Some sandworm questions

[sologdin]

unintended consequence

was he committed to insurrection while prescient? i seem to recall moments in book I wherein he foresees the stellar jihad.

[Vaughn]

Paul foresees and worries about the jihad. His decision making is constantly informed by trying to prevent it. By the time he defeats Feyd and forces the Emperor to abdicate, he's already trapped by destiny with few good choices to escape it which, as I recall, is pretty much the point of the second book.

[Zorral]

Western, i.e. Horse Opera, i.e. Space Opera -- Firefly, "Wagon Train to the Stars."  Opera -- enormous stage and set piece staging, with a cast of thousands.  DUNE!  Roll 'em, Roll 'em, RAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWHIDE!

The great thing was that HERBERT himself the Writer, was able to integrate, interpolate, all USian pop culture into his experiences in North Africa and the Middle East and -- well, history.

There's a mystery here, because none of his book before or after did that, including the douches that were the Dune sequels.  The second and third ones were still interesting in a sense, but everything that made DUNE rock, was already diluted as hell and didn't go anywghere, other than logorrhea.

[polishgenius]

6 hours ago, Vaughn said:

At that point, is your argument that he should have just let Rabban brutalize the planet without fighting back to avoid the jihad?

 

At no point in this conversation did I say what Paul should or shouldn't have done. All I said is he knew all along that the Jihad was a risk of raising the fremen, that he raised them anyway, and that this weighed on him.

[Vaughn]

13 hours ago, polishgenius said:

At no point in this conversation did I say what Paul should or shouldn't have done. All I said is he knew all along that the Jihad was a risk of raising the fremen, that he raised them anyway, and that this weighed on him.

This conversation was kicked off by Wert's summary that Paul was a tyrant with a few regrets, which is a little pat. Your post was more level headed to be sure. I just don't understand what the 'Paul is a villain' readers think he should have actually done.

[Werthead]

On 8/23/2020 at 8:43 PM, Vaughn said:

This conversation was kicked off by Wert's summary that Paul was a tyrant with a few regrets, which is a little pat. Your post was more level headed to be sure. I just don't understand what the 'Paul is a villain' readers think he should have actually done.

Let humanity go extinct.

Paul and Leto II's actions are led by the Golden Path which foresees the extinction of the human race in the medium term (still centuries or millennia away) through ossification and inevitable decay. They take the view this is unacceptable and believe that the outcome of the jihad in killing 60 billion+ human beings (the overwhelming majority of which are civilians), sterilising ninety planets with atomics and enslaving the rest of the human race under a tyrannical religion that inflicts misery upon humanity for 3,500 years is a worthwhile price when the rebound from that  - the Scattering - will make humanity's long-term survival more likely (Heretics and Chapterhouse indicate that the Scattering itself could unleash evils upon humanity far worse than anything foreseen in the Path, though).

What is left unspoken is the possibility that letting people live their lives how they please for centuries of not being under the rule of a murderous tyrant-god and his fanatical followers might be better, even if it means the human race as a whole is wiped out a few millennia or tens of millennia earlier than might be the case.

As it stands in comparison, the bare handful of people harmed by the Harkonnens' actions is less than negligible.

[sologdin]

yeah, standard villain who arrogates a democratic decision-making process to resolve a trolley problem faced by the polis.  it's not just the conflation of executive, legislative, and adjudicative functions in one person, but also the conflation of oikos and polis in the process--these markers of literary villainy extend back to athenian drama.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Let humanity go extinct.

Paul and Leto II's actions are led by the Golden Path which foresees the extinction of the human race in the medium term (still centuries or millennia away) through ossification and inevitable decay. They take the view this is unacceptable and believe that the outcome of the jihad in killing 60 billion+ human beings (the overwhelming majority of which are civilians), sterilising ninety planets with atomics and enslaving the rest of the human race under a tyrannical religion that inflicts misery upon humanity for 3,500 years is a worthwhile price when the rebound from that  - the Scattering - will make humanity's long-term survival more likely (Heretics and Chapterhouse indicate that the Scattering itself could unleash evils upon humanity far worse than anything foreseen in the Path, though).

What is left unspoken is the possibility that letting people live their lives how they please for centuries of not being under the rule of a murderous tyrant-god and his fanatical followers might be better, even if it means the human race as a whole is wiped out a few millennia or tens of millennia earlier than might be the case.

As it stands in comparison, the bare handful of people harmed by the Harkonnens' actions is less than negligible.

Aren’t you playing deuling utilitarian here?

The Golden Path is the ultimate utilitarian argument because it provides a future where it is impossible for humantiy to go extinct or to be dominated by a single prescient person ever again. 

You argue that the price of ultimate survival is too high then excuse Harkoneen atrocities with a utilitarian argument that more people die under the Atreides than under the Harkoneens.  

Aren’t you contradicting yourself?

[Werthead]

10 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Aren’t you playing deuling utilitarian here?

The Golden Path is the ultimate utilitarian argument because it provides a future where it is impossible for humantiy to go extinct or to be dominated by a single prescient person ever again. 

You argue that the price of ultimate survival is too high then excuse Harkoneen atrocities with a utilitarian argument that more people die under the Atreides than under the Harkoneens.  

Aren’t you contradicting yourself?

The Golden Path only delays humanity's extinction and removes the possibility of it being rendered extinct by elements that Paul and Leto can foresee; wild card elements make its extinction from other, more horrendous causes possible (and are demonstrated by the unleashing of the Honoured Matres and the "Great Enemy" that routs them and pursues them back to Imperial space), or from another POV, humanity could still be threatened by a new threat whenever the publishers wanted to dump enough money on Frank Herbert's front lawn.

The Harkonnens are a brutal and uncompromising enemy at the point in time of the books and have committed horrendous crimes they need to answer for, but in terms of the total harm they cause to humanity and the Imperium, it is less than Paul does. That does not excuse their atrocities, but contextualises them.

I suppose that's the argument Herbert is making: is the long-term, theoretical chance of survival of generations long yet unborn worth the mass murder of billions right now? Herbert himself seems to say fairly definitively no.

[Vaughn]

Quote

Picking up the discussion of the last two books by Herbert in the Dune series...

11 hours ago, Vaughn said:

Yeah, there seem to be a lot of militant feminists running amok from the wiki summaries. Ghola Idaho never really interested me that much either so that's another drawback. I think at a very basic level, I don't buy that after 3500 years anything (other than than the near immortal being in the center) would last. So the idea that the BG and Tlexitian (sp?) are still active is absurd. Like if we had Old Kingdom Egyptian kings or Zhou dynasty emperors as world players today.

It's a funny thing, fantasy/scifi - immortal worm-human hybrid, sure. Reincarnated clone, sure. Organzations made up of and run by humans lasting 3500, impossible! I guess I can suspend my disbelief in stuff of real fantasy but not my beliefs about what human nature is.

{Bael said]

I disagree. The Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilax are more like religions than royal dynasties (no matter how cynical and manipulative the BG are on religion), and we have 3,000+ year old religions today, no matter how much or little they have changed over the millennia. In fact, one of those peoples/religions is present in the final book of Dune, making them over 15,000 years old at that point.

I can't buy into this. The BG is clearly an organization with religious beliefs but also scientific goals with hyper-meticulous breeding schemes to deliver the KH (which, side note, they did in book 1). It's preposterous to assume an organization with actual concrete goals would last and be effective for 3500 years. Things fall apart by nature and in the case of the Jewish faith or the new guys, the Catholic Church, the tenets and beliefs which sustain their durability over the centuries aren't tied to actual institutional legacy planning but far more timeless and malleable concepts like morality, sin and faith.

Bene Tleilax are something more like Facebook - pervasive, popular product with a secretive bunch of evil doers running it.

[Bael's Bastard]

On 9/13/2020 at 6:20 AM, Werthead said:

The Golden Path only delays humanity's extinction and removes the possibility of it being rendered extinct by elements that Paul and Leto can foresee; wild card elements make its extinction from other, more horrendous causes possible (and are demonstrated by the unleashing of the Honoured Matres and the "Great Enemy" that routs them and pursues them back to Imperial space), or from another POV, humanity could still be threatened by a new threat whenever the publishers wanted to dump enough money on Frank Herbert's front lawn.

The Harkonnens are a brutal and uncompromising enemy at the point in time of the books and have committed horrendous crimes they need to answer for, but in terms of the total harm they cause to humanity and the Imperium, it is less than Paul does. That does not excuse their atrocities, but contextualises them.

I suppose that's the argument Herbert is making: is the long-term, theoretical chance of survival of generations long yet unborn worth the mass murder of billions right now? Herbert himself seems to say fairly definitively no.

Whether or not it was worth it, the Golden Path succeeded in making it impossible for anyone or anything to track down and kill all humans. That has already been accomplished by the start of book 5. The threat of annihilation in book 5 and 6 is only against small groups of humans clinging to the remnants of the old empire (like the BG), or returned to them from the scattering (in the case of HM and BT). Basically, only those still obsessed with Arrakis, worms, and spice.

[Bael's Bastard]

4 hours ago, Vaughn said:

I can't buy into this. The BG is clearly an organization with religious beliefs but also scientific goals with hyper-meticulous breeding schemes to deliver the KH (which, side note, they did in book 1). It's preposterous to assume an organization with actual concrete goals would last and be effective for 3500 years. Things fall apart by nature and in the case of the Jewish faith or the new guys, the Catholic Church, the tenets and beliefs which sustain their durability over the centuries aren't tied to actual institutional legacy planning but far more timeless and malleable concepts like morality, sin and faith.

Bene Tleilax are something more like Facebook - pervasive, popular product with a secretive bunch of evil doers running it.

Obviously the lengths of time are exaggerated because this is a sci-fi fantasy. But it is rooted in the fact that there are civilizations, peoples, religions, etc. that have survived and adapted for thousands of years up until today. Re: comparisons between the Jewish people and the BG breeding program, I'll just say book 6 speaks for itself.

That said, the Bene Gesserit are already over 10,000 years old at the start of the first book. The Atreides claim descent from Greeks who lived over 3,000 years ago in our times. What's another 3,500 years? Especially in a world where technology has allowed humanity to colonize so many worlds, and spread out to where things can be done with unprecedented independence.

[jurble]

I do wonder what the Honored Matres were running from in Frank Herbert's mind.  My current assumption is either a Necron dynasty that awakened early or Orks.   The Eye clearly isn't open yet, and the Warp is quiet as there are no mention of Gellar fields being necessary. 

[unJon]

8 minutes ago, jurble said:

I do wonder what the Honored Matres were running from in Frank Herbert's mind.  My current assumption is either a Necron dynasty that awakened early or Orks.   The Eye clearly isn't open yet, and the Warp is quiet as there are no mention of Gellar fields being necessary. 

Can you explain what you mean with your last sentence?

[Bael's Bastard]

6 minutes ago, jurble said:

I do wonder what the Honored Matres were running from in Frank Herbert's mind.  My current assumption is either a Necron dynasty that awakened early or Orks.   The Eye clearly isn't open yet, and the Warp is quiet as there are no mention of Gellar fields being necessary. 

It's all but explicitly stated that the Honored Matres had pissed off independent face dancers like Marty and Daniel

[.H.]

Just now, unJon said:

Can you explain what you mean with your last sentence?

It's Warhammer 40K lore.  The Eye of Chaos is an opening to the Warp, which ships use Geller Fields to navigate without it killing them (among other things it might do).

[unJon]

1 hour ago, .H. said:

It's Warhammer 40K lore.  The Eye of Chaos is an opening to the Warp, which ships use Geller Fields to navigate without it killing them (among other things it might do).

Thanks. Never read Warhammer 40K is there a fan theory that they are same universe as Dune?

[jurble]

Not any serious theory, no, but 40k being set so far in the future means that a number of sci-fi universes are meme'd as actually being set at various points of the 40k timeline. 

[Vaughn]

3 hours ago, unJon said:

Thanks. Never read Warhammer 40K is there a fan theory that they are same universe as Dune?

You mean our universe, just far, far into the future?

[unJon]

7 minutes ago, Vaughn said:

You mean our universe, just far, far into the future?

Sort of. Warhammer could be set in our universe but not a universe in which Dune takes place.