When was the spice discovered?
jeremy howard todd
when exactly the spice was discovered on Arrakis. IIRC, the
filmbook Yueh gives to Paul refers to Arrakis as "His Imperial Majesty's
Desert Botanical Testing Station," from before the discovery of the spice.
However, Yueh also gives him the book version of the OC Bible, which he
says predates filmbook technology, so obviously the OC Bible was around
quite a long time before the spice was discovered.
Does the DE say anything about this? Just curious (:
-jht
--
Jeremy Todd Database Programmer _,/
jht...@uiuc.edu ITCS Systems Development <__ \_.---.
http://www.ag.uiuc.edu/~toddjh/ College of ACES, UIUC \_ / \
Zupfe Boy and Night Owl (And Kangaroo Aficianado) \)\ /\.\
========================================================= // \\
"M-O-O-N, that spells moon" - Tom Cullen ,/' `\_,
John Kenny
jeremy howard todd wrote in message <6pq8nn$jk$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
> I was re-reading Dune a while ago, and I started to wonder
>when exactly the spice was discovered on Arrakis. IIRC, the
>filmbook Yueh gives to Paul refers to Arrakis as "His Imperial Majesty's
>Desert Botanical Testing Station," from before the discovery of the spice.
>However, Yueh also gives him the book version of the OC Bible, which he
>says predates filmbook technology, so obviously the OC Bible was around
>quite a long time before the spice was discovered.
>
> Does the DE say anything about this? Just curious (:
Jeremy,
I don't know if DE gives an exact date but I think most of us would say that
spice was discovered at some point before the Butlerian Jihad. Humans had to
get to Arrakis to discover the spice but without spice there was no Space
Guild hence the only method for interstellar travel was using machines. And
since *thinking* machines were outlawed during BJ the discovery of Melange
had to happen before this event. Make sense?
As to the Orange Catholic Bible your guess is as good as anyone’s. In my
opinion it’s some strange combination of the Old and New Testament plus
whatever thinking led up to the Butlerian Jihad. Note that I didn't include
the Koran. It seems very clear that the Fremen were descended from Arabs and
since their religion ignores the OC Bible I assume there was not enough
Koran content to support their religious prophesies.
Since we are discussing when the spice was discovered I’d like to pose the
following question: When was the Water of Life discovered? When Jessica
receives the memories of RM Ramallo we find out that WOL started on a planet
called Rossak. Anyone care to speculate when this happened?
While I’m at it, at the time of DUNE does RM Gauis Helen Mohiam use the same
Water of Life that Jessica took ?
Best regards,
John
John Kenny jke...@mindspring.com
Raleigh, North Carolina
"This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on
his mother's side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry
often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs
nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which
happiness is always in short supply."
Robert Heinlein
Samuel Sands
John Kenny wrote:
Actually, WoL comes directly from the spice. On Rossak, it was from a plant
. The DE says the drug came from a plant, Dune just says it was a drug precursor
to WoL. The drug on Rossak is where it all begins. Before that, the Sayyadina
(Fremen R.M.'s) shared memories through word of mouth.
>
>
> While I’m at it, at the time of DUNE does RM Gauis Helen Mohiam use the same
> Water of Life that Jessica took ?
At the time of Dune, the RM (B.G.) were using some sort of Drug made from
spice to make R.M.'s. I'm not entirely sure if it was the Truthsayer Drug or a
different distillation of Melange. Jessica was the first B.G. adept to become a
R.M. using the Fremen method of creating Wild R.M.'s, using the exhalation of a
drowned little maker (WoL).
Sam Sands
Hitch
Okay, let's keep it short: In response to the two questions: a) we don't
know, and b) we don't know. We have NO idea when the Spice was
"discovered," nor do we know *precisely* how RM's are "made" by the BG,
whether it be WOL (unlikely), Spice essence or simply a massive Spice
overdose, at the time of Dune. Even 5,000 years later, the BG are using a
Spice essence, rather than WOL.
However, John, your logic re: discovery of the Spice seems quite good; I
fail to see how it could be otherwise. I am uncertain that I understand Mr.
Todd's question with regard to the OC Bible, or how it relates to the
question(s) at hand.
Regards
Hitch
Samuel Sands wrote in message <35C141DD...@bellsouth.net>...
Samuel Sands
Hitch wrote:
> Hi, Gang:
>
> Okay, let's keep it short: In response to the two questions: a) we don't
> know, and b) we don't know. We have NO idea when the Spice was
> "discovered," nor do we know *precisely* how RM's are "made" by the BG,
> whether it be WOL (unlikely), Spice essence or simply a massive Spice
> overdose, at the time of Dune. Even 5,000 years later, the BG are using a
> Spice essence, rather than WOL.
I agree, Hitch. However, we can assume that is was unlikely that it was WoL
before Jessica's conversion, as this would mean the B.G. had access to "little
makers" probably off-planet. Or would WoL have a "shelf-life"? I always had the
impression that it was volatile and did not "travel well". The B.G., with the
obvious exception of Margot Fenring and the B.G. of the Missionaria Protectiva,
perhaps millennia before, does not seem to have an obvious presence on Dune,
from the books at least. However, maybe after they found out about the WoL, they
*might* have started using it, if possible. Jessica makes reference to not
knowing in Dune. Here it is for those citation freaks out there :-).....
Dune Ace 25th Anniversary Edition page 357
" And she knew with a generalized awareness that she had become, in truth,
precisely what was meant by a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. The poison drug had
transformed her.
This wasn't exactly how they did it at the Bene Gesserit school, she knew.
No one had ever introduced her to the mysteries of it, but she knew."
Sam Sands
Winston-Salem, NC USA
------------------------------------------------
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly.
I said, "I don't know." -Mark Twain
------------------------------------------------
Gunnar Harboe
<6ps2gh$pc8$1...@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
> Hi, Gang:
Hi, Hitch:
> Okay, let's keep it short: In response to the two questions: a) we
don't
> know, and b) we don't know. We have NO idea when the Spice was
> "discovered," nor do we know *precisely* how RM's are "made" by the BG,
> whether it be WOL (unlikely), Spice essence or simply a massive Spice
> overdose, at the time of Dune. Even 5,000 years later, the BG are using
a
> Spice essence, rather than WOL.
>
> However, John, your logic re: discovery of the Spice seems quite good; I
> fail to see how it could be otherwise.
I have said this before, but as no one seem to listen, I'll repeat it. The
assumption that the Guild used Spice from its very beginning is not
warranted by what we know of it. Both the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen
could achieve the approximate effects of Spice through other drugs, and
there's no reason to believe that the Guild could not do the same. If
indeed the Guild had access to another prescience-giving drug before the
discovery of Spice, it is very clear how melange could have been discovered
centuries, even millennia after the Butlerian Jihad.
> I am uncertain that I understand Mr.
> Todd's question with regard to the OC Bible, or how it relates to the
> question(s) at hand.
I found Mr. Todd's logic quite lucid, and far more definite than these BJ
speculations. The argument is thus: Yueh gives Paul a copy of the OC Bible,
"not a filmbook, but actually printed on filament paper". Paul says that it
must have been made before filmbooks, and Yueh replies: "It's quite old."
Although this isn't a definite confirmation, that Paul's teacher does not
deny Paul's claim implies that he is correct. Later, Paul reads a
*filmbook* on Arrakeen ecology, from before the discovery of the spice.
From this follows that the spice was discovered after filmbook technology,
and since filmbook technology was apparently discovered after the OC Bible
was written, and the OC Bible was written after the BJ; spice was
discovered a good while after the BJ. You see?
To be fair, I recently came over a passage in GEoD, where Leto recounts a
myth told by his citizens, of a planet where a great cache of spice was
stored long before the BJ, and where Paul Muad'Dib waits to return to his
Empire. Given the fantastic nature of this story, the lack of knowledge of
ancient history etc., I however find this to be no conclusive proof for the
discovery of spice to predate the BJ.
Bye!
Gunnar Harboe
___
"Thou shalt not shape thy mind in the likeness of a machine."
g "dot" harboe "at" ah "dot" telia "dot" no
jeremy howard todd
>>the OC Bible, or how it relates to the question(s) at hand.
"Gunnar Harboe" <g.ha...@ah.telia.nospam> writes:
>I found Mr. Todd's logic quite lucid, and far more definite than these BJ
>speculations. The argument is thus: Yueh gives Paul a copy of the OC Bible,
>"not a filmbook, but actually printed on filament paper". Paul says that it
>must have been made before filmbooks, and Yueh replies: "It's quite old."
>Although this isn't a definite confirmation, that Paul's teacher does not
>deny Paul's claim implies that he is correct. Later, Paul reads a
>*filmbook* on Arrakeen ecology, from before the discovery of the spice.
>From this follows that the spice was discovered after filmbook technology,
>and since filmbook technology was apparently discovered after the OC Bible
>was written, and the OC Bible was written after the BJ; spice was
>discovered a good while after the BJ. You see?
Yes, thank you, this is exactly what I was trying to get at.
If the spice was discovered considerably after the BJ, I found myself
wondering what life/space travel was like in the interim, without
computers -or- the prescience of the spice to help them navigate.
How did the Empire (in whatever form it existed at the time), the Guild,
the Bene Gesserit, etc. maintain communication, authority, trade, and
so on? Also, how long were people on Arrakis before they found out
about the spice, and what took them so long? (:
I wish there was more "official" information on this topic; the
history of the Dune universe is so deep you can get lost in it all, and
far too much for FH to include more than a few snippets in the Chronicles.
jeremy howard todd
>As to the Orange Catholic Bible your guess is as good as anyone's. In my
>opinion it's some strange combination of the Old and New Testament plus
>whatever thinking led up to the Butlerian Jihad. Note that I didn't include
>the Koran. It seems very clear that the Fremen were descended from Arabs and
>since their religion ignores the OC Bible I assume there was not enough
>Koran content to support their religious prophesies.
Actually, aren't there several passages in Dune and a section
in the Appendix that mentions how Fremen rituals are very similar to
parts of the OC Bible? I don't have the book in front of me at the
moment, but I seem to recall it mentioning that one Fremen prayer based
on the OC Bible calls for raindrops, which had never been seen on Arrakis.
As for the prophecies, I've often wondered if FH chose the name
Muad'Dib so that "Mahdi" sounds like a corruption of it, as might be the
case if someone far in the past had an oracular vision of the events in
the book (: I doubt it, but food for thought.
Gunnar Harboe
jeremy howard todd <jht...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in article
<6psvm0$78g$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
> "John Kenny" <jke...@mindspring.com> writes:
> >As to the Orange Catholic Bible your guess is as good as anyone's. In my
> >opinion it's some strange combination of the Old and New Testament plus
> >whatever thinking led up to the Butlerian Jihad. Note that I didn't
include
> >the Koran. It seems very clear that the Fremen were descended from Arabs
and
> >since their religion ignores the OC Bible I assume there was not enough
> >Koran content to support their religious prophesies.
>
> Actually, aren't there several passages in Dune and a section
> in the Appendix that mentions how Fremen rituals are very similar to
> parts of the OC Bible? I don't have the book in front of me at the
> moment, but I seem to recall it mentioning that one Fremen prayer based
> on the OC Bible calls for raindrops, which had never been seen on
Arrakis.
Yup, there are. Actually, appendix 2, our only real source of information
on the OC Bible, is really an essay dealing with the origins of the Fremen
religion. Your example appears within the first paragraph, and at the end
of the appendix there are several more.
John Kenny is quite incorrect in claiming the "Koran" was not included in
the OC Bible. We know that the Zensunni, being the followers of a
schismatic sect breaking out from the teachings of the "third Mohammed",
i.e. future Muslims; contributed to the CET one of its most prominent
members, Toure Bokomo. I cannot remember any exact citation, but I felt the
OC Bible to be more Buddhist/Islam (Buddhislam?) than Christian in form.
Anyway, the entire point of "zensunni", "buddhislam" and the Commision of
Ecumenic Translators was to show to what extent the religions had mixed and
developed in the two hundred and ten centuries since space travel was
discovered.
> As for the prophecies, I've often wondered if FH chose the name
> Muad'Dib so that "Mahdi" sounds like a corruption of it, as might be the
> case if someone far in the past had an oracular vision of the events in
> the book (: I doubt it, but food for thought.
Let me put it this way: I doubt that it is a coincidence that Muad'Dib and
Mahdi sound so alike. :)
Bye!
Gunnar Harboe
___
"Thou shalt not shape thy mind in the likeness of a machine."
g "dot" harboe "at" ah "dot" telia "dot" no
> -jht
John Kenny
Samuel Sands wrote in message <35C196CB...@bellsouth.net>...
Sam,
I knew someone would pickup on that...right into my trap you walk.
Hitch correctly points out that we have no idea what drug the BG use to
produce a Reverend Mother. You correctly point out that the BG likely had no
access to the little makers need to create the Fremen Water of Life. And
there is the rub… are we to believe that two different drugs could cause the
same effect and change a Sister into a Reverend Mother? More to the point,
could the Sisterhood have stumbled upon a poison that had the same effect as
one naturally produced by two incredibly rare things: the spice and the
worms?
Care to take the next step in my little maze of logic?
John Kenny
I've mingled my thought below.
Gunnar Harboe wrote in message <01bdbc9f$ddcd8ea0$99d8ccc3@hal>...
>Hitch <hi...@primenet.com> wrote in article
><6ps2gh$pc8$1...@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
>> Hi, Gang:
>
>Hi, Hitch:
>
>> Okay, let's keep it short: In response to the two questions: a) we
>don't
>> know, and b) we don't know. We have NO idea when the Spice was
>> "discovered," nor do we know *precisely* how RM's are "made" by the BG,
>> whether it be WOL (unlikely), Spice essence or simply a massive Spice
>> overdose, at the time of Dune. Even 5,000 years later, the BG are using
>a
>> Spice essence, rather than WOL.
>>
>> However, John, your logic re: discovery of the Spice seems quite good; I
>> fail to see how it could be otherwise.
>
>I have said this before, but as no one seem to listen, I'll repeat it. The
>assumption that the Guild used Spice from its very beginning is not
>warranted by what we know of it. Both the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen
>could achieve the approximate effects of Spice through other drugs, and
>there's no reason to believe that the Guild could not do the same. If
>indeed the Guild had access to another prescience-giving drug before the
>discovery of Spice, it is very clear how melange could have been discovered
>centuries, even millennia after the Butlerian Jihad.
John -- Where did you read there was another drug that could produce
prescience? I don’t recall this but if you can support your claim then I’m
willing to grant the timeline you suggest might be valid.
>
>> I am uncertain that I understand Mr.
>> Todd's question with regard to the OC Bible, or how it relates to the
>> question(s) at hand.
>
>I found Mr. Todd's logic quite lucid, and far more definite than these BJ
>speculations. The argument is thus: Yueh gives Paul a copy of the OC Bible,
>"not a filmbook, but actually printed on filament paper". Paul says that it
>must have been made before filmbooks, and Yueh replies: "It's quite old."
>Although this isn't a definite confirmation, that Paul's teacher does not
>deny Paul's claim implies that he is correct. Later, Paul reads a
>*filmbook* on Arrakeen ecology, from before the discovery of the spice.
>
>From this follows that the spice was discovered after filmbook technology,
>and since filmbook technology was apparently discovered after the OC Bible
>was written, and the OC Bible was written after the BJ; spice was
>discovered a good while after the BJ. You see?
John -- I don't recall that the filmbook was specificaly from before the
discovery of the spice. Can you cite a passage?
The ONLY people who knew there was a connection between the sandworms
(ecology) and the spice were the Fremen. Why would a Planetary Ecologist
write about spice if he didn’t know there was a connection? The equivalent
would be a contemporary ecologist writing a book about the Sahara and
mentioning truffles.
>
>To be fair, I recently came over a passage in GEoD, where Leto recounts a
>myth told by his citizens, of a planet where a great cache of spice was
>stored long before the BJ, and where Paul Muad'Dib waits to return to his
>Empire. Given the fantastic nature of this story, the lack of knowledge of
>ancient history etc., I however find this to be no conclusive proof for the
>discovery of spice to predate the BJ.
>
>Bye!
>Gunnar Harboe
>___
>"Thou shalt not shape thy mind in the likeness of a machine."
>g "dot" harboe "at" ah "dot" telia "dot" no
>
Best regards,
John Kenny
Even more mingling of my thoughts are below.
Gunnar Harboe wrote in message <01bdbcb9$6bd5fe80$55d8ccc3@hal>...
>Dear Jeremy Todd:
>
>jeremy howard todd <jht...@students.uiuc.edu> wrote in article
><6psvm0$78g$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>...
>> "John Kenny" <jke...@mindspring.com> writes:
>> >As to the Orange Catholic Bible your guess is as good as anyone's. In my
>> >opinion it's some strange combination of the Old and New Testament plus
>> >whatever thinking led up to the Butlerian Jihad. Note that I didn't
>include
>> >the Koran. It seems very clear that the Fremen were descended from Arabs
>and
>> >since their religion ignores the OC Bible I assume there was not enough
>> >Koran content to support their religious prophesies.
>>
>> Actually, aren't there several passages in Dune and a section
>> in the Appendix that mentions how Fremen rituals are very similar to
>> parts of the OC Bible? I don't have the book in front of me at the
>> moment, but I seem to recall it mentioning that one Fremen prayer based
>> on the OC Bible calls for raindrops, which had never been seen on
>Arrakis.
>
>Yup, there are. Actually, appendix 2, our only real source of information
>on the OC Bible, is really an essay dealing with the origins of the Fremen
>religion. Your example appears within the first paragraph, and at the end
>of the appendix there are several more.
>
>John Kenny is quite incorrect in claiming the "Koran" was not included in
>the OC Bible. We know that the Zensunni, being the followers of a
John – Friend Gunnar, I never claimed a damn thing I stated it as my
opinion.
>schismatic sect breaking out from the teachings of the "third Mohammed",
>i.e. future Muslims; contributed to the CET one of its most prominent
>members, Toure Bokomo. I cannot remember any exact citation, but I felt the
>OC Bible to be more Buddhist/Islam (Buddhislam?) than Christian in form.
>
>Anyway, the entire point of "zensunni", "buddhislam" and the Commision of
>Ecumenic Translators was to show to what extent the religions had mixed and
>developed in the two hundred and ten centuries since space travel was
>discovered.
>
John – I agree completely that there was a blending of many religious
faiths. But the Fremen rejected all of them. Granted they did not embrace or
trust offworlders but they still knew about them and kept to the purity of
their beliefs, the MP not with standing.
Your point about the Zensunni is valid but recall that Ramallo said “We are
the people of Misr. Since our Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba,
we have known flight and death.” Sure doesn’t sound like a people who
embrace the *common* faith of the OC Bible.
>> As for the prophecies, I've often wondered if FH chose the name
>> Muad'Dib so that "Mahdi" sounds like a corruption of it, as might be the
>> case if someone far in the past had an oracular vision of the events in
>> the book (: I doubt it, but food for thought.
>
>Let me put it this way: I doubt that it is a coincidence that Muad'Dib and
>Mahdi sound so alike. :)
>
John -- Ditto.
Samuel Sands
John Kenny wrote:
> Samuel Sands wrote in message <35C196CB...@bellsouth.net>...
> Sam,
>
> I knew someone would pickup on that...right into my trap you walk.
>
> Hitch correctly points out that we have no idea what drug the BG use to
> produce a Reverend Mother. You correctly point out that the BG likely had no
> access to the little makers need to create the Fremen Water of Life. And
> there is the rub… are we to believe that two different drugs could cause the
> same effect and change a Sister into a Reverend Mother? More to the point,
> could the Sisterhood have stumbled upon a poison that had the same effect as
> one naturally produced by two incredibly rare things: the spice and the
> worms?
>
> Care to take the next step in my little maze of logic?
Care to walk in my maze of insanity and sleep-deprived misunderstandings? :-)
Just a few points. Mohiam does say it is the Truthsayer drugs that allows
them to explore their memories and that it also killed *all* of the men who
tried. Is it also the drug that creates B.G. R.M.? I don't know. So do you have
to be a R.M. to be a truthsayer? Could you take the truthsayer drug, have the
ability to explore feminine memories and have truthsence, and not be a R.M.?
Also, we *know* that the Fremen wild R.M. found *two* drugs that essentially
allowed them to be R.M., the one on Rossak and the WoL.
Sam Sands
Winston-Salem, NC USA
------------------------------------------------
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly.
I said, "I don't know." -Mark Twain
------------------------------------------------
Gunnar Harboe
John Kenny <jke...@mindspring.com> wrote in article
<6ptm1a$pir$2...@camel25.mindspring.com>...
> Gunnar,
>
> I've mingled my thought below.
>
> Gunnar Harboe wrote in message <01bdbc9f$ddcd8ea0$99d8ccc3@hal>...
> >I have said this before, but as no one seem to listen, I'll repeat it.
The
> >assumption that the Guild used Spice from its very beginning is not
> >warranted by what we know of it. Both the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen
> >could achieve the approximate effects of Spice through other drugs, and
> >there's no reason to believe that the Guild could not do the same. If
> >indeed the Guild had access to another prescience-giving drug before the
> >discovery of Spice, it is very clear how melange could have been
discovered
> >centuries, even millennia after the Butlerian Jihad.
>
> John -- Where did you read there was another drug that could produce
> prescience? I don’t recall this but if you can support your claim then
I’m
> willing to grant the timeline you suggest might be valid.
I didn't. I said that we know that the *other* effects of spice existed in
other drugs, too; namely, the poison drug of Rossak, and the "other drugs
the BG can use to perform their tricks", as Paul put it. So I don't find it
unreasonable that there might exist another drug that grants limited
prescience.
> >I found Mr. Todd's logic quite lucid, and far more definite than these
BJ
> >speculations. The argument is thus: Yueh gives Paul a copy of the OC
Bible,
> >"not a filmbook, but actually printed on filament paper". Paul says that
it
> >must have been made before filmbooks, and Yueh replies: "It's quite
old."
> >Although this isn't a definite confirmation, that Paul's teacher does
not
> >deny Paul's claim implies that he is correct. Later, Paul reads a
> >*filmbook* on Arrakeen ecology, from before the discovery of the spice.
> >
> >From this follows that the spice was discovered after filmbook
technology,
> >and since filmbook technology was apparently discovered after the OC
Bible
> >was written, and the OC Bible was written after the BJ; spice was
> >discovered a good while after the BJ. You see?
>
> John -- I don't recall that the filmbook was specificaly from before the
> discovery of the spice. Can you cite a passage?
Yeah. Paul lying in his bed, while Jessica is talking to Yueh. Paul thinks
back to a filmbook he recently read, which is specified as "from before
discovery of the spice."
> The ONLY people who knew there was a connection between the sandworms
> (ecology) and the spice were the Fremen. Why would a Planetary Ecologist
> write about spice if he didn’t know there was a connection? The
equivalent
> would be a contemporary ecologist writing a book about the Sahara and
> mentioning truffles.
You mean a book about sandworms, right? *Everyone* knew that spice came
from Arrakis, and a book about the planet would surely mention it, if it
was written after the discovery of the drug. Sandworms... well, if I was
writing a book about a planet, I think I would mention that the most
gigantic earthworms in creation could be observed there.
Bye!
Gunnar Harboe
___
"Thou shalt not shape thy mind in the likeness of a machine."
g "dot" harboe "at" ah "dot" telia "dot" no
> Best regards,
Joe D. Foster-Grant
"John Kenny" <jke...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>Your point about the Zensunni is valid but recall that Ramallo said “We are
>the people of Misr.
I believe this word is Arabic for "people", so does that mean he said,
"We are the people of people"?
Since our Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba,
>we have known flight and death.”
I remember this passage too; does it mean they came originally
from Egypt (Nilotic = Nile)? The only countries the Nile flows
thru are Egypt, Sudan, and the source in Ethiopia.
Sure doesn’t sound like a people who
>embrace the *common* faith of the OC Bible.
>
>
>
>>> As for the prophecies, I've often wondered if FH chose the name
>>> Muad'Dib so that "Mahdi" sounds like a corruption of it,
Maybe, but "Mahdi" actually means something in Arabic -- I believe
something like "teacher".
JDFG
Joe D. Foster-Grant
Samuel Sands <ssa...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
Mohiam does say it is the Truthsayer drugs that allows
>them to explore their memories and that it also killed *all* of the men
who
>tried. Is it also the drug that creates B.G. R.M.? I don't know. So do you
have
>to be a R.M. to be a truthsayer? Could you take the truthsayer drug, have
the
>ability to explore feminine memories and have truthsence, and not be a
R.M.?
That may be a moot point, since the BGs control the drug, and if
anyone not a BG used it to confer that power on themselves, they'd
be killed or neutralized by the BG, who wish to hold a monopoly
on this power for political purposes.
JDFG
Samuel Sands
John Kenny wrote:
> Samuel Sands wrote in message <35C196CB...@bellsouth.net>...
> Sam,
>
> I knew someone would pickup on that...right into my trap you walk.
>
> Hitch correctly points out that we have no idea what drug the BG use to
> produce a Reverend Mother. You correctly point out that the BG likely had no
> access to the little makers need to create the Fremen Water of Life. And
> there is the rub… are we to believe that two different drugs could cause the
> same effect and change a Sister into a Reverend Mother? More to the point,
> could the Sisterhood have stumbled upon a poison that had the same effect as
> one naturally produced by two incredibly rare things: the spice and the
> worms?
Are you saying that the B.G. didn't have access to spice? Their R.M. drug was
made or distilled from spice, wasn't it? They might not have had a noticeable
presence on Dune at the time of Jessica but they certainly had spice.
Sam Sands aka "Twisted F**K"
>
>
> Care to take the next step in my little maze of logic?
>
Hitch
Interspersed, below, with an "H:" in front, as usual.
Hitch
Gunnar Harboe wrote in message <01bdbc9f$ddcd8ea0$99d8ccc3@hal>...
>Hitch <hi...@primenet.com> wrote in article
><6ps2gh$pc8$1...@nnrp03.primenet.com>...
>> Hi, Gang:
>
>Hi, Hitch:
>
>> Okay, let's keep it short: In response to the two questions: a) we
>don't
>> know, and b) we don't know. We have NO idea when the Spice was
>> "discovered," nor do we know *precisely* how RM's are "made" by the BG,
>> whether it be WOL (unlikely), Spice essence or simply a massive Spice
>> overdose, at the time of Dune. Even 5,000 years later, the BG are using
>a
>> Spice essence, rather than WOL.
>>
>> However, John, your logic re: discovery of the Spice seems quite good; I
>> fail to see how it could be otherwise.
>
>I have said this before, but as no one seem to listen, I'll repeat it. The
>assumption that the Guild used Spice from its very beginning is not
>warranted by what we know of it. Both the Bene Gesserit and the Fremen
>could achieve the approximate effects of Spice through other drugs, and
>there's no reason to believe that the Guild could not do the same. If
>indeed the Guild had access to another prescience-giving drug before the
>discovery of Spice, it is very clear how melange could have been discovered
>centuries, even millennia after the Butlerian Jihad.
H: <shrug>. Since this is all rampant speculation in any event, I shan't
argue it. Certainly, the Guild *could* have found another drug, like the
RM's on Rossak; or, perhaps they did not. My statement was clear....we DO
NOT KNOW. Anything else is sheer imagination.
>
>> I am uncertain that I understand Mr.
>> Todd's question with regard to the OC Bible, or how it relates to the
>> question(s) at hand.
>
>I found Mr. Todd's logic quite lucid, and far more definite than these BJ
>speculations. The argument is thus: Yueh gives Paul a copy of the OC Bible,
>"not a filmbook, but actually printed on filament paper". Paul says that it
>must have been made before filmbooks, and Yueh replies: "It's quite old."
>Although this isn't a definite confirmation, that Paul's teacher does not
>deny Paul's claim implies that he is correct. Later, Paul reads a
>*filmbook* on Arrakeen ecology, from before the discovery of the spice.
>
>From this follows that the spice was discovered after filmbook technology,
>and since filmbook technology was apparently discovered after the OC Bible
>was written, and the OC Bible was written after the BJ; spice was
>discovered a good while after the BJ. You see?
H: Oh, I see, indeed...but the entire argument rests on certain
assumptions: that *every* OC Bible printed after the discovery of filmbook
technology WAS printed on filmbook technology (Paul makes the same
assumption). This, IMHO, is akin to saying that every Bible *today* would
be printed on a) CD-Rom, b) Floppies; c) Jazz Drives d) microfiche. :-)
Obviously, this is a LARGE assumption. Quite simply, Yueh's particular OC
Bible could have been created on a world that either a) didn't have easy
access to filmbook technology, or b) chose not to use it, for some reason,
perhaps expense. It could have been printed at any time...the statement
that it is "quite old" is, as stated by you above, not very definitive.
Moreover, the second *assumption* is that the "filmbook" on Arrakeen ecology
is: a) not merely data transferred from *something else,* i.e., someone
putting a copy of a Guttenberg bible on CD-Rom; the contents are the same,
but the medium certainly isn't; b) doesn't simply omit the Spice, as the
connection between the Spice and the ecology - the worms - wasn't made until
the existence of Paul, really, and c) about a dozen other assumptions.
More H: So, having violated Occam's Theorem (simply put, make no more
assumptions in a theory than absolutely necessary) only about 12 times in
the foregoing speculation, I still don't think that the logic is that sound.
<shrug>. Again, I don't really understand why we cannot be content with the
*actual* answer: We do NOT know. We can speculate from now until hell
freezeth over, but it shan't change a thing...we don't know, can't know, and
never will. And, this speculation, even worse, *also* assumes that FH gave
it any depth of thought, other than that which is written in Appendix II.
As we know that FH was still formulating his concepts of the BG, BT, Guild,
etc., not only during the writing of Dune, but for many years afterwards,
through Ch:D, it just doesn't seem that relevant to me. What we DO know is
that Space Travel, per FH, existed for 110 centuries before the BJ..that the
BJ took two generations; that *at about this time,* the Guild was
consolidating its monopoly on Space Travel, and the BG was consolidating
"the sorceresses," as FH put it. We really know nothing else. We have no
comparative timeline for the BG, the fremen RM's, the spice, etc. 110
centuries for Space Travel before the BJ...2 generations of BJ; ninety
generations more until Paul Muad'Dib. <more shrugging>. By *current* day
standards, this would put Paul approximately 1,800 years *after* the BJ.
Jessica's "memories" from Ramallo during the transformation do not give us
adequate information to correlate the two timelines. So, again, we are left
with naught but guessing.
And, as I said before...I think "enlisting" the common populace into an
"anti-machine" Jihad, when Space Travel, Transport and Trading was such a
large part of life would be far easier if an alternative to "machine" space
travel was available; and, I would point out, (again referencing Appendix
II): if the machines had been banned, and Spice not yet discovered, then
HOW did the Guild get the CET to Old Earth for its Ecumenical Council? They
"only" took seven years to create the OC; if they were "flying direct," (so
to speak :-), without "folding space," or using Guild methods, it would have
taken them longer than that just to GET THERE. And, as the BJ had already
occurred, they COULD NOT be using "machines." So, again...<shrug>, I think
the assumption that Spice was not discovered *before* the BJ is not
warranted.
Regards,
Hitch
John Kenny
After much snipping my thoughts:
>> John -- Where did you read there was another drug that could produce
>> prescience? I don’t recall this but if you can support your claim then
>I’m
>> willing to grant the timeline you suggest might be valid.
>
>I didn't. I said that we know that the *other* effects of spice existed in
>other drugs, too; namely, the poison drug of Rossak, and the "other drugs
>the BG can use to perform their tricks", as Paul put it. So I don't find it
>unreasonable that there might exist another drug that grants limited
>prescience.
>
John -- If such a drug or drugs exists why do we read every 20 pages about
the “damnable Guild monopoly”? If there were a non-melange substance which
gave even limited prescience than such a monopoly couldn’t possibly be.
Unless it existed in the past and was somehow lost to humanity. But I don’t
recall any passage or reference that supports or even suggests this concept.
>> >I found Mr. Todd's logic quite lucid, and far more definite than these
>BJ
>> >speculations. The argument is thus: Yueh gives Paul a copy of the OC
>Bible,
>> >"not a filmbook, but actually printed on filament paper". Paul says that
>it
>> >must have been made before filmbooks, and Yueh replies: "It's quite
>old."
>> >Although this isn't a definite confirmation, that Paul's teacher does
>not
>> >deny Paul's claim implies that he is correct. Later, Paul reads a
>> >*filmbook* on Arrakeen ecology, from before the discovery of the spice.
>> >
>> >From this follows that the spice was discovered after filmbook
>technology,
>> >and since filmbook technology was apparently discovered after the OC
>Bible
>> >was written, and the OC Bible was written after the BJ; spice was
>> >discovered a good while after the BJ. You see?
>>
>> John -- I don't recall that the filmbook was specificaly from before the
>> discovery of the spice. Can you cite a passage?
>
>Yeah. Paul lying in his bed, while Jessica is talking to Yueh. Paul thinks
>back to a filmbook he recently read, which is specified as "from before
>discovery of the spice."
>
John -- Right you are! I just reread that chapter. But there are problems,
as Hitch points out better than I ever could.
Best regards,
John
John Kenny
Samuel Sands wrote in message <35C2AC95...@bellsouth.net>...
>> Sam,
>>
>> I knew someone would pickup on that...right into my trap you walk.
>>
>> Hitch correctly points out that we have no idea what drug the BG use to
>> produce a Reverend Mother. You correctly point out that the BG likely had
no
>> access to the little makers need to create the Fremen Water of Life. And
>> there is the rub… are we to believe that two different drugs could cause
the
>> same effect and change a Sister into a Reverend Mother? More to the
point,
>> could the Sisterhood have stumbled upon a poison that had the same effect
as
>> one naturally produced by two incredibly rare things: the spice and the
>> worms?
>>
>> Care to take the next step in my little maze of logic?
>
>Care to walk in my maze of insanity and sleep-deprived misunderstandings?
:-)
>
> Just a few points. Mohiam does say it is the Truthsayer drugs that
allows
>them to explore their memories and that it also killed *all* of the men
who
>tried. Is it also the drug that creates B.G. R.M.?
John -- The way I read things the answer is yes.
>I don't know. So do you have
>to be a R.M. to be a truthsayer? Could you take the truthsayer drug, have
the
>ability to explore feminine memories and have truthsence, and not be a
R.M.?
>Also, we *know* that the Fremen wild R.M. found *two* drugs that
essentially
>allowed them to be R.M., the one on Rossak and the WoL.
John -- Again, from the way I read things you experience the Agony,
afterward you are either a RM who can use Truthsayer drug or you are dead.
Until recently I assumed that when the Bene Gesserit took the WOL (or their
equivalent) it somehow changed the genetic makeup of the woman and allowed
some of them to change the poison and thus become a Reverend Mother.
But just suppose this assumption is backwards? I have major problems
believing that two different drugs could produce identical or near identical
results. Maybe the real trick to becoming a RM is extending all the lessons
of body control to the next level of being able to convert any sufficiently
complex poison into something inert. In other words, what changes a Sister
to RM is not the drug itself but the ability of the body to recognize the
poison and then convert it.
I know this idea is a slippery slope but it’s the only logic I can find to
explain why WOL and the Truthsayer drugs produce the same results.
Best regards,
John
Jeff Teunissen
Indeed. In fact, I could have sworn I saw a reference to "the geriatric
spice",
_in_ an OC Bible quotation. Of course, I may be mistaken -- I've been known
to
do things like that from time to time. :)
There _may_ be a slight problem with the assertion that space travel and all
that
goes along with it are a large part of life in the Empire. Indeed, Great
Houses
may do a lot of travelling and interstellar trading, but that still leaves out
90
percent of the populace, or likely even more.
Jeff Teunissen
>
> Comment below....
>
> John Kenny wrote:
>
> >
> > Hitch correctly points out that we have no idea what drug the BG use to
> > produce a Reverend Mother. You correctly point out that the BG likely had no
> > access to the little makers need to create the Fremen Water of Life. And
> > same effect and change a Sister into a Reverend Mother? More to the point,
> > could the Sisterhood have stumbled upon a poison that had the same effect as
> > one naturally produced by two incredibly rare things: the spice and the
> > worms?
>
> made or distilled from spice, wasn't it? They might not have had a noticeable
> presence on Dune at the time of Jessica but they certainly had spice.
In GEoD, we discover (perhaps earlier than that, but this was the first time I
saw a direct reference) that the BG Truthsayer drug _is_ made from the spice,
or
at the very least, melange is the principal ingredient.
Hitch
Actually, I was basing my assumption with regard to the import (as in
importance, not import-export! :-) of "Space Travel" upon FH's own words in
Appendix II, wherein he states that it was SO important, that it deserved to
be written as such: SPACE TRAVEL!!, or words to that effect. So, as his
discussion in Appendix II dealt with regligion, and the masses, and he is
discussing the five items that have a major impact thereupon, and makes "a
big fuss" over Space Travel, I think it is reasonable to assume that it was
not only the landed gentry that benefitted therefrom. <shrug>.
It would be *most* helpful, and very interesting, if you could track down
your somewhat-remembered citation, and provide it to us. it would certainly
eliminate a lot of dissension.
Regards,
Hitch
Jeff Teunissen wrote in message <35C42F83...@dusknet.nx.org>...
skoosh
: In article <6ptm1b$pir$3...@camel25.mindspring.com>,
: "John Kenny" <jke...@mindspring.com> wrote:
: >Your point about the Zensunni is valid but recall that Ramallo said "We
: >are the people of Misr.
Joe D. Foster-Grant (tang...@ix.netcom.com) wrote back:
: I believe this word is Arabic for "people", so does that mean he said,
: "We are the people of people"?
I took Arabic to fulfill my undergrad language requirement (note: author
is still an undergrad) , and whenever anyone mentioned "Misr", it meant
"Egypt". So Ramallo actually said, "We are the people of Egypt" AFAICS.
According to my trusty copy of _The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written
Arabic_ (pocket-sized edition), "Misr" can also mean "big city,
metropolis, capital"; but by extension I presume it's come to
(exclusively?) mean Cairo or Egypt -- the most populous city and country
in the Arab world, respectively.
Feel free to challenge me on this if your experience of Arabic is
different -- it's a pretty complex language with a lot of varieties. How
did FH learn it, BTW?
: >Since our Sunni ancestors fled from Nilotic al-Ourouba,
: >we have known flight and death."
:
: I remember this passage too; does it mean they came originally
: from Egypt (Nilotic = Nile)? The only countries the Nile flows
: thru are Egypt, Sudan, and the source in Ethiopia.
Good call! Although "the source" of the Nile kind of depends on which
Nile you're talking about. (Brings out the cheap-o second-rate atlas)
The Blue Nile does indeed begin in Ethiopia. However, the White Nile
branch begins much further south, in Lake Victoria, which has several
tributaries from several different countries -- Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania,
Kenya; take your pick. So the answer to the question, "Where is the
source of the Nile?" sort of depends on where you are and how much the
locals want to impress you.
I seem to recall a very long involved thread about what "Nilotic" really
means, but it was so long ago that I can't even remember if it was on this
newsgroup...
: Sure doesn't sound like a people who
: >embrace the *common* faith of the OC Bible.
I'm not sure that there's a common faith, so much as there's a lot of
different faiths that all draw from the OC Bible as their main sacred
text. And the fact that the Fremen remember their ancestry doesn't seem
unusual; note that the Atreides trace their lineage back to the ancient
Greeks.
: >>> As for the prophecies, I've often wondered if FH chose the name
: >>> Muad'Dib so that "Mahdi" sounds like a corruption of it,
:
: Maybe, but "Mahdi" actually means something in Arabic -- I believe
: something like "teacher".
from _Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition_, and
confirmed in my Arabic-English dictionary, "mahdi" literally means
"rightly guided", or on the correct spiritual path. In some Islamic
sects' versions of the Apocalypse, the Mahdi is a Messiah-figure who comes
to lead the faithful against the armies of Satan in a battle to establish
the Kingdom of God, or something like that. I'm sure this all sounds
familiar to you.
And if you move the apostrophe in Muad'Dib up a couple spaces to form
"mu'addib", that means "educator"; literally, "one who civilizes, or
chastises" (my translation). I see special relevance in the choice of
that word, cleverly disguised by FH as "what we call the desert mouse",
considering the transition of the Fremen from being hardened and
disciplined by the desert in _Dune_ to becoming comparatively civilized
and decadent in _CoD_.
Comments?
H
--
*** The seared runes crossing your divided consciousness do speak ***
*** of contemptuous cardinals setting a spanish villa ablaze. ***
--courtesy of The Surrealism Server,
http://pharmdec.wustl.edu/cgi-bin/jardin_scripts/SCG
self-indulgent homepage plug: http://pages.nyu.edu/~ush9667
Cezar "Thannatos" Matkowski
> different -- it's a pretty complex language with a lot of varieties. How
> did FH learn it, BTW?
Maybe he didn't. There is a lot of Arabic words in the book, but knowledge
of the words doesn't always mean knowledge of the language (especially
Arabic, that is very complex and flexible language that especially fits to
the poetry, sermons and the like). By the way, in the CoD, FH uses the
distich, written in medieval Moldavian. I don't think, he knew this
language...
> I'm not sure that there's a common faith, so much as there's a lot of
> different faiths that all draw from the OC Bible as their main sacred
> text.
OC Bible is rather "moral handbook" and philosophical guide than a book
containing faith prerogatives. It deals with such topics that are (should
be) common for all people. See, that most of religions have hot similar
things and every religion has the same goal, anyway.
> from _Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition_, and
> confirmed in my Arabic-English dictionary, "mahdi" literally means
> "rightly guided", or on the correct spiritual path.
It also mean "the moral teacher" or "the spiritual leader".
--
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
++ Homo hominis lycanthropus ++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cezar "Thannatos" Matkowski
E-Mail: interp...@opnt.optimus.wroc.pl
Andrew Lovette
>different -- it's a pretty complex language with a lot of varieties. How
>did FH learn it, BTW?
See the quote I've taken from an interview of his: (In the May 1975? issue
of
"Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction".) It doesn't exactly say whether or not
he knew Arabic.... but it gives an idea of the reason for using it as a
starting point.
"SF: What about all the songs and excerpts from histories?
FH: Of course, I was writing the books for a Western Culture, and had the
audience very much in mind. And in this culture, when you say 'desert,' the
automatic assumption is *Arab*. So I went to Arabic for most of my names
and language forms, for many things."
FH did some consulting work for Vietnam and Pakistan..... I haven't been
able to find anything about him doing any work in the Middle East, nor
learning any Arabic. Perhaps Hitch (if you ask verrrrrry nicely) would ask
Dr. McNelly if FH *did* in fact have a working knowledge of Arabic... or
merely adapted some words.)
Regards,
Andrew Lovette
-
The Universe of Frank Herbert: http://www.lhup.edu/~jlovette/index.htm
*Cosmo*
This sounds more along the lines of what I thought happened. I
don't think one dose any drug could produce such huge changes -- drug
users must step up their doses in order to continue to produce the same
effects as their addiction increases. If the body (and I would suggest
chemical rather than genetic makeup -- but I really don't know... the
difference would mean ALL of an RM's children would be prescient -- Alia
just "happened" to be present during the change, and thus was born
prescient) changes the poison, it may itself be altered by that change: I
don't think it is the transmuted WoL that does this, seeing as it's used
in the Fremen orgy afterwards (possibly relating to the other thread).
The B.G. "witches" have no "magical" ability to be sensitive to a
drug that either kills others (in the case of Truthsayer/ raw WoL) or
makes them very happy (i.e. the tranformed WoL isn't responsible for
making RMs) -- it's the ultimate "test" of just how good they are at
manipulating their body chemistry. If successful, [something] happens to
them to awaken AM.
> I know this idea is a slippery slope but it’s the only logic I can find to
> explain why WOL and the Truthsayer drugs produce the same results.
>
> Best regards,
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
TTFN.
,-----
|8-{> *COSMO*
`-----
<------------------------------>
"Your arm's off!"
"No, it isn't!"
"Well, what's that, then?"
"...I've had worse."
<------------------------------>
Tanos - remove X
>
> from _Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition_, and
> confirmed in my Arabic-English dictionary, "mahdi" literally means
> sects' versions of the Apocalypse, the Mahdi is a Messiah-figure who comes
> to lead the faithful against the armies of Satan in a battle to establish
> the Kingdom of God, or something like that. I'm sure this all sounds
> familiar to you.
Yes, but not just from Dune. I think its been pointed out before that
the similarites between Dune and T.E. Lawrence ('Lawrence of Arabia')
are striking. In particular, compare Lean's film of the revolt in the
desert with Dune (or even the Dune film): ragged rebels coming out the
desert under the guidance of an outsider to defeat the technologically
superior (Ottoman) Empire. The scene of the attack on the smugglers in
the Dune film always reminds me of a similar point in Lawrence of Arabia
with an attack ?on a train?.
Now my own little obsession (and the reason for the cross post): if
T.E. Lawrence's writings are Orientalism, as a Western interpretation
of events and cultures in the Middle East, isn't Dune an example of
neoOrientalism, using concepts from the East and reworking them for a
largely western audience. But the crucial difference between the old
Orientalist tradition and a neoOrientalist work like Dune is that it
advertises itself as fiction, and not as an accurate description. It
is written with the awareness of what it is, and what it is not.
Tanos
-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 'The Orientalists' http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/orienta/ |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Hitch
Couldn't resist, natch...some interspersions, below, with an "H:" in
front...
Hitch
*Cosmo* wrote in message ...
On Sat, 1 Aug 1998, John Kenny wrote:
> Sam Sands wrote:
> >
> > Just a few points. Mohiam does say it is the Truthsayer drugs that
> allows
> >them to explore their memories and that it also killed *all* of the men
> who
> >tried. Is it also the drug that creates B.G. R.M.?
>
>
> John -- The way I read things the answer is yes.
>
>
> >I don't know. So do you have
> >to be a R.M. to be a truthsayer? Could you take the truthsayer drug, have
> the
> >ability to explore feminine memories and have truthsence, and not be a
> R.M.?
> >Also, we *know* that the Fremen wild R.M. found *two* drugs that
> essentially
> >allowed them to be R.M., the one on Rossak and the WoL.
H: Hmmm...well, we *know* that Rebecca's husband (presumably dead) had
"truthsense," or was a "truthsayer," and he was neither BG nor a "survivor"
of the Spice Agony, so mayhaps we should separate the topics. (Also given
that Yueh, in Dune, contemplates that Jessica does NOT have the level of
truthsense that "his Wanna" had...obviously, not all BG are truthsayers, or
have it to the same extent). We do *not* know what FORM of spice the BG
take to "create" RM's during the time of Dune - even assuming that it is
indeed a form of the spice. We only know that they take it to allegedly
enhance the truthsaying - a concept that essentially disappears by the next
book. So, in response: a BG becomes a RM via *some* type of poison/drug,
which she must transform - as is already pointed out, there was more than
one discovered by the fremen, alone - she may or may not have truthsense,
and that ability, such as it is, *may* be enhanced by the ingestion of the
spice, somehow...this is really all we know. And, lastly, in Dune, there is
no indication - other than the ONE sentence by Gaius Helen in the very
beginning of Dune - that the BG have AM (Ancestral Memories) AT ALL.
Jessica certainly doesn't; all she has are the OM bestowed by Ramallo upon
dying. (Just to add to the confusion: nor does Alia, until DM, and then
only the female side; she suddently "develops" or "has" the male side by
CoD. <shrug>) Nor is there any indication that Paul has either, until
CoD - and then, solely two sentences imply same. <more shrugging>. Let's
face it; FH was still developing the concept of the BG during Dune, and
attempting to figure out the "process" for making RM's during *that* period
is going to be very tough; we should probably just take Murbella's
transformation as a given - later in the existence of the BG.
>
>
>
> John -- Again, from the way I read things you experience the Agony,
> afterward you are either a RM who can use Truthsayer drug or you are dead.
H: I concur...you are either an RM, or dead, for certain...whether or not
you automatically have "truthsense," is debatable. :-)
>
> Until recently I assumed that when the Bene Gesserit took the WOL (or
their
> equivalent) it somehow changed the genetic makeup of the woman and allowed
> some of them to change the poison and thus become a Reverend Mother.
>
> But just suppose this assumption is backwards? I have major problems
> believing that two different drugs could produce identical or near
identical
> results. Maybe the real trick to becoming a RM is extending all the
lessons
> of body control to the next level of being able to convert any
sufficiently
> complex poison into something inert. In other words, what changes a Sister
> to RM is not the drug itself but the ability of the body to recognize the
> poison and then convert it.
H: I think this is absolutely the case, IMHO...that the real "test" or
"creation" of the RM is in the transmuting of the poison..PLUS some definite
added abilities therefrom, and not that the drug itself "allows" a person to
become an RM - otherwise, logically *anyone* could be a BG or Wild RM. One
would require NO training, NO discipline, etc.; your survival, or failure,
would be dependent utterly upon your genetics, and not the lessons learned
through years of apprenticeship or being an acolyte. What other purpose the
lessons about drugs - the testing, etc., - referred to by Jessica during her
"WOL" experience? (Of course, then we have the discrepancy of Rebecca to
contend with...but she had NO mohalata, no AM of her own, inexplicably,
until Lucilla "shared" with HER. <sigh>).
>
More Cosmo (I think): This sounds more along the lines of what I thought
happened. I
don't think one dose any drug could produce such huge changes
H: With regard to Murbella in HoD and Ch:D, it certainly does!!!
Cosmo (again, I think): -- drug
users must step up their doses in order to continue to produce the same
effects as their addiction increases. If the body (and I would suggest
chemical rather than genetic makeup -- but I really don't know... the
difference would mean ALL of an RM's children would be prescient -- Alia
just "happened" to be present during the change, and thus was born
prescient)
H: Hunh? What do you mean, ALL of an RM's children would be born
prescient? Only the Dune-era Atreides BG-born children have prescience; the
BG's are not prescient to any great extent. Can you better explain what you
mean, please?
Cosmo: changes the poison, it may itself be altered by that change: I
don't think it is the transmuted WoL that does this, seeing as it's used
in the Fremen orgy afterwards (possibly relating to the other thread).
Cosmo: The B.G. "witches" have no "magical" ability to be sensitive to a
drug that either kills others (in the case of Truthsayer/ raw WoL) or
makes them very happy (i.e. the tranformed WoL isn't responsible for
making RMs) -- it's the ultimate "test" of just how good they are at
manipulating their body chemistry. If successful, [something] happens to
them to awaken AM.
H: I agree with everything you said, until the last sentence...until
*after* the Atreides, there is no indication whatsoever that ANY BG ever had
AM until Atreides bloodlines were mixed in with BG lines. They appear to
*only* have OM - the memories shared between RM's, and not any ancestral, or
genetic, memory. It is only after GEoD that the BG achieve AM..probably
both accidentally and quite deliberately, once they acquired some Atreides
"breeders" and found out what their genetics, mixed with the Spice Agony,
could achieve. As citations: no incidence whatsoever of AM with Jessica
(or Gaius Helen) throughout Dune or DM; Leto's observations about Jessica's
"small taste" of what he and Ghani experience in CoD, etc. <shrug>. I
believe that *all* the "truthsense" drug does for a BG during the time of
Dune/Paul is heighten her natural abilities, and, if she has any truthsense,
heighten that as well, in addition to - somehow - allowing her to "share" OM
with another BG.
> I know this idea is a slippery slope but it’s the only logic I can find to
> explain why WOL and the Truthsayer drugs produce the same results.
H: I'm not convinced that they are *not* the same drug...the WOL, is, after
all, merely concentrated "spice essence" created by drowning a young worm;
there is no reason why the BG could not produce an equally concentrated
spice essence in some other fashion - as they do in HoD and Ch:D, to create
the "Spice Agony" that makes or breaks an RM.
Regards,
Hitch
John Kenny
Hitch wrote in message <6q80oo$t5e$1...@nnrp02.primenet.com>...
>Hi, Gang:
>
>Couldn't resist, natch...some interspersions, below, with an "H:" in
>front...
[[ Mongo snip ]]
>
>> I know this idea is a slippery slope but it’s the only logic I can find
to
>> explain why WOL and the Truthsayer drugs produce the same results.
>
>H: I'm not convinced that they are *not* the same drug...the WOL, is,
after
>all, merely concentrated "spice essence" created by drowning a young worm;
>there is no reason why the BG could not produce an equally concentrated
>spice essence in some other fashion - as they do in HoD and Ch:D, to create
>the "Spice Agony" that makes or breaks an RM.
>
>Regards,
>
>Hitch
Where did you get the idea that “the WOL, is, after all, merely concentrated
"spice essence" “? Fremen WOL is the liquid secreted by a drowned sand worm.
The worms were the most unique and probably rarest creatures in the Universe
with a totally unknown bio-chemistry. Others have already pointed out the
extreme improbability that the BG had access to worms. To assume that the
Sisters somehow stumbled on another substance which was chemically identical
is statistically unlikely. Even if we REALLY go out on a limb an assume that
some long ago Sister from the MP discovered the Fremen practice and sent the
information to Wallach, the Bene Gesserit would still be faced with creating
a synthetic version without knowing diddle about the underlying biochem.
Not likely.
Oglethorpe J. Snerdley
currently reading GEoD, I noticed that this statement is false.
In article <6q80oo$t5e$1...@nnrp02.primenet.com>,
Hitch <hi...@primenet.com> wrote:
>H: I agree with everything you said, until the last sentence...until
>*after* the Atreides, there is no indication whatsoever that ANY BG ever had
>AM until Atreides bloodlines were mixed in with BG lines. They appear to
>*only* have OM - the memories shared between RM's, and not any ancestral, or
>genetic, memory. It is only after GEoD that the BG achieve AM..probably
>both accidentally and quite deliberately, once they acquired some Atreides
>"breeders" and found out what their genetics, mixed with the Spice Agony,
>could achieve. As citations: no incidence whatsoever of AM with Jessica
>(or Gaius Helen) throughout Dune or DM; Leto's observations about Jessica's
>"small taste" of what he and Ghani experience in CoD, etc. <shrug>. I
As a matter of fact, when Leto meets with Luyseyal and Anteac, he thinks:
"Of all the people in his Empire, Reverend Mothers wer most like him--limited
to the memories of only their female ancestors and the collateral female
identities of their inheritance ritual--still, each of them did exist as
somewhat of an integrated mob." (p. 168)
This shows that the BG did indeed have AM before they got Atreides genes. I
assumed they had them all along because their method for making RM's was
different. Here is my reasoning:
- BG RM's have AM (see above quote)
- BG RM's are made in something called the Agony.
- In Dune, there doesn't seem to be any agony on Jessica's part.
- Fremen RM's seem to need to pass information from generation to
generation (no memories except what is passed)
From this I assumed that Fremen RM's had only OM, and BG RM's had OM and AM.
It seems to me that there is symmetry in paying a higher price (the Agony)
for the greater benefit (AM). This may also explain how Rebecca became a RM
without the AM. I haven't read HoD in a while, so I don't remember if
she had Agony, or just changed.
ojs
Hitch
I am well aware of the citation you mentioned...perhaps I should have said
"during..." or "at the time frame of..." GEoD. However, as I've stated
before, FH had SO MANY discrepancies about AM/OM, etc., that they are not
worth numbering. He clearly never bothered to really get it straight in his
head, or, alternatively, felt free to sacrifice the concept to further
plotlines. (BTW, Rebecca *does* "dare the Spice," according to Lucilla, so
that is no explanation). We have no reason to think that the RM's in Dune
are "made" dramatically different than that which Jessica experiences...as
has been discussed before, we have no reason to believe that the BG are not
simply using a concentrated Spice extract to create RM's during Dune, rather
than the WOL. However, it is VERY clear that the acquisition of AM is a
post-Atreides asset; Paul himself "reels" when he sees his ancestral male
line from Leto, at the end of DM, and wonders if it is "this" that Gaius
Helen was really trying to achieve. I mean, the contradictions are
legendary...Paul has *neither* AM or OM through the first two books, and
then, two sentences ONLY imply he has it (AM) in CoD; Jessica has OM only,
consistently; Alia has OM through Dune, female AM through DM, and then BOTH
male and female AM, as well as Ramallo's OM, in CoD; Leto and Ghani have
their own gender-line memories at the end of DM; by CoD, they have access to
both gender lines. <shrug>. Oh, and, of course, then there is Rebecca, who
doesn't have OM, AM, or bupkus until she Shares with Lucilla, while Murbella
gets her own mohalata, AM, etc., right away. Oh, and let's not
forget...while we're discussing AM and OM and Sharing...WHY doesn't Murbella
*know* that Duncan and Sheeana are leaving the planet? If one follows the
sequence (two times) of Sharing, we know that Murbella eventually, *twice*
from Odrade, gets Sheeana's memories..which Odrade gets from Tam, and from
Sheanna. So, how come Murbella is surprised when Duncan and Sheeana "skip
town?"
So, as you see, attempting to reconcile OM/AM/Sharing, etc., is fairly
hopeless. FH, as I said, simply didn't consider it *vitally* important to
that which he was writing, or, as I said, sacrificed it mercilessly in order
to further a plot line, or make a point (like Rebecca...it is through her
that we actually, for the first time, get to see the "transformation" of an
RM, as she accessess Lucilla's memories). So, other than the simple fact
that it is certainly the Atreides who bring AM to the BG, the question of
"when" gets to be pretty irrelevant. (BTW: You may wish to recall that
Gauis Helen states, in the VERY beginning of Dune, that the "truthsayers,"
while in truthtrance, can *sometimes* see ancestral lines...so I think that
pretty much shoots your fremen RM vs. BG RM theory, yes?)
Regards,
Hitch
Oglethorpe J. Snerdley wrote in message
<6qn040$8...@imperator.resnet.tamu.edu>...
>I was just lurking around, and I saw this (relatively) old post. Since I
am
>currently reading GEoD, I noticed that this statement is false.
>
>In article <6q80oo$t5e$1...@nnrp02.primenet.com>,
>Hitch <hi...@primenet.com> wrote:
>>H: I agree with everything you said, until the last sentence...until
>>*after* the Atreides, there is no indication whatsoever that ANY BG ever
had
>>AM until Atreides bloodlines were mixed in with BG lines. They appear to
>>*only* have OM - the memories shared between RM's, and not any ancestral,
or
>>genetic, memory. It is only after GEoD that the BG achieve AM..probably
>>both accidentally and quite deliberately, once they acquired some Atreides
>>"breeders" and found out what their genetics, mixed with the Spice Agony,
>>could achieve. As citations: no incidence whatsoever of AM with Jessica
>>(or Gaius Helen) throughout Dune or DM; Leto's observations about
Jessica's
>>"small taste" of what he and Ghani experience in CoD, etc. <shrug>. I
>
MMarston1
>From: jht...@students.uiuc.edu (jeremy howard todd)
>Date: Thu, Jul 30, 1998 12:58 EDT
> I was re-reading Dune a while ago, and I started to wonder
>when exactly the spice was discovered on Arrakis. IIRC, the
>filmbook Yueh gives to Paul refers to Arrakis as "His Imperial Majesty's
>Desert Botanical Testing Station," from before the discovery of the spice.
>However, Yueh also gives him the book version of the OC Bible, which he
>says predates filmbook technology, so obviously the OC Bible was around
>quite a long time before the spice was discovered.
>
> Does the DE say anything about this? Just curious
I'm not sure if the DE says anything about this, though it probably does, but
as I was thumbing through CoD last night and I found the answer to this
question.
In the preface of the fourth chapter (p. 17) this is written:
"melange (me' -lange also me,lanj) n-s, origin uncertain (thought to derive
from ancient Terran Franzh): a. mixture of spices; b. spice of Arrakis (Dune)
with geriatic properties first noted by Yanshuph Ashkoko, royal chemist in the
reign of Shakkad the Wise; Arakeen melange, found only in deepest desert sands
of Arrakis, linked to prophetic visions of Paul Muad'Dib (Atreides), first
Fremen Mahdi; also employed by Spacing Guild and the Bene Gesserit.
-Dictionary Royal
fifth edition "
So we know who discovered the potential of the spice, though I suppose we do
not know when as in dates (unless the DE has a date listing when Shakkad was
the emperor). Hope that helps.
Regards,
Michael
____________________________________
"It is your fate, forgetfulness. All the old lessons of life, you lose and gain
and lose and gain again." - The Voice of Dar-es-Balat ... Frank Herbert
____________________________________
Elizabeth & Keith Falkner
There is a mention of Alman V the Wise (3310-3320). No Shakkad, wise or
otherwise, is mentioned.
I for one am underwhelmed by this oversight.
Elizabeth