the fund for any projects for die advancement of existing trade or the development of new markets Membership in CHOAM was limited to the feudal governments
The question of the distribution of shares naturally became one of great moment It was in mis connection that Saudir had reason to feel himself most fortunate m the abilities of his finance minister for it was he who devised the distribution of shares which with minor revisions, became die foundation of the corporation Perhaps the master stroke m this arrangement was assigning the emper or only 20% of the shares In granting the emperor only one fifth of the shares of CHOAM, he placed the Imperial House m a position where it would have to depend on many other of the feudal powers if it were to control the corporation It was also clear to all mat this percentage was far less man the emperor had every right to His military pow er was the equal of die combined forces of
the Landsraad in some respects particularly atomics and the benefits which flowed to him from levy funds and other taxes made him an economic power more than equal to half of the Landsraad s states
All corporations need directors and CHOAM was no exception Originally they were the members of the Landsraad High Council After the first few decades of operation however the composition of the board was changed to reflect the distribution of economic power among the Great Houses Sometime toward the end of the first century after the Guild monopoly membership on the board of directors of CHOAM was offered to any house which did more than 500 mil lion solan s worth of trade through the Guild in a Standard year Directors naturally voted their own shares in the meetings of the board and also those of an> house that wished to grant them a proxy (It is worth noting that one of the reasons the Emperor and the Harkonnens moved so quickly after the Atreides took over Arrakis was their fears concerning the CHOAM board Leto s popularity would probably have shifted the balance of power on the board since he had become a member due to the wealth of the spice trade of Arrakis )
The plan seemed more than fair with re spect to the participation of the emperor Moreover it also had the great advantage of cementing the power of the feudal powers vis-d vis the remaining non feudal states in the empire In closing intersystem and inter stellar trade to non feudal states the emper or offered an unequaled opportunity to the feudal powers to remove their most persis tent worry Not only did such an agreement offer the chance of restriction of these gov emments to their own worlds it also as the emperor s plan was organized strengthened the very states that were most threatened by nonfeudal powers The weakest feudal states were generally those that were closest geo graphically to non feudal governments those that had to compete on an almost daily basis with differing societies
But brilliant as the structure of the propos al was it would have failed if the partici pants had not been able to convince them selves that their shares in the corporation were fair The shares were based on their
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trade without their systems over the past ten years Such a sharing arrangement had some obvious advantages, one of the most compel ling being the stipulation that once a govern ment achieved membership it could never fall below one share in the corporation Thus, though shares in CHOAM were to be redistributed on the basis of trade done once every 100 years, participants would enjoy some benefit from off planet trade even if they could no longer participate The governments were all aware that natural resources were not permanent
It was m this connection that the Imperial financial intelligence system proved its worth to the emperor and demonstrated its abilities to the governments The fiscal information for each of the participants was so accurate and so complete that it was clear to many of the states that the emperor had been aware for many years of extensive tax fraud on their part Others discovered to then- surprise that internal corruption or inefficiency had been robbing them of a proper return on their own resources The figures shocked some more than others, some pleasantly and others unpleasantly, but few escaped unseamed When the time came for debate on the dispo sition of shares, many negative arguments were instantly ended
Since the emperor was indeed as brilliant and cunning as he was now suspected of being he had not depended on the unpre pared reaction of the Synod to his proposal He has tilled the soil of die Synod as the most assiduous of husbandmen For months before the proposal was made to the whole Synod a series of meetings had made clear to various of the feudal powers the advantages accruing to them The most powerful of the Great Houses had been approached, first individually, and men m concert The weaker of the feudal powers, which would become agents for the non-feudal states had been dealt with in regional groups After several months of arguments concerning mat tersof detail, the charter was accepted Once the approval of the Synod had been secured for the Charter, the vote of the Landsraad was a foregone conclusion, since the mem bership m file two bodies so overlapped A meeting of the Landsraad was necessary for the formality of a vote, however, this was
accomplished in a matter of months after the Synod disbanded
The creation of CHOAM which limited membership to feudal states which controlled at least a planet created the connection be tween Great Houses and control of off % orld trade Heretofore there had been several pos sible ways in which one might ha\e defined a Great House now one constant factor could be used This new factor not only served to define the Gieat Houses it also vastly strengthened them The resources now, avail able to a Great House through its shares m CHOAM produced within a decade such a substantial increase m the income of most of the participating houses that the possibility of a successful revolt all but disappeared
More than this the entire economy of the empire entered a period of rapid growth that lasted more than fne centimes This com mercial expansion was accompanied by conquest the empire expanded until it con trolled all the habitable planets available to the current navigation abilities of the Guild
The nature of the trade of these early centuries is not easy for us to grasp Living as we do in a universe from which so many of the commodities in which our ancestors dealt daily have vanished the normal com merce of this period seems the wildest extravagance Even millennia after the forma tion of CHOAM although long before the Atreides came to the planet the residence of the Imperial governor of Arrakis was built with heav> wooden beams many meters in length Tlit largest of these beams discovered by archaeological excavations to date is 15 5 meters m length and it is not complete It is not clear where these beams came from but it would have mv olved a very long journey given the isolation of Arrakis and the ecologi cal history of the nearest planets
Such trade was supported with ease b> the expanding economy of the empire after the formation of CHOAM The rapacit) cf the exploitative economic practices of the time could be overlooked since the steady acquisi tion of new worlds not only replaced the losses but added to the available resources of the system
But as trade began to penetrate to the limits of travel and the expansion of the economy began to slow the commercially
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weaker members of the empire began to suffer Naturally the first difficulties came m the financial aspects of their societies but in the end this spread to the political sphere as well Thus some seven centimes after the formation of CHOAM and two centuries after the economy s rate of expansion began tu slow we can discern the first substantial changes in the membership of the participat ing partners of CHOAM The planet Ecaz now appears m the records of the meetings of CHOAM as an independent voter as do the worlds of Harmonthep and Grumman At least one of these worlds, Hdrmonthep, does not last Jong as an independent, and when it disappears from the records of the meetings of CHOAM it vanishes from the historical record altogether
But a far more important indication of internal unrest in the political systems of the members of CHOAM can be inferred from the percentages of the vote exercised by the emperor Having begun with only 20% of the votes of the corporation, within the proceeding five centuries the emperor had increased his share to 25%, and with the votes of those members whom he controlled, the emperor commanded in fact closer to 35% of the partners' votes White stiH short of an outright majority, die Great Houses could not fail to see the meaning of the trend Since the emperor could almost always persuade at least 15% more of the partners to his arguments, in almost all instances the partners affirmed the position of House Comno
In general, though, what we have of the records of the meetings of CHOAM are a testimony to the stability of the worlds of the empire While it is true there is a steady growth m the power of the emperor in the meetings of the Directorate, the emperor and his supporters never controlled more man 60% of the vote, and the emperor himself never more than 40% In addition, while mere was a continuing turnover m the membership from century to century, the change was never more flan 10%, a rate of change which the political and economic balance of the empire could easily support Such a rate of change proved that some entrepreneurs had succeeded in raising the status of then-
minor house to the exalted level of the Great Houses The certainty of the chance ot social mobility made the restrictions of the faufre luches (class system) tolerable
Once established, only minor changes oc curred within the workings of CHOAM until the defeat of House Comno by House Atreides on Arrakis Even that event did not immedi ately affect the management of CHOAM other than to transfer to Duke Paul Muad Dib, now the emperor, the shares of CHOAM once controlled by House Comno Al the time of transfer these shares represented 38% of the votes of the Directorate
The profound alteration in the affairs of CHOAM resulted from the crusade launched against those houses—and there were many— who went into revolt against the new govern ment The shares of all defeated houses were taken over by House Atreides, and alter the battles were over, the Imperial House for the first time was in outright control of CHOAM with 51% of its shares In addition, the priesthood of Muad Dib the power of which had waxed during the crusade, owned 5% of the shares This shift m the control of CHOAM accounts for much of the ensuing hatred of House Atreides Not only were the citizens of the empire exposed to an increasingly despotic rule they had lost much of their wealth FM
Further references IMPER AL ADMINISTRATION LANDS RAAO TB Jones Series of articles in Journal of An ctent Economies (Lagash VII) Vols 29 33 T Eboyane The Faufreluches the Great Chain of Being and Natu ral Science (Ycrba Rose)
QBUS HOOD. A form of military camouflage The earliest model of this disguise is be heved to have been developed for Sheset X the Comno Emperor, in 9731 The hood was one of several devices Sheset requested from the Ixian Council of Scientists during the first two months of his reign, all providing concealment of protection The emperor had assumed the throne knowing that several factions wished to assassinate him, and his enlistment of Ixian technology was his way of trying to protect himself against them
One of those factions succeeded m 9732, only a year after Sheset came to power The cibus hood, however, survived the man who
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had commissioned it and went on to become one of Ix's most popular exports
The hood was a purposely shapeless sack of deepest black material, the secret of whose manufacture remains known only to the Ixians to the present day Cibus cloth absorbed not only visible light but all known forms of radiation, this characteristic rendered the fea tures of its wearer mdetectable even to the sublest investigative instruments It is be lieved that part of the manufacturing process for the cloth involved treating it with chemi cals similar to those used on Guild ship heatshields but this theory has yet to be proven The Ixians neither confirm nor deny it
Some property of the cloth limits its effectiveness m accordance with the amount used, with a sharp decrease in concealing power first observed when hoods larger than those needed to fit the average human head were manufactured during the 9800s After many experiments were conducted, the notion of using cibus hoods as military camouflage was reluctantly abandoned even by the most determined of the Great Houses, and personal sized hoods became standard issue for assassins and spies
COME OF SILENCE. A field or zone wherein the sound of the human voice was elecfroni-cally distorted so that recording and amplifying devices could not reproduce it effectively or clearly sometimes called a "sound-deadening field" The size of a "cone of silence" depended partly on the strength of the electronic impulse broadcast, but for practical purposes it was usually a small area about three to four meters in diameter
The purpose of the cone of silence was fairly obvious in an aristocratic society given to Byzantine refinements of palace mtngue According to the Oral History, there were more than twenty cones of silence in the main Harkonnen palace on Giedi Prime and it was in one of (faese that Mental Piter de Vnes and Baron Vladimir discussed an un successful assassination attempt—the famous episode of the poisoned kmdjal—OB Duke Leto Atreides It is known that Baron Harkonnen once threatened an emissary of Emperor Shaddan IV, Count Hasinur ferffmg,
in a cone of silence at his palace The cone of silence was also used by other Great Houses of course, and enjoyed an existence at the Imperial court in the pre Atreides Imperium
Originally, the cone of silence was developed by Ixian technicians in the fourth millennium but it proved to be fairly easy for electronic technicians to reproduce Nevertheless, the Great Houses frequently hired Ixian masters under the supervision of the House master assassin to inspect and refurbish the audito ry facilities—both recorders and cones—of a residential palace
Further references HarqalAIda 1 he Dune Catastrophe tt Mngal Reed (Mukan Lotharj Tovat Owinsted The Cfmmicles of the Conquerors fCaladan INS Books)
CONTRACEPTION. For centuries after the Butlenan Jihad, contraception was an idea seldom mentioned and a practice even more rarely put to use Since it was the machine ordered abortion of one female child which sparked the Jihad and since so few planets had escaped the Jihad s wrath without sub stantiaf loss of life, the practice on most worlds was for each couple to have and raise as many children as possible
After the Treaty of Comn—and, more importantly, the Great Convention—established the Impenum, however that custom was slowly changed Smaller families with two to four children became more the norm among the Houses Major, the Houses Minor and others occupying lower stations in the faufre luches behaved m the us,ual fashion, aping the habits of their supenors By 980 the earliest Imperial publications on the subject of birth control had been published and re search in this area was advancing rapidly
After 6795, there is little to indicate that any further work in the field, aside from the inevitable minute refinements was done (One notable exception which will be discussed later, took place in the 7200s on Arrakis ) Contraceptive methods had been reduced to an extremely reliable few and were in use on every world in the Impenum
Most popular was the scrota! implant This technique, which involved the insertion of a pellet weighing approximately one tenth of a gram on the underside of the scrotum!, ensured
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timed release of Siranil into the surrounding tissues for a period of six months The drug, which was a specific against active sperma tozoa completely dissipated at the end of that time restoring the user s fertilitj It exhibited no harmful side effects and could, if desired, be used throughout a man s fertile years
There were some men, of course, who considered the implant unsatisfactory The Comno Emperors, high ranking officers in the Imperial Sardaukar, and the heads of most of the Great Houses were among them It was far more the rule than the exception for these men to maintain a wife and one or more concubines—the Royal Harem being the most obvious example—and while they might choose not to impregnate a certain woman at any one time, the idea that they could impregnate no woman lacked appeal The practice in such families then was for the woman to use a contraceptive thug (usually ingested m one form or another) as effective, if not as long-lasting, as Strand Estrekan and Dalavix were among the most popular
Exceptions to this drug use were those women who had received traiamg with the Bene Gessent The Sisterhood taught its members to maintain and adjust many of the internal balances of their bodies, and one of the skills a B G commanded was the ability to regulate the pH balance of her uterus From the point at which ovuktion took place until the beginning of her menstrual flow, a woman who did not wish to conceive simply made her womb an inhospitable environment (It was a similar but more delicate process which allowed die B G to choose the gender of the t'erus by allowing only the desired type of spenn to teach die Fallopian tubes )
Yet another method was introduced m the 7200s by the Frernen of Arrakis From their earliest years on the desert planet, the Piemen had known that addiction to melange was unavoidable and that interaction between the spice and almost any other type of drug ranged from dangerous to deadly It was obvious mat die common drugs m use in the rest of the Impemim could not be used by Fremen, nor was it desirable to go to the Bene Gessent' witches" for help The Fremen doctors studied the problem carefully consul
enng it in light of their people s unique requirements, and arrived at an elegant solution
Patterning their method after a sexual tech mquc mentioned m some of their earliest historical records, the Fremen learned to separate the male orgasm from ejaculation At the time they reached puberty boys were given detailed instruction on the technique and were not considered to have entered into true adulthood before mastering jt, whatever dieir olher dctumplishments A young man who proved incapable of learning such con trol was seen as a danger not only to himself (since unnecessary ejaculations were a waste of precious water) but to his partners Be cause the late stages of pregnancy could slow a woman down and sometimes make it dangerous for her to tra\el no Fremen worn an would endanger herself and her troop by running a constant risk of unwanted impreg nation an uncontrolled male was generally a celibate
While abortifacients were available, thetr use was unpopular and they were illegal on a number of worlds This revulsion for contra ception after the-fact also had its roots in the period of the Butlerian Jihad and it was far stronger than the distaste for contraceptive techniques had ever been In part because of this hatred, and in part because of the near absolute effectiveness of the available con traceptives, abortion inducing drugs were manufactured and used primarily as weapons of intrigue (How much easier to eliminate a nval's heir before its birth1) Giedi Prime, homeworld of House Harkonnen, was the source of more than eighty percent of the abortifacients produced from 3005 10193 this unpopular specialization invited harsh cnti cism from the rest of the Great Houses and especially from the Bene Gessent, who saw the existence of any such drugs as an im plied threat to then1 breeding plan (That abhorrence only applied to their existence in the hands of those outside the control of the Sisterhood, it should be noted The B G were not above employing so distasteful a method in their own service )
During the millennia of Leto II s reign knowledge concerning birth control was discarded along with much of the rest of the
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Impermm s advanced technology and it was not until the periods known as the Starvation and the Scattering that sophisticated methods were discovered CW Further references BUTLEKIAN JIHAD ATREIDES CHANI
FREMEN MENSTRUATION MOHIAM REVEREND MOTHER GAIUS HELEN ATREIDES CORRINO PRINCESS IRULAN R
Semajo Ritual and Fertility Sofia 420 61 68 E K i>entenag Surgical Techniques of the Last Mi leraiium Antares People s College of Medicine) Ruuvars Shaigal ed Fundamentals of the Way A Bene Gessent Menial Exercise Book (Orumman Lodni)
CORRIDA. The Spectacle of The Houses Comda is not a sport though some of its detractors refer to it as such it is rather a contest between a man and his courage
HISTORY The practice of the Corrida dates back into the dimmest teaches of the history of the Empire there is considerable evidence that even the Fust Empire knew of Comda during the years when the Empire ruled only a portion of a single planet ami did not even know of other worlds
Legend has the Corrida originating in a land known variously as ibena or Hybemia or perhaps Hyperborea when the god hero Manolete fought the god Zeus who had taken the form of a bull few the combat Zeus the most powerful of the pre O C B gods was certain of his victory when he saw that the aspect chosen by Manolete was evidently mat of a fencer or a dancer since he was wearing clothes which made sense only if freedom of movement was paramount and his. body was cot powerful but lithe and precise However Zeus learned quickly of his mistake as his charges were repeatedly misled by the dancing Manolete s cape and the ability of the agile duelist to be mere millimeters from Zeus's horns when he charged by The contest went oa for weeks with Zeus becoming more and more frustrated especially now that the duel had attracted the attention of all of the gods of Hybemia and they were all quite vociferous in their admira Uon of Manolete s bravery Eventually, Zeus realized that the only way he could match the bravery of Manolete was to admit defeat and he did so, altowing his mortal body to tire but continuing to drive it against Manokte in one futile, deadly charge after another turning twisting, and wheeling about in the
most unexpected ways possible but all the time becoming slower until eventually Zeus stood before Manolete too tired to lift his head too tired to charge again and saw Manolete draw his sword for the first time
The Corrida traveled from Old Terra with its people tho igh it was apparently not nearly as popular before the Jihad ab it was afterwards—a fact which has been held up as an example of the dissolute nature of the populace when in the thrall of the Mach nes However even before the Jihad the Corrida was the entertainment of choice of large segments of the population of the Empire The bull breeding farms on La Coruna Saragonna and Bahdmonde were continual ly busy keeping the fans of Comda satisfied During this time Comda was not associated with the nobility to the extent that it would be after the Jihad and all of the famous matadors of the period (with the exception of Duke Ban Leon who was not at any rate particularly noteworthy as a matador) were commoners Among these were Rodolito whose real name is unknown Little David Manante Lih Kalt one of the few women matadors and Jose Martino Vasquez still famous as The Tempter for his (eventually fatal) flirtation with the horns
After the development of the Holtzman Shield bull fighting underwent a fundamen tal change which seated it forevermore firm ly in the ranks of upper class entertainment It was probably the Baron of La Coruna who first thought of Shielding the bulls making them much harder to kill martistically while at the same time insulating the bull from distractions and crowd noises It is known that the first public display of what was then called Corrida Escuda took place in the Champions Arena on La Coruna in 1333 B G The Baron had asked his House Mata dors to fight the bull and all but two had refused saying quite rightly that as com moners they were completely unfamiliar with the techniques of shield fighting The two who did volunteer were the Master of the training school and his pnze pupil the then unknown Tial Both had had experience m shield fighting Master Barkan as part of his twin duties as Trainer of the Le\ y and Tial because Barkan had seen this development
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coming a long time before and wanted to be ready for it
The Comda that day is still spoke of in hushed tones by aficionados of the ring It is said that the audience was stunned silent by the beauty of the pan- of battles fought that day, and did not utter a sound during either Corrida, but when each kill was made, the pandemonium in the stadium could not be controlled Both matadors made then names that day, and coutd have retired then and there as rich men, but neither did Both survived the Comda that day, but Barkan aghast at the level of competency required, resolved to continue his training programs at heretofore unknown levels, knowing that the old skills were now merely deadly delusions He was the first to tram die new breed of noble matadors, and under Barkan's instruction and Baron La Coruna's patronage, the Corrida underwent a renaissance that has continued to this day
VARIATIONS OF THE TRADITIONAL COR
RIDA There are as many different styles of Comda as there are Matadors' schools and there are usually several different schools on any given planet However, after the ascen won of Emperor Leto, fee so-called "Atreides Style" attained considerable prominence, since style in the Comda, like alt styles, was open to influence from die Impend Court Even though there is little evidence that anyone of the Imperial House ever practiced the Com da after the death of Mmtor Atreides, it is probably the departure of that House from Caladan to Arrakis, a world monumentally unsuited for the breeding of decent bulls, that caused this cessation, not any change of heart towards the Comda The development of an' 'Atreides Style'' without living Atreides practitioners was somewhat difficult, but did not maternity delay the more flamboyant matadors—as we know since the discovery, in the Rakis Finds of the eyewitness records of Duke Mmtor's fatal Comda, and Duke Leto I's famous response
In addition to mere variations in style, there were some Houses that considered the Comda to be too tame, these tended to be outlying Minor Houses, though some of the Houses Major also were counted in this number These were the main practitioners
of a variation of the Comda more properly known as the Arena, since their sole purpose was to provide the spectators with a bloody spectacle usually, the combat was between an armed (though unshielded) man and some particularly dangerous example of the local fauna or else the combat was between two human participants, either because they were professionals, or because they had a grudge to settle The many variations and the incredible history of the Arena cannot be done justice in the short space available here
Further references ATRLIDLS DUKE LETO i H M Vis kau Morituri Te Salutamus A History of the Arena through tour Empires (Caladan INS Books)
CORRIM, THE BATTLE OF (88 B G ) The historical space battle which resulted in the ascendancy of House Cornno to the Imperial Throne, where it remained for some ten thousand years The battle was fought on day 97 standard of 88 B G in the Cornn quasi-nebula and lasted two hours
Count Sheuset Ecevit (who would become Emperor Sheuset Comno I adopting as the family name a derivative of the site of his victory), looking for a decisive military victo ry to ensure the position of his liou>e, had planned on a surface battle against his foes— the other important houses of the Landsraad Sheuset's greatest military strength was his Sardaukar a peerless fighting force which had never been bested in a land battle He had assembled his fleet for the occupation of the rich agricultural planet Glarus But due to the treachery of, it is believed, Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen, the Landsraad High Council learned of Sheuset's plan and were waiting in ambush between the planets Salusa Secundus and Glarus, the Landsraad pre ferred to take their chances in a space battle against the Sardaukar then meet them on the ground However, Sheuset's intelligence was as good as the High Council's (likely his early dealings with drug traders paid off here in invaluable information) and he was pre pared for the Landsraad forces Having transferred his Sardaukar troops to combat ships, he surprised his ambushers by plunging directly into their hiding place
The battle itself was the longest of all known space battles The chief reason for
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this improbable duration was the nature of the battle region The Comn quasi nebula is a result of the collision of a very large planetoid with the substellar companion of Sigma Draconis, and was named for the nearby planet Comn The collision, which may have been caused by an illicit mining and smelting operation, occurred in histori cat tunes (circa 250 B G ) The resulting debns, comprising dust and hot gases as well as solid bodies, filled the Sigma Draconis system It was still in a highly agitated state at the time of the battle
The engaged fleets, were restricted to low velocities, their maneuvers were often influenced more by the environment than by tactical considerations Torpedos were similarly affected Shields became unreliable, but lasguns did not therefore become more useful since the bursts were often diffused or dfeflected Finally, the most importantly, the navigators of each fleet simply could not calculate the many and quickly shifting variables of the situation more than one hundred to two hundred seconds in advance of event and so had to get new data much more frequently than would ordinarily have been the case Comn demonstrated the handicap of navigators who relied primarily upon calculation rather than perception
The most effective tactic, suicidal in ordi nary circumstances, was to match vectors with an enemy vessel, approach closely, and follow an intense lasgun barrage with a boarding party Count Sheuset clearly anticipated this Few of the Landsraad warships earned any personnel trained for hand-to hand combat, and those that were could not withstand the Sardaukar Once the Sardaukai secured a vessel, it, too, was pressed into service against the remaining Lasdsraad units The advantage Sheuset1 s fleet thus gained during the first thirty minutes more than compensated for greater Landsraad numbers
The Landsraad High Council deployed seventy-one capital ships to Count Sheuset's twenty-three, but die Sardaukar captured thirty-sevea Nmeteen more, including the flagship, were blown up, mostly in the second hour when panic and desperation began to infest the Landsraad command Three finally surrendered, eleven escaped, and one has never
been accounted for Two Sheuset and five allied ships were blown up and one, com manded by the Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen, fled during the early minutes of the engage ment
Among the casualties of the battle which included both the commander of the Landsraad forces, Duke Efim, and Count Sheuset s younger daughter, perhaps most notable was the honor of House Harkonnen It seems likely that the Bashar Abulurd did not expect his lord to survive Comn He was stripped of rank, titles, and his Dahkotah mining interests Only Count Shuset'b inclination to magnanimity following his victory permitted Abulurd to flee alive into exile
Further references lilprad Maian The Influence of Space Power on History (Salusa Secundus Gravlak)
CORRINO, ATidRH (10132—10176) The wife of Padishah bmperor Shaddam IV, known primarily as the mother of Princess Irulan (St Irulan, The Virgin Irulan Inifan Atreides) and as the grandmother of Harq al Ada New material found at Dar-cs-Balat, a collec tion of Anunl's songs, poems and journals in the library of Harq al Ada and information released by the Bene Gessent Archives give substance to this shadowy historical figure
Like many Bene Gcsscnt women destined to be breeders, Anunl was never allowed knowledge of her parents identity (the Sister hood often inbred closely among family lines and feared adverse reaction because of incest taboos) Now, after thousands of years, the Sisterhood feels secure enough to release the information Anunl was the daughter of a liaison between Count Mauns Paluna distaff cousin of House Cornno, and Zhaivee Elstun, illegitimate sister of Count Gwilam Alman At birth Anunl was placed in the Bene Gessent Kinder House attached to the Chap ter House on Chusuk Kinder Houses provided care for infant Bene Gessent girls who began formal training within the first few months of their lives
Anunl starred keeping journals when she was about five and even these early eatnes show she was unhappy living in a dormitory with five other girls, supervised by an ever-changing staff of Sisters Her entries indicate
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a growing inability to make close personal attachments to others Instead she seems to have built a fantasy hfe about the forests which surrounded her school Only when she writes of the forest and its animals do we hear a laughing, carefree child ' I work so hard at my prana and bindu exercises, and I'm getting better, but now I just use it to play hide and seek with the armeks in the wood;, And today I sat so still and cold that a fimsh thought I was a bush and tried to build her nest on my shoulder''
As Anunl grew older, she became interested in the music which surrounded her on Chusuk, and after working with several of the great lusichord masters, she became a skillful player Unfortunately for her, the Sisters did not consider such a sfciH useful or appropriate
The lovely melodies that smg from my strings are all that keep me from dying in this rigid, sterile place of women and rules All the Sisters tell me how ugly I look when I play my darling Bionbec [apparently the name of her luwchord] and that I will end up a wandering minstrel instead of a proper lord's lady Well I don't want to be a lord's anything' I want to be a musician all my life
Such a career would be forbidden, of course, for a Bene Gessent breeder, and at fourteen Anunl was transferred to the Chapter House school on Gamont for specialized training Her journals for that period record a short and unhappy residence there
Thank the Great Mother1 The Sisters are transferring me to Kaitain next month Molly says she's never heard of a novice being sent to three different schools and she thinks I'm either a special student or a dumb one I think the "dumb" label is the right one I simply can't stand the lessons we're having now The man I had today was pitiful—and Mother Jachaal had given me all those idiotic postures to assume— and that silly costume with glitter for my nipples and that stone HI my navel I told her that these sessions would work better if I could take Binnbec with me to play, but she just snorted through her nose and said something about "music therapy,' whatever that means
I dont [sic] know, journal, what Kattain is like, but it can't be any worse thaa this I just wish 1 din't [sic] get so sick when we travel Sister Maura says that I'll just have to study
regular academics there—plus deportment etiquette and the regular B G training routines and that there are iay students in the school too from the Noble Houses I ve never lived with regular people just with Sisters and Mothers 1 think I m going to have to invoke the calmness regimen every other minute1
She must have managed quite well on Kailain, though because the Bene Gessent Chapter House Grade Reports for 10149 and 10150 list Anuril as an honor student, and in 10151 she is listed as graduating with highest honors in literature and history
From 10152 through 10153, Anunl assisted the Mother Chamberlain for the Kaitain Chap ter House, but in 10154 she was sent to House Cornno as a concubine for the young Shaddam The journal entries for this period show an interesting, pleasant, but purely platomc relationship growing between the two young people Shaddam was interested in her music and poetry and Anunl was intrigued by his gem collection and his knowl edge of histoncal architecture and costuming The Padishah Emperor Elrood IX, however, was intrigued by Anunl's Gamont background and apparently insisted on tests and refresher lessons for himself I he journals show that as her friendship with the son grew, so did her hatred for the father In 10155, Shaddam took Anunl as his wife, pnmanly to protect her from his father s growing obsession, it seems, but m 10156 when Shaddam assumed the throne at his father s death no official recognition was given to Anunl Only after the birth of their first child Irulan m 10165 was she given official status
Children were the source of a Jong and eventually fatal conflict between Anunl and the Sisterhood Although there is no official information available about her actual rank (listed as Hidden Rank in all the available Bene Gessent records), it must have been at least Mater Acnor from the types of commu mcations noted in her journals after 10160 When she was sent to Shaddam her ongmal orders were to produce a minimum of four daughters for the Sisterhood But during the early jears of her stay Shaddam limited himself solely to social intercourse although his father demanded a more intimate rela-Uonship, forcing Anunl to practiLe stnct
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birth control To further complicate matters, when Anunl finally overcame Shaddam's inertia, she found him stenle forcing her to surreptitiously feed him fertility drugs For nine years Anunl lived in peace with her music and her poetry, dmwenng the mtreas ingly urgent demands of the Sisterhood with periodic sperm count reports
By 10161, however, Anunl s life was troubled by the stringent orders, delivered through Shaddam's truthsayer R M Gams Helen Mohiara, that she conceive The Sisterhood had received reports that casual relationships had produced two illegitimate sons by Shaddam outside the royal residence
I simply must do something Gains Helen was here again all morning, lecturing me at first and then actually threatening me I HATE that self-righteous bitch And she says that Shaddam is wasting his seed en nobodies while I squander all my time and attention on Binnbec That woman has neither humor nor soul She sits each evening during the music and fiyfcng, glaring at me from under her black hood
I never did agree with the Sisterhood's dtrec tive and she knows it She told me today that she's already made it impossible for me to delay any longer, but she wouldn't say any more When she left I did two careful psycho kinesthetic probes looking for poison, but diere was nothing unusual except a dim aura mingling with my cells Whatever that is, it seems to enhance rather than harm my chemistry Maybe that's why my complexion has cleared
But then, two months later, Anunl discovered the truth of the threats and the "aura '
Mohiam was here again this afternoon I must seduce poor ShadtUm after all It will be difficult after all the^e years of trust and friendship She hates him, though, as much as she hates me—him for his "inattention to the Empire and me &w my lack of daughters That aura that lives in me is a little gift from the Sisterhood, a residual poison that only kills upon withdrawal We were told of such a thing on Gamont aad DOW I know why mat was the one poison they didn't allow us to neutralize— they use it OR us' 1 knew there was a good reason to hate Mohiam, but aow I hate my own order
Obviously this Bene Gessent stratagem was effective, for the couple produced five daughters Irulan, 10165, Chalice, 10168,
Wensicm, 10170, Josifa, 10172, and Rugi, 10175
Anunl'« relationship with her daughters was never very close She began Irulan's Bene Gessent training almost from birth, as she was instructed to do by the Sisterhood, but the two showed little affection for each other Irulan adored her father, was jealous of any time her mother spent with him, and so spent most of her time trying to turn Shaddam against his wife While \nunl was merely cool toward Irulan, she was actually repelled by Wensicia Anunl s journals show that she despaired of the child's aggressive, hostile, and even malicious beha\ior When Anunl found the four-year-old Wensicia using a prism to burn holes in the fur of the family lap-cat, Anunl renounced her completely Apparently the only daughter Anunl loved was Chalice, a sweet child with a voice as golden as her hair
Anunl's days were spent with her music her books, and her gardening, while her nights were spent performing the Sisterhood's duties She produced several hundred poems, two iohos of lusichord music, and thirty eight journal volumes But Anunl was frequently unhappy during the final ten years of her life The constant pregnancies interrupted her work and disturbed her psyche
I was not meant to be a womb only M> real children come not from my body but from my mind The poems show my soul but the songs which float from Binnbec are my real delights They carry my spin! white these daughters these vessels of blood and bone, are my duty, meaning no more to me than did those daily lessons I used to hand in so reluctantly
Finally, when she learned that five daughters were not enough to satisfs the Sisterhood's demands, Anunl decided death was prefera ble to everlasting breeding First she stopped ingesting any food or liquid in an attempt to avoid the poison, but she continued to find the aura present among her cells She then deduced that the poison was a contact one and eliminated touching things intimate to her until she finally found the source R M Mohiam had impregnated the wood and the strings of AmmPs beloved Binnbec, making the instrument of her joy also the instrument of her destruction
CORRINO FARAD N
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In a commentary on her music, Harq al Ada writes of his grandmother, "I wish I had known Anunl Her portrait shows a slender elegant golden-haired woman whose large amber eyes glow in a heart shaped face But her songs introduced me to a fragile dryad dancing through a world far lovelier than any I have ever known May she and Binnbec be given a corner of Eterni ty in which to play their melodies "
OWE
Further references Princess Irulan Atonies Comno In My Father s House tr RebethVreeb Arrakis Studies 4 (Kaitam Linthnn UP) Harq al Ada Houses and Homes L C Temporary Senes 99 (contains excerpts from Anunl s dianes)
CORRINO. FARADT1 {10200-10419, also
known as Harq Hi-Ada) Bom Farad'n Fennng to the Princess Wensicia (Comno) and her consort Count Dalak Fencing, Farad'n was the onl> grandchild of deposed Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV After the death of her husband m 10208 the Princess replaced her son's surname with that of her late lather, giving as reason her desire mat the Comno line, however reduced in fortune, be preserved Farad'n Comno was, m later years, Leto II s chief scnbe and was known thus as Harq al Ada, all of the completed works of history and analysis attributed to Harq al-Ada are by Comno As explained in Comno s unfinished autobiography, Notes to My Life, his court name, meaning "Breaking of the Habit" m Fremefl, was given to him by Leto, as a reminder to them both of the differences between past empires and that which Leto wished to establish
Farad'n s childhood on Salusa Secundus was isolated and lonely His father left his mother when Farad'n was only two years old, having never married her When the boy was three his devoted grandfather Shaddam IV died A year later Dalak Fennng returned to Salusa Secundus only to claim his daugh ter Jeunne (Farad'n's sister) and take her to live with him on Giedi Prune Thus, Farad n was raised by his mother and his tutors, never knowing the company of others his own age Farad'n recorded his feelings about his early years in a particularly poignant passage m Notes
I must have been an intolerably solemn child alwa>s with mv nose in a book or ray body working on self defense exercises Mother de sired my companv only at the raid day meal (lunch for me and breakfast for her1) How I used to dread those hours—she d stretch out on her lounge chair and question me about my lessons always reminding me about my duties as the future emperor She was so hungry for power that she almost convinced me of ts growth but most of the time I just wanted to get out of that room and away from her eyes
It wasn t until I knew Ghamma that I learned to relax and even at that I think we suited each other because neither of us had ever really been ch Idren
Perhaps it was because of his deprived child hood that Farad n later spent so much time with his own children
It was undeniably his mother s tutelage which shaped Farad n s earliest attitudes to ward his own House, as well as toward House Atreides A bitter vengeful woman, Wensicia told her son from his earliest years that he had been destined to become emperor and that the usurping Atreides had denied him his rightful place She was aided in this by members of her father s Imperial Sardaukar also exiled To the former prison planet who had felt the Comno defeat a& keenly as most of the Family s members
Their combined influence however did not achte\e the results any of the participants expected Rather than igniting in the boy a rage against the Atreides the constant haranguing about their successful rebellion set the curiosity of Farad n—a distinguished schol dr from an early age—ablaze regarding House Atreides, and particularly regarding the em peror who had replaced his grandfather
That he studied the history of his own House with only a fraction of the interest he showed in their enemy would have alerted a guardian of sensitivity But Wensicia had always been the least astute of the Comno daughters—which accounted for the Bene Gessent's pointed lack of interest in her—and she suspected nothing even when Farad n began to exhibit highly un Corrmo like attributes
The Prince had taken his family s exhoruons to heart, but in his own way He had studied the Atreides code their history every record
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and snippet of information his aunt Irulan documented in her histories, contrasted their results with those obtained by his own House, and made what seemed to be his only logical decision to emulate the traits which had given the Atreides a clear-cut superiority over the House they had defeated
By his seventeenth year, when the Lady Alia was in her eighth year as regent for the Atreides twins, Leto and Ghamma, Farad'n had already patterned himself as closely as possible after the man who had wrested the Impenum from Shaddam IV He conducted himself with his subordinates in the manner of Paul Atreides, developed an Atreides-style battle language with which he commanded his Sardaukar, even acquired many of the better-known manaenMiis of the emperor and of his father, Duke Leto Every avenue of training which his model had used, Farad'n used also—with one, much regretted exception
The Corrmo youth lacked a teacher of the caliber of the Lady Jessica, Wemicia, despite her royal upbringing and early exposure to members of the B G Sisterhood, could not even be offered as a comparison, and her son, better than any other, knew it When he was presented a chance to remedy his lack in 10218, by Dunean Idaho's delivery of Jessica herself to House Comno, he accepted at once
It was with Farad'n s acquisition of—in his own words—& "renegade Bene Gessent of (his) own'' that the events were put into motion which determined the young man's quite unexpected destiny As condition to her declaring herself a Bene Gessent plenipotentiary responsible for educating Farad'n, Jessica demanded he denounce and banish Wensicia, giving as cause her machinations m the "death" of the young Leto n, her new pupil accepted the solution to his own dilemma concerning his mother with a most unfihal haste By mis action, he Temoved himself forever from any further Corrmo influence
What happened over the course of the months Farad'n spent in training with the Lady Jessica is simply enough stated he threw himself passionately into her teachings, eventually becoming one of a very rare breed, a male Bene Gessent
Jessica's motivations for instructing Farad'n
have sparked considerable controversy The Lady had trained her own son and daughter without making converts nf them as an untrusted member of the Sisterhood, she might be expected to be in no more hurry to add to their ranks by initiating the heir to House Cornno A few cynical scholars—most notably, Bram of Talos—have suggested that this act on Jessica's part was no more than a taking of revenge, that she believed the best way to avenge her grandson was to force Wenwcid's btunshment and subvert Farad n While this "eye for an eye rationale may well have played a part m determining Jessica's decision, it is blatant disregard for her well documented subtle intellect to imply that there was no other reason
By introducing Farad n to the Sisterhood, Jessica first ensured his loyalty to her, as teacher and mentor, beyond that which might normally occur While this devotion could not be trusted never to give way—as witness Jessica's turning from her own mentor, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam—it could be depended upon for a good deal The advantages to Jessica of having the young man firmly on her own side were manyfold chief among them however, were two
First, she could be assured that he would preserve her life, rather than allowing her to be murdered by his Sardaukar when her usefulness was ended, as several of his offi cers suggested during Jessica s tenure on Salusa Secundus Second she would have an ally at her side in her battle against her daughter, Aha With Farad'n s help, she stood a far better chance ot b<tvmg Arrdkis and, on a more personal level, Ghamma (her suppos edly only surviving grandchild) Both of these expectations were fulfilled Upon his arrival on Arrakis with Jessica, Farad'n permitted Alia to believe that she had drawn him into her trap, making her less wary, more willing to admit the boy and her moth er into her presence and eager to summon Ghamma to meet them This set the stage for Leto II s confrontation with his aunt
Farad'n, having assisted in setting up the encounter, could do little to help with it Following Alia s plunge from her Temple aerie, however, ihe accounts teil of the young Cornno performing a function for his teacher
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no one else would attempt It was Farad'n who comforted the Lady Jessica as she wept for her children
In 10219, with the ascension of Leto II, Farad'n—now Harq al-Ada—was appointed Royal Scnbe, responsible for maintaining records and histories for the Impenum It was his official role, and one in which the scholarly Harq al-Ada excelled His unofficial role, the one Leto II more urgently demanded of him, was that of mate to Ghamma, the emperor's sister All the accounts in the memoirs and m the Book of Ghamma detail a lovmg relationship with Ghamma, first as friends then as lovers and parents, and finally as colleagues in their literary work While Ghamma was maturing physically, Farad'n acted as her tutor and as her companion, beginning the histories and translations they would continue to wnte throughout their life together Though fte overt motivation for their ten children came from Leto's breeding program, Farad'n and Gharnrna enjoyed raising their large family Apparently Leto wanted hi!> new line to unite the Cornno and Fearing traits with Gharuma's Atreidcs-HaricomEn/Liet-Kynes heritage Farad'n was delighted with his children, particularly with his eldest son Trebor and his daughter Jeunne who had inherited her grandmother Anunl's musical talent
Prepared by Lady Jessica's iBStruction, Harq al-Ada accepted both his functions with an impressive dignity His prowess as an historian is illustrated, many times over, by the writings he left behind it would be possible to completely outfit a library with the works of Harq al-Ada Many of his books-^most notably, Testament of Arrakis and The Story of Lwt-Kyttes1**—were applauded as seminal works dealing with the planet whose destiny so closely intertwined with that of humanity at large These, combined with his other words, would have been enough to give him a well-earned reputation as an author, curiously, however, it was for writings not his own that Harq al-Ada acquired a reputation more exalted still
The first two centuries of Leto H's reign were marked by an upsurge m all the arts, but most particularly in the art of the stage
(It has been suggested, and probably with truth, that the climate of Imperial encouragement was due in part to the Royal Scnbe, who had been patron to several artists and musicians even before his move to Arrakis) One figure especially stands out even amid so much excellence Harq al-Harba, whose match m historical playwntmg has yet to be found His first piay, The \andnder, was produced in Arrakeen in 10280 It dealt, as did the author's later works with the history of Arrakis, and brought to a much larger audience the kind of information provided scholars and academically inclined readers by the writings of Harq al-Ada
Many prominent historians m the centuries between this time and our own have suggested that this overlap was not comu-dental A quote from The Prince/The Playwright, by Cybele Hank, best explains their line of thought
It was a favorite axiom of Harq al Ada's that the medicine of knowledge, in order to be effective, had often to be disguised It seems safe to assume, then, that he was sufficiently astute to realize that a dramatic treatment of his histories would better reach the masses of Impenal citizens than the strict tonic represented by his books
There are other clues pointing to the al Ada/al Harba identities being the same of course— the pla>wnght's refusal ever to appear m public the convenient fitting in of his own hfespan to that of the historian, the non availability of even the most basic information concerning the dramatist s life—but they serve chiefly as confirmation of that one assumption
Harq al Ada was raised as a prince, trained as a Bene Gessent shaped as a valuable tool It should be obvious that such a person would recognize instantly a means so favorable to achieving his chosen ends2
This theory, which occasionally waned in popularity but never completely disappeared, may finally have been discredited by recently translated fragments from the Rakis Hoard (see entry THE AL HARBA QUESTION)
Both in his Notes and in other Atreides materials some evidence suggests that Farad'n might have had traces of prescience For example, Farad'n comments on his one meeting with the Prophet, Paul Atreides
CORRINO, FARAD'N
CORRINO, RUGI
1 shall always remember that blind old man who seemed to see into my soul. I had never told anyone the details of my dreams before, and they had frightened me so I scarcely allowed myself to remember them. I wish that I had been more open to him, more sympathetic.
Now, living with two beings who so frequently communicate with the "otherworlds" of past and future, I am less frightened by my dreams which still come to me. But I can't really accept those pictures that I see at night as having too much significance, I am a historian— the recorder of verifiable reality, not a mystic. But the images of sandwonus and water haunt me, the images of a lovely woman named Noree and the sparkling crystals of the disintegrating world. Some mornings I awakeo with such strong feelings of foreboding and sadness— what will become of my friend in hts evergrowing body of strangenessr
Though Farad 'n was never obsessed with youth, as were his mother and aunt, he was reluctantly persuaded by Ghaaima and Leto to use Bene Gesserit rejuvenation techniques so that he might "keep them company," as Leto put it, as long as possible:
I really feel too tired to go on much longer. Ghanima is so dear to me, I hate to leave her—and there will always be "just one more thing'' to write, But I've lived so long and seen so many changes that I'm not sure I can be an accurate historian much longer. I try to observe impartially and to record objectively, but die echoes of alt those yesterdays begin to cloud my perspective.
Only now can I begin to aoderstand what Leto and Ghanirna have lived with—the constant reiteration of those lew parts we feel compelled to play. And the voices in my memory are soft and faitaliar, whUe the voices that they live with bring the strength of separate personalities, How awfiU it must be for them to carry ail of human history within their minds, alive and clamoring for attention 4
Eventually Farad'n gave up his struggle, and the voice of Ghanima ends his shigawtre memoir:
Goodbye my love. I will be without my daily • anchor BOW. The oneness Ehat I know with Leto ! is the two halves of a single being, bat the oneness that I have known with you is different. With you I could find the Jove of goodness; in [ you I have been able to see outside myself and r
through you find truth and joy and fulfillment. You are my love.5
Harq al-Ada died in 10419. At his funeral service, Leto II (who presided over the rite) declared that' 'as he gave so much of history to his posterity, so history will give a posterity to Harq al-Ada".6
It was a fitting, and accurate, epitaph for a man who died without a legal spouse or children, but whose literary "children" would influence the farthest reaches of the Imperi-um for generations. J.A.C. and C.W.
NOTES
'Harq al-Ada, Testament of Arrahs (Work-in-Progress, Arrakis Studies Temp Ser 180, Lib. Conf.); The Story of Liet-Kynes (Work-in-Progress, Arrakis Studies Temp. Ser. 109, Lib, Conf)
^ybete Harik, The PnncelTke Playwright (Zimaona' Kinat), pp. 76-77.
3LetoH, Journals, Rakis Ref Cat. 20-A115, Area73.
"Ibid.
'Ibid.
"Leto H, Journals, Rakis Ref. Cat. 20-M15, Area 80.
Further references: Arraku, the Transformation, The Arrakeen Catastrophe (alt title, The Dune Catastrophe), The Book of Leto (a folk-style biography with epigrams); The Butlerian Jihad; The Holy Metamorphosis, House Atreides A Historical Overview, Lectures on Prescience, Leto H (the official Irnpcrium biography of Leto's firs! two hundred years), Leto 11 to his Memory Voices; The Mahdinate, an Analysis, Philosophers for All Times, The Prescient Vision, Notes to My Life; Kiddles of Arrakis, The Story of Liet-Kynes, Testament of Arrakis, The Words of My Father An Account of MuatfDib {reconstructed by Harq al-Ada)
CORRINO, PRINCESS R(IGI (10175-10272). Though she was Shaddam IV's youngest daughter, the Princess Rugi Corrino is rarely remembered as part of the royal family. Arkum Valentine, for example, gives her only two paragraphs in Golden Lion in Exile, the standard work of the Padishah's government following Shaddam IV's deposition Aside from hard biographical facts, he does offer some dimension to her character when he writes:
She is a slender wisp of a girl, but strikingly beautiful Her waist-length brown hair complements the light-gold of her complexion perfectly. Her face is basically triangular and her features finely-chiseled, but her most compelling attribute is her eyes Large and almond-shaped,
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they are the color of strong tea Almost umber in shadow, they change to orange when the light strikes them at just the right angle She moves about the Court with the grace and agility of a cat and just as silently Eves so, there is something about her demeanor that insists, I know who I am Very different from her four sisters she is a strange child in many ways (p 205)
Valentine attributes this description to a Bene Gessent report filed m 10193 by Sister Mol ly Basutu, who spent nearly twenty years standard at the Padishah Emperor's Court training the girl The description is confirmed in Zaiwar Mignn's Life of Rugi
Born m 10175, one >ear before her moth er died, Princess Rugi is generally regarded as the most intelligent and talented of Shaddam IV's daughters Why she fled Salusa Secundus immediately after her father's death in 10202 for Wallach IX is not known She claimed not to trust Count Hasimir Fennng, though no record of her specific concerns has ever been uncovered Nonetheless, she remained under the protection of the Bene Gessent until 10205 when she married Duke Aberae Montani, Smdar of the tropical and remote planet Grumman It is not known whether this marriage was part of the Bene Gessent breeding program, but hght may t>e shed upon this period of the Princess Rugi's life when the order's Master Breeding Records and Mating Index have been more thoroughly studied
Under die protection of a powerful and wealthy Major House, her life was secure, and she eventually became heavily involved m the development of Grumman's arts, for which she is best remembered Credited with opening a 'Golden Age" for the planet s writers, artists, and musicians, she established & national museum, exhibitions and a performing arts program and enticed other wealthy families on Grumman's two continents and seven major islands to become heavily involved m the regional arts of their own areas She is credited with introducing the works of Harq af-Harba to Grumman
Rugi bore two children Her daughter, Amertine Montani Harkonnen, was bom in 10228 and educated at Amber Academy, Indresloch University, and Kilderry Medical
School, all in Indresloch, Grumman's Capi tal city Her son Armund, was born in 10230 and educated at Amber Academy and the Indres School of Fine Arts He became a master of the native painting style known as Ti bak and his pictures, which are highly valued as epitomizing the form, still hang m the National Museum at Indres
As the daughter of Shaddam IV and the wife of a powerful Duke the Princess had unlimited opportunity to travel through the empire The remoteness of Grumman protected it and her from the worst social changes that swept over planets closer to Arrakis onte Muad Dib s jihad began to spread Rugi enjoyed the privilege of playing observer to the Regencies of her sister Irulan and of Saint Aha of the Knrfe and even the beginning of the reign of Leto II, the God Eirnperor Rugi recorded not only her observations of but her subsequent insights into the behavior of the Injpenum s many peoples in her diaries
Further references CORRINO SHADDAM iv ATREIDES CORRINO PRINCESS IRULAN Arkum Valentine The Gold en Lion in Exile (Kaitain Linthnn UP) Zaiwar Mignn LtfeofRugt tr A D Doel (Sdlusa Secundus Kiski)
CORRINO, SHADDAM IV (10134 10202) Eighty-first Padishah Emperor of House Comno Born to Elrood IX and Fasnlle Lady Comno the boy who would eventually become the last of the Comno Emperors was given no premonition of his unfortunate destiny Instead he alternately enjoyed and endured his place m Elrood's court, a place which provided possible Cornno heirs with both the greatest luxuries available in the Impenum together with the most rigorous training <tnd testing imaginable
From his earliest childhood, Shaddam was befriended by Hasimir Fennng, a distaff cous m whose shrewd and agile mind almost certainly kept the na Emperor alive during the years of intrigue and violence which preceded his reign Fennng possessed the ability to manipulate without antagonizing, those m power by helping his companion to cultivate similar skills and by giving him the benefit of his own advice the na-Count performed a function for which Shaddam was permanently grateful
Shortly after his friend s assumption of
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the Bearing title, Shaddam was removed from court, m the company of three other aspirants, to the Comno's private testing grounds The young Count's advice is believed to be one of the factors responsible for Shaddam's surviving the training and intrigue ritual ad ministered to him there and returning to Kaitam, the sole survivor of his group, after only nine months
The na-Emperor, as was the custom, was immediately installed as leader of the Sar-daukar His travels and duties often kept him far from court, though official reports to his father and unofficial communiques to his mother and Count Fenrmg regularly appeared there Records kept by the Hegemon of the Sardaukar, as well as those of various officers set to observing the royal heir, indicate that Shaddam was an acceptable, if not a brilliant leader, and that the Sardaukar approved of serving under him
In 10155, dunng a leave on Kaitain, Shaddam was told of ait assassination plot against him The details were provided by Count Fenrmg, who also provided his friend with a suitable counter-plan Acting on Fenring s counsel, Shaddam took action against the plotters before the entire court, thus making it impossible for any secondary tn-tngue to be set into motion against him without its source becoming immediately obvious
In addition to providing a degree of safety for the na-Emperor, this expose" served two other purposes it made public the existence of the hunter-seeker, until then known only to members of House Cornno, it also gave subtle notice to Elrood IX that his son was aware of his own involvement in the scheme
Following the execution of an unimportant member of the royal House who was elected as scapegoat for the enme, Shaddam returned to his troops In has absence from Kaitam, his father was killed, a victim of chaumurky, and Shaddam IV was the new Comno Emperor
Like all rulers, Shaddam IV found after assuming power that many of his actions were influenced, if not dictated, by those of his line whom he had succeeded The triangular balance of power, for example, which distributed control of the Impenum among
the royal House, the Landsraad, and CHOAM, set limits on the legal power which could be exercised by an emperor Certain writings which have survived from the period of Shaddam s reign indicate that this restraint occasionally angered him, he preferred that greater control be available to him
Particularly chafing, however, was a far more personal restriction, this one resulting from negotiations between the late Elrood IX and the Bene Gessent Sisterhood In a rare dovetailing of interests, House Comno, as represented by the emperor, and the B G had mingled their breeding plans The inducements oflered by the Sisterhood must have been impressive even by Imperial standards, for the result of their bartering with House Cornno left Shaddam in the position of accepting an arranged marriage to one Lady Anunl, a Bene Gessent of Hidden Rank The ceremony was earned out three months after the new Emperor's coronation
The terms of the marriage gave Shaddam additional reason to resent its having been arranged Only those children born by Anunl could be considered to succeed the emperor, none of those mothered by the Imperial concubines could be placed m the succession To one accustomed to the usual wide range of choice given in selecting an heir to House Cornno, suth a restriction seemed intolerable
That the emperor chose to lose himself in the intricacies of court functions and in the pleasures of his harem may be seen as direct ly inspired by his matrimonial situation The number of Bursegs Sardaukar officers of command rank was doubled in the first sixteen years of Shaddam s reign, while the population of the roval harem underwent a similar explosion Father rulers had insisted on detailed reports concerning every action of the Imperial troops as well as those of the soldiers of each of the Great Houses Shaddam IV, on the other hand, preferred to busy himself with Landsraad intngues, leav mg much of the actual running of his empire to his advisors and to the higher ranking Sardaukar officers That the Impenum ran as smoothly as it did in the years preceding the Arrakis Revolt is due almost entirely to the efforts of these two groups
CORRINO, SHADDAM
CORRJNO, WENSICIA
Shadidam's melancholia and withdrawal became even more pronounced over the two decades of his marriage Anunl bore five daughters—Irulan, Chalice, Wensicia, Josifa and Rugt—and no sons before her death in 10176 The emperor spent far less time mourning her passing than in mourning that of his line by permitting him onl) female children, the Bene Gessent had wrested control of his House from him The man who mamed the Princess chosen to receive her father's throne would be the next Comno emperor
The emperor spent increasingly more time and energy in intrigue, much of it skirting the dictates of the Great Convention In 10182, he was supposed (though the charge was never proven sufficiently to allow the Landsraad to act against him) to have interfered in a War of Assassins between House Harkonnen and House Kahfi, preventing the assassination of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen Three years later, an Imperial sumon kidnapped the twin daughters of one of the Houses Minor of Yorba, delivering them to Shaddam as a gift The unfortunate young women were eventually freed, owing to their success in sneaking a message to a visiting diplomat from their homework! in 10189, the Emperor's protest of ignorance of their true identities was not widely countenanced particularly in private, but the unimportant position of the House involved again saved Shaddam from any disastrous consequences
in 10191, Shaddam embarked on his most serious departure from the role permitted him by the Great Convention he sent Imperial Sardaukar to fight in Harkoanea livery against the forces of House Atreides This act, which must have seemed an ideal opportunity to expand his own power, was also the frustrated emperor's undoing Instead of providing mm with an easy profit from a discreet partner (the Harkoanens, even as they provid ed Shaddam with the huge amounts of melange he demanded in payment for his aid, would not dare to admit the reason for that payment) and a rumor-based surge in respect from me Landsraad, the Arrakis gambit ulti mately cost Shaddam his throne, his eldest daughter, and his much cherished comforts Not even the patient and determined effort* of Count Fearing, whose billions of solans
in spice bribes helped maintain order and allay suspicion in the months following the defeat of House Atreides, could save Shaddam when Paul Atreides and his Fremen pitted themselves against him and his Sardaukar
Bitter and defeated, Shaddam IV went into involuntary exile on Salusa Secundus in 10196, dccompdmed by his three remaining daughters, Count and Lady Fennng, and the majority of his courtiers from Kaitam Until his death in 10202, he exhibited such an aversion for the name of Paul Atreides that even his letters from Pnncess Irulan were screened on arrival by Count Fennng and all references to the new Emperor carefully deleted C W
Further references ATREIDES LETO ATREIDES paui
MAUD DIB FENRINO COUNT HASIMFR HARKONNEN BAR
Irulan Atrades-Comno Count Fennng A Profile Temp Series 343 and In My Father s House tr Rebeth Vreeb (Kailam Unthrin UP)
CORRINO, WENSICIA (10170-10227) The third daughter of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV and his wife the Lady Anunl, House Comno regent for her son Farad'n (Harq al-Ada) until his alliance with House Atreides It seems that Wensicia was the only member of a highly literary farml> who left no writing of her own Thus, sources for her life are the unfinished autobiography of her son, Note* to My Life her sister Irulan's autobiography, In My talker's House and the Lady Anunl s journals all found in the Rakis Hoard The information paints a por trait of a woman who strove all her life to he her father s only son
The third of five girls Wensicia was raised and trained at home primarily by her father, her sister Irulan, and their tutors She had little contact with her mother more from Anunl s expressed preference than from her mother s death when Wensicia was six The Lady Anunl has little pleasant to say about her daughter and one journal entry, made when Wensicia was four shows that Anunl regretted having ever given birth to the child Anunl complained that Wensicia practiced cruelty for pleasure and was heard to laugh only when she had caused suffering Appar ently the only person who could influence the child s behavior at this state was her
CORRINO WENSICIA
CORRINO WENSICIA
father, and Anunl records that he took little interest in Wensicia, being primarily con cerned with his oldest child, irulan
Harq al Ada, rather than seeing aimless cruelty m his mother, instead saw a life-long attempt to become the ruthless family leader her father was unable and her sister Irulan unwilling to be
My mother's motto was Always pay attention to detail She had a solid sense of self and plate, even after my grandfather had been deposed by the Atreides She had always been the strongest supporter of the Sardaukar m the family even when it meant arguing fiercely against Shaddam s somewhat lackadaisical neglect of them She saw more clearly than he did that the Sardaukar were the strength of House Cornno Unfortunately whenever she had power her methods were more- often expedient than humane and her manners more often imperious than decorous
As a child, Wensicia imitated the Bene Gessent regimens her mother taught to Irulan When their mother died, Irulan s training was assumed by a tutor, the Reverend Moth er Agnppa Jeunne Masi, a woman who was, apparently far more attracted to Wensicia than to her formal student R M Masi is the only female companion ever mentioned who accepted Wensicia enthusiastically (Irulan seems almost jealous in her accounts of the relationship) From R M Mast, Wensicia learned many of the Bene Gessent martial arts, the accumulation of data techniques, and the use of poisons Wensicia was particularly interested m the history of the Assassins Irulan records the household gossip that the death of their sister Chalice, quite soon after the death of their mother, was the result of the novice Wensicia's experimentation with simple poisons Both Irulan and al-Ada, however, stoutly deny the validity of this rumor
Wensteia, with the rest of the household, followed her father into his exile on SaJusa Secundus When she was in her late twenties, her father arranged a liaison between her and Dalak Fennng second cousin to his close fheod Count Hasimir Fenring Though Wensicia and Dalak lived together for two years and though their liaison produced Farad'n and his sister Jeunne, die couple never married
Irulan offers several theories about their separation First of all, she thought that Wensicia s long standing involvement with various Sardaukar Bashars intimidated Dalak She also notes that both Wensicia's temper and her hobbies upset Dalak particularly referring to an incident involving Harkonnen Roulette which deprived Dalak of his jewel collection and almost deprived him of his life The only direct comment she records from Wensicia however is that Dalak was a ' mealy mouthed historian who wanted to read about combat rather than participate in it From dl-Ada s comments, though, it seems that Dalak and Wensicia maintained a relatively amicable if distant relationship for the rest of their lives
Wensicia apparently continued a far more active and intimate relationship with her Sardaukar commanders, never at a loss for companionship when she lived on Salusa Secundus Somewhat maliciously Irulan reports Wensicia's boast that she was never without one man m the shadow of another From al-Ada's notes however it seems that the Bashars view of his mother was not wholly favorable Her constant nagging at details while paying scant attention to the consequences of overall strategy annoyed her military and political advisors She had learned the Bene Gessent skill of data collection but she had never been able to master the com panion skills of analysis and synthesis neces sary for effective use of the data Her nick name among the Bashars was Lady Ghafla but her temper and her reputation for swift and vicious action forestalled the use of the title in her presence Obviouslv, Wensicia spent little time worrying about ethical conduct whether it was with her Sardaukars or with the world Her fabled attempt to assassinate me Atreides twins u^ing methods unsanctioned by the Dictum Familia is evidence of her disregard for other people s rules
One thing that Wensicia did respect and even fear was the process ot aging She constantly complained that Irulan using the Bene Gessent rejuvenation techniques was becoming the younger sister to Wensicia Harq al-Ada remembers his mother s fury when she learned that Irulan had hed signifi cantly about her age
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Mother had just received a letter ftom the Lady Mobly (a member of the Atreides household in Arrakeen] descnbmg her introduction to the Pnncess Intkn Mother was livid She ranted on and on that Irulan had lied about her age We reckoned, Mother and I that Irulan had managed to rid herself of twenty years since we last saw her Mother was upset because with Bene Gesserit tricks Irulan now looked young enough to be Mother s daughter rather than her older sister Occasionally tt would have been more pleasant if Mother had had a sense of humor'
From the ego-likeness included with al-Ada's memoirs, Wensicia was a rather small-boned woman, blonde like Irulan but shorter Her heart-shaped face contains sharp gray eyes and a small set mouth, a combination visual ly harmonious but not immediately appealing As she grew older, al-Ada commented that her wardrobe changed from the diaphanous white gowns of her youth to sweeping loose dresses of white sateen and gold trim, all m an effort to hide her thickening body
Wensicia s life changed drastically when her son allied himself with Lett) and Ghamma Atreides She was then banished to Gtedi Prime, where sh& took refuge with the family of DaJak Fearing The refuge was given reluctantly, entirely as a favor to her daugh ter Jeunne From her third year on, Jeunne had lived with her father and his family An incident involving her mother's trained cobras in Jeunne's nursery made Dalak decide that his daughter's only chance of survival was away from her mother When she was six, the Bene Gesserrt order offered to edu cate her at the Chapter House school on Giedi Prime, and she eventually became a weH-known poet From his memoirs, al Ada seems to have had a warm relationship with his sister, but he also says mat Wensicia's arrival on Giedi Pnme did little to bring her close to her daughter
The final fifteen years of Wensicia's life were spent in plotting ways to regain the empire for her son (an activity al-Ada found increasingly uncomfortable in his position m the Atreides household) The only time that he or Irulan seems to have really been upset with her plots, though, was when she engineered an aborme Sardaukar uprising in 10225 At that time, the Fenaing family was
asked by al-Ada to keep his mother in isolation, with the company of only one female servant at a time These companions were assigned three-month shifts—most women, though, quitting or dying before their service was completed When al Ada saw hii mother for the last time, three months before her death of seif inflicted wounds, he was distressed to find her grossly overweight and severely depressed
I would never have recognized Mother Her hair has turned gray and she has gained over forty kg The eyes which peered at me from that doughy tace had little resemblance to the steelv grav piercing stare I had to face as a child Her conversation made little sense going on and on about how Irulan had betrayed her She seemed to think that Irulan had been part of the Atreides assassination attempt—something I doubt could be true She kept telling me not to trust my aunt that Irulan had her own motives unknown to the rest of us—that Irulan was more of a Bene Gessent than we supposed And all she could do was to make long lists of the details which seemed to flood her mind The room was littered with scraps of mmimic film which were the bits and pieces of her declining sanity She reclined on her couch playing with the him which covered her tentlike white satin gown and Muck to the gold braid trim
I had to look away because I could see the ghost of the slender driving force my mother had been Now all she has left are her illusions of strength and her memories of pride Me she seems to regard as a kept man I was her hope for the future and now all she says is that I remind her of my father a literary stud I wish I could feel love or compassion for this woman but I grew up feeling fear and at the end could only feel pity
Wensicia died alone, unloved and forgotten, the last active member of House Comno
RINO FARRAD N CORRINO SHADDAM IV CQRRINO ANUR1L
CROMPTOn RUINS. The story of the Cromp-ton Rums is one of the most melancholy of recent years as stones of failed hopes always are Unlike most subjects touched on by the discovery of the Rakis crystals, this one did not expand our honzons but diminished them
The story is well documented at every step beginning with the voyage of explora
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tion of Guild Ship Tharondelai, captained by Levas Crompton, ID 14701 On the farthest borders of human space they investigated a G type star, Sutterer 4041, the fourth planet of which was comfortably within the star's ecosphere Members of the crew descended to the planet's surface, and found the chief variation from human-optimal conditions to be relatively high percentage of water vapor in the atmosphere, otherwise, the planet seemed ideal for colonization Tharondelai returned to Spacing Guild headquarters, where Captain Crompton registered the planet and received his discovery bonus
In 14702 the usual follow-up expedition was sent to the planet for confirmation of the first findings and for a more thorough scientific investigation of its value as a habitat The planet had now been named Crompton A normal part of the procedure was the launching of a low-altitude satellite for photomapping in detail While ground teams began studying climate, mineralogy, and biology the orbital survey team combined the photomaps and began searching for anything of interest to which to direct die scien usts on the surface
Within days they discovered the presence of something that looked like an artificial structure, nearly a kilometer across, on the shore of the largest lake on die central continent Acting under long-standing regula Uonb governing possible alien contact, the captain, Reola senSbek, directed the satellite to a closer and continuous reconnaissance while she ordered the ground crews to return to the ship The new photos revealed that the structure was considerably damaged, with no sign of activity of any kind in the area
The ground teams returned to the surface, this time to the site of the structure and started carefully investigations No trace of intelligent life was found near the structure, nor anywhere on the surface of Crompton After completing their original mission, the crew of the ship returned to headquarters with their news Search of tee comprehensive Gudd records showed previous investigation neither of Sutterer 4041 nor indeed of anything in that quadrant As far as the Guild could determine (and they were certainly in a positron to be definite) no human being had ever set foot on Crompton
The second expedition of 14702, consisting of five heighhners carrying a host of personnel and a mass of equipment returned to Crompton while the news of alien contact spread through the inhabited worlds Teams of archaeologists architects xenobiologists and the like, combed ever} centimeter of the structure and performed the most intensive survey of an uninhabited planet ever undertaken Their results were straightforward and have never been challenged the structure, now being called the Crompton Ruins was between three thousand and five thousand years old It was entirely empty, except for debris where sections had collapsed No other structure or indication of intelligent life was found anywhere on the planet, although small patches of ground near the structure showed high concentrations of feme oxides It was speculated that these patches could have been the positions of heavy construe toon equipment that had entirely decomposed Crompton hosts many microorganisms that efficiently break down metals vegetable and animal fibers, and tissues A high degree of synthetics in the structure had greatly retard ed but not entirely halted this process of decomposition The stellar neighborhood of Sutterer 4041 was explored, but nothing was found to shed light on the mystery of the huge old structure
There the matter rested Theories of all degrees of respectability were proposed to account for the Crompton Rums, but as the decades mounted into centimes, the Rums were forgotten except for an occasional reference now and then Nevertheless the consensus was mat the Rums represented the one solid evidence of the existence of intelligent alien life And it was not hard to maintain this belief the universe is a vast region, and some argued that it was not unlikely that chance occurrence put humanity on the scene some thousands of years after the aliens had been on Crompton Still, they argued, while we might not encounter the aliens tomorrow or next year or even in the next hundred years, we know from the Rums that they are out there and we need to think about what to do when contact does take place
Then came the Rakis Finds Several years after the initial discovery on Rakis, when the results from that planet had been widely
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publicized, the archaeologist Joona Kritapar pointed out that if Leto II's no-room were a free-standing structure instead of an excavation, and if tiie heights of the different floors varied instead of being constant, the no-room would be only a slightly smaller duplicate of die Crompton Ruins. With the exception of the omission of the no-room's eighth floor, from an overhead perspective the Crompton structure is identical in form and proportion to the no-room.
The theory of the alien origin of the Crompton Ruins was totally demolished. The few specialists on the Ruins argued rightly that nothing had been solved: only the nature of the problem had been changed. Instead of questioning how and when the aliens reached Crompton and why they built the structure, the mystery was how and when did Leto send construction crews to Crompton and why did he build it. Although these are intriguing problems, they have attracted little attention, no doubt for two reasons. First, the magnitude of the Rafcis Hoard has drained the energy and time of scholars who might otherwise have explored the Crompton question; it is simply so much easier to reap bountiful harvests from the Rakis materials that none has wanted to work die sterile soil of Crompton. Second, the psychologically more important, the exploding of the * 'aliens'' of Crompton was met with deep regret that the only evidence of intelligent non-human life yet to appear had been a mistake OF worse—perhaps a millennia-old hoax wrought by someone whose motives were often more mysterious man the structure itself. W.E.M. Further references: IXIAN NO-ROOMS; RAKIS FINDS
EXPLORATION.
CRYSKN1FE. A knife, whose blade consisted of a single tooth of a giant sandworm, considered most sacred by the Fremen. No off-worlder who saw one of the weapons, could be permitted, by ftemen law, to leave Arrakis without the Bremen's consent. (A number of never-explained deaths on that world may have resulted from the enforcement of that law.) Once the blade was drawn from its sheath, it could not be returned unblooded, even if the blood it drew had to be the user's own; to do otherwise was to insult Shai-
Hulud and risk bringing his wrath on all Fremen.
The object of this veneration was a milky-white blade, some twenty centimeters in length, which gave the impression of glowing in dim light—a sandworm's tooth. The teeth were brought into a sietch only infrequently; they were obtainable only when the Fremen found the remains of a dead sandworm. When such a find was made, as many teeth as could safely be carried were removed and taken back to the group's sietch for blessing and manufacture into knives.
Crysknives of two varieties were produced in the sietch factories- fixed and unfixed. A fixed blade, which could be stored for an indefinite period of time, was treated by exposure to a series of electric currents, which "fixed" the blade's electric field and kept it static. An unfixed blade remained stable only so long as it remained in contact with a living human body; deprived of exposure to that body's electric field, it weakened and crumbled within a matter of hours. (This type of blade was most commonly used by Fremen, since it was not wished that anyone
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CRYSKNIFE
should be able to obtain a cryskmfe by looting Fretnen bodies, Fremen who could see that thev were either going to be captured, or die in battle without sufficient time elapsing for their blades to disintegrate, shattered them on the nearest hard object)
The tip, the hollow ont,e occupied by the tooth s nerve, customarily held a small amount of the most deadly poison available, most often a mixed derivative of the native desert plants Fremen usually attempted to avoid killing a respected enemy with the tip of the blade, poison was considered a weapon more suitable for use against animals than humans
The mounting of the blade into the handle was patterned on the kindjal, a type of long knife popular throughout the empire, with a blade of almost identical length to mat of the cryskmfe Where they differed was in the shearing-guard the kindjal generally boasted a stout guard, while the cryskmfe had only the raised lips of its round handle, where it joined the blade, to protect its user's band Most authorities believe that the earliest cryskmves were deliberately constructed to mimic the kindjal a blade the Fremen were already familiar with from their many generations of sen ice in the empire The later changes, including the elimination of the shearing guard, came about when the eryskmfe became a truly unique weapon rather than a native imitation of an off-world knife
Considerable mythology surrounded the blades Fremen cherished their cryskmves, giving mem names which were held secret from even the other troop members, protecting them from harm with their own lives Even after the owner's death, the cryskmfe was treated differently from all other possessions A cryskmfe handle was the only tiling that was taken to the Funeral Haul for' bunal' after its owner's water was returned to the tribe The one exception to tins custom was in the case of a cryskmfe whose blade shattered during a fight Fremen superstition held in such cases that the person had somehow
offended Shai Hulud who had retaliated by withdrawing the strength from the tooth
A good deal of history surrounds cryskmves as well The initial acceptance of Paul Maud'Dib Atreides among the Fremen for example, came about when his mother, the Lady Jessica, was tested by the Shadout Mapes and deemed worthy of possessing a cryskmfe The original Duncan Idaho, who had proven himself in Stilgar's sietch, was also allowed to keep one of the sacred blades
The blade that has attracted the most his toncal attention, however, is undoubtedly that mounted in Maud Dib b tryskmfe When the hrst Atreides emperor—in the guise of The Preacher—was killed, his son took his cryskmfe for his own In the centuries that followed, Leto II made frequent ceremonial use of the blade, culminating m its use in Siaynoq In addition, The God Emperor controlled the tiny supply of the knives which still remained during the last centuries of his rule while his Museum Fremen earned out the old ntuals with them utterly ignorant of the true reasons for their actions The fact that one of them would copy a cryskmfe for sale to Siona Atreides illustrates the degeneration of the customs, no true Fremen would have permitted such a thing for any reason, least of all personal gam Maud'Dib s cryskmfe, then, could be seen as the last of its kind—a blade earned by one who knew the traditions and myths that held it apart from more common, less holy weapons
While the old Fremen might have disap proved of the use to which the God Emperor put their leader's crjskmfe, they would cer tainly have approved of the level, of veneration which surrounded it C W
Further references ATREIDES LETO 11 ATREIDES PAUL
MUAD DIB SANDWORM SHADOUT MAPES DUNCAN IDAHO
Jarel Oslo Fremen Lives and Legend (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) Daiwid Kuuan Monuments of the Zensunm Migrations (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) Defa 1-Fanini Taaj I Fremen 12v (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
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DE VRIES, PITER. (10138-10191 ) The man who would m time become Mentat-Assassin for the Smdar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and nval him in evil, was born on Gwandah, a small planet well off the main spaceways According to fragmentary Tleilaxu records, Piter's mother was Thra, a daughter of the powerful Olman clan A sickly woman who nevertheless appears to have lived to a considerable old age, Thra doted on her only son and seemingly de&ed him nothing Of Piter's father, we know next to nothing In the only note we have on the senior de
Vnes, his name is partially obliterated, the only letters legible are "ibb, ' but whether they constitute the beginning or end of his name is difficult to say
We do know from evidence in the Tleilaxu Records that Piter's father, in some financial difficulty sold the child to the Tleilaxu for then- mentat experiments In the normal course of his training, Piter learned to absorb sense impressions and data, then work the material— add, extrapolate calculate, analyze—to come up with second approximation answers or, ideally, straight-line computations—to become, literally, a 'human computer '
Listening to students tales, Piter chafed at being stranded in, to his mind, the backwater of the universe He had long since decided to set out, when the wind was nght, to raise the fortunes of Piter de Vnes He burned with impatience and ambition Hav mg no doubt about his capabilities, he saw immediately that the avenue of the mentat, if trod shrewdly, could lead to what he yearned for most power
Tleilax, as one of the two or three planets that did not completely adhere to the dictums leveled against technology after the Butlenan Jihad, included a variety of questionable courses of training for mentals Always sensi tive to the demands of the marketplace the Tleilaxu could produce mentals superbly skilled in any specialty, including the so called "twisted" Mentat-Assassms who could kill efficientl) and without compunction When the Baron Harkonnen's order for a Mentat Assassin arrived, the Tleilaxu saw in the clever Piter an ideal candidate for the Baron's requirements
To produce a "twisted ' mentat the Tleilaxu
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enhanced and fostered inclinations to evil m their candidates, then systematically destroyed any vestiges of human emotions or responses except those required by the employer Although most of the Tleilaxu methods of twist conditioning are lost or obscure, one is certain the systematic destruction of faith or confidence in authorities, m loved ones, or in persons in traditional positions of trust by allowing the subject to witness Face Dancer counterfeits of such individuals committing atrocities Thus, Piter was subjected to horror upon horror, including the appalling simulation of his "mother ' being raped by a trusted mentor
After the proper period of training, Piter was delivered to the Baron Harkonnen By the time he entered the Baron's employ, he was, to the Baron's thinking, the "perfect" Mentat—unfeeling, unscrupulous, addicted to melange, incapable of affection for his fellow creatures, his only possible emotion was a morbid delight in erotic depravity and in inflicting pain or death He was a creature to whom killing was as natural as swallowing and done with as little thought If in the accepted view, Thufk Hawat was indeed the mint-perfect Mentat, Piter de Vnes was the other side of the coin
The Harkonnen papers point out tot when Piter joined the Baron on Ciedi Prime in 10168 he was a small, slender man with dark, effeminate features Eventually, by the time of his Ml maturity, Piter had not reached the average height expected for males m his society Some have conjectured that Piter's slight build aad meager height may account to some extent for his inordinate desire for power Orders aad sales receipts found in his papers indicate that he favored wearing the cothurn (a high, thick-soled boot) which suggests that be was not reconciled to his size
During his years as Baron Harkonnen's Mentat-Assassin, Piter served his master well He machinated the destruction of a number of Minor Houses and the weakening of many more He outlined the oppressive policy the Baron implemented on Arrakis to squeeze out spice profits He seldom made mistakes In fact, the only recorded one is his prediction mat the Lady Jessica would bear her Duke a daughter, which she would have if
she had not disobeyed Bene Gessent orders
As time went on, Piter worked profitably in two areas in which he excelled the ere ation of methods of torture and the development of poisons His products ranged from the most subtle, undetectable poisons to those causing lingering death in excruciating pain One notable compound was a sophisticated residual poison (later used on Thufir Hawat) for which periodic antidotes had to be administered The control comes of course, with the threat of withdrawal ot the antidote, which brought death within hours, or at the most within a few days
In return for his efforts, the Baron fed Piter's craving for power by promises of future spoils and fed his addiction with an unlimited supply of melange In working for the Baron, of course Piter knew he walked a tightrope For a man as ruthless as the Baron, ordering an execution when he was displeased was a simple matter Piter, however, had some advantage as a mental he would know when the Baron sent the executioner Also he knew the Baron would not destroy him as long as he was useful if he had learned anything in his years on Giedi Prime, it was that the Baron was not wasteful of talent
When the Baron finally decided that the moment had arrived to eliminate the hated House Atreides, it was Piter's strategy that the Baron took to the emperor The plan was simplicity itself isolate and destroy Gauging the emperor s temper correctly, Piter urged the Baron to negotiate with the emperor the emperor would order the Duke Leto—an order the Duke would never disobey—to leave Caladan (a planet the House Atreides had held in fief for generations) for Arrakis, a desert planet but the only source in the universe of the essential spice Soon after the Atreides arrived on Arrakis and before they could consolidate their position, the Baron would spring the ambush with the help of the dreaded Sardaukar, disguised in Harkonnen h\cry It was imperative that the royal hand be clean If the Lctndbraad should ever learn that the emperor had moved against a Great House, they would undoubtedly unite for retaliation
The emperor had his own reasons for
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wanting the Atreides destroyed He had long observed the presently small but exemplary fighting force Leto had assembled under the direction of Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho and foresaw the day when it could be more than a match for his Sardaukar Thus, when the Baron came to him with his treach erous scheme, he saw a way to nd himself of this potential threat, reluctant though he was to move against a man he respected and admired
To insure the success of the venture, Piter added borne refinements The best insurance obviously was to have an agent planted at the hub of the Atreides house But who'' Piter decided to do the impossible, corrupt the incorruptible One member of the Duke's household was Wellington Yueh, a medical doctor of the Suk School, whose training included a supposedly unbreakable conditioning against disloyalty—a conditioning considered so absolute that emperors could employ Suk doctors without fear However, Piter's philosophy did not accept the possibility of incor rupfcbility to him every man had his price It was just a question of finding the appropriate com The way was found to bend Yueh's Imperial Conditioning" he was told that his beloved wile Wanna (who had been dead for some years), was alive and in the Baron's custody subject to Piter's torture Thus, the bargain was struck (incidentally deflating the bubble of Suik Conditioning) the Baron promised to "deliver Wanna from her agonies' and permit Yueh "to join her" if Yueh would deliver the Atreides, especially the Duke Leto, to him
To prevent Yueh's detection, knowing that the Atreides' Mental Thufir Hawat would suspect mat the Harkonnens had planted a traitor in their midst, Piter decided to give them one a decoy He had the Baron com pose a note to one Parties, the head of the HaitoDiren underground on Arrakis, informing him that they had successfully placed an agent in the Atreides1 house and hinting in unmistakable terms mat the trailer was Jessica When tile note was intercepted as planned, they would have awakened suspicion into the he-art of the Atreides' defenses
Piter also devised some minor diversions such as uprisings in selected garrison towns
and suggested that the Baron offer a reward of a million solans for a cryskmfe Piter felt that with his blue-within blue eyes and a cryskmfe he would have no trouble should the occasion call for it and the opportunity arise, penetrating any sietch on Arrakis However, this idea was one of his few hopes that came to naught
After the Atrades were taken, the Baron escorted Piter to the cell where Jessica lay bound and gagged to collect the "spoils of Arrakis" die Baron had promised him the Lady Jessica herself Once there the Baron brought out his surprise, Piter had a choice Jessica or the Duchy of Arrakis to rule in the Baron's name
In the only reference to Piter in her journal The Years on Arrakis Jessica speaks of her fear as she lay on the floor looking up at Piter looming over her and of her bewilder ment that he could not hear the he m the Baron's voice She also realized that there could be no doubt of Piter s choice when she heard the truth in the Baron's words ' I know what Piter really wants Piter wants power ' His decision to take the duchy was immediate
Selections from The History of House Harkonnen reveal the Baron s actual scheme He intended Piter to rule only unUl he had fulfilled his purpose, he would then be eliminated Knowing Piter would make Arrakis suffer, the Baron planned to leave him in power only until Arrakis hated him so much that they would welcome his nephew Feyd Rautha as a savior
The Baron, however never got d chance to test his plot In a few short hours Piter de Vnes was dead, puffed out of existence by a whiff of poison gas from a pill shaped into a false tooth and placed m Duke Leto s mouth by Dr Yueh The interview m the Baron s command post had begun with Yueh When the Suk doctor was brought to the Baron to receive the reward for his treachery, the Baron fulfilled his promise to allow Yueh "to join' his beloved Wanna m death At the Baron s signal, Piter killed the doctor (Details of the slaying as told to lakin Zefud, the Baron s guard captain by a witness, Umman Kudu, are recorded m Zefud s Log Included in the records is Kudu's observa
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tion that, although he had seen many killings in his time, he had seldom seen one performed with such obvious relish as Piter's slaying of Dr. Yueh.) -
Within moments of Yueh's death, the Baron had Duke Leto brought into the room in hopes of getting him to reveal the whereabouts of Jessica and Paul. When a prolonged 1 interrogation of Leto failed, the Baron decided to try the threat of torture. It was then that Leto bit on the capsule tooth and opened his mouth to expel the poison gas. Although the Baron escaped, Piter succumbed. Perhaps the best thing that one can say for Piter de Vries is that he shared his moment of death with the great Duke Leto Atreides. D.K.
Further references; MENTAT entries; MENTATS, TWISTED; Marya von Wikkheiser, The History tfHoui* tMaattm. tr. Arazrii Pezh, SAH 76 (Paseo: Institute of Gatacto-Fremen Culture); lakin Zefud, Duty Officer's Log for 7/1J10I91, RRC 35-MH3; Lady Jessica, Ttu Years on Arrakis. tr. Zhaivz Aultan [Caladan: Apex).
DEW PRECIPITATORS (or Dew Coflectore). Along with windtraps, the most important tools for collecting atmospheric moisture on Arrakis. They were introduced to Arrakis by Pardot Kynes, Imperial Planetologist. for use in planting experiments in the open desert.
Invention of the precipitator is credited to Pajit Narayam (7520-7613); it was first used on Zecrati in 7587. It has been used on many dry, low-precipitation planets like New Bhutan, Deviil, and Salusa Seomdus to support local agriculture. Dimensions of the units varied from planet to planet depending on solar distance and atmospheric composition and density. The typical precipitator of Arrakis was half of a circular ellipsoid (inner radius 1,59 cm, outer radius 1.75 cm, long axis 4 cm, short axis 3.17 cm). Hie bowl or "saucer" sat in the ground around the stem of the plant with its concave surface facing upward.
The precipitator had a dual function. During the day it reflected sunlight from its unfocused surface and thus helped keep its plant cool. When the sun went down, the conductivity of the material cooled the precipitator more quickly than die air. Atmospheric moisture condensed on die surfaces, dribbled to the small opening at the center
for the stalk of the plant, and dripped directly onto the root.
DICTATEL A thought-transcribing device first constructed in 10938 by Pon Fenrhy and Glais Omer, Ixian scientists of differing specializations. Fenrhy had done the landmark research on brain waves and their physical manifestations which led to the invention of the interpersonal transmitter in 10925; Omer was the inventor and developer of the lasprinter, a machine he first demonstrated in 10921 which transcribed data onto light-sensitized sheets of plastivellum using a beam of coherent light. Their combined talents and two years of intensive research resulted in the dictatel, By 10938, the God Emperor's journal-keeping had been a matter of widespread knowledge for several centuries, no doubt prompting the Ixians to invest so much of their time and energies in developing a workable dictatel. A machine which could .transcribe an author's thoughts without the intermediary of writing or speech, onto material capable of enduring for several thousand years, could have appealed to no one so much as Leto. The dictatel was a gift certain to please him and served as one of Ix's many counters against the influences of the Bene Gesserit and the Tleilaxu. It also helped to protect Ix's research into the "forbidden" areas of science and technology. By accepting the dictatel, the God Emperor would once again be demonstrating his willingness to ignore their scientists' transgressions.
The dictatel designed for Leto had the additional advantage of remote control. The printing and binding machinery, safely hidden in the Citadel catacombs could be activated at will by the God Emperor, regardless of his location. The range has not yet been determined, but must have been at least fifteen hundred kilometers. He therefore could avoid the clumsiness of having to carry some other form of writing implement with him when away from the Citadel and the inconvenience of transcribing his writings on his return, as he had done with his pre-10938 Journals.
While Fenrhy worked toward determining the best form of wave for their purposes, Omer modified his invention to the specifica-
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tions he had been given the printer would have to be activated by mental command be powered by a far longer lasting energy source than that generally used in laspnnters and be as free as possible from service and up keep The second and third requirements were the easiest to meet and a model mcor poratmg both was ready for inspection with in six moaths Omer had streamlined the functions of his earlier machine reducing the number of moving parts he had also replaced the electromagnetic power pack with one using a long half life radioactive once used in family atomics
(Although Ixian records assert that Leto II had not been informed of the dictatel project by this point the fact that any form of radioactive fuel was being used gives the he to that statement The God Emperor had expressly forbidden the use of any type of atomics and it was a rule he had never been known to relax )
Fenrhy s work was both complex and time consuming While he already knew that beta waves functioned best as transmittal waves he had been told the new machine would have to receive accurate transmissions at a distance of fifteen hundred km over three times the distance covered in his earlier models Finally late in 10935, he discovered that beta 2 waves properly coded and amplified were capable of carrying even greater dis tances than that assigned him He took his results to Omer explained what he needed in the printer IB fee way of a receiver and the pair had a functioning model of the dictatel built and ready the following year
When ttoey took their machine before the Inquisitors and asked permission to take it to Arrakis m order to demonstrate it to the God Emperor they were sorely disappointed A further requirement one which neither of them had been told was that the dictatel s work be virtually mdescwtable Since no known material—and certainly not the plas tiveflum on which Omer s device printed— was sufficieatiy durable for die God Emperor s needs, the dictatel could not be delivered until one had been discovered
Omer and Fenrhy, fimous that this informa tion had not been given to them earlier retired from the project Not until 10940
when Jams Rondel s discovery of riduhan crystal paper provided the machine with a suitable printing medium did either of them have anything to do with the dictatel That association was limited they merely taught the device s functions to the men who were conveying it to Arrakis Neither of the dictatel s inventors (undoubtedly as punishment for what the Inquisitors v ewed as childish behavior) was present at the demonstration given the God Emperor of its use
That the dictatel worked as well as or better than they had originally hoped could not have been much consolation
Further references JOURNALS OF LETO 11 RIDULIAN CRYSTALS Alan Bartke Survey of fxian Technology 10900 13500 (Finally Mosaic)
DISTRATiS From rfupersoid transponder the name applied to a communication device developed by the Fremen relying on embed ding a coded message in the neural system of almost an; creature
Before the Butlenan Jihad research on mammalian nervout, systems combined with techniques of miniaturization and circuitry led in two directions toward thinking ma chines and toward understanding neural physiology Knowledge in the second of these directions was uncovered by the Zensunm while they were on Pontnn and by the tune they had reached Dune the distrans system had been perfected
The distrans had two parts a wave transla tor (a tiny crystal weighing less than 5 mg implanted in the brain of the creature carry mg the message) and an encoder decoder tube (about 9 cm long and 7 mm in outside diameter) The inside of the e d tube was lined and crossed by polarized shigawire which drew its minuscule energy require ment from the electromagnetic field shadowing the user s hands First a series of clicks serving as a password were spoken into the tube while holding it to the earner s ear Then the message was spoken the e d tube digitized the signal and fed it to the wave translator which changed the signal to nor mal electrochemical stimuli and locked them into the host s nervous system The wave translator remained active one part causing the message to be broadcast at set intervals
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the other stimulating the host's vocal center The message was thus covered by and Filtered through the earner's natural sounds, making it impossible to distinguish a message from normal cries
Once the messenger had reached its des tmation, the wave translator was deactivated b> a repetition of the password, which also triggered a final broadcast of the message The e d tube received the information, trans lated it into wave motion, and "spoke" with the voice of the sender
Any nervous system of some complexity could accommodate the distrans but beasts suited to rapid passage across the terrain— usually birds or Symg mammals—were favored Bads and the native bats, me ctelago, had several advantages other than flight placing the wave translator in the earner's brain was the most difficult step in constructing the device, and the region of these animals* brains controlling their vocalizations was both easy to locate and relatively difficult to damage Moreover, the Fremen bred animals with superior homing abilities
Distrans communication showed technical sophistication and simplicity of execution Production had its drawbacks both encoder decoder and wave translator were extremely small and sophisticated, and beast breeding and training facilities required precious resources But the ease of use of die distrans outweighed these disadvantages No special knowledge (other man the password) or training was required of the user And the system was secure the odds were so great -against an enemy even capturing a cielago or bird, let alone recognizing its purpose, that die password seldom had to be changed Since the wave translator could be cleared and reused, the same carriers could be flown over and over again
But despite these conveniences, some circumstances limited the distrans insurmountably A bird could not gain entry to a building without its passage being noted, a bat had only a limited range, and neither could be instructed to search out a recipient of unknown location
These shortcomings prompted the use of humans as earners, and the first successful implantation of a distrans into a human brain
was performed by Dr Gank L Nouh, a physician under ihe patronage of the Landsraad High Council, m 10179 A much modified wave translator was needed, with one particularly important change it played back its message only when stimulated by the earner's speech center, rather than the reverse Otherwise the earner would be constantly babbling and the reason would not be hard to guess Those who could afford to do so quickly switched over to human hosts, ignoring the few protests—chiefly religious—that were raised concerning the employment of human beings as machines Widespread distrans use continued until early in the 11000s, when the invention of crystal scramblers rendered the device impractical
Further references Dr Gank L Nouh Wave Transla tors and Their Effects (Finally Mosaic) E K Sentenag Surgical Technique of the Last Millennium (Airfares People s College of Medicine) Ch 14
DUNE TAROT. The secrets of die Dune Tarot are said to be revealed in the Azhar Book but its obscurities only pique the inquiring intellect and convey nothing to the uninitiated Some revisions of the Orange Catholic Bible confirm some of the symbols but these spurious editions have unreliable origins in older, abandoned faiths from the time before space travel Scholars date the Tarot from more than 20 000 years ago, and find in the Dune Tarot some symbols common to cul tures as diverse as the Bene Gessent and the Fremen, however, initiate!, in the Mysteries refuse to divulge any secrets of the Temple, and indeed refuse even to acknowledge that a Temple exists m physical and not just m ideal form
A tarot deck has 78 cards the major arcana, 21 cards of power symbolizing the forces of greatest import in man, society and the universe, and the minor arcana, 56 cards divided into four suits of 14 cards each The number seven is the mystical seed from which the deck grows each minor suit has twice seven cards, the major arcana, or trumps, have thrice seven, the suits together total 77 The joker (or Fool) is unnumbered in the pack
Some have argued that the four suits of
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the minor arcana—Knives, Globes, Staves, and Basins—are of Fremen ongin because
their designs suggest aspects of that culture The suits and their associations are
Four is the number associated with the minor arcana, with its four fold significances m eluding the four seasons and what the Rever end Mother Gams Helen Mohiam called the "four pillars of the universe ' "the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous, and the valor of the brave' The four suits are twice baked in sets of two Knives and Staves, both elongated forms, are black, symbolizing the wel come night, Globes and Basins, both circular forms, are red, symbolizing the sun and the day it brings
The bridge between minor and major arcana and the central symbol of the trumps is the
sign
, recognized throughout the Im
penum as proper to the letter M in many alphabets, the initial of melange, which is the true mem, or "water of life," and a hieroglyph for the S of the sandwonn in its transverse motion The sign unites the elongated and circular shapes of the minor arcana also, and in most designs of the Tarot deck appears on four cards of the major arcana.
The major arcana suggest a journey—Hajj or Hajra—to a Temple, either inner or outer, supported by the four pillars of the universe In keeping with other Mysteries, the trumps imply esoteric rites which lead the initiate to membership and then to an exalted state m which the traveler gains the universe, becomes one with the Kwisatz Haderach, or attains Alam al-Mithal
Because several versions of the Tarot vary in small respects, the following offers only the terms and designs of the major arcana which are consistent I. The Hajrtte A man wearing a Jubba
cloak holds a lasgun upright m his nght hand as if it were a spear and he raises his left hand in a fist He stands under the vaulted ceiling of an Atreides castle and behind the castle the First Moon appears He symbolizes a fateful journey made in anger, success beckons
El. The Hajnta A woman whose black Aba suggests a Fremen lifts a Glowglobe high, but behind her, down the recesses of a vast vaulted hall, a crone lurks She stands for a quest made in love, and failure follows her
III. Baraka A man wears a crown with
the sacred
emblazoned on it The
barrel cactus and the evening primrose provide a setting in the peaceable kingdom brought by justice IV. Auhya A woman likewise wearing a
crown with the sacred
, surrounded
by Akarso leaves A catchbasm appears in the background, symbolizing the delights of the blessed
V. Ampohros The vehicle unites the physical and spiritual, or unites one s own planet with the regions of Alam al Mithal Any heighlmer could symbolize the soaring spirit, but this particular one suggests the endless nature of the task
VI. Wawi or Vahi A man and woman stand hand-in-hand looking toward a rising Moon They symbolize Two-m-One
VII. Baraka Heiros He holds a baliset, for he plays the music of the spheres which can be heard by only—and yet by all—true seekers of the way He stands for harmony in art or nature
VD3. Krimsjut Wearing a garland of Akarso leaves, a stillsuit clad figure kneels, arm
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around a couchant sandworm, both figures against a background of a Cheops board The man, worm, and gameboard signify physi cal strength moderated by wisdom
IX. Ilnust An eremite The journey is always solitary He represents either self reliance or loneliness
X. Ixion Celebrates the invention of the wheel as the beginning of culture All small things, like the journeyer, are fated for great things but the wheel turns downward too, and the card can mean a fall from high degree
XI. Istislah The ftdayfan and the Sardaukar were both devoted to Istislah The card depicts a perfect square to imply equal proportions for all There is no adornment (no obstruction) on the square and it is upheld by four pillars
XII. Giudichar An inverted strong man the truth which supports the universe When heaven is reflected in earthly dealing, it means "Right makes might—as above, so below', when times are bad, it symbolizes the triumph of might
XIII. Erg or The Desolate Sand A monster Idee a Maker entwines himself in Inkvine and enchains a black box The unlikely combination of Maker and Vine implies that the initiate must pass through a death phase and emerge having conquered fear Or the Desolate Sand itself may represent a great mystery or an ultimate test—a Tahaddi al-Burhan
XIV. Great Mother The homed goddess, sign of Tune, treads on a star
XV. Great Worm Sometimes depicted as Shaitan He lies curled deep in a cave and guards the "pearl of great price " The nega live side of each person, or in society, the Fall of a people
XVI. Pillar of Fire A Pyroctet falls m the desert, and a Cielago hovers in the background The exoteric yields to Mantene, symbolizing a swift enlightenment or the breaking of a secret
XVII. Star or Sayyadim A Star adorns the hood of a cloaked Fremen woman From love and service come the light of knowledge
XVID*A/-Ia/ The heat of the desert sun encourages the growth of Shai-Hulud, but this is the devounog sua, a deadly power It glowers over the Desolate Sand and a
Sandworm It signifies an approaching trial, or growth of the spirit
XK. Moon Either of two satellites of Arrakis The moon confers the refreshing dew, a source of life and glimmers over Akarso and catchbasm the latter adorned with the central symbol
XX. Judgment A Sadu presides over the traditional scales, which here weigh either the soul or the water rendered trom the dead, for the scales form the T of the Tau
XXI The Universe A figure with two faces represents the Kwisatz Haderach bndg ing space and time, and symbolizes the intrusion of the divine into the ordinary
O. The Wanderer Against the desolate sand he walks alone his bmdle with staff over his shoulder He does not know what the bmdle contains, for he does not under stand the affliction a Hero brings to his planet The card may mean escape or expul sion
When the major arcana were used in prognosticating, the deck was shuffled and cut, and the top card, representing the one whose fate was probed, was dealt face up Around it were dealt six cards, face down, in the following positions
At the prompting of the seeker (if present), the six cards were turned face up one at a time The order of their revelation established the order of event The significance of the cards was determined by their position thus, for example, al Lat represented a spiritual burgeoning if it fell in a "fortuna" position— Head or Right Hand, but warned of a test to come if it fell in an "mforttma" position—Left Hand or Loins The cards had a ranking of ' power' Gods, Demigods, Heroes, Men, Animals, Things Within each of these ranks, the expected ordering prevailed for example (in descending order) Baraka-Heiros Baraka, Ilmist Hajnte Wanderer Thus, a more powerful figure on a ' fortuna'' position, say, will outweigh a less powerful on an mfortuna ' position
The skill of the reader came into play, too as Elagar Lunacharakn says, Meaning resides not in the cards but in the mind of the reader, the cards provide only a focus and a symbology for the channeling of the energy, for the clearing of the vision, for the opening
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of,the eyes of the seeker." And there were many is high and low positions in the Atreidean empire who had that skill. A new edition of the Tarot pack appeared from unknown sources about 10208; both Paul and Alia were vexed by its increasing popularity, but they could do tittle to halt its use and they knew moreover that the rising tide of divination of all kinds had been
inspired by their prescience. They had marked out prescience as part of the Fremen way, and spoke more clearly by their example than by proclamation. G W E
Further references: MELANGE; Elagar Lunacharaku, Pasteboard Prophets: On Reading One's Own Fear and Calling It the Future (Kaitam: Linlhnn UP); Hadi Bai, Love, Wealth, and Peace Through the Tarot (Zunaona' Kinat).
D-WOLVES
D-WOLVES. Specially-bred carnivores, the end product of Leto II's search for the ideal guardians of his Citadel. Since he had no wish to station an entire garrison of Fish Speakers in the Sareer in order to protect his privacy, he decided shortly after the Citadel's construction in 10723 to find an alternative to his female warriors. The system he eventually chose was twofold: Ixian surveillance devices to keep him informed of any unau-thorizes intrusions, and some form of predatory animal to deal with the intruders. The D-wolves were to be those predators.
The God Emperor had in mind a specific sort of creature when he began the breeding program: a "more intimidating version" of the Rya Wolves once fouad on Salusa Secundus. Ideally, he would have used breeding pairs of those beasts as his first-generation stock; unfortunately, the "softening" of the former prison planet had rendered the wolves extinct.
Leto was forced to begin elsewhere. The earliest ancestors of the D-wolves were wolves imported from a dozen worlds chosen variously for speed, size, endurance and efficiency in hunting. In addition, Gaze Hounds (dogs whose visual acuity had long since made them the most popular watch animals in the Imperium; native to Centraha) were bred with the second-generation hybrids and with several of the later generations. This cross produced wolves that could perform as sight-hunters and were thus less dependent on scent-tracks which their human prey might be-able to disguise or obliterate,
Leto had originally chosen some of the largest species of wolves available to him, and he continued to increase the shoulder-height of the average litter by breeding the largest animals back into the mix. By the end of the first half-century of the program, he had succeeded in producing wolves that dwarfed all other known species.
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In 10819, D-wolves were released in the Forbidden Forest The animals were capable of breeding true to their own kind, and had proven themselves equal to the God Emperor's expectations They stood an average of two meters at the shoulder, could find and follow trails several days old and could bring down prey three times their size As individuals, they were formidable, m a pack, no adver sary could defeat them While they appear to have lacked the speed which characterized the Rya Wolves the D wolves outshone their models m all other respects
They controlled the Forest for thousands of years, protecting Lew's Citadel against would-be raiders with terrifying efficiency It was not until 13722—the year in which Siona Atreides led her rebels in the raid which gained them the Stolen Journals—tha\ they failed m their guardianship and were subsequently destroyed
Before leaving for their mission, the rebels had injected themselves with large doses of Nyilatm, a poison with devastating effects on the lupine nervous system Whether or not the drug would be effective on the D wolves was not known but the rebels had hypothesized that the wolves's vulner ability to the poison might have been increased by the many generations of iqbreed ing which had taken place since the species was developed The theory, as only Siona lived to discover, was correct, the wolves's conditioning, which kept them within the boundaries of the Forbidden Forest, allowed them to eat whatever they brought down within those boundaries The guardians were poisoned and replaced by what Leto referred to as "human wolves '
Further reference RYA WOLVFS
ECAZ. "The Greenhouse Planet," first discovered m 8112 B G It was listed as a nondescript planet with a humid atmosphere, moderate temperatures, shallow inland seas covenng vast areas of the two main continents and the customary large variations between the equator and the poles Bcaz soon became the fief of House Plana and gained a reputation as a botanical bonanza, the humidity, more than the warmth, accounted for its unparalleled profusion of planthfe House Plana sponsored extensive research laboratories m an attempt to catalog and breed useful strains of some of the more intriguing plants alt methods were used, including forced mutation and spraying of controlled environments with mutagemc compounds
House Plana's work came to an abrupt halt in 7033 B G when Ecaz became the
only planet ever to suffer a general atomic attack before the Jihad The ' Slagging of Ecaz''—an Imperial answer to a burgeoning rebellion—resulted in the complete destruction of all human artifdUs The weapons used were 'diggers intended to blast out deep strongpomts, causing radioactive byproducts so substantial as to render the entire planet uninhabitable But more important than the radiation was the breaching of the formerly sealed botanical research and development stations, releasing the mutagenic bactena, viruses and chemicals into the atmosphere For centuries only the taller mountain peaks and the polar ice caps could be safely visited In the lowlands, and especially around the former population centers the residual radiation was deadly and the planet was left uninhabited for thousands of years Not until
ECAZ PLANTS OF
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ECAZ PLANTS OF
after the Jihad, in the desperate search for substitutes for the thinking machines and their products, was Ecaz again explored
The researches that the explorers had conducted before their arrival at Ecaz completely failed to prepare them for what they found The atomic release of the mutagemc microbes of House Plana had resulted in a flora run wild in the thousands of years of isolation Most of (he anmul life of the planet had died except for the insects In addition, there had been a complete elimination of hardwood plants and considerable dieback among all plants with life-cycles of more than one or two local seasons But the niches vacated by the extinction of the more long-lived plants did not stay vacant for long Entirely new forms of plant Me had arisen on Ecaz many were totally unknown and so phenomenal that the explorers were ridiculed by their colleagues, even when they presented specimens
Although many uses have been discovered for Ecazian plants, there has never been a successful attempt to resettle the planet, and House Xitan, which owns and administers Ecaz, has ceased trying to keep a station on the surface Exploratory groups are rotated off-planet after a period of only one standard week on Ecaz (Or less, if signs of Pneumo-fungus, Skin seeds, or Hairoot are detected), after which at least a month of sterile-room recovery is needed. Such expeditions are highly expensive to equip, since every piece of equipment will likely meet its match at least once while on the surface—and even the most careful packing and sealing may not keep spares safe until they are needed Early explorers often scoffed at the idea that mere plants could cause such trouble, until they found their glass etched by Acidmold, then metal devoured by Rustroot whenever it was left in contact with the ground for more than five minutes, and their plastics dissolved and leached away by any of a dozen or more surprisingly active and very deadly "mere plants " Fnrtfcer reference: ECAZ, PLANTS OF
ECAZ, PLANTS OF. A great many useful plants have been discovered on the planet Ecaz since it was rediscovered in 300, but
only the most common families are discussed here Lepidodendrales mutans (the ' fog-woods") Eqmsetales mesmeris (Source of ' Elacca Drug" and Semuta"), Rosa os-myrrah ("Plemscenta '), ' Earner Roots ' (source of "Sapho"),/5oeto cerfctr ("Verite ), and the microscopic plants that are used in the production of glowglobes (Veillonella methanomonas, Acttnomyccs lucifer, Scrpens eleun Etazi and Spheroporus electn a/b)
FOOWOOD (Lepidodendrales mutans four families) Fogwood is responsible tor Ecaz s other popular name "the Sculptors' Paradise," from the unique property of the fogwoods to respond to human thought and to grow, influenced by these thoughts, into shapes that evoke a similar mental state in any viewer The tour families are Bradford (with two subfamilies Mountain and Northern), Lake Tzu-Lei and Spotted
Appearance Fogwood is one of the most common plants on Ecaz, occupying habitats ranging from subarctic to tropical It has a very thick, soft trunk reaching up to twenty meters m height, with a crown of forking branches extending another ten meters The root system of the plants is unusually extensive, ranging for several hundred meters around the parent tree and delving up to one hundred meters underground The leaves of the fogwood vary with the subtype, but are always spirally placed and several times longer than they are wide, and are so numerous as to completely hide the upper branches of the tree The trunk and stems are made up of a slender cylinder of primary, pithy wood, surrounded by a much thicker layer ot phloem which exhibits the special properties that make fogwood so important, and which is in turn covered by a thin, elastic layer of smooth bark, In general, the trunk of a fogwood is approximately one-third as thick as it is tall, giving the plants a squat, unattractive appear ance m the wild The seed cones produced by Lepidodendrales mutans are large and awkward looking, and fogwood seeds have never been successfully germinated outside of the planetary atmosphere of Ecaz
dogwood sculpture The phloem layer of the fogwood is able, in some unknown way, to detect the thoughts of higher life-forms This development surely has no present evo-
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198
ECAZ PLANTS OF
lutionary value, because no animals other than insects inhabit Ecaz, so the thought-tropism of fogwood must be considered a serendipitous development When exposed to consistent human thoughts over a consider able period of time the adaptive phloem in the outer layer of the fogwood trunk will extrude, intrude and warp, precisely reacting to the thoughts After some time, dependent on the age of the tree, the complexity of the sculpture and the sculptor's willingness to cease refinement of the sculpture, the wood assumes a form which arouses thoughts in the viewer similar to those of the sculptor The physical form of a fogwood seldom corresponds to the subject being evoked, unless the sculptor was trying for just such an effect for emphasis or contrast In quiet surroundings the sculpture can be quite disorienting, because it is possible for the sight of a well-done fogwood to bnng about total sensory excitation, with not only thoughts being evoked but also sights, sounds, smells, memories, emotions, and tactile sensations
When a fogwood sculptor has decided on a subject, he travels to the surface of Ecaz and selects, a suitable tree, which he registers with the Sculptors' Guild m Older to prevent mental contamination of his work For his own protection the sculptor then places a dome around the tree and stays within a few meters of his work, thinking about what he wants it to look like This is not as simple as it sounds, since the sculptor must think, as much as possible, only of the topic he wishes to sculpt otherwise, he may inex&icably 'muddy" the sculpture, producing a themeless mass that cannot be comprehended by viewers At the same time he must contend with the planetary surface of Ecaz
FogwQOds are titled by common agreement among die viewers, since the sculpture, if weD done, should evoke ft certain title and no other Amateur sculptures are named by the artist, but it is a marit of a sculptor's ability and self-confidence to release an unti-tled piece and have it pick up a name by popular agreement
The most famous examples of fogwood sculpture are
1. "Sh&ldam I," by his consort Vaya which is undoubtedly the best character study
ever sculpted Vaya accomplished a very difficult task in shaping a fogwood to sug gest Shaddam I on even a cursory glance, giving it such character that for years after his death old fnends would visit the sculp ture to assuage their gnef
2. Truth, by the great Clennos There is no harder subject for fogwood sculpture than abstract concepts, since they exist only by example in the real world yet must exist as pure concepts in the sculptor's mind in order to be cast in fogwood No one has ever satisfactorily described the visual component of Truth, except to say that, of course, it looks like the one thing that the viewer believes beyond all doubt Truth' was the first abstract fogwood to be widely displayed, and was wildly famous for almost a decade before it was titled the viewers knew that they were profoundly affected by the sculpture, but because each viewer described its sensory components differently no title could he agreed upon Clennos kept his own counsel, saying only "At least you know it when you see it"
3. ' Loyalty and Treason,' byLavonDorr The success of' Truth" opened up vast new vistas for fogwood sculptors, but abstracts were so incredibly difficult that not until the time of Lavon Dorr was a work produced to challenge and perhaps surpass 'Truth ' Since 'Lojalty and Treason" shows two exactly opposite abstracts depending upon the face of the sculpture that one looks at, viewing the sculpture (usually on a rotating stand) is an emotionally wringing experience
4. "Fear," anonymous This is the only example of naturally occurring fogwood sculpture ever discovered An entire stand of trees was located m 8444 at the site of a fatal landing shuttle crash The fogwood trees at the site faithfully recorded the unremitting tenor of the crew and passengers, making them not only the sole example of group production of a fogwood, but also the most unsettling sculpture ever done
Although there are numerous reproductions of fogwoods, in form ranging from drawings to flats to full holos, none can convey the full impact of the sculpture itself
ELACCA WOOD (Equisetales mesmeris) is a small, hollow tree with jointed stems and
ECAZ PLANTS OF
199
ECAZ PLANTS OF
large, forked leaves It is best known for its derivatives Elacca Drug and Semuta
Elacca Drug was discovered by accident during the re exploration of Ecaz Members of the Vomn expedition (1403) camped m a stand of Elacca and used some of the dried stalks for a campfire When expedition mem bers noticed that they were developing an unusual orange red flush, their first reaction should have been absolute paiuc They were astonished to realize that they had no craving for the safety ot the shuttle and the base s medics Instead, an utter disregard for their own well-being gripped them
This abandon puzzled the members of the expedition, but only theoretically For the first time since landing on Ecaz, they were unwomed that they might sot get off the planet But the scientists did not appreciate the danger of their state until an insect land ed on the entomolegist's arm. he calmly waited for it to bore ia hole so he could determine its effects on human physiology
Even after such a display, the others were unable to prevent themselves from similar reckless inactions When the drug wore off a few hours later, three of the twelve expedi tion members were dead, and another four had severe infections The expedition did, however, gam more knowledge than any other on the effects of various Ecazian flora and fauna on humans
Elacca Drug has few legitimate uses and because of the characteristic flush produced by the drug, it cannot be used secretly Generally, Elacca is employed only to evoke an ersatz bravery among arena slaves or suicide assassins (especially "shiekl-blowers," who seek their quarry aimed only with a body shield and s hand laser)
Elacca did yield one of the more interesting recreational drugs discovered in the past several thousand years Semuta Derived from fully burned Elacca ash through a process of crystal extraction, Semuta brings about a feeling of peaceful well being combined with an intensely aural perspective of the outside universe This aural stimulus was explained in 10124, when it was discovered by the Theremin composer Alissa that a certain style of music evoked much more intense feelings m the Semuta user The atonal music, which
is tolerable only to Semuta users and very few others, emphasizes the Semuta feelings until they overwhelm the user with what is invariably called ' ecstasy'
PLENISCENTA (Rosa osymyrrah) the Green Perfume Flower, is a small, delicate shrub with variegated leaves the blooms are a brilliant emerald green and when taken from Ecaz and sterilized, decompose with a most exquisite smell Plemscenta perfume has a benign ps)chomimetic effect it overwhelms the olfactor) nerves and causes localized synaptic responses which the brain interprets as indescribably pleasurable smells
SAPHO is extracted from what are called ' barrier roots"—that is, roots of nearly any plant growing at or near "slag zones ' where ancient atomic ground blasts fused the soil Especially rich in Sapho are those barrier roots which also grow in deposits of peat or other soils unusually heavy m plant matter
Sapho is distilled by diffraction from the roots, yielding approximately one liter of liquid for everv eight hundred kilograms of roots The difficulty of mining on Ecaz and the finite area m which the plants can be cultivated combine to keep the supply of Sapho limited Most users of Sapho are Mentals for whom the drug is a mental amplifier Experiments with untrained subjects reveal no corresponding amplification of Mentat-like abilities
VERTTE is a drug derived from the Tmthtree (Isoetes certus) a member of the same class (Lycopsida) as fogwood Vente was developed by careful experimentation with specimens of the then unnamed tree
After its discovery, Vente enjoyed brief popularity among the younger members of the nobility, who thought it would be amus ing to be unable to he at parties This prac tice ended very quickly, though, when it was discovered that the drug really did function exactly as advertised Currently Vente is used only in interrogation
MICROORGANISMS There are a number of Ecazian microorganisms which are of in terest to the botanist especially the mutagens The only commercially useful microorgan isms so far discovered are the several types that are used in the manufacture of glowglobes
(see GLOVvGLOBES)
EMPERORS OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE
HOUSE OF SALUSO CORJUNO |
  |
HOUSE OF AL-QAIR |
  |
HOUSE OF ALMAN CORRINO |
  |
1. Sneuset I Costin I |
88-70 B.C. |
17. Bate Henli I al-Qair (Regent) |
369-388 |
27. Ezhar I Palaigodes |
  |
2. Henoor I Satasa I (s) |
70-14 B.C. |
  |   |
(son of Shaddam I) |
553-561 |
3. Coma I (s) Palaigo 4. Saudii 1 "Attar" I (s) |
14-12 B.C. 12 B.O.- |
HOUSE OF RAUTHA |
  |
HOUSE OF AL-QATR |
  |
  |
70 A.O. |
18. Saudir m al-Harkonnen . |
  |
[FIRST PROTECTORATE] |
  |
5. Henoor H Negara 1 (s) |
70-73 |
(usurper) |
388-389 |
  |   |
6. Brood I (b) Al-Aziz |
73-104 |
  |   |
28. Kalus I al-Qair (Regent) |
556-561 |
  |   |
House op ALMAN CORMNO |
  |
as Protector: |
561-575 |
HOUSE OF ALMAN CORJUNO |
  |   |   |
29. Harmon H al-Qair (Protector) |
575-603 |
  |   |
16. Wallach I (restored) |
390416 |
  |   |
7. Alman I (b-in-1) |
104-123 |
  |   |
HOUSE OF ALMAN CORRINO |
  |
  |   |
HOUSE op SALUSO CORRINO |
  |   |   |
HOUSE OF SALUSO CORRTNO |
  |   |   |
30. Audrii I (son of Shaddam I) |
603-669 |
  |   |
19. Sheuset U Costin II (gs of |
  |
31. Sheuset m (>) |
669-745 |
8. Saudir 11 Negara I! |
  |
Wensic I) |
416-445 |
32. Saudir V (s) |
745-803 |
(son of Henoor II) |
123-184 |
  |   |
33. Alia I Salusa (d) |
803 883 |
  |   |
HOUSE op RAUTHA |
  |
34. Corrin III (s) |
883 889 |
HOUSE OF AlMAN CORBINO |
  |   |   |
35. Elrood m (s) |
889 933 |
  |   |
20. Saudir IV (son of Saudir HI) |
445-451 |
36. Wallach II (gs) |
933-995 |
9. Alman II (son of Alman I) |
184-206 |
  |   |
37. Audrii H (c) |
995-1027 |
10. Alman m (s) |
206 |
HOUSE OF ALMAN CORRTNO |
  |   |   |
11. Estill(b) |
206-207 |
  |   |
HOUSE OF FEYD |
  |
  |   |
16. Wallach I (third reign) |
451-453 |
  |   |
HOUSE OF SALUSO CORRDJO |
  |
21. Avelard I (s) |
453-459 |
38. Feyd I (usurper) |
1027-1051 |
  |   |
22. Saluso HI (b) |
459-477 |
39. Estil II (s) |
1051-1099 |
12. Elrood E "Menemtahe" I |
  |
23. Corrin H (b) |
477-482 |
40. Feydn(s) |
1099 |
(cousin of Elrood I) |
207-236 |
24. Shaddam I (s) |
482-548 |
  |   |
13. Rugo I Salttso U (c) |
236-240 |
25. Villish Saluso IV (c) |
548 |
HOUSE OF ALMAN CORRINO |
  |
14. Wensic I "Menemtahe" D (b) |
240-345 |
24. Shaddam 1 (restored) |
549-553 |
  |   |
  |   |   |   |
41. losif I (ggs of Wallach II) |
1099-1134 |
HOUSE op ALMAN CORRINO |
  |
HOUSE OF AL-QAIR |
  |
42. Landsraad President Yahya bin |
  |
  |   |   |   |
Isa (Regent) |
1134-1145 |
15. Alman IV (ggs of Estil I) |
345-362 |
26. Harmon I al-Qair (Regent) |
549-556 |
43. Ezhar II (c of Josif I) |
1145-1188 |
16. Wallach I (b) |
362-369 |
  |   |
44. Istaivan or Ivan I (s) |
1188-1221 |
  |   |   |   |
45. Mikael I the Builder (s) |
1221-1265 |
EMPERORS OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE—(Continued)
46. Sabso V (s) |
1265-1352 |
60. Sidir VI (4th reign) |
1935 |
81. Basil 1 (s) Yusuf |
2238-2249 |
47. Brood IV (n) |
1352-1428 |
63. Corrin VI (2nd reign) |
1935 |
82. Ismal Kennc n (b) |
2249-2282 |
48. Uto I (c) |
1428-1530 |
59. Corrin V (6th reign) |
1935-1937 |
83. Keiral Basil n (n) |
2282-2321 |
49. Wensic D (s) |
1530-1538 |
62. Audrii HI (2nd reign) |
1937-1938 |
84. Kennun I (s) Mahmud |
2321-2333 |
50. Henoor m (c) |
1538-1604 |
59. Cotria V (7th reign) |
1938-1940 |
85. Rukhash Kenton I (b) |
2333-2372 |
  |   |
65. Coum m (ga of Iralon I) |
1940-1955 |
86. Hamii Costin VIII (c) |
2372-2385 |
TIE RECENCY |
  |
66. Sidir Vn (s of Sidir VI) |
1955 |
87. Basil ffl at-Tam "The Blue" (b) |
2385-2391 |
  |   |
59. Corrin V (8th reign) |
1955-1956 |
88. Harmhab Menemtahe VI (u) |
  |
51. Sa'ad Khumati (Umlsraail |
  |
67. Negara ID (s of Sift VI) |
I956-1%1 |
(Regent) |
2391-2395 |
President) |
1604-1616 |
62. Andrii HI (3rd reign) |
1961-1962 |
89. Kenric III al-Kam (gs of Kenric |
  |
52. Estttw Barges |
1616-1622 |
68. MenemtalK ID (s of Ezhar JB) |
1963 |
n) |
2395-2411 |
53. Joan Borges (s) |
1622-1624 |
60. Sidir VI (5th reign) |
1963-1965 |
90. Alia II (d) |
2411-2441 |
54. Avelard n Mustarai |
1624-1647 |
59. Coma V (9flt reign) |
1965-1969 |
  |   |
55. Mark I Mustami (w) |
1647-1680 |
62. Audrii m (4th reign) |
1969 |
HOUSE OF HALLECK CORRINO |
  |
56. Daffliano Fulgencio |
1680 |
68. Costin IV (gs of Iralon I) |
1969-1977 |
  |   |
  |   |
69. Menemtahe IV (s of Corrin VM> |
1977-1984 |
91. Halleck I (husband of Alia n) |
2413-2458 |
INTERREGNUM |
1680-1701 |
68. Cosnn IV (restored) |
1984-1988 |
92. Halleck n (s) |
2458-2541 |
  |   |
69. Menemtahe IV (restored) |
1988-1990 |
93. Avelard in (b) |
2541-2542 |
THE ERA OF THE PRINCES |
  |
62. Audrii m (5th reign) |
1990-1993 |
94. Ezhar IV (s) |
2542-2579 |
FIRST HOUSE OF CORRIN |
  |
69. Menemtahe IV (3rd reign) |
1993 |
95. Avelard IV (s) |
2579-2599 |
CORRINO |
  |
70. Costin V (s of Costin IV) |
1993-2000 |
96. Halleck in (n) |
2599-2638 |
  |   |
71. Sidir Vm (b) |
2000-2066 |
97. Avelard V (s) |
2638-2640 |
57. Corrin IV (descendant of Corroi |
  |
72. Sidir K (s) |
2066-2075 |
98. Sheuset IV (b) |
2640-2643 |
n) |
1701-1735 |
73. Costin VI (b) |
2075-2113 |
99. Avelard VI (s) |
2643-2650 |
58. Irulon I (s) |
1735-1846 |
74. Menemtahe V (b) |
2113 |
100 Halleck IV (u) |
2650-2666 |
59. Comn V (n) |
1846-1848 |
75. Sidir X (s) |
2113-2144 |
101 Audrii IV (s) |
2666-2675 |
60. Sandir 01 Sidir VI (2nd c) |
1848-1862 |
76. Sidir XI (s) |
2144-2159 |
  |   |
59. Corrin V (restored) |
1860-1877 |
77. Costin VII (b) |
2159-2169 |
THE TRIUMVIRATE (REGENTS) |
  |
60. Sidir VI (restored) |
1877-1882 |
78. Sidir XH (s) |
2169-2188 |
  |   |
59. Corrin V (3rd reign) |
1882-1884 |
79. Sidir Xm (s) |
2188-2191 |
102. Ratibor Beskid |
2675-2698 |
61. Ezhar III (c) |
1884-1886 |
  |   |
103. Phidias Latzko |
2675-2704 |
50. Sidir VI (3rd reign) |
1886-1892 |
INTERREGNUM (Landsraad Rule) |
2191-2197 |
104. Eli Dupleix |
2675-27% |
62. Audrii III (c) |
1892-1897 |
  |   |   |   |
59. Corrin V (4th reign) |
1897 |
HOUSE OF SHAHRUKH CORRINO |
  |
HOUSE OF SIDIR CORRINO |
  |
63 Comn VI (s) |
1897-1908 |
  |   |   |   |
59 Corrin V (5th reign) |
1908-1919 |
80 Shahrukh Kenric I (descendant |
  |
105 Sidir XTV Estil III (descendant |
  |
64. Corrin VD (h of Corrin VI) |
1919-1935 |
of Sheuset III) |
2197-2238 |
of Sidir VI) |
2700-2727 |
EMPERORS OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE—(Continued)
106. Coma Vm (s) 2727-2756 |
128. Henli V (u) (ruled 3 days) |
3743 |
156. Vasih Medvedev (Regent) 43624366 |
107. Etood V (s) • 2756-2836 |
  |   |
153. Alman VIII (4th reign) 4366 |
108. Alia m (w) 2836-2838 |
HOUSE OF SALUSO HENOOR CORRINO |
154. Wallach IV (2nd reign) 4366-4367 |
|
109. Ghmriffl (husband and Regent) 2838-2842 |
  |   |
as Avelard VII: 43674375 |
110. Won D (s) 2842-2954 |
129. Heaoor IV (descendant of Conic |
  |
153. Alman Vm (5th reign) 43754381 |
111. Snadaam n <gn of Brood V) 2954-3115 |
IV) |
3743-3749 |
157. Harilan, Duke of lasi (Regent) 43754381 |
112. Sataso VI (c) The Tragic 3115-3122 |
130. Corrin XI (s) |
3749-3838 |
  |
113. ConinKfl)) 3122-3207 |
131. Sheuset or Shesct VI (cl |
3838-3844 |
ftRST RBPUBUC 43814552 |
114. Dunamis (niece) 3207-3310 |
132. Shesct Vll (s) |
3844-3898 |
  |
  |
133. WHISK m (b) |
3898-3903 |
HOUSE OF EZHAR CORRINO |
HOUSE OF RBJAN CORRINO |
134. Sahiso Vffl (b) |
3903-3911 |
  |
  |
135. Aodrii V (b) |
3911-3912 |
158. Ezhar V (usurper and pretender |
115. Alman V The Wise (descendant . |
136. Shcset Vffl (s) |
3912-3940 |
with no proven connection to |
of Wensfc H) (Regenl) 3310-3320 |
137. Brood VI (s) |
3940-4013 |
the royal line, although he |
as Emperor: 3320-3336 |
138. Loriu (w) |
4013-4037 |
claimed descent from Ezhar |
116. ConinX(s) 3336-3351 |
  |   |
IV) 4404-4411 |
117. Alman VI (s) 3351-3405 |
HOUSE OF ANDERS CORRINO |
  |   |
118. Sheuset V (b) 3405-3410 |
  |   |
HOUSE OF MENEMTAHE CORRINO |
119. Alman Vn (s) 3410-3449 |
139. Erik I Andersson (husband) |
4037-4045 |
  |
120. Alia IV (sister and wife) 3413-3441 |
140. Erik n (s) |
4045-4061 |
159. Menemtahe VII (pretender with |
121. Saluso VII (2nd c) 3449-3522 |
141. Anders I (b) |
40614062 |
no known connection to the |
  |
142. Erik HI (n) |
4062-4070 |
royal line, although he claimed |
• HOUSE OF SHI-LANG [SECOND |
143. Maria n (sister) |
407O4134 |
descent from Saluso VII) 4481-4482 |
PROTECTORATE] |
144. losif II (third husband) |
40774099 |
  |
  |
145. Josif 01 (s) |
4099-4128 |
HOUSE OF COSTTN CORRINO |
122. James Shi-lang 3522-3544 |
146. Erick IV (s) |
41284171 |
  |
  |
147. Alia V (d) |
41714250 |
160. Costin IX (pretender) 4506 |
INTERREGNUM 3544-3584 |
148. Rugo II (husband) |
42504252 |
  |
  |
149. Wallach ffl (s) |
42524286 |
  |
HOUSE op GHULAN CORRINO |
150. Kennc IV (c) (rival) |
42604269 |
House OF ATKEUS CORRINO |
  |
151. Kenric V (s) |
42694293 |
  |
123. Hcnli II bin Chilian (descendant |
152. Kenroan n (s) |
42934344 |
161. Atreus (claimed descent from |
of bastard son of Conta VIII) 3584-3636 |
153. Alman Vffl (gh) |
43444354 |
Estil I) 4552-4641 |
124. Iralon ffl (s) 3636-3678 |
154. Wallach IV (gs of Wallach) |
43544355 |
162. Mikael n The Depraved (s) |
125. Sidir XV (n) 3678-3715 |
153. Alman Vffl (restored) |
43554359 |
(abdicated and retired to a |
126. Henli III (s) 3715-3740 |
155. Count Isfahan (Regent) |
4359 |
monastery) 4641-4670 |
127. Henli IV (gs) 3740-3743 |
153. Alman VEI (3rd reign) |
43594362 |
  |
EMPERORS OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE—(Continued)
SECOND REPUBLIC |
467M813 |
SECOND HOUSE OF CORRIN |
  |
HOUSE OF SHADDAM CORRINO |
  |
  |   |
CORRINO |
  |   |   |
HOUSE OF DARYAI CORRINO |
  |   |   |
199. Shaddam IH (descendant of |
  |
  |   |
180. Corrin XIII (descendant of |
  |
Alman VHI) |
5801-5859 |
163. Daryai Briar VI (pretender; |
  |
SalusoVllI |
4935-5017 |
200. Fortnn I (s) |
5859-5919 |
claimed descent from Ezhar V) |
4722-4731 |
181. Honour V (s) |
5017-5062 |
201. Corrin XV (s) |
5919-5944 |
164. Him (s) |
4731 |
182. Corrin XIV (!) |
5062-5207 |
202. Qabus (b) |
5944-5980 |
  |   |
183. Jaimvarai I (c) |
5207-5225 |
203. Estil IV (c) |
5980-5999 |
HOUSE OF ATREUS CORRINO |
  |
184. Ezhar VB (s) |
5225-5307 |
204. Iralon IV (s) |
5999-6062 |
  |   |
185. Destrym (relation unknown) |
5307-5321 |
205. Estil V (s) |
6062-6072 |
162. Mikael II (restored from cryo- |
  |   |   |
206. Alia VI (d) |
6072-6205 |
genic suspension) |
48134888 |
THIRD PROTECTORATE |
  |   |   |
165. Mikael III (s) |
4888-4892 |
  |   |
HOUSE op ESTIL CORRINO |
  |
166. Mikael IV (b) |
4892-4897 |
186 Kclal Djordjevich |
5321-5420 |
  |   |
167. Mikael V (b) |
4897-4899 |
187 Theron I Papshvili |
5420-5474 |
207. Estil VI (gs) |
6205-6231 |
168. Mikael VI (b) |
4899-4913 |
188 Ashot Gregorian |
5474-5511 |
208. Inilon V (s) |
6231-6236 |
162. Mikael n (3rd reign) |
4913-4915 |
189 Koniets Karamtsev |
5511-5582 |
209. Estil VH (b) |
6236-6249 |
  |   |
190 Harisy Ableman |
5582-5615 |
210. Corrin XVI (b) |
6249-6262 |
AGE OF PRETENDERS |
  |
191. Koroi Muratomi |
5615-5618 |
211. Herold (b) |
6262-6285 |
  |   |
192. Lamia Westring |
5618-5660 |
212. Letoor (b) |
6285-6300 |
169. Avelaid Vffl Sulaiman (2 weeks) |
4915 |
193. Teimuraz Bagration |
5660-5670 |
213 Kenrod I (s) |
6300-6301 |
170. Corrin Xn (imposter) (2 days) |
4915 |
  |   |
214 Estival I (u) |
6301-6303 |
171. Sidir XVI (Lord Protector) |
4915-4916 |
HOUSE op BAGRAT CORRINO |
  |
215 Jesram (b) |
6303-6316 |
172. Alver I Reginaud (4 hours) |
4916 |
  |   |
216. Kenrod 11 (s) |
6316-6349 |
173 Audrii VI (ongins unknown) |
  |
193. Teimuraz 1 (as Emperor) |
5670-5722 |
217. lesrod (s) |
6349-6391 |
(3 months) |
4916-4917 |
194. Josifa (wife; descendant of |
  |
218. Jestin (s) |
6391-6424 |
174. Liard (5 weeks) |
4917 |
losif II) |
5670-5698 |
219. Malcom Sidir XVD (2nd c) |
6424-6458 |
175. Turenne (10 days) |
4917 |
195. Bagrat I (s) |
5722-5738 |
220. Faradh I (c) |
6458-6509 |
176. Phyfe (Duke Protector) |
4917-4919 |
1%. Teimuraz II (b) |
5738-5756 |
221. Gamis Kenrod n (s) |
6509-6615 |
177. Layard Menemtahc VIII |
4919-4921 |
197. Bagrat II (s) |
575M794 |
222. Jesric (s) |
6615-6663 |
178 Biron Rhlbera (1 day) |
4921 |
198. Bagrat IQ (s) |
5794-5801 |
223. Corrin XVH (s) |
6663-6691 |
179 lulian (6 weeks) |
4921 |
  |   |
224. Malcor Kenrod IV (s) |
6691-6708 |
  |   |   |   |
225. Jefti Salnso K (b) |
6708-6732 |
THIRD REPUBLIC |
4921-4935 |
  |   |
226. Wenlian (b) |
6732-6812 |
EMPERORS OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE—(Continued)
HOUSE OF FoRErN CORRINO |
  |
250 Tomas Faradh VI (gs of talon) |
7332 7401 |
HOUSE OF THOPA n. CORRINO |
  |
  |   |
251 KenrodV(c) |
7401 7415 |
  |   |
227 Fortran (s) |
6812-6826 |
252 Hejilt VI (ggs of Irolon VI) |
7415 7426 |
276 Tiiopa il Rmnaladh I (husband |
  |
  |   |   |   |
of Wensicia daughter of |
  |
fouHTH REPUBLIC |
6826-6828 |
HOUSE OF HAJUS CORRTNO |
  |
Audni vm) |
8008-8035 |
  |   |
[THE PADISHAHS] |
  |
277 Esnvain(s) |
8035 8068 |
HOUSE Of FoRBIN CORKING |
  |   |   |
278 Wensic V (b) |
8068-8071 |
  |   |
253 Fredtock I al-Hanis |
  |
279 Alver B (b) |
80718088 |
227 Forbra D (restored) |
6828-6835 |
(descendant of Sidir XTV) |
7426-7456 |
280 Theronn(b) |
8088-8107 |
228 Wensic IV (s) |
6*35-6855 |
254 predhnck II (s) and Alia VII |
7456 7519 |
281 Roonaladh II (s) |
8107 8140 |
227 Forbm 11 (3rd reign) |
6855-6863 |
255 Skto X VIII (s) |
7519 7537 |
282 AnderslKb) |
8140-8144 |
229 Jasmine (wife of Wensic IV) |
6865-6866 |
256 Avelard IX (b) |
7537 7551 |
283 Lannesflj) |
8144-8145 |
230 Thibaut or Theobald I (2nd |
  |
257 Avelard X(s) |
7551 7603 |
284 Wensicia (wife of Anders II) |
8145 8147 |
husband) |
68656874 |
258 Kate 11 (h b) |
7603 7628 |
285 Hemming Sidir XIX (s of |
  |
231 Coma XVID ttobaut H (s) |
6874-6892 |
259 Fredhnck Hi (b) |
7628-7637 |
Theronn) |
8147 8153 |
232 Harraon III (s of Forbin 11) |
6892 6898 |
260 Avelard XI (s) |
7637 7651 |
286 Irulan I (d) |
8153 8194 |
233 Thibaut ffl (s of Thibaut I) |
6898 |
261 EIrood Vn (s) |
7651 7700 |
287 Wemic VI (s of Anders IT) |
8194-8216 |
234 Hugo Cornn XIX (b) |
6898-6913 |
262 Alman DC (n) |
7700^71 1 |
288 Chahc I (b) |
8216-8225 |
235 Corbm I (s of Harmrm DI) |
69136966 |
263 Istaivan D (c) |
7711 7746 |
289 Wensic VII (s) |
8225 8277 |
236 Hamion IV (s) |
6966 |
264 Avclard XII (s) |
7746-7775 |
290 Chalic n (b) |
8277 8292 |
237 Faradh n (b) |
6966-6987 |
265 Fredhnck IV Istaivan III (s) |
7775 7782 |
291 Qmon (c) |
8292 8293 |
238 Corbin 11 (s) |
6987 7045 |
266 Avelard Xffl (b) |
7782 7798 |
292 Estival HI (b of Chalic E) |
8293 8300 |
239 Faiddh m (s) |
7045 7071 |
267 Fredhnck V (s) |
7798 7849 |
293 Irulan H (d) |
83008344 |
240 Thibaut IV (c) |
7071 7115 |
268 Frederick VI (s) |
7849-7893 |
294 Gcoffroi I Theron ffl (c) |
8344 8349 |
241 Lemuh Forbin HI (c) |
71157118 |
269 Fredhnck Vn (s) |
7893-7940 |
295 Hamal I (s) |
8349 8363 |
242 Thibaut V (s) |
71187164 |
270 Audra VII (2nd c) |
7940-7992 |
296 Estival IV (s) |
8363 8414 |
243 Faradh IV (s) |
71647165 |
271 Audni VIII (s) |
7992 7993 |
297 Estival V (n) |
8414 8455 |
244 Mandoval Corbin III (usurper) |
7165 7188 |
272 Hajus I (s) |
7993 7997 |
298 Hainal II (s) |
8455 8465 |
245 Faradh [V (restored) |
71887190 |
273 Fredhnck Vm (b) |
7997 7998 |
299 Estival VI (b) |
8465 8498 |
246 Faradh V (s) |
7190 |
274 Audni K (b) (4 months) |
7998 |
300 Geoffroi H (b) |
8499-8499 |
  |   |
273 Fredhnck vm (restored) |
7998 8003 |
301 Wclman Irulon Vn (2nd c) |
84998506 |
HOUSE OF IRULON CORRINO |
  |
275 Fredhnck IX (s) |
8003 8008 |
300 Geoffroi II (restored) |
8506-8511 |
  |   |   |   |
302 Irulon VIE (s of Irulon VII) |
8511 8539 |
247 Irulon VI (descendant of Irulon |
  |   |   |
303 Kenrod VI (c) |
8539 8561 |
V) |
7190-7255 |
  |   |
304 Wensic VIII (c) |
8561 8588 |
248 Rugo in (s) |
7255 7318 |
  |   |
305 Estival VII (s) |
8588 8590 |
249 Maria HI (wife) |
7318 7332 |
  |   |
306 Wensic DC (s) |
8590 |
EMPERORS OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE—(Continued)
307. llama) III (u) |
8590-8609 |
329. Ezhar VHJ (s) |
9071-9090 |
355. Sheset X (n) 9731-9732 |
308. Chalk III (b) |
8609-8611 |
330. Fredhnck XVI (s) |
9090-9127 |
356. Breeman Corrin XXIII (c) 9732-9754 |
309. Mver m (» of Estiva! VO) |
8611-8637 |
331. Fredhnck XVH (n) |
9127-9147 |
357. Ezhar XVI (s) 9754-9760 |
310. Hamal IV (s) |
8637-8659 |
332. Avelard XVfl (b) (Regent) |
9127-9149 |
358. Audrii XJJI (s) 9760-9803 |
311. AlmanX(c) |
8659-8666 |
as Emperor: |
9149-9151 |
359. Hajus 11 Corrin XXIV (2nd c) 9803-9828 |
312. Karladb (c) |
8666-8672 |
333. Josif V (b) |
9151-9171 |
360. Audrii XTV (s of Audrii XH1) 9828-9851 |
313, Roonaladh in (s) |
8672-8708 |
334. Corrta XXI (b) |
9171 |
361. Audrii XV (s) 9851-9924 |
  |   |
335. Avelard XVTfl (s) |
9171-9174 |
362. Henoor IX (s) 9924-9935 |
HOUSE op HAJUS ELROOD |
  |
336. Ezhar IX (c) |
9174-9235 |
363. Fredbrick XVm (b) 9935-9960 |
COflRINO |
  |
337. Corrin XXI (s) |
9235-9294 |
364. Rauvard Kalus IV (c) 9960-10002 |
  |   |
338. Ezhar X (>) |
9294-9301 |
365. Akbar n Avelard XX (3rd c) 10002-10031 |
314. Brood vm (descendant of |
  |
339. Henoor VI (b) |
9301-9328 |
366. Hajus in (s) 10031-10Q79 |
Elrcod vn) |
8708-8715 |
340. Ezhar XI (s) |
9328-9381 |
367. Fredhrick XK (s) 10079-10120 |
315. Avelard XIV (s) |
8715-8732 |
341. Ezhar XH (s) |
9381-9424 |
368. Corrin XXV (s) 10120-10122 |
316. Avelard XV (s) |
8732-8751 |
342. Shesel DC (n) |
9424-9441 |
369. Elrood K (b) 10122-10156 |
317. Ezhar vn (b) |
8751-8754 |
343. Henoor Vn (s) |
9441-9471 |
370. Shaddam IV (s) 10156-10196 |
318. Audm X (b) |
8754-8762 |
344. Ezhar XHI (s) |
9471-9492 |
371. Iralan in (d) (Regent) 10196 |
319. Amtai XI (s) |
8762-8774 |
345. Josif VI (b) |
9493-9499 |
  |
320. Avelard XVI (b) |
8774-8788 |
346. Avelard XIX (s) |
9499-9530 |
HOUSE OF ATREIDES CORRTNO |
321. Ftedhrick XI (c) |
8788-8805 |
347. Audrii XII (c) |
9530-9547 |
  |
322. Fredhrick XII (s) |
8805-8835 |
348. Henoor Vm (s) |
9547-9572 |
372. Paul I Muad'Dib (husband) 10196-10208 |
323. Jaunvarai II (c) |
8835-8911 |
349. Ezhar XIV (s) |
9572-9613 |
373. Alia Vffl (sister) (Regent) 10209-10218 |
324. Fredhrick Xffl (n) |
8911-8923 |
350. Kalus m (b) |
9613-9615 |
374. Uto n (son of Paul I) 10209-13724 |
325. Corrin XX (s) |
8923-8974 |
351. Josif VII (c) |
9615-9658 |
  |
326. Fredhrick XIV (b) |
8974-8976 |
352. Sidir XX (s) |
9658-9670 |
  |
327. Fredhrick XV (s) |
8976-8998 |
353. Josif Vm (b) |
9670-9688 |
  |
328. Josif IV (2nd c) |
8998-9071 |
354. Ezhar XV (s) |
9688-9731 |
  |
FACE DANCERS
206
FACE DANCERS
FACE DANCERS. Face dancers were specialized entertainer-spies from the planet Tleilax, the most famous of whom in Atreidean times was Scytale, would-be assassin of Paul Muad'Dib Face dancers possessed bodily adaptations and practiced intensive training to allow them to duplicate the personalities, voices, physical forms and movements of others They were regarded by the masses of the empire with a mixture of awe, admiration, and revulsion in their cover professions of dancers and mimics, although the powerful knew how effective a force for espionage the face dancers represented They were therefore a major arm IB the enforcement of TIeilaxu foreign policy
HISTORY OF THE FACE DANCERS Tleilax, the sole planet of Thalim, largely escaped the ravages of the Butlenan Jihad and consequently its advanced technology remained intact while that of most other planets was reduced to more primitive levels Tleilax's leaders knew mat the planet's industrial base was preserved solely due to its usefulness to the power centers of me fmpenum Ever cautious of provoking a resurgence of the mania disguised as religion that had sparked the Jihad, the TIeilaxu exercised great secrecy in then operations At the same time, they endeavored to make themselves indispensable to the Padishah emperors by providing them with items of forbidden technology
The TIeilaxu devoted themselves to the soft sciences medicine, biology, genetics, psychology and sociology This course held fewer risks, required fewer raw materials and resources and was expected to pay greater dividends than the hardwarc-oneoted technology of the planet Ix The TIeilaxu were the
supreme ^moralists of their time, approaching every question with total self interest and cold pragmatism Their expenences in the Jihad, witnessing the obliteration of scientific partners and colleagues on other planets, generated a global paranoia which their ostracism from the life of the Impenum sustained
Few of the TIeilaxu artifacts and services have been remembered by history, since their purchasers were loath to advertise where they shopped Exceptions to this oblivion include the axolotl tanks, used for producing gholas, the department of religious engineering, whose existence was disclosed by Scytale and whose actual activities remain unknown, and, of course, the face dancers, Tleilax s best-known work
Legends from almost mythical times tell of the shape shifters, the werewolf, the loop garou But if we discount these stones as baseless, then the first face dancers were those produced by the TIeilaxu in the sixth millennium They appeared as entertainers at the court of Corrm XIV in 5122 Apparently these first face dancers were little more than exceptionally skilled mimics with remark able body control, very crude artifacts com pared to their successors Nevertheless, some students of the period believe that they accomplished their purposes with skill The historian C Suf Milar has argued that the face dancers were conspirators or hirelings m the plot to assassinate Cornn XIV The Landsraad discovered their involvement, but the Great Houses feanng the complete obliteration of technology as much as Tleilax did, Milar conjectures, kept their findings secret What warning they sent to the TIeilaxu, if any is not known
FACE DANCERS
207
FACE DANCERS
In the centuries that followed, the face dancers used the role of traveling entertainer to great advantage The cost of a troupe of dancers was astronomical, and their appearance at state occasions was the mark of the most conspicuous consumption There can be no doubt that the face dancers, were mar-velous performers, as a few surviving mimfilms show They were therefore valuable to the Tleilaxu as a nch source of foreign currency Yet no one supposes that monetary considerations were ever primary in decisions to let the face dancers travel, for the face dancers were the most competent intelligence gathering network the Impenum ever endured
ABILITIES OF THE FACE DANCERS In a matter of minutes, a face dancer could change his height, build, facial features, hair color and apparent length, and even sex. He could become any individual he wished to mimic A master face dancer needed to see a person for only a minute to produce a rough similarity Several hours of observation resulted in a likeness which could fool casual acquaintances of the victim Given an opportunity to study the victim for several days, die dancer's likeness would be undetectable (for short periods of time) even by the closest of associates The Tleilaxu endowed the face dancers with these abilities by a combination of rigorous training, embryological manipulation, and incredibly delicate surgery Although the procedures were the most closely guarded of Tleilaxu secrets, the methods were unhidden from the prescience of Paul Muad'Dib and especially of Leto II It is chiefly from the notes made by the Emperor Leto that this entry has been compiled
THE MAKING OF A FACE DANCER The production of a face dancer began with the selection of breeders for the candidate the Tleilaxu worked from parents with a heritage of slender build, strength, endurance, fine muscular control, and a height froin 1 65 to 1 68 meters Eggs were joined with sperm in vitro, and the process started with the developing embryo
Varying Height In the first five weeks of development, an embryo forms a layer of cefls called the mesoderm, and paired repe-tittoos blocks of the mesoderm form structures that are called somites One may
envision a somite diagrammatically as a stack of three blocks with a red one on top, a yellow one below, and a green on the bottom Now imagine the stack to consist of forty to fort) four of these combinations of three blocks stacked one above the other Each of the somites in the trunk will differentiate to form structures the red blocks are the dermatomes, from which the skin and fas-cias will develop, the yellow blocks are the sclerotomes, from which the skeleton develops, and the green blocks are the rayotomes, from which the skeletal muscles develop The sclerotome cells mo\e toward the solid rod called the notochord, where they segregate into alternating dense and loose layers In normal development the dense layer from one somite joins to the loose layer of the next to produce the beginning vertebrae of the spine The vertebrae are at first cartilaginous, but by the ninth week of life begin to turn to bone The ossified vertebrae will be separated by fibrous discs
At the ninth week, the Tleilaxu technicians intervened chemically to produce an abnormal overdevelopment of the muscles of die back by stimulating myotome growth, and to produce unusually elastic interverte-bral discs by a selective retardation of some sclerotomes The adult face dancer by stretching the back muscles, could niLrease his height by a maximum of about 15 cm, by constricting the same muscles, the discs could be squeezed by reduce height by a maximum of about 7 or 8 cm These changes could be maintained for some hours, though not indefinitely Even the strongest of dancers needed to relax the back muscles several times a day
Varying Bodv Size The ability to vary apparent body weight was a more complicated matter As mentioned above, face dancers were bred for slender, almost frail body types When they needed to impersonate more robust victims, they made use of structures already present in the normal body— the celomic sacs Adult humans ha\e four major celomic sacs two pleural sacs, one pencardial sac, and one peritoneal sac They may be pictured as closed, deflated balloons within the body cavity, surrounding but not containing the inner organs If one were to
FACE DANCERS
208
FACE DANCERS
drape a large, deflated balloon over one's fist, it can be seen how the balloon (the sac) can surround but not contain the fist (the organs) In the face dancer embryo, the pericardia! sac {more accurately, the primor-dium of the sac) was caused to migrate upward to a position beneath the skin of the neck, the pleural sacs retained their relative positions, but were caused to develop out side rather than inside the nb edge, just below the surface of the skin
After puberty when the face dancer had attained maximum growth tubes of artificial tissue were implanted connecting the respira tory system to the celomic sacs The tubes contained internal valves whose normal position was closed The face dancer opened the valves by muscular action and, by closing the glottis, pumped air from the lungs into the expanding sacs much as one might puff up one's cheeks When the desired size had been achieved, the valve muscles were relaxed and the valves closed, trapping the air inside the sacs until such time as the dancer decided to "deflate " Pumping varying amounts of air into the plearal sacs alone gave an accurate appearance of breasts of the desired size
As a side note, it might be mentioned that these extra air chambers gave the dancer an advantage in the water The increased buoyancy of the trapped air made the dancer unsuitable
The celomic sacs, when inflated, increased the apparent bodily size of the face dancer Similar small pouches artificially produced within the layers of cheek muscle performed the same disguising function fof the face The overdeveloped muscles along the spine gave a permanent appearance of obesity from the rear, ami the size of the arms and legs could be increased somewhat through controllable edemas, although the functioning of this last effect if not fully understood, nor was it as swift and as reliable as the others
This method was a relative weak spot in the face dancer's disguise although the face dancer may have looked tiks he weighed 120 kg, he in fact remained at his normal body weight, perhaps 55 or 60 kg Moreover, the use of the celomic sacs was one reason why face dancers were never females, nor even
true hermaphrodites but rather immature sterile males in the normal female, the uter ine tubes open into the peritoneal sac
Varying the face Manipulation of the facial features was the face dancers most striking ability, if not the most complicated technically The bones of the skull come from two sources a specialized layer of embryonic cells called the mesenchyme differentiates either into cartilage, which is replaced by bone, or into a thick, tough membrane also replaced by bone Replacement of membrane is not complete in the normal human until the sixth year Face dancers received injections shortly after birth that slowed and eventually stopped ossification and stimulated replacement of the membrane by musclelike tissue Later localized mjec ttons reversed the cartilage to bone process in limited areas These areas softened into cartilage cells called chondrocytes enclosing masses of disconnected chondrocytes and organic salts In place of certain facial bones then, the face dancer had envelopes of elas Uc cartilage filled with material of a puttylike consistency This specialized cartilage also replaced the normal material of the nose and ears
During the years before puberty exercises allowing for the differential stimulation of the muscles of the face were performed daily Of course, these exercises were not unique to face dancers the Fremen woman Harah was known to have been disturbed at the sight of Aha bitting and staring at a rock,
moving only one muscle beside her nose (P Oulson, St Alia Huntress of a Billion Worlds Ch 7) an indication of a Bene Gessent regimen of the same kind By mas tery of these muscles the face dancer changed such things as the size and shape of his "cheekbones as easily and quickly as one might smile For longer-lasting disguises the face dancer working from likenesses of the victim, would mold the matter within the cartilage envelopes to the desired form which would then be retained indefinitely barring some trauma or unusual exertion of the facial muscles
The muscles that replaced the membranes between the large bones of the vault of the skull could be manipulated to increase or
FACE DANCERS
209
FACE DANCERS
decrease the size of the skull within narrow limits, or to change somewhat the shape of the skull
Varying Hair and Eye Color The muscle covered fontanelies in the skull also indirectly permitted the change of hair color Cellular manipulation of the embryo created an m creased branching of the vertebral artery Several small extensions of this artery through the fontanelies supplemented the normal flow of blood to the scalp Early face dancers made use of the time-honored methods of hair dyes and wigs, but later master face dancers could increase the temperature of the scalp through a range of 4° C by consciously varying the supply of blood These masters had no natural hair on then* scalps, instead, each follicle was implanted with a strand containing a liquid crystal which responded to changes in temperature by changing color The temperature-sensitive pat was implanted deep in the skull to protect it from ambient temperature changes The method was almost a thousand years m development early master face dancers could sometimes have their hair color change in response, for example, to the heat of the sun
Face (lancers could never make quick voluntary changes m the length of their hair However they could give the appearance of almost instantaneous growth by still another prenatal modification Cellular manipulation of the embryo caused certain nerves to devel op as voluntary nerve cells rather than as sympathetic autonomic ones These were the nerves that stimulated die erector muscle attached to the root of each hair (arrectores pilonim) Thus the face dancer could cause his hair to lie flat, to stand on end, or to assume any midway position with astonishing facility The erection of the hair gave an immediate impression of longer hair, and stimuli to patches of the scalp could make the hair look freshly cut, well trained, or unruly as desired
Quick changes of eye color could be achieved only by the use of colored contact lenses Better prepared changes in eye and skin color wens produced over several days by stimulating the production of hormones from the pineal and pituitary glands to dis perse or concentrate melanin in pigment
containing cells, or to break down the mela mn to melaooid lending a yellowish tint to the skin
Changes of Sex It was noted earlier that face dancers were always sexually immature sterile males The reasons for this were twofold first, the longstanding parsimony of the Tleilaxu culture caused its technicians to shrink from doing more than was required to produce an effect It would have been no great trouble, for instance to close the uterine tubes in the peritoneal celomic sacs of the female But with males this step was unnecessary, using males represented that much saving of time and labor The second reason was even more important Face dancers might be required to impersonate either men or women under conditions where the genitalia might be viewed or required to function Hence, m the early fetal stage of the male dancer to be, hormonal snmulus prevented the urethral groove from closing at the proximal end Further related measures equipped the face dancer with both a small but functional penis and a functional vagi na (face dancers lacked of course, uterus and ovaries) Relatively minor surgery pro duced a fold in the mons venens in which the penis was hidden when the dancer impersonated a woman The disguise was completed by the voluntary control the face dancer possessed over the cremaster muscles in die scrotum which allowed the retraction of the testes into the abdomen
The result of this chemical and hormonal intervention was to make the face dancer operative as either sex but sterile
Other Modifications As a result of their training, face dancers exercised marvelous differential muscular control and yogahke practices endowed them with astonishing con trol over autonomic nerves augmented by surgical changes where needed Even appren tice face dancers were the result of an expen sive process of adaptation and training that consumed years of intensive study For example, as genetic castmti the face danc ers enjoyed an extended vocal range and voice lessons alone occupied the better part of six years Similar long investments of time were required to enable the face dancer to give the appearance of youth or old age
FAMILY ATOMICS
210
FAMILY ATOMICS
But despite all the miracles of technology, the very best face dancers brought a talent to their work that training and technology could not replace, nor could breeding produce on demand Talent is not distributed evenly across populations, and die shortage of such individuals following the ascension of Leto II to the throne led to the notable decline of the face dancers during the latter half of his reign Such misguided tactics as the mass use of face dancers in the attempted assassination of Leto II or the attack on the Ixian embassy on Airakis show the desperation of the Tleilaxu and the decline of a great if twisted profession WEM Farther references G Z Huvalatan and Z D Bwid
Development of the Tleilax Face Dancer in the First Three Months Antares J Anat 94 297-328 A T Hersag Z Rouk and E S Iizavz A Description of 34 Face Dancers through the first Ten Years of Development, Antares J Arua 98 435 93 R Kunazhatunfar Development of the Face Dancer Celoimc Sacs,' Atreules Mem Conmb Embryol 12459-91 EK Senlenag
The Early Development of the Face Dancer Vertebral Column AtreidesMem Contnb Embryol 1332131 T Shiganuum Comparison of Normal and Face Dane er Skull Development Interp Anat Rec 376 183 203
FAMILY ATOMICS, HISTORY OF.
INVENTION TO GREAT CONVENTION The practice of maintaining stockpiles of atomic weapons as an integral part of a House's defenses began when primitive nuclear weapons were invented oa Old Terra on the eve of the Little Diaspora, by tile "Raw Mental," Einstein, who was. working for House Washington When Einstein succeeded 10 his attempts to construct these weapons, two of the first were used to settle a trade dispute with House Nippon These weapons were of such a primitive nature that fewer than a million casualties were caused by the explosions—but one must remember that the entire empire at this time had only three billion subjects, all on one planet The demonstration, though unremarkable by later standards, served two purposes the destruc tron of two small cities and the threat of the destruction of others forced House Nippon to concede the lucrative Pacific trade routes to House Washington, and possession of the Empire's only atomic weapons gave House Washington the prestige and power it needed to displace House Windsor
Naturally, the odier Houses Major spared no expense in their own research and espionage efforts in an attempt to equalize their power with that of House Washington De spite the best efforts of the counterespionage directorates of King George (the first Emper or of House Washington) the secret of how to construct atomic explosives was soon known to House Steel, which immediately began constructing a stockpile and secreting it throughout the House domains in Russia thereafter over the course of only thirty years, Houses Windsor (Londinium), Abraham (Jerusalem), Zedong (Khitai), De Gaulle (Zurich1*), Ghandi (Indus), and Ul Haq (Karachi) all had built their own House stocks It is interesting to note that, even this early in the development of atomics, the Houses Minor were also stockpiling atomics, even though, then as later, a stockpile of nuclear weapons was an expensive proposition
The existence of stockpiles of nuclear weapons caused warfare to adopt a new complex ion in the Empire Before when a pretender's House attempted to seize power, the Imperial House would usually destroy the upstart House (as House Windsor did when the pretender Hitler attempted to seize the throne m the decade immediately before the development of atomics), or else be displaced (as House Windsor displaced House Bourbon three centu ties before) But the advent of atomics made the total defeat of a House with a stockpile an impossible task, since it was malterably in the power of any atomic-armed House to destroy any other House But the Houses soon realized that a House could not use its atomics on an enemy that it could not identify and wars began to be fought with economic power, terrorism, and surrogates From the first use ot atomic weapons m warfare to the second was a span of three hundred years
After the Little Diaspora the dispersion of the Houses to different planets caused a fun damental change to occur in the conduct of atomic warfare It was discovered that if one destroyed a House s interstellar fleet, one was immune from that House s atomics, and could thus use atomics against that House with impumtv, in order to conquer the planet or force favorable concessions Even so after this ability was first demonstrated in
FAMILY ATOMICS
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the Slagging of Ecaz, when the Imperial atomics were used to end both a rebellion and all trace of a Major House, the use of atomics once again lapsed—now, a House would surrender to an enemy once that enemy had succeeded in emplacing orbital atomic platforms
After the development of the Holtzman Generator and the ability to travel rapidly from one planetary system to another, the strategy of atomics devolved even further, back to the old "massive retaliation" theory, since Houses were then able to keep their atomics not on the surface of their planets, but at a secret location or locations anywhere within several hghtyears of the planet, to be dispatched and used should anyone attack the planet
The only tune that atomics were used generally, instead of as isolated spasms indicative of the collapse of decrepit Houses, was dunng the Butienan Jihad, when atomic bombardment was often the only way to force machine cultures to surrender The targets often attempted to retaliate, but in many cases their high commands were nd died with Butlenans, who sabotaged or betrayed the atomics, in other cases, mere were simply top many attackers to allow even the largest stockpile any real chance of destroying all of the attackers' homeworlds
Nevertheless, the widespread use of atom ics dunng the Jihad led to profound anti-atomic feelings among all the survivors, which resulted in the Great Convention of 337, which codified the earlier principles of "massive retaliation" into Imperial law, and to which all of the Houses were adherents
SINCE THE GREAT CONVENTION Although all of the Houses maintained their atomics stockpiles until me reign of Emperor Leto, mere are only two instances of their use Each was brought about by an insane leader somehow compelling his own forces to use atomics, whereupon all Houses within striking distance combined then forces and obliterated the House
The first of these was House B'ganne, in 410 Apparently not believing that the other Houses would stand by the Convention when push came to shove, Duke Quentm decided to use the B'ganne atomics to force the
surrender of the planet Formanms, whose atomics Quentm had seized in a very clever coup When the commander of Formanms refused to surrender, Duke Quentm began bombarding the surface of the planet with the B'ganne atomics
House B'ganne was a Major House, but it was probably the perfect target for a test of the Convention, since Duke Quentm was a rival of the Emperor, Wallach I, and had a manner and personality that had earned him the nickname "the Foul He had antago mzed nearly every one of his neighbors and "allies" with his highhanded, needlessly cruel, and generally improvident behavior Thus it was with some relish that the Formanm garrison commander sent a wave to every possible system, informing them of what Quentm was doing, and invoking the Con vention Everyone who heard the call real ized that this was the test of the convention and thanked his personal icons that it would be such an easy decision to make
The obliteration of House B'ganne was the true ratification of the Great Convention The Convention was never invoked again, except once in the case of Yware, a totally mad pretender to the throne, who somehow obtained a small cache of atomic weapons and used them to attack the Imperial Seat in 5506 His home world ' was a hollow planetoid circling Fallow Eight it had a population of approximately ten thousand and took only three hydrogen warheads be fore it split open
The actions—known as The Gathering—of Emperor Leto, who forced the Houses to turn over their family atomics to him during his reign, closed the subject and ended millennia of dependence on stockpiled terror W D I
FEDAYKIN The most dreaded wamors of their time more feared than the Sardaukar of the Padishah Empire, considered by some to have been the equal of the Fish Speakers To a man the Fedaykm were Fremen who served Paul Muad Dib in his first battle against the House Comno and the Harkormen Forces and then as his elite troops in the Second Jihad With the possible exception of the Sardaukar, no other troops were more fanati cal or more skilled in killing The scanty
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records that remain from this era of over fifty-three hundred years ago appear to indicate that whenever the Sardaukar and Fremen Fedaykin engaged m battle, the Fedaykin soundly defeated their foes
Beyond what appears to be the military superiority of the Fedaykin, they had one further advantage over the Sardaukar In fact this advantage may explain why the Fremen warriors were so much the superior While the Sardaukar were wamors who, through a vicious upbringing, had instilled cruelty and pndc into their very being, the Fremen were Fedaykin because of their extreme faith in Paul Muad'Dib Such a difference made the Fedaykin fanatics beyond the pale of human imagination A skilled warrior who is driven berserk by a holy mission will necessarily overcome an equally skilled wamor who fights merely because it is what his nature dictates For the Sardaukar, it was the fighting that counted, but for the Fedaykin, only victory mattered Thus, driven by their loyalty to the cause of Paul Muad'Dib, the Fedaykin were virtually unstoppable But when, m 10208, Paul Muad'Dib was blinded ui the attempt against his life, the central reason for die existence of the Fedaykin ended Unlike that of the Sardaukar, the history of the Fedaykin was brief, lasting less man fifty years
During the final years of the Second Jihad, moreo\er, it appears that the Fedaykin were already becoming disenchanted with their Muad'Dib Fedaykin veterans, returning from off-world battles, were uncomfortable with a vastly transformed Arrakis The old sietches no longer seemed to be part of their lives, and the court of Muad Dib was even more alien to them These veterans soon became a source of discontent among the population, and it is believed that a number of mem actually played roles in the attempt on Muad'Dib* s life Such a possibility is certainly not fitr-fetched Service in the Fedaykin forced the Fremen out of "the ways of the fathers," and onto worlds they were ill-prepared to understand Those who survived the service were forever changed, and as the reasons for their sacrifice grew more distant, they must have resented die man whom they held responsible for the battles in the first
place Muad'Dib was a logical target for their unhappmess In the end, however the Fedaykin simply and quietly ceased, their time being passed
Paul Muad'Dib may well have planned for just such an end for the Fedaykin The army was loosely structured and did not boast a very strong hierarchy of officers In fact not one single name of a Fedaykin officer remains, a strange fact for an army that once conquered the known worlds It would be logical to assume that Paul Muad'Dib wanted just such an arrangement so that the remnants of the Fedaykin would have no single organization or center to rally to once the) found themselves without a place in the new order Their popular name, after all, was Death Commandos, and Death Commandos, once their task is done, are not useful in a world gearing itself toward peaceful government through political manipulation
Finally, while the chief effect of the Fedaykin was the establishment of Paul Muad'Dib as Emperor, there was another more local effect as well The rise of the Fedaykin assured the end of Fremen culture on Arrakis The Fedaykin took the youngest, brightest, bravest, and strongest of the Fremen away from their sietches As was mentioned before, those who returned could never comfortably fit into such a life again Thus, it was only a matter of time before the old ways them selves ended
Given the brief history of the Fedaykin, one must hold them m awe and m pity Never was there a finer, more devoted army But their time was brief and they ended without glory S G
Further references ATREIEES PAUL MUAD DIB STILOAR Defa IFanini Taaj I Fremen 12 v (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) See especially Vol 3 which con ceras the history military organization and notable bat lies of the Fedaykin
FENRINQ, COUNT HASIMIR (10133-10225) Born on Kaitam to Cirni Lady Fennng (sister to Elrood IX), Fennng was raised in the Imperial Court and was the friend, from childhood, of the then na Emperor, Shaddam (later Shaddam IV) He acquired, at a very early age, the necessary combination of wits, charm, and ruthlessness which enabled him
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not only to survive but to flourish m the intrigue-saturated atmosphere at Court In so doing, he attracted the attention of many of the most powerful courtiers, who recognized his potential, and it should be noted as further evidence of his talent that he managed to refuse all approaches made to him without antagonizing anyone beyond bounds
Fennng's capabilities were not observed solely by the nobles and pensioners making up the bulk of the Court In 10147, acting on reports from one of her household spies, Reverend Mother Zoe Partherm, the emperor's Truthsayer, tested the fourteen-year-old with the gom jabbar In her report to the Sister hood, she stated only that the na-Count had acquitted himself well during the ordeal, but appeared to be lacking in certain qualities essential to his use in die Bene Gessent plan In a later, more private communication to the Wallach IX school, she revealed that what she had first taken as a delay in the boy s development was something more senous Fennng was a genetic eunuch
She noted, however, that Fearing ought prove to be useful m spite of his deficiency, and continued to track his progress at Court
In 10153, at the death of the old Count, Fennng inherited the title and responsibility for the rest of the family His new duties did not interfere overmuch with the time spent with the na-Emperor—to the delight of his widowed mother, a woman who appreciated the advantages of royal patronage
The young Count illustrated his worth to his friend by laying out before him, in 10155 the details of an assassination plot against him He also advised Shaddam that, rather than trying to take action against the plotters himself, he bring their scheme into the open before the full Court, thus protecting himself by a display of preparedness
That such a move would also make public knowledge of the existence of the hunter-seeker, an assassination weapon previously known only to members of House Comno was a detail Fennng had not missed Nor had he overlooked the many indications that pointed back to Elrood IX, Shaddam's father as the original source of the plot
The emperor's possible complicity in the plan was not mentioned in Shaddam's ad
dress to the Court, and neither he nor Fennng demurred when a minor member of House Comno was executed for plotting against the Me of the Imperial heir It is nonetheless an interesting matter of historical coincidence that Elrood was dead, a victim of chaumurky, within another year
The question of the Count s involvement in that chaumurky has never been satisfacton ly solved Rumors abounded lollowmg Shad dam IV's ascent to the Golden Lion Throne, and a few brash souls were daring enough to set them down m writing (albeit anonymously, as with the author of Pirate History of Comno) But not even the most persistent whisperers cared to face Fennng—by this time a proven fighter with a score of successful duels behind him—with anything so crude as a bald accusation
What is certain, however is that the Count's fortune was assured from the very beginning of Shaddam s reign To the already consider able sources of income Fennng had inherited with his title the emperor added enough estates, shares in CHOAM, and the like to make his friend as wealthy as many of the heads of Houses Major
It was not completely charitable Shaddam expected in return—and received—the loyal service of a man capable of handling delicate matters without unnecessarily involving his master So adept was the Count at smoothing out whdt he referred to as inconveniences (problems with the Landsraad, for example, or with Houses going renegade) that he quickly became best known as the 'Emperor s errand boy To the dismay of some who considered the title an insult, Fennng found it an amusing recognition of his talents
The Count was married, in 10173, to Lady Margot, a recent graduate trom the Bene Gessent school on Wallach IX Shortly after this, he was assigned as Impenal Agent to Arrakis, where his chief duties consisted of spying on the Harkonnens and maintaining the flow of melange, the geriatric spice, to Shaddam IV s stockpile
Such work left Fennng with much time on his hands a large portion of which was spent with his lady She trained him in many of the Bene Gessent ways of observation control and philosophy and, when he
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was prepared to accept it, she revealed that her assigned duty to the Sisterhood was that of a breeder, preserving bloodlines for the B G program that might otherwise be lost
Reverend Mother Parthenn had not been mistaken m her estimate of the Count s usefulness Fennng, already as thoroughly influenced by the Bene Gessent doctrines as many of the Sisterhood's recognized members, adapted himself to the roles of benign cuckold with an ease that might have astonished someone knowing him only m his public capacity
During the couple's tenure on Arrakis, Lady Margot bore three daughters Cynthe, Yana, and Lianne Each of the three was sent to the Wallach IX school at age five—the minimum age of admission—but no records yet translated give any details concerning their progress there or the identity of their father(s)
Such information as is available comes from Lady Margot's book Arrakis and After a volume printed by the Bene Gessent, but the lady touches only briefly on the subject of her children, with die father(s) of these first three being mentioned not at all
Count Fennng returned to Court following the handing over of the Arrakis fief to House Atretdes, Lady Margot joining him after a bnef visit to Wallach DC Knowmg of the treachery planned against the incoming house, the couple reacted in their individual ways the Count, by laying the groundwork for the massive system of bribes and coercion which would eventually serve to keep the emperor freed of the Landsraad's suspicions, his wife, by leaving a waning message for Lady Jessica, a fellow Bene Gessent, concerning dangers to the lives of her sort and Duke
Of the two efforts Fennng's was by far the more successful Though it cost him over a billion solans in spice bribes in addition to an undisclosed amount spent on slave women, royal honors, and tokens of rank, the Count managed to keep his master s name clear ot any connection with the Harkonnen (and Sardaakar) slaughter of the Atretdes on Arrafcis Lady Margot's warnings conveyed too little information about the threat to Duke Leto to be effective, and came too late to help Paul Atreides, although the boy es
caped the hunter-seeker that threatened him on his own
In early 10192 Count and Lady Fennng were sent as official observers to Harko on the Harkonaen s homeworld, Giedi Pnme, to witness the birthday celebrations for Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the na-Baron It was during this visit that Fennng confronted Bar on Harkonnen with a number of lies and half-truths the Baron had sent to the emperor and advised him in no uncertain terms concerning the dangers of his proceeding with any further deceptions
The implications were crystal clear Having already moved, however surreptitiously, against one Great House the Count s master would not fear to attack again at need
Lady Margot had reasons of her own—01 more accurately, of the Bene Gessent's—for traveling to Giedi Prime In Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen the Sisterhood had spotted genet ic traits they coveted for their program As the boy was known to consort only with his uncle, the Baron, and those slave women the old man permitted him, any child of his would have to be secured for the Sisterhood by a careful intermixing of seduction and guile Lady Margot who had not only prov en herself several times over in those particu lar arts but was able to appear on the scene without suspicions being roused, was the most obvious choice as earner for that child
Count Fennng both knew of and assisted m his wite s plans On the night of their arrival, and on a sufficient number of occa sions thereafter for his lady to be certain of her pregnancy and her control over the boy, the Count engaged Baron Hdrkonnen m a senes of arguments that left m the old man s mind no room for wonder concerning the activities of his heir During the days of Fennng s visit the Baron was kept in a constant state of confusion concerning his status with the emperor his rights involving appointment of Feyd-Rautha as his heir, and other topics the Count was certain would keep tight hold of his attention
It was several days after the departure of his less than welcome guests that the Baron thought to ask Teyd Rautha how he had passed the time and since the boy had been hypnoconditioned to forget what had taken
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place between himself and Lady Margot, he could give his uncle no information
Count Fenrmg's next—and last—function as servant to the emperor was to accompany his master during the final battles on Arrakis, culminating m Shaddam IV's abdication (10196) It was on this occasion, according to Lady Margot's memoirs and those of Shaddam's daughter, the Princess Irulan, that the Count wilfully disobeyed his emperor for the first time by refusing to kill a man for him
The man involved was Duke Paul Muad'Dib Atreides He had fought and won a duel to the death with Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, thereby crushing Shaddam s hopes of escaping Paul's demands for Irulan's hand and ascension to the throne The emperor's last chance of escape lay in Fennng's calling out the already exhausted Atreides and eliminating this last "inconvenience "
The Count knew what was expected of him and studied, with the Bene Gessent techniques of observation, tile young man he was being asked to murder Unfortunately for his master, Fennng recognized m this upstart Duke all of the traits and abilities that he himself possessed, (he eombinatton that had, so long ago, led Reverend Mother Parthenn to hope that she bad found the Sisterhood's Kwtsatz Haderach He recognized, too, that the younger man lacked the flaw that had killed the old woman's hope.
And the Count saw one dung more that stayed his hand; and led him to betray his emperor after so many years of keeping faith As he had recognized Paul Muad'Dib for what be was, so had the other recognized him, and understood all the ways in which that single flaw had shaped and twisted his Me
That understanding was a gift no one else had ever gives him The Count could not bring himself to kill m giver
NOT could he, despite his anger, strike back at his emperor when Shaddam, enraged at his refusal, viciously cuffed him Instead he accepted the blow for die impotent gesture it was, counseled his former master through the painful details of selling up the Regency for Irulan, and took charge of pre paring Shaddam's household on Salusa Se
cundus, the former prison planet to which the deposed emperor was exiled
Once all of the proper arrangements had been made, Fennng returned briefly to the Court There he made arrangements of his own for transfer of his holdings, for the care of Lady Margot's> youngest daughter, Ehbsa, until she reached the age of admission for the Wallach IX school, and for passage for himself and his wife to Salusa Secundus where they joined Shaddam m his exile
This companionship ended with Shaddam's death m 10202, the former emperor's health had declined steadily following his exile, and his early demise surprised no one, least of all the Count Fennng remained on Salusa Secundus—by this time no longer a harsh prison planet, but a world altered to suit the new emperor's description of it as a "garden world, full of gentle things' —until he too died in 10225, having spent the later years of his life in further study of the Bene Gessent techniques (A favorite remark of his, which amused Lady Margot tremendously but often offended her visiting sisters was that he was "more Bene Gessent than human ")
Fennng's widow left Salusa Secundus in 10226 to serve as a teacher at the Wallach EC school Pupils who studied under her often remarked on the number of her teachings for which she gave credit to her late husband
Further references ARRA NA BARON SHADDAM iv Lady Margot Fennng Arrakis and After Arrakis Studes 12 (Grumman United Worlds) Princess Irulan Atreides Corrino Count Fennng A Pro file Lib Conf Temp Ser 243
FENRING, LADY [MNGCIS] MARGOT. Ac
knowledged by many sources in the Bene Gessent Library and elsewhere as the most accomplished of the Sisterhood's seductresses Much of her sexual skill can be traced to her two-year sabbatical from Wallach IX at age fourteen to the School of brotic Arts on Ga mont Even though her program of study was an abbreviated form of the regular course work, she graduated with a rank of Mistress VI, unheard of in such a short length of time However the Bene Gessent breeding program had produced vaned talents among its progeny and Lady Fennng's talents were
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certainly as much genetic as learned Her physical appearance greatly enhanced her skills golden-haired, gray green-eyed and willowy her physical attributes by themselves must have been the subject of much attention at the court of Shaddam IV However, her husband's deadly abilities at court intrigue and hand to-hand combat insured that she was never the subject of common gossip, and her hold over Count Fennng assured that she could pick her companions as her Bene Gessent instructions and taste mandated
The daughter of the union between Shnrlon Wiktor, a Bene Gessent of hidden rank, and Baron Redmond Bagratoni, she was born in 10153 m the House of Voices on Wallach IX while her mother was in seclusion With the exception of her sojourn on Gamont, she was trained from puberty by Gains Helen Mohiam, the celebrated Reverend Mother This special attention was befitting the woman whose genetic promise ordained at an early age that she would be married to Count Hasimir Fennng, thought before his puberty to be a possible Kwisatz Haderach Margin was followed in her training by the future Jessica Atreides It is not known whether the training of the two overlapped or if they ever met on Wallach DC, bat the warning that Margot left for Jessica in the wet planet conservatory in Arrakeen indicates affection and a familiarity with each other's movements
Lady Margot left Wallach IX with the hidden rank of Mater Acnor as an emissary espion, and in 10173 she was mamed by arrangement to Count Hasimir Fennng While the initial purpose of mis union was to assist in the awakening of the Kwisatz Haderach, it quickly leconfirmed that the Count was a genetic euauch In fact, as early as 10147, the Reverend Mother Zoe Parthenn, the emperor's Truthsaytir, had reported such suspicions to the Bene Gessent Chapter House At tius point a series of messages between Lady Margot and the Matres Feltcissimae indicated a shirt in objective Initially Margot's fishing IB various genetic pools had been a secondary rofe for her; it now became primary, and her significant charms and skills gave her almost full access to the genetic resources of the Court of Shaddam IV It was essential that Count Fenrmg acquiesce in this
endeavor and that full advantage be taken of his longtime friendship with Shaddam IV Groundwork had already been partially pro vided for this control when the Bene Gessent had insisted that Margot be offered as wife only to the Count when the arrangements began in 10172 for her sale
Shortly after their marnage, Lady Margot was provided with an opportunity to subjugate the Count He was made the royal envoy to Arrakis, where he supervised the activities of House Harkonnen and the royal planetologist, Pardot Kynes, and insured that the emperor s melange allotment was accurate The boredom of the provincial court of the desert planet allowed Lady Margot to tram the Count in Bene Gessent techniques, philosophies, and propaganda Fascinated by their uses in intngue, he was an apt and willing pupil At this time Margot revealed to the Count that she had been assigned a schedule of seductions including that of the na Baron Feyd Rautha Harkonnen One school of thought contends that Hasimir Fennng was by then so programmed and so bewitched that he readily accepted his wife s ' duties' and willingly gave his significant help However Lady Margot's secret communiques, now revealed for the first time by the opening of the Bene Gessent Library, reveal two controls on the Count s behavior that he may or may not have known about First on their wedding night, Margot fed him a residual poison and administered the antidote there after in his food, thus foiling the poison snoopers Second, dunng his Bene Gessent training, Margot implanted a hypnotic sug gestton activated by the Voice that would paralyze the Count from the neck down Reports indicating any knowledge of these controls by the Count remain either untrans lated or unavailable, and there is no mention of any of these activities in Lady Margot s Arrakis and After or Princess Irulan s Count Fennng A Profile Whatever the reasons for the Count's compliance it was complete and I ady Margot bore three daughters while they were on Arrakis Cynthe Yana and Lianne
After the Atreides takeover, Count Fennng returned to the royal court Lady Margot returned to Wallach IX for a time raising
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the unanswerable question of who administered the antidote to the Count during her absence Perhaps it was provided by Gaius Helen Mohiam or by one of the members of her Bene Gessent retinue at court Lady Margot supposedly returned to Wallach IX to visit friends, however, records indicate that she conferred with the Sisterhood over the long-planned seduction of Feyd Rautha Harkonnen, rested after her unknown tasks on Rakis and replenished her supply of narcotics and aphrodisiacs
In late 10191 she .rejoined Hasimir at court, and in early 10192 the two were sent as royal envoys to represent the Emperor at the birthday of Feyd Rautha Harkonnen Count Fennng had convinced Shaddam IV that they should use this excuse for the Count to maintain the bmperor s hold over the Har-konnens and to insure that there was no confusion over Count Vladimir's debt for the use of Sardaukar support in the destruction of House Atreides In a plot Within a plot, the Count s machinations also insured thai Margot would have her opportunity at Feyd Rautha while the Count distracted Vladimir with veiled and confusing references to the Emperor's suspicions and concerns While it is not clear that Count Fennng's continuing cooperation was willing, he remained a highly successful accomplice to the Bene Gessent's regular sampling of gene pools in pursuit of the Kwisatz Haderach There was urgency to garner the genes of Feyd-Rautha since his violent, greedy, and mercurial nature made his continued survival doubtful Since he was to have been mated with die daughter that the Lady Jessica willfully refused to produce, the preservation of his heredity for yet another generation was critical and his seduction followed the standard, time tested routine used successfully in the past
Lady Margot was more than beguiling enough to draw Feyd-Rautha away from his harem of slave girls In fact, Feyd-Rautha found the seemingly aloof Margot an irresist ible challenge, and he foolishly assumed what he thought was an active role m their meetings when, in fact, he was both passive and manipulated
IB routine Bene Gessent fashion, Lady Margot was to do more with Feyd-Rautha
than just conceive his child She was also to implant a posthypnotic command, a word (probably 'Uroshnor' ) that would render his muscles flaccid should he ever threaten the Bene Gessent or one of the earners of genes important to their breeding program (To his credit, Paul Atreides maintained his independence and refused to use the word m his combat with Feyd Rautha )
In 10196, Lady Margot and her Count were allowed to join Shaddam IV's court-m exile on Sdlusa SeLundus Until Hasimir died in 10225, Lady Margot remained at his side, her inactivity probably the result of confusion among the Bene Gessent leader ship and an unnamed malady that rendered her barren She may have assisted her hus band in his. unsuccessful attempts to plot Shaddam IV s return to the throne After the Count's death, Lady Margot returned to Wallach IX to teach and to cooperate with the task force studying the Bene Gessent failure m the Atreides matter Her courses frequently involved the use of seduction as a political tool, and she served on a number of committees to select appropriate candidates for special training on Gamont She often referred to her late husband and his frequent struggles against his pnmordial prejudices during her vanous seductions and frequently recalled his remark that he was more Bene Gessent than the Bene Gessent Unfortunately, Lady Margot s lectures and recorded comments are such that it is not clear if her remarks about her husband were affectionate, sarcastic, or simply informational
One major question regarding Lddy Margot remains What became of her daughters particularly the one sired by Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen1' A small corpus of apocryphal legends surround the child and its destiny It is clear however that it was never con trolled by the Bene Gessent As a major portion of their pursuit of the Kwisatz Haderach the child would have been a cnti cal element in their continued breeding program However there is no record any where of such an extraordinary female breeder, and the Sisterhood s long string of failures following the nse of House Atreides points to the absence of such a being in their continuing programs
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One interesting account is the legend of a blessed female child among the Bene Tleilax. It is speculated that, despite Emperor Paul's directives, enormous prices were exacted by the Spacing Guild for transporting the shattered remains of Shaddam IV's court to Salusa Secundus, and Shaddam incurred continued debts with the Bene Tleilax and the Ixians in covert attempts to reestablish himself. Lady Margot's valuable three-year-old daughter may have sufficed as payment to the Bene Tleilax. The existence of such a female child would coincide with the legends of a "mater matrix" that began to develop among the Bene Tleilax in the early 10200s, a woman who contributed astoundingly virile heredity to their genetic machinations. Indeed, theevolviag legend of a parthcnogenetically reproduced female of enormous power living on Tleilax persists well through the reign of the God Emperor Lett} n. These tales, undoubtedly exaggerated over the ages, tell of her breeding with the ghola Hayt and subsequent Duncan Idaho gholas, her plumed union with the young Leto n, and most imriguingly, her direct identification with or relation to tire Ixian production of Hwi Noree, the beloved of Leto II If HUT Nonee was the parthenogenetic duplicate of the child of Lady Margot Fenring and Feyd-Rautha Harkosnen, then she was an androgynous half of Hie union that the Bene Qessent had tried to create in Die late 10100s via Harkonnen and Atreides children. Hwi's attraction to Leto II may be explained as the fascination of meeting face-to-face an ancestor 3,600 years old. Of equal significance is the possibility that these genes had also been introduced into the last Duncan Idaho ghola, making Leto II's antagonist in die final days also a part of himself. Such a theory is highly conjectural, but it does rise the fascinating possibility mat the seemingly inviacible Leto H was confronting significant portions of himself in Hwi Noree and Duncan-the-Last.
Contemporary rumors that Sister Quint i n ins Violet Chenoeh was a descendant of this daughter have no validity and should be discounted. R.C.S
Farther references: Princess Irelan Atreides-Comno, Count Faffing: A Prttfile Lib. Coaf, Tfemp Series 243,
Lady Margot Fennng, Arrakis and After, Arrakis Studies 12 (Gramman- United Worlds), Lars Kanfcn, Truth and Fancy in the Oral History {Yoitoa. Rose).
FILTPLUG. A small, tubular device used on Arrakis to help prevent loss of body moisture. Many examples have been uncovered in different sietches All are made of a spice-based compound, with silicon and orthatan added in varying proportions. There is a high correlation between the proportions of additives and the locations where the plugs were found; differences in composition appear to have been a matter of local preference Most filtplugs were about 25 mm long, with each branch of the Y-shaped device between 5 and 7 mm in diameter. The single outlet at the bottom fitted the upper end of a stillsuit's primary catchtube. Each upper branch of the Y slipped into one nostril The outside surface of the fitted ends was roughened slightly so the seal would be snug. The roughness caused sores at first, and eventually left calluses around the nostrils of constant users. The filtplug directed all the air exhaled from the lungs, with its moisture, into the still-suit's recovery system.
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Rltplugs had screen filters of moderate mesh built into each of the Y branches They captured significant participates, keeping them from fouling the distillation apparatus If one filter clogged, the wearer could still exhale through one nostnl Filtplugs could be cleared in the field by pulling them from the nose and the catchtube and blowing backwards through the air passage Usually, however, both filter cleaning and the substitution of a new filtplug for a used one were earned out before leaving or after returning to the sietch
FISH SPEAKERS. ORIGINS OF. The exis fence of the Fish Speakers and especially of their religious and military devotion, can be best explained by the significance qfjjsh a divine life symbol from antiquity Which species became the dominant symbol is disputed According to Fish Speaker legend, the sandtrout so important in Dane history is a relict form of a now-extinct lungfish, but trout are very similar to salmon, and the Legend of the Silver Salmon—a large fish with oracular powers and a reputation for escaping all nets and lures—persisted in Fremen culture despite the absence of water Some investigators believe that the legend may have been imported from Caladan where the appearance of the Golden Carp was said to predict a tome when the planet would be destroyed by a vast flood, and only those who believed in the Golden Carp would survive Yet, as a divine Itfe symbol in many cultures, the Vesica Pisas was an oval figure pointed at both ends and representing the air bladder of the fish This, of course, throws all speculation in another direction, for sandtrout and lungfish are both too elongated to authenticate this symbol The butterfly fish, Pisces Ornatissimus, fits the rounded appearance that the symbol demands, more-overt its distinctive markings assure that no two like fishes can be found Its bnUiant colors of gold and orange rn/fe silver horizontal stripes make it an entertaining spectacle, and, though it is not predatory, its armor gives tt a mUttarutK appearance It feeds on a legiffnous water plant called Arakis
A stiver fish was once worn by members of a secret society called Aram-el, but was abandoned in order to conciliate a powerful
rival organization that was jealous of the fish s use as an emblem Aram el s need to defend itself gave rise to a military faction which gradually absorbed other groups and grew to become the Fish Speakers The first leader of this group had a series of dreams in which one such silver emblem grew large and lifelike and began to speak warning of future trials and cautioning the leadership to develop militarv prowess for religious pur poses although these were at first obscure It was the second generation leader to whom was revealed that the purpose of Aram el was to defend a god king Thereafter mem bers being initiated into Aram el took their vows by placing their hands upon a large silver fish, and the most religious of the group secretly reverenced the same object as a fetish No wonder that this fish spoke to them m dreams and the more devout could verify their sincerity bv reports of those dreams As time passed, other rituals and more precise vom replaced these early forms but the military women who protect and defend the God-king were thereafter known as Fish Speakers and became Brides of the God King m preparation of that day when such a visitation would occur
The above material, taken almost verbatim from the Official History represents the received version of the origins of die Fish Speakers and is as noteworthy for its onus sions as for its inclusions Primarily, it does not address the questions of why such an organization was necessary in the first place, and of what happened to those organizations it replaced Answers to such questions are nowhere to be found in the Official History, and what follows has been pieced together from fragmentary evidence in those parts of the Rakis Hoard that have thus far been uncovered and translated
The Fish Speakers were formed in response to a mihtar> necessity not as the result of an upwelhng of religious fervor Their foundation was preceded by events covering almost d hundred years, events that fall into three phases the disbanding of the Fedaykm the decline of the Fremen soldiery, and the revolt of the Fremen
THE DISBANDING OF THE FEDAYKIN
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FISH SPEAKERS
The first step leading to the establishment of the Fish Speakers as A military force came in the regency of Alia In 10210 Aha brought about the dissolution of the Fedaykm by various legal strategems, and within a year or two afterwards, Paul s ehte force no longer existed as a military organization The Fedaykin were never a very large group consisting of perhaps 50 000 men at its maximum but their effectiveness was all out of proportion to their numbers They provid ed the spearhead of many campaigns and furnished an experienced cadre around which later battle groups were formed By disbanding them, Alia sought to forestall the possibility of a military hero s winning popular support and challenging the rule she exercised through her priesthood and civil bureaucracy The harvest ot her labor was reaped by Leto II
THE DECLINE OF THE FREMEN The de chne of the military might of the Fremen army took a much longer time, was marked by no notorious single incident, and was hidden from view by official decision Hence its story has only recently come to light and has been pieced together by the patient researchers of the military section of the Library Confraternity, to whose efforts we owe these startling revelations about the true reasons for the formation of the Fish Speakers
The first bit of information to move speculation in this area came not from the Rakis Hoard but from the Bureau of Personnel of the Padishah Empire, housed on Kaitain In its administration of personnel rotation, the Sardaukar Imperial Staff employed a system of flagging personnel records with differently colored tabs, according to the reason for the transfer A red tab marked the record of one who had died in combat off-world, and whose remains were being returned, black indicated an off-world non-combat death from disease or accident, yellow marked die record of one transferred home for medical recuperation, green marked transfers for administrative and general reasons
When die Fremen were organized under the Atreides, the system of the Sard auk ;u was borrowed With tnis knowledge, the summaries of military personnel transfers found cm Rakis became clear The following table shows percentages of transfers for dif
ferent reasons through the hundred-year pen od following the end of Paul s Jihad
The changes on the table are instructive the 4% combat deaths in the years 10211 to 10220 shows no doubt the mopping up of outlying pockets of resistance where the battle continued in diminished form But after forty years during which combat deaths com prised less than one percent of the record transfers, the percentage begins to inch upward to 2% and 3% of the total from 10271 to 10310 Two possible reasons have been suggested for this increase neither of them flattering to Fremen honor either resistance cells were being formed and operating the suppression of which was producing Fremen battle casualties, or perhaps more likely accidental deaths were being falsified as military deaths to lend a spunous luster to the reputations of the deceased
The percentage of black tabbed records showing death from accident or disease, is higher than any commander would wish but not surprising in view of the high degree of adaptation to the conditions of Arrakis which the Fremen had achieved When sent to planets with grossly divergent climatic and social environments many of the Fremen simply did not adjust well These records have not been examined in any detail but spot checks over the century have shown that many of these deaths in the early decades at least, were attributable to drowning, general edemas and surprisingly heat exhaustion (The Fremen metabolism sometimes reacted m unexpected ways to conditions of high humidity)
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FISH SPEAKERS
As the foregoing implies, disease was tak mg a heavy loll The yellow tabs marking transfers for recuperation, increased enormously in percentage over the period—from 8% of the total in 10220 to 28% of the total in 10310 And it must be kept m mind that these figures show only those sick enough to warrant transfer home those with lesser de grees of incapacity would be treated on the garrisoned planet An astonishing picture appears then in the first decade of the 103rd century many of the Fremen garrisons must have had sick calls amounting to nearly a third of their total force1 Such units could not have fielded an effective force But this decline in the vigor of the Fremen (and such indeed is what it seems) dovetails well with what we know was happening back on Arrakis. as the planetary conditions changed and the Fremen approached the degenerate state of the later Museum Frenien
Various other arguments support mis con elusion we know, for example, feat Fremen tnbal membership was extended to children born off-world who were acknowledged by Fremen soldiers The first such recognition on me planet Zimaona occurred m 10214 (only the rolls for Zimaona have yet been located among the nduttan crystals) The number of acknowledgments and children born of legal marriages to Znnaoman natives increases steadily over the next twenty years, and it is among the transfer records from Zimaona that we see for die first tune, beginning in 10233, folders with a beige tab, showing that the soldier in question refused return to Arrakis and was mustered out on the planet The use of the beige tab was an innovation restricted to Zimaona and suppressed even there after just two years It may be that the beige tabs were having a destructive effect on morale—6,000 soldiers refused return in those two years—and the folders of those who ended their enlistments on Zimaona returned to the use of the green tab specified for general purposes elsewhere throughout the empire The total number of Fremen who refused return to Arrakis, therefore, is buned m die mass of general transfer records, but their numbers are hinted at in the two-year innovation of Zimaona
Rakis Reference Catalog 3-M530 provides
another revealing insight into the decline ot the Fremen soldiery The conquest of Carillon dunng Paul Muad Dib s Jihad was one of the more protracted and difficult ones, taking eighteen months before the mam re sistance was crushed The Rakis Finds crys tal numbered 3-M530 includes the Table of Organization and Equipment for the Fremeii forces at the close of the first year of the campaign, when they had reached their maximum of about 250,000 men According to the TOE, roughly 25,000 of these were support personnel supply, medical, military government, and the like This ratio of support troops to combat troops-—1 to 9—was unbelievable to their enemies and unprece dented in military history The Sardaukar at their most efficient, say at the end of the 7000s with millennia of experience behind them and no challenge to their supremacy never achieved a better rauo of support to combatants than 3 to 1
Forty years later there was not the ghost of a resistance on Carillon, nor had there been for thirty-five years Problems of law en forcement were handled by local and regional constabularies, and the Fremen garrison was the only military force on the planet It consisted of one reinforced regiment, about 3 200 men Yet this regiment was backed by a supply and administrative structure num benngover20,000 The support to-combatant ratio was over 6 to 1 m a peaceful world where the noise of battle had not been heard for over a generation Moreover, the examination of the names on the rosters of the support personnel—and this is admittedly an imperfect measure—shows only about one in ten to be Fremen While the troops under arms continued to be drawn from Arrakis, me maintenance of planetary supply, provi siomng, quartering, and medical service was almost entirely in the hands of Canllomans L
One last and striking piece ol evidence will illustrate the decline which all these records show In 10221, an interesting legal document makes its first appearance On the planet Finally in that year, a Fremen soldier sued a native in the local courts for assault The outcome of the trial is of no consequence what is significant is that the suit was brought at all A decade earlier, the attacker would
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not have survived the assault, or if he had, would not have lived to go to court The next several decades see an increase in the number of civil and criminal cases involving Fremen in the courts of Finally, showing that the Fremen were changing The} were adapting to local society and accepting the local law There is no reason to believe that Finally was different in this respect from the other garrisoned planets
The evidence of the century points to just one conclusion The Fremen army that swept through the empire during Paul's Jihad was, a hundred years later, a broken reed, top heavy with bureaucrats, dependent on local support, and often manned by sick and un willing conscripts It may well be that its total strength declined, too, for Leto never allowed a census on Arrakis, and the strength of his military mm was the most closely guarded of secrets Had it not been for Leto's spice based stranglehold on die Spac ing Guild and nis consequent absolute monopoly on transportation and communication, the Fremen army could not have secured a single planet against a determined resistance after about 10260, let alone have held the Empire together
THE REVOLT OF THE FREMEN The revolt of certain units of the Sardaukar, led by Duncan Idaho (11099), is dealt with in more detail in entries DUNCAN IDAHO-! 1099 and SARDAUKAR Suffice it tn say here mat this revolt must have been the major motivation for the foundation of the Fish Speakers Leto must have realized that m the Fremen army he had a tool of doubtful effectiveness whose political reliability was shaky The me of a charismatic figure (such as Duncan Idaho in any of his incarnations) was a potential danger since Idaho was a direct tie to the days of glory—someone who could invoke the name of Paul AtreKJes with a conviction and claim equal to mat of Leto It is shortly after the revolt that we first hear of the formation of the Fish Speakers, and we are now in a position to appreciate that the Fish Speakers were the effect of a clear sequence of causes GWE and WE M
NOTE
'At present, the most avidly sought after docu taents m the military section are those which
would establish whether Leto in this first century ot his rule employed auxiliary units of native troops on the planets of his empire
Further references DUNCAN IDAHO 11099 SARDAUKAR Yauzheen Pursewarden fiision cf ihe Fish Speakers (Centralia Johun Univ Press)
FLOWMETER. A Fremen device used for measuring valuable liquids in large quantities Precise meters ha\e been traced to the era soon after Fremen first inhabited Arrakis, the celebrated hyperaccurate version was well established long before Pardot Kynes began insisting on ecological transformation
The first flow-meters were used on large distilling devices such as the Huanui, used m the death-reclamation ceremony Later on, others were modified slightly to accept water from a tunnel instead of a catchtube This model was mounted at the nm of every sietch's reclamation catch basin to record "deposits ' into the tribal repository of wealth Standard catchtube accepting meters, between windtraps and catch-basins, were also mounted in the sietch and stopover megabasms The flowmeters provided progress reports on the amount of water accumulated along the way to planetary reclamation
In a funnel-accepting flowmeter the catch-funnel is at the top Most are about 50 cm m diameter, with a turned lip of about 1 5 cm to prevent splashover The funnels are of plasteel, and have been found to have been surfaced with the friction release substance found m watertubing (Two examples of funnels made of a melange-based substance have been uncovered Melange compounds do not respond well to laserdating, but rough holo carbon techniques show these specimens to date back to perhaps 7000 )
At the vortex of these catchfunnels is a dilating, pressure-actuated diaphragm valve As the water nses in the funnel, the calibrated valve releases and lets the funnel-full "drop into the flowmeter's measuring cylinder The cylinder and its own pressure valve, the technological core of the flowmeter, come as a unit The valve, taking up the bottom half of the cylinder, is of the dilating leaf type It has two appendages, a switch triggering cable and the threaded casing of a ten-tooth bevel gear
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The control cable is triggered by a tab on the back edge of one of the flowmeter valve's dilating leaves When tripped the cable sig nals the valve at the base of the funnel (above the flowmeter itself) to close This interconnection prevents both the funnel valve and the flowmeter valve from being open at the same time
The casing and bevel gear mesh with a complementary arrangement at the dial As the valve's dilating leaves open out, the gear spins at up to 1,000 rpm When die valve is at maximum dilation (10 cm), the mechanism clicks the dial pointer to its next position The meter valve closes, the funnel valve opens, and the cycle repeats
The flowmeter's accurate recording pro ceeds almost automatically until the end of a measuring cycle When the funnel is partly full, its valve can be opened manually (as long as the meter valve has closed) The water enters the meter cylinder, whose valve can be spun manually This rotation eases or increases the tension applied to the leaves' spnngs The precise amount of tension necessary to reach the point af water release is recorded accurately on the flowmeter's dial
The dial itself reveals a fascinating inconsistency It records m liters and drachms (to the l/32nd drachm) The "later" is a Galactic standard, and has been for millennia The drachm, however, is even more ancient, a holdover from a "halving" system of measurement The flowmeter's analog recorder converts the metric and halving systems with no difficulty, s& using the two approaches made no difference as far as absolute amounts of water were concerned But the inconsistency is dramatic confirmation of Fremen-Zensunni residence on Sahisa Secundus, whose records show continued use of the premuumtc Inglo system of vol«metrics well into Imperial times (The basis of the Inglo system was the "gal" One ' gal" = 4096 drachms 1 drachm » 3 696 ml)
The flowmeter seldom varied from the design outlined above Older models show some minor variations, by the tune of the Fremea Jihad the design was standardized and mass-produced to service the increasing numbers of windtraps and megabasms installed at even minor stopovers The differ-
ence between lip-mounted meters and the wmdtrap/Huanui type involved the substitu tion of a catchtube for the funnel above the diaphragm valve At the downside end of these models there was a twist-tab mount for a hterjon s spout tube or a simple watertube adapter
From today's vantage point it is possible to speculate about ways the Fremen might have improved their meters Holtzman elec tromcs, for instance, might have been adapted to replace many of the cumbersome moving parts However, such suggestions seem to many scholars close to the scene to ignore die Fremen principle J L C
FREMEN AGRICULTURE. Pnor to their destiny-fixing encounter with the Impend! Planetologist Pardot Kynes in 10151 the Fremen were accustomed to consuming only those fruits, vegetables and nuts they could purchase from the village folk nearest their sietches or (more rarely) gather from the terraform planting areas or the high-dlutude temperate zones
All of this was changed with the imple mentation of the planetologist s dream of transforming Arrakis from a desert world to a gentler, more temperate planet As the Fremen learned to change the face of the desert with their plantings and their newly adopted Imperial technology, they naturally applied that knowledge to their m-sietch lives with varying degrees of success
The earliest recorded attempts made at raising crops took place in 10169, at Sietch Tabr Using chromoplastic-lmed pits, or dew collectors, to help cushion the plants against the harsh desert soil, the Fremen introduced coffee tabaroot (a sweet tuber developed on Caladan), and a few varieties of vegetables adapted for the fields of Salusa Secundus (The latter, smuggled onto Anakis at tremen dous nsk to Kynes, provided him with ironic amusement not one of the specimens, tough ened for life on the Emperor s "hellhole" of a prison planet managed to survive to matu nty on Arrakts )
The coffee and labaroot, both of which the Fremen usually purchased from outsiders did not immediately flourish they did, however provide their cultivators with a small harvest within three seasons Taking
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even this degree of success as a sign that their work could go ahead the Fremen expanded their plantings, both to other sietches and to different types of vegetation
Certain varieties—the date palm, for ex ample—refused to grow m ground not pre pared, as was the case at the palmanes, by many years' growth of other hardier stock In addition, the would be farmers were bur dened with the need for secrecy and dared not indulge in the fcvcl of activity performed at the palmary sites for fear of alerting the Harkonnens or other out-freyn to their unsuspected sophistication Still, the Fremen persevered, rejoicing in their victories and refusing to be daunted by their failures, until no sietch was without its own supply of self-grown produce
While the cultivation of each area varied from sietch to sietch, certain characteristics were present in every case Each plant in a sietch garden however coddled, was pre pared with eventual self-sufficiency in mind with their dew collectors functioning properly, for instance, many of the mature growths could survive for up to one year without human intervention (It was usually necessary, however, for the gardeners to return in order for the plants to be successfully pollinated ) The sietch gardens were also concealed from casual observation, sometimes in highly ingenious ways
Pardot Kynes himself was occasionally surprised by the degree of stealth "his * Fremen possessed in this matter A favorite story involved his havrag to ask for a guide from one of the sietches in order to find a patch of nearly om hundred coffee plants (The patch had been so carefully nestled into an outcropping of rocks that they could only be spotted from above by someone who knew what was being sought)
Care of established gardens was generally left to the sietch children and was considered good training for the ngors which would face them at the southern palmanes Records indicate: mat these youngsters began their chores at as early an age as three years, when they were taught to keep the dew collectors of new plants properly set over the spreading roots All of the children, as well as their elders, took the cultivation very
seriously, and any neglect on the part of a young gardener was severely dealt with by his or her peers before being reported to the adults
Following Arrakis s ecological transformation of course such caution and vigi lance became unnecessary Crops on that planet could be as easily raised as those on any other world, and the uniquely Fremen approach—a sort of grim dedication touched with near religious fervor—was used only by God Emperor Leto n s Museum Fremen as another of their ornamental rituals C W
Further references PALMARIES Pardot Kynes Ecology of Dune tr EvanGwalan Arrakis Studies 24 (Grumman United Worlds)
FREMEM CLOTHING AMD TEXTILES. The dress of the Fremen m the days of the Atreides has long been a subject of specula turn because strictures against pictorial repre sentation were widely followed But discov enes from the Rakis Finds have answered many of the questions that so long puzzled the curious This information will be sure to stimulate the fashion wise trendsetters of our own times
One of the stops on the Grand Tour of the tenth millennium was the Great Hall of the Imperial Palace on Kaildin In this lush edi fice the splendor of the Comnos was everywhere visible The walls of the Great Hall were covered, floor to ceiling with mosaics depicting the peoples of the Impenum among them, of course were Fremen But the Pal ace burned during an uprising early m Paul Atreides Jihad, and its art was thought lost forever Recently, though, the crystal cata logued as 1 F469 has been found to contain picto-discs revealing the art treasures of the Palace in all their majesty From these discs, from the occasional surviving portrait, and from records of the textile trade, the keen-eyed students of clothing culture have given us a new understanding of Fremen attiie
Men's clothing appears to have been brightly colored—at least, clothing worn casually at home seems to have favored tones of yellow bright green, blues, crimson, and so on, for the trouser and jerkin On festival occasions, men would add a cloak of merino wool, m natural shades of black or buff Men's
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O n84 MTt WouifcRTH-
trousers were narrowly pleated at the waist, fitted closely to the leg, and ended just above the ankle Over this was worn a close ly fitted jerkin or jacket, cut in a deep vee to the waist, where it was held to the body by a belt of matching fabric closed by a buckle of metal or metalhum The favored metals were copper (thought to promote general health) or silver (said to aid virility) In the opening OB the chest, young men often wore tolsams or medallions, usually decorated with a religious theme, although some commemorated an event of the Jihad Older men often wore chains, not with medallions bat with small nngs symbolizing the water-rings they had won in battle
On the bead, older men wore either a small turban or scarf, while youths went bareheaded The house shoe was most often a heelless slipper, which was replaced by townsmen with & heavy boot of sturdy yellow leather The desert Frcmcn doffed their slippers for a thick stocking over which, of course, went the specialized sutlsuit boot
Women's clothing was similar to mat of
men, except that another layer was added Although men's trousers were made of a medium-weight brocade weave, women's trousers were made of a fine cotton Those who could afford it luxuriated in troubers of the sheer cotton from Loomar The female jerkin— the giumlik—was likewise cut in a deep vee, and in the earliest days appears to have been worn open Later, however, jeweled clasps closed the jacket over the breasts and at the waist Over the trousert. and jerkin women added a softly falling sheer gown, the entary
Like the men women wore a heelless slipper in the house or sietch but for dressier occasions they chose a high heeled boot made of soft kidskin All of the clothing of bom sexes, with the exception of the women s boot, made changing into the stillsuit quick and easy
Unlike the brightly colored male clothing Fremen women tended to choose clothes in earth tones, sand colored tans or beiges It has been suggested that these muted hues were a protective measure, for the women were the treasures of the tribe—or more
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precisely, the treasuries of the tnbe, wearing the family's water-rings as jewelry at the waist, braided into the hair or as part of a headdress to which a sheer veil was attached
Children dressed like their elders except for an added garment—-the tshka—a closely fitting shut, usually knitted, and worn under die jacket All these articles of dress added insulation from the sun and the drying winds of Arrakis
The fabrics chiefly used by the Fremen were cotton, almost all of it imported at considerable expense from the factories of Loomar It came in a variety of weights and served both for clothing and decorative hangings The best Loomar cottons, fabulously expensive, were frequently used as part of the bride price in the upper classes, in which water-rings (though still valuable) meant less than they did to the desert Fremen Wool was likewise imported, usually mat woven from the merino sheep of Norstnlia This absorbent fabric served chiefly for outer cloaks, although the bleached but otherwise untreated fleece might grace a couch in the bedroom of a lady of taste and quality Saiucan glassdoth was a spun fabnc of relatively low abrasion resistance which was widely used for the mass produced (and hence inferior) stiflsuits, but only as the outer layers One final fabnc was called Alphamet, an extremely lightweight and finely woven metallic cloth that accentuated the figure and embraced the skin while it ghmmenM and sparkled in me candlelit ballrooms of the rich and mighty J R M
Further reference*! Countes* Hem Sinona, Tfa Vn changing Heart of Fashion (dfedan INS Books), Rakia Kef Cat I-F469; Rakjs Ref Cat 52-C982 (Records of textile factors Hceased by CHOAM at Arrakis Potts of Entry)
FREMEN COOKING. The ordinary Fremen family of the sietches lived on simple, healthy fare (The donkeys that earned the family s belongings also provided milk, which was made into butter, cheese, and kvetch a clabbered milk dnnk) Fruits were mostly dates, figs, and apricots grown in the palma-nes, and the occasional portygul or melon imported from Caladan, especially the pink-fleshed, sweet, and fragrant paradan melon
Fruits were eaten fresh, made into conserves pickled or dned
Leafy vegetables were very scarce on Arrakis Instead, a large number of root crops, like tabaroot available most of the year were grown in the gardens tended by the children of the tribes
Meat was often roasted—desert hare and chukka (a fowl) were the most common—or a savory stew might be made of meat and roots The stew was served with the hearty Fremen flat bread that served as plate as well as food when torn open, its surface was the plate for the stew After the stew was eaten the gravy-soaked plate was itself eaten
Fremen usually ate two meals a day, a lighter one eaten on rising at sunset—usually consisting of bread cheese, kvetch, and some fruit or juice No more food was eaten during the night except for a dnnk of juice or coffee after arising from a nap A heavi er supper was served at dawn There was roast meat or stew vegetables, fruit bread and dessert and coffee Dessert was usually a sweet, a cake or pastry One favorite was a sweet honey cake, tabara This cake of a heavy puddinglike consistency, was a mix ture of cooked and mashed tabaroot, honey, and spices pressed into a dish, sprinkled with sugar, dned seeds and crystallized fruit After cooling, the cake was cut into tiny triangles and served with fruits and hot spiced coffee
The nobility on Arrakis lived, of course, on fare more delicate suiting their station m life They imported many more foods and drank the exotic and expensive wines of Caladan Typical dishes served at a feast might include the foods listed on a menu (below) found by chance inside a volume in the rare book room at Caladan Castle The note on the menu is indisputably in the handwriting of Lady Jessica, indicating not only the dishes she wanted served, but where the feast would be given The note is written to Islo Garen of the famous Garenne Culinary Institute, who served for several years as head chef of the Atreides The presence of these two figures dates the feast between 10190 and 10191, during the short rule of Duke Leto on Arrakis
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MENU
Chukka under Glass Roast Desert Hare in Sauce Ceteda
Aplomage Sinan
Langue de Lapins de Garenne
with Mushroom Yeast Sauce
Red Caladanian Wine
Paradan Sherbet
Coffee
The following recipes are in a second handwriting, undoubtedly that of Garen, and were written on the back of the menu
LANGUE DE LAP1N
Allow three per person
Marinate tongues (use fresh—canned are too soft) in three parts oil and one part lemon juice Add salt, pepper, and savory Marinate overnight
Just before cooking, drain tongues and pat dry Meanwhile melt Vi kg of the best butter in a large skillet and add the tongues Saute" over a high flame until just lightly cooked, but not dry Remove to a warm platter and make a sauce from the juice in the pan, adding the marinade and boiling until it thickens In an other skillet melt another Vi kg of butter and add to it 2 kg of thinly sliced mushrooms Add to the thickened marinade sauce die mushrooms, 120 ml of red wine and 10 ml nf yeast Warm and serve with the tongues as a dip PARADAN MELON SHERBET
For 2 liters
1 large paradan melon
3 lemons
115 gm sugar
2 whites of large eggs, beaten anal soft peaks form
120 ml liqueur (apricot, peach, pear are all good)
Feel Die melon and cut it into chunks Grate the rind of one lemon and add to the melon Juice all three lemons and add the juice to the melon Add sugar, and toss gently until the sugar is dissolved Puree the melon mixture and fold m the beaten egg whites Add the liqueur and put the mixture into a freezing con tamer with a dasher, turn dasher continuously Breeze until ihe mixture is mushy, then turn into a melon-shaped mold and feeze until firm To serve, turn out onto a tray decorated with lemon leaves This recipe serves 12 to 16
Use 175 ml water for each cup of coffee Place boiling water ra the top section of a drip coffee pot In the cento1 coffee basket
place 15 gm Fremen grind coffee (very fine) Allow the water to drip slowly through the coffee into ihe bottom container Remo>e the top and basket, and add sugar or honey to taste Add 5 ml of spice for each cup (but not if you use melange—then use the cut melange in the marked container this means you Daba}
Finally, we add one recipe from the common folk
FREMEN FLAT BREAD
15 ml yeast dissolved in
120 ml tepid water
Add 450 gm flour 5 ml salt 15 ml oil
240 ml warm water added in drops as needed
Knead together the above ingredients until a smooth dough forms this should take about fifteen minutes Place in a greased bowl and allow to nse until doubled in bulk Punch down and allow to nse a second time Punch down a second time and turn out onto a rolling surface Divide into 12 parts Form a cake with each part and pound or roll each flat into a circle about 15 cm across Bake on hot quarry tiles that have been preheated to 260 to 270 degrees Centigrade The bread should be done in one to two minutes It will puff up while cooking and flatten as it cools J R M
FREMEN: COLTURAL DEVELOPMENT TO THE YEAR 10190. The earliest history of the native inhabitants of Arrakis indicates that they were the sole remnant of a people known as the Zensunm Wanderers, original ly followers of a "prophet" named Maometh, circa 1381 B G The Fremen broke away from the main sect to establish their own religion based on dn ultrdconservdtive notion of hving life according to 'the ways of the fathers ' Given the Fremen's roots in such a religion and the particularly life-threatening environment that Arrakis afforded them the Fremen developed a set of cultural mstitu dons unique in their perfect balance between the philosophical world view demanded by Fremen faith and the harsh reality imposed by Arrakis s nature TTiese institutions remained stable for thousands of years and were significantly changed by only two events The first was the arrival of Pardot Kynes as the first planetologist of Arrakis The second
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was the transfer of the governance of Arrakis from the House Harkonnen to House Atreides in 10190 and the subsequent emergence of Paul Atreides as Paul Muad Dtb Kynes ex panded the cultures of the Fremen to include the hope for a second flowering of Arrakis, Paul Muad'Dib forever changed that culture Thus, for all intents, the ancient culture of the Fremen ceased with his rise to power
What was that culture1' And why was Paul Atreides able first to seize control of it and then destroy it? The answers to both of these question he, once again, in the Piemen's religious beliefs and how they interpreted the world around them From what is understood of the Zensunm Wanderers, it can be sur mised that their religion was severe in the extreme It demanded close obedience to an authority figure who must have literally had the power of life and death over his subjects Such authority does not appear to have been lightly earned A leader called Nalb, had to conform closely to his followers' notion of what a leader should be Tats, while he had the power of an absolute ruler, a Naib could easily be challenged by any of his subjects if his behavior seemed at aB inappropriate Moreover, from the records left by Pardot Kynes, such challenges seem to have been frequent Thus the Fremen held a paradoxical notion of social order the leader of any group was supreme, bat only if everyone who belonged to that group wanted him to be
It appears then that a balance of order and anarchy coexisted in Fremefl culture Clues as to the nature of that balance exist, the most significant clue being the Fremen's view of Arrakis itself To the Fremen the planet was Shai-Hulud, the deity or spirit of Arrakis It stood for the Sandworm which was the essence of all sandworms, Shai-Hujod was "fee Old Man of the Desert," "Old Fattier Eternity," and "Grandfather of tiie Desert" The sandworms of Arrakis were both the bane and the boon of Arrakis A roan walking in the open desert had to fear attracting them because a worm would sure ly devour him But sandworrns were also the Fremen's chaef mode of transportation Skill folly caught and ndden, a sandworm could transport many Fremen hundreds of kilome-
ters in a rather short time Even more important, sandworms supplied the Fremen with the major ingredient of their rites A small sandworm drowned in water produced the Water of I ife a poison which, drunk by a Reverend Mother, became a powerful narcotic This narcotic, in turn was used by a Fremen sietch in its tau orgies As several scholars of ancient religions point out, the nature of the 'Water of Life is consonant with practices of many ancient peoples who in one form or another kill their gods and digest their bodies Again the point is that while the Fremen were more than ready to stand in awe ot then" god, they were equally willing to use him (or it) even to the point of putting the god's living form to death Thus, for the Fremen there did not appear to be any contradiction in total sub mission to authority (whether human or godlike), on the one hand, and open ques tiomng of the authority or, even callous destruction of it, on the other Each of these seeming extremes was part of a whole to the Fremen, and it would appear that in each the opposite also existed
One could conclude that, for the Fremen, order was anarchy and anarchy was order This view would eliminate in their minds at least the apparent contradiction in their behavior toward human leaders and gods alike This view, moreover, gives an impor tant insight into iheir ultimate vision of the major forces in their lives starting with Shai-Hulud and ending with the most elemental natural forces of Arrakis the Fremen believed that all were utterly indifferent to ward whether they lived or died Such forces simply existed Shai Hulud, whether literal sandworm or personified Arrakis, might bring harm or good to the Fremen but whatever the end result it was not on Shai Hulud's mind to do either To put it another way if a Fremen said a certain death was "the will of Shai Hulud," he or she did not mean that Shai-Hulud wanted someone to die Instead, to a Fremen these words simply mean that ' that is the way things are '
The Fremen did not however, conclude that there was no value or meaning to their lives Instead, they created both value and meaning by devoting all their ambitions and
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energies to the survival of the sietch the center of Fremen society While members of every sietch called themselves Fremen, that name had less meaning to them than the name of the sietch each belonged to There is no accurate way of determining how many sietches existed even in the time of Paul Muad'Dib Except for his own sietch and any that might threaten its survival, no individual Fremen was interested in how many others existed Moreover, it now seems t-lear that the Fremen were masters in hiding the existence of then" sietches from all off worlders, and thus no records exist It is deduced, however, that many hundreds of these units did exist, and that each sietch was capable of containing many thousands of people
The sietch was both a huge extended family and a government It demanded and received great loyalty from each of its members From the journals left by Leto II, researchers have been able to piece together several facts concerning the relationship of the individual to the sietch All Fremen defined their lives by membership m a sietch It literally gave one a place in the world Thus, to commit an act which brought banishment from the sietch was to commit psychological as well as physical suicide
In all things the good of the sietch was the final determinant of behavior Those actions which furthered the good were to be encouraged, while those that threatened the good were more man discouraged Such actions inevitably led to the death of the person responsible whether or not that person realized the implications of those actions Like Arrakis. the sietch punished ignorance There was simply no room for the uninformed
Since all things were measured in terms of how they aided or hindered the survival of die sielch, all decisions made by its members were in terms of "yes" or "no " Sur viva] had no room for "maybe " For example, an outsider was rarely allowed to join a sietch It was not simply a matter of the burden such an addition would place on its limited resources, but rather the practical question of what that individual could possibly add to the sietch mat was not already present In his notes on his father, Paul Muad'Dib, Leto states that the Naib of the
sietch that first found Paul and the Lady Jessica the Fremen named Stilgar was chal lenged by his own men for not putting both of them to death immediately These men did not dislike the two off worlders, the) simply saw no advantage to keeping them alive and thereby depriving the sietch of the water from their bodies In this same pas sage Leto points out that Paul did finally have to duel with one of the Fremen who refused to delay a decision despite Stilgar's wishes
Finally, there was the tau of the sietch The tau of a sietch can be called its oneness the overwhelming unity that raised the Fremen sense of community to a height rarely found in other societies This oneness went far beyond the belief that the good of the sietch was above all other considerations The tau contained a mystical dimension that Iran scended time and place Since each sietch kept a community reservoir in which all members kept their water and in which water that belonged to the entire sietch was also pooled, the sietch was literally the guardian of the most precious commodity for life on Arrakis More important however is the fact that these reservoirs included the water recovered from the dead bodies of members of the sietch Fremen did not put water so obtained into the reservoirs lightly It was respect for the departed that allowed for such treatment, dishonored men or women would never, after death, be afforded this honor Thus, in a very real sense, the sietch pre served all members living and dead, for the water from the dead would be ingested by ali living Fremen, and at some future time they too would make their contribution Oneness therefore, meant unity with every citizen of the sietch from its furthest past to its most distant future
It should be remembered that from its earliest history the Fremen race revered "the ways of the fathers' In addition because of the acute shortage of water on Arrakis the literal 'water of the fathers" was drunk by all members of the sietch Thus, the tau of the sietch was at the very heart of the bal ance the Fremen maintained between their spiritual beliefs and the physical necessities placed upon them by their environment To
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dnnk the water of the sietch was to partici pate in the tau
In addition, the Tau Orgy of Oneness also brought the sietch into a physical intimacy as well as a spiritual one The visions of the tau orgy showed them the ways of their fathers Here was the Piemen's ultimate bond with the past, present, and future, and it could only be obtained through participation of the entire sietch.
The ultimate destruction of Fremen culture was inevitable because of its dependence on two element that were inexorably changing the harsh nature of the planet Arrakis and the Fremen belief that this was how things were to be, and the Fremen's isolation from all outside influence
The first of these elements, the nature of Arrakis, began to change wfeea Pardot Kynes was able to convince a group of Fremen that Arrakis could be made to bloom again The very notion that the Fnemea could charige the face of the planet added alien concepts to the Fremen view of life The most famous Fremen battle cry, ya hya chouhgda, brought with it the implication that the fighters were fighting to avoid something, not to gain something For thetr entire history the Fremen fought against change, but with Pardot Kynes many of the Fremea actively started to seek to change their world When Paul Muad'Dib was actually able to make these changes real, the balance between philosophy and reality was destroyed
The second of these elements, isolation, started to seriously change with the arrival of the House Ateeidcs on Arrakis For Duke Leto I and te Paul Muad'Dib, the Fremen were a potential army to be used in the political intrigues off world Paul's creation of the Fedaykifl and their subsequent battles on many thousands of planets forever changed the ways in which these Fremen saw the universe and their relationship to it Thus, just as the flowering of Arrakis ended the environmental strictures the Fremen had lived under, the extensive travels to and battles oa other worlds ended die philosophi cal view they had once held
The physical and spiritual changes wrought by Paul Muad'Dib ended by killing both Shai-Hulud and the Fremen Without the
unique circumstances that had nurtured both, neither could continue S G
Further references ZENSUNNI WANDERERS Anon Kitab atlbar Manual of the Friendly Desert RRC 1Z288 Defa 1 Famoi Tag I Fremen 12 v (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) Daiwid Kuuan Monuments of the Zensanni Migrations (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
FREMEN EDUCATION. The four thousand years of Atreides rule on Arrakis is a case study in how a self sufficient proud, healthy culture can be destroyed through a clumsy, thoughtless educational policy
The Hemen prior to the arrival of the Atreides were a seminomadic people whose tribal culture was well suited to their hostile planet and its oppressive Harkonncn governors Fremen education consisted not of formal schooling in specific subject areas but of a total hie training A child was trained by all members of the tnbe from his earliest days until maturity The life and safety of the tnbe depended upon each person s ability to ob serve the water discipline of the sietch and to know how to conduct himself on the dangerous open sands of Dune
The most successful method of this total training was the ancient Riddle Game Its interactive methodology forced the child to reason, not merely memorize to find the answer Thousands of nddles went into Fremen training, some examples Challenge 'Si lence7" Answer The friend of the hunted Challenge ' What are two things never to do7" Answer 'Never to forgive, never to for get " Challenge What does one take into the desert? Answer Everything that is necessary and nothing else
The tribal sietch formed the home from which a person reaching maturity moved out into the world The sietch was essentially a rule of law exemplified by the benevolent personal authority of the Naib Group action was the norm All training of the young focused on the life of the sietch and their expected contributions and responsibilities to that life In the sietch warren schools, the young were trained to make and service stillsuits, rugs, windtraps stilUenls and weapons They learned how to maintain stolen machines, harvest spice, hunt use a crysknife, repair a catch-basin and ride Shai Hulud
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With the arrival of the planetologist Pardot Kynes the aspirations and subsequent education of the Fremen began to change The emphasis still remained on the ancient, time-tested values of purposeful survival training, including the values of tribal unity and water discipline But Kynes offered the Fremen a dream—that the desert planet might someday be a lush, green, water-rich planet The entire ecology of Dune might be reversed, according to Kynes, through understanding Dune's ecosystem and then altering it As is often the penalty for such hubris, the Fremen got exactly what they hoped for, and it destroyed the planet's only real source of wealth, its spice crop, as well as the vitality of Fremen culture
Kynes started the first formal sietch schools and, as a result, is often referred to as the "Father of the Fremen Education System " This title should not be viewed as an honor, given how matters turned out. In these schools Kynes presented a curriculum that suited the planetologist's ecological ambitions. He taught about trees, grass, rivers, lakes, snow, dune plantings and water conservation. Kynes supported the harsh disciplines of the sietch and the strong authoritarian rate of die Naibs The "subversion" dreamed of by Kynek and the Fremen of his time was not the political fall of the Harfconnens but the conquest of a hostile, unforgiving desert by the civilizing influence of ecoJogosocial change Had Kynes' plan had the time to unfold, perhaps the paradise he envisioned would have emerged But he could not foresee the changes to be wrought by the Atreides
The early years of Atreides rule under Paul Mnad'Dib were disastrous for the Fremen and their culture, Paul diverted their strength to the fighting of his interstellar religious wars. He taught his Fremen to be soldiers in a virtually endless campaign of conquest in the same of his new religion. Millions died, and the entire Fremen culture turned from tribal sarvival-onentatiOB to a militaristic, politicized destructon-orientation Where once sietch schools taught how to make fabrics from spice fiber, Paul's yousg Fremen learned about interstellar assault tactics in the Arrakeen War College
The second major destructive change
brought about by the revered Paul Atreides was the growth of isolated individualism as a socially accepted value Sietch discipline was all but forgotten as towns and cities grew Water resources increased, but people soon became selfish in their approach to life
In a short fifteen years Paul and Alia were able to bleed the Fremen of their courageous young men and women, while on the home front Atreides policies made Fremen culture soft, dependent, wasteful, and impotent Paul's Fremen, without whom he would never have become emperor, were being systematically destroyed through an educational policy that cut the youth off from their cultural roots
The destruction of the Fremen begun by Paul and continued by Alia was completed by Leto II Leto imposed severely restrictive educational policies throughout his empire He emphasized learning only fhe agricultural skills needed in his village-focused pastoral empire To preserve his empire he cut communications, virtually eliminated travel, and suppressed and eliminated the technical classes m all but the most essential areas, hoping to provide a feudal peace He was successful, and much accumulated knowledge, such as that stored in the library of the Arrakeen War College, was. destroyed Leto saw no need to preserve that knowledge, and he feared the potential harm it would cause if it should fall into the hands of what he termed the "wicked "
Under Leto's rule some sietches actually returned to the practice of sacrificing virgins, a ntual that appeared m the earliest Fremen days on Dune But this regression to a semibarbanc past was short-lived The ultimate result of Leto's policy, when coupled with the ecological reversal occurring on Dune, was to make the Fremen into little more than museum exhibits The planet grew green, the people grew soft, the villages grew more and more isolated from each other, while enemies grew fewer and less troublesome
As Fremen survival needs were more easily met, educational needs diminished Unlike the people of Caladan, who turned to the arts for revitahzation, the Fremen people simply began to die They had known nothing of life except endless struggle Once that
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straggle was removed, the Fremen lost their will to live As the planet grew nch with water, the Fremen people like the great worms that needed the deep, dry desert to live, began to die quietly, unmourned and virtually forgotten
ID the year 2549 of his reign, Leto de clared Fremen an endangered population and ordered his Fish Speakers to move those that still lived to reservations These reservations later evolved into the "Fremen Museums* which tried to replicate the ancient sietch ways PF
Further references FISH SPEAKERS FREMEN JIHAD Hwen Urtom tr The Little Book of Riddles Studies in Atreidean History 534 (Paseo last of Galacto-ftemen Culture)
FREMEN JIHAD. The Last Jihad (S A Sumer andNE Kautman 3vols [Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak}) one of the oldest works on the Butlenan Jihad, is still one of the best But the authors were far too competent as historians to believe the title anything more than a statement of hope, as their introduction to this monumental study makes clear Sadly, as all now know, their hope was in vain The Fremen Jihad, ten thousand years after the Butlenaa, was every bit its equal in suffering, destruction, and death
Through the Journals of Leto II, Paul Muad'Dib's son, we have preserved the reckoning of the father concerning the crusade he led "Statistics at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others I ve wiped out the followers of forty rebgioas "(RafasRef Cat 55-A89) A record to put the Butlenan Jihad to shame in volume, if not degree The grim shade of die Butknan chief priestess Urania aught well remark that her Jihad had not the advantage of so many inhabited planets, of such a number of their fellows Given this handicap in the number of victims available, the leaders of the Bfltknan Jihad could still point with pnde to their accomplishments
Yet, it has been argued, neither of the true leaders of the two Jihads were wiling butchen> Jehanne Butler, we are told, argued against the urgmgs of the priestesses of Komos, and Paul Muad'Dib grieved over the slaughter
accomplished by his Fremen It seems less difficult to believe in Jehanne as a reluctant leader of such a horde as hers She was but an extraordinary human being, after all, while Paul was a proven Mahdi How is. it possible that such a man as he prescient and puissant, could be persuaded to such a course against his wilP The question had been posed by many since the end of the Fremen Jihad and ever more frequently since the publication of the archives from Rakis The answer has generally consisted in an attack upon the question that is, in a response which holds that such a query shows an ignorance of the limitations within which even such an emperor as a Paul Muad'Dib must operate
Several forces combined to force Jihad upon him
The most obvious was the revolt of the Landsraad houses prompted by the overthrow of the House Corrino The Impenum had survived for ten millennia as a balance of tensions The struggle between the Imperial House and the voracious Great Houses—the former staving to survive as the supreme power, the varied latter wishing to end that supremacy—was one of the fundamental ten sions of the Imperium When the Great Houses learned that one of them had finally succeeded, it was only to be expected that the more powerful would take the opportunity to de clare their independence from die new Impenum Believing themselves free of the Sardaukar and unaware of the greater men ace of the Fremen, they saw in the events on Airakis the chance to fulfill a dream of generations
The Great Houses that rebelled made a disastrous miscalculation The old Impenum had regarded political ambition as a constant of human nature Punishments for failed plots had never been intended to wipe out such ambition through seventy, rather, whatever harshness had characterized the sanctions for unsuccessful grasps at power had been de signed to delay and weaken the next outstretched hand This is not to make House Comno a collection of philanthropic phi losophers—it is only to see them as realists
The Sardaukar were the instruments of these realists and their source The first emperor had been a Sardaukar, and since then they
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had followed the Imperial House out of the most intense combination of self-interest and ingrained loyalty But once the threat of the Sardaukar was removed any Great House would naturally lunge at the opportunity to declare its own independence and would in fact think of becoming the Imperial House itself None of them expected to be anmhilat ed for this They were acting as their experience of centuries taught them they should and the House Comno would not have expected anything else
But they misunderstood their new op ponents What seemed to the Great Houses to be a matter of politics was, to the Fremen, in the province of religion The leaders of the Great Houses saw themselves as taking advantage of a moment of political flux, the Fremen saw unbelievers defying their Mahdi
To the Fremen, rebellion against Paul Muad'Dib was an attack oa the Messiah, promised them for thousands of years, and now come The Fremen followed Paul out of a religious belief buttressed by a desire for vengeance upon the Harkormens and the Impenum, which had oppressed them from time immemorial—immemorial for all but them It was their traditions, and their religion, which turned a war to consolidate control of an empire into a Jihad
The conquest of the system of Malathon, controlled by the Great House of the Mc-Naughts was the first tnkhng the universe had that the rules of empire had changed The McNaughts were one of the most powerful of the old Great Houses, and the family had a tradition of cautious, shrewd leadership, along with a reputation is a dangerous enemy The McNaught forces were sizeable and well trained, in Landsraad terms, they were supported by three lesser houses from the neighboring system of Kalakh
The stones spread by the few hundred survivors of the battles for Malathon and Kalakh shocked all who heard them The forces of the McNaughts and their allies had been obliterated What made the news border on the incredible was that this had been accomplished with a force of ten Fremen legions—some 300,000 men The entire armed might of two systems had been wiped out by a force less man one tenth tts size Had the
remaining Great Houses but known it there was more to fear these victories had been accomplished without the Fedaykm
At this early stage the Fedaykm were unknown, and the Fremen poorly Understood Rebellion continued and the Fremen victo ries spread across the galaxy As the natives of Arrakis moved from planet to planet and system to system, they encountered many faiths not their own some involving lenets or rituals as loathsome to them as the discov enes on Richese had been to the Romans As time worlds, and lives of millions and then billions passed the religious motivations of the Fremen came to play an ever greater part in their battles Slowly, the assur ance of a secure throne for their Mahdi came to be joined by the desire for a ' purified ' empire
A particular target of this religious culling came to be the faiths dominated by the Bene Gessent The order which had trained and attempted to dominate Paul s mother the order which had striven so long to produce and use the Kwisatz Haderach that Paul was—that order was of special concern to him Their power and their plans conflicted with his
The Fremen attitude toward the Bene Gessent had always been at best ambivalent, and usually fearful and antagonistic But with the coming of Paul Muad Dib their ambivalence was over They could produce their own Reverend Mothers, as they had for thousands of years, Jessica wds all the Bene Gessent they would ever need, as she had fulfilled the prophecies
These attitudes on the part of Paul and the Fremen hardly such as to incline them to ward the order, were reinforced by the Bene Gessent's support of the forces allied against the Fremen The Bene Gessent were faced with the prospect of their plans of the past uncounted centimes culminating in a person who was beyond their control, and it was more than they could bear Rather than have the Kwisatz Haderach live independently of them, they hoped to kill him and produce another With the help of the Bene Gessent, the forces of the Landsraad houses that had not yet been defeated met the Fremen legions in the svstem of Molitor The presence
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of the Sardauiar on the side of the Landsraad made the battles a struggle, the Fedaykin made the battles a victory for the Fremen
This was the greatest campaign in the Jihad but not the last Many systems remained unpacified, and even more remained outride the power of the burgeoning religion of Muad'Dib The Qizara Tafwid—the Fremen priesthood—regarded the Jihad as the means of spreading their religion, so that what had begun as a response to rebellion had become a vehicle of conversion One may be able to tell when rebellion ends, but who can say when all believe1' It is worth noting that most of the forty faiths eradicated by the Jihad perished after the campaign in the system of Mohtor The individual legions of Fremcn, moving independently through die galaxy, earned on the work of the Jihad long after Paul Muad Dib had returned to Arrakis
By the time the last of the Fremen forces had returned to Arrakis, the wars over and the new Impenum begun, there was not a force left in the universe which could stand against the emperor's might The tensions and balances which characterized the relations between House Comno and the forces of the Landsraad were gone, never to return In their place had arisen the sole force of the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, now the Mahdi for the human race, not just for the Fremen Where there had been many religions, now there was one, where there had been many armies, now only one mattered, where there had been a balance of powers between several social and political and economic institutions, DOW there was unity
The Bene Gessent survived as an order, but not as a power The Spacing Guild survived, but only as a pawn of die emperor The Landsraad was a shell, and CHOAM was dominated by the new emperor to an extent that House Comno had never considered What had been the intricate, subtle interplay of forces in exquisite balance that had given the old Impenum life and meaning was gone FM
FREMEH LANGUAGE. Atreidean Form The Fremen, the desert-dwelling tribes of Arrakis, remnants of the Zensunni Wanderers, spoke a language which reveals a portion of then-
troubled history Fremen legend had it that their original homeworld was Pontrui third planet of Fpsilon Alangue even if this were not known to be untrue, clues from their language and religion would point to Sol UI, Terra, at, being an even ediuer bite of Zensunni occupation, in fact their original homeland Some of this evidence is found m the ancient Terran religion Islam which beginning around the eleventh millennium B G went through several major as well as minor upheavals and revitalizations (see Lors Karden s A Hmorv of the Third Islamic Movement [Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak]), exemplified by the mixture of Sunni and Zen mysticisms embodied in the teachings of Maometh (the Third Muhammed ') from which the Zensunni broke away about 1381 B G be ginning their long route of planetary migra tions
The Fremen language can be traced to the ancient Terran language Arabiya which the linguist '1 Taahbu believes to have originally been the official tongue of the Islamic faith, an observation supported by the traditional lore of the Sayyadmas (Iracmg the Tongues of Man Vol IV The Sinus Sector [Yorba VI Rose]) The Fremen language differs greatly from the official Galach of the Old Impenum despite then- both demonstrating Terran roots Both were from entirely different Imguisuc and cultural stocks That the stock of Galach represented the technologically and economically dominant culture of the time is evidenced by the status of Galach as the standard of the Old Impenum while the Fremen tongue, up to the Lime of Paul Muad'Dib, was the tongue of a persecuted people
Phonology Fremen retained (or more accurately, recaptured) many of the early Arabic sounds These include the labials b f, and m the dentals / th (0), d dh (6), and n the sibilants i z and sh (§), the affricate j (j), the velars k and g (which very often can be derived from q or gh (-y), the uvulars q kh (x) and gh (-y) the liquids / and r the glides w and > and the laryngeal h Absent from Fremen are the Arabic em phahc (pharyngcalized-vclaraized) consonants 4' $> / £• Pmb ^e PUK pharyngeals h and Ihe glottal stop (') has also disappeared Geminate or doubled consonants are still
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evident as are the five vowels of ancient colloquial Arabic—a e i o u however distinctions in vocalic length as a phonologi cal feature have disappeared in Fremen
Morphology Most words of Arabic den vation are based on a triconsonantal root eg k t b which when combined with van ous patterns of vowels generates different but semantically related words and parts of speech Thus from the root k t b are derived fata* (book) fconfc (writer) katab (he wrote) yiktitb (he writes) etc While the most an cient form of Terran Arabic showed such morphological complexities as grammatical gender dual and plural numbers in addition to singular plurals formed by consonant and vowel mutation as wel! as by suffixes noun cases and verbal moods later Arabic be came more simplified morphologically Fremen continued this trend drastically reducing the number of verb paradigms noun declensions plural forms and gender agreement rules This simplification is perhaps due to the large influx of foreign words into the lan guage during the Zensunm migrations, few of which fit the standard tnconsonantal root mold As an increasingly greater number of such words entered the language, new pat terns of declension conjugation, phvaltzation etc primarily in die form of standardized suffixes superseded the old Arabic conso nant/vowel mutation patterns For example old Arabic usually formed plurals via any of a number of different mutation patterns, e g htab (book), kutub (books), bob (door) abwab (doors) But Fremen with the exception of certain isolated archaisms, e g , ibar (tears) in Kitab al Ibar from abra (tear) employs one of three regular suffixes depending on the dialect -at (from Arabic -at a feminine plural marker) -an (probably adopted from the Tailara language of Gamma Vertis VII spoken by other transporter GO Beta Tegeuse) or u (probably the plural marker uw from the Blue Hill speech of the ditaubite miners of Rima, largest satellite of Ate V large numbers of these miners worked side by side with the Bremen on Rossak) Other simplifications include the loss of the dual and of gender distinction m adjectives, both disappearing by the end of the Zensunni s long stay on Salusa Secundus as noted in
the ancient grammar written during their stay there by Ibin Manzuur Qur aan al nahw
Syntax Fremen due to the morphologi cal simphf cations described above became a syntactically isolating (or root isolating) language dependent on word order and prepositions to indicate word to word rela tiomhips within sentences The language was verb medial i e the main verb of a sen tence followed the subject noun phrase or clause and preceded the object noun phrase or clause Fremen was relatively free m its use of syntactic transformations as compared to Arabic allowing for example the dele tion of relative pronouns and various other deletions It had expanded the Arabic con struct case (the so called idafa) to allow full verbal clauses to act as the complement of the head noun and had expanded the pat terns of negation
Lexicon The original word stock of Fremen was of course primarily Arabic in derivation however it had been supplemented and in many cases superseded by infusions of words from the many languages' with which the Zensunm had come in contact Of certain Arabic etymology are such word and expressions as adab ^_,li1 insistent memory alam pjjl gnefs cares bakka Lfr^, The Weeper (Fremen legend) baklawa |? \)-4A_, dessert pastry bled ^jj*—> flat open desert el sayal J[sl_ J the rain of sand figh jtfi—» law jurisprudence (esp religious law) ghaflaty<-9 £, distractedness negligence ghantma 'p<j'6 booty hajj A li holy journey pilgrimage Itajra )£.($ journey ot seeking ilm fj theology rehg ous tradition jihad ±& £, holy war fandjH/JI^-ijii curved double Waded short
sword
kiswa 19— 4. figure or design (m Fremen myths) la la la Jj JJ J cry of gnef iiban <j-L_j J spice drink mahdi ^|& he who is rightly guided
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These common expressions are found in the
Funeral Plain Scrolls, Rakis Rcf Cat 1-R2345-
2348
The private language of the Imperial House of Salusa Secundus (House Comno) has contributed many words to Fremen as well as to standard Galach, most of them military terms, e g , bashar (provincial governor), burseg (commanding general), cmd (military governor), kanly (legalized vendetta), sardaukar (elite troops of House Comno), selamlik (Imperial audience chamber), and sindar (planetary governor) Many Bremen theologi cal or legal concepts are specified by words which can be traced to the language of Ishkal, fourth planet of Sigma Dracoms, indicating some kind of Zensunm contact
with its speakers, including istislah (a welfare law), khala (spirit invocation) karama (miracle), mushtamal (garden), tadm (holy judges), sarfa (turning from God), and interestingly enough, shai hulud, which on Ishkal refers to an anuent subterranean network of waterways and tunnels excavated by an extinct species of large amphibious life-forms (hulud) Other terms came from the speech of the dilaubite miners of Rima (as mentioned above), e g , chaumas, awnas (poison in solid food), ichwan (brotherhood, union), chaumurky, musky murky (poison in a drink), cherem (a brotherhood of a common hatred), giudichar (a holy truth), kmsatz haderach (shortening of the way), chouhada (purposeful fighters)
Also traced to tlm language are the Fremen worm-steersman s calls which on Rima are found in use b> the drvers of overland dilaubite caravans, e g , ach derch, geyrat
Many Fremen terms were of doubtful etymology, e g , baraka (miracle worker), and shadout (well-dipper), perhaps from shaduf, a device used for irrigation on Ishia, yah and ya ya yawm are of unknown meaning and provenience Ingslei ("Fremen Place-Names in the Languages of Salusa Secundus," BNM 72 28 54) ascribes the term stetch to Tamashek of Salusa Seiundus, and aelago and htereg to the ancient language of Har-monthep The etymology of some Fremen words remains locked in controversy, e g , ikhut eigh muad'dib2
Dialects There were two major dialects of Fremen, labeled Eastern and Western, identified primarily by phonological differences, certain lexical items, and some morphological variations The Eastern group extended (in Atreidean times) eastward in longitude from Arrakeen (30° W) to the False Wall-West and the Habbanya Erg (150° E) It included the sietch communities beyond the Plastic Basin and Observatory Mountains, the Rock Outcroppmgs on the Funeral Plain, Sietch Tabr, Bight of Ihe Cliff and the sietch communities of the False Wall West It was the Eastern dialect which figured in the rise of the Ummd Regent, Paul Muad Dib Atreides It employed all of the above-mentioned sounds (see Phonology above), the plural markers were at and -an
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The Western group extended from the Sihaya Ridge (55° W) to the False Wall South (150° W) and included the sietch warrens of the Sihaya Ridge, Hole m the Rock, Gara Kulon, Pasty Mesa, Chin Rock, and the False Wall-South This dialect employed many lexical items borrowed from the languages of the smugglers near the edge of the Minor Erg Its plural marker was u and adjectives of Arabic derivation retained gender distinctions The sound g was absent, as was initial kh (e g , aumas Eastern chaumas)3
Graphemes The ancient Arabic script, a naturally cursive script with up to four different forms for each letter (depending on its position—initial, medial, final, or uncon nected—m a word), has, through millennia of usage been streamlined and at times arbitrarily restructured so that it has come to be an alphabetic script with only one form of a letter per sound unit This latest innovation was attributed to the planetologist Liet-Kynes during his stay on Arrakis with the Fremen tribes Other pnor innovations included the introduction of symbols to represent vowels (ancient Arabic script indicated short vowels only by infrequently used diacritical marks) attributed to Ah Ben Ohasi and later modi fied by the Fremen in the fast copies of their desert survival manual, the Kitab al Ibar The Fremen script in use during die time of Muad'Dib is shown below Many of the values of the old Arabic tetters have been reassigned while some new symbols have been contrived from existing letters, and there has apparently been at least some total ly arbitrary assignment of the letters them
selves The script runs right to left although some Fremen dialects reportedly wrote bous trophedon ( 'as the ox plows that is right to left in the first line, left to nght m the second, and so on), such as the Fremen of the Sihaya Ridge & The Shadda or s.trength emng mark" indicates a doubled consonant Note _______ marks the base line of the
writing, to show letters with descenders
The following passage of Fremen and the accompanying transcription and translation demonstrate the usage of the script as well as affermg an example of the actual language The passage is from a speech by Muad Dib, given in Arrakis Awakening by the Princess Irulan (Arrakis Studies 15 Grumman Unit ed Worlds)
Transcription
innama nishuf al asir tnayytt u hty ayish liana zaratha zarati u gawlha gawli u ttshuf halt al hudud alman albaxf aywa hbarr adam al rnalum tishuf ham
Translation
Though we deem the captive dead yei does she live For her seed is my seed and her voice is my voice And she sees unto the farthest
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reaches of possibility Yea unto the vale of the unknowable does she see because of me
The coming of the prophet Paul Muad Dtb raised Fremen language and culture from its humble Zensunm roots to a short-lived but brilliant eminence throughout the galaxy It served as the sacred language of Rod's Impen-um and theology as the language of philoso phy, law, and education It was a flowering that surprised everyone but the Fremen
NOTES
'Many Fremen terms remain controversial The most famous Fremen linguist Defa 1-Fanini was quite dubious (in Vol ID of the Taaj I Fremen [Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharafc}) about the ultimate Arabic etymons of al gaib, postulating in This case a Farsi substratum and hence a Kulturwort According to a commentary on this passage in the Taaj Farsi a major language of the Isfahan e nou area of Pontnn became extinct arouad 7500 B G
Quite controversial as well is the long-running debate in all known commentaries on the Taaj over the Fremen greeting formula The school of Basrah has attracted the majority of supporters for its contention that ul fnthar derives from Arabic khayr (i e , /xayr/), "good * or 'goodness,' via metathesis and ablaut (apophony) The Kufa school still finds favor in some scholarly circles, with the minority viewpoint that ttl kuhar is a direct caique of hieroglyphic root khr meaning 'splendid view*' or view from, seiendip' *
The traditional response an nor is an archaic biconsonaittal root about which chapter 8 of Vol m of the Taaj deals Its complexities are much too detailed for discussion here, but suffice it to say that nor can be viewed as a derivative of root nr which could also yield nor mr tier etc
2Some scholars are of UK opinion (for example '1-Kisaa u in his 'I Kitab l-baan' fit I tughah [Salusa Secundas Morgan and Sharak] trans IL Gnvtt, Kisaa'us Lexicon {Topaz Carolus Umv Press]) that tkhuteigk is related to an ancient Arabic root meaning "sibling ' The transition of "sibling" to 'water seller's cry" is unparal leled in linguistic literature, hence the warranted skepticism concerning its linguistic change and history Its internal semantics is synchromcally justified, however
On die other hand, all authorities believe muad'dtb must be Arabic in origin, but no Arabic source verifies its Atreidean meaning of adapted kanga roo mouse of Arrakis *i-Famni (in Vol IV of tee Too/) says dial most probabl) it is a vulgar corruption of the Arabic dib wolf Semantic shifts m animal terminology are known from all
the sietch warrens of Dune, such as cielago from an older Harmonthepic compound ciel water plus lako fowl
A competing explanation is that offered by Gnvit in Kisaa u s Lexicon that muad dib is the result of a different semantic shift Gnvit notes that a legend originating on Gamma Vertis Vn concerns the apotheosis of the hetman Sharkala, m the story the ruler is transformed at his death into the constellation called Sharkala or, from his fame as a law giver The Preceptor Sneakers of Tailara worked beside the Fremen on Bela Tegeuse and the Fremen translation of preceptor is mu addib When the Fremen were transported to Rossak they retained the name of the constellation and when later they moved to Arrakis they named the kangaroo mouse after the constellation Gnvit notes collections of ancient Fremen sayings that direct children to observe and imitate the desert wise ways of the mouse
^e rls dichotomy quite well known m histon cal dialectology and the subject of a lengthy study by Hoont Kaunip ( Rfiotacism in pre Atreidean Fremen Fremen Studies 5 109 150) is demon strated in Fremen by such pairs as musky vs murk) In fact, Kaunip uses this pair as one of the determiners of the isoglosses m his dialect maps of Arrakis
4Nomadic Fremen (called Bedwme in their own dialect) reversed Fremen m and u in Appendix B of the Taaj 1 Famni states that the nomads had preserved the original shape of the Arabic letter (grapheme) which for some unknown reason be came reversed in what developed as the standard language This obvious error has been frequently challenged A K and J Q
Further references Abd I Zubaidii / Waduh An Introduction to Fremen Arrakis Studies 3 (Grumman United Worlds) Ibin Ahmad 1 Khalil Kitaab I amaalii Written Atreidean Fremen (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
FREMEN LANGUAGE History It is rightly said that the history of a language is the history of its people In the language are preserved their victories and defeats not so much on the field of battle, but in the quieter yet more important struggles of life from day to day The language may bear no trace of kings or ministers but it does tell us of people—what they ate what they wore what they worried over, and what they rejoiced in And this hidden history can often be found only in the language These assertions are true of Fremen, de
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spite a unique difference in the history of that language Formerly, the language of Dune represented something of a puzzle for the philologist, because for many years it appeared not to have had a history at all Part of the problem was the scarcity of records as the Zensunm traveled the planets of their forced migrations, from Terra to Pbntrm to Salusa Secundus and Bela Tegeuse, to Rossak and Harmonthep, they often found worlds on which all their energy was required for survival What documents survive from those times are few, written as they were under harsh conditions sometimes forbidden by law, by hostile neighbors or masters
The marginal economies of the Zensunm left little room for writing and almost Done for publishing The language of an oppressed group is always the hardest to trace it reaches no popular audience, it receives no scholarly attention, it commands no critical respect Its speakers are branded as ignorant, their innovations called corruptions, their pronunciation dendcd as vulgar or iloveoly If such attitudes persist in the most democratic of societies, what was to be expected in the caste-ridden Impermm? For most of the thousands of years before 7000 B G , someone possessing the materials to study Fremen would have lacked the 4esiit Yet within centimes after moving to Arrtkis, the Fremen had an extensive literature both oral and written, embodied in a language mat baffled the historians
The reason for their puzzlement is not hard to see, compare the quotations below from Arabic and proto-Galach, two languages roughly contemporary, and their developments in Fremen and Atreidean Galach, again contemporaries
Proto-Galach A bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush Atreidean Galach baradit nehndit beed gwarp
tati aubokt
Ancient Arabic kuntu sa'idan fi shababi Atreidean Fremen knntu saghtdan ft shababi
One need not be a linguist to see that while the Galach has changed radically over tins long period, the Fremen appears to have changed hardly at all The Fremen themselves did not explain the apparent stability
of then- language for three reasons first, on Arrakis, mere survival occupied much time and energy, even if the Fremen now worked for themselves instead of for masters Second, the scholarly interest of the Fremen tended toward theologj and literature or jurisprudence, not toward linguistics Third, and most important, the form of their language was bound up with their faith hence off-worlders were denied access to the information that would have clarified the situation It was only with the discovery of the Rakis crystals that an answer could be posited to this most intriguing of philological oddities It is now clear that Atreidean Fremen did not evolve from the language the Zensunnis spoke on Poritrm or Bela Tegeuse, but is rather the ancestor of that language, recaptured and learned as a badge of nationhood
FREMEN ATTITUDES TOWARD LANGUAGE To understand fully what happened and why it happened, one must first become aware of the Fremen emotion for the language they spoke As a scorned and enslaved people, they had little to take pride in or to distinguish them from other slaves except their language Consequently, the language be came invested not only with the aura of the religion whose ntual it enshrined but also with the identity of the Zensunm as a people Nowhere is this feeling better illustrated than in the dying worlds of 1 Akum one ol the leaders of the resistance on Bela Tegeuse "Our speech is the most precious treasure our fathers left us, it puts a shirt on us when our bodies arc smitten, it is the soul of the Zensunm Cdn a body live without a soul, or a soul live without a body' It is the strong rope of the Zensunm which does not slacken, it is the flag we follow' ]
For the Zensunm, their language was the language of Paradise, the language of Nilotic al Ourouba To spurn it by using other tongues was a sin Its guardians—poets, grammarians, memonzers, readers—were the foundation of the society, held in esteem among the people and consulted on matters of grave import
In the sayings of the language was preserved the wisdom of the fathers, no matter how widely the Zensunm were scattered
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they would have all recognized the proverbs that expressed their people's stoicism and resilience And they would have treasured them When half the population of Pontnn was uprooted for transporting to Salusa Secundus, the impoverished, frightened wretches crowded in the heighlmers consoled themselves with this thought in kan madat al-hawaum baqat al-asabi (if the nngs are gone tile fingers are left )2 They knew well that their destination, Salusa Secundus, was the breeding and training planet of the Sardaukar who had slaughtered so many of their kinsmen A proverb like al lubb ay ma yawi ma yadi (wolves do not cause harm in their dens) may seem to some like whistling in the dark, but to the thoughtful it will seem a welcome attempt to stave off despair
Those sent to Bela Tegeuse were better treated, but after their experiences, ever watchful They grouped together in their own communities both for protection and for preservation of their ways OK of their leaders, '1-Riyas, forever settled the controversy over how much interaction the Zensunm would have with their neighbors on Bela Tegeuse by resorting to proverbial wisdom al rags quddam alumi majhudan la yura amal-u (dancing m front of the blind is an effort that goes unseen) But their watchfulness did not prevent still another forced migration, once again, Sardaufcar invaded and conquered the Zensunm, transporting them to Rossak (or as the Zensunm called it, moqbom "graveyard') and Harmonthep Rossak, a bitter and barren glacier of a world, made Bela Tegeuse worth yearning for But the Zensunm as a people did not took back, in the first winter on Rossak, when thousands died of pneumonia and thousands more of starvation, the mention of die crops of Bela Tegeuse was invariably met with ash-hal takul sayint tusbih (no matter how much you eat, you wake up fasting)
As is now well known, the Zensonm on Salusa Secundus eventually fared better In 5295 Ezhar VII released the Zensunm on that planet and provided them with transpor tation to Ishia, the second planet of Beta Tygn As always, their language expressed their distrust of attempts at governmental benevolence A popular saying on this trip
was man la yarifjadd ak la yanf akfi waqd ok (whoever didn t know your grandfather won t know you) The Zensunm name for the planet was Albudeite (scarce water), Ishia was no Caladan, but neither was it a Rossak The Zensunm adapted to the planet and lived there m relative tranquillity
The language was more than an identity and a consolation it also expressed the hu mor of the Zensunm—sometimes grim but always effective For example, the sindar of Salusa Secundus m 4495 was named Hamn Famun as was the custom among his class, he added the tribal name of his wife, Dart, between his own personal and tnbal name When his appointment as sindar was an nounced, the Fremen were much amused to hear the proclamation that their new ruler was Hamn Dart Famun because of its similarity to the Zensunm phrase aynayn darratfi hamman meaning 'the eyes of one who breaks wind in a bathhouse '' Succeeding sindars never questioned why the Zensunm referred to them as "the eyes," but the Zensunm knew It was the same Smdar Famun who employed a chamberlain with a notorious speech impediment In 4501 the Sindars son was preparing to lead a group of Saidaukar novices on a blooding raid, and the various subject peoples on the planet were commanded to witness the departure timed to coin cide with the bringing of the annual tribute As each national group approached the reviewing stand they would offer the tribute and add a compliment or blessing for the na Sindar The chamberlain would then trum pet the good wishes, first in the native language and then m translation The Zensunni were prepared After presenting their tnbute, they told the chamberlain that their wish was sallamaka al lahu wa nasaraka (May God protect you, and grant you victory) The Sardaukar interpreter verified this meaning, and the chamberlain turned to the throng and proclaimed, thallamaka al lahu wa natharaka1 The interpreter valued his life, and therefore did not report what the Zensunm knew and what he should have foreseen—that the chamberlain's lisp had given it a different meaning May God split you and scatter you all over'
THE DISCOVERY Although their language
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was the pride and mainstay of the Zensunni, they were powerless to prevent its slow change over time. Zensunni speech was much different in 6000 than it had been in 2800. For example, a phrase such as "The Governor is a strong man" had this form when the Zensunni were on Terra: 'amma l-hakimu farajulun qawiyun; but by the time of their arrival on Rossak, the centuries had turned this into kopao legi vrochlu kefetsu. The Zensunni did not know that the speech they had guarded so zealously would have been unintelligible to their ancestors. Oa the contrary, they rejoiced in the "purity" of their language.
A Sayyadina on Rossak, one known to 'tradition only as "Yarbuz," was jdriven by hunger to fill her stomach with an indigenous plant. The massive dose of poison which she ingested unlocked within her the memories of all die Sayyadfflas in her ancestry. This was not only an event of the first importance to the religion of the Zensunni, but also an epochal event for the language they spoke. Successive Reverend Mothers^ repeating the experience, found exactly how far their language had strayed from its ancestral form, and began to educate the people to return it to the sounds of the language of Paradise. The pious were horrified at the news from the Sayyadina; even though some of them may have initially resisted {earning what was then essentially a foreign tongue, they dared aot reject this unexpected gift of sacred knowledge: man yuta~shi wa-yaba-h yatlub wa-lis yuta-h (who is given and refuses will seek and not be given).
Over the next several generations, the Zensunni on Rossak, under the guidance of their Sayyadina, rolled back 16,000 years of language change. Like an academy of language, tile Sayyadina ruled on the meanings and sounds of words—/zofcri AH, "ft is lawful," or ftarom hu, "it is forbidden," Of course, the language they made native once again was not the exact form which Terran Arabic had possessed as a literary medium, but the demotic, th& speech of the people. But return die language to this source they did, and although the task was a long one, kull mansuj manfitd (all weaving has an end). When they were reunited with their sisters and brothers
from Ishia, they taught them this new-old sacred language The nefij, the exile, was over and umma tamut wa-umma tanbut (one nation dies and another is born) on Arrakis FREMEN ON ARRAKIS The language of the Zensunni, now properly called "Fre-men," had resources equal to the task of finding a home on this new planet, whose Fremen name probably derives from araq (sweat). To take the most noticeable example, the life of the Fremen oflen depended on awareness of desert and weather conditions, and a recognition of the types of terrain traversed. "Sand'' was not enough to describe the substance that winds could use to strip the flesh from the bone in one form, or that a sandworm could use to locate its prey in another form. Various kinds needed to be distinguished and hence needed to be named Within a few decades, instead of one name, Fremen had provided themselves with many for this most important fact of their ambience
alazor- old, oxidized sand, yellow to reddish-brown in color;
almirez- new sand, usually the gray color of mortar;
atambal: impacted sand whose surface amplifies and transmits any sound blow with a distinct drumming sound; found on the windward face of dunes;
bidriyah. coarse silica gnt,
el-sayal; a rain of sand, dust earned to medium altitudes, frequently bnnging moisture in its fall;
galbana: pea-sand, treacherous under foot, requiring slow and deliberate movement;
garrufo: pebble sand, reliable footing;
idras: 'sand-teeth,' the most dangerous sand when wind-driven;
kaymutt' sand so finely ground as to be a powder, the most irritating to traverse, since it was almost impossible to keep it entirely out of the stilhuit;
malar: a ram of sand from high altitudes
Speakers of Fremen showed their own adaptability and that of their language with proverbs too A sa>ing on Pontrin warned against haste with the words ida rayt al-tin abshir b-al-tin (when you see the fig season, then you can announce the muddy season). But on Arrakis there were neither fig trees nor rains. But the proverb was not forgotten; rather, it Was adapted, substituting words so
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that it became "When you see the Conohs storm, then you can announce the el-saya!' Similarly children were chided for overeating with the words ida lam taktafil anta fil (if you cannot be satisfied, you are an elephant) To simply substitute the word for the most enormous beast they knew, the sandworm, for that of elephant would have destroyed fee meter of the proverb Instead, since no confusion was possible because elephants did not exist on Arrakis, the Fremen shifted the meaning of the word, applying it to the sandworm in its activities as an eater
The Fremen practice of naming—personal names tribal names nicknames—continued to show its traditional vigor and color A high degree of concreteness marked the best examples of their naming customs The name of the famous Fremen wamor in the Atreidean jihad, Midn, meant) winnowing fork " Paul Muad Dib s resourceful lieutenant m the battles of Topaz, Akrab, bore a name that means ' scorpion " and his elite Hoops, the iday alakrab, were "the hands of the scorpion " The Fremen Medical Corps, Abma showed a rare instance TO fremen of the formation of an acronym its name stands for Anamilan Banyya Mm Al-dam (fingers innocent of blood)
Nor did Fremen lose its flair for humor and invective in the assigmnent of names Count Qlossu Rabban was especially well endowed in this respect he was of course known as "Beast" Rabban, and called mudir nahya (Governor Cobra), a term that shows a contact with Indi speakers on Rossak, since it is a borrowed word, deriving from the ancient Hindu nag (snake) In addition to these, he was known as graffiti as tawalil (wart) during his term as governor of Arrakis, specifically, a wart on his uncle Vladimir Harkonnen, al-atanm (the jowl), sallat Allah bt kasw&tay h al jaam (may God give him mange in his genitals)
Atreidean Fremen proved equal to all the labors that a hostile humanity and an indifferent nature could lay on it and on its speakers But what it could not survive was the hot house care of tile millennia-long rule of Leto II When the Fremen became "Museum Freroea," the old ways were preserved, but preserved lifelessly, like a fly m amber The
Sayyadma no longer watched over the language, no longer brought the memories of theu: ancestors to ward and guide the speech of the people, and Fremen went through a period of rapid change It descended to the level of a school learned language, used for empty ntual shows for tourists Some Fremen, it is now believed, saw this fate coming, one such was al-Baz, "the falcon," Naib of Sietch Hagga As usual, his comment was proverbial, and one cannot but wonder if he intended a reference to Leto n when he said, afar nian yamut malak al mut (the last to die is the angel of death) WE M
NOTES
'Cited in Daiwid Kuuan, Monuments of the Zensunni Migrations (Salusa Secundus Morgan andSharak) p 112
^o avoid placing unnecessary difficulties in the reader's path all examples unless otherwise noted have been cited m die form they would have had in Classical Piemen that of about 9100 B G regardless of the stage in the development of the Zensunni language they were originally composed
Further references ZENSUNNI MIROATIONS V Koryain A History of the Fremen Language (Paseo Institute of Galacto-Fremea Culture) from which are taken the ex araples found in this summary Ofor G Chesi Fremen Inscriptions from Rahs I R2346 Arrakis Studies 22 (Topaz Carolus Umv Press)
FREMEN LANGUAGE. Phtlowphv of lan guage Language is so bound up with our own humanity and our individual indenti ties that it is the face we present to the world and at the same time the eyes in that face—the window into our minds It is a grid impressed on the flux of reality that allows us to perceive, to measure and to control the quanta of experience Groups which understood its na ture entered the struggle for power with a potent weapon
THE BENE GESSERIT Paul Atreides noted that his mother often observed that tongues are the Bene Gessent's first training l Then: studv served two purposes m the B G regimen first language was the key to understanding others—both what they expressed and what they hid The B G novice learned to listen closely and observe keenly to take careful note of the sounds and signs by which a mind reveals itself She studied the great
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galactic languages and their dialects, identifying the characteristics that put the fingeipnnt, so to speak, of the speaker upon the utterance, regardless of the language in which it was expressed
One subject of study was "Language-Thought Orientation," the way in which language and patterns of thought intermingle For example, suppose a native speaker of Galach speaks in Bodnan, a major language of Placentia Bodrian has over 300 kinship terms describing age, sex, lineal descent, generation, and degree of distance from the most prestigious family member, plus more terms used when status is unknown or doubtful These terms come automatically to those who have grown up speaking Bodnan, but one used to the simpler system of Galach shows a characteristic hesitation when translating Thus the B G derived the Hfth Principle of Semantic Nets Classification is sun-pier than Division, expressing the observation that it is easier to proceed from the more specialized Bodnan term to its Galach equivalent than to go from, say, fuuwaree, the Galach word for male parent, to one of the twenty or so words in Bodnan that may be demanded by the situation and context
Suppose further that the speaker is posing as a native of Placentia and has intensively practiced such semantic networks as kinship terms, where a mistake would reveal the deception The Bene Gessent teamed also to observe physical sigas—the flexure of facial muscles, the polsebeat in the neck, the dilation of the pupils, and the hke—for subtle signs of tension The involuntary signs among these reveal slight increases in adrenaline caused by the speaker's successful huddling of the linguistic bamer presented by a difficult translation But the voluntary signs alone betray a clever imposter The Bene Gessent counter then might take two stages the first was a withholding of recognition signals, those small sounds and movements that tell the speaker Suit the listener is attentive and understanding, that communication is succeeding From the B G interrogator would come no nods of die head, no murmurs of assent, no lifting of the eyebrows, no frowns, no smites, nothing The speaker could see that his questioner was watching him closely,
yet the withholding of recognition signals produced its desired effect the speaker knew that something was wrong, yet did not know what, and his tension increased markedly Once the imposter was unnerved, the conversation would be led through a variety of topics called "Diagnostics," designed to pre sent hesitation points from a range of lan guages to probe the deception further
An important Diagnostic as cited in Liber Ricarum was the speaker's field of speciali zation "Languages build up to reflect specializations in a wa> of life Each specialization may be recognized by its words by its assumptions and sentence structures Look for stoppages Specializations represent places where life is being stopped where the movement is dammed up and frozen "2
Specialization "Specialization" has a particular meaning m this context, one so important to the understanding of the Fremen that it warrants more detailed examination To begin with, whatever their language all peoples divide living creatures into hierarchi cally organized groups, for example
1. Fundamental name plant animal 1. Inclusive name tree herb vegetable
3. Generic name fogwood oak elacca elm
4. Specific name Bradford fogwood lake fogwood, Tzu lei fogwood, spotted fogwood
5. Vanetal name mountain Bradford fogwood northern Bradford fogwood
Terms at all levels are mutually exclusive— nothing is both a tree and a herb—and belong to a group on the next higher level— trees, herbs, and vegetables are all plants Level 3 is the largest (for the nonspeciahst) and the most basic, having about 500 catego nes m every known language It is more specific than level 2 and useful m more contexts than levels 4 or 5 Note also that terms m level 3 are simple but those of 4 or 5 are complex and usually derived from leve! 3 terms Level 3 divides up experience in a way shared by speakers of all languages, a way more natural and easier to distm guish for all observers
But a forester one who specializes m trees, begins to think one level down treating tree as a fundamental name, fogwood oak and elacca as inclusive names, and Bradford
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fogwood lake fogwood and spotted fogwood as generic terms But genencs should be simple terms, so the forester speaks of bradfords lakes and spots instead He also increases the size of the specific level by adding new names Snow Mountain bradfords snap-needled lakes shagbark spots Specialists distort their worlds by magnifying their own areas of specialization and the words in them out of all proportion Outside the specialty life is too often stopped by being ignored movement is frozen
None of this knowledge was kept secret by the Bene Gessent their advantage lay in talent, commitment and practice The method of playing the baliset is no secret, yet few do it well Moreover B G members were free to share their knowledge and willing to do so Princess Irulan readily put her learning in the service of the empire her husband ruled, telling the Arrakeen War College, for example, how language change can signal social unrest 'In all major socializing forces you will find an underlying movement to gain and maintain power through the use of words In the maintenance of such a power structure, certain symbols are kept out of the reach of common understanding Symbol-secrecy of this form leads to the development of fragmented sub-languages, each being a signal that its users arc accumulating some form of power With this insight into a power process, our Imperial Security Force must be ever alert to the formation of sub languages "4
The Path of Understanding The Bene Gessent had a second objective in their study of languages the liberation of self In this more advanced study, the first step was to torn the light of &e awakened mind on the hidden assumptions of one's language As the anonymous writers of The Panoplia PrvphsUcus expressed it, "If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments When you believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions in the words which express the arguments Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced "5
Analyzing these assumptions occupied much of the novice's time For example the aspi
rant might be asked to divide a set of sentences into two groups
1. The emperor realizes that the plan has failed
2. The emperor regrets that the plan has failed
3. The emperor believes that the plan has failed
4. The emperor knows that the plan has failed
5. The emperor says that the plan has failed
6. The emperor claims that the plan has failed
The bright student would correctly group sentences 1 2 and 4 and sentences 3 5, and 6, pointing out that the verbs used tell us as much about the speaker as they do about the emperor The use of realize regret or know tells us that the speaker accepts the truth of the object clause—that the plan has failed—but the use of believe say or claim expresses no commitment by the speaker about the success of failure of the plan
Assumptions explained by reference to a single word are simple ones of course the presuppositions which lie in the syntax or morphology of a language he deeper indeed
The Bene Gessent aim was not to change language or its use but to understand it Their philosophers had no patience with cnt ics who viewed language as a barrier be tween the mind and reality Language like sight or smell or hearing does, not cut us off from reality it puts us in contact with it Losing language we would lose the largest window m the house of the soul If the window is dirty one does not refuse to look through it one washes it 6
Thus when the Lady Jessica came to the Fremen she brought a sophisticated attitude toward-the analysis of language to a people already disposed to receive such a philosophy Paul and Aha Atreides learned the Bene Gessent approach to language at their mother s knee and its influence extended to Leto and Ghanima although as will be discussed in a different and sinister way
THE FREMEN To the Fremen, their lan guage was a sacred trust its study a virtuous act and its students enjoyed the honor of the faithful When the Fremen gathered on Arrakis
FREMEN LANGUAGE
245
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in 7193, they encountered a climate that was to have an enormous impact on those attitudes The climate of Dune was so ferocious that an awareness of it hovered in the background of every conversation Their language naturally mirrored this changed awareness as their vocabulary multiplied the terms needed to express the new distinctions that allowed them to survive Fremen terms for different kinds of sand, for example, or for wind conditions show the focus of their concerns Pardot Kynes noted their linguistic adapts tion early in his sojourn with the Fremen "They were the first people anywhere to express climate in terms of a semi-mathematic language whose written symbols embody (and internalize) the external relationships The language itself was part of the system it described Its written form earned the shape of what it described' *'
Kynes was right in general, if not in specifics the vocabulary of die language had been adapted to Dune IB response to the same forces to which its speakers had adapted Yet for the most part, the Fremen were unselfconscious about their speech, moving through its transparent medium as a fish moves m water All this changed when Jessica and Paul arrived
Dune was a planet almost designed to promote a self-sufficient individualism Farm ing is an activity that favors group action the more laborers, the more ground that can be planted and die more abundant the harvest But hunting and gathering (as the Fremen desert society practiced) favors the strong individual the terrain itself sets limits on the number of organisms it will support A cold climate drives people physically closer together for the warmth that means survival But an and, almost waterless climate means that some will survive while others die the necessity of making and enforcing life and death decisions does not promote strong social tus Every individual of whom we have record of intruding into rremen territory— Pardot Kynes Duncan Idano. Gurney Halleck, Jessica and Paul, Leto II—had to overcome the imminent danger of being lulled for his water, as many others in fact were
Fremen as a language expresses this extreme individualism in a myriad of sayings
hill ahad yalumm at nar h qursu (everybody draws the coals closer to his own loaf), man galabakbat hafiraglab ub al tctnqtyya(he who beat you in digging, beat him in pruning) —that is to say, m pruning the fruits of the other's labors and most telling of all, and al-diq la ashu (m bad times there are no brothers) Into this milieu came Lady Jessica, instituting a new era of Bene Gessertt-inspired linguistic awareness among the desert peoples
LETO n To understand the nature of Leto H's rebellion in philosophy it is necessary to understand one more facet of the Bene Gessent teaching
When the Bene Gessent analyzed syntax, they used a system called generative grammar a system alread} ancient when the empire was founded It was adapted by the B G as much for its philosophy as for its usefulness in explaining linguistic phenomena Its basic tenet was that the most ordinary speaker of any human language was a storehouse of creativity, capable of deriving an infinite number of unique sentences from a limited number of words and grammatical structures These words and structures were combined and changed according to a finite number of rules, some of which were called transfer mations The analogy to genetics is obvious a limited number of genetic elements are combined according to the rules which gov ern DNA into a nearly limitless number of structures each differing one from the other Of the billions on billions of people in the inhabited worlds no two are identical From the name of the grammar the B G took the name of their science of generative genetics
Leto n, however, abhorred the Bene Gessent and all then" works How much of this hatred was caused by his sufferings at the hands of Gurney Halleck, directed by Jessica, will probably never be known, but the fact of the hatred cannot be doubted Hence though Leto was forced to use much of the B G methods and terminology in his own breeding program, his dependence on his sources was a cause of chagrin to him, and he lost no opportunity lo denigrate even the tools the B G had provided him I eto's Journals contain the gist of a conversation he had with Moneo, his last chamberlain, which gives us an instance of Leto s discomfort,
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246
FREMEN LANGUAGE
showing how terms used by the B G provoked his contempt almost automatically As the passage is read, these points should he kept in mind first, rule-governed creativity was the phrase used by the B G to denote the power of each individual to be infinitely creative in language Leto arrogated to himself the power of creativity and resented its unplanned appearance Second, linguistic structures as spoken or written were called derived, meaning that they were developed by trans formational rules from more basic structures In the narrative, some words have been editorially italicized for emphasis
I told Moneo, "It is clear to me that you do not yet understand what I hope to achieve in my breeding program*' But be answered with some nonsense about understanding its niles I said, "Laws tend to be temporary over the long haul, Moneo There is no such thing as rule governed creativity "
"But Lord/' lie said, "you yourself speak of laws which govern year breeding program "
"What have I just said to you, Moneo''" I asked him "Hying to find nifcs for creation is like trying to separate mind from body" [The existence of the mind, questioned or scorned by earlier Imgiusts, was an important pan of gen erative philosophy This ts a doubly strange comment for one who contained a multitude of minds within fas body —Ed ]
I continued to question turn "Why do you always sect after absolutely derivative translations, Moneo''"
He answered, "I have heard you speak of transformational evolution Lord That is the libel on your stock book But what of surpnse—'
I was forced to remonstrate ' Moneo' Rules change with each surprise "8
Left) could not discard the eminently workable B G genetics—hence the label on his "stock book"—nor did he enjoy their notion of an inalienable creativity which he shared with the humblest peon, hence he reacted with distaste when his dependence on their methods and terminology was pointed out, even if pointed out unwittingly
Moreover, another essential difference manifested itself Leto was triply set apart from all others by his longevity, by his racial awareness, and by his distorted form The extreme individualism wrought by these factors was reinforced by his Fremen up-
bringing, with the emphasis on self which that language fostered But the Bene Gessent was a group, and a group with much reliance on codes and secret and common languages From both their training and their organization, to the B G ' understanding" meant understanding others From both his heritage and his nurture, for Leto 'understanding" meant the formidable task of understanding himself It is no surprise, therefore, that the B G should embrace a theory of meaning heavily dependent on the social contact, the system of shared meanings for words that makes communication possible But definition for Leto was much more like stipulative definition Many of Leto s statements underscore this difference He remarked on various occasions, "Words can carry any burden we wish," or again, "All words are plastic Word images begin to distort m the instance of utterance '9 Leto was perhaps the most divided creature the universe has known he was pulled al ways in two opposing directions With a hfespan of millennia, he was himself witness to linguistic changes that go unnoticed to ordinary men and women the Galach of 13700 would have been unintelligible to those born in 10208, the year of Leto's birth To talk to others (and it must be remembered that it was only through speech that he could commune with others) he had to continuously revise his languages in pace with the changes of those around him On the one hand, this feeling that his native speech, part of his own personality, was slipping steadily away from him could be slopped only if language change was stopped But this was impossible, although he tried with the immense powers at his command to bring social change to a halt On the other hand, this one cause of separation from his fellows could be removed if everyone shared his problem—if language change was fast enough so that all would feel that speech was a foundation that shifted beneath their feet Hence his empha sis on plasticity of meaning, and his hatred of sjstems "Dangers lurk in all systems Systems incorporate the unexammed beliefs of their creators Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the rests tance to change "I0 Yet this observation would bring his attention back to the fact that he
FREMEN MENSTRUATION
FREMEN MENSTRUATION
was creating and maintaining the most rigorous system the worlds have ever seen
The Fremen and the Atreides illustrate well the conclusion that Duke Leto came to at the juncture of their histories "You can plumb us by our language "u WE M
NOTES
'Cited in Princess Irulan Atreides-Comno, Conversations with Muad Dib (Work-m-Progress, Arrakis Studies, Lib Conf Tbmp Ser 346) p 189
2Zhana Feiiin trans Liber Ricarum B G Foundation Studies 4 (Diana Tevis), p 206
3This example is drawn from HaravarsH Kloursh and Eewa W Kluursh Psychology and Language (Topaz Ludlow), ch 14
4Rakis Ref Cat 89 M844
5Cited with numerous examples m Rauvars Shaigal, ed , Fundamentals of the Way A Bern Gesserif Menial Exercise Book (Qnataam Lodm), p 498
Shaigal, p 117
'Cited m Harq al Ada, The Story of Kynes (Work in Progress, Arralus Studies, Lib Conf Temp Ser t09), p 245 Patdot Kynes was a romantic at heart, there is no special iconic quality of Fremen which allows its writing system to picture that which it represents, although a fanci ful imagination may well be stimulated by its graceful forms For example, the Fremen for ' grove" (literally, "the place where trees are gathered" trees were rare on Dune and there was no single word for the concept) was mawda jatm l-al tunar, in the Fremen script— ^P^JU T'& kale—'°oe a^f picture trunks and roots, but the resemblance rests in one's eye, not in the language
*Ralds Ref Cat 70-A392
"Rakis Ref Cat 10-A3H and 34-A218
10Rafas Ref Cat 34-A218
''Quoted ti) Princess Irulan Aaeides-Comno, MuafPBib, Famfy ConvMiQanes (Wo^k-in-Progress, Arratas Studies, Lib Conf Temp Ser 437), p 186
FREfflEfl MEMSTRGAT10M. Like so many other bodily functions to which people on less and worlds gave little thought, menstruation was a matter of great concern to the Fremen Their approach to it was partly evolu tionary, partly cultural—and entirely unique Following then; move to Arrakis m 7193, the Fremen recognized immediately that they were more imperiled by water loss than by any other threat which faced them It was
because of that recognition that their Water Discipline was created and their water conserving devices developed Primary among those was the stillsmt, that amazing garment which was a Fremen's second skin (more carefully guarded at times than the first) and was capable of holding total water loss to under a thimbleful a day m the desert From their earliest designs, stillsuits for women were constructed differently from those of the men m addition to the thigh pads which processed urine and feces, the women'b suits included a third processing unit for reclaiming the water lost m menstrual blood In the later, even more efficient versions, these units kept female water loss on a par with that of the male, in spite of their physiological handicap
The suits did not eliminate all of the danger to a menstruating woman, however Reclaimed the moisture might be, but it was still water leaving the body m far greater quantities than would occur at any other time Dunng their first two generations on the desert planet, the Fremen watched a depressing number of their women perish from shock and dehydration when they were unable to return the water to their systems quickly enough
By the thud generation, they had discovered a partial solution Dunng the two weeks that bracketed a woman's flow, she could be put on a carefully regulated diet which decreased the water level of her body even below the Fremen norm, to bare minimum This regi men both lessened the amount of moisture available to be passed and dropped the level gradually, to avoid the sudden shock
The Fremen also discovered during these years that the bodies of the women were making their own effort to adjust The length of the menstrual cycle gradually lengthened, increasing the interval between flows and thus decreasing the number of times a woman would menstruate between puberty and menopause by 8570 the average cycle had leveled off at fifty six days, double the Imperial norm
Education concerning this aspect of a Fremen girl s life, along with that involving such related issues as pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing was considered too vital to be
FREMEN, MUSEUM
FREMEN MUSEUM
left to the individual parents At puberty, the girls were taken on a week's retreat by the Reverend Mother of their sietch During this week the special functioning of their stillsuits was explained to them along with the ingredients and preparation the moisture-reducing diet demanded, the birth-control method their mate counterparts were being taught was also explained, as was the most reliable means of determining the most fertile days during their cycle The Reverend Mothers' ancestral mem ones could be expected to contain information on almost any possible variation on these themes, and that information was passed on to their pupils
On their return to the sietch, the young women were welcomed as new adults and received their own yah (living quarters) in their parents households More responsible tasks were assigned them, and they were considered eligible for mamage (Those selected by their Reverend Mothers on the hajra [journey of seeking] during the last day of the retreat were also considered eligible for the Sayyadma )
A certain amount of ritual was involved m every cycle Prayers were offered to Shai-Hulud at its beginning for the proof o! fertility it gave, other prayers, at its conclusion, for the woman's continuing good health The next time menstruation dramatically affected a Fremen woman was when she reached menopause, a passage considered nearly as important as puberty, though more for its effect on the individual than on the tnbe It was customary for a woman's mate, children, and friends to gather for a small party celebrating the safe completion of her fertile years CW
FurtheritfereiKes, ATRE1DE5 CHANI CONTRACEPTION R Semajo ' Ritual and Fertility,' Stfia 426 61 86
FREMETi, MOSEUM, The intentions of Leto II to preserve rremen culture and social organization m the absence of the necessary environmental and social conditions produced a hollow life for those subjects of the God Emperor known as the Museum Fremen The limited depictions of these people provided in the recovered riduhan crystals confirm
the social law that disembedded sociocultural forms lose all vitality
The motives of the God Emperor in creat ing the Museum Fremen deserve some scrutiny Gillian Licuw has argued m her Last Years of the Impenum (Salusa Secunduii Morgan and Sharak) that Leto planned to ultimately re store Arrakis (Rakis) to its former status as the planet of Dune and therefore needed some cadres to carry on the old ways until they could be "rcfunctionahzcd " Gweleder Dadas Nerm has strongly challenged this interpretation with his penetrating study of the God Emperor s mental state, A Life Through the Millennia (Yorba Rose) He suggests that during the more-thaa-1,000-year reign of Leto II, so many radical changes occurred that the God Emperor yearned for the simplicity of his fully human youthful years According to Dadas Nerm, while he may have justified his plan rationally, the utter aloneness of Leto II in a world of his own alienated construction motivated him to re create as best he could a familiar sociouiltu ral pattern Finding comfort in the Museum Fremen, Leto proceeded to treat them as his playthings, nurturing them while constraining the scope of their lives for his own nostalgic uses
Although Dadas-Nerm's interpretation can not be substantiated, there is little in the record to indicate that the Museum Fremen understood, appreciated, or even accurately preserved the ethos of the true Fremen
To the cultural anthropologist, one of the most disheartening aspects of the Museum Fremen was their commercialization and cheapening of the society whose ways they were intended to preserve While Leto forbade any selling within the Museum Fremen villages themselves, rings of vendors' stands sprang up circling the mock sietches there one could buy plastic cryskmves and maker hooks, clearly stamped with their planet of manufacture—Giedi Prime Stuffed toys in the shape of sandworms sietch models to be cut out and assembled, stillsuited dolls—all were available to the tourist desiring a souvenir but not worried much about ito authenticity In the surrounding shops, one could have his fortune told by a Sayyadma' or see pan-
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oramic displays of scenes from die life of Paul Muad'Dib, eat baklava or dnnk "spiced" (cinnamon flavored) coffee Yet worst of all was the re-enactment of Fremen ritual, such as the Ceremony of the Seed, or the consecration of the Water of Life, not annually as had been the case when the rites were meaningful, but on the hour before bleachersful of pilgrims
The Museum Fremen contained the worst of two possibilities they possessed neither a fun-loving spirit of make believe nor a genu me reverence for the past their villages were carnivals without gaiety and ntuais without respect Among the excesses and tollies of Emperor Leto's long reign, the Museum Fremen must be counted one of the most degrading M O
FREMEN POETRY, 10196-10208 During the last two hundred years ("Atreidean period") of the most acclaimed era of Imperial poetry (10000-10400), almost all of the noted lyricists who wrote in FrenKB were from other worlds (See IMPERIAL POETRY) The number of native Fremen writers was relatively small, and their talents tended in different directions The native-born Piemen poet most often found expression, when he employed the shorter forms in the elegy or lament Sacred vases— prayers and psalms—were likewise favored by the Fremeu poet, but the study of those works belongs mote properly to the category of religion, not of art
The Fremen liking for die elegy and lament stemmed from several factors first, the conditions of desert life turned many a Fremen mind to isolation and introspection Second, the participation of the desert tribes in die plans of the Kyneses, father and son, gave them a vision of a flowering of their planet, but a vision so far in the future that none of them would live to see it This remoteness from blessedness intensified a melancholy offset only by a firm belief IB the benefits to flow to their descendants This second factor, a lament for the present (if we may term it such) was matched by a longing for die past that developed during Paul's Jihad As the Fremen forces swept from world to world, maay soldiers found themselves in almost
intolerable contradictions picture a Fremen officer off-duty on a newly conquered world, in a scene that must have been repeated many, many times Perhaps he lies on a couch, served by skillful and comely attendants, nearby is a table heaped with exotic frmts, nch pastnes, and spiced meats, his fingers are adorned with jeweled rings and his head with silk scarves taken m booty, hanging between columns are embroidered gauzes, waving in cool breezes and shading him from a spring sun his couch rests beside a pool of water and, as brightly plumed birds dnnk dt its edges, his reaching fingers stir npples m the face of the waters For the Fremen this was the very image of Paradise Yet the officer, in the midst of his beatitude, finds himself thinking of Dune, remembering the wife and children at home, the smells of the sietch, the look of the desert at dawn Add this longing for the past to a mind already turned within, to a will already sated with action and to emotions steeped m melancholy, and the surging feelings that result are likely to issue forth m the form of laments and elegies
Here is one such, composed by an anony mous wamor on one of the worlds of the Jihad nameless to the Fremen who saw this place as just another m a seemingly endless war As a song transmitted orally, it has many versions, but the following (from Mustava Rozalen s collection, Laments of the Lost) was recorded on Malet
YA KALA NEHIBBUCUM (O DESERT I LOVE YOU) Hei hips are dunes curved bj the winds Her eyes the glow of hearthfires seen at dusk Two braids of hair—the desert vines— Wander down her back And gold veined rocks Gleam in them like water rings The wind wothes her skin Smells the incense sage of her breath Kisses the slope of her shoulders O, wind, has she forgotten me When you, not I, embrace my lover'' I tremble giving water to the dead And the corpse I mourn is me fp 43)
A second example from Rozalen s remark able book is particularly poignant its un-
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known author remembers a hymn to Shai-Hulud from Pnncess Irulan's The Dunebuk but the alchemy of his yearning transmutes the gold of the hymn into the lead of his lament Here first is the hymn, from The Dunebuk
O worm of many teeth
Canst thou deny what has no care?
The flesh and breath which lure thee
To the ground of ail beginnings
Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire'
Thou hast no robe in all thy attire
To cover intoxications of divinity
Or hide the burnings of desire1
And now its transformation (as recorded by Rozalen)
I am become a tooth of Shai-Halud,
The opened door has loosed a flood
Of monsters ravening for prey,
For alien flesh, though 1, no longer keen.
Blunted my sharp desire on the hundredth day
That I was robed m drying blood,
As peoples planets stars became my food
(P 70)
Our last example, also from Rozalen of the form coming to be called "The Legion Lament' has a known author His name was Kamal Salah, of whom little is known beyond his birth in Sieteh Gara Kulon, his service in the Refuge campaign, and his death there of dysentery
YA SULH, LA TIHARRAM-NIIJMAL-AK (0 PEACE, DO NOT DEPRIVE ME OP YOUR FAVOR) Trees ring me on every side, Taller than the Simsara rock— Once I saw the falcon cross the sun, Once I saw clouds walk across Ihe dunes, Once I saw the distant mountains hang
Above the desert sand— But bete I see only eyes shining in the night In the challenge of my youth I put my back against the wall And the friendly sietch was a shield behind me, Once I had a front, two sides, a back— But now I am all back, and the knives
Strike always from behind (p 163)
The poetry of the Fremea legions drew on. their native traditions and native forms of expression, but the violence of the Jihad threw those traditions and forms into sharp relief, and gave aft extra charge of power and immediacy to those who used them to
soften their grief, their longing, even their despair WEM
Further references IMPERIAL POETRY 10000-10400 Troge Puuradnzh The Fremen Common Soldier m the Last Jihad Lib Conf Temp Ser 10 Mustava Rozalen ed Laments of the Lost (10207) tr Novad Aliad (SaJusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) Princess Irulaii Atreides Comno ed The. Dunebuk Rakis Ref Cat 72331
FREMEN SCULPTURE The eyes of Muad Dib Few historical records on Arrakis sur vived the Starvation and the Scattering, but if they concerned the city of Arrakeen, and if they discussed religious matters, they were likely to have made reference to "The Eyes of Muad'Dib' though something that could be seen by every resident of the city every day, "The Eyes* were never described
Now with the discovery of the Rakis Hoard, this minor puzzle has been solved and its solution provides a curious sidelight into the mores and thinking of the Fremen of the eleventh millennium
In 10196, as is well known, Paul Atreides used his family atomics to breach the Shield Wall, about 1500 meters high at that point, south of Arrakeen Through the gap moved his forces to destroy the surprised Sardaukar After Paul assumed the throne, the gap remained as a visible sign of his conquest, and became a place honored by the Fremen In 10211, two years after Paul went into the desert, a delegation from the city of Arrakeen approached Ihe regent Aha with a proposal to create a monument to Muad'Dib at the west end of the gap They pointed out that the crumbled edge of the wes>t wall bore a rough likeness of a human face, playing both with and against powerful religious feelings, the delegation interpreted the likeness as a sign from Shai-Hulud that on that spot should be carved a gigantic likeness of Paul, looking out over the bled Anxious to secure her power base, Aha agreed to the plan, and allocated resources sufficient to begin work on the form of a hooded face rising 400 meters from the chin to the top of the head
Work was to proceed through a modified use of the wind-etching technique—the first attempt to wind-etch on such a monumental scale, but a technique in keeping with Fremen tradition Areas to be protected were to be
FREMEN SCULPTURE
2K
FREMEN SCULPTURE
covered with sheets of plasteel, thus allowing the sandstorms from 4he desert side of the wall to grind away the exposed areas It was estimated that the project would take sixty years to complete, after which the whole sculpture would be coated with a protective surfacing untd such time (perhaps three or four hundred yeaii) as climatic changes had reduced sandstorms to die extent that protection was no longer needed
The work became a source of discord as soon as the plan was announced because many of the desert Fremen held religious scruples against the representation of the human form in general and against a dcpic-Oon of the Messiah in particular Nevertheless, work began and by 10218, high up on the west wall of the gap, there reared the gigantic form of a hood above two heavily lidded eyes (construction had proceeded from the
top down, on scaffolding lowered from the nm of the wall) By this time sentiment against the project was ho vocal that Aha confronting mounting political problems or dered work to be set aside till some quieter period That calmer time never came however and Leto II replaced Aha in the next year Work was then permanently halted on the project, and only The Eyes of Muad Dib remained to stare sightlessly into the desert into which their original had wandered
* The Eyes of Muad Dib remained one of the supreme attractions of Arrakis until Leto II destroyed the sculpture when the gap was widened and deepened to permit pas sage of the Idaho River WE M
Further references FRFMEN SCULPTURE WIND-ETCHIN Gwaitl Iivz-Gwiltan Atre dean Sculpture Appendix (Paseo Institute of Galacto Fremen Culture)
FREMEN SCULPTURE
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
FREMEN SCULPTURE: WIND-ETCHING. Although the Fremcn sculptor was beset by taboos (which differed from region to region) regarding the representation of the human form, sculpture as a decorative art was developed to a high degree planet-wide. One method peculiar to the desert Fremen was "wind-etching."
The process of wind-etching began with the collection of the scale insect Laccifera arctica, which lived on the twigs of certain plants native to the northern near-polar regions. The resin secreted by the insects was gathered and traded to the desert Fremen, who boiled it (distilling and saving the water vapor given off—waste not, want not) to produce a gumlike varnish. The sculptor spread the varnish in a thick layer on the surface of the stone to be etched, then scratched the design in the coated face with a flint scribing toot. On the next day of calm weather, die stone was taken out of the sictch and set up in a spot in direct sunlight but protected from the wind. The heat of the sun baked the gum to a hard, smooth coating. Before the next expected sandstorm, the stone was placed so that the wind would blow directly on die coated face.
When the storm arrived, the sand which it carried would abrade die coated face, wearing it away, hut would etch the stone directly m those areas uncovered by the scribing tool. After the storm subsided, the sculptor would remove the remaining coating and examine the surface. The face was then re-coated, and the process repeated as many times as necessary (sometimes ten or twenty tunes) to produce the different patterns of decoration and bas-relief that were desired. Since only a major storm could produce the sand-blasting force that made a distinguishable effect on the stone face, such sculptures were often years in the making.
Patterns of great delicacy and beauty could be created in this way, and many Fremen were justly recognized as master artists at wind-etching. Perhaps the most prominent among them during the Atreidean period was Karmara al-Jofar, who etched the architraves in the great meeting hall of Paul Muad'Dib's palace at Arrakeen. Yet those who compared them said that even aWofar's best work did
not match, in intricacy and delicacy of line, that of the Master of Rifana Sietch, an unknown desert Fremen of the 9800s. Unfortunately, no work of the Master of Rifana Sietch is known to survive, although the discovery on Rakis has led to an understandable caution in definite statements about what is or is not lost to posterity.
Inscriptions were popular subjects for wind-etchings. That reproduced below reads al-xishf cd-muzakki, "the grown fawn," and hung as a sign above a tavern entrance in Arrakeen.
As this example shows, a wind-etched stone could be used outdoors as a sign or frieze on the cornice of a building. But when used outdoors, the sculptures needed to be constantly protected by applications of varnish over the whole surface. The abrading layer had to be uniform in thickness to allow the relief to show, and it needed to be reapplied at intervals depending on the amount of weathering that had taken place. As a result of the care that outdoor sculptures required, artists seldom thought of their work as something separable from them, or as something with which they were finished when the etching was completed The attitude of the desert Fremen sculptor was more like that of a keeper of livestock or a grower of plants, whose care for his charges continued through his life. W.E.M.
Further reference: Gwaitl Iivz-Gwiltan, Atreidean Sculpture, Chapter 3, "Wind-Etching" (Paseo Institute of Galacto-Fremen Culture)
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS. The intricate mystic rites with which the Fremen surrounded almost every contact with water are made far more understandable when one considers the environment which inspired them: the harsh, sand-covered surface of Arrakis, possibly the most inhospitable world ever colonized by human beings. Water, which made life possible, was seen as being the carrier of that life. It was something to be fought for, conserved, treasured—and in the eyes of the
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
Fremen, descendants of the Zensunm Wanderers and shaped by the trials those outcast mystics had suffered, it was holy beyond all other things
Every ceremony involving water was supervised, if not conducted, by a Sayyadina (Fremen priestess) initiated m the ntes and trained m their practice In the event that no Sayyadina was available, it was permitted for the female in the group with the greatest knowledge of such matters to be temporarily consecrated into the office
BERTH Every Fremen's first exposure to water customs took place minutes after he or she was born The amniotic fluid surround ing the newborn was saved and distilled following the child's expulsion from flic womb This water was* then fed to die infant by its godmother (usually one of die mother's best friends) m the presence of a Sayyadma, this feeding was the baby's first, given before it was returned to the mother to nurse
As the baby drank, it was the godmother's duty to say to it, "Here is the water of thy conception' In this way, the child was seen as having been tied to its parents by the bond of water, as wefl as being tied, by extension to the rest of the tnbe This unity was very important to die Fremen it was, in fact, the basis for their entire social structure
How die "water of conception" ritual originated is not precisely known It is believed however, to be one of the most ancient Fremen rituals, dating back to their original placement on Arrakis in the eighth millennium Faced with an unforgiving environment and die absolute necessity for each tnbe to live and work as a single organism m order to survive, die Fremen undoubtedly seized upon mis rite as a means of stressing unity from the beginning of an individual's life
DAILY RITUALS In a Fremen sietch, die first workers who donned their stillsuits and braved the day were the dew gatherers As soon as the light of predawn could be seen the gatherers burned outside with their scythelikc dew reapers, gleaning the available moisture from whatever plants grew near die sietch When die collecting was finished and die precious water safely stored IB die reapers' sealed handles, die dew
gatherers earned the morning s harvest to a Sayyadma so that it—and they—could be given her blessing The water was then car ned to the tribe's communal basm
Shortly after the dew gatherers were finished, the head of each household in the sietch would come to collect the family s daily allotment from the general stores The allowances were niggardly (less than a liter per day for a household of ten for example) but adequate, grven the Fremen s ability to recycle their water m stillsuits and stilltents The Sayyadma distributing the water also gave her blessings to its use and to those consuming it, and prayers of thanks were offered to Shai-Hulud for providing the means of survival for another day
A family's last action before retiring for die night was to divide among its members UK water produced by their reclamation chain bers (small rooms adjoining one s quarters where bodily wastes were recycled for their water) It was considered unlucky to leave free water standing unused unless stored m one of the sietch s evaporation-proof basins the best place to keep a household s water was thought to be within the bodies of that family's members
As the water was consumed, the head of die family chanted Now do we consume mat which will one day be returned for die flesh of a man is his own, but his water belongs to the tnbe ''
Like the "water of conception" ritual diis nightly reminder served to emphasize the image of the individual as a part of the tribal whole
WATER RINGS These metallic counters represented the volume of water released by a body processed through a deathstill They were manufactured m denominations ranging from fifty liters down to one thirty second of a drachm (a drachm being one two hundred fiftieth of a liter), which serves to give some indication of how precise the Fremen water-measunng devices were as well as the importance placed on even the most minute quantities of the precious substance
The counters for water released by the bodies of Fremen who had died a natural deadi or by those of strangers found in the bled who were treated as a water-gift from
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
Shai-Hulud, were consigned to the care of the sietch s Naib and considered held m common by all the people Those tallying the water once held by enemies killed in group combat were similarly treated
Only the water nngs which represented the water of one killed in a personal combat were given over to individual members of a tnbe they—and possession of the water they measured—were the property of the combat s victor This was the winner's compensation for the water lost during the fight, since it was required that combatants face each other blade to blade without their stillsuits (The water was stored in the sietch holding basin, of course but its owner was permitted to draw upon it at need, or bestow it upon needier members of the tnbe)
The nngs possessed great social significance above and beyond their representation of water In Fremen betrothal, the would-be groom presented his water nngs to his fiancee, she would then arrange them on fine wires to be worn either as earrings or (more commonly) as hair ornaments Part of the marriage ceremony involved the groom's patting the newly fashioned ornaments on the bride
This use of the water counters helped regulate much of the interaction between the sexes A wait, or untiled youth—one yet to meet another male tn mortal combat—could not marry Thus, the only men in the sietch who would fattier children would be those who had already proven themselves capable of survival Cowards, weaklings, and other such undesirables were never given the opportunity to clutter the gene pool, as further insurance, children bom out of wedlock were left in the desert, a sacnfice to Shai-Hulud
In addition, the requirement that a man's possess water nngs before a marriage could take place helped to control the polygamy permitted Fremen males It was. not permitted, for example, for men to divide their counters between two or more women, so multiple marriages did not take place If a man wished to take another wife, he had to wait until he had accumulated more nngs, and any Fremen suspected of inviting challenge solely for that purpose was considered ridiculous and made the laughingstock of his tnbe
It should be noted, also, mat Fremen women who killed an enemy (an outside enemy,
invariably, since women could participate in the formal challenge ritual only via a champion) were not awarded the combat water or its nngs These were turned over, instead, to the tnbe s Reverend Mother and were believed to confer Shai Hulud s Special blessing on their donor
Following the death of their owner water nngs were returned to the tribal store or if worn by a woman remained with her until her death
FUNERAL RITES No memorials were held for out-freyn killed by the Fremen their water was simply reclaimed and the dry remains discarded
For their own, however, the Fremen be heved it necessary to conduct a formal me monal service in order that the shade of the departed one would leave in peace and visit no harm on the tnbe The ceremony always took place at the nsmg of the sunset on the evening of the death, after the body had been run through the deathstill under the supervision of d Sayyadma
All the members of the sietch would gather around a mound made up of the dead man's or woman's belongings and the water bag containing the fluid released by the deathstill The naib would speak first reminding the others mat the moon rose for their lost comrade and would summon the spint away that night He would then declare himself a friend of the deceased, describe a time when he had personally been helped or taught by the dead person (in such a small, tightly bound community, such occasions were common) and take one item from the pile
This would be followed by the Naib's claiming certain items for the deceased's family and by his claim of the cryskmfe, which would be left with the remains in the desert The other members of the tnbe would then come forward, declare their friendship and its reason, take an item, and return to their places When nothing remained of the mound except the water bag a Sayyadma came forward to venfy its measurement and to turn the water nngs over to the appropriate person
The tnbe then chanted a prayer committing the spint of their comrade to Shai Hulud and recommitting their own destinies to that god as well The sietch watermasters took
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
255
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
charge of the bag following the prayer and, with the entire tnbe serving as -witnesses, poured the now liberated water into the com munal basin, ending the ritual
WATER BONDS Among the Frcmen, water was abo s.een ds the ultimate bond between individuals whether or not they belonged to the same tribe For instance, a person from one sietch who saved the life of a member of another was owed a water debt, not only from the person saved but from his or her tnbe as well Such a debt to another was considered a heavy burden, and was paid and cancelled as quickly as possible
The water of one group's dead, if shared with another, also created a bond this one indissolvable Once such a sharing had taken place, the two groups were no longer seen as distinct, they were melded into one larger organization, since water, once mixed, was impossible to divide
A living person's water—provided it was in the form of blood and not just water earned in a hterjon or stillsuit catcbpocket— created an unbreakable bond as well If a stranger, or even an enemy, couid force or convince a member of a Fremen tnbe to drink of his blood, he was Wadquiyas with the tribe joined to them as one of their own, and safe from having his water taken unless he offended the tnbe (It was for this reason, incidentally, that no Fremen would ever at tempt to wound an enemy in a fight by biting him even if doing so meant certain victory)
Pledges of loyalty to a single person, such as that of each member of a tnbe to its naib, were also made m the name of water—in this case, to the water of the individual A tribe's pledge to its leader did not end, nor its acceptance of die new leader's rights begin, until die funeral service for the dead naib was completed and his water free
THE WATER OF UFE Nowhere in the Fremen histories is mere a ntual so closely guarded, so sparsely documented, as that of die Water of Life All that is known for certain is that, on infrequent occasions, a select group of watermeir(Renien consecrated for and charged with die ntual duties concerning water) went out into the desert captured a small sandworm, and returned with it to a special underground chamber
which could be filled with water from the communal basin The watermen then, after having been blessed by the tribe s Reverend Mother, dragged the worm into the water and held it there until it drowned
Their leader stood watch m the water at the worm s mouth, waiting for the creature to begin its death flumes When that mo meflt came, he signalled the men holding the front of the worm to lift it from the water so diat he could capture its last, liquid exhala tion m a special water bag, this liquid was the Water of Life
In its raw form, this 'illuminating' poison was deadly When altered withm the body of a Reverend Mother, however it became safe for consumption by the uninitiated and was used by the Fremen in their sietch orgies (times of heightened awareness of one another's thoughts and emotions which served to bind the tribe ever more closely together) A single drop of the changed poison was sufficient catalyst to alter even large amounts of the. liquid
The alteration process is described in much die same way as mat undergone by Bene Gessent Reverend Mothers being initiated widi melange The consciousness of the indi vidual became internalized, her timesense was slowed, and she was able to perceive the molecular structure of the poison, perceiving it, she could change it
Sometimes, in the case of a Sayyadma attempting to achieve Reverend Mother status, this perception was not sufficiently quick or strong, and the poison remained unchanged In such cases the candidate b body was cremated—the only instance m which crema tion was used—and the Water of Life set aside and carefully guarded until a new candidate could be found To put the body tiirough die deatiistill while it contained the unchanged poison could be fatal to the entire tnbe, and leaving it in the desert invited even worse consequences, as it was known dial the Water of Life could become Water of Death if allowed contact with a pre spice mass
The result of that transformation could be die death of die entire desert ecosystem
OTHER CUSTOMS As more information concerning the Fremen is made available, it becomes clear that many customs other than
FREMEN WATER CUSTOMS
256
those described above were in use during the period m which the wandering tribes were, in truth, the rulers of the Arrakeen desert Some are detailed m Jarret Oslo s book, Fremen Lives and Legends, and can best be further studied there
One in particular, however, is a striking example of priority determination, and deserves mention here It has long been accepted by scholars that the Fremen held water to be of supreme importance, and its procure ment and conservation the highest priority of the individual or of the tnbe No drinkable water, it was thought, was ever wasted, even the water of those given to Shai-Hulud was seen as being used in the service of the Fremen by placating their god
However, a document found amidst the Rakis Hoard (and tiled in Oslo, p 152) describes an exception to that rule
die water of one possessed by demons shall not be touched, not by man nor beast no one shall say that it once belonged to a friend, or offer prayers for the release of its spirit, for a demon has dwelt within and tt is forever tainted
Let it be taken into the desert in the beat of the day and poured out into a basin to steam away Let a guard be posted so that no creature will drink of it And let its demon bum in al Lat s fury for all eternity
In addition to providing an interesting contrast to the body of Fremen water customs, this nte for the possessed offers possible answers to other questions as well It helps to explain, for example, the tremendous guilt the Frcmea were repdted to feel after a Tnal of Possession, since by not releasing the water's spirit they were damnmg a former comrade to eternal torment
It also suggests the possible fate of the remains of Alia Atreides, who—unlike every other member of her Family—is not recorded as having a final resting place anywhere Further support for this hypothesis is currently bemg sought. C W
Further refentactt: Janet Oslo, Freaten Lives and Legends (Salusd Secum&s Morgan and Sharak), Harq al-Ada, The Story of Liet-Kyttcs, Lib Conf Temp Sencs 109
FREMKIT The basic desert survival kit of the Fremen of Arrakis Until recently the term "Fremkit" has been loosely applied to any and all materials earned by most Fremen when they were outside the sietch Now, however, it seems likely that the Fremkit contained a specific grouping of practical items, and was owned but not always earned by most Fremen males
The shift in understanding came when one reference to Paul Muad'Dib s 'first handbook' was reexammed It hdd been assumed that this phrase in the Oral History referred to the Kitab al-Ibar Then it was realized that a "desert survival kit and accompanying instruction manual' mentioned in The Traveler's Introduction to Arrakis likely referred to the Fremkit At this writing two incomplete versions of that "instruction manual" have been uncovered They are small filmbooks, with mounting hardware still attached, requiring glow tabs and magnifiers Both "micro-manual" fragmentary versions contain the same listing of survival equipment Unless contrary evidence is discovered, it will have to be assumed that this equipment made up a Fremkit
Literjons Stilltent Energy caps
Recaths Sandsnork Binoculars
Repkit Swkchart Baradye pistol
Filtplugs Paracompass Maker hooks
Thumper Fire pillar
The manual identifies each of these and mentions then- general function A complete kit, packed in a small bundle and cleverly fitted with shoulder straps, weighed m the vicinity of 10 kg
A complete Fremkit was probably not earned into the field every day, however The inclusion of hterjons, for instance, suggests that not all items were regularly earned outside the sietch Such large water containers were earned for individual use only under unusual conditions Similarly, the Baradye pistol, which was used by specialists for marking spice blows would not be part of everyone's traveling kit Binoculars were heavy, sinkcharts were of little use close to home, and the fire pillar was hardly an everyday device
FRIGATE
257
The possibility that the Fremkit may have had symbolic or ceremonial significance is suggested by some passages in the manual There is mention of such confidential matters as the ndmg of sandworms and the uses of melange in both food and manufacture The manual was obviously not supposed to be seen by outsiders
At this time scholars are testing the hypothesis that the Fremkit and Instruction manual were presented, together, to Fremen youth at some point along their transition toward adulthood, perhaps as a rite of passage
JLG
Further references' BARADYE PISTOL, PHTMJJO, MAK
ER HOOKS PARACOMPAS5, REPKTF, SANDSNORK, STili-
TENT THUMPER Anon , Kttab ctl-lbor Manual of the Friendly Desert Rakis Ref Cat 1-Z2B8, Anon , The Traveler s Introduction to Arrahs. {tabs Ref Cat 6-Z295
FRIGATE. The genenc term for the largest spaceships which coutd land and lift off m one piece from a planetary surface Although common usage makes it appear that "frigate" means one sort of spaceship, there were at
least several hundred, perhaps as many as a thousand, different designs which were all referred to by this single term, the factor common to all bemg mass While most Houses, Major and Minor alike, owned a few troop earners and the nchest of the Major Houses had more specialized cargo and combat spaceships, it was the frigate which was the true workhorse of all the House fleets
One of the more popular frigate designs was the steamship," in which a fusion plant heated a reaction mass usually water but sometimes ammonia or some other light compound Various heat exchange techniques utilizing plasma fluxes and electromagnetic fields made the system reasonably efficient, and it was cheap to maintain The same sort of energy fields around the launching pad absorbed much of the initial blast so that the major environmental problem was noise as the ship rose above the port
A second widely used design was the "brat," which exploded small fission bombs under an ablative plate at its base It was faster, more efficient, and lifted more pay-load than the steamship, but it was also much more expensive and left much short-term radioactivity in its wake
Moht efficient of all was the "torch," whose exhaust was plasma, but ruling Houses were often reluctant to allow what amounted to giant heat cannons to come and go overhead
Because of the Guild monopoly, no frigate was capable of trans light operation In interstellar transit, frigates were mere cargo In the confines of a planetary system, however, the frigate was dominant No other class of ship was so flexible, with so favorable a combination of size speed, and surface accessibility Obviously no single frigate could be wholly representative, but one that is broadly illustrative was Annock the personal spaceship ol the Padishah bmperor Comn XVIII (r 6874-6892* Surely one of the largest frigates ever built Antiock massed well over nine hundred thousand tonnes and was four hundred and eleven meters in length Its torch engine gave it a maximum launch acceleration of approximately seven standard g's
258
Comn, an aggressive scion of an aggres sive family, intended Antwck for combat and planetary bombardment It had storage for seven hundred missiles and torpedoes, fittings for a hundred lasguns, and emplacements for a large number of projectile weapons Its shields were probably the strongest ever installed on a mobile base But for reasons known only to the Bene Gessent, Comn's favorite courtesan, a member of the Sisterhood, persuaded him that Antiock should also serve court functions Almost half of the armament was either removed or never installed, one of the missile bays became a ballroom, another an audience chamber, at least one of the lasgun turrets was converted to a starshine conservatory Antwck was never used in combat Neither did it serve long as a space-going palace it was first launched in 68%, less man two years later Gomn was dead of
chaumurky His heir, Harmon III (r 6892 6898) sold Antiock to the Guild, and it disappears from history
Unlike heighlmers, monitors, crushers, and other specialized ships of the Impenum the frigate endured even long past the God Emperor s time Since a frigate was simply a spaceship of a certain size with certain capabilities, it may be said to exist in fact, if not in name, today Thousands of contemporary craft are of that size launch as single units from planetary surfaces, and use some form of reaction drive Most, of course, are also capable of trans light operation but only the Guild monopoly prevented the addi uon of that capability to the frigates M M
Further references Odn Shang References to Frig ates in the Catalogued Documents of the Rakis Hoard Archives Quarterly Review 21 26-111 Dekonalit Wimty * Antwck and the Frigates of the Impcnum Journal of Paleoeconomcs 37 141 253
GALACri Sound and morphology changes In the outline below, *'C ' stands for any consonant and "V" for any vowel Vowel symbols represent the following values
/i/ a high front lax vowel, the vowel sound of bit fiyf represents a tenser vowel, with a forward and upward glide, the vowel sound of beet
lei a and front lax vowel, the vowel sound of bet ley! represents a tenser vowel, with a forward and upward glide, die vowel sound of bait
IxJ a low front vowel, the vowel sound of bat
/s/ a mid central vowel, the vowel sound of bat
/a/ a tow back vowel, the vowel sound of the first syllable of father
/o/ a imd back lax vowel the vowel soand of caught law/ represents a tenser vowel
with a backward and upward glide the vowel sound of coat
/u/ a high back lax vowel the vowel sound of soot /uw/ represents a tenser vowel with a backward and upward glide the vowel sound of suit
All consonant symbols have their usual alpha betic values except the following
/6/ a voiceless interdental the first sound of
/(V a voiced interdental, the first sound of
thy /&7 a voiceless alveolopalatal the first sound
of shirt /# a voiced alveolopalatal, the first consonant
sound of azure /c7 a voiceless palatal the first and last sounds
of church
GALACH
259
OALACH
a voiced palatal, the first and last sounds judge
a velar nasal, the final sound of sing
In addition, the following symbols should be noted /h/ after any vowel indicates a longer version of that vowel, "Vd" represents any voiced sound, "#" indicates a word boun-
dary, "_" indicates the position of the sound in question in a word Thus, for example, the formula "ffl -4 /p/(not #_)" is to be reads as /f/ becomeb /p/ if it is not at the beginning of a word, or "/p/ -> /b/(Vd_Vd)" reads as /p/ becomes /b/ when it is between voiced sounds
OALACH
260
GALACH
OAMONT
261
CAMONT
Pergressive |
tnbwutem |
trigirlem |
trenweluupem |
Accompanitive |
gwibwidem |
gwigirlem |
gwenweluupem |
Abcessive |
fribwideni |
frigirlem |
frenweluupem |
Locative |
nibwidetn |
nigirlem |
nenweluupem |
For words beginning with vowels, the prefixes are w, t, b, f, tr, gw, fr, and n. For words beginning with a consonant, a vowel in partial harmony is added to the prefix (the corresponding short vowel or the first part of the diphthong in the root). 2. Definite articles are lost
Many variations from expected sounds or spellings of course appear in texts and therefore in fee Encyclopedia entries. Such variations are chiefly caused by scribal or printer's errors, or dialectal ctiffwences. WE.M.
GArtONT. -nurd planet of Niushe, noted in the Imperium for its hedonistic culture and exotic sexual practices. [Discoveries from the Raids Finds about the planet Gamont have been so widely publicized in the popular press that any details given here would be repetitious. Instead, we present not a different picture of Gamont, but the same picture seen from a different viewpoint. What
follow are the relevant parts of portions of a diary discovered in the House Corrino records, transferred to Arrakis during the Atreides Imperium.—Ed.}
Sabhaasdii, nAudrim 28: Cold and windy again today, but the laundry-room is always warm. Lots of sisters complain about Wallach's weather, but not me. My job is a blessing.
262
Shanmsdn, nAudrim 29 Entertainment tonight A very special dinner in honor of His Grace, Duke Phihppos from Gallann and his wife—a great lady, you could tell After supper in the Great Hall, his musicians played and our choir sang And that was very nice, but then I almost died' His Grace introduced his mentat—a fine-looking man, but tunic not well pressed—and asked him to very kindly favor us with a demonstration Well, the mentat looked right at me and asked me what I did, so I told him I was the head laundress Then he wrote something down on a piece of paper, and asked me to ask. him any question that 1 wanted Well, I don't know why, but the first thing popped into my head, and I said, "How many stars are in the Lyre Nebula?" Then he passed the note to Reverend Mother and asked her to read it out, and she did—it said "The number of stars in the Lyre Nebula is"—and then some big number Well, that didn't go over too well I mean, there was some polite applause, but mentats, after all'
Jehansdu, nAudrtm 30 I think I figured it out, what the mentat did When 1 went to work this morning, I picked up the soap box and nght on the back there's this big ad for a contest "Name the Stars " And rt said, how many stars m the Lyre Nebula, and if you fill it out, you win a prize if you're nght And then I remembered that the mentat asked me what I did first, before anything 1 still have his paper for a souvenir I ought to send it in Serve him nght
Phythsdu, neSfuustim J5. I won!!! I can't believe it'" The mentat was nght and I won a Two-Week, All-Expense Paid Trip to Gamoni, Planet of Pleasure, wherever that is.
Mothersdu. neSheustm 16. Well 1 went to 'see Mother Cams today and it was very strange—very strange mdeed Said no Said Sister Matilda, the tnp would be too strenuous for a woman of your years My years' I said I'm only fifty-seven aad I've been doing laundry for forty years, and tile chief laundress for die last eight and you can't be all that weak if you can do that. Then I told her just how much wash there was to be toted around I promised to take Sister Bertha with me, so Mother said we could keep an eye on
one another Then she said something about innocence being the best protection and sent me off
Glensdu neSheustim 25 I've been so busy I've really neglected my diary A lot to catch up on First, I'm wriUng this from Gamont, which is a very odd place When we got off the ship, there was a wire fence between us and a line marked "Departures," and over on the other side were some Sardaukars of Salvation playing music and handing out pamphlets and passing the tambour I was going to give them a dona uon and get some religious reading tor the quiet times, but apparently the law allows them only to talk to a person going home, not one coming m
Then we went outside, and people were singing and natives were putting strings of beads around everyone s neck These beads are to pay for things on Gamont, you just pop one off and use it like money A very pretty little boy came running over to me and Bertha and said are you from Wallach, Sisters Matilda and Bertha7 We said yes and he winked and handed us two brown envelopes We looked inside and, goodness, the neck laces must have had two hundred beads on mem Later a man said, "Hey you're Bene Gessent " And we said that's nght, how did you know7 He said the B G & always get their beads m plain envelopes I don't think I'll ever spend all my beads—I mean, how much can one person eat and drink? Maybe souvenirs for the sisters m the laundry
Twosday, neSheustim 26 I'm exhausted I woke up when tt was still dark because I could hear someone breathing m bed with me, and I thought "Poor Bertha, she must be homesick," and I said "Now, now Bertha," and I turned the light on But no, it wasn t Bertha but a very handsome young man with a mustache And I said "Young man, get out of my bed immediately'' and I thought, some hotel to make a mistake like that1 Well, I guess I woke up Bertha, too, and she screamed because there was a man in her bed, and my young man said, "But I am your guide to the pleasures of Gamout," and I said it was too dark to see anything on Gamont Then I called the manager and things got straightened out He said Ahmed
GAMONT
263
and Pol (the boys) would be available in the morning to take us sightseeing. I think this vacation is going to be more of a strain than the spring cleaning wash.
I certainly learned things about Gamont when it got light. I thought it was for vacations, like the seaside on Kestrel where my parents used to take me, and people would build sandcastles and swim and eat ices in the evening.
Gamont is not like that.
The whole place is divided into what they call little worlds. You go inside one and you can pretend you are someone in the past or future and they do all sorts of unusual things. We got in a carriage drawn by a thorse and Ahmed and Pol started to show us the sights.
First we went to Eden, There was a woman dressed up like a snake at the entrance who wanted us to check our clothing and pick a costume from the rack. On the rack marked ' Adams'' were all these leaves of all different sizes (but fake ones—cotton), but rhey were all marked "Extra-Large." There were different brands, too, fig, Conan, Stud, though what kind of a tree a stud is 1 can't say. Well, I certainly wasn't going to get undressed, so we didn't go in Eden.
I asked Ahmed if there wasn't a seashore we could go to, and he said sure, and we drove off again. We came to a world called Nantucket, and decided to have lunch before going to die beach. There was a restaurant called The Flipping Frog. Food all right. There was entertainment, too—a man and a woman sang a very funny (but sometimes puzzling) song. Here's what I remember about the beginning;
First the girl sang,
"Who's that knocking on my door?" "Who's that knocking on my door?" "Who's that knocking on my door?" Said the fair voting maiden.
The boy answered,
"D' ye ken me still, I'm Barnacle Bill, O' the 'Rakis Royal Navy. Afld here I stand, come from 'oeath the sand, With the 'Rakis Royal Navy."
So the girl told him to wipe his feet upon the mat, but there must have been a hundred
verses, and our tood came, and I don't remember the rest.
Afterwards we went to the beach. Bertha and I had a good time wading and enjoying the sun. Ahmed and Pol played cards.
Oh, I almost forgot: Gamont has seven days in its week They're called Funday, Manday, Twosday, Womanday, Threesday, Tryitday, and Saryrday. When the couple was singing, Bertha almost choked, she was laughing so hard and her face got so red. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, "When in Gamont, do as the Gamontians do." So I'm dating my diary differently while we're here. It'll be a nice memento
Womanday, neSheustim 27: I had a scare today. Went to Harem World and lost Bertha. We put costumes, on—pretty things, but sheer, my goodness, you can see right through them. Little sheer pink top. Full, gathered pantaloon thing. Pretty gold belt. Hand wash, I guess, in cold water But anyway, I think Bertha's getting upset by the excitement or something. I kept my underwear on when 1 put the costume on, but Bertha didn't. And I started to scold her, but she just gave me that "When on Gamont" business again.
Well, we went into the palace, and it was beautiful, I must say that for it, but a little gaudy—soft music and water splashing in fountains and men and women lolling around in little dark alcoves Two huge men in turbans took us to reclining harem-chairs, and I guess I went to sleep When I woke up Bertha was gone. I yelled for Ahmed and Pol and they came running from somewhere pulling their clothes on. I guess they were napping too. So we looked for Bertha through long dark hallways with men in turbans in front of the doors They wouldn't let me in, so I just called out at each door we came to. Then we came to a door that said "Sultan's Chamber," and it was open, and inside there was Bertha, stark naked, sitting on a big red velvet pourty cushion thing. I told the boys to shut their eyes and went in. Bertha just kept grinning, and saying, "The Sultan chose me, the Sultan chose me " I got her dressed and the boys helped me take her back to the hotel. I told Pol to stay in the room with her all day tomorrow and make sure she stayed quiet and rested.
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Tkrecsday, Jehannesdu, neSheustim 28 After yesterday's scare and today's shock, I know I'll live forever, because if they didn't kill me, nothing will There is a Bene Gessent House on Gamont' Why didn't Mother Caius tell me? I think I know Ahmed was driving me in the carnage through the streets, and I was looking at the places—or Plantation, Gay Paree—when I saw a little shop called "Ve Haf Vays" and I told Ahmed to stop I'd been wanting to get some souvenirs for the sisters at home, and this was a leather-goods store with beautiful belts and boots in die window. Not much of a selection though— everything was black, besides there were too many buckles and straps and things They even had whips, though why anyone would want to whip a sweet gentle creature like a thorse I don't know. Anyway, there I was in front of the store when I saw the B.G. emblem on the house on die comer I couldn't believe my eyes But I was so happy I went right up to the door and knocked. A little old sister opened the door, but she seemed surprised to see me—she said "They usually send younger ones." Then she shook her head and said "No accounting for taste" and led me into the parlor. And all over the walls of the parlor were these pictures of women. Well, I woa't try to describe them, but let me tell you I recognized some. There was that nice young (and smart) Helen Mohiam, and it's beyond me why she would let them take a picture of her sun-bathing. The head of the house (X will not call her Mother) came in, her face all painted and her eyelashes all long and black with some stuff on diem.
She says, "You're not one of my girls Who are you?"
"No," I said, "I'm Sister Matilda, the head laundress from Wallach come to see your house. Who are youT'
And she said, "I'm die Procuratrix Are you & lay sister?"
' 'Certainly not. I am a regularly professed sister and have been for forty years And what, I'd like to know, is a lay sister?"
She said, "Oh, think of it as a little joke." And then she began the most garbled and incredible story I've ever heard It seems there are three kinds of sisters—the regular
ones that live m the chapter houses, and some that go into the world and marry and have families—well, I knew that—but then there are others, the la> sisters (some joke1), whose job is to infiltrate the Great Houses and iet the sisterhood know what's going on
"Aren't the women sent to the courts regular sisters f" 1 asked
"Well, they are," she said, "in a manner of speaking You know ''
"No, I don't," I said
"Well, put it this way," she said, ' they serve as concubines and sometimes even wives They come here to bamont to learn the best ways of pleasing themselves and their royal lovers "
Maxine (that was her name) wanted to give me some brandy, but I'd never drmk anything in that place I went back to the carnage and straight to the hotel Bertha was gone again, but I thought, she's on her own this time I packed m> things And Bertha came back with Pol, and I said "I'm leaving " But she said, "We have so many beads left" "Do as you please," I said, "but tomorrow I'm going "
Tryildav JVtWfettfe Matilda's Day, neSheus tim 29 When I checked out this morning, I just sat in the lobby I didn't know where to go—I don't care about Eden or The Ol' Plantation or Harem World, but I don't want to go back to Wallach either I'm not young, I know, but I'm not stupid, and I'm not sneaky, either There are things I can do, and -do well, and that ought to be enough for anybody I won't use other people because I wouldn't want them to use me, and I won't be a part of anything that does I know what my duty is—I need to tell the Emperor just what's going on here—then it's his problem and I wash my hands of the matter Pol and Ahmed are here—they flipped a coin (they said it's a local custom) and Ahmed is my guide today So this diary goes m an envelope for the Imperial Mail I'll have Ahmed take it there, then I'm going to take my bags and go ask for a job at one of the other places I saw With my expenence I know there'll be something for me to do at "Suds and Bubbles " J R M
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GHOLA. One of the extraorduwy and unique capabilities of the Bene Tlcilax was the production of human duplicates., known as gholas The early gholas, such as the Spacing Guild s gift to Paul Atreides, Hayt, the first ghola of Duncan Idaho were produced by tissue regeneration requiring die immediate cryo-transport of complete cadavers to the axolotl tanks of Tleilax Gholas so produced retained their gene patterns and specific skills but lacked conscious memories of their pasts They were frequently conditioned to respond with specific actions or behaviors to s particular word Often, the stimulus "triggers" were produced by a being generated in the same axolotl tank
This aiitonomic conditioning occasioned one of the major, unexpected breakthroughs in ghola development Having conditioned Hayt to assassinate Paul Atreides (and per haps gain gholas of Paul and Cham) at the sound command of his tank-mate, Bijaz, the Bene Tleilax created a psychic conflict between Hayt's/Duncan's compulsive loyalty to the Atreides aad his assassin conditioning The agony produced by this clash of drives, combined with Hayt*s training as a Zensunm mental and philosopher, restored Idaho's memories to Hayt' m a sense, he re-became Duncan This psychic reawakening through primal confrontation produced results so valued by Lett) H that although the technique was not consistently successful, it was always attempted, and was used to activate a series of Duncan-Idaho gholas throughout the reign of Leto II
Prior to this breakthrough, gholas who needed to know their past for^ particular situations had to be instructed by traditional methods, which at best succeeded only partially because complete knowledge of the ghola1 s past life could never be gathered Hence, the ghola's memory was bound to be defective in many areas The use of melange with its memory-stimulating properties could fill these gaps somewhat There is evidence, for example, that Piter de Vnes, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen's twisted Mental-Assassin, a Tleilaxu product, was a melange-stimulated ghola who became addicted in training Of course, de Vnes' addiction may simply have
expressed the Tleilaxu quirk of delivering gholas with some unexpected quality of char aclenstic that the buyers did not specify e g , Hayt s metal ejes *
By the fifth century of Leto II s reign the method of making gholas had radically changed Instead of regenerating original flesh the Tleilaxu cloned their later products great ly improving the productivity of the axolotl tanks (as they were still known despite their extreme modifications)2 Cloning was the superior method because cadavers often resisted regeneration for many reasons The rate of memory reawakening however was never above twenty percent The trauma of the stimulus, such as the assassination of a Face Dancer in the guise ot Paul Atreides bj the Duncan Idaho ghola more frequently shattered psyches than restored memories This excuse was offered by the Bene Tleilax for their delay in producing yet another Idaho ghola at the end of Leto II s reign However, some speculate that the dela; was part of a plot orchestrated by the Bene Tleilax Ixians and Bene Gessent to destroy the God Emperor and that this last Idaho ghola was the most subtle example of conditioning ever produced, conditioned to respond to Hwi Noree s phrase "I want to hurl myself into your arms, to find the love and shelter I know is there You want it too 3 This argument is lent credibility by evidence of Tleilax cooperation in the Ixian production of H\u, but the use of the Ixian Globe to hide her dtUidl generation makes a firm conclusion impossible
Few gholas can have been prepared as Duncan Idaho was, for a single task most were even less specific than the Duncans produced for the God Emperor Never many in number, they sened throughout the universe as philosophers moralists and administrative functionaries Infrequently, killer-mentals, killer Suk doctors and military leaders were also generated for specific markets There is even evidence that an attempt at a Kwisatz Haderach was included in the Tleilaxu dabbling, and they always did boast that they were capable of producing a ghola to fit any specifications
For better or worse the Tleilaxu fleshly art was never well received Gholas were
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reminders of people who had once lived, and their production violated the spirit at least of the Butlenan edicts Gholas were tolerat ed only as solutions born of desperation and even the God Emperor Leto II, usually amoral in his analysis, spoke of the Duty Tleilaxu, reflecting the distrust and fear directed to ward these flesh engineers and their products RS
NOTES
'Scytale perhaps the most famous of all Tleilaxu Face Dancers is supposed to have stated that the odd sense of humor of his people consisted of ' always giving our victims a means of escape " In presenting Duncan Idaho 10208 to Paul, the means of escape may have been a linguistic hint, a daring double entendre the Dame by which they introduced the ghola to Paul, "Hayt," immediate ly suggested to the Atreidean emperor the Galach hatt (n from OG hate) intense hostility and aversion usu deriving from fear" But for die Tieilaxu no risk meant no pleasure coincidentally, there i* a Fremen word hayt and the Tleilaxu were betting that the sight of Duncan Idaho would conjure up associations for Paul Atreides not for Paul Muad Dib, who would have realized that Fremen hayt means * wall'—perhaps the wall that sealed Hayt from his Duncan memories a wall which his killing of his master was intended to breach1'
•Tleilaxu terms have always drawn close inspection because of a mocking habit of giving—almost of flaunting—Stints about their processes and purposes Why, for example, axolotl tanks? Axolotl is the term for the tadpole form of the genus Ambystoma a species of Terran amphibian now found only on Ecaz Thus, Dr A would argue tfatt die tank was so named because of die animal s ability to mature sexually without undergoing meta morphosis if its habitat was dry, but to become a salamander IB pools of water, hence, the waters of the tank give us a different "animal" No, would say Th B the Tleilaxu use die term because these amphibians are able to regenerate lost bodily parts, and perhaps die secret of thai ability is part of the process On the contrary, would say R M C of the fiene Gessent ancestral voices tell us that the term comes from an extinct Terran language Nafauatl, IB which at! means ' water' and xolotl means "spirit,' and therefore it is simply a fancy epithet foi the tank's chemical ability to give life from "the spirit of the water"
Happily no such wrangling surrounds the term ghola. thanks to the Fremen recovery of an an cient leiTan Semitic language we know that the
verb ghala he seized has a related form ghul from which the modem Galach gaul (OG ghoul) and the Tleilaxu ghola both derive the latter of course hy borrowing In Fremen folklore the ghul is a demon who robf> graves and feeds on corpses Fremen reaction to gholas was strongly colored by the word s etymology ot which they could not help but be aware
^c trigger had to be either a complex state mcnt such as this or if short by necessity a coined term with no meaning in any known language Obviously the Tleilaxu could not nsk a ghula i encountering the stimulus in a chance conversation
Farther references Princess Irulan Atreides-Comno The Humanity of Muad Dtb Lib Conf Temporary Se ries 139 and her The Wisdom ofMuadDib tr Milyau Gwulador Arrakis Studies 52 (Grumman Un ted Worlds) Duncan Idaho-10208 The Hayt Chronicle tr Kershcl Reeve Stiautm (Finally Mosaic) Anon (Sliska IT Nendruz ka?) The Tleilaxu Godbuk Rakis Ref Cat 3 TL42 Siona Atreides Commentaries on the Welbeck Fragment (Centraka Kutath) Quizara Tafwid The Pillars of Wisdom tr Noval Allad (Salusa Secondus Morgan and Sharak)
GINAZ, HOUSE OF. Also Gmaztera in early historical accounts, successively Lords of Gmaztera Barons Ixalco Smdar-Barons Ruizdael, and Sindar-Counts Martijoz Cousme titles include Barons Palus Palti One of the Houses Major during the reigns of the second Hajus Corrmo emperors, the Gmaz family traces Us origins to a company of entertainers working the Richelieu Sector during the time of Fredhnck V The troupe performed light operas, comedies, skits, burlesque and other amusement to appreciative audiences on a wide variety of planets, satellites, Imperial forts, and e\en large ships earning their passage from system to system by entertain mg important politicians or wealthy tradesmen and land owners Alberto Gmaztera, the foun der of the company is said to have been born on Gioia, in the Beta Tau Beta System, the son ot a composer he was trained as a serious musician and singer and was particularly adept with stringed instruments His wife, Mana-Ehsa Drago, the daughter of a tavcrnmaster, suggested to her husband that his talents might be more profitably applied, and developed with him an act in which he died to sing serious pieces which she constantly interrupted with barroom ditties and comic banter They were such a hit that soon every
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major theater and club on the planet was demanding their show
Within ten years, Alberto, his wife, and their three children had moved to a ncher planet, within fifteen years, they had performed in every major city within their sector, within twenty-five years, their troupe had increased to thirty highly paid, well-trained, professional musicians, singers, and actors, and their fame had spread to the Imperial Planet itself, finally culminating in a command performance before Fcedhnck V The Emperor was so taken with the troupe that he ordered Alberto to base his operations on one of the major worlds near Saiusa Sectmdus, and to give at least one performance annually for the Imperial Presence and his private guests Hence, the Gmaztera Company be came the only officially recognized entertainment group sanctioned by the Emperor himself Gmaztera himself was granted an estate on Gioia and named Lord Ginaztera m the minor nobility At hearing the news of Albcrto's death in 7844, Frederick is said to have wept for days, saying "the hope of laughter has vanished from my world forever" Historians note that Fredhrick aged rapidly over the next few years, and was an embittered recluse by the time he died in 7849
After her husband's death, Mana-Eltsa increased the family s fortunes considerably by smuggling drags during the troupe's many travels, and reinvesting the money into what soon became an entertainment empire By the year 7950, the House of Gmaz, as it was now called, had a monopoly on live perfor manccs before audiences of 10,000 or more, it also owned chains of gambling casinos, prostitution rings catering to the very nch, and theaters specializing in fights between different kinds of animals, or between animals and humans There were rumors during mis period of particularly vile exhibitions of sadomasochistic violence being staged for specific clientele, but these allegations were never proven
It is certain mat by the year 8400 the House of Ginaz was nominated by the House of Atreides for inclusion in the Landsraad as a House Major, and that the motion earned with three votes to spare over the objections of Houses Comno and Harkonnen By this
time also, the House of Ginaz had advanced in status to Smdar-Barons of Ruizdael, a planet in the Junagadh system, Faustmo Ginaz (ruled 8366-8414) called ' one of the most handsome men of his day" by Lady Bagra-tioru, was the first Gmaz to be accorded this status
The House of Ginaz generally supported the Landsraad rights against the Impenum, following the lead of such houses as Atreides, Bagratiom, Sikunn, and Alman, and general ly voting against the interests of Houses Cornno, Qair, Wikkheiser, and Montam It was Montam that spoke in the interests of Cornno during the debate over inclusion of Gmaz in the Landsraad, and Montam that conducted a particularly vicious whispering campaign against Gmaz behind the curtains Faustino Gmaz is said to have sworn eternal revenge against Yukio Montam and his heirs over the insult to the House of Gmaz, there by leading to the War of Assassins
Camillo Gmaz HI (died 9876) concluded a secret Treaty of Mutual Support between his house and that of Atreides in the year 9855 guaranteeing aid to Atreides in times of peril, and vice versa The family declined rapidly in fortunes after its defeat bv Montani m the year 10177 by the time of Leto II s accession, Juan Gmaz VIII was reported selling well-known works of art from his family's collection to pay his debts The House of Gmaz ceased to have House Major status not long thereafter R R
Further references GREAT HOUSES Fho Geoffroi At Center Stage The First and Last Performances of the House of Ginaz (Gioia. Quique) Landsraad Information Office Standard History of the Great Houses tr Dniga Trap (Saiusa Secimdus Morgan and Sharak) annual Almanakh de Galachas
CLOWGLOBE. An organically phosphores cent light source buoyed by a suspensor field Invented in 4266 by F M Aubec one of the earliest explorers of Ecaz
Glowglobes though of many different types follow a fairly standard design They are generally spherical in shape and their casing is normally made of molecule plastic treated to almost complete transparency though this adaptation sacrifices a great deal of the molecule plastic s resilience and makes it
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particularly vulnerable to sharp blows A miniaturized Holtzman Generator is installed within the globe, the generator is extremely low-powered, but the repulsor field generated need only support the weight of the globe
The most important components of a glowglobe are the living parts Three different types of anaerobic bacteria are used Veillonelia methanomonas ecazi is the base, providing the methane which feeds die other two bacteria and scavenging the bacteria's waste products, Actinemyces lucifer ecazi, the phosphorescent bactena, aad Serpens electn ecazi, which provides the power for the Generator A luctfer is also, by happy accident, a very sensitive thermotfQp This property causes the glowglobe to glow brighter on the side nearer to any heat source emitting less infrared than a threshold level at which sporulation is triggered Thus the globe will usually "respond" to the presence of a person who remains within two meters ot the globe for several minutes
In some glowglobes, usually seen only in the private quarters of Great Houses, Sphero porus electn ecazi (actually two very closely related organisms, subspecified as "a" aad "b"), an electricity-producing bactena similar to Serpens electn though far mote difficult to transport, is used to power the Holtzman Generator This substitution is valued by those who can afford it, though, because Spheroporus etectri is, like A lucifer, heat-sensitive, bat Spheroporus is a very motile bacterium, which rapidly moves towards the location with a temperature closest to the bacterium's optimum When electrically responsive microswitches are distributed to line the interior of the glowglobe, the thermore sponsive bactena will cause the repulsor field to shift as they seek the optimum tempera ture gradient, thus moving die glowglobe to maintain the desired distance (as determined by the mix used of the two closely related organisms) from the nearest heat source
The most well-known manufacturer of glowglobes is House Lucifera, of Golhmar The House produced some thirty-eight bil lion glowglobes in the standard year prior to the writing of this essay, and the House enjoys a substantial advantage over its competitors in that it is die only House that has
been able to coax the various bactena to grow in culture in commercial quantities
WDI
Further reference ECAZ
COM JABBAR, or "High-Handed Enemy." The needle, tipped with a drop of meta cyanide, which was used by Bene Gessent proctors in the human awareness test most often administered to students at the B G school on Wallach IX A single jab of the needle was sufficient to send the poison into its victim's system There was no known antidote
The awareness test was, on its face ex ceedmgly simple The candidate was instruct ed to place her hand within a small box containing a number of nerve induccrs As soon as this was done, the proctor held a gom jabbar at the candidate s neck and stated that it would be used, immediately, if the candidate were to withdraw her hand from the box At the same time, the nerve mducers, activated by the presence of the hand, stimulated feelings of pain that began with mild discomfort and could continue, if allowed to build, through the most severe agony (The most common sensation was that of extreme heat, as though the hand were being slowly roasted)
The crux of the test—far more important thdn discovering that the candidate could endure pain rather than invite certain death— was that it gave the proctor an opportunity to access the student's reaction to stress Any increase or decrease in the student s rate of advancement within the Sisterhood depended on the proctor s observations during the test
On rare occasions, when their importance to the Bene Gessent indicated it, males were tested with the gom jabbar Paul Atreides, at age fifteen was one of them (That experience, on Caladan, left him with ail enmity for the Sibterhood which increased as he gained greater knowledge of their methods)
Aside from its literal use, the term 'gom jabbar was sometimes applied to a certain kind of individual, as well a person who, either for personal reasons or because of adroit manipulation, became an analogue of the poisoned needle, used against an enemy
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Perhaps the best example of the phenomenon was Alia Atreides, who as a child slew her maternal grandfather, Sindar-Baron Vladimir Harkonncn Her final words to him, on this occasion, are reputed to have been, "I'm sorry, Grandfather You've met the Atreides gom jabbar"—a pretty piece of irony, because a poisoned needle was the weapon used
Further references. BENE OESSERIT; ASSASSIN'S HANDBOOK
GREAT CONVENTION. The universal legal code framed during the Great Synod held between 330 and 340 on Urbanus H The Convention provided codification and a source of final authority for tenets Which had been accepted (to a greater or lesser degree) for several centuries,
THE TREATY OF CORWN The history of House Comno's ascendancy is well known the discovery of the Salusa Secunttus by the unfortunate Meganam; the Sardaukar's victory over their would-be employers and then-subsequent entry into space, the three years of constant defeat for the Landsraad forces culminating m the Battle of Comn m 88 B G , the signing of the treaty, named for that battle, granting Imperial powers to House Comno
The Treaty served as the highest law m the new Impenum for 355 years For most of that period it worked well, and much of the credit must be given the first Comno Emperor, Sheuset I (88 B G —70 B G ) He presided over the Treaty negotiations, and his foresight for the needs of future Emperors made the document as successful as it was
CHOAM Founded in 7 B G , CHOAM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercan-tfles) was a reaction to the newly revealed existence of the Spacing Guild and to the opportunities for increased and more efficient commerce the Guild's services would provide It gave Emperor, Landsraad, Guild and the Bene Gessent a means of controlling and profiting from the new trade
CHOAM also provided a badly needed second unifying force to the Impenum as a whole The balance between the Imperial House and the Great House of the Landsraad
had rested, since the Battle of Cornn, only on military strength CHOAM bound the various groups and individuals to one another financially as well as militarily, thus providing increased stability
The upsurge of prosperity which followed for most of the worlds in the Impenum served to pacify as well as unify Fractious planetary governments or ambitious but frustrated individuals were placated by the rapid ly expanding economy the founding of CHOAM had launched
THE GREAT SYNOD During the prosperous centimes, the social structure of the Impenum—particularly the faufreluches the code which preserved the ngid social classes— had passed from custom into common law More and more, the most powerful Houses (who had the most to gain from the status quo) sought to put those traditions into written law The movement gained momentum over several years, but it was not until the agmg emperor, Menemtahe II, threw in his own support that a decision was reached and delegates chosen for the Great Synod
Each Great House sent a representative (not the family head but generally a trusted relation) to the Synod A substantially smaller group of delegates represented the Houses Minor Menemtdhe II presided over the Synod personally, showing the royal house's interest m the project Jenarum Sen, head of the Guild, also attended
The first three years the Synod studied in detail legal codes already in existence the Treaty of Comn, the laws of several hundred worlds, the terms of the Guild Peace Next, the delegates' draft proposals for the Convention were recorded, and at the end of a year, more than 7,000 agenda items had been listed, with precious few duplicates The debate was underway
Seven years later a final draft of the Great Convention was ready Its ratification was relatively simple—those whose approval was needed were alread; in attendance—and the remaining three years of the Synod were spent in bringing the codes of individual worlds into conformity with the new law of the Impenum
All was not completely smooth, of course, that could not be expected from a group with
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such diverse interests The Synod possessed an advantage unique among parliamentary bodies, however it could expel recalcitrant delegates Yet, during the ten years, only five individuals were dismissed from the Synod, and one of these dismissals had nothing to do with the negotiating skills of the person dismissed (He was one of the House Minor delegates who was discovered to be fronting for the exiled Family Harkonnen ) THE GREAT CONVENTION The final
document, 317 sections filling five volumes, was a masterwork of balance and careful wording Hie Convention was intended to control in most instances, and not to prohibit Its emphasis on proper appearances—suggesting the primacy of form over substance— is pointed throughout by the words which begin every section "The forms must be obeyed''
Nowhere is propriety more evident man in the Convention's most famous clause, which regulated die use of atomic weapons against human beings The circumstances for employment of family atomics were so minutely detailed that they took up nearly half of one volume Acceptable means for obtaining such weaponry, for storing mem, for rigging them for automatic retaliation should one House be utterly destroyed by another, were drawn out in scrupulous detail According to Synod records the assembled delegates took over four months to settle fee issue On its face, the rule appears humanitarian, insuring that even in tune of war, humans would be protected from the horrors of slow death by radiation poisoning and worlds safeguarded from the desolation of lingering contamination
If this were the Convention's true intent, it could have been achieved very simply An absolute ban on all family atomics—backed by both Imperial and Great House force— eosld have rendered sach items more dangerous to keep than their worth to the Houses justified The atomics clause was so minutely detailed, however, because the delegates had no inclination toward nuclear disarmament, they simply wished to be certain that no less powerful House could overcome one of its betters by use of atomic power alone The same attitude enabled the Great Houses to wink at the existence of stoneburners, weap
ons which clearly violated the spirit, if not the all-important letter of the law
The acceptable means of attaining victory in House to House combat were also carefully laid down Open, declared warfare was se verely discouraged as a means of settling differences It was far too wasteful and destructive of the civilian workforce, shipping and trade that were the hfeblood of every planetary economy And of what use to the victor was a world made unprofitable9
No, the accepted methods were far more economical A House could challenge its enemy to a War of Assassins which involved sending an exact number (agreed upon in advance) of professional killers out to murder by stealth The permitted weapons were listed in the Book of Assassins a text appended to the Convention Once declared, a War of Assassins could ha\e only one of two conclusions complete surrender, which left the defeated nobles alive but stripped of all holdings and titles, or the extermination of the House The assassins were permitted to kill only the approved targets—no outsiders—and a Judge of the Change, appointed by the Landsraad High Council and the emperor, insured that the forms were indeed obeyed (The penalties for not obeying them were quite severe Offenders could be fined, imprisoned, exiled, or killed, depending on their rank and the seriousness of the ofTense, the House responsible for the offense could be officially declared the loser of the War)
Wars of Assassins were generally declared by Houses* wishing to expand their interests and not especially concerned about who they defeated to do so For those with more personal reasons for fighting the Convention devoted twenty five pages to kanly or vendetta, again, a Judge was appointed and rigid rules regarding procedures and choices of weaponry were given But in kanly, the head of the House met another personally
Such rules as those for War? of Assassins and kanly affected only the nobility, but protected the rest of the population by keeping them umnvolved Other sections protected the nobility from itself There were clauses which forbade assassination of one family member by another fa time-honored means of gaining advancement) or of any noble by
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one of inferior rank not recognized as an assassin. While the penalties attached could not completely deter such killings, they were at least severe enough to minimize them.
The faufreluches, the class system, was very carefully preserved. Only under extraordinary circumstances could a House Minor achieve the status of a House Major, or an individual rise above the class into which he or she was born. The age-old route of marrying upward was always available, of course, but was rarely used; young women of noble birth were most often married to a nobleman of their family's choice, while noblemen were far more inclined to take an attractive commoner as concubine titan as spouse. Upward mobility usually was possible only for those who could achieve exceptional success in business, war or politics. And in such cases, it was far from assured. The consent of the emperor was needed to elevate an individual, and that of both the emperor and the Landsraad to elevate a House. The (Tamers of the Convention did not wish to spark discontent by making advancement impossible, but it was vital to their social system that the process be kept difficult.
Other sections formalized the prohibitions laid down by the Butlerian Jihad, less than 750 years past and stiU fresh in Galactic memory. The ban on "machines made in the likeness of a human mind''—computers—was rendered partially moot by the later development of mentals, who functioned as organic computers. And it was knows, even at this time, that the Ixians' scientific research was often into "forbidden" areas, and that the Bette Tfeilax were actively engaged in the production of suspect machinery; however, no clauses directly curtailed or hindered the work of either group. No House wished to cut itself off from the only sources of advanced technology and Face Dancer assassins.
Many other areas were also carefully drawn out: regulations dealing with kidnapping and ransoms (scaled according to the ranks of the hostage and the kidnapper); permissible levels of import and export; the procedures followed when a fief was transferred from one House to another. No matter of consequence in the eyes of the delegates was neglected. There was even a clause, admit-
tedly a brief one, which gave instructions for the proper ranking of concubines within a nobleman's house.
The Convention was by far the most comprehensive body of laws in a single document ever written.
LONGEVITY OF THE GREAT CONVENTION. With very minor changes, the Convention remained in effect for almost ten millennia, enforced and supported by the elements which maintained the balance of power in the Imperium: House Corrino, the Landsraad, the Guild, and CHOAM. A House which flouted the terms of the Convention openly (secret crime continued as it always had) ran the risk of being declared outlaw, stripped of its holdings, and unable to book passage on any but illegal spaceflights. "The forms must be obeyed" could as well preface the Convention as a whole as any of its individual parts.
The Great Convention oudasted the empire and many of the Houses responsible for its having been written; attrition from the Great House ranks, whether from warfare or disaster, saw to that. In 10219, however, Leto Atreides 11 delivered the Great Convention's death blow by becoming emperor Few understood that at the time: it was generally supposed that the new ruler, while stronger and more prescient than any of his predecessors, would continue to preserve the social structure in use for ten thousand years and more.
The lesson took centuries to learn, but by the time Leto declared himself God Emperor and locked his Imperium firmly into the stasis known as Leto's Peace, no one could question that the Great Convention had finally been overthrown.
It is interesting to note that the God Emperor's reign lasted little more than a third as long as the rule of the Convention. Mortal, non-prescient humanity had no reason to be ashamed of its handiwork. C W.
Further references: CHOAM; HOUSE CORRINO, SPACING nun D; V Colivcoh'p, The Text of the Great Convention,
after the Materials from Arrakis (Placentia. Santa Fe); Tovat Gwinsted, Chronicles of the Conquerors [to 9222] (Caladan: INS Books), PA Lauffer, A Textofthe Treaty ofCornn, with Notes and Commentary (Fides: Malthan).
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GREAT HOUSES, THE. Officially, the "Recognized Houses," those Houses accorded individual voting status in the Imperial Landsraad, the legislature of the empire Although all of the noble houses technically belonged to the Landsraad, d practice developed at an early date in the history of the empire of according only certain of the more influential houses separate voting privileges, ail other, lesser houses belonged to "Circles of the Empire," each Circle being accorded a certain number of votes representing each sector or system in the known universe These circles elected representatives to sit at each session of the Landsraad, the representation being rotated on a regular basis The different circles had differing methods of electing representatives
Admission of houses to full voting status was by a vote of the assembled houses in session, a majority of the entire membership (not just those sitting or voting at aay one session) being required for admission, voting in three successive sessions Candidate houses must have demonstrated a minimum level of wealth (generally, sindar grants of one planet of moderate value, or several planets of poorer status) an understanding of political processes and power and a desire to partiei pate in the governance of the empire, historical growth of their houses as evidenced by grants of land or titles, and a certain eclat which is difficult to define, but which nonetheless remained the hallmark of all me houses attaining this status Candidate houses re quired sponsorship by at least three other Great Houses Since the Houses Minor tended to vote for Great House status indiscriminately [see entry HOUSES MINOR], the outcome of such voting rested with the Imperial Bloc and the Spacing Guild, giving them an inordinate amount of power on this particular issue Huge sums of money could exchange hands to enroll one new member of the Groat Houses
Expulsion from the Landsraad required a simple majority of the members actually sit ting m any one session In actual fact, move ment in or out of the Landsraad was general ly slow, and changed little over the centuries White the political feuding between the Houses Major had always been great, all of the
Houses seemed to recognize the necessity for the Landsraad as a civilizing element of galactic society and as an outlet for the political frustrations which would otherwise doom the unity of the worlds Few, therefore, were willing to carry then- animosities to the point of expulsion
The total number of votes accorded to all Landsraad members was 1,000 divided as follows 100 to the Imperial House, 400 to the Great Houses, 400 to the Minor Houses, 100 to the Spacing Guild The Imperial House sat both as representatives of the Impenum and as representatives of the ruling family's House, and received in addition to the Impe rial Vote the votes accorded its clan Many of the Houses Major obtained proxies for the votes of lesser houses, or even of circles of the Houses Minor, these alignments changed quickly and frequently depending upon the issues at hand In general, the Landsraad acted in most matters as a counterbalance to the Imperial power, providing a check upon the tendency toward autocratic centralization
The votes accorded each Major House depended upon its status in the galactic community, as determined by the Spacing Guild, which maintained its position as a (generally) neutral observer The maximum number of votes given any one house was ten, the least was one Voting allocations were published by the Guild prior to each session of the Landsraad and could be appealed only to the Landsraad itself Houses might accrue more votes than the maximum al lowed if they inherited the voting privileges of other hou&.ef>, or if the) obtained officially certified proxies from other houses or circles Houses might avoid the responsibility of voting on certain issues of controversy by granting limited proxies affecting one vote only, or all votes on a particular issue
There was no fixed number of Great Houses they varied in history with political and eco nomic fortunes, and depended to some de gree on the strength of the empire's basic institutions At any one time, there might be one hundred Houses Major sitting in the Landsraad, although there were as few as 35, and as many as 157 The official representative of each House was the Head of the Household, generally a hereditary position
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although some families elected their Heads from among the family membership at large, or from certain specific lines; other clans practiced variant forms of succession, such as the House al-Qair, in which the Head of the House was automatically the eldest surviving member of the family. Although many family heads attended sessions of the Landsraad regularly, others appointed official Representatives to act in their stead; under Landsraad law, these Representatives had the same legal status as their masters, and thus could act unilaterally in their behalf; for tills reason, the practice was not widespread except in those Houses where the Head of the House was ill or suffered some other diminished capacity. Legally, the Head of th£ House was the House; under certain circumstances, the Head and his House could be tried by the
Landsraad for treasonous acts against the Empire or the Landsraad, and the Head or his House or both exiled, deprived ot their titles and lands, or exterminated. There were nine such trials in the history of the Imperium; only one, that of House Masudi, resulted in the execution of all family members (in the year 3536; the Protector, Shi-Lang, ordered the name of this House expunged from all Imperial histories and records, although he was not successful in obliterating its memory; curiously, however, no record remains, and no trace has been found in official archives, of the crime of House Masudi).
The Great Houses, with the votes accorded them in the Landsraad, are listed below as they appeared at the beginning of the reign of Emperor Paul Muad'Dib:
Alman 10 Atrcides 10 Comno 10 Keraic 10 Wallach 10 Mannusetz 9. Wikkheiset 9 Kyzyl 8 Opheiion 8 Qair 8 Tiiops'il 8 Deferable 7 EzharianT Hajns 7 MonamT Ordos? Clanricarie 6 Fort»no6 Ginaz 6 Hybla 6 Morotai 6 Pastrant Pinang 6 TkoigodS Toml»6 Ttoenne 6 Bagiationi 3 Harkoaoen 5 Ispartila 5 |
McdvedevS Pcnchi5 Ibgramah 5 Lvdvonga 41', Burgerish 4 Qdemoik 4 Geusau4 Guilford4 Hiiado 4 Isfahan 4 Khumali 4 Masjed4 Samararaa 4 Bromdi 3 Cephalus 3 Edomdred 3 Elioz3 Efflar 3 Estilon 3 Chilian 3 JuHgiiis 3 Lynwyck 3 Molay 3 Noabai 3 Pibcs«h3 Rejam 3 RhylmeS Sikunri 3 Spokan3 |
Vice 3 Yasu 3 AbeforZ Bendau 2 Chinogma 2 Costino 2 Daryai 2 Desffym 2 Fenring2 Halleck 2 Hemming 2 Ichihara 2 Istaivan 2 Lidoping 2 Menemtahe 2 Miistami 2 Ngara2 Parakrama-hu 2 Raichur 2 Sulaimani 2 Surakarta 2 Villish 2 Xmgus 2 Zalmimna 2 Mwami 114 Ammmadab 1 Andercson 1 at-Tam 1 Barlevm 1 |
Beskid 1 Chelly 1 Demavend ! Dupleix 1 Est 1 Rdbolgs 1 IaM 1 Igall Isonzo 1 Jerodine 1 Lassoki 1 Utzko 1 Lexander 1 Lompok 1 Lonsle 1 Melui 1 Meyerwal 1 Nicolpri 1 Niembach 1 Orzaba 1 Ossian 1 Paligo 1 Phyfc 1 Polotsvi 1 Reginaud 1 Rhibera 1 Shahrukh 1 Shi-Lang 1 Yuzovka 1 |
Following the accession of Emperor Leto II, the fortunes of the Great Houses declined drastically, as more power became concentrated in the Imperial Fortress. By the year
11000, fully one-third of the Great Houses had been reduced in status to Minor Houses, or had vanished altogether, less than a dozen Houses had stepped upward to fill their
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positions The situation reached cnsis level by 11500, when the Great Houses were reduced to half their number at the time of Leto's accession The functioning of the Landsraad was imperiled by this loss of membership, its sessions became fess and less frequent, and finally ceased completely before the end of Leto's reign Former members of the Landsraad became known as ''mediatized bouses," giving mem slightly higher status than the few surviving Houses Minor
At their height, during the reigns of the last few Comno emperors, the Great Houses functioned in surprisingly similar ways, gives the diversity of their cultural backgrounds, political heritage, ami philosophies of government Most had private armies or guardsmen constituting a permanent protective force for both the noble families and their private and House properties, these standing armies sometimes rivaled the best that the Impenum had to offer Many of the Houses had long term transportation agreements with the Spac ing Guild that ensured priority shipment of goods or troops during periods of high com petition or crises Such agreements could be overridden only by die Impenum during times of supreme interstellar stress At the heart of each House, large or small old or new, was the economic machine that financed the pri vate troops, interstellar commerce, luxurious living and aspirations to power
Most of the Houses used a highly centralized form of governance, based on the hereditary or elected leader, a council consisting of economic and political advisors and the com manders of the private armies, and a regular series of audiences with the populations they governed For all practical purposes, despite the claims of the Inipenum and local traditions the Houses ruled unchallenged in their local fiefs, which often consisted of one or more planets or planetary systems Only a handful of planets in the Impenum (for example Finally, Libermann, or Refuge) possessed Free Planet status, serving as open market places to the known universe The Houses used sophisticated long-range economic plan nmg to diversify their holdings, most Houses learned from the early examples of one market clans going bankrupt that diversity
generally meant higher profits and greater stability and followed a practice of reinvesting their money into as many different commodi ties as possible By the time of Paul, only a few Houses still relied solely upon one particu lar drug product or service as their pnnci pal means of support
At their worst the Great Houses represent ed arrogance, privilege, selfishness greed lust for power, repression military adven tumm, political machination and a blatant disregard for the rights or the desires of the populations they governed At their best, as with the House of Atreides and others the Great Houses were a workable form of government, providing guidance for the populace, economic welfare justice protec tion from Imperial bullying security, the promise of lifetime service with fair wages and a comfortable retirement selflessness and a sense of community Unfortunately given humanity s penchant for misusing pow er of all kinds the negative elements tended to outweigh the positive in most cases and the long term historical picture of the entire government system (of which the Great Houses only represented a part) is certain to show the problems inherent in the Imperial structure Ultimately it was not Leto II who destroyed the Great Houses he had only to create the proper conditions and the Houses slowly deteriorated This decline perhaps says more about the Impenum as conceived by the Comnos than it does about the Houses proper the centralization of power in the hands of one man was simultaneously the greatest boon and largest flaw to the governance of the Houses The fact that certain men or families managed to overcome the deficiencies of the system is a tribute more to their personalities or training than it is to the structure itself R R
Further references GREAT HOUSES ARMS PENNANTS
AND INSIGNIA ATREIDES HOUSF CORRINO HOUSE HARKONNEN HOUSE GINAZ HOUSk HOUSES MINOR MoSl
of the Great Houses have been the subjects ot histories or analyses see Landsraad Information Office Standard History of the Great Houtes tr Dnigd Trap (Sdlaaa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) for a general work also uncovered on Rakis is the complete 120-voIumc set of Baron Zarn Jenl s comprehensive genealogy The Great Houses in History (9654) Many volumes of Jenl s work have been reprinted in the Temporary Series check with
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your local Library Confraternity member for an up-to-date listing.
GREAT HOUSES, ARMS, PENNANTS, AND INSIGNIA. Throughout the history of the Imperium, distinctive devices identifying members of the Great Houses served several purposes; how long the practice endured shews how important the nobility considered those purposes. First, a coat of arms was the signal mark of noble status. It displayed both the owner's distinction and individuality—no other in the known worlds bore the same arms. Second, the coat was hereditary, and therefore proved descent from an ancestry that had achieved greatness, or at least notoriety. Third, when a figure or color from the coat was used as a badge by retainers, soldiers, or servitors, the association with the House was clear for all to see.
The origin of coats of arms is lost in the past. They were certainly used before the Imperium, and may derive from Terra itself. The names of the colors alone, unchanged in ten thousand years, prove the antiquity of the custom; what language they derive from no one can say. The approved colors are: or (yellow or gold), argent (silver), gules (red), azure (blue; compare The Azhar Book), sable (black), vert (green), pwpure (compare modern Galach parfal), tennt (orange), and murrey (dark red).
Heraldry, the system of describing coats of arms, has a unique syntax, quicker illustrated than explained. Here, for example, is the blazon, or verbal description, of the arms of House Corrino: "White a lion sejant guar-dant erect or." That is, on a white field, a yellow or gold Son, seated facing the viewer.
Here are the arms of the more powerful Great Houses. The illustrations should clarify any doubt caused by unfamiliar terminology
House Alman: Gules on an eagle displayed wings inverted white, beaked and armed or, a shield or with heart of the first (i.e., with a heart of the first color named),
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House Atreides. Sable a falcon's head couped gules encircled by laurel branches vert.
House Kemic: Party per chevron or and vert (a field of yellow overlaid with green in the shape of a chevron) in chief fat the top) three bexaets gates (red circles) fesswise (horizontally), in nombri! (at bottom center) a rocket ascending argent,
House Wallach Sable on a pale (a vertical band) argent, a closed book tenne" encircled by a serpent vert.
House Wikkheiser. Azure an anchor or between alpha and omega white
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House Ophelion: Party per cross on 1 and 4 vert a lozenge (diamond) argent, on 2 and 3 or a cross formy sable.
House Tiiopa'U: Argent a bend (diagonal band) azure in sinister (left) base a pentagon of the last, in dexter (right) chief a wolfs head sable erased.
House Delambre: Party per fess azure and purpure a bar potenty argent, in chief a lasgun or, in nombril a harp or.
House Ezharian. Vert on a fess argent, three roses gules fesswise.
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House Montant Azure on a bend argent a ringed planet gules, in sinister base and dexter chief a star of five points of the second.
House fenring. Argent a chain sable palewise two lions rampant combatant gules.
House Harkonnen. White a ram's head caboshed guardant azure
House Ordos Or two bones white per saltire, in dexter chief entwined with ivy vert.
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PENNANTS The pennant served chiefly as a battle flag, flown on a long staff, it marked a rallying point for troops in combat For easy recognition, it usually bore only the principal color or colors of the arms The House Atretdes pennant, for example, was black and red, House Comno's was white with a gold stripe, but as the pennant of the House (rather man the throne) was never used as a battle flag The Imperial Battle Flag was that of the Sardaukar, plain black Houses did not hesitate to adopt special battle flags for situations in which ambiguity might threaten command control
BADGES Those attached to a Great House often wore a badge to show their allegiance The badge was usually the charge, or figure, from the coat of arms Thus, the badge of Atreides was a falcon's head m red, that of Corrmo, a golden lion, that of Montant, a ringed planet in red
THE COLLEGE OF HERALDS The registry and approval of coats of arms rested with an office of the Landsraad called the College of Heralds Three ranks of officers, kings of arms, heralds, and pursuivants, settled dis pules over claims and administered die use of arms WEM
Further references; A C F Dmweez, A Complete Guide to Heraldry (Katun New Butfce) ZP BmgLidal Historic Heraktrt (Kaitam New Burke)
GREAT MOTHER, A deity of vast complexity, older than my m pre-Irapenttm history Possibly the earliest reference to Great Mother is found in The Book of Anctent Teachings1, which documents the aphorism,''Before there was anything,, there was Great Mother " The Apocryphus, a similar text of the same penod, records the tale of a young votary who, thinking to unveil the image of Great Mother Goddess m her temple at Gnosken, found his tongue forever after paralyzed from the shock of what he had seen ^ Both sources concur in suggesting an image of Great Mother as unapproachable and unknowable, a smiling mask covering multiple faces
According to the Apocryphus, frequent mention of Great Mother is found in parchments dating back at least one hundred centu ncs before the Butlenan Jihad A fragment of one manuscript on cosmogony purports to
tell the story of how, at first, there was all-encompassing darkness and night, void of creatures, characteristics, or differentiation of any kind The All was impenetrable, dreamless sleep Yet there was One Pure Consciousness As Time unfolded, there was creation, for Time itself was the Mother From this beginning was formed the Cosmic Egg growing m the waters of the abyss that was all space, and all space was the Mother As the waters rocked it, the Cosmic Egg burst and all things flowed from it, and this too was the Mother So began the Many in One that is Creation Life, and Destruction, also the Mother The One is three, and they are the source, the continuation, and the end The One is She from whose eternal form and substance the universe is made, and who is thereafter called sustamer of the cosmos, beguiler and enchantress, dark ravisher of memory and life, and restorer and renewer of AH With this, the fragment breaks off 3
However, definitive research completed under the direction of Dr H H Remmiz, compiler of the final version of The Historv of Religious Iconography concluded that the Dark Lady persona was an important if not crucial manifestation of Great Mother, or Great Goddess as she was sometimes called In her role as Goddess she was said to possess wisdom, intuitive knowledge and inspiration, and the divine power of fecundity As supreme agent of fruitfuhiess, she was known as Gaea, or Earth Mother—the maternal link between heavenly and earthly worlds But as Dark Lady, she was intentionally shrouded in mystery, symbolizing the Priestess of Night, the Queen and Mistress of the Realm of No Return This domain was con sidered both the fount of womanhood and the well of death Deep in the Lad> s sanctuary was thought to lie the answer to the riddle of life and death as repository of all spiritual treasure Thus in its ambivalence, the figure of Great Mother was at one and the same time, that of the Terrible Mother who brings death and destruction, and the World Mother who contains the principle and spirit of all living things 4
This portrait of mystic duality is corrobo rated by entnes m the Summa of Ancient Belief and Practice (c 9050) 5 There seems
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little doubt that in numerous incarnations, Great Mother was simultaneously a protective and a dangerous force, constructive and destructive in complementary fashion Serving as the Mother of All Things, for example, she was accepted as the creatnx of the material universe alive with potential death Clearly, most evidence supports the view that Great Mother, or Cosmic Mother, had two clearly discernible aspects since she was the embodiment of all that is opposite and ambiguous Representing the universe in its balancing of the tension of all opposites, Great Mother came to mean both victory and defeat, oasis and desert She became what is and what is not, the mystic center from which all comes, to which all returns, and from which all comes again She became Wife, Lover, Daughter and Mother to the Universal Great God himself
A legend surrounding the appearance of a consort for the Paragon of Peace is contained in the Bios-Mythos Series It relates how the god, while meditating, envisioned the kernel of his heart opening Therein was revealed the Great Mother, who appeared as an image of the dawn of creation, the other of the Great One, aad queen over al] creatures in the universe She was holding in her the primal power of all existence, the source of all birth In this vision, she was the body of the worlds, the spirit of the transcendent, the cosmic dream from which Ml space and matter are derived 6
As a matter of record, an outer-world people, the Sehm, sanctified a Great Mother with two faces, symbolic of her role as reconciler of all antinomies Called by the Sehm the Mynad-Namcd-One, and Lady-of-Abundance, she was for them a reminder of fertility aad decay, dawn and darkness, saint and witch, wisdom and desire Her two faces showed love and hate, beauty and horror Sehm praise-poems (several have sur vived intact) indicate the two-fold view of Great Mother was a composite image of the principle of contradiction itself, without which the eternal process of creation would be impossible and without which the tension between the real and the ideal could not exist Their theology developed the myth of the sacramental murder of Great Mother whose
scattered body formed the creation of all the worlds of heaven and earth 7
Official studies of early agricultural societies, catalogued in the GEO section, Central Library, support the myriad nature symbolism of Great Mother m ancient agrarian cultures One such study, credited to Professor Ris Semajo, advances the theory that these cultures engaged in certain ntual practices involving Great Mother surrogates in order to ensure an abundant crop yield 8 He cites the myth of the Mother-as Cornucopia, m which her very substance was believed to nourish the popu lace for the duration of several cycles Prayers were offered to the Lady \Vomb and Tomb Occasionally, a beautiful young female would be selected to serve as holy incarnation of Lady Womb At the end of the harvest season, she would be dressed m robes of green and gold plaiitanes and sacnficially dedicated to Great Mother in gratitude and supplication
A primitive picto-disc, originating on Terra and donated to the Royal Archives by a private collector, depicts Great Mother as the Goddess of Night seated on a throne between two columns In her palm, she holds two keys She is crowned with a lunar crescent, and appears to lean sideways against an artifact bearing the inscription 'Sphinx The feet of the Goddess rest on a surface composed of dark and light squares The deciphering (able accompanying the disc makes the cryptic symbology plain Ihe columns represent solar and lunar principles Of the two keys, one is gold like the sun and signifies the bright light of reason, the other is silver like the moon signifying the lumi nescent light of imagination and intuition The lunar crescent of her crown symbolizes the eternal cycle that is the phenomenal universe The "Sphinx ' a symbol of cosmic riddles implies ambiguity The alternat ing squares below the Goddess feet image the contingent nature of all existence sub ject to chance and the law of opposites The whole plate is entitled 'Enigma "9
Historians of the Butlenan jihad noted that the image of Great Mother underwent a profound transformation as a result of several wandering religious sects teaching that she was Mother Witch, Sybil, and Sorceress in
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one She was characterized by their dogma as treacherous and subtle, covetous of subservience and surrender Named "Belladon" by them, she commanded respect and obedience, especially for die awesome prophetic and conjuring powers she was thought to possess Her being was reputed to be at home in the abyss between sacred and profane covenants At once terrible and beautiful, she was emblematized as a snakewoman who enchants her worshipers away from the path of righteous doing It was believed she poisoned the air with sweet sounds that bewitched die soul Some described her as the pain of the quest, the reality of suffering, and the absolute of self-surrender Others called her a devourer of men whose proper sign was the moon, which inflicts lunatic obsession and madness For them, she was the conjurer of all shapes and forms, the Witch of the World holding all in her primordial spell "'
Later ages restored to Great Mother a more benign countenance While vestiges of Mother Witch remained, these took on less mystical and more aesthetic form TheAzhar Book notes a superstition, popularly held in antiquity that the Witch-Mother, Anjana, was m reality a young and beautiful goddess with bright, light eyes and golden hair She would disguise herself as an old woman only in order to test the charity of her subjects Her true form, however, was clothed in a tunic of flowers and silver stars, symbolizing earth and heaven, procreation and spiritual regeneration She reputedly earned a golden staff which transformed all it touched into riches Her habitat was an underground bow er filled with the treasure of the spiritu
References to this more spiritual and idealized Great Mother are available m those portions of the ancient teachings handed down by the Navachnsttans of Chusuk.12 Their faith projected a Divine Mother image whose samtbness was depicted alternately as an aureole of stars about her head or a crown of joined hly stalks Known by her followers as Mother of Universal Chanty, she was associ ated with vegetation that is ever green and with die bloom called "amaranth," meaning unfading la various forms and guises, this Great Mother stood for devotion, care sympathy, and love
By virtue of the passive characteristics assigned to such a figure of Great Mother, her devotants increased considerably Though sometimes referred to as l.ady of the Fountain, she retained her image as guardian of the Everlasting Waters which are the source of life and regeneration Consequently, she appeared surrounded bv a nimbus of sanctity memorializing her role as fountasnhead of all innocence and mercy a mediator between earthly and heavenly realms In her being it was believed, all disparate elements are rec onciled and united
The flowering age of Great Mother wor ship saw her influence spread throughout the worlds Even in the last ages of the Impenum she was regarded as the eternal source who conceives and brings forth m solitary concep tion all that was, ail that is and all that will be Her presence was felt to open the door of dreams Exalted, she was the glorified parent, the healer, the protectress of eternal essence and infinite horizon But this Mother of the Water of Life was also the divine power of sorrow, the life that begets death as brilliant light must give way to deepest shadow Sym bolizing time and timelessness, direction and infinity, she was portrayed as Mother Spindle sewing the net of destiny in which all are caught and in which all will be saved
Numerous hymns ballads, and poems have been composed m praise of Great Mother The largest collection of these works was secured m the private library belonging to the Sisterhood and reserved for then" exclusive use 13 In addition to the collection's great aesthetic and historical value it was revered as a source of inspiration material Many selections were incorporated into pro grams designed for indoctrination and training, while other pieces (the hymns and odes particularly) were programmed for ceremonial occasions Though most of the items m the collection have no specified authorship, some of the finest recitations for unaccompanied voice are attributed to the troubador called Orfe whose origin and history are unknown GE NOTES
Cited m Izaak Seldon Ongin Myths in the Rakis Crystals Sofia 441 85
2Izaak Seldon, trans Apocrypkus A Collec
282
tioit of Great Mother Texts (Centraba Kutath Brothers) p 89
3Seldon Apocrypha pp 102 05
"H H Remmiz corop , the History of Rek gious Iconography Vol in (Richese Umv of Bailey Press) p xxv
5Pyer Bnizvair, ed Stanma of Ancient Belief and Practice (Boldief Collegium Tarno) e g items 7 10 and 38
'KG BflteonC?) Bfos-Mytho! Series Work m Progress, Arrays Stu&eB Temp Ser 83 Lib Conf) pp 7013
7Bmzvair Summa item 14
8R Semajo Ritual and Fertility Sofia 420 61 86
'RaklsRef Cat 435 F23
'°Bmzvair Summa item 107
'K R Barau? ed The AAar Book Vol 2 Arrakis Studies 49 (Grumman United Worlds) p 7
I2Ouma Mendahos ed The Catacomb Rolls of Refuge Vol 27 of Patrologta Diasporae (Liber mann Miller Press) esp ch 5
"Ratas Ref Cat BG1544 for example
HAUECK, OKrffiY. (10135-10226) The eldest son of August and Oltora Halleck, later Duke Leto Atreides Warmaster (in partner ship with Duncan Idaho)
The Hallecks were one of the Houses Minor of Chusuk (fourth planet of Thcta Shahsb) and were m the business of exporting musical instruments Their craftsmen pro duced instruments of high quality, as a result the Hallecks prospered from the sale of balisets, salleshorns, and lynflutes to custom ers througbout the Impenum Young Gurney akmg with his brother Kyfe and then* younger sister, Annette, was trained from his earliest years in the manufacture and use of fine instruments, and was expected to take over the ninmng of the family business when August retired He developed a real talent for the balisct, and in 10154 approached his parents with the notion of hiring himself out to entertain one of the Houses Major The attention attracted to their business he argued could only improve it and he was rapidly becoming convinced that he was a much better musician than businessman
It was a suggestion never to be acted on In 10155, following a trumped up declara tion of charges against House Euterpe (rulers of Chusuk and longtime allies of the Atreides
Dukes) House Harkonnen ordered an attack on Chusuk which left over a third of its industrial areas in rums More than fifty thousand captives were taken in the raid Gurney and Annette Halleck among them Ten times that number were killed including every other member of the Halleck family
This wave of murder and destruction was visited on the innocent people of Chusuk for two reasons First their sindar governor was an Atreides ally a strike against him was a strike against House Atreides and a strike which could be made in greater safety than one directed against House Harkonnen s true enemy Second Chusuk was a small rela lively undefended planet this made it the ideal place for Glossu Rabban just entering his uncle s patronage to conduct his first military action Baron Vladimir Harkonnen had no intention of testing the boy commander (Rabban was twenty three at this time) against a world capable of fighting back
Even at so early an age Rabban s bent for cruelty asserted itself After the attack he personally reviewed the many prisoners and divided them into three groups The first group consisting of strong healthy men was sent to the slave pits on Giedi Prime the Harkonnen homeworld Slave labor was one
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of the mainstays of that planet's economy, and Rabban knew that his contribution to the labor pool would be appreciated by the Baron Halleck was one of these
Women—but only young and attractive ones—made up the second group These unfortunates were to be dispatched to the pleasure houses the Harkonnens provided for their troops, Halleck's sister, a strikingly beautiful girt of eighteen, was one of the first women chosen
The third group was a small number of old people children, and those generally unfit for inclusion in the ranks of laborers and prostitutes These undesirables were put to the sword as Rabban watched
Halleck spent the decade from 10155 to 10165 on Giedi Prime as a Harkonnen stave In that brutal environment, where the average life expectancy of a worker was five years, the former musician managed to keep himself alive on the sheer strength of his hatred for his captors His labor exceeded any the youth had ever known—slaves, for example, dag in the emerald mines outside the capital city of Harko sixteen hours a day, with Harkonnen Family holidays their only rest—but he was toughened, not broken by it At night white the others lay exhausted, Halleck comforted himself by remembering the songs of Chusuk, songs of love and of the green planet be might never see again, and by composing new songs in his head
Next to the work, the most dangerous threat to Halleck came from his fellow slaves Given inadequate food and water, the survivors in the pits were those who learned to fight to defend their portion from the desperate and the greedy Despite his early revulsion at the day-to-day violence, Halleck de termmed to survive, he learned to fight with the single-minded fervor he had once applied to learning to strum the baliset And he never allowed himself to forget who had forced him to his new lessons
In 10164, during his ninth year of captivity, Halleck again met die man responsible for the deaths of his family Rabban, now appointed to govern Arrafcis—where he was thought of as a monster—in his uncle's name, was making a tour of the pits when Halleck was pointed out to him by one of the guards
The Count was intrigued by the other man's tenacity—of those slaves captured in the Chusuk raid, only Halleck remained alive— and called him over for a personal inspection
Defying the guard s whispered instruction to avert his gaze while being scrutinized by the Count, Halleck stared directly into his enemy's face with an expression of con tempt too obvious to be ignored The guard swung back his club preparing to knock this insolent slave to the ground, but Rabban ordered him to hold His curiosity piqued still further, Rabban demanded to know why Halleck was conducting himself so danger ously, didn't he realize, the Count asked, that he could be flayed alive for such disrespect7
Halleck s answer was direct and to the point he spat in his tormentor's face
Rabban flew into a rage Seizing an mkvme whip from the nearest guard, he ordered two other men to hold Halleck in place Then with a curse, he cracked the whip smartly along the line of Halleck s jaw Rabban was denied the satisfaction of hearing Halleck scream as the whip hit He had to content himself with watching the beet red tattoo nse on the skin the mkvme had struck before he stormed off without completing the tour Rabban did, however, remember to commute the death penalty for striking a Harkonnen he said he wanted the slave to live to enjoy the caress of the mkvme
One song written during the years in the rmnes, (c 10164) expresses the pain of slavery, of which the mkvme bear wab only the visible reminder
Lost on Giedi s waste lost in the wind's breath, Wounded by beasts and vines and blows and
care
Waste world Giedi giving only pain and death, Pain and death pain and death, but I bear Though nights and days mix slip blend I bear as blood dries and hearts rend
Sleep blesses my n ghtmares now my days Days pace year long where I live and cannot die Where I die and cannot live lost in ways Past help and hope in the dark I he But I bear bear and wait It comes I wait For the joys of home or the thrills of hate
Somewhat less than a year later, House Atreides (in answer to yet another attack-of
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provocation against an ally) sent a force against Giedi Prime itself The killing of civilians, as well as undue damage to property, was for the most part avoided Duke Leto Atreides knew the Harkonnen s soft spot and aimed directly at it he ordered his troops to release and rescue every Harkonnen slave they could find Halleck was among those freed
The former slaves were taken to Caladan, the Atreides fief, and given a choice Those who had relatives, friends, homes on other worlds were free to contact them and arrange for passage back Those who, on the other hand, lacked any other place to go or wished to begin anew were welcome to sign on with House Atreides The Atreides, it was stressed, kept no slaves Anyone who chose to join their service could be certain of being treated fairly, of being free to leave that service at any time (other than under conditions of war), and of Duke Leto's loyalty m exchange for his own
Halleck explained to the recruiting officer that he would be delighted to enter Atreides service, With one condition that if he could locate Annette, and arrange her escape, he would be allowed to keep her with him The officer readily agreed, but could offer Halleck little hope He was too familiar with the practices inside tte Harkonnen pleasure-houses to believe that Annette Halleck would still be alive after ten years, much less within reach of rescue
In 10165, tiien, at the age of thirty, Halleck found himself embarked on a new career— soldiering The fighting skills he had learned in the pits of Giedi Prime made a good foundation for his training in modem war fare and, when combined with his fanatic loyaky to his new liege, made him a terrifying man for an enemy to face in battle His officers made note of him, commended him, saw to it that he was promoted, he had a place ia Leto's military council by the time he turned forty He was happy in his work, feeling mat he had at last found the role for which he was ideally smted He had even— slowly at first, then with increasing confidence when he saw that his playing was received well by his fellows—returned to the bahset, astonished at how much of his early
training he still remembered Freed now to sing out the pain he had held m for so long, Halleck set to work (With the later appointment of Duncan Idaho as Warmaster jointly with Halleck he had more time for his music, and wrote down the songs composed in his mind in his years of slavery As just two examples of his versatility, see his Desert Hymn and The Flaming Dames at me end of this essay)
Although he had followed many leads over the years Halleck was never able to discover what had become of his sister In 10176 however, the answer came to him A Har konnen officer had made the mistake of taking an Atreides agent into his confidence and had explained a large facial scar as a souvenir of a girl m a pleasure-house on Larange, a planet in the same sector as Chusuk The Harkonnen remembered the girl vividly after more man twenty years, she had seized the knife foolishly left on his belt and after slashing at him, had fallen on it
The agent, with Halleck's quest in mind, put out inquiries and found that the girl was undoubtedly Annette Halleck, and that the incident had occurred on her first da) at the Harkonnen facility she had at least been spared a life of brutalization The agent then arranged for the Harkonnen officer involved to be implicated in the sale of some very important military secrets The Harkonnen reputation being what it was, it could be safely assumed that the officer suffered con siderably more before his death than had Annette Halleck
All this was passed on to one of Halleck's aides, and thus to Halleck, on the eve of a battle m the Grumman campaign Even seasoned veterans in the Atreides service spoke for many years of the ferocity with which Halleck led the following days' blood-bath against the Harkonnen forces
The battle on Grumman was the first campaign in service for Duncan Idaho, a new recruit Halleck was highly impressed by the young man's fighting and took him as a proteg6 Idaho rose in the Atreides ranks even more quickly than his mentor had, becoming the House's swnrdmaster (responsible, with Halleck and Thufir Hawat for the training of Paul Atreides) in 10182 By
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this time Halleck had been appointed War master a post he shared equally with his former pupil by 10184
In 10190, Halleck went to the desert planet Arrakis with Duke Leto—appointed governor—and the Atreides household The Harkonnen Sardaukar attack on Arrakis in 10191 followed
HalleUt, along with the survivors of the force he commanded, joined forces with a group of smugglers He lived and worked with this group for two years, believing that House Atreides no longer existed and that the Lady Jessica had betrayed both husband and son to the Harkonnens Existing as he had in the pits on Giedi Prime—rcvenge his only motivation—Halleck subordinated his gnef to his anger and bided his time, awaiting his opportunity to strike
When his band was captured by Muad'Dib (the young Duke he had believed dead) in 10193, Halleck believed that IBS chance to avenge himself on the traitor had been given him He seized Lady Jessica tit knifepoint shortly after his arrival at the Cave of Buds and demanded she confess her treachery to Duke Lett) Only Paul's explanation regarding the way Dr Yueh's Imperial Conditioning had been broken convinced Halleck that he had erred
After this incident, and Lady Jessica's instant forgiveness, Halleck was her most obedient servant When the Lady returned to Caladan in 10196, he asked for and received permission to accompany and guard her
Scholarly opinion concerning Halleck's relationship with Lady Jessica after their return to the Atreides's old fief is divided In The Errant Sister, the most exhaustive biography of the Lady yet discovered, researcher Chatan S Meed advances the theory that the two became lovers before their departure for Caladan White his case is logically built, and his evidence sound—quotations from letters written by the Lady Jessica to Pnn cess Irulao, for example, in which she refers to Halleck as 'my most beloved friend' and makes her affection for the man quite obvious—it is entirely possible that the friendship between Halleck and his liege-lady was no more than a bond between companions who had suffered and triumphed together for
many years and wished to share a quiet retirement It should also be noted that Leto II mentions no such intimacy between the two in his version of the Atreides family history and that he, other than any but the Lady or Halleck could best confirm its existence Until more concrete evidence to the contrarv can be uncovered, caution decrees that rumor should be ignored and their comradeship be considered exactly that
In 10218, Halleck was again on Arrakis, having accompanied Lady Jessica on her journey to discover the true condition of her daughter Alia, and her grandchildren Leto and Ghanima Evidently she had revealed to him her knowledge that Aha had succumbed to Abomination, and her terror that her grandchildren might be similarly afflicted On her orders, Halleck arranged for the capture of Leto II then a boy of rune and subjected him to the boy's own version of the test-mashad (the Fremen expression for a tnal which is either passed honorably or not survived, a test of the soul) Leto's test consisted of being observed and questioned before, during, and after his exposure to large doses of melange it was believed that the spice-trance the drug induced had led Aha into possession, any indication that Leto would follow the path she had taken would require his death
To assist him in conducting the test—and, perhaps more importantly to kill the boy should it prove unavoidable—Halleck had taken a Fremen named Namn father of one of Aha s chief priests Only when the test was nearing its conclusion did Halleck learn that Namn's true alliance was with Aha and that the instructions and notes from Lady Jessica" had in reality been forged by her daughter Namn, arter revealing himself, discovered that Halleck was not the soft easily bettered off-worlder the Fremen thought and paid for his mistake with his life
Had Namn but lived to see it, Halleck s next action would have astonished him even more donning the slam Fremen's robes for disguise, Halleck walked into the desert, called a worm and rode it to Tuck s Sietch on the inner hp of False Wall
As soon as possible after his arrival at the sietch, Halleck stole a 'thopter and used it
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to escape to one of the small rebel sietches at Gara Rulen He was met there by Leto who wore what Halleck believed to be an odd type of stillsmt (it was actually the sandtrout skin the boy had made his own) and led the blind man known as The Preacher
The Bene Gessent training which Lady Jessica had given him during their years on Caldddn convinced Halleck of two things that Leto spoke the truth when he denied being possessed, and thai Hie Preacher was, as had been rumored, Paul MuatTDib Atreides On the basis of those truths, Halleck agreed to return to Arrakeea with Leto and his father
His presence there could not prevent Paul s being killed denouncing his sister to an angry crowd, but Halleck felt no guilt Years of association with die Atreides, combined with the teachings of his mistress, had shown Halleck how little the actions of an individual mattered in the face of history—or of legend
Leto II, immediately after his assumption of the tfaroae, sent Halleck as his advisor in Stilgar's Council at Stetcn Tabr A faithful servant of House Atreides to (he end, he performed this function until his death m 10226
His demise marked the passing of the last of the original Duke Leto's advisors and his funeral was conducted with the ceremony and respect generally reserved for those of a much higher caste Lady Jessica made one last trip back front Caladan to pay her respects to her loyal servant and friend, and the emperor himself presided over the rites following the public service, Halleck's body was taken to Sictch Tabr for die private rretnen ceremony he had requested The watercounters representing his water were given to Leto H, who is believed to have kept them among his most prized possessions throughout his long life C W
Fwrtfcer reference*; ATOEIDES, JESSICA
I mid II, ATRBIDBS, tMJLt OffiDI PRIME RABBAN COUNT OLOSSU, Owttn S Meed, The Errant Sister B G Foun dafton Studies 9 (Diana. Tevis) lumper Atreo comp Diary e/f ait Assassin A Biography a$ Gurney Halleck Anabs Studies 25 (Orumman United Worlds)
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HARAH
HARAH. (10157-10221) Wife by custom of Paul Atreides, widow of Jsmis, nurse of Alia, Leto, and Ghanima Atreides, wife of Stilgar The second bom of twin daughters to Yajna, wife of the FremcD Dako. Harah was destined for a vigorous, fulfilling life intimately entwined with House Atreides
The maternal impulse that was to be Harah's driving force surfaced early, most noticeably after the bath of her sister Elam The protectiveaess and tenderness she showered on her infant sister foreshadowed the solicitude she was to lavish not only on her own children but oa those of the Atreides family as well Indeed, Harah was never so happy as when she was carmg for someone or something
As OK rhapsodic lines in her Memoirs tell us, the growth of the meanest planet was a source of joy Harah conveys her delight on seeing the first shoots in flic potting rooms, and then devotes pages to detailing the pro cess of planting die dunes, of setting the dew collectors, and of nurturing the seedlings until they established themselves Every page speaks to us of her pleasure and gratification in being involved with hvmg tilings "Surely," she writes, "there can be no more fulfilling joy man fostering and sustaining life '
Numerous records recount the fulfillment of Harah's early promise of beauty A tall woman of sensual slimness in her full maturity, Harah was remarkable with her raven hair olive skin and sinking angular features—a stunning woman eagerly sought after by the men of her sietch until won bv Geoff The placidity of her life with Geoff a shy man, was disturbed only when he was challenged by the formidable Janus—a challenge that could have only one conclusion
As Jarms' woman, as a desert fighter par excellence, and as the mother of Kaleff (by Geoff) and Orlop (by Janus), Harah found the tempo of her life quickening The greater portion of her days was spent m the stilisuit shops or the planting areas, but she devoted much time to rearing her sons and creating the home she wanted for Janus when he returned from his forays or patrols Harah's fnend Mirjna al Chima notes in her Journal that then yali, with its smooth, clean stone floor, its filmy orange hangings in the doorways, its glowglobes and bright fabrics, its carpets warm under foot and rooms piled with soft cushions, was the envy of the sietch
Harah's years with Jamis were good years full of achievement and family happiness This domestic peace was shattered, however, when news reached Sietch Tabr of Jamis' death at the Cave of the Ridges Bred as a Fremcn she met the blow as a Fremen her grief would be private 111 mourn Jamis, ' she wrote in her Memoirs, "m the proper time " Her innate resilience allowed her to meet and accept what destiny had next in store for her
Not that she had much choice her future was set b) Fremen custom and tradition By law, Jamis yah and all his possessions, ex eluding the funeral gifts but including his wife and sons, belonged to Paul Muad'Oib, the stripling who had dispatched Janus Thus, Harah became Paul's for one year, to take as wife or servant, after which time she would be free to choose as she wished Over Harah's objections, Paul accepted her as servant
Although her pride was hurt by Paul s rejection of her charms Harah set aside her vanity with a practicality that surprised Paul and devoted herself to serving hun as one
HARAfc
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she respected and came to love Her content was augmented when Jessica asked her to be the infant Alia s nurse When Paul took Cham as his concubine, Harah was not jeal ous but rejoiced at their happiness
When the women and children of Sietch Tabr were forced to flee the pogrom of the Harkonnen governor Harah went with them as an honored member of Paul s household Though lonely m exile, Harah busied herself as Aha s guardian aad governess Trying to control a child like Alia was a frustrating job made more difficult by Alia's knowing and speaking of things beyond her years and by flouting traditional modes of behavior But Harah s devotion to Alia was unflagging, as evidenced by this passage from the Memoirs-"Alia is like my own flesh because she is sister to one who is like my brother I've watched over her and guarded her from the time she was a mere babe—and I always will"
Besides raising Alia and becoming indis pensable to her husband Stilgar in the years that followed Paul's ascendance to the emperor's throne* Harah became Cham s closest female friend As dam's intimate she stood at the side of her fncnd when she gave birth to the Atreides twins, Leto and Ghanirna, and watched stone-faced as Chain died It was her terrible duty to guide the now completely blind Paul Muad'Dib first to the creche that held his children and wen to the pallet that held Chant's body
Harah was able to perform her last duty for her fnend to be observer of the holy truth and stand beside Cham for the last time at tile deathstill At Paul's request, Harah, as a fnend of the mother, also stood beside Paul at die time of the naming of his son Leto for his paternal grandfather and of his daughter-over Harah* s understandable objections (in Fremen xhanima meant a spoil of war)— Ghanima
With Cham dead and Paul swallowed by the desert, Harah felt destiny had once more called her to play the role in which she excelled, the Atreides twins needed a mother But the joy was tempered by disquiet for these children were much as Alia had been exasperating, unsettling, and sometimes terrifying However, with her Fremen back
ground, her sagacity and the weirding ways she had learned from Paul she proved to be a match for the precocious twins
Coming to love the twins as her own Harah was devastated by the news that Leto had fallen victim to Laza tigers She con soled herself by trying to console Ghanima to ease the pain Harah applied herself to providing Stilgar with every comfort She gave minute attention to his wardrobe and yah, supervising even the smallest house keeping detail—preparing coffee for example just as Stilgar preferred it grinding fresh roasted beans to a fine powder in a stone mortar then boiling immediately with a pinch of melange
But once again the evenness of her days was shattered hj a crisis early one morning Stilgar called her to view the dead bodies of Javid and unbelievably Duncan Idaho and to tell her that he had sent Buer Agarves to Alia with his final obedience But the abductors Agarves had unwittingly led to the djedida overwhelmed the fugitives and car ned them off to Arrakis and Alia s prison cells
While not present in Aha s quarters m the Keep on that disastrous day when House Atreides established its millennial dynasty Harah heard the terrible news soon enough the death of Paul (the Preacher), the suicide of Alia, the seduction of Farad n the meta morphosis of Leto
Though she w as still vigorous at the time of Paul s and Aha s deaths the following years saw Harah fade quickly Their deaths it seems especially that of Alia preceded by her transformation into true Abomination diminished her That strong maternal dnve that defined the essense of Harah was struck a mortal blow When she died in her sleep at Sietch Tabr the one place m the universe she would have undoubtedly chosen for her end the entire sietch joined by the royal family at Arrakeen mourned her and accorded her a full ntual funeral—as was fitting D K
Further references Harah The Memoirs of a Sietch Woman tr Steewan Duunalazan (lopaz Carolus UP) Snlgar ben Fifrawi The Stilgar Chronicle tr Mityau Gwulador AS 5 (Grumman United Worlds) Mirjna al Chima Memoirs Rakis Ref Cal 7 Z101
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HARKONNEN FEYD RAUTHA
HARKONNEN, FEYD-RAOTHA, (10174-10193) Son of Abuluid Rabban (n6 Harkonnen) and the concubine Thora Rabban grandson of the Bashar Gunseng Harkoanen, nephew of Vladimir Harkonnen, Sindar-Baron, younger brother of Glossu Beast' Rabban
It is known that Feyd-Rautha was a piece m the genetic pattern created by the Bene Gessent whose intention was to breed him with the daughter of Duke Leto Atreides and his concubine Lady Jessica, and thus create the Kwisatz Haderach Lady Jessica, however, disobeyed the orders of the Bene Gessent and bore a son forever closing off the possibility of that union The whole of this genetic pattern is still unknown However, the discovery of part of a monograph (RRC #6(794a) concerning the Boron Vladimir Harkonnen fouad in the nduhan crystals sheds some small light on the possibilities of Feyd-Rautha's ancestty
The Baron Harkonnen chose Feyd-Rautha and his older brother Glossu to become members of his household when a directive of the Bene Gessent indicated that one of them would display the manipulative military genius of the baron's historical idol, Emperor Avelard XVII Avelard kept a number of Gamont-tfamcd concubines in his court, one of whom was a member of the Bene Gessent and bore Avelard; his only daughter, the Lady Kai-Seran, also trained by the Bene Gessent
For the next two centimes, every female descendant of die original union between Avelard and his concubine became a member of the Bene Gessent, including two who became Reverend Mothers One daughter, the Lady Theresa du Gate, mamed Emperor Josrf VII
Josif was so well trained by his wife in Bene Gessent ways that a popular joke dur ing his reign unkindly referred to mem as our "Reverend Father and Mother ' Together they perfected such a ruthless manipulation of their subjects using Bene Gessent tactics that the wealth produced during their reign has never been equalled The monograph assumes that this union, and that of Avelard and his Bene Gessent concubine, were of major interest to Vladimir Harkonnen m his adoption of his nephews into his household Perhaps the baron concluded that the boys
were direct line descendants of Avelard and two centuries of Bene Gessent gene patterning
Feyd-Rautha was not only a failed genetic pawn for the Bene Gessent but also a failed political pawn for his uncle, the baron had wished to see Feyd Rauthd on the throne From his earliest days in the baron s household, Feyd-Rautha was trained m the sophistry and intricacies of man-to-man combat, including such unorthodox techniques as killing his training partners But the most significant thing he was taught was to hate House Atreides
One of the best documented events of Feyd-Rautha's short life was his seventeenth birthday celebration, when he killed his one-hundredth slave gladiator in the family games The killing of the slave typified Feyd Rautha's disobedience to all rules or guidelines estab hshed for fair play m combat To stoke his own ego, Feyd Rautha conspired m a plan devised by the baron s Mental Thufir Hawat (see entry THUFIR HAWAT) While it was traditional to drug the slave, this tune it was not done Also traditional was the weanng of a white glove on the hand that held the poisoned knife and a black glove on the hand mat did not Feyd-Rautha reversed them Additionally, the slave was conditioned to respond to a word signal which would render him helpless What made the event remarka ble was that, m spite of all the disadvantages the slave nearly killed him it was probably the closest to a fair fight that Feyd Rautha had yet seen
It is believed that Feyd Rautha learned more than perverse combat skills in his uncle's house Repeated mentions have been found in standard biographies of Baron Harkonnen that his preferred sexual objects were adoles cent boys, his favorite being his young nephew Feyd Rautha was himself homosexual, with only rare occasions of heterosexual liaisons with slave women There is documentation of a sexual relationship with Margot Lady Fennng but all evidence suggests that it took place under the expert Bene Gessent manipulations of Lady Fennng in a further attempt to produce the Kwisatz Haderach, rather than because Feyd Rautha desired sex ual contact with a member of the opposite sex (see entry LADY MARGOT FENRTNG)
HARKONNEN, GUNSENG
HARKONNEN, GUNSENG
Thanks to the baron's careful teachings Feyd-Rautha hated his cousin and rival, Paul Atreides, more than anything in the universe. (There is some evidence to suggest that this animosity was exacerbated by the baron's sexual attraction to Paul.) It was this ingrained hatred that goaded Feyd-Rautha to challenge Paul to a duel following the emotionally charged confrontation between Paul and Emperor Shaddam IV upon the emperor's attempted takeover of the planet Arrakis.
Both young men had been trained intensively in various methods of combat, with Feyd-Rautha additionally trained to be ruthless and to take advantage of every trick available. Paul had bees taught to be aware of the tricks, but this sense of integrity would not allow him to use any. Though he knew that Feyd-Rautha's training had included sensitivity to a code wont that would render him momentarily weak, Paul did not use the word, even when he saw dial Feyd-Rautha intended to kill him with a poisoned needle. In the coarse of the duel, Paul took advantage of the projecting needle, immobilized Feyd-Rautha against the floor, and drove home the point of his own blade through Feyd-Rautha's jaw and into bis brain. At the age of nineteen, Feyd-Rautha died, as ignobly as he had lived.
(In addition to the references below, insight into the personality of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen may be obtained from a reading of Harq al-Harba's play Shaddam IV, in which Feyd-Rautha is a major character. Though it is a work of fiction, the play offers what many consider to be valid historical and psychological revelations concerning the life and personality of a badly used and abused young man.) L.L.
i; HAffKONNEN,. VlvUMMIR; RABBAN,
GLOSSU; Ktevmz D. Kiiaar, Fear Mj Power, Respect My Name: Tea Thousand Years efHarkonnms (Oicdi Prime. Trammel); Marya Voo Wiikhciscr. House Harkonneit, tr. Arazrii Pexb, Studies in Atreictean History 76 (Paseo: Institute of Galacto-Fremen Culture).
HARKONNEN, (H1NSENG. (10079-10130). Siridar-Baron of Giedi Prime, father of Vladimir Harkonnen. The most colorful account of this unusual man is given in the diaries of Sil, Reeve Perrin, in which that
mysterious poetic wanderer gives his observations of several Great Houses. In the second volume, Pearh Before Swine, he tells of his first visit to the Harkonnen court:
Gunseng, I saw at once, was not the Harkonnen goon of which his house had been so productive. He looked out of place there—slight, fair, with large watery eyes. But the old bastard Granuk, his father, had to make the best of it; he had killed every son but Gunseng to better his chances of dying quielly in bed. That happy event could not be far distant, because Granuk had vices in number to match his jowls. I never smelled so foul a moral stench as that of his casde. Where Gunseng—a flower among the weeds—came from, only the Bcne Gesserit knows.
And the lad is a musician! With nothing else to do, he studied the baliset and corpedal in his rooms while the danse-macabre went on downstairs. He knew what was going on, though, and looked like he had learned to survive. When the blood stopped flowing and he became Baron Harkonnen, he vowed to improve the house. Poor fool! Nothing short of a stonebumer would improve House Harkonnen. I was thankful just to get away before some ignorant sycophant with martial inclinations killed me.
The "blood flowing" Sil mentions refers to Granuk's circulation, not to carnage following his death. The transition was smooth.
Granuk succumbed to a nervous disease that reduced him to a skeleton, and barricaded himself in chambers behind protection only a tyrant would find inadequate. Gunseng, then twenty-three, seemed incapable of controlling the rowdy house. But like the unprepossessing heirs of whose stories history is full, Gunseng disproved appearances. While his father lay on his deathbed, Gunseng knew his survival was in jeopardy. Taking advantage of the palace paranoia, he managed to reach his father's ear and coaxed from him an order for the execution of certain military officers and commanders of the elite guard. We cannot now verify the possibility of a coup, but Gunseng was privy to more knowledge than even his father suspected, and his later career demonstrated his ability to smell out power plays When Granuk died within days, Gunseng's placement of his own men in the vacated positions ensured his succession.
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HARKONNEN, GUNSENG
Gunseng married Muertana, Lady Sarobella, to cement a union with that house. She bore him three sons, the first of whom died in infancy, Araskin, a club-footed giant, and Vladimir. He also fathered Abulurd (Rabban) by the concubine Gunella Sorvag.
Gunseng set about building a strong foundation of financial investments and political alliances, with the help of his mental, Chardin Klees, and, from the age of twelve, his favored son Vladimir, Aside from Klees, chosen as much for his human sentiments as for his mental abilities, Gunseng was the only friend Vladimir had. Among these three existed a trust and affection unique in the history of House Harkoimen.
At forty-nine, Gunseng became involved in an unofficial kanly with bis wife's house, Sarobella, that would eventually cause his death. Through deft market manipulations, he had gained several CHOAM franchises for which Sarobella had been his chief rival. Success meant tine dominance of one House over the other, so Gunseng moved carefully lest Sarobella be provoked into declaring open war. However, he knew he must eliminate Sarobella eventually. The resourceful Chardin orchestrated a proces verbal against the rival house, charging that Duke Fernandez conspired to increase his CHOAM holdings at the expense of House Corrino. Klees' arguments were bold but convincing. Duke Fernandez was discovered dead one morning and his planet occupied by Sardaukar as a "stabilizing force."
The death of her father turned Muertana's feelings toward Gunseng from indifference to hatred. Sil, Reeve Ferrin was again on the scene for the last act m the drama:
I never planned to return to Giedi, but Gunseng's surprising longevity gave me second thoughts, Everyone knew that Sarobella had united with Haifconnea in marriage to absorb and overthrow Gtmaeng. But they underestimated him, and when he succeeded in avoiding chaumarky and poison needles in his clothes, I decided the relative stability of his reign was a good opportunity to visit.
! win sever know why Gunseng didn't execute Muerana out of hand following the overthrow of Sarobella. Perhaps he thought her powerless, retained a mistaken fondness for the
mother of his sons, merely pitied her, or may simply have grown weary of die deadly intrigue. Who knows? But he had become depressed, and as his judgment eroded, his command began to falter.
You had then but to visit a Harko watering-place to hear of Araskin's exploits m the arena, private affairs with drugged slaves pushed into combat against the crippled giant while Muertana watched with relish- The tale went that Gunseng arranged these mortal minuets to satisfy the killer frustration of Muertana and the martial fantasies of Araskin. He would gut his foes in fury; she would be the first to cry for a head 1 saw one of these "games" myself, and suspected that House Harkonnen was on the drop to a new nadir, one not long in coming.
Gunseng had arranged a formal dinner to celebrate the spoils from Sarobella, with all the minor aristocrats in attendance, hi his degeneracy, he permitted Muertana to sit at one end of the table, but given the occasion it must have been the cruelest humiliation Vladimir and Araskin were seated on his right and left.
I was present as poet en passage, to warm up me evening with verse for a solo by Vladimir, but it never happened Gunseng toasted the future prosperity of his house, whereupon they all emptied their goblets Then Araskin, already drunk and prompted perhaps by a signal from his mother, turned and brought his cup down on his father's head with all his might. Gunseng fell dead and Araskin threw himself on his brother, squeezing Vladimir's throat with those huge hands.
Only two persons remained calm, Muertana and Chardin Klees. Moving resignedly to the struggling figures, Klees touched a needle to Araskin's neck, killing him instantly. Then he started to turn to the Baroness when Vladimir cried "Hold!" The boy was breathing heavily, staring at his father. I could see that the fingers on his throat and the murder of Gunseng had worked their transformation. The new Baron was the picture of his grandfather Granuk
"Don't kill her," he said.
"It should have been done before," Klees responded. (Muertana must have been mad by then; she actually chuckled.)
"No," said Vladimir, "I will take care of— mother. You guards, see to the bodies, now!"
Muertana laughed as they took her away, and that was the end of the banquet. One heard the wildest rumors about the subsequent events; I give here guesses and gossip.
After the immediate cremation of the two bodies, according to the Sardaukar ritual.
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Vladimir visited his mother m her chambers Some say the Black Widow actually offered herself to her son Vladimir was driven to a frenzy During those long hours before dawn, who knows how he dealt with his mother One says he succumbed, another says he tortured her, another Hunks, he did both Whatever the truth, Muertana was found strangled in her bed the next morning Now Vladimir had his chance to be either Granuk or Gunseng S T
Furthtr references HARKONNEN VLADIMIR, RABBAN GLOSSU Sil Reeve Pernn Notes of a Will o the Wisp tr T H Erussus (Fides Manx)
HARKONNEN, HOUSE OF. Successively Colonel Bashars of the Sardaukar, Dukes of Eluzai, Emperors of the known universe, Counts of Hirtius Lords Tupelo, Dukes Chamizai, Barons Saugus, Smdar-Counts of Touro, Barons Plymmon, and Sindar-Barons of Arrakis, distaff titles include Lords Rabban, Counts of Lankiveil, Barons Rautha, Lords Feyd, and Lords Monulla The Harkonnens claim descent from Count Palatgo Comno, grandfather of Sheuset I, founder and first ruler of the empire, according to their traditions, Sheuset's father, Count Costin, was a denubrotfaer of Hartconnen Qtoeshev, the first Harkonnen mea&oBed in historical records, this claim has not been proved, however Some historians claim that Obeshev was actually the son of a trashman who seduced one of Costin's daughters or sisters The Harkonnens further claim common an cestry with the Cotnnos in the Palaiologoi, the last ruling house of die Byzantine Empire, via Constantiae XI's youager brother, Thomas Palaiologos Finally, through Harkonnen Obeshev's wife, Lasia Pozzo di Borgo, this family claims descent from Kinl* Romanov, cousin to Nifcoiai II, Russia's last tsar, and heir to his empty throne
As with many of the Great Houses, the Harkonaeos' fortunes rose and fell many tunes over the centuries Obeshev's son Abuhird Harkonnen, a Colonel Bashar in the Sardaukar, was given command over one of the five fleets thai constituted Sheuset I's mam force at the key Battle of Comn, in 88 B G When it appeared that the battle was going against Sheuset, Harkonnen withdrew his fleet to a rearguard position, awaiting the
outcome, only the timely intervention of Demetrios Atreides provided the impetus that won the day for Sheuset, resulting m the establishment of the empire Because of Harkonnen s close relationship with the now royal family, he was spared execution, however, he and his family were banished from the Impenum indefinitely Abulurd Harkonnen blamed Demetnos Atreides for his disgrace, and vowed vengeance for himself and for his house
Abuiurd's demibrother. Ivan Harkonnen, was spared the family's disgrace through his selfless act of courage in giving his life to save those he commanded, his son, Nikolai Harkonnen, was created Duke of Eluzai in 82 B G , and awarded several lucrative wine monopolies Nikolai s descendant, Saudir Harkonnen, usurped the throne from the Regent Henli al-Qair in 388, becoming Saudir in, he was himself overthrown and murdered in a palace revolt by the Sardaukar who rescued the blinded ex-emperor Wallach I, from his pnson cell, and restored him to his former position Saudir's family was butchered by the rampaging guards, who raped and then strangled his widow, battered three of his children against the walls of his bedroom, and even killed his pet birds One son, Duke Saudir E, escaped the carnage Saudir had made Abulurd's descendant Yevgeny Har konnen the Cuunt of Hirtius, returning him to civilized space, and giving him a small estate on the planet Powys, in the Mandalay Sector Yevgeny now returned the favor by sheltering Saudir II from questing troops, and raising him as one of his own sons The young Saudir gained his revenge in 445, when he organized a revolt of the provincial Sardaukar, and took the throne in a brief battle that deposed and exiled Sheuset II Saudir IV, as he was now called, ruled six brief years before succumbing to an infected monkey bite He never married, and the Duchy of Eluzai became extinct at his death
For centuries thereafter, the Harkonnens, while not officially disgraced, nonetheless filled the role of businessman and planetary squire, and stayed out of Imperial politics Count Abulurd III was stripped of his title when he refused to support the Imperial aspirations of Regent Harmon II al-Qair in
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601, he regained it two years later when Audrn I seized the throne, but was disgraced a second time when his son, losif Harkonnen, was discovered in bed with the emperor s son The Harkonnens were demoted to their lesser title of Lords Tupelo, and were required to pay a large fine into the Imperial treasury
Lord Aleksandr IV Harkonnen (reigned 966 1029) supported the ambitions of his demicousm, Feyd al-Feyd, engineering his election to the throne m 1027, reyd returned the favor by having Aleksafldr executed in 1029, and placing his small son, Count Vladimir n, m a foster home Vladimir was raised without the knowledge of his father's background, when I%yd D was murdered by his officers in 1099, the new emperor Josif I of the Alman Comao line issued an edict restoring all lost titles, lands, and properties to their original owners before the accession of Feyd I, where families no longer existed, the land reverted to the crown, and new grants of nobility and estates were issued to JosiPs supporters Wadimir Harkonnen be came Duke of Chanazai
About this time the Harkoaaeas were first proposed for membership among the Great Houses, the Harkonnen family had always been enterprising, specializing m the trading of goods for profit, die renting of mercenaries and the pursuit of exotic luxuries for the wealth To translate these assets into power required political acceptance of their family as one of the elite Vladimir Harkonnen persuaded Count Ernst von Wikkheiser to sponsor a resolution in the Landsraad propos ing the Harkonnens as a voting house, the motion failed by a small number of votes when the Atteides spoke against it
At the death of Emperor Henoor in in 1604 without immediate heirs, Duke Abuiurd VI attempted to seize power himself, bribing the Commander of the Satdaukar, Col Bashar Nadab Nadar, to institute a popular 'draft' of Harkonnen over the other possible and potential successors among the Comno Cousines Abuiurd was able to purchase much support from the poorer Great Houses, but so were several of the other contenders, and civil war seemed certain, with a possible disiategnrtioE of the empire, until Count
Phihppos Atreides persuaded a special ses sion of the Landsraad that time was needed to sort out the various contentions of the heirs, and that a Regency controlled by the Landsraad would be the appropriate vehicle with which to settle the opposing claims Abuiurd earned his objections from the as sembly to his awaiting fleet, and was on the verge of attacking the Landsraad meeting site when the Atreides challenged him to kanly Abuiurd accepted the challenge and the match was held before the assembled Houses, with the Impenum at stake Har konnen was defeated after a match lasting more than an hour the Landsraad then brought a bill of attainder forward while Abulurd's body lay bleeding on the dais the Harkonnens were stripped of their titles and possessions, and exiled once again Man) of the family were killed by kanly challenges from the other Great Houses all of Abuiurd s chil dren were killed m this way before they could flee, as well as many of his cousins brothers and cousmes one grandson Irakln Harkonnen sold several of his precious jew els before they could be confiscated, used the money to buy passage on a ship to the nm planets, and there purchased a disguise and new name, setting himself up in busi ness as a weapons salesman to frontier worlds ' Rak Kharn " as he called himself, soon found that he could sell more weapons where weapons were being actively used, instead of advertising, as other businessmen might have done, he used some of his capital to foment civil disobedience, revolts, small scale civil wars, political unrest, vendettas, and religious pogroms The results were astonishing Iraklu discovered that he could increase his profits by selling an advanced weapon to one faction, peddling information about that weapon to the other faction s spies, and then disposing of the weapon m turn to the first group's enemies By such enterprise he be came a rich man, and determined to restore his family's honor Carrying his knack for creating chaos to the interplanetary level, he stimulated so much unrest that Regent Maria Mustami was forced to resign her position in 1680 her successor Damiano Fulgencio followed suit within two weeks leaving the Landsraad in the unhappy position of having
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a Regency with no Regent During the ensu ing interregnum, the only government that existed on an Impenum wide basis was a loosely-organized committee of Great Houses
Iraklu rooted out a distant Comno heir Prince Corrm bin Alman bin Henoor and promoted the restoration of the Cornnos as a solution to the Impenum's ills This lone hope in the midst of chaos seemed a divine solution to the harried ranks of the Great Houses, and they elected the pretender emperor as Cornn IV in 1701 One of Cornn's first acts was to introduce the Harkonnen name to the ranks of the Great Houses, naming Irakbi Baron Saugus, m the Colton Sector, and pressing the Landsraad to confirm his actions, which Ihey did m 1717
Noteworthy Harkonnen s during die ensuing centuries and millennia include
Baron Vasiln IV, who claimed to have received a vision from God in the year 1988, and founded the New Islambahai Church, sometimes called the Last Church of Chnst,
Sindar-Count Konstantut II, who renounced his title m 2444, gave up all of his possessions, and became a hermit on the desert planet of Arrakis He returned to his home a year later, claiming to have been deluded when he signed his abduction, and sumg for restoration of his lands and titles when his son, SmdarCount Pavel VIII, refused to return them Hie Landsraad, as court of last resort, finally decided to split the estates, and made bom of them jorat Smdar-CQunts, the only such instance in Imperial History,
Smdar-Couat Ateksei Haritonnea, murdered by his wife in 2829 when he left her for one of his male slaves,
Baron Pimen Harkoaaen-Rabbaa, who used his fortune to stage massive recreations of ancient gladiatorial contests m which men and beasts fought each other to the death He was finally thrown into the nng by his wife and son when he threatened to disinherit them, and was kilted by one of the gladiators before his guards could intervene,
Sindar-Count Petr ffl, who was haunted by the fear of his own death, and who used artificial drugs and prohibited mechanical means to keep his withered body alive for four hundred years, finally dying during an orgy when his frail flailing accidentally dislodged one of his bfe-support tubes,
Baron Stepan Harkonnen-Montil la who when he failed to volunteer to represent the emperor m kanly, was ordered to be the target m the contest
Lady Irina Harkonnen-Lankiveil, one of the few scientists in the Harkonnen line who discovered a means of making tobacco harmless
Lord Andrei Harkonnen, heir to the Coun ty of Harkonnen Touro, a renowned cheops player, writer ol sonnets, lover, and raconteur whose handsome good looks and genteel manner made him the darling of the Imperial social set, and a subject of jealousy by Emperor Dcstrym Andrei s foul murder at the hands of Destrym b hired assassins creat ed such an outcry from the Great Houses and the populace m general that Destrym was deposed and executed by the I andsraad and the Third Protectorate set m place to keep the royal claimants off the throne,
Andrei's brother, Sindar-Count Dmitru Harkonnen IV, and Dmitru s son, Vsevelod II, and Vsevelod's son Sviatopolk all were renowned for their furthering of charitable institutions and public good works, traits not characteristically those of the Ilarkonnens
Baron Vladimir Hdrkonnen XIX, whose struggle with the Atreides is recounted so ably in Harq al Ada s official chronicle of that period was the 228th Head of the House of Harkonnen before his murder in 10193 by Aha Atreides, his granddaughter Vladimir's successor, Feyd Rautha II, reigned only a few minutes before his death m kanly by Emperor Paul 1 The Harkonnen title then should have passed to Feyd-Rautha's elder brother Count Glossu Rabban, but because Glossu's father, Abulurd, had renounced his rights to the Harkonnen title when assuming the County of Lankiveil, Emperor Paul I ruled that the title had passed to the Baron's daughter Lady Jessica Atreides, and she having renounced the title also, had then passed to the next heir, himself, thus being subsumed into the throne The Counts Harkonnen Rabban, generally known only as Counts Rabban, continued to survive as a House Minor for several hundred years into Leto Tl's reign but gradually lost its noble status, along with the other Houses Minor No mention of the Rabban name appears in local records after the year 10884 R R
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Farther references: HARKONNEN, GUNSENG; HARKONNEN, VLADIMIR; Rezhmaud Sagi, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Mv Years with House Harkonnen, tr Leewi Stim (Giedi Prime: Trammel); Marya von Wikkheiser, House Harkomen, tr. Arazni Pezh, Studies in Atreidean History 76 (Paseo: Inst. of Galacto-Fremen Culture); the standard modem work is Klevanz D Kiinar's Fear My Power, Respect My Name. Ten Thousand Years of Harkonnen (Giedt Prime: Tiaoimd).
HARKONNEN, VLAplMffl. (10110-10193). Siridar-Baron of Giedi Prime during the reign of Shaddam IV. All current translations of the Raids manuscripts agree on the pivotal role House Harkonnen inadvertently played in the ending of the Padishah Imperial Une and the accession of Duke Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides to the Golden Lion Throne in 10193. Nor is there substantial dispute about the nature of the Siridar-Baron or of the House from which he sprang. House Harkonnen— even in an era of deadly political maneuvering and ruthless exercise of power was noted for its overweening cynicism and cruelty, its hunger for power and profit, and its total subordination of means to ends.
Vladimir Harkonnen embodied the characteristics of his ancestry to a high degree:
shrewd, cunning, a glutton in every sense, he carried a weight of approximately 180 kg at the time of his death, most of it borne by suspensor units placed about his person. He was, in addition, a voracious pederast, culling lithe bedmates from an inexhaustible supply of slaves. But power was his greatest appetite. In the last years of the Padishah Impcrium, his driving ambition was to put a Harkonnen on the Throne. Had he succeeded it would have been an ironic triumph: House Harkonnen rising from the depths of ignominy to the apex of intergalactic rule.
Vladimir Harkonnen was the scion of a family with a history of ruthless self-aggrandizement. Ethical complacency may condemn its practices, but onl> with the caveat that the entire Imperium be condemned. The Padishah feudal structure was stable only insofar as there existed a balance of power among ambitiously antagonistic forces. Constant distrust and the willingness to resort to any means remained the price of security House Harkonnen is best viewed as displaying the excesses of a political morality which did, after all, originate to a large degree on Salusa Secundus.
Vladimir was the third son of Siridar-Baron Gunseng Harkonnen (10079—10130) and Baroness Muertana (later known as the "Black Widow"), a dark beauty with the disposition of a scorpion whom Gunseng had married to form an alliance with the then-powerful House Sarobella. The first son died in infancy. The second, Araskin, was a club-footed, simple-minded giant, standing two meters and weighing close to 110 kg in his prime. Araskin was noted for his ferocity of temperament and devotion to his mother. Both qualities can be ascribed to his physical impairment. He viewed himself as a potential champion, frustrated at birth. His doting mother encouraged this delusion, explaining that his condition was due to the genetic shortcomings of Gunseng, whom she loathed. Vladimir was bora five years after Araskin, while Muertana reared the ostensible na-Baron herself, poisoning his mind against his father. Gunseng possessed a keen understanding of political realities, along with the necessary ruthlcssncss to manipulate them. Each of the^e qualities was passed on to Vladimir.
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If qualities exhibited in childhood are any indication then Vladimir seemed the answer to his father s dream of improving his House As he grew to manhood he received training in the arts martial, musical, and political from the best tutors his father could afford He soon showed a high intelligence an msa tiable hunger for learning, and an extraordi nary ability to absorb what he was taught Although stocky of build, he was well-knit, darkly handsome with a full, round face, and charming in an earthy way His baritone singing voice was notable for its strength range, and suppleness Hie footloose poet Sil, Reeve Pemn, provides a contemporary description
And what a prodigy he was Handsome and penetrating, with full hps and hearty features, at eighteen he was already a commanding presence, born to rule And when he saag, even the cynical courtiers Gunseng had inherited produced crocodile tears of rapture Perhaps only hindsight enables me to think I sensed something evfl beneath the strong, manly appearance, especially during his most charming moments Perhaps it was his voracious eyes, missing nothing, consuming you as they looked But to witness his quality in fencing matches, cheeps tournaments, and musi cal performances was amply to be impressed with the man himself Even then he was commander of Hatko's Praetorians and privy to Gunseng's deepest councils, which excluded his mother and older brother It was obvious he was being groomed for the Barony, and how else could it be1?
Muertana had been shunted to one side to play with her huge toy, Araskin—whom Guoseng did not acknowledge as his natural son, though he never denied it publicly Gunseng's preference for Vladimir anaffec uon genuinely returned, cost him his life At a state banquet, Araskin murdered his father and attacked Vladimir, nearly killing him before the mental Chardm Klees stuck a poisoned needle into Araskin's neck At that moment Vladimir changed That night he strangled his mother At the age of twenty he had become the Baton Harkonnen of folklore
CAREER AS BARON Vladimir consolidat
ed his position ruling by the most drastic methods The fate of his father taught him that weakness bore its own fruits Although trained in the finer arts the cunning brutality inherited from his grandfather and mother came to the fore and remained the oustanding characteristics of his Barony until his death All Praetorians and planetary military offi cials were subjected to deep psycho chemical interrogation and stress analysis Those who failed were murdered out of hand Anyone with Sarobellan sympathies or connections was publicly beheaded The minor anstrocracy was shaken up and brought m line with the threat of extinction Fear and power power and fear—these became the Baron s most trusted tools
Vladimir now aspired to a more favorable relationship with the Imperial monarch to further his financial ambitions A CHOAM directorship was his immediate personal goal from such a position it would be possible to build a Landsraad alliance aimed at the emperor Vladimir apparently found this am binon worthy of his House First he needed to place himself above suspicion in the emperor s eyes by demonstrating his com plete loyalty Then if scheme within scheme was successful—well, who could not envi Sion a Harkonnen on the Golden Lion Throne''
The young Baron began auspiciously by voluntarily donating twenty percent of the estimated annual ziradmum mine profits to the Imperial Sardaukdr Such a practice was not uncommon at the time especially among new Great Houses The Imperium had by then grown luxurious and its bureaucracy costly, often to the detriment of the Sardaukar Military fief donations thus became an ave nue to royal approval
This was but one tactic m a larger campaign of simultaneous financial aggrandizement and Imperial wooing Vladimir also played both ends against the middle, forming lucrative partnerships with lesser Houses while he channeled donations under various labels into Imperial accounts He would buy out lesser House investments with the guarantee of a percentage (less depreciation and overhead) while lubricating his consolidations with ad visory fees to the CHOAM directors them selves to secure their acceptance House
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Cornno naturally received royalties under the table along with military conscripts raw materials and finished products on negotiated terms a euphemism for kickbacks Indeed much of Vladimir s success can be attributed to an unerring instinct for the timing and placement of bribes When his financial prac tices were questioned by a Landsraad Dele gation of Inquiry he said
What benefits Harkonewt benefits the Landsraad What benefits the Landsraad benefits CHOAM And CHOAM benefits all We must all work together Economic fertility sus tains us and 1 wish merely to manure that ground Those who accuse me of camipuve practices simply envy my success My only answer is Why are they so poor? J
One can detect the mind of Chardin Klees in this smooth retort and indeed the aged but redoubtable mental was perhaps tbe Baron s most precious instrument during the first thirty years of his rule Alter the trusted Klees died m 10162 fee Baron employed a succession of mentals most twisted and distant and he had them killed when they had outlived their usefulness No one was ever able to replace Chardin Klees
In the same year as Klees death the fortunes of House Harkonnen reached the top of the wheel it acquired the melange rights of Arrakis something Vladimir had worked long and hard to achieve After more than three decades of careful maneuvering he was rewarded with the richest planet m the empire He was fifty two years old
The spice of Arrakis was an economic bonanza for House Harkonnen which over saw its production for a percentage, pro rated according to yield CHOAM received 20% of production to be apportioned among Laadsraad Directors The Spacing Guild re ceived 15% (they were careful not to appear greedy) The Bene Gessent received 5% still a staggenng amount in fotai annual yield House Harkonncn realized 20 to 30% and the remainder filled the emperor s coffers
The melange contract contained incentive for maximum production which meant ap plying the tightest harness and harshest whip to the subject population Vladimir s slave driver was his eldest nephew Count Glossu
Rabban (10132 10193) legal son of his youngest demibrother Abulurd who had re nounced the name and rights of Harkonaen for the subdistnct governorship of Rabban Lankiveil Nevertheless Count Glossu pro ceeded to exercise his duties with Harkonnen enthusiasm becoming known or) Arrakis as Beast Rabban
So successful was Vladimir s deputy that House Harkonnen realized great wealth on Arrakis but at the cost of the everlasting hatred of the natives most notably the wild Fremen whom the Baron dismissed as desert scum He might have paid them more atten tion had he not then been involved m the onl) heterosexual affair of his. life
Vladimir won a breathing space with the attainment of Arrakis Perhaps the romantic inheritance from Gunseng now reasserted itself Perhaps he desired a change of taste—his pederasty awakening doubts about his mascu limty or curiosity about sexual alternatives Whatever the case when the Bene Gessent Reverend Mother Croesid offered him a con sort trained in the erotic arts Vladimir did not question her motives He took one look at the willowy figure of Tamdia Nerus and was enticed ( Tanidia Nerus is now be heved to have been a carefully selected trained and rejuvenated Gams Helen Mohiam)
Several accounts say Vladimir loved her Others reject this uncharacteristic emoton out of hand Still others advance the notion that Vladimir believed Tamdia to be his mother reincarnated The truth may exist somewhere among these propositions What is known is that the affair was stormy and brief Tamdia fled or was spirited from Harko in the eighth month of her pregnancy under threatening urcumstdnLss and subsequently vanished behind the Bene Gessent cloak of secrecy from which she had emerged Only in Croesia s Memoirs can be found a short exchange from Tamdia s report to her supen or shedding light on what occurred with the Baron
CROESIA. You are aware how much this has
cost us There must be no question as to your
child s parentage
TANIDIA There s none though subliminal arousal
techniques were necessary to overcome his
impotence
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CROESIA Such techniques weren t necessary with his boys
TAMIDIA As our psychological profile indicated his misog;n> is deeply rooted but ambivalent Inverted idealization of the anima reflects on his own childhood Thus the love for the young boys—himself in his own mind The murder of Muertana was a release but there is strong reason to believe that before he murdered her they—
CROESIA. Now he channels it through repres sum and hatred reverting to himself uncco sciously Good It is a lever, should we/ever need it You have done well, my dear You will bear a daughter of course
That daughter born in 10154, was the Lady Jessica who would become the consort of Duke Leto Atreides and the mother of Paul Muad Dib
Many centuries of enmity divided House Harkonnen from House Atteides^ Now Vlad imir by the counsel of his latest Mental the infamous Piter de Vnes, embarked upon a campaign both to advance the fortunes of his house and destroy the Red Duke Leto Tie plan was bold, devious, and nsky, but the ultimate rewards were incalculable
No wise emperor allowed any Great House to grow too powerful Therefore Shaddam IV had long been concerned with House Atreides which exercised much influence in the Lradsraad Snaddam understandably feared that a Landsraad alliance ought coalesce around a powerful Great House, altering the balance of power at the expense of the Impenum But Shaddam had his own ambitions not only did he wish to maintain his own power, but he also desired dominance over the Landsraad through control of CHOAM Di rectorship votes House Atreides stood m his way In addition the Red Duke had trained a small military force which, man for man equated the Sardaukar Thus Shaddam s mind was decided in the course he and Harkonnen would take with his royal cousin
Events on Dune at this point, except for the "poison tooth' incident be outside the discussion of Vladimir Harkonnen But that one scene throws a grotesquely comic light on die Baron in his moment of victory
After the death of his father, Vladimir turned from exercise to the arts of pederas ty and eating for relaxation By 10191 he
would have been hterallv too fat to move had it not been for his suspensor units During his interrogation of Duke Leto those suspensors saved his life The Red Duke bit down on a poison filled tooth spewing forth a deadly gas One needs but to compare Vladimir s reputation for deadly efficiency with the picture of the huge body making a hast; bouncing retreat—arms flailing as he bobbed backwards—to enjoy a grim chuckle His own granddaughter Alia described him unsparingly a few years later He doesn t appear much does he—one frightened old fat man too weak to support his own flesh without the help of suspensors
It was an apt assessment of the Baron at die illusory height of his career With the advent of Alia his historical significance assumed a unique character It is thus better to continue his biographj after the Arrakis Revolution in terms of his relationship with Aha rather than end it with his death at her hands
THE BARON AND ALIA Psycho regenera tton is a misleading term though convenient in the image evoked In Alia s case only a fine line separates possession by genetic memo nes from an essential regeneration of Vladimir Harkonnen within Aha s unstable psyche Pre born Aha was bound to undergo an inner struggle with the ancestral figures whose DNA was intrinsic to her own genetic composition like an unwanted but unavoida ble inheritance This struggle she ultimately lost failing to achieve an alliance such as Leto II s which allowed the survival of her own independent identity Vladimir Haricon nen s victory quelling the other insistent inner voices gradually subsuming Aha s psy chic integrity may almost be considered revenge Yet not the Baron but merely his genetic essence manifested itself in Aha s mind Poetic irony here waxes supreme
What was the nature ot Vladimir s post mortem manifestation to Alia s awareness? Most documents describe the reemergent Bar on appearing m Alia s mind in the form he had at his death—grossly obese speaking m a bass voice Such a limited notion contra diets the foundation of possession itself which is based on genetic essence not on temporal definition or development Would not a fat
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Baron dressed in red robes elicit hate and revulsion from Aha no matter how well such a figure quelled the hosts of ancestors desiring a front seat in her mind9 The best answer to the question comes from art not from psychology the keen insight of the great Harq a! Hart>a provided his audience with a stunning piece of stage business and at the same time gives us a key to under standing psycho-regeneration
The play Water for the D&td (10302) tells of the intertwined lives of Harkonnen and Aha In Act I we see Vladimir as a slim athletic handsome youth but by Act ffl he has become the hulking monstrosity killed by the infant Alia In the last Act we see the gradual effects of her possession only through the actions of Alia but in the climactic scene she begins to dance with an invisible partner As she spins her robes billow form gradually changing in color (through die use of a selective Holtzman Effect field) from black to red As she completes her final turn, the face she presents to the audience is not that of Aha but that of Vladimir from Act I Here is the answer
It is fatuous to assume mat such a person ality as Vladimir Harkoanen would attempt an enterprise without first determining the precise leverages over those he needed to use Vladimir existing within Aha knew something about her Indeed, he knew more than enough about her to serve himself up in the handsome, charming guise of his youth when he thought it would do the most good— say, when political frustration reinforced her feelings of inadequacy, or when the power game led to sexual desires of questionable heal thi ness Probably Vladimir often presented himself ta his prime masculine forceful with a rich baritone voice exquisitely coaxing soothing persuading by nuance intonation inflection As both young lover and autocrat ic grandfather he insinuated his presence and possessed Alia for this must have been the precise combination required
One cannot imagine the vividness with which he was gradually able to manifest himself to Alia unless one wants to expert ence possession firsthand But the impact was obviously powerful justifying the Bene Gessent fears of Abomination Vladimir was
an anomaly a figure whose career lasted longer than his life his ghost realized his great desire to put a Harkonnen under his influence—Aha—on the Imperial throne But in death as m life the Atreides continued to foil him One last observation concerns the form in which the Baron was manifested before Aha threw herself out a window to her death the form was the obese Baron s the futile shouts his basso voice Did this guise aid in propelling Aha to her end1* If so then Alia s fall was also the fall of the House of Harkonnen S T
NOTE
'From The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea My Years with Moose Harkonnen by Re/hinaud Sagi tr Leewi Stun (Giedi Pnme Trammel)
Farther references HARKONNEN GUNSENG RABBAN
GLOSSU ATREIDES ALIA NERUS TAN1D A SI RfiBVC
Pemn Notes of a WII o the Wisp tr T H Erussos (Fides Manx) R M Dec us Nancy Croesia Memoirs tr Ewan Gwaladar B G Foundation Studies 3 (Diana Tevis) HarqalHarba Water for the Dead m Complete Works ed Blaigvor Ewanz (Grumman Tern) Harq al Ada The Dune Catastrophe tr M igal Reed (Mukan Lothar)
HAWAT THOFIR {10075 10196) Thufir Hawat who many believe was the greatest Mental of the Impenum was born the first of nine children to Golani and Alwidi Hawat on Logi third planet of Alpha Centaun B
Hawat s mother Golani herself briefly trained as a potential mental recognized the capability in her infant son and took the proper steps to begin his training Golani scoured the Impenum for experts m muscle and mind control and m sharpening the sensitivities and the awareness and for teach ers of languages and Ihe physical and biologi cal sciences She sought to have her son well grounded not only n the fundamentals cus tomanly given a potential mentat but also m economics communications and military strategy
When informed of his potential and given his options Thufir chose to continue his training and was sent lo an emmenl school for Mentals on Ix There Thufir soon made two significant attachments The first was lo Kolmar whose wit and charm immediately attracted Thufir the Iwo young men quickly
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became inseparable friends The second was to toe young woman Anyya with whom Thufir fell, for the first and last time m his life, in love The daughter of a Bene Gesserit and an official of the Imperial court, the highly intelligent Anyya rivaled Thufir m scholastic accomplishments and returned his affection By all accounts they shared for years a happy and fulfilling relationship
The reports are notably sketchy, however, on the end of their affair We do know that Anyya left Ix suddenly with Kolinar and is never referred to again in any of the Hawat papers Rouse, the Mental for House Dioscuri and Thufir's lifelong fnend, reports (m his book, The Education of a Mental) Thufir's moroseness following Anyya's departure, his adamant refusal to speak of her, and a cryptic remark Thufir made about this time, "The female of the species is without doubt incapable of fidelity" Seemingly, it was Camelot come again, but with a difference rather than nsmg above has affliction to an Arthurian strength that could infuse his soul with iron, Thufir allowed his pain to debase his love for Anyya into a corrosive hate and to generate a deep, and lifelong, mistrust of all women, especially those connected with the Bene Gessent This anathema undoubted ly accounts for the fact that Thufir never again became seriously involved with a woman.
By the time Thufir Hawat was ready at age thirty-five to join House Atreides on Caladaft, fee was the most superbly trained Mentat HI tfae Impentun The robust Duke Mintor Atreides had a vitality that promised to test Hawat's powers to their utmost Determined to develop fully the fief his family had held for twenty generations, Date Mintor challenged Hawat to solve his expansion problems Accordingly, Hawat surveyed the Duke's lands, directed the construction of dams to control goods and complex irrigation systems, and designed efficient transportation and communication networks He searched the Impenum for experts in agriculture, viticulture, animal husbandry, and mining to serve as a faculty in the schools he founded Armed with Hawat s plans, the Duke's thoroughly trained subjects produced
record crops and quality wines, propagated top-quality cattle and farm animals, and developed lucrative mines Duke Mintor's flourishing estates, literally the creation of Hawat's energy and expertise, became the envy of the Impenum
The Duke's absolute fairness and honesty in all his dealings with Hawat (traits also seen later in Leto) aroused m the Mentat an abiding affection and admiration One source suggests that the Duke was personally responsible for rescuing two of Hawat's loved ones from Harkonnen oppression Although documentation of the details of this feat is lacking, the Duke's daring and courage must have endeared him to his Mentat It is, thus, not surprising that before Hawat had been with Duke Mintor many years he almost literally gave his life for his Duke In a skirmish with offworld raiders at one of the Duke's ranches, Hawat dodging to escape a sword slash in the groin, took it instead m his left leg He bore the scar, and the occasional pain, with pnde
Hawal's regard for his Duke, a bullfighting addict, led him to develop an extensive bull-breeding program Using his abilities to analyze genetic qualities Hawat set up breeding farms and outlined feeding and nutritional experiments He also designed d new arena for the Duke, supervised its construction, and took charge of the colorful pageantry known as the Atreides Tourney Since Hawat never missed a corrida in which the Old Duke took part, he was present the day a great bull caught the Duke on his horns
After the Old Duke s death, Hawat trans ferred his allegiance to Duke Leto who turned his attention from his well-run estates to concentrate on espionage defense at\l the expansion of his sea and air power Hawat served his Duke brilliantly m every interest military, political economic, social and personal In tact it was Hawat who investigated the Bene Gessent school and Jessica before reluctantly having her escorted to Caladan to be Duke Leto's concubine He became even more useful after Paul was bom Suspecting that his son might have mental capabilities, Leto gave Hawat the responsibility of setting up Paul's intensive
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training program During these inornate years of Paul's infancy and childhood, Hawat came to love the boy as his own son This love endured to—and manifested itself magnificently on—his dying day
The best way perhaps to appreciate Hawat's value to House Atreides is to review his contributions during the move from Caladan to Arrakis a fief that had been held by ancient enemies of the Atreides the Harkon-nens The logistics involved in moving personnel and materiel from one planet to another were appalling, but Leto was confident the task was not beyond his Mental In record time, his confidence was confirmed
An even more difficult job was securing the settling of the new capital at Arrakeen especially when all of Hawat's calculations warned him of the high probability of Leto's losing Arrakis to the disgruntled Harkonnens In preparation, Hawat made himself an au thonty on Arrakis, he gathered and digested every scrap of knowledge available on geography, topography, climate, weather and history, as well as on the Bremen and their culture After me move he sent out Grained teams of observers to augment his information
Two immediate concerns were communications and military strategy Hawat set up the Duke's own conununicafcons network and enlarged the codes, especially the Atreides hand signs and battle language his creations He deployed the troops, efficiently dividing the guards between the Governor's Mansion and the landing field For future use, he assembled dossiers on suspected Harkonnen sympathizers
The most sensitive area was security Hawat spent sleepless days and nights checking every room and all the furnishings of the Residency He set op shields, placed safety devices, cleared me servants, and personally installed the poison snoopers Hawat had made security the core of his instruction to the young Leto, and later the young Paul "The cost of survival is eternal vigilance ' However, despite all his care, a hunter-seeker placed by a traitor after Hawat had inspected Paul's room threatened Paul's Me shortly after the move into the Residency When, in an agony of remorse, he tried to resign,
Hawat was reminded that Paul had survived largely through Hawat s own training Leto felt he was more to be commended for Paul's readiness than blamed for his ignorance of an "internal" traitor, whose presence no one—from Duke Leto and the Lady Jessica down to the lowliest trooper—up to this moment had suspected Leto's faith in his Mentat. revealed in his refusal to accept Hawat's resignation refueled Hawat s unfaltering loyalty to House Atreides
Himself an expert in sabotage and counter-sabotage, Hawdt ferreted out many a Harkonnen intrigue He may have deplored the need, but he did not hesitate to use bribes, deceit, or even murder if service to his Duke called for them From experience, Hawat had become eternally suspicious As Duke Leto once said of him, "He sees assassins m every shadow'
Perhaps Hawat s most significant service to the Atreides was his acute assessment of the Fremen Using the data Gurney Halleck brought him, Hawat shrewdly saw that previ ous estimates of the Fremen population were ridiculously low And, once he began to learn the qualities of the desert people, he knew without a doubt that they were a poten tial corps of fighters as strong and as deadly as the Sardaukar
Hawat did extensive research and prepared filmthpb on the Fremen culture His first analysis of the Fremen religion, which familiarized Leto and Paul with such terms as * Mahdi" and "Lisan al-Gatb ' embodied all the essentials The old Mental quickly grasped Fremen ways and seemed especially sensitive m retognumg Iheir concerns as, for example, their preoccupation with water reclamation their reticence with strangers, their passion for freedom their obsession with exchisivism His advice to Duke Leto was sound when he urged caution in com mandeenng the Desert Botanical TesUng Sta tions lest the action antagonize the Fremen for whom the bases had some deep signifi cance Hawat also realized that the Guild's refusal to allow the Atreides to orbit a weather satellite was based not on financial considers tions but on their fear of an Atreides discovery of Arrakis s true value The accuracy of
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his foresight was subsequently substantiated when the extensive Fremen colonization, the staggering potential wealth of the planet s spice and the beginnings of the Kynes-mspired ecological transformation became known
Once established at the capital Hawat made only one error his readiness to believe the Lady Jessica a traitor—a belief born no doubt of his distrust of women, especially a Bene Gessent "witch " Although the Har-konnens had left Arrakis, they had no intention of turning the fief over to the Atreides Knowing Hawat's vigilance, the Harkonnen Mentat de Vnes arranged to feed Hawat false information in an intercepted letter implicating Jessica Even when Duke Leto refused to believe the Baron's letter and Jessica logicallj defended herself against the charge, Hawat could not eradicate his suspicion the bitter fruit of Anyya's bcttayal Aware of his problem without knowing its cause Jessica warned Hawat teat, although he could brilliantly apply logic to anything oulstde himself, he had difficulty with "those things most deeply personal " Unconvinced, Hawat nev ertheless left the interview with a "sense of supreme admiration ' (as he wrote to Rouse) for the Lady Jessica, who at one point had with remarkabk courage defied Hawat's knife by turning her back on him
Except for this one mistake, those days when Hawat labored to establish his beloved House Atreides on Arrakis were Ac last fine hours for the aging Mental, indeed, they may have been his finest From the moment he heard the news of the Hafkonnen attack, bitterness became his daily companion Having prepared for random raids or an attack of no more than ten brigades (the aumber Hawat's intelligence corps warned him to expect), Hawat was staggered by the size of the Harkonnen force and their strategic deploy meet A rapid calculation revealed the attack consisted of more than one hundred brigades The entire spice income of Arrakis for fifty years could not have covered the cost of such a venture What Hawat could not possibly know was that much of the cost had been paid from the Imperial cofiers
from that moment Until the day he died, Hawat was convinced that the Lady Jessica had been then- betrayer One can only conjee
ture that his experience with Anyya, which must have been devastating, continued to cloud his judgment of women Although helpless himself to assist his Duke as the Harkonnens advanced Hawat was heartened by the unbelievable Fremen capture of an omithopter manned by Sardaukar and a karm kaze destruction of a troop earner before he was captured by Sardaukar disguised in Harkonnen livery
In Baron Harkonnen's papers (in an Appendix to House Harkonnen) we learn of the Baron's delight that not only was Thufir Hawat, Duke Lelo s Master of Assassins, taken alive, but also that he could be used against the Atreides The Baron's strategy was simple by allowing Hawat to believe Jessica was alive and never revealing that Dr Wellington Yueh was the true betrayer, the Baron could feed Hawat s desire for revenge The Baron summarized "The way to control and direct a Mentat is through his information False information—false results '
Much as he wanted a Mentat after Piter de Vnes was dead at Leto's hands, the Baron had too much healthy fear of Hawat not to take some precautions he instructed lakin Zefud, his guard captain, to impregnant Hawat's body with the residual poison developed by de Vnes and to administer the antidote regularly in the Mental's meals Without the antidote, Hawat would die within a few days
Hawat s scantily recorded career on Giedi Prime remains enigmatic His actions seem, on the one hand, to be depraved, and yet on the other to mask perhaps some plan of his own to destroy the Baron One of Hawat's less worthy projects was a perverted alteration of the jousting techniques he had developed in the old days in Duke Mmtor's bullnngs two such adaptations were distractors to be earned by Harkonnens m the Gladiator Games and crippling handicaps for their slave opponents Hawat also devised a plan where by Feyd-Rautha could give a spectacular albeit ngged, performance before an elite audience Instead nf being drugged as was usual with slave gladiators, the victim was conditioned by Hawat to be overcome by a key word Thus, it would appear that Feyd-Rautha had brilliantly defended himself against
an undrugged slave who had been slipped into the arena to kill the na-Baron. The plot would not have" been so despicable had it been only to glorify an egotistical young man, but its true purpose was to eliminate the Baton's slavemaster, who would necessarily be blamed for the uadragged slave. Possibly Hawat hoped to use the evil to accomplish his good—because die slave came within a hairsbreadth of besting the Baron's nephew.
Another puzzle is Hawat's role in Feyd-Rautha's assassination attempt OB the Baron. Knowing the Baron's preference for boys Hawat conspired with Feyd-Rautha to send the Baron a beguiling slave boy with a shielded needle planted in his thigh- And yet, Hawat warned the Baron before the assassination could take place. The Mentat seemed to be playing both ends against the middle for some game of his own.
Hawat's mysterious and sometimes ambiguous behavior white in Haritonnen service can best be explained in the light of his intense loyalty to House Atreides. Given the depraved Baron Harkonaen's method of operation—to tie subordinates, from whom he shrewdly knew he could never expect loyalty, to him through some devious means—Hawat coaid count on no less. Wife his Mentat powers he most certainly knew, or at least suspected, that he had been poisoned and lived only as long as. it was the Baron's whim to administer the antidote. Burning, nay obsessed, with the desire for vengeance on the enemies of his beloved Atreides, Hawat walked the path of expediency; he complied with the Baron's orders, joined his conspiracies, designed his plots, no matter how nefarious—ail to one dedicated end: the gton-ous day he could strike the annihilating blow against those who had crushed his cherished House.
We can only wish we had more evidence covering these yeais. Except for some notes of the Baron and some fragments of letters Hawat sent to his old school friend Rouse, little else has been unearthed. In one of his notes, the Baron boasts mat he had succeeded in aiming Hawat's attention and vengeance against the emperor by convincing him that the emperor was the cause of the House
Atreides' destruction. Hawat still hated the Baron with a "casual" hate, but "he thinks he uses me," the Baron wrote, "to wreak his revenge upon the emperor.... He does not think beyond his revenge Hawat's a man who must serve others, and doesn't even know this about himself." Hawat's letters to Rouse, however, seem to contradict the Baron's view. One letter declared that Hawat "loathed" the Baron; another called him "a gross and dangerous pig" and avowed that "destroying him [the Baron] will be a service to mankind." How Hawat planned to destroy the Baron is not clear. That it invohed Arrakis seems certain, for in one of his last services for the Baron, Hawat directed the Baron's attention to the desert planet.
Hawat revealed to the Baron that the emperor had turned against Duke Leto primarily because Leto had trained a fighting force to rival the Sardaukar; he then told the Baron that the emperor suspected Harkonnen emulation of the Duke's feat with the Fremen. When the Baron doubted, especially because of the Fremen lack of numbers, Hawat convinced him that the Fremen population could easily be in excess of ten million. Hawat also suggested that—if it could be done without alerting the emperor—the Fremen could indeed be trained into an awesome force. What he did not tell the Baron was that Gurney Halleck had survived the treacherous Harkonnen attack on House Atreides and that he received reports from Halleck on Fremen battle tactics. Thus, the scheming most likely pivoted on Hawat's desire to lure the Baron to Dune—where Gurney had many hands to help him earn his revenge.
Fate, however, stepped in to lure more than the Baron to Arrakis. Ihe Guild, alarmed by the changes they had observed on the planet—especially the increased tempo in troop activity brought about by Paul Muad' Dib—not only relayed this information to the throne, but also reduced troop transport fares to a minimum. Thus, in a short time the skies above Arrakis held the seven-ship fleet of the Harkonnens in company with the emperor's five legions of Sardaukar.
As soon as the Guild gave the Harkonnen troops permission to land, the Baron sent Hawat to a smuggler base with orders to
infiltrate the camp of the infamous Fremen Muad'Dib. Hawat was well away from Arrakeen then when the mysterious Muad'Dib defeated the Sardaukar and captured the emperor with ail of his retainers. When he returned to Arrakeen more than five days later, weak and already moving toward death from lack of die antidote, Hawat discovered not only that the Baron was dead, but thai the invincible Muad'Dib sitting in state in the Residency was none other than his young Duke Paul. Certainly he reproached himself when he teamed that die Lady Jessica, alive and with her SOB, was not Paul's betrayer, but, like himself, a victim of a devious Harkonnen plot and of the treason of Dr. Yaeh.
When the Padishah Emperor and the Reverend Mother Gahis Helen Mohiam summoned him shortly before the captives went to their audience with Paul, Hawat knew it meant treachery. He accepted the tiny poisoned needle without a word, too weak to nod his head as the emperor commanded him to use it against the "iipstart Duke." When he saw Gurney Hal leek checking the entourage entering the Great Hall for weapons, Hawat used the old hand signs to tell him that, thinking Paul was dead, he had been working with the Harkonnens and to request that he be left with &e group—to avert, no doubt, any move that might be made against Paul.
Afid Ihcfi Paul called him out and greeted him as "old friend," As Hawat obeyed his beloved Duke for the last time, he surely knew mat Paul was aware of the needle and certain that Hawat had no intention of using it against him. In her account of the scene, the Princess Iiuian writes mat Paul and Hawat whispered together for a few moments before Paul reached out to support Hawat by the shoulders. And then, she records, Hawat turned in a magnificent gesture to face the emperor, extended his left hand, palm up, to expose the needle cupped against his fingers, and said, "See, Majesty? See your traitor's needle'.' Did you think that I who've given my life to service to the Atreides would give mem less now?" With mat last act of supreme defiance proclaiming his inviolable loyalty to the Atreides, Hawat sagged in death against Paul and slumped to the floor.
Hawat's Duke then paid his faithful servant, the Mental who had served three generations of Atreides, his final honor: he gave, the order to have Hawat's body carried away and treated with all the respect of a hero of the tribe. O.K.
Further references: MENTAT entries; Princess Irulan Atreides-Comno, Arrolds Awakening, tr Zhaulya Muuraz-faarat, AS 15 (.Grumman- United Worlds); A.L. Rouse, The Education of a Mental, tr Get Dawlej (Loomar Coei Institute); Marya von Wikkheiser, House Harkonnen, tr. Aiazrii Pezh, SAH 76 (Paseo: Institute of Galacto-Frcmen Culture), Lady Jessica, The Years onArrakis, tr. Zhaivz Aultan (Caladan: Apex)
HEKjHLJNER. The primary interstellar transport of the Spacing Guild. Although they varied somewhat in size and detail of design, all heighliners were fast, difficult to maneuver, enormous and powered by the Holtzman Effect. Because of their size and the extreme complexity of the external neutrino circuitry which effected the trans-hght displacements, heighliners were expensive and difficult to build. Even at the height of its dominance, the Guild had no more than five thousand heighliners. But these great ships were remarkably durable and, like so many elements of the Imperium, almost immune to technological obsolescence. Accurate records for one heighliner, which bore various names and numbers but which was indisputably a single vessel, cover the period from 4768 to 8287—more than thirty-five hundred years.
The earliest known heighliners were constructed some two centuries after the establishment of the Guild monopoly, during the time CHOAM was enjoying its most vigorous expansion. Within another two centuries, at least seventy-five percent of all Guild tonnage was carried in the heighliners. A late, incomplete document, a report dated 253:9920 from the Guild yardmaster at Ix to his superiors, shows that even then the Guild maintained nearly 275,000 smaller vessels for courier, passenger, and miscellaneous travel. But the same report clearly indicates that the total payload of all those minor ships together could not have been more than ten percent of the total payload of the heighliner fleet.
The Guild under the Atreides was con-
HEIGHLINER
strained to devote a large percentage of its transport capacity to military uses, ferrying Fremen, conscripts, and, later, Fish Speakers from one trouble spot to another But even during the jihad years of the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib flie primary ase of the heighJiners was commercial Although they were among the very fasten interstellar vehicles evef built, they were not adaptable to combat uses (They did, Of course, ferry warships, but the Guild was careful to unload far from any contested regioji) The Guild was diligent in protecting its investments, and no heighhner is known to have been lost to military action Few, indeed, seem to have been lost for any reason The Guild navigators did not make mistakes, the Guild maintenance crews were scrupulous and competent But even the best-constructed and best-maintained machines eventually wear out Heighlmers removed from service were apparently seldom
broken up, probably because the risks involved in dismantling the neutrino circuitry, which, by its nature remained ' live" for centuries after power to it has been cut, outweighed the modest economies of recycling materials Decommissioned heighhners were parked m cold orbits" around planetless stars (The discovery, about three centuries ago, of one such retirement site at Eta Ophiuchi provided most of our specific information about the heighhners, references to them in the documents of the Rakis archives have proven so far to be surprisingly sketch} and vague)
While explanations of the technology be hind heighhners is available elsewhere (see entries HOLTZMAN EFFECT and INTERSTELLAR NAVIGATION, and Further references below), two features of the Guild equipment should be remarked here First, the neutrino circuitry mandated by field mechanics relied much
HEIOHLJNER
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HEIGHL1NER
more on sheer power than on the elegant geometries characteristic of modern craft. For this reason a heighlincr was a simple, featureless globe.
The second noteworthy feature was a function of the Guild navigational techniques. Since the Guild navigators "saw" rather than calculated their routes, there was no need for the elaborate observational and locational devices common to both earlier and later ships. A heighliner carried a simple radar set and a small telescope, neither of which was of any use daring traits-light operation. Thus heighliocrs traveled blind but for the drug-dreams of their navigators.
We have little direct information about the size of hcighliner crews or about the conditions of travel for passengers. Since all the heighliners at Eta Ophiuchi are fitted with gymnasia and other sorts of game rooms, libraries, and rather elaborate galleys, it appears that the Guild and its employees traveled in comfort. All passengers were carried in the unpressarlzed bold, either in their own frigates and other ships or in self-contained modules.. The hold was only a network of girders and cables to which the cargo was attached, covered only by the light aluminum skin that carried the neutrino circuitry. The Guild guaranteed secure transit, but provision for life support, not to mention comfort and diversion, seems to have been left entirely to the customer,
Taking into account the number of duty stations, the design of the various control systems, and similar evidence, we can estimate that the usual neigWioer crew numbered about eighty. At least five to eight of them were navigators, and the fusion plants must have required the attention of at least two mental engineers at an times. The remaining sixty or so crew members were pilots, shut-tie crew, life support technicians, financial and banking staff, cargo manipulators, and so forth.
The speed of the heighliners insured that no voyage within the limits of the Imperium would last too long. The fastest known heighliner transit was made in 12717, from Ix to Aiglon, 8138 light-standard-years, in nineteen days, two hours, twenty-one minutes, forty seconds—a "speed" of about 63.4 l.s.y. per hour. Most heighliners achieved a
performance no better than sixty percent of that during normal operation.
A heighliner's energy requirements were obviously very large. As much as twenty percent of a heighliner's gross mass was fuel (H20) for its fusion plants; during longer transits refueling was occasionally necessary. Waste heat was always a problem for the heighliners. As much as possible was passed through the outer planar fields as X-rays, a technique that made the departure of a heighliner rather a dangerous event to observe. Ordinarily the Guild did not orbit a heighliner closer to a planet than 150,000 kilometers.
A malfunction of the waste-heat disposal system was the cause of the worst recorded disaster in the Guild's history. In 11286, on a transit from Harmony to Gamont, the planar fields of the heighliner Salience overloaded. A transparency reversal resulted, sending intense X rays inside, rather than outside the ship. There were no survivors. Records indicate that several systems malfunctioned at once, including all four of the fail-safe systems which would have shut down the trans-light operation. Had not another fail-safe system operated properly, the Salience would have vanished without a trace. But the dead-man switches of the fusion plants worked: when the supervising Mentals died and released their grips on the laser triggers, fusion immediately ceased. The Guild seems never to have conceded either human error or design flaw, although a few years after the disaster both the operating manual and the field-transmission wave lengths were modified.
At least fifty-seven other heighliners are known to have disappeared in transit (one with an emperor aboard—Henoor VII in 9471). Nevertheless, the safety record of the heighliners, as of the Guild in general, must surely be one of the best in all the history and prehistory of public transportation.
M.M.
Further references: HOLTZMAN EFFECT; INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL; E B, Integer and Matrix in the Holtzman Formulae (Gmuzman: Isabel); Liu Chulo, Legends of ihe Spacing Guild (Caladan: INS), Thufir Dys, A Study of Heighliner Operation, tr L.S Shnmyan (Richese- New Caledonia St UP); Fidan?a Weishail, Into Dusk fnter-siellar Travel 9500-14500 (Loomar. Coei Institute), D P Kiiimporubang. The Hulks of Eta Ophiuchi (Centralia Johun UP)
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HOLTZMAM. IBRAWM VAUGHN. (7593-108 B G ) Discoverer of die Holtzroan Effect Bom on Liesco II dunng the Great Dark Ages, I V Holtzman was the son of the planetary governor Young Holtzman was nearly lulled in a tragic accident in a racing 'thopter in 7565 B G and was kept alive only by the most heroic measures of the advanced medical sciences of Liesco He became the first of very few persons to undergo a brain transplant ms brain was placed in a prototype axolotl tank and wired into a large host computer with an unpro-grammed personality blank, on the assumption that Holtzman would imprint his own personality on the machine The process was marred by an induced psychosis afterwards, Holtzman suffered from intense paranoia and refused treatment Since Holtzman's was the first brain transplant ever performed, the extent of his powers was not fully understood
When Holtzman tapped into the computerized production network and ordered the construction of a peculiar style of spaceship under the guise of (he chief engineer of House HottTman, no one noticed Similarly, when release papers were presented to the hospital, he was discharged without a second thought Finally, when the assembly that was Holtzman was placed aboard the odd new ship and connected directly to its systems, no one (bought it odd that takecff clearances arrived in the tower so promptly, or that the scheduling comp fed Holtzman into the take off 11 ne ahead of other waiting ships
Before anyone could stop torn, Holtzman triggered &e sospensor-nullificauon device and disappeared into the Void He wanted time to think So with his ship, which was for all intents and purposes himself, he entered a comctary orbit aimed to attain perihelion m 7556 B G , nine years away For the next few years, the library camps of Liesco were plagued by unexplained interruptions in their transmissions Holtzman was covertly copy rag the data into his own storage to be studied at his leisure His mental processes retained then1 human nature while being sped up by an estimated factor of ten, needing neither sleep nor rest, Holtzman must have thought at least thirty times faster than a normal human
He had been a mathematical genius before
his accident and was most interested in the suspensor-imihfication effect In the time between his escape and 7562 B G , Holtzman learned more about it than the best minds of the previous fifty centimes He was evidently driven by a desire to remind his imagined persecutors that he was alive without revealing his position, because the first message transmitted via Holtzman Waves was a strange amalgam of random accusations
The next messages, explaining Holtzman s discoveries, were emitted from the planetary mass of Uesco II itself to the intense but brief confusion of Governor Holtzman and his advisors As the nature of the discovery became clear, excitcmcn' seized the academic community of Lie&o But the Go\ernor realized that his son s insane genius could prove dangerous and came to the difficult conclusion that Ibrahim would have to be controlled or destroyed
For the next nine years, the Governor's patrols searched the Liesco system In 7556 B G , a patrol scout received a radar image of the ship now known as the Mad Holtzman " The scout was immediately joined by two cutters, and all three moved m for the kill
When Holtzman detected mem he sent a wave message to the six nearest inhabited systems saying 1 have developed an instantaneous interstellar communication device which Governor Holtzman of Liesco is attempting to keep for himself If you will rescue me I will share this knowledge with you The message, emanating from the primary of each system, was set to repeat while Holtzman tried to outrun the approaching patrol vessels
By his instinctive action, Holtzman had proven that his discovery could reunite the Empire the ability to summon reinforcements instantly is the ability to win battles, and to win battles is to maintain an Empire Of the six systems receiving Holtzman s SOS, five responded immediately
Holtzman's ploy almost worked his pursu ers got off a couple of extremely long range shots, npping up the manipulators for his suspensor-nulhfication field The stern of Holtzman's ship blew apart throwing it into an uncharted orbit and destroying its ability to maneuver Iloltzman was crippled, unable
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to use his drives; he was rapidly drifting out of the range where his solar panels would provide enough emergency power to keep him functioning. So Holtzman husbanded his little remaining power and sent a quick wave pulse to every inhabited star system he could get an accurate aim on, containing the data for die construction of Holtzman Wave transmitters. Then, with his power beginning to flicker, he shut himself down, and instituted a single wake-up procedure to bring him back up when, as he had calculated, his new and highly eccentric orbit brought him back into the Liesco system in 1,862 years.
Holtzman's actions resulted in the widespread and rapid development 'of Holtzman Wave generators, bringing on the Wars of Reunification, which raged through the inhabited worlds. So ferocious were these struggles (and so long-lasting) chat Holtzman did not reveal his existence during his second return to the Ueseo System in 5694 B.C. He did, however, effect needed repairs within the limits of his damaged servos.
Detecting no malevolent activity on his third return, Holtzman sent a brief wave message to Liesco, not knowing that it was now a prison world administered by a few orbital computers. On detecting radio messages from the supposedly primitive planet, these machines immediately sent emergency calls to the Provincial Warden's office on Maktiun III. The Warden sent several technicians to Liesco to find the transmitter and report how the prisoners had managed to build it. Holtzman, of course, overheard all these messages and knew that investigators were on the way. Still insanely paranoid, he decided to protect himself fully: assuming that everything he transmitted would be recorded for the investigation, he "published ' (as he described it) his discovery of the Planar Effect. He then dropped back into quiescence, all his receptors tuned toward Liesco.
When the technicians inspected the recordings made by the guardian machinery, they were flabbergasted: ail accounts had Holtzman dead and lost in interstellar space. They first suspected a bizarre hoax, and turned to the orbiting computers, which were subjected to extensive diagnostic tests. Of course, nothing untoward was discovered. Meanwhile,
the Warden played the recordings to several experts. One was a historian, and he recognized the archaic speech of the Great Dark Ages. Another was a theoretical wave mechanic named Staivan, chief engineer of House Varrik. Staivan, finding nothing inconsistent in the theories and mechanisms described m the tapes, tried to follow the instructions and generate a Node for this "Planar Effect"
He succeeded. The first manufactured Shield was a simple flat effect, about a meter in diameter, admitting radiation in all but the long radio frequencies. Staivan did not realize what he had, though, until he accidentally dropped a screwdriver into the field and saw it gently lowered through the plane of the effect. Staivan reported at once that whatever these messages were, they were no hoax.
He later took the field apparatus into the courtyard to test its resistance to a variety of missiles of increasing power, and, at last, a workman's cutting laser. Thus, as his last discovery, he learned that the Planar Effect did not mix well with coherent light.
The Warden sent a wave to Liesco, where Holtzman was nearing the end of his active period, demanding more information. The situation must have appealed to Holtzman's sense of humor: he broadcast a brief biography and promised to return in another 1,862 years when, he hoped, his reception would be more cordial. He then sent another "information packet" to the systems within range, detailing his latest discovery, and powered down. This was the second and last time Holtzman was to singlehandedly change the face of the empire, as the Planar Effect spread like wildfire.
When Holt/man made his fourth return in 1970 B.G., Liesco was again at war, this time in a dispute arising from the Second Reunification. But by now Holtzman was a legend who had predicted his own return. The combatants therefore agreed upon a two-month truce bracketing the perigee of Holtzman's approach. On this occasion Holtzman "published" his unified theory, linking the various effects into a single hierarchy of phenomena
Observers noted that his paranoia seemed to be less intense than before, Holtzman was now willing to discuss himself in precise
terms for the first time he admitted what many had assumed—he was a machine over-laud with the mind of a man, even if, as he said, he did not "feel like a machine Apparently, Holtzman was getting lonely, because he was qaite voluble during the passage, and gave his interviewers mforma tion on which, he joked, they could base their speculations for the next eighteen centuries
Holtzman would not discuss what he called "work in progress," but something was exciting him as he left panel range he stated several times that he could "see the ead " and needed only a few more days He was still too paranoid to let anyone know his orbit, though, and he revealed for the first time that to avoid capture he had rigged a small Planar field before a normally inactive message laser His maintenance procedure (always active, even when Holtzman was> normally powered down) would trigger the laser if intruders were discovered No one was sure that be was not lying, but Holtzman's cheerful statement that he had ngged a dead-man boobytrap reminded the listeners that they were dealing with a madman
Holtzman passed out of range before he discovered, whatever he was searching for his last transmission was a frustrated promise to "finish mis thing up first thing next time "
Holtzman's next return, his fifth, occurred in 108 B G The Butlenan Jihad was ending, and all intelligent machines had been destroyed—except for Hoitzman So many pilgrims had arrived to witness the destruction of the last great symbol of the old order that keeping diem supplied caused severe logistical problems, ami even, incredible as it may seem, collisions between ships in interplanetary space The Jihad fleet did not attempt to communicate with Holtzmaa, but began an intense search which found him after only three days They cast lots to determine who would make the kill, and the honor fell to Viana Kelh$ After drawing near to him, she suited up and entered Holtzman's ship, minutes thereafter the entire fleet was balhed m the flash of a tremendous mass comersion reaction
No one knows what Holtzman's last theory was, if there really was one, since he has
9 HOLTZMAN EFFECT
not been found again in the centuries since the Jihad In all likelihood his fate was exactly what it appeared to be Both his life and death were tragic, and humanity cannot calculate the debt it owes him For he was unique had he not been mad Holtzman would never have been so determined in his work, had he not been more machine than man, he could not have been so painstaking yet had he not possessed that essential spark of humanity, he would never have been able to make the intuitive leaps that eventually brought him to the answers he sought
WDI
Further reference HOLTZMAN tF^cr
HOLTZMAN EFFECT So named for its discoverer, 1 V Holtzman, the Holtzman Ef feet is actually a series of four interrelated forces, each named for the number of dimensions that the single or composite torce has
Point-source Holtzman effect nodes which have no physical existence but which do occupy definite locations (This incarnation of the Holtzman Effect was theoretically explained very late in the development of HE devices and theory, though it had been used without being understood since the dis covery of the suspemor-nullification effect)
One dimensional incarnations of the Holtz man Effect commonly called Holuman Waves though this is a very long way from the truth (The Holtzman Wave is the only known method for interstellar communications and is the only method available for commumcat ing with a ship m transit)
Two dimensional or planar incarnations of die HolUnidn Effect, which have achieved widespread notoriety as the common Defensive Shield
Three dimensional Holtzman Effect fields the first manifestation of the Holtzman Effect to be discovered and still referred to by the name used for thousands of years before Holtzman disco\ered the rest of the forest of ^effects the suspensor nullification effect (The major use of the suspensor nullification effect is in providing a means of interstellar travel )
HISTORY The discovery of the suspensor nullification effect m 13004 B G marked the limit of research into the theory of the effect
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for thousands of years. Hie greatest minds of every age failed to develop an unifying theory of the suspensor-nullitication effect. Not until the fortunate though tragic accident of I.V. Holtzinan did there exist a mind capable of the insights of a genius, the data recall | of a major corap, and the daring of a 'thoptcr racer. Had Holtzman pot lived, died, and half-lived again, what we DOW called the Holtzmaii Effect would probably still lie undiscovered. The details of the discovery of die suspensor-nullification effect, on the other hand, are not fully known, and much must be interpolated from second-hand sources.
The suspensor-nullification effect was discovered by scientists in the First Empire, ten centuries after the empire first ventured from the surface of Terra. It was thought, until Holtzman proved otherwise, to be a "resonance effect" arising from coherent-light (laser) mechanics. The discovery is credited to one "Verifax Marktoo," who may have been a machine in the service of House Ceres (the Imperial House), though this theory is hotly disputed by theologians. [Nevertheless, the discovery at the Rakis Finds of a reference to an extremely ancient medal of commendation struck for this "Verifax Marktoo" seems to prove that he (it?) actually did *xist.~-£4.]
It took about a century of experimentation and guesswork before Imperial navigators learned how to operate the suspensor-nullifi-cattoa effect field with any degree of certainty. The delay was so long mainly because the eflect was considered to be an Imperial secret, and jealously guarded. Eventually the secret was leaked, and House Ceres and its most powerful and influential allies began a program of exploration and exploitation greater than any other since the beginning of the empire.
House Ceres had no way of knowing it, of course, but this use of the sttspensor-nullifi-cation device doomed the first Empire, which collapsed after 3,000 years of continuous rule that had seen Terra develop from iron tools to space fravel. The ceatrality crucial to Imperial administration was impossible to maintain when there was no quick method of communication from one end of the Empire to the other—and until the discovery of
Holtzman Waves, the only way to send a message was to send a ship, which made for impossibly expensive administrative costs, and diffused the power of the emperor irreparably.
In 7562 B.C., I.V. Holtzman discovered the Holtzman Wave; in 7556 B.G. he passed on information necessary for its use to six planetary systems. Also in 7556, his research was interrupted and he was unable to resume it until his orbit brought him back withm panel range of his sun. In his second return (5694 E.G.), Holtzman kept silent; however, he evidently used this penod to discover the curious "existence" of the point-source node. On his third pass (3832 B.G.), Holtzman was able to communicate freely after some initial difficulties were overcome, and on that pass he published the theory that led to the development of the two-dimensional Holtzman Effect, the famed Defenshe Shield. The Defensive Shield attained current levels of popularity within a century, and, when the Superconductor Plague brought on the Machine Death and the Little Dark Ages, reliance upon the Shields became almost total, and was instrumental in preserving enough of the social fabric to limit the Dark Ages to less than twenty centuries. Holtzman's fourth pass was in 1970 B G., when, fortunately for the annals of science, the combatants at the Battle of Liesco XI called a two-month truce to accommodate Holtzman's passage. It was during this pass that Holtzman transmitted his Unified Effect Theory, linking the various phenomena together under the blanket term of "Holtzman Effects." He also hinted of further development to come. Unfortunately, Holtzman's fifth passage in 108 B.G. was his last: he arrived into the waiting jaws of the Butlerian Jihad, and was destroyed,
THEORY AND OPERATION.
Point-Source Nodes. Essentially, a point-source HE node is the "seed" for a higher-order effect: when one of the higher-dimension Holtzman Effect incarnations is discontinued, it collapses into a point-source Holtzman Effect node which has a location, and can be moved by gentle application of probability nudges, even though it has no physical existence whatsoever. When triggered back into
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existence, the effect which arises from a point-source Holtzman Effect node is exactly the same as before. Debate has raged, ever since Haltzman's day, as to exactly how it is possible for something with no existence to interact with the real world. Arguments have ranged from quasi-religious claims that the node "knows" when it is being invoked, to involved mathematical theories that maintain that the node actually does exist, but in a spacetime "pocket" with no volume.
Point-source Holtzmao Effect nodes ate caged and transported in devices known as "Laser Pens" to theorists, though the operation of these devices does not intrude upon the consciousness of the user of a Holtzman Effect device, such as a Shield. The construction of a Laser Pen consists of three pairs of microlasers emitting coherent radio waves with a wavelength or approximately one light-second. The six microlasers impact the location of the point-source Holtzman Effect node in such a way as to cancel one another out completely at that location only: the node is thereby kept at feat location and is not allowed to wander. To trigger the node, the microlasers switch simultaneously to a wavelength of approximately one angstrom, maintain that frequency for a single pulse, and then disconnect. At the same time that the microlasers disengage, the field's power is turned on, and electrical power is fed into the field from whatever power source is providing die necessary energy for the effect's maintenance. These power sources are usually mierobatteries for Defensive Shields, since they must be contained completely within fee volume affected by the Shield: for other effects, though, much more powerful external energy sources can be used.
AH Holtzman Field Effects can he forced back into their point-source status either by discontinuing tile maintenance power, in which case the microlasers must reengage instantly or the point-source will wander and be lost, or by overloading the field, which requires an enormous amount of electrical energy to be grounded into the effect. The electrical energy required to short out even a small personal Shield is more than the total consumption of the average Shire, If mis much power is brought to bear against any incarna-
tion of the Holtzman Effect, though, the field will immediately collapse into the node for that effect, and, since the electrical jolt also generally fries the micrnlaser mechanismss the node is generally lost. (The existence of a "seed" was generally suspected when the suspensor-nullification effect was first developed, but no truly satisfactory theoretical proof could be developed to describe the nature of this ' 'seed'' until I V Holtzman revealed his theory of point-source nodes in 3832 B.C.)
Holtzman Waves. The one-dimensional "Holtzman Wave" is not actually anything like a wave, but is rather a mathematical phenomenon which causes real space-time to form microcatastrophic folds along a selectable vector, causing the excitation of local matter such that long-wave radio emissions result, which can then be received on normal radio antannae. Like point-sources, Holtzman Waves cannot really be said to exist except as philosphical constructs which are remarkably immanent.
Holtzman Waves are aimed by use of radio lasers: when the point-source is released, a single long-wave radio laser is aimed at the source, whereupon a Holtzman Wave is created along the vector defined by the laser beam. In general, these waves can be maintained for only a few minutes—one cycle of the radio wave being used—before the wave causes sympathetic vibrations in the laser crystal, leading to its explosion.
As might be expected, the aiming of a Holtzman Wave is incredibly difficult, since relativistic considerations concerning the shape of the continuum between the sender and receiver must be fully mapped. In the case of the transmissions from system to system, inaccuracy is not insurmountable, because normal practice is to "flicker" the transmission over a relatively large area, and the holographic nature of the wave assures that if any part of the wave hits any matter more dense than interstellar hydrogen, the radio waves will be manifested. However, trying to send a transmission to a ship in transit is another matter entirely. The ship must be struck exactly, since the only matter which exists, so far as the ship is concerned, is that which accompanies the ship's suspensor-
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null i tier (usually the ship itself and a few hydrogen atoms). For this reason, most ships have certain predesignated points (called "mail drops") where they drop out of the Void in order to send or receive messages.
Theoretically, tfie range of a Holtzman Wave is infinite; in practice, its effective range is limited by the ability of the sender to aim the wave so that it will strike a large (planetary or larger) mass at or near the receiver. This requirement limits the useful range of Holtzsian Wave communications to approximately 230 light-years without re-broadcasting,
It has been theorized that the background radio emissions which blanket the visible universe are transmissions, via Holtzman Waves, of civilizations in the Galactic Core, but this thesis remains unproven.
Two-dimensional effect. The two-dimensional, or planar, Holtzman Effect, which has achieved permanent and deserved notoreity as the common Defensive Shield, is the lowest-order incarnation of die Holtzman Effect to have a physical existence. It consists of the electromagnetic force of atomte bonds, however, these bonding forces have been polarized^ in one direction (the "outside edge" of the effect), the forces have been subverted into acting only on pseudo-atoms of incoherent matter (and can revert With disastrous consequences hi the presence of coherent energy); on the opposite side of the plane, the forces have been shifted so mat they repel normal matter above a certain critical density (ranging from .06 to .35 grams per cubic centimeter). Pseudo-matter, though it does exist, cannot be manifest in real space-time, so the only effects of the Defensive Shield are the effects of the bonding force.
The result of the strange half-existence of the planar effect is that normal matter can pass through a planar effect region, but only slowly. In addition, a planar effect is reflective on its outer surface to certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, and this reflectivity is determined by the manufacturer of the Shield and cannot be altered once the point-source node for that field has been constructed. In general, the less of the spectrum the field admits, the more unstable it is: nearly aft fields are constructed to
admit at least visible light. Fields can be constructed, though, to admit only a single monochrome of the electromagnetic spectrum, or to admit everything but a single monochrome.
As matter impinges upon the outside surface of a Holtzman Shield, the electromagnetic bonds in the impinging matter undergo a phenomenon known as "chameleon coating," whereby the matter takes on an outward sheath of pseudo-atoms in a layer a single atom thick, at the intersection lines of the matter and the planar effect. These atoms then sublimate into the planar field as the normal matter passes through the field, and the speed at which this atomic sublimation can proceed determines the velocity, called the "strike speed," at which the normal matter can pass through a planar Holtzman field. This speed varies depending upon the emission spectrum of the planar field, but is never less than 5.81665 cm/s for one-angstrom fields, and increases only to 9.322 cm/s for all-absorptive fields.
An object attempting to pass through a planar field at a right-angle vector speed of more than the strike speed is faced with resistance which grows more intense as the fourth power of the velocity. When the speed is sufficiently high, the field becomes essentially solid to the impinging object.
Energy "absorbed" by a planar field when it is struck by a fast-moving object is instantaneously re-radiated, in wavelengths throughout the electromagnetic spectrum which complement those which the field admits. Commercial Defensive Shields are normally manufactured to admit all wavelengths from the very short-wave radio through gamma rays, and emit longer-wave radio. Though it might seem foolish to admit such dangerous wavelengths as the gamma and X ray wavelengths, the common decision has heen that it is far better to expose oneself to a little background radiation than it is to have one's shield emitting dangerous radiation during a fight, possibly endangering unshielded bystanders. The ill effects of the radio emissions, on the other hand, cause, at worst, a bad bout of static in the immediate neighborhood.
Special shields have heen manufactured on occasion to take advantage of the radiational
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properties of the planar field: among artists and dye-makers, who are interested in planar fields which admit or reflect only a single, precise color (or group of colors); or for cosmetic uses (by muling all of the colors except yellow, one can conceal a pallor); or for jailors, who normally transport prisoners in Shields which admit no visible spectra; or for those desiring Shields which emit only a single wavelength of gamma rays (this variation has been used by assassins in several particularly vicious exercises of kanly); or, most recently, for the development of Shields which specifically do not emit in the three-kilocycle radio bandwidth, for special use on Arrakis, where the local fauna is sensitive to radio transmissions on that bandwidth and tends to devour any source of such a transmission, even one as diffuse as that from a personal Shield.
Matter above certain densities is repelled by the inside surface of a planar field, and it is this repellent property which made the Personal Defensive Shield a possibility. When a planar field node is being manufactured, the plane of the effect can be warped with a great deal Of freedom: whenever a planar field is warped so as to intersect with itself, the shield fuses into a seamless connection. (If not warped, men the effect forms a flat plane with an area dependent upon the amount of energy used in its consmiction.)
Planar effect fields which are warped tend to contract towards their geometric centers, but cannot contract fully if obstructed by matter in concentrations above the critical density. Since planar effect fields are infinitely elastic (given enough power, of course), and infinitely malleable, so long as topographic identity is maintained, they are usually produced in globular or hemispherical formats: when placed around an object, the field contracts to within a few centimeters of the object being ert globed. A field's shape can be freely and instantly altered from the inner side: when any mass is moved toward the inner side at less man the reflection velocity of the field, the field in that region is instantly repelled by the mass, and the field stretches into a new shape, as required. The reflection velocity is the reason that missile weapons cannot be fired from the inside of a Shield:
whenever a mass impinges upon the inner surface of a planar field at a velocity of approximately 200-400 meters per second (the exact speed is inversely related to the strike speed), the field undergoes an instantaneous reflective reversal, with the outer surface and the inner surface switching positions. The field then functions as usual, except that the radiation emitted due to absorption of the mass's energy is radiated inward, and, furthermore, that radiation is reflected by the now-interior surface of the field. This normally leads to any wearer of a personal Shield being cooked by long radio waves in a very short time.
Likewise, a planar effect field is transparent to all incoherent electromagnetic emissions traveling from the interior of the fie,ld to the exterior, regardless of its outer surface's absorption characteristics. However, when coherent light impinges upon a planar effect field from either surface, there is an uncommonly violent reaction. This reaction is the result of the coherent light causing the subverted binding force acting upon the pseudo-atoms m the field to rebel, rejecting its grip on the pseudo-matter. This causes an instantaneous and total conversion of the pseudo-mass of the shield into a lump of degenerate real matter at the spatial center of the volume enclosed by the planar effect, which matter then converts to pure energy. Fortunately, the actual mass of a planar field is usually quite tiny, on the order of .005 gram for a personal shield. Thus, this typical field, if touched by a laser beam, would result in an atomic blast with a power of 4,500,000,000,000,000,000 ergs, or a little less than . 1 kiloton of the atomic scale.
The suspensor-nullification effect. The three-dimensional Holt/man Effect field operates, like all Holtzman Effect fields, by drawing upon the energy of the controlled interface of something that cannot exist with something which must exist. In this instance, the effect depends upon the tension between real and inchoate four-dimensional spacetime: the strain between the two causes realspace to fracture in a tiny locality (generally a globe no more than a kilometer across, though larger effects have been generated), whereupon the mass within that area falls through
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HOUSES MINOR
into the Void. Skilled maneuvering requires either a basic prescience or enough jmental power to project the future with a high degree of certainty. The field itself mast be moved, rotated, struck, or steadied to induce desired movement with regard to the Outer Universe and can deliver that mass nearly anywhere, or, if one is not very careful, nowhere.
The Void is the most irritating of the many anti-logical constructs which have been made necessary by the development of the Holtzman Theories. Anyone who has ever traveled on a Guild heighliner has experienced a profound disturbance upon being told that while in transit the traveler ami the ship he rides are, literally, nowhere at all. The intense feeling of being "lost" is sometimes too much for unstable individuals to bear, and repeated exposure to the Void can lead to serious personality imbalances.
The secret of controlling the field was difficult to learn because, during its early development, the investigators did not have any theoretical understanding of the suspensor-nullification effect. It was almost a century before researchers came to realize that as soon as the field was disturbed, the space-time pocket was formed and translated to some other location. The investigators at first thought that they had merely discovered a very expensive way to send unwanted matter to nowhere. Today, under Guild management, the control of the suspensor-nullificaJion field is a highly specialized art: before spice-heightened navigators, space travel was perforce directed by computers.
The most mundane use of the suspcnsor-nullification field was discovered only after Holtzman published his unified theories. There is, it turns out, a certain critical size for the three-dimensional Holtzman Effect field: if the field is smaller than this size and it is itself enclosed within a globular planar effect field, a second-order of the inner surface of a planar field is manifested. This effect, known as Holtzman Repulsion, is much more powerful and long-ranged than the mass-repulsion effect of the inner side of a planar effect: the effect is strong enough that it can be used to "levitate" masses on planetary surfaces. Suspensor platforms are used occa-
sionally for personal transport, but they are quite expensive, and are normally used only by the very rich, or in circumstances where normal magnetic levitation cannot be made to serve. W.D.I.
HOUSES MAJOR, see GREAT HOUSES.
HOUSES MINOR. The popular name for the planetary gentry, those landowners, politicians, entrepreneurs, and performers who were confined by economic circumstance to one planet or planetary system. The Houses Minor were far more numerous (some estimates have reached as high as one million; other commentators limited the number of Houses Minor to about 100,000, using economic and political factors to decrease the possibilities) and far more diverse than the Houses Major; they cannot be described except in the broadest of terms. In general, however, they consisted of those persons or families who had reached an economic status of relative luxury compared to those around them, or who had entrenched themselves as a persistent political power in the lives of the citizens of at least a planetary continent, but who had not yet transcended planetary status. Many of the Houses Minor were employed by the Houses Major; none of the Houses Major served others except in transitory political alliances.
The Houses Minor were represented in the Landsraad through forty "Circles," blocks of votes representing forty arbitrarily defined sectors of Imperial space; each Circle was allocated a certain number of votes, ranging from five to twenty, based upon population, relative wealth, political status, and growth potential; and votes given each Circle were apportioned a year before each Landsraad session by the Spacing Guild, presumably neutral upon such matters (but who were rumored to accept extracurricular emoluments). Representatives to the Circles were elected by the Houses Minor in each sector through an elaborate system of proportional voting; each Circle determined which Houses were eligible to vote, and each circle sent to the Landsraad three representatives, who consulted among themselves before casting that sector's vote in the Landsraad sessions; two of the
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three determined the Circle's vote in a dispute Although the Circles never organized their votes into a bloc, they tended to support the policies of the anti-Impenal faction of the Great Houses, except in those instances where their own aspirations might be jeopardized They supported, for example, reduced quah fications for Great House status thereby backing Imperial moves to dilute the power of the Great Houses Hence, ui a roll call vote on admittance of a new House to Great-House status the Houses Minor would vole aye virtually unanimously
Similarly the Houses Minor generally voted against a blatant attempt to increase Imperial power at the expense of the high middle class but supported moves against the Houses Major many of whom have explojted the bourgeois Since issues of this kind required lengthy examination and passage of laws affecting the Great Houses or the Imperial power required consideration and approval in three successive Landsraads, few passed muster The Landsraad did provide a forum, however, for the aaraig of grievances of all kinds, and many of the Houses Minor gained a wider audience for their views through Landsraad speeches or publications
The Houses Minor possessed certain legal nghts under Imperial law not granted to ordinary citizens, although laeir privileges did not approach those of the Houses Major The Head of a Minor House and his immediate family could not be jailed, exiled, or executed without a tnal conducted by their peers, when capital charges were brought against a House Minor or its official members, three Landsraad representatives from Circles other man that of the'House being tried were selected by lot, and sat in judgment as a court of last resort, subject to the final veto of the emperor The emperor could summarily convict a House Minor when he had proof of treason, but in no other circumstances, he could also overturn a conviction of a Landsraad court or suspend its findings, in each case making a report to the next session of the Landsraad concerning his rationale Houses Minor could be convicted of misdemeanors by local courts, and fined, these fines had to be paid before the next Laadsraad session, or charges might be brought by the planetary
administrators to strip the errant House of its status As with the Great Houses under Imperial law the Head of the House was the House under certain circumstances and might be forced to suffer the ultimate penalty of death or exile if members of his House
The numbers of the Houses Minor fluctuat ed greatly throughout history depending pn manly on economic conditions and political gamesmanship During the reign of Leto II many of the Great Houses were demoted to Minor House status and most of the existing Minor Houses lost their economic bases becoming ordinary citizenrj Only under the strongly feudalized conditions ot the Cornno Empire could this highly artificial structure maintain itself as that structure disintegrated so did the props supporting it Business entrepreneurs will continue to exist as long as there ib busmen to conduct but the Houses Minor had virtually disappeared as a unit of society by 13000 R R
Further references GREAT HOUSES Count Bent Evon The Houses Minor A Major Part of Imperial Govern ment 10188 (Katam Linthrm UP) Audrii Krauwon A Social Dialect c of the Houses Minor (Centraha Kutath) Heralds College The Planetary Gentry (Kaitain New Burke)
HUANUI (or Deathstill) A device to distill the water from a corpse It was developed and used, so far as we know only by the Fremen of Arrakis, the Dune planet No where else have people tned to survive m such an and climate and their strange death ritual underlines the importance of water conservation m their society
The deathstill s major components were two plasteel vats one within the other plus a heating device and condensing system Its use was very simple The body was placed in the inside vat and the space between the walls of the two vats was filled with maker oil The lid containing a pressure valve and vapor tube was clamped on Heat from an external source was transferred by the oil from the outer to the inner vat Inner vat temperatures reached over 200° C in prolonged use The liquid m the body began to boil The pressure buildup accelerated the process Vdpor escaped through the valve and was
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channeled through a coiled condenser tube Condensate was collected and measured
There were two distinct types of Huanui The more permanent was built on stone footings within all the sietches and many of the large stopovers Its interior vat was usually about 25m long and 1 m in diameter An ultra-high-frequency wave generator produced a 2,450 megahertz signal to heat the maker oil, which appears to have had a very high boiling point {Tests of the trace compound disclosed a match between this oil and tissue samples from fossilized skaihuludata ) The space between the two vats was 5 cm The locking hd covered both vats, tab locked to the inside OIK and clamped with a snapnng to the outside The domed center of the lid contained a spring and ball pressure valve opening into a high-temperature vaportube Up to 10 m of tube was coiled in concentric spirals above the lid The tube led to the waiting basin of a fiowmeter
Some sophisticated details of the device included encased cooling tubes and a drain tube at the bottom of the inside vat These helped cool the inside and condense trace vapor, which was then collected in the wait ing basin Space-paper filters in the drain tube kept foreign matter from clogging the system
The portable Huanui were much smaller, measuring only 15m long and 75 m m diameter. There was just 2 cm between the inner vat and the shell The heating unit was a parabolic solar collector, 50 cm across at maximum The energy generated was trans ferred to resistor coils oa the exterior surface It had only a large-capacity catchpocket, without fiowmeter, instead of a waiting basin
The Kitab at Ibar says that "a man s flesh is his own, but his water belongs to the tribe" After the distilling process, water measurement, and mingling with the tribe's waterhoard, what little residue remained was treated with utmost care and "buried in the earth to share with Shat Hulud ' J L G
Farther refeitBce: Anon, The Faces of the Marid Attien tr Bracar Baum, Ub Coaf Temp Series 641
HUNTER-SEEKER. An ingenious assassination device invented m 9846 by Roj Amalkin Weapons Master for Audni XI (9828 9851) Its development, coupled with Audni s will
mgness to make judicious use of the weapon on his enemies, may have been partially responsible for the Emperor s enjoyment of a comfortable old age
Elegant m its simplicity, the hunter seeker was composed of two parts the control console, from which its operator directed the weapon s movements, and the hunter seeker proper, a hair thm metal sliver measuring five centimeters or less
The sliver was powered by a compressed suspensor field, which gave the operator the combined advantages of speed (the sliver could travel in short bursts, at speeds m excess of 100 kph) and high maneuverability In the hands of a skilled operator, it could also be moved with the exquisite timing necessary to penetrate a personal force shield
At one end of the sliver—the' 'nose' —was a pointed crystal eye Through this, the opera tor would see to hunt his or her prey, harder than the metal making up the body of the sliver, the eye was also the tip with which the hunter-seeker entered its victim's body
Once contact was made, the outcome was inevitable Regardless of what portion of the body it struck the shver, attracted to electric impulses, was drawn into the nearest nerve pathway It would then follow this course to the major organs, leaving a path of torn and destroyed tissue in its wake When sufficient damage had resulted to cause death the flow of energy through the nervous system stopped, and the shver froze m place The unstable metal was designed to disintegrate within half an hour of losing its energy contact, leaving only the tiny—and easily overlooked— crystal eje inside the corpse
The console and its operator, of course, were less easily concealed, particularly be cause the hunter seeker s field could be con trolled only within a seventy-five meter range For approximately the first three centuries following the device s invention such concealment was less crucial, as the knowledge of the weapon's existence was one of House Comno's most carefully guarded secrets Other Houses, Major and Minor, buzzed with speculation concerning the emperor s' 'private death's angel,' but no real information was revealed until 10155
Public exposure of the hunter seeker was brought about by a thwarted assassination
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attempt against the then-Heir Apparent, Prince Shaddam Corrino (later Shaddam IV). The prince's household spies ferreted out the plot before it could be implemented, and young Shaddam read die report—which included a full description of the weapon of choice—to his father, Elrood IX, before fee full Imperial Court. In the glare of such publicity, Elrood exercised the only option available to him: be arranged for the torture, confession, and execution of one of the more peripheral family members, on whom the entire affair was blamed.
That the revealed plot ted to the widespread adoption of the hunter-seeker is certain. More open to question is the theory that, despite the scapegoat's execution, responsibility for the blocked assassination was traced back to Elrood himself, and was the motive behind the chau murky which disposed of him less than a year biter.
The hunter-seeker's popular usage lasted throughout the reign of Shaddam IV, but ended less than a decade later with the invention of the Reversant. This alarm/counter-weapon detected the compressed suspcnsor field at any level of power, it then amplified and fed the field directly back into the control console. The resulting explosion was violent enough to eliminate all but a few traces of the person operating the console; and, as every House that could remotely be considered for assassination made haste to equip itself with the new device, the hunter-seeker quickly tell trom tavor, remaining only as an interesting footnote in the history of a violent age. ' C.W.
Further references: ASSASSINS' HANDBOOK, Mira Lady Cotrino, Raj Amalkin, Master of Death (from the private library of House Corrino; avail as Work-in-Progress, Arrakis Studies Temp Ser 481, Library Confraternity)
IDAHO, N1NCAN. The original Duncan Idaho (10158-10191), known as Duncan-the-Krst or Duncan Prime, considered one of the finest fighters in history. He was a swordmaster of the Ginaz, a warrior of superior abilities. Duncan Prime was one of three major aides to the original Duke Leto Atreides, along with Gumey Halleck and Thufir Hawat, when House Atreides ruled Caladan and later Arrakis.
Born the son or undistinguished lower-class parents. Duncan spent most of his early years on Caladan His aptitudes and intelligence were discovered during one of the Atreides' regular assessments of the population, and he was apprenticed to House Ginaz. Duncan's abilities and aptness quickly singled him out as one of the few who would be trained in the multiple skills of a sword-master. He demonstrated extraordinary pro-
ficiencies and, prior to the War of Assassins, he had far outstripped his contemporaries and most of his teachers.
Caught up in the War of Assassins between House Ginaz and House Montam shortly after his graduation, he energetically threw himself into combat, partially to ease the sorrow of having not been returned to House Atreides. Decades after his death, troubadors related his exploits, and it is still sung that he was finally captured only through the craven use of a hunter-seeker armed with a soporific. With everyone in his patrol dead, he stood with his back to the door while the Ginaz family attempted to escape, defying the finest swordsmen of Grumman. The ballads tell that he slew eighteen before the hunter-seeker finally took him.
After his capture, he was a slave on Grumman with his keepers hoping that he
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could be used as a trainer However, his constant escape attempts, his disruption of even the most sophisticated imprisonments, and his tactics! leadership of three slave revolts forced his sale to House Harkonnen in 10180, when he was twenty-two years old Again, Duncan demonstrated that his desire for freedom and a return to House Atreides overcame my value his skills had to the Harkonnens Like other mcomgibles, he was condemned to the mines on Hagal, almost always a death sentence The&e mines, a minor CHOAM feif, had been largely exhausted of their jewels during the reign of Shaddam I The Harkonnens were attempting to gather what little profit remained and could do so only by operating at the lowest cost The conditions were savage, with the stave mortality rate over sixty percent Duncan survived the darkness and the starvation for over three years He had evidently learned subtlety from his unsuccessful escape attempts on Grumman, and in 10184, through a series of bribes paid with hoarded jewels and the seduction of the daughter of die Harkonnen governor, he was able to send a message to CaJadan and escape with the girl into Hagal's vast veldt Six months later, Idaho was found by aa Atreides commando force led by Gurney Halkck
Duncan was heralded as a hero on his return to Caladan, and the large expense involved in his rescue demonstrated his value to the Atreides and the reality of the Atreides boast that they took care of their own Duncan reciprocated with absolute loyalty In die Atreides he saw his origins, his life, and his resurrection He brought to them a personal integrity and an inherent morality that would continue to be of value to the God Emperor himself
Idaho was a military genius, and his training as a swordmaster enabled him not only to plan military campaigns but also repair force shields, create linguistically complex battle languages, design military support facilities, and improvise weapons
His greatest long-range contribution to House Atreides, however, was his training of the young Paul Atreides, or as Duncan was fond of calling him, "young.master" Even though Dxracan was not quite the swordsman that Gurney Halleck was, he was a superb
teacher Paul often remarked that Duncan's feline movements and swift reflexes made him a difficult teacher to emulate However, Duncan's success is easy to measure in Paul's triumphs over the Fremen Jamis and the na-Baron Feyd Rautha Harkonnen More im portant to Paul s leadership to the Fremen, Duncan also made him a master tactician, and it would be foolish to expect that Paul ever would have been accepted by the Fremen, even with consideration of the religious forces, if he had not been a complete warrior
Sadly tjpical of Duncan s services to the Atreides, his skill as a teacher brought House Atreides woe as well as joy One of the primary reasons Shaddam IV and House Comno supported Baron Vladimir Harkonnen's attempted destruction of House Atreides was that Duncan and Gurney Halleck had trained a small force to equal the Padishah Emperor's Sardaukar, and Arrakeen Fremen held great potential for expansion of this small group
It was Duncan who first recognized the military potential of the Fremen As the leader of the second wave onto Arrakis, it was his responsibility to initiate contact and negotiations with the desert commandos The success with which he did this demonstrates Duncan's thoroughness and care in matters relating to House Atreides He was the one who learned of the danger of Shields m the desert, who delivered the first cryskmfe to Duke Leto, and who stopped Leto's anger when the Naib Stilgar spat on the table to honor the Duke He also established a tempo rary truce with the Fremen While he was never the ideal diplomat his character made him the ideal liaison with the Fremen His morality pride, ruthlessness loyalty, prowess, and fondness for the truth were a perfect match with the puritanical, ngid, and brutally direct Stilgar In addition, his honoring of the slam Fremen, Turok, shortly after the Atreides arrived m Arrakeen, created the opportunity for Duncan to accept dual alle giance Duncan's familiarity with the deserts of Arrakis, gained during his time in the sietches, would later be an irreplaceable asset following the Harkonnen/Sardaukar attack His knowledge enabled him to guide Paul and the Lady Jessica to freedom and to find Liet-Kynes
In spite of his obvious skills and singular
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loyalty, Duncan Prime's life was filled with bitter anomalies His impulsive actions which often spelled the difference between life and death, were out of place in the Atreides world of intrigue, politics, and prescience Duncan was unreflecting and imprudent, frequently as the result of inner forces he could not understand For example, directed by Duke Leto to watch the Lady Jessica, who had been falsely accused as a spy by a Harkonnen ploy, Duncan became drunk on spice beer Troubled by ias homesickness, misguided by his lack of understanding, marked by his characteristic doubt and intrinsically self-destructive, he unthinkingly accused Lady Jessica
Even his rescue of Paul and Jessica, following the rlarkonnen-Sardaukar attack, was tainted Havmg successfully led diem into the desert and gone for Uet-Kynes, he unwittingly led the Sardaukar back to the three where they hid in the ecological testing station Yet he gave his hfe to save theirs, taking with him such an astonishing number of the Sardaukar commandos that his body was frozen and sent to the Bene Tteilax axolotl tanks for regeneration
Amid the cosnac concerns and Macbmvel ban forces that swirled around him, Duncan contributed the glories, of ancient times to a millennium that might otherwise have been sterile in m preoccupation with great issues His devil-may-care humanity and frailty provided color and excitment A true swashbuckler, his black goatish hair over sharp, daric features, his chin marked by a small mole, his never-relinquished habit of the insigma-less, black uniform of tine Atreides' House Guard, and his gently observant eyes melted women's hearts and often made him the designated Afereides' escort Duncan was a man out of his time who carved magic in an age of rationality and contrivance He recalled an age when noble action was at ways the most admirable choice, when virtue was self-evident and at the call of the bright and the good, and when loyalty was the greatest gift
The many gholas of Duncan Idaho created over the ensuing ^errtunes retained the original Duncan s unique characteristics The God Emperor recognized Duncan's charms and used it to maintain the Fish Speakers bond
to the Duncans, and the gholas were the asexual Leto II s gift to his ama/ons However in his fear of the relationship between Duncan the Last and Hwi Noree, Leto II remarked in his diaries that Duncan could always see into the souls of women and get them to do whatever he wanted While he was rarely simply a Lothano Duncan was a romantic figure often called 'an aristocrat of the sword ' Even as a ghola, he was a poet m actions and words, and The Ghold s> Hymn,' Duncan-10208 s eulogy for his young master, ' remains one of the tenderest expres SKMIS of the spirit of Duncan and the House Atreides
In her commentaries and before her abom ination, St Aha-of the-Knife described Duncan as a vulnerable child-man-adolescent un der seige His whimsy and attractiveness were always constants m the eyes of the Atreides much to their misfortune but cer tainiy to the betterment of later ages R S
Further references Princess Irulan Atreides Corrino Arrakts Awakening Arrakis Studies 15 (Grumman Unit ed Worlds) and The Humanity ofMuadDib Lib Conf Temp Series 139 Siona Atreides Commentaries on the Welbeck Fragment (Centraha Kutath) Duncan Idaho 10208 The Hays Chronicle tr Kershel Reeve Shautin (Finally Mosaic) Harq at Ada The Dune Catastrophe tr Mugal Reed (Mukan Lolhar)
IDAHO, rXIMCAN-HAYT. (10202 10208) The first ghola of Duncan Idaho was a gift to the newly crowned emperor Paul Atreides from the Spacing Guild Hayt was delivered to the new court by the first Guild ambassador Ednc, during the presentation of diplomatic credentials Havmg been regenerated m the Bene Tleilax axolotl tanks, Hayt was an exact physical duplication of the ongmal Duncan Idaho In fact due to the methods of regeneration the Tleilaxu were using at the time, Hayt's flesh was Duncan s The ghola Hayt differed from the ongmal in only four wajs he had no memory of his life as Idaho, bis natural eves had been replaced by lead colored metal ones a change resulting from Tleilaxu whimsy rather than any miury he had been educated as a mentat and a Zensunm philosopher, and he was conditioned to be a weapon that could have destroyed the Atreides Many historians maintain that the Hayt gift should have been rejected His Bene Tleilax eyes and regenerated flesh evoked all
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of Sulgar's Iretnen superstitions, and the Naib strongly advised Paul to reject the ghola Paul himself was uneasy with a being who appeared and acted like ail old, trusted friend, but who was merely an appearance rather than a reality Nonetheless, the Idaho-Atreides bond held true and the ' young master" could not reject even die image of his beloved teacher and comrade Paul Atreides was still a young roan, and he sorely felt the loneliness and isolation of his role as emperor and his character as Kwisatz Haderach Just as loneliness partly motivated Paul s love for Chain, so too be sought is Hayt the solace of his past amid an antagonistic empire
But Stiigar and Paul were well advised to fear Hayt The ghola himself admitted that his purpose was to destroy Paul and advised his own rejection Hayt had been purchased from the Bene Tleilaxu by tile Spacing Guild The purchase was part of & conspiracy involving the Guild, the Bene Tleilax, and the Bene Gessent, all of whom feared the young emperor's control of the priceless melange The agents were the Reverend Mother Cams Helen Mohaim, Ambassador Ednc, the Princess I nil an, and the face dancer Seytale They cloaked their machinations behind Ednc's ability as a Guild navigator to be concealed from Paul's and Alia's prescience
Hayt was conditioned to accomplish two initial subtle purposes before the assassination of Paul First, through Havt's echoing of Idaho's and the Atreides' morality and through the circumlocutions of Zensunm philosophy, he was to blunt Paul's judgment The conspirators wanted to encourage Paul to differ entaate between the critical positive and nega ave aspects of life and religion, thus poisoning Paul's psyche and creating an empire he could not live in. the decisiveness and ethi cal agibty that Paul needed to survive, prosper, and control his jihad would become repugnant to him Second Hayt was to use the renowned Dtincan attractiveness to women to seduce Aha Aha may have held within her memory the sexual activities of numerous women before her, but her flesh was innocent at this tune Moreover, Hayt was able to appeal to Alia's intellect through his mental training As Stiigar remarked when he and Paul came upon the naked Aha duel-
ing the target dummy to eleven lights she had to have a mate The conspirators were either very lucky or very intelligent to pres ent Hayt to Alia at her most physically vulnerable time
However, the conspirators and the Bene Tleilax technicians had failed to anticipate the unplumbed depths of Duncaa Idaho Certainly the singularity of purpose of Idaho s life encouraged superficial conclusions Yet from the very beginning Duacan made-Hayt violated expectations Had the Bene Gessent been less smug and the Bene Tleilax more sensitive the} would have recognized the dangers Hayt s loneliness when he emerged from the axolod tank which the Bene Tleilax told him was a sickness persisted and should have warned them that even this chemically reproduced flesh would need the same affec tions and loyalty that had marked the ongi nal Idaho In addition Hayt manifested be havior atypical of Idaho These deivations were attributed to the new mental and Zensunm training, rather than perceived as the unexpected combination of the new and the old Almost without fail Hayt was Duncan when he was not expected to be and none of his training and conditioning produced the antici patcd results He was something new
Hayt s lack of a past freed him from the extreme loyalty to the Atreides even though his dispositions drew him back to them For the first time, a Duncan Idaho could pursue himself and this liberation allowed for considerable, intensive self reflection and self-development Most accurately, then, this new freedom of self combined with genetic memories of his past and his Zensunm and mental training made Hayt and his later awakened self an evolution of Duncan Idaho Since, after Hayt, the Bene Tleilax used dire con frontation lo restore Ihe memories of the numerous Duncans he was the only one of the restorations to have this opportunity for personal growth
An important element in Hayt s pursuit of himself was a Zensunm belief he often repeated 'Every man carries his own past with him * Hayt perceived his own genetic memories from a new perspective that stressed his unique person-ness While he may have been moved to give water to the dead by
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the vital memory of a friend's arm on his shoulders, he was also able to mold himself as a person, an opportunity unavailable to Idaho and a power unanticipated by Hayt's creators
Thus, Aha perceived Hayt as the most complex creature she had ever seen, a profound statement from someone who could draw upon racial memory As the "new man," Hayt also dared and understood far more than his progenitor For example, his rnentat training recognized Aim's erotic stirrings and his new initiative dared respond, m small ways at first, to her desires This candor and pursuit of his own life is also apparent in Hayt's own words, taken from The Ghola Speaks"
I think what a joy it is to be alive, and I wonder if I'll ever leap inward to the root of this flesh and know myself as I once was The root is there Whettier any act of mine can find it, that remains tangled in the future But all tilings a man can do are mine Any act of mine may do it
Hayt derived his greatest pleasure from seeing the reflection of Duncan Idaho m fee reactions of others and from his own drive to both create and discover himself Hayt gamed his special distinction from pursuing his own interests, not the Atreides'
It is unlikely that a new, inexperienced ghola of Duncan Idaho could have resisted the TTetlaxa's conditioning and power words A Hayt without the process of becoming would have phantly earned the Tleriaxu offer of a ghola of the dead Chani from the dwarf Bijaz to the grieving Paul, and would have struck Paul down m his moment of decision Hayt was stall "innocence under siege," as Alia saw bun in her trance His confession of the Bene Tleilaxu compulsion to Paul illustrated his threatened innocence, but it also demonstrated his horror at being controlled and me strength of his determination While Psul-as-orecle saw a portion of Duncan in Hayt and knew that there would be no violence from the ghola, even when Paul spoke the compulsion trigger, "She [Chani] is gone " this moment marked Hayt s partial return to his past as Duncan Idaho As Paul Atreides indicated in his memoirs, Hayt called
the emperor "young master," the beginning of the restoration that was completed when Hayt confronted his compulsion to kill
The person who emerged from this trauma was a new being As quickly as Hayt-Duncan responded to Paul's entreaty in Atreides' battle language to sla> Bijaz and as much as his swiftness echoed the unquestioning loyal ty of Duncan Idaho, the new Duncan was unanticipated by his Tleilaxu creators and the Atreides He was still loval and retained many of Idaho s characteristics, such as his ability to charm women Yet Ihe man who accompanied the truly blind Paul Atreides on the beginning of his walk into the desert was a mutated and hybrid consciousness His marriage to Aha, a mark of the Duncan tradition of service, further estranged him from his pasts as Ha>t and Duncan Idaho
An excellent mirror of this new being is "The Ghola's Hymn " a eulogy (reprinted m Overby's Poems of Antiquity) written for Paul Atreides by the awakened ghola after Paul had gone off into the desert to be slam by Shai-Hulud A haiku, traditionally attributed to the transfigured Hayt provides further perceptions of a Duncan who empathized with Paul rather than revered him
Young Master Usul
God who walks the Golden Path,
My comrade in doubts
Here Paul became both a god and a man for Hayt Written after Paul's death walk but before the appearance of The Preacher in Arrakeen, it shows the continued growth of understanding after the grief had lessened, and Duncan'i. further perception of his unified place in a seemingly chaotic cosmos
This new being demands separate study [see entry DUNCAN IDAHO-10208], but despite all his new awareness and powers, he remained the crucible and the catalyst The chemistry of his involvement with the Atreides and his roles as Hayt and husband to Aha continued to reflect the danger and sanctuary that Duncan Idaho always offered to his patron family R S
Further references GHOLA DUNCAN IDAHO Princess ImJan Atreides Comno Arrahs Awakening tr Zhaulya Muurazharat AS 15 (Grumman United Worlds) Alia Atreides Commentary to The Ghola Speaks by Duncan
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Idaho-10219, tr Kcahel, Reeve Shauta (finally Mosaic), Harq al-Ada, TVw flww Catastrophe tr Mugal Reed (Mukan Lothar) "The Poems of Hayt in Poems of Antiquity tr WL Qverby (Caladaa Apex) Harq ai Harta Poem XCVI m life Conyieie Works ed Blaigvor Ewanz (Grumman Tern)
IDAHO. DCINCAN-10208. Within the riexus created by the death of Cham, the failure of fiie Bene Tleilax to convert Chain and Paul Atieides into gholas, and the birth of Leto II and Ghanima, the ghola Hayt became the new Duneaa Idaho (10208-10231) Transformed by the crisis initiated by the dwarf Bijaz, this new being was 4he agonized fu sion of the vital memories of Duncan Prime and die Zcasanni and mentat training of Hayt The "new" Duncan Idaho was distinct from both his predecessors and, as the consort to Aha-of-the-Kmfe, as the apparent antagonist of Jessica Atreides, and as the ally of the reborn Paul Atreides ("The Preacher"), he merits separate attention
The agony of Duncan Idaho's mamage to Alia was one of the deepest personal tragedies ever to afflict the Atreides' dynasty The union was founded in genuine affection, strong physical attraction, and shared grief for the seemingly dead Paul Atretdes It ended m horror and abomination If Duncan-10208 had not had the sensitivities of a mental and a poet, he might have survived as a cuckolded fool, continuing to believe in the existence of the early joy and comfort that marked the beginning of the mamage However, as Leto II and Ghanima suspected, Duncan could not remain unaware of Aha's adultery, especially after The Preacher announced it in public As it was, the new Duncan was too perceptive to remain ignorant for long. While his loyalty to the Atreides, practically a genetic trait, made him suspend negative judgments about Alia, his Tleilaxu eyes revealed her true nature As The Preacher observed many times, and Farad'n Comno echoed loyalty can be bought only by loyalty, and the Baron-possessed Alia had none even for herself, much less for Duncan
Duncan was immediately suspicious of Javid's self-serving interest m Aha While die Harkonnen persona in Alia insisted to her that Duncaa's mentat consciousness would
be untroubled by her numerous fleshly indulgences, Duncan was jealous His was a jealousy tempered by mentat awareness, but the pain remained What the Old Baron predicted would be indifference became, in actuality, icy hardness The new Duncan s emotions, gained in large part from Duncan Prime, still found Aha's continual violations of their bond lacerating, and contrary to popular belief, hit* Tleilaxu eveb were not immune to tears Aha maintained her liaison with Duncan because of his mentat capabilities, especially important in light of her flawed access to past lives, and for most of Duncan 10208's life, she was unaware that he could see her pathetic psychic state To Duntan, however, she was dead flesh, a vision so repugnant that he could not look at her without averting his eyes, she was an empty shell, a house of ghosts
Yet in spite of his wisdom and vision, Duncan never surrendered his affection for the Alia he once knew, and for a short time he was able to challenge the truth and maintain a "myth Aha" in his consciousness He was thus so stricken when he learned, while prisoner on Salusa Secundus, that Aha had offered herself as Farad n Comno'^ bnde, that Duncan exercised an old mentat drill, controlled his muscles, and severed the artery in his right wrist with his shigawire bonds
This unsuccessful suicide attempt drew Lady Jessica s inaccurate contempt She saw it as stemming from Duncan t> innate self-destructiveness and failed to realize that the true motivations were Aha s actions and the unbearable burden that loyalty to his beloved House Atreides bad become Like many, she let her memory of the old Duncan Idaho cloud her vision of the new His hybnd qualities left Jessica uneasy this Duncan was out of keeping with what she thought he should be A portion of this can be excused Just as this Duncan was immune to the Bene Gessent "Voice,' he was also partially hid den from the Sisterhood's perceptions, an advantage thdt would remain secret unUl the advent of Duncan 13724
Farad'n Corrino, writing as Harq al-Ada in The Dune Catastrophe talks of Duncan Idaho
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There was a sense of duration about Idaho, a feeling that he could not be worn down He gave the impression of being self-contained, an organized and firmly integrated whole The Tleilaxu tanks had set something more than human into motion. There was a self renewing movement about the man, as though he acted in accordance with immutable laws, beginning over at every ending He moved in a fixed orbit with an endurance about him hke mat of a planet around a star. He would respond to pressure without breaking—merely shifting his orbit slightly but not really changing anything basic The Atreides were the star of his orbit
Although Farad'n's analysis prophesied the continuing service Dunean gholas would perform for the God Emperor Leto II, and although he and Jessica did correctly see that this Duncan was not divided in his actions as Duncan Prime had been, they both failed to appreciate the independent decision that Duncan-10208 would soon make in regard to which Atreides he would serve.
Duncan-10208's rejection of the abomination Aha and his later manipulation of Jessica marked the solving of his greatest problem and were strong evidence of his personal growth. For Duncan Prime, House Atreides had always been a single organism, and he was singularly bound to it by pleasure and pain For the awakened Hayt, Duncan-10208, House Atreides was fragmented by Alia's possession. The visible and obvious stimuli that had long keyed his fanatical loyalty were gone. While The Preacher did eventually use one of these keys—the secret sign with which Paul Atreides had summoned his swordmaster—he did so too late It came after one Atreides, Alia, had commanded Duncan to assassinate another, Lady Jessica, and after The Preacher had pledged Duncan as a "jewel without pnce" to House Corrino as part of his arrangement to interpret die dreams of Farad'n Corrino By then Duncan saw House Atreides for the ruin it was, and had already decided to disobey Alia Here the old Atreides and Duncan Prime values came to the fore and candor and honesty were his only touchstones.
Duncan remained a constant for Paul and Jessica, just as the other gholas would be for the God Emperor, but—and the difference is critical—he was a constant by decision rath
er than by faith He had ceased to follow and adore, he had begun to act and think More than this, his mentat skills allowed him to avert matricide, he invented a spurious dan ger from House Corrmo to Aha, isolated on Salusa Secundus, Jessica was both safe from Aha's threats and prevented from revealing Alia's Abomination Duncan's love for Alia prevented him from slaying her even though he already suspected her part in the Comno attempt on the hveb of Leio and Ghamma, hindsight shows he was wrong to spare her
Duncan remained obedient to both Jes&ica and Paul, but made his own judgment about overthrowing Aha He knew that he could no longer support the excesses and brutalities of Alia's regency and so, at The Preacher's bidding, allied himself with the Zarr Sadus, the rebel Fremen who refused to submit to Aim's Quizara Tafwid Prior to this, Duncan had cleverly misled Aha's and Farad'n'i spies by appearing to formal demand his release from Atreides service This falsehood was so well acted that not even Lady Jessica's Bene Gesserit perception detected it He reinforced his apparent disaffection by telling Jessica that he wouid ask Farad'n to send her back to Wallach IX His stated reason w as that the Bene Gesscnt moved too deeply and darkly to be bdfe toys—indicating his awareness of Jessica's plans to put the Comno heir on the throne
Later, Jessica did suspect Duncan's true intent but remained unsure Her unease was shared by Ghanima, who doubted ' 'this ghola flesh," and by Aha, who was stunned by Duncan's refusal to kill Jessica By this time Alia was finding any lo> alty to the Atreides offensive, especially Duncan's, she had already ceased to think of herself as Atreides Duncan was immediately aware of Alia's rejection This keenness enabled him to avoid death at the hands of one of Aim's amazons, Zia, and the escape to Sietch Tabr to help Ghanima and Stilgar
Shortly after his, amval there m 10231, his abilities allowed him to recognize the danger to everyone, especially Ghanima, of Stilgar's neutrality After failing to convince Stilgar to take his company into hiding, he deliberately orchestrated a crisis by killing Javid and violating the sanctity that Stilgar had so
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carefully established. Further, he baited the furious Naib by accusing him of wearing a collar, one of the deepest of Fremen insults, and then passively accepted death on Stilgar's knife. Thus, faced with the dead bodies of Aiia's husband and lover, the Fremen were forced to flee Aiia's wrath and Stilgar was forced to understand that he was Ghanima's only hope. In a bittersweet interlude at this moment of death and treachery, Alia discovered one of Duacan's old silver and platinum buckles, a gift lu him from her father, and in one of her last human gestures, she wept while Vladimir Harfconnea reacted incredulously wimia her: "Who cries? Who cries?" Thus did Duncan-10208 serve the Atreides' interests even when the family itself was internally riven, lake Duscan-13724, he supported Atreides' goals with a freedom distinct from the undivided faithfulness of Duncan Prime and many of the intervening Dimcan gholas. In doing so, he willingly died, giving up his melange-induced longevity and his unique set of abilities and potentials. He died alone among the Fremen, whose superstitions made diem still consider him a "thing," but he fell as a man and an individual, not as a servant. R.S.
farther reftrea«e: DUNCAN IDAHO; ATHEIDES, LADY JESSICA; ATREIDES, ALIA; Kaiq st-Ada, The Dune Catasttdpht, tr Miigal Reed (Mykaa; Lothar); Princess Irolan Atteides-Comno, Cexversotions with Muad'Dib, Lib, Conf. -fofflp. Series 346; DuacWl Idaho-10208, The Hoyt Cfcraftfcfe, tr. Kershel, Reeve Shaatin (Finally; Mosaic); Quizara Talwid, The Pillars of Wisdom, tr. Noval Allad (Sallisa Secundus: Morgan and Sharak): AHa Atreides, Commentary to "The Ghola Speaks,"' tr. Kershcl, Reeve Stein (finally; Mosaic).
IDAHO, DONCAM-10232. While the Bene Tleilax's knowledge of genetic engineering was unparalleled, then* sense of human psychology was woeful. This second ghola was delivered within three months of the death of Duncan Idaho-10208. Leto H had him killed immediately.
IDAHO, DUNCAN 11099. Among the numerous Duncan Idaho ghdas certain failures resulted from the Beae Tleilax method of memory restoration through direct confrontation. This technique was simply too traumat-
ic to produce sane individuals consistently The greatest of these failures was Duncan Idaho-11099 (d. 11103) often called Duncan-the-Archtraitor. However, it is vital lo note that what may have been a failure for the God Emperor Leto II could very well have been a success for the enigmatic Bene Tleilax.
Duncan Prime and his gholas always felt comfortable with chaos, a state in which they could exercise their own independence and readily accept the tahaddi al-burhan, the ultimate test. Duncan-11099 had this characteristic in excess and also possessed an inordinate amount of ghajfa. Among all die gholas, with the possible exception of Duncan-the-Last, he was the one most offended by Leto H's absolute rule. Most significantly, he manifested a greatly exaggerated immaturity and rape syndrome sometimes seen among male career soldiers and not unknown even among the Fish Speakers.
Sent on a mission to observe the remnants of House Corrino on Salusa Secundus in 11100, Duncan fell under the spell of Ancas Afamsham, the great-great-granddaughter of Captain Otto Aramsham, and a Bene Gesserit of secret rank in the tradition of Margot Lady Fenring. One of the leaders of a militant group of Sardaukar, the "Final Force," originally founded by her fanatical ancestor, Ancas easily seduced Duncan and convinced him that he could serve the true Atreides' tradition only by accomplishing the death of Leto II. With the resources of Duncan's ever-superb military mind and the support of the Bene Gesserit, the "Final Force" nearly breeched Leto's inner sanctum with every intention of assassinating him with a stone burner supplied by the willing Ixians. Fortunately, many Fremen still qualified as Fedaykin. They killed most of the Sardaukar but without their legendary success of the days of Paul Muad'Dib. In fact, even though the Fedaykin outnumbered the Sardaukar, it was necessary for Leto himself to kill Duncan and the five remaining members of the "Final Force."
The short-term result of this abortive revolt was that thirty years lapsed before the God Emperor ordered another ghola from the Bene Tleilax This delay gave the Bene Tleilax further opportunity to modify the
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Duncan prototype. The long-term results were Leto's extensive remodeling of his keep and his realization that male soldiers, be they Sardaukar or Fcdaykin, were inherently dangerous. This ted to the formation ef the Fish Speakers as die military arm of his empire, the emasculation of his own Fedaykin and their conversion into "Museum Bremen,'' and the major alterations in his own breeding program to produce both men and women who far exceeded the Duncan gholas in physical prowess.
IDAHO, DCmCAFHllBl. Known in Fish Speaker history as "the General." Duncan-11181 (d. 11226) conceived and implemented the elaborate training program for Leto's amazon warriors, He was killed when a cadet accidentally armed a "pillar of flame" that he was explaining.
IDAHO, DCfflCAN-iZm. His mental training was in direct defiance of Leto II's prohibition. He was slain by the Fish Speakers upon delivery.
IDAHO, DUNCAH-12122. The most foolish and among the most radical of the Bene Tleilax creations: In a naive attempt to take advantage of Leto H's fading human sexuality, this ghola was delivered in female fonn. The Fish Speakers at the first interview knew enough of Leto's whimsy to allow fcsr to pass. However, the God Eflsper&r became enraged at their first meeting and crushed her. This was the first occurrence of what Moneo Atreides would later cafl "The Worm," Leto's uncontrollable lapse into pure animal behavior. In retrospect, his reaction to a female Duncan was predictable. It made him acutely aware of his vanishing humanity.
IDAHO, DONCAM-12143 (d. £2161). Trained on Gomofit prior to his memory restoration and delivery,, Duncan-12143 was the most prolific of the breeder Duncans. In his eighteen-year span, he fathered almost one thousand children. He was slain by an aging and jealous- Fish Speaker while in the carnal company of a thirteen-year-old Fremen girl.
IDAHO, DUNCAH-12212. Despite his short tenure (d. 12212), this homosexual Duncan enabled Leto II to recognize the wisdom of sexual relations among his Fish Speakers. Duncan-12212 was slain by a Museum Fremen Naib during an attempted seduction.
DAHO, DUMCAN-12280. A clumsy Duncan (d. 12283). While he possessed full mentality, an accident (perhaps deliberate) in the axo-lotl tank flawed his balance and coordination. Duncan-12280 may, in fact, have been the first clone, rather than another ghola. The new procedure may therefore have caused his flaws. He became a court buffoon among the Fish Speakers, but in spite of this deep wound to his pride, he persevered through his loyalty to the Atreides. Sadly, he walked in on a casual discussion between one of the Fish Speakers and the God Emperor, of his latest hilarious attempt at seduction. Unable to bear Leto's laughter, he went berserk and took a small bomb from the armory. In his rage, he saw Leto as the source of all the ridicule he had so faithfully endured Unfortunately for him, since so small a bomb would never have harmed the God Emperor, he miscalculated the bomb's fuse and had difficulty throwing it. It blew up m his hand, killing him irfstantly.
IDAHO, DUNCAN-12301 (d. 12302). A reconstruction of the artifical Kwisatz Haderach that the Bene Tleilax had created during the regency of Alia Atreides. Following his bitter denunciation of life and loyalty at his first Siaynoq, he was torn to pieces by the Fish Speakers.
IDAHO, DUNCAN-12613 (d. 126H). An extraordinary creature who possessed almost every artifical augmentation in the Bene Tleilax and Ixian technological arsenal. Duncan-12613 was the physical superior of even the most expert Fish Speaker He contributed so markedly to their training that Leto II ignored the number of cadets he killed in training as well as the number of officers that fell to his blade in duels. He died from a cumulative allergic reaction to melange following his fourth Siaynoq.
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IDAHO, DUNCAN-12720 (d. 12725). A fog-wood sculptor who gained considerable renown throughout the empire for his scenes from early Atreides history. Duncan-12720 was killed when he was crushed by his partially finished statue of Stilgar, an ironic death in light of the death of Duncan-10208. Duncan-12720 is also known for his design of the tortured architecture of Ono, the city created with die primary purpose of viewing the God Emperor.
IDAHO, EXmCAH-12921 (d. 12934). A Duncan delivered with Bene Gesserit training in aa attempt to subvert the Rsh Speakers. Completely amused by the attempt, Leto n allowed" him to survive for thirteen years, taking cruel glee in his failures among the Fish Speakers ami parading him in mockery before the Bene Gesserit ambassadors at every opportunity. He was assassinated by the Bene Gesserit when, growing progressively mad, he began to affect the role of a' 'Cogita Vera" (Trathsayer).
IDAHO, DOMCAH-13004 (d. 13014). Perhaps the greatest player of the baliset in history, exceeding eves the legendary Gurney Halleck. Trie recordings of his music in the Dar-es-Balat hoard have brought a forgotten master to our era. Like so many of the Duncans. he suffered from what the God Emperor called the ' 'Since Syndrome,'' wanting to know what had happened since he last knew awareness. Fortunately, this tendency came late in his ten-year span, otherwise, a significant quantity of great music would have gone uncreated and unperformed. However, when the "Since Syndrome" did arrive
it came with an intensity that could be felt only by a true artist. Realizing at the end of his life that he was subverting his music to his paranoia, Duncan-13004 quietly committed suicide while his recording of Licallo's Second Baliset Concerto played in the background. That recording as well as many others have been located in Leto's collection. IDAHO, DUNCAN-13015 (d. 13021). According to legend, killed by Leto in a rage when he asked the emperor a question. Many have wished to know what that question was, from curiosity seekers to ambassadors who wanted to avoid asking it. With the Rakis discovery, we may be able to solve the mystery.
Leto's breeding plan interested Duncan-13015, and his enthusiasm pleased Leto, who allowed him access to his stud books. As his understanding of genetics grew, Duncan prevailed on the emperor to share what information he had of the Bene Gesserit breeding records. Despite the mass of material at his command, Duncan found his progress blocked by a question he could not answer. He learned of the Bene Gesserit's unsuccessful attempt to produce the Kwisat? Haderach in Hasimir Fenring. He knew also that Paul's mother, Jessica, had disobeyed her order's strategy, which called for her child to be a girl who would be mated to Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen. Duncan compared the real and the planned genealogy:
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Fenring was a genetic eunuch through some flaw in his inhentance from either his father, the old Count, or his Bene Gesserit mother. Whatever the problem, it had been unforeseen, for Fenring's was a planned male birth—the Bene Gesserit thought that in him they would receive their long-awaited Messiah. The question that Duncan asked himself was this: Why was the breeding of OK Kwisatz Haderaeh pushed back not one generation but three?
Duncan threw himself into the investigation. Leto seemed pleased by this unlooked-for cooperation, even to the extent of allowing Duncan to append notes on his research to the emperor's journal. We quote now from an entry of early 13018:
The inquiry about Fenring's mother is fruitless. As a new hypothesis, suppose not one but two defects in the genetic mix. One, from his father, becomes apparent as Fleming matures; the B.G expect a one-generation delay. Since they have half the genetic potential tor the Kwisatz Haderach in F's mother, they would surely plan to breed her again. But the next mating is Harkonnen and Mohiam. Could it be1* Supposing that she is, where does thpt get us? If the B.G, finds out about the second defect in the time betweea the two breedings—and it's an unsuspected defect in the mother, they can't write hef off. I can hardly believe it—Good God, imagine watching a duel between your son and your grandson with no one knowing the relationship but you.
No, she couldn't have the flaw: surely no one's genetic structure was ever so carefully mapped as Helen Monism's. Unless the second father brings to the second flaw. That has to be it! HarkomKQ is picked to supply what old Count Fearing lacked, but he's a second choice— and, yes, later they find out he's brought a new problem. Now die B.G. needs an additional generation at least to breed in a dominant to mask this second defective gem. Hence Jessica is bom a woman, not a man, and hence Duke Lett's services are required. But what was wrong with the Harkotmens?
In late 13018, Duncan began a three-year tour of Rsh Speaker garrisons around the empire. The trip would have conveniently covered his investigations, and among the planets he visited were Wattach IX, on which the entry betow was made, and Giedi Prime.
I saw the report on Baron Harkonnea today, and I can see why a defect in him would be a
surprise: good stock, healthy as weeds—the iron in his blood is remarkable. If I'm right, the report of a defect will be well hidden here—I'll never find it. But if it came from Giedi Prime, 1 might be able to get hold of that copy And I know what to look for an inherited disease, one that would kill a child if both parents had it, but would produce only a mild condition if jusl one passed it on—incomplete dominance.
Giedi Prime was the last stop on the tour, and the next entry was made on Arrakis after Duncan's return.
It has to be Hardison's Disease—an inherited blood condition, and if one parent passes on the trait, the child suffers a mild oxygen deprivation from incomplete hemoglobin bonding. Giedi is moist and oxygen-rich, near the top of the inhabited worlds in atmospheric oxygen. Upper-class diet is heavy in red meat, especially organ meats. No doubt over generations, natural selection has favored individuals with high iron concentrations in their blood,
So everything conspired to mask the presence of Hardison's Disease in the Harkonnens: high hemoglobin; lots of iron in their diet; high atmospheric oxygen But even so, how many of them were mad, and look what happened when one left the homeworld: when Rabban became governor of Arrakis, he moved to a planet with low oxygen, dry atmosphere (which exacerbates the disease), a diet low in iron. He was none too stable before; no doubl his brain had alreadj been damaged by oxygen starvation. But on Arrakis, it must have increased progressively, and he became "Beast Rabban, the Demon Ruler " Sure, he brought his own nasty tendencies to Dune, but much of his excess must have come about because the disease was driving him mad.
If this hypothesis is correct, then Jessica had the condition too, and passed it on to her children. But she never spent more than a few years in a row on Arrakis. For some reason, the disease progresses more slowly in women, and melange also retards its effects Nevertheless, a Jessica who would return to the B.G. doesn't sound like my Jessica. Could that have been a symptom?
Bul poor Paul! Twenty years on Arrakis, and all the time his brain cells dying! How else could he have launched a jihad killing hundreds of millions? Emperor of the universe, yet all his writings so helpless, so passive. Seer of the future, yet he walks first into the Qizarate trap then into the desert And when he returns,
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that's not Paul Atreides Rabban's twisted will led his mania to appear as monstrosities of vice, just so Paul s guilt brought his to the surface as an enormity of religious zeal
Alia should have been able to resist heavy spice diet from before birth, her sex, the mitigat ing heredity of Duke Leto But the struggle with the Voices must have been continuous, maybe just the loss of a slight edge m her mental capacity was enough to tip the balance in favor of the devils inside
Ghamma may have been free of the disease but it hardly matters now What does matter is Leto—he's the one that must be advised
The next day Dunean Idaho-13015 was killed He believed that Leto's voices and visions were the phantoms of a deteriorating mind, that the more frequent approaches of "the Worm" were signs of the progress of the disease, and the disclosure cost him his life Given what we know now from his journal entries, and given what remained for him to clear up m the puzzle he worked at so tirelessly, the question that enraged Leto may well have been "Was the Reverend Mother Gams Helen Mohiam the mother of Hastmir Fennng?" Perhaps Leto could have answered it, we cannot WEM
Further Reference* Leto R Journal (caUnes by Dunean Who-13015). Rakis Ref Cat 3, 6, 7 9-A83
IDAHO, DONCAN-13381, Delivered with a melange addiction The Bene TleHax and the Space Guild hoped mat Leto iTs affection for his Dunean would force the God Emperor into revealing the location of his enor mous spice hoard to Duncan-13381 This stratagem appeared to work Responding to a post-hypnotic command, Dunean led the Spacing Guild ambassador to the board They were allowed a brief moment of triumph and then slain by the waiting Fish Speakers
IDAHO. DOHCAW-13663 (d 13723) Beot known for his lasgun attack on Leto 11, in which one of the God Emperor's vestigial legs was harmed, and for his sixty-year span He is, with the exception of Duncan-the-Last. the longest lived of all the Duncans— something of a major achievement The "Welbeck Fragment" indicates that prior to 13663 nine Duncans had suffered violent
deaths and nineteen had died of natural causes These figures are now known to be highly inaccurate Leto II's dianes in the Dar-es-Balat hoard have already indicated that over twenty Dunean gholas failed to survive the first-contact interview with the Fish Speakers, and the initial survey of the dianes reveals that there were well over seventy Duncans delivered by the Bene Tleilax
While the Duncans were often subverted either by psychological elements introduced by the Bene Tleilax or physical abnormalities, Duncan-13663 appeared for most of his life to be a return to the original prototype This "throwback ' may have been an attempt to lull the God Emperor prior to the delivery of the seriously modified Dunean the Last However, he manifested the fanatical loyalty and affection toward the Atreides associated with most of the gholas and the original
He was distinctive, however, m one major characteristic He was the only Dunean who was monogamous a factor that surely con tnbuted to his stability Early in his career, he married the Museum Fremen Irte, who lived in Govgoa (originally Jacurutu) on Arrakis, and who strongly resembled Lady Jessica Atreides Together thev had two sons and a daughter The psychological itnphca tions here are fascinating While there was considerable conjecture but little evidence that the woman was a ghola of the original, planted in Goygoa by the Bene Tleilax, Leto n tolerated the situation and did not interfere His motives for this are unclear perhaps he did it out of cunosity, perhaps out of reverence for his grandmother's memory However, the time Duncan-13663 spent with the Museum Fremen and his family aggravated his own sense of uselessness and heightened the bitterness that seemed always to precede the Duncans deaths
Duncan-13663 learned of his impending termination from the Ixian ambassodor He was being replaced because of his advanced age (most of the Duncans refused melange and so did not benefit from its geriatric properties) and because the God Emperor felt the need to have the Dunean genes more widely available in his breeding program Like Dunean Prime and Duncan-the Last, Duncan-13663 could not tolerate the realiza-
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tion that he was useless or antiquated Uncommonly his attack on the God Emper or was not impulsive He planned the assassi nation after the Ixians made the lasgun accessible He was survived by his wife and children, who were later the cause for a particularly poignant moment in the lives of Duncan the-Last and Sioaa Atreides
IDAHO, DC]NCAN-13724(d 13791) or Dun can-the-Last, as he is popularly known, was along with Duncan-10208 the most notewor thy of all the gholas of the famed Atreides right hand Retaining many of the charactens tics of Duncan tame, he also embodied all the adjustments the Bene Tleilax had made in the gholas over more than thirty-seven hundred years of production There is also evidence that Duncan-10208 was the tern plate for Duncan-13724 While this conclu sion involves considerable reliance on sec ondary evidence, one supporting fact is that Duncan-!he~Last had DI-!0208's invisibility of prescience However, there were (rajts in the final Duacan that also reflected other predecessors For example, he preferred the monogamy of Duncan 13663 and had the especial!) astute niiliUry instincts of M 11181, 'the Genera!" Most significantly, there are additional indications that Duncan-the-Last had been conditioned to resist the persuasions and compulsions of the God Emperor Leto n to a far more thoughtful and reflec tjve degree man even the typically recalcitrant Duncans usually had In addition and to a far lesser degree of certainty, it is suspected that he was conditioned in much the same manner as Hayt although more successfully, and that his rebellion against the God Emperor was stimulated by Hwi Noree's presence and, specifically, by her statement, "I was designed to please an Atreides Leto says his Duncan is more an Atreides man many more born to mat name ' Her attraction to him can be partially explained by ms historical attractiveness to women, and his embodiment of me Atreides character la fact, the reactions of the Fish Speakers to the later Duncans indicate that he had, in some manner, begun to function as a human aphrodisiac, a condition revealed in Leto's diaries by the observation that Duncan 13724
frequently excited the Fish Speakers to exces sive and dangerous displays of their abilities However, his attraction to Hwi is more enig matic and may have resulted (as could have hers) from pre awareness appetites and pat terns built in by the Tleilaxu and the Ixians Perhaps Duncan 13724 was pro grammed resistant to Siona Atreides an aver sion that would have disappeared with the God Emperor s death
To better understand the nature of Duncan the-Last and his unique role in the fall of the God Emperor it is important to consider why Leto II always desired the company of a Duncan Idaho One reason was pragmatic Leto needed the Duntans gene;* for his pro gram of breeding individuals who were mvisi ble to the prescience power and to the racial memories Only in this way he believed could sentient beings finally achieve harmo ny with the universe s randomness Even though the Bene Gessent and the other Atreides never suspected Leto II had known since the time of Hayt that some of the Duncan gholas were among those extraordinary individuals who were presciently unobservable and moved outside of ijaz and the alam al mithal in the deepest bhadow^ of the cloud-darkness of arafel Leto II s commitment to sustaining this Y chromosome linked trait and develop ing it in the Atreides X chromosome ac counts for his permitting the abrupt termina tion of sports like the female Duncan 12122 the homosexual DI 12212 the Face Dancer DI-13164 and the misogynist DI 13237 In a variety of ways each prevented the trans ference of the trait or suffered from genetic manipulation that destroyed or distorted it The God Emperor also used the Duncan genes to introduce hybrid vigor and mongrel strength into the dangerously inbred Atreides line The Duncans physical abilities may have been antique compared to those of the Fish Speakers and the later Atreides a point made pathetically clear by the clear superior! ty of even the aging Moneo Atreides over Duncan-13724 However the Duncans ge netic dispositions were valuable for other reasons
As Leto II reveals in the Dar es Balat diaries, his continued suppression of the in compatible was only a holding action disguis
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ing and preparing the way for his ultimate goal, and the Duncans* genes were the deviant variety that nchened his breed and created the means for his own necessary destruction The Duncans were not only a means of preserving beings who craved chaos, but also a gift from the disappearing male portion of me increasingly androgynous God Emperor to the Rsh Speakers and posterity Such an awesome demand by Leto 11 makes it clear why die Duncans felt their masculinity so deeply threatened at the Siaynoqs, and why the Fish Speakers were so repugnant to all the Duncans except for die homosexual DM2212 This %eeding responsibility was not always accepted by the gholas Like many of his predecessors, Duncan-13724 was shocked by a female army, and while he was not as moved to action as Duncan-13 099 had been, it was enough for him to limit his intercourse with them and to contribute to his reluctance to mate with Siona Atreides, especially after she was presented m a Rsh Speaker uniform following her aql in the deserts of Arrakis The gholas* antiquated morality and hubris, despite Duncan 12143's prolific exception, frequently meant mat their genes were rare dowers m the Atreides' family tree
In addition to the genetic reasons, the God Emperor retained Duncans as a reminder of the simpler tune, and as a result of the influence and affection of Paul Muad'Dib in his ancestral memories In his ever-present plain black uniform of the ancient Atreides' House Guard, like the nver named for ram, the Duncan was a lifeline to the original Atreides' glory and stability Leto ITs ritualistic evocation to the Duncans at the Siaynoqs demonstrates their value as living symbols
You pDuncau] are the ancient norm against which die new can be measured You are the rogue mate in the tunes of die passive and emasculated men You are the fear and the violence that bungs chaos You are the ghafla preserved for the Golden Road
Moreover, the Duncans peculiar stability, loyalty, archaic morality, continual search for justification, and love of chaos were the touchstones that the God Emperor used to test his brave new world of randomness, a
new world that he ironically, came to fear The Duncans also represented hope for resur rection and cleansing in an Impenum that Leto II had directed into the immorality of situaaonal ethics and expedience For example, Duncan 13724 was one of the few people in Leto II's court who could still blush and in his demands and decisions, he invariably selected the human side something the ever-increasmgly wormlike Leto needed to have recalled The Duncans refusal to worship the God Emperor, particularly Duncan 13724's, was another important reminder to Leto II's failing sense of his own humanity and vulnerability Finally, in a cosmos of shifting tides and false fnendb, d cosmos in which Leto II had to embrace rebels to produce beings who could \valk the Golden Road, Duncan-H724 and many of the other gholas represented the loyalty and duty of the Idaho archetype, and that bond must have seemed ageless and natural even to the ancient God Emperor In a personal and psychological sense, Leto needed the Duncans' variety to prevent the grave danger of boredom throughout his long reign
Yet for all the predictability of the Duncan pattern this last Duncan was something very different He became Leto II's appointed Judas Iscanot a destroyer created by his godlike victim as an instrument of the felix culpa the fortunate fall Duncan-the Last was the agent of the change that Leto II knew must come but which he feared too much to implement himself Also, since the final Duncan was the loundation needed to sustain the Golden Road, he avoided the scapegoat role that usually accompanies Judas figures, in no little part because of the alienness of the metamorphosed God Emperor However, not all the achievements of Duncan-the-Last were designed by Leto II, in part the last ghola's character resulted from a response to Hwi Noree and Siona Atreides, his actions resulted from his unusual experiences
Among these critical experiences was the liaison with Hwi Noree that prompted Leto II to say to Moneo Atreides, "The Duncan disobeys me1' This was a startling statement since it had probably never been spoken before by an Atreides Duke Moneo was terrified by this pronouncement It put every-
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one and everything in penl since the toss of Hwi might have destroyed the last vestige of Leto's humanity and turned him irrevocably into the mindless Shai-Hulud a tendency he had been manifesting to an increasing degree
A second noteworthy experience of Duncan-the-Last was his disgust with the Museum Fremen at Tuono Village A third was his unnerving meeting with Duncan-13663's children and wife in Goygoa a place that by its original name, Jacurutu, was already emotionally charged for him Both of these moments prompted him to reflect on the failures of the past gholas and to raise the curiosity that helped him avoid the dangerous aspects of the usual Duncan "Since Syndrome " These encounters and others contributed to his successes in areas where other Duacans had failed Just as he avoided the "Since Syndrome, * he also never fell victim to empty sensuality or to tile physical and psychological emasculation that his unexpected physical limitations might have caused
Leto Q was astonished to find a new characteristic in this last Duncan the ability to look beyond what he thought he knew Through this, he began to understand that knowledge was constructed of more than particulars and to learn the value of span nungsbogen (the self imposed delay between desire and possession) as a valid substitute for sudden action
In his alteration trom what thirty-five hun dred years of experience had fed Leto H to expect of the "father' of modem civilization much is owed to Duncan die Last s mterac tion with Siona Atreidcs Like two powerful fighting cocks, they had circled each other, both desiring and fearing the nexus of their inevitable union Each resisted the other through their common bitterness toward and rebellion against the God Emperor They were tempered by their antagonism and by the pugnacity of their refusal to breed Duncan learned to accept Siona s physical superiority as he struggled with the Tleilaxu compulsion to reject her She gained respect for Duncan's professionalism and evolving mentality and allowed herself to accept his successful plan for the final destruction of Leto fl It was through her leadership insight and rebellion that Duncan-13724, like Duncan-10208, went
in search of another Atreides to serve instead of the God Emperor Significantly, what he found was an idea the first time a Duncan had ever found anything other than a living Duke Together Duncan the Last and Siona became convinced that if there had to be a God Emperor, it should not be Leto II They were, of course, wrong but that was sigmfi cant in contrast to their resulting actions Thus, as Duncan the Last rose from his frus trated desire for Hwi Noree and as he and Siona curled each other, he climbed the mne-hundred meter wall to the Royal Road and engineered die assassination of an emper or and his consort
His pmionless climb mirrored his growing understanding that unlike Siona and himself Leto II was no longer a true Atreides like die long dead Alia he had become an alien within the family Duncan realized this first when he considered Leto II s heinous, self ish crime of resurrecting him and his prede cessors without their permission Duncan fi nally understood something Paul Muad Dib had said Your liberties vanish when you recognize any absolute leader Thus Dun can 13724 ascended to a new ruthlessness and understood that defending his indepen dence justified his impending violence Ironically, Leto il s most faithful servant Moneo Atreides inspired this decision when Duncan saw his old self in Moneo s duty and responsibility
It was this epiphany that the God Emperor had miscalculated Just as Lady Jessica Atreides had let her memory of Duncan Prime fog her perception of Duncan 10208 the God Emperor s overconfident had pre vented him from seeing the full implications and nature ot Duncan the Last s growth What Moneo Leto II and the younger Siona saw as archaic in Duncan was actually what made him the savior he became More of an Atreides than any of them with roots that went even deeper than the God Emperor s his other ness within Leto II s contrived universe and his lack of understanding of it protected him against its seductions The God Emperor s Impenum repressed change, while Duncan s traditional ghafla and irrepressible craving for chaos made him the instrument of muta bihty that the Double God Leto II feared
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and craved Duncan-the-Last's disgust for Leto n was created by the God Emperor m many, many waysT bat the last ghola made tus own special contributions as did Siona, Moneo, and the Tleilaxu Hie result even stirred the Museum Fremen Garun to life Duncan was the only person he had ever met with whom he wanted to die
In his dymg moments, the God Emperor too perceived that he respected this last Duncan mote than he had any other, and this perception allowed him to recover the vision of the Golden Road hidden by the promise of a life with Hwi Noree He revealed to Sioaa and Duncan the location of his priceless spice board in the nuns of Sieich Tabr Most significantly, he removed the veil from his own plan for die two they could travel the Golden Road that he could not Siona, Duncan-the-Last, and we, their descendants, could men and can now walk silently among the ancestral memories without fear of possession or abomination Further, the Dar-es-Balat diaries reveal that, even in the moment of his human death, Leto H retained something of his bhthe youth when he asked Duncan what he would now do with his new power and when he and Siona both realized that this Dunean would need gentle seduction Hie answers to both of these queries are now, of course obvious and seem purposely jiaive id their posings evea though Duncan had little insight then into Siona's deep wisdom and the plenty that the two of them would yield
What ts surprising is mat legend and history have not elaborated the figure of Doncan-the Last and his union with Siona Atrades as might be expected Instead, they have actually dimmed die majesty of this incredible figure, who in light of the Dar-es-Sakt recordings appears to have been a myth incarnate Dunean-the-Last was, if such a thing is possible a demiurge He was instilled with forces and powers far beyond himself, and yet he was able to contain them within a human form While further insights into Duncan-13724 await the integration of the Dar-es-fialat hoard with the records of the reign of Duncan and Siona and the Scattering, his brief age can justifiably be called the Salvation Nayla the Fish Speaker was never
the Judas as Holy Church proposes It was Duncan and Duncan alone who was the archtraitor and the savior in one Abroad in the realms of consciousness his incantatory life and personality brought sentient life into harmony with the universe's caprice Alive at last, he followed Siona from the death cave of the Divided God and brought the power and fire of magic to us all R S
Further references DUNCAN IDAHO entries SIONA ATKEIDES Leton* Journal RRC70-A392 Siona Atreides The Last Days Arrakis Studies 218 (Grumman United Worlds)
UAZ. Prophecy that by its very nature cannot be denied a major philosophical and psychological force dunng the melange dominated age of the Atreides dynasty Originating in the Terran concept of fate or predestination and continuing through Zensunm and Bene Gessent philosophies ijaz became a self fulfilling prophecy itself It was made undeniable and immutable in part by the collec nve belief in its reality and potency Moreover, the visions of the future provided by me lange and by the Ceremony of the Seed offered partial and clouded extrapolations, reinforcing the belief that there were in fact inviolate prophecies and unalterable future paths The devastating wounds of ijaz opened time and time again by the melange, finally destroyed the Atreides and brought about, indirectly, the Starvation and the Scattering With the breeding of Siona Atreides by Leto II and Duncan-the Last by the Bene Teleilax Leto II hoped to introduce chance to sentient beings, bnnging their conscious nesses into harmony with the nature of existence Leto planned to resolve a debate between fate and tree will that had been belabored for over 20 000 jears Through Leto n's death and the Siona Duncan union, some think actual freedom was introduced for the first time, and the destruction of ijaz brought humanity into a true harmony with the chaos of the universe
IMPERIAL ADMINISTRATION The history of the Imperial administration began with the Treaty of Comn, which first determined the relationship between the Landsraad and the new emperor The first Imperial house, House
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Cornno of Salusa Secundus, had a limited understanding of the difficulties and potentials of ruling an empire especially one which would come to include all die inhabit ed planets Ignorance of what the normal state considered the ordinary characteristics of government explains the relative simplici ty of the Treaty of Comn The treaty did, however, provide the emperor with an admirable basis for the growth of Imperial power, for it gave him authority in two crucial areas finance and law Paul Muad'Dib is said to have reminded the Landstaad that the Padishah emperor advised it to "control the coinage and the courts—let the rabble have the rest' We are not sure to which emperor he referred, but that philosophy certainly characterized Corrmo rule
Legally the emperor was recognized by the Treaty of Comn as superior to "any and all ' of the states of the Landsraad This legal recognition of the emperor's power was later to provide the foundation for the emperor's claim to make law himself, to serve as a judge and to grant power to the nobles of the Great Houses
Financially the new emperor was granted authority by the treaty to levy taxes on the states which comprised die Landsraad Two were soon instituted the tribute, a money tax on die income of the provinces, and support levies, meant to be used for the purpose of "maintaining die peace and seen nty of the realm " This included the support of the Imperial armed forces, and the tax could be paid either in cash or in recruits for the emperor's service
None of the signatories of the Treaty of Comn expected these powers to transform themselves into the Imperial bureaucracy which would exist some centimes later and, in fact die Imperial government which emerged di rectiy from the treaty was as deceptively simple as the document The Great Houses were permitted to keep their own troops sufficient for control of men: territories and defense against their neighbors This accom phshed two ends In the first place, it re moved from the Imperial House the burden of garrisoning every part of the empire More than mat, though, it recognized the nature of tbe Great Houses to expand at one
another's expense and saw to it that they retained the means to do so An effort to impose total peace upon the empire would not only have been foreign to the nature of House Comno it would also have been doomed to failure Perhaps no other action could have so united the Great Houses as an attempt to deny them the right to make war upon their fellows Only an Imperial power utterly secure in its own strength could have nsked such a settlement House Comno with the military force of the Sardaukar was such a power
The earliest administrative division of the empire was the province the Imperial equiva lent of a district within the system of the Landsraad a province would include two or more solar systems, Each province was assessed an annual tribute Collection was in the local currencies of each world and that tribute was assessed by the House Corrmo on the basis of records of the provincial income submitted by the Great Houses of the province These reports were checked against those produced by Imperial financial agents known as correctores several of whom were stationed in each province These func tionanes not only checked the records of the Great Houses they also supplemented their information with reports furnished by pnvate agents—financial spies These agents ulti mately would be organized into the Imperial Fiscal Intelligence the infamous 1FI
The beginnings of the Imperial iegal sys tern can be traced to the correctores powers in the earlv reigns of the Impend] House Shortly before the Great Financial Synod in the very first years of the reign of Saudir I the correctors were granted the authority to decide cases with tax implications subject to appeal to the emperor Simple as this change seemed it represented the intrusion of the authority of the emperor into the regional governments of the Great Houses Since any case with financial effect could have tax
implications virtually any case could be brought before the correctores Few cases did not affect the participants monetarily This technique began to circumvent the local judi cial system on many planets The only check lay in the attitudes of the correctores not in any principles of kw
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In addition to the matter of financial cases, a new category of crime developed: acts against the emperor or his government. Most court systems of the many governments of the Landsraad worlds had recognized the crime of treason. Now the person of the emperor, and his governmental officials, were added to the list of those people and offices against whom such a crime could be committed. Since the power of the emperor extended throughout all of the worlds controlled by the Imperium, cases of crimes against the emperor increased with astonishing speed. One of the factors in Ihis rate of increase was the tendency for disgruntled or dishonest citizens to file false accusations of crimes against the Imperial throne. Courts often proved somewhat unwilling to disallow such accusations or to find (he defendant innocent, for fear that the emperor would be offended.
After more than a centttiy and a half the situation became so troublesome that a solution had to be found. The court calendars of virtually all the planets were so clogged that some defendants did not live to see their cases tried, and few could see a case through appeal unless they had become enmeshed with the law at a Very early age. The Great Houses were becoming vocally resentful of what they saw as Imperial interference in their local affairs, since on many planets, especially those with more repressive governments, the Imperial system was doing the majority of the'legal business. The reforms which cut this Gordian knot were die work of the emperor Negara II (reigned 123-184) and his legal advisor, the great jurist Berad Mekdum.
Under the system established by Mekdun, in order for a crime to become subject to the emperor's justice, a proems-verbal had first to be lodged. Only the heads of Minor or Great Houses could bring such an accusation, which would be given under oath and before a truthsayer, to an Imperial corrector. This testimony would then be submitted to the governor of the imperial province, and to the Great House of the planet in question, if that House was not involved.
Once a proces-verbal had been submitted, a Court of the First Instance would be
convened, presided over by a representative of the provincial governor and a representative of the Sysselraad secretary, each of whom heard no other case. Only if both these officials agreed that an offense against the Imperium had been committed would the matter be sent to the Imperial governor for judgment. His decision could then be appealed through the ordinary Imperial system. There were stiff penalties for accusers whose case failed to be submitted to the governor by the two-man Court of First Instance, and these officials were mandated to bar all frivolous matters or any cases which used the Imperial system to settle private quarrels. Thus, the number of cases heard by the Imperial government declined drastically.
This change also had the effect of removing from planetary level all Imperial cases except those of a financial nature. These financial cases, which had in part begun the problem, were also strictly controlled. The power of the correctores was limited so that they could only hear cases directly bearing upon the taxes paid during the previous five years. In the event that such cases proved to involve deliberate fraud of the Imperial treasury recourse to the emperor's justice was sought, and then by the route of the proces-verbal,
These reforms removed the Imperial government from the administration of the planets, where Jt had begun to make senous inroads into the powers of the Great Houses. It reestablished the early principle of the empire, that House Corrino was to stay out of the government of the Great Houses insofar as possible. The policy had two benefits: it retained the economic principles of keeping the burden of government on the shoulders of the Great Houses; in spite of this, it met with the approval of the Great Houses because the results decieased Imperial interference in their powers.
These results had great future significance. If the trends in government had been allowed to continue, the Imperial government might have swallowed the Landsraad and the local governments of the Great Houses; there might have been civil war between House Corrino and the Landsraad, with like outcome: the Imperial house left as the only power in the
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inhabited worlds It is unlikely that the Imperial House could have maintained a stable govern ment without the assistance of the Great Houses, the Landsraad, and the Guild The burdens of direct control of such a vast area and number of worlds would have proved too great in the end, no matter how autocrat ic and powerful the rulers The Impenam might have lasted for centuries, but not for millennia
The simple system of the Treaty of Comno proved adequate for the first centime* of the Impenum But with the rapid expansion of the Impenum which followed upoa the creation of CHOAM and the beginning of the Guild monopoly, tins system was strained beyond tolerance The number of worlds m the Impenum, in the end, exceeded 30,000 more than double the number that the emperor had ruled pnor to the Great Financial Synod Under such eircamstances, the system of administration that obtained after the Treaty of Comn was unable to <leal with the manifold details of government within a simple system of provinces and central court Thus, by the end of the first millennia of the Impenum's existence, the administrative sys tem had markedly expanded
The basic element of the system remained the province, still synonomous with the Landsraads' district But both below and above this level, the structure became far more articulated The larger provinces now became divided into districts The Imperial district should not be confused with the Landsraad district These Imperial provincial distncts were controlled by either legal or military officials. Those distncts which posed special military problems were governed b> a Caid, the distncts which were created because of difficulties of administration having to do with law or finance were watched over by a Praescs Each of these officials was responsible and subordinate to the governor
Provincial governors combmed in their per sons the military, judicial, financial and ad mimstratwe authority of the province Since no individual could hope to master all these aspects of responsibility, governors were provided with secretaries whose expertise lay in each of these categories These secretaries presided over large offices of civil servants
who dealt only with issues in their own area of competence While each secretary was a powerful official m his own nght, each also had to answer to the governor In addition, only the governor was given an overall view of the activity of the entire province
Above the provincial level, military authonty was separated from other aspects of govern ment The military structure thus became a direct part of the Sardaukar and the officers were Sardaukar officers Immediately above tile provincial level, military command passed to the hands of the Strategoi, each of whom commanded a Komarchy, garrisoned by a legion of Sardaukar A Komarchy might correspond to the boundaries of at least two provinces, or it might contain somewhat more area The limits were determined by military considerations and did not necessarily corre spond to administrative boundaries The dis-tnbution of the legion would vary according to the conditions within the Komarchy From the level of the Komarchy military command passed directly to the commander of the Sardaukar, the Hegemon, and thence to the emperor himself
The division of civil government directly above that of the province was the Diocese Presiding over each Diocese was a Logistos, whose responsibilities were financial and legal The Logistoi were responsible for the collection of the tribute from each of the provinces within their Diocese, and the submission of the support levies from the Great Houses They also served as judges heanng those cases that had been directly referred to them by the provincial governors and those that had dmved at their level an appeal Appealed cases were divided into financial and non-financial, finanual cases were heard first by the Diocesan financial secretary the Ratior while non financial cases were sent to the Cogmtor, the legal secretary Each of these officials presided over a sizable bureau of civil servants who were career professionals within their specialities
Each Diocese was in turn part of a Sector under the command of a Vicar, whose authonty was again both financial and legal The Vicar s responsibilities were great, his decisions could not be appealed A Vicar would either decide to pass a case on to the
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level of the Imperial court or render his decision If he refused to pass a case on, the matter ended there, right of appeal was not automatic from the decision of a Vicar The offices of Vicars were also staffed with professionals who had special expertise in the many areas within which the Vicar might be asked to judge The decision, however, was always his The justification tor this power lay in the contention that they were the last officials who might have some knowledge of the regional factors that might come into play in the cases which arose under then: jurisdiction An equally important consideration was the argument of the jurat Mekdun "Even die emperor cannot decide everything, some cases mast have a stop *
Compensation for (he great power given the Vicars was attempted through die staffing of his office and through the various sorts of inspections to which ah1 imperial officials were subject Each of the main secretaries working under a Vicar was appointed by the emperor, rather than being chosen by the Vicar These men were responsible to the emperor for feports on the performance of their superior which were to be submitted no less frequently than each ninety days standard In addition, there were the normal inspections from the imperial court which examined the worfc of all officials, not only those at the Sector level Finally, there were the irregular, and often secret, inspections by those runcaoflanes known as * Imperial hunter-seekers " These agents were sent out from the court with carte blanche from the emperor to investigate anything mat caught their eye Sometimes they were instructed to make themselves known to the officials whose administrations they were investigating, more often, they remained unknown
At the level of the Imperial court, all issues came together in ate person of the emperor, who acted with the advice of his chief counselors In fiscal matters the Irape rial advisor was the Ehocetes, the Imperial jurist was the Prefect The commander of the Sardukar, the Hegemon, also served as mill tary chief of staff Each of these powerful Imperial servants oversaw the day-to-day business of the Imperial administration within their special purview as well as recommending
courses of action to the emperor in any such cases that came before him
While the reform and evolution ol the Imperial administration did disengage the emperor from the direct government of the planets, some control of local government was exercised by House Comno The most important means of this lay in the emperor s control over any change of government, a power founded in the Treaty of Comn
That agreement had recognized the su premacy of the emperor over any and all of the various governments of the inhabited worlds This statement was promptly—and permanently—interpreted bv the Imperial house as meaning that all power was held as a grant from the emperor While these grants were to Houses the emperor reserved the right to approve choices of heirs The hereditary rights of the Great Houses, then, were not unrestricted Though the emperor would normally approve the choice of heir by a Great House as long as local law had been obeyed, he was not bound to do so Houses which he felt might be contemplating actions of which he might disapprove were often reminded of his veto
B> natural extension of this power the emperor also had the right to approve or disapprove any change of power over any planet, whether occasioned by heredity, war or other cause In each of these c<tf>es the change of fief-holder was supervised bv an official called a 'Judge of the Change These officials were appointed by the Lands-raad High Council and the emperor jointly and answered to both of these institutions once the change was completed One should not be misled by the participation of the High Council in this matter, however The Great Houses were naturally concerned m these instances that the forms be obeyed and wished to keep an eye on all changes of fief in order that they might be aware of any significant shifts of power But the legal power here was the emperor s, for it was he who granted fiefs and legally bestowed nobility
This power was never expressed more clearly than in the ceremonies which accom pamed grants of newly conquered worlds to new lords Behind all the endless panoply the almost limitless trains of Landsraad lords
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the regal to-ing 'and fro-ing of court officials, lay one hard fact: the emperor was granting a new fief, and the emperor was creating a new noble. When the Duke Leto, father of Paul, called himself a chevalier of the Imperium, as his family histories recount, this was not just rodomontade. When the Duke assumed power over Arrakis as total fief, he published the traditional formal announcement: "Our Sublime Padishah Emperor has charged me to take possession of this planet and end all dispute." Hie Duke thought of this as a fatuous legalism, but he published the announcement, and so did Glossu "Beast" Rabban when he took charge in his turn. A fatuous legalism it may have been, but it was also an age-old expression of the legal source of power of the Great Houses, EM.
Further references: FROCKS-VERBAL; IMPERIUM FEUDAL PATTERNS OP; BATTLS OF COUSIN', BergeR Perobler, "History of Proc4s-V«b«w," 3 Quadraaf Law Review, Set 23, 34:1147-76; V. Colivcoh'p, The Tact tf The Great Convention, after the Material from Arrakis (Placentia: Santa Fe),
IMPERIAL MONETARY SYSTEM. Despite the relative scarcity of economic information in the documents of Rakis so far examined, a fair amount is known about the commercial and financial systems of the Imperium, Account books and similar materials are among the most widespread end long-lived of all human records; some Richesan insurance records are known to be at least twenty thousand years old. Thus we are able to discuss with some confidence the money matters of the human universe both before die establishment of the Guild monopoly and after that establishment made the development of a uniform monetary system both possible and necessary.
In the millennia before the Butlerian Jihad, trade among the twelve to fifteen thousand inhabited planets was common, intense, and disorderly. Even after UK development of the Landsraad mere was no strong central government, and among die wildly different planetary governments and social systems mere was no widespread agreement about the bases of economic value. Thus there was no general medium of exchange. The usual method
of interstellar commerce, then, was barter, which method maintained until 491. Until that time, CHOAM and the Great Houses were content to measure fundamental wealth in commodities.
But the Guild could not conveniently accumulate commodities. Having no fixed bases, the Guild had no secure storehouses, and its only coin for barter was its service. Sometime during the second century of its monopoly the Guild quietly began to campaign for the establishment of a universal monetary system. In this effort it was probably supported by the Bene Gesserit and perhaps Tleilax and Ix, all of whom would have had some difficulties accumulating great wealth in the form of commodity holdings. (We should recall that most Tleilaxu and Ixian products were of doubtful morality and undoubted illegality.) The Houses Minor would benefit, too, from a money economy, but it seems unlikely that any of them could have exercised much influence in those times.
The Guild did, of course, build stores of one unique commodity: melange, the "spice of spices." It was extremely precious, and the supply of it was small though not fixed. Taking it as the standard would have helped keep inflation rates low by limiting the increase of money while yet allowing some increase with the expansion of the economy. The Guild could never permit this use of melange, however, as the nature of their own use had to be kept secret. The Guild apparently tried for a while to reintroduce the ancient lust for precious metals or jewels, hoping, perhaps, to make gold or sapphires a standard, but some of these materials were insufficiently rare, and none of them could be made universally desirable. Human greed had taken on 100 many different colorations.
In the end, the Guild concluded that in a stable, hierarchical and controlled society, there was no reason not to employ an entirely artificial currency. They bent their efforts to persuading House Corrino and the other directors of CHOAM of the advantages of money. A traditional advantage such as portability could not be emphasized, since it would tend to soften the rigidity of the faufreluches. Other advantages, such as easy transferability, would outweigh the dangers
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associated with them Finally, two chief ele ments earned the Guild case interest and leverage The first appealed to the desire fen-wealth, the second to the desire for power The Guild never tired of pointing out that commodities must be produced, they increase m quantity only through further production But by the charging of interest, money may be made to reproduce The Guild also repeatedly demonstrated how the judicious spending or investment of a sum of money may affect the movements of much larger sums in ways advantageous to the spender or investor The statesmen of the Guild were happy to show the many ways in which interest and leverage can work in concord with each other, to the greal profit of those who hold money
To a few Great Houses, the Gwld advanced a thud argument, mat the mtroduc tion of money would make interstellar commerce more efficient, m s sense cheaper, and so more readily accessible Commodity-poor Houses who owed their standing to court politics or military achievements would find the prospects for their economic advancement enhanced by money An incomplete document m the Rakis collection records the response to this argument of Marco Atreides (385-445), Count of Thuestes ' In my mind I know no doubt that the introduction of a common currency and an Imperial banking system will give my House its only good chance for a dominant political poMUon We can never build palaces on pundi nee But I fear grievously that the price of money will be the honor of the Houses mat covet it Lust for glory may make a man a warrior, lust for fogwood may make him an artist, lust for women may make him no worse wan a fool But but for money will make him a bookkeeper An Atreides drawn to money will be an Atreides drawn to death" ("Letter to Dona," Lib Conf Temporary Series 763)
Whatever the merits of Duke Marco's sensibility, he saw clearly enough something the Guild did not often mention in its argu ments and proposals mere could be no intro duction of money at the interstellar level without the concomitant introduction of inter stellar banking Other documents show that Marco rightly understood the Guild to be the
only organization able to assume the banker's role But Marco's House either did not share his misgivings or found reason to ignore mem, in 485 Count Nikos Marco s grandson, is recorded with the majority on the crucial Landsraad vote that would, six years later put the solan into circulation
The same vote made the Guild, m effect, banker to the Impenum There was never an Imperial bank as such nor any sort of cen tral bank, but, as Marco saw must happen the Guild controlled interstellar banking be cause it controlled interstellar communication Information, like people and plasteel and portyguls, went from star to star only m the holds of Guild ships Thus money, as a form of information, could circulate only through the medium of the Guild E\ery heighlmer and most of the Guild's smaller spaceships earned at least one purser, empowered to collect and disburse loan and borrow, hold in trust, broker for a second party, extend and withdraw credit, cash drafts and make change To some extent each such officer was an entrepreneur because the gains and losses to the Guild from his conduct of business would be reflected quickly and di reUly in his standing on the non navigational side of the Guild hierarchy and, so, m his access to the geriatric spice No Guildsman had reason to accumulate many solans and no way to accumulate many personal pos sessions but one could accumulate years for his hfespan
Since the solan was only a name, a bit of ncepaper, and a number in a ledger, it had to be defined in terms of its purchasing power To some extent once the monetary system was in place and functioning, its value de fined itself simply by the practice of money users But most of the years between the Landsraad vote ol 485 and the initial distnbu tion of solans in 491 were devoted to mtn cate negotiations to fix the starting point for the system The Guild subtly and effectively resisted any tendency of the emperor or the Landsraad to single out the price of spice as a fundamental determinant Instead the Guild negotiators proposed a complex formula of commodity equivalents The commodity mar ket processes had become rather sophistical ed over the centuries and the Guild, of
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course, had detailed current and historical records of weight/number/value ratios Their proposed formula was a scrupulously honest effort to preserve the relative economic standings of all the Houses It was debated for over four years
The conflicting ambitions, rivalries, and enmities among the Houses tended eventually to cancel each other, and the weight of House Cornno gradually settled on die side of the Guild formula Although only the final version of that formula is known, it had certainly been modified by die debate, and some Houses, inept or careless in financial calculations, suffered thereby House Atreides, for instance, could not have profited from the equation of one tonne of punch nee to twenty-nine grams of molybdenum But no House was pauperized, nor did any become rich in solans that was not already rich in tangible goods
As the Guild had predicted, the operation of the market brought about changes in the relative values of protects and materials which in turn changed the practical definition of the solan Every twenty five years the financial staffs of the Guild, the emperor, and the Landsraad met to review market history and make appropriate revisions of the solan value formula The basic rule of these conferences was that the formulaic changes must leave relative economic standings unchanged Although the conferences were politically charged events, die basic rule seems to have been generally well observed Most artificial manipulations of value were done to encourage or discourage production of specific kinds of goods Apparently, however, no pnce was kept fixed for more than three years at a tune (about the period it took for an economic "wave" to propagate across the Empire), and die Guild bankers could probably intervene to buy in die case of dumping, or to sell in the case of hoarding
During the God Emperor's reign economic management became a great deal more rigid Leto, concerned with die present only as it opened to the future, interested in relationships only as they flowed and changed ironically presided over the last flexible cur rency in Imperial history For instance, for over twenty-five centimes, no matter what
the supply, no matter what the demand, one solan bought one kilogram of pundi nee The God Emperor never minded a few famines Intent upon teaching the race the deadliness of stability, committed to forcing an explosion of unpredictable change along his Golden Path, Leto became a policeman enforcing bad laws so that stricture would provoke repeal The Scattering was certainly a repeal of the Impenum, and one result of that outburst was the polyvanant "funny ' money system familiar to us today Like the Guild, the solan has become an element of the past M M
Further references CHOAM D W Alia Current Accounts The Banking Principles and Practices of the Spacing Guild (Kaitmn Linthrm UP) Dik Benat The Applica tion of the Solari Value Formula 1285 5085 3 v tr HiiZman Suradees (Gruuzman Isabel) S an Esva Cross Variant Analysis of Spice Production and the Solan Value Formula 8895 HOOO (Kaitain Varna) Hokosuna Galant Lost Mass The Commodity Market and the Adoption of the Solari (Grumman Hartley UP) K Genm A Studv of Guild Accounts from the Rakis Re cords (Butte Summo-Scama) Harq at Ada ed The Atreides Letters Lib Conf Temp Series 763
IMPERIAL POETRY, 10000-10400 No penod in die history of literature has been more praised for its accomplishments than the four centimes following the turn of the eleventh millennium Yet far from spnngmg like wildflowers from a single stem a metaphor that expresses well the first half of (his penod—the glones of the second half are like a garden full of artificially transplanted and carefully nurtured blossoms As the met aphor implies the period falls easily into two halves the first spanning the final two centuries of the reign of House Comno and the second initiating the rule of the Atreides CORRINO PERIOD In the hrst period Galach held an unquestioned supremacy as die language of culture and the arts it was the official language of the Impenum and die native tongue of billions of speakers on die settled worlds Studied as a second lan guage in thousands of schools it was the language of law and military and die path w ay to political and social advancement Although every planet had its unique tradi tional poetic and narrative forms Galach was readily adaptable to use in these forms
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and for thousands of years before the fall of the Comnos, the literature of many worlds was ornamented with works stamped unmistakably with the character of the planetary society yet written m a language understood by the whole empire Consequently, the liter ature of Galach under the Cornnos tended to be diffuse, casual in meter though mannered in form, and marked by a native vigor conveyed in a cosmopolitan language
But changes in that literature, especially in its lyric forms, were noted by 10100 As if in response to a prescience of change in the universal order, the literature of Galach reached heights over the next few generations seldom equalled before Many of the best known works from that time express a sense of foreboding, of uneasiness, of anticipation, or at the least, a sense of new cosmic beginnings One of the most famous lyrics of the time is "The Earthquake,"1 written by the Corrmo Court Poet Henoor Sentraks (10035-10163) late m his life after a mild tremor had been felt at the court on Kaitam in 10159 As an omen, the tremor, rare to a geologically stable world hfceKaitain, sparked much popular anxiety Note the sense of a new creation expressed in the concluding lines "Romahna" was the resort area near the capitol m which Sentraks was staying, giving instruction in poetry to vacationing courtiers
It was m Romahna that I found.
First-hand, my knowledge that the earth could
shake
Like a drying dog It seemed the quake, Or tremor, rattier, started as a sound
As if a thousand sprinters stamped fee ground In rattling umson The mad mistake Of ancient strata made its break
With the sane surface and slowed tike a watch unwound
Outside the palace thamber lay a gravel plot,
With stones heaped straight in regimented rows
That went anseea from being plain in view
At the class s end, I stopped my work, and
thought
I saw as One who saw creation knows, The stones, like primal earth, spread flat and new
A second example of the odd warnings of onrush ing change that poets—as the mtuitors
of their culture—felt comes from the works of DwaidrKauznet(10110 101/0) Kauznet whose poetry was unpublished in his lifetime was an overaged junior officer on Illerdan a fief of House Kaastaar in the garrison at Lodengorod He was one of the most decent men ser\mg in the ranks of those monsters of perversion His poem 93 "2 evokes ques tions that cannot be answered because they cannot be precisely stated These questions cannot be the contradiction of Kauznet s commission in the Illerdan army (determined by the inflexible faufrcluchc system), because that quandary—what an honest man can do m an evil svstem—was clear to Kauznet even if its answer was not
93
With rank and fame and comfort all the best A hatclKt strikes and hews my nbs of trees Deep sounds knock soft m a bone bound chest Its hidden contents stir lost are its keys
There is a question missing on the test, And yet the answer should spring with ease To the bewildered brain I ve wrung and pressed To decipher the hollow guts and shaking knees
And I face fate in the game chessed To the last pawn I lose in aged lees Of life, and all my days and nights I quest The missing piece to pay the unknown fees
But keys and test and pawn point to a space Gapped m this partial man unfull of grace
As tensions increased between Houses Kaastaar and Atreides, Illerdan became the center of contention, and Caladaman agents infiltrated the garrisons there, probing for weaknesses Kauznet, still a junior officer at sixty seemed a likelv target but spies found only the poems he had been secretly writing Nevertheless the poems were copied and forwarded to Intelligence on Caladan for inspection The Bureau found them of no military use and the papers passed from hand to hand as a curiosity until they came to the attention of the young na Baron Leto To say that he found the poems moving and memorable is an understatement, and, per haps informally at first he began gathenng the copies of Kauznet s work
When the Illerdan campaign was launched, Leto used his influence to order Kauznet taken alive, if possible but Kauznet gathered
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a remnant of Kaastaanans around him, went into the hills, and waged a guerrilla war Leto's first suspicion that Kauznet had survived came from the style of dnti-Caladaman ballads emanating from the resistance Without native support, the resistance was hopeless, and was soon rooted out Leto never saw Kauznet alive
For almost 5000 years, scholars have speculated on the identity of the L A , who saw to it that Kauznet s artistry did not die with him With the translation of the records in M Section of the Rakis Finds, we now know die answer—Leto Atreides
The last Cornno Court Poet was Imclda Vizhyarad (10182-10239), who followed Shaddam IV into exile on Salusa Secundus Her later work shows a growing obsession with inescapable destiny, most frequently in connection with Shaddam and his companion, Count Hasimir Fennng In his youth, Fennng loved the sea he was a fine amateur sailor (and a surpassingly skiHful athlete in many pursuits), and was nicknamed "Windmaster " The Vizhyarad poem that follows3 takes its name from Fennng and pictures him in the later years after die death of Shaddam He withdrew into himself increasingly during those years spending day after day on the beach, sheltered from the SUB beneath the crumbling hull of his old racing boat
WINDMASTER
This dweller by the sea-walls sheer Dreaming beneath his rotting shell, Ponders a prophecy of fear
He dreams a great loss, a long year Of distant fields where heroes fell, This dweller by the sea-walls sheer
He dreams of arts* who sweeps a sere World, whose desert sight and demon spell Ponders a prophecy of fear
He dreams a child who carves a peer f Heats mental toil the nephew's knelU This dweller by the sea walls sheer
He dreams shadow-heirs, never near ** Wkle his mother, bearing magic hell,tf Ponders a prophecy of fear
He dreams &K star he marked to steer His ship now steers his life as well,
This dweller by the sea walls sheer Ponders a prophecy of fear
*Paul \treides
t Hie death ot Baron Harkormen at the hands of the child Alia
fThufir Hawai according to popular tradition a traitor to the Atreides was supposed to have warned Feyd Rdutha not to challenge Paul By incorporating this legend Vizhyarad shows lhat she was not present at that climactic scene since we now ki uw that Hawai killed himself shortly before the challenge was issued **Fennng was impotent ncapablc of begetting heirs flThis line is the mosl obscure in all of Vizhyarad s work It has been suggested that Fennng s molher was the R M Gams Helen Mohiam and if this conjecture is correct then the magic hell must refer to the neural stimulating box she earned for the gom jabbar In any case Fennng would have had persona) experience with the test of the gom jabbar
The premier achievements of Galach poet ry from 10000 to 10200 were lyrical, and as we have seen, often marked by a note of warning Obviously poetry did not cease to be written in Galach when the Atreides rose to power, despite the changes in taste of form and language that the ascension produced As the final example illustrates poetry in Galach continued but that on the central worlds took an elegaic tone, expressing mut ed and bomber emotions
ATREIDEAN PERIOD Paul Atreides sei zure of the throne in 10196 marked the greatest change the empire had known for a hundred centuries Disruption of this magm tude leads nrvariably to changes in the arts, but the effects of the new ruling house on poetry were not to be feft for several decades The upheavals both physical and spiritual that Paul s Jihad caused were almost un thinkable House Comno had reigned for so long that its existence took on the status of a natural law The fall of Shdddam shocked many of the foremost writers into a silence from which they never recovered For this reason, few poets have productive careers bridging the two dynasties
The writers of the Atreidean period were new, as were their forms and their language
Muad Dib s Impenum firmly concentrated political and economic power The center of empire was fixed on Arrakis with a solidity that Kaitain had never experienced Creators of culture flocked to Arrakis adorning the capital planet with the pick of the talents of
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the inhabited worlds Yet Arrakis was in many ways a much more provincial place than even the worlds those artists and poets had left. Whereas Galach had been the language of convenience under the Corrinos, Fremen was now the language of God under the Atreides. Moreover, the tastes of the Fremen, who BOW made up the bulk of the audience for the products of art, were different. The Fremen preferred history to Fiction in general, and in particular, preferred the epic to the lyric, the drama to the narrative (many were illiterate), and moral fable to realistic comedy, The literature of Galach had been diffused among many planets, but that of Fremen was concentrated on Arrakis; Galach poetry, casual aad mannered, gave place to Fremen poetry, strictly traditional in both meter and form. And finally, the vigor which Galach poetry drew from its roots on many planets was replaced in Fremen verse by an intense intellection; this last change needs some explanation.
The Fremen writers who mi$it have filled their works with their own Dune-bred energies were scattered across a thousand worlds by the Jihad. Many of them died in its progress; many others, whose natural bent might have been artistic, were channeled into military, administrative, or judicial careers. Yet the population of Arrakis was never very large, and tine outflow of the Fremen legions decreased it noticeably. Into this vacuum surged not only a spectrum of fortune hunters but also writers from around the empire, attracted by the wealth and patronage that now only Artakis could offer. The surprising yet logical conclusion of these causes was the fact mat of all the writers who brought luster to Fremen literaaire from 10200 to 10400—-the "Golden Age"—not one was Fsemen-bcm. For instance, among the supreme dramatists of the age, Hang al-Harba was born Aitu Cinoli on Yorba; Tonk Shaio was bom on Aefarium IV; al-Mashrab, also an occasional poet, took her Fremen name from a nickname—"the vivid one"—which gradually replaced mat given her on her homework! of Parton, Sorri Cam wold And the situation was much the same with the poets of the era.
No sketch, however brief, of the poetry of
this time would be complete without mention of Deeziir Astiki (10189-10250), who occupied a singular position among the early Atreidean poets. He began in 10214 as a minor functionary under the regency of Alia, and was alone among the poets of his time in knowing Leto II and Ghanima personally. Astiki felt a genuine affection for the growing twins, beginning with his "Birth Poems," a pair of works celebrating their births. The poem written for Leto4 is provocative in view of that emperor's later reign, but whether Astiki's poem shows a premonition about the pre-bom Leto remains an open question.
LETO
A child new-bom, testimonial to man, Moves in powers of potency like clouds With no hint yet of future shapes. Sets bells in the philosophic mind nnging, Echoing in the lower depths of birth's mystery, The sound, radar-like, reflecting on the child
A Delphic simplicity surrounds the child, Of unheard oracles foreshadowing the man, The guilt of whose actions will smudge the
mystery Of his borning blamelessness like hanging
clouds—
But now at this time of matin's ringing He is not menaced bj these dark shapes.
But huw avoid the destiny that shapes His end? Is there an innocence in the child, Or will he find in the lead and silver nnging Of time that advances the maturity ot man, That the guiltlessness that shone in trailing
clouds Of glory was a fraud, and kill a mystery?
Explaining is the only death of mystery, But who explains? the craftsman, drawing shapes From clay? the steersman in nebular clouds9 For who has found the way to tell the child That good and bad alone defines a man, In words that won't set his ears nnging?
Too soon he'll see the wolf-thoughts ringing Him in, tearing rending—what? a mystery? Ripping away till all that's left is man. Paradise is lost, but m the golden shapes That sometimes stir, we see the child, And sometimes see our future in his clouds.
Sadly, Astiki died at the height of his powers, mistakenly killed by a palace guard on the night following an unsuccessful early uprising against Leto.
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Some students of Astiki's work have ar gued that his poetry after 10240 hints at a change in his attitude toward Leto To be sure, his later verse is much freer, experimental in form, and notably so when compared to an early work like "Leto," which follows exactly the ancient form called a sestina His last poem, Martyrs,"5 may reflect his feelings about Leto, but in the absence of secure corroboration, a definite statement about its meaning is risky
MARTYRS
Martyrs have uses, but to God only Utility's relationship to man is lost, For martyrs are arisen corpses Come to the graveyards of our sensibilities
If eyes shrouded with the film of power Could see the mockery of their postures In opposition to a will on fire, They would know (heir fight was lost In loins a generation past at! ftuitfulness But nonetheless they don their suits of custom As shelter from the moimtatnfall of die divine
Martyrs ahvajs were and wiB and never needed be, But it comes as little comfort when they die That the mouth of hell is hot and licks its lips In pleasure drooling for the taste of oppressor
With this enigmatic work, Astiki's career ended, and with him died die last personal poetic link with the era before the reign of Leto II The poets who followed him were from a new generation, and continued the Golden Age of Atreidean Fremen literature from the standpoint of those who looked back on, rafter than witnessed, the events that molded their times WE M
NOTES
'Henoor Sentraks, Lyncs tr Mauzan Gwidm (Grummm Hartley UP), p 306 :I)waidr Kauznci Posthumous Poetry Edited in His Honor by L.A tr Tttubat Hetter (ong pub Caladan, rep Kajtam Varna), p 127 3Imelda Vtshyarad, Barren Branches Later Works ed Aubergiae ro'Soca (Saiusa Secundus Gravlak) p 66
'Deezur Astiki, Occasional Poetry ed and tr O B Prthmeis, Studies at Atreidean History 85 (Paseo Institute of Oalacto Fremen Culture) p 145
5Idem, Later Works, ed and tr O B Pithiviers Studies m Atreidean History 87 (Paseo Inst of Galacto-Fremea Culture), p 289
Further references FREMEN POETRY HARQ AL HARBA O B Pithivierb A History of Atreidean Literature (Gnimman Hartley UP)
IMPERIUM, FEUDAL PATTERNS OF. While precise details of the relationships among the empire's most powerful forces, the emperor, the Houses Major and Houses Minor the Landsraad, and the Spacing Guild, will have to await the completion ot translations of all documents now available in the Rakis Finds, the fundamental feudalism of the old empire has been established beyond all doubt Feudalism—a political system often regarded today ab primitive—was feasible m that past as a way to most efficiently govern such a widely dispersed empire of established planets—each with the capability to be self sustaining while retaining unique characteristics—and a constantly expanding frontier of new planets For an empire that lacked the technological developments necessary to efficiently offset the distances and differences between such planets feudalism alone had the proper combination of stability and flexibility, centralization and decentralization, to make accommodation under one system possible Even so the feudal empire required the most delicate balance of forces of interlocking loyalties and responsibilities, to maintain itself Political power, civilization itself, rested upon a tripod made up of the emperor, his vassals, and their means of communication and contact—the Spacing Guild
All power was centralized in the person of the Padishah Emperor who in name at least owned the entire empire In practice, the term "Padishah Emperor' meant the head of House Cornno from the Battle of Cornn in 88 B G , which established the ascendancy of the Imperial House to the downfall of Shaddam IV and the establishment of the Regency in 10196—an uninterrupted period of 10284 years standard (For the fate of the empire after 10196, see ATREIDES HOUSE )
Although House Cornno could be said to have reigned over the entire galaxy it ruled only a minuscule portion of that galaxy directly—most notabl) Kaitan, the seat of the Imperial Court and Saiusa Secundus homeworld of House Comno, transformed
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into the Imperial Prison Planet The rest of the galaxy was held in fief by individual Houses Major, any one of which could hold a large number of planets or even planetary systems in precana from the emperor Such fiefs were normally granted in perpetuity to a Great House, yet they could escheat to the emperor in default of an heir to a House (a circumstance resulting more often from a House being forced into exile than from the failure of a genetic line) or the emperor could declare a fief forfeit owing to the failure of a House to fulfill its feudal obligations Stich reversions of a fief to direct Imperial control were, however, com paratively rare, except m the case of those fiefs that carried with them exceptional wealth and/or political power, such as Arrakis (documented by (War Bruus, The Political History of&utte (Fides Maftfaanj)
The granting of a fief to the ruler of a House Major earned with it Imperial protection against violations of the Great Convention in House-to-House disputes, and against the (possible, but never realized) threat of invasion by extra-galactic, non human adversaries An Imperial fief also guaranteed the holder status as a House Major and thus representation in the Landsraad, membership (although not necessarily a directorship) in CHO&M, Guild shaping privileges (contingent upon Guild approval), and immunity from direct Imperial interference Indirect interference, in die form of spies, official' 'visits' by dignitaries, and even sabotage, was constant and expected (as detailed by Zhuura/h Nimku, / Lived Three Lives Memoirs of a Double Agent [Zimaona. Kinat]) The granting of planetary tenure without such nominal "immunity" gave the holder a "quasi-fief ' in which governmental power was shared with a Caid of the Imperial Sardaukar—an arrangement held to be eminently unsatisfactory by most Houses Major
In return, the recipient of a planetary fief agreed to accept the title of "vassal, ' swore perpetual homage and fealty to the Padishah Emperor and his descendants, and pledged yearly tithes of ah* profits accruing to the fief, including supporting levies for the Impen al forces amounting to no fewer than one-tenth of all military conscripts for planetary
armies In addition various feudal aids and incidents" had gotten attached to the system over the years and were regarded as inviolable through long custom These included 'relief," basically an inheritance tax paya ble upon the death of a vassal and the assumption of a fief by that vassal's legal heir, the incident of marriage, to be paid by an heiress for the right to choose her own husband (in practice merely a wedding tax but taken very seriously by the Impenum as evidenced in the legal precedent of Lady Angelica Hagal vs the Impenum {Landsraad Archives 9183], when the High Council of the Landsraad ruled that 'mamage among the members of Houses Major cannot be construed otherwise than as a political and economic merger, and as such is under the direct jurisdiction of our Sublime Padishah Emperor himself ), and—most expensive of all—the right of hospitality" or droit de gite dreaded by all Houses Major, since to entertain the emperor in the style to which he was accustomed could break all but the wealthiest of Houses Fortunately, few emperors made injudicious use of this right Indeed, the last emperor to indulge m a processional circuit throughout his Empire Comn XXII, 9235-9294 occasioned no fewer than 143 food riots on seventeen planets, dozens of Bills of Particulars laid before the Landsraad, and four successful revolutions (quickly overturned by his successor, Ezhar X) before succumbing to chaumas while still on procession on Bolchef (see The Last Banquet by Lors Karden [Yorba Rose])
Imperial feudalism differed from historical feudal systems in one very important respect the Padishah Emperor did not rely on his feudal vassaL for his soldiery True, he did require supporting levies These troops served two functions as a sham to cover the real source of the Sardaukar (Salusa Secundus), and as cannon fodder m the training of the Imperial legions They were nol used in actual battle The emperor relied instead, on the Sardaukar, who at their prime, were each rated a match for any ten ordinary Landsraad conscripts This fact, combined with the knowledge that House Cornno s weaponry and atomics could be matched only by the combined forces of all the Houses
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Major, and that House Comno had, by virtue of its melange stockpiles, almost unhmit ed wealth, gave the Padishah Emperor the power to enforce his decisions if necessary and, more importantly, the authority to expect his decisions to be earned out without enforcement
Such authority and wealth also gave rise to an Impend Court (and bureaucracy) that grew every year in splendor and in splaris spent The Imperial Palace on Kaitan housed not only the emperor and his immediate relatives of House Comno, then- servants, bodyguards, and slaves, but also the emperor's slave-harem with its adjacent nursery for the offspring of the slave-concubines, and, on a higher level, quarters for the generally-ignored-but-tolerated string of anstoerattc visitors with suits, petitions, diplomatic rarands, and the like Lesser beggars waited out of doors All, however, craved permission to enter the Imperial selamlik, to pass beyond the plasteel and marble doors, under the sculptured arches with the Imperial legend, "Law is the ulti mate science," past the captive banners of defeated Great Houses, to stand within ten feet of the GoWea Lion Throne, m the presence, finally, of Power itself The great audience hall would be crowded with Imperial bodyguards, courtiers, noukkers, pages, slaves, hangers-on, but still with only a fraction of those who clamored to get in, the audiences would seem endless, but would accommodate only a few petitioners out of the many who waited The emperor, dressed in a gray Sardaukar uniform with only the Impend crest on the helm to indicate his position—to indicate, if such a blatant reminder were necessary, exactly where the Imperial power lay—would listen as each petitioner stated his name and case ia almost identical words, the formulae having been established through ancient usage "I, a Duke of a Great House, an Imperial kinsman, give my word of bond under the Convention "
With few exceptions, members of the Imperial family did not attend the mynad social functions which gave the Court its reputation for glittering splendor NOT is it true (with the possible exception of the Court of Chahc I, 8216-8225) that behind-the-scenes life on Kaitan consisted of perpetual orgies, feasts,
and drinking bouts The private diaries and lournals of the Royal Household, still undergoing translation, indicate that Imperial duties not privilege held sway on Kaitan
These duties included not only the admiA istration of the Imperial planets and the man agement of feudal dues obligations and tithes, but also the day-to day workings of various departments and ministries There was the Imperial Census to be attended to every ten years (requiring quite a bureaucra cy of its own no one outside its offices claimed to know the exact number of worlds under Imperial sway, yet the Census con cerned itself with individuals), the Imperial Dictionary—ostensibly a record of Galach only, but in need of constant revision and expansion, the Ecological Botanical, and Zoological Research Centers (under strict con trol to limit technological advance), not to mention the Imperial Intelligence Agency, whose records though available have as of this writing still resisted translation The emperor's day, excluding audiences, was a round of reports and conferences requiring the services of a battery of mentat secretaries and aides
Regional and planetary courts of the Houses Major tended to ape the customs and fashions of the Imperial House Dukes and Bar ons grandly held audiences, heard suits and granted petitions all over the galaxy in imita tion of their sublime overlord Most Great Houses, indeed, granted subfiefs to vassals of their own lords of the Houses Minor, m a double effort to (a) increase their own pres fcge by creating personal vassals and (b) reduce the personal work diid expenditure necessary to govern a planet This process of submfeudation could continue with Houses Minor granting subtiefs to other Houses Mi nor or even private individuals (or even, m extraordinary cases to impoverished Houses Major) until a huge bureaucracy became necessary just to sort out who owed what obligations to whom The fall of certain Great Houses to the status of House Minor (entailing loss of Landsraad representation Guild shipping privileges, and membership in CHOAM) can be traced directly to the House becoming entangled in a coil of conflicting loyalties and obligations (See E
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Alaynbat, The Fall of the House of Hurak [Grumman Lodm] for a detailed and interesting case history) An astute and not-too-scrupulous House Minor could, of course, use the submfeudation process to advance itself to the status of House Major, and many of the minor planetary intrigues and plots were designs of this nature
The sindar-Iord and lady of a planet were expected to be more than just political figures As planetary governors, they were considered father- and mother-surrogates to their people Thus in addition to ensuring peace and prosperity, they set and enforced certain social standards, patterns of courtesy as it were among their populations In practice, this duty came down to a velvet-gloved but iron-fisted enforcement of the faufreluches class system 'A place for every man and every man m las place " A strict hierarchy of social privilege and rank prevailed throughout the empire, and each member of society took care to maintain his pnde of place against the lower orders, from the emperor himself down through the Houses, the merchants, artisans, and frcedmen, to peons, servants, and slaves Mobility within the ranks was theoretically impossible, as one's status was determined at birth by the rank of the one's family and the educational opportunities open to die offspring, of such s family Official policy discouraged aspirations of up ward mobility Yet roads were open to those bold enough (or foolish enough) to try them
Evidence of potential mentat ability, or intelligence plus & willingness to allow one's Pyretic Conscience to be tampered with, could be a passport out of middle-class life, either legitimately through Suk School Con dmomng, or not so legitimately (nor so safely) through renegade training at the hands of the TIeilaxu
Psychologically safer, but still physically dangerous, the most common route out of the lower classes lay through the military It was not true, as rumor would have it, that an enterprising young man could, through prow ess and bravery, make his way into the elite corps of Sardaukar, although many tried by means of the emperor's supporting levies Yet a man could rise through the ranks of many a planetary army to become a com
mander, a general even a Master of Assassins (for example, see Juniper Atreo, ed Diary of an Assassin A Biography of Gurney Halleck Arrakis Studies 25 [Grumman United Worlds] compiled from records found at the Great Library on Caladan )
The third way around the hierarchy of the faufreluches was, as may be expected, financial As new planets with new products and exports opened up, it was possible for legitimate businessmen and their illegitt mate cousins the smugglers to make for tunes in trade such wealth could be used to buy titles or House Minor (and even House Major) status through discreet negotiations m the proper quarters The accusation of purse-nobility—that one s titles came out of one's pocketbook—was one of the deadliest insults m the Impenum, yet sources show that a case could be made for the Harkonnen tides having been acquired in this way
At times whole populations lived outside the faufreluches system one example is certainly the Fremen on Arrakis Another example, although possibly a legendary one (the records arc fragmentary), is the planers'1) of Tupile and the population certainly great in rumor if not in fact, that sought sanctuary there over the centuries
The Imperial government of course consciously blocked all efforts to circumvent the faufrehiches system House Comno had not maintained its ascendancy for so many generations by encouraging change, or even the hope of change The feudal pyramid must appear to all members of the Impenum as if carved in stone no movement wa«< easy, no revolt possible Imperial agents cultivated a persistent pessimism among the population to bolster their power base This pessimism acted as a psychological deterrent (in addi tion to religious restrictions) against techno logical and political innovation, keeping the empire safely feudalist for over 10,000 years
Those forces which could oppose the emperor—the Landsraad and the Spacing Guild—were absorbed into the feudal pyra mid, indeed were indispensable to its stability The Federated Great Houses of the Landsraad had been formed, initial!;, to constitute a defense against the Impenum, as each Great House lived m fear of finding the Sardaukar
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on its doorstep, perhaps disguised in another House's livery, and the Houses could fight the Sardaukar only in combination In practice, however, the Landsraad acted as a self-policing agency, keeping House-to-House disputes from getting out of hand, supervising changes of fief, kanly vendettas, and Wars of Assassins, enforcing the rules of the Great Convention, so the emperor would have no need of using the Sardaukar. In any emergency, the Lacd-sraad would act to safeguard profits, not rights, and for 10,000 years the profits had gone with House^Comno. The regional Svsselraads. formed by the Houses Minor m imitation of the Landsraad, performed essentially the same function in miniature with regard to individual Houses Major
The third leg of die political tripod was the Spacing Guild, with its monopoly on interstellar travel and transport and thus on interstellar banking Although it owed formal allegiance to the Imperial House, from whom it received its charter, the Guild was in actual fact equal in power to both the emperor and the combined forces of the Landsraad Houses, should it choose to use that power this was acknowledged tacitly, if symbolically, by the fact that die Imperial Calendar began its reckoning with the establishment of the Guild Peace in the year 1 All communication, travel, trade, and military operations were dependent upon Guild approval. No Great House, including the formally all-powerful House Corrino, dared endanger its Guild shipping privileges through Ji-advised infringements of the Guild Peace, and the eroperor himself was forced to employ spies and smugglers in an attempt to circumvent total Guild control.
Yet the Guild itself was a fundamentally conservative organization. Its conservatism was rooted in two sources; the fear that technological advances in such places as Ix or Tleilax would break its monopoly through new methods of space travel, and the fear mat its supply of melange—which alone made such travel possible—would be cut off The Guildsmcn believed, rightly for over 10,000 years, that the Impenum with its feudal structure and religious strictures against technology was its oaty safeguard against these dangers To perpetuate itself, the Guild was
willing to allow rubber-stamp control over its charter by the emperor, and to balance its power against that of the Landsraad and any other threat to the established Imperial order Only on Arrakis, the sole source of melange, did the Guild's policy prove ill-founded, but that mistake was disastrous, not only for the Guild, but for the Corrino Impenum as a whole With the establishment of the Regency government in 10196, the classic period of Imperial feudalism ended, although the forms endured for many generations thereafter JT
INKV1NE. (Toxicodendron cruciatus) A parasitic vine native to Giedi Prime, used since the planet was first settled as a whip The vine grows on any surface, clinging to it by producing a compound which includes hydrochloric acid and several different types of poisons This compound is secreted through the aenal roots lining the side of the vine shaded from the light The acid allows the inkvine to penetrate solid rock or glass, while the poisons allow the vine's rootlets to bore into the bark of trees, eventually killing them The aenal roots of the mkvme are very sturdy and extremely sharp, enabling it to exploit the narrowest crevices in the bark of a host plant
When used as a whip, the tnkvme can be a very convincing argument against laziness or misbehavior The tough, flexible vine can be swung with nearly a? much force as a normal leather or plastic whip The unique aspect of the mkvme, however, is found in the aenal roots When they strike unprotected flesh, they puncture the skin and inject a few drops of the parasitic poison and acid combination The compound causes an intense, burning pain which lasts for several hours, followed by a permanent discoloration where the skin has been "tattooed" by the roots, and a continual low-level ache lasting for up to six years
The use of mkvmes as whips is no longer widespread, mainly because of the cessation of the enthusiastic support of House Har-konnen
INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL, PRE-GCIILD. The
three-dimensional incarnation of the Holtzman
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Effect field, the so-called saspensor-nullifi-cauon effect, had made interstellar travel possible at least by HOOO B G , but it was not made reliable until 7562 B G , when I V Holtzman made hyperspace communication possible In that year, his "first pass," he revealed the equations for the one-dimensional incarnation of the effect, com monly termed Holtzman Waves
Navigation was, is, and will no doubt always be the overwhelming problem m hyperspace travel, the staggering amount of data to be processed and the infimtesimally short tame available for computation made pre-Guild navigation entirely the work of computers Before the discovery of Holtzman Waves, many considerations limited navigational problems to small and less powerful shipboard computers Consequently, travel (and therefore trade) could not be centrally directed, organization of shipping and transportation was haphazard and desultory, earned on by companies that might be out of communication, in direct rivalry, or even m open combat with one another One company might operate more or less efficiently in one star-system while adjacent systems were beset by shipping strikes and conflicts of interest that benefited no one
Improvement came with the Holtzman Wave, nationally a mathematical phenomenon causing microcatastrophic folds m real spacetime along a selectable vector, when the vector impacts with matter denser than interstellar hydrogen, it excites that matter to emit long radio waves, which can then be received on normal radio antennae With interstellar cornmunicaton now possible, navigation could be enormously improved
For example, Transeom, a trading corporation of the seventh millennium B G , direct cd its ships from a central computer bank called Gentians Centrans was located on the artificial satellite Xenophon, situated m deep space far from the Transcom planet (for freedom from efectromagneflc interference) The central computer served both to extend interstellar limits and to define and control areas of commercial influence, as well as to control navigation at predesigned points m transit (the welt-known "mail drops'), ships en route would reenter normal space com-
municate with Centrans via Holtzman Waves, and receive course corrections or updates from the computer But at no time did Centrans ever achieve its potential Transcom was never more than a loose cartel of members jealous of their traditional prerogatives Centrans was like an efficient nervous system inside a loosely articulated, weakly muscled body
When the Butienan Jihad erupted Transcom was one of the early casualties Xenophon and similar facilities were obliterated, and the danger of depending on centralized data-retrieval was revealed each cartel was fragmented, unable to navigate even in its own preserve The cartels fell one by one as the Jihad burned across space
The fate of interstellar flight was shared by endeavors throughout the known worlds, and whatever the spiritual gams of the Jihad, and there were many, there were vast offsetting losses True the interests of the cartels had been almost exclusively commercial but they had at least promoted an awareness of common human identity and interest Now the elimination of man machine interaction threw hyperspace navigation back 10,000 years, and shrank humanity's awareness of its breadth and diversity Not until the Spacing Guild became the wings of the Impenum was unity within plurality reestablished WD I Further references SPACING GUILD FOUNDATION SPAC
ING GUILD OPERATIONS HOLTZMAN EFFECT LOFS KardeU
The Flame and the Flower A Short History of the Butlerian Jihad (Yorba Rose)
IX. The ninth planet of the system of Endani A, known prior to the Butlerian Jihad as Komos diameter at equator 40,000 kilometers, 50% land area, freshwater lakes 10%, salt oceans 40% Very restricted polar ice mean annual temperature 22° average low 2°, average high 34° Unusually deep soil base planet average 5 meters to 8 meters Average annual rdinfdll one meter Planet is ideal for production of grain crops over much of surface, drier sections capable of sustaining large herds of grazing animals Estimated annual production in excess of 100 billion bushels of various grains annual, livestock 200,000 head annually After the Butlenan Jihad, Ix became the secret source of sophisticated technology Before the Great Revolt the planet Komos
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was a province of its neighbor, Rtchese, which appointed a planetary governor, or "Exarch " to rule at the discretion of the home government The Exarch was given a small gamson, but the domination of Komos did not depend upon actual military force Rather, Richest: controlled Komos through the threat of force the population of Richese was close to five hundred million, and their army was larger than the total population of Komos Richese forbade Komos space vessels, while maintaining a sizable steller army of its own
The Exarch was charged with few responsibilities by the home government, but these were specific 1) Ensui&-the tiibate, 2) Keep thepeace The order of these charges reflected the priorities of the government To Richese, nothing was more important than the flow of grain and livestock from Komos Since Richese produced no foodstuffs itself, the population depended for its very existence on die bounty provided by their province
Beyond the office of Exarch, the planet was divided into ten administrative districts, whose bureaucratic chiefs were called "Lo-gistoi Each Logistos was chosen from the population of the administrative district he directed His chief responsibility was to pro vide the central government HI Pylos, the capital ctty of Komos, with accurate esti mates of the harvest of his district each year and to oversee the collection of the tribute when the harvest was m
The grip of Richese's domination of Komos was loose There was no attempt to enforce the legal system of Richese on Komos, nor was the religion or language of the dominant planet pressed on the Komans Except for the collection of die tribute, Komos was left almost entirely alone The citizens of Richese, when they thought of Komos at all, consid ered their exploitation of the planet to be benevolent and geatte While it is true that the control of Komos was far less merciless than it might have been, die population of Komos did not think of their overlords as benevolent In fact, had it not been for the restraint Richese showed m their relations with their province, the revolt which finally overcame Richese would likely have occurred sooner
But the limited presence of Richese in the lives of the Komans helped to make the burden of their servitude more bearable Most of the population had no contact whatever with the government of Richese unless they accompanied the tribute convoys into one of the district capitals after the harvest Even during the tnbute collection most of the population remained at home on ranch or farm The Komans were obdurately rural
Since the only state the Komans knew was Richese, they recognized no state The most important political unit on Komos was also the chief social unit the family
The Komans thought of the family as an organic entity It was to be cared for in the same way that their land was tended or their crops were cultivated The ddults dnd their ancestors, provided the resources out of which the future of the family would be created and that future achie\ed form and life m their children Fathers retained control of the lives of their progeny for their lives, when a father died each of his adult sons, whether married or not became a ful!y independent individual for the first time
Women on Komos though they enjoyed no legal status m that they could not appear m court or inherit without the appointment of a guardian, nonetheless possessed great powers within the family and society at large Since the religion of Komos was controlled by pnestesses the religious life of the family was in the hands of the father s wife Just as every male hoped to head his own family one day, so every young woman hoped to guide the sacred well-being of her family
The only other social entity worthy of note was the tribe Members of a tribe traced their ancestry to a common male ancestor They shared certain religious observances and a common burial ground
Religious ntes from birth to death fo cused around the worship of the goddess Kubebe She was a mother goddess regarded as the source nf all life animal and plant In common with similar religions, her followers believed that each year the world died as a result of the absence of their goddess
While explanations for this departure might vary from region to region, the result was constant the death of the world This
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death explained the passage of the seasons and the infertility of fall and winter
Naturally the Komans were aware that these beliefs could not be reconciled with the astronomical facts of their star system The stones were regarded as having meaning only with respect to the actions of their deity If Kubcbc chose to create winter by the revolution of their planet around their star, so be it If she desired, she could also see to it that winter continued, rather than turning rate the spring That might mean changing the course ct their planet's orbit, or it might not—who knew7
As Kubebe's absence kafied their planet only hex return could resurrect tt To ensure that return even die most serious rituals of mourning, cleansing, remvigoration, and finally rejoicing became a yearly cycle These rituals were directed by a tribe's chief priestess who was seen as the link between the goddess and the Komans
Priestesses were trained at any of several primary training centers, but there was only one higher-level school which graduated priestesses There they received an introduc tiOB into the training of the Bene Gessent All priestesses were at least qualified mem bers of the order, it is probable that the chief priestesses were all Reverend Mothers
Considering their vital role in Komos social history, it is not surprising that the priestesses of Kubebe played an essential part in the Butlenan Jihad the Great Revolt which began in 200 B G (see BUTLERIAN
JIHAD, JEHANNE BUTLER) After Centuries of
a bucolic existence under die thumb of Richese, the population of Komos arose and almost unanimously, traveled to Richese as a conquering army
In 198 B G , with the Jihad about to leave Richese lor the far reaches of the galaxy, Jehanne Butler ordered those Richesans who did not choose to join her crusade to be transported to the now nearly-deserted Komos Since the farming technology of Komos had been computerized only at a very elementary level, it had not been destroyed in the first stages of the Great Revolt The survival of these machines, as well as the astonishing fecundity of the planet, ensured that many of the new settlers would live A substantial
number of the technicians and mechanics from Richese survived the wars and chose to stay behind on Komos Most of thes,e men and women able to think and act for themselves lived to form the basis for the new population of Komos So began the transition of agrarian Komos to highly tech nological Ix
This population was provided with two great advantages First the position of Endani A within the inhabited worlds was a great boon The system was oddly isolated within its galaxy, which in turn was on the fringes of human settlement The ravages of the Jihad especially severe m the sector of Endani A resulted m even greater isolation Indeed for several centuries after the Jihad thpse on Komos were cut off from contact with the rest ot the human race At tirst this isolation was involuntary after that it was by choice Second the immediate riches of the vast agricultural development of Komos produced a life of ease for the inhabitants, who thus had leisure time in which to think and experiment
The resettled technicians and mechanics of Richese naturally turned to machine tech nology as one way to occupy their time taking great care to avoid the development of population controlling machines There was some early resistance to this technology but as the decades passed and the planet remained alone m a forgotten corner of the universe decisive steps in the rebirth of truly sophist! cated technology were taken
By the year 110 B G Aurelius Venport and Norma Cevna had pioneered m the field of interstellar travel to a point beyond the capabilities of the new technology and so they were reluctantly forced to take their research elsewhere But within a century of their leaving, the riches of Komos—now known by its inhabitants as Ix (denved from an ancient system of reckoning which identified the number we know by the symbol 9 as Ix)—had combined with the benefits of the finest scientific work being done in a technologically devastated universe to make of the planet something unique In effect Ix had become a research and development center for all types of scientific inquiry The most extraordmarv care was exercised to
IX1AN NO ROOMS
maintain the appearance of a bucolic world devoted to agriculture All scientific centers and the few manufacturing complexes permit ted were concealed below ground Above ground all one saw was the life of the farmer and the rancher
By 25 B G the Ixians had begun to venture back into the settled worlds Their trips were solely exploratory, made in order to judge the state of civilization withm the rest of human society and to ascertain if there was any threat to their anonymity The possibility of trade in technological items was discussed but firmly rejected when the depth of feeling regarding the Jihad and computing machines was determined
The deliberate isolation of Ix continued until the first century^ of the rule of House Comno Once the Impenum had been estab hshed and the Spacing Guild had remtroduced space travel into common use the situation of Ix changed It became apparent that in time their system would attract the attention of an expansionary society earned through the stars by the Guild Once then machines were discovered, as they would be ultimately, the Ixians had no doubt of their fate Ix would be destroyed In order to avoid annihilation, the Ixians made the first move themselves With a caution equalled only by the first contacts of the Guild with the Impe rial house, the Ixians seat Em ambassador to Emperor Saudir I in 55
Once the shock of the news had been assimilated, the possibilities of the situation became obvious If a controlled source of technology were available to the Imperial house, the Guild, and the Great Houses they could have the advantages of machines without their dangers to the sociopolitical system Any other solution, such as any one of the powers of the Impenum seizing con trol of Ix, would destabilize the Impenum An arrangement was made Ix would remain isolated, the Guild would make certain that no unapproved visitors reached the system of EntJaai A The Ixtans would continue to exploit Richese and Richese would become the manufacturing center for Ix The inter ests of all parties were served by these bal anced concessions, so typical of the Impenum This state of affairs obtained throughout the
millennia of the domination of House Comno After the defeat of House Comno by the Atreides and the subsequent ascension of Leto II the position of Ix changed little except that it became increasingly public During the last few centuries of Leto s reign however the policies of the emperor with respect to Ix underwent a subtle but consis tent change Leto ceased to enforce so strict ly the ban against thinking machines and even began to use certain Ixian products himself which would have been anathema in his early reign Ix was also tacitly permitted to begin investigation and experimentation with machines which had the potential to replace Guild navigators The scientists of Ix believed that Leto was unaware of their prog less on these construUions, indeed he was clandestinely assisting Ihem by providing them with certain necessary ores and alloys through private channels which the Ixians believed to be their own discovery
Leto s attitude toward Ix was at least as ambiguous as that of other powers whose existence Leto permitted The entire ques tion of maintaining a powerful interstellar civilization without the use of computers or other thinking machines has troubled humani ty since the dajs of the Butlcnan Jihad Whatever the ultimate solution of the problem surely one of the great ironies of history lies in the fact that the planet which conceived the anti machine Jihad also birthed the su preme technology of Ix FM
Further references BUTLERIAN JIHAD IMPFRIUM FEUD ALPATTfcRNSOF RC Neltan The identity of the Planets Komos and h m the Light of the Rakis Hoard (Mukan Lothal)
IXIAN MO ROOMS An effect produced by devices developed by the Ixians at least as early as 13500 for the concealment of ob jects within an area or of the area itself
MODERN NO ROOMS A modern no room variable in size consists of the space com mon to pairs of doubled near concentric spheres of oscillating Holtzman Effect fields (see Diagram 1) Each sphere is composed of two overlapping shells oscillating in har mony ( A and a for example or B and b ) Each shell has two variable properties function (to absorb or emit radi
IXIAN NO-ROOMS
352
IXIAN NO-ROOMS
ant energy) and frequency (the rate of oscillation). When radiation of any kind— gamma rays, visible light, radio waves, etc. —impinges on a shell (as IT does on shell "A'' in the diagram), it stimulates the shell to absorb energy of that wavelength. This action reverses the function of the harmonic shell ("a"), causing it to become an emitter across the spectrum except for waves of the frequency mat triggered its partner (emission represented as -ir). Roughly half of this energy is absorbed by the inner side of the first shell, but where the harmonic shell lies outside the first, this broad-band radiation escapes into me second sphere (shells "B", "b ). Impinging on me ianer shell of the second sphere ("b"), the radiation stimulates that shell to absorb energy of the received wavelength (the whole spectrum except for IT). The outer shell then becomes the harmonic, and reverses its function to become an emitter across the spectrum except for waves of the frequency that triggered its partner. Since "b" is absorbing everything but 7t, "B" emits only tr, at the wavelength identical to the original stimulus. The space within the no-room is, therefore, effectively invisible sauce light, for example, is stopped before it enters the no-room aad is recreated on its other side. The no-room is similarly "not there" for radio waves, gamma waves, X rays, and the like.
Note that the generators of the Holtzman Effect fields, GA, Oa, Gb, and GB, lie
within the no-room and are themselves concealed.
For the sake of simplicity in exposition, only two overlapping spheres are shown in the diagram. Such an arrangement would provide invisibility to an observer standing within the open end of a cone, with the point of the cone lying at the center of the no-room, and the axis of the cone lying on an imaginary line drawn through the generators, opening to an extent of about 120°. Existing no-rooms utilize three sets of paired spheres and twelve generators for invisibility in all three dimenbionb,
LHTO'S NO-ROOM. The no-room that sheltered the Rakis Finds is perhaps the earliest example of the effect known, and although similar in effects achieved, is considerably
The outer line represents the Holtzman Effect surface; the inner line the glowplant layer. The diagram is only schematic, since the separation between the two layers averaged 1 micron.
1XIAN NO-ROOMS
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different in its mechanism. The technology that enables the generation of harmonic, self-triggering Holtzman Effect fields was not available when Leto made, or caused to be made, his no-room. Yet the technology he had was used to surprisingly good advantage, considering its rudimentary and truly primitive nature.
Leto's no-room was composed of a partially collapsed Holtzman Effect sphere (see Diagram 2). Inside the surface of the field and parasitic on its energy leakage was a network of genetically modified glowplants from the planet Niflheim. These plants, long misclassified as crystals, formed an almost solid intertwined layer of monofilament strands no more substantial than a cobweb. They functioned similarly to fiber optics, except that they transmitted not just light but any received radiation. Such plants absorb radiant energy at their positive end, step it down by one chronon (an amount too negligible to
be detected), and emit the radiation at their negative ends as waste. Rather than absorbing and recreating radiation as the modern no-room does, they channeled radiation around the no-room. When implements at the construction site above the perimeter of the no-room fell through the weakened ceiling, the relatively enormous amount of solar energy falling on the plants stimulated growth to close the gap at a rate too fast to be seen through the obscuring dust. What workers at the site took for the excavation floor was, in fact, Light reflected from the floor of the chamber, channeled around the contents of the chamber, and emitted from the now-exposed glowplant layer. W.E.M.
Rirfcer references: RAKIS FINDS DISCOVERY; ix, Ruuzhar S Kaunan, "Radiation Transfer in Proleocrystallitm celerum," Science (Loomar) 98.271-91, TB. Jones, Past Horizons: The Discovery of the Imperial Library on Rakis, Arrakis Studies 1 (Grumman: United Worlds)
JACUROTa A legendary sietEfa, declared tabu by Fremen generations before the initiation of the Kynesian ecological transformation. Jacurutu had, by the time of the Aliate Imperial Regency, long since become a myth-its actual historical existence doubted and its name invoked as a fearful object lesson in the discipline of water-ccnservau'oa that pervaded Fremen society.
Sietch Jacurutu was originally inhabited by a tribe known as the fduali, "water insects." It was so known because its members would not hesitate to steal another Ftemen's water— the most heinous crime under Fremen law, threatening not simply the survival of the individual but thai of the tribe and, ultimately, Fremen as a people. For them it was adenb alaguil gitfd quibir, "the first and greatest
sin." The gravity of the crime was directly proportional to the scarcity of moisture on the harsh world of Arrakis. This scarcity can easily be underestimated. To appreciate it is to understand what Jacurutu represented in Fremen myth: the ultimate treachery.
The manifold responses to water scarcity among the Fremen is well-documented. The conservation of water was at the core of Fremen culture—central to their laws, rituals, social obligations and religious aspirations. No aspect of Fremen life was unaffected by it. For Fremen, water was Life. By their crimes, the Iduah of Jacurutu violated Fremen values on every pertinent level, The gravity of the transgression was, of course, deepened by the fact that the Iduali were Fremen as well.
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According to legend, Jacurutu was assaulted and its people annihilated by a general alliance of Piemen tnbes Thereafter, the Iduali were referred to as the Cast Out and the sietch declared tabu It is undoubtedly a measure of Fremen psychology that only the inhabitants of Jacurutu were destroyed, while die wmdtrap and other devices used for the collection and storage of water were left intact
During the power struggle preceding the accession of Leto II to the Imperial throne, it became apparent that Jacurutu was no myth, and that the "water insects" had not been completely wiped out Although dispersed, remnants of the Iduali regrouped after many years and became smuggler? of melange for off-world shipment They, with die false pride of die justly persecuted, swore vengeance on any who were not among the Cast Out Those hapless enough to discover their sanctuaries were murdered and their bodies sent to the deathstill These sanctuaries were in two places Jacurutu itself, then known as Fondak—a smuggler place of uncertain location, and Shuloch Both enjoyed comparative safety—Jacurutu because it was tabu, Shuloch because, as another sietch mentioned only m story, its actual existence was discredited and its location unknown
Jacurutu emerged prominently from myth to contemporary history in two respects during the final days of the Imperial Regency It was discovered that Maud'Dib. the blind Paul Atreides. found a qualified sanctuary there And Leto H, Maud'Dib's son, underwent there his terrible Thai of Possession
Maud'Dib and the Cast Out at Fondak formed a rather unholy alliance Eyeless Paul Atreides wandered into the desert sup poscdly to die, bat instead returned as The Preacher whose sermons purposed to purify the fanatic religion founded upon his own myth and later corrupted by Aha and her Priesthood into a cynical tool of political power By the time he reached Fbndak/Jacu rutu, however, Paul was nearly a broken man The Cast Out, appreciating his value allowed him to live, hoping to weaken him further and use him as an instrument of revenge Both were rebels against the pres ent Imperial government, and at Jacurutu Paul encouraged the illegal off world ship-
ment of sandworms to similar desert cli mates in the hope they would thrive and thus break Aha s control of the spice monopoly But, in his own words Paul never gave them one vision to use for their own designs Yet, as The Preacher, he needed a place of refuge which only Jacurutu could adequately provide
Leto II following his own visions jour neyed to Jacurutu in search of his father He found Gurney Halleck who, by command of the Lady Jessica in league with the Bene Gesj»ent, forced him to undergo the Trial of Possession through the administration of an overdose of spice essence Leto passed the test, and it is ironic that the Thai itself paved his way along the Golden Path By mastering his inner lives Leto was able to take the next great step on the Path merging with sandtrout to become the human embodiment of Shai-Hulud and carrying within his con sciousness the entire spectrum of human history S T
JAMIS (10159-10191) Born at Sietch Tabr the son of Deioces noted for his ferocity in battle and Madai a gentle intelligent woman who carefully supervised her son's education It was she who insisted that the voung Jamis attend Pardot Kynes lectures on ' ecological literacy It might hdve been this early exposure to the charismatic Kynes that enflamed Jamis with Pardot s, and later Liet Kynes', dream of bringing a paradisal planet to reality Or perhaps Jamis felt a special affinity to the man who had saved the life of his father, for Deioces had been one of three youths rescued by Pardot when they had been trapped by Harkonnen soldiers Jamis soon dedicated his life to the Kyneses' vision of open water tall green plants and a popu lace walking free of stillsuits
To hasten the promised Edenic day (albeit hundreds of years in the future) Jamis eagerly embraced the knowledge and skills necessary to solve the water problem In the sietch and in the desert he soon learned to pole the sand for weather prediction, to read the lan guage of the wind to recognize the signs, no matter how vague made by man or animal on the rocks and the sand to walk silently over sand or rock and to make the distinc tive Fremen signals the chirrup of a bird or
the faint thumping of a mouse jumping in the sand
All was not work, however Jamis enjoyed die usual childhood play—the pebble game, sandsearch circles and squares—but his greatest pleasure was music He tried the drum and the two-holed flute, but settled on—and became adept in playing—that most difficult of all instruments the nine-stnnged bahset He also mastered the dance, especially the spirited Dance of the Whirlwind and the intricate Dance of the Birds And as he applied himself to his endeavors, Janus soaked up the Fremen prophecies and legends like a stillsuit soaks up die body's water
An inclination toward violence manifested itself early It was noted that Janus displayed a certain zest when the children swarmed on the battlefield to perform their accustomed task of slaying the wounded preparatory to the women's hauling them away to the deathstills And when called upon, Jamis fought as ferociously as any adult He was more than ready to receive his cryskmfe at the time of his initiation and to become a sandnder at age twelve
In the rigid faufteluches structure wherein sons were trained to follow the father m skills and knowledge, Jamis far surpassed his father in both Even as a young lad, Jamis showed those qualities that would make him contend tor leadership bravery, resourcefulness, and, perhaps most important, ambition—as well as the major flaw that would bar him forever from authority faulty self-control Those sietch records that have been translated list disciplinary action taken against Jamis for minor infractions of tnbal practice, all seemingly motivated by anger or impatience
Although the records of Jamis' early activities are sketchy, he apparently became a most valuable tribal member Jamis evidently had die good fortune to work for a short time with Liet-Kynes, probably on expeditions to seek out soaks and sip-wells in the little-known southern regions And in all probability he took his turn among those who pad the spice bribe to the Guild for keeping the skies above Arrakis clear of satellite
Undoubtedly, Jamis* greatest usefulness to the tribe lay in his superiority as a fighting
man, as a raider he was formidable Stilgar in his Chronicle pays tribute to Jamis brav ery and skill Even though Stilgar once bested Jamis in a fight Jamis did not hesitate to save Stilgar s life at Hole in the Rock Stilgar also speaks of Jamis sharing his water during a seige at Two Birds and of his valiant sacrifice at Bight-of the Cliff When a patrol pinned down a troop from Sietch Tabr, Jamis drew them off so the wounded could be saved On the other hand the fury that sustained him in battle also crippled him for Stilgar further wntes There s too much violence in Jamis for him ever to make a good leader—too much ghafla '
This exuberance, however did not always work to his detriment it won him a magnifi cent Fremen woman Harah for his wife First made aware of Harah at a tan orgy, Jamis called out Geoff her mate and bested him handily Curiously enough, Jamis tranquil domestic life was the antithesis of his tempestuous public one Harah speaks lovingly of Jamis m her Memoirs Admitting that Jamis was quick to anger, she maintains that he was a tender lover and a good provider bringing her man> water nngs after sorties against Harkonnen patrols She says he loved their children Kaleff Geoff's son and Orlop their own He made no distinction between them and accorded the same devotion to their upbringing He taught his sons the rules of water discipline and the Fremen way of fighting, then he proudly gave them as his father before him their crysknives when their time of initiation came
As an important member of Sietch Tabr Jamis was logically numbered among the troop sent into the desert by Liet Kynes distrans message to seek the strangers Paul Atreides and Jessica When the troop came upon them at Tuono Basin Jamis was dis trustful of the outworlders and urged Stilgar to do his tnbal duty to eliminate those not trained to live with the desert Although he agreed with Jamis regarding Jessica Stilgar saw value in Paul—' possibility was the term he used in his journal
Unfortunately Jamis never realized the breadth of that possibility, he attributed Paul s disarming him at the moment Jessica over powered Stilgar to witch-force Burning with resentment at being bested by a mere
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"child," Jamis invoked the amtal rule once they reached the Cave of the Ridges. Unconvinced by Jessica's mystical performance, he demanded the right to test her part in the legend through combat with her champion: Paul.
Jessica and Stilgar tried both persuasion and trickery lo convince him otherwise, but Janus persisted. Although Jamis was an expert with the crysknife in either hand, he was no match for one steeped in the devious ways of the Bene Gesserit and trained by the likes of Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho. He could have had no conception of the exquisite fineness of Paul's skill, Jamis' death bought Paul his sietch name, Usul, and made him one of the Ichwan Bedwine with the manhood name of Paul Maud'Dib.
Befitting a man of his standing, Jamis was given a full ritual funeral. Paul received Jamis' water, as was the custom, and inherited his yaii, possessions (excluding the funeral gifts), and woman, Harah. The whole tribe rightly mourned Jamis' passing, for indeed,
they all lost on that unfortunate day his temper drove him to challenge Paul Atreides. The records of various sietches attest to Jamis' value to the Fremen society and his embodiment of the best Fremen qualities: strength, superb fighting ability, desert wisdom, tribal loyalty and dedication to Fremen dreams and ideals.
The Songs of Maud'Dib by the Princess Irulan preserves for us the "Dirge for Janus on the Funeral Plain":
Do you wrestle with dreams? Do you contend with shadows? Do you move in a kind of sleep? Time has slipped away. Your life is stolen. You tarried with trifles, Victim of your folly
DK.
Further references: HA.RAH; STILGAR, Harah, Memoirs of a Sietch Woman, tr Steewan Duunalazan (Topaz. Carolus UP); Princess Irulan Atreides-Corrino, Songs of Muad'Dib, ed. J Ruuverada Gabryel (Chusuk. Salrejma), Stilgar ben Fifrawi, The Stilgar Chronicle, tr Mityau Gwulador, Airakis Studies 5 (Grumman. United Worlds)
KANLY. A formal and highly ritualized feud or vendetta declared between two Houses Major, The rules of kanly were laid down in the Great Convention, primarily with the purpose of sparing the innocent bystanders who might otherwise be slaughtered in a House-to-House confrontation.
This regulation was considered important enough by the ftamers of the Convention to warrant its being detailed in twenty-five pages in the original manuscript; those interested m leading die exhaustive listings of the minutiae of UK ritual may consult Section XXIV of that document. A broad sketch of the rules of kanly will be given here.
Kanly could be declared only by the acting,
titular head of a Great House Any person presenting such a declaration was required to notify the Landsraad High Council and the Imperial Court, as well as the head of the House declared against, so that a Judge of the Rite could be appointed to supervise the kanly negotiations. Once such a Judge— authorized by both Council and emperor— was appointed, the opposing parties and their immediate families could open negotiations. No outside observers, apart from the Judge, were allowed to witness these proceedings. The negotiations could take several forms. If neither party was willing to consider any other way of reconciling the differences, the "negotiation" consisted of a personal com-
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KRIMSKEL FIBER
bat with knives only, unshielded, to the death Even the combat was stylized with certain phrases being employed on each side to call the other out When one or both of the combatants had died, the option of either withdrawing the kanly or reopening negotia tions was left to the heirts) It was not completely unknown, in particularly bitter kanly, for all the possible heirs to a line to be wiped out When this occurred, the Judge of the Rite was empowered to declare the House ended, put its remaining members wider Imperial protection, and redistribute its assets
It should be noted that the victorious House was allowed only a small portion of those assets (This parsimony helped keep the kanly proceedings from becoming a popular, and profitable, way of doing business ) A much larger share was allotted to the Crown, ostensibly to be earmarked for die" support of the losing House's survivors
If the combat were aot chosen, kanly could be settled by the challenged House's agreement to meet certain terms set by the declaring House Such terms most often in eluded the transfer of a fief, and of large amounts of CHOAM holdings or other valuables, occasionally, the demand was made for permission to many into the declared-against House, with the obvious intent of an eventual takeover
For a number of reasons—(he violent climate of the times not least among them—the settlement approach was seldom used Kanly, except for those Houses too weakened or sparse of heirs to face the personal combat, was chiefly settled by the blade
One other solution, rarely invoked, also existed the Judge's Ban When a Judge of the Rite, acting either as an individual or as a messenger from the emperor or Council, decided that a particular act of kanly was detrimental to the Impermm as a whole, a Ban could be laid on both Houses Until such time as the Ban was lifted, the House whose members acted against the other could be declared guilty of treason, stripped of all its holdings, and outlawed In the face of such possible consequences, all but the most stubborn wishes for combat faded, the Ban was a most effective deterrent
Historically* some of the best-known m
stances of kanly include House Gmaz vs House Sheay (Ginaz won the fief later lost to House Montam in a War of Assassins), 6723, House Alcxm vs House Maros (only known case of both Houses ending as a result of personal combat), 8796 and House Harkonnen vs House Atreides (invoked by Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen against Paul Atreides in the presence of Shaddam IV the sole case of an emperor acting as his own Judge of the Rite), 10193 C W
Further references GREAT CONVENT ON HARKONNEN
FEYD-RAUTHA
KOMOS. See ix
KRIMSKEL FIBER, (also, Claw Fiber ) A lightweight rope woven from strands of hufuf vine, a growth native to Ecaz later success fully transplanted to Yorba It was the rope of choice for bonds, snares and similar uses for many centunes owing to special proper ties of the vines from which it was produced In his definitive book on the subject, The Strangler Vines of Ecaz written in 6854 Holjance Vohnbrook describes the hufuf as dne of the greatest natural dangers on that world Or, in his words as
traps for the unwatchful and the unwary A mature growth of these vines can vary m length from fifty to one hundred meters and various offshoots from the main vine can ex tend the plant s control to a radius equal to its overall length the unfortunate human or animal who wanders into the heart of such a controlled area finds that the vines react violently to the slightest disturbance snaking around the limbs responsible Once the plant s grasp is secure, unaided escape is next to impossible as the many skeletons found in hufuf patches will attest
The plant s seed pods, prized for their oil, and lengths of the vine itself were consid ered so valuable that entrepreneurial groups often ventured into such areas despite the dangers Once severed from the trunkvine the smaller vines could be split and woven into knmskel the rope retained enough of the plant s natural characteristics that a knot tied in it would continue to draw itself more tightly together (by means of ' claws ' small
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hornlike protrusions) when lines leading to it were pulled
The advantages inherent m such a rope were obvious Captives tied with krimskel could choose between remaining still or hav ing their bonds tighten unbearably The fiber was often employed as well in boobytraps and other snares Placing a loop of krimskel where a would be thief or intruder would have to step was a time honored method of insunng that the trespasser remained in that spot
Krimskel fiber fell briefly from popular use when shigawire was introduced but returned to favor when the hazards of usuig shigawire as its replacement were more wide ly known (Because of its extreme thinness and tensile strength shigawire was capable of severing the flesh that it bound at the slightest pressure Krimskel fiber while pain ful to those who struggled against it, was seldom fatal, shigawire often was ) It is still considered extremely useftii on a number of worlds, primarily as a means of hobbling or securing livestock,
Further references- ECAZ, on, LEKS, smoAwatE, Holjance Vohnbrook The Strwgler Vines of Ecax (Grumman United Worlds)
KYNES. UET-. (10156-10191) Second plane tary ecologist of Arrafcis m the pre-Muad'Dib era Born m Sietch Tabr to Pardot Kynes and his Freraen wife, Mitha, Uet-Kynes' life served as a focal point for many of the historic disturbances of his time It was not a role he deliberately sought, but one continu ally chosen for him Even fas name—"Liet" —Bed him to evens over which he had no control, Ulwt, or "Older Liet," had once been ordered to dispatch his father, Pardot Kynes, and had chosen suicide instead This death set the course followed by generations of Frcmea thereafter, a fact acknowledged by Liet-Kynes" parents m their choice of name for their son
Pardot Kynes desired a son chiefly to con solidate his position among the Fremen He was shrewd enough to realize that even his leadership of the desert people did not make him one of them Thus he married one of their woroea and fathered a son who could continue his work (The elder Kynes became
a widower shortly after his son s birth and although he survived Mitha by some nine teen years he never remarried His duty had been done and he was freed, as he saw it of further domestic responsibilities )
Liet Kynes saw little of his father during his earliest childhood Many of the duties that would ordinarily have been filled by his father had been taken over by Stilgar a Fremen fifteen years Liet Kynes senior whom Pardot Kynes had seen joined to his son in blood brotherhood in 101 j8 Raised with the rest of the sietch children he was taught the ways of bled and sietch, palmary and desert He learned Fremen history as related by the Sayyadina water discipline and customs, and the fanatic hatred the Fremen had possessed for all those of House Harkonnen since the day Beast Rabban had been gi\en jurisdiction over Arrakis in 10162 To anyone not knowing his parentage, the boy would have seemed like any other Fremen youngster, the product of generations of life on the desert planet
This situation suited his father perfectly Pardot Kynes had been forced to take dramatic nsky action in order to make a place for himself among the desert folk it was essen tial that his heir be recognized as such Whatever paternal feelings he might have felt for his son paled before his desire to hasten the effects of the palmanes on the Arrakeen ecology
His upbringing suited Liet Kynes as well By the age of five he was accompanying his mates to the outlying planting zones, and while not yet demonstrating the sort of bnl Uance which characterized his lather s work the younger Kynes acquitted himself well and was respected by the other young Fremen
This respect was not earned only b} his grasp of the workings of the ecological transformation Like other boys his age, Liet-Kynes spent a good deal of time learning and polishing other skills for which the Fremen were known tracking hunting and combat in many forms He proved especially talent ed m knife fighting and by the time he essayed his first sandnde, he had nothing to fear from any of his comrades in sietch, nor, by extension from any but the most skilled out sietch fighters
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In 10168 after his successful initiation into the sandnders ranks Liet Kynes found his father offering him more specialized training Over the next seven years Liet Kynes served as go between for the older man journeying to the palmanes and carry ing reports on their progress back to his father Afraid of drawing unwanted attention to the existence of these areas, Pardot Kynes rarely visited them himself Liet Kynes posi tion as lieutenant for Kynes the Umma did not exempt him from his duties as a member of Sietch Tabr however and Forad Tabr s Naib saw to it that his leader's heir-apparent did not forget it
He was so much a part of Sietch Tabr that it was assumed he would try for Stilgar s burda after his blood brother bested Forad in 10175 Stilgar s challenge had been erne of many made throughout the Fremen sietches following Pardot Kynes' demise at Plaster Basin and Liet Kynes had been absent from Tabr at the time Stilgar took Forad s place as Naib But when young Kynes returned it was to convey his intentions to continue his father s work wife (he palmanes Pairiot Kynes had simplified this task for him by petitioning for and receiving, permission fiorn Shaddam IV to have his son succeed him in the Imperial service
A year after his father s death Liet Kynes returned to Sietch Tabr for a more extended visit During the months of his stay he married Falra, a Tabr woman with whom he had been raised Ltet Kynes then earned on another of his late fattier s practices by leav ing Tabr a few weeks after the wedding, not to return for more than three months
Charu the couple's daughter was born die following year Stilgar aad his wife Misra stood as godparents to the child and the girl & father made one of his infrequent visits to see the .ceremony Liet Kynes spent more time with the child than his own father had with him but he approached her upbringing in quite a different way Whereas Pardot Kynes had seen him as an heir, a person who cou]d lead the Fremen tribes and see that the ecological transformation went on as sched uled, Liet Kynes envisioned no such future for Cham Influential she might well become in the way that Fremen women—particularly
those m the Sayyadina—often were but she would not be accepted as Naib or as leader of all the tribes Under Falra s tutelage and under that of Stilgar and Misra following Falra s accidental death in 10180 Cham was raised solely as Fremen with no intereference from Impenal appointments or from out freyn ways
Liet Kynes continued his father s practice of aiding the Fremen and gulling the Har konnens wherever possible and his life and work continued with relative smoothness un til the Airakeen change of fief in 10190 Like the people he led the Impenal servant greeted the departure of House Harkonnen and the arrival of I louse Atreides with guard ed optimism Unhkethem however he knew enough of the Atreides Harkonnen conflict to realize that the changeover would not go easily he also had the advantage of his court appointed position as Judge of the Change in charge of overseeing the shift in power to provide him with more information When he received a secret communication from the emperor advis ng him that all but the grossest violations on the part of the Harkonnens were to be ignored he decided that his only option was to do as his father might have done to ride out the transition and the eventual destruction of House Atreides without involving or endangering himself or the Fremen
This resolve was shattered and Liet Kynes was again made a pawn of the greater forces surrounding him when he w as drawn into the aftermath of the combined Harkonnen Sar daukar attack against the Atreides The Duke Leto already dead Paul Atreides and the Lady Jessica were in desperate need of some refuge from the forces that had killed him Liet Kynes provided that refuge and sent the pair to shelter with the Fremen because he had sensed that the boy was sympathetic to the Fremen dream and capable of helping it to come true Against all his training and very nearly against his will Liet Kynes found himself unable to refuse help to the potential leader he saw m Paul Atreides
This impulse cost him his life Captured by Harkonnens who cared little for his stand ing as an Impenal servant Liet Kynes was severely beaten and left in the desert to die
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His captors had deprived him of water, equipment, and stillsuit, seemingly much amused by the idea that the desert he knew so well would be the cause of his death The ecologist is believed to have perished in a pre spice mass, caught in the explosive sand exchange which occurred when such masses reached then- critical point
Neither his life nor his death, however, had been in vain B} serving as an interim leader between his father and Paul Muad Dib Atreides, Liet Kynes ensured that the fiemen would survive this period, by fathering Cham, who would become the mother of Leto II, he had contributed to the continuation of the Atreides line, and by seeing that the new Atreides Duke and his mother found a place among the desert folk, he changed the course of history for millennia to come C W
Further references ATREIDES PAUUMUADMB, ARRAKIS ARRAKIS ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION; KYNES, PARDOT
KYNES, PARDQT. (10121 10175) first planetary ecologist of Arrakis, mastermind of that planet s ecological transformation Bom on Faseo, Kynes was the only son of Lews and Manque Kynes, two of the most prominent members of die Pasean scientific community Leuis was a botanist specializing m interplane tary transfer, Manque was a biologist whose impressive credentials included five yeais of secret post-graduate study with the Bene Tleilax Kynes* chosen field may be seen as a synthesis of those of his parents, as the ecologist himself wrote in the introduction to his mastcrwork. Ecology of Dune
I chose to become a ptaBCtologist—if, indeed, that position may be said not ID have chosen me—far the freedom of inquiry it provided The ecology of a world is not made up only of flora and fauna, a encompasses weather, geology even htstocy as it applies to the balances pres ent on that world No area is beyond ecological consideration
Kynes Went about achieving his goal with great precision, as if applying the scientific method to his own life Enrolling as soon as he reached the age of admission (fifteen) in the unparalleled Imperial University on Kaitain, the boy immersed himself in the study of
planetary ecology The next six years were spent in single minded pursuit of knowledge to the exclusion of all other interests Kynes did not even visit his homeworld during this period, seeing his parents only when they arranged to travel to the university
(Hib isolation may have saved Kynes life Had he remained on Paseo and studied at the Planetary University, it is almost certain that he would have been present at the infamous Milberne lecture in 10141, when a guest speaker unwittingly loosed a few Ecazian glow-spores in the campus s main hall Of the three thousand students, faculty members, and guest attendees—Kynes parents among them—none survived exposure to the deadly spores )
m 10142, following his graduation at the head of his class, Kynes entered Imperial service as a research assistant in an ecological survey station on Ecaz He spent two years with the station transferring to a similar station on Topaz at the end of that period this time as a full fledged researcher He continued to advance during his tenure on that world and was appointed as head of the largest such facility on Topaz in 10147
Along with his promotions Kynes was earning a widening reputation among his colleagues Professionally he was seen as one of their leading lights astonishingly competent for one so young, socially, however, even those who liked and admired him considered him cold and distant In reality it was not aloofness which prompted Kynes to so often remove himself from the company of others it was, rather, a sense of time passing m which he had too much to accomplish to permit himself any distractions His friends accepted this attitude, his enemies did not and Kynes himself refused to let it concern him
The outbreak of Catha fungus suffered by Ecaz in 10148 provided Kynes with an opportunity to boost his standing even further The fogwood crop representing one of Ecaz s most important exports stood in danger of being completely destroyed by the fast spreading growth Kynes already familiar with the checks and balances of that world, recommended importing spores of Kuenn s Fungus (named for its discoverer, Chnstofer
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Kuenn), the nearest known equivalent to an organic catalyst to halt the plague The tactic worked with the imported fungus crowding out the malignant growth while not harming the valuable fogwood, and Kynes was formally commended by House Xitan the Ecazian administrator
This commendation earned him the atten tion of Fmperor Flrood IX The position of Imperial Planetologist for Arrakis was avail able and Elrood offered it to Kynes as reward The ecologist, who had long considered the desert planet one of the most intriguing and understudied places in the Irapenum, accepted at once
Kynes supporters considered his appointment long overdue, while his detractors thought him too young and inexperienced to handle such an important position Again, Kynes refused to allow himself to be drawn into their arguments, preferring instead to concentrate on learning the finer points of Arrakeen ecology
The near-religious fervor which overcame the new 1mpenal Planetologist—and, eventually, the Arrakeen Fremen—as a result of his studies has been chronicled elsewhere in this volume So, too has the ecological transformation which Kynes engineered and, with his Fremen, began (see ARRAKIS, ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION) The greening of Arrakis is perceived as the ecojogist's gift to the desert folk but is far from the only gift Kynes left behind Hi* various writings, many of which were preserved and have been rediscovered m the Rakis Hoard, also serve to preserve his memory
Ecology of&une, published in 10150 and considered the seminal work pertaining to Arrakeen ecology, is his best-known piece, but there are a number of other works equal ly worthy of study Notes of a Planetary Ecoiopist, for example, offers a detailed comparison ot die ecological systems of a dozen
worlds stressing the similarities underlying the differences necessitated by the changes m locale *)torrn SVvicws and Their Fffectv pro vides its readers with an astute analysis of the major weather patterns throughout the Imperial planets, with special emphasis on the role of storms m accelerating erosion and soil damage Kynes books and articles have provided generations of scholars with in sights and information unavailable from any other source
The Fremen who accepted the ecolgist s leadership provided Kynes with a memorial of their own In 10175 Kynes and a party of Fremen were trapped m a landslide when the Plaster Basin cave warren—containing one of the secret water catches established under Kynes' direction—collapsed killing all those within The bodies were reco\ered and rendered for their water, according to the Fremen custom but a radical departure was made in dealing with the disaster area itself Ordinarily, the Fremen would have tunneled into the holding system where the hoarded water was so carefully sealed that not even the tons of rock and sand which collapsed around it could have affected it instead a ceremony was held in which the concealed water was dedicated to the spirit of Pardot Kynes It was believed according to one account of this unusual act that the water would not return to the ground system until the ecological transformation was nearly complete In this way Kynes would be a participant in the process he had begun long after his actions in the real world had been abruptly halted C W
Farther references AKRA.KIS ECOLOGICAL TRANSFOR
MATION FREMEN KYNES LIET Pardot KyilCS Ecology
of Dune tr Ewan Gwalan Airakis Studies 24 (Gramman United Worlds) idem Notes of a Planetary Ecotogist Lib Conf Temp Series 28"? idem Storm Systems and Their Effects Lib Conf Temp Series 289
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LANDSRAAD. (History and Structure) The most ancient of those institutions which formed the Impenum. The Impermm did not exist until ai) of us institutions were combined. CHOAM, the Imperial House, the Spacing Guild and the Landsraad. CHOAM and the Guild early became part of the structure of the economy and supporters of (he government, but the Landsraad had already existed for more than two millennia. Given this long history, it is not surprising that the nature of the Landsraad changed during the chaotic few centuries which saw the rise of the Butlenan Jihad, the birth of feudal governments on most of the inhabited worlds, and finally the development of the Imperium
The pre-ButJenan Landsraad was an organization of represent&ives of governments which was granted certain restricted powers by those governments The Landsraad collected ao taxes and maintained no armed forces of its own. It could call upon the military strength of its members to enforce a decision made during one of its sessions, but even then participation in such expeditions was voluntary on die part of die governments
The early Landsraad served as a deliberative body for the debate and adjudication of disputes between two or more of its member governments, or alleged violations of some agreement between the parties. In exceptional cases the Landsraad might intrude itself into a quarrel tf one of the parties was determined to have violated some fundamental provision of international law
Even before the Great Revolt, the number of worlds represented in the Landsraad was substantial, [hough not as large as it would become under the empire. Even the thirteen
thousand planets of the period of the Jihad, however, would have created an insurmountable problem if each of them had been entitled to a delegate But since the Landwaad recognized governments, and not planets, such was not necessary Each government sent only one representative to the meetings of the body These delegates then cast a number of votes determined by the size of the population they spoke for, with the minimum stipulation that no independent planet could have less than one vote With the limited information currently available, researchers have yet to determine the formula used for allotting \otcs to delegates, though it is clear there was one
In the years before expansion under the empire, the number of voting members exceeded four thousand Such a large number of mdmduals making serious decisions in the name of millions of people created many problems The wide vanety of governments represented caused irreconcilable differences Given the problems associated with an assembly of this type, strict rules were adopted for voting Consultation with the homeworld was prohibited While each dele gate could bring with him a sizable, though limited, body of advisors only the delegate would be permitted to vote Delegates would be permitted to confer with their advisors prior to casting their ballots, but the vote had to be cast within one Standard day after the announcement of an issue
Under these uro urns lances, the voting delegates eventual!) became virtually independent ministers The) arrived at meetings with as clear and full instructions as their individual governments could supply, but it was
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understood that problems might arise for which their governments had not briefed them For this reason alone a strict rule was adopted and enforced by the Landsraad each dele gate was to be granted total immunity from any kind of prosecution or sanction within his home state arising from any action while a delegate at Landsraad meetings
Since it was impossible for such a large body to deal with every issue placed before it, there were subsidiary structures The largest of these were the regional dmsions of the Landsraad, the Sysselraads, empowered to screen all matters and refer to the full session of the senior body only those issues which would affect others than the members of the Sysselraad in question Attempts to pass on issues which should have been decided at that level were dealt with very curtly by the Landsraad High Council Each Sysselraad represented no less than two but no more than five districts
Each district, in turn, was composed of delegates from no less than two nor more than five solar systems In fact, only a very few districts included only two solar systems, especially after die rise of die feudal states Since solar systems rarely had more than two habitable planets (usually under the control of one government), constituting dis tncts from only two systems was generally inefficient District meetings were empowered to decide matters affecting their own members and to mediate their disputes If such mediation faitedv the appropriate Sysselraad would arbitrate
Occasionally a district would be large enough to be divided into sub-districts composed of one or more systems These entities met only to decide agendas Their deliberations were semi formal Matters not discussed at a sub-district gathering could still be submitted to a district session Sub-district bodies, where they existed, met annually District meetings were held every two years while meetings of the Sysselraads were convened every five years, one year before the meet ing of the entire Landsraad, also held every five years
Hie last step between the Sysselraads and the Landsraad itseif was the Landsraad High Council Presiding officers were elected by
each session from the delegates but the secretaries were bureaucrats employees of the Landsraad and served at the pleasure of the Landsraad The best of them remained in these posts for several years The Landsraad High Council was composed of both these officials and the voting members of the High Council who numbered 100 The Sysseiraad secretaries served as advisors to the voting members, who were selected by lot from the delegates to die most recent Landsraad session
This body set the agenda for each meeting of the entire Landsraad Any legal dispute between worlds not under the same govern ment could be referred to the Landsraad if the issue in question had not been decided at a lower level In addition, the Landsraad took up certain cases as a matter of course including changes ot government by revolu tton or invasion by a foreign interstellar government The Landsraad s rules ignore rebellion, defined as a change m the identity of the governing officials without a shift m the governing system this was conceived as an internal matter An attempt was also made to distinguish between wars of reasonable cause and simple imperialistic expansion the Landsraad tried to discourage the latter but was not always successful
Such was the structure and function of the Landsraad prior to the Great Revolt The Jihad did not destroy the Landsraad nor did it work major changes in the structure of the organization It did however change the nature of most of the participating govern ments Historical study of the Jihad has concentrated attention upon the movement as a religious phenomenon and tended to over look the political results of this sweeping sword of death and destruction
The loss of life due to starvation disease and other causes which resulted from the destruction of computers and thinking ma chines was impossible to assess But the carnage did not end with the cessation of fighting Government medicine business and the trading enterprises of affected worlds had come to depend on computers and thinking machines for their ve*« existence All the \anous aspects of government from voting to san tation could be traced finally to the thinking machines which the crusaders de
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stroyed. The only planets which escaped the destruction of their governments were those few anarchical states which had no governments in the first place. But for other populations the effect was to reduce the cohesion and organization of their social fabric to a level below that of the anarchistic worlds. For most, the Butlerian Jihad meant anarchy without any preparation for that state. More billions died after the Jihad.
Under such conditions, the rise of military and economic entrepreneurs was inevitable. A complete breakdown of all facets of social structure created a void into which personal relationships m&ved, and when personal ties replaced the normal workings of a state in such matters as military organization, taxation and legal systems, feudalism emerged. This form of government has historically arisen when no state is strong enough to maintain order and protect the weak against the strong.
Most of the feudal, powers began as economic or military units but, with a very few exceptions, those that lasted became a combination of both. Such exceptions as the Sardaukar, who depended for their power upon simple force majettr. or the planet of Dendros, whose enormous forests provided a continuing source of wealth for some few million militarily unorganized citizens, were very rare; indeed, die Sardaukar were unique. In the normal case, successful feudal powers, especially those that managed to gain control of a planet, based their power upon a combination of dominance of die world's economy and control of its military forces,
Some worlds managed to escape subjection by a feudal power, whether foreign or home grown. Two of the most famous are Tupile and Tleilax. but they were permitted to survive as non-feudal only because they rendered the Imperium some special service which demanded that they remain outside the Imperium, The Tteilaxu provided that forbidden commodity, technology, while the Tupile entente provided a refuge for defeated Houses, Without such a refuge, such Houses would have been destroyed. The House Comno lasted as long as it did by avoiding such extremes whenever possible.
Feudal states are imperialistic insofar as
their power and their opponents will permit, and these new governments were no exception. The wealthier or more militarily powerful expanded their boundaries as swiftly as they could, and the weaker soon fell prey to the strong. There were certain limits upon this expansion, though. For a time the possibility of interstellar empire was gone with the machines that had been the object of the Butlerian Jihad. Interstellar travel had become slow, limited to small, highspeed vessels carrying precious cargoes of luxury goods. The slow pace of invasion fleets over star distances prohibited long-range invasion.
Once the stronger had absorbed the weaker, a rough balance of powers emerged in the various major sectors of the inhabited worlds. Certain planets, very wealthy ur unusually skillful militarily, separated themselves and established their positions among the great forces within the ranks of the great feudal states. The rivalry was intense, but futile; none of them was abie to mark itself as clearly superior to the rest of their fellows, no matter how hard each tried. This remained the state of affairs until the rise of the Sardaukar.
Under such circumstances, the quite understandable suspicions which arose between the great feudal states only made easier their conquest by the legions from Salusa Secundus. Their antagonisms hindered what might have been their only chance for survival: it was impossible for them to unite quickly. One may doubt that even their united forces would have sufficed, but the point will remain moot, as efforts at unified resistance were begun far too late.
For the Landsraad, however, the rise of the Sardaukar and the creation of House Corrino caused the second great change in relatively recent times The rise of feudal powers had fundamentally changed the nature of most of the constituent governments; the emergence of House Comno united the Landsraad as it had never been Finally the feudal powers were able to perceive a danger greater than each other, and the advantages of the Landsraad as the focus of non-Imperial power became obvious. It was the only organization which provided a means of channeling the common interests of thousands of
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worlds against the Sardaukar The dorm nance of military power lay with the feudal states thus the strength of the Great Houses within the Landsraad was augmented
This increase in the strength of the Great Houses was made complete by the arrival of the Spacing Guild and the creation of CHOAM The chartering of the development corporation, which gave to feudal powers a monopoly on access to the services of the Guild, effectively destroyed the few remaining non feudal governments within the Landsraad Not long after the development of the Guild monopoly, the High Conned of the Landsraad ceased to be chosen by lot The old body was dissolved and a new group of members was elected by the meeting of the Landsraad The membership remained at one hundred after the first election, members were replaced only by a vote of tire High Council from that time, the Council renewed itself by co optation
The downfall of House Comao after ten millennia of rule, and the triumph of House Atreides after the ravages of the Ftemen Jihad, did not aflect the structure or traditional function of the Landsraad as the focus of power against the Imperial House Given the dominance of House Atietdes within CHOA M and the ravages of the Jihad, the power of the Landsraad was much decreased however and it was never able regain the position of a near equal to the Imperial power FM
Farther references. CHOAM- BUTLEKIAN JIHAD IMPERI AL ADMINISTRATION* T B Jones series of articles in Journal of Ancient Economies (La&sbVty T Eboyane The Faufreiuches The Great Ckai* of Being andNatu rat Science (Yofba. Rose)
LASER WEAPOfiS. (Lasguns) Developed (lining the Brst Empire as weapons of war Since the development of the Holtzman Shield, though, the use of lasers has diminished considerably, and they are used today almost exclusively as antiwildlife weapons and in sport shooting The earliest lasguns were massive mounted weapons weighing upwards of several tons, and were used as antiaircraft weapons, or in orbit as antisatellite weapons Shortly after their invention, the first porta ble lasguns were developed and produced and until the general acceptance of the
Holtzman Shield, lasers were the main weapons of all armed conflict
Development Lasers were first developed for industrial use as cutting torches scalpels and drills The primitive devices were immobile and had an effective range of only a few meters They were large, bulky, awkward to operate and required massive amounts of power The first lasguns were simply adapta tions of the industrial laser with longer range but few other changes These impractical weapons could not compete with the projec tile weapons of the day, and were never widely produced Legend has it that the first widely produced lasguns were the Anusatellite Lasers, produced by Houses Washington and Steel during the very beginnings of the atomic age when both Houses shared a single plan et and neither was sure that the other would not use atomics These lasguns were still large and used too much power but the value of having them in orbit nevertheless was seen as an overriding benefit
The first truly personal laser was developed late in the First Empire and was intended
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LETO S CART
for use mainly as a communications device However it was quickly discovered that the power could be stepped up (albeit at the cost of more rapidly depleting the power pack) and that this increase converted the message laser into a lasgun that could be earned and used by a single perbou These 'communications devices' already had the form of more conventional rifles (&nce the message beam had to be visually aimed by the user) so their adaptation as weapons may not have been accidental The main drawbacks of the first lasguns were the large, heavy poweipacks and their limited numbers of firings before recharging Even at a range of one hundred meters against an unprotected target, a user of a primitive lasgua could count only on ten or so shots from a single powerpack In addition, these weapons still used visible light, which limited their effectiveness when used in an atmosphere (because of OK diffraction effects of the gases), and which also made the weapons embarrassingly subject to reflection from intentionally mirrored or natu rally reflective surfaces
The next major step in lasgun development was the development of so-called "Radio Lasers, * which used radiations outside of the wavelengths of visible light as the lasmg frequencies This development, coupled with continuing advances in power storage technology, allowed the lasgun to come into its own as the weapon of choice of ail combatants
The most powerful lasguns were the ones using the wavelengths of long-wave radio they were almost impossible to deflect or block, and had extremely long ranges Unfortunately, they also required very large chambers, due to the length of the waves bemg produced, and were impractical as anything except mounted weapons, either on spaceships or in defensive positions
The lasgun of popular memory usually employed deep-ultraviolet wavelengths and ranged in size from small hand-held weapons to heavy, mounted, barely portable weapons, and included the popular lasenfle The crewed weapons usually had a separate powerpack, which could be discarded when depleted and replaced in the field, personal weapons were generally charged by 'power buttons," small batteries which were inserted
into the stock or grip of the weapon and either discarded, replaced or recharged when depleted The advent of lightweight batteries gave lasgun users the ability to fight for extended periods of time without resupply, and made lasguns the basic combat weapon for dll branches, of the military
Lasguns today The development of the Holtzman Effect Shield spelled the end of the lasgun as a common weapon Today lasgun manufacture and ownership is strong ly restricted, since accidental contact be tween a lat>er beam and one of the ubiquitous personal shields is extremely deadly Collectors and others who own fasguns are normally prohibited from owning the power sources for their weapons, except in certain specified locations where lasgun enthusiasts gather to test their target shooting skills, or on wild planets, where lasguns are still highly useful as protective weapons W D I
Further reference HOLTZMAN EFFECT
LETO'S CART. Before discoveries in the Rakis Finds of schematics and manuals of the leg endary device known as 'Leto's Cart, all that was known of it was that it used both wheels and ' suspensor bubbles" for transportation, was covered by a canopy which became clear or opaque a;, desired, and was unique Since the only model was destroyed when Leto died, all else remained a mystery
We now know that Leto's cart was seven meters long three meters wide and with its canopy raised, two meters tall Because of Leto s special requirements, the cart was intended to be driven by a prone dnver judging from the control surfaces, it could be operated effectively only by Leto
The body of the cart was a shallow shell with a low run which became a wide ramp for entry and exit Four wide wheels could be dropped from recesses in the corners of the shell, allowing this more efficient mode of travel when ground conditions permitted Built into the bottom of the shell was the main motive system two rows of six suspen sor bubbles each The Holtzman Effect fields created by miniaturized generators automati cally provided exactly enough lift to counter balance the weight of the cart and any
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passengers Hie bubbles were shielded by refracted magnetic fields as a safeguard against lasgun attacks This protection long thought impossible, was kept secret Thus, many historians dismissed the suspensor bubbles of Leto's Cart as an utter fabrication, since eye-witnesses once reported that a lasgun beam struck the bottom of the cart Actually, the beams struck the magnetic fields surrounding the suspensor bubbles, and when the magnetic system overloaded, ft failsafe mechanism instantly vaporized the Holtzman generator in a puff of orange-yellow smoke
The Emperor guided his cart through use of his atrophied legs Two control slots were located m the rear of the cart, and received Leto s legs when he lay m it The cart was directed by moving the legs from side to side for turns up or down for acceleration or deceleration, and in specific opposing direc tions to activate special functions such as switching from wheel to suspensor mode
There were no provisions for maintenance access to the interior of die cart no doubt secunty precautions directed that its interior be solid-state A single panel in the interior of the shell near the driver's left side accepted a wafer battery every few months Tlie cart also contained; several capacitors which allowed it to be operated from stored power for a number of days, even without a battery m the power circuits
A full-sized mockup of Leto's Cart is currently being built at the Discovery Museum on Rates, a working model is expected within two years
Further references: ATREIDBS, LETO ir, DC, Alan Bartkc Survey ofIxkmTecktobgy, I0900-13SOO (finally Mosaic)
LJCALLO, TAIAZOR. (12191-12277) The first figure m the field of music of the Second Empire Nearly all the composers and musicians who followed him were influenced by his work He wrote in alt the important musical forms of his day, and brought all of these to their highest fulfillment In doing so, he was continuing a family tradition of musical performance that had lasted for sev en generations
Licallo himself told the story of his ances tor Veit Licallo, a shopkeeper by trade, who
began playing his citheron (an ancient forerunner of the baliset and cittern) m rhythm to the sounds of the bazaar on which his little store fronted "And that is how music first entered our family'' wrote Taiazor l
The Licallos were a tightly knit family, and in their home province on the planet Chusuk, successive members held the post of court musician at Lectis Maxima seat of the Bashihus Dilowa and served as choir directors in the churches of Dilowa and Gegen for two hundred years When one resigned or died, he or she was replaced by another member of the family By the birth of Taiazor in 12191, the term licalio had already be come synonymous with 'musician in many of the planetary dialects There are refer ences m Dilovan records to bands of musicians or licallos 2 According to Licallo's first biographer Mian Tebery, the family used to hold annual reunions at which ' 'they would amuse themselves by singing chorales and folksongs (whose contents were often naughty as well as humorous), all of which were sung in such a way that several parts improvised made a kind of harmony together 3
As a boy, Taiazor was taught to pla> the baliset, the finger pipes and the Carillon bells, while his great uncle the venerable Filip Licallo, started him on the organum Taiazor continued both his musical and his classical studies when he went to live with his half brother Dion Licallo after he was orphaned at the age of ten When he was fifteen Taiazor began to support himself as school organist at St Gregonca s Collegium in Gegen Here he advanced his studies in chorus theory, and composition and studied advanced keyboard technique under the tutelage of Lman Mobh (b 12165 Chusuk d 12259) At eighteen he left the Collegium and was employed as organist and choir director in the nearby village of Shaobela but the young Taiazor discovered that since he was only a httle older than some of his choristers, ft was almost impossible for him to keep order The Shaobela watch records tell of a public brawl between Taiazor and one of his tenors who attacked him with a stick The youths were separated before blood could be drawn but at the hearing the boy testified that he had acted under extreme
368
provocation Licallo had criticized his singing of a particularly difficult passage in the liturgy for St Genesius by using foe deadly insult 'zipelfagotisn," a word as difficult to translate as it is to pronounce
The incident was characteristic of the person of Licallo he spent much of his adult hie in one scrape or another, constantly fighting with his superiors, and he had a notoriously short temper He was utterly frank on matters on which he was an expert, but his lack of diplomacy made him many bitter enemies However, he was modest about his own art, completely fan*, and eager to learn from other composers
At twenty, he took a leave of absence from his post asd went to Dilowa. by then the major center for music on Chusuk, for further study Upon returning to his position, he was criticized lor his introduction of "many fanciful ideas*' on the way to play in church, and especially for his bringing to the gallery a young woman from Diiowa as his assistant The girl was his second cousin Estra, who became his wife in niMiklim of mat year (12212) Estra died only two years later, in giving birfli to (hear second child He remarried the next year, to Rauzmiir Niveam, one of his choir members, who bore him twelve more children Licallo often joked that he could make a sizable orchestra from the members of his household alone
In his twenties, in order to teach his children music both vocal and instrumental, Ljcallo began to create a series of instructional pieces for the baliset, which began with the simplest of melodies and proceeded to extremely complex pieces These were collected under the title, Etudes and Progressions for Baliset which G M Fredhnck praised as "me soul of the baliset" On the strength of these pieces he was offered the position of director Of music at me newly founded St Sateel School for Boys, established by endowment from House Chula It was there that he wrote the bulk of his work
Among his most famous works is the choral setting of The Trial ofSt Sateel now regarded as the greatest choral work m the Galach language When it was first produced it was coldly received as being "too the atncal " Ironically, it was considered too provincial when it was performed in Arrakeen,
where Caladan opera was setting the fashion driving Licallo's similar ' tegor strum out of popularity In his Art of Tegor and The Counterpoint Treasury Licallo wrote a venta ble encyclopedia of baliset music In his Silversmith Variations for Organum, he took a simple workman's tune and set it to over thirty variations In his opera of the Battle of Cornn, AM Koreen Mnn, he mimicked the Caladan style even as he created startling new projections for voice
So much attention has been given to Licallo's instrumental and symphonic work, and his operas performed so often m their languages of composition, Gegesh or Galach, that little note has been made of his musical puns, the weaving into his songs of the names of his friends and the like But the composer was much aware of the conditions of performance, being a performer himself, and when setting words to music he often added marginal notes to guide the acting of whatever the singer was involved m Thus, in Au Koreen Mnna in the ana "Ii wat sin utaud't tuyaur tubyaud't," the singer is to quickly down a glass of wine, throw the glass over his shoulder, and sing "utaud t" ("toast') in an undulating twenty-five-note passage In The Seven Sailors a serious motet ' Strai noot fremu fresndit ' (' Do not leave my side") changes to comedy as one by one the singers leave the stage, leaving the tenor looking nervously from side to side as the song ends
In his later years, the administrators of St Sateel's paid less and less attention to music, perhaps from some resentment of the fame of their director or from a lack of interest in the subject Licallo found himself increasingly restricted in his projects, and spent the last years of his life in a constant state of vexa tion and frustration He died at the age of 86, after suffering a stroke He was mourned by musicians everywhere except at St Sateel's, where the principal is said to have remarked, "Now we can hire a chorus master instead of a virtuoso "4 Licallo's last work, A Sonata for Pipe and Bowed Baliset was left unfinished
After his death, the city authorities of Dilowa had a statue of Licallo placed on the roof of the town hall with the single word ' Master" carved on a baliset at his feet
369
The word aptly describes his life both as performer and composer, just as BO words can capture the treasures he gave to the worlds J R M
NOTES
'Taiazor Licallo BaltsetSong The Autobtogra phy of a Musician (rpt Centraha Kutath Brothers), P 5
Document 11830 457, Dilowa Civic Archives
'Cerre Compavyard trans , Tefary's Life of Licallo (Grumman Hartley Umv Press), p 282
4lbid p 371
LOYSEYAL, REVEREND MOTHER MARCUS
CLAIRE. (13699-1371?) A legendary leader of the Bene Gessent R M Marcus Claire Luy-seyal apparently visited the court of Leto II, serving as an ambassadorial assistant Material in the newly translated Journals of Leto II shows that the young R M Luyseyal was a member of the last Bene Gessent delegation to the God Emperor serving as assistant to R M Tertms Eileen Anteac, an experience she was later to refer to as her "lessons m hu mihty" For purposes of clarity, die Bene Gessent has released a portion of Luyseyal's pnvate records, among which are transcripts of her memoirs as well as her Sisterhood reports Apparently Luyseyal was proud of being what was then known as a "Jessica type," a genetic descendant of the Lady Jessica Atreides As seen in the ego-likeness included m the Bene Gessent material, Luyseyal was slender of medium height, with an oval face red-gold hair, and intelligent green eyes The voice pattern on die nummic film re cords a compelling contralto, supporting the tradition that she was a master of the Voice In fact, her early recognition as a child prodigy Thithsayer plus her often acknowledged beauty led her in later life to claim ' pride" as her greatest weakness But her childhood was one which would make any Sister proud The child of a Mater Fdbcissirna, Luyseyal was raised in her mother's pnvate chambers in the Chapter House on Waliach IX From birth on she was the pet of the Sisterhood, a bright, lovely, charming child who had the freedom of the Chapter House and who also had very few moments of discipline imposed upon her When she was three, her extreme sensitivity and empathy was apparent and she began truthsayer train-
ing at the exceptionally early age of nine Because of her position m the Sisterhood s inner family and because of her own talents Luyseyal was never forced to endure the strict training forced on the other apprentices Though she mastered the prdna-bindu exer cises, she paid little attention to the analyti ca! exercises and the intellectual skills expected of the acolytes Instead she became a full fledged Truthsayer at fifteen and a Reverend Mother at eighteen, the earliest any Bene Gessent had ever achieved such positions
Her easy victones did not improve her disposition, and even her status as ' favorite child" could not hide the fact that she was fast becoming an overbearing adult Her mother, Mater Felicissima Catallius Marcia Luyseyal, assigned her to be R M Tertms Eileen Anteac's assistant in hopes that the woman, known both for her analytical skills and her acerbic wit would be a useful role model for the young Tnithsayer Their only time together, however was on the mission to Arrakis, and apparently Luyseyal did not appreciate Anteac until much later Her journals show that Luyseyal thought Anteac too old to be effective and that she was surprised when Leto showed a preference for the older woman She also was surprised that her assassination attempt proved to be so anti climactic Years later however she acknowl edged that her confrontation with Leto and her work with Anteac had shaped her future "That was the first time anyone had ever disagreed with me or found me inadequate It was a moment which forced me to reexam me my own valuer, s>he later wrote
Obviously that reexammation led to Luy seyal's subsequent self discipline and her even tual ability to fully emplo> her powers in espionage and leadership during the tumultous years immediately following the death ol the God Emperor Some of the restructuring of the Order suggested by Luyseyal allowed its preservation during the years of the Starva lion and the Scattenng For her work as a leader of the Order the Sisterhood has re membered her by naming the University on Marduk IX for her The Claire Chair of Empathetic Scholarship remains as her most lasting tribute J A L
Further references B^NF GESSERIT ARCHIVES Leto AtreidusII Journals RRC 80 A D557
370
MAHDL While the origin of the term "Mahdl"
—' 'The One Who Will Lead Us to Paradise*'
—is not known, such a concept occurs repeatedly among peoples who suffer alien oppression in their own land. Few examples of the Mahdtan expectancy survive from the time prior to the coming of Paul Muad'Dib to Arrakis (Raids). Even the records of Princess Irulaa remain fragmentary and some chapters of the Orange Catholic Bible indicate that the power of messianic imagery was felt in the most ancient religious conceptions. The Mahdtan expectancy in these texts often seems to combine spiritual with warlike components. Evidently any harsh* ness of existence seems to promote a Utopian mentality which in turn seeks a total solution to unlivable circumstances. For this solution to emerge, a solitary figure of heroic proportions must provide absolute leadership.
Comparative interplanetary socio-hist one research has produced a significant body of well-founded mathematical data on the crucial transformational point at which a people will yearn for "Mahdi surrender.** It has even been suggested that the ancient Bcne Gesserit were able to use some of the earliest scholarship in this area to develop their "Missionaria Protectiva," but mis concept has been disputed in the literature. Kreber's now classic work, SocSystem of the Bene Gesserit (Diana; Tevis) suggests that they operated in the earliest millennia without use of scholarly materials.
Firm evidence indicates that the Mahdi expectancy affected many planets in the old Imperium in addition to Arrakis. Another case for which fragmentary knowledge is available is that of Siego, a mountain world
with a small but fierce population who experienced a strong Mahdian expectancy after generations of subjugation under the infamous rule of a Harkonnen fief. While little is known of the outcome of the murderous struggle, the fanatic zeal of the Siegans under their Mahdi Ogur remains legendary.
The Fremen of Dune in the era immediately prior to the coming of the House of Atreides were inspired both by the dream of Liet-Kynes' ecological paradise and by the idea of one who would deliver them to such a paradise. External social conditions were quite ripe for the appearance of a true Mahdi. Harkonnen oppression, particularly under Beast Rabban, had steeled the Fremen flesh and will. The Fremen character also provided fertile ground for the acceptance of the One with the special gift. Strong discipline to obey legitimate authority had been deeply inculcated into the Fremen personality. Shifting alliances from the traditional authority of the Naibs to Mahdian authority, while complex, could be effectively accomplished within the scheme of Fremen social psychology.
When, in fact, Paul Muad'Dib made himself known as the Mahdi, although he left the labeling for others, he sought onl> the ascendancy he required to deliver the people He seems to have met less resistance than might have been anticipated. Paul's unique gifts along with the carefully laid prophecy made it possible to obtain the compliance of the Naibs. He made sure that the basic autonom) of each sietch remained. Not only did he thus guarantee that the Naibs would not feel displaced, but he prevented the disruption of existing socio-cultural patterns within each sietch. Thus Paul subtly used the expecta-
MAKER HOOKS
tion of a messiah to establish himself in an authoritative position providing spiritual and military leadership over the Fremen while maintaining the existing strengths of the people. M.O.
Farther references: Komplar Kreber, SocSystem of the Bene Gesserit (Diana: Tevts); Chal Hariolaa, Religion Ungirded: The Mountain Wan of Siege (Salusa Seomdus: Kiski).
MAKER HOOKS. Devices named for the sandworms, or "makers" of Airakis, and used for capturing, mounting and steering the giant creatures. Probably more than any other device, the maker hooks are uniquely associated with Arrakis. Sandworms have survived nowhere else, and occasional examples of hooks that have turned up elsewhere have proved to be cheap imitations carried home from pilgrimages to Muad'Dib's plan-
371 MAKER HOOKS
et during the immediate post-jihad period. At present there is no information about the origin of the maker hook or possible precedents. Fortunately, there are many good examples from Rakis itself, and each new find increases understanding of their characteristics.
Maker hooks were long, thin shafts of spiceplastic, ranging in length from 1.35 meters to 2.1 meters, and in diameter from 1.0 to 1.47 cm, differing no doubt according to the size of the beast and the degree of skill of their users. At one end of the shaft was bonded a plastccl hook, barbed at the tip and having a radius of curvature of from 10.6 to 12 cm. The opposite end was molded to fit the grip of the user and then roughened to a coarseness of 28 grit.
Their use of maker hooks brings the boldness of the Fremen into sharp focus. After activating a thumper to summon a
372
giant maker, the bookman (first mounter) stood aside from the approaching worm As the maker went by, the bookman inserted one hook beneath the leading edge of one of the sandworm's rings, and the other hook at a slightly lower point on the next ring The bookman braced himself back on the hooks, rolling upward with the worm as it rotated away from the threat of sand entering the gap opened by the two hooks Once up, the hookman and followers steered the worm by opening gaps down one side of the beast, prompting it to roll away from Ihe gaps, to prevent s>and getting in
Hooks were important in the rremen culture A youth who had been first up was entitled to his own hooks, it was one important badge of adulthood Some investigators believe that young men earned their Fremkits one piece at a time, and that maker hooks was the foundation of the Fremkit "collection " A hook that had never failed was thought to be especially lucky, and its owner was granted special respect Also, when a hookman missed an attempt, that boded bad luck for the tribe or group for die rest of the day
Further refertBce: FREMKIT
MALKY, ERUM (13632-13724) Ixian Ambassador to the God Emperor's court for more man two decades (13690-13712) Erhn Malky ranked as the one member of his people, other than his "niece, ' Hwi Noree, successful in achieving intimacy with the Lord Leto He reached this level of familiarity not only because of hts efforts toward it, but because of a unique combination of personality dnd experience which predisposed him toward such a role
Born to Piter and Charmaine Malky, both members of the ruling body known as the Inquisitors of Ix, Erhn Malfcy was exposed from his earnest years to the Byzantine mtn cacies of hum politics He demonstrated his intuitive understanding of the process when at age ten, he suggested the trulv Machiave! lian scheme which resulted in the ouster of three senior Inquisitors and the appointment of ms mother Charmaine as the body s effec live leader
Though the prodigy s contribution to this
takeover (known in Ixian histories as the "Coup of 13642 ') was not acknowledged until several years after the deaths of both his parents, rumors of his part in the coup spread to every sector of Ixian government shortly after its success The young Malky was sought out by those many years his senior in age and experience, and his opinions were taken seriously Lpon completion of his schooling m 13652, he was appointed to a minor clerkship in the cipher division of the Ixian intelligence community
The appointment was a cover intended to conceal from outsiders the caretul training of a new Ixian plenipotentiary Malky was provided with copies of all important diplomatic messages and told to analyze them Mental like, and predict the events which might fol low their receipt, these exercises provided much of the youth s advanced training
In 13659, Malky was put on a permanent retainer bv the Inquisitors and released from all normal duties From that ;ear until his recall in 13688, he was free to visit any of die known worlds, frequently traveling as messenger extraordinaire for his masters but more often as a pnvate citizen His travels gave him an overview of the vanous planets and their workings under Leto s Peace, they also provided the Inquisitors, to whom Malky continued to report, a similar comprehension
When the Inquisitors decided that their objective, the polishing sophisticating and jading of their representative was complete they commanded him to return to the home world There he spent a final three years studying the society-m miniature to which his superiors proposed to send him the court ol the Lord Leto
Their many years of association proved pleasurable for both Malky and the God Emptror In the new Ixian Ambassador Leto found a clever, oddly courageous man who seemed not to be in the least intimidated by the Emperor s godhead Malky in turn disco\ered that his sharp honed intellect and wit were finally being challenged in the manner for which they were trained The relationship between them appears to have been both more and less than friendship While each was always suspicious of the other a kind of understanding existed be
373
tween them which permitted greater mtima-cy than Leto ever allowed his more trusted aides Their relationship sorely perplexed many members of the court, Leto's majordo-mo Moneo included, sad Leto himself was sometimes puzzled by his own fondness for "the old rogue "
Save for a bnef return to Ix in the seventh year of his service, the time at which cells from his body were taken to use in growing his "mirror-clone," Hwi Notee, Malky did not leave Arrakis until his recall in 13712 He left under protest, warning the God Emperor that his replacement was "less than a fool, ' but his objections were ignored by the Inquisitors They had their own plans for Malky primarily for his help in training and educating Hwi Noree
He did not meet the God Emperor again until 13724, when Leto seat RM Tertius Ei leen Anteac to die Fish Speaker garrison on Ix with orders to find and capture the ex-Ambassador and return him to Arrakis for questioning Malky was brought back (though part of the pace for his capture was Anteac's death) and, as arrogant in his familiarity with the God Emperor as ever, confirmed Leto's suspicions about Hwi Noree
It was his last act m any capacity Leto, prevented both by memories of comradeship with Malky and fay the knowledge that the Ixian was so closely related to his betrothed, could not kill him, Nevertheless, Malky alive and free was too great a risk to be allowed, Leto made his desire for the man's eltrmna tion known to Moneo and the majordomo executed him at once, relieving his master of the problem C W
Farther refereae«; HWI NOREE tx Retnlik Malvar Ixum Foreign Policy in the Post-PaitttM Era (Gioia. Quique)
NAPES, SHADOOF. The first Fremen con tact of the Lady Jessica and Paul Atreides Little has emerged of M apes' early life, although the Princess irulan wrote that Paul spoke of the Shadout as a shining example of Fremen womanhood Her memory was held m deep respect within Sietch Tabr for her rebel activities and her enormous kaowl edge of the ntes and traditions of Fremen lore to which she had dedicated her life
even to the loss of her husband and children Nothing detailed is known of this shadowy legend prior to her appointment in the ducal household as head housekeeper It has been assumed that during the Harkonnen period she acted m the important capacity of espio nage chief, for no other reason would have induced a woman of her background and rank to work as servant to a hated house
The tide Shadout translates as ' 'well dipper' Due to the earlier presence on Arrakis of a Bene Gessent who followed faithfully the directives of the Missionana Protectiva in planting religious patterning, thebe impldnted myths were widely used not only in the religious ntes but also in everyday sietch life, based as it was on the hunting mythos Usually daughter of a sietch chief,, a Well Dipper served the all-important function of trapping and bagging the liquid exhalation of a dying maker known as the Water of Life " Many Well Dippers went on to be come Sayyadma or Reverend Mothers but it is likely that Mapes exhibited early signs of the sensitmt} to others and the penchant for question dnd evaluation that made her mvalu able as a spy, which diverted her role from religion to rebellion
When Mapes was entrusted with the mission of measuring Jessica, the Bene Gesent training alerted the Duke's Lady to the necessi ty of impressing the Shadout and correctly answering the vital question of the meaning of the crysknife The way was paved by the Well Dipper's report to Stilgar insuring the fugitives' reception and eventual acceptance The rehgio mysticism of the Fremen and Jessica's rapid interpretation and use of this information proved a more effective protec tion than Liet-Kynes' directive Jessica passed Mapes' test so well that the Shadout offered the waters of her own body to blood the gifted blade Fortunately her sacrifice was postponed until she had relayed her certainty that Jessica was the one who brought the Lisan al-Gaib G K
Further references ATREIDES JESMCA MISSIONARY PROTECTIVA Jarrel Oslo Fremen Lives and Legend (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak) Harah Memoirs of a Sietch Woman tr Steewan Duunalazan (Topaz Carolus UP)
MAULA PISTOL
374
MAULA PISTOL A weapon designed solely for interpersonal combat The maula pistol was a spring-loaded handgun which fired poisoned darts accurate up to 40 meters A popular weapon for assassins and guemlla fighters, it was small and lightweight (measur ing approximately 15 cm from the back of the grip to the end of fas muzzle and weighing between 125 and 150 grams), it made little noise on firing, and, if used by a skilled shot, it could breach a personal shield
The maula pistol was invented by Jen Malthenn a native of Bezel n la 3741, but the technology which led to its invention can be traced directly to the visit paid that planet by the Butlenan Jihad in 192 B G Bezel II was an example of the Jihad's earnest excesses Jehanne Butter's horde leveled every industn al facility the world possessed and then car ned out a second wave of attacks which destroyed most of the civilian housing Fully eighty percent of the population of Bezel II was killed, leaving the shaken survivors to consider how best to avoid a repeat engagement with the Jihad's fleet which sometimes returned to interdict worlds believed to have indulged m technological backsliding
The Bezehans decided their best defense lay m outdoing the fanatics at their own speciality When investigative scouts, sent back to check the sector of which Bezel II was a part, made planetfall on that world in 180 BG, they discovered that die natives had completed their work for them on all of Bezel II, no device more complicated man a windmill was m evidence Planetary law forbade an individual to build or possess machinery which exceeded stringent anti technological guidelines The/ scouts returned to the fleet with gtowmg reports concerning the Bezel lans's aewfound orthodoxy
The maula pistol during its earliest centu nes of production followed the guidelines to a nicety The components were machined by hand or by the simplest sort of shop equipment and the guns were assembled in factories which could most charitably be described as cottage industries The pistols manufactured during this fame were not those which would later gam popularity m the Impenum these were heavier, less accurate models most of
ten used in hunting calboc the animal most nearly resembling a marsupial deer which provided the Bezehans with the bulk of their meat supply
So deeply ingrained were the habits ac quired after the Jihad that it was not until 6783 that restrictions on import of more advanced technology were loosened It was the work of another full millennium to bnng Bezel II to a par with its neighboring worlds so far as manufacturing practices and maten als were concerned
In 7891 the first modem maula pistols entered the interplanetary market They proved to be one of the few Bezelmn exports which sold well Most of the Impenum was suffi ciently recovered from the effects of the Jihad by this time that there was htfle de mand for the kind of simplistic technology most Bezelmn products represented
Their popularity remained high until 10769 when the pistols were included in one of the earliest weaponry bans issued as part of Leto's Peace
Further references LOTS Karden The Flame and the Flower A Short History of the Builerian Jihad (Yorba Rose)
MELANGE (spice) [The following entries on melange appear to have been independent re ports (RRC NS 2 12 and RRC NS 2 13) Commissioned by the Bene Gesserit m the early days of the reign ofLeto II —Ed }
BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY A complex bio-polymer originating only on Arrakis Its sev eral biological activities include interaction with various centers of the central nervous system (CNS) interaction with the immune system and deposition within the sclera of the eyes To date the structure of the bio logically active portion of spice has not been isolated although it is known that other portions of the molecule contain gly coprotem a cuprit heme and cmnamic acid
The interaction with the CNS is primarily in the Kohhker Kramptz center which con trols time space awareness In most humans this center is rudimentary consisting of only a small number of cells (K K cells) in the
375
central cortex of the brain Ingestion of spice stimulates the growth of K-K cells so that the individual becomes more aware of his/her time-space environment It is due to the action of the spice on the K-K cells that melange is addictive If quantities in excess of 2 grams daily per 70 kilograms of body weight are ingested, severe addiction is encountered Withdrawal from the spice from an addict results in insanity and eventual death due to the action of the breakdown products of K-K cells on the other cells of the CNS
Bene Gessent research suggests that fe males capable of becoming Reverend Mothers have inherently well-developed Kohliker-Kramptz centers One theory proposed is that some component of the Konhkef-Kramptz center is genetically sex-linked If mat is true, then it is probable that Paul Atreides represented a mutation in drat component rather that a true product of the B G breed ing program Tins deviation is one explanation for the unique action of spice on the Atreides family Precedent has been set for mutation in the genes controlling the Kohliker Kramptz center The Guild Steersmen were manipulated genetically so that they had high ly developed Kohliker-Kramptz centers, al though originally their genetic engineers did not know the exact location or composition of the time-space awareness center
The geriatric properties of melange are considerable The addict's predicted life-span is increased two to four time& that of normal, depending upon die age at which the spice was first ingested as well as the dose When the spice is digested, certain as yet unidentified breakdown products arc absorbed into the bloodstream These products interact with T cells of the immune system, rendering the addict immune to most bacterial, fungal parasitic and viral agents of disease Moreover changes which occur in body cells due to aging or malignant transformation are rapidly recognized and the cells are eliminated Ingestion of spice also imparts an immunity to many common poisons
One of the most sinking results of a diet high m melange is me 'Eyes of Ibab," the characteristic "blue on blue" eye color the
whites and irises of me eyes turn a deep blue The precise mechanism of action is not known, but it is thought that certain of the components of melange ha\e affinity for the stroma of the sclera The 640 A axial period icity of the collagen fibrils mav entrap the melange components deposited because of the relative deficiency of water-binding sub stances in the sclera The oblique arrange ment and variability in collagen fibril diame ter also serve to maintain the entrapment of the melange components
Visual acuity is not reduced by the deposition of the blue pigment In fact, in the white sun light of Arrakis, the pigment acts as a blue filter, increasing contrast and en hancmg vision
The incomplete knowledge of the structure of melange prevents us from knowing all the interactions of this unique compound with the human body M S
Further references MEI ANGL CHEMICAL COMPOSITION SPICE entries Alizhu Kohliker and Zhiemer Kramptz Unique Cells Present m the Brain Cortex of d Genetic Prescient Journal of Interplanetary Medicine 59 110-131 Sin Qadnn Static Barriers of ike Cerebral Cortex (Richese U Of Bailey Press) R M Cassius Ida Treae New Views ot an Old System Archives Quarterly Review 15 199 253 Javid sen Gam Analysis of the Time Space Awareness Centers of the Guild Steersman Journal of Psvchoperception 2^ 821 829
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION A com plex biopolymcr produced during the life cycle of the sdndworm of Arrakis The chemical structure ot this remarkable geri atric pharmaceutical agent has not yet been fully elucidated nor have attempts to produce the substance synthetically been sue cessful
Reports of the molecular weight of melange have varied from 100 x 106 to 2 x 10" depending upon the method of deter mination This has led Nidim et al to speculate that melange is a heterogeneous mixture of polymers of various sizes The substance is hydrophihc, readily dissolved in aqueous solutions but not in organic solvents
To our best knowledge the polymer is composed of subumts of proteoglycan-heme derivatives of cmnarmc acid Siharis has isolated subumts of the following structure through Shimmelson degradation
376
MENTATS HISTORY
The exact nature of the polymerization ot these subumts is not known Since the isolat ed subunits have none of the genatne proper ties of melange we can assume that during the degradation process another biologically active chemical moiety is lost The deep blue color of melange is due in part to the presence of the heme group It is believed however, that the biologically active portion of the molecule possesses a fluorescent quality m certain light wavelengths
With Lasl Sync spectroscopy of refined melange several free radicals have been detected within the molecule The manner in which these free radicals are protected and their exact composition has not been shown The presence of the free radicals leads to the speculation that the biological activity re sides in that portion of the molecule Moreover until the means of protecting the highly reac tive free-radicals has been found it is highly unlikely that this portion of melange will be isolated much less synthetically produced MS
Further references MELANGE BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY H Nidim T Fenslow and L Shamo Revew of the
Chemistry of Melange (Caladan Second Great House Conference on Chemistry) 13474 Andre Shimmelson
Interaction of Organolytic Acids w th Biopolymers Interplanetary Journal of Suk Pharmacy 173 202 222
MENTATS, HISTORY OF THE ORDER
Founded 1234 during the reign of Mikael I the Builder byGilbertus Aibans (1192 1294) originally established on the planet Septimus later moved to Tleilax (1246) expanded and reorganized by Grodon Orpar Playt (1186 1272) suppressed by Leto II in 11745
Gilbertus Aibans a Septimian philosopher and logician conceived a program of far reaching importance one spring morning in 1231 during some leisure time reading on the Butlenan Jihad It occurred to Aibans that the legendary computers had been built by humans and it seemed unlikely to him that they had possessed capacities beyond those of the trained human mind Over the next few years he devised a plan of study for the production of human computers which he named Mentals and recruited students for the program The early Order located on Septimus consisted of three ranks of adepts Memonzers Processors and Hypothesists Although often in financial difficulties for his infant Order Aibans refused to allow his Mentals to serve until they had passed through all three ranks But he did allow those still in training to publicize Mentat abilities and mat practice led to the relocation of the Order House
Of the three ranks Processors were the most vulnerable Their training stressed un questioning acceptance of the direction of othen, and they were therefore totally depen dent on the good will oi those around them In the Training House they were safely in the care of the Order until they progressed to the relative security of the third rank Hypothesis!
One tragic incident on Septimus almost led to the disgrace of the Order Aibans would take his young trainees to various cities from time to time exhibiting their skills to seek support for his program On one such occasion a group of five Proces sors became separated from the main party Under instructions from Aibans to wait by the city s sports stadium the group asked a passerby how to find the stadium He said Just follow them—they re on the way to
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the stadium," and pointed to a band of gladiators The Processors fell in step behind the gladiators, followed them into the arena, and were killed in the melee of the day's program There are similar stones of Processors being kidnapped (no difficult task) for carnival sideshow curiosities Albans saw that at worst the Order risked destruction and at best faced public ndicale He foerefore contracted with the Spacing Guild to relocate to Tleilax For a percentage of tile profits, the Tleilaxu agreed to supply the Order with military protection, beginning an association thai was to have regrettable consequences centimes later
Once Albans was able to train a sufficient number of Hypothesists in sechiston oil Tleilax, he undertook an effective campaign to persuade CHOAM directors and managers of the extraordinary value of Mentats So economically successful was his program, and so secret were his training methods, that for centuries the Order grew rich Its Tleilaxu protectors also prospered from their share, and some speculate that the wealth from these early years gave the Tleilaxu the investment capital for their programs m biogenetic engineering Others suggest that the success and secrecy of tile Order of Mentats led the greedy Tleilaxu to attempt the production of mentals by other means
GRODON ORPAR PLAYT 111 GrodonOrpar Playt III, an author, statistician, and some time military theoretician, retired as Planetary Governor of Stormstile to accept a CHOAM directorship During his service m that capacity he heard of the work of Albans and personally encountered several Mentats When his term as director expired, he made contact with the Older as his career suggests, he possessed a prodigious intellect, and he completed the Mental training program m three months His value was self-evident to Albans, who was persuaded by Playt to expand the program to meet the needs of government leaders Playt proposed the three senior ranks of Generahst, Simulatioiust and Advisor, and extended the training program to accommodate die new ranks in a thorough revision of Albans' Mentat Handbook His revision remained almost unchanged for mil lenma thereafter
GROWTH OF THE ORDER The Order grew
slowly at first, but ever more quickly as CHOAM executives realized the worth of Mentats Their rigorous discipline commit ment to logic and avoidance of emotion provided for peaceful and orderly expansion of the Order By 1625 the Order House reached its optimal size accurately predicted by Albans
PROBATIONAIRES |
  |
Infants and toddlers |
225 |
Children 3 to 6 years old |
440 |
Children 7 to 10 years old |
400 |
Children 11 to 13 years old |
280 |
CANDIDATES |
  |
Fourteen year-olds |
90 |
APPLICANTS |
  |
Fifteen year olds |
80 |
MINOR ORDINARIES |
  |
Memonzers |
60 |
Processors |
55 |
Hypothesists |
50 |
MAJOR ORDINARIES |
  |
Generalists |
10 |
Simulatiomsts |
6 |
Advisors |
4 |
The Order also comfortably supported a staff of 1700 at the House and a field staff of 200 in its auxiliary The Friends of the Order of Mentats
CHALLENGES TO THE ORDER As centu nes passed, the scope of the training pro gram changed little But this stability was challenged during the unprecedented econom ic growth of the Impenum particularly un der Avelard II (reigned 1624 1647) Under severe political pressure Avelard came within a whisker of sending tioops to Tleilax to force the Order to expand its training program Proctor Makarfo Bonn resisted the demands to alter the size pace or quality of the Order s training efforts and finally persuaded Avelard that neither Impenum, CHOAM, nor Landsraad would gain from watered-down Mentat training The Tleilaxu claimed part credit for Avelard s forbearance releas mg the news after the crisis that they had threatened to resist the invasion with force this claim has met with uniform skepticism whenever the relative strengths are consid ered of the united Sardaukar and Landsraad on the one hand and the Tleilaxu on the other
The Order faced significant problems from
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MENTATS HISTORY
radical neo-Butierians in whatever form that fanaticism emerged over the centuries Among the most violent were the Pularsaman Leftists, who considered Mentats as traitors who had turned their minds into organic machines The terror of the Pularsamans was directed against the individual Mental, though, and assassination—not mass force—was their favored tactic *
The Tleilaxu could not guarantee the security of Mentats scattered in ones and twos over a thousand worlds, die necessity of defending a Mental's person led to the inclusion of martial arts into the Mental curriculum The Gmaz School of Master Swordsmen, for example provided training to Advisor rank Mentats, thus helping to create the specialization of Mentat Assassin By the tenth millennium, Mental Assassins—Thufir Hawat of House Atreides or Piter de Vnes of House Harkonnen, for example—were sine qua non for a major house with higher aspirations
Other specializations were appearing at this nexus of powerful political forces the ghola Duocan Idaho presented to Muad'Dib by the Tleilaxu was a Zensunni philosopher-Mental The author of the standard work on the history of the Oder, Dondar Kooreeg, feels mat the ghola's Mentat training was crucial to his unprecedented recovery of his pre-ghota identity
The truly regrettable waste m Mentat specialization was the failure to link Mentat training with either the Spacing Guild or Bene Gessent programs All such attempts (and many were extended) met with hostility
DECLINE OF THE ORDER One society that welcomed Mentat experience was the Tleilaxu They boasted that through their experiments in controlled mutation, they had combined Mental ability with specially tai lored accorophshments (or perversions) of their own One result was the notorious KMP ("Killer-Mental Program")
The founder of the Order, Albans himself, had warned against combining Mentat train mg with any form of specialization, but with the passage of millennia his admonitions were ignored, most disastrously by Proctor Hiebines XI in 10054 He agreed with the Tleilaxu to supply thud- and fourth-rank
Mentats for experiments aimed at achieving a genetic sub structure upon which to ground a streamlined Mentat training program Al though the plan was sold to Hiebines as a low-risk way of multiplying well-qualified Mentats, its ultimate result was the destruc tion of the order The Tleilaxu gained access to the secret Mentat programs but their products were utter failures—rebellious against Iheir masters, disloyal to the Order, and guilty of heinous miscalculations Tleilax Mentals, were worse than useless, causing the reputation of the Order to plunge and even reliable Mentats to be mistrusted From this catastrophe arose the fear of "Twisted Mentats "
The Order of Mentats never regained its former prestige but htill enjoyed limited re spect in some sectors until the reign of Leto II During the first thousand years of that Emperor's reign his Fish Speakers and plan etary administrators systematically promoted Mentat-doubt This scheme, with Leto s oth er plasteel fisted policies, led to a dimm ished need for Mentats and greater public suspicion of their contributions
Leto's aim appears to have been the gradual destruction of the Order, beginning by progressivel) weakening it his many Duncan Idahos were charged with surveillance of all known Mentat Advisors, lower ranking Mentats were required to register with planetary gov ernors and secure special permission to trav el between planets ihe Spacing Guild (fearing loss of its spice allowance) often refused even reasonable Mental requesls This harassment climaxed with the infamous report of Idaho 11736, which accused the Order of responsibilily for the disasters that befell many Houses Major at the end of Ihe Comno dynasty In carefully orchestrated horror at the report Lelo outlawed Menial training m 11745 Within mnetj years all known Mentats, including those in probationary training had died, and the Fish Speakers sealed the vacanl Order House on Tleilax for two hundred years
The House was later reopened as a museum, but Leto did noi extend his toleration of Museum Fremen to allow the establishment of Museum Mentats Nevertheless, when the
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379
MENTAT ORGANIZATION
public was permitted access to the House, no papers, manuals, or instructional guides were found among the records TO date, the only Mentat material found among the Rakis Hoard is a transcription of a mutilated, partial copy of the Menial Handbook There remains the possibility, never actually confirmed or denied, that the Bene Gessent had stolen the missing material to incorporate Mentat training into their own programs
By an irony of history, Lett) II was once forced to rely on B 0 Reverend Mother Anteac, who, contrary to Lelo's order, was alleged to be a fully trained Mental Advisor In the last year of his life, Leto asked Anteac to undertake a journey to the planet Ix She died there without reporting to her Mother House either the nature or die result of that mission The irony is double if indeed Anteac a woman, was the last of the Mentals
PF
Further references: MENTAT ORGANIZATION, THUFIR HAWAT, PTTBR DE vRiES, Dondar Koofeeg, The Rite and Fall of the Order if Mentals 2 V (Centraha Johun University Press)
MENTAT ORGANIZATION. The name "Men tat" is derived from mentis, meaning "of the mind" in Latin, an ancient Terran language The founder of fee Order of Mentals, Gilbenus Albans (1192-1294), a logician and philosopher of interstellar repute, coined the term to refer to those fully trained and proficient in the techniques he prescribed for the Order For thousands of years, society (bought of Mentals as the embodiment of logic and reason
CHARACTERISTICS A Mental adept could be characterized as (a) a human in the generic, Bene Gessent sense (although the Sisterhood would deny it violently), i e , "an animal with reason and logic', (b) an expert in all methods of logic and inference, (c) a conceptual generahst, m contrast to specialists in narrow areas, and (dj one possessing a quasi-truth-sense based not on prescience but on inference
The Mentat adept was capable of achieving remarkable inferential linkages and ges-talten spasms of pure insight, but usually
only when deep in a Mental-trance Some allege that the so called Mental-trance was merely a dramatic device used to make the Mentat appear more impressive But the subjective reports of scores of Mentals and the objective evidence of hundreds of sludies all point to the authenticity of the trance The eyes glazed, the voice-intonation flattened and awareness appeared to be turned inward
Perhaps because of their apparent need to rely on this isolating trance-state for higher percentages of accuracy, Mentals historically failed as leaders There is hardly a case on record of a Mentat succeeding as an entrepreneur, a politician or a soldier Some have even argued that Paul Muad'Dib himself was partly unsuccessful betduhe he tried too often to approach complex social and political problems only as a Menlat But his case is atypical, for he never officially studied in an Order-approved program A supporting argument is mat leadership is a matter of temperament, not redsonmg ability Indeed, the effective leader must often make intuitive decisions in the absence of complete data Mentals—human computers—are trained to avoid such judgments when at all possible Thus, a good emperor, duke, general, or director acts because a decision must be made, bul a Mentat delays because a decision should not be made
MENTAT RANKS From the earliest days of the Order, Gdbertus Albans saw little connection between skill as a leader and excellence as a Mentat Therefore, in naming the six ranks of Mentals, Albans avoided tilles that suggested action (such as "president,1 ' director," "manager," and the like) in favor of titles that emphasized processes and relationships The three junior ranks were named, in ascending order, Memonzer, Processor, and Hypothesisl The three senior ranks, developed about seventeen years later, were Generalist, Simulatiomst, and Advisor
Prospective Mentats were required to have both die inner predisposition necessary to make the training cffectrve, and what Albans referred to as "a call to reason" to make the discipline tolerable Given these qualities, following a solemn decision and much pre hminary training, the initiate would be wel
MENTAT ORGANIZATION
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MENTAT ORGANIZATION
corned into the actual program as a novice Memonzer
MINOR ORDERS Memonzer The fully prepared Mcmonzcr was capable of retaining both related and unrelated information The final test involved absorbing a series of 2 x 104 numbers or letters and reproducing them in correct sequence, duplicating the same timing or spacing as tile original Memonzers were able to repeat entire books from recall They were able to replicate spatial configurations, such as the layout of a city after having seen the place (or plans of it) only once Their chief accomplishment, however, was the ability to repeat conversations word for word from start to finish, mimicking the cadence and vocal inflection of each participant Albans worked hardest to help young memonzers avoid what he called the "Babble Problem"-—becoming overwhelmed by the minutiae of data The best defense against Babble was farther training to categorize the data
CHOAM directors especially appreciated the record-keeping ability of memonzers, particularly since the Butlenan Jihad had destroyed the most efficient means of storing the voluminous records of interplanetary commerce But Gilbertus Albans refused to seU Mentals who were' 'merely memonzers, * as he put it The minimum rank required before a Mental could be sold, even for routine CHOAM use, was that of Hypothesis! Albans was not bind to the economic value of his trainees, but even in the hardest, poorest early years he refused to compromise his standards He insisted that "a public representative of our Order must be able to do more than just sponge up data, chew on it, and blat it out in unhelpful chunks "'
Processor Processors teamed to combine, divide, sort, and file pieces of discrete information with 99 99985 percent accuracy per 10,000 items They were capable of introducing order and regularity to seemmgly unrelated sets of information Albans noted that the clear danger to Processors was that the order they introduced ought or might not accord with reality Thus, Processors were trained to attempt first to use the categories and labels that others provided The sorting, sifting,
and retrieving of information, as well as the ability to connect it with specific names places, or events was valuable beyond esti mation in the anti computer culture of the times
Hypothesis! Hypothesists were trained to extrapolate from information to alternative explanations of the causes or the effects of that information Hypothesists often pnded themselves on the number of differing interpretations they could see in a set of events A sample question How many motives might Muad Dib have had for walking into the desert9' might produce as many as seven possible reasons for his action The Hypothesis! would naturally provide his mas ter with at least a two-place ranking of the likelihood of the interpretations he offered The pnmary hypothesis was 92 to 98 percent reliable
Mentals of Hypothesis! rank and higher, incidentally, were barred from official Cheops competition, for obvious reasons, but they enjoyed no special advantage at games of chance suppose that a roulette globe was imperfectly suspended, causing its operation to vary from strict randomness Given a sufficiently large record of results of the globe, a Hypothesis! could easily have ranked the likelihood of successive spins, but the assembling of the record would have re quired a lifetime spent at the gaming tables
Commercially Hypothesists could be used to speculate on future market conditions commodity prices, outcomes of various eco nomic tactics, and likely changes in con sumption ot planets and populations
MAJOR ORDERS The three senior ranks of Mentats were announced seventeen years after Albans first presented his Hypothesists to the worlds Two factors influenced his decision to expand Mentat training The first Mental Hypothesists went to CHOAM, but Albans realized thai his graduates could be remarkably useful to governments, but not just in the bureaucratic tasks that the juniors could fill Planetary governors, heads of Houses, generals, and politicians would all welcome reliable objective, loyal, discreet, and accurate advisors Junior-rank Mentats could not fill this need
MENTAT ORGANIZATION
381
MENTAT ORGANIZATION
Factor number two was Grodon Orpar PLayt UI (1186-1272), the ex-CHOAM director who joined the order and revised the Mentat Handbook to include flic three senior ranks of Geoerahst, Simulationist, and Advisor Piayt's Handbook was used, virtually un changed, through the history of the Order of Mentats
Genemhst If Processors seemed inno cent and accepting, Centralists appeared haughty and pedantic Generalists overcame the naive literalism of tlie junior orders by ' 'bringing to decision making a healthy common sense,"2 but in achieving awareness of the "broad sweep of what is happening in his universe" (and note the relativism of "Aw umveise"), the Generalist risked bebev ing himself supreme in his encyclopedic store of knowledge
Generalists were expected to possess broad and accurate knowledge of at least 94 75 percent of everything occurring in "his universe ', this knowledge, joined to the confidence-building Mentat training, led many a Generalist to annoy his comrades with an overblown sense of his own superiority The Handbook warned that principles of expertise can change, mat no one can catalogue all knowledge, and that the Generalist was himself part of the set of phenomena to be learned But even with these caveats, Gener-ahsts were very difficult people to work with
Simulationist Mentats who freed their reasoning from dependence on absolutes, and who could correct for assumptions hidden in another's inferences achieved the title of Simulationist The Simulationist conceived and proposed in detail alternative futures courses of action, and explanations of events Economic, political, and military strategy depended heavily on the unfolding of options by Simulauomsts a good one could easily offer his master up to ten courses of action, and what is more, infer the dozens of possible consequences of pursuing, altering, combining, or disengaging any of these courses The Siimilatiomst saw every human being as a set of behavior patterns ready to be orchestrated
Advisor. Only one novice m twenty
achieved the coveted sixth rank, Advisor Skilled in wisdom and diplomacy, possessing the abilities of all the lower ranks adding sophistication and understanding, an Advisor was the equal in price and value of a Sardaukar legion or a bloc of CHOAM shares Advi sors planned for the long ran, they negotiated delicate matters they judged matters of life and death Regularly, a field marshal, a planetary governor, or a CHOAM director would closet himself with an Advisor before taking key actions A Mentat-Advisor was thought to be able to transform a mediocre ruler into a respected leader, and a better than-average ruler into a potential emperor By the 9000s, no Great House lacked a Mentat-Advisor, the death of whom was often disastrous to its fortunes several years might pass before a suitable replacement could be framed, purchased, bnefed, and functioning Not only were Advisors sometimes unavailable, but long waiting lists and astronomic bidding might further delay re placement
MENTAT DYSFUNCTION Mentat Freeze Memorizer Babble, Processor naivete, and Generahst pride have been noted above But other conditions could impair a Mental's abilities Generahsts and higher-rank Mentats were vulnerable to a syndrome uilled "Mental-Freeze, ' which sprang from self-doubt Although taught to transcend the narrowness of specialization no human being can be entirely free from Ihe elemenl of uncertainly that transcendence implies Repeated and strenu ous questioning of A Mental's computations did not lead to new computations—those were mferentially determined—but to anxiety about the base of those computations Senior-rank Mentals were repeatedly warned that wavering was the first slep toward the tolally disabling Mental-Freeze Thai state halted all Mentat functions permanently unless the doubt could be removed and confidence restored
The rehabilitation of frozen Mentats consumed a long process of hypnosis, counseling, and the ullimate rebuilding of a personality strengthened to resist self doubt So devastat ing was Mental-Freeze that the condition, even if recovery was complete, was an msu-
MENTAT ORGANIZATION
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MENTAT ORGANIZATION
perable impediment to progress to higher rank Recuperated fifth and sixth rank Mentats were reduced to appropriate junior levels Mentats were often haunted by fear of freezing, particularly those who labored alone, far from the protective support of the Order House or other senior Mentats Self-doubt attacked the solitary Mental with greater speed and force, and buyers were advsed to pro tect their investment bj abstaining from chrome criticism of their Mentats Several cases are known of Houses trying to freeze a rival s Mentat by feeding false data to undermine his confidence in his data base
A dangerous strategy for avoiding self doubt was reliance on absolutes Mentats naturally preferred known parameters to help establish the limits of inference, and abso lutes could increase accuracy by reducing alternatives Besides lending a feeling of self-assurance, absolutes appealed to Mentals as shortcuts But the abuse of absolutes was easy and often unnoticed—hypotheses overlooked, options unexplored, fallacious infer ences based on wrong assumptions Playt vigorously countered overdependence on absolutes through exercises m conceived reah ty with radical differences, e g , a city without laws, tools designed for feet rather than hands, or a community without division of labor Such mental gymnastics promoted an awareness of the role of unconscious assumptions and absolutes in Mental thinking
Sapho Addiction Addiction to Sapho, an energizing liquid extracted from Ecaz plants, was a trap to which S inflationists both in training and m the field were most susceptible Although Sapho amplified specu lation and extrapolation, it subjected its users to unpredictable outbursts of emotion or long periods of passivity The Mentat addict's teth argy led him to neglect the constant updating of information upon which his accuracy depended A measurable fallmg-off in reliability was a better indicator of Sapho addic Uon than its physical signs—rub) colored hps, a reddening of the skin—which could be concealed Rehabilitation was possible, but relapses into the habit were frequent
Rhajia For Mentats Rhajia was the song of the sirens It was the total immersion of
the Mentat in the inferential consciousness and even Albans and Playt usually so like minded disagreed on its nature Playt called it the Movement of Infinity, and regarded it as the final stage of the Order, a breaking of the chains of servitude to practicality but Albans thought it a death trap only 30 per cent of mentals who entered rhajia re awakened the other 70 percent became comatose and died Those surviving reported either no memories whatsoever or the most richly satisfying intellectual expenence of their lives Rumor had it that older Mentals near death would seek rhajia as the most pleasant passing a human could be blessed with
Verbal Dependence Although not strict !y a dysfunction verbal dependence was a potential weakness m the Mentat system one first identified by the Bene Gessent Always mistrustful of Ihe logic dependent approach of the rival Order of Mentals yet never attacking its methods openly, the Bene Gessent secretly spread the word that Mentats could be undermined bv self doubt Openly the Bene Gessent charged that Mentats could not adequately interprel the quality of Ihe data they used The Sisterhood read the language of the body in the nuance of a blink, a gesture a shrug and contrasted their additional channel of information wilh the Mentat reliance on discursive symbolic systems The Bene Gessent maintained that no Mentat could ever provide a full reading and thus could never offer complete advice Many lent some credence to the charge but discounted its importance to a Mentat s function The real dispute between the two Orders lay m the epistemology of inference the nature nurture controversy, and religious disagreemenl
One relied on intuition, the other on reason one placed its faith m the power of heredity supported by training the other in the power of training aided by heredity, one—an Or der tempered in the fire of the Butlenan Jihad—believed most fanatically Thou shall not make a machine m the likeness of a human mind,' and the other dedicated itself to making human minds in the likeness of machines Though centuries of mutual mistrust
MENTAT ORGANIZATION
MENTATS TWISTED
neither benefitted from the accumulated wis dom of the other
TRAINING Mental training began as early as possible, even m infancy if strong poten tial was noted Early training stimulated sen sory awareness through sound, color, texture odor, and taste, kmesic's awareness through spinning, rocking warmth, cold, emotional awareness through fear, joy, anger, love hate, and security
During childhood, the future Mentals developed mentally and physically in rigorous, year-round programs The aim was to broaden the youngster's cognition and to resist specialization Severe punishment met the child who neglected one study m favor of another "Everything is important, and noth ing is more important than everything" was the motto of the Mentat training school
A strict and unforgiving disciplinary code promoted Albaas' goal that every child be completely self-directed by fifteen Campus construction and maintenance, the evening silence, the weekly fast, all tasks performed by lowerclassmen and directed and enforced by upperclassmen, who punished breaches with a seventy they had learned in their turn from their predecessors Sports developed strategy as well as physical skill, some, long distance running, for example aided the disciplinary code and the six-day-a-week curriculum in either producing a fully ready candidate for the novitiate or m washing turn out of the program
In the final preparatory year, at about fourteen, students were grounded in prepositional and predicate logic, inference, modal deduction, tramfinite induction, statistics, multivalent analysis, conceptual synthesis, N-dimensional geometry, formal linguistics, and transcendental phenomenology These stud les provided die mental linkages to accept subsequent Mentat training, should the student succeed in mastering them
Assuming the success of the early conditioning and education, age fifteen was the year of decision, of sponsorship as a Mentat candidate The applicant s predisposition—his commitment—had been amply demonstrated by fifteen, leaving only his "calling' to be heard to gain acceptance The applicant se-
cluded himself and meditated, awaiting the call For some it never came For others the vocation grew from patient deliberation For a few, a flash from the core of being cried "Yes ' to the opportunities and dangers of life as a Mentat Those who never received the call were not disgraced many still loved the Order and served it m a variety of ways—as teachers of the young, as admin istrators, or in the auxiliary, The Friends of the Order of Mentals But if the call did come, the Order rejoiced, other applicants and their mentors pledged to help and sup port the Called One throughout his life whatever his final progress on his path through the ranks of the Order
PF
NOTES
'Gilbertus Albans The Mentat Handbook rev G O Playt, tr Dale, Reeve Mara (1252, Finally Mosaic), p 46
2Albans Mentat Handbook p 292
Further reference MENTATS HISTORY OF THE ORDER
MENTATS, TWISTED. Tleilaxu "twisted ' mentals were different from normal Mentals in those characteristics nonessential to pure computational abilit) These variants took the form of body structure, emotional nature, and psychological make up, depending upon customers orders Tleilaxu mentals were pro duced universally from the axolotl tanks— itself a notable distinction Mentals produced by legitimate schools were also bred with certain charactenslics in mind, but these were relatively benign in comparison to the Tleilaxu machinations and not the result of genetic engineering
One of the most notorious Iwisted mentals to be produced by the Tleilaxu was Goya Sohdar (8463-8514), ordered by House Krm for its Department of Military Intelligence during its imperialistic subjugation of several planets with warlike populations Goya was to be an interrogator extraordinaire Other mental schools might have provided an adequate product, but after military defeats m which Knn suffered heavy losses, retaliation became a motive
Goya Sohdar was a mental-neurologist
MENTATS TWISTED
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MENTATS TWISTED
whose speciality was pain centers and whose raison d'etre was sadism, a fixation that had been engineered to a refinement His computational ability exercised itself on intngue and interrogation, the latter involving sophisticated techniques of torture noted for their high successes in eliciting pain while keeping the victim both alive and conscious His methods and observations are detailed in his unsanctioned Book of the Kindjal Question, which need not involve speculation about the 'long knife ' of the title One might suspect Goya posed a threat to House Knn itself, but his appetite was neither for conquest nor governmental power
As a twisted mentat, Sohdar can be contrasted with the more normal Barkale-zon-Rale, the ' Compassionate Brain' from Har This scion of a Great House, after a hedonistic youth, was discovered to have mentat capability, and he began training Once graduated, he combined his natural compassion and his mentat training toward improving living standards on several planets within the Har system
What is noteworthy here is that mentat training capitalized upon and benefited from Barkale's natural characteristics It was the standard practice of the legitimate Mentat schools to select admirable individuals as students Tleilaxu mentals, born from axo-lotl tanks, woe a separate breed, displaying artificially produced characteristics That these traits Were often odious speaks as much against the Tleilaxu as against the Great Houses who were Bene Tlcilax supporters
Gharant the Player, produced for House Keys in its private cheops war with House Borgoi, demonstrated the encouragement of the Great Houses These two houses decided upon a cheops tournament to settle their disputes House Revs observed that no rules bound behavior during play, and they sent a requisition to the Tieilaxu Gharant the Player was created as a supreme cheops master He stood four meters tall, had long, dangling arms and a drooping, expressive face Given to mumbling, shrieking, guttural explosions as well as sudden, incoherent movements of his arms and legs, he constantly unnerved his opponents The total effect drove some of them to hysteria—especially when after a
brilliant move, Gharant would salivate and sing to himself Outside of cheops tournaments Gharant had no life Once House Borgoi resigned in defeat, Gharant fell into despair and soon became catatonic, a state of little matter to House Keys, which had no further use for him
One of the most subtle Tleilaxu mentals was Hamle the Paralyzer (4815-4897), ordered by the Emperor Mikael II after his restoration from cryogenic suspension Hamle served as a roving Imperial ambassador without-portfoho, passing himself off as a confidant of Mikael through whom unoffi cial communications could be sent Charming handsome, magnanimous, and eloquent, Hamle became popular with the Great Houses, whose leaders eventually took him into their conli-dence and sought his counsel m endeavors relating to House Cornno By his advice Hamle proceeded to hamstring them So great was his computational ability, but so in volvcd and convoluted his arguments, that he provided his victims no valuable advice whatsoever Points were met with counter points of such complexities and intricacies that those who listened were rendered comatose by Hamle s "pale cast of tiiought " But such was Hamle s decisive presence that he was given no blame at all for this paralysis
The Bene Tleilax never lacked customers, and there were numerous twisted mentals Multifesl Hydros, the menial-politician who possessed seven different personalities, Piter de Vnes, House Harkonncn's effeminate psychopathic killer, Luao Twine* the mentat-hermaphrodile whose courtesan palace disguised a notorious web of intrigue. Bliss Numera, the female mentat monk-chemist who for twenty six years lived in solitary confinement, existing on vegetable broth, but failed to perfect the formulae by which House Dardan hoped to transform siverfern into melange
The final point to be made about twisted mentals is that some were more twisted than others, and a few not very twisted at all Nevertheless, because the mentals produced by the Tleilaxu were so often warped and bizarre in nature, they came universally to be regarded as objects of repugnance S T
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Further references TLEILAX HTER DE VRES MENTAT entnes Itiina Grezharee Tle.ilaxu Products and Plans in the Atreides Impenum (Chusuk Salrejina) Goya Solidar Book of the Kind)d Question ed Leeman Bend (Zunaona Kinat)
MISSIONARIA PROTECTTVA. The Missionaria ProtecUva's general function within the Bane Gessent was to spread "passwords' -throughout known space so that communities would be conditioned to give aid and comfort to a stranger who "said die secret word '
The Bene Gessent breeding program was set up to extend through an unprecedented number of generations Realizing that an accident or two could set back their effort drastically, redundancy was essential many offspring, many lines, many possible combinations The greatest investment of Bene Gessent resources went into the redundancy program, and the Missionaria Protective was a second-line backup, deep within the grandi ose plans
Most agents of the Missionana Protectiva were "outer-circle" trainees, women whose genes or dynamism did not qualify them for even intermediate status within the organization The Missionana Protectiva corps was usually an organizational dead-end, however, the records suggest that many of the mis&onar ics were patternmakers, ' creative artists'
The Missionaria Protectiva's eventual operational extravagance is dazzling Devis ing and installing elaborate password systems throughout different cultures, setting testing systems so the passwords could not be misused, and arranging both systems so that the cultures would use them innocently compounded the complexity of the operation Each separate culture needed a different set of password and test sequences Some cultures needed only the minor manipulation of a compatible mythology, but die societies farthest from "civilization" had to be completely reprogfarnmed Legends, with all the accompanying accessories of songs, rumors, and nursery rhymes, had to be invented and inserted m the primitive cultures These inventions had to mesh with existing beliefs but also soften the cultures* reflexive fear of strangers, so that a mysterious intruder with uncanny powers would be welcomed instead
of rejected and killed The preliminary scholarship the pattern weaving, the cour age of the agents who did the actual transmit ting to strange planetary systems are all staggering m their magnitude The Missionana Protectiva also had to establish a 'feed through' network within the Bene Gessent so that trainees and adepts would know what they could expett when threatened in a dis tant place The insertion of the appropnate litany m adab memory for recall under just the proper conditions is merely one example of such training
The Missionaria Protectiva sought and used cultural pivot points in two ways First, they made the approach to the crucial point depen dent on some mystenous benefactor Since the benefactor would mean an improved chance of success the civilization must recognize and enlist the agent rather than spurn and despise her Second, the Missionana Protectiva inserted another stranger on the far side of the crucial turning point This 'savior ' or "redeemer symbolized success itself The transition cnsis m any culture's legends could be constructed or altered by the Missionana Protectiva to pave the way for a Bene Gessent adept who would bring mystenous techniques to help in achieving success and for a Great Leader who would signify that success was at hand
There were many variations in the Missionana Protcctrva's operating methods Once the target culture s value system had been assessed and whole cloth or engraftable sto nes had been devised to mesh with those values, missionary agents infiltrated as pat-terners ("artists') Having learned the legends, melodies, rhythms cultural techniques, and modulation skills of the planet they provid ed entertainment that appeared to be ' home grown The agent could adopt almost any identity As journalists itinerant crafters, or image-recorders, they could 'sell" their wares from any kind of base They died to achieve great popularity so that whatever they com posed would be easily accepted Another method was to join the educational system and gradually alter the curriculum Complete catalogs of techniques for adjusting a culture's belief structures fill volumes Some patternmakers dnfted through society spreading ob
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swene jokes and inscribing pubhc walls Oth ers wrote, composed, painted and holod their way into classic status without help from curriculum manipulators At fairs, festivals, and faddish museums, in pulp sen als and bound volumes, via interplanetary broadwave and personal digidisk, they spread each other's work across a civilization Meanwhile, other missionaries were analyzing and inscribing and disseminating elsewhere throughout the galaxy
The Missionana Protectiva's method, then, was to 111 iplaiil recognition wgnals in a culture A Bene Gessent wayfarer would be noticed, tested and, if her abilities were up to the test, spared The legends were designed so that the risk of mistreating her and the reward for aiding her were high enough to encourage sincere processing of all strangers, preserving genes that might be significant in the breeding program for the Kwisatz Had-erach Underneath the layer of password and test, the Missionana Protectiva wove a thm but strong anticipation of a messiah figure, an individual whose coming would signal the beginning of the culture's final triumph, the fulfillment of its ultimate hopes
DUNE INVOLVEMENT Fremen legends show several signs of having been adjusted by the Bene Gessent Missionana Protectiva The Fremen were waiting a ' Mahdi " for instance The general pattern of transition-lo-success had been implanted long before they arrived on Arrakis However, Arrakis was a very special place, the source of the spice that had become crucially important to the Bene Gessent Their Reverend Mothers needed it, and their Truthsayers appear to have employed it Thus the source of toe spice received special attention from all of the Bene Gessent agencies The Missionana Protectiva provided an umbrella of protec tion not simply for any Bene Gessent adept who might be one small piece in the genetic jigsaw, but for sophisticated initiates as well Dune was also a nexus in the Bene Gessent scheme and deserved extra care from the Missionana Protectiva planners
The Missionana Protectiva had established the Fremen short'a (superstitious rituals) long before the tnbe migrated to Arrakis The ilm
andfigk (aspects of Zensunm religion) under pinnmgs of their culture had included latent suggestions of a Mahdi for millennia The Fremen knew that someday a Twelfth Imam would emerge from hiding (or be "reborn ) to unite The People, the Community of All Believers and lead them against 'the infidel to realization of the "ideal rehgio-pohtical community, the umma the "brotherhood of prophets ' Thus the Fremen would avenge their persecution and achieve their water nch Paradise This pattern paralleled the transition nexus aligned by the Missionana Protectiva to prepare for the coming of the Kwisatz Haderach somewhere m the galaxy At the time when they reinforced this se quence within the panoply of Fremen/Zensunm beliefs, the Missionana Protectiva could not anticipate that either the "messiah or the Zensunm would ever be physically present on Arrakis
The agency s mam concern on Dune was the relationship between the place—not the culture—and the Bene Gessent's intermediate—not merely breeding program—needs A visitor to the spice planet might be an extremely important Sister, perhaps even a Reverend Mother So that planet—with little heed to the civilization inhabiting it—was pnmed for the sacred mystenous stranger ' She might seem to be a witch, a representa trve of dark powers, but she would bnng great favor to the natives if saved and great peril if mistreated She might even, so the rumor was planted, be the Great Mother whose offspring would be the "messiah"/ " savior'YKwtidtz Haderach It is easy to imagine how volatile this place specific legend and prophecy became when it mingled with the anticipations ot the Mahdi brought to Arrakis by the oppressed Zensunm/Fremen The cues implanted to signal the coming of a "savior ' may have been similar everywhere The Dunebuk evidence about the "messiah s appearance is straightforward The Missionana Protectiva planted a swath of indicators to serve as signals He was to be 'a child who thinks and speaks like a man," win) ' questing eyes' and an air of 'reserved candor " And he would seek to know Fremen ways as though born to them " In a society that holds
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important hopes and where discomfort is accepted because toda> 's pain will speed the achievement of tomorrow's hopes, a glimpse of the signs of coming success is itself urgently desired
The more desperate the civilization, in other words, the easier it was to establish a pattern of signals the populace would seize upon The Missionana Protecttva's scattering of hints that might signal the coming of a Kwisatz Haderach fell on fertile soil m the persecuted, resigned, yet hopeful Fremen culture Thus Paul Atreides' acceptance by the Fremen was eased significantly by the latent prophecies planted by the Missionana Protectiva
Much more important, however, was the scheme established to guarantee the acceptance of a "Great Motiier" The risks on both sides were high The "candidate," the mysterious woman who might be bringing useful techniques, had to be tested If she failed the test, she deserved the fate of any threatening outsider sacrificial expulsion If those doing the testing did not administer the sequence correctly, they might either disquah fy a deserving stranger or preserve one who ought to have been sacrificed Therefore two circumstances had to be arranged There had to be more than one test, with the sequence moving from relatively easy responses to more difficult challenges And the sequence had to develop "naturaBy", there could be no suspicion of conspiracy in aid of the candidate The Missionary Protectiva arranged their legend implantations so that the tests could be passed only by Bene Gessent initiates Cued responses were a part of the candidate s training For Arrakis, the Missionana Protectiva made the "prophesied" challenges so difficult that only a potential Reverend Mother would have had the training to meet all of them The recitation of the "prayer of the salat" would qualify a Bene Gessent to play the role of "Auhya," or "handmaiden of God", rt prepared the Fpemen to accept her as a candidate for their version of a "Reverend Mother" Notice that an "adab" test, rooted in the unconscious level of advanced Bene Gessent trainmg, was the end of the Missionana Protectiva's password sequence
The Fremen adapted the legend by insisting that she had to be championed by someone who had come with her This modification was not a Missionana Protectiva implantation it would not have made a Bene Gessent's survival contingent on a male companion This Fremen requirement was a mutation, a product of the intermingling of Zensunm hentage, Missionana Protectiva prophecies about a Kwisatz Haderach and the special spice planet overlay
The Bene Gessent then was faced with the final challenge the Fremen addition of the transformation of the Water of Life This was truly a Reverend Mother's challenge A neophyte Bene Gessent and even some adepts would not be able to work the catalytic transformation by way of homeostatic ad justment Only dn individual who possessed both proper genes and specialized training could change the poison into elixir This requirement had not been inserted by the Missionana Protectiva into the Fremen tradition Their goal was survival for a threatened Bene Gessent, not high visibility and power for the survivor
Paul Atreides was correct when he wrote that the Missionana Protectiva had "bought them a bolt-hole in the desert They had indeed arranged, as best they could to pre serve any Bene Gessent adept who stumbled into a strange environment They had escalat ed the mythology on Arratos so that even a Reverend Mother was likely to be recog mzed as a deeply threatening 'witch '
In relation to their onginal purpose, the Missionana Protectiva made a minor contribution to the saga recorded in Arrakeen history They were supposed to have been a second line of defense behind the genetic redundancy arrangements against accidents mat might disturb the breeding program Incidentally, they were to help prepare the galaxy for the eventual arrival of the Kwisatz Haderach Intended to guard against accidents, the Missionana Protectiva helped, umnten tionally to bring about an important, and extremely unlikely, coincidence They laced Zensunm legends with Kwisatz Haderach preparations thus reinforcing the ancient ex pectations of the Mahdi They set up Arrakis
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to welcome a Reverend Mother They did not, however, track the several reinforcing vectors, especially the harmonics of Zensunm plus Arrakis toward the forging of Fremen fanatics Nor did they comprehend the combination of ecological hope and historic despair that converged m the Fremen, making the nexus of their prophecies so volatile and irresistibly self-fulfilling E I
Further reftraKcr BENE GBSSERIT entries, Princess Irulan Atreides ed The Dmebuk, Rafas Rrf Cat 7Z331
MOHIAm, REVERETiD MOTHER CWWS HELEN. A skilled teacher, intrepid guide, steadfast guardian, inspired prophetess formidable adversary, she served as Supreme Head of the Council of the Sisterhood during and after the reign of Duke Leto Atreides She was ordained by tune and her Oder to be instrumental in die drama of the House of Atreides, her part culminating in the contest of wills she eventually played out with Paul Atreides, later Muad'thb The antagonism reputedly flourished from the time the two first met on the fateful day when Reverend Mother Gams Helen administered the test of gom jabbar to the young Paul
Often feared for the power she exercised ova- her most successful pupils—notably the Lady Jessica—and for her influence as confidante and Truthsayei to the Padishah Emper or Shaddam IV, she was believed to be the master strategist of Bene Gessent planning and diplomacy The lengthy file on Reverend Mother Gams Helen, found m the hoard at Dar-es-Balat, reveals her many functions and activities as primarily political m nature especially in her later years Even her educational endeavors were purportedly prompted by political motives as, for example the teaching and training of Jessica and Pnn cess Irulan
She was most highly regarded for her prowess as an observer Documents in her file attest to her status as "Bene Gessent with the Sight," one whose abilities to test a subject's claim to human status went unmatched In all matters relating to the Sisterhood, she enjoyed a power and prestige
rare m the annals of the Bene Gessent Although among her peers she was thought proud, even fiercely so outside the venera ble Sisterhood her arrogance prompted such epithets as "witch," ' sorceress," and, in the Fremen, kalbat Bani Jeziret,' 'bitch of the Bene Gessent'' She was often accused of foretelling the future and then plotting lo make it happen It is certainly true that she was in perfect harmony with all the previous generations who had envisioned and planned the so called perfect breeding program, there by plotting for possession and control of human destiny
She came from a long line of Reverend Mothers bred out of the age of despair, and like them she was empowered with two gifts She possessed the gift of prescience or illumination, and the power of solitary conception She could bring forth, spiritually, her own kind Schooled m chemistry, anatomy, astronomy medicine, and metaphysics, she like her sisters, was a master of manipulation Reverend Mother Gaius Helen was renowned, too, for self induced trancehfce states, a fixi ty of attention so toul that it could block out all signals of the external environment and of surface consciousness She was reported to be an adept at the Tarot pack, that game of both contemplation and action that was be heved to contain the sum of all problems m its infinite permutaUons
The range of Reverend Mother Gaius Helen's powers enabled her to successfully engage in conspiracies to place a Bene Gessent on the throne of the Impenum, to infiltrate the ranks of Muad Dib and to attempt to wrest control from Paul and place it in the hands of the Sisterhood, all of which in curred Paul s everlasting enmity and suspicion One such conspiracy labeled as treachery by some sources, was Reverend Mother's plan for brother sister crossbreeding in the hope of secunng the pure breeding line of legend It was Reverend Mother's mission to prevent Paul from establishing an Imperial line through his beloved Cham, thereby disrupting the Sisterhood's carefully designed program al ready jeopardized by Jessica's default Oper atmg by indirection and secrecy, the chief guardian of the Bene Gessent sought to
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protect the pyramid of generations she believed had reached its apex in Paul Atreides. But the antagonism between the two led eventually to Gaius Helen's confinement under guard by Paul's command, and later her execution as a traitor by Alia's order.
This ignominious end to a brilliant and inspired ministry, marred somewhat by her zealousness and fanaticism, gave muted and somber inflection to the litariy of praise trumpeted from Wallach IX following Reverend Mother Gaius Helen's death. The Parchment of Sacred Adulation, a traditional memorial for Reverend Mothers, pays homage to her "discipline of self-surrender and true self-resignation, the self-naughting that is the way of greatness."
The testimony of Gaius Helen's own diary, while understandably self-serving in some ways, contributes no small insight mto this extraordinary and paradoxical figure. Those dossiers dated shortly before she left the Bene Gesserit homewortd on her final ill-fated errand of complicity and political intrigue, provide invaluable clues to the character and motives of a crucial link in the history of the Imperium during those years. (To what extent the public person accurately mirrored the private one is perhaps best judged by comparing Gaius Helen's own declarations with those words and deeds ascribed to her by Harq al-Harba in his great history plays.) Those last pages of her personal diary, confiscated by Paul Atreides after her arrest, read:
When I was a child, I dreamed a dream three times in succession. In my dream, I saw a hooded figure who, with an airow, shot the sun out of the sky. Have I been seeing my destiny, or Paul Atreides'? Which of us is the archer and which the sun? And though I have seen all this and more, yet I failed to see much since that tune when I first confronted the young Paul and tested him.
Lately, I have been besieged by that incandescent memory whose traditions and aims I have always served. Soon I will join them, having added my own identity to that long line of silently articulate and everpresent mothers of the human being. Will Jessica guide the future men?
Since I can remember, my path has ever been straight to design but, by necessity, devi-
ous in execution. I have indeed been unrelenting and unyielding in my dedication to the cause nf directed human evolution in order to achieve, in the end, what was envisioned so long ago1 our Kwisatz Haderach
True, I have had to pick ray way with infinite care between the shoals of contemplation and action—a difficult course. In contemplation, I made myself a vehicle for the voices of the past, the immortal spirits of the ages all devoted to the same task. I became the via vocis. But then what w as I to do? Was> I to be the forming hand of the future or the malleable material some other hands would use for achieving that end? The dilemma was confounding, but demanded resolution. 1 chose.
Now I wonder if I have lived too long. Will the Bene Gesserit dream be abandoned for a vision less demanding, perhaps more arbitrary in nature? On occasion 1 have wondered if we of the Sisterhood have not undermined our own purpose We built our house with the materials, of faith, dedication, obedience, and hope. Do we subvert now, by our means, the very end we dreamed of achieving? Dare I question now what the Sisterhood has made—what I have helped it to become- -and not question my own role in that making9 Have we finally become, for all our intentions, like in principle to that which we sought to replace so long ago?
Such doubts are dangerous. Yet they come, unbidden, from the collective memory of the past, like shadows flickering unsteadily against the dark wall of m> mind. But 1 am too old for such nonsense. To cast doubt now would be disastrous, for all our future hangs in the balance. Our cause has an enemy on the throne, his powers and resources perhaps greater even than my own. How strange that it should finally come to this' our best hope, the House of Atreides, now our greatest threat. Ah, my dear Jessica, how could you have abandoned us and all I have taught you9
Obedience to an idea is ao active virtue, an act of imagination that encompasses the future and contains the necessary discipline, It is not for the discrete present to be preserved, but the whole of what may be shaped and designed and constructed to our model. I wish to be that hand of destiny. The Chosen One shall have to wrestle with his Daemon—also a chosen one. For I, too, am chosen.
In the Tarot, I have seen patches of all the enigmas of time and space. They come as lightning visions, moving me from the path of contemplation to the center of all action. My
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position has become clearer from that day I initiated Jessica's boy into the mysteries of gum jabbar We were to become respectful foes, skilled adversaries, struggling one with the other to reach the source of Becoming, control ot an infinitely various and variable future we could both clearly see and each wanted to possess
Now I am grown old and frail and almost spent m the service of this passion handed down to me and of which I have been caretaker for so long 1 saw it as a dazzling sceptre— indescribably old immeasurably nch Still, it has seemed to me at times almost too studded with tradition, too bejeweled with sacrifice, too heavily plated with precious meaning, to carry for very long Yet, with the passing generations, I have gripped it ever more tightly even as I felt myself buckling under its weight
That collapse is near I will fall prey to an abomination (what a travesty1) a fact of the contingent, malevolent, darkly playful universe that not even one like myself can always foresee It is this paradox of existence, the co-existence of all opposites ot which 1 mysett am a part, that is the most difficult to manage
The black aba conceals more than the tired flesh and weary spirit of this witch-crone of history I loved Jessica and she failed me, as she has failed all the past So was rewarded my trust So began the ritual of betrayal which will end in death without peace
What future, bright of dim, can our species hold if there is DO plan, DO obedience to the code, no faith in die righteousness of the moth ers who would preserve refine, and renew by withstanding the allure of the vacant present for the treasure of what can be9 I have knowledge that runs backward, like tiny pebbles marking the steps of a path already traversed, to the beginning What I cannot see is the end that is a new beginning lost in the future
The keeper of the treasure that lies beyond must guard it with diligence, even with cruelty I have guarded the entrance to the future, and I must be defeated in order to win I, too, must fulfill a destiny Should mat be as the enemy of him who is the One? He and I will end together Shall we begin together, too? It will be the time of our passing and with it the time of mhu inanity will once again descend upon us for a long age
My obligation is the preservation of the hero ic aims passed from age to age, growing in Stature and power as they were handed on If that tradition is threatened or diluted, then too
is the hope we have cherished forever Our ideal of the human must advance and be upheld with authority and by authority And it must remain within our control, or afl we have achieved will revert back again to the mechanical stenli ty we fought to overcome That must never be
We will have created a model mat can and will inspire a whole race whom we can then also guide and teach We will have achieved a race of men we can succor as seedlings nurture as shoots tend and crossbreed that the flower of genius may be ever renewed The truth of oils vision has on occasion, I do believe, banished the quality of pity in me I have labored too long in the vineyard of a passion to create the perfect fruit from which shall spring a burgeoning human garden
And this will be my our, legacy to the future For we are the mythmakers the founda lion, the rock, and all else is as sand in the wind Construsimus monumentum perenmus illud imperatorum
MOTHER OF JESSICA References found both in Book of the Voices, the journals of Duncan Idaho-13015, and in Lady Ghamma's Commentaries to the Voices add startling information about R M Gams Helen Mo hiam s relationship to the Atreides line One question that had always bothered Ghanima (and Empire historians and geneticists) was the identity of her father s maternal grandmother His Harkonnen background apparently distressed Paul Muad Dib, the clash of Harkonnen and Atreides blood was al-Harba s theme m the memorable Arrakeen Tarot (1(H04) The playwright, when dealing with Paul's awareness of himself as the genetic climax of an extended breeding program, gives Paul the famous soliloquy
Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood I ve wallowed in out freyn gore so long That shedding the body s water of one more Harkonnen rabble is but to kiss my crysknife And wet it m my very veins Harkonnen Atreides Atreides Harkonnen It s all the same, and now
at last
111 cry no more nor shed a solitary tear For any scum
It is myself I weep for brute From long dead Vladimir love from absent
Jessica Strength from that father who did die too soon
And who knows what from that nameless worn
an who bedded
That young Baron and damned my mother Blood Blood Blood Blood Blood (AT II m 2638)
AI-Harba focused directly on the question of Paul s unknown grandmother, in the playwright s exquisite pun, that "nameless worn an" who "damned" Paul's mother The artist so often perceives more clearly than the historian
There is also evidence that information identifying Jessica s mother was censored and destroyed by Leto II The Welbeck Abridgement of the Bene Gessent annual empire assessment indicates feat in 12335, when Bene Gessent historians, m an attempt to increase the annual supply of melange for the Sisterhood, threatened to reveal the God Emperor s complete ancestry, he assassmat ed them en masse and destroyed die portion of the Mikkro-Fishedotte which detailed his ancestry Although Leto razed the B G records, he did not tamper with his sister's notes, and through Ghanima's patient work with the Voices the truth was preserved
During her work with the memory Voices, Ghamma found herself singularly attracted to Voices with variations of one name Ellen, Elena, Helen, Elamc. Eleanor, Helene For reasons unknown to her, she and Harq al Ada also named two of their daughters Eleanor and Helene She sought the source of this yearning, seeking out all the Voices bearing the general name As she worked her way through a myriad of Blames and Hclenes, she found an increasing number of Matres Executrice using the name Much to her frustration, though, whenever she tried to communicate with women historically close to her, she found that bom her grandmother Jessica and her father Paul blocked the Voices Jessica finally convinced Ghanuna that they were shielding her from the danger of Abomination, from a voice capable of con trolling her So, for seventy-nine years, Ghamma continued her work, avoiding the Voices close to her historically But decades of pent up curiosity finally drove her to try once more to contact the near Voices With the help of her mother, Chain—her ever
willing "Guard to the Portal of Memory —Ghamma finally managed to break through Jessica s and Paul s suppression As recorded in Book of the Voices to Ghanima's as tomshment she heard the voice of her great grandmother Gams Helen Mohiam
As soon as I entered the prana bindu suspension I heard a smalt shadow voice fighting its way through my grandmother s suppression Hear me' I will not hurt you You are blood of my blood and seed of my precious line I am Helen your great grandmother child As 1 test ed your father now can I test you You are more human than he for you are not afraid of your humanity
Thus Ghamma discovered what her brother father and grandmother had tried to delete from history—that the Atreides not only had Harkonnen blood but also that of a powerful Bene Gessent Reverend Mother
Ghanima's Commentaries explains the Harkonnen Mohiam connection A very young looking Helen using the name Tanidia Nerus, had been sent to the Harkonnens as a concubine Her assignment was to seduce Vladimir and produce a daughter (who, with the Atreides line would produce the mother of a Kwisatz Haderach) Obviously the rela tionship proved displeasing to both parties, and though Helen did become impregnated, Jessica was her only child As to the effect on Harkonnen, Gams Helen seemed sure that she was his one and only female partner She denied his later sexual preferences had anything to do with the one night she had spent with him After bearing Jessica and leaving her at a Bene Gessent Kinder House to be raised Gams Helen went on to become a Reverend Mother adept at the "Sight" She confirmed that she had become a member of the triumvirate, a Mater Executrix From the records of these conversations with Ghamma, we understand the Reverend Moth er as a powerful woman with only one goal— to gam the power of the Empire for the Bene Gessent J A C and G E
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NAVIGATIONAL
Further references ATREIDES LADY JESSICA HAR
KONNFN HENF GESSERIT entries NERUS TAN1DIA R M
Gams Helen Mohiam Diaries Lib Conf Tfemp Scnes 133 Lady Jessica and Ghamma Atreides Book of the Voices Rakis Ret Cat 1 BG164 BG165, BG166
Gtianima Atreides Commentaries So the Voices Rdkis Rcf Cat 37BG132 Anon The Welbeck Frogmen! Lib Conf Temp Series 578 Anon R Af baius Helen Mohiam Rakis Ref Cdt 708G518
NAVIGATIONAL MACHINE DEVELOPMENT. Earliest records of mtersystem travel, both mterstellar and intergalactic, arc of course incomplete, our knowledge is based largely on newly translated files from the Rakis Hoard We know that the beginning of true travel waited for the utilization of the well-established and well-understood phenomenon of spaccfold However, it was not until the polymathematician IV Holtzman developed the area of nonlinear diffeostochastic transformations aid applied them to three-spaced simple modon that the dependency on curvilinear momentum in travel was broken Shortly thereafter the first form of the photoftfaannomc oscillatory engine was developed, allowing a ship to travel in a neobrownian curvature somewhat similar to tile tlme-light-particle phenomenon In turn this development permitted the first trans light portation
It became a relatively simple mathematical calculation and computation to write the correct ditfeomorphisms allowing the defmi tion of an absolute neighborhood retract to be applied sequentially to a compact space region This procedure finds the unique fixed point on tile nearest fold sheet of the desired termination space The Polymathematical theory was well developed and even at this early date computational devices were far enough along (though still comparatively embryonic) to allow for the necessary calculations
Following die Butlenan Jihad, however
spice prescient Guild navigators replaced the proscribed computers, making the whole sys tern dependent on the supply of melange
The history of the Impenum is the history of spice and spice was controlled by the Guild The Guild was secure as long as there was spice Thus no group in society paid more attention to the changes on Dune Early in the tenth millennium the Guild became aware ot the me\ liability of an age without the wondrous spice It is no surprise, then, that as early as 10200, discussions had be gun between the Guild and the Ixians The Guild needed to replace the Steersman with out regressing to the danger level of pre-spice portation The goal was a device which could produce the progression lines seen by the prescient Steersman
Years of secretive experimentation have been well documented, but they led to no sigmfiuuit progress toward a navigational machine The Ixians had no compunction against using computing devices m their ex penmentations but every concept took them to no better navigational model than that of pre-spice travel
In 14132, one of the most powerful Ixian intellects ever to exist, Kunll S Suag (14071 14204) .considered the problem While investigating a new direction of flowmechamcs in near space inflectional points, Suag put himself in a spice trance, an expensive experiment at that tune He was able to see exactly the progression of light space, and mass
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lines, and he noticed he could deflect light lines by a concentration on time location, moreover in a Heisenberg indeterminacy the time flow seemed to change with the observation Here Suag made one of the most monumental intellectual leaps ever recorded He said of this observation, 'It can all be done, all explained Time is light, light is time and Heisenberg's Eyes see again'"
With this discovery Kunll S Suag gave to man what man should have known thousands of years before The error in all the Poly-mathematical Theory has been housed m the assumption that time is an independent variable The old, honored Theory of Relativity, as well as Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle was laid to rest with this one moment of clarity The concept that velocity in curvilinear motion is a function of an independent time variable was the error Light and time were not separable On the contrary there was a dependency on the variations of each quantity They are dependent jointly distributed hypervanables, to be treated with a new discrete space multidirecteti filternet limit In such a model no longer does viewing alter the nature of the viewed if one allows for the dependent shift in tune Moreover, the inability to travel at overhght velocities is merely an apparent effect of the observa tton that time shifts cause
Once Suag had clarified fully the power of his discovery, he saw its applicability to the navigational problem One need only to joint ly vary hypervanables to deflect time sufficiently consequently varying light lines to be able to view progressive lines Using the fact that time is discrete and electromagneli-cally hyperelated, Suag directed the development of the Suagasian limelight deflector, interfacing it with the previously developed Ixian light progressive line detector and produced the first usable Navigational machine
The development of navigation to today's state is the story of modifications of this original machine The Suagasian navigator was immediately placed on all trans-light portation ships It was just as reliable as the old Guild Steersman and could even determine black-hole spot perturbations Since
these machines have been m use, no accident has occurred in trans light portation as a result of machine error R L S
Further references SPACING GUILD entries HOLTZMAN entries Th B L Alenga Introduction to Suagasian Hypervanables with Holtzman Applications (Richese New Caledonia State UP)
NERUS, TANIDIA (dates unknown) Identified by Leto II, before his accession to the throne, as the mother of Lad) Jessica Atreides Jessica out of Tamdia Nerus by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen This statement, now found recorded in Leto's Journals (RRC 80-A115), apparently sparked centuries of argument and analysis among generations of Atreides' scholars as evidenced by specu Idtionj> about the existence of any Tamdia Nerus m numerous and vanous materials discovered in the Rakis Finds
Many scholars rejected Leto's identification of Nerus as Jessica s mother on the grounds that it was made before Leto had begun any investigation of his ancestral memories, before he became emperor and ascended the Lion Throne and before he had access to the Bene Gessent breeding records They believed his statement to be based on either whimsy or incomplete infor mation about his grandmother's heritage Oth er scholars believed the name Tamdia Nerus to be the resolution of a histoncal mystery and labored to uncover proof ot her existence and ultimate maternity of Jessica Certainly m his lifetime, Leto II was never to utter another word m public which would settle the matter on either side
However through the sources available today, particularly those of the Lady Ghaiuma, Duncan Idaho 13015 and the Journals of Leto II, the Atreides scholars descending from both sides of the argument seem able to finally agree on the answer, that Jessica s real mother was the Bene Gessent Reverend Mother Gams Helen Mohiam, who used the name Tamdia Nerus when she presented her self as concubine to the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and that any written record of Tamdia Nerus was merely part of an attempt bj the Bene Gessent to keep Mohiam's identity secret
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One recent scholar, Gwilit Mignail, has suggested in The Nerus-Mohiam Controversy that Leto deliberately put forth the Nerus name for two reasons First, Leto may have wanted to keep the identity of Jessica's real mother from her, fednng that knowledge of Gams Helen Mohiam's maternal relationship might have been too much for Jessica to face under the very difficult circumstances of the revelation of her daughter Aba as Abomination Leto may have feared that if Jessica learned that the woman who had given her son the test of the gom jabbar, who had become the Comno Truthsayer, who had acted in loco matns to her, and who had conspired against Paul in the name of the Sisterhood was her true mother, it might have unhinged Jessica's sanity Second, Mignail suggests that Leto himself might not have been able to face the knowledge that he was not only part Har-konnen, but also was part Mohiam, and hence part Bene Gessent, part "witch " Leto, after all, was barely nine years old at the time and may have lacked a certain amount of emotional maturity Thus his very youth may have forced faun to he to himself and to his grandmother Jessica
Whatever the final truth in this matter— and indeed it may never be known with any certainty—die identity of both Tamdia Nerus and/or Jessica s true mother remains a fascinating subject of conjecture by many scholars
Further references. ATKEIDBS, LADY JESSICA, ATRQDES
LADY GHANIMA, MOHIAM, REVEREND MOTHER GAIUS
HELEM, Gwilit Mignail, The ffents-Mohlam Controversy (Yort» Rose)
NOREE, LADYHWI. (13698-13724) The God Emperor's "bride" This woman of Ixian manufacture was bred, raised and framed to a greater degree than any other emissary to the God Emperor's court—no mean distinction, considering the representatives who had preceded her—for she was meant to be Leto s final love object, the instrument through which he could be made vulnerable and, thus, perhaps controlled For some thirteen millennia the Ixians had been the great experimenters—60 aspect of animate or inanimate existence escaped their curious, probing intellects In Leto II, perhaps, they perceived an enigma beyond anything in their
vast experience and the temptation to get to the core of the mystery motivated their creation of Hwi Noree For surely Hwi was not meant to be anything as simple as a spy or assassin Rather she could be seen as Ix s greatest experiment the key that would un lock the secrets of the impenetrable heart of the God Emperor Ultimately, undoubtedly, those secrets m her maker's hands could have been very useful
Noree was "born' m 13698, in the first known Ixian no-room Her life was the result neither of ordinary conception nor of the more exotic, but relatively common, breeding techniques in use among the Tleilaxu prior to this time Instead, Noree was the end product of a unique experiment, one whose success depended on the efforts of Tleilaxu and Ixians alike she was cloned in a process similar to, but more complicated than that employed in producing gholas
The complications made the operation far more delicate A ghold was grown from cells taken from an adult original and spent an average of two years m an axoltl tank, maintained by a nutrient bath until it reached full development When removed from the tank it was a blank slate which contained the memories of the original but it could not put them to use until shocked into recalling them, once that shock was delivered, the ghola became the person from whom it had been copied
Noree, on the other hand, was to be a mirror-clone, the exact opposite of die indi vidual who had supplied the genetic material for her growth—Erhn Malky, former Ixian ambassador to the God Emperorl She was also to begin life as an infant, rather than as an adult replica Producing her required the best efforts of the Ixian scientists, applied to a foundation of knowledge provided them by the Bene Tleilax It is still unknown how many, if any, attempts at this mirror-cloning were made before one was successful The Ixians were far too concerned about security to keep readily available records The Spacing Guild became a silent partner in the enterprise because of the Ixians' fear of discovery, Gmldsmen were used m testing the prescience-blocking ability of the no-room
Some data concerning the project has been
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discovered It is known that Erlm Malky was recalled to Ix in 13698 and taken to the no-room chamber, he was later seen to emerge from the chamber carrying an infant That child was Hwi Norce
Noree's childhood is as poorly documented as her birth Information later provided to the God Emperor by Noree herself and by various spies, recorded in his Journals, indicates she was trained from her earliest years to make her ovcrpowenngly attractive to Leto Her intellect and intuitive sense were keenly honed by a series of the most talented instructors the Inquisitors could obtain, including a number of Beae Gessent Sisters The educational process was overseen by the Inquisitors and by their minions, however, and the usually pervasive influence of the Sisterhood had little effect on the eroW
In 13712, following his permanent recall from Arrakis Noree's "Uncle" Malky began to take an active part in the girl's education His contribution consisted chiefly of giving Noree a complete brief on Leto n and the workings of his court Of all the members of his society, Malky was die best equipped to provide such a brief he had spent a total of twenty-one years, longer than any other ambassador, as Ix's represent ative in the court By 13723, when his "niece" was summoned before the Inquisitors to determine her fitness for his old post, Malky had taught the young woman all he knew of the Lord Leto
From the earliest Journal entries concerning Noree, Leto comments on her gentle, open personality, her honesty, her intelligence and wit Malky and his Ixian masters must certainly have been delighted by the manner in which their god-trap was performing Leto had been even more deeply impressed by (heir creation than they had dared hope
The developments which followed, however, could not have seemed so delightful While Leto's immediate attraction to and affinity for Noree fit the Ixian scenario, her subsequent loyalty shift to him had not been anticipated Noree, haying been trained throughout her life as a partner for the God Emperor, discovered that she fit the role far better than her masters had projected Thus,
the Ixians were confronted by an unexpected variable an ally and planned consort of the God Emperor whn would not allow herself to be controlled by the authorities of her homeworld
When spies relayed word of Noree's defection, me Inquisitors initial reaction appears to have been to send Malky to the young woman in an attempt to divert her back into their plan (or failing that, one must presume, dispose of her) This plan was eventually dismissed as. too risky a course to follow, and Malky was kept in hiding, protected by the cover of the no-room The Inquisitors had no wish for Leto to discover the true nature of his intended bnde
The Inquisitors were not alone in making plans for the young Ixian After they were wed, Leto intended to mate Noree with his majordomo, Moneo, as he had earlier mated his sister/wife Ghamma with Harq al Ada Her brief affair with Leto's current Duncan Idaho caused him—for reasons not confided even to his Journals—to scuttle the plan However, he later mentioned it to Moneo while dismissing it as being "too late '
Noree passed serenely through these machi nations, accepting Leto's commands and asking no questions Of her own plans it is known only that she intended to marry the God Emperor and to serve him faithfully It was a course doomed to failure
En route to their wedding at Tuono Village, Leto's Royal Cart was attacked resulting in the Fall Hwi Noree was one of the attack's first victims, during its earliest moments, she slipped from the cart and plummeted into the river below
Given what is known of her character, one of the results of her death would have distressed Noree Duncan Idaho, outraged at her having been killed, seized the lasgun of Nayla, who had earned out the attack, and destroyed her with it
The second result would undoubtedly have pleased her Leto, deprived of his sandtrout skin, survived briefly after he reached the riverbank As he exchanged his last words with Idaho and Siona, he said that his association with Noree had strengthened him, an accolade the Ixian woman would have treasured CW
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Further references. ATKHPES, LKTO a IDAHO DUNCAN
MALKY ERLIN
NYCALLJSTE NAYLA. (13689-13734) Referred to by the Church of the Divided God as "Nayla the Betrayer," this Fish Speaker long occupied the Judas position in the histories of the Lord Leto With the discovery of the Rakis Hoard—most particularly with the translation of certain volumes of Leto's Journals —A becomes obvious that Nayla's true role in tile downfall of her God differed vastly from that popularly supposed
She was bom on Grumman to a Fish Speaker officer, Calliste of that garrison, and her consort Pave! Mems Her mother, like many of the women in the royal military, was a strong, broad shouldered type with a muscular body, Nayla inherited these characteristics in an amplified version and was known from her earliest days m the Grumman fish Speaker's school far her unusual strength
Unlike Calliste, however, Nayla was unattractive in the extreme Even as a child, she possessed a flat, square-jawed face, undistinguished blonde hair and nearly invisible eyebrows Her eyes were her only compelling feature but not for their beauty they were piercing, overbnght, they made those subjected to their gaze uncomfortable (They were also a vivid green, but mis was a detail few noticed immediately)
Nayla began her training at the age of three, as was usual for a Fish Speaker's child, and impressed her teachers from the beginning with her interest in,religion In other academic subjects she performed only marginally, and physical training came so easily to her that she seldom had to apply herself It was the studies concerning the God Emperor and his works m which the homely child most willingly immersed herself, a willingness which marked her among the faculty as either a devout little girl or, occasionally as an incipient fanatic The appellation chosen generally depended upon the individual teacher s own beliefs, but Fish Speakers bemg the loyal servants of the God Emperor that they were, only a small number of mem saw anything remarkable m the strength of Nayla s dedication
In 13705 when Nayla's class of Fish
Speakers graduated, she had already spent five years as a junior member of the Imperial Constabulary the subdivision which dealt with domestic problems in Leto's far flung empire Nayla had been dispatched on sever al occasions to trouble spots on Grumman and had received commendations from three of her commanding officers for her zeal and expertise in subduing noting locals
Graduation from the Grumman school raised Nayla from junior to full membership in the Constabulary It alba brought her to the attention of the God Emperor, who received files on each Fish Speaker as she completed her training Intrigued by the reports of Nayla's superiors Leto ordered her transferred to her first off world duty assignment—the Wallach IX garrison—and arranged for annual reports of her progress to be sent to Arrakis Unbeknownst to the Fish Speaker Command Leto assigned an intelligence aide to make her own reports to him The God Emperor always had need of Fish Speakers whom he could trust to obey him without question Nayta, with her known religious obsession and record of competence, seemed a good potential recruit
Her testing lasted for fifteen years The Wallach IX assignment, m which she proved herself completely invulnerable to the Bene Gessent s most persuasive attacks on her faith, ended with her promotion to lieutenant s rank and transfer to Seprek (fourth planet of Endani C) m 13709 During her stay in the Seprek garrison the Daelk Rebellion broke out, destroying the Seprekian capital for winch the re\olt was named and threatening to engulf the remainder ot the planet It sue cessful the rebels would have managed to wrest Seprek from the God Emperor's control necessitating its invasion and recapture by a large force of Fish Speakers and setting a most disagreeable precedent
It was decided to send out a squadron of Death Commandos These berserkers—errant Fish Speakers who had m some way failed in serving the God Emperor—would descend on the rebels m Dai_lk like a horde of aveng mg Furies, unstoppable except by welcome death, which would earn the salvation forfeited by their earlier behavior The Commandos were used only in last ditch situations and no
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group they were sent against had yet survived the battle
In addition to maintaining the shock value of the Death Commandos, there was another reason for Fish Speaker Command's reluctance to put their errant sisters into action The Commandos had to be led by someone lacking their overpowering urge to kill and destroy—someone capable of directing the operation coolly and effectively The Fish Speaker who volunteered for such an assignment (the job had to be taken on voluntarily, because it was considered unthinkable to order anyone to Cake it) seldom returned from her mission
Her commanding officer was not surprised when Nayla volunteered to lead the attack Daelk was taken and Nayla—her left arm so badly burned by a lasgua near-miss mat it required six hours of reconstructive surgery— returned to her garrison with news of the victory She received a special citation from the Lord Leto, delivered by a member of his elite Citadel Guard, and was promoted to captain
Nayla remained on Seprek for eleven years, continuing her record of outstanding service and earning further promotion She was a sub-bashar by her teeth year in the garrison and seemed destined for its eventual command until a summons arrived in 13.720 Nayla was on her way to Arrakis the next day, knowing only dial she was to be met upon landing In unexplained secrecy, a messenger guided Nayla to the God Emperor's audience chamber atop die Citadel's south tower and left her to meet Leto on her own
A passage from Leto's Journals describes this first encounter ' She seemed ill at ease at first, but that could hardly have been otherwise How else could a mortal react when faced with her living God1' Fear and awe quickly gave way to the sense of duty which comes as naturally to one of my Fish Speakers as breathing, and Nayla listened attentively as I told her what her function was to be"
Further details were not given in this account, but it was made dear HI later Journal entries what Nayla's "function" was The God Emperor believed that in Siona, the daughter of his majordomo Moneo, he had
achieved the end result of his breeding program He had already discovered Siona s ability to fade from his prescient vision—the characteristic which encouraged his belief m hts success—and needed a means of keeping informed about the young rebel's actions He had often considered assigning d Fish Speaker to spy on Siona for him, but knew that the very loyalty that bound his female soldiers to him might lead to the undoing of his scheme the average Fish Speaker, on discovenng that Siona was capable of posing a real threat to the God Emperor, could be depended upon to disregard previous orders and accept the consequences of eliminating Siona herself Leto needed a fanatic, then, who would be capable of carrying out any duty if told that her God demanded it Leto found what he needed in Nayla
He bound her still closer to him with the gift of a cryskmfe, an antique which had once belonged to Misra one of Stilgar's wives in the Dune days Nayla was as impressed bv the gesture as Leto had expected, accepting the blade from his hands in the old Fremen ntual and swearing to its use in his service
Nayla's loyalty to him thus insured, the God Emperor commanded that she obey Siona m all things, no matter how heretical the young woman's activities might become Nayla was to keep her master informed of all of Siona's plans and actions but under no circumstances was she to attempt to interfere with them
Nayla was not assigned to duty m any of the Arrakis garrisons She was instead furnished with money and a place to live near the Fish Speaker s school in Onn If any question concerning her means of making a living were raised, she was simply to explain that she was a personal bodyguard {her physique would confirm such a story) currently between employers and enjoying a short vacation Her real task, of course, was to make contact with Siona's rebels and, through them, to gain entry to Siona's confidence
The process took several months During that same time, Nayla was often summoned to the Citadel and it was in the course of one such visit that a receiver/transmitter was
NYCALLISTh
planted inside her skull The God Emperor performed the surgery himself, preferring the difficulties involved in the procedure to those he might face in employing an outside physician Nayla was not told of die reasons for Leto's doing as he did, it was enough for her to know that her Lord now had the means to speak directly to her, inside her head, and to receive her answers as directly
By the end of 13721, Nayla had been taken so far into the rebel network that she was allowed to stay in the secret quarters hidden in the catacombs under Qnn Siona had evaluated her as an unimaginative but dependable aide, capable of quelling troublemakers both inside and outside their group, and had come to depend on her strength and obedience Once Nayla was so accepted, she arranged for a hidden keyboard and screen to be installed m her room, on which she could compose and encode her messages prior to their transmission to the God Emperor This device awed and frightened her almost as much as that of the implant, but she accepted it as another part of her service that she did not entirely undefstaad
Such messages passed more and more rapidly from Nayia to her master as Siona's rebellion gamed momentum By 13723, when Siona and her companions succeeded in taking the Stolen Journals from Leto's Citadel, Nayla was sending daily transmissions, after the pilfered volumes were sent for translation to the Bene Gessent, the Guild, and the Ixians, the messages contained frequent requests for Nayla's release from her vow of obedience to Siotia The ugly Fish Speaker finally saw Siona as a threat to her master, and the contradiction involved m obeying a rebel was taking its toll on her
The God Emperor decided that a freshening of Nayla's faith was m order He summoned her once again to his audience chamber, quizzed her about Siona's latest move and emphasized the importance of Nayla's continuing obedience to her oath Having made certain that Nayla saw this latest reminder as the beginning of her faith's ultimate test, Leto permitted her to leave the Royal Presence, satisfied that she would continue to do his bidding
Occasionally, Nayla was given duties to
perform as a Fish Speaker so that her contact ^with her sisters would not be totally severed *On one such assignment, she was sent as "Friend,' in the company of another Fish Speaker, to assess the new Duncan Idaho whom Leto had ordered, on another, she meted out the punishment Leto had ordained for Duro Nunepi, the Tleilaxu Ambassador responsible for the Face Dancer attack against the God Emperor m 13723 Nayla was masked on both occasions primarily to keep her identity as a Fish Speaker a secret from Siona, and it had been impressed upon her fellows that she was not to be discussed outside of ranks
hi 13724, following the attack on the Ixian embassy by the Tleilaxu and a splinter group of rebels, Leto ordered Nayla to reveal herself to Siona and to ask for her silence regarding her true identity (She was to explain the need for secrecy by saying that she alone, of all the Fish Speakers, recognized the nghtness of Siona s cause, and that the rest of the Fish Speakers would cheerfully dismember her if her defection was known ) Nayla was made even more intimate a member of Siona s group after this revelation— just as Leto had expected
Later in that same year she accompanied Siona and Duncan Idaho to Tuono Village Nayla suffered from mixed feelings concerning both of her companions Siona she admired, even while she feared her actions toward the God Emperor, the ghola was mysterious to her, but she was interested m bearing his child the Lord Leto permitting, because she felt that a mix of their genes would result in a strong, resourceful offspring Her emotional muddle was stirred further by her part in their plan to attack the Lord Leto on his way to Tuono Village Only her vow to obey Siona, and her underlying certainty that the God Emperor could not truly be hurt by any action taken by mortals, sustained her through the days of planning and the actual execution oi the lasgun attack
Nayla had been trained, and trained well, m using a lasgun When the Royal Cart reached the bridge spanning the Idaho River, she cleanly shot out the bridge support and the suspensors beneath the Royal Cart, certain that she was about to witness a miracle
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The God Emperor would survive, and her loyalty would be rewarded at last.
Her reward, as well as the outcome of the attack, differed greatly from what Nayla had expected The God Emperor and his entourage plunged into the river, ail but he dying immediately. His sandtrout skin gone. Leto crawled onto the shore. Nayla climbed down to him, pushing Duncan Idaho aside, to reassure herself that he lived. Before her master could answer, Nayla felt her lasgim being seized from its holster, and whirled in time to see the ghola aim at her head and pull the trigger. In seconds, the gun'^charge was exhausted and only a few smoking bits were left of the God Emperor's most faithful
servant. Ironically, the ghola had not killed her for her action against Leto—the seeming treachery that would lead to her being despised for thousands of years—but for her killing of Hwi Noree, the God Emperor's bride.
That undeserved onus, in light of the new-found facts, can now be ended. Nayla Nycalliste was no Judas, but a loyal soldier caught up in plots beyond her understanding; she was more obedient to her God than many whose names and memories have been treated with honor. C.W.
Further references: ATREIDES, LETO D; ATREIDES, SIONA IBN RJAD AL-SEYEFA; Leto Atreides II, Journals, Rakis Ref. Cat. 1-A170.
OFFICIAL HISTORY, THE. An authorized annual Imperial report, published 8954-10201 in Irstendal on Kaitain and 10202-13724 in Arrakeen on Arrakis; its official title was The Imperial Annual Sourcebook and Statistical Record.
The annual volumes known informally as the Official History are among the most comprehensive, authoritative, yet often ume-liable sources of information on the Atreides dynasty. The Official History, like many institutions in the long reign of Leto II, was an inheritance from his predecessors, adapted to his own purposes. Originally, the annual compilers intended to report as much reliable information about the preceding year in the Imperium as could be conveniently presented in a single volume.
But the Official History did not reach this form immediately. The Conino emperors understood that no government can survive without accurate and timely news, and they gathered data regularly. Each year, the so-called "Planetary Reports" came to Kaitain
from all quarters of the realm. These reports were themselves condensations: because of the sheer weight of material if the records were in full form, the Planetary Reports were summaries pared down to their essentials. From 3540 on, the Imperial Department of Records trained bureaucrats (modeling the instruction openly on the initial steps of mental training) in the preparation of summaries
When the Planetary Reports reached Kaitain, they were again abstracted for presentation to fee emperor, who studied or ignored them as his whim, taste, or mood prompted. Beginning with the reign of Comn XX (8923), these summaries were collected into an annual volume. The Statistical Record, as it was named, was an invaluable bibliographic tool for researchers in every field It directed those with both permission and desire to the fuller reports containing the details they needed; it gave an overview of Imperial affairs that no other work could match.
The chamberlain of Avelard XVIII, Venoshi
OFFICIAL HISTORY
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OIL LENS
Myuurak, saw the Recta-4 as an opportunity to present Imperial activities in a favorable light, and instituted the first of many perver-sions.wrought on the hapless reference work. He ordered its expansion to two volumes, the second being the Statistical Record in its current format, but the first—the Sowcebook
. —being a prose description of undertakings that the government wanted Co publicize. Since the work had wide distribution in a durable form, its propaganda value, though not immediate, was considerable over the long run. It appeared for the fust time in two volumes with its official title in 9175, a year too, late for Myuurak to see his handiwork. Such was the situation of the Official History when Paul Atreides came to, power. Over the next century (roughly 10200-10300), as the bureaucrats of the Corrinos retired or died and their places- were taken by Fremen, die character of the second volume came more and more to resemble the first's. The Sourcebook had never been much more than a chronicle of governmental actions across the Imperium, and Leto continued its use to proclaim his triumphs, minimize his defeats, and justify his innovations. For example, after the Fish Speakers were formed, over
. the next decade so much attention was devoted to the organization in the Official History that the disgruntled covertly referred to the Sourcebook as the Amazon Forcebook. But the second volume had had legitimate uses and had always maintained a discreet difference from its more politicized companion. Leto changed that. He scorned its statistical nature—that is clear from the recent evidence; but even the materials from Rakis have not yet confirmed his apocryphal remark, "Who cares how many schlags there are on Tupali?" After about 10700, the information in both volumes should be suspected of being fabricated, and should not be accepted without independent confirmation. Up to now, only the Oral History could provide that needed check, but the library at Dar-es-Balat now gives us a third source, a history more candid than the Official and more comprehensive than the Oral. The comparing of statements in the Official History to the records at Dar-es-Balat will take years—perhaps decades—but die day is now in sight when the
researchers of a thousand worlds can replace the Official with the True History of Leto's reign. W.E.M.
Further references: ORAL HISTORY; Lors Karden, Truth and Fancy in the Oral History (Yoiba Rose); Lore Karden, Fact and Fiction in the Official History (Yorba: Rose).
OIL LENS. Force-field-enclosed hufuf oil, used principally in telescopes. Oil lenses— so accurate that they have yet to be surpassed, eight millennia after their invention—share with many other enduring pieces of technology an elegant simplicity. Each lens is made up of a layer of hufuf oil (varying in thickness from .5 mm to 1.0 mm) held in static tension by an enclosing force field, and is placed within a viewing tube as part of a magnifying or other light-manipulative system. Because of the extremely responsive nature of the enclosing force field, the oil layer can by adjusted within microns of a desired setting. No other type of lens element approaches such accuracy,
hi 7687, Marcus Vander, an Ixian Field Technician (Class Three) was experimenting with the effects of various force fields on compressed fluids. He had chosen hufuf oil (a derivative of the hufuf plant, a native growth of Eca? noted chiefly for its oil-filled seedpods) because of its viscosity and near-perfect transparency.
Vander wished to develop some means of transporting liquids using a force field as a container, an invention which would undoubtedly have had a wide array of useful applications. What he had actually created— as he discovered when the suspended oil focused a beam of white light onto his lab counter and melted its finish—was the first oil lens.
The new lenses had completely replaced all older, less accurate types within fifteen years of their entry into the marketplace. Their supremacy was threatened only once, in 8176, when a poor harvest of hufuf pods created a shortage of oil. Fortunately, the season following was an exceptionally good one; it was also discovered that the hufuf plant adapted very nicely to cultivation on Yorba, The double cultivation has prevented any further shortages.
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FtirttKT references: Marcus Vaader Force Fields and Their Applications tr Frunlan Zhauwab (Riehese New Caledonia State UP)
ONN. Hie festival city whose design and construction were commissioned by Leto II in 10592, perhaps the largest angle-purpose building project in known history Onn housed the Fish Speakers' chief school, off-world embassies, trade headquarters, service and maintenance cadres, museums ancHibranes, but these facilities took up less than ten percent of the city Onn's chief purpose was to house Leto's decennial Festival, and its construction was centered about one function the public viewing of the God Emperor
The city center was a gigantic plaza measuring two kilometers across, ringed by balconies and standing platforms acconmiodat-ing hundreds of thousands of Leto's subjects, the audience was further enlarged by the Ixian projectors stationed throughout the plaza The projectors sent fee images from the plaza floor into apartments surrounding the area, occupied by those considered unimportant or sufficiently out of favor to deny them a direct look at Leto
From a spot m the center of the plaza floor at the tune appointed for the Viewing for Great Sharing as it was sometimes called), ' Leto ascended from die Sacred Chamber beneath the plaza by way of a special presentation stage The stage lifted him into the air, providing a clear view to all those watching No protective devices were used during die Viewing, Leto rested on the stage itself, without even the shielding of his Royal Cart between himself and those in attendance He remained in this position for two hours, during which time his subjects were free to come and go At no time during the ceremony were any of them openly checked for weapons or prevented from climbing out to the extreme edges of the balconies for a better look
A legend fostered by the God Emperor compared the Viewing to a ritual undergone by an ancient ruler who was required, on one night a year, to walk unprotected among his subjects The ruler was further required to dress m a luminescent suit, while his subjects (not searched for weapons) dressed
in black and thronged in the streets at will According to the legend, if the ruler survived his walk, it was then obvious that he was a good ruler, by parallel if the God Emperor survived the Viewing, he did so only because of the love and loyalty of those he ruled
The second, less public ntual for which the Festival City served as location was Siaynoq This ceremony, reserved for Leto's Fish Speakers, was conducted prior to the Viewing m the Sacred Chamber located beneath the plaza
Between Festival years, all sectors of the city other than those occupied by the few perpetual tenants—sectors which totalled over 250 square kilometers—were shut down A crew continually maintained the closed sections, keeping the city prepared for the next decade's Festival, but the workers themselves resided m surrounding suburbs, the God Emperor did not intend that his Festival City be used for any lesser purposes
Security was provided by the Onn gamson, a group of Fish Speakers second only to the Citadel Guard in the ranks of Leto s military These women patrolled the streets, detained any unauthorized entries and maintained order among the various factions who occu pied the Embassy Quarters While relatively few disturbances occurred, primarily owing to the Fish Speakers rigorous protection, those which did were generally extremely violent Perhaps the best known example was the Sargus Rebellion of 12293, when a group of malcontents commanded by a renegade Bene Gessent and an Idaho ghola attempted to demolish the Fish Speakers school with a pirated store of high explosives The attempt very nearly succeeded being foiled only by the defection of a minor member of the conspiracy
The Fish Speakers, outraged at this attack on their school, their students and, by extension, their God called for volunteers who deafened tiiemselves for protection against the Voice, and assaulted the Bene Gessent embassy By the time the God Emperor's order to withdraw could reach the troops, the Idaho ghola and every Bene Gessent, from Reverend Mother to lowliest acolyte, had been killed Leto earned the undying enmity
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of many of the Sisterhood by commending his soldiers and demanding an apology from Wallach IX before allowing a new delegation to be sent to Arrakis
After the God Emperor's Fall, Onn underwent a series of drastic changes Hie Fish Speaker school was closed, the Sacred Chamber was sealed, the plaza was drastically redesigned, with much of the floor area used as building sites Homesteading of most of the unused buildings was encouraged, and within a few decades the city was indistm guishable from any other oa the planet
Using maps and charts found among the Rakis Hoard, archeologists have located the sections of the city once occupied by the Sacred Chamber and other places important to the city during its millennia of use in Festivals Excavations which should shed still more light on die history of Onn are expected to begin early next year, because of these plans, those sites have been cleared and are now as empty as they were in between-Festtval years during the God Emperor's time C W
Further references; FISH SPEAKERS, SIATNOQ, Mustava S Aletari, The Psychology of Political Rituals (Chusnk Salre)iaa), Krosia Frtnalaz ' Excavation at Oan, ' Archaeology, 91 17 34
OPAF1RE A precious jewel highly valued by the aristocracy of the old Impenum Opafire was a hard, highly luminescent substance found mainly on Aarafan, where the Ixians maintained mining and refining operations Jewels of opafire were notable for their soft, iridescent colors, ranging from pink to various shades of blue The most desirable gems were of blue or turquoise Princess Irulan Atreides-Comno possessed a famous collection of opafires, now lost, to which she refers m passing in her volume, Conversations with Muud'Dib
Lady Margot Fearing demonstrates the social significance: of opafire in Arrakis and After, when she alludes to the fact that only Duke Gorslci, of all her lovers, made her a gift of a fine opafire gem known as the "Heart of Laura '* She cherished the gem all her life, as well as the memory of the man who gave it to her
The importance of opafire diminished along
with the power of the aristocracy during the Atreides period It is noted, however, that Emperor Leto had a private opafire collection, and was occasionally known to reward a loyal retainer with the gift of a gem
ORAL HISTORY. The Oral History together with the Official History, provided the totality of information about the reigns of the Atreides before the discovery of the Imperial Library on Rakis Yet for a source of such importance, few non-historians could define what the Oral History is, or where one would go who wished to consult it To begin with, there is no single source called the "Oral History", on the contrary, the term is used to designate a variety of materials, some of which, despite the name, were never transmitted through oral tradition The professional historian, when referring to the "Oral History " uses the jargon of his calling for the multi volume work Studies in Atreidean History (SAH),1 which the Insti tute of Galacto-Fremen Culture began to pub lish m 13850 and which now extends into the thousands of volumes (the seventeenth edition of the index the most recent runs to thirty three volumes alone)
SAH is an immense conglomeration of documents, plays, ballads, nursery rhymes, wall slogans, cartoons—everything from the most literate and enduring of works to the most ephemeral—having m common only that they in some way provide information on the reigns of Paul, Aha, and Leto II Much of the material was preserved by word of mouth until the middle of the 13%! century, when its collection began Other works, such as the plays of Harq al-Harba and other Atreidean dramatists, were in print almost from their conception But the primary em phasis of SAH has always been the information from the separate oral tradition which, because of its independence could serve as a confirmation ot or check on the official records
Several examples of material from the Oral History will clarify its nature
In 10330, Rauvlee Ludgwit published a collection of children s verses from Arrakeen and the surrounding villages The volume
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included counting thymes, nursery rhymes, mnemonics, verses for jumping rope and other games and similar items Ludgwit's compilation was one of the first works to be reprinted in the SAH (Satra Shonjnr trans , Ludgmt s Arrakeen Child Lore SAH 37) Item 941 in the collection is a rhyme tran scnbed in 10324, yet one that obviously refers to Paul's use of atomics to breach the Shield Wall near Arrakeen, allowing his defeat of the Imperial forces Shonjur's transla (ion preserves the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the original
Paul, Paul came through tbe wall, Adam Shaddara had a foil, All his hawets all his men, Couldn't lift him up again
Hie word in the third hue, hawets, makes no sense in its context, since it means "fish," a creature known on Arrakis only after die importation of predator to guard the qanats Nor do fish play any part whatsoever m the incident upon which the rhyme is based Ludgwit operated on the principle of oral transmission that meaningless words are replaced by meaningful words, often at the expense of the overall sense of the passage, and he argued that the original word in line three had been hawats, meaning "Mentals," from the name of Thufir Hawat, the Mental of Duke Leto, who accepted service with House Cornno after the death of the Cuke The poem shows that Hawat was associated in the popular nnnd with loyalty to the Imperial House and therefore was regarded as more or less of a traitor to the Atreides But the recent finds on Rakis have made that long-held conclusion very doubtful
A longer example from SAH challenges the official version of an empire during Leto's reign sunk into a glacial placidity, with its capital at Arrakeen the foremost model of well satisfied burghers and craftsmen Hardly a chapter of the Official History does not extol the contentment of the ordinary man or woman through that long stretch of tune There is a historian's rule of thumb that one finds the truth where the Official and Oral Histories agree, but the Oral History constantly contradicts the official version of "The Garden of Arrakeen ** One of many works to
project a different image of the capital during Leto's reign is the ballad Lewm at the Wall," taken down from a troubadour on the out-of-the-way planet of Stormstile in 13934 The troubadour gave the title of the song as "News from Arrakeen ' The figure in the first of these titles is historical Iir Zhiik Lewm (11835^ 11891'), a carpenter originally from Libermann who eventually settled m Arrakeen He is cited in the Municipal Court Rolls of that city as being arrested for hcens ing violations in 11890, and his case was publicized as an example of governmental vigilance in protecting the consumer from sharp dealers According to the final disposition of the charge Lewm died in prison awaiting trial The ballad2 gives a different story
As Lewm cut his apple through,
He found a worm inside He killed it with his heavy shoe
And spoke then in his pnde
"The worm has eat the apple's core,
Beneath the skin lies curled Just so, many a man lies sore,
From the worm within the world "
So he took his brush and tar and awl,
And walked outside a way To fuid a space upon a wall,
On that to have his sav
And he painted up the wall that night
To tell the worfd his tale And showed the town in morning light
That one was not for sale
The temple pnests they hunted him,
And set on him a pnce But the hope they had was none or slim
Until they otfered spice
Then AI Badwi the butcher s son
Said, Bnng a dozen hands And go down by the cattle run
And take him as he stands
They came then m the dark of moon
When shadow covered all And heard there Lewm sing his tune
As he painted on the wall
O the Fremen guards were fast and all
But Lewin faster yet And the first that come up to the wall
The tar was what he met
ORAL HISTORY
ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE
The second swore upon his word
To kill him with his hand, But Lewin pulled the Bremen sword,
Poured his water in the sand
The third cut Lewin at the knee,
A cut that brought him down, But with his awl full readily,
Lewin turned him round
When Lewin lay upon flw ground,
They tied his hands up fast, And he called, 'O friends, O friends around,
"This day will be my last "
Now Lewin we will see no more, The walls, they scrubbed them clean,
But a worm stilt hides inside the core
Of die town of Arrakecn Whatever may be the historicity of the ballad, it should be noted that the folk do not as a rule make heroes of "sharp dealers "
Many of the materials from the Oral History show a biting satire and a keen appreciation of political reality In The Little Book of RuMes, probably published anonymously on Gicdi Prime, Riddle 88 is this ' What goes on four legs in the rooming, on two legs in the afternoon, and slithers in the evening1?" And the answer is "Nothing that I know of" The contents of the Little Book are generations older than its first publication, about 13499 (SAft 534, toots. Hwen Urtorn)
These examples can do little more than suggest the riches that the Oral History contains Its value is measureless in more than one way, for it provides not only an independent source of historical information, but also reveals the mind of the folk, sharing with us their understanding of their culture, and displaying their hopes and fears These last insights are exemplified in "How Muad'Dib Got His Name" [see entry] (a firemen folktale3 that weaves together wholly imaginary incidents from the wool of fact Paul Atreides' adaptation to the desert and Bremen ways and how the invention of the thumper is attracted to the figure of Paul), his coming to terms with his supernormal powers (as expressed in the magic of the dunn), and above all his conquest of himself In the long run, it matters little which side Thufir Hawat was on, what is more important is the way that people structured and ordered the flux of their daily lives and made
sense of the swirl of great events In this and other folktales m ballads, in even the humblest games, we have that record WE M
NOTES
'See Lors Karden, Truth and Fancy in the Oral History (Yorba Rose) for an introduction to the senes Studies in Atreidean History 2Zheraulaz Kiit ed Ballads from the Border Stars Studies m Atreidean History 263 (Paseo Institute of Galacto Fremen Culture) pp 156 7 3"How Muad Dih Got His Vame' is from Ibarhim alYazizhi Fremen Folktales from Onn SAH 313
ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE. THE FUNDAMENTAL SCRIPTURE OF THE IMPERI-
UM [The following essay has been attributed to Paul Muad'Dib and it is one of the few complete works by this historical figure to have been found m the Rakis Hoard Paul was known for his profound interest m the Orange Catholic Rible and its tenets ployed an important role in his legendary life —Ed ]
Mankind's movement through deep space placed a unique stamp on religion during the one hundred and ten centimes that preceded the Butlenan Jihad Early space travel, widespread though it was proceeded in a fashion largely unregulated slow and uncertain Before the Guild monopoly, it was accom phshed by a hodgepodge of methods* with successive waves of general expansion and cross-migrations of large populations Space travel was not lightly undertaken a once-m-a-lifetime experience was quite enough for most people who were dnven at first only by necessity to commit themselves to the dark \oid that was space
From the beginning of the travels, space gave a different flavor and sense to ideas of Creation Genesis was a dark mystery The difference is seen even m the highest religious achievements of the period All through religion, the feeling of the sacred was touched by anarchy from the outer dark As one of our more poetic, though anonymous, histon ans expressed it "It was as though Jupiter in all his descendant forms retreated into the material darkness to be superseded by a female immanence filled with ambiguity and with a face of many terrors '
The ancient formulae intertwined tangled
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together as they became fined to the needs of new conquests and new heraldic symbols It was a time of struggle between beast-demons on the one side and the old prayers and invocations on the other with no clear decision, but there were innumerable adaptations, some more grotesque than others The evolutionary history of religions in space is vast
During the early period of space travel, it was said that Genesis 1 28 was reinterpreted, permitting God to say. "fectease and multiply, and fill the universe and subdue it, and rule over all manner of strange beasts and living creatures in the infinite airs, on the infinite earths and beneath them " Him the idea of God expanded with the idea of history Bs-chatological questions, forced to postpone themselves to yet more distant futures in "real time," were (though never dismissed from speculations of fear and hope) forced to yield to more immediate and local issues Thus the idea of God diminished, opening a way for those who could (or who pretended they could) offer promises for the immediate future based on an arcane development of oracular power
It was a time of sorceresses whose powers were real Women with the power to control and attune their bodies and minds to the rhythms of history seized their opportunity to dominate world populations It was a time of goddesses, such as Kubebe of Komos, Hawt of Humidis, Sente the All-knowing of the WaUach group whose worship spread to many planets, Venera of Gamont, and many others It was a tune when Kali unveiled many of her most dread faces to reign supreme over the destinies of men The measure of the witch-priestesses who served at her altars is seen m the fact that they never boasted how they grasped die firebrand in her loins Not content with their rule over single planets, they saw advantages in joining together (their own form of ecumenical movement) so that they might shape the universe Thus flourished the power of the Bene Gessent and the establishment of their breeding program
Then came the Butlenan Jihad, causing generations of chaos The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and
a new concept was raised "Man may not be replaced '' This B G -sponsored campaign removed from men a rival power of fu-turological control These generations of violence were a thalamic pause for all humankind Men of insight looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most temble of all equations fear over ambition
It was tune for a new and greater ecumeni cal movement to begin Hesitantly, the lead crs of religions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions in planetary purges and interplanetary wars began meeting to exchange views It was a move encouraged by the Spacing Guild, which was beginning to build its monopoly over all interstellar travel through its superior navigators, and by the Bene Gessent, who foresaw increased opportu mties for furthering their own plans, although their hopes were not all to be realized in the event
Out of those first ecumenical meetings came two major developments
1 The reahzdtion that all religions had at least one common commandment ' Thou shalt not disfigure the soul"
2 The Commission of Ecumenical Trans lators
"Thou shalt not disfigure the soul", but who is to decide where modification ends and disfigurement begins'' The Fremen believe that the land of your birth makes you what you are "Are there strange animals on your planet? ' they ask The Fremen them selves consider that they arc the Undisfigured Ones, yet their blue-on-blue eyes, the sign of spice addiction, their cruel and secretive customs, their sietch orgies and their worship of the dragomsh Shai Hulud are sufficient indications to most people that they are rather (to use ihe words of their own text) the owners of diseased hearts Nevertheless, there are many admirable individuals amongst the Fremen Abomination happens within the heart or soul, it is not imposed from without Let us be humble enough to acknowledge that, however fair we may consider our physi cal appearance, soul disfigurement might be lying in wait for us, might even have happened to us without our knowledge or consent
The recorded experience of Muad Dib, of
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Alia and, partial as it is, of Leto II, has given new impetus to psychosomatic theological study and has also shifted the emphasis of concern from eschatological determination (whether seen in terms of Paradise, or Heaven and Hell, or Nirvana) to psychomachy (or "psychomachiavelliamsm" as my witty colleague Miiarz calls it) and its implications for this worldly power politics Ancestor worship and propitiation are also reviving These problems were not, of course, stirring the minds of the C E T, for whom God was safely transcendent not an actual liVmg Vermicular Presence I express myself so freely because I know that these words will be buried deep for generations Then as now, however, all men were deeply and humanistically interested in the idea that they had some great destiny witnm the universe, the religious sought divine guidance and feared Shaitanic interference
CONTENTS OF THE ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE The O C Bible is more than -a revised amalgamation of the ancient holy scriptures It considerably extended the traditional canon, although it also abridged and reordered it It came packaged with the Liturgical Manual and the Commentaries
The 0 C Bible reflected the blendmgs of scriptural tradition mat had already occurred for reasons of planetary convenience, and radically extended them Hie dramatic new melding inevitably produced an impression of start dislocation on many readers In order to offset this, a comprehensive index and marginal collations were provided Further, from the outset it was envisaged that each planet should have its own supplement, although it was of course impossible to produce all the requisite editions at once and this caused misunderstandings Hie very vast-ness of the new compendium earned its ecumenical message "Your faith has hither to been too smalt "
TTie C E T was particularly fond of the idea of harmonization which they saw as an ecumenical activity They were also adept at covering their tracks, as it was no part of their purpose to suggest mat previous texts and arrangements had special authority As a consequence, they guaranteed labor for the next generation of scholars, who were en gaged in assembling mat bibliographic marvel,
the Azhar Book, which preserves the great secrets of the most ancient faiths and traces the received texts to their origins
With the help of the Azhar Book we can see something of the process of harmoniza tion which rendered the stiff old texts of the Bible, the Quran and so on, plastic enough to be mixed and twisted Some of the texts (which, interestingly enough remain among the most popular) proved highly resistant to change Tlie Book of Job passed through the furnace almost unscathed, for some reason, as did Preacher Revelation (not to be con fused with Revelations) was quite unchanged, whether because ot C t T exhaustion once the last book of the old Bible canon had been reached, or because of the dire threat in the last chapter, remains uncertain
In the former Old Testament and New Testament, there was in general a great simplification, evident in the reduction of the number of books that remain from them, as well as the compression of their contents, when this can be observed m the unmelded texts The books that remain are Genesis, Exodus, Laws Promises, Kings, Refugees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Preacher, Prophets, Gospel, Apostles, Epistles, Revelation The most controversial omission from the canon is Canticles also known as The Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs), which has nevertheless survived and is to be traced in various other O C Bible texts, including Blake Skul Visions and the Saan We have a hint m the Bertoh Memoirs to explain the omission "Bomoko hated the text which made Sheba say, 'I am black but comely' —his own wife was brown and remarkably ugly and suspected, more or less jokingly, of a secret attachment to Obeah rituals after she was once seen chasing a chicken into the jungle ' It is more likely that many of the representatives were instructed by their congregations to nail a text which had often been embarrassing to the churches and that, m spite of their proclamation (which has of course, been much misunderstood) about "producing an instrument of Love to be played in all ways, the delegates were careful not to produce a book that m any way expressed the idea of love as it is secularly regarded It may be necessary m this connection, also to remind those who
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know such religions as the Cathloa Church of Erzuhe and the Vatsyayana Evangelicals only by their names that there ts a great difference in religious matters between professions and practices
The most difficult work of harmonization may be seen m the production of Gospel, the first diatessaron to establish itself beyond competition from the four evangelists, who now became relegated to mere names and symbols The historical scholarship behind this attempt to establish the life of Jesus on a firm, incontrovertible basis was immense, but it had an effect m its context mat may or may not have been well calculated by the C E T It reduced the life of Jesus to one among several lives of saints and prophets and servants of God Clearly the Maomethic faction m the C E T had much to do with creating this impression, which wjs certainly in line with the C E T claim to dispossess all disputant religions of tbe idea that they might have a uniquely valuable revelation When they saw the effect of this claim in cold pnnt, however, it is noteworthy that the Sumslamic faiths weie as shocked as the others by what their representatives had perpetrated in their names
All the historical books of Judaeo-Chnstian scripture were harmonized as far as possible (if not farther) with the Quran The legal books were augmented by the Tawrah, Quran, Confucian traditions, while the wisdom literature of Proverbs was assimilated to Taoist and Socratic dicta, at least
The pure Quran was represented in the O C Bible by &e books of Saan and Kaluna, and the important Sort text should also be mentioned here, although it is suspected that this was m part augmented bj the C E T themselves who numbered some well-published poets among mem The Masnavi and Tradi tions are other books that seem largely Islamic in composition
Among the Hindu and Buddhist traditions may be placed the following books Upani-shads, Vedas, Puranas, Gita, Sutra, Bod-hisatvara, Avatar a, while the books of Roan Answers, Ohashi, Hui Neng Mid Tao may be ascribed rather to the Zensunoi traditions From other ancient sources, tome the books of Analects and Pahlavi, while the books ot Arran, Blake Skul Visions and Revelations
are believed to be more recent m origin, and the book of Hymns is both ancient and modern
A controversial but most helpful feature of the 0 C Bible is its addition to the canonical scriptures of the books of Hoi) Lives and Testimonies, without which we very likely should not have the hibtones of many saints, martyrs sectarian founders and missionaries, and the records of miracles as remarkable as any of those recorded m ancient scriptures The ordeals suffered by the faithful and their mixed experiences of sin and redemption are a great source of consolation as well as of inspiration in our own troubled times
One of the hardest decisions tor the C E T was not merely to establish the contents of their Bible but to agree upon a title, one that would be brief yet broadly descriptive, one that would reflect the ecumenical spirit without appearing narrowly exclusive In early fragments of his memoirs, Bertoh refers to it as the Koranjiyana Zenchristian Scriptures, or as the Zenchnstian Navakoran, but after the fourth year it seems to be settled in his mind, at least, that Orange Catholic Bible was to be the name We must suppose that a day or a week was given over to settling what may have become a matter of embarrassing dispute The terms ' orange" and "catholic' do, however seem to have estab hshcd themselves as reflecting the more innovative dnd rational as opposed to the more conservative and traditional schools of thought, sometimes being used quite lightly, if we may judge by odd remarks of Bertoh— what a delightfully pompous catholic statement, ' "Catholic to a See," "utterly Orange is the only word to describe that nonsense, for an Orange, that little acolyte of Bruin s is quite a peach," ' all of those oranges are bananas"—remarks not at all clear to us now, but some were clearly meant as witti cisms The origin of the term Orange as applied to a religious sectanan is now obscure but its religious significance is so overwhelming nowadays that few remember it as the ancient name of a fruit now called portyguls
The O C Bible Liturgical Manual was a natural outgrowth of the practice faithfully observed by the C E T of attending morning and evening services every day according to the tradition of a different faith On Wednes-
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days, which were defined as Honorary Sabbaths for the duration of the exercise, delegates were allowed to worship as they chose in the mornings, but m the evenings all attended an ecumenical service, for which an ever-changing committee was responsible The experience of being subjected to some of the more elaborate and irksome liturgies and rituals ("They did everything except sacrifice virgins" was Bertoh's disgusted comment on a nte that is fortunately nameless), together with the difficulty of administering some of them, brought home to many of the delegates the advantages of "harmonizing" the best practices The Liturgical Manual, then, while faithfully recording the various peculiar modes of worship practiced by the faiths represented in the C E T, also supplies several model ecumenical liturgies and endorses those, whether peculiar or ecumenical, considered most suitable for constituting a complete program of devotions for the whole year
The O C Bible Commentaries constitute in many respects a more remarkable work even than the Bible, not only because of its brevity (less than half the size of the O C Bible), but also because of its candor and hlendoi'sell'-pity iimlself-nghteousness Considered as a work of explication, the Commentaries is less than satisfactory It is rather the product of philosophical meditation on the profound importance of the C E T endeavor m the coatext of Universal Religion and the Galactic Impemim
The beginning is an obvious appeal to the agnostic rulers
Men, finding no answers to the sunnah [the ten thousand religious questions from die Shan ah], now apply their own reasoning All mea seek to be enlightened Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God s universe Scientists seek the lawfulness of events It is tiie task of SehgKfflm fit man into this lawfulness
In their conclusion, however, the Commentaries set a harsh tone that very Ukely foretold their fate
Much that was called religion has earned an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life Thie religion must teach that life is filled with
joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty All men must see that the teaching of rebgion by rules and rote is largely a hoax The proper teaching is recog nized with ease You can know it without fail because it awakens within you the sensation which tells you this is something you have always known
RECEPTION OF THE ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE There was an odd sense of calm as the presses and shigawire imprinters rolled and the O C Bible spread out through the worlds Some interpreted this as a sign from God, an omen of unity
But even the C E T delegates betrayed die fiction of that calm as they returned to their respective congregations Eighteen of them were lynched within two months Fifty three recanted within the year
The critical reception of the O C Bible was on the whole more favorable The C E T representatives were likened in the Space Tunes to archeologists of ideas, inspired by God in the grandeur of rediscovery The editor of the ecumenical column of the C/utrc/r Standard, whose last contribution this was, said that the C E T had brought to light "the vitality of great ideals overlaid by the deposits of centuries," that they had "sharpened the moral imperatives that come out of a religious conscience '' So wrote the innocent Msgr D Macsutoc, while those about him sharpened their axes More in tune with the reactionary mood of the congregations was the writer in the Suns, who denounced the O C Bible as a work produced by ' 'the hubris of reason " "Its pages," he said, were 'filled with a seductive interest m logic'' (The review was a star item on the second page opposite a seductive holograph of the latest Miss Universe )
Yet more influential was the holovisual interview with (he famous Blue Bishop, Halloway, whose label for GET *s seven-year effort—"Galactophasic Determinism" —beamed throughout the galaxy, was snapped up by eager billions who interpreted the initials GD as "God Damned " The G D O C s {"God-Damned Old Cranks") were crucified by the caricaturists in effigy and by the congregations m fact
The immediate demands for an Autho-
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nzed Revised Version were, of course, doomed to failure, since no ecumenical body of suffi cient authority could again be assembled This did not prevent the appearance of van ous Revised Versions that catered to popular bigotry However, simply because it was so controversial, the original Orange Catholic Bible, in one or other of the special planetary or Guild editions that were soon distributed, was the version that everybody bought and everybody read It awakened a new interest in scripture and in religious issues unprecedented since the first translations of the Bible into the vernacular
The reactionary revisions leaned on accepted symbolisms (Cross, Crescent, Feather Rattle, the Twelve Saints, the thin Buddha, the homed Goddess, and the like) and it soon became apparent that the ancient superstitions and beliefs had not been absorbed by the new ecumenism The compilers of the Azhar Book traced many of these beliefs back, sometimes, to surprisingly uncouth pagan faiths, long discredited officially
C E T Chairman Toure Bomoko appeared to admit finally that C E T had erred in trying to manipulate the props of popular religion ' 'We shouldn't have tried to create new symbols," he said "We should've real ized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive What is this shadow across the highway of Divine Command'1 It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all attainable knowledge "
The bitter double edge in this "admission" did not escape Bomoko's critics and he was forced soon afterward to Oee to exile, his life dependent upon flie Guild's pledge of secrecy He reportedly died on Tupile, honored and beloved, his last words "Religion must re mam an outlet for people who say to themselves, I am not the land of person I want to be It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied''
It is pleasant to think that Bomoko under-
stood the prophecy m his words ' 'Institutions endure ' He himself passed into history as a symbol of religions integrity and foresight, part of the myth of "The Fourteen Sages' who never recanted and who keep reappearing even in the plays of Harq al-Harba
Ninety generations later, the 0 C Bible and the Commentaries permeated the religious universe M T
ORAMQE CATHOLIC BIBLE, FAITHS RESPONSIBLE FOR. This list is taken from the flyleaf of the first edition NOTE only 101 reh gions are listed because twenty of the ongi nal C E T were recalled before the work was completed
The Ahmadiyah Christian Council
The Assemblies of Allah
Astronomical Christian Observers
Baptismal Cosmotheists of Smngon
Belt Hypostatical Program
Ben Kahsm in Gangishre
The, Bhakti Votaries
Black Vedantist Conddve
Trie Buddhist Pali Movement
The Buddislamic Christian Church of Sikun
The Buddislamic Jain Faith of Lankivek
The Calvmistic GeneUcal Determinant Elect
Body, Incorporated The Cape Separate! Union The Cathloa Church of Erzuhe The Catholic Protestant Tribe of Den The Catholic Zenvestran Council The Christian Zionist Pilgrims The Church of Furasia Church of the Holy Atta The Church of Selene Confucian Statists of the Impenum The Congregation of Molitor The Cosmic Charismatic Movement The Cybernetic Reformed Churches The Diasponc Council of Rabbis The Ecumenical Sectarian Council The Episcopalian Methodist Church The Evangelical Missionary Campaign on Po
sition I
The Faiths of Beulah The Galacian Orthodox Church The Galactic Spiritual Assembly of Bahais The Great Mother Church The GrUmmaman Orthodox Establishment The Hasidic Lutheran D>nasty Hasidislamic Union The Hellenic Orthodox Ecclesia The Hmayana Buddhist Way
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Ikebana Shaktist Order of Acthos
The Jain Buddhist Assembly
The Jatntte Foundation
Jerusalem Urbamte Citizens-of Nework
The Jesuitical Evolutionist Church of Chatdin
The Kubebe Cultists of Komos
The Latin Revivalist Ministers
Lican Umversalism
Lutheran Amida Worshippers
Lutheran Catholic United Church
The Mahayana Buddhist Union
The Mahayana Christian Temple of Enfcil
The Mahayana Lankavatara friends of Truth
The Modified Hanuman Church of Smj
The Muadh Quran Faithful os Caladan
Muslim Fideists on the Naraj Worlds
The Navachmtian Church of Chusuk
The Nebuloid Dervish Spire
The Neomaunomdist Rabbtrate
New Philadelphia Friends Yearly Meeting
The Ommanean Vanatieaists (Reformed)
The Orange Protestant Army of True Believers
The Ortho-Catholic Circle of Sigma Draconis
The Orthodox Gregorian Chantry
Pahslaimc Fellowship
Panafncan Reformed Churches in Umon
The Ramaknshna Gospel Mission to Biarek
The Ray Space Worshippers
The Roman Catholic Episcopal Church
The Sacerdotal Uermeticists of Beta Tegeuse
The Servants of Light, Olaf
Socratic Christian DitlogiHsts, IV Anbus
The Sulanan Centrist Tradition
Space Baptist Mission, Pontrin
The Stellar Deist Watchmen of In
Sugistanuc Congregattoaalists of Tupalt
The Sunm Orange Co-operative, laf r
The Sunsufi Chapter of Kadnsh
The Talmudic Zabur Followers, Salusa Secuudus
The Tantne Rhythnasts of Richese
Taoist Pilgrims ID Space
The Tawrah Collegiate, Salusa Seeundus
The Tendai Fundamentalist Chmch
Tenn Kyo Science m die Galaxy
Tenth Day Advendst Church of Raptde
The Terras Orthodox Church of Novebruns
Planet
The Thomasian Faith The Unitarian Galactic Church The United Church of Rossak The United Moravian Assembly The Universal Hindu Faith Headquarters Hagal The Universal Pantheist Religion The Vatsyayana Evangelical Mission, Bastion HI The Visionaries of Los Vrvekrtshnan Disciples The Vudu Reformed Cult
The White Kirk of Maclean
The Zabulonian Mennomtes
The Zen Baptist Lnion
The Zen Hekiganshu Faith of 111 Delta Pavonis
The Zenshmtoist Imperial Church
Zensunm Catholic Amalgamation
The Zensunm Wanderers
Zoroastnan Dualists of Tupile
Further references ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE M T (IN
LIFE AND TEACHING OF PAUL MUAD DIB) AlWH The
Dune Gospels Rakis Ref Cat 1 T2 Pyer Bmzvair A Vanorum Edition cflke Orange Catholic Bible Commen lories Summa of Ancient Beliefs and Practice (Bolchef Cdlegtum Tamo)
ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE (IN LIFE AMD TEACHING OF PAUL MCIAD'DIB). The youth-fill education of Muad'Dib, while he was yet Paul Atreides, during hts first fifteen years on Caladan was m many ways remarkably extensive in others severely limited He lacked playmates for obvious security reasons, and he never afterwards felt at ease with anyone of his own age except Chani He was never exposed to the society of the Caladan peons, the pundi nee farmers although he often expressed curiosity about their customs and may have learned something of their religious practices, which in many ways were surprisingly similar to those of the Arrakis Fremen His father, the Red Duke Leto Atreides, was not, it is thought greatly religious, maintaining the polite indifference of his class His mother, Lady Jessica, a Bene Gessent adept, trained her son in prana-musculature and bindu nervature control, taught him the Litany against Fear and undoubtedly passed on to him some of the wisdom embodied in the Azhar Book However her interest m power, somewhat narrowly conceived, her driving ambition (little though she understood it), and her habitually rigid self-control may have inhibited the natural expression of maternal love From two of his companion teachers, Gurney Halleck and Dr Wellington Yueh, the young Paul imbibed much of the language and spmt of the Orange Catholic Bible Gurney Halleck, a troubadour as well as a wamor, had a quotation for any occasion ready on his lips Dr Yueh's black reputation in history should not obscure his value as a teacher and his personal kindliness, his was the softest influence on his pupil, a
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religious influence m (he old Ortho-Catholic spirit It was Yueh who presented to Paul the inspired gift of his personal copy of die O C Bible in a space traveler's edition, as they were about to depart from Caladan Paul would later recall this "exposure to the O C Bible at a critical moment"
What was it in the gift of this little book, printed on filament paper, that sarred Paul's terrible purpose? It is recorded that he felt its importance for him almost at once A cun-ous accident occurred while Yueh was showing his pupil how to operate the book Paul was meant to begin reading at Kahrna 4611 but he opened the work at die favorite passage of Yueh's Bene Gesserjt wife, Wanna This text (Blake Skul Vis 99) suggests that we may all be deaf and blind to another world about us, Paul's imagination may have been stirred then and later by the thought that he might be the first man chosen to break through to such a wider perception
The text Yueh asked him to begin reading, "From water does all life begin," also recurred to him later Two things may be said here concerning Paul's "terrible purpose" First, and most obviously, he quoted the text when, after his duel with Jarms, he was troubled at having to accept fl» water from the Frcmen's dead body, Paul may well have had some prescient intuition of this moment Second, and more subtly, it may be that the text, in its association of the key terms Water and Life, combined subhminaUy with Wanna's text to suggest that in the one idea lay the means to die other Later he would not be able to resist (he challenge of the Water of Life (itself, albert in a context different from that of the Piemen nte, an OC Bible symbol)
Yueh made a compact with. Paul to keep his gift of the O C Bible a secret, because he naturally did not want anybody wondering why he should have chosen just this time to give away his most precious possession Paul would recognize soog after his arrival at Arrakeen the sources of the quotations that ornamented Guraey HaUeck's conversation, but he kept his knowledge to himself Meanwhile, he doubtless turned over in his mind the histories of many a prophet and saint, apostle and martyr, recorded in the
scriptures, and particularly he would have brooded deeply on the idea of the Messiah by whose means all men are to be made one under God Muad'Dib deeply longed to be a true Messiah Instead, he became a Mahdi, a hero-emperor, and the instigator of the most destructive jihad ever unleashed upon the universe From its beginnings the O C Bible like the Testaments before it, had suffered the same bitter paradox, the poisoning of what was intended by what was brought to pass
Paul's first public quotation from the 0 C Bible, which he may have meant merely as a courteous remark to the Impend Planetologist, Kynes had an electrifying effect upon his Fremen auditors The text was Ohashi LXV 13, "The gift is the blessing of the giver" Its Zensunm origin perhaps accounted for its recognition among the Fremen who were at once reminded of the words of their messianic legend "They will greet you with Holy Words and your gifts will be a blessing There is no reason to suppose that Paul had prior knowledge of the Lisan al-Gaib portent of his words, so that here as so often elsewhere in his story, one has the sense of the individual being acted upon by a fatal and irresistible forte rather than acting deliberately (The O C Bible in one of its Navachnstian books, has a relevant text, Avatara 1181 "My tongue is merely the baliset and you are the musician who plays on it I am your glove puppet, yours are the fingers I express only what you think m your mind ')
A curious yet profound text in the 0 C Bible which greatly influenced Paul is the sirat with its central image, "Paradise on my right, Hell on my left and the Angel of Death behind" He rolled this quotation in his mind as he and his mother sped along a narrow cleft toward the Cave of the Ridges, completing one phase of their flight from the Arrakeen massacre The sirat is a narrow bridge along which we travel through our journey of life Although Paradise is our goal, we must not step off the sirat to reach it prematurely, neither must we allow ourselves to be snared by the tendrils of Hell Death is behind to catch whoever stumbles The text says, "On my right there are houns,
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a garden, portyguls laden with fruit and blossom, both at the same time, there is the sondagi and the akarso, with people clothed in silk and gossamer dnnking raehag at tables under the boughs, there n is always sihaya On my left are the djmm in the burning sands of the bled, al-Lat bums there like blood, bakka pours from the bodies of those who run there, limping, driven by the ghafia, yet near me there am faces of attraction, eyes like opafire, distracting, dazzling " and again "I walk the straight and narrow path between the Yang of light, the Yin of darkness, myself am Yaag, myself am Yin, am both, yet neither, for I move between " There is another image often remembered from the sirat "On the planet Mercury, whose face is ever to al-Lat, tee is a ndge it is the sirat On one side all is heat and molten rock and the noise of steam and the bubbling of boiling sand, on the other side there is permafrost, ice, bitter cold, dark and silence broken only by the tinkle of the crystal stars Only on the ndge is it safe to move, for a little while *' "Relax," says the siiat, "relax, enjoy the view" On the stiat there are resting places For Muad'Dib there was Chani
As recorded in Princess Irulan'i Muad'Dib The Religious Issues, when Paul drank the Water of Ufc, "He held himself poised in the awareness, seeing time stretch out in its weird dimension, delicately balanced yet whirling, narrow yet spread like a net gather ing countless worlds and forces, a foghtwire that he must walk, yet a teeter-totter on which he balanced On one side he could see the Impenum, a Harkonnen called Feyd-Rautha who flashed toward him like a deadly black, the Sardaukar raging off their planet to spread pogrom on Arrakis, the Guild conniving and plotting, the Bene Gessent wife thejr scheme of selective breeding They lay massed like a muiKterhead on his horizon, held back by no more than the Fremen and their Muad'Dib, the steeping giant Fremen poised for their wild crusade across the universe Paul felt himself at the center, at the pivot where the whole structure turned, walking a thin wire of peace with a measure of happiness, Chani, at his side" Muad'Dib's relationship with Chani, like that of his fa-
ther with Lady Jessica, was not one legally sanctioned, but he nevertheless regarded it as binding in the most ancient traditional sense His words of reassurance to Chani when they first encountered the beautiful Princess Irulan, "That which binds us cannot be loosed," go right back to Epistles and, beyond them, to Genesis
Muad'Dib's years among the Fremen sharpened his understanding of the cruel ne cessities of life, an understanding not much mitigated by the deeper understanding he gained of the Zensunm religion which in their tradition was more purely Sunnite (Islamic) than Zensunnite because of, rather than in spite of, their wanderings as a race A more philosophical understanding of Zensunm tradition was derived by Muad Dib from his conversations with the ghola Hayt (Duncan Idaho) The ghola had been trained by the Tleilaxu as a Mental and philosopher of the Zensunm, in order to increase, if possible, his abilities with the sword (the legendary Samurai combat ability was still remembered) Unfortunately, this influence only encouraged Muad Dib's taste for irony and lo\e of paradox, fostering the increasing crypticism of his public utterances Several of the ghola's remarks may be traced to key passages m the 0 C Bible or the Commen tanes, as when Hayt first met Muad'Dib "The cleansed mind makes decisions m the presence of unknowns and without cause and effect " The saying derives from a comment on Bodhisat 739 "When you arc sinking in the river do you hold your feet still while you consider whether you fell from the bank or were pushed by a friend1*" The Koan Answers are recalled by the ghola when he suggests to Muad'Dib that infinite power can be contemplated in comfort only by remembering that all things are finite On another occasion, the ghola told Paul that 'We Zensunm say Not collecting, that is the ultimate gathering ' " from Ohashi XII12 After Muad'Dib walked blind into the desert, the ghola shared with Stilgar a moment of true Zensunm understanding 'He will not be found, Stilgar said " 'Yet all men will find him'"
Muad'Dib's explorations of his inner life were very much in the Zensunm spirit His
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abiding concern to "see into his nature" goes back to Hui Neng 5 but, as with so many of the Zensunm, he was not able to look beyond the self (or m Paul's case, the selves) to find the divine, tire jewel m the lotus "Find Buddha m your own heart, whose essential nature is the Buddha himself," teaches Eisai II6, but Muad'Dib, who found so much, did not find That
After he became The Preacher, Paid sought to reawaken the relapsed firmer! to their Zensunm heritage At Arrakeen, he proclaimed ' The only business of the Piemen should be that of opening his soil to the inner teachings " In his desert years, however, Paul himself seems to have reverted more to a Nava-chnstian, even a Judeoslamic style of thought Zensunm thought-patterns were by no means eliminated, however, as can be seen when, on his first appearance at Alia's Temple, he cried out "The religion of Muad'Dib is not Muad'Dib" (cf "The finger which points at the moon is not the moon itself" {Sutra 124])
On his dramatic first appearance before Alia's Temple, Paul displayed as a kind of credential a mummified human hand from the desert Regarded as the relic of some final encounter with a sandworm, such a token was universally regarded as a communication from Shai-Hulud However, Paul further substantiated his claim to be a messenger from God by drawing on tests u the OC Bible "I bong the Hand of God, and that is all I brmgt" he shouted "I speak for the Hand of God I am The Preacher." The title of The Preacher refers, of course, to the author of the text of that name, traditionally identified with Solomon, die wisest man of the past, and so considered to be a title highly appropriate for the former emperor, once Paul Atreides The Hand of God authenticates The Preacher's witness via a more obscure text m fob VII' 11 "I will teach you by the hand of God: mat which is with the Almighty will I not conceal "
The speeches of The Preacher are not only full of biblical texts but also redolent of biblical rhetoric The prophetic rhythms are strong m "Thus it is written' They who pray for dew at the desert's edge shall bring forth the deluge' They shall not escape their fate
through powers of reason' Reason arises from pnde that a man may not know in this way when he has done evil " The formula, 'Thus it is written," occurs several times in Gospel, but the actual text quoted is not to be found there, nor has it been discovered in any other text after the most prolonged scholarly search Presumably it was once part of a text known to the Fremen and so may be tentatively placed in the half-legendary Shah Nama, the First Book of the Zensunm Wanderers or in some secret text of the old Fremen religion This sermon was addressed particularlj to the ears of Muad'Dib's priesthood, "those who practice the ecumenism of the sword' , and memories of the Gospel text (XXXVI52), "all they that take the sword snail perish with the sword," he closely behind The Preacher's stem words 'They who learn the lesson of self-deception too well shall pensh by that deception " In this sermon, also, The Preacher refers to "the illusion of Maya" and almost reproduces the words of the Commentaries m explaining mat "such thoughts have no independent reality"
For a time Paul as The Preacher seems to have cast himself in the role of a Jeremiah or an Elijah, exposing corruption in high places, speaking truth to power, and uttering prophetic warnings of the dire consequences of mat evil-doing performed in the name of Muad'Dib If this is how he saw himself, however, it is not as Leto saw him Leto cast The Preacher as John the Baptist and used him quite deliberately to herald his own Messiahship It is recorded that Leto associated the death of the historical John the Baptist (Gospel IV) with the pseudo-death of his father, which locked him into his father's prophetic vision "Poor Baptist John," Leto thought "If he'd only had the courage to die some other way But perhaps his choice had been the bravest one How do I know what alternatives faced him1' I know what alternatives faced my father, though " It was in order to break out of the cruel jihadic path set for the Empire by Muad'Dib that Leto chose for himself the temble Golden Path This decision required that Paul Muad'Dib, who had imposed his will upon countless millions in the Empire, should himself be subjugated to the will of his son, Leto, the
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future God Fmperor The transfer of power took place during the great meeting of Leto, already m his sandtrout skin, and his father in flic desert, where there took place a duel in which the weapons were visions of alternate futures Leto saw further, as far as to Kraltzec, the Typhoon Struggle, the great battle at the end of the universe, known m the O C Bible (Revelation) as Armageddon, and so Leto prevailed over his father
When The Preacher vouched for Leto s integrity (that he was not Abomination) before Gurney Hatieck, he already accepted his John the Baptist function, as is shown by his words "Once I opposed him, but now I do his bidding He is the Healer" He made that role explicit m his final sermon at Alia's Temple This sermon is full of biblical texts and applications of texts to the situation on Arrakis
The Preacher began his address by associ atmg the Desert of Zan, the place of the first trial of the Zeasunni Wanderers, with the wilderness of the Exodus, where the Israelites (those ancient Fremen desert dwellers) were tried over forty years " I found myself m the Desert of Zan," The Preacher shouted (see Oh ash i IV-VII), "in that waste of howling wilderness [Laws XXXD 101 And God commanded me to make that place clean [cf Laws XVHI25-301 For we were provoked in the desert, and grieved fa the desert, and we were tempted in that wilderness to forsake our ways" (Psalm XCV8 10) By these allusions, The Preacher not only commanded die attention of his fremen hearers but authenticated his words as springing from the most ancient prophetic sources The words themselves challenged the Bremen with the charge of apostasy and stirred all hearers by their lightly veiled reference to the mysterious breachmgs of the qanats One of his hearers was Alia herself, who caught the Zan reference and wondered whether The Preacher was taking credit for the destruction wrought against the sietch strongholds of die loyal tnbcs
His voice booming across the plaza, The Preacher continued to revive die associations of ancient prophetic words "WiW beasts he upon your lands," he said "Doleful creatures fill your houses [Prophets V 21] You
who fled your homes no longer multiply your days upon the sand Yea, you who have forsaken our ways, you will die m a fouled nest if you continue on this path [Job XIX 18, note the original nest has become 'a fouled nest'] But if you heed my warning, the Lord shall lead you through a land of pits into the Mountains of God Yea, Shai Hulud shall lead you ' (Prophets LII 6-7)
The Preacher drew again on the Fremen mystique by quoting from Psalm LX111 1, a text used in the daily chanted Hymn to Water "O God my flesh longeth for Thy way in a dry and thirsty land'" This text prompted an appeal from an old refugee Fremen woman, 'Help us Muad'Dib Help us'" to which The Preacher responded, pointing his nght hand (of blessing) over her head "You [die Fremen] are the onlv help remaining1 You were rebellious You brought the dry wind which does not cleanse, nor does it cool [Prophets LIV 11,17] You bear the burden of our desert, and the whirlwind cometh from that place, from that terrible land [Prophets XI1] I have been m that wilderness [Prophets CXIII 5 'I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought'] Water runs upon the sand from shattered qanats Streams cross the ground [Prophets XXV 6 "m the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert"] Water has fallen from the sky in the Belt of Dune' [Cf Laws XIII 'the land dnnketh water of the ram of heaven "] O my friends, God has. commanded me Make straight m the desert a highway lor our Lord, for 1 am the voice that cometh to thee from the wilderness [Prophets XXX 3 this text by collation with one in Gospel III 3, identifies The Preacher as adopting a John-the-Baptist mission] '
Recalling Prophets V 20 and similar passages The Preacher pointed to the steps beneath his feet saying "This is no lost djedida which is no more inhabited forever1 Here have we eaten the bread of heaven [Psalm CV 40] And here the noise of strangers drives us from our homes' [cf Prophets XV 5 'Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers'] They breed for us a desolation a land wherein no man dwelleth nor any man passeth thereby [Prophets XV 2] Bv
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now Alia's priests were working their way through the crowd to arrest The Preacher, but he had still time to allude to Prophets XXV 1, saying "Behold our desert which could rejoice and blossom", to Job XIV 5, saying 'Behold them as they go forth to their evil work/ and finally to Revelation XIII 1, carefully misquoting "It is written 'And I stood upon the sand, and I saw a beast rise up out of that sand, and upon the head of that beast was the name of Cod1' ' Actually, the text states that what was written was 'the name of blasphemy' The Preacher held this idea deliberately and dra mancally in suspension while angry muttermgs rose from the crowd and fists were raised and shaken Then he completed his thought by turning and aiming his blind eyes toward the Temple and raising a hand (the left hand of evil, surely) to point at the high window where Aha was watching "One blasphemy remains'" he screamed "Blasphemy1 And the name of that blasphemy is Alia' ' These were The Preacher's last words and they condemned his sister, the virgin-harlot of Revelation XVII, to Leto's execution
Both Paul and his son Leto were extremely skilled manipulators of what Leto termed the "prevailing mystique " Qoe way in which this is shown is in their use of left-hand and right-hand symbolism The Fremen, at ease only in extremes, were uncomfortable in the presence of ambivalence or ambiguity Deeds and thoughts were good or bad, they came either from the left hand of the damned or from the right hand of the blessed This association goes back to, or perhaps rattier is reflected in, Gospel XXXV, where the sheep are set on the nght hand of the King but the goats on the left hand Accordingly, when Paul Muad'Dib stood at the rack shrine enclosing his father's skull to quote word for word from ' Bomoko s Legacy," he set his nght hand on the shrine in order to show first that his father was one of tile blessed and second that the words he was about to say came from one of the blessed This gesture shows something of the respect with which he regarded the C E T Chairman responsible for the 0 C Bible However, when Paul and Leto had their famous confrontation in the desert Leto accused his father of not
taking his vision far enough Your hands did good things and evil he said Leto himself ever sensitive to relative positions of threatening or supporting people m relation to himself, summed up the assassin Namn at Jacuratu when during the mterro gauon, Namn entered the cell and stopped half a pace to the left of Guniey Halleck "Ahhh, the left hand of the damned Leto said M T
Further references ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE ATRE IDES PAUL Anon The Dune Gospels Rakis Ref Cat ] T2 Qizara Tafwid The Pillars of Wisdom (Salusa Secundus Morgan" and Sharak)
Paul Muad Dib s deep study of the O C Bible and the Commentaries can be witnessed most fully in Princess Irulan s Collected Sayings of Muad Dib (Mukan Lothar) Muad Dib The Religious Issues Lib Conf Temp Se lies 133 and The Wisdom of Muad Dib Arratas Studies 52 (Grumman United Worlds)
ORNrTHOPTER The basic method of airborne travel in the Impenum The common omithopter was a very late development m the history of atmospheric flight The first ormthopters—that is, vehicles that fly like birds rather than powered gliders or helicopters—were built by a team of scientists being held as political prisoners (as a result of the abortive Thinkers Rebellion of 7600 B G ) by Emperor Neweh m 7585 B G Their head was Jehane Gohtle, who was placed in charge of an understaffed, underfunded, and discouraged team of scientists and told to earn her team's continued well-being by inventing useful devices which would make a profit for the emperor
The group discovered many previously un suspected uses for already existing artifacts, and they scoured Imperial Scientific Archives in a desperate search for inventions which had been discarded as unfit for a computerized society but which might be made economically feasible if one was clever enough One of the group s most fruitful rediscoveries was the ' Heart Scallop ' (Perpetuus oper culans) of the Foranms Triad The Heart Scallop, so named because of its continual, regular, and powerful muscular contraction expansion cycle, was a land mollusk, a soft-shelled bivalve which grew to weight upwards of three hundred pounds noted for the astounding strength of its single muscle The
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Heart Scallop begins its life cycle as an airborne polyp, anchoring itself to a likely cliff-face or large tree after a short adolescence in the planet's jet stream. After anchoring, the animal survives by pumping vast amounts of air through its alimentary canal, straining micro-organisms from Die air for sustenance. Aside from its size, the Heart Scallop bad been seen as nothing extraordinary, except by some of the slaves on the Forannis Triad. Gofitle discovered that the slaves used the scallops to aid in their work: they would carefully trim the shell of a large scallop, and, by connecting it to a series of levers and rods, transform the Heart Scallop's continual bellows action into usable power,
Golitle had been looking for some .method of constructing a flying machine thai could combine the versatility of a bird with the size of an artificial aircraft, and she discovered the secret she sought in the Heart Scallop. She petitioned the emperor to allow die entire group to travel to the Forannis Triad: the petition received rapid approval. Golitle removed her entire research facility to die triad
and began intensive experimentation, culminating in 7580 with the test flight of the first true onuthopter.
The basic element of the common orni-thopter is the installation at the wing-junctures of a domesticated, specially-bred Heart Scallop which is connected to a series of electrical leads. The electrical currents have two purposes: one line is used to shock the bivalve into dormancy when the pilot of the ornithopier wishes to utilize fixed-wing flight (normally jet-assisted). When the power is disconnected, the Heart Scallop immediately resumes pulsing, thus providing the omithop-ter with a certain amount of fail-safe capacity. The other line in the electrical system is connected to the mollusk's nerve centers, and, when engaged, causes the Heart Scallop to increase its pulsation rate by an amount which varies with the intensity of the current. This second line is seldom used except when the pilot wishes to brake rapidly or wishes to take off from a constricted site.
The efficiency of the ornithopter's "engine" is difficult to surpass. The scallops need very little maintenance They must be periodically retrimmed to prevent them from growing beyond the constraints of their installation pods, but the connections between the tnol-hisk and the aircraft assembly are remarkably durable, since the animal treats the wing and body of the ornithopter as if those structures were its own shell. The scallops need no fuel, since they strain the air they fly through (though good maintenance procedure mandates allowing the creatures to continue to function even when the ornithopter is not in use—a point which occurred late to ornithopter manufacturers who did not use detachable wings on the earlier models). The major repair and maintenance problems associated with ornithopters are the wing gears and joints, which are complicated ball-and-socket connections, and structural problems arising from the switchover from bird-like flight, which requires flexible wings for optimum performance, to fixed-wing flight, which requires rigid structures.
Ornithopters faced considerable resistance when first introduced, since the piloting of one was quite different from the flying of fixed-wing craft. The Imperial Pilots Guild
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refused to admit members on the basis of ormthopter flight-time until 7520 B G and many systems refused to permit ornithopters to be used as anything but sport or commuter vehicles One of the earliest sport ornithop-tensts was IV Holtzman, who was senoasly injured in a crash of an eariy model Emperor Neweh, distressed with the slow acceptance of the ornithopter, directed the scientists who developed it to cease further development work on the device, and in stead to concentrate on a unified astrological theory that could be used to detect plots against his life among his courtiers
Although slow in coming, acceptance of ornithopters eventually arrived, and by 7000 B G , they were the favored mode of air borne transports Hie Butianan Jihad, with its proscription of complicated machinery, advanced the simple, effective ornithopter to almost sole possession of planetary skies WDI
Further reference!: Beekster Barty. The History of the Ormthopter m Sport and Commerce (Caladm Apex) Ruuverad Zhaunz, Cost Effective Procedures at Omahop ler Veterinary Medicine (Richese U of Bailey Press)
OTHEYM. (10149-102Q5) The ftemen destined to become one of Paul Muad'Dtb's most trusted Fsdaykin lieutenants and a key figure in penetrating the conspiracy against the Atreides Emperor He was bom at Sietch Tabr during an enormous sjffidstorm—a portent perhaps of the day Otheym would help his Lisan al-Gaib defeat the Padishah Emperor and of the holocaust that would take Otheym's Irfe
Otheym's mother, Ulja, an efficient organizer of children's classes, saw to her son's education However, rt was Otheym's father, Uliet, a highly experienced fighter, who had the greatest influence on his son, even though he died when Otheym was just an infant Otheym was too young to remember toe day Patriot Kynes was brought to the sietch by the three youths he had saved from the Harkonnens From his mother Otheym heard the story of how the debate on Kynes' fate had raged for hours until the judgment for death prevailed, of how his father, armed with a consecrated knife, approached Kynes, who was enthusiastically speaking to a group
about the water paradise he foresaw for Arrakis, and of how Kynes spoke just two words to Uliet "Remove yourself" as he swept past his would-be assassin What happened then wil! always remain inexplicable without speaking a word, Uhet moved aside and fell on his own knife From that moment Kynes was an umma, a holy man, and in time Uliet was elevated to the sadus the blessed company of heavenly judges As the son of a legend, Otheym came to believe implicitly in the sacred mission of the man who had sanctified his father and bowed to devote his life to torwardmg Kynes' vision
In his jouth, Othejm showed great prom ise as a fighter, as an adult a huge man with broad, flat features, he easily surpassed his father's brilliance on the battlefield As one of Stilgar's most able men, Otheym was among the group sent into the desert by Liet-Kynes' distrans to find the outworlders, Paul Atreides and Jessica Otheym was captured by the power he felt in Paul and surrendered to an unshakable belief that Paul was Lisan al-Gaib incarnate
In tune the faithful disciple became a lieutenant of Muad'Dib's dreaded Fedaykin death commandos On hand the day Muad Dib became a sandnder, Otheym rode with the troop on his hero s worm to the Cave of Birds, where he helped to overwhelm the smugglers who had penetrated there, and where he observed the emotional reunion of Paul and Gurney Halleck Although startled by the sudden attack of the ten Sardaukar who had infiltrated the smugglers, Otheym acquitted himself well in the ensuing melee, accounting for two of the seven Imperial troops slam by the Fremen Undoubtedly Otheym's supreme moment came when he was chosen, with his fnend Korba, to serve on Muad'Dib's War Council to plan the battle strategy against the Padishah Emperor
Otheym was also indispensable m the maneuvers at the Shield Wall prior to the decisive battle at Arrakeen that resulted m the defeat of the emperor's five legions of Sardaukar and the Harkonnen mercenaries Otheym not only functioned as a scout, but also contrived the escape of the two Sardaukar captured with the smugglers and set up watchers to note their progress By Paul's
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direct orders, he was in charge of moving the check patrols out of the blast area before Paul triggered the explosives that breached the Shield Wall. StUgar chronicles that Otheym fought ferociously as theftemen swept across the basin under cover of the storm and then rode with the troops mounted on worms in the final massed attack on the emperor's headquarters.
In the years that followed, Otheym took part in the jihad loosed upon the universe. The unrestrained killing, the massive slaughters, the obliteration of worlds, the incalculable suffering had brought about, he said, "a lessening of me as a man." He had seen wonders, planets where water fell from the heavens, had immersed himself in the sea on Enfeil, and had gone to the ends of the universe to fight OB far distant Gangishree. But he brought home wounds as well' as wonders; his body bore a network of scars and the first {ell-tale traces of the splitting disease (perhaps what the ancients called leprosy?) he caught on Tarahell. With aim when he returned was a "surprise" for his wife Dhuri: Bijaz, a dwarf he bought on Occa, "a toy discarded by he Tleilaxu."
After his discharge, Otheym lived in obscurity with Dhuri and Lichna. his daughter by Mesha, Dhuri's sister who had died before his return. In time most of their sietch hangings and desert tapestries disappeared to pay Otheym's medical bills—sold to rich pilgrims who paid enormous sums for authentic Fremen artifacts. Although embittered, Otheym never ceased being a worshiper of Muad'Dib and was thus ready to serve his emperor once again when Stilgar approached him with suspicions of a plot against Paul.
Accordingly, Otheym moved to a cul-de-sac that housed the suspects to give him the
opportunity to mark the traitors and record their names. Sometime after settling in, Otheym confided to Stiigar his outrage on discovering that Lichna had fallen in love with the blind son of their Fremen neighbor Farok. It was unthinkable that she would flaunt Fremen tradition by consorting with a sightless man! We know from Stilgar's Chronicle that Otheym was mercifully ignorant of his daughter's true plight: that Farok had given her semuta in hope of winning a woman of the People despite his son's blindness—an empty victory since the narcotic destroyed her personality. Nor did Otheym ever discover that Scytale, the Face Dancer, killed Lichna so that he might assume her appearance and lure Paul to a trap at Otheym's house.
Unaware of the trap, Otheym rose above his bitterness and his physical incapacities to perform what he thought was one more service for the man he revered' he informed Paul of the treachery and presented him with a human distrans, the dwarf Bijaz, who had recorded the names of all the traitors. This favor was literally Otheym's last act, because within moments of Paul's leaving, Otheym and his wife were destroyed in the holocaust of a stone burner meant primarily for Paul. Perhaps Otheym was not sorry to depart the world he had told Paul he no longer liked.
Just as his father Uliet, Pardot Kynes' would-be executioner, gave his life for the creator of .the dream of water for Dune, Otheym gave his for his Mahdi: the one who made that dream a reality. D.K.
Further references: SCYTALE, KYNES. PAHDOT; Slilgar ben Flfrawi, The Stilgar Chronicle, tr. Mityau Gwulador, AS 5 (Grumman: United Worlds); JarYet Oslo, Fremen: Lives andLegend (Salusa Secundus: Morgan and Sharak)
PANOPLIA PROPHETICUS
PANOPLIA PROPHETICUS
PANOPUA PROPHETlCaS. The most important source of material for the Bene Gesserit Missionaria Protectiva; an elaborate collection of source legend rituals and training manuals. In it are detailed the methods by which the Sisterhood manipulated religion in order to exploit primitive cultures. In general, this collection contains the prophecies and litanies embedded within young cultures in order to assure protection foe Bene Gesserits doing field work among them. The primary myths used involved the worship of a female deity, the veneration of pregnant women and of the prophetic wisdom of old women, and the salvation inherent in the prophesied male savior figure, legends necessary to protect the breeding lines and the espionage work of the order.
In all the mythic pattern implantations, a formative social group was exposed to "infectious superstition" grounded in their primitive fears of the unknown and in their misunderstanding of the natural world. The spreading of the pattern is best explained by the Theory of the Open-ended Proof: If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you believe something is right or wrong, ttae or false, you believe the assumptions in die words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of holes, but remain most precious to the convinced.
The Panoplia Prophetlcus, therefore, is actually a collection of all the myths ever seeded by the Sisterhood and an index of patterns suitable to specific environments, both natural and social. Until recently, the entire Panoplia Propheticus was thought to be available on the general reference shelves of the
Bene Gesserit Library, but work done under the direction of historian Ahna Judehic, University of Giedi Prime, indicates that the complete collection is actually held in the Bene Gesserit Archives and fills three complete rooms.
The portion of the Panoplia Propheticus available to the general public at the Bene Gesserit Library is composed of three parts: the "Shari-a," which contains the rituals which were seeded; the "Shari-b," which links the rituals, superstitions, and myths to their specific B.G. purposes; and the "Canto et Respondu," a collection of invocation rites, benedictions, and litanies, which takes its name from its first item. All Bene Gesserit novices were required to master the patterned catch phrases which would identify the superstitions and rituals embedded in a given culture, therefore allowing them to immediately acclimate themselves to that culture. They also had to learn the Canto et Respondu for each patterning. Examples of catch phrases which identify superstition patterns are as follows: "Que sera, sera," "The thing must take its course," "You can't keep a good man down," "The coming ol a Reverend Mother to free you," "Behind every great man is a good woman," "Time will tell," "If you want to know, ask a popcorn mavin," and "You had to have been there."
In essence, the Panoplia Propheticus presents a science of religion employed by the Bene Gesserit through their "missionary" branch. One puzzling piece of information was recently discovered about the collection. Although the Missionaria Protectiva supposedly had been disbanded during the Imperi-um of Leto n, compelling evidence indicates
PARACOMPASS
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PARACOMFASS
that the Panoplia Propheticus collection in the Benc Gessent Archives is stilt open to the Sisterhood and active I A C
Further references BENE GESSEMT entries MISSIONARY PROTECTIVA Panoplia ?rophettcvs vol I HI (available only through application to the B G Sisterhood R M MarceUus Jrufan Moiam A Survey of Ancient Bene Gessent Cultural Maintenance Tbsis Archives Quarterly Review 14 26 53 R M Cassms [da Tieac * New Views of an Old System Archives Quarterly Review 15 199253 RM CI Treac and Ahna Judehic, The Roots of Tomorrow (Wallach Soror), Pyer Bnizvair, ed , Samma of Ancient Belief and Practice (Bok-htff Collegium Tanio)
PARACOMPASS. Direction-finding device of Zensunni ongm adapted for use on Arrakis The paracompass is a plastic cylinder from 5 to 7 cm in diameter and 5 to 7 mm thick The clear exterior case can be separated to expose the dial face, the powerpack and the reset mechanism The fiat, calibrated dial is mounted above the powerpack, which uses its parabtchlorotolene (para-B) crystals to filter and amplify minute magnetic fields The reset mechanism a used to "lock on" the chosen force
The paracompass is an adaptation of ancient direction-finding devices Sources in the Rakis Hoard, cross-referenced through die Gmkt Libraries, trace its origin to Harmonthep, whose magnetic field was notoriously ' 'random " There the Zensunm manufactured the first crude paracompass, a liquid-fitted, heavy, and awkward instrument The design evolved as the Zensunm moved, until the magnetic characteristics of Arrakis, coupled with the static disruptions caused by £onolis storms, fostered the precise simplicity demonstrated m paracompass examples recovered from sietch sites on Rakis
Working examples of the paracompass show almost no deterioration of the melange-based plastic casing When the casing has been broken and die powerpack exposed, the para B has degenerated into a large volume of punucekke material As anticipated, the chemical combination of para-B with moisture and small traces of spice creates a fast-expanding and quick-stabilizing foam
Powerpacks used para-B crystals as the ring-shaped core of a special conductive coil made up of discs separated by insulators The crystals are earned through the drilled
centers of the discs The characteristic stable ion properties of the crystals allow them to detect magnetic fields They respond by gen erating electronic impulses which are trans ferred to the conductive disc around the active area and then sent \ia microconnectors to the mimcoils that wrap the connectors These coils cause the dial face to rotate, giving a direction setting The dial is calibrated in standard radian increments The 0 2 radian mark is polanzed to be attracted by the mimcoils
The reset system is ingeniously simple It lets the user select the magnetic pull that is to be the reference point, and then read directions relative to that source The reset button, when depressed seats m one of the notches that surround the rotating powerpack The dial can still rotate freely relative to the powerpack When the dial is properly lined up with a known magnetic "pull, the user releases the reset button so that the powerpack and dial will rotate together from then on
The powerpack s crystals remain sensi tized to the alignment of forces at the mo ment the powerpack is released to rotate The level of intensity produced by a particu lar "pulF remains embedded m the crystalline ' memory" until the paracompass is reset the next time If the user had set his compass to the magnetic "pull source he had intended, he could count on reading accurate relative directions from his para compass until the next time it was reset
The Fremen used their paracompasses to maintain their hearings in spite of sand storms and dune shifts Children were trained in compass use from an early age, and learned the relative positions of various magnetic sources because their survival would often depend on their accuracy with the instrument The Kitab al Ibar's tag, 'Know always that which pulls you, a human led blindly is easily led astray,' is testimony to the importance of the "pull Everyone who could walk the sand possessed and mastered the paracompass
Outline knowledge of major magnetic sources, and even a rough calibration of their absolute strengths, was available on some of the sinkcharts published in villages In spite of some drifting since the Imperial
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PROCES VERBAL
era, the references remain approximately accurate Extant working models of the paracompass have been tested and found to work faultlessly J L G
Further references. FREMKIT Anon Kttab at-4bar Rakis Ref Cat 1 Z288
PErfTASHELD. A secunty device produced by special application of field-generator effects Pentashields were localized planar fields suitable for enclosed areas like doorways or passageways They made use of five adja cent cyclically polarized fields As used in escapeways or pru-doorj,, peateshields allowed the passage only of people wearing a properly coded dissembler The large, complex, and bulky field generators needed to produce a pentashield made them expensive and relatively rare
Further references, HOLTZMAN EFFECT PRU DOOR
FROCKS VERBAL. Legal proceedings and the threat thereof played a large part in die cnses of the Impenum, but none more so than that of the proces verbal, which figured prominently in several crucial events at the beginning of the Atreides dynasty Bergen Perobler's ' History of Proces-Verbaux" (3 Quadrant law Review, Ser 23 35,1147-76), die most original article on the history of jurisprudence written in this generation, is the basis of the present extract
The difficulty tor the legal historian began with the Rakis Finds many of the crystals refer to the prods verbal, at first understood as a sermlbrmal report alleging a crime against the Impenum (as in, e g, Stilgar's Com mentary), yet this definition was immediately objected to by the first legal experts to study the translations Realizing that in every culture legal terminology has erred on the side of over-precision, these experts asked how something could "fall between a loose verbal allegation and a formal charge of crime" (Mahmut al-Saudin, District Magi strafe's Procedures 353, Rakis Ref Cat 11-R3433) In all societies, it was argued, a charge of crime is made or is not made In the legal sense, no status is afforded to muttenngs, rumors, and the like
Moreover, research into the most ancient
meanings of proces verbal failed to illumi nate the matter It is now established beyond question that the term ongmated in Terran Franzh, yet there (see Peroblcr, 1150) its meaning was precise an authenticated writ ten statement of facts in support of a crimi nal or other charge ' Perobler therefore faced a point of law that seemed anomalous in the history of the Impenum whose members were, as a rule, scrupulous to the point of fanaticism m observing even ihe minutest of formal legalities a term of precise meaning had somehow been deliberately changed to cover the most amorphous of situations, yet the whole legal system used the term so familiarly that none of them bothered to define its new meaning, apparently assuming it would be completely understood
And there was another problem despite the adjective customarily applied to it— ' loose," "informal " semtforma!"—the mere mention of a proces verbal was terrifying SmdarTiaron Vladimir Harkonnen was momentarily panicked by the hint chat a proces verbal might have been brought against him (Count Hasimir Fenrmg Confidential Impen al Report 10 192 8 13 Rakis Ref Cat 3-L723), similarly, Aha's proces verbal against the Fedaykm drove that battle-hardened group underground (although in this case, since Alia was Imperial Regent, her report—to herself—was merely a stratagem to mask a tyrannical action) If the proces verbal was not a formal charge of crime why should Jt have been so feared9 Many argued erroneously that the phrase had been mistranslated, since the worst that could succeed such a report would be increased surveillance of the person against whom the proces \erbal had been made
The insight that led to Perobler's solution to these problems was his assumption that people like Harkonnen and Aha white aware of the power of words, would worry more about actions He therefore abandoned the umversall; held notion that the proces verbal was a matter of legal procedure, and instead hypothesized that it was a tort—a wrongful action Yet clearly, he reasoned, the proces verbal was something one said, theretore, for words to be actions, they must be a special kind of words called "performatives "
PROCfcS VERBAL
PROCES VERBAL
Perfonnatives have been studied in classes in elementary logic since the time of the ancient Terran philosopher named J.L. Austin (probably the St. Augustine quoted by Lady Jessica): performatives are those words which, when spoken, constitute an action. For example, when the words "I promise to behave myself' are spoken under the appropriate circumstances, they are in fact a promise; when one says, "I bet you five sovereigns," the words do not describe a bet, they are a bet. Other examples would include marriage vows, bequests, and the like. Hence, in most legal systems for thousands of years, a report of a performative statement has been admissible as evidence, since it is regarded not as a report of what someone said (for it would then be inadmissible as hearsay) but as evidence of an action, of what someone did. Following this hunch, Perobler began to investigate records of the Summa Imperial Court, searching for decisions establishing performatives with legal consequences.
As legal historians now know, he found such a decision (Imperium vs. Meljacanz, S.I.C, Sidir XX, 9670). Sidir XX, sixty-third Emperor of House Corrino, had proclaimed a law forbidding false accusations of treason the year before, Meljacanz was a merchant who had spread certain rumors about a competitor, Agnan. To his surprise, Meljacanz found himself not in civil court answering a charge of slander but in criminal court being prosecuted under the newly enacted law. Oo appeal, the Summa Court held that Meljacaoz's words constituted ian accusation in the proces verbal sense. Although Agnan had not been present when the words were spoken, his witnesses had, and then testimony was not hearsay, ruled the court, but an account of what Meljacanz had done. His accusation, Iney ruled, had been performative.
Within a century, this ruling had been perverted from a safeguard against slander to a subtle means of oppression. Under an Imperial law of Loag standing, if A charged B with speaking treason, B could refuse to take the witness stand, claiming the ancient protection against seff-inctimiaation. Now that the Summa Court had unwittingly laid the groundwork, A would charge himself with speaking treason (by means of an anony-
mous proces verbal; such documents, through some twisted humor in legal tradition, were usually ascribed to "Agnan, whereabouts unknown"). In defending himself against the charge, A would then summon B as a witness to his innocence. If B refused to take the stand, A would petition the court to declare B a reluctant witness. As such, B could not refuse to testify without risking contempt of court, the sentence for which lasted until B purged himself of contempt by taking the stand, and from which there was no appeal. Nor could B, if he took the stand, object to the presence of a truthtrance observer.
In one case Perobler uncovered, a victim remained jailed on contempt charges for sixty-eight years, dying in prison on Salusa Secundus. After B had been removed from the picture, 'A could then demand to be confronted by his accuser; since "Agnan" could not be found (since no such person existed), the court would not dismiss the case—such would allow B to be freed—but rather would suspend proceedings until "Agnan" was located, releasing A on his own recognizance, The notorious Imperial informer Elson Ketrer had been so released 201 times when he was assassinated in 10075.
We can now much more clearly appreciate Baron Harkonnen's fear. Count Fenring was indirectly threatening to have such an anonymous proces verbal drawn up against himself (being in fact if not in form unsigned, such an accusation richly deserved the adjective "loose"). When brought before the court, Fenring would then have called Harkonnen as a defense witness, catching the Baron in this dilemma: if Harkonnen refused to testify, he could be jailed on contempt; if he testified before a truthtrance observer, he would certainly have revealed more than enough to subject himself to a whole spectrum pf Imperial Charges.
Despite this brilliant and intuitive piece of scholarship, Perobler felt that what he had found still did not completely explain the situation of Alia's proces verbal. Surely she could not have called all the Fedaykin as defense witnesses; that line of action would have been too much for even the complacent courts of her regency. As Perobler discovered, Alia directed that the proces verbal charging
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crimes against the Impenum be drawn up not by "Agnan" but against him, and signed simply, 'a Fedaykin " She then directed the court to bring an indictment against the mdi vidual Fedaykin who (so the fiction went) had made the accusation All Fedaykin were summoned to establish who that anonymous (indeed, nonexistent) accuser had been Aha thus took serious advantage of the comic lament that only with the proces vefbat could both plaintiff and defendant be guilty
In running down these facts, Perobler stum bled across one of history's most savage ironies Alia's proces verbal against the Fedaykin was, of course, aimed indirectly against her mother In countering the threat Lady Jessica sent a simple message to Stilgar ' 'My daughter is possessed and must be put to the trial" (Sugar's Chronicles HI 92) With this short message, Lady Jessica played on the deep revulsion the Bremen felt for possession by spirits, and at the same time included a reply for Aha alone Both the pre born Aha and her mother, die Bene Gessent-tramed Reverend Mother Jessica, had the experience of all their predecessors avail able to their conscious minds Both could therefore have recognized that m one of the ancestor tongues of Galaeh, the official impen al language, the first use of proces verbal was m the title of a book Although only that tide has survived, it is nevertheless instructive A Relation of the Devill Balams Departure out of the Body of the Mother Prtoresse of the Vrsulttie Nuns of London, with the Extract of the proces verballt touching the Exorasmes wrought at London (1635) Lady Jessica was certainly aw*re of the fitness of this coincidence, whether Aha knew but disregarded it in her choice of legal maneuver even Perobler does not venture to guess WEM
PRCJ-DOOR. The idiomatic term for "prudence door" or prudence burner, a pentashiekl sttuat ed in a passageway or escapeway intended to halt or slow pursuers TTiese pemasmelds allowed passage only to people wearing a properly coded dissembler They were used during the late Imperial period in hidden escapeways and, as a safety feature, in gladiatorial arenas Their cost and difficulty
of maintenance limited their use to the very wealthy The harsh realities of Imperial cul ture forced even the most powerful rulers to employ such sophisticated safety precautions
Farther references HOLTZMAN EFFECT PENTASHIELD
PSEUDO-SHIELD. A sabotage device designed for use only on Arrakis It produced an unusable field that emitted radiation like a true defensive shield driving sandworms berserk Nothing could stop a worm that had been aroused by this maddeningly painful device The huge creature would attack and destroy the pseudo shield and all nearby objects
Further references HOLTZMAI
PENTA5HIELD
EFFECT SEMI SHIELD
FUND! RICE A cereal indigenous to Caladan, the staple food of that planet, first brought to the planet Arrakis by House Atreides Rice is a variety of annual grass grown m areas where sufficient water is available to submerge the land Rice is thrown by hand onto the ground and after twenty five to thirty days, seedlings are transplanted to Fields which are then submerged The crop is harvested by hand
Since nee requires so much water, its only availability on Arrakis was as an import It was subsequently genetically engineered to shorten the growing period and need less water After the ecological transformation of Arrakis by Leto II, a new breed of pundi nee became a staple food of that planet
Over the course of the century during which this transformation took place pundi nee had taken on a significance beyond that of food As Muad Dib s memory became sacred, the Fremen sought a way to properly commemorate the Kwisatz Haderach Since nee was so scarce, it was chosen to symbolize the scarcity of the single most sought after possession on the planet water Pundi nee was chosen not only because it had arrived on Arrakis with Muad Dib s House Atreides, but also because ot its slightly teardrop shape
The Fremen believed the teardrop to repre sent the giving of water to the dead a precious gift to those who cannot use it Pundi nee came to symbolize the giving of
FUND! RICE
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water to the living, to celebrate the "shortening of the way."
The ceremony which evolved, in which "the shortening of the way" came to refer to the shorter time needed to make Airakis a temperate planet, was held annually because it took a year to collect enough rice to provide each sietch member with the ritual mouthful. The ceremony itself singled out four people, traditionally those who had distinguished themselves in some way during the year.
Under the guidance of the sietch Naib,, the four would each receive one mouthful of rice, placed before them in the center of an enormous bowl. The size of the bowl, contrasting with the portion of rice, symbolized the enormity of the task yet ahead. The sayings "May your bowl be full" and "My bowl is now full" to indicate the start and achievement of tremendous tasks have their roots in the pundi rice ceremony.
The Naib and the four sat in the middle of a circle of all the sietch members. The circle
symbolized the equality of importance of each man, woman and child in the achievement of the task. The Naib would hold up his bowl of rice and say:
"The water of our world is created by four things," to which the four participants would add, in turn:
"The learning of the wise;"
"The justice of the great;"
"The prayers of the good at heart;"
"The valor of the brave."
The leader would then continue: "But all of these are as nothing, all of these are as a teardrop given to the dead, without the tears of all of us, given that we may live." Then before any one of the four touched his rice, the Naib served every member of the sietch his "bowl of tears," which were then eaten grain by grain, slowly, to symbolize the length of time the task would take. L.L.
Further references: CEREMONY OF THE SEED; Defa '1-Ruiini, Taaj 'l-Fremen, 12 v. (Salusa Secundus' Morgan and Sharak).
RABBAN, COUNT GLOSSU. (10132-10193). Siridar-Rcgent of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen on AnaJtis during the period House Harkonnen held it as a subfief. Count Glossu was the soa of Abulurd, Vladimir's youngest demi-brother. Glossu's regency on Arraltis was notorious for its cruel suppression of the natives, which earned him the epithet "Beast Rahban." He was lolled during the assault on Arrakeen by Eremea forces.
Glossu's father, Abulurd, was the product of Gunseng Harkonnen and Gunella Sorvaag; of the children of concubines, only Abulurd survived the deadly political climate of the royal palace of Harko. Once Vladimir was pronounced na-Baron, Abulurd renounced the
Harkonnen name and all rights to the title in exchange for the subdistrict governorship of Rabban-Lankiveil. He really had no choice: Gunseng wished a clear and undisputed succession, and Abulurd could not compete with Vladimir,
While Count of Rabban-Lankiveil, Abulurd took as concubine Thora Rabban, daughter of Elsun Rabban, a Minor House ruler. She bore him two sons, Glossu and Feyd-Rautha. Feyd-Rautiia's superior talents made him na-Baron of Giedi Prime, but even so, Glossu won a name for himself, though an infamous one.
Glossu was stocky of build, with the Harkonnen paternal line's narrow-set eyes,
425
and as slow wttted as he was thughke m appearance What he lacked m brightness he more than made up for in crude power of will Once he made up his mind to do something it was done with tenacity, not with style or subtlety He delighted in crushing his opponents by sheer strength But above all, he obeyed orders, having little persona] initiative
Such a character appealed to Vladimir when he was awarded the melange riches of Arrakis The Baron had great ambitions for this financial coup—a CHOAM Directorship and the defeat of House Atreides Vladimir had too many other irons m the fire to administer Arrakis personally and Feyd-Rautha was too young to serve ID hts stead, but Glossu was trusted and available House Harkonnen needed alt the capital it could get for Vladimir's schemes Consequently, when Glossu was made Siridar-Regent, his orders were to produce high yields of melange with the lowest possible overhead, to squeeze the planet s population and economy In addition, his success would also be measured by how much spice he was able to stuff into secret Harkonnen warehouses
The Count was the needed steamroller Arrakis' native population became a slave-labor force But as repression continued, more and more Arrakians either plotted rebellion or fled to the desert And with each instance of sabotage, real or suspected, Glossu increased the numbers of agents, executions, and police sweeps
By these techniques the general popula tion was cowed Yet the dungeons of Carthag became the central symbol of evil as they continuously swallowed anyone even remotely associated with anti Harkonnen mtnguc or propaganda Meanwhile the Arrakians worked reluctantly for minimal wages and neglected the maintenance of spice-production equipment
The major cost of this repression was the number of Fremen who fled to the desert Beast Rabbaa could not reach them mere nor could he survey their activities, because the Guild refused to orbit reconnaissance satellites over the southern polar regions of Dune Harkonnen expeditions there were in variably wiped out Fremen enclaves remained
outside his control, resulting in the Revolution undertaken by Muad'Dib Then Glossu's cruelty returned to him, fatally
This cruelty is usually attributed to House Harkonnen itself, whose genetic constitution over the centuries acquired a sadistic nature Yet mis cause fails to perceive Counl Glossu as an individual in his own time Much of his bullying was probably the result of sibling rivalry between him and his younger and more intelligent and attractive brother, Feyd-Rautha An older brother, passed over for approval, will often turn bitter, especially if the reasons for the preference are sound
Following the defeat of the Red Duke on Arrakis and Glossu s restoration as Siridar-Regent, he squeezed the Arrakians even harder, not only tor personal relish but to gain favor with his uncle He had something to prove Even though Feyd Rautha was na-Baron, Glossu thought he could advance his own fortunes by surpassing his previous history of ruthlessness with a supreme demonstra tion of loyalty, as it were Little did he know that this brutality was exactly what Vladimir wanted before deposing him to bnng m Feyd-Rautha as the savior of \rrakis
But Vladimir's scheme was frustrated Before the rupturing of the Shield Wall Glossu had been sent to review the perimeter of Harkonnen forces around Arrakeen There he was killed during the onslaught of sand worm riders storming through the breach
In spite of his reputation for ferocity, Glossu Rabbdn must go down m history as a mere tool, used at ever} turn by Baron Harkonnen He might feel better were he to know that both Feyd Rautha and his uncle also died in the greater game of empire S T
Farther references HOUSE HARKONNEN HARKONNEN
VLADIMIR HARKONNEN FEYD-RAUTHA, KleVMlZ D KlUiaT
Fear My Power Respect My Name 10 000 Years of Harktmnens (Geidi Pnme Trammel) Marya von Wikk heiser House Harkonnen tr Arazni Pezb SAH 76 (Paseo Institute of Galacto-Fremeti Culture)
RAKIS HMDS. DISCOVERY Laymen believe that weather control satellites and modern ecology will turn every inch oi a planet into an Eden, but they are wrong The change of chmate obtains for the planet as a whole, and depending on a multitude of considera
RAKIS HNPS
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RAKIS FINDS
tions, some parts will benefit more than others The Kalatorano region of Rakis most probably looks a great deal like it did when the planet deserved the name Dune, since it has benefitted less than most It is a region of karst topography, with poorly-vegetated rolling hills, their dusty surface punctuated here and there with steep sink-boles Less rain falls in Kalatorano than is typical for the planet, and seeps quickly into the soil, leaving it as dry the next day as it was die day before The only settlement of important size in Kalatorano is die city of Dar-es-Balai, a minor administrative center for the region
Al-Habaqi, mayor of Dar-es Balat, was an energetic and far-sighted man, ambitious to improve the economy of his city and region He successfully urged the construction of a large stadium on the outskirts of town, both as a public works project of importance to the area and as a recreational facility And the stadium was only one of several plans he had devised both to increase the population and to stimulate commerce. First, he hoped that the unusual topography, if skillfully promoted, would attract tourists to the natural bridge, the limestone caverns, and the sink-holes Second less sure but with greater potential, wealth might flow from the mining of uranium, if survey reports fulfilled the promise that {hey showed. Anticipating a substantial growth for Dar-es-Balat, al-Habaqi lobbied and secured authorization for a stadium that would accommodate every resident of the city (as it was then) with ease
Nor would the stadium empty the public purse The site (which he himself had originally proposed) would take advantage of several thousand years of nature's cooperation A water course had run Bear Dar-es-Baiat since the renewing of Rakis, and the erosion of millennia had worn an originally shallow valley many meters deeper But a century before al-Habaqi's term m office, the river had been diverted Now the valley stood dry not fer from the town, its walls forming two sides of a natural amphitheater AI-Habaqi argued plausibly that relatively little excavating of the valley, moving earth from the center of the slopes, would form a cheap foundation for the cement to be poured And it would be a secure foundation, too know-
ing the caverns that wormed through the rock in the area, al-Habaqi was careful to engage engineers to sound the floor of the valley Their instruments showed solid earth and rock to the limits of their reliability
After the ceremonial groundbreaking al Habaqi often took time from his official duties to watch the progress of the work that would cap his career, the stadium that he fervently and secretly hoped would bear his name Thus, he was watching from the top of a hill on a hot, dusty afternoon of Madai, the second of Shawwal, 15525 In the valley below him, large earthmovers were scraping away, already in some places five meters deeper than the old streambed It was before his astonished eyes, therefore, that one of the large shovels stopped, seemed to tremble for a few seconds, and then vanished from sight
By the time al Habaqi scrambled to the valley floor a comedy of errors was in progress, a comedy which the plajers were in no position to appreciate Twelve tons of shovel had disappeared leaving not even a track m the dirt Standing some meters away were two workers and a foreman, when they saw the shovel disappear, they ran to the spot, and they too vanished An understand able caution now took possession of the construction crew, who, hesitant to move any closer, formed a rough circle some thirty meters m diameter around the place where the shovel had stood Within the circle was the bare unbroken floor of the excavation, but no trace of the shovel or the four people
Within moments the paralysis was broken when the bystanders heard cries for help from their missing fellows, still nowhere to be seen A supervisor then climbed into the cab of an omnimover drove to the edge of the circle and extended its waldoes horizontally to their full limit, they slowly entered the circle and passed through it in plain view to the opposite side To an increasingly panicky chorus of cnes for help, the supervisor retracted the waldoes and sat bemused m the cab
A faint tearing sound was heard, which grew to a crackling, rumbling roar Just then, one of the spectral vou.es tried, 'Look out'' and the omnimover appeared to lift its rear end into the air Then it too, together
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with four workers standing beside it, disap peared Almost simultaneously, workers winked from view here and there around the circle With the roaring m their ears, the remnant of the crew rushed for the nearby valley walls
Most huddled in shock at various heights above the placid-looking excavation floor although some stopped their retreat only upon reaching Dar-es-Balat Those m full Sight therefore missed the disappearance of the other heavy equipment—trucks, cranes, even the construction trailer—as, to the accompaniment of sharp cracks, they one by one departed from view
Al Habaqi was among the lucky, and he saw mirrored in the faces around him his own confusion and terror, yet as he looked longingly at the construction engineer for some sign of expert understanding, he saw still another emotion—utter amazement—added to those the man already displayed Follow ing the engineer's gaze, al-Habaqi's own chin fell to his chest as he saw die bucket of the shovel rise from the excavation floor like a metal beanstalk Seconds later, a dusty and disheveled foreman—the second person to be blotted out—rose bit by bit from the ground, obviously climbing die arm of the shovel When the foreman reached die bucket, he shouted, 'Get back'"
"The floor's a mirage,1'he said "There's a big cave down there, and some of us are hurt The whole valley might collapse "
The engineer, to whom these words were addressed, was fixed m a slack-jawed stupor, but a clerk called back to the foreman "There's a commset m the shovel—call Dar-es-Balat'"
The foreman climbed down, apparently swallowed up by the valley floor A few minutes later he reappeared
"The commset's working, but we can t get anybody, not even the commercial stations'"
"How do you know it's working?"
"When we call, it comes over the sets m the other equipment down there "
The clerk had a receiver on a chain around her neck, and the music from Ihe small, shell-like ornament now became the loudest sound on the site
"Well, I'm picking up a station," she said ' 'The fall must have broken the set m the shovel''
Al Habaqi listened with an increasing sense of unreality as there then ensued an argument shouted from valley floor to side between a tattered man on a metal pole and a woman holding a coffee pot about the quality, maintenance and durability of the commsets purchased by the Tarabuq Construction Company When the argument progressed heatedly from the equipment to the management of the company, he said quietly, "Excuse me, but you have a coffee pot in your hand "
With a puzzled expression the clerk looked at the container whose handle she clenched m her fist, and at the blood in her palm where her nails had dug into her hand The observation seemed to clear her mind Giving the pot to the mayor, she said "111 go to town for help " and headed up the hillside
Thus it was that al Habaqi sat, sipping coffee from a pot, staring at what looked like a raving flagpole sitter, when the rescue 'thopters arrived
Leto's no-room had been found
EXPLORATION Even before the nature of the discovery became known the Rakis Finds were protected by swift initial action, both governmental and private After the fortuitous breakthrough of the construction crew into the subterranean vaults rescue help was swift in arriving After the workers had been removed from the partially col lapsed floor of the cxca\ ation site near Dar es-Balat, the whole Mte was cordoned off by police Their action protected the material within the structure below, even though their concern was simply that more subsidence might occur In this assumption they were correct, tor smaller falls took place on the third and fourth of Shawwal until the slope of the pit was stabilized Local officials, not realizing what had been brought to light, assumed that the site inspection had been m error, and that the pit opened into a natural cavern But those workers who had fallen into it soon convinced the town leaders that they had not been inside a cave, but inside a carefully finished chamber
Regional officials who conducted the first intentional descent into the chambers imme
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diately recognized that they had penetrated a storehouse of artifacts. Under Rakeen law, antiquities are the property of die government, and officials temporarily sealed the opening until expert help could be obtained in the investigation. The famous archaeologist Hadi Benotto was in the quadrant, attending a regional conference, and she was summoned to Rakis. Under her direction, die exploration of the Rakis Finds began.
As the Fremen used to say of those whom fortune favored, aksi-ni-tawban mn jah—and indeed, that day all mankind was "dressed in a garment of glory." The diagram ' 'Leto's No-Room, Sideview'' shows the relationship of die excavation site to die structure beneath it; had die stream that cut the valley been half a kilometer in any direction from its actual position, the library of Leto II would not have been found.
The impressions of the first explorers of the library were widely reported in the popular media and are available in a number of books (see below, Further References). What follows here is a description of the structure inside Leto's no-room, and some speculations about its form.
The library is made up of hexagonal chambers, each thirty meters in diameter and fifteen meters from floor to ceiling. "Walls and ceilings diroughout are one meter thick, and each successively lower level contains one more ring of chambers than the level above it. The 159-meter depth of the structure, therefore, could theoretically contain 1001 chambers of the specified size, but each level has been worked into a pattern that diminishes the total number of chambers. Communication between levels is by means of a circular ramp that connects the central
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room on each level Reference to the diagrams of the ten levels will disclose the arrangement of the chambers on each
Level 1 30 m in diameter, one room No crystals were found here, and its purpose, at (he very top of the structure, is a mystery
Level 2 92 m in diameter, 7 rooms Some crystals in the northwest room were damaged by falling rock and equipment
Level 3 154 m in diameter, 13 rooms in a trefoil shape
Level 4 216 m in diameter, 22 rooms m an extended trefoil with divided leaves
Level 5 278 m in diameter, 49 rooms in sin hexagons around a central hexagon Workers dubbed this level "hexagon squared "
Level 6 340 m in diameter, 61 rooms in a trefoil arrangement of six hexagonal rings with branches
Level 7 402 m in diameter, 73 rooms in a trefoil of three hexagonal rings with complex, asymmetrical branches
Level 8 464 m in diameter (theoretically), 89 rooms The eighth is the only level with an apparently random arrangement of chambers and the only one except for Level 1 to contain no crystals Researchers called this level ' the Wormhole '
Level 9 526 m m diameter, 121 rooms m a hexafoil arrangement of hexagonal rings, six with connecting stems Nicknamed "Leto's Bouquet" >
Level 10 588 m in diameter, 175 rooms arranged m concentric galleries, "the Dragon s Lair * From the northeast corner of this level, a tunnel leads downward at a five-degree decline The ceiling of the tunnel has fallen or been made to fall about a hundred meters from the level opening, closing it for a considerable but undetermined distance If continued in a straight line (with an eventual ascension), it would pass under the intersection of longitude 50° east with latitude 60° north Nothing in mat region would explain its destination Excavation of the tunnel to determine its path will require heavy equipment and an enormous expenditure of funds, and cannot begin m any case until all the crystals have been cataloged and removed
That task is proceeding slowly for one reason only despite diligent search, no in dex or catalog of the collection has yet been
found, nor is there any grouping of materials by subject, date, area, author or any other arrangement jet tested Majority opinion at present is that there existed no system to the shelving of the contents Leto simply remem bered where each one was, startling as that may seem, and in view of his enormous lifespan saw no more need to classify them than we would to index the contents of each room of our houses
The feeling one experiences within the structure is complex One feels dwarfed by the scale of the chambers, and the unvarying sameness of the rooms produces a lessening of alertness A typical room has walls and ceiling of the gray of synthrock, on each storage wall are rows of black metal shelves fixed one above the other at a distance of 260 cm The nduhan crystal papers he side by side on these shelves Unmodified glow plants encircle the room where the walls meet the ceiling and their dim light reflects from the crystals, casting patterns on the underside of each shelf much like those reflected from the surface of a pool of water Yet water reflections change as the water ripples, but the crystal reflections are un-moving, unchanging When someone with a heavy tread approaches the position of the observer his tread sets up \ibrations in the crystals, making the reflections quiver long before the footfall is heard It has been suggested that this phenomenon functions as a soundless alarm and that someone tamihar with the structure of the whole could detect the whereabouts of an intruder from charac tenstic vibrations of the reflected light Like so many facets in the library this suggestion has not been investigated So unnerving can the movement of the reflections be, however, that all researchers inside the library are required to wear cushioned slippers and to move deliberately
The dimensions of the chambers seem not to be scaled to human proportions, this per ception is especially strong on level 10 There are no doors between rooms, passage from one chamber to another is through a 20 meter by 10 meter archway Standing m the core room on the tenth level with galler KS stretching away in six directions, one s mind balks at the distances conveyed as the
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rooms diminish toward the six vanishing points, and one feels located at the center of a mirrored room, rather than at the nexus of hundred-meter hallways
It is difficult to see how a human being can have a sense of the whole at any level below the fourth, yet workers ifi the library have surprisingly uniform reactions to various levels Those with a strong sense of direction respond comfortably to symmetrical levels such as 5 and 9, their discomfort increases (though not greatly) in the asymmetrical trefoil levels of 4 and 7 But most unexpected was the reaction to level 6, that level is unique in that it is bilaterally symmetrical along the norm-south axis, but asymmetrical along the east west axis Workers on the level unconsciously align their desks to face either north or south When this was noticed, certain psychological tests were conducted In one, half of the carrels brought into the central room were arranged facing north or south, and half facing east or west Workers invariably chose die north-south desks When all the desks in the room were bolted to the floor facing east or west, subjects would begin their tasks at the desks, but within minutes they would carry then papers to another level The fear of greatly decreasing the efficiency of translators on die sixth level brought the experiment to an end, but the sixth level was later replicated at the University of flsmersy on Diana for additional testing The eighth level was unchallenged for producing a negative effect on its inhabitants, but since no crystals—indeed nothing of any kind—was stored on this level, it presented no problems
Why Leto n created the library IB this form, and whether this was in fact its final form, are questions that will not soon be answered Perhaps die different levels satisfied some cyclical need for symmetry, asymmetry, and randomness Perhaps, as Tolver Arb has suggested, level 8 was created dur ing a period of insanity Perhaps as many have speculated, the library was in a continual process of creation, with new levels being opened as materials accumulated Certainly the space was available within die no-room of the Holtzman Sphere, many more chemi-bers could have been excavated Yet to all
these suggestions there are problems no lev el shows signs of earlier or later construction (so far as we can tell) than any other The only entrance or exit is the tunnel on the tenth level, it was from there that the work must have begun The dazzling discovery of the crystals should not blind us to the fact that in the structure of the library itself there are a multitude of puzzles, the answers to which may tell us much that is valuable about the psychology of the builder of the library, and hence much about the empire that he maintained for so long W E M
Further references IXIAN NO-ROOMS Hadi Benotlo Leto s Library Structure and Function L brary Confra lenity Extra Series 7 Adib 1 Haddad / Fell Into the Past Anakis Studies 17 (Giumman United Worlds) Toiver Arb The Levels of the Rakis Library Studies in Imperial History 23 87 104 Ismnl al Habaqi My Lfe and Times (Caladan Interplanetary News Service Books)
RAMALLO, REVEREND MOTHER ALYNDA.
Spiritual guide of the Fremen This holy woman's final act initiated the Lady Jessica into the mysteries of the office of Reverend Mother The ceremony was occasioned by the Reverend Mother s premonition of her own death, since at that time she was already very old, her life very bnrtie
Yet, despite the apparent fragility of her body under its hooded gown, Muad Dib was to recall later the aura of Idtent strength flowing from her presence touching all who saw her He was reminded then he later said, of Reverend Mother Gams Helen Mohiam and the certainty of power and authority she radiated when he first met her
The comparison could give neither Reverend Mother Gams Helen nor Reverend Mother Alynda Ramallo any slight Both were wholly dedicated servants of a cause they believed m Each in her own way fulfilled a vital mission and did so with foresight and courage What was unknown until the Dar es Balat dig was the precise extent to which then- mutual bond was forged by the Lady Jessica Natural mother and spiritual mother blood history sensibility mission—past, present, and future—merged in Jessica To her and in her was bequeathed and held the ancient thought and way the independence, resilience, and strength of maternal genetics
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and early training, and the rebirth of courage, experience, and spirit of her inheritance from Mother Ramallo
A fascinating question has been raised by the Rakis Finds did Mohiam and Ramallo meet'' Did they in fact form a friendship that endured across decades and lightyears^ The conjecture arises from these circumstances One of the chief teachers of Helen was the Reverend Mother Decius Nancy Croesia, who included among her other duties traveling to various planets in periodic checks on the effectiveness of the Panopha Prophcticus On such a tnp to Dune, Helen accompanied her, and R M Croesia records in her Memoirs that her student made a close friend of a Fremen girl named Alynda—and Alynda was Ramallo's first name If this was Ramallo, could she have known, when she befriended an only slightly younger girl named Helen Mohiam, that weir lives would be inextricably twined? Could either of them foresee men that the secret child of one would become the spiritual child and heir of the other'
If so, then Reverend Mother Gams Helen played a generous part la directing matters so that Jessica's ordeal and triumph would take place at the hands of the beloved Rever end Mother Ramallo
Truly the Reverend Mother of the Fremen had had a distinguished career, marked by admiration, respect, and love And the achievements of "Alynda were recorded with obvious pleasure by Reverend Mother Gaius Helen in her diaries By no meaas had she forgotten her old friend For her, 'Alynda" would always be the image of the sleader, laughing confidante of so long ago Of this life-long attachment. Gains Helen wrote 'If there is, or ever has been, any love in me to give I gave it first to that charming girl who took a shy and awkward newcomer under her soft wing Only Jessica, afterward, could have shared a place with her in my heart' One hopes fervently that future translations will confirm or disprove the tantalizing possibih ty that * 'Alynda ' was Ramallo
Indeed, the strange history of th& relation ship between these three Reverend Mothers will perhaps never be fully revealed That Reverend Mother Ramallo had the protoundest
effect on Jessica on the occasion of their only meeting is entirely comprehensible In the act of becoming the new Reverend Moth er of the Fremen the Lady Jessica literally and figuratively absorbed the life and being of her predecessor How closely that life was linked with her past, she was never to know Jessica did realize however the exceptional quality of the body of experience and value of spirit she inherited from Mother Ramallo but she did not realize until far too late that the ceremony also created St Aha of the Knife, the Abomination G E
Further references R M Decius Nancy Croesia Uemons tr Ewan Gwaladar B G Foundation Studies 3 (Diana Tevis) R M Gams Helen Mohiam Diaries Lib Com Temp Ser 133
REPKIT. A kit containing repair and replace ment essentials for Fremen stillsmts Repkits have been found throughout the digs in the major sietches and are assumed to have been as much a part of everyday Fremen life as the stillsuit itself The kits found as part of the traveling package, contained spare filtplugs two or three lengths of watertube, patch material and an awl and polynvets Larger kits found in most yalis contain larger amounts of the same supplies
The lengths of watertube are identical to the original issue equipment They provided insurance in case one of the tubes was cut by a rock while climbing or creased bv careless sleeping The awl s point could distend and even slit the ends of tubing so that a self shrinking splice could be made in the field
The patch material is the same nonpermeable outer layer fabric used in original manufacture The polynvets are small, solid cylinders be fore they are used, but approximately 3 mm of each end is a malleable melange-ethelene compound The middle section apparently cured differently is a harder version of the same material The diameter is about 4 mm, and lengths vary between 7 mm and 9 mm Slices, rips holes and tears m the original outer layer could be repaired by applying a piece from the repkit to the outside of the affected area, using the awl to penetrate both new and old layers and attaching the new over the old with polynvets through the holes Once a rivet was in place, finger
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pressure on both ends would peen the malleable ends and bold the two layers of fite together Judging by the number of extensively patched stillsuits discovered, the nvet repair was not only satisfactory in the field but was structurally strong enough to last a long time The rivets alone were not enough, however, upon the wearer's return to sietch the rough patches were heat-treated at the edges to guarantee a waterproof seal
Anthropologtzers have theorized about the extent to which the reports' fUtplugs have been modified from general issue standards Conceivably, the detailed adjustment (presumably for fit) of many of the spates indicates the prudence of the owner and therefore aided survival Studies are underway to process data about numbers of plugs, numbers of modified plugs, proportions at different sites, and general condition of the associated stillsuits The goal is significant correlations indicating survival propensities of different characteristics Cynics have won dered if, since the universal sizing of filtplugs seems to have been reasonably efficient, the Fremen who fiddled with their spares were the lazy and incompetent who \vere "excused" from spending time on more important tasks
The repkits appear to have been the most important emergency supplies earned by Fremen They seem to have been earned everywhere and always Keeping the stillsuit in good repair was a very high Fremen pnonty J L G
Further references) FILTPLUO WATEBTUBB
REVEREND MOTHER. A tide bestowed on those venerable guardians of the Bene Gessent whose ability to use theit bodies as vessels m transforming the Water of Life, for purposes of illumination, earned them a place among the Elect
Evidence gathered from the previously sealed Archives of the Bene Gessent Chapter House indicates that a Reverend Mother, by virtue of her standing, was one who had attained to an extraordinary plane of con sciousness and prophetic intuition In addition, a nch cache of manuscripts, journals, and diaries secreted in the Archives reveals a sacred history of the office of Reverend Moth-
er extending back as far as Jehanne Butler These documents, particularly the appendix to the Ordmei Matnum trace the Water of Life Ceremony from its ancient Terran roots to the ritual which formed the catalyst en abhng a woman to become one of the Elect That the ceremony and the subsequent progression of transcendence was irrevocably changed by the Lady Jessica's participation in the Fremen Ceremony of the Seed is unquestionable Not only was Jessica brought into conjunction with her own heritage of Reverend Mothers, but she was also united with the long line of Fremen Reverend Mothers, all without the benefit of the usual years of discipline and training Unti! that time, the "poison" used at the Water of Life Ceremony vaned with cultural traditions, but its effect had been dependent upon the individual's own preparation for the harmonious Self Just as melange served only to enhance the trained "sight" of some Reverend Mothers, so did the "poison" of the traditional ceremony serve to focus the transcendence and union of the one with the All With the introduction of the Fremen Water of Life, the poison created by a drowning "maker," the strength of the catalyst changed Increased dependence on the Fremen poison and decreased dependence on the arduous training disciplines gradually weakened the ngor of the order Thus, the discovery of the Athanor Proctnces and the Exerci Ammae gives us a much clearer understanding of the true office of the Reverend Mothers', before the time that the Ordines Matnum appendix refers, to as. the Atreides Corruption'
It is likely that the universal vow of a Reverend Mother—' Sciente ipsem scit om-nem '—originated with the founding Mother herself whose ancestry had been traced to the Great Mother Clearly the motto reflects the objectives of the five ordinances under taken by all Reverend Mothers, as outlined in the authoritative Athanor Proctnces ' She has plumbed the dark night of being and survived she has seen the Truth and been made strong, she has been bound m limited self and escaped, she has faced her own enemy and emerged victorious, she has borne the burden of grief and not succumbed She is witness that 'In the Self is the All''"
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The stated aim of the Bene Gessent tram-ing program was to develop 2 form of mental exercise that would enable the practitioner to gain a mode of consciousness unavailable to those who lacked either the gift or the training This altered mode of eoascious ness, a profoundly heightened view of rcali ty gained by turning inward, was a prelude to perfecting the transcendental self By this turning inward, a distinction could be achieved between the self of illusion and limited phenomenal reality, and the Self that participates in Absolute Reality, the so-called valley of infinite vision
The official manual, Exerci Ammae prescribes a course of discipline and training for those specially gifted Bene Gessent who are the chosen The program is geared to produc uig a perfect harmonious union of self and Self, of becoming and Become, of sensation and Illumination in the nund of the accomplished practitioner The Introduction to these "spiritual exercises"'promises that all perception will eventually be successive yet simultaneous, hzmtcd yet rnfimte But it sounds a cautionary note as well
Care must be taken to keep a tight control OB the blossonang transcendental consciousness lest it come unbidden, without the manifest will having called upon it Such an instability could be dangerous, leading to seriously reduced effectiveness of the practitioner who must neces sanly plan all action aad reaction with disci plined intention Phenomenal consciousness can not function at the mercy of an intenser plane of consciousness that could supersede rt invol u&tanfy Unity is to be preserved so that a split or divisive apprehensive mode is rendered unde sirable and ineffectual:
More specifically, the initiate was to take part in activities mat stimulated other faculties beside those of intenonty since cultivating interior modes too exclusively could drain the action of the will The activity of will, the manual mates clear, the extended recognition of an ever-changing, often antagonistic, plurality in normal existence, and the sensitive response to stimuli, must all be exercised regularly Hie trained consciousness is capable of intense concentration but this fo cus is not incompatible, it would seem, with an ever-widening and deepening expansion
of that same consciousness For the Reverend Mother would ideally substitute the living experience for the conceptual, social, and political schemes of those who sought her guidance as possessor of an indwelling, transforming power
However, the process of transformation that would inaugurate a Reverend Mother, she who was both means and vessel, re quired three phases In the Fundamentals of the Way they are described as three stages the purgation of recalcitrant selfhood, the dawning of wisdom the reconciliation and union with all who have gone before 3 Thus, the body, soul and spmt were purified, enlightened, and made whole What was to result was a new and peerless power of life, with the Reverend Mother mediating be tween the world of appearances called reality, and the unseen world which is Reality An equilibrium was thought to be established in this way with Reverend Mother the ritual center
The entire process initially required a pen od of renunciation and detachment during which the initiate became as a vessel wherein transformation of self was precondition to later stages and requirements As m the early training of a B G , consciousness of base reality woufd be transformed into apprehen sion of the Absolute, so m the later and final training the poisons would be purified into liquid knowing Like a prehistoric alchemist whose mission it was to transmute base maten al into pure gold so the Reverend Mother would quest m the common labyrinths of the spirit for the incorruptible substance which she alone could transmute into new form And onl> she who would be Reverend Mother could behold what was to others concealed The complex ceremonial actions involved in transforming the mundane into the sanctified, the poison into the pure, symbolized the nght of guardianship
The rituals of induction for a Reverend Mother constituted a battle between self and its long-held territory (which would resist any incursions) and the transcendental Self (which could expect to be rebuffed and abused) But by persistence and will the corrupt self would lose ground The spiritual repository of generations and millennia would
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grow stronger and harder to dislodge as the ceremony advanced Conclusively, the territory of character would replace the ground of the other There it would stand unchallenged by onslaughts from without since the fierce inner strife had been resolved The sacred field that remained was inviolate, all spiritual perception growing there These final trials of transformation show a Reverend Mother in the act of creating self, a spiritual eye opening on to the infinite and eternal plateau In the stillness through which all movement is possible, she could then see the connection of all things in one unending stream
Excerpts from the Sancto Sermones corroborate the five ordinances and the levels of accomplishment the aspirant to Elect status had achieved service for its sake alone, surrender of self to the cause, obedience m behalf of mission, challenging the unknown, converting the dread into the blessed 4
The supreme difficulties inherent in achiev ing these goals is attested to in die journals, diaries and private correspondence of those submitting themselves to the test Moreover, though the annotated Sanctae Vitae5 records only the history and genealogy of the Order of Reverend Mothers, the Holy Dialogs adds to these more personal experiences of the early group of Reverend Mothers6 All sources lead credence to the supposition that a Reverend Mother was the rallying point for unity in diversity She was to represent a meeting ground of various realities, a union of finite and infinite She was to participate in the communal life and by so doing impart to it sacramental meaning and significance She could encompass the All-changing and the Changeless One and thus become the resting place of the paradox of existence Through her being, she would reconcile that paradox into a comprehensible and acceptable vision
But first me Reverend Mother had herself to engage m a struggle for enlightened consciousness This struggle was often characterized as the Ludus Duorum, in which her worldly and flawed spirit entered into fierce combat with the awakened consciousness and the Spirit of Reality7 In the struggle, the flawed spirit sought to hold itself together against the fixed and immutable center of true Reality Disintegration challenged inte-
gration with now one, now the other, alternat ing in moves for control Illusion was seen as an adroit trickster, but Reality's constant light exposed every feint and dodge, and finally, through the power of Will, Reality won through Only then could She become a center of spiritual direction, the guide and guardian, the tutor and superintendent, the vessel of communion with the Absolute in behalf of the unknowable
The journal of the Reverend Mother Edda Josefa contains a dramatic account of her early experiences on the way to transcendental perception
I found that though I would practice the exer cises of self exorcism of discipline and control of will so as to overcome weak resolve I was afflicted with the petty intrusions of self s sorrow overtures of vanity and ambition and the temp tation to self-preservation Holding on to self as cosmic center like a sun around which atten dant bodies turn is the most insidious of illusions But then I found I could summon courage to unveil that imposter self I closed my eyes and turned inside with all the power of my concentration, to a vision of ascending steps leading to light that at once enfolded me and led me to my return My spirit remained in the heart of that light my heart and my mind were made new and free I now possessed within what I had sought elsewhere I had come to understand the distance between dutiful piety and obedience and intuition and acceptance of the Reality and the Uncreated Light I was now ready to take up my office 8
A similar entry in the Holy Dialogs documents the experience of Reverend Mother Avergmna Rellim, who described the process of becoming immune to the phenomenal world so as to intensify consciousness of a more perfect reality The life of the senses, she found, took over the proper place of intuition
My energy had been too much directed to self regard and vain and idle thought Henceforth, I would dedicate my will and detach myself from illusion so that I might work the wonders of Reality within myself I dedicated m> active thoughts and thoughtful actions to disinterested service shipped of self regard So will faithful discipline afford me the freedom of conscious ness 1 seek 9
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Many other such testimonials are contained in the Liber Rjcanm, which purports to chronicle the early experiences of those Reverend Mothers whose lives should serve as an example The Reverend Mother Lucilla Godyar, for example, was able to recount her first vision, that of an open door through which she could see, on the other side, the eternity of Reality. It was, she reported, like a linked chain of endless being contained in perfumed light. She knew she stood on the threshold of cosmic consciousness. But before she could cross that threshold, she was restrained by a vision of herself as a single candle dwarfed by the sun. In this terrifying moment, she was to foresee the awesome path of humility and self-surrender, of denial and repentance, of pain and solitude, that she would have to traverse on her way to crossing the threshold. "I was to come to know the poisons, and if I endured, then I would also know how to control and direct them," she concluded 1D
In all cases, the objective of enhanced powers of intellectual vision of clairvoyance was, for each Reverend Mother, to uncover the "human." The essence of the meaning of "human," they believed, would open itself as a manifold creation exposing layer upon layer down to its beating heart It is this essence that a Reverend Mother had first to discover in her Self, testing and probing the outer layers of illusion, vanity, and fear.
The diary of a founding Reverend Mother, Augusta Cserna, detailed her vision of the human, and the quest she and her sisteis were committed to carrying on It reads, m part:
I could, at once, see UK eternal generation of ail living things, and die origin of die world in the womb of the Great Mother Therein, like a Sower of infinite layering was all Creation—the changeless and the changing, die internal and external, the spint and the flesh, the essence and the existence Tie light shown over the endless space of Time, as being and non-being wrestled with each other for supremacy The puny resistance of the ever-changing will-to-becorae was pitted against the perfect form of the immutably fixed
What monstrous collisions I foresaw then The obedient, coldly efficient minions of the dark and the scattered but passionate protectors
of the flame, the flame from which only the truly human can pierce the secret heart of the All
Through the flame I could see back to Mother Jehanne for whom ALL was a vision of the possible, and forward to Mother Jessica whose destiny and mission it shall be to embody forth and preserve all human treasure The long line between, like a golden thread yoking them together, is an unbroken series of clasped hands dedicated to this purpose that the quest for the imperishable human spmt shall be an eternal hunger fed by discipline, by patience by devotion, by sacrifice, and by love "
NOTES
'R M Lepidus Lileen Gwarren, ed , Athanor Proctrices, tr Zhaiva Gan, Bene Gessent Found Stud 5 (Diana Tevis), p 179
JR M Vanus Deborah Lommis, Exerci Ammae, tr KL Maur, Bene Gessent Found Stud 1 (Diana Tevis), p 5
3Ruuvars Shaigaf, ed . Fundamentals of the Way A Bene Gessent Mental Exercise Book (Grumman Lodni), p 78
"Juusepun Kazagrando, ed , Sancti Sermones (Work-in-Progress, Arrakis Studies Temp Ser 44 Lib Conf), p 72
TJ M Claudius Amarylla Sernovik, Sanctae Vitae, Rakis Ref Cat 4-BG779
^Rakis Ref Cat 2 BG 3869, Area 16
7Shaigal, pp 45-57
*R M Gaius Edda Josefa, Journal Ratas Ref Cat, 1-BG2110
"Rakis Ref Cat 2 BG3S69, \rea 24
wLiber Ricanm, tr Zhana helun Bene Gessent Found Stud 4 (Diana levis), p 89
"R M Augusta Cserna, The Diary of a Bene Gessent, tr Virhn Loke (Centraha Kutath Brothers), pp 194-95 G E Further reference. BENE CESSERTT entries
RICHESE. The fourth planet of the system of Endani A diameter at equator 55,000 kilometers, 60% land area, freshwater lakes 5%, salt oceans 35% Polar ice normal, mean annual temperature 180°, average low 2°, average high 29° Planet rich m minerals and metallic ores, sole source in seventeen sectors of Gallanium, used extensively in microminiaturization Planet serves as manufacturing center for Ix Capital Lugdunum Present population c 2,000,000,000
Rtchese is the planet which spawned the Butlenan Jihad The rebels from Komos,
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nsing against the domination of their larger industrialized neighbor, discovered on Richese a society designed by self-programming and self-reproducing computers acting in concert with a few thousand technicians and scientists The alternations in the temperament and intelligence of the population, combined with the mutational experiments which had produced human beings unrecognizable as members of the species, transformed a rebellion into a jihad
After the Jihad departed Richese, the planet was deserted for almost two and a half centimes Beginning in toe middle of the second century B G the inhabitants of Ix (formerly Komos) began to exploit the resources of Richese for manufacture of van ous technological products With the conclusion of the arrangement between Ix and the Impenum during the reign of Saudir I, Ix and Richese were left isolated, and became suppliers to the Impenum of what technology would be used for the next ten millennia and more Shortly after their agreement, Richese was colonized by an expedition from Ix The population of Richese was continually controlled by Ix throughout the period of the Impenum and during the reign of Leto n Even now it is only approximately forty percent of the pre-Butlerian Jihad level Further references: ix, THE BUTLERIAN JWAD, BUTLER
JEHANNE
RIDULIAN CRYSTALS. The first person to successfully produce a crystalline form of nduhte was Jams Rondel, an Ixian scientist specializing in crystalliform research Rondel had been seeking a process which would permit him to crystallize die durable and highly reflective substance as part of a top-secret research project the Ixians wished to learn to manufacture a physical shield which would protect its user from a lasgun attack (The secrecy of the project is more easily understood when it is recalled that the God Emperor banned personal shields during the first years of his reign, and limited possession of lasguns to members of the royal military at Ac end of his first century on the throne ) When Rondel finally announced, in 10937, that he had discovered the proper combination of solvents and temperatures
required to manufacture ndulian crystals, he was forced to temper the good news with bad The crystals, though even tougher than their parent substance and divisible into sheets of amazing thinness, darkened when exposed to bright light Sinking a shield made of ndulian crystal with a lasgun beam would render it opaque and useless within seconds
The discovery was better received by his superiors than Rondel had dared to hope Rather than shunting him off onto another project they ordered him to continue working with the crystals, with particular emphasis on producing the thinnest possible sheets without sacrificing any of the material's strength and durability
The result of this new direction of research was ndulian crystal paper which Ron del first exhibited m 10938 Only several molecules thick, the paper was capable of withstanding temperature extremes from -103° K to +1700° K with no change in structure, it was as durable as a much thicker sheet of gold leaf and much harder, and it would turn a rich, dark purple when struck by a beam of coherent light (while maintaining its off-white clanty in light of any other sort)
Once it was certain that Rondel had pro duccd what was needed, he was informed of his creation s purpose The first dictatel had been built in 10936, intended as a gift to Leto n, whose habit of keeping comprehensive journals was already known The Ixians wished to provide him with a means of keeping a longer lasting record, and to se cure for themselves the God Emperor s continuing favor and tacit approval of their "forbidden' research But they had been stymied by their failure to come up with a truly imperishable recording medium Riduhan crystal paper solved their problem handily, the dictatel was adopted to ' write" with coherent light and presented to Leto
Jams Rondel was awarded high honors by the Ixian Council of Scientists and given far more spacious quarters in which to continue his research The reputation of his invention far outlived that of its inventor, however, and the many generations of Ixians who acted as stationers to the God Emperor would have been at a loss to name him C W
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Further references: DKJFATEL; ATR^BJES, LBIO B, JOURNALS OF, Alan Baitke, Survey of Ixitm Technology, 10900-13500 (Firnlly: Mosaic).
RYA WOLVES. Found only on Satasa Secun-dus, these Insatiable predators were among Ihe most fearsome naturally evolved creatures known to humankind. They represented one pf the main ecological checks on that planet, keeping weaker lifeforms—including humans—from becoming, too numerous. An adult wolf could bring down a full-grown ganja.
The average male of the species had a shoulder height of 1.5 meters; the female, only slightly less. Weights ranged from 50 to 60 kilos, making the animals sleek and devoid of excess fat. Bursts of speed in excess of 95 kmph by hunting females had been reported, while the average traveling speed of a pack without young was estimated at somewhat less than half that figure.
Pups—bom after a gestation period of four Standard months—were capable of seeing and walking easily within two hours of their birth, and within four weeks could bring down their own food (generally the smaller ground animals). Only this rapid development allowed theii survival in the harsfy ecosystem of Salusa Secundus, and a sixty percent mortality rate was still the norm.
If they survived, the young wolves underwent a color change from their Eight gray (at
birth) through dun to a deep brown coat at maturity. Rya wolf fur was extremely glossy and much valued in fashionable society.
The species' origin is not known with certainty. They may have evolved from a smaller, less fierce species, the Valye wolves, but the theory has yet to be proven, It is certain, however, that Rya wolves were known—and feared—on Salusa Secundus as early as 4492 when the Zensunni Wanderers were taken to that planet. Frcmen records accounting for that time indicate that their people suffered a substantial number of losses to the wolves during their first generation on the prison planet.
House Corrino was known to have made several attempts to export Rya wolves to their various holdings for use as sentinels, but they were not successful. Trial and error showed that the wolves sickened and died on milder planets, and all such efforts were abandoned.
It was precisely this inability to adapt which led to the species's extinction. Following the exile of Shaddam IV (the last Corrino emperor) to Salusa Secundus, Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Atreides ordered the placement of weather satellites and other climate-modifying devices around that world. In the gentler environment these modifications induced, the Rya wolves could not survive. C.W.
Further reference! SALUSA SECUNDUS.
SALCiSA SECUMD03: AS A PRISON PLANET The expansion of the Corrino Empire was achieved through means that stopped short of annihilation of the conquered, resulting in a large and steady stream of prisoners of war, refugees, and die discontented. Saudir al-Harkonnen IH (r. 388-389), who usurped the throne at the end of the Lishash Confed-
eration's rebellion, faced the problem of dealing with the prisoners-of-war his precedessor, the Regent Henh al-Qair I, had spared. Saudir III reigned for only a year, yet his designation of Salusa Secundus as a prison planet proved so expedient that the practice was later continued. Saudir's motive was not humanitarian: he
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reasoned that Salusa Secundus was a cheap executioner The first penal colonies on die planet were concentration camps providing only the barest necessities Then1 populations consisted of people of every age and walk of life, but mostly of soldiers, with a sprinkling of civic leaders, merchants, academicians, and clerics They were generally hardy, as they needed to be to deal with the Saltisan weather, and were buffered from the planet's marauding tabes by the Sardaukar
Wallachl(r 362-369,390-416,451-453), when restored to the throne after the assassination of Saudir ffl on New Year's Day, 390, decided to use me penal colony as an experimental laboratory He knew the prisoners would not long survive if exposed to the depredations of the native tribes But what if they were given weapons and training7 Those who managed to carve out a mche would not be abandoned, but used Since economy was an important part of effective rule, why waste even prisoners if they might eventually be of service to the emperor7
Wallach therefore ordered the prisoners to be provided with training in the most ruthless fighting techniques and with an adequate supply of weapons In the meantime, they were shielded by Sardaukar troops Al though the Sardaukar were later withdrawn, the prisoners never forgot the cold, hard men who had taught them so well and had saved their lives while they learned Descendants of the prisoners admired rather than hated the Sardaukar And when the colonists were given the opportunity to join them and thus leave Salusa Secundus forever, the choice was easily made
The penal development program was continued and augmented during the reign of Sheuset n Costm II (r 416-445), who kept a close eye on mortality rates, which were high at first Such was Sheuset's scientific curiosity, however, mat he waged several campaigns for the sole purpose of gathering prisoners to offset the losses The new transporters were fierce, semi-civilized captives from outlying planets, who challenged and tested tile descendants of the original concentration camps The barbarians gained control of the colony after sharp but brief struggles Therefore prison populations were
largely composed of "far-worlders," as they were called
When the penal colonies appeared to have stabilized, the protective Sardaukar force withdrew, and the colonists were beset on all sides Their bloody trial was the more severe because it was not training, but the reality of the planet which they now faced Eventually, the colonists, led by the strongest and constantly reinforced by desperate, warlike captives, managed to fight off tribal raids In the process they had to become trueler and more merciless than then* attackers, finally initiating then* own pre-emptive or plundering raids It was no accident, but a carefully administered plan, that made the colonists, like the Sardau before them, the strongest force on Salusa Secundus It was precisely the controlled anarchy of the planet that produced superior warriors Tribal aggressions thus became Imperial schools For both the old and new Salusa Secundans, the Impen-um might as well not have existed as far as their day-to-day lives were concerned The Impenum allowed no central authority to evolve on the planet, maintaining the anar chy that had tempered the Sardau The Sardaukar religion was promoted, infusing the colonists with its martial spirit, and fostering the belief that they were an elite who suffered as a test of their fitness to rule
The finest wamors forged in this smithy were drafted into the Sardaukar, filling the Imperial need for soldiers through thousands of years And the chief irony of this very successful plan was that in time the colonists supported with their lives the very monarchy that had imprisoned their ancestors S T
Further references SARDAUKAR HISTORY Otto Aram sham Sardaukar Victorious lr Sir Daiwid Gwilivz (Kaitain Varna) Nestor Haiyarzol The Fis! of Varna From Tro\e to Salusa Secundus to the Throne tr Kutpar Milag (Salusa Secundus Gravtak)
SANDMASTER On Arrakis in the Fremen times, a superintendent of spice operations, normally a Fremen who arranged a meeting place with spice traders marked off an area where sand crawlers might be stationed, and where ormthopters, might land The sandmaster was expected to be responsible first for his cargo and his men's lives, and second for the
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successful completion of the exchange His major responsibilities included posting scouts to observe the approach of storms or sand-worms and making preparations for attacks by smugglers or Hatfconnen raiders in the days of the Harkonncn ascendancy on Dune Frequently, the samlmaster was the leader of die sietch, but not invariably, since the decisiveness required IB a sandmaster did not always reside in the more politically astute mind of a naib
The sandmaster might be, and often was, however, a naib, one who would not be taken alive, since a spice exchange might well turn into a battle in old Fremen times, and the spice handlers were more likely to follow a naib as sandmaster than someone else However, die safidmaster's primary concern was always for the safety of his men It is said that Duke Leto Atreides* desire to save the lives of his own men and Fremen spice handlers when they were confronted by a sandstorm, early convinced the Fremen tribesmen of his superiority to the Harkonnens, and helped to establish the rapport between House Atrrades and the Fremen that was later so valuable to Paul Muad'Dib
Further references: MELANGE Hang al Ada The Dtate Catastrophe tr Mugal Reed (Mttkan Lothar), Janet Oslo frfmOT./,;v«aw/Lf^f7v/(SihisaSeamitus. Morgan andSharak)
SANDSNORK. On ArraJus, a refined version of similar devices found elsewhere in the galaxy used for siphoning air The sandsnork consisted of two parts a collapsible Kibe and a miniature pump The tube was composed of nine concentric cylinders, each 40 cm long, mat fitted inside each other The biggest section, the one that stayed deepest m the sand, had at its base a bayonet fitting, oriented perpendicularly to the axis of sym metry, where the pump was mounted The innermost, or upper, tube was fitted with a butterfly valve to keep sand out The seven middle tubes had pressure-sensitive oil seals at both ends All rune cylinders were made of spice plastic (fittings were plasteel), and the assembly weighed about 775 to 790 grams
The pressure-sensitive seals permitted an ingenious method of setting up the sandsnork
When the snork was introduced to an environment of greater than 1 26 standard atmospheres and unstrapped the seals forced each successive tube to periscope upward, due to the pressure gradient This way, the sandsnork worked its upper end just above the surface The lower pressure above the sand signalled the snork to cease penscopmg Then the pump was attached at the bottom and air was brought beneath the surface
The tube system was typically deployed from the back of a stilltent, where the pump was normally earned The pump itself was designed by Uurpar T Tomz of Cazpezia II (8,157-8210), and is a standard 10 2 by 26 5 by 8 cm m size It runs on cheap fuel cells and weighs only 1 23kg Its compactness and light weight made the sandsnork system especially useful to the Fremen Since the tube system could extend as much as 3 6 meters, and since the upper tube would extend no more than 40 cm above the surface, it made both sandstorm bunal and predator avoidance relatively routine operations for Fremen away from their sietch
SARDAUKAR. The soldier-fanatics from Salusa Secundus who catapulted to power over die Landsraad m the Battle of Comn (88 B G ) The commander of the Sardaukar and his family became die Imperial House Cornno, named after die planet Cornn near which the decisive battle took place The grim ecological and social conditions of Salusa Secundus forged the military prowess of die Sardaukar who were master swordsmen and deadly unarmed combatants, comparable respectively to Gmaz tenth level fencers and Bene Gessent adepts The ruthless natural selection of Salusa Secundus bred the Sardaukar who came to dominate first their planet arid later the inhabited worlds of die Impenum
PRE-IMPERIAL HISTORY Salusa Secundus suffers from both a rigorous climate and marginal natural resources The temperature range—between - 45" and 60° C—-and the infertility of die soil favor a jungle ecology, whose gigantic plant growdi make efficient use of what nutrients are available, returning little to the soil as waste Hence, after the immense difficulty of clearing the ground
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the soil was poor and soon depleted Only the hardiest crops survived the scorching summers The ganja, a partially domesticated form of buffalo, supplied meat and skins The chief ore was iron,, in limited quantities At the tune of the Battle of Corrm, the population of the planet probably did not exceed five million
Despite the small population, the tribes of Salusa Secundus waged perpetual war over iron lodes and the scanty pasture land Smelters and foundries were special prizes because they provided the weapons needed for war A tnbe that controlled enough pasture for its herds and a reliable source of iron was self-sufficient
Such a tnbe was the Sardau, who by ruthless martial ability had carved out a large domain The Sardau provide a paradigm by which the later success of the Sardaukar can be understood and appreciated The rituals of the Sardau—trial by combat, endurance tests, and raids on neighboring tribes—mirrored the eternal war of the larger planetary society, constantly favoring the strong
Trial by combat began at six, when children were given a knife and daily instruction in its use Sparring matches, m which the drawing of blood was encouraged, developed reflexes, technique, and timing, and also eliminated those susceptible to infection Those who by accident or precocious ferocity killed an opponent received special attention, but in general, killing was not condoned, late developers were allowed time to reach their full potential The Sardau believed mat after pubert} inherent ability would show itself, and then formal death combat was required in a match between single opponents of fairly equal skill Those who lulled their opponents ID the ring passed the first major step of initiation
The production of warriors was always the final aim although fights to the death were permitted among adolescents, they were usually forbidden among adults Clearly, tribal rather than personal priorities produced this taboo the tnbe benefitted if the unfit were murdered at an early age, but the tnbe suffered if the best soldier killed the second-best soldier
These pitiless tests never pitted boys against
girls conflicts between the sexes were forbidden at any age Girls who survived past puberty faced no more initiation trials Thereafter, the strongest and most intelligent became wives, the less* capable became concubines
Many Sardau children did not live to age twelve because of the hardships of Salusa Secundus, murderous raids by neighboring tnbes or the endurance tests the Sardau alone seem to have practiced Twice a year between eight and twelve, each child faced survival tests In mid-summer and mid-winter, the child was taken empty-handed into the wastes and left No time limit was set, no rescue party sent out, the child either returned or died In the first year after puberty, males were sent on the most difficult survival test— to Skull Reach, the region of Salusa Secundus with the greatest extremes of temperature But well over ninety percent of those sent to Skull Reach returned, reflecting the hardi ness of the young Sardau
The survivors became full warriors, who could join raids tor plunder Bv then they had learned swordsmanship, ganja-ndmg unarmed combat and rudimentary tactics Their skills were honed during adolescence against other tnbes, but since those tribes raised their young almost as rigorously as the Sardau, the mortality rate among the youths was not inconsiderable
That Sardau children reached adulthood in appreciable numbers was due to the astonishing fecundity not only of the Sardau but of most tnbes on Salusa Secundub Females who had reached puberty faced their own test succes sive pregnancies The Sardau birth rate was such that infants and children outnumbered adults almost five to one The initiation rituals weeded out the weak, leaving the strong to maintain a stable tribal population
Females bred as soon as they were physi-call) capable but sex for males was a reward for performance in battle Those who excelled in leadership and prowess were giv en second rate women as concubines, but a young man could afford a wife from among the best women only if he could pay an enormous bnde-pnce from his spoils of war Thus, leadership of the Sardau fell to the most able military commanders As the Sardau
grew in strength they increased in population, ultimately achieving a planetary empire
The Sardau lost their tnbat identity but became a nation as they absorbed conquered peoples The conquered were fortunate to survive the early custom required annihilation of the enemy—man, woman, and child— but m time the Sardau perceived a practical use for captives and gradually accepted them into their ranks (Here was die seed of the later Imperial treatment of prisoners of war, who were sent to penal colonies on Salusa Secundus ) Thus both Sardau and non-Sardau could earn admission to the Sardaukar, which was created when one family gained ascendancy in the budding nation
The name of the family is not known, but it was fruitful and its members were vigorous and capable The head of the family held the title of Burseg, a term later incorported into the House Coztino military lexicon One of these Bursegs formed the Sardaukar, at least partly in response to the influx of strangers into the society Hie absorption of non-Sardau with binding tests of their loyalty would avert the growth of an enemy faction Sardaukar discipline was ferocious, allowing no questioning or doubting of higher officers on the battlefield Non-Sardau were given plenty of opportunities to prove themselves, for example, by carrying out a suicidal attack without hesitation Nevertheless, many tnbes submitted to the Sardau inclusion in the Sardaukar was the best guarantee of survival against them
Although battlefield obedience was demanded, independence and initiative were preserved through a custom called The Circle Following each action the commanding officer faced a stringent critique from his fellow officers Anyone—even the most junior—who could convince the circle of leaders that he could have won the objective faster, cheaper, or to better strategic advantage was chosen battle leader for the next action The Circle replaced the tnal by combat with a trial by achievement, and was designed to vault the un predictably-appear ing military genius over senior, but less capable, commanders
Sardaukar military superiority derived from natural savagery, intense training, a sense of
SARDAUKAR
themselves as the elect (promoted by their religion), and an ingrained, almost mystical esprit de corps The Sardaukar was elite— quick-witted, tough, ruthless and fanatically devoted to their commanders This was the force the unfortunate Maganans hired as mercenaries during the campaigns of expansion following the Butlenan Jihad The fate of House Megara is well known
MILITARY HISTORY After the conquest of Megara, the Sardaukar grasped the chance to leave Salusa Secundus with an energy equaled only by QIC most fanatical Butlenans Using captured ships, the Sdrdaukar seized a wide sector in the vicinity of Megara So slow was space travel after the Jihad, however, that the Sardaukar 'meleor strike" gave the Landsraad time to prepare somewhat for the threat rolling toward them The Battle of Comn then was a tactical victory but a strategic stalemate for the Sardaukar It cowed the Great Houses and thereby prevented another immediate confrontation But the Landsraad s message was clear negotiate or fight The Sardaukar might win an extended war but their empire would be a graveyard
The Burseg saw the wisdom of compromise, and with the Treaty of Cornn became the first Padishah emperor Sheuset Costm I During the first years of his reign expansionist campaigns consolidated his power and channeled the battle-lust of his soldiers Some recalcitrant Landbraad Houses refused to sign the treaty, some independent planetary rulers denied they were bound by it If either kind of holdout could not be persuaded to accept the new order, he invariably had to deal with the Sardaukar, the lion unleashed by the Emperor
House Jansine refused to sign and prepared itself for siege Jansine a planet with thriving agriculture and light industry was ready for a long defense Expecting the mete or strike from the skies that had marked earlier Sardaukar campaigns, the people of Jansine suffered instead the meteor shower, ' the infiltration of small numbers of troops across the face of the planet The new tactic won the Order of Victory for its inventor Wel Forald, as his strategically placed guer nlla teams paralyzed communications and
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transportation, stormed military barracks, assassinated or captured high military and political leaders, all within a few days The final assault on a demoralized and isolated Jansme capital left no defenders alive
UK foolishness of waiting for Ac Sardaukar was not lost on those Houses who joined the Lishash Confederation in the rebellion of 385-388 Several centuries after the foundation of CHOAM, certain houses took exception both to Padishah supremacy and to a proposed division of shares increasing the emperor's votes on the CHOAM board from twenty percent to twenty-one percent In this the Lishasha saw creeping monopoly, and defied it Other houses sharmg the view became allied
The LC announced its formation with surprise attacks on Sardaukar forts and outposts within what was now claimed as Confederation territory Preparations for the strike had been made long since, strategy rehearsed, infantry trained and coordinated, fleets of assault ships stealthily readied The initial outcome was successful
LC forces achieved most of their primary objectives, but with high losses the besieged Sardaukar launched sorties to bleed and tie down the attackers Nevertheless, LC forces somehow managed to take a handful of Sardaukar officers alive, a feat unheard of, and one mat would not occur again until the Arrakian Revolution When the LC staff offered their captives as hostages, the Regent Henh replied, "Let diem drink blood " This cryptic answer was taken two ways by the captive Sardaukar A few tore out their throats with their fingernails, but most died attacking then- captors bare-handed
Henh gathered a great fleet of Landsraad armies spearheaded by Sardaukar shock Coops The Sardaukar were to recapture the forts and outposts, the Landsraad troops to invade the LC planets
Henh made a bloody example of those planets He adopted a policy of ruthless assaults followed by the razing of the captured territory The Sardaukar retook their own bastions without encumbering themselves with prisoners They then attacked the planets of Lishash and its allies from widely
separated directions The speed and ferocity of these combined thrusts routed the LC armies Lishash was the first planet to fall Its major cities were burned, its rulers public ly executed, its citizens indiscriminately put to the sword The Lishash colonies suffered the same fate
The LC allies sued for mercy, at first without success One by one they were trampled Then Landsraad General Tomigh sickened by the carnage he witnessed as his units mopped up in the track of the Lion, objected to the Regent
I speak for the Joint Landsraad Command Tomigh said Your point has been made As for us we are soldiers not executioners
This sounds like a threat Henh said
Not even an implied one Have you en forced Comno authority or ha\e you not? If the rebellion is over are you not violating the spint, if not the letter ot the Oreat Convention by maintaining the lighting'
By God Sir Tomigh Henh shouted you 11 either fight or hang'
By God Sir Regent I H neither fight nor hang'1
And with that Tomigh returned to the Landsraad Council and disbanded the Land sraad forces True to the quick witted nature of the Sardaukar, Henli did not try to enforce his orders Many observers believe he welcomed Tomigh's protest caught between the Landsraad and the Lion, he had to satisfy both Without the Landsraad units, he could end hostilities and blame the concession on the Landsraad Tomigh was satisfied, the Sardaukar were satisfied, and Comno su premacy was upheld without more massacre Thus Lishash was scoured, but many of its allies survived to see another year
After the I C rebellion armed revolt occurred only among civilizations much farther from the Imperium's center, and was earned out mainly by those who never knew of the grand feudal order rather than by those who did not wish to partake of it The Landsraad itself generally welcomed the Sardaukar because the Imperial troops allowed the Great Houses to expand without disturbance from their rivals Warfare among Landsraad members was strictly regulated by the Convention,
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and the regulations were enforced by the Sardaukar So they expanded, at the expense of peripheral planets that sometimes did not know of the Impenum until told of it by an mvasidn force from a Great House
Similar expansion by the Comnos became the relief valve for the Sardaukar It brought economic benefits, kept the Sardaukar combat-ready, and sated the military desire for action on conquest instead of intrigue Now that the Impenum was stable, the Lion needed to be given leash beyond tt
The campaigns of expansion tested the soldier-fanatics against a variety of adversaries, terrains, weapons, and tactics As Sardaukar conquests added victory after victory to the list, the myth of invincibility was created Concurrently, the duration and scope of Padishah predominance caused the Impenum to be widely perceived as the natural order Pharaonic rulers would naturally be supported by military supermen As a result, theindomi-tabihty of Sardaukar arms impressed itself on the Impenum until even dissidents shared and sustained the Sardaukar's belief m themselves Fact reinforced myth, and vice versa
As the centuries passed, die lowly origin of the Sardaukar as a cattle-herding tribe on an infertile jungte planet was forgotten Salusa Secundus became notorious as the prison planet of the emperors, not as the world from which (hey had escaped at the first opportunity Vet both planet and tnbe, one may feel, deserved each other And 8,700 years after their separation, they were reunited, by the order of Muad'D* S T
NOTE
'Otto Aramsham, Sardaukar Victorious, tr Uaiwid Gwihvz (Kaitam Varna)
Farther references: SALUSA SECUNDUS Otto Aram sham The Sardattter Strdce Is Su Daiwid Gwilivz (Kaitam Varna), Ittprgl Maun, The influence of Space Power on History (Salusa Secundus Gravlak), Rakol rai Foezek "The Influence of the Laadsraad in the LCR Settlement," Studtcs m Imperial History (Old Senes) 3440-68 115
SARDAUKAR TITLES, ORDERS, AND AWARDS. Among the proud and ferocious Sardaukar, medals and other awards remained a basic method for instilling unit pride, for
insuring that soldiers gave their utmost ef forts in combat, and for guaranteeing obedi ence under the most trying circumstances So total was the involvement of the average Sardaukar m his unit's historv that the decorations of that unit were a constant object of interest, and a highly decorated private sol dier gained a measure of respect not accorded to any outsider, regardless of his rank All Sardaukar decorations were authorized by the emperor and were awarded by him personally An award could be granted in the field or while on campaign by a Sardaukar commander of sufficient rank, but was not official until presented by the emperor
Decorations fell into three general categories Titles and Orders of Distinction, Medals, and Badges
The most common decorations and badges are listed here in order of precedence
TITLES AND ORDERS Guardian of the Empire was the ultimate Tit)e of Distinction and was awarded to all ranks for a personal deed of surpassing heroism Recipients were also awarded the Star Cluster Medal and the Order of the Imperial Hero Only eighty were awarded in the entire history of the title and there is only one case of a recipient winning more than one award
The Star Cluster Medal was awarded only to recipients of the title Guardian of the Empire The silver medal was worn on a white-on-black nbbon around the collar and was always displayed on the front of the tunic
The Order of the Imperial Hero was awarded upon retirement or death m recognition of an exemplary career, in addition to being awarded with the title of Guardian of the Empire
The Order of the Protector was awarded both for outstanding courage on the battle field and for exemplary service in a com mand position This Order was also occasion ally awarded to entire units, which granted every man in the unit the lifetime privilege of displaying the Order (regardless of later transfers to other units), and listed me honored unit as "Emperor's Guards" so long as any of the original recipients of the award remained alive
The Order of Victory was awarded to
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members of the Saidaukar High Command for successful conquests of entire planets It was worn on the right breast to the left of all other awards
The Order of Comn was la three classes It was awarded to officers at all levels for outstanding leadership, organizational ability, and perseverance leading to decisive victory in battle The three classes were Diamond to legion commanders and heads of planetary scale operations, Ruby, to regimental and battalion commanders, Emerald, to company commanders
The Order of Pyrrhus was given to commanders of operations which inflicted heavy losses on any enemy while maintaining the battle readiness of the commander's forces The operation need not have resulted ra victory
The Order of Valor was awarded to commanders of any unit larger than a platoon for personal bravery and skillful leadership of troops in combat
The Order of Bravery was awarded mdi vidually to all ranks and collectively to units for outstanding performance m action A unit honored with this award was listed as a * Guards'' unit so long as any of the original recipients remained alive
The Order of Honor was awarded individually and collectively for exemplary perfor mance in vital ooncombat areas in support of combat troops
The Order of Glory was awarded to non commissioned officers for spectacularly valorous actions while in combat This order was granted in three classes, depending upon the nature of the action being honored
MEDALS The Medal for Valor was awarded to all ranks for personal valor in the service of the emperor It was one of the few medals which could be awarded to noncombatants, and was of three classes 1st class, to officers, 2nd class to other ranks, 3rd class, to civilians
The Medal for Battle Merit was awarded to all ranks for providing a material contribution towards the success of an operation at unusually high personal risk
Service Medals in six categories were giv en for ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, and seventy-five years of exemplary service in the active forces
Campaign Medals Every campaign which involved more than one legion of troops had a corresponding Campaign Medal They were far too numerous to list here
BADGES Badges were awarded to all ranks to denote status, achievement, and weapons proficiency
The Emperor s Guards Badge was worn by all members of any unit designated as "Emperor's Guards' Those who were attached to the unit at the time that the designation was proclaimed could continue to wear the badge regardless, of future assignments, but such transferred personnel wore the badge on the lapel instead of on the shoulder, where active Emperor's Guards wore it
The Guards Badge was worn by all members of any unit designated as 'Guards, ' under the same conditions as the Emperor s Guards Badge, above
Proficiency Badges were earned by evi dencmg exemplary skill in any of the num ber of military arts including weapons use material repair and so on
Wound Strips bounds were classified as either Senous or Minor, ' though the classification is misleading, as the Sardaukar did not consider a soldier wounded at all if he was able to continue fighting A magenta stripe indicated a "serious wound, and a blue stripe a ' minor" one WD I
Further references SARDAUKAR UNIFORMS Otto Aram sham The Sardaukar Strike tr Sir Daiwid Gwihvz (Kaitam Varna)
SARDAUKAR TITLES
SARDAOKAR TITLES
ORDER OF THE IMPERIAL HERO
ORDER OF THE PROTECTOR
ORDER OF VICTORS
ORDER OF PYRRHUS
ORDER OF CORRIN
SARDAUKAR TTTLES
447
SARDAUKAR TITLES
SARDAUKAR TTIT-ES
448
SARDAUKAR UNIFORMS
SARDAUKAR UNIFORMS. The uniforms of the Sardaukar were differentiated only between officers and ranks, and even then the differentiation was not extensive, with specifications of rank, unit, and other matters being shown mainly by shoulder boards or patches.
The basic Sardaukar uniform consisted of the following elements (see illustration):
Beret: the velvet black beret was worn with the soldier's Legionary symbol in front, and the rank symbol on either side. Officers had a silver cockade around the Legionary symbol.
Tunic, the tunic was black, single-breasted, with a low, stand-up collar and five black fabric buttons. The gorget patches showed the Legionary insignia: these patches were striped with silver for noncommissioned officers, and with gold for higher ranks. The shield belt was a part of the tunic, and could not be removed; the Legion's insignia was repeated once again on the control face of die shield's buckle. The soldier's sword scabbard also depended from his shield belt: the Sardaukar never made any rules whatsoever about the design of the scabbard, hence they were decorated in any way imaginable (though usually bearing the regimental colors).
Shoulder Boards: the background color of the detachable shoulder boards was black for standard units, gold for Emperor's Guards, and red for Guards: the design on the shoulder boards was the battle flag of the Legion to which the soldier belonged, bearing his rank insignia.
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Breeches the black breeches were worn tucked into the boots, and had piping to match the background color on the shoulder boards, bordered with silver braid for officers
Boots the high, glossy black boots had no buckles or soaps, and were made of leather
Uniforms were the personal property of the soldier who wore them, and were purchased by him When off-planet, Sardaukar wore their uniforms at all times when in the public view WDI
Further references* SARDAUKAR TITLES ORDERS AND AWARDS Otto Aramshara, Sardaukar Victorious tr Sir Dtuwid Gwilivz (Jtattam Vema)
SAREER (also, "Last Desert of the Sorter'1) A replica-tn-numature of the planetary desert which once covered the surface of Arrakis It was established by Leto II in the (bird century of his reign (approximately 10500) The ecological transformation of Arrakis dictated that no desert would exist within another twenty-five years, the complete elimination of the desert was never part of Leto's accelerated ecological plan The Sareer was his way of ensuring that some part of the old Fremen's "sea of sand" endured
The cost of die venture would likely have been prohibitive to any but the God Emperor
Indications show that the landsculptmg car ned out during the project's first two years— the creation and diversion of an artificial nver, the Idaho, the complete destruction of one mountain and the reduction of two entire ranges—could not have been accomplished at an expense of under fi\e hundred billion solans The Ixian weather control satellites, placed in orbit during the third year, cost half as much again and represented an ongoing expense the Sareer would be very much a maintained desert, a delicate system which could not survive on its own in a world thoroughly gone to greenery and open water As Pardot Kyncs and his Fremen had once tended their palmanes, hoping that the tiny patches of green would eventually take over the planet, Leto was obliged to tend his desert perhaps with the same hope
Because of the difficulties involved with maintaining that balance, the border of the Sareer was constantly shifting The satellites, which kept precipitation in the region to a minimum and maintained the area's high temperature, could only divert unwanted water and cold air masses, not destroy them This diversion led to the accumulation of cold zones along the boundaries, zones where small packs of ice were not uncommon, less than a kilometer tram the edges of the dunes, which further complicated the process The Sareer's average size, however remained constant, containing some 250,000 square kilometers To anyone, such as Duncan Idaho, who remembered the Dune days, the Sareer was only, as Leto referred to it at times, a "pet desert " Its very existence was endangered by its size for two reasons it was a fraction of the size required to be self-perpetuatmg and free of the need for the Ixian control devices, and it was not large enough to pass unscathed through the frequent geologic upheavals that occurred on Arrakis When ihe entire surface was composed of desert, the sudden upthrust of a mountain or the shift of an outcropping of rock made no difference in the overall ecology In an area the size of the Sareer, however, and one so delicately held back from destruction, a single such episode could be disastrous Part of the function of Leto's "eyes" in the desert was to keep him ap
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prised of any changes so that he could arrange for the necessary counter-measures Because of the nature of his Golden Path, the God Emperor knew that the Sareer had to endure It was also, as he was to learn millennia after he had ordered it protected, the one place on Airakis where he could feel comfortable in his last stages of evolution from human to sandworm Leto and his plans for humanity were as dependent upon the Sareer for their survival as the desert itself was upon Leto C W
Further references- ATREIDES. LETO 11 ARRAKIS ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION Th Zed GtffftliC Affakum Chtnatofogical Studies from Atretdcan Tones to the Present Meteorological Forum 59, Pardot Kynes, "Atmosphere of Airakis " Bull Planet NS 127 135-55 (10127) Paidot Kynes Ecotogy of Diate n Ewan Gwatan, Anakis Studies 24 (Gnmman: United Worlds)
SCYTALE. (10160-I0209J The stage name of Shuurfak rai Shedler, a master face dancer from Tleitax, and the prune mover in the plot in 10209 to assassinate Paul Muad'Dib He was recognized as die most skillful and intelligent face dancer the Tletlaxu operated, and his value was evidenced by two considerations first, he was the offspring of Shrafka ir Kaaria, Minister for Foreign trade for Tleilax, and Dr Gank L Noun, the mventor of the digram-implantation process for humans, second was his possession of a birth name all face dancers were conceived tn vitro, they customarily bore only a single name, and records did not list "father" and "mother," but rather "donors " Certain prospective face dancers in each year's crop were different, however, the products of stock that had demonstrated not only the physical qualities desired but also creative intelligence of a high older Scytale was one such
In recognition of his services in the Nicodemus Affair of 10197, Scytale was received by his parents, the equivalent of legal adoption, and awarded the patronymic and metronymic of the Tleilax elite (The particles raj or ir indicate "son" or "daughter ") That Scytale was employed on the plot against Muad'Dib indicates the seriousness of the TIeilaxu participation
As the cleverest and most farsighted of the conspirators, it is ironic that Scytale was
betrayed, but for an accident he would have died some weeks earlier than he did Although not all the details of the plot are understood, Scytale's part, at least, seems clear impersonating the daughter of an old war-companion of Paul's, Scytale was to lure Paul and Cham to the Fedaykin's house Using the dwarf Byaz (who had been pre pared by the TIeilaxu for this purpose), Paul would be gotten out of the way while Cham was murdered As the ghola Duncan Idaho proved, the Tleiiaxu had the ability to re create the dead The conspirators would then offer Paul the restored Cham in return for their dominance over him
None of this occurred Scytale (m his disguise as Lichna) was detained by Paul s guards, Cham was left behind, and Paul lost his sight in the stoneburner explosion The source and purpose of the stoneburner has been the subject of endless historical argu ments Using the device served the ends of neither the Bene Gessent who needed to preserve the Atreides genes for their breed ing program nor the TIeilaxu, who could not regenerate Cham from radioactive ash The favored school of thought is that the bomb was emplaced by agents of the Spacing Guild, who were betraying their partners— especially Scytale who would have been caught m the blast— to achieve the death of the emperor and the advancement of still another forte in the drama, the Qizarate With the plan fallen awr>, Scytale had to improvise His imprisonment through the next seven months gave him plenty of time, but it must be remembered that he maintained his disguise as Lichna through that whole period This was an astonishing physical feat—the equivalent, say of running a distance race every day, week after week, month after month
Scytale knew that the dwarf had been programmed to tngger the ghola's post hypnotic suggestion to kill Paul Should Duncan Idaho follow these orders, Scytale resolved, the face dancer would amend his plan to offer the restoration of Paul in the axolotl tanks If, as he believed the tension in Idaho would bring him to memory of his pre-ghola existence, then he could offer a more precious Chani to Paul, one fully aware
SEMI-SHIELD
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of her earlier existence and possessed of the fullness of her personality Scytale must often have been close to despair in his cell, knowing that Chani had not gone to the rendezvous
When Scytale was brought before Paul shortly after Chain died in childbirth, Scytale acted with lightning resolve In the space of a few moments he learned both that Chain was dead and that the trigger had restored Idaho's memory In an act of daring or desperation, he repeated the offer while the twins' lives hung in the balance
After the failure of his mission, Scytale's body rapidly disintegrated Failure of a face dancer's central nervous system released powerful enzymes that broke down the cell walls in order to prevent his body structure from being revealed by dissection When the Tleilaxu embassy claimed the remains, they were given a container of water—from Scytale's tissues, after foe Fremen custom— but water with chemicals added that caused it to continually change color The effect of this grim jest was not lost on the Tleilaxu Scytale's mother, Shrufka ir Kaarla, committed suicide, one of the few such, instances known among that callous people, and his father, Dr Gank L Nouh, retired from public life
For many years afterward, part of the initiation ritual of the face dancer involved an oath sworn on the container holding Scytale's water, and in the eleventh quadrant the term scytale (Galacfa skatteel) was long used as the generic for face dancer
WEM
SEMI-SHELD. A person-siBed defensive shield that protected only one side of the body Most could be adjusted to cover either the right or the left side The gap between the body and shield narrowed, but did not close entirely, at the backbone, navel, and Adam's apple One leg was entirely enclosed The semi-shield wus used principally m gladiatorial contests, the chosen champion was fully shielded, and the drugged slave was given a semi-shield The generator for the semi-shield was earned on a belt harness, it was some what bulkier than that of a full shield The semi-shield was also more complex man the
regular defensive shield more expensive, and fairly rare
Further references HOLTZMAN EFFECT pstuoo SHIELD
PENTASHIELD
SEMUTA, or "Starsong " A highly addictive narcotic derived, by crystal extraction, from elacca drug (the residue produced by burning the blood-grained elacca wood of Ecaz) While there is evidence that elacca drug was in relatively common use as early as 9751, the extractive process that produced semuta was not discovered until 10092
Credit for this de\elopment is awarded to Pavon Harle, a Caladan physician/pharmacist Harle, who specialized in battlefield medicine, was well acquainted with the effects pro duced by elacca drug, because it weakened the will to survive, it was often employed as a chemical weapon, planted in an opposing camp's water supply Faced, as any military doctor so often was with the large number of wounded for whom there was simply no hope of help, Harle began to experiment with various elacca derivatives, hoping to find one that could be used to ease the passing of the dying troops His search even tually led him to semuta
The drug was everything he could have wished, the crystals either taken in capsule form or dissolved in wine, produced a feel ing of timeless, ecstasy,1 of separation from all pain and trouble Accentuating this overpowering sense of well-being was the "semuta music"—rhythmic atonal vibrations set up m the sympathetic nervous system— which accompanied the drug experience (It was this aspect that brought semuta its more poetic name ) ' No semuta-drugged soldier,' noted Harle in his memoirs, "ever showed dismay at dying it is, indeed, doubtful that most of them realized that death had touched them at all"
An unfortunate facet of semuta was its addictive qualities, most often, a single dose sufficed to cause severe physiological addiction In the case of the mortally wounded, of course, this was not a consideration, in the case of its discoverer however, it was an unending regret Harle had tested a dose of semuta crystals on himself, and he continued
SEMUTA
452
to use the drug for the remainder of his steadily less productive life
Qpce the methods used to manufacture semuta became known, massive use of the narcotic sprang up in the various militaries throughout the Impenum In services com manded by the kindlier Houses use or pos session of semuta was generally grounds for discharge For those in more stringent services the consequences ranged from blackmail through enforced withdrawal (there was a notable percentage of fatalities in such cases) to immediate execution
That semuta addicts made poor fighters was unarguable In addition to their usetessness during their ecstasies, addicts were prone to such fits of depression between doses that there were instances of soldiers waiting into enemy fire rattier than facing the agonies of withdrawal
The drug quickly made its way to the
civilian population as \veli At one point during the peak of its popularity it was hypothes zed that as much as fifty percent of the elacca wood Ecaz sold for off planet export eventually became semuta crystals By 10185 semuta addiction had come to be considered one of the Impenum s most msidi ous health problems the effects of which were felt on eveiy planel Leaden* and officials from Shaddam IV down spoke publicly of controls but privately despaired of ever containing the menace
All legislation to the contrary traffic in the drug apparently continued unabated until ap proximately 10380 Beginning with that year and continuing until the end of the century two trends combined to reduce the flow of semuta to a faltering tnckle
First m the decade that began with 10380 elacca wood production dropped by nearly ninety percent Some form of botanical plague
never satisfactorily diagnosed, was believed to be at fault. As all attempts—aad there had been many—to coax elacca wood to grow off-planet had been unsuccessful, the amount of base material available for conversion to setnuta declined accordingly.
Second, the mores of the period had changed. Where addicts had before been treated, ignored, or even pitied, those whose dependency on the drug became known more often faced harsh imprisonment, coupled with unaided semuta withdrawal. Such stern dealing with known addicts, combined with the drug's greatly increasing scarcity (and accompanying soaring prices) made experimentation increasingly unattractive.
By 10410, there was no record of any subject of the Imperium suffering from addiction. While a limited amount of elacca wood is known to grow wild on Ecaz at the present time, mere has been no interest shown in reviving semuta manufacture. C,W.
Further references: ECAZ, ELACCA DRUG; Psvon Harle, A Doctor's Notes (partially translated; Work-in-Progress, ArraJds Studies, Temp, Set. Ill, lib. Cont)
SHAI-HQLUD (Giant Sandworm), Geonemo-todiwn arrabus (also Shaihuiudata gigantica), a creature unique to the pre-Leto II era of the planet Arrakis. Attempts to establish the worm in other areas of the galaxy have met with only limited success. The completed life cycle has not been observed in any of the off-planet experiments.
THE ADULT WORM. One of the difficulties of studying the organism was the immense size of the adult. Larger male specimens reached lengths exceeding 400 meters and were close to 100 meters at die widest point. The smaller female measured approximately 100 by 20 meters. The mourn of the male worms has been measured at 80 meters in diameter. A set of 1,000 or more organic carbo-silica crystal teeth surrounded die mouth in a circular pattern. As described below, (he teeth were used for defense of territory, rather than for ingestion of nutrients.
The adult worm was made up of 100 to 400 segments. Each segment possessed its own primitive nervous system. Respiration was accomplished through pores in the tough, silvery-gray outer skin. There was no circula-
SHAI-HULUD
tory system as such, since most of the nutrients were in the form of gases Each segment had a series of membrane "baffles" to absorb nutrients
The "gut" was a hollow tube running the full length of the worm, servicing all of the segments. It did not function for the elimination of waste products nor for ingestion or digestion of food Each worm had one segment, near the anterior portion, which was a specialized reproductive segment. It is not known what stimulated the differentiation of this reproductive segment.
THE LARVAL FORM Sandtrout (Fremen: Little Makers) were the larval form of the sandworm. They were large, unicellular organisms with a flexible peptidoglycan cell wall. Nutrients were absorbed from water and air through the cell wall Individual sandtrout were rarely over 20 cm long and 6 cm wide. Their shape tended to be pleiomor-phic, adapting to the environment. It was not uncommon to find many sandtrout attached to one another, walling off several liters of water from the surrounding environment.
LIFE CYCLE. A female worm reached sex-
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SHAI HULUD
ual maturity after approximately 1,000 years of maturation Ibe male worm reached matun ty after approximately 1 100 years Mating began when a gravid female developed an egg sac in her reproductive segment At that time, she chose a nest site and built a nest by raising herself to half-leagth height and throwing herself down to "blast' out a nest This rhythmical thumping and grinding noise called a mate worm The Freraen made use of mis fact—one eould hardly term it a "matmg habit"—to call a worm with "mumpers," devices which imitated the nest building sounds of a female worm
The male moved rapidly to the nest site and devoured the female Compounds in the outer skin of the female caused the male to become dormant for a period of several weeks daring which he remained buried m the nest site The highly resistant spice-fiber egg case m the female reproductive segment was retained in the male reproductive segment where fertilizatioa occurred by an unknown process After fertilization and possibly a period of development and cell division, the male deposited the spice fiber egg case into
the sand nest presumably by egestion, and left the nest with the egg case buned deeply below the surface of the sand At this stage of development (schizontal) the zygotes un derwent an asexual cell division producing a spongiform merozygospore containing thou sands of future larvae The merozygospore ruptured releasing the sandtrout The sandtrout were efficient water scavengers They trav eled hundreds of kilometers through the sand seeking out water joining their bodies with one another to transport the water back to the nest site Many of the nutrients required by the sandtrout were breakdown products contributed by the female body The sandtrout produced exoenzymes which digested the nutrients to fragments absorbable by the larvae As the sandtrout brought water to the nest site it mixed with the excretions of the larvae to form the pre spice mass The chemis try of the reactions has not been determined, however it is known that C02 was evolved and built tremendous pressures withm the mass When the pressure built sufficiently there was a powerful explosion often termed a spice blow All of the products of the pre-spice mass were brought to the surface of the sand, where the action of sun and air rapidly changed the pre spice to melange Again the bio-chemical process is unknown During the * blow many sandtrout m the immediate vicinity were killed Most schol an, agree that the cell walls of these dead larvae were the source of the ammo-sugars in melange
The chemical reactions dunng the spice blow triggered changes in the surviving larvae stimulating them to join their bodies in a premetamorphic stage At this point, changes in metabolism began so that the combined larvae became similar to the adult worm Water gradually became toxic and rudimen tary autotrophy developed
The premetamorphic stage consisted of joined sandwormb each capable of metamor phosing into an individual sandworm segment The metamorphic process took over 1 050 years One segment differentiated to become the head segment with teeth, and another differentiated into the reproductive segment Posterior segments were relatively undifferen tiated and could reverse the metamorphic
SHAIHULUD
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SHAI HULUD
process to become sandtrout if environmental conditions were unfavorable to the adult worm Most commonly this latter occurred in the presence of water
The juvenile form of the worm was nei ther male nor female This small (20 to 30 meters long) form of the worm was captured by the Fremen for drowning to produce the spice essence for their spice orgy Most of these juvenile worms became females The stimulus for development of a male is not known One theory holds that subtle changes m the environment due to the absence of an adult male triggered the formation of a male, but this is not proven Each male worm had a territory of 300-400 square kilometers which he defended against intrusion by another male Fights between two males rarely ended in death The protsgmsts used their teeth to hook the nng segments of the opponent, opening the segment to the entrance of sand, causing irritation One worm eventually became sufficiently uncomfortable to break off the battle and retreat Although the fight was not directly fatal, occasionally sand caused sufficient irritation to allow entrance of an as yet undetermined virus, eventually resulting in the death of the worm
METABOLISM OF THE ADULT WORM The adult G arraknis was a true autotroph producing all of its nutritional needs from inor game compounds on the planet surface The energy to dnve the synthetic reactions was obtained by the travel of the worm through the sand which caused an electrostatic charge differential The resulting electrons passed to an electron acceptor believed to be a cupn cyanide compound, the reduced form of which accumulated in the worm body The electron donor was probably SiC>2, although the pre cise mechanism is unknown Molecular OKy gen was evolved dunng the reaction The presence of water caused the electrons to be discharged abnormally because the amons and cations on the worm body dissolved in the water Thus, water was a poison to the worm
The heat from the friction of the travel of the worm through sand drove the synthetic reactions to completion Most of the nutrients produced were gaseous methane, ethane, propane and butane, butyric acid, propiomc acid, acetic acid, and formic acid Excess gases not utilized for nutrients were literally ignited by the heat of sand travel Thus, the worm always had a flame deep within the body cavity The excess heat also aided in driving the synthetic reactions, keeping the nutrients in gaseous form for adsorption, and vaporizing any stray r^O
Our knowledge of the metabolism of the sandworm is necessarily incomplete, not only because of the size of the creature, but also because of the presence of many acidic com pounds in the worm body Besides the organic acids, concentrated hydrochloric and sulfunc acids have also been detected In some way the living worm buffered itself against these acids, but once the worm died, the body was rapidly digested by them The most resistant structures were the teeth, which were garnered by the Fremen to become the legendary cryskmves
One of the mysteries of the metabolism of the sandworm is the source of hydrogen m the organic compounds Obviously it could not come from water One theory is that molecular hydrogen was fixed, although the reactions have not been discovered
Some research undertaken, before the vir-
SHA1HULUD
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SHAI HULUD
tual disappearance of the worm as a result of the ecological transformation of Arrakis, suggests that the complicated internal chemical transformations also produced oxygen as a by product rather than consuming ft in the process of metabolism Certainly it is well known mat much of the oxygen on Arrakis after the original prehistoric catastrophe was denved from the sandworm, despite the apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics One authority termed the worm an "oxygen factory"
With only stunted sandworms or sandtrout to study at the present time, many of the questions concerning the worm may never be solved M S
Further etftnacts- *ELANOE, SPKE, ARRAKIS OXYGEN SAGA B Gwever, A Prologemena and Tentative Hy pothesis Concerning Apparent Violations of the Second Law of Thermodynamics in the Production Rather Than Consumption of Oxygen in fte Metabolic Processes of Skaihuludata gigaiiBes," Second Impenal Conference on Chemistry* CaJadaa
SHA1-HOLUD AS LEVIATHAN. Because die Orange Catholic Bible cud cot command the universal authority expected for it, most sects began immediately to circulate revised versions and compiled special editions to suit local planetary conditions As the authority of the O C Bible grew, the revisionists either circulated their special and more heretical materials clandestinely or, by skillful translation and paraphrase, communicated some of then* most private convictions covertly under the guise of an official revised text Something of this latter effect is observable in the weH-known "Hymn to Shai-Hulud " This hymn had a public circulation in the cities of Arrakis but it is believed to have had a secret ceremonial use among the sietch Fremen The very name "Shai-Hulud" can be used in three significations in this form, to denote the worm personified, in the form "shai-hulud" (without capitals) to denote the sandworm as 9 mere creature, as "Shai-Hulud," with full capitalization, to denote the Fremen tribal god During the Haikonnen regime and earlier, while it was not known that the Fremen could ride the great sand-worms or that their lives were closely linked through the production of melange and the
Water of Life used in the spice orgies, much of the hymn meant different things to the public than to the Fremen Now tt is easy to see in the ninth verse a contemptuous sneer directed against those who do not understand the true value of body moisture
The identification of Shai-Hulud with leviathan, believed to have been originally a species of water monster, was not unique Similar developments occurred on other planets, as we can observe in the grimly humorous "Address to the Furry Whdle" of Gtedi Prime, or the sinister Invocation to Hawt the Fish Monster of the ocean planet Wave (Hurmdis) All three chants (and oth ers like them) derive more or less closely from chapters of the ancient Book of Job,. one of the most persistent survivors of Mosaic testdmental lore, although it would be hard indeed now for scholars to work back through the overlays of editorial revision and local paraphrase to the original text (In the O C Bible, the description of Leviathan is in Job XIV) It is, however, apparent that parts of the "Hymn to Shai-Hulud" incorporate fragments of a description of another beast (or some other beasts perhaps a giant polypus, as the ancient form of the name is apparently plural) in Job, behemoth
"Hymn to Shai Hulud"
1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook, or blind him with a mist1*
2 Canst thou lasso him by the horns or wilt thou rather harpoon him'
3 Will he crawl before thee in supplication'' Will he speak soft words unto thee9
4 Will he let thee ride upon his back wilt thou take him for thy bearer for ever7
5 Wilt thou play with him as with a sandtrout, or wilt thou present thy maidens to him9
6 Shall he join with you in orgy, or wilt thou confine him m a cistern''
7 Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons9 Or set thy hooks behind his head7
8 Dance towards him on the drum sand, to make him thy partner
9 Behold, the hope of the out lander is in vain Shall not one lose water even at the sight ot bun'
10 None is so fierce that dare stir him up, who shall wave a rag before his face9
11 Who else hath inspired me that I should repay him9 Because of him I am the greatest under all the heavens
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12 I will not conceal bis length, nor his power, nor his great beauty
13 Who can discover his buried treasures'' All are hidden in the dust together
14 Who dare enter the doors of his face'' His teeth are terrible round about
15 His rings are his pnde, shut up together as with a close seal
16 One is so near to another that no dust can come between them
17 His scales are joined one to another, they stick together, that they cannot be sundered
18 By hts sneezings a light doth shine, from his belly comes the fire of God
19 Out of his mouth goeth cinnamon breath, to the blasting of thy nostrils
20 A burning lamp glows within his mouth, sparks of crystal leap about it
21 Fire burns in his passage, and a furnace flares out from his tail
22 He moveth his tail like a whirlwind, sorrow is swallowed up m the vortex of his joy
23 Each nng segment has a life of its own, his rings are firm in themselves, they cannot be moved
24 Let him not roll upon thee, thou shall be ground as the grain on the nether millstone
25 When he nseth up himself, the mighty are afraid, his speed squeezeth bakka from diem
26 The sword of him that stnketh at him wdl turn aside the knife, the slip tip, nor the kindjal
27 He esteemed) the shields as thumpers, yea, the pseudo-shields as piumc flies
28 The lasgun cannot make him fee, he turaeth the stunners into stubble
29 The wind that eateth flesh cannot harm him, he laugheth in tine conohs storm
30 Sharp mountains roe above torn, he spreadeth rivers of sand about him
31 He maketh the sandpaa to boil like a pot, his hissing ftiJeth the morning
32 He maketh path through the deep desert, his passage eleanseth the world
33 Upon Dune there is not hts hke, for he maketh the Water of Life
34 He is the chief of the ways of God, he is Shai-hulud, the Old Father Eternity
NOTE
The transcript of the "Hymn to Shai Humd" leaves unexplained the common and nigh universal (if seldom expressed) belief mat worship of Shai-Hulud was the same as worshipping Shattan Were the Fremen completely blind to the true nature of their religion' Such, it seems, was actually the case, although mere is good reason to
believe that when the Fremen first established themselves on Arrakis thev regarded the giant sandworm in much the same light as did everyone else, as an unmitigated evil force of nature that rendered large tracts of the planet uninhabitable The name itself, Shai Hulud, is believed by its derivation to prove these evil associations For although an accepted derivation is from the Old Fremen shaikh at Hud old grandfather Hud' (cf in O C Bible, Sura VII) it has also been proposed that the denvatton rather is from Shai(tan) hulul "devil m transmigration' or, "Shaitan incarnate ' Hulul is a Fremen term used m the sietch orgy ceremony to signal the mingling of human with divine spirit supposed to occur after drinking the Water of Life It ih believed lo go back to a Sunsufi idea as expressed in 57 Kalima in the O C Bible, which says Thy Spirit is mingled m my spirit even as wine is mingled in pure water When anything touches Thee, it touches me Lo, m every case Thou art I " (For more on this point, see the Azhar Book I In the early days of Muad'Dib's association with the Fremen the characteristic Fremen attitude of rev erence toward the sandworm maj be gauged by Stllgar, whose worshipful dependence on Shai Hulud is clear and habitual The city attitude on Arrakis was more fearfully superstitious and the association of the sandworm with Shaitan in the Dune Tarot was typical of out freyn belief
MT
Further references ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE Pyer Bmzvair, ed , Summa of Ancient Belief and Practice (Bolchef Collegium Tamo)
SHIGAWIRE. Grown only on Salma Secundus and III Delta Kaismg, the Shiga Vine (Narvi narviium) is widespread on both planets, and gains its advantage in the ecological battle on those sere worlds by its production of metallic crystals of incredible tensile strength The crystals range in diameter from monomo-lecular to one tenth of a millimeter, depending upon the base metal and any impurities in the mix, and have been found to grow up to a kilometer m length from very old, established vines
Shigawire has numerous uses, including sabotage, assassination, and mayhem (the monomolecular shigawire being especially prized for these uses), but the most common uses take advantage of the fact that not only is shigawire extremely compact and strong, but it is also metallic and able to hold an electrical charge The crystalline structure of
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the wire leads to an extremely stable environment for recorded information so that spools of shigawire ("filmbooks") had a considerable popularity among early space-travelers when space and mass were strictly rationed Some of die earliest filmbooks were made from artificial shigawire, before the discovery of Sal usa Secundus and III Delta Kaising The popularity of filmbooks continues to the present day, but more as a result of the con vemence of filmbooks than because of their low mass The finest shigawire is classified as "mimmic film* It is monomolecular, normally only about a micron in diameter, and is prized among spies and secret couriers as an almost foolproof method for smuggling messages The only difficulty with minimic film is its unfailing tendency to cut through anything and everything—tec only safeguard is to make sure that all parts of the shigawire implant, whatever it might be contained in, move as a single unit Should one part move faster than another, the shigawire could easily cut through the container before it bent, which can be highly distressing when the container is the messenger's body
SlAYTtOQ, FEAST OF (also, "Great Sharing," "Feast of Leto") Held decennially, this mytho-pohtrcaf festival reinforced the bond between the God Emperor and his Fish Speakers Of all the aspects of Fish Speaker service, this was the most sacred and important, it was, in Leto's words, the "one ritual" given mem As such, it was jealously guarded from outsiders—men, in particular—with occasional allowances made for the presence of a Duncan Idaho ghola whom it might please Leto to admit to the nte
The religious aspects of Siaynoq far predated worship of die God Emperor Their roots can most clearly be seen in the Zensunm ritual of siayla, practiced by that cult of mystics in one form or another since their formation Siayla, roughly translatable as "Light of Truth," was held annually among the Zensunm, it was a gathering of all available sect members to discuss the progress made toward their religious goals during that year Originally, a siayla was conducted in the manner of a pre Orange Catholic Bible silent meeting, with members of the congregation
each contributing as they saw fit As the Zensunm became more numerous, however and especially after their repeated forced migrations the ritual changed the bulk of die gathering would listen to their Sayyadina or Ulema hold forth on the subject What had been a participatory ritual eventually became a presided one
After the Zensunm were transplanted to Arrakis there becoming Fremen the siayla changed again It became ' the sharing, ' the spice orgy m which doses of modified Water of Life gave the people a heightened sense of awareness of one another and strengthened their tribal bonds These changes were later to become the core of Siaynoq even to the ritual mgestion of melange, though m a greatly reduced dosage
The first Siajnoq was held in 10576 aftei Leto n had announced his godhead but prior to the construction ot Onn, his Festival City and later site for the ritual Much of the ritual was firmly established and remained unchanged for over three thousand years
The Lord Leto—originally under his own power, later on the Royal Cart—maneuvered himself to the center of his assembled Fish Speakers The women would then gather closely around him with those leaving ac tive service in the first rank, and declare their eternal loyalty and devotion to then-God Leto, m return, addressed them as his "brides and praised them for their courage and fidelity He gave his blessing to those continuing m active service to those who had become mothers and were leaving to join his priestesses or to work as full-time mothers until their children were older, and to the Fish Speakers offspring Great emphasis was placed on the special relationship the women maintained with the God Emperor The overall effect induced feelings of intense loyalty among the female military and fostered their feeling of superiority to more common subjects
The next step of the ritual was the distnbu tion of wafers containing small doses of spice Each participant in Siaynoq from the babes in arms to the God Emperor himself, consumed part or all of a wafer, this ritual mgestion tied Siaynoq to the older Fremen ntual and was the reason for its being re
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ferred to as the "Feast of Leto'' It should be noted, however, that there was no attempt to tie Siaynoq to the transubstantiative rite practiced earlier by the Orange Catholic Church, perhaps because that particular form of worship could be rendered less effective by the actual presence of the god
After the wafers were eaten and the sense of affinity among the massed troops attained its highest point, Leto produced the cryskmfe which had belonged to Paul Muad'Dib Atreides and held it aloft for his Fish Speakers to venerate This moment, mote than any other in the ntual, touched the Fish Speakers' religious faith Much of what had preceded it could be interpreted as military boostensm. the mystery of the cryskmfe opened itself to no such interpretation It is only because of the bravery (one might say recklessness) of the Duncan Idaho who served Leto from 10895-10941 and managed to conceal himself in the Sacred Chamber where Siaynoq was held that the words of the ritual are recorded As the hidden observer described the scene
The Fish Speakers, earlier so loud in their cries of praise foi their God, were quieted by the sight of (he blade As Leto rased it above his head, he spoke to them, his own voice more subdued than it had been
"The talisman of oar lives," he called it ' The knife of Muad'Dib The tooth of Shai Hulud' He raised his voice very slightly "Will Shai Hulud come again1'"
"Yes, Lord," replied the Rsh Speakers
"Who is Shai-Hulud?" he asked
"You, Lord "
Following the exchange be returned the blade to its box and moved among the adoring women I took advantage of their attention being fixed on him and fled, I shudder even DOW to think of what would have become of me had the Fish Speaker^ known of my uninvited presence
His fear was well-founded At a much later Siaynoq, the consort of one of the Fish Speaker officers was discovered to have hidden himself in die Chamber to discover the nature of the ntual his mate refused to discuss Less adept at concealment then the Duncan Idaho had been, he was found before Siaynoq had fairly begun, That did not save him a group of women, led by the unfortunate
man's mate, fell upon him savagely, killing him with their bare hands
As the ranks of Fish Speakers expanded, spreading to garrisons on every planet of the Impermm, the practice of Siaynoq changed slightly The ntual itself remained the same, but it was attended only by Fish Speakers stationed on Arrakis However, it included three representatives from each off-world gamson Even with such restrictions, the Sacred Chamber beneath the FesUval City was filled to capacity each decade by the Lord Leto's adonng followers
The ntual was. repeated every ten years until the God Emperor s Fall when it was officially discontinued Even after the Fall and the chaos it precipitated, however a version of Siaynoq—now involving the adoration of the God Emperor's spirit, as opposed to his person—was celebrated among some remnants of the dispersed Fish Speakers The new ritual was especially popular among retired Fish Speakers who had been stationed on Arrakis, and was believed to have been invented by a former member of Leto's Citadel Guard
Without the God Emperor himself as a focal point for worship, Siaynoq could not long endure It had become an empty gesture (sometimes a dangerous one, if the practitioners were on a world especially hostile to fish Speakers) and had completely disappeared within a generation after the Fall C W
Further references FISH SPEAKERS ONN ZENSUNNI MIGRATIONS S Gwalles ed The Idaho Papers (Yorba Rose) Youzheen Pursewarden History of the Fish Speakers (Centralra Johun UP)
SIETCH, AGTHORnY STRUCTURE. The tnbe itself was the ultimate source of authority among the Fremen Anv authority figure was thus subsumed under the authority of the group The naib served and spoke for the tribe but did not directly command its members Command was unnecessary, any force was internally directed No police were needed to guarantee compliance Deviance from normative standards was rare and was handled by the family unit The mother of a shamed family would have her child put to death if he or she were possessed or mad All Fremen knew their duty and it was not
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the function of the naib to define what was meant by "duty"
Authority for the Fremen denoted respect and, most important, the power of a personal message The best example of this is reflected in the devotion of the Fremen to Pardot Kynes He was the earliest leader of all the Fremen yet revealed to us in the ndulian crystals He was the first to unify the tribes with an overarching vision Pardot Kynes did not and could not force his vision onto the people nor did he use an authoritarian position to impose his message Himself an outsider, Kynes was able to convey his message to the Fremen based on his respect for them and their way of life His projection of long-term moderate ecological change on the planet they called Dune would enable the Fremen to observe the essentials of their social order Although he persuaded them of the benefit of his message and gained their devotion, Kynes never controlled the Fremen as an entire people, nor did he control any of the sietches Each sietch maintained its autonomy under its own naib
The Naib personified the ideal virtues of the people and is perhaps best exemplified by Stilgar As depicted m the crystals, Stilgar manifested the ascetic, militaristic qualities of the Fremen His strength, moral certitude, and total devotion to Sietch Tabr comes through forcefully He obeyed the necessities of tribal preservation and evaluated all possibilities m terms of his duty to his people Important decisions were made by him, but since the criteria for deciding were so clear and firmly established, it was likely mat any other Fremen serving as Naib would have made tile same decision The Naib's prime responsibility was to provide both water and security for the sietch These two duties encompassed all other requirements, and every other responsibility was subsumed under mem There seems to have been implicit consensus on all specific acts directed to ward these two provisions
While much has been made of the dial lenge of combat procedure used for selecting the naib closer examination reveals that any challenge to unseat a naib was preceded by an implicit popular vote of no confidence While a naib was properly carrying out his
responsibilities, he remained unchallenged If a naib maintained his vigor and sagacity, no male could effectively pose a challenge Only when he faltered could a challenger garner the popular support to call out the naib Contemporary scholars argue quite convincingly that the challengers were men of suture who combined the qualities of potential leadership with a strong sense of commitment to the verities of Fremen life They were not merely the finest hand to hand fighters but were men who believed they could effectively guide the tribe in its trying struggles
Each sietch had its council of wise men who would advise the Naib While not a compelling source of authority, the council had significant influence because it embod led and expressed the shared myths and traditions of the Fremen Since all Fremen deeply identified with their people s history of grief the council s interpretations were almost always accepted, and no evidence of any serious unresolved disputes between Naib and council has been unco\ered The course of necessary action was generally clear cir cumstance combined with precedent, and an informal consensus would arise
All Fremen had the right to express them selves before the council and the persuasive power of the speaker mattered Statements that resonated with the collective yearnings of the Fremen would gam the highest influ ence with the council Speakers before the council would seek to link their contentions with the meaningful imagery of Fremen traditions It has been said that even Paul Muad Dib could sway the council from its reluctance to break with custom only by revealing the complexity and dynamism of custom
The role of the Reverend Mother in the sietch has not yet received sufficient atten tion in the literature that has emerged from Dar es Balat As spiritual leader in a spmtu al commumt), the Reverend Mother wielded the authority of history She was intimately and deeply in contact with all Fremen who had preceded her No Naib could contradict her, nor could the council confound her wisdom While the Reverend Mother could establish the overall framework of meaning
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within which specific decisions would be made, she never sought to usurp the powers of the Naib or the council
While schisms and power struggles among naib, council and Reverend Mother were theoretically possible, they did not seem to occur Each constituent of this authority structure carried out its function toward the put-pose of preserving the Fremen as a people who faced the eenocidal policies of die Harkonnens as well as the deprivations of life on the planet Dune
As each sietch strove to maintain its autonomy while seeking to coordinate with other sietches in the interests of the common struggle, the Council of Leaders eventually came to play a significant role Under the leadership of Muad'Dib, die Council brought together the powerful forces which finally defeated the oppressors However, once the victory was achieved, the Fremen authority system was transformed utterly under the absolute rulership of Paid and the Regency that followed M 0
Further references: HIEMEN comes, REVEREND MOTHER, Daiwid Kuuan, Monuments of the Zenswni Migrations (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak), Defa 1 Fanim Too] I Fremen esp Vols 5 6 (SafaSa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
SPACING GUILD, FOUNDATION. The early history of the Spacing Guild begins with Ixian (Koman) refugees from the Butlenan Jihad, led by Aurchus Venport and Norma Cevna, who landed on Tupile, established the Society of Mystic Manners, and laid the groundwork for what would later become the Guild
The development of the Guild itself began shortly after the disappearance of Venport and the death of Cevna The Society they had founded had allowed gifted Tupilians to join their ranks, and one such was Frelo Mason, who, more than any other, was responsible for the Spacing Guild's mature form and activities Mason (105 B G - 29 B G ), described by contemporaries as swarthy, handsome and cunning, lacked the characteristic Tupihan desire for a settled life He and some of his companions possessed a keener awareness of what the universe had to offer and harbored interstellar ambitions equal to
those of the Ixian exiles When Aurehus Venport was lost in space in 79 B G Mason assumed command of the dispirited Society, transforming it into a predominantly Tupihan organization serving Tupihan needs as he defined them The remaining Ixians were neither cast out more to suffer a diminution in importance they continued to fill valuable roles m the Society, enjoying the authontv they had exercised before (subject to Mason's veto), a leavening the group with their idealism Under Mason's leadership, the So ciety remained a closed hierarchy with strict entrance requirements, he thus protected the Society's integrity, discipline and mystique But his ultimate goal remained that of the Ixian exiles an interstellar shipping monopoly, moving swiftly and safely through hyperspace By the time of his death the Guild was well along toward that goal
Leadership of the now strong and well organized Guild passed smoothly to Frelo's son Jasta Mason (60 B G-31 A G ), who inherited his father's abilities as well as ambitions Over the next three decades Jasta concerned himself with assembling a substan tial fleet and solving the problem of navigat ing it The Guild had known of the powers of melange since the days of Venport through, it is believed, the clandestine machinations of the Bene Gessent It is also believed probable that during these early decades of Jasta's leadership when the fleet was grow mg and making many secret interstellar voyages, the Guild found the planet Arrakis and the source of the spice so vital to their navigational mastery Thus, by 12 B G , the Guild was secure enough m its abilities and resources to reveal itself from a position of strength
The Guild s reconnaissance missions had become more numerous, extending its knowl edge of political developments m the inhabit ed worlds and stretching its reach beyond the borders of known space Mason perceived mat the Comnos were eager to convert their empire into a true Impenum, with a more stable and long lasting basis than the might of the Sardaukar He immediately saw a central role for the Guild in this transformation But the first approach Mason directed though carefully planned was a disaster
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Mason's first agent, Zarv, was sent to the Imperial Governor of Deneb to discreetly teel out response to the Guild's proposal The agent offered the possibility of the return of interstellar travel and suggested the gover nor contact his superiors so a meeting could be arranged with the agent's principals The governor, in a fit of ravening greed, promptly subjected the agent to the several crude interrogatory techniques available to him in an effort to seize this plum for himself Unable to believe that die agent had never even seea a member of {he Guild, the governor kept pressing his questions The agent, unknown even to himself, had been provided by die Guild With mental conditioning which would result in his death before he could reveal anything of harm to die Guild The agent died
This horrible failure sent a shock of fear through the Guild's directors, locking diem in a policy struggle They had learned enough about die Sardaukar to fed understandable qualms about dealing directly with House Comno—what was to prevent invasion of their planet if its location became known to this ruthless military organization'' Nor could the Guild approach die Landsraad for a simi lar reason—what was to prevent the Houses Major from joining to use die Guild against the emperor'7 And what of then* use of melange—how could that secret be safe guarded indefinitely once hyperspace com merce brought the inhabited worlds much closer together?
These were hard questions, involving die survival not just of die envisioned Guild monopoly, but of Tupik itself The debate narrowed to two choices retreat back into secrecy, or continue trying to negotiate When put to a vote, the issue deadlocked As chairman, Mason broke the impasse in a speech that one historian, Adelheyd Heyman claiming access to the minutes of die meeting records
Zarv died horribly, aad we're fill sorry about that, but we can't let it panic us You say ' Be safe, be careral, ' but Zarv wasn't Norma Cevna wasn t when the spice was killing her brain celt by cd! Venport wasa t when he took the fleet into The Void. If the Ixians bad been
safe and careful all of us nght now would be sitting around a campfire wearing skins
This guild can make us great—I tell you we can be the wings of the Impenum Right now this moment as we argue a new humanity is being conceived and we have the chance to shape the child thai will be born Hesitate now and the chance will never come again As the Impenum develops that child will grow and if we hide on Tupile for how long' a century9 two centuries9—when we come out of our burrows and look at him we 11 see that he can fly all nght but his wings won t be Guild ships
But they can be we can be those wings—if we remember who and what we are and be bold'
His speech moved them, and a unanimous board affirmed his polity The approaches would continue, mixing boldness with a re served prudence based on a realistic apprais al of current politics They sent another emissary this time to die governor of Nabatea who proved more temperate in his reaction
Even so, die Nabatean was not inclined to believe claims put forth by an agent who had never seen his superiors (having gotten his instructions by radio) and the governor demanded a demonstration The Guild there fore transported the governor to the Imperial Court m three standard days, a journey which usually took two years (Initiating a practice that was later followed without exception a Guild pilot brought the governor s ship into orbit and docked it within the heighhner The Nabateans were confined to their own craft during the voyage, and were never permitted a glimpse of the Guild ship or its crew)
The Emperor Saudir I was then involved in touchy dealings with the Landsraad over the form of a government dial would permit both parties to thrive The revelation of the Guild, whose claims were manifestly true brought a pause to the Cornno Landsraad talks while Saudir integrated the potent new factor of the Guild into his political calcu lations He saw three alternatives deal witii die Guild on a basis of mutual advantage seize control of the Guild for himself or destroy die Guild The Sardaukar made the last solution possible but the potential advan
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tages offered by a return of swift interstellar trade argued against it The determination of the Guild to remain secret and separate from the rest of society, and the abilities they had shown in the Deneb affair, convinced Saudir that taking control would be very difficult Finally, Saudir had to take into consideration the position of the Landsraad, who certainly could see the benefits of what the Guild had to offer, but also greatly feared the threat to then- feudal governmental structure which unrestricted interstellar trade posed
Saudir, a wise and canny ruler, chose to deal with this complex problem in a great Financial Synod, convened on Aeranum IV in 10 B G The emotions of those attending were not unlike those of a rabbit faced with a snake an almost unbearable combination of fascination and fear The Guild, too, came to Aeranum IV with intense mixed emotions While the advantages of rebirth of interstellar trade were clear to them, the dangers of dealing with the emperor and the Landsraad were also obvious For at the root of the extraordinary secrecy of the Guild lay its great danger Their ability to guide ships through interstellar hyperspace lay not only in learning, bat also in a secret Certainly one needed to be a trained navigator, but the essence of their abilities lay in the spice-trance Thus, unlike the abilities gained through a long period of training, the central power of the Guild could be stolen If one learned the secret of the spice-trance, one learned what the Guild knew
A masterstroke of purposeful misdirection saved the Guild Like kings bearing gifts, they offered melange, representing it only as a spice which would extend human longevity The Guild ambassadors had been insulated from the exploration and development arms of the organization, and could honestly assert ignorance of the source of melange By this maneuver—« daring oae for the Guild— they hoped to allay any suspicion mat melange had additional effects The stratagem worked for centuries until the Guild's reh ancc on spice-prescience was discerned by Paul Atreides
At the same tune, the emissaries warned against attempts to use the Guild for pur-
poses other than those negotiated They referred obliquely to earlier debate within the Imperial Court on the possibility of finding and seizing the planetary base of the Guild The ambassadors clearly implied that if any such action was even seriously entertained, die Guild would retreat into secrecy They pointed out that no political entity then existing could match the Guild m space, and further more, that a search for their home world would take years During those years, the Guild, even if e\entually found, would have destroyed its hyperspace industry No one would benefit from reckless adventurism, but everyone would benefit if the Guild were allowed to exercise its modest function And so it was agreed
The few years following the close of the Synod in 5 B G , which had given rise to CHOAM and the Imperium Mason had foreseen were spent in bargaining sessions in which a host of details—commercial areas, product rights, monetary exchange, tariffs, schedules, transport costs and priorities—were haggled over undl agreement was achieved These sessions involved the newly created CHOAM directors and the growing number of off world Guild agents
Jasta Mason died m 31 A G of natural causes, after a long and distinguished career He was one of the great figures in the history of human commerce, but he died without a successor of comparable stature and authority Yet it was a measure of his accomplishment that the Guild did not suffer from his passing The organization that Jasta, and his father before him, had partly inherited and partly created worked well through a board of directors Intelligent and capable people, they no longer needed empire builders, their pur pose was not to create but to maintain and refine the Spacing Guild—to plume the wings of the Impenum S T
Further references VENPORT AURLLHJS CEVNA NORMA
SPACING GUILD OPERATIONS INTERSTELLAR FLIGHT
PRE GUILD TUPILE Addheyd Heyman Kvelenbuk mr Reyksgishikte des Grosser Geldgishoftersynod trans T H Erussus (ong pub 753 rpt Fides Manx)
SPACING GUILD, OPERATIONS AND ORGANIZATION. The term ' Spacing Guild"
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was a name offered fof convenience to those it served, among its members it was known as the Corpus Lummis Pratnttntuaitis, which may be translated "Hie Union of the Foreseeing Eye'% its motto was Quilibet Quohbet, Quandohber "Anything, anytime, anyplace " Composed m part of members genetically engineered for special sensitivity to melange, the CLP, hereafter referred to as the Guild, produced Navigators and Steersmen whose prescience enabled mem to guide spacecraft through hyperspace without die computers tabued by the Butlenan Jihad Beyond these specialized members, it included ancillary personnel, all of mem making up a closed society of an unknown homeworld whose heighhners maintained and regulated trans portation between planetary systems
The Guild held the civilized worlds together until the invention of Ixian navigation devices in 14132, when the Guild monopoly was broken For millennia its power was great, m one case even naming the successor to the Golden Lion Throne Only when die Atreides came to power was Guild influence checked through control of the melange they required
DISCOVERY AND USE OF MELANGE A historical puzzle that has resisted solution for tens of thousands of years is how the Guild discovered die navigational uses of melange (It is probably the best known of all historical mysteries, from the Kaitainan proverb at the head of the chapter on the Accompamtive Case m R V Yun's Galach First Book, used by thousands of students on scores of worlds
Gwipoot gwigiltzun, gwinau gwisptitim, Gwipoot gwigihtim gwinau gwispiizrni
"Without Guild, no spice, without spice, no Guild") Disregarding fantasies such as the claim mat melange was a gift from aliens desiring the reunion of humanity, we are left with only two serious possibilities independent discovery by the Guild, or a disclosure from the Bene Gessent F.ach of these explanations has serious drawbacks
The Aurelian exiles who found and re stored Tupile knew nothing of spice, yet by 84 B G they understood its navigational benefits In that year Norma Cevna made the first spice trance-guided journey through
hyperspace By the year 10, when the Guild joined the Impenum melange had been extensively tested and its use in hyperspace was routine If the Guild, or its forerunner, the Society of Mystic Manners, had discovered melange on their own, the find must have come between Aurelms Venport's departure from Ix in 110 B G and Cevna's first flight in 84 B G Arrakis was the sole source of melange Therefore if the Aurehan exiles touched on an uninhabited Arrakis (a possibility) and found it uninhabitable (a cer tainty), how could they have located melange, and if they had, what possible reason would they have had for taking some with them1? Its value would have been unknown to them (they surely could not have tested it m situ), and we must remember that the exiles were searching desperately for a homeworld, not for a new cuisine
If the exiles learned of the effects of spice after settling on Tupile, where did that spice come from9 It seems beyond reason that the Society, wrestling with the problem of hyperspace navigation without computers, would have sent scouts on years-long realspace journeys to remote planets on the off chance that one might find some natural substance of value in navigation No matter how intelligent and energetic, how does a small group (numbenng m the hundreds) rebuild a planetary industry restore its educational system, overawe and regiment its populace, redesign spacecraft along revolutionary lines, and carry out lengthy and numerous random explorations, atl in sixteen years9 That the Ixian exiles accomplished the first four of these jobs is marvelous, that they did all tive is incredible
A second hypothesis has attracted more support On Praxus III, the exiles admitted to their group a woman who claimed to have been cast out of the Bene Gessent—Dardamus Leona Shard Her name at least is consonant with her allegation of Reverend Mother status According to the second theory Leona taught Norma Cevna about melange To accept it we must believe that the B G knew of spice a century before the rest of humanity, a fact for which there is no evidence We know that the B G used many substances m the rite that conferred Reverend Mother status, and melange is never mentioned among them
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Finally, the "voices within" of the Bene Gessent adepts seem different in kind from the effects of melange useful to the Guild the voices were echoes of the past, but Guild Steersmen needed windows into the future
Despite all these objections, there is something attractive about the idea of a secret B G hand m the founding of the Guild suppose Leona Shard was not cast out, but planted on Praxus specifically to intercept and join the exiles What motive could the B G have had? The answers to that question are as numerous as the benefits an organization like the Guild may furnish the genes of intelligent and adventurous people, perhaps one day useful m the breeding program, an organization tying an empire together, widening the resources of the gene-pool, die enormous political leverage that hyperspace monopoly would wield Still, how could the Sisterhood have known that the exiles would stop on Praxus? Even Bene Gessent sources shed little light on this and associated questions, but one of the most closely reasoned conjectures outside their ranks comes from Dons Bhrazen in her Pursuit of the Kwisatz Haderach
The future to the Bene Gessent was a flux, its swirls dependent on every pebble dropped into the pool A larger pool meant less senous consequences from slight disturbances, but a larger gene-pool required better physical transportation If the Sisterhood could have become the Guild, they would have done so But open operation was not their way Also, at heart they were Butlenans and averse to traveling paths open to people like Aurelius Venport He had the boldness and the lack of scruples to test the spice given him by the B G But it would have been a purchase not a gift their scheme was to control his possible success by routing melange through his mistress, Norms Cevna, who would then rule Amelias and the enure enterprise, and the B G would then rule Norraa It almost worked '
If such was indeed the plan, part of the reason for its failure was that Frelo Mason had Leona Shard put to death when he took command of the Society of Mystic Manners The problem at tine heart of this second theory is the question of where the Bene Gessent originally found melange Despite
the Sisterhood's seeding of the planets with the Missionana Protective, the B G could not have learned about melange from the Fremen, who did not reach Arrakis until 7193
Wherever from, the Guild clearly had melange m their early days on Tupile It is also clear that m the more than sixty years between Frelo Mason s dbcendancy and the Guild's joining the Impenum, the Guild discovered Arrakis and the source of the spice The Guild would not have been able to reveal the geriatric properties of melange and offer it as a lure to the emperor and the Landsraad during their negotiations at the Financial Synod (10 B G -5 B G ) if they did not have a controllable, steady source
NAVIGATION Imagine a circus performe on the high wire Suppose that the wire rocks back and forth, but in each hand he twirls a bar, making himself a gyroscope and keeping his balance But now the wire begins to heave, to flutter, to bounce and spin and buck But our balancer can see the future, can predict each movement to come and can therefore place himself m the right attitude and angle, spinning his batons at the speed and vector essential to remain upright Picture such a performance (for we will certainly never see one) and you have a metaphor of the task of the Spacing Guild Steersman at work
Our outline of the navigation of a heighlmer through hyperspace is the system in use in the tenth millennium, when the Guild was at the apex of its power and skill
The globular shape of the heighlmer was not accidental as freight earners, the huge ships might take on cargos endlessly varied m mass and volume The cargo was distnbut ed through the craft and secured, the control room, located at the center of the globe, was a double walled sphere Between the two walls of the sphere were the controls for realspace movement and the Navigator's station Inside the inner sphere, its enclosing shell pierced by airlocks was the Steersman s station, filled completely with water containing an extremely high concentration of dissolved oxygen At its very center was a Laser Pen containing a point-source Holtzman Effect node
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The sequence for hyperspace transit was this first, die Navigator, calling on his melange-prescience, determined the optimum moment for the transit to begin He com manded crew and passengers to strap down (not, as believed, for their immediate safety, but to prevent shifts of mass within the liner during the drop) When the moment arrived, he switched the rmcrolasers within the pen to a specified wavelength for a single pulse, and then disconnected them, a!l by remote control When the lasers disengaged, power was fed to the now-incarnated Holtzman Effect field, and the familiar suspensor-nullifi-cation effect came into being Realspace was fractured in a locality about a kilometer in radius, and the mass inside the locality (the heigbiiner and its contents) dropped into The Void
Next, me Navigator gave the 'clear' light to passengers and crew, signalling them that they might resume their activities The Navigator continued to monitor the progress of the voyage at intervals—"Where would we be if we returned to realspace now?"—but control of the heighlmer was passed to the Steersmen, floating in their spice-laced, oxygen-flooded bath
So well protected were the details of Spac ing Guild techniques that for thousands of years, not a single person outside the Guild realized that Steersmen had their peculiar form because they had been bred to be m essence, manne mammals Certainly there were plenty of clues, and many unwittingly came close to the secret Steersmen had webbed hands and feet, in the tanks in which they visited the surfaces of planets, their motion was described as "swimming" Princess Irulan described Steersman Ednc as having a "fish mouth", even Muad'Dib called Ednc a "man-fish ' But fish they were not Steersmen had no gills It was simpler to increase the oxygen-concentration of their tank, thus allowing them to drain their lungs of the enriched fluid and breathe air, if need arose Then genetic adaptations equipped them to move quickly and precisely—even delicately—within the tank
The Steersmen had only one responsibility, but one which necessitated their modifications the Navigators dropped the ship into The
Void and set it moving through hyperspace at trans-light speed (or more accurately though harder to imagine, realspace was moving through die ship's hyperspace bubble at trans light speed) The job of the Steersmen was to keep it on that course finding the line of the ship's future that avoided catastrophe But that line could not be determined once and for all, because of movement within the heighhner the crew went about their duties, passengers though confined within their Ugh ters or frigates, moved to and fro, the cargo might contain live animals pacing in their cages Because of this continuous shifting of mass, each heighlmer earned eight Steersmen, four of whom were on duty at a time The duty Steersmen quartered an imaginary sphere centered on the original location of the point-source node, floating about that nondimensional transcendent "seed" in a prescient trance they compensated for shifts of mass within the heighliner, keeping it 'on course' rela live to the flowing realspace by a sinuous dance never witnessed by one outside their brotherhood
Whatever faults the Spacing Guild may have had, when the day of the Steersman ended, a real beauty passed from the universe The experience of the Steersmen, breathing and drinking melange, rocking to the beat of space and time, swaying with the music of the spheres led m their dance by the pulse of life around them alive to every note in the pavane both composed and played by their quartet is beyond the power of words to describe or the imagination to conceive
ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE (see chart) The Spacing Guild was divided into five main departments Accounting Legal Secunt) Operations, and Tupile While Accounting and Legal were standard, the latter three departments were unique, as an examination of their parts and functions discloses
Security Under the umbrella heading of Security the Guild set up one of the most efficient secret police organizations ever founded Covert Operations was divided into two branches Planetary and Interior Plane tary mainly used subverted locals with * controls' who held offices m the Guild's local offices A separate command was devoted to operations on Ix The Interior branch
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was staffed completely by full time Guild employees Interior was responsible for finding out the exact cargo loaded onto every Guild Liner Even when the cargos were personal ships of the passengers. Covert Operations-Interior would rind out who and what was aboard The Interior branch was also responsible for the very few cases of "lost" shipments
The Psych section of Security was the largest single section because the Guild strongly preferred prevention over cure The Public Relations Office was responsible for keeping the rest of the empire in the dark about the location of Tupile ("Maps"), for propaganda ("Misinformation '), and for the acquisition of goods and the investment of assets, either openly or through middlemen ("Purchasing")
In keeping with the theory of preventive psychology, the Psych section also had a number of roving "Ombudsmen" who functioned as visible "ears," always willing to listen to any complaints from employees, and to see what could be done to correct the situations giving nse to the complaints Likewise, "Testing" was responsible for assuring, as much as possible, that all employees were satisfied Testing also handled polling, both internally and externally Finally. "Employee Relations" was charged with keeping the peace with the rank and file Employ ee Relations was the court of first resort for any employee grievances
There were four branches of armed Guards and Police they were "Orbital," \vho served mainly as cnmefighters and investigators, "Spice and Sanctuary," who served to guard the location and knowledge of the Guild's spice hoards and the Sanctuary planet(s), "Internal," the Guild's secret police, charged with the maintenance of security within the Guild, and with counter-espionage, and the specially conditioned "Anti Hijack" guards, conditioned to release their hold on a dead-man switch which would fire a lasgun at the Liner's Shield should the Liner ever be hijacked This post was secret, but the secret was an open one and, as a result, it was tested only very rarely
Operations Operations was in charge of the day-to-day activity of the Guild The
Shipping section performed the activities that the naive thought were the main function of the Guild—that of getting cargo from one place to another for a price The Public section handled professional recruitment, and advertisement for tourism
The very secretive Exploration section had two branches, one of which, "Alien Search," received most of the funds and none of the publicity The other branch, "Planet Evalua tion," was responsible for inspecting and determining the commercial value of planets discovered by Alien Search
All activities of the Research and Development section were highly classified The "Tleilaxu Branch was concerned solely with evaluating any data discovered by Security about the Tleilaxu progress with the Naviga tional Computer ' Training Methods" stud led better ways to insure loyalty, through drugs, indoctrination, or anything else that might work "Arrakeen Fauna was the in nocuous name given to the branch which tried to find some wav to keep the occasional sandworm snatched from Arrakis by Secun ty alive Finally, if transplantation proved impossible, maybe "Spice Synthesis" would manage to find an answer
Tupile was the home base of the Guild whose location was kept totally secret The daily operations of Tupile were handled by a "Local Government" branch which took care of traffic control street cleaning, broadcasting, etc Tupile was also the retirement home for Guildsmen, as well as a recreational park advanced training center and hospital for those who needed special treatment (all subsections of "Personnel ) Finally, the Guild's shipyards were on Tupile "Maintenance & Repair'' overhauled every ship in the Guild's fleet at least once every three years and "Production" was in charge of resource allocation, and was responsible for producing enough consumer goods to keep the fugitives on Tupile in relative luxury, while at the same time keeping up the production of new ships of all kinds
WDI
'Dons Bhrazen, Pursuit of the Kwiwtz Haderach (Yorba Rose) p 44
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Further references: SPACING amLD, FOUNDATION, INTERSTELLAR HJGHT, PRE-GUILD; V8NPORT, AURBIJUS,
CEVNA, NORMA.
SPACING GOLD, TOURISM. Tne Spacing Guild had a very profitable sideline as a travel agency, a fact often lost in the sweep of Imperial history. The revenue from tourism was never negligible, and during fee Atrtidean empire, when pilgrimages were promoted and urged on the faithful, the income was astounding. The accompanying illustration is of an advertising leaflet distributed by the Spacing Guild's Department of Tourism during the latter part of the reign of Letp II. It is representative of the Guild's publicity, especially that aimed at the lesser Houses and commoners. Similar brochures were readily available at all levels of Guild service, and included local timetables, prices, etc., along with a healthy though subtle dose of Guild propaganda.
GOLD LINE Heighliners, the acme of modem travel, make regular passages on the indicated routes. See your local DOT office for schedules and rates.
Follow the footprints of the Zensunnit/" ); enjoy nature at its finest ( ($ , v\j); sec the best corrida (*CO or arena ( O ) in the Empire; or just relax (Sg ) and enjoy the entertainment ( © ,®S>)!
The Spacing Guild Department of Tourism presents THE COLD LINE
Special round-trip rates: buy outward passage to two or more stops at normal rates, and pay half-price for the return trip.
See the most magnificent architecture ever erected ( & ); visit the greatest stores of knowledge (£(± ) ever assembled!
SPICE EFFECT ON POLYMATHEMATICAL DEVELOPMENT. To understand the remarkable changes which occurred in the pursuit of human knowledge at the times of the Butlerian Jihad and the introduction of spice, it is necessary to consider the origins of poly-mathematict. and the nature of polymathematics before spice. According to documents from Terra found at Dar-es-Balat, the ancient method of education (before the a, fi, and -y leveling) involved a chaotic separation of knowledges. Individuals studied artificially segregated areas called "disciplines." Scholars would become "specialists" and evidently guard against too close a contact with specialists from other areas.
Apparently the reason the edutrainers of the time, called "teachers" or "educators," failed to achieve the holistic polymathematical truth was due to the method of "educating" the young.
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SPICE EFFECT
First let us recall the exact nature of GUI edutraining. Level-ot is the genetic classification of the embryo to identify the optimal speed and form of learning suited to the future child. Level-p is the cortex-engram-tning of the six- to eight-month-old fetus. The information capacity is increased so that learning is more easily achieved- A similar training look the prekveling child eight or nine postnatal years. Finally, our tevel--y training provides spacial awareness and general information for the eight- and nine-month-old fetus continuing through the end of the third postnatal year. The child is then equipped with die amount of knowledge that once took the child approximately eighteen postnatal years to achieve. This enormous waste of time precluded any attempt at a holistic polymathematical theory or approach to understanding.
It was thousands of years before the Butlerian Jihad and the introduction of spice that leveling was achieved, Poiymathematical theory grew on a predictable course. Several outstanding individuals made great contributions. One of the most gifted pre-spice pofymathematicians was Karlmn Cautz who founded the famous Oexian School.
The growth of the theory stagnated, however, as the dependency on computing he-came stronger. In fact, in the five hundred years immediately preceding the Butlerian Jihad no significant purely theoretical mathematical contributions were made. The only interesting results were in the areas of navigational modeling, and even those were computer-based.
Consequently the effect of the Great Convention's ruling OB computers was devastating to the poiymathematicians.' Nothing was accomplished for years. The living poly mathematicians were useless without computers, and no polymathematics was done. (This is the era Lord Leto delighted in referring to as the Butlerian Jihad's "AfterMath.")'
The introduction of spice with the return to more basic edutraining caused an immediate increase in new, exciting theories. The prescience experienced under the influence of spice revolutionized die approach to research as well as its philosophy,
With spice, one had a map to follow. Spice did not provide a complete answer to a
problem but suggested several signposts leading the way. The researcher could see the lines to follow and could often flex those lines to see some consequences of particular research paths.
Many of the most influential minds mankind has ever known lived during the spice era and produced the theory of The Poly-mathematical Sociological Model which we learn and live under today. Two of the greatest and most productive were the famous Bei Alenga (10712-10821) and the greatest of the intellects, Kurill S. Siuag (14071-14204).
Suag is of special importance. His intellect was so powerful that even though his lips were never ruby red from sapho and though he lived at the time the spice was running out, he was able to produce more research than any individual before him. He discovered the secret of the time-light dependency as hypervariables which permitted the Ixians to develop prescience machines. Without his discoveries man's continued intellectual progress would have slowed to pre-spice dimensions as spice became nonexistent. However, with the ability to interface the human mind and a prescience computer, new frontiers of knowledge never dreamed of are now opening before us,
The Suagasian-Alenga theorems for trans-light portation give some indication of recent progress in polymathematical theory:
Trans-light Portation Formulas Theorem 1 • Let G be a left consistent Fullic space with invariant mass measures {Wa : a in Lambda}. If T is a flow smooth egoditol-ogy contractively on G then /G Twa(t) converges to the unique mass location.
Theorem 2. The minimum mass location interface is given by
Further references: HOLTZMAN, i v ; NAVIGATIONAL MACHINE, DEVELOPMENT OF; Th. B L. Alenga, Introduction to Suagasian Hypervariables with Holtzman Applications (Richese: New Caledonian State UP)
SPICE MINING
SPICE MINING
SPICE MINING. Mining of melange was technically a stnp or surface mining operation disturbing the ecostructure of the planet's surface to a depth of no less than one meter and no more than twelve The spice itself was found in beds usually within centimeters of the surface that had a mean depth of five meters with a standard deviation of 1 623 meters Occasional beds of unusually rich, powerful spice were found with mean depths of ten meters The origin of such unusual veins is not known
Spice mining was one of the most hazardous and consequently well-paid occupations in the universe- Mining operations were sub ject to constant dangers from sandstorms, tidal dust basins, spice-blows and, always, the worms The necessity of rapid transport of huge pieces of equipment added to the hazards Because of such hazards, members of the Union of Spce Miners (USM) developed
a tight society with a strong work ethic philosophy
EQUIPMENT The spice era saw little change in mining equipment The standard single-bed operation consisted of one or two carryalls, a harvester and a factory, which were often attached, four sandcrawlers, and four orni thopters
Carryall The carryall or wing was a standard airfoil single-wing craft with remarkable lift It possessed almost no cargo capacity inside the fuselage its main pur pose being to transport the harvester-factory to the spice beds and once there to stay close in order to effect a rapid evacuation should a worm appear A complex system of winches under the wmg made quick lifting possible Records show that 96 7 percent of the opera tions were interrupted by the appearance of a worm
Harvester The harvester was the piece
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of equipment which changed most dramatically throughout the years of spice muring. The first harvesters were dragline machines brought in by the early Imperial ecologists. The factory was anchored in place with two towers of the harvester established approximately 500 meters from the factory, 100 meters apart. A large drag-scoop was attached to a line leading directly to a winch on the factory. To die back of die scoop was attached the haul-back line which was run through a pulley on the first tower, through a pulley on the second tower, then back to a second winch on the factory. Harvesting of the spice was achieved by dragging the scoop to the factory through die sand, filling it as it progressed. The scoop was emptied and "hauled back" by the haul-back line to take another scoop. When one drag location was exhausted, the towers were moved around the factory until a circular area was mined.
This method was very slow and had several negative side effects. The noise of the drag always called a worm, and the towers and drags would be tost when the factory was evacuated. Furthermore, the depth of a drag could not be well controlled, causing many impurities in the ore. The final and most important disadvantage was the friction-al heat generated by the drag pulling through the sand, which caused undesirable effects in the spice.
The second-generation harvester was used for the longest period of time. This harvester was usually attached to the front of a factory, which in turn was mounted on a system of arms and tracks, making the harvester-factory mobile. The harvester was an inverted cone and tube leading to the factory. The cone could be adjusted for height above the sand and swung to the right or left forty-five degrees. A giant centrifugal vacuum pump
SPICE MINING
created an almost perfect vacuum m the cone above the sand The vacuum pulled the sand-spice ore into the harvester and to the factory The advantage of this second harvester over the drag line type was speed of mining, transport, and evacuation Profit margins increased exponentially and the safety of miners improved noticeably The problem of the heat effect OB the spice was eliminated and impurities were reduced bat new problems appeared The vacuum harvester worked well on spice in its usual sandlike state, but was ineffectual on the occasional spice-pack pockets In the case of such pockets, miners were forced to use s aiidcrawlers equipped with harrows to break up the spice-pack Once again this procedure always called a worm
The most recently developed harvester to be used was designed for mining deep desert spice after the veins near the Shield Wall had been exhausted It was an aircraft which rode on an air cushion developed by a large fan underneath This harvester was circular in shape with two long, retractable, diametrically opposed out riggers with a sand wing attached to each The craft flew to a previously located spice bed, descended to a height of five meters above the sand extended the out riggers and lowered the wings, which would "fly* under the sand holding the harvester stable as it worked Such harvesters could be used on spice-packs also The fan was accelerated sufficiently to blow the spice, mock-spice, and spice fiber out and up to the vacuum elements around the outside of the craft The heavier impurities remained on the surface When full, the craft would return to a permanent stationary factory
Factory The spice factory was a separa tor of spice and spice by-products from impurities and a storage transport for those products The machine was designed with independently powered sections attached to each other by flextubes The exterior was a compound of metal plastic, and blue plasteel in a shape designed to reduce wmdbome sand damage Its dimensions, were 127 by 41 meters The shape, color and long, leglike track units gave the machine the appearance of a large, blue, hard shelled beetle
The ore first entered a shaker-blow room where the heavier elements were shaken on a
3 SPICE MINING
conveyor and the lighter spice fiber was blown off and gathered for processing The ore was earned to the second section, an enormous powerful centrifuge The lighter spice and mock spice were isolated when the heavier sand impurities were spun off and ejected through a spout in the top of the factory, causing a cloud which could be seen for kilometers The spice and mock spice mixture was then carried to a third section and placed in a bath of any one of a number of organic solvents These dissolved the mock-spice but left the melange in virtually pure form The solvents were allowed to evaporate and the spice was hyperpacked into transport containers in the tail of the factory The solvent was distilled and reused and the residue of mock-spice gathered and stored to be used as a powerful, ecologically safe pesticide
LOGISTICS AND ORGANIZATION OF SPICE MINING The mining operations were conducted under the guidance of a Sandmaster During the harvester factory period, one "dig ' would average two days in length and was usually terminated by the arrival of a worm A dig started from a Spicing Center Miners and support crew were assigned to a dig and the factory, harvester and crawlers were trans ported by a wing to the spice sands During (he Atreides rule, two digs at a time were assigned within wing distance of each other so that the reliability of evacuation was significantly increased without waste of equip ment time Thus two wings were available for evacuation at all times at each dig, unless both needed evacuation simultaneously, which had a probability of 0 025
Upon arriving at a dig site, seismic probes were placed at the corners of the mine The harvester factory was brought to operational status and when the ormthopter spotters were positioned, mining was begun The wings were held at minimum-evacuation-time lo cations
Once a dig was interrupted or completed, the wing transported the equipment and car go back to the Spice Center for storage and eventual reassignment
The Sandmaster had complete control over his dig and its products He was also responsible for loss of life or equipment on a dig
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Payment for the dig personnel usually allotted three shares for each miner, one share each for support personnel, one share for the Sandmaster who received a percentage of total production, and one share for the pros pector who located the bed
SPICE PROSPECTING Prospecting was conducted by sandcrawler and on foot, using only paracompass and sinkcharts For safety reasons the finds were limited to the area within a drive of the Shield Wall Spice beds were located by subtle changes in sand texture and color, depressions in sand flats, and telltale odor and color of gases over a bed When a possible bed was located, a few centimeters of sand were removed and a sample was taken Early prospectors assayed the sample by taste This teat, however, was often fatal due to high concentrations of mock-spice Other assay factors consisted of texture, color (the deeper the blue, die better the spice), and odor Later prospectors used organic solvents to remove the mock-spice before tasting When the deep desert sites were developed, prospectors began to use hover crafts for quick transport Also popular were clappets, the small, four-legged furry animals of Sammel, adept at sniffing out spice beds
RCS
THE STARVATION AMD THE SCATTERING. The Starvation was a predictable result of the collapse of an empire which had controlled the inhabited worlds for more than three thousand years Such a political cot-lapse was bound to have effects far beyond the realm of politics some of which were felt within the most basic economic aspects of people s lives
The economy of the Impenum of Leto II was in fact a myriad of economies under one political power Some of these economies were limited to planets or systems, while others controlled several sectors These regional networks were all closely related to one another, however, and die glue which bound them together was speedy space travel, made possible by spice The disruption of the distribution of spice caused the famine
Before the development of Tleilaxu artificial melange or of Ixian Navigational Ma-
chines, the amounts of spice available throughout the universe, other than on Airakis, were very small The two largest stores off Arrakis were in the hands of the Bene Gessent and the Guild Small amounts were held by a few of the Great Houses, but these were not enough to matter to any but the few members of those families In terms of the economic health of the Impenum only the caches of the Sisterhood, the Guild and the emperor were important
The reserves of the emperor dwarfed those of the Guild and the Bene Gessent From those vast quantities the emperor doled out small amounts m regular audiences, which were awaited with mortal anxiety by the recipients Even the Guild and the Bene Gessent attended and hoped for generosity
With the death of Leto II, these balances were permanently altered The stores of the emperor were discovered by Duncan Idaho and Siona Atreides but they were not able to keep them A raid directed by the Guild, clearly long planned for such a contingency as the emperor's death, succeeded in seizing a sizable portion of Leto s spice, enough to maintain the Guild as a power until the development of artificial spice The Bene Gessent were never proven to have been involved in this action, but it is worth remarking that they s>eem to have been less concerned about their spice stores than previously from this point until the develop ment of the artificial substitute
The Starvation was not actually caused by a shortage of spice, then Rather, the famines were due to the sociopolitical state of the inhabited planets after the demise of Leto H The passing of the emperor, after over three millennia upon the throne, threw his government into a state of chaos from which it never recovered Since Leto had been the victim of an assassination by plotters who had not planned beyond the death of their enemy, no clear successor to the throne was prepared to step forward Duncan Idaho was able to retain control of the Fish Speakers on Arrakis and in some of the off planet garrisons Siona was able to remain a power on Arrakis by her connections with the resistance move ment her alliance with Duncan Idaho, and her own intelligence and leadership
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But while Duncan and Siona were able to retain control of Arrahs, the situation through out the galaxy remained fluid In the beginning, the struggle for power took place between two opponents—the Fish Speakers, led by Duncan and Siona, and those supporting the Guild In the process of this lengthy war, many regions whose survival depended on an economy tied to the trading networks of the old Impenum were simply ignored by the combatants Severance of the trade lifeline produced the famines
The systems of Essen and* Tolua seem to have been among the first to succumb Both were highly industrialized, dependent upon their wealth of minerals and ores to produce goods which could be traded for foodstuffs from other systems Each of them was also the focus of a relatively small trading network which could be discarded by the Guild at little cost After they were so abandoned, the populations of both systems eventually shrunk to less than ten percent of then- levels under the Impenum The stones of cannibalism told by traders who began to visit these systems after the famines were repeated again and again
This collapse of the old oikumene was not relieved with the first uses of the Ixian Navigation Machines Rather, the causes for war changed Once the spice was no kmger necessary for navigation, the Guild soon declined to its present minor status Bat with the manufacture of Navigation Machines, and especially after the development of the artificial spice, the wars came to be focused on questions of religion
Since the worship of Leto H as a god had been ingrained into his population for more than thirty centuries, it is hardly surprising that his religion came to form the focal point of the struggles, though transformed to some degree Leto was no longer seen as a god, but as another messiah such as his father had been There also occurred some blending of elements from other earlier faiths with the worship of the Atreides and their Fremen
But m spite of these attempts to adapt to the creeds of others, many remained utterly unwilling to continue recognition of the sanctify of Leto H, Paul Muad'Dib, or any of the rites and theology associated with mem Only
the unusually even balance, obvious to all, between the powers of these two groups, those purporting to maintain loyalty to the old, "true ' faith, and those insisting on a break with the past * 'imposed gods,' prevented a war which might finally have extinguished humanity The regions immediately around Ratas were left to the 'traditionalists,' while those who insisted upon founding even their religious life anew left the company of their fellows With the aid of the Ixian Machines and the formulas for the artificial spice they struck out into the galaxy, entering upon The Scattering
The reactions of the majority to the discoveries on Rakis have raised once again the old accusations made by those of the Scattering What will become of us who remained be hind is yet to be seen FM
STILGAR BEN flFRAWI (10141-10228) Most generally described as Stiigar the Fremen or Stiigar the Naib, but in hss vouth as a wall m Urnbu Sietch, known b> his birth name of Tuan It was not until 10153, when he be came a sandnder and accompanied a group of other youths on a raid dgamst a Harkonnen village that he acquired the name by which he would be best known (His troop name used only by his comrades at Umbu Sietch is thought to have been Sahkan—the Fremen name for a type of desert hawk—but \enfica tion of this point is difficult to obtain The evidence found thus far consists of a reference made by a man from that sietch who accompanied Stiigar on jihad )
Stiigar left Umbu in 10157 when Pardot Kynes asked that a work force accompany him to one of the newer palmanes to assist m planting poverty grass along the dune faces The young Fremen demonstrated an ability to lead groups of workers and Kynes delegated as much work to him as he could handle So impressed was Kynes by this new worker that he took him back to Sietch Tabr with him as an assistant when he returned in 10158
Stiigar fit easily into the social structure of his new sietch, being challenged only once by a young hothead who saw his closeness to Kynes the Umma as a possible threat to his own standing Following Stiigar s victory on
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the killing floor Forad—Naib and leader of the sietch—welcomed him into the tnbe, pointing out to any other would-be combatants that the newcomer had proven his right to join them Stilgar's place at Sietch Tabr was further anchored when Pardot Kynes arranged for Stilgar's Wood-brotherhood with tile young Liet-Kynes a year later
For his first seventeen years at Tabr, Stilgar followed the usual pattern for Fremen males he worked at the plantings, he fought Har-konnens and their allies, and he met the other men of the sietch in practice knife combat, where he coujd be compared with and e>aluated by his peers
That he was often meeting good friends in practice combat did not seem incongruous to Stilgar, nor to any of the other Fremen The burda (leadership) of s stetch was passed from one man to the next by challenge and a fight to the death, so it was best to know how friends fought The practice served the double purpose of educating the likely in how to win and convincing the unlikely not to offer challenge, ail while keeping the young men's hand-to-hand skills sharpened
Stilgar married twice during this same period, in 10160 to Misra and in 10168 to Tharthar, both women of Sietch Tabr Hts first son, Atir, was bom m 10165, Misra was also delivered of a daughter (stillborn) in 10169, while Tharthar gave birth in 10170 to a surviving daughter, Kala
In 10175, Stilgar's position changed Pardot Kynes' death m a cave-in at Plaster Basin left the nineteen-year-old Liet-Kynes to take over leadership of the tribes This accident was the signal in several sietches—Tabr among them—to reexamine their leaders The older naibs like Forad were seen as relics from the days before Kynes, better replaced by younger men in whom the Umma's dreams and ideals had been instilled since birth It came as no surprise to Forad when Stilgar, already hav ing proven himself many times as the best fighter of his group, Called him out a few weeks after the death of Pardot Kynes Nor did Stilgar's victory over the older, slower man startle anyone at Sietch Tabr
What did surprise the Fremen community was Liet-Kynes1 timely and unannounced arrival, riding m on a sandworm and striding
onto the killing floor only moments after the watermen earned Forad's body away Misra paused in bandaging the slash wound Stilgar had received on his right side during the fight, and the sietch held its collective breath, waiting to see if I ict-Kynes now intended to challenge his blood-brother J
The new naib, still flushed from the exer tion of the combat, also waited While he did nothing to betray his feelings at the time, Stilgar later described the moment as "more fearsome than facing a legion of other men alone I was terrified that my brother would call me out, and whether more from fear of killing him or of being killed, I cannot say
The agony was bnef, happily ending when Liet Kynes hurned across the killing floor and embraced the new leader After congratu lating Stilgar on his victory and assuring himself that the slash was minor, Liet-Kynes asked permission to address the troop It was immediately granted, and he explained to the assembled company that he had been granted his father's position as Imperial Planetologist and would be continuing the work with the palmanes that Pardot Kynes had begun
The speech was short but effective Liei Kynes had made it clear, in terms the Fremen could accept, that he had taken on his father's role as their leader, that the leadership of the individual sietches would remain inviolate, as it had been under the older Kynes and that the ecological transformation would not be interrupted by the death of any one man, even its originator
Sietch Tabr prospered under its new naib Stilgar led a dozen successful raids against the Harkonnens during his first year of leadership, all with minimum casualties More far-sighted than his predecessor, he also made plans for a gradual expansion of the cave warren adding larger factor) and weaving areas and extra classrooms for the slowly increasing number of children in the sietch (along with the new windtraps and catch basins the larger population would require)
In 10176, Liet-Kynes returned to Tabr for a visit lasting several months It was dunng this time that he married Falra, a Tabr woman with whom he had grown up, under the Fremen ritual with Stilgar officiating Late
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the following year when the couple's daugh ter Cham was born, Stilgar and Misra stood as godparents to the child, pledging to raise her as their own in the event that her parents were unable to do so
That responsibility came on them abruptly in 10180 when Falra was injured in a rockfall and died before help could reach her Be cause Liet Kynes was in-sictch so seldom, and because it was essential to the Fremen's plan that his connection with them not attract unwanted attention, the giri Cham was made a part of Stilgar's household at once Misra and Tharthar, their own children nearly grown, took the child immediately to their hearts— as did Stilgar's third wife, Kahfi, whom he married in 10185 (after defending his burda against her former mate, Jesal, in 10184)
Like the rest of his people, Stilgar greeted the transfer of the Arrakis fief to House Atreides (10190) with cautious optimism True, the new rulers were off-woriders, like the Harkonnen beasts, but heartening stones of the House s character had preceded their arrival The firemen decided to wait to see if the tales had any truth to them before they judged the newcomers
As far as Stilgar was concerned, the first proof came in the person of Duncan Idaho Swordmaster for Duke Leto Atreides Idaho had been sent to Sietch Tabr as Left's representative, to make contact witfi the Fremen and to assure them that the abuses suffered during the Harkonnen reign would now be ended During his stay m-sietch, Idaho had adopted Fremen customs without question and had conducted himself honorably After he had left to return to his Duke, the Fremen heard about a plot to send Haifconnen mercenaries disguised as desert people against the Atieides, because of the favorable impres sion Idaho had made, Stilgar dispatched a courier with a warning, following shortly after with a small band of men intent on seeing how the new soldiers would measure up as warriors
The courier was waylaid en route by the pseudo-Fremen and badly wounded The Harkonnens attacked Idaho and his men but were rebuffed, with many being killed and the survivors taken prisoner Idaho found the courier and was taking him to the House
medics when the man died He took the body back to Atreides headquarters, intending to bury him surprised that Stilgar and his men—who had joined him for the last part of the battle—had not asked that the corpse (containing water of their tribe) be given them
Sfalgar's reasons for accompanying Idaho were threefold he wished to learn the man ner of man whom Idaho served so loyally he was curious about how the Atreides would treat the body of the dead courier Turok (the Harkonnens it was known showed no re spect to Fremen dead, not even to taking their water), and most important, he was compelled to see what Idaho intended to do with Turok s cryskmte, having surprised the dying Fremen in the act of throwing it away
On all counts the naib was satisfied After he had forbidden Idaho to unsheath the cryskmfe before the other Atreides men (thereby ' defiling, in Stilgar s eyes, an "honorable blade ), he found that Duke Leto not only refused to be provoked by the encroachment on his authonty but enforced the command When the Duke added that it was an Atreides custom always to pay their debts and inquired whether there were any other way to honor the man who had died in his service Stilgar was enough impressed by the new ruler s behavior to favor him with a small fen or water tribute he spat on the tabletop before Leto The angrj reaction of the Atreides servitors—who did not realize how Stilgar bad honored Leto—was checked when Idaho reminded them of how precious water was to a Fremen, thanked Stilgar for his gift, and repeated the gesture himself
Stilgar then requested that Idaho seek re lease from his service to the Duke <aid join his tnbe Leto, desperately needing an emis sary to the desert folk, offered a dual allegiance, which Stilgar accepted Turok s water would be Atreides water m fair ex change for the water of Duncan Idaho and Stilgar left the corpse with the Atreidef. satisfied that it would be treated with respect and its spmt released, and took Idaho back to the desert with him
In 10191 following the Harkonnen/Sar daukai attack on the Atreides, Stilgar re ceived an urgent command from Liet Kynes
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Hie Duke was dead and his concubine, Lady Jessica, had escaped with then soa Paul into the desert, Duncan Idaho—who had returned to his Duke at the first sign of trouble—had given his life as part of the price for that escape (Liet-Kynes's life would be another part, although Stilgar could not have known it at the tune) Stilgar was to take a band out from Sietch Tabr and, find them
Tnle Fremen that he was, Liet-Kynes did not demand that Stilgar save both mother and son Should one or both of the pair not seem fit to survive among the Fremeo, it was left to Stilgar to order action appropriate to the good of the tube However the decision went, the demands of honor had been met by the attempt
From his first encounter with Jessica and Paul, Stilgar felt himself being pulled into a world larger than the one he knew, an environment where legend and reahty were inseparably mixed And as events proceeded— the acceptance of the strangers at Sietch Tabr, Paul's relentless progress toward deification, the formation of the Fedaykin, the death commandos who called themselves' 'the fighters of Muad'Dib"—Stilgar felt the old Fremen ways spilling like sand faster and faster from beneath his feet
A drastic change was inevitable It came in 10193, when the young men who had been raiding the Harkonnen sinks with Muad'Dib would no longer be put off and insisted on his challenging Stilgar for his burda It was a measure of their confidence in their madkt ("The One Who Will Lead Us to Paradise") that the young bloods were so eager to pit him against their ruling naib Stilgar would not be an easy man for any challenger to take, as a description of him from this period indicates
Stilgar was a tsjl man—wefl over two meters— and appeared to tower over his brethren A history of success in combat, some of it costly was evidenced by scars old and new which covered much of his body He possessed in large measure the mercurial temperament char actensttc of Fremen he could turn from consol ing an injured child as tenderly as any woman in his sietch, to ruthlessly hunting an enemy's blood with his oysknife without a visible wrench And he was equally skilled at both 3
The young Atreides, Lady Jessica and Stilgar had planned against the moment such an encounter would be forced Instead of challenging Stilgar, Paul declared himself ruling Duke of Arrakis and swore the Naib— with the crowd of young men suddenly con verted from agitators to witnesses—into his service as liege man and ruler of Sietch Tabr in his Duke's name
The too s plan was a success the new Duke had a unified troop and the service of a wily and experienced commander, while Stilgar retained his burda and his loyalty to Muad Dib It was a combination that proved devastating shortly thereafter, when the Fremen met and defeated Harkonnen and Sardaukar troops in the final battle for Arrakis, culminating in Shaddam IV's abdication
One of the new emperor's first acts was Stilgar s appointment as Planetary Governor of Arrakis The title altered the Naib's duties very little, at least m kind Stilgar left the government ot the individual sietches to their own naibs and continued to work with Muad'Dib as Warmaster and advisor Fxcept for those times when his services were needed in Arrakeen, Stilgar preferred to remain at Sietch Tabr with his wives (now numbered four, since Harah, Muad'Dib's servant for his first year with the Fremen, had joined the Naib's household)
There were, of course, some things demanded of an Imperial servant which Stilgar would never have had to face in the desert Court intrigues, interplanetary diplomacy, and the like occupied much of his time—more than he cared for—and his favorite tasks were usually of a military nature (The em peror dispatched him at times to the more troublesome or sensitive spots, on the jihad ) Despite his occasional longings for simpler times, however, Stilgar managed to adapt to his new role and to carry out his duties with a minimum of personal trauma for the first twelve years of Atreidcs's reign
In 10209, the background against which Stilgar had fixed himself was shattered past repair Following the births of Leto H and Ghamma, and Cham s death, Paul Muad'Dib Atreides—twice blinded, first by a stonebumer and then by a shift in his prescient vision— walked into the desert, leaving Stilgar as
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guardian of the children and Alia as their Regent Under Aba's orders, the Naib's first duty was to execute the group of traitors who had helped to bring about Muad'Dib's downfall, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, once the Comno Emperor's Truth-sayer, among them
The decade Stilgar spent as guardian aged him severely Misra died of a sudden fever in 10211, ending a companionship that had lasted more than half a century (At the ceremony to release her spirit, Sulgar was said to have "given water to the dead", it was the one time in his entire life the old naib was seen to weep ) The Regency was turbulent, marked by rebellions major and minor Worst of all was the Regent's steady progression into Abomination, as Aha succumbed to the control of an ancestral personality stronger than herself
All the threads tn the skein were drawn together in 10219 Young Leto was assumed dead, Ghanima and Irulan were endangered by Aha's possession, and the unknown element of a Bene Gessent-tramed Comno prince was entering the scene Amid all this, Stilgar found himself confronted by Aim's consort, the original ghola of Duncan Idaho Idaho urged him to take Irulan and Ghanima and flee to the desert with mem, arguing that Alia s condition negated Stilgar's oath of fealty to her The Naib listened, but declined to rebel against the woman he acknowledged as his rightful liege
Seeing that argument would never succeed against the stubborn Fremen, Idaho resorted to desperate measures he provoked Stilgar to a murderous rage and let the other man kill him without raising a hand in his own defense Stilgar, after his passion dissipated, realized the enormity of what he had done, he gathered his household, as many of his fellows as were willing to travel with him, and the Atrejdes women Idaho had urged him to protect, aad decamped to the safety of the desert
Aha sent Buff Agarves to negotiate with Stilgar for his pardon, demanding the return of Ghanima is its pnce Stilgar refused, as Alia had anticipated he would, but it made no difference, the Regent had also sent a troop of soldiers to attack Stilgar's camp,
capture him along with Irulan and Ghanima and scatter the remainder of his people
Her trap worked perfectly The one satis faction Stilgar took with him to the dun geons beneath Aha's Temple was that he had managed to kill the treacherous Agarves Even this vengeance was scant consolation, however, as the Naib nghtlj assumed that Alia had chosen her emissary with just such a fate in mind
Chained and isolated, Stilgar did not wit ness the final confrontation between Leto II and his aunt Nor was he forced to watch as Muad Dib, now known as The Preacher died He first glimpsed the new order when Leto freed him and Irulan by tearing the door to their dungeon off its hinges and nppmg their chains out of the walls It was an impressive first look
In the days that followed, Stilgar watched with the other naibs as the new emperor demonstrated his powers The rest were awed and terrified, and quick to pa> homage to their new ruler Stilgar, on the other hand mourned for Muad Dib s son even as he honored him What horrors couid the child have seen tn his oracular visions that made such a terrible transformation seem his duty7
He mourned for his people as well Though he would not live to see it, Stilgar had heard Leto's description of the changes in store for Arrakis, and he wanted no part of that new world No worms'' No spice9 ISO endless desert against which to pit body and mind, knowing that the outcome of such a battle could only be determined by Shai-Hulud m the end1* The old life the Fremen life, would come to an end
It was a subdued and tired naib who returned to Sietch Tabr In less frightful times, one of the younger men of the sietch would undoubtedly have challenged Stilgar and won but much of the heart had gone out of the desert folk, and the challenge never came
Following Stilgar s death in 10228, Leto forbade the men of the sietch to slay one another for his burda Instead, he appointed one of their number, a pliable young man named Mirat, as leader That the Fremen acquiesced would have proven to the old naib that his worst fears were justified
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NOTES
'The case for such a challenge could be made only if Liet-Kynes was willing to claim that Stilgar had caused intentional hatm to his tribe by killing Fbrad.
2Stilgar ben Fifrawi, The Stilgar Ckrtmiclt, Km Nlityau Gwulador, Amkis Studies 5 (Gram man United Worlds), p 104.
^ocess Iralan Atreides-Comno, Conversations with Muail'Dib, Lib Conf. Temp. Series 346, p 149.
Purttier references: ATREIDES, uno i and n; A-ntEmEs,
PAUL, FRHMEN
ST1LLSUIT. The Frcmen garment which allowed desert lurvival by cooling the wearer and by preventmg water loss. These slick, gray bodysuits were the second skins of
Fremen—and of all those with good sense who had occasion to venture into (he Arrakeen desert. An unprotected human, without ac cess to a staggenngly large water supply, could last no more than a day on the sands, one wearing a stillsuit ot Fremen manufacture, however, could keep water loss under fifteen milliliters per day The less efficient versions of the suits produced in village factories by the Arrakeen peons were greatly inferior and offered no such level of protection.
Stillsuits were an invention-of-necessity developed after the Zensunni nomads were transported to Arrakis Not even on Ishia, an earlier stop m the Zensunni's migrations, had water conservation been so essential that permitting any bodily moisture to escape could be fatal. Practices which had made life possible on that and planet (though far less
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and than Arrakis) were simply too inefficient for the new environment, and the stillsmt was one of the first adaptations made
The fabric itself made the suits effective Its invention was a tribute to the Fremen's ability to "cross-use" technology The Zen-sunm had been used as laborers of many different types during their generations of wandering and had retained the knowledge of the various kinds of devices and machinery they had operated One such machine, a cryogenic separator, had been used on a number of worlds for drawing oxygen and other gases from a planet's atmosphere The Fremen remembered the technique and applied it to the manufacture of sailcloth
The fabric, a microsandwich in its completed form, was produced in layers The innermost la>er consisted of a porous membrane allowing the free passage of perspiration exhaled moisture, and other bodily secretions, it was also an efficient insulation, protecting the suit's wearer from evaporative chill
The next two layers accomplished the separation of reusable water A complex system of fine tubes permeated the fabric They were equipped wife checkvalves at various points to keep the system's contents from reversing directions The tubes contained au at the beginning of the suit's cycle, die air pressure built up by the pumping action of the wearer's breathing and by heel pumps located on the soles of die suit At a pre-set pressure (which varied with the atmospheric conditions under which the suit was worn), the air was released into a holding chamber in the suit's hood
This sudden release cooled the ait by the Joule-Thompson effect, and the cooled air was drawn back into the system and again run through jthe suit, dropping the temperature of the separating layers. The build-up release, return cycle would continue until the temperature dropped sufficiently to liquify ammonia produced when the suit's thigh-pads filtered the wearer's unne Once the ammonia had been uquified, the air was automatically retained in the hood chamber and the ammonia was pumped into the tubing system, keeping the temperature down until it was converted back to a gas by acquired heat, at which point the air cycle was triggered again
Passing through this chilled area returned the trapped water vapor protected from ammonia contamination by the airtight nature of the tubing system, to liquid form This water was forced through the separating layers by both pumping pressure and osmosis and was subsequently trapped in the fourth layer Here another tubing system routed the re claimed water (from which salt precipitators, also located m the second and third layers, had removed most of the salinity) to the suit's catchpocfcet Any radiated body heat which survived the passage through the separating layers then passed through the fifth, outermost layer along with unreclaimed gases
The stillsuit was considered an unattractive but essential garment bj most non-Fremen, its manufacture brought a stead) income to a number of sietch factories On Arrakis any man who valued his life would not venture into the desert without a stillsuit of Fremen manufacture, well maintained its importance can be seen not only in the survival of the Fremen themselves but in the death rate among Harkonnen servitors, to whom the tribes adamantly refused to sell their wares
After Paul Muad'Dib Atreides became emperor, an interesting phenomenon took place Recognizing that the true source of the emperor's power lay in his Fremen, and wishing to advance themselves at Court, some sycophants adopted a custom of wearing stillsuits beneath their courtier's clothing That these individuals had taken to wearing the garments where they were not needed amused the emperor and his Fedaykm tremendously When it was discovered that all of the fashionable sttllsuits were non-functional replicas, their wearers were made the objects of such dension that they abandoned the practice
The fashion was revived however, during the rule of Leto II the stillsuits worn by his museum Fremen were also useless The iro ny did not escape the God Emperor, and a number of his Journal entries refer to the Museum Fremen as "sand dandies, at whose dress a true Fremen would laugh unul no laughter remained Leto kept a small number of stillsuits, manufactured in the old style, at his Citadel, for use by persons he wished to accompany him into the Sareer CW
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Further references; FREMBN STILL-TENT; Janet Oslo Fremen Lives and Legends (Saltlsa Secundus Morgan andShatak)
SULLTETfF. The earl icst versions of this portable desert dwelling were developed by the Zensumu nomads sent to Ishia (second planet of Beta iygn) in 5295 Although the Ishian environment was far gentler than that to which the nomads were accustomed—that of Salusa Secundus, where then- people had been held in slavery for nine generations—it was hot, and, and unforgiving Water in this desert ecology was a precious commodity, not to be wasted, the stilltents were intended to help minimize that waste
Crude as the first units were, they served the Ishian Zensunm's purposes A chroma-plastic outer layer turned a reflective white during die hours of sunlight, then reverted to its normal transparency at night The water which precipitated out on the cooled surface trickled down into thin ducts built into the bottom edges of the tent and was drawn into catchpockets located at the corners The process was repeated to a lesser degree on the inside lining the temperature drop earned through sufficiently to draw a percentage of the moisture lost by the inhabitant's breathing from the warmed mtenor air A small reclamation still earned with the tent served to process unne, but solid wastes were most often used as fertilizer
Once the Zensunm—now called Fremen— were relocated on Arrakis in 7193, they realized that the Ishian design was primitive and inefficient The first change involved size Oa Ishia, sttlltents had most often been used as semi-permanent homes and were constructed to allow room for standing, walking, and storage An Arrakeen sblltent, on die other hand, was intended only as a temporary place of shelter for Fremen caught outside the safety of their sictch They were kept small, providing those inside with barely more space than was needed to sit fairly comfortably, to stretch out and sleep, and to store small amounts of water, sullsuit repair kits, and other items vital to desert survival
The tent's shape changed with its size Rather than rising to a central peak, die new stilltents were built with a curved roof, viewed
fram the end, the tent looked like a cylinder whose lower surface had been flattened where it met the ground Gone too, was the outer door-flap used in the Ishian model a sphincter-seal fashioned of clear plastic had replaced it, allowing those inside to see out while preserving the stilltent s integrity Interior flaps could be used to block off the seal and shut out unwanted light
The most sinking changes, however, involved the stilltent s ability to conserve moisture The fabric making up the bulk of the tent was the same as that developed for the Fremen stillsuits, the garments which were capable of holding their wearer s mois turc loss to under a thimbleful a day Cutting through a sample of that cloth would expose numerous triumphs of microconstruction, all aimed at keeping the Arrakeen environment from snatching away precious water The layer meant to be kept on the mtenor of the tent (or, in a stillsuit, next to the skm) was porous and allowed perspiration, exhaled moisture, and the like free passage Ihe next two layers contained heat-exchange filaments so effective that a stilltent in good repair remained an average of ten degrees cooler than the outside temperature, and salt pre cipitators which kept the saline level of the reclaimed water well below the one-hundred fifty ppm mark The fourth layer trapped the water squeezed out by osmotic pressure and channeled it into the catchpocket tubes, this layer, the tubing, and the catchpockets them selves were constructed of plastic whose smoothness came from adjustments at the molecular level, to which water could not adhere The final, outermost layer permitted me passage of heat (one way) and most gases but was completely impermeable to water
It should be noted that this fabric, as exquisitely designed as it was, could not function as effectively when made into a tent as when it was made into a stillsuit The stilltent protected its users from losing mois ture which left their bodies dunng respiration, as well as that which escaped from their palms, faces, and other uncovered bodily surfaces It was not constructed to process wastes or to reclaim all of a body's perspiration, and those inside were thus forced to remain in their stillsuits In spite of this
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slight disadvantage, a Fremen stilltent was still the safest shelter for those forced to remain in the desert, the copies produced by village factories were greatly inferior This made authentic stilltents valuable trade items, and their sale to outsiders provided a handsome income for a number of sietches There was one group, however, to whom Jhe fiercely independent tabes refused to offer stilltents the oppressive Harkonnens
The Harkonnens recognized the excellence of the Fremen products, even as they scorned and persecuted their makers In 10185 a simultaneous raid on three northern sietches (Tuonot Remmel, and Ammit) was ordered by Count Glossu Rabban The inhabitants appeared to have fled wife unusual haste leaving behind most of their factories' products The troops earned off all they found, including a large number of stilltents
In what must have seemed a pleasing bit of irony to the planetary governor, the captured stilltents were issued to the next group of soldiers sent out to round up the people Rabban referred to as "desert scum " It was not until the troops failed to return that they were sought out and the stilltents exposed for the Meganan variation they were Once they were sealed off, with the soldiers inside, they began to build up heat the filaments which would normally conduct heat outward instead drew it into the tent as the outside temperature rose The nse triggered a change in the sphincter-seal, constructed in these tents from a plastic which first flowed, then hardened m heat, by the time the interior became, uncomfortably warm, the door was sealed and impossible to open
The fabric layer which was supposed to cany reclaimed water had been changed as well, as the panicked troops learned when they attempted to cut their way out Tightly woven shigawire, impervious to any blade the Harkonnens carried, had replaced the ultrasmooth plastic
Those who tried blasting an exit with their lasguns were rewarded only by a faster death when the energy-reflecting plastic lining of the interior converted over eighty percent of the guns' power to heat, the rest were left to bake slowly or to suicide
When the tents were opened by the search
party—they cut easily enough with a lasgun beam directed from outside—and a report of what was found inside relayed to Count Rabban, the results were predictable A pogrom (largely futile, as the tribes were expecting it and had gone into hiding) was launched against the Fremen and Harkormen troops were ordered to destroy rather than use, any sietch products they discovered in its course
The Bremen's reaction to the successful trap was equally predictable An expression dating back to this period illustrates it well "Three things we know to be useless—sand to a thirsty man, water to Shai-Hulud, and stilltents to Mudir Nahya ' (Mudir Nahya, the name given Rdbban by the Fremen, trans lates roughly as 'Demon Ruler )
Until the arrival of the Atreides, there is no record of anyone connected with the ruling house on Arrakis making any further attempt to use a Fremen stilltent C W
Farther references ARRAKIS FREMEN RABBAN COUNT GLOSSU STCLLSUIT Anon Kitab al Ibar Manual of the Friendly Desert Rabs Ref Cal 1 Z288
STOLEN JOURNALS. Two volumes of Leto's Journals, stolen from the Citadel in 13712 by Siona Ibn Fuad al Seyefa Atreides
For nearly two millennia, these volumes provided the only autobiographical data avail able on Leto II, the God Emperor
Their theft by Siona, daughter of Moneo Atreides, was a daring exploit, no others had ever breached the Citadel defenses and escaped alive But the price she and her companions paid for the Stolen Journals and the Citadel plans was high Of ten rebels, only Siona survived The others were brought down by Leto's patrolling D-wolves before they could reach safety across the Idaho River Only one bitter satisfaction was given each of them as he or she was dragged down each had been injected with Nyilatm, a drug harmless to humans but thought to be poisonous to the highly inbred D-wolves If one of them fell to the animals, it might at least decrease the pack pursuing Jhe rest Only Siona was able to discover that it worked and only by deduction rather than direct observation
The rebels believed they found the books
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by chance But knowing now that Nayla, one of Siona's most intimate confidantes, was actually an agent of Leto, this seems unlikely Nayla undoubtedly informed her master that the rebels intended to infiltrate die Citadel and sttal a copy of its plans for later use But Leto, with his nduhan crystals, had no need of the less permanent plasfevellum copies The plastivellum, lighter than conventional paper copies, was several times heavier than the crystal ongmals, and the factor of weight suggests another theory
Did Leto plant the volumes near the Citadel plans, knowing that Siona and her group were planning to steal them'' Many of his references to Siona in other volumes indicate that he constantly tested her, usually without her knowledge Since he knew the raid was coming, he may have seen the venture as a test of another sort its execution would show him what kind of leader Siona might be expected to become Could she inspire companions to follow her in what was almost certainly a suicide mission, could she get the group through the defenses and back again, could she recognize the coded Journals as items equally as important as the plans she had come to steal? (It mattered little whether Siona herself realized initially what the volumes were or not, what would matter would be her willingness to chance carrying off the extra weight)
Besides testing Siona, did Leto in fact desire the Journals to be taken and decoded? He is known to have feared that his actions would be misunderstood in times to come unless he arranged for revelations to be made His speech with Holy Sister Quinttmus Violet Chenoeh, recorded m the Bene Gesserit's papers and made public after her death, was one attempt to reveal his intentions to his subjects This convenient placement of two of his Journals may well have been a second
Withm a few weeks of the Citadel raid, Siona had arranged for copies of the stolen books to be sent to the Bene Gessent school in Wallach DC, to the Spacing Guild High Command (via its representative on Atrakis), and to the Inquisitors of IK Each group was to attempt a translation, with all results to be reported m full to Siona, their cooperation shows how seriously they regarded the effort
The rebels assumed that the Ixians would find the cipher's key first After all, they had provided not only the paper but the dictatel that Leto had wntten them with—that might seem a headstart of sorts But the Guild, approaching the problem from a direction the mechanically minded Ixians did not consider, succeeded m breaking the God Emperor's code
Siona originally received only the Guild Key and a translated copy After careful study of the key and the translation, she became cunous enough to ask how the mtn cate cipher had been solved The answer— given only after clearance from the Guild High Command—impressed even the zealous Siona with the importance the Guild had placed on solving the problem first To achieve their primacy, they had spent much of their most precious coin melange The most sensitive Steersman available had been given a dose of spice equivalent to that needed to pilot a dozen heighhners He was then told what was required of him and left alone with the Stolen Journals
The Key was completed within the day The Steersman, accustomed to using melange induced prescience to pick out the optimum course for a ship, focused that same power on finding the one true solution to the cipher The two activities were more similar than might have been expected, because Leto had used a code with several solutions, but only one—that recorded m the Key—deciphered both volumes completely and consistently
In 13730, six years after Leto's assassma lion, Siona arranged for the publication of an abridgement of the Stolen Journals That version, standard for centuries, lacked all but the most savage introspective passages and focused on the violence mat often served as the foundation for Leto's Peace A history of subjugation it produced its desired effect by creating in its readers an overpowering anger against the inhuman monster so long dominant One of Leto s most frequent prophecies—that he would be remembered for many generations as Shaitan—was fulfilled, as the Stolen Journals combined with the Oral History to give liberated humanity a portrait of the God Emperor as a heartless manipulator C W
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Further rttenmeeK ATREIDES LETO n JOURNALS OF ATRHDES SIONA, Radi Kharlan Atreufes The Hoty Books <f the Divided God ed Kwin Shendal (Duma. Synonym)
SUK SCHOOL OF MEDICINE. Founded on Kaitain in 2401 by a group of Tsai practitioners and financed by the Emperor Kennc ffl al-Kam Onginally established as the Imperial Tsai Medical College it was later renamed the Suk School of Medicine to honor Dr Faisan Suk, physician to file Imperial Family during the reign of Corrm Vffl (2727-2756) The school was charged with training physicians who could be trusted to attend the Imperial Family and the families of the Great Houses The founding of the school followed an unsuccessful plot to assassinate the entire Imperial Family of Kennc's grandfather, Ismal Kennc n, by the court physician, one Sharom Silifant Dr Silifant attempted to deliberately mistreat ' accidental" wounds and to ad minister subtle poisons of her own concoction
The founding physicians of the Suk School were trained in the practice of Tsai medicine, whose principal mode of treatment was the administration of herbal and other natural remedies The Tsai practitioners were so skilled at recognizing plants as medicines^or poisons that one could travel to a strange planet with only his few personal possessions and produce an entire pharmacopoeia from the planet's natural products Practitioners were trained to recognize pharmaceutical compounds through smell, taste, and simple chemical tests
The Suk School produced more than just Tsai practitioners, however In response to the Imperial charge the concept of Imperial Conditioning was developed Those Tsai practitioners who successfully received Imperial Conditioning were thought to be incapable of taking human life The conditioning was thorough and expensive, but, as history was to show, ineffective
The most complete and costly level of conditioning was that which trained a physician to loyalty to a particular Imperial Family The other Great Houses were usually content with tiie second level of conditioned physicians, i e , those with complete conditioning against taking human life and overtones of loyalty to one's employer, whoever it might be The Suk School also produced many fine noncon-
ditioned Tsai practitioners during this time Most of these were individuals who could not pass the ngors of Imperial Conditioning
Trainees for Imperial Conditioning were selected before the age of two years on the basis of stringent intellectual and physical criteria The parents of those children who failed during their training were given the choice of removing them from the school to follow other vocations or allowing them to remain to be trained as Tsai practitioners without Imperial Conditioning
Imperial Conditioning was not so much the creation of a "pyretic conscience ' as it was a triumph of self-deception and public relations No doubt the Suk School administration was sincere m their belief in the effectiveness of their training, they too were victims of their own salesmanship The pro gram began with lessons in self control from earlier childhood, in courses like Environ mental Alteration, m which the child had hung around his neck a baklava, coated with powdered sugar so that even a furtive lick could be detected which he was forbidden to eat until later The three or four year old learned to reduce his tensions by placing the sweet in a locker and diverting his attention with a game In a year or so in Self Alteration, the student might come home from a day of work to find that whether he ate or fasted at suppertime depended on the fall of a die Under close scrutiny, the student's reactions were evaluated complaints or anger were punished, resignation or humor rewarded The idea was to direct any aggression against chance itself, rather than against the lucky
Annoyances and frustrations were increased Many students buckled under the pressure, salvageable ones dropped to level two conditioning, the others were dismissed Group loyalty—beginning with the smallest unit, the class—was fostered in courses like Sharing, in which for a week the student was forbidden to feed himself he depended for his sustenance on others Much ingenuity went into these courses in Sharing, the student sat for meals at a table down the middle of which ran a high screen Two hand-sized holes m the screen fronted each place, the food and the classmate to be fed sat on the other side In Sensory Pleasure, students
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received instruction and practice in group sex-play Solitary and dual sex were not forbidden, but were subjected to intense and constant ridicule, and of course with adolescents, the sex-drive was a powerful vehicle for teaching self-control
Students worked at communal tasks from the earliest age, and the jobs were designed to support the community, to reinforce desir able behavior, and to impart specific knowledge all at once For example, students learned anatomy in two places in the slaughterhouse, a dim, smelly shed m which at random intervals loud crashes, wails of sirens or shrieks of pam would echo, and in the hospital, a quiet, any building in which soft music played Hospital instructors were patient and outgoing, the slaughterhouse instructors were brutal and prone to convincing fits of rage
From their earliest years, students were taught to associate pleasure with the Imperial and Great House families the nursemaids of the preschoolers were selected for kindness and physical resemblance to the younger members of the Imperial household All rewards were given in the presence of holograms of the Emperor and na-Emperor Can dies and presents distributed on festive occasions were labeled "from House Wik-kheiser," "from House Alman, ' and the like
By the age of sixteen, the Imperial Conditioning trainees sincerely believed they were unable to take a human life At that age, the medical education of the student continued with advanced studies in Anatomy and Physiology, followed by courses m Immunology, Psychology, and Tsai Pharmacology Special elective courses in Ultra-Space Physiology, Advanced Tsai Pharmacology, Exotic Infectious Diseases, and Poison Detection were also offered Another important part of the training was mat of fat-kait a form of awareness of one's body resembling the prana-bindu training of the Bene Gessent, although not as extensive This important part of the training of a conditioned Suk physician provided the technique of harqi, the ability to stop one's heart and respiratory mechanism, resulting in death Thus the Suk physician had die means of suicide if pressure to take a life or betray a trust became intolerable It is
well documented that physical torture, for instance, was ineffective in subverting a Suk physician with Imperial Conditioning (See the cases of Ahdan ben Gozai and Stanley Wing Ling, in Fanna Jahid s History of the Suk School of Medicine )
After the didactic portion of the studies in the practice of Tsai medicine, clinical studies were begun m surgery, emergency medicine, and brewing herbal remedies A three year standard internship followed under the tutelage of an experienced Tsai physician The Suk School officials preferred that these mentors be Suk-trained but exceptions have been recorded
Following internship, the young physician returned to the Suk School for final testing If the Conditioning was deemed complete, the physician was tattooed with a diamond on the forehead The four points of the diamond represented the four tenets of the Suk School of Medicine as expressed by their oath I will give Loyalty, I will seek Knowledge, I will practsce Healing, I will prolong Life ' The tattoo did more than identify the physician as a Suk physician with Imperial Conditioning, it was ingenious in its intricacy Every tattoo looked alike to the casual observer, but under special microscopes and hghts subtle differences identified each Suk physician The School Archives held complete records of each tattoo As a further safeguard against "counterfeit' Suk physicians, a specific response to a specific stimulus wati hypnotically implanted Again, the individual response-stimulus was unique to each physician This hypnotic response revealed a Tleilaxu counterfeit Suk physician produced in 10131 Although the Tleilaxu were able to reproduce the tattoo of their model Suk physician, they were unaware of the existence of the hypnotic suggestion, a tribute to the secunty of the Suk School
Physicians with second level conditioning bound their long hair in a silver ring The nng of the first level physicians was gold Only one or two second-level graduates were produced each year First level graduates arose about every five years
The extent of conditioning, as determined by the school, determined the price that the school would request for placing the physi
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cian with a family or group Many of the Houses Minor or groups of businessmen would pool their resources to obtain and share the ministrations of a Conditioned Suk physician The employers paid a lump sum, always large, to the school and recorded a contract with the individual physician
Although the Suk School of Medicine still exists, it has greatly changed from the days when it produced physicians for the Imperial Family The decline of the school began when the myth of unbreakable Imperial Conditioning exploded The best documented case is that of the infamous Dr Wellington Yueh, who was forced by Baron Harkonnen to consider the unthinkable and found, no doubt to his own surprise, that it was diifi cult but not impossible to betray his employer Yueh's case is known, but we must wonder if other successful Suk-doctor betrayals re main unknown to this day
The existence of possrtde levers for sab verting the Imperial Conditioning must have been known to the officials of the Suk School because Suk physicians with Imperial Con ditiomng were encouraged not to marry, al though they were not forbidden to do so After the facts concerning Yueh's subversion were revealed, the Suk School forbade its graduates of the Inner School to marry Unfortunately this m$ve did not prevent other Suk Imperial Conditioned physicians from being subverted Once the support of universal faith was removed, once the doc tors themselves realized their vulnerability they knew both good and evil thereafter
Contributing to the demise of the Imperial Conditioning was Ac discovery that the Tlcilaxu had produced a twisted Suk physician The final blow came with the ascension of Leto 11 to the Imperial throne Since Uto II had no need of a physician, he withdrew his financial support of the school
In the mtdst of financial ills the school officials were approached by a group of Mmg practitioners in the year 12953 B G The Mmg group had been denied Imperial permission to establish a separate medical school and although Tsai and Mmg are two very different forms of medicine both techm cally and philosophically the two groups reached an agreement to join fortes to rejuvenate the dying Suk School of Medicine Rivalry between the two had always been great and it took hard negotiating to work the compromise with many Tsai practitioners refusing to be a part of the merger
The major difference between the Tsai school and the Mmg school concerns the mode of treatment The Tsai practitioners are herbalists and their treatment except m surgical cases involves administration of natu ral herbal medicines usually processed by the physician himself The Mmg practitioners however, rely primarily on the manipulation of the body s musculoskeletal structure and utilization of vital pressure points to mobi kze the body s immunological system
When the two groups of physicians first began teaching together at the school all students received the same basic medical education and then were allowed the choice of Mmg specialization or Tsai specialization Many students began to realize the advan tages of each type of medicine and requested training m both Most students at the Suk School of Mediune now opt for this dual training, and for this reason the school is presently thriving M S
Farther references YUEH WELLINGTON YUEH WANNA Fanna Jahid Heal and Hurt Villains m Medicine (Zunaona Kinat) Fanna Jahid History of the Suk School tfMedicine (Gromman United Worlds) Kamila Vanstonan Mmg Medicine Acupuncture and Osteopathy A Com parative Study (Richese New Caledonia Slate UP)
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THORSE (thorsus thorsensis). A six-legged animal used as a beast of burden throughout the empire. Unknown la the times of Muad'Dib, thorses were introduced on Arrakis after the ecological transformation of the planet was completed. Phylogenefccians and other biologists differ over its ancestry and origins. Its six-leggednes& is unique, for no other known mammal possessed six limbs, although a very few species found only on Ecaz have rudimentary mid-torso organs. However, these creatures, most notably the slandai and the plake, have no other resemblance to the thorse, and most authorities now feel the coincidence is merely accidental and that the thorse is the only true hcxaped.
Long bred for strength and sturdiness, the thorse is particularly well suited to planets with a wide range of climates. The fur-bearing thorse (tharsus thorsensis meyersei) was hunted to the point of extinction after Leto n banned all trade in whale fur, but it was saved when Leto extended the ban to the thorse and other fur-bearing animals.
Some authorities, most notably Noah Arkwright, maintain mat Leto himself was responsible for the introduction of the thorse throughout the Imperium. Arkwright suggests, with some cogency, that the slowness of die thorse—even the fastest beast is capable of little better than ten kph—would make its use for transportation difficult if not virtually impossible, and, as one unattributed cynic cited by Arkwright once remarked, "A population which walks is easier to control."
Physical description of the beast is a far simpler task than tracing its phylogeny. Adult members of the breed have been known to weigh over 2000 kg and extend nearly six meters long. Despite their large size, their
nutritional needs are relatively small, and the creature's multiple stomach-digestive systems permits ingestion of almost any type of vegetable matter. This fact alone permits its employment on many planets.
Phylogenetically it appears that the thorse is unique. No fossil remains of the thorse have ever been found, and many biologists have wondered about its apparently sudden introduction, Imperium-wide, within a few hundred years after the accession of Leto II, It was first found on Bela Tegeuse but was soon carried to hundreds of other planets, where its characteristics made it a common "burden animal of choice," displacing other, older species such as the horse, the rhino-zebra, and the fandor. One scholar in the later Letonian era, whose name was ordered expunged from Imperial records, suggested that Leto himself had ordered the Tleilaxu to breed an animal to his specifications. If this indeed be the case, it would mark the first time, aside from the preservation of the Duncan Idahos, that Tleilaxu biological science had been suborned to Imperial whim.
The thorse itself varies in colors, although its distinctive physical characteristics are quite uniform. Its gestation period is approximately 210 standard days, and multiple births are the norm. Some people raise the thorse to provide food. While stringy, the meat is tasty, and its flavor resembles that of other quadrupeds. W.M.
THUMPER. The Fremen apparatus used to attract sandworms. An indispensable aid for travel and often for survival, the Fremen thumper was a spiceplastic stake pointed at one end and attached to a spring-driven clapper at the other. Zensunni records give credit
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for its invention to Naib Trekam of Sieteh Alraab
Predecessors of the thumper include another tool, called an impact hammer, used by Imperial geologists before the invention of ultrasound scanners to study subsurface rock structures Similar in appearance, both tools produce rhythmic, low-frequency sound waves Such sounds appear to have triggered the destruction of the unfortunate Arrakis Geological Survey Team, whose report was available to Trekam The only survivor res cued by die Naib's tribe told Trekam that just moments after the activation of the impact hammer they were attacked by a giant "serpent" The shift to ultrasound scanners began soon after that accident, and impact hammers slipped from common use But Trekam realized the value of the chance occurrence
A thumper was part of every Fremkit and was used for two purposes First, it called a sandworm The caller drove his Mumper into the more compact, windward face of a dune He activated the clapper mechanism, which produced the drumlike ' 'thumping '' A long
spring was held m tightly wound position bv a fabric tie Flipping the tie away freed the spring to unwind As it flapped around, the spring clapped against a hollowed tube protruding from the top of the stake just above the spring (see diagram) The tube and stake resonated together to send out the low frequency sound waves which lured the sand worm to the thumper
The second purpose of the thumper was to decoy a sandworm away from a Fremen When this was necessary a fuse was put in a hole close to the spring, keeping the spring from unwinding until die tie had been igmt ed and burned away The hunted Fremen would escape while the fuse burned and marauding worms would attack the thumper
Thumpers were simple, rather rough adap tations of a tool that had gone out of fashion But they called sandworms to their location effectively, and so were useful when Fremen wanted to mount or to evade the great makers JHG
Further reference FREMKIT
TLEILAXU. The inhabitants of Tleilax, lone planet of the star Thalim, a source of unmoral although tolerated, technological products fol lowing the Butlenan Jihad As such the enigmatic Tleilaxu posed a potential threat to the delicate technological prohibitions of the feudal Impermm However, the Tledaxu dealt in more than simple machine products They also produced genetically engineered humans for specific purposes
If any people should have been purged by the Jihad, it was the Bene Tleilax, whose technology recognized no restraints in pur suit of their scientific interests The fact that the Great Revolt missed this isolated world stands in ironic contrast to the otherwise energetic thoroughness of the Jihad Indeed the Tleilaxu existed m a moral and ethical vacuum on the extreme periphery of the known universe Initial scientific inquiry and insatiable curiosity expressed themselves in this void by Tleilaxu self experimentation, a practice encouraged by the ample supply of lower-class subjects in their highly stratified society This fundamental disposition endured through the ensuing millennia
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When they were discovered by an early Spacing Guild reconnaissance ship m 23 B G , the science and technology of Thalim could no longer enjoy concealment However, the Tleilaxu were able to persuade the Guild to purvey their products to the newly formed Impenum Later, they were further protected from punishment under the edicts of the Great Convention when their security was guaranteed by both the Guild and House Comno, and their products were welcomed by the less fanatical majority of the Impenum The amoral and morally debilitating fecundity of the Tleilaxu, who defined everything as either tool or product, was unleashed on a nubility that had grown desensitized by time to the psychological and ethical monstrosities that necessitated the Butlenan Jihad
The history of ancient Tleilax is undocumented Located in the eleventh sector of the old Impenum, the planet has always been difficult to reach Even the Guild, which discovered Tleilax, can provide little information on its past The Bene Gessent Library on Wallach DC is also not helpful Once aware of the Beae Tleilax as a rival in mental and physical training, die Sisterhood set its spy network in motion too late to discover any significant information The Tleilaxu were wise to have negotiated their pledges of security For a tune, these pledges were mutually beneficial the Tleilaxu knew they were safe, and House Comno and the Spacing Guild thought they were safeguarding the universe from technology while exploiting it themselves
Such measures were necessary since the Bene Tleilax always viewed war, poverty, and religion as mere products or markets Since most of their involvements in these areas involved human exploitation, Tleilaxu technology stressed genetic fabrications arid psycho-neural adepts They provided hu-manoid, sentient tools Face dancers, gholas, sex toys, generals, twisted Mentats, subverted Suk doctors, Guild navigators and artificial melange are major examples of their wares The Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach, a result of their dabbling in archetypes and pure essences, might have been another had it not willed its own death Their greatest successes were, of course, the Duncan Idaho gholas
Throughout their involvement in the Impenum from their discovery through the fall of the God Emperor Lcto II and the rise of the Sioiid-Duncan union, the TleiUxu were the objects of almost universal loathing, fear, and disbelief Even in the fiercely competi five business and politics of the Comno and Atreides eras they were singled out and resented for their parsimony
A naive interpretation might find this revulsion surprising Did not the Tleilaxu supply Houses Major and Minor with technological necessities weapons and toys7 This they did, for a pnce but inherent m their offerings was the guilt that came to buyers from their violations of the Budenan edicts The frequency of the epithet Dirty Tleilaxu demonstrated how soiled people felt as a result of their sinful commerce with the inhabitants of Tleilax, and an entire corpus of superstitions and phobias arose from the resultant anxieties The Fremen, for example, usually rejected Tleilaxian metal eyes, be cause they felt that the user would be darkly enslaved and wear an evil collar On Gamont, it was believed that face dancers were erotic demons capable of becoming incubi or succubi, and the lower orders of die Bene Gessent identified Tleilaxu sperm with deformed and retarded children
Among the more educated and less superstitious, the Tleilaxu were thought of as too cruel to be human, and the Bene Gessent Reverend Mothers frequently taunted the face dancers with the threat of the gom jabbar The 'human distrans ' was one of the causes of this attitude, and such beings were gener ally considered unclean, a degeneration of humans into machines In addition, the gholas were often thought of as reanimated dead, and many houses practiced cremation in fear of the ghola possibility Face Dancers, because of the essential duplicity ot then- natures, were rarely trusted and were generally despised
Even the God Emperor Leto II, usually distinguished by his tolerance, hated the Tleilaxu Certainly, any Atreides had good reasons to loathe them for their constant belligerence The Tleilaxu threats to the Atreides included the equipment to tram the Laza tigers that tned to attack young Leto II
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and Ghanima; the attempted ghola-slavery of Chani and Paul Atreides and assassination of the twins and Paul; two direct assaults on Hwi Noree, one of which included Leto II himself; and the crucial delay of the ghola to replace Duncan-the-Last. However, the God Emperor's hatred was profound, the result of his own addiction to the company of the Duncan gholas, a need he never successfully conquered despite at least one serious attempt to do so.
While the numerous particular actions and products generated significant ill will, it is more likely that the TteUaxu were generally loathed for a more primordial reason. Their genetic manipulations manned life and nature. The Bene Gesserit could be tolerated, even admired, for their pretension at improving humanity, but the Bene Tleilax's distortions only inspired primal horror.
S.T. and R.S.
Further references: DUNCAN IDAHO entries; SCYTAI^; Anon.. The Tleilam Godbuk. Rakts Ref. Cat, 3-TL42; Shao Lu Minh, "Self-Hatred in Tkilaxophofoa." Journal rf Psychology and fiittory 50:9^-118; Itiina Giezharee, Tleilaxu Products and Plans in *fu Atreides Imperium (Chusuk: Saliejina).
TROTHSAYER. One of an elect group of Reverend Mothers adept in the ways of truthtrance and able to discern and identify falsehood, deceit, and insincerity. The hypnotic or ecstatic state called truthtrance was commonly induced by drug compounds known as "awareness spectrum" narcotics. However, recent evidence suggests that some experienced Trutfisayers could self-induce oiithtrance without the aid of any stimulants merely by the power of autosuggestion. What is indisputable is mat narcotic or drag preparations entirely benign to the Iruthsayer could prove fatal for anyone else inclined to secure the magic properties attributed to them.
Most eminent among celebrated Truthsavers was the Reverend Mother Gams Helen Mohiarn. Justly renowned both as practitioner of the art of truthtrance and as historian and analyst of the role of the Iruthsayer since its inception just after the Butlerian Jihad, Reverend Mother Gates Helen's service as Truthsayer to the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV offered her a unique, even
inspired, vantage point from which to consider the office of Truthsayer, its function, purpose, and value. The treatise she wrote on the subject was respected, above all, for the authoritative simplicity and elegance of its style and the humility of tone it exhibited in its treatment of so exalted a subject. Her Prolegomena to the Sacred History of the Council of Nine is deeply indebted to the Sattva Codex, one of the priceless documents committed to the once secret archives of the Bene Gesserit.
The Sattva Codex is a truly extraordinary document with a wealth of exhaustive detail and a breadth of continuity supplied by its addenda and appendices dating to the conclusion of the Butlerian Jihad. The original document constitutes a concise chronicle outlining the origin, purpose, philosophy, and character of the Holy Council of Nine as it evolved under the inspired leadership of Mother Jehanne.
According to legend now authenticated by discovery of the Sattva Codex, humanity's quest for truth before the Butlerian Jihad had degenerated into a passion for accumulating and storing facts and data. This obsessive activity was encouraged and implemented by the machine mentality which dominated the times. With machines for testing veracity, men no longer searched within themselves for the eternal verities, the reality behind the illusion that is the phenomenal universe. In reaction to this soul-parching tendency, the Holy Council of Nine was formed as a sacred body of Reverend Mothers whose command of trulhtrance imbued them with the power of Truthsayers.
The Truthsayers were to represent the spiritual school of the Sisters, acting as their heralds and as the guardians of the Sacred Way to Truth. These holy Reverend Mother Truthsayers were responsible for the restoration and preservation of those qualities, characteristics, and objectives identified with the human cause. The Nine were to investigate the nature of humankind continuously, its customs, practices, societies, passions, weaknesses, and instincts, as well as to assess its cosnlic destiny. To realize so monumental a task, each member of the Council had to have concentrated imagination, auda-
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cious conception, savage intention, unbridled psychic sensitivity, and iron will, qualifications then tempered and honed to suit the objectives of the Council
The special abilities of the Truthsayer supposedly were inherited through Mother Jehanne from the Great Mother (who was reputed to know all dungs in themselves) Accordingly, only a Thithsayer could properly identify those qualities m one of her Sisters, since the art of divining falsehood was vouchsafed only to a handful of the Elect Reverend Mothers at any one time, led by die Holy Mother, Head of the Cogita Vent Council The Mater Cogita Vera, who retained the privilege of naming her own successor, served as Patroness of the Council and acted as the model of excellence and integrity, an example of dignity and the triumph of grace and intelligence
Since the call to become one of the Council was a heavy burden of responsibility, placing inordinate demands physically, mentally, and spiritually on a woman, the Patroness also served as arbitrator, moderator, and adjudicator, and counsellor Though, ideally, these members would be without malice and envy, joined as they were in a mission requiring cooperation and obedience, in fact mere were occasions when the Patroness would be required to intercede Whenever she detected untoward ambition, her responsibility was to redirect it, all the while encouraging and deepening each Truthsayer's dependency on her leadership
All documentation relating to the Council of Nine blurs the occasional defection of a member, whether that desertion was attributable to psychological instability, political recalcitrance or, as was probably more often die case, moral and ethical backsliding Such an instance probably was that of Reverend Mother Denote, whose assignment on Ecaz was sabotaged by her personal involvement with a minor functionary named Theos The Truthsayer s special talents and abilities were thus subverted to the service of political intrigue—a personal power struggle within the Impenum seriously jeopardized the Sister hood's plans for an advanced breeding program m that geographical area A highly secret document, lately come to light, reported
the malefactions of the Truthsayer Denora to her Patroness What punishment was meted out is not recorded Still, Denora's name was removed from the Sacred Index of Servitors, effectively erasing her from the rolls forever The informer's motives and identity are unknown
With few exceptions, membership on the Council was a life term A vacancy remained open until a suitable replacement was found A list of prospective Council members was developed by means of recommendation, reputation, training or birth, providing a small pool of candidates available at all times to the Holy Mother m charge ot the selection process The responsibilities laid upon a Truthsayer were arduous and the spartan existence, the self discipline, the daily regi men of obedience meditation and avowal demanded constant vigilance, dedication and restraint A prospective candidate for the office was required to undergo various trials to test her mettle
One of the most gruelling tests put to a novice Truthsayer was an appearance before the Council to answer questions devibed by the Patroness These interrogative disputa tions posed questions of a philosophical and political nature, occasionally branching out into matters of cosmology Once the various tests had been successfully passed, however, the initiation ceremony could commence The candidate was led through darkness into a hall of immense proportions wherein only three lights shone Surrounded by darkness the chosen one was treated to a lanterna magica display during which she was bom bardcd with flashing images of human history—its glory and its failures its hopes and its despair, its victims, its villains and its heroes For the space of a dav and a night she was initiated into the mystery of Truthsayer by confronting the darkness, alone, in order to know light Being sightless, she was expected to see At the end of the ordeal, three Sisters would appear carrying a crystal cube on which was etched three overlapping triangles set in a circle the emblem of the Nine The newest member, dressed in stark white robes, would then take her place at the Council table
By all accounts, the glass enclosure nous
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ing the Cogita Vera Council on Wallach IX was set in the center of a shallow pool whose waters were fed by running streams Arched walkways, like rays surrounding a sun, ex tended from the central cylinder and led to a small sealed meditation cubicle where a Rev erend Mother Truthsayer could prepare herself The glass Council chamber was designed to symbolize the clanty of Truth, and the waters surrounding it the nature of time aid change in die mutable world of existence The bridges represented die way between the self abnegation of meditative truthtraace and die per feet completeness of Truth itself a transccn deuce of the ever shifting phenomenal world Set amidst carefully tended gardens which concealed an arboretum famed for its rare herb collection the whole configuration was a hallowed sanctuary of prmctpb and tradition, merging the ideate of contemplauon aid acuon
In conformity with this ideal, the Nine Reverend Mother Truthsayers would don un adorned white robes as a sign that Truth requires no ornament being the pure source of all light and vision Historians have con jectured that the importance of the number nine for the Sisterhood had as its source the ninth card of the Tarot, die eremite or Wisdom The mystical attachment to this number can also be traced to the sum of the combined dates (201 B G and 108 B G ) marking the beginning and cod of the Butlerian Jihad Needless to say, the home world and site of the Mother School of the Sisterhood was founded on Wallach IX the ninth planet of Laoujm
For all the majesty and power clinging to the reputation of the elite Reverend Mothers and the Truthsayers in particular, there is little controversy over their legendary begin mngs as sorceresses and authors of the for bidden Pharmacopoeia manuals of ancient times An intimate knowledge of the herbs of consolation, mat family of plants used as both tranquilizers and stimulants, balms and poisons, was viewed as the early source ot their influence and power Because the sorceress eould furnish and administer the black mullein, the henbane, and the bella donna—poisons that healed soothed, and pacified—she took on the rote of a divinely inspired priestess who could also cast spells
perform magic and even prophesy In this way she fostered love and admiration but also fear for the priestess seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of truth and falsehood of good and evil No wonder that the seclud ed arboretum hidden among the trees on Wallach IX was rumored to be the special laboratory of the Truthsayers, the home of then" experiments with narcotic drugs and compounds
How far the Truthsayer was removed from her origins as primitive sorceress is evident in the motto Homo Sapiente which the first Council adopted as a declaration of the ra tional nexus it was claiming for itself If the Council was to gam m credibility its foun ders realized it would have to tread the delicate balance between the mystery of reve lation and the clanty of reasoned purpose between ritual act and political necessity between sacred duty and worldly deeds The Truthsayers were meant to function as the apostles of the new order disciples of the human spirit and universal guardians of Truth dedicated to serving that Truth and advanc ing its cause
The Council had direct responsibility for the Elect the Reverend Mothers whose influ ence would extend throughout space and time spreading from the center like gentle ripples in a quiet pool The individual Truthsayer was first to be a Truth seeker then a Truth seer and finally a Truth knower as a condition for promoting an ideal of humankind For he who is human says the Sattva Codex holds values makes decisions faces possibilities and also determines them The human inquires creates uses and makes and has infinite potential and singular value But it goes on at the time of the Butlenan Jihad the human was shrouded in the wind mg sheet of its own weaving buried by a mechanical replacement Frozen dead hu mamty had entombed itself in a strong but brittle sepulchre Then slowly almost un perceptibly in the centuries before the Jihad the monument of stasis and death began to totter as it sustained a series of jolts from within the vestige of humanity that would not capitulate
Out of this tradition the Truthsayer was to consecrate her powers to human breeding
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(now raised to a sacrament) as die highest form of Truth partaking of the eternal spmt To hold the office of Truthsayet was to undertake the pilgrimage to the- Nine Mountains, arriving at last at the pinnacle of Truth where die air is clear and far removed from the valley of storm, strife, and confusion below The journey in quest of die ninth mountain was called "truthtrance " Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam described it in this way
To travel die distance to Truth one need go only as fat as one's Self To conquer one's Self is to enter on the {rath to Truth Summon the will to concentrate the mind on die object add then watt, learn the patience to listen to that which is not spoken, hear the unsaid, become an empty vessel, the receiver of truth, vibrate a& a harp in the wind to the sound of deceit, the shifting weight of insincerity, the clamor of falsehood The Truth cannot be told, It must be lived and felt Only untruth distuibs the peacc$rf air and perfect silence •*}
The Exercitoa by which the Truthsayer focuses the mind until the state of truthtrancc is achieved is described both in Reverend Mother Gaius Helen's treatise cm the subject and m the Sattva Codex Classified as devotional meditation that begins as reverie or dream, truthtrance was accomplished through a series of stages The Trutiisayer had first to •adopt a posture of perfect stillness, turning die gaze inward until she became insensible to any outside occurrence This inward turning produced a sense of being a vacant body, weightless arid light-headed, like a mote carried on the air Once deep in contemplation, already an another plane of existence, the Trathsayer could reconcile and integrate spirit and mind, achieving an inner peace that refreshed and strengthened A mystical marriage of mind and spirit would awaken all levels of subconscious receptivity and the body could then act as a conductor of charged particles of illumination
On occasion, the inward turning phase would foe accompanied by a spoken ritual formula which aided m focusing the will and elevating perception Each Truthsayer was assigned a series of words that formed a simple pattern The series was repeated until the practitioner could, silently, allow the pat-
tern to play itself within and then extend itself in a host of permutations The words ' 'Ye mansur omit'' seem to have had a salutary effect when included m these ritual incantations Essentially however, the change in consciousness that accompanied truthtrance was achieved by a conscious alteration in the pace of breathing and blood circulation, lending the body a somewhat rigid posture The trance enhanced pure intellectual vision, so it was claimed, by providing a total fixity of attention that blocked out all elements of external environment and surface consciousness
The object of the exercise was to empty the mind to make it a vacant space bereft of discernible energy, in suspension and awaiting a mover or catalyst In this state, the mind was susceptible and, like a magic mirror, perceived the illusion as reflection distinct from the palpable reality of Truth The Truthsayer's ability to capture the instant, to lock in and hold the transient moment, was a bold challenge, Sung out at the endless continuum of time and space to open the shadowy corners to light The agile intuition could then slip into the obscuring shade and ferret out the Truth On indisputable testimony, revelation occurred first as an experiential flash, more instinct than intellect It was a presentiment turned to certitude Thus, a state of equilibrium was achieved, some times called "rapt ecstasy,' in which the subject became aware of increased power and an intense sense of knowing At this stage, certitude of judgment was described as a ring of pure light encased in absolute silence
Truth, it was believed, is constancy amid the flow What is false, no matter the degree, interrupts the surge of light that is all truthful saying Truth glides without interruption as the constant of the universe That which is not Truth is the aberration, the interruption, the disturbance in an even stream of time and a blot on the landscape of light
The credo of the Truthsayer held that the saying of Truth is commensurate with a creative act, born of divine fiat and partaking of the eternal It held that Truth cannot be bought, bartered, or won but must be discovered, freely, as one discovers a rare bios-
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som in an otherwise barren landscape, the culmination of patience, courage, perseverance, and faith Truths may be communicated, but not Thith Truth must be accepted as a paradox, as a union of all contraries, as the Oneness of all opposites
As the Reverend Mother Gams Helen, herself Truthsayer and Patroness, confided in her private journal
The Trothsayer is the initiate of Eternity who must unravel the knotted threads of manifold truths watpuig, twisung and obscuring the truth For the Truthsayer is as a lens through which the divine light of Truth is focused and then beamed The Truthsayer is the conscience and guide of all who aspire to be truly human As such, she is the chalice into which must fall those tears, like bright stars, coursing (town the round countenance of the coM uatveise
GE Further references* BENE GESSERTT, MOHIAM, RBVER
END MOTHRR GAlm HEI EN Gwillt Mlgnall The Nervs
Mohiam Controversy (Yorba Rose), R M Vamis Deborah Looms ed Jama Cato Ratis Rtf C.t 3-BG-M3 RM Gams Helen Motttan. Diana, Ubny Conf Temp Senes 133
TUPILE. Tbe name traditionally used for what may be one or more planets or star systems, the sanctuary planet for defeated Houses Major and Minor under the terms of the Great Convention, also, the secret support base of the Spacing Guild
About 100 B G , three ships of refugee Ixian scientists led by Aurelius Venpott and Norma Cevna touched down on a planet whose location and name are still unknown A strong case can be made dial the sanctuary planet established by the Great Convention was (or was near) the world the Ixians found, although without more evidence the question remains open Tuple apparently had enjoyed an advanced technological base before it was visited by Butlenan fanatics m the latter stage of the Jihad By that time, the original goals of the Jihad—the destruction of machine technology operating at the expense of human values—had been replaced by indis criminate slaughter The technology of Tupile was evidently bemga, its government and economy stable, and its people prosperous and unaggressive (The same may be said for the other planets, if any, in the system, for
many references speak not of "Tupile" but of "the Tupiles") Unfortunately for the Tupihans, the populace suffered far more from the Jihad than did the industrial base
Humans were punished for possessing any technology at all The immediate consequence of this anomaly was the survival of Tupile's hardware relatively intact, but a paralysis of industrial activity until the arrival of Aurelius Venport and the Ixians
Venport estimated the situation and seized the opportunity he presented himself to a people fast reverting to savagery as a savior ordained to restore their society His resources were strong he had with him not merely zealots of interstellar travel, but experts m other scientific disciplines who had weaned of the restrictions and secrecy Ix had imposed on its scientific community He cloaked these Aurehan exiles with religious trappings, renaming them the "Society of Mystic Manners," and offered them as a priesthood dedicated to a divinely appointed task
Through these stratagems he enlisted the eager support of the Tupihans Personally magnetic, Venport interpreted recent history to the Tupihans in terms of black and white, terms they were only too ready to believe They needed little convincing that the But lenans were evil incarnate, against which the Society, personifying human progress, moved toward a God-directed resurgence Venport's real purpose—finding a substitute for computerized navigation of hyperspace ships—he withheld from the Tupihans at the beginning
In the years that followed, the minor damage to the planet's industrial complex was repaired and the brightest of the natives began study at the Society's academy, founded to build a local intelligentsia capable of con tinuing the program after the Ixians were gone In these efforts Venport succeeded in a remarkably short time The first spice-navigated ships, the Golden Advent and the Norma Cevna, were built on Tupile and the beginnings of the Spacing Guild fleet were laid down The tightest security (aided by Tupile's location on the margin) was maintained throughout the next sixty years, but agents from Tupile kept their superiors well advised of events m the human universe, events that
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were rapidly moving toward the beginning of the Impenum of House Comno
Intermediaries for the Guild approached the Impenum in 12 B G After some initial difficulties in establishing trustworthy contacts, the Guild offered safe, reliable interstellar voyaging, they swore absolute abstention from politics, and they sweetened the offer by revealing the geriatric properties of melange In return they asked for a total monopoly on hyperspace transport and a promise from the Impenura to forever respect the secrecy of Tupile In his wisdom, Emperor Saudir the Great saw the advantage of a relief-valve for tensions boiling in the feudal structure he had so delicately balanced He had already hoped for agreement from the Houses Major that warfare was to be strictly regulated according to the Great Convention Now Saudir saw the chance to offer a tangible reward for compliance—the establishment of a haven for defeated houses, a sanctuary in which the survivors would be secure from the threat of extermination Once the decision of victory or defeat was proclaimed, the signatories of the Convention were bound to end hostilities, and the emperor saw in the Guild a means ot assuring compliance Only the Guild, through its hyperspatial reach, could maintain the secrecy and guarantee the sanctity of such a haven, but only if they were granted the monopoly .they asked His counterproposal to the Guild offered the monopoly in return for their maintenance oi the sanctuary, and the Guild accepted
The hypothesis mat this sanctuary existed in or near the Tupihan system rests on two arguments The first notes the Guild's frequent use of misdirection as a tactic a classic example is the Guild disclosure of me-
lange as a life prolonging agent to divert attention from the spice s navigational uses If the Guild used a similar play after the Convention, they may have reasoned mat the last place suspected for the haven was within their own system, just as no one would have expected them to reveal the spice they depended on The second argument is strategic only if the Guild were close by could they watch over the defeated houses protecting them from themselves and others A defeated force, even if it had the transport, could not venture forth with ambitions of revenge while the Guild patrolled the area Guild recon naisance ships could therefore guard both the sanctuary and Tupile at the same tune Add to this the disappearance from history of those few houses who took refuge on Tupile and the argument gains circumstantial weight One comment that deserves repeating is that Tupile, or the Tupiles, have never been proven to be a single star system The wealth of the Guild's agents and factors suggests that they drew from many populated worlds and many worlds suggests more than one star By inference, then as much as a whole sector may have been more or less under Guild control and exploitation as it grew Keeping a region of this size secret would not be impossible as other realities prove (the Tleilaxu for example) The Spacing Guild must have had wide latitude in desig nating this or that planet as Tupile If anyone knew the truth of the situation it would have been Emperor Leto II, and his knowledge of Tupile may yet come to light among the Rakis manuscripts S T Further references SPACING GUILD FOUNDATION SPAC
ING GUILD OPERATIONS VENPORT AURELIUS CEVNA NORMA
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VEMPORT,AURELKIS (140-79' B G > Ixian scientist and explorer, called "Foster-father of the Spacing Guild
Numbers of scientist-refugees from Richese were resettled on the abandoned planet Komos (renamed Ix) at the outset of the Butfenan Jihad, and among their offspring the most energetic and intelligent was Aurehus Venport As a young man he gamed notoriety for advocating an overt maintenance of technology and for his astonishing progress in the field of interstellar spacecraft His views were shared by Norraa Cevna, with whom he also shared a liaison that lasted until his disappearance Cevna shared his desire but differed with him on method, throughout their union, she provided a diplomatic brake on his enthusiasm
By 110 B G Venport's researches had taken him beyond the capabilities of Ix's fledgling technology The Ixians therefore encouraged Venport to build three ships, take his people, and leave the planet These "Aurehan exiles" began ten years of wandering hampered by uncertain navigational techniques, but reached at last a planet which historians, more for convenience than for enlightenment, call Tupile "
Tupile met the requirements Venport had in mind from the beginning: material resources, a salvageable industrial base, an intelligent labor supply, and a location at the boundary of the known worlds While Tupile certainly had even less technological expertise man Ix, as a technologically virgin planet it had something to offer which Venport wanted desperately the opportunity for complete control and boundless power The Aurehan ex-
iles presented themselves to the Tupilians as saviors destined to restore the planet s science bringing back the wealth and leisure they had known before the Jihad Venport's instm men* in the scheme was a quasi religious organization of the Ixians which he named the Society of Mystic Manners The Tupihans, mindful of then1 former prosperity and of their present wretchedness welcomed the exiles Venport unquestionably displayed the chansma and the shrewdness needed for his adopted role, and the Tupihans were eager for help from any quarter
Venport combined the resources of planet and people with the trained cadre and scien tific knowledge he had brought from Ix m little more than a decade Tupihan technolo gy was recreated But more important to Venport himself he had made giant strides toward his secret goal ihe development of hyperspace vessels able to function without computer assisted navigaUon Of course the Ixians had not erected a technological socie ty from nothing in the Jihad Tupile had been scourged not torn to pieces Even so the exiles achieved a marvel of organization
During this same period (100-85 B G) the Society of Mystic Manners discovered the navigational use of melange probably through the mysterious befnending of Cevna by an alleged Bene Gesscnt outcast Dardamus Leona Shard The properties of spite smoothed the way for the test of the prototype spacecraft The Golden Advent in84BG withNorma Cevna as both captain and navigator The voyage was a partial success the Advent crossed several light years and returned to Tupile as planned within five days but Cevna
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collapsed from the stress of her combined role and Venport himself had to navigate the last short leg of the tnp in normal space
Venport's disappointment tarnished his joy the obsession of his life had been achieved by someone else (even though a loved one), and had brought her the power and recognition he craved Cevna was unable to appreci ate the honor she had gained disabled for months, she showed little sign of improvement As Arki id Sidak one of the Ixians, wrote of Venport's envy, "Never has one man traveled so far only to realize on reaching harbor mat the real captain had been Penelope" (Fragments of an Odyssey, p. 13) Ifet Venport plunged into ship construction and spice-trance education with fanatical energy, working both die exiles and their Tupdian assistants around the clock By 80 B G , twelve ships had been assembled, each with trained spice-assisted Ixians at the bridge Through the next few months, test flights of limited range accustomed both captains and navigators to the tasks thai had debilitated Cevna In 79 B G » Venport began an extended test of coordinated ship movement through The Void, the first such mission attempted The anonymous author of the Aurehan Memoirs describes the result
While we in the other ships relied on a division of tabor between captains and navigators, Aurelius in the flagship Norma Cevna insisted on doing both by himself—as she had—bat better and safer, succeeding where sfae bad failed Since we were caught up m hu fervor, there was no dissent We dropped into The Void and lost radio contact, but when we reached our des nnanon only eleven ships emerged We spi raled outward from Kovenek for three standard days, searching for the Norma Cevna but we found nothing, neither at Kovenek nor at Tupile when we returned A few superstitious Tupile technicians muttered about Ampohros I can t picture Venport as ' the Wanderer of Space, but he might as well be we Ixians are finished here Now cenjes the day of the lunihans (p 408)
Although Venport was gone, the Ixians had indeed completed their work Like the dyna mos of Old Richese Venport had powered his Duan colleagues and Tupthan worshipers alike toward the vision that lured him—the rebirth of fast, safe interstellar travel S T
Further references SPACING GUILD FOIJNDATION SPAC
ING GUILD OPERATIONS INTERSTELLAR NAVIGATION
PRE-GUILD CEVNA NORMA Arkiid Sidak Fragments of an Odyssey tr Shosta Graun (Topaz Gnmoire) Anon Aurelian Memoirs Lib Conf Temp Series 684
VOICE. One of the most impressive physical accomplishments of the Bene Gessent sisterhood, the idiomatic terminology used to refer to the manipulation of speech to achieve complete control over the receiver, the production of extraperceptual auditory stimuli capable of implanting a message in an individual's unconscious, thus creating a com pulsion to obey Although Voice is founded on physical knowledge, only the Bene Gessent were able to exploit for practical purposes the knowledge that others possessed but did not understand
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION The production of extraperceptual auditory stimuli involves manipulation of the laryngeal musculature in a manner that generates overtones well above the 20 000 cycles per second (cps) limit for conscious reception Bene Gessent training enables adepts to control the thyro-arytenoid vocalis and cncothyroid muscles so as to intentionally regulate vocal quality in a man ner that generated specific frequencies with in the 25,000-35,000 cps range Normal phonation, caused by tension of the vocal folds to effect condensations and rarefactions of the airstream, operates within a range of 500 to 4,000 cps, with random and only partially controlled overtones up to 10,000 cps
It is the combinations of overtones—along with the resonating characteristics of the pharyngeal, nasal and oral cavities that amplify specific frequencies—that account m large measure for the vocal quality thdt makes each individual s voice somewhat unique For instance, the trained singing voice owes its richness to overtones of more than ordi nary amplitude Sktllful manipulation of Voice requires generating these overtones without altering the basic pitch or loudness of the perceived voice Each individual word or phoneme requires a unique combination of perceived tones and extraperceptual frequencies This perceptual/extraperceptual ratio (specific combination of perceptual and extraperceptual frequencies) must vary ac
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cording to the position of a phoneme within a word, be it initial, medial or terminal
PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTION Extraperceptual stimuli trigger so-called ancommit-ted zones of the auditory cortex That effect frequently has been measured m the laboratory using high-frequency sounds from whistles and animals It also is recognized that numerous languages from Old Terra. Arrahs, and Richese rehed extensively on tone to denote shades of meaning In those languages, however, tone was a digital aspect of language that required knowledge of the message code to be understood. Voice, on the other hand, registers on tile receiver and creates a compulsion to obey without any previous training or conditioning of the target That aspect of Voice requires that we engage in extensive speculation in an effort to deduce its function
Sometime in the prehistoric background of the human race, our ancestors possessed more acute hearing, sharing with numerous lesser creatures the ability to perceive high-frequency sounds Although disuse has left us with no conscious ability to recognize or interpret such stimuli, rendering them extraperceptual, racial memory has locked mat knowledge in our unconscious Thus, segments of the auditory cortex are merely unused, as opposed to being uncommitted Those zones are actually committed but the information stored there is unavailable to the conscious mind
Scholars conclude that extraperceptual auditory stimuli do impinge on the nervous system by exciting portions of the auditory cortex which feeds information only to the individual's unconscious Voice messages, therefore, go directly to tile unconscious, are not subject to scrutiny by the conscious will of the receiver and compliance requires no voluntary decision Bene Gessent adepts, of course, are able to monitor and control alt neural and physical functions of their bodies, permitting them to hear as well as generate such stimuli They, as a result, can use Voice to compel obedience from others while they themselves are resistant to Voice commands
BACKGROUND The knowledge upon which the Bene Gesserit perfected Voice appears to have been drawn from two fields of traditional learning, physics and psychology Instrurnenta-
tion capable of measuring neural activity was invented sometime during the early stages of the computer era which eventually led to the Butlenan Jihad It was at that time that our ancestors on Old Terra created numerous electronic toys of little practical value No doubt their lack of understanding regarding physical phenomena caused the mania for measuring such events Instruments for registering electrical variations in the central nervous system led to the discovery that sound waves outside the normal hearing range precipitated measurable neural activity Although primitive man probably was aware that certain animals could hear sounds humans could not, and that the human vocal mechanism could produce sounds outside the human hearing range, the distinction between hearing and neural sensitivity must have perplexed the early scientists The pre-Butlenan explanation for hearing was based on a mechanical-electrical process that would seem to indicate that the individual would ' hear" any acoustical stimulus within the range received by the physical apparatus Although modern science has gone well beyond such crude approximations the "we hear-what-we-cannot-hear" paradox was not fully explained until the secret Bene Gessent records were uncovered by current researchers
Contemporary neuroscientists involved in the Rakis project agree that the Bene Gessent learned, probably with the help of spice, of the static barriers in the cortex (popularly called "force field boundanes' ) discovered less than a century ago by the legendary Sin Qadnn
The study of psychology seems always to have been based on the theory that surface awareness is not all there is to be found in the human mind Although only Muad'Dib and his bloodline were successful in harnessing and us.mg the voices within, numerous pre Scattering notions hinted at Qadnn s theo rem regarding static barriers and why some humans seemingly could draw upon racial memones of which others were unaware For instance, reincarnation postulated that a soul reappears in successive physical bodies and the experience of past lives can, upon occasion, be brought to the conscious level The collective unconscious theory supposed
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that character images or personality archetypes, implanted in the unconscious mind but outside our direct view governed the individual's behavior Chansutra concepts may have come closer in the assertion that all behavior resulted from guidelines passed along as a part of the genetic pattern
The body of thought developed by Qadnn and his successors in the new science clearly shows that humans possess the potential for remembering the experiences and thought processes of all who have gone before them
in their bloodline The information is stored in the now-unused zones of the cortex, held back by the static boundaries the force fields of the mmd It no doubt was spice that first allowed the Bene Gessent to penetrate those boundaries L G
Further references BEN^ GESSERIT entries Htr Braccus Discussions of Voice in the RaJas Records Studia Veurophyswlogica 213 (Grumman Tern) Sin Qadnn Static Barriers of the Cerebral Cortex (Richest Umv of Bailey Press) esp Ch 5
WANNA. A Bene Gessent adept, wife of the Suk School doctor Wellington Yueh, who betrayed Duke Leto Atreides Wanna Marcus is believed to have been killed by order of Baron Vlddimir Harkonnen Information con ceming a plot to kill Duke Leto Atreides substantiates the extent of Wanna's involvement in Bene Gessent political infiltration plans
Reverend Mother Gams Helen Mohiam's journals indicate that Wanna Marcus was extremely talented, especially in the skills of truthtrance and druthsayuig She was being groomed for the role of Truthsayer and a possible place on the Cogita Vera Council But certain developments, notably Reverend Mother Gams Helen's discovery of the young Paul Atreides' exceptional abilities, caused the Reverend Mother to alter her plans for Wanna Believing that the time of the Kwisatz Haderach had come, Mohiam was determined to usher it in without any delay For this purpose Wanna Marcus was selected to act as decoy
Wanna was to infiltrate the Harkonnen entourage Her presence would remind the Baron of her husband's intimate relationship
with the House of Atreides and the position of responsibility the Suk doctor held in that household The scheme turned on the strength of Yueh's love for his Bene Gessent wife and the extent to which he could be depended upon to protect her from harm
For Wanna s part, her commitment to the Sisterhood and its universal mission would overcome any scruples she might have re gardmg Duke Leto and take precedence over allegiance to her own husband Wanna would be remembered, if dt dll as a hapless inno cent caught in the deadly Harkonnen net of pnde and revenge
Wanna was told her sacrifice would hasten the day of the Kwisatz Haderach by elimmat ing foreseeable contingencies on both sides, Atreides and Harkoimen She was chosen her order told her, because of her courage, her record of obedience her special training and her exquisite gifts It was regretted of course, that one so brilliantly endowed should be so prematurely lost to the Sisterhood even in such a cause Reverend Mother Gams Helen noted that Yueh s capitulation to the blackmail was certain it he possessed the faintest hope that his treachery could keep
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WAR OF ASSASSINS
Wanna alive To Baron Harkonnen love was a fatal weakness that invited assault, and he played out his accustomed part perfectly
The Bene Gessent believed one person's weakness is another s strength In the eyes of the Sisterhood the untimely loss of Duke Leto would prepare the way for young Paul and the rule die Bene Gessent had awaited so long and had worked with such tenacity to achieve Wanna Marcus was an instrument through which the order's dream would become reality
The Sisters at the Chapter House where she had been a special favorite mourned Wanna's death with quiet affection and genuine sorrow, intoning lamentations of great simplicity and pathos And the great dramatist Harq al-Harba later celebrated the saga of Wanna's blameless life and tragic death in "History of Duke Leto, Part E " G E
Further references YUFH OR WELLINGTON Harq al Harba History of Duke Leto Part 0 ' The Complete Works (Gnimman Tern I R M Gaius Helen Motuam Diaries Lib Coaf Temp Series 133
WAR OF ASSASSINS. A term used to describe a large scale use of professional assassins in a feud between two great houses of the Landsraad in the Old Impenum (the pre-Atreides Impenum) Atomic weapons were outlawed by the Great Convention and shields nullified projectile weapons and nonnuclear explosives Hence the Great Houses were obliged to resort to treachery and profession al assassination in order to carry on their perennial vendettas
All Great Houses customarily hired a master assassin—usually one with Mentat training m logic and the traditional Mentat dis trust of emotion—to oversee me defenses of the family household, supervise the house's corps of assassins, and in some cases to command units of troops or mercenaries Their function was therefore both offensive and defensive Consequently a "war of assassins ' between two great houses often took on die appearance of a Cheops game between two grand masters However, some great barons or dukes, fake Duke Leto Atreides, although relying on the advice of their chief assassin, may be said to have managed—or mismanaged—their own campaigns
The first recorded instance of a war of assassins is the conflict between House Pardee and House Harkonnen in 3367-3375, a conflict which virtually obliterated House Pardee This war involved an extensive use of poison, but it was climaxed by the famous Lasgun Massacre when Harkonnen mercenaries ambushed Duke Ira Pardee and his family at their hunting lodge on the planet of New Salem Various stones attribute this victory to the defection of the steward of their rural estate a jealous functionary who was easily bribed Undermining the loyalty of the retain ers of another house was a specialty at which House Harkonnen seems to have excelled, according to the reputation of the house among others in the Old Impenum
An outright war of assassins always required, under the Great Convention, a formal declaration of intent to be filed with the Imperial Court, the offices of the Guild, and the Secretary of the Landsraad Imperial judges were appointed to monitor the conflict and particularly to observe an> instances where innocent bystanders might be harmed Such actions did not always ensure the safety of noncombatants nor a fair treatment of the two houbeb involved, for the emperor was seldom completely disinterested in the conflict But the observation made the feuding houses wary of harming or even involving outsiders
Numerous famous wars of assassins occurred in Impenal history, often altering the balance of power among the Great Houses of the Landsraad For instance House Galloway was powerful in the third millennium, but was nearly destroyed in its war of assassins with House Albonite Some other well known wars of assassins were the Stemhauser Boudreau feud (8193 8195) and the Choi-Dwyer-Ferguson war (8787-8843), a three cornered bloodbath from which each house emerged weakened This latter conflict was unusually bitter and ended only when the emperor himself interceded with the families in conflict
The important wars of assassins dominated political history of the last century of the pre-Atreides Impenum The first of these was the feud of House Montani of Grumman with House Ginaz, the latter an ally of Duke Leto Atreides It took place m 10175-10181,
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and ended with the total defeat of House Ginaz, after the Ginaz Duke and several of his family were poisoned The Comno Emperor's wanness concerning Duke Leto Atreides and his house was a great aid to House Montani m this affair
Shaddam IV's favor also helped House Harkonnen immeasurably in its feud with House Atreides, culminating in the famous massacre of the Atreides on Arrakis in 10191 In this war the Harkonnens used Dr Wellington Yueh, the family physician of House Atreides, as their piece of treachery, and Piter de Vnes as their Mental Assassin Ac cording to the Oral History and other sources, Dr Yueh cut off the power, thereby lowering the shield defenses of the Atreides palace The Atreides residence was then overran by Harkonnen mercenaries and Imperial Sar-daukar, although theft was considerable re sistance and many casualties, including Duke Leto, Yueh, de Vnes, the famous Atreides warrior Duncan Idaho, and the equally re nowned Liet-Kynes, the planetoiogist of Dune Ironically, the Atteides Mental-Assassin Thufir Hawat, went over to the Harkonnens after their victory But the Atreides concubine, Lady Jessica, and die heir, Paul Atreides, escaped the Barton's troops and became allied to the Fremen, changing the political history of Arrakis and the Tmpenum irrevocably
The war of assassins between House Harkonnen and House Atreides was the largest one in recorded history and had the most sweeping political consequences After the revolt on Arrakis, the nature of Imperial rule was changed when Paul Muad'Dib became emperor His reign was followed by the Regency of Alia Atreides and men bj the rule of Emperor Leto, during which the Great Houses declined Although Aha em ployed numerous assassins, she did not de clare any wars of assassination, for obvious reasons During Emperor Leto & long rule of nearly four millennia wars of assassins were virtually proscribed, although technically the Great Convention remained in effect
During those years, the profession of assassin fell into some disrepute, and those who took up the craft were largely second rate There were numerous assassination at
tempts in this period, most of them directed at the Emperor Leto all of them frustrated Siona Atreides ultimate success in destroying Emperor Leto has been seen by some stu dents of political assassination as a victory for amateurs
It is held by some authorities that the best assassins in the Impenum during the reign of Leto were the gholas of Duncan Idaho, sever al of whom made senous efforts to murder Leto Perhaps there is some validity in this view since the last Idaho ghola did successfully conspire with Siona to kill Leto
Some interesting effects of wars of assas sins entered the folklore of the Impenum It was customary, for instance, to speak of someone who was notorious for his rational! ty as being "logical as an assassin " And the hour before dawn when human biocycles are customarily at a low ebb was often called the "hour of assassins" because of the tendency of professional assassins to use it for their attacks E C
Further references ASSASSINS HANDBOOK Zhautn Kuuraveer Political Homicide in the Leto Imperiion (Grumman Tern) V Cohvcoh p The Text of the Great Convention after the Materials from Arrakw (Placentia Santa Fe)
WATERTUBE. Fremen device of wide apph cation in the transfer of liquids Examples of watertubes found on Rakis speak eloquently of the highly developed technology achieved by the Zensunm Wanderers during the final stage of their migrations Stnct conservation of moisture especially that given off by the human body was crucial to survival on Arrakis, and the simple sophistication of the watertube is a good example of the Fremen attention to minute detail that reflected this concern The watertube was used anywhere that liquids especially distilled water had to be transferred from one place to another They were used in stillsuits between catch pockets and mouth, and even between bodily orifices and processing catches Tubes were built into the catchpockets of stilltents The Huanui (or Deathstill) used watertubing in the dramway and between the waiting basin and the flowmeter Watertubes were also used in hterjons flowmeter spouts, and portable wmdtraps
WATERTUBE
WORM RIDING
Construction of the normal watertube was somewhat simpler than the device's sophistication suggests The compound used for the body of the tube was melange-based plastic with plyotyl mixed in to provide the needed flexibility The plastic was hquified and forced into a mold of plasteel, usually 10 to 15 cm square and 2 m long The mold consisted of a group of holes of different diameters A cap at one end allowed extrusion of rods as long as the mold and of varying diameters The cap at the far end of the mold received the rods and thus helped maintain consistent thickness of the watertube being formed
A half dozen of the molds discovered so far at two sites on Rakis have led to speculation that tube walls could be varied in thickness depending on which way the caps were put on the mold No matter how the caps were installed, the rods would penetrate the match-up holes But when the caps were rotated a quarter turn, the relation of rod size to mold-hole diameter changed The result could have been that different production needs for watertubes of different flexibility and inside diameter were taken care of by a small number of multi-purpose mold-and-cap combinations There ate not yet enough examples to confirm this speculation or the possibility that switching caps among molds could have given the Fremen almost infinite varieties of tube characteristics Some ana lysts say that these speculation!) overlook the Fremen characteristic of keeping technology simple, others say that this kind of flexibility and adaptability would reflect their sophistication
Because the examples of watertubes uncov ered so far show extraordinary uniformity of dimension, we believe that some supplemental mechanism must have been used to keep the rods perfectly straight inside the mold holes The best guess so far, although no conclusive evidence has been found, is that ultrasonic radiation, applied to the cooling plastic/plyotyl m the mold, contributed to stabilization of the fluid and thus to macroscopic uniformity of tube wall
Partially cooled tubes were removed from the molds and passed through the bonding vat where the still-tacky inner surfaces, but not the cooler outsides, collected the crystal-
line solution which formed, as it "dried" and bonded to the plastic tube, the friction release coating Finally* the active processes completed, the watertubes now looking like dun, limp cords of slightly different diameters, were taken to drying racks where they 'set up" and cured
The "crystalline solution" probably would not have been looked for, and the function of tile "bonding vat" would have remained unclear, if not for the mention in the Dunebuk of the nearly fnctionless surface of equipment associated with water measurement Careful search of many watertube relics did turn up trace samples of a flexible crystal that is almost inert at normal temperatures Significant amounts of the substance have been found only in the vicinity of some "bonding vats " Pen/pherometnc analysis indicates that the Fremen s fnctiontess mate rial has an intramolecular structure close to present-day Pethlax and the prototype Frolmyr compound
Watertube technology looks at first to be fairly simple, as befits a commonplace item of everyday use The close investigation prompted by scattered comments in the Dunebuk, however, reveals sophisticated attention to details of watertube design and manufacture which in turn confinm the ex traordmary importance of water conservation in the desert environment of Arrakis
JLG
Further reference Princess Irulan Atreides Comno ed The Dunebuk Rakis Ref Cat 7 Z33I
WORM RIDING According to the chronicles which record that people's history the Fremen did not learn the art of worm riding for two generations after their transport to Arrakis in 7193 Dunng those early years in then- new home, they traveled either on foot or by orrathopter, finding neither method completely acceptable walking was slow and dangerous, and the 'thopters were Guild machines on which the Fremen did not wish to rely too heavily They waited, studying their sur roundmgs for a method more in harmony with the planet to suggest itself
That suggestion came in 7265 when a large sandworm appeared near a party of Fremen who were investigating a new spice-
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sand. All bat one member of the group—a young man the chronicles list only as Rothar— scrambled to the safety of a nearby outcropping of rocks before the worm drew too near. Rothar, evidently too stunned by the worm's arrival to move, found himself only centimeters from the creature's side as it rose from the sand; he seized the leading edge of one of the worm's ring segments and held on tightly, perhaps in an attempt to avoid the worm's flashing teeth.
Any report of Rothar's motivations* can only be speculative, because the sandworm he had grasped rolled quickly, raising the segment the young Fremen had opened high above the surface of the sand (thereby putting Rothar on top of its body, as well). It then sped off into the desert, with Rothar as passenger,
Within days, the first crude maker hooks (designed to catch and hold open the edge of a worm's skin segments) had been fashioned and volunteers from every sietch were becoming sandriders. Refined techniques were costly to learn, and many of the earliest practitioners were killed in the attempt, but within another generation the Fremen's means of travel was firmly established.
It became customary for a Fremen youth to call his first maker at the age of twelve. (Earlier, the youth would have ridden the worms only as a passenger or steersman, never as mudir—ruler—of the ride.) The naib of the youth's sietoh, along with various other men and a Sayyadina, accompanied him to the sand. The naib spoke the
words of the ritual developed over the centuries to the would-be sandrider; the other men loaned thumper and hooks, since it was considered ill luck for a boy not yet a rider to own such things; and the Sayyadina, aloof from the proceedings, observed so that the events of the day could be properly recorded.
If the youth was successful—and the majority were, once the ways of the worm were better known—it was his privilege as, mudir of the sandride, to command the steersmen. At his "Haiiiii-yoh!" they would mount the worm behind him, followed by the rest of the witnesses. Then, following his calls of "Ach" (left turn) or "Derch" (right turn), they would guide the monster as he wished it guided. Not even the Naib of the youth's sietch would counter his orders until the ride had run its course.
The young mudir, as first on, had also to be last off, a position that could be dangerous if the worm was still fresh and prepared to turn when the annoying hooks were removed. During first rides, however, the worm was usually ridden nearly into exhaustion; it would be far more eager to escape and rest than to attack.
That the Fremen held such power over the worms was one of their best-guarded secrets during the years of their oppression, and the art's existence did not become widely known until Paul Muad'Dib Atreides became emperor. C.W.
Further references: MAKER HOOKS; THUMPER, Jairet Oslo, Fremen: Lives and Legend (Salusa Secundus: Morgan and Sbarak)
YC1EH, WELLINGTON (10082-10191). The most notorious graduate of the Suk School of Medicine. The basic facts of his life that reputable scholars can agree upon arc few.
However, we are sure that he died in 10191 in the Harkonnen raid on Duke Leto Atreides' stronghold on Dune, and that Yueh was married to a Bene Gessent adept named
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Wanna Marcus All else about this man seems to be subject to dispute, conjecture, hypothesis and, in far too many cases, the politically self-serving reconstructions of the ancient chroniclers For example, Yueh ap-peais to have been given High College Impe nal Conditioning However, Professor Eisor Zhurcia, the medical historian of the time and Suk apologist, allowed that Yueh never graduated from either the Suk Imperial Conditioning or medical arts programs ' Zhurcia maintained that Yueh's transcripts and other academic records were forged and that his graduation documents were fabrications Zhurcia contended mat Haikonnen agents planted these deceptive documents in the medical school's registrar's office and library archives in order to deceive Leto Atreides and his Mental, Ttuifir Hawat, who was sure to check on Yueh's authenticity when the Atreides were first considering purchasing a Suk doctor The Harkonnen plan, according to the Zhurcian theoretical reconstruction, was to infiltrate Yueh, a trained saboteur and assassin, into the Atreides household
Few contemporary scholars today give serious credence to Zhurcia's theory, although it was widely accepted by several of the Minor Houses during the early years of Paul Muad'Dib's reign The evidence we now have suggests that Yueh exhibited a considerable amount of medical expertise and human sensitivity These characteristics, most would agree, are generally not found in saboteurs and assassins Current opinion holds that Yueh indeed did graduate with High College Imperial Conditioning in approximately 10112 Yueh thus came to be regarded as the paradigmatic case of the fatal failure of Suk Conditioning Yueh's actual role ui the downfall of Duke Leto Atretdes is difficult to ascertain because of conflicting and incomplete reports Even the Atreides family journals concerning those tragic and hectic days are unclear The earliest published version of Yueh's role is to be found in the widely used and very popular The Irulan Report written by Paul's wife, the Princess Irulan Cornno 2 In that account Yueh is described as the "betrayer of Duke Leto Atreides" (p 81) Although it is clear that Irulan could not have been present at the moment of the
alleged betrayal, she self-confidently promulgates the official Atreides famil) position that the rival Baron Harkonnen could not have possibly prevailed agdiru>t House Atreides without the assistance of a villainous traitor
Paul Muad'Dib apparently never took a public position on Yueh, but neither did he contradict Irulan's claims We can infer, therefore, that he was content to have Yueh regarded as a traitor Although the young Paul was quite fond of Yueh and Yueh felt an avuncular affection for the young Atreides (even to the point of giving Paul a special gift, an Orange Catholic Bible once the pos session of Yueh's beloved wife Wanna), it seems that either Muad'Dib believed Yueh to be a traitor, or, as many now hypothesize Paul found it in the interests of the empire and of his new religion to put aside boyhood affections and cultivate the view that Yueh was indeed a Judas The once mystenous and iconoclastic Preacher of Arrakis, whom we now know to have been Muad'Dib, was quoted as saying, "Every religion needs its Judas just as badly as it needs its saints "3
That the pnests of Aha's time regarded Yueh as the Atreides betrayer is clear Dur ing their systematic inquisitions into the he retical views of their religious and political rivals, the Ixians, Aka s priesthood condemned a number of outspoken scholars and historians to death One of these Bronso of Ix was accused of many traitorous 'crimes' The priesthood accused Bronso of maintaining that Yueh was merely an innocent \ictim of a classic feudal economic and political rivalry Bronso saw Yueh as of no possible value in military terms to either the Harkonnens or the Atreides He noted that Yueh's chief concerns during his final years were for the medical welfare of the Atreides and their subjects on Caladan He also was largely occupied by concern for the safety of his wife Wanna whom the Harkonnens had taken as a political prisoner approximate!} seven years before Yueh s death
Bronso maintained, however, that Yueh knew enough of Harkonnen ways to have realized that Wanna could not have survned more than a few months of her captivity 4 As evidence Bronso notes that Yueh went through a prolonged spiritual and emotional depression
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He submitted to extended psycho-counseling sessions, after which he personally conducted a memorial service for Wanna and finally gneved her passing All this took place at the Abrades family estate on Catalan three years before the family received the news that it would be leaving Caladan for Done
The political significance of the claims made by Bronso would not have been lost on Alia's priesthood, which was dogmatically committed to the view that Yueh s motive for betraying Duke Leto was to win Wanna's freedom from the Harkonnens Man's opinion was similar, but clearly more sophisticated, as one might expect from a near-adept of the Bene Gessent Irulan maintained that Yueh's motive was not to seek Wanna's freedom, but finally to put to rest all of his private doubts about her death
Bronso maintained until his death that Yueh was innocent The priesthood, apparently acting under instructions from Alia, silenced Bronso, claiming he was part of an Ixian plot to undermine the empire They then released the only item of hard but inconclusive evidence that this complex study has been able to discover It is a fragment of a Guild transport bill of passage that shows a party of 'four Sardaukatr and one female of the Bene ' '* This party of five traveled to Caladan about four months before Yueh and the others m the Atreides household left for Dune, spending only one evening on Caladan On that specific date Yueh is known to have been away from the family estate, traveling on a medical inspection to a village very close to where the Guild shuttle landed The priesthood, using this small fragment, maintained that Yueh met that Guild transport and saw Wanna alrve but under guard Having seen his beloved, Yueh agreed to betray Duke Leto, thinking thereby to free his wife
It is impossible to confirm or deny the authenticity of the Guild fragment Bills of passage would have been easy for the government's religious bureaucracy to obtain or forge But of greater interest is the context within which those words appeared Perhaps die missing word was not "Gessent" but "Tleuax " A few scholars have suggested that the fifth person in that party, if indeed there ever was such a party, was not Wanna
but a Tleilaxu face dancer, perhaps hired by the Harkonnens to deceive Yueh Yueh, who was not trained to detect face dancers, would never have suspected that he was being deceived 6
The Atreides view that Yueh's Imperial Conditioning failed and that he betrayed his Duke was shared by Alia during her youth and m the early days of her Regency However, toward the end her opinion seems to have shifted dramatically She is said to have confided to her personal guards that she regarded Yueh as a hero who died m defense of his Duke That she was "possessed" by the persona of Baron Harkonnen undoubtedly had much to do with this change of heart Thufir Hawat is also thought to have held the same view Shortly before his death as he traveled to Dune in the Harkonnen and Comno entourage, he told Irulan that he had suspected the Lady Jessica to have been the traitor Hawat apparently thought that Yueh was killed defending the family Atreides
What, then, are we left with' Alia and Hawat are unreliable witnesses Muad'Dib never spoke publicly on the issue Irulan may have been too eager to please the Atreides The priesthood was cont-emed to preserve its religious authority Although sure of himself, Bronso was, at bottom, merely speculating and as an Ixian may have been generally hostile to the Atreides The Suk School apologists were eager only to be nd of the scandal of Yueh
Even a retrospective analysis of Yueh s possible motnes is impossible given confusion about whether he believed Wanna to be alive or not Ultimately we come back to that very act of betrayal When did it occur7 What did Yueh actually do' What were his thoughts at the time7 And was there ever the alleged ' final confrontation" between Duke Leto and the Baron Harkonnen7 If indeed there was such a confrontation, not one witness lived long enough to record accurately and without bias that turning point of human history We can thus likely rule out Man's hypothesis that Yueh was a malicious traitor as well as the Snk interpretation that he was an assassin We are then left with three other possibilities insanity, incompetence, and love
It has been argued that Yueh was insane,
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driven to madness by inconsistent Harkonnen messages about Wanna This theory advanced by Leto Q's cnmmologist Duncan Idaho-11736 maintains that the Baron Harkonnen's Mcntat, Piter de Vnes, developed a method tu dnve Yueh mad and thereby defeat his Imperial Conditioning 7 There is clear evi dence that the Suk of those ancient times knew the dangers of insanity and privately warned all who purchased Suk doctors that the Imperial Conditioning against disloyalty could not be guaranteed if the doctor went insane The buyers were advised to be aware of telltale signs of insanity in Yueh's case there had been his depression on Caladan, noted earlier However, there were no signs of a relapse and no other signs of insanity in Yueh's behavior Nonetheless, Idaho maintained that Yueh s encounter with the face dancer Wanna shortly before his leaving the familiar Caladan for the inhospitable Dune was the shock that drove Yueh mad Yueh's actions after that point moved toward betray al not out of hate, but out of m insane doubt and manic paranoia Idaho laments that his former self the original Idaho, was so occupied with preparations for Dune that he failed to detect Yueh's insanity The chief counter evidence to this interpretation is that Yueh's insanity and his plotting with the Harkonnens escaped the notice of the entire Atreides household including Paul, Hawat the Mental, and Jessica the Bene Gessent adept That insanity could go unnoticed for so long seems unlikely On the other hand, that Leto II allowed Idaho to advance the view gives it some credibility in the light of Leto II s renowned quasi-ommscience
The second hypothesis, incompetence, was proposed later by one of Stona's descendants, Ritah 8 Ritah maintained that Yueh was in deed desperate with the false hope that Wanna lived, but that he was perfectly sane, and that no one in the Atreides household suspected Yueh of treachery Ritah paints a picture of Yueh as a weak-willed confused, desperate and lonely man who would do anything in his power to learn the truth about Wanna Ritali's position is harsh, she scoffs at Yueh, saying that one did not have to be a Mental to know beyond doubt that Wanna would never be freed Further, Yaeh would have to
have been a complete fool not to know that by his act of betrayal all manner of evil consequences would befall the Atreidcs Yueh according to Ritah should be held individual ly and personally accountable for the fall of Duke Leto, the seizure of Dune by the Harkonnens, the death of many loyal Atreides subjects and the permanent nun of the Suk School s reputation
The third view, that Yueh acted out of love, albeit a desperate and perhaps raisguid ed passion, is based on suggestions found in the Journal ofNayla 9 One can see in Yueh as in Nayla a profound personal tension between conflicting imperatives To obey his Imperial Conditioning he should be loyal to mat person whot.e medical welfare he was guarding Yet Yueh s Imperial Conditioning did not specify exactly who that person was As the years passed in ease on Caladan Yueh could comfortably serve Duke Leto and his family But when Wanna was taken from him he became desperate and confused Finally his love for Wanna and his love for his Duke moved him in opposite contradicto ry directions He acted not as a foo! not as a madman but as a lover who could hope to save only one of the two people he loved most He hoped to save Wanna perhaps believing that no matter what he did he could not save Duke Leto from the superior forces of the Harkonnens We do know that his love led him to give his life helping Lady Jessica and Paul escape the Harkonnen trap
Whatever his true motives and aUions without Yueh s crucial role there would have been no Paul Muad Dib no fall of the Comno dynasty, no nse of the Fremen, no liberation of Arrakis nor even the great God Emperor Leto II and the Scattering in which human kind was released from its unitary destiny Out of a love misguided Yueh set in motion those events that ultimately led us all through the desert of the ancient feudal rivalries into the long peace and Golden Path of the Atreides Impenum PF
NOTES
'Th Eisor Zhurcia The Great Masquerade Yueh and the Atreides (10200 ipt Lib Conf Temporary Series 582)
2Pubhshed under its alternate title Analysis
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The Arrakeen Crisis trans Doorsh Suuwaa, Arrakis Studies 20 (Grumman United Worlds)
3Quoted in Naib Guaddafs Judgment on Arra keen Rakis Ref Cat 2Q-Z182
4See Chapter 2 of his The Atreides Impenum Lib Conf Temporary Series 70
5Quizarate Proclamation 10 15 102iO, found in Rakis Ref Cat 99 T106 The bill cited bears a partially obliterated Guild passage number " /CAL 44281" the three dashes mark the position of the abbreviation for point of origin Obviously, if that abbreviation had been "GIF" for Giedi Prime, one thesis is supported, if it had been "TLE for Tleilax, the otter gains authority
'This fragmentary Bill of Passage is a historian s headache raising more problems than it settles If it bad originally read ' and one female of the Bene Gessent,'' then it was redundant there were no male Bene Gessents If it had read "and one female of the Bene Tluilax," and that female
was a face dancer, then the face dancer was already in disguise—a wearying exercise—when he had no reason to be remember the Guild motto, "Anything anytime, anyplace ' The Spac ing Guild was bound by Convention tradition and self interest to impose no restrictions whatso ever on its consigned cargo
7The original of the report has disappeared but Leto's transcription may be found in his Journal Rakis Ref Cat 2 A213 As a Mentat Piter de Vnes would have been familiar with methods of disrupting members of his own Order, and may have reasoned that they might work on Yueh
8Ritdh al Jofar Nisn Atreides, 'Factors in the Yueh Betrayal ' Studies in Imperial History OS 146 449 70
'Not, of course, that Nayla s Journal (Rakis Ret Cat 2 A816) makes any reference to Yueh but the divided loyalties of the two share many features, and the comparison can be instructive
ZENSUNNI WANDERERS, Cultural Traditions. Bremen culture encompassed extremes Both group and individual could be important, both active control of events and passive acceptance of destiny were rooted in their heritage To some extent these "inconsistencies" are explained by the curious mixture of Sunni and Zen traditions in the heritage of the Zensunm Wanderers
All Fremen themselves traced their migra tions at least as far back as Pontrm, the third planet of bpsilon Alangue There, grown soft, they were raided and half were sent to Salusa Secundus, third planet of Gamma Waipmg, home of House Comno and the cradle of the Sardaukar Its harsh environment produced a population of survivors The other half were sent to relative security on Bela Tegeuse. fifth planet of Kuentsmg All inhabited Ishia within fifty generations of their arrival at Arrakis On Rossak their Reverend Mothers became acquainted with
the poison drug that let their direct chain of "ancestral" memory supplement the Wan derers oral legends Circumstantial evidence from the Imperial Records about Rossak implies that the Bene Gessent's Missionana Protective and Panopha Propheticus apparatus was grafted to the Fremen's Zensunm heritage there "The People" dwelt for a time on Harmonthep, ending up on Arrakis, the last stop on the Zensunm hajra, or jour ney of seeking The ergs and spice and drought of their last "home" closely resem bled the Nilotic lands of "camels" and spices where their distant ancestors first rebelled
The Fremen's Zensunm heritage became mingled with other deep-strata convictions dunng their long quest Their interest in messianic psychology, for instance, was augmented by the Missionana Protectiva's long-range planning "Hearthside supersititions' were accumulated in non-desert surroundings The addictive spice-water ecology entered
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the Fremen society on Arrakis So it is not easy to be certain what parts of their theolo gy (dm) ntiml and behavioral assumptions were as ancient as their Tenan ongins A single deity who does not interfere in day to day events but does determine the overall pattern of temporal affairs dominated their theology, that god was merciful and compas sionate rather than vengeful The prohibition against tombs for Fremen implies that a spiritual rather than bodily afterlife was large m their anticipations yet Leto It's satisfacto ry description of the Paradise to Come implies that physical senses would be rekindled after death As might be expected, water was at the core of the dreams of paradise, Pardot Kynes plans for the water-bringing ecofogi cal change certainly harmonised with the Fremen' <; ultimate hopes On their way to Paradise, the Fremen expected that there would be a grand devastation, a Ragnarok or Krahzec, the Typhoon Wind at the end of the substantial world
Zensunni beliefs parallel the sweep of cultural patterns we can trace m die Orange Catholic Bible The general model calls for a Creation of the Universe for the benefit of Humankind, the corruption of Humans by an Antagonist, and a tempestuous battle, at some predetermined but unspecified End, between Creator and Antagonist The Fremen identified Shai-Hulud, the worm-snake-dragon, with Satan, a legendary "evil one ', they feared demonic possession (Taqwa) Duucan/Hayt told Sulgar that the Naib "wears a collar' , Aha's Abomination disqualified her as a Fremen leader Such great struggles between opposites were part of the Fremen tradition
The ancient model of specific Beginning and Ending would be peculiar even if it were consistent and all-inclusive When it thrived, however, the model was neither Each solar system, usually each separate satellite, and sometimes different communication groups on a single satellite, believed mat its population alone would survive the climax-battle The different "sects' of "all-believers" —calling themselves "The Chosen' or "The People ' (Misr)—reinforced then- community through prejudice against strangers (the "unwashed ' or the "infidel") who did not accept their metaphysics and rituals This
tendency to splinter instead of embrace is noteworthy because as the Wanderers illustrate, a heritage of persecution and en slavement and flight can compress a culture of believers into patient fanatics Defeat and exile were transformed by the faithful Wan derers into seeking—hajr—and eventually into vengeful triumph—jihad—where the true believers struck back and justified the long-nurtured reciprocity of faith in the Creator and Creator s faith m The People
The desert exile-tnbe heritage is the Sunm component of the Zensunni tradition of the Fremen The apparent theology has been discussed Important practices and customs (jiqh) are also traceable to the Sunm back ground Most important probably is the basic understanding that the group is more important than the individual 'for the good of the tribe" was justification for otherwise distasteful acts Tribal leaders—until Paul Muad Dib questioned the ritual—were select ed by challenge and combat a standard survival feature in threatened cultures Jus tice was dispensed by the leader on petition from a wronged party, in accordance with the ancient shan a or code of conduct Loyalty was a cardinal virtue The sacramen tal Water of Life was shared by the entire sietch after the ntual of miraculous transfer mation by a Reverend Mother Infants sipped their ammotic fluid, children had to nde their own sandworm before being accepted as full fledged members of the tnbe The Ourouba tradition their distrust of self-styled keepers of mystery kept a priestly class from taking control of the shan a from the pragmatic leader survivor All these customs and ntu als are essentially preservative, conservative communal m a harsh environment where cooperation is essential, any change from what has-always worked is extremely risky The old ways are the best as Naib Stilgar recalled, for the safety of the community
Perhaps as good a summary as any of the Sunm way is Stilgar s agreement with Leto II that doing \\hat is expected is the way one's sincerity is measured There was little room for novelrv in the sietch whose way of life was neither secular nor religious but simply the Fremen wav, the traditional way God, through ilm andftqh and shan a shows
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the way, the tribe follows, those who swerve from the way do not serve the tnbe Tradition, the tried and true, was the core of the Sunni heritage
All of this has been traced back through the fabled Maometh to Terra's Muhammed The Sunni branch of his followers with its Ulema and Usul and Mahdi, carried through the Fremen jihad Vestiges remain in the harshest of our own outpost territories, earned there by Muad'Dib's most enterprising wamors The ' Zen l part of the Fremen background, however, is harder to trace with confidence
The ghola Duncan/Hayt is the best source of information, although there are statistical matches of moderate confidence with the O C B 's "Buddhism" and with today's "portal of the soul" believers Hie names "Ohashi" and "Nisai," connected with Zensunm origins, imply (because of hnguis tic evidence of transliteration from one of Terra's ideographic languages) an engraftment onto the Sunm trunk The new scion was clearly more individualistic and less direc tive of behavior than the mass of Sunni patterns It has proved feasible to work transformations (via regressive template matching) on Duncan Idaho-10208's attitudes and on some post-Arrakis commentaries, and therefrom to infer a great deal about the nature of "Zen " (Those who speculate that Zen provides all the answers to otherwise inexplicable Bremen matters merely substitute one mystery for another)
The essence of Zen appears to be captured in Duncan Hayt's advice to Chani just before Leto and Ghamma were born "wait without purpose in the state of highest tension Do not be trapped by tibe need to achieve anything This way you achieve everything " The dou-bleness of poised extremes, of reconciled opposites, of both heightened and resolved inconsistencies, permeates this advice "Have no purpose, only thus will you achieve it''
Stilgar, thinking about what Gham's and Leto's and Jessica's horde of memories required of them, noted that "what works is mat which does not work," and associated such paradoxes with me old Fremen game of nddles whose answers lay id the question and the questioner, not in logic or evidence
Leto pondered the paradox of 'knowing' it prevents learning, makes difficult the process that would seem to produce 'knowing in the first place Likewise, knowledge is use less without purpose, yet it is purpose which "builds enclosing walls ' walls that keep one from learning This awareness of para dox appears to encircle the core of Zen The Fremen treated night as refreshingly hopeful and day as intimidating, their life on Arrakis, and their rituals are rooted in a poison the spice, which extends life Surrounded by inconsistencies and paradoxes, more concerned about questions than answers, wary of purpose and achievement and success (mea surements against predictions), the Fremen reflect a significant Zen component in their heritage
This fragment of their background appears to have supported the Fremen resignation to things as-they-are Self-disupline, acceptance avoidance of frustrating struggle are associated with Zen which does not prevent choice and action but permits little or nn prediction against which to measure achievement This tenet correlates with the words of Muad'Dib to the effect that prescience (being neither traditional nor passive) did not conform to the ordering of the Zensunm " In Zen, what you do is what you do, there is no scale against which to measure "success" or "failure "
Similarly, individual Fremen were freed from responsibility—from accepting burdens of guilt "in the future"—in part because outcomes were not of their making Their rituals, said Ghanima, freed them from guilt, what may look in retrospect like a transgres sion can be ascribed to 'natural" (that is, not chosen) badness, or bad luck, or to a failure on the part of authority Zen traditions emphasized the present and the individual
Final untangling of the strands of Sunni and Zen in Fremen culture may someday be possible the new archive discoveries will certainly help Both of the ancient traditions were warped and stretched by the Fremen adaptation to different environments particularly the drought of Arrakis Sunni ways taught community and long range destiny, Zen's withdrawal taught personhood and ac-
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ceptance of situation Sunm was ripe for a "savior", Zen did not seek any outside agent Sunm was wary of change, Zen was willing to be flexible The record shows that die Fremen swarmed behind a mysteriously prophesied stranger who they hoped would lead them to just revenge en route to a watery paradise They were later skeptical about the religion erected in Muad'Dtb's name Such inconsistencies are hardly unusual in Galactic cultures Theoretical analyses of cultural undercurrents will never quite "explain" actual behavior An outline of the Fremen's Zensunm heritage, however, con jectural as it must be at this distance, does fill in some of the background behind Frernen activities on Arrahs C W
Further references. ARRAKIS FREMEN LINGUISTIC
PHILOSOPHY ZENSUNNI WANDERERS HISTORY Defa
IFamm Taaj I Fremen 12 v (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Steak) Leto H Journals Rates ftef Cat 55-A89 Duncan Idaho 10202 The Ghda Speaks tr Kershel Reeve Shautin (Finally Mosaic) Princess Indan Atreides Comno Conversations with MuatFDib Lib Conf Temp Senes 346, Stilgar ben Rfrawi, The Stilgar Chronicle tr Mityau Gwulador Arrakis Studies 5 (Grumman. United Worlds)
ZENSUnill WANDERERS, Htetoiy. The Zen-sunm, who would eventually become the Fremen of Arrakis, began as a splinter sect broken off from an Old Terra religion Originally followers of Maometh, the so-called Third Muhammed (1159-1241), the Zensunm abandoned Maometh's teachings m 1381, under the leadership of All Ben Ohashi (Under his nominal leadership, at least, there is some evidence which indicates the Zensunm doctrines may have been almost completely authored by Nisai, Ben Ohashi's second wife)
While the Zensunm s mystic doctrines might appear hopelessly complex to the uninitiated, their underlying purpose was simply explained they wished to answer the swrnak—the ten thousand religious questions posed by the Shan-a—with mystical understanding, and not with die more usual rational approaches
Some scholars believe that the name "Zensunm" was originally written as "Zen-Sunni," and was meant to incorporate the names of two differing philosophies of the penod These were the Zen, an antirational philosophy which predated the Butlenan Ji-
had by an unknown number of centuries and the Sunm, a doctrine whose earliest writings are dated approximately 100 B G , and whose precepts stated that it was the duty and mission of human intelligence to answer each of the sunnah (The Sunm further believed that humanity's tenure in the universe would end when the final answer was discovered The philosophy was not a popular one )
In accordance with their devotion to their religion, the Zensunm also believed that they owed no allegiance whatever to any secular government, on any level For obvious reasons then, the sect found most of its followers in those peoples already disposed to self government The Zensunm represented a small fraction of the Old Terra population In 1572 according to a recently translated record fragment, there were less than 50,000 known Zensunm on the entire planet Add to this the Zensunm preference for li\mg as nomads in areas not usually frequented by comfort minded travelers—the area of Old Terra usu ally referred to as the Sahara Desert for example—and the reason for their continued tribal survival in the face of a steadily tightening governmental system becomes obvious The Zensunm were simply loo unimportant, and too difficult to reach for their reabsorption into the mainstream to be worth attempting
By 2800 the Spacing Guild had rediscov ered hundreds of habitable planets, most of them unpopulated Under the Right of Do main rulings in the Great Convention the House paying the Guildsmen for a planetary find gained dominion over that planet condi tional upon the approval of the Landsraad Council and the emperor But no House could expect to meet the Imperial revenues demanded for the new world—much less make a profit from the acquisition—without being able to establish a workforce there
Since the House often could not populate the planet, most Houses were content to relinquish all claim to a find and offer it, instead, as an Imperial Colony If accepted, such an offer netted the House a handsome finder's fee, and left the problem of populat ing the new colony with the Throne
The Comno emperors, being eminently practical in such matters would spread the
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costs in lost manpower throughout their realm by demanding levees of "volunteers ' to settle the colony, die methods used in persuading their own subjects to come forward were left to die rulers of the affected fiefs
In 2800, then having graciously accepted Pontnn (the third planet of Epsilon Alangue) from House Maros Emperor Elrood V turned a covetous eye on the population of Old Terra, hitherto left undisturbed due to its revered position as the cradle of human life Elrood, in a precedent-shattering move, demanded a levy of two imllton men, women, and children from Sindar Baron Charles Mikarrol, planetary governor of Old Terra
Baron Mikarrol was thrown into a quandary His subjects, so accustomed to their exemption from Imperial draft, were certain to rebel at the news that two million of their number were to be sent off-planet The Baron had nearly despaired of choosing whom to send when one of his advisers—records do not indicate which one, but there are suggestions that it might have been An Manoud, Mikarrofs right hand man and an outspoken Maomcth Saan—-reminded him of the existence of the Zensunm nomads
The Baron seized the idea gratefully Who, after all, could object to his sending off a group of self-disenfranchised religious fanatics? And surely after the passing of so many centuries, it would be possible to round up the necessary number from among them
By the end of their planet-wide search and seizure, the Mikarrol troops had uncovered more than two and one-half million Zensunm, all of whom were herded aboard Imperial transports and, over their most outraged protests, whisked off to Pontnn
It was a most expedient solution for Baron Mikarrol, and one that reaped him a number of benefits First, there was the satisfaction of knowing that his fief had been cleared of a group which did not consider itself bound to his rule, second, he was well rewarded by his emperor for having produced a larger levy than demanded, and that in record time, and third, his action was unexpectedly recognized by the highest levels of authority within the Maometh Saan
PORTTRIN Rom the moment of their arrival on Pontnn, the Zensunm acted not like a
terrified group of exiles, but like a people who were accustomed to challenges and fully capable of facing those of a new world The vanous tribes, each obedient to the commands of its naib or leader worked in concert to divide the machinery and other resources the transport ships had left, decide on the planetary areas each tnbe would settle and disperse accordingly
There is a Zensunm chant (recorded in Daiwid Kuuan's Monuments of the Zensunm Migrations) thought to be from this period which contains the following
and though our enemies scatter us far even throughout the Universe they shall never destroy us For we are Misr the People and to us have been revealed the Piqh and Urn [the half legendary sources of the Zensunm faith] which none other have seen This remains We remain
Despite their belief in their own racial survival, loss of the homeworld weighed heavily on the Zensunm On Pontnn where a plentiful supply of water a long growing season, and a gentle climate combined to make the work of settling the planet unusually light, leisure time was frequently spent in reshaping and adapting the mystic doctrines and superstitions of the sect, and much of the reshaping concerned itself with the Zensunm's lost point of origin
By 3500 many of the Uletna (doctors of Zensunm theology often, any Zensunm reli gious leader) and Sayyadma no longer preached that the Zensunm had been gathered and transported to* Pontnn by the interfering plane tary government Instead, they taught that the Zensunm had fled Nilotic al Ourouba (translates roughly as The Place of Truth and Mystery) to escape persecution and death—a subtle alteration of the truth which fit easily with the concept of the Zensunm being the sole bearers of mystic truths
By the end of another five centimes, most Zensunm had been taught, and wholeheartedly believed, that Pontnn was their original homeworld Nilotic ai-Ourouba was still believed to be the place in which the ten thousand sunnah would be answered but it was also believed that this would not take place until the Zensunm s time on Pontnn was completed Then they would make a
ZENSUNNI HISTORY
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ZENSUNNI HISTORY
great hajra (a religious journey) to Nilotic al-Ourouba to seek those answers Only a small, select number of the Sayyadina passed on the truth concerning the migration from one generation to the next, even the Ulema had forgotten, or never been told, the facts
The easy living conditions on Pontnn af fected the sect s societal makeup even more drastically Since a large number of people could be comfortably fed and housed on a relatively small land area, the population began to stabilize Permanent settlements, some of them comparable in size to small cities elsewhere in the Impenum, grew all over the planet The ways of the ancient Zensunra—the nomadic lifestyle, the fierce insistence on independence—were abandoned
The new Zensunm, the soft ones, were no match then for the raiders who were dispatched to Pontnn in 4492 by die Landsraad leaders of the First Republic It was their wish that Pontnn be used as a new homework! for House Alexin (whose native world Pelouzen had been rendered uninhabitable by a series of semi legal atomics tests) and the existing population divided between colonies on Bela Tegeuse and Salusa Secundus
It had taken the entire force of House Mikarrol to locate and transport the Zensunm on Old Terra On Pontnn, the task required a mere five legions approximately one nun dred fifty thousand men
Their easy success with so light a force against an entire population—the Zensunm are believed to have numbered over ten million by this time—was due even more to the Pontnn Zensunm s superstitious beliefs than to their weakness Until almost the moment of departure, when a handful of the craftiest Sayyadina managed to learn the actual destinations of the heighhners on which the Zensunm were to travel, the populace had simply accepted the arrival of the Landsraad force as a fulfilling of the Zensunm prophecies concerning the hajra they must make to Nilotic al-Qurouba, Then- fame on Pontnn was done, the raiders had said, and they were there to take them to their designated place Where cOuld that place be, if not the planet from the legend7
To their credit, the Sayyadina even managed to get the word out among their people,
but it was to no avail The Zensunm were as effectively contained as cattle m a ground transport, and the reward for the women who had fried to save them, when they were found, was torture and death at the hands of their captors
It is interesting to note that, in spite of their having been split from friends, neighbors, and in many cases, loved ones, the Zensunm on the ships bound for both planets were reported as showing no signs of personal grief
Theirs was a deeper grief the chance for salvation for their people had been stolen from them Each ship s crew gave an account of the same cry punctuating the captives' incessant wailing They denied us the Hajra'
SALUSA SECUNDUS Some five million Zensunm were transferred to Salusa Secundus, the homeworld of House Comno which had been made the Impenal Prison Planet when the Cornnos shifted their capital to Kaitain (1487) The prison planet had an ecological system so harsh that six out of thirteen persons bdrn there died before the age of eleven Among those nor native to the planet, the death rate was markedly higher
This was the environment m which the relatively pampered Zensunm found themselves It was made worse for them by the fact that the Landsraad troops had recognized their unshakable sense of loyalty and community, even m conditions of extreme penl, considering this, they were held as slaves and made to perform the most difficult and dangerous tasks in the hope of breaking their spirit and making them easier to manage
The plan did not work, quite dh expected While thousands, then hundreds of thousands, of the Zensunm died within the first few years of their captivity the \ast majority of them appeared to have reverted to the ways of their barely remembered ancestors At the end of their first generation as slaves, the off-planet Zensunm were exhibiting a surviv al rate which compared very favorably to that of those born on Salusa Secundus (the traditional place of recruitment for the Impe nal Sardaukar, the Padishah Emperor's sol dier-fanatics)
Different approaches were tried Subjected to ever more ngorous oppression, the third
ZENSUNNI, HISTORY
514
ZENSUNNI, HISTORY
generation proved more resilient than the second. The fifth generation was commanded to give up the faith, or die; though all known Sayyadina, and over half the population at large, were butchered, the Zensunni doctrines continued to be passed on in the slaves' carefully disguised work chants, and new Sayyadina were initiated as quickly as the old could be spied out. In the seventh and eighth generations, attempts were made to convert all the able-bodied Zensunni to the mystic disciplines of the Imperial Sar-daukar. The end result was always the same: the Zensunni either completely ignored the attempt, or feigned going along with the conversion until the instructors could no longer keep him away from weapons training At that point, the "convert" arranged to kill as many of his fellow students and instructors as possible, along with himself.
In 5295, near the end of his reign. Ezhar Vll reviewed the records detailing nine generations of his ancestors' failures with the Zensunni and decided that he would not be responsible for a tenth Taking full advantage of the chance to be remembered for his benignity, the old emperor announced that it was not bis policy to punish people whose only crime lay in having had criminal forebears, and arranged for the surviving Zensunni to be transferred to Ishia (second planet of Beta Tygri), a Corrino holding which had been allowed to lie fallow since its discovery.
BELA TEGEUSE. Aside from the initial wrench of having lost hah* their number, the Zensunni who were transported in 4492 from Poritrin to Bela Tegeuse were well treated and fared much better man their numbers on Saiusa Secundus. Upon landing, they were given what stock and machinery they would need and left alone on a planet very similar to the one from which they had been taken.
When years had passed with no sign of the raiders* return, the Zensunni once again adopted many of the customs acquired on Poritrin. They established their homes, their farms, their grazing areas—but with differences. On Poritrin, where they had been so certain that no one and nothing was going to disturb them until the time came for their people to journey back to Nilotic al-Ourouba,
they had scattered their settlements all over the planet, and left them open to visitors. On Bela Tegeuse, the settlements were larger, closer together, and more often in contact; they were also heavily walled, and sentries were posted every hoar of the day and night.
It was not all grim and military, however. There was time, as there had been on Poritrin, to study the Shah-Nama, the First Book. There was time to raise fruit trees and flowering plants, to build fountains, to wonder about and pray for the half of the misr never expected to be seen again. And there was enough time—almost eight centuries of peace—to dull the pain and soften the memories of having been uprooted from the world that most of the Zensunni considered their home planet.
When the Sardaukar descended again in 6049, however, none of that mattered a bit. The Zensunni fought this new invasion, true, and many of them fought valiantly; but they were faced by adversaries raised and trained in an environment too fierce for the Zensunni to imagine it. By the end of the pitifully brief battle, there were two groups of Zensunni left on Bela Tegeuse: those who had submitted, and were being prepared for transport to Rossak and Harmonthep, and those who had resisted and died.
The Imperium, it should be noted, had no particular need of Bela Tegeuse at the time of the Sardaukar raid. But both Rossak and Harmonthep, being young colonies, were in need of extra people, and the Sardaukar had to be used on occasion or risk losing their edge.
The Zensunni, being mere peons (serfs), wound up on the losing ends of both rationales.
ROSSAK. The segment of the Bela Tegeuse Zensunni who were sent to Rossak found a less friendly environment awaiting them than those they had known on either of their last two homes. Rossak was a cold, blustery world, the fifth planet of a star (Alces Minor) that appeared to clutch much of its heat to itself. The growing season was exceptionally short, and many plants mat did choose to grow vigorously were, to a greater or lesser degree, poisonous.
Those colonists already scratching out an existence on Rossak had little time for
ZENSUNNI, HISTORY
515
ZENSUNNI HISTORY
newcomers This suited the Zensunnt, who had had more contact with outsiders than they ever cared to experience agam The new colonists sought out an area they thought might support them and went to work
The Zensunm settlement barely survived the first winter They were not a large group to begin with—the bulk of those captured on Bela Tegeuse having been sent to the more congenial Harmonthep—and the unexpectedly bitter winter left many of them wim fatal attacks of pneumonia and other diseases not recognizable to them In addition to the illnesses, they were faced with near-starvation and a wide variety of poisonings
It was because of one of the poisonings that the Zensunm made their largest religious leap since the original sect's break from the Meomcth Saan One of the Sayyadina, desperate with hunger, ate a portion of a native plant she had discovered and whose safety was questionable As the Sayyadina put it later, she suddenly found herself "within the minds of all the Sayyadina who had come before her"
This unknown Sayyadma—unknown because all records indicate only that she died as a result of having ingested too large a portion of the poison—was the Zensunm's first Reverend Mother Her observations, given to one of her fellows before she fell too deeply into delirium, served as the basis for developing the Reverend Mother nte The nte was no doubt shaped, at least m part, by the Bene Gessent's panoplw propheticus which, to insure the safety of its members had seeded the worlds with its legends, in eluding that of the Reverend Mothers
The entire Zensunm philosophy was immediately altered Rather than merely attempting to follow the ways of their ancestors, it was now possible for the tribes to know what those ways were by listening to & Reverend Mother's observations of die past she could view "within" When it was also discovered that the memories of one Reverend Mother could be passed to her successor by means of the poison, the Zensunm were at last certain that their history could be accurately passed from generation to generation The word-of-mouth records of the Sayyadina would no longer be their only link to their past
As soon as their survival on Rossak appeared reasonably secure, the Zensunm began to plan for their survival elsewhere If, they reasoned the emperor's soldier-fanatics were going to be sent on one mission after another to relocate them, might it not be better to relocate themselves, fim9
Toward that end and with great misgivings the Zensunm made their first, cautious approaches to then- neighbors Young Zensunm men and women hired out to work on the farms of those who were not doing as well as the farmers m their own community The older women used their medical skills ac quired by bitter experience with their own people, to heal the sick outside their own settlement
In spite of these outside occupations, each of the Zensunm continued his or her own labors inside the settlement, keeping the com mumty self-reliant while building up, a bit at a time, the passage money their descendants would need to escape
It was not an easy process nor a quick one, but m 7193 the funds were there the settlement's leaders had only to decide where those who were leaving would go There was a type of rejoicing among the Zensunm that they had not known in generations
And sorrow, as well This time, the Zensunm themselves would be doing the dividing among their people, for it had been possible to accumulate only enough to buy passage for the young Guild rates were ruinously ex pensive
In the end, it was a Guildsman who provid ed the Zensunm with their choice of destina non A representative with whom the Zensunm leaders had been negotiating revealed that the location of the descendants of the Lost Ones—the Zensunnt's term tor their members who had been abducted to Salusa Secundus so many centuries earlier—was known to the Guild, and that he could ar range passage for their youths to that world
The bargain was struck Belore the young men and women left the settlement to board the Guildsman s ship a Sayyadma among (heir number was admitted to the Reverend Mother nte and entrusted with a supply of the plants which produced the necessary poison Their memories thus passed safely
ZENSUNNI, HISTORY
516
ZENSUNNI HISTORY
on, the old Zensunm watched their sons and daughters walk away, knowing they would not see them again
And knowing, too, that their odds of surviving another winter on Rossak without them were negligible
HARMONTHEP Of the lives of the Zensunm transported to Harmonthep (the majority of those taken from Bela Tegeuse), nothing is known The planet is generally described as having been a satellite of Delta Pavoms and was destroyed, by cause or causes unknown, m the early 6800s
ISHIA En route to Ishia, tire refugees from Rossak were given a comprehensive explanation of what had happened to the segment of their people who had been out of reach for so long The Guildsmen spoke as little as possible of die centuries on Salusa Secundus, and the Zensunm, who sensed that there was much here best learned from their own, did not press them for details What the Guildsmen did describe, at great length, was the planet to wtoeh the survivors from those centuries had been sent
Ishia, they explained, was the opposite of Rossak hot, and, it oppressed its life forms with heat as Rossak did with cold Those crops which survived did so only because of tremendous amounts of time and energy spent in careful irrigation The system had to be constantly watched, as a single day's deprivation could kill a field
The Zensunm on Ishia had come from a tougfier environment than that which faced them Even so, adapting was difficult for them They were not accustomed to the workings of a desert ecology, and becoming accustomed to them cost heavily in the beginning
Once the period of adjustment was finished, however, the Zensunm had done well By reverting to many of the ways of their ances tors from the time of the nomadic tribes, the Ishia ZensuRm had learned to live with/the desert instead of struggling against it, and they throve where it was once believed a colony would barely be able to eke out an existence
The Rossak Zensunm listened gravely, but were not frightened What one segment of their people could do, surely another could do, too One of their number, on being told that the group might have more difficulty than they expected in learning to live on their new world, made so bold as to voice this belief
' 'Ah, but you do not understand me yet, one of the Guildsmen is quoted as saying (in Kuuan's Monuments) "You are not going to Ishia, but to the world for which Ishia was your people's training ground
"A world called Arrakis
ARRAKIS In 7193, then, all of the known Zensunm m the Impenum were transported to Arrakis This last relocation orgam/ed in deep secret by the Spacing Guild, served the purposes of both sides involved It gave the Zensunm a home, on perhaps the only world in all the Impenum (with the exception ot the Guild sanctuary world of Tupile) where they would be too difficult to dig out for the emperor or his Sardaukar to bother trying And it gave the Spacing Guild a permanent entree to Arrakis
The Guildsmen wanted such an arrangement because of the spice melange, found only in the Arrakis desert Similar to but infinitely more powerful and subtle than the poison drug the Zensunm had discovered on Rossak, melange was essential to the Guild's interstellar travel monopoly It was m the best interests of the Guild to control a supply of melange through a grateful native popula tion The Guildsmen made certain that the Zensunm were established deep enough inside the desert to ensure then: safety from those settlers already on Arrakis (concentrated chiefly in Arrakeen, the seat of government), then withdrew
The Zensunm recognized then that they were no longer a religious sect only, but a people From Uiat day onward, they would call themselves Fremen C W
Farther references ARRAKIS BELA TEOEUSE FREMEN
SALUSA SECUNDUS ZENSUNNI WANDERERS CULTURE
Daiwid Kuuan Monuments erf the Zensutwi Migrations (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY Compiled by Gweleder Miiarz
Cataloging of The Rakis Finds
The first explorers of what we now know to be Leto II's no-room were doubly amazed The labyrinth of tunnels and rooms enclosed by the two-kilometer diameter of the Hoitzman Effect sphere was impressive m its magnitude, but more staggering to the imagination was the realization that almost all the rooms were stacked floor to ceiling with imprinted ndulian crystals It was clear from the first mat whatever the crystals contained, it was information of an extent comparable to the Abrades Imperial Library Since that library was known to have existed, and no story of its destruc turn had been handed down, even the earliest conjectures guessed that the library was now recovered, and recovered m what could be its entirety
It was apparent that scholars faced an archaeological discovery unparalleled in magnitude m the history of mankind The Hrst Discovery Conference, held on Giedi Prime, met only to establish an agenda for the planning of the investigation of the find The Second Discovery Conference, held on Rakis itself, spent a full two years just in deciding on procedure and a cataloging system, and, as it turnedbut, that system was not without flaws
At the outset the Conference agreed that some classification system was needed immediately, since the time needed for transcribing of the contents of every crystal could not even be estimated Moreover, since the contents of some were in languages thousands of years old, specialist translators would be needed from the beginning, and they had to be trained in library procedures It was decided that a sampling procedure would be used to get some indication of the scope of die documents The translators therefore noted only me first portion of the first work on each crystal, and assigned to the crystal a subject identification letter as follows
A Imperial House Records Atreides
BG Bene Gessent
BL Belles Lettres
C CHOAM
D Diplomatic
E Exploration
F Fine Arts
G Government
H History (post Butlenan)
I Imperial House Records Comno
J History (pre-Butlenan)
K Ixian Affairs and Mentals
L Landsraad
M Military Science
N Natural Sciences
O (For future assignment)
P Applied Sciences
Q (Not now m use)
R Miscellaneous Records
S Spacing Guild
T Theology
TL Tleilaxu Affairs & Artifacts
U Sport and Recreation
V Social Sciences
W Planet-Bound Commerce
X (For future assignment)
Y (For future assignment)
Z Zensunm and Bremen
Thus, the first crystal found to contain material pertaining to the Bene Gessent was labelled BG1", the first work on that crys tal was assigned the number "1 BGl, ' the second work on the same crystal '2 BGl," and so on For example a picto-disc of the Great Mother found in the hoard carries the Rakis Reference Catalog Number 435-F23, indicating that it is the 435th item on crystal number 23 m the Fine Arts section of the catalog Occasionally records are so extensive that they occupy more than one crystal The Funeral Plain Scrolls, for example, extend through crystals R2345, R2346, R2347, and R2348 Note too that the Funeral Plain Scrolls were rmsclassified by the original investigators the> should bear' Z ' numbers m the ' 'Zensunm and Fremen'' sequence It is anticipated that errors such as this will be corrected only when the investigation is completed at that time a revised catalog will be issued
A second far-reaching decision of the Conference was that records would be put into the hands of researchers as soon as possible,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
518
BIBLIOGRAPHY
even before the complete cataloging and translation was finished For a work of this magnitude, no single publisher possessed suffi cient resources Hence an entirely new joint venture, the Library Confraternity, was formed, librarians, editors, and the reproduction facilities of over two hundred worlds voluntarily committed then: services under its organization The purpose of the Confraternity was to make matenals from the Rakis site available as soon as humanly possible These works are numbered consecutively m the "Arrakis Studies Temporary Series," which already counts several thousand titles Some are reproduced almost as taken from the crystal, such as Princess Irulan's Count Fenraig A Profile, while others have undergone a preliminary editing, for instance, Juusepun Kazagrando's edition of 4-BG1033, Sancti Sermones
Part of the expense borne by the Library Confraternity is being recouped by licensing works in the Temporary Studies to commercial and university publishers Works made available to the public in this way are then removed from the Temporary Series listing For example, the large publishing house on Grumman, United Worlds, has already begun its own prestigious series, 'Arrakis Studies," which includes both works from the Rakis Finds (e g , Princess Irulan's Arrakis Awakening, Arrakis Studies 15) and works preliminary to or supportive of the study of the original documents (e g , 'Abd 1 Zubai dii, 'l-Wadah An Introduction to Fremen, Arrakis Studies 3)
Specializations among the commercial and university presses have already begun to appear Morgan sad Sharak of Salusa Secundus has several titles concerned with Fremen language and history, as does the Carolus University Press of Topaz The Tevis Company of Diana has a dozen works from the Finds, on the Bene Gessent now in punt and is completing the preparation of several more
While critics may argue that other systems would have been superior to the one adopted in one way or another, the fact remains that the Rakis Reference Catalog method is a simple, workable system that has aided materially in getting the fruits of this enormous
and important archaeological find into the hands of the public
Notations and Abbreviations
This bibliography lists the works most impor tant to the compilation of the encyclopedia classified according to the Library Confraternity system When the date of original publication is significant, it is supplied preceding the name of the reprinting publisher Works marked with an astensk are those not found in the Rakis Hoard
ABBREVIATIONS AJM Antores Journal of Medicine AMCE Atreides Memorial Contributions to
Embryology AS Arrakis Studies
BGFS Bene Gessent Foundation Studies BtoM Bestimmtes Neufilologishe Mttteylun
ken
comp compiled by ed edited by editor
IG FC Institute of Galacto Fremen Culture LCTS Library Confraternity Temporary Se
nes
OS Old Series PD Patrofagia Diasporae RRC Rakis Reference Catalog SAH Studies in Atreidean History SIH Studies in Imperial History tr translated by translator UP University Press v volumes
A IMPERIAL HOUSE RECORDS ATREIDES
al Ada, Harq ed , The Atreides Letters LCTS
763 ———— The Dune Catastrophe tr Miigal Reed
(Mukan Lothar) ____, House Atreides An Historical Overview
tr Zhaulya Muurazharat (Libermann Pinetree) ___ The Mother of God tr Harq al Lutag
Atreides (Grumman Tern) ___, The Story of Liet Kynes LCTS 109 ___, Testament of Arrakis LCTS 180 Anon The Proverbs ofMuadDib tr J Promov
Oluma (Caladan Apex) Apturos Gwenewera Home Life of the God Em
peror (Tleilax Mental) Atreides Alia Commentary to The Ghola
Speaks ed Irulan Atreides-Comno tr Kershel
Reeve Shautm (Finally Mosaic)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
519
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atreides, Ghanuna, Elaine, and Leto n, The Book
afGhanma RRC 13 A700 Atreides, Lady Jessica, The Years on Arrakis tr
Zhaivz Aultan (Caladan Apex) Atreides, Leto H, Journals RRC 55-A89 [Remi
mscenccs of his father ] ___, Journals RRC 1 A42 [His reign ] ___journals RRC 2Q-A115 [Information on
Farad n Comno ]
___,/cwnafa,RRC31 AI25 [Assur-nasir-apli ] ___, Journals RRC 1 A170 [About Nayla ] ___, Journals RRC 2-A213 [Yueh corrupted
by Piter de Vries ] ___ Journals RRC34 A218, IO-A311 [Problems
of Language ] ___, Journals RRC 65 A392 [About Moneo
Atreides ] ____ Journals RRC 70-A392 [Conversations
with Moneo ] ____, Journals RRC 80-A1 D557 [About Bene
Gessent ] ____, Stolen Journals, ed Siona Atreides
(Grumman Tern) Atreides, Orestes, A Life m Transition, LCTS
166 Atreides, Ritah al-Jofar Nisn, "Factors m the
Yueh Betrayal,' SlH OS 146449 70
*Atreides Siona, The Last Days, AS 218 (drum
man United Worlds) Atreo, Juniper, contp , Diary of an Assassin A
Biography ofdtrrwy HaUeck AS 25 (Grumman
United Worlds} Bronso of Ix, Analysis of History Muad'Dib
LCTS 71 ___, The Atreides Impenum LCTS 70
*Bruus, Ontar, The Political History of Dune
(Fides Malthan) Callen, R M Lucius Ellen, and Scales, R M
Hallus Deborah, e.ds , Report on Alia Atreides
LCTS 169 Comno, Farad'n, Notes to My Life, tr Miiga]
Reed (Libermann Pinetree) (See also al-Ada,
Harq] Comno, Pnueess Iralan Atteides-, Analysis The
Arrakeen Cruu, tr Doorsh Sun wan, AS 20
(GrumtBan United Worlds) f Also known as
The Irulan Report ]
*, Arrakis Awakenmg fir Zhautya Muura zharat, AS 13 (Grumman United Worlds)
___, A Child's History ofMwxfDib, tr Prenis Rauvik (Caladan INS Books)
___, Collected Sayings of MiuufDib tr Mngal ReedlMukan LoLhar)
____, Conversations wah Muad'Dib, LCTS 346
____, Dictionary of Muad'Dib tr A O Fne
(Grumman Department of History, Hartley UP
Occasional Papers 33, and United Worlds) ____, The Humanity of Muad Dib LCTS 139 ____, In Mv Father s House tr Rebeth Vreeb
(Kaitain Lmthnn UP) ___, A Manual of Muad Dib tr Nima Bond
(Salusa Secundus Gravlak) ___, Muad Dib Family Commentaries LCTS
437 ___, Muad'Dib The Man tr Mityau Gwulador
AS 4 (Grumman Lmted Worlds) ___, Muad Dib The Ninety Nine Wonders of
the Universe tr G W Maur AS 9 (Grumman
United Worlds) ____ Muad Dib The Religious Issues LCTS
133 ____ Private Reflections on Muad Dib tr A S
Anzel (Chang Drostorum) ____, Songs of Mood Dib ed J R Gabryel
(Chusuk Salrejina) ____, The- Wisdom of Muad Dib tr Mityau
Gwulador, AS 52 (Grumman United Worlds)
*Dadas Nerm, Gweleder A Life Through the Mil
lenma (Yorba Rose) Elanus, Herk, The Tree of Atreides 5 v (Caladan
Apex) Fennng, Lady Margot, Arrakis and After AS 12
(Grumman United Worlds) Gwalles, S , ed , The Idaho Papers (Yorba Rose) Hoomwil, Alvar, The House of Atreides m His
toncal Perspective 22 v (Caladan Apex) Hopman, Virgo, The Old and the Young Dukes
Mintor and Paul tr Zhaivz Aultan (10388
Caladan Apex) Idaho-10202 Duncan, The Ghola Speaks tr Ker
shel Reeve Shautm (Finally Mosaic) Idaho 10208, Duncan The Hayt Chronicle ed
Irulan Atreides Cornno tr Kershel, Reeve
Shautm (Finally Mosaic) Idaho 13015, Duncan Journal of Leto II RRC
3,6,7,9 A83 [Miscellaneous entnes on
genetic research ]
*Iorga Jason The Bull by the Horns The Duke as Mentor (Caladan Apex)
*Karden, Lors, Truth and Fancy in the Oral
History (Yorba Rose) ____ Fact and Fiction in the Official History
(Yorba Rose)
*Lieuw Gillian, Last Years of the Impenum (Sa lusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
Oulson, Pander St Alia Huntress of a Billion Worlds RRC 2 A439
*Pursewarden, Yauzheen History of the Fish
Speakers (Centralia Johun UP) Qizara Tafwid, ed , The Pillars of Wisdom tr
Noval Allad, RRC 6 A698
BIBLIOGRAPHY
520
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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M MILITARY SCIENCE
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R RECORDS, MISCELLANEOUS
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T THEOLOGY
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RRC 1-T74, TO Anon , The Alhar Boot, Vol 1-4, ed K R
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TL TLHLAXU AFFAIRS AND ARTIFACTS
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in the Atreides Impenum (Chusuk Salre|ina) Hersag, A T Rouk Z and Iizavz, E S , 'A
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U SPORT AND RECREATION
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V SOCIAL SCIENCES
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'Zhoruzan, Rlkaraz, Handbook of Middle Galack Grammar Phonology Janua Lmguarum Orba-rum Senes pracncum 218
Z ZENSUNNI AND FREMEN
Agarves, Buer, Diary LCTS 377 al-Chima Mrrjna, Memoirs RRC 7 Z101 Anon , The Faces of Mand Alhen tr Brauar
Baum, LCTS 641 Anon Kitab allbar Manual of the Friendly
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RRC 6-Z295 Bai Hadi Love Wealth and Peace Through the
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1 K2346 (Topaz Carolus UP) Comno, Princess Irulan Atreides , ed , The Dune
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Duunalazan (Topaz Carolus UP)
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'1 Fanim, Defa, Taaj I Fremen 12 v (Salusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
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Naib Guaddaf Judgment on Arrakeen (10366) RRC 29-Z182
*Oslo Jarrett Fremen Lives and Legend (Sa lusa Secundus Morgan and Sharak)
Tffl LIBRARY CONFRATERNITY EXTRA SERIES
Benotto, Hadl et al Leto s Library Structure and Function ES 7
——— The Rakis Hoard as a Methodological Problem ES 2
——— The Rakis Reference Catalog System ES4
———, Report of the Benotto Committee (Rakis Department of Archives and Antiquities, dis tnbuted tlirough Library Confraternity as ES 5)
———, Report of the Second Rakis Conference
ES 1 Mnarz, Gweleder Some Difficulties m Expanding
Cataloging and Annotating an Alien Culture
ES6
CONTRIBUTORS
Joan Bouchelle J B Edgar L Chapman E C Judith A Clark J A C
BIBLIOGRAPHY
526
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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