Dune

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Really enjoyed the first two-thirds maybe three-quarters of Dune, but was underwhealmed by the ending.

ok, I can accept the padishah's over confidence led him to land on Arrakis but I found it too convenient that they landed in just the right spot that Paul and the Freemen could check mate them

Where else would they land? It was the only major city, the only place they could land. They had to use it as a feasible base of operations to send expeditions against the Fremen - and, I might not be remembering correctly, but didn't they believe that the Fremen were concentrated right around the city? Lastly, as I recall they barely considered the Fremen a threat, especially not against the Emperor's Sardaukar.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Wrathofme,

I recently reread Dune. The Emperor and the Saudaukar did consider the Fremen a real threat. It was the Harkonnen who under estimated the Fremen. Had the Saudaukar been given a free hand after Leto and his forces were destroyed they would have ended up in a much larger fight much sooner that the Fremen would have been much less likely to win.

[Jon AS]

Really enjoyed the first two-thirds maybe three-quarters of Dune, but was underwhealmed by the ending.

ok, I can accept the padishah's over confidence led him to land on Arrakis but I found it too convenient that they landed in just the right spot that Paul and the Freemen could check mate them

To add to WOM's points:

The Emperor even sent an expedition to the south; they got their asses kicked by the women and children there. And before anyone in the Imperial camp could reevaluate their situation based on that information, Paul blew up a freaking mountain range.

Also, don't forget that the Guild limited the number of troops that were allowed to land, there was a much larger force still in orbit, but they weren't allowed to land yet. Basically Paul used his claivoyance to pick just the right moment (including taking advantage of a massive sandstorm) to strike and capture the imperial leadership.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Jon AS,

Paul didn't have clarivoyance. Being the Kwizatz Haderach was more like being a super mentat able to incredibly quickly sort though all available data, including the data available from Paul's "Other memory", allowing him to make incredibly accurate predictions. That didn't mean he saw everything.

For example at the final confrontation with the Emperor and Fead-Rautha Paul hadn't see the presence of Count Fenring, a failed Kwizatz Haderach. Fenring could have, after Paul defeated Fead, called Paul out and probably defeated him at that point given Paul had been though a battle and a hard one on one fight. Fenring choose not to.

Oh, one other thing. Paul didn't "blow up a mountain range". He blew a pass through a mountain range to allow a corriolous storm to breach the Shield Wall mountains making the shields the imperial forces depended upon useless. It allow allowed sandworms to penetrate into the Arakeen basin, something that they had never done before.

This was still a risky move because the use of atomics, under the "Great Convention", could have brought in every Great House of the Landsraad against Paul and his Fremen. That's why Paul had to make the deal and marry Irulan rather than Chani. His userpation of the Imperial throne gave the Fremen the color of title over imperial authority such that they could launch their Jihad without provoking an overwhelming response from the other Great Houses. That and the Guild couldn't risk spice production by attempting to stop them.

[Serious Callers Only]

You're wrong about that Ser Scott. Clairvoyance is a integral part of Dune, especially the "trap".

Who else thinks that Hwi in GeoD is a badly disguised representation of his wife?

[Lummel]

All good points and well put. For me after the careful and slow build up of the earlier part of the book, the sense of the scale of the challenges and the difficulty of overcoming them that the conclusion of the novel felt too convenient and rushed. I don't know if Frank Herbert was writing to a strict word limit and ran out of space, but it read like that to me.

However that would be my biggest criticism of Dune, and that basically boils down to that I would have liked it better if it had been a bit longer and if the conclusion had been reached slightly slower.

Because of the Butlerian Jihad, intentionally or not, I think Dune has aged better than a lot of science-fiction and the depiction of Arrakis and how the ecology of the planet determines the way of life is compelling.

[Timbits]

I liked all the books by Frank Herbert but I wouldn't recommend any of the travesties written by his son. They define awful torture porn...my advice is to spare yourself some suffering and pass.

I read the prequels for some reason, without even reading Dune, and I wish I hadn't wasted my time. I'm glad to know that Dune is good though.

[Jon AS]

Jon AS,

Paul didn't have clarivoyance. Being the Kwizatz Haderach was more like being a super mentat able to incredibly quickly sort though all available data, including the data available from Paul's "Other memory", allowing him to make incredibly accurate predictions. That didn't mean he saw everything.

For example at the final confrontation with the Emperor and Fead-Rautha Paul hadn't see the presence of Count Fenring, a failed Kwizatz Haderach. Fenring could have, after Paul defeated Fead, called Paul out and probably defeated him at that point given Paul had been though a battle and a hard one on one fight. Fenring choose not to.

Oh, one other thing. Paul didn't "blow up a mountain range". He blew a pass through a mountain range to allow a corriolous storm to breach the Shield Wall mountains making the shields the imperial forces depended upon useless. It allow allowed sandworms to penetrate into the Arakeen basin, something that they had never done before.

This was still a risky move because the use of atomics, under the "Great Convention", could have brought in every Great House of the Landsraad against Paul and his Fremen. That's why Paul had to make the deal and marry Irulan rather than Chani. His userpation of the Imperial throne gave the Fremen the color of title over imperial authority such that they could launch their Jihad without provoking an overwhelming response from the other Great Houses. That and the Guild couldn't risk spice production by attempting to stop them.

You really want to be that pedantic? Maybe math is just the thing for you after all.;)

Claivoyance just means attaining information about an object or location without having physical access to it, Paul's claivoyance wasn't perfect, but he was definitely aware of the situation beyond what any normal person could have been.

"Blowing up a mountain range" was hyperbole, emphasised further by the use of the word "freaking".;)

[jurble]

Claivoyance just means attaining information about an object or location without having physical access to it, Paul's claivoyance wasn't perfect, but he was definitely aware of the situation beyond what any normal person could have been.

"Blowing up a mountain range" was hyperbole, emphasised further by the use of the word "freaking".;)

Clairvoyancedefinitely implies ESP/psychic powers. Paul (and Leto II) aren't psychic. They're super-intelligent, and have access to so many millenia of memories, that they can predict the future nearly perfectly, like a computer. They're sorta like the Dunyain, except the Dunyain rely on super-senses and massive-computing power to predict the future, while a Kwisatz Haderach is using a huge amount of genetic memory, and massive-computing power to predict the future. They're both the result of breeding projects too. I'm not sure who actually would win in a battle of human-computing, a Dunyain or a Kwisatz Haderach, probably a Dunyain, if only because the processing power needed to predict the future is harder for them, the genetic memory of a Kwisatz Haderach is a ton of help.

Difference is, genetic memory ain't real. Poor Herbert. But then again, neither is sorcery. So yeah.

[Jon AS]

Clairvoyancedefinitely implies ESP/psychic powers. Paul (and Leto II) aren't psychic. They're super-intelligent, and have access to so many millenia of memories, that they can predict the future nearly perfectly, like a computer. They're sorta like the Dunyain, except the Dunyain rely on super-senses and massive-computing power to predict the future, while a Kwisatz Haderach is using a huge amount of genetic memory, and massive-computing power to predict the future. They're both the result of breeding projects too. I'm not sure who actually would win in a battle of human-computing, a Dunyain or a Kwisatz Haderach, probably a Dunyain, if only because the processing power needed to predict the future is harder for them, the genetic memory of a Kwisatz Haderach is a ton of help.

Difference is, genetic memory ain't real. Poor Herbert. But then again, neither is sorcery. So yeah.

I didn't mean to imply it wasn't a supernatural ability. It's just that Scot contested my use of the term because Paul's clairvoyance wasn't perfect.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Jon AS,

I though, because you used the term clarivoyance you were implying the ability was something like ESP or telepathy. Herbert was pretty clear that it wasn't that but something else, hence my post.

[Black Wizard]

You probably can find a answer in that forum i linked to.

http://www.jacurutu.com/

That's a lot of stuff to look through. :blink: I've no idea where to find anything about Brian Herbert lying about his father's intentions.

[Old Nan]

Is there a link to support the non-psychic interpretation of Dune? I'm not really sure how that squares with the series as written, particularly the later stuff with the no-ships.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Old Nan,

No-Ships were simply another use of the Holztmann field not an expression of ESP.

Teg's ability to see "no-ships" was a new evolutionary trate in humans not ESP. Herbery wasn't beg on "maic powers. It was always a product of evolution.

[Serious Callers Only]

That's a lot of stuff to look through. :blink: I've no idea where to find anything about Brian Herbert lying about his father's intentions.

Just register and ask.

Ser Scott :

I'm not convinced at all. In the whole series there is a lot characterization of prescience as an actual ability not a derived one (especially since that would make Reverend Mothers that were also Mentats potencial KH). Specifically there is the assertion that a prophet, by having the ability to choose a course, collapses the possibilities of future by what he is willing to choose, leading to a insidious form of determinism, the original trap that Muadib & Leto were trying to escape. This doesn't square with it's just a "mentat projection", otherwise one of the components of Leto's solution wouldn't make sense (a biological effect to counteract a mentat projection?!?)

And neither would the Guild prescient machines made by Ix to break the guild's hold on space travel. To imply that it isn't just a mechanical effect that they are measuring would mean that they are realllllly creating AI, thus earning the ire of everybody in that prejudiced setting. (A prejudice i've always had to suspend disbelief on myself).

Fact is, Dune is mystical. There is nothing for it, and there are other examples besides prescience, like the strange Sum of all Duncan at the two later books. They didn't have all the bodies of the Duncan's to make the ghola, but he remembered every past life -> inference of a soul.

Dune is actually space fantasy.

[Lord of Oop North]

Yeah, the whole idea of collapsing future possibilities by seeing the future, is the trap that Leto II found himself in. That's why he started the breeding program that created Sienna, who was invisible to people who could see the future. This would essentially eliminate the possibility of creating one future set in stone, because there would always be unknown factors. It was an essential part of the Golden Path.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

LooN,

I thought the whole point of the "Golden Path" was to create a human population so large that it could not be controlled by any one person regardless of how powerful that individual was.

SCO,

In Dune Hawat was always complaining that "you don't hold data back from a Mentat." That's what "Other Memory" is a huge font of Data for projections. It's vastly larger than the information available to ordinary Mentats. I do recognize there are BG Reverend Mother Mentat's. Remember though that Reverend Mother's only have "other memory" of their female ancestors and those of other Reverend Mother's with whom they've "shared." Paul, Alia, Leto, and Ghanima all have memories of their entire ancestoral line. As such the data available to them is even larger than that available to Mentat Reverend Mothers.

Duncan was something new and not fully explained. He didn't have "other memory". He had "complete memory". The fact that his cells could retain the memories of their original is a tad "mystical". The inclusion of the cells of multiple ghola's simply did something that neither the Bene Gesserit nor the Bene Theliax expected.

[Jon AS]

Scot:

It's pretty clear that the ability to predict the future possessed by various characters in Dune goes way beyond simply analysing huge amounts of data, even though the reason for the existence of these abilities is the pseudo-scientific Bene Gesserit breeding program.

Remember that Paul even is able to see through his son's eyes in Dune Messiah and has a brief telepathic exchange with him.

Then there is Teg's superspeed...

The Golden Path was supposed to wean mankind of its depence on a single, centralised power (both the Spice and his own authority, which largely depended on his control of the Spice) and create human beings who could not be detected by prescience, thus making it impossible for one individual prophet to take control of the entire species ever again.

[MercenaryChef]

i love dune. love it. love it. love it. i would in fact marry it!

in my life i have read the canon six books no less than 20 times. yes, i am an immense dork.

i could go on and on about the books. i will not.

all i know is the books are fantastic. i love them. they truly mean a lot to me on a very special level. i hope other people can find and feel this same thing.

[Lord of Oop North]

Scot,

It wasn't just about a 'large' population. It was more about the unknown. Going into the unknown and being unknown

Leto II ruled with an iron fist for thousands of years for the sole purpose of breeding mistrust of central authority, and encouraging people to migrate out of the known universe (ie. the Scattering) and into uncharted space. But that was only half of his plan. The breeding program formed the second part of his plan along the Golden Path. Siona had the gene that made her invisible to prescience, which Leto II bred for, to ensure that no single Kwisatz Haderach would ever be able to completely control the destiny of everyone. Her assassination of Leto II was also the major inspiration for the Scattering of many humans - since it resulted in the shattering of the God Emperor's iron rule. He engineered his own assassination in order to bring about the final stage of the Golden Path.

There is actually a part right near the end of God Emperor of Dune where Leto II explains that Siona is the Golden Path made flesh.

Leto II created Siona because he knew that 'knowing the future is to be trapped by it'. The oracle essentially creates the future. But if there are a number of unknown factors involved, such as humans with Siona-genes, then that would be impossible, because the oracle can not possibly analyze every possible permutation of the future.