User:TAnthony/Dune research

User:TAnthony User_talk:TAnthony User:TAnthony/Wiki Tools User:TAnthony/sandbox User:TAnthony/Workspace User:TAnthony/Draft A User:TAnthony/Draft B User:TAnthony/Potential User:TAnthony/Article research User:TAnthony/Dune Workspace User:TAnthony/Soaps Workspace User Page Talk Wiki Tools Sandbox Workspace Draft A Draft B Potential Research Dune Soaps

---

Star Wars Origins: Dune ~ Moongadget.com

---

Rewrite or add references for copyright compliance

<ref>''Dune'', ''Terminology of the Imperium'' (Bashar)</ref>

Technology of the Dune universe

Technology of the Dune universe is a key aspect of the fictional setting of the Dune series of science fiction novels written by Frank Herbert, and derivative works. Herbert's concepts and inventions have been analyzed and deconstructed in at least one book, The Science of Dune (2008). Herbert's 1965 novel Dune is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, was the first bestselling hardcover science fiction novel, and is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history. Dune and its five sequels explore the complex and multilayered interactions of politics, religion, ecology and technology, among other themes.

Ghola

Main article: Ghola

A ghola is a form of clone grown in an axlotl tank from genetic material retrieved from the cells of a deceased subject, using a technological process developed and monopolized by the Tleilaxu.

Holtzman effect

Main article: Holtzman effect

T-Probe

A T-Probe is a fictional device in Frank Herbert's Dune universe used to capture the thoughts of a person (living or dead) for analysis. T-Probes appear or are referenced in Herbert's Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapterhouse Dune (1985), as well as the sequels Hunters of Dune (2006), and Sandworms of Dune (2007) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Usage

The probe is attached to the body through a series of electrodes placed around the skull and on major nerve centers. It is controlled by a 'computer' and this 'computer' is controlled by an operator who can increase or decrease the power supplied to the probe to maximize the efficacy of the probe while at the same time not overloading the nervous system of the subject. The probe works by stimulating the person's brain in different areas, and then reading the responses in terms of electrical signals. In this way, it builds a 'digital' framework of the person. This framework can be subjected to stimuli, and will respond as the person would. The T-Probe also causes massive, virtually unendurable pain in a living subject.

Unlike Ixian Probes, a T-Probe's function cannot be blocked by the substance shere, and so there is no way to prevent the probe from functioning. In Heretics of Dune, the Honored Matres have engineered or been given the technology to create this new kind of probe that is not affected by shere. This probe is what causes Bashar Miles Teg's brain to change its structure, giving him the blinding speed and amazing abilities seen in end of Heretics. This mental alteration continues in Teg even after being 'reborn' as a Tleilaxu ghola.

Weirding Module

REFS

See also

• "Science Fiction in the News Articles: Frank Herbert". TechNovelgy.com. Retrieved 2008-10-27.

Atomics

Text of Atomics (Dune) copied here in case of deletion, for incorporation elsewhere

_{Atomics is a term used to describe nuclear weapons in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert.}

Use of atomics

Like real-world nuclear weapons, atomics presumably derive their destructive force from nuclear reactions of fission or fusion; however, Herbert never delves into the specifics of the technology or explores in detail how it may have evolved by the time of Dune's far-future setting.

In the Dune series of novels, many of the Great Houses of the Landsraad own "family atomics" as heirlooms, keeping a secure, hidden cache as weapons of last resort in their wars. Though such possession is necessary to secure power, the use of atomics against humans violates the chief prohibition of the Great Convention, the "universal truce enforced under the power balance maintained by the Guild, the Great Houses, and the Imperium". Paul notes in Dune:

The language of the Great Convention is clear enough: "Use of atomics against humans shall be cause for planetary obliteration."

The atomics themselves serve two political purposes: firstly, they act as a military deterrent — any House which violates the Great Convention flagrantly (such as using atomics openly in warfare) faces the possibility of massive retaliation from any of the other Houses. This leads to the second use of family atomics: there is an agreement with the Spacing Guild that any House which faces certain ruin and defeat is allowed to relinquish control of their family atomics in exchange for guaranteed safety by the Guild, allowing a "defeated" House to flee into a safe exile, and to avoid the possibility of a cornered House lashing out senselessly with its atomics.

History

The original series

Actual use of these atomics against humans is considered an especially terrible crime, usually punishable by total extermination of the offending individual or House.

In Dune, Paul Atreides uses an atomic device on the surface of Arrakis to blast a pass through a wild desert mountain range called the Shield Wall. Paul considers this act to be in accordance with the Great Convention because the atomics are not used against humans, but rather against a geological feature.

Prequels

In the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson it is revealed that a renegade House of the Landsraad had devastated the capital of the Corrino Padishah Empire, Salusa Secundus, with atomics and rendered the planet essentially uninhabitable. Padishah Emperor Hassik Corrino III had relocated the Imperial throne to the planet Kaitain, and the attacking House was subsequently exterminated; no record of the House's name exists by the time of Dune.

Atomics are also used in the Prelude to Dune series by Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. In 10,175 A.G. Shaddam starts the "Great Spice War" with the secret aim of emptying the spice hoards of the Imperium and eventually destroying Arrakis, thereby ensuring his monopoly based on the synthetic spice of Project Amal. Under the guise of punishing House Richese for their hoard, Shaddam mercilessly destroys the artificial laboratory moon of Korona with atomics. A quarter of Richese's population go blind from the resulting light produced by the destruction of the Richesian mirrors stored there.

In the Legends of Dune prequel series, the first human victory of the Butlerian Jihad (the war against the thinking machines) is the 200 B.G. destruction of Earth and the Earth Omnius using atomics. "Pulse atomics" calibrated for use against the gel circuitry of the thinking machines are also used at end of the war to systematically wipe out every single machine-controlled planet.

Stone burner

One type of atomic weapon is the stone burner, the explosion and radiation of which can be precisely adjusted depending on the desired effect. Stone burners emit "J-Rays", a form of radiation that has a tendency to destroy the eye tissue of anyone surviving the initial radiation blast. If of sufficient power, a stone burner can burn its way into the core of a planet, destroying it:

Paul remained silent, thinking what this weapon implied. Too much fuel in it and it'd cut its way into the planet's core. Dune's molten level lay deep, but the more dangerous for that. Such pressures released and out of control might split a planet, scattering lifeless bits and pieces through space.

In Dune Messiah, a stone burner is used in an attempt to assassinate Paul Atreides; he survives but is blinded for the rest of his life. In the Prelude to Dune prequel series, the persecuted Earl Dominic Vernius plans to use forbidden atomics to attack the Imperial capital, Kaitain; when his hidden base on Arrakis is discovered by the Padishah Emperor's Sardaukar army, Vernius ignites a stone burner to destroy himself and as many of the Sardaukar as he can.

The Dune Encyclopedia

In the non-canon Dune Encyclopedia, it is hinted that atomic weapons were invented in the remote human past, perhaps 30,000 years before the term stone burner was first commonly used. Their first recorded use was on Earth by a legendary state called the House of Washington. The House is known to have invented a kind of primitive stone burner called a neutron bomb that prevented battlefields from being totally destroyed by atomic weapons. It emitted a neutron shower and a very minimal explosion, thus in theory preserving cities and buildings while killing off an opposing army.

Hunters review incl. useful commentary

Hunters of Dune audiobook review - SciFiDimensions.com

Review by John C. Snider © 2007

When Frank Herbert died in 1986, hope also died in the hearts of fans, who feared that his monumental six-volume Dune epic - which ended on a cosmic cliff-hanger - would never get the closure it deserved

If you've never read Herbert's seminal Dune, or if you haven't read through to his final volume Chapterhouse: Dune, or even if you haven't read the two prequel trilogies written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, you might as well stop reading this review. The back story is entirely too complex to fully explain here, and even if I could explain it, it would be far better for you to take the time to absorb it for yourself.

Nonetheless, here's a quick summary. The fourth volume of the Dune saga - God Emperor of Dune - takes place 3,500 years after the events of the first three novels (Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune). Leto II (the son of the original Kwisatz Haderach, Paul "Muad'dib" Atreides) transformed by symbiosis with the mysterious sandworms of Arrakis, has ruled for three and a half millennia in order to set mankind on the Golden Path, the one possible future in which humanity does not become extinct (exactly what this future contains, he never reveals). In the fifth and sixth volumes (Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune), another 1,500 years have passed. Humanity has endured the Famine Times and the Scattering, during which countless people, finally free from the yoke of the Tyrant Leto II, have ventured beyond known space. After many centuries, the descendants of those thought "lost" during the Scattering have returned, with devastating consequences. The powerful Bene Gesserit Sisterhood (whose not-so-secret eugenics program produced the disastrous Kwisatz Haderach) find themselves challenged by their twisted counterparts: the Honored Matres, whose sexual prowess turns men into literal slaves. The Matres have returned to known space because they are fleeing a terrifying, unspecified Enemy.

At the conclusion of Chapterhouse: Dune, Arrakis itself is destroyed by the Honored Matres. Arrakis is home to the Spice "mélange", a mysterious substance created by the sandworms which is all things to all people: it enables the Bene Gesserit's Reverend Mothers to tap into the vast knowledge of their ancestral memories; it enables the Spacing Guild's Steersmen to "fold space" and thus travel from one star system to another instantaneously; for ordinary people who can afford it, mélange provides health and longevity.

Herbert's cliffhanger is not just the destruction of Arrakis - it's the dilemma of a ragtag band of refugees on a giant "no-ship" (a spacecraft so stealthy it escapes even the prescient probing of a Guild Steersman). The crew and passengers of the no-ship include a handful of sandworms; Sheeana, a Bene Gesserit who has a unique rapport with the worms; Duncan Idaho, the latest in a long line of "gholas" (essentially clones in whom their cell-donor's memories have been awakened, providing, in essence, near immortality for the original); Miles Teg, the ghola of a famous military commander; and Scytale, yet another ghola from the ruling class of the Bene Tlielax (a race of master genetic manipulators who invented the ghola process). Scytale carries with him a secret capsule containing genetic material from a host of famous historical figures - including Muad'dib himself!

To put a cherry on top, Herbert introduces, at the conclusion of Chapterhouse: Dune, Daniel and Marty, a mysterious old couple who are apparently not human, apparently very powerful, and who are aware of the no-ship and hope to find it.

For two decades fans have been plagued by these unanswered questions: Who are Daniel and Marty? What happens to the passengers of the no-ship? Who is this unnamed "Enemy"? How can the Dune-iverse-as-we-know-it survive without Arrakis to provide the Spice?

Well now, the answers are finally here - some of them, anyway - in Hunters of Dune. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have labored for a decade, laying the groundwork in two prequel trilogies, building toward what Frank Herbert had labeled simply Dune 7.

Hunters of Dune might properly be called Dune 7-A, since the co-authors have expanded on Herbert's brief outline, deciding to tell the tale with a pair of thick tomes (Dune 7-B, the second part of the grand finale - Sandworms of Dune - sees its release in August 2007). They have attempted, with some success, to provide the grand summation Herbert was shooting for, and to tie it in with their own extensive prequel epics.

Hunters picks up a year or two after the cataclysmic events of Chapterhouse. Duncan Idaho and the crew of the no-ship Ithaca travel aimlessly through space. They are sought by Daniel and Marty and by the New Sisterhood, a new fusion of the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres, led by Mother Commander Murbella. The New Sisterhood itself is in turmoil, as factions from both groups refuse to accept the merger. Meanwhile, the few remaining Bene Tlielax have been overthrown by the Face Dancers (genetically altered humanoids who can look and act like nearly anyone).

Now, with the unnamed Enemy approaching, a bizarre genetic arms race is underway: unbeknownst to one another, both the crew of the Ithaca and the leadership of the Face Dancers have access to the ancient DNA of Paul Muad'dib and other legendary figures. On independent tracks, these two camps are racing to create a ghola of Muad'dib and reawaken the mind of the Kwisatz Haderach - a powerful weapon indeed, if he can be controlled.

Tonally speaking, Herbert and Anderson's Hunters of Dune is closer to Heretics and Chapterhouse than were their six prequels - which isn't to say their style matches that of the original Herbert. The futuro-feudal milieu of the "Prelude to Dune" trilogy (House Atreides, House Harkonnen, House Corrino), with its noble dukes and evil barons, was a little pulpy for my taste, and I found the "Thinking Machines" (e.g. Omnius the Evermind and Erasmus the independent robot) of"Legends of Dune" (The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, The Battle of Corrin) to be cartoonish and little different than Harkonnens with metal faces. That said, the Dune prequels are readily entertaining and tremendously effective for what they try to do, which is to make Herbert's esoteric and philosophical stories more accessible to general audiences.

Hunters often reads closer to Edgar Rice Burroughs than Frank Herbert, but the subject matter is like nothing ERB ever tackled. The far-far-future society of Dune is heavily matriarchal and totalitarian. It's difficult to fathom what even the ostensible "good guys" (i.e. the refugees of the no-ship, and the core leadership of the New Sisterhood) are fighting for, besides power and survival. There's no palpable difference, as far as I can tell, between being a peon under the New Sisterhood, being a slave "imprinted" by an Honored Matre, or a serf under the Face Dancers. (This certainly highlights the difficulty in creating extraordinarily different, futuristic or alien settings that are still "accessible".)

Dune fans on-the-go would do well to choose the audiobook version of this novel. Audio Renaissance has produced a 16 CD box set (18 hours of listening!), read by award-winning narrator Scott Brick. Brick reads with great reverence and empathy, but in Hunters of Dune he sometimes sounds like he's doing a dramatic reading of the Old Testament, as if each sentence is the grand finale of some holy script. This isn't entirely inappropriate for something as epic as Dune, but listening to it for an extended time can wear you out. A pleasant surprise at the end of this audiobook is a brief telephone interview by Brick with Herbert and Anderson.

Herbert and Anderson readily admit that Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune aren't the big finish that Frank Herbert would have written, had he lived. It's an odd fleshing-out, via Herbert/Anderson's populist style, of a brief outline left behind by Herbert père. The end result is both an adrenaline space opera and a fascinating continuation of one of the greatest sci-fi stories ever told.

Dune references and links

• Lipper, Don. "John Harrison: Directing Dune." SPACE.com
• Hunt, Bill. "Writer/Director John Harrison talks Frank Herbert's Dune." - TheDigitalBits.com
• Review: Frank Herbert's Dune, Special Edition Director's Cut - TheDigitalBits.com
• The authors have stated that Frank Herbert left behind notes and unused epigraphs which they later used in their prequels and sequels .
• This was later rendered canon in the Prelude to Dune series; according to authors Brian Herbert and Anderson, this fact was pulled directly from Frank Herbert's working notes for the original Dune series .
• Additionally, the character gave him a window into House Corrino .
• Brian touches on this in the Afterward of Dune: House Atreides.
• Both authors also refer to the discovery of Frank's notes and Dune 7 outline (before they started writing any of their prequels) in various interviews: Kevin says that Brian "found all these boxes that had "Dune Notes" on the side. And we used a lot of them for our House books" .
• spells it out further here .
• They indicate in another interview that the notes affected their writing: "We had already started work on HOUSE ATREIDES ... then we found the outlines and notes. (This necessitated some changes, of course.)" and say of Dune 7 clues: "We’ve put all sorts of hints in our last four DUNE books! You just have to look for them."
• Cinescape.com ~ Alec Newman and John Harrison.
• SciFi.com ~ Ask John Harrison

---

• Frank Herbert, by Timothy O'Reilly Serial publication: none First edition: New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980.
• "The Plowboy Interview: Frank Herbert". Mother Earth News. May/June 1981. Retrieved 2008-10-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) (Technopeasantry)
• http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/58/ditom58art.htm
• http://www.johnelkington.com/inf-people-herbert.htm
• http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/printed-books/dune-frank-herbert/298096/ (user review)
• http://www.bookslut.com/fiction/2002_10_000333.php

The Road to Dune in Eye

[[Image:GrandPalace+Dunes.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Grand Palace of Arrakeen and dunes of Arrakis from Frank Herbert's ''[[The Road to Dune]]'' (1985), illustrated by [[Jim Burns]].]]
[[Image:AliaTemple.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Temple of Alia from Frank Herbert's ''[[The Road to Dune]]'' (1985), illustrated by [[Jim Burns]].]]
[[Image:Irulan-RoadtoDune.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Irulan Corrino|Princess Irulan]] from Frank Herbert's ''[[The Road to Dune]]'' (1985), illustrated by [[Jim Burns]].]]
[[Image:DuncanIdaho-RoadtoDune.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Duncan Idaho]] from Frank Herbert's ''[[The Road to Dune]]'' (1985), illustrated by [[Jim Burns]].]]
The short story collection Eye.

The Road to Dune

You have arrived on the planet Arrakis. You will embark on a walking tour of epic proportions. Rarely does a visitor on the road to Dune make his or her way without an Imperium guide. Here is a sampling from such a guide, complete with illustrations.

Your walking tour of Arrakis must include this approach across the dunes to the Grand Palace at Arrakeen. From a distance, the dimensions of this construction are deceptive, especially when hazed by wind-blown dust. The largest man-made structure ever built, the Grand Palace could cover more than ten of the Imperium's most populous cities under one roof, a fact that becomes more apparent when you learn Atreides attendants and their families, housed spaciously in the Palace Annex, number some thirty-five million souls.

When you walk into the Grand Reception Hall of the Palace at Arrakeen, be prepared to feel dwarfed before an immensity never before conceived. A statue of St. Alia Atreides, shown as "The Soother of Pains," stands twenty-two meters tall but is one of the smallest adornments in the hall. Two hundred such statues could be stacked one atop the other against the entrance pillars and still fall short of the doorway's capitol arch, which itself is almost a thousand meters below the first beams upholding the lower roof.

If you are numbered among "the heartfelt pilgrims," you will cross the last thousand meters of this approach to the Temple of Alia on your knees. Those thousand meters fall well within the sweeping curves leading your eyes up to the transcendent symbols dedicating this Temple to St. Alia of the Knife. The famed "Sun-Sweep Window" incorporates every solar calendar known to human history in the one translucent display whose brilliant colors, driven by the sun of Dune, thread through the interior on prismatic pathways.

On each pilgrimage, one hundred are chosen by lot to make the three-day climb up secret passages of the Grand Palace and, half-way up, may look down from this vantage on Muad'Dib's personal ornithopter. It sits on His private landing platform against an inner wall of the Palace. A narrow strip of windows in Atreides family quarters glisten on the high wall. An attendant has just made the regular inspection of the 'thopter, returning to the Palace with a traditional Fremen cry heard clearly from the observation stop: "His water is secure!" (p.200)

This Ixian heating device, set like a giant pearl in an ornate stand, greets you in a smaller passage of the Grand palace. The ring-bound queue of the attendant servicing the device marks him a city Fremen. On your walking tour of Arrakis, you will see many such Ixian artifacts, some set with rare gems, all worked in precious metals by dedicated artisans, some of whom devote years to the completion of a single decorative line. Attention to detail can be seen on this space heater. It incorporates twenty precious metals in each lapped scale. (p.202)

Rarely, in a private passage of the Grand Palace, the walking pilgrim will encounter the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. The famed Bene Gesserit graciously paused here to be recorded in the light of a glowglobe. Note her wedding bands. They signify her eternal bond to the Sisterhood. The glowglobe is of an ancient design and may have come from Caladan in the original Atreides migration. The cracked vascule rim on the lower left side of the globe could indicate rough treatment in the Harkonnen attack. Many artifacts from those troubled times survived and were restored on orders of Muad'Dib himself. (p. 202)

This authentic visage of the Princess Irulan, Muad'Dib's virgin consort, should be committed to memory before your walking tour of Arrakis. The pilgrim should beware of false images. You will be beset by tradesmen hawking such mementoes. Irulan authorized only this portrait for official sale to pilgrims. (pg. 206)

The face of Duncan Idaho, ghola warrior, teacher, friend and advisor of Muad'Dib stares out at you from this official portrait. It is sold to pilgrims on the walking tour of Arrakis only in Palace shops. All proceeds go to support retired Fremen and provide for the education of Fremen orphans. (p. 208)

KAITAIN

IMPERIAL PALACE

In Dune: House Atreides, Pardot Kynes

Dune: House Atreides

Pardot Kynes

The escort hurried up a seemingly endless waterfall of polished stone steps, ornately highlighted with gold filigree and creamy, sparkling soostones.

The entourage passed under a pitted archway of crimson lava rock that bore the ponderous oppression of extreme age. Kynes looked up, and with his geological expertise recognized the massive rare stone: an ancient archway from the devastated world of Salusa Secundus ... No doubt House Corrino had brought this archway here intact as a reminder of their past, or as some sort of trophy to show how the Imperial family had overcome planet-destroying adversity.

As the Sardaukar escort stepped through the lava arch and into the echoing splendor of the Palace itself, fanfare rang out from brassy instruments Kynes could not name.

Just before passing beneath the jewel-sparkling roof of the immense royal structure, Kynes craned his neck upward to gaze once more at the clear sky of perfect blue.

The escort troops led him deeper into the echoing Palace, passing statuary and classic paintings. The sprawling audience chamber could well have been an arena for ancient gladiatorial events. Its floor stretched onward like a polished, multicolored plain of stone squares — each one from a different planet in the Imperium. Alcoves and wings were being added as the Empire grew.

Ahead on a raised dais of blue-green crystal sat the translucent Golden Lion Throne, carved from a single piece of Hagal quartz. And on the dazzling chair perched the old man himself — Elrood Corrino IX, Imperial ruler of the Known Universe.

Kynes stared at him. The Emperor was a distressingly gaunt man, skeletal with age, with a ponderously large head on a thin neck. Surrounded by such incredible luxury and dramatic richness, the aged ruler appeared somehow insignificant. But with a twitch of his large-knuckled finger, the Emperor could condemn entire planets to annihilation, killing billions of people. Elrood had sat upon the Golden Lion Throne for nearly a century and a half. How many planets were in the Imperium? How many people did this man rule? Kynes wondered how anyone could tally such a staggering amount of information.

On the prism-lined promenade of the Imperial Palace, the Crown Prince's new fiancee Anirul and her companion Margot Rashino-Zea strode past three young women, members of the Imperial Court. The showpiece city extended all the way to the horizon, and massive works filled the streets and buildings, colorful preparations for the upcoming spectacular coronation ceremony and the Emperor's wedding.

From a magnificent hedge-lined arboretum at the Imperial Palace, Shaddam spoke into a tiny microphone on his chin, which transmitted to speakers in the navigation chamber of the Heighliner over his planet.

This is most impressive," Sister Margot Rashino-Zea said, as she gazed at the imposing buildings on each side of the enormous oval of the Imperial-Landsraad Commons. "A spectacle for all the senses." After long years on the cloudy, bucolic world of Wallach IX, her eyes now ached from so many sights.

A refreshing, fine mist rose from the fountain at the center of the Commons, an extraordinary artistic composition that towered a hundred meters overhead. In the design of a glittering nebula swirl, the fountain was replete with oversize planets and other celestial bodies that spurted perfumed streams in myriad colors. Tightbeam spotlights refracted from the water, creating loops of rainbows that danced silently in the air.

"I love the artwork here," Margot said. She pointed toward a scaffold fixed to the face of the Landsraad Hall of Oratory, where fresco painters worked on a mural depicting scenes of natural beauty and technological achievement from around the Imperium. "I believe your great-grandfather Vutier Corrino II was responsible for much of this?"

"Ah, yes -- Vutier was a great patron of the arts," Shaddam said with some difficulty. Resisting an urge to remove the haunted cloak and throw it to the ground, he vowed to wear only his own clothes henceforth. "He said that spectacle without warmth or creativity meant nothing."

Dune: House Harkonnen

IN THE ORNATE MUMMER'S PORTICO of the Imperial Palace, Lady Anirul Corrino stood with a delegation from Shaddam's Court.

Ahead of her, Fenring moved confidently, knowing his way around the city-sized Imperial Palace better than any man, better even than Emperor Shaddam himself. He crossed a magnificent jewel-tiled entry and stepped into the Imperial Audience Chamber. The immense room contained some of the most priceless art treasures in a million worlds, but he had seen them all before.

Anirul hovered next to one of the massive support columns. Courtiers flitted about in self-important business, entering private gossip stations. She skirted priceless statuaries as she made her way toward an acoustically superior alcove where she often stood within easy listening distance.

On the translucent blue-green Golden Lion Throne sat the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, the eighty-first Corrino to rule the Imperium.

BENEATH THE IMPERIAL PALACE, in a network of perimeter water lanes and connected central pools, two women swam in black sealsuits.

Reverend Mother Lobia wheezed, as Anirul helped her into the largest of seven central pools, a steaming water-oasis, scented with salts and herbs ... Warm condensation dripped from the arched stone ceiling overhead, like a tropical rain.

On the other side of the underground pool chambers, Anirul watched her husband Shaddam emerge from a steam room, dripping and wrapped in a karthan towel.

Dune: House Corrino

JESSICA HAD NEVER SEEN A GRANDER RESIDENCE than the Imperial Palace, the city-sized home of the Emperor of a Million Worlds. She would remain here for months, at the side of the Lady Anirul Corrino, ostensibly as a new lady-in-waiting ... though she suspected the Bene Gesserit had other plans in mind.

Generations of the Imperial family had accumulated the material wonders of the universe and commissioned the intricate designs of the greatest craftsmen and builders. The result was a faery realm in physical form, a single sprawling building with gables, soaring rooflines, and jeweled spires that stretched toward the stars. Not even Balut’s fabulous Crystal Chateau could approach such a level of ostentation. A previous Emperor, arrogant in his agnosticism, claimed that God Himself could not have resided in a more pleasing abode. Standing here in awe, Jessica was inclined to agree. In the company of Reverend Mother Mohiam, she worked harder than usual to control her emotions.

THAT evening she attended a sumptuous dinner inside the Contemplation Tea House. A separate building in the ornamental gardens, the facility was large, with colorful woodcuts of flowers, plum trees, and mythical animals on the walls. The waiters wore distinctive uniforms, cut long and angular, with cuffs large enough to serve as pockets, and polished bells hanging from every button. Birds flew freely inside the structure, and fat Imperial peacocks strutted beneath the windows, weighed down by their long, bright feathers.

Afterward, Anirul ushered everyone toward a small auditorium in another wing of the Palace. “Come, come, all of you. Irulan has been practicing for weeks. We must be an attentive audience for her.” Shaddam followed, as if begrudging another obligation of his office. The auditorium featured hand-carved Taniran columns and artful scroll designs, as well as a high, gold-filigree ceiling, and walls covered with lush shimmer paintings of cloudy skies. On the stage stood an immense ruby quartz piano from Hagal, strung with newly tuned monofilament crystal wires. Uniformed attendants led the Imperial party to a row of private seats with the best view of the stage, while a small audience of exquisitely dressed dignitaries filed toward lesser seats, flushed with awe to be included in such an elite gathering.

FAFNIR

Fafnir was entombed in the Imperial Necropolis, the large catacombs beneath the Imperial Palace.

Dune: House Corrino Shaddam and Fenring passed coffins and chambers for children and siblings, and finally an idealized statue of Elrood IX’s first heir, Fafnir. Years ago, Fafnir’s death (an “accident” arranged by young Fenring) had opened Shaddam’s path to the throne. Complacent, Fafnir had never imagined that his little brother’s friend could possibly be dangerous.

Only suspicious Elrood had imagined that Fenring and Shaddam might have been behind the murder. Though the boys never confessed, Elrood had cackled knowingly.

He finally led Fenring to where the sealed ashes of Elrood IX waited in a relatively small alcove, adorned with shimmering diamondplaz, ornate scrollwork, and fine gems — a sufficient display of Shaddam’s grief at the loss of his “beloved father.”

Disrespectfully, Shaddam leaned against the resting place of his father’s ashes. The old man had been cremated to foil any Suk physician’s attempts to determine the true cause of death.

Abulurd-Giedi Prime-Lankiveil

In ‘’Dune: House Harkonnen’’, Abulurd Harkonnen noted how the extravagant beauty of Corrinth, the capital city of Kaitain, differed from his homeworlds of Giedi Prime and Lankiveil:

On Giedi Prime, where he'd grown up under the watchful eye of his father Dmitri, cities were crowded, with dirty settlements erected for function and industry rather than beauty.

Within an hour, the sunny dazzle of perfect skies made Abulurd dizzy, causing an ache in the back of his skull. He longed for the overcast skies of Lankiveil, the damp breezes that cut right to the bone ... the imposing buildings [of Corrinth] seemed even more massive and powerful than the cliffs bounding the fjords of Lankiveil.

Cammar Pilru

Dune: House Corrino

IN BYGONE GLORY YEARS, CAMMAR PILRU HAD BEEN the Ixian Ambassador to Kaitain, a man of stature whose duties took him from the glittering cavern cities to the Landsraad Hall and the Imperial Court. A distinguished and sometimes beguiling man, Pilru had tirelessly sought favorable concessions for Ixian industrial products by slipping payments to one official or another, giving away valuable luxury items, bartering favor for favor. Then the Tleilaxu had invaded his world. House Corrino had ignored his pleas for assistance, and the Landsraad turned a deaf ear to his complaints. His wife had been killed in the attack. His world and his life were destroyed. Once, in what seemed another lifetime, the Ambassador had wielded considerable influence in financial, business, and political circles. Cammar Pilru had made friends in high places, kept many secrets. Though he was not inclined to engage in extortion, the mere perception that he might use a bit of information against another person gave him substantial power. Even after the passage of so many years, he remembered each detail, and others remembered much of it as well. Now it was time to use that information.

Shando & Kailea

Dune: House Atreides Elrood:

For two years she had been his favorite concubine, even when his wife Habla had been alive. Small-boned and petite, she had a fragile porcelain-doll appearance, which she had cultivated during her years on Kaitain; but Elrood also knew she had a commonsense strength and resiliency deep inside her.

Later in House Areides:

"Ah, so this is our young visitor!" Dominic effused with blustery good humor. Crow's-feet became laugh lines around his bright brown eyes. His facial construction looked very much like that of his son Rhombur, except the fat he carried had set into ruddy folds and creases, and his dark bushy mustache made for a striking frame around white teeth. Earl Dominic was several centimeters taller than his son. The Earl's features were not narrow and hard like the Atreides and Corrino bloodlines, but came instead from a lineage that had been ancient at the time of the Battle of Corrin.

Behind him came his wife Shando, former concubine of the Emperor, dressed in a formal gown. Her finely chiseled features, delicately pointed nose, and creamy skin suffused her appearance with a regal beauty that would have shone through even the most drab of garments. She looked slight and delicate at first glance, but carried a toughness and resilience about her.

Beside her, their daughter Kailea seemed to be trying to outshine even her mother in a brocaded lavender dress that set off copper-dark hair. Kailea looked a little younger than Leto, but she walked with a studied grace and concentration, as if she dared not let formality or appearances slip. She had thin arched eyebrows, striking emerald eyes, and a generous, catlike mouth above a narrow chin. With the faintest of smiles, Kailea executed an extravagant and perfect curtsy.

Fenring

Dune: House Atreides

N'kee: Slow-acting poison that builds up in the adrenal glands; one of the most insidious toxins permitted under the accords of Guild Peace and the restrictions of the Great Convention. (See War of Assassins.) -The Assassins' Handbook

Mmmm, the Emperor will never die, you know, Shaddam." A small man with oversize dark eyes and a weasel face, Hasimir Fenring, sat opposite the shield-ball console from his visitor, Crown Prince Shaddam. "At least not while you're young enough to enjoy the throne."

Fenring's oversize eyes were alert and feral. A genetic-eunuch, incapable of fathering children because of his congenital deformities, he was still one of the deadliest fighters in the Imperium, so single-mindedly ferocious that he was more than a match for any Sardaukar.

"I'll do fine, thank you." Fenring's mother had been trained as a Bene Gesserit before entering Imperial service as lady-in-waiting to Elrood's fourth wife; she had raised him well, preparing him for great things.

But Hasimir Fenring was disgusted with his friend. At one time, in his late teens, Shaddam had been much more ambitious to claim the Imperial throne, even to the point of encouraging Fenring to poison the Emperor's eldest son, Fafnir, who had been forty-six and eagerly awaiting the crown himself.

Shaddam glowered at the other man. The Crown Prince's mother, Habla, had cast him aside as an infant -- her only child by Elrood -- and let her lady-in-waiting, Chaola Fenring, serve as wet nurse. From boyhood, Shaddam and Hasimir had talked about what they would do when he ascended to the Golden Lion Throne. Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.

Emperor Elrood IX, aware of Hasimir Fenring's deadly skills, had made use of him in a number of clandestine operations, all of which had been successful. Elrood even suspected Fenring's role in Crown Prince Fafnir's death, but accepted it as part of Imperial politics. Over the years, Fenring had murdered at least fifty men and a dozen women, some of whom had been his lovers, of either sex. He took a measure of pride in being a killer who could face the victim or strike behind his back, without compunction.

Harishka

Dune: House Atreides

White Elacca-wood benches rimmed the timeworn room; Mother Superior Harishka sat on one, like a common acolyte. Of mixed parentage, showing bloodlines from distinctive branches of humanity, the Mother Superior was old and bent, with dark almond eyes peering out from beneath her black hood.

Cristane

Dune: House Harkonnen (the following is first mention of her):

An hour later a Bene Gesserit lighter docked with the Harkonnen frigate. A narrow-faced young woman with wavy chestnut hair stepped onto the entry dock. She wore a slick black uniform. "I am Sister Cristane. I will guide you to the surface." Her eyes glittered. "Mother Superior awaits."

Throne room from Messiah

One moment of incompetence can be fatal, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam reminded herself.

Silence surged along the vaulted passages ahead of her entourage.

The guards herded her around a corner into another of the seemingly endless vaulted passages. Triangular meta-glass windows on her left gave a view upward to trellised vines and indigo flowers in deep shadows cast by the afternoon sun. Tiles lay underfoot — figures of water creatures from exotic planets. Water reminders everywhere. Wealth . . . riches.

The immensity of this ighir citadel began to impress her. Passages . . . passages . . .

The size of the citadel began to oppress her. Would the passages never end? The place reeked of terrifying physical power. No planet, no civilization in all human history had ever before seen such man-made immensity. A dozen ancient cities could be hidden in its walls!

They passed oval doors with winking lights. She recognized them for Ixian handiwork: pneumatic transport orifices. Why was she being marched all this distance, then? The answer began to shape itself in her mind: to oppress her in preparation for this audience with the Emperor.

The passages through which she was being escorted grew larger by subtle stages — tricks of arching, graduated amplification of pillared supports, displacement of the triangular windows by larger, oblong shapes. Ahead of her, finally, loomed double doors centered in the far wall of a tall antechamber. She sensed that the doors were very large, and was forced to suppress a gasp as her trained awareness measured out the true proportions. The doorway stood at least eighty meters high, half that in width.

As she approached with her escort, the doors swung inward — an immense and silent movement of hidden machinery. She recognized more Ixian handiwork. Through that towering doorway she marched with her guards into the Grand Reception Hall of the Emperor Paul Atreides — "Muad'dib, before whom all people are dwarfed." Now, she saw the effect of that popular saying at work.

As she advanced toward Paul on the distant throne, the Reverend Mother found herself more impressed by the architectural subtleties of her surroundings than she was by the immensities. The space was large: it could've housed the entire citadel of any ruler in human history. The open sweep of the room said much about hidden structural forces balanced with nicety. Trusses and supporting beams behind these walls and the faraway domed ceiling must surpass anything ever before attempted. Everything spoke of engineering genius.

Without seeming to do so, the hall grew smaller at its far end, refusing to dwarf Paul on his throne centered on a dais. An untrained awareness, shocked by surrounding proportions, would see him at first as many times larger than his actual size. Colors played upon the unprotected psyche: Paul's green throne had been cut from a single Hagar emerald. It suggested growing things and, out of the Fremen mythos, reflected the mourning color. It whispered that here sat he who could make you mourn -- life and death in one symbol, a clever stress of opposites. Behind the throne, draperies cascaded in burnt orange, curried gold of Dune earth, and cinnamon flecks of melange. To a trained eye, the symbolism was obvious, but it contained hammer blows to beat down the uninitiated.

Time played its role here.

The Reverend Mother measured the minutes required to approach the Imperial Presence at her hobbling pace. You had time to be cowed. Any tendency toward resentment would be squeezed out of you by the unbridled power which focused down upon your person. You might start the long march toward that throne as a human of dignity, but you ended the march as a gnat.

"It was a long walk," Paul said, "and I can see that you're tired. We will retire to my private chamber behind the throne. You may sit there." He gave a hand-signal to Stilgar, arose.

Stilgar and the ghola converged on her, helped her up the steps, followed Paul through a passage concealed by the draperies.

The private chamber at the end of the passage was a twenty-meter cube of plasmeld, yellow glowglobes for light, the deep orange hangings of a desert stilltent around the walls. It contained divans, soft cushions, a faint odor of melange, crystal water flagons on a low table. It felt cramped, tiny after the outer hall.

Anirul’s throne

Dune: House Corrino “My husband and Emperor.” She approached the base of the dais and gazed up at the legendary throne. “Before you begin, there is a matter I must discuss with you.” Anirul’s bronze-brown hair was freshly coiffed and secured by a golden clasp. “Do you know the significance of this year?” Shaddam wondered what schemes the Bene Gesserit had developed behind his back. “Why, it is 10,175. If you cannot consult an Imperial Calendar for yourself, one of my courtiers could easily have informed you of the date. Now be about your business, as I have an important announcement to make.” Anirul stood unruffled. “It is a centenary, marking the death of your father’s second wife, Yvette Hagal-Corrino.” The Emperor’s eyebrows shifted as he tried to follow her line of thought. Damn her! What has this to do with my overwhelming success on Zanovar? “If that is true, we have all year to celebrate this anniversary. Today I have a decree to announce to the Landsraad.” His meddling wife would not be swayed. “What do you know of Yvette?” Why do women persist in matters of little import at the moment of greatest inconvenience? “I have no time for a family history quiz.” But under her steady, doe-eyed stare, he pondered for a moment, while glancing at the ornate Ixian chrono on the wall. The representatives would never expect him to begin on time anyway. “Yvette died years before I was born. Since she was not my mother, I never bothered much with her. There must be filmbooks in the Imperial Library, if you would like to learn-“ “During his long reign your father had four wives, and he permitted only Yvette to sit beside him on a throne of her own. It is said that she was the only noblewoman he ever truly loved.” Love? What does that have to do with Imperial marriages? “Apparently, my father also had a deep affection for one of his concubines, but he didn’t realize it until she decided to marry Dominic Vernius.” He scowled. “Are you trying to draw comparisons? Do you want me to profess my affection for you? What sort of question are you asking?” “It is a wife’s question. It is also a husband’s question.” Anirul waited at the base of the dais, still looking up at him. “I want my own throne in here, beside yours, Shaddam-as your father had for his favorite wife.” The Emperor slurped half of his spice coffee to calm himself. Another throne in here? Though he’d assigned his Sardaukar spies to watch Anirul, they had not found anything incriminating yet, and probably never would. The veils of Bene Gesserit secrecy were not easily penetrated. He weighed possibilities and options. Reminding the Landsraad that a Bene Gesserit sat by his side might be to his advantage after all, especially as he stepped up his aggressions against spice hoarders. “I shall consider it.” Anirul snapped her fingers and motioned toward an arched doorway, where two Sisters appeared from the hall shadows directing four stout male pages as they carried a throne into the audience chamber. Obviously of substantial weight, the chair was smaller than the Emperor’s, but constructed of the same translucent blue-green Hagal quartz. “Now?” The Emperor spilled spice coffee on his carmine robe as he lurched to his feet. “Anirul, I am about to conduct important business!” “Yes-and I should be at your side. This will take only a moment.” She pointed to two more pages who walked behind the throne. Frustrated, he examined the dark stain seeping into his robe and tossed the china cup behind him, where it tinkled into shards on the checkerboard floor. Perhaps this would be the best time after all, since his announcement was sure to cause an uproar. Still, he hated to let Anirul win.... Panting, the pages set the second throne on the polished stone floor with a thump, then lifted it again to carry it up the wide steps. “Not on the top platform,” Shaddam said, in a voice that allowed no compromise. “Place my wife’s seat on the level below mine, to the left.” Anirul wouldn’t get everything she wanted, no matter how she tried to manipulate him. She gave him a small smile, which somehow made him feel petty. “Of course, my husband.” She stepped back to scrutinize the arrangement and nodded in satisfaction. “Yvette was a Hagal, you know, and had her seat made to match Elrood’s.” “We can catch up on family history later.” Shaddam shouted for an attendant to bring him a fresh robe. A servant cleaned up the broken china cup, making only minimal sounds. Gathering her skirts, Anirul sat on her new throne like an Imperial peahen settling into a nest. “I believe we are ready to entertain your visitors now.” She smiled at Shaddam, but he maintained a stern countenance as he shrugged into a fresh robe, a deep blue one this time. Shaddam nodded to Ridondo. “Let the proceedings begin.” The Chamberlain called for the frieze-plated gold doors to be swung open, on hinges that could have been used for Heighliner cargo hatches. Shaddam did his best to ignore Anirul. Men in cloaks, robes, and formal suits streamed through the archway into the audience chamber. These invited observers represented the most powerful families in the Imperium, as well as a few lesser Houses known to hold enormous illegal melange stockpiles. As they took their positions against purple-velvet half walls, many seemed intrigued by Anirul’s unexpected presence on the dais. Shaddam spoke without rising. “Watch, and learn.” He raised a ring-bedecked hand, and the narrow armor-plaz windows around the upper ceiling became opaque. The glowglobes dimmed, and holo-images appeared in the cleared space in front of the massive crystal throne. Even Anirul had not seen the images before. “This is all that remains of the cities of Zanovar,” he said in an ominous tone. A blackened wasteland appeared, recorded by automated Sardaukar surveillance cameras that cruised over the bubbling slag. The horrified audience gasped at images of melted structures, lumps that might have been trees, vehicles, or fused-together bodies... and craters that could have once been lakes. Steam rose everywhere, and fires smoldered. Twisted skeletons of buildings thrust upward like broken fingernails into a soot-smeared sky. Shaddam had specifically asked Zum Garon to take images of the charred estate of Tyros Reffa. Seeing the devastation, he no longer had any concerns about Elrood’s secret bastard son. “Acting in accordance with long-established Imperial law, we have confiscated a large illegal melange stockpile. House Taligari is guilty of crimes against the Imperium, so their fief-holding of Zanovar has paid the ultimate price.” Shaddam let the audience absorb this shocking information. He smelled the terror of the noblemen and ambassadors. The obscure Imperial edict against stockpiling dated back thousands of years. Initially, it had applied only to the holder of the Arrakis fief, to prevent that House from embezzling spice and avoiding Imperial taxes. Later, the reasons for the edict were broadened as some noblemen became fabulously wealthy from manipulation of their hoards, starting wars or using spice to take economic and political action against other Houses. After centuries of strife surrounding this issue, all Great and Minor Houses were finally required to work cooperatively through the universal conglomerate CHOAM. Specific language was drafted into the Imperial Code, detailing the amount of spice that any person or organization could possess. While the images continued to play, a single bright glowglobe flickered on at the base of the Golden Lion Throne. In the pool of light an Imperial Crier read a prepared statement, so that Shaddam did not need to speak the words himself. “Know all, that Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV will no longer tolerate illegal spice stockpiling and will enforce the Code of Imperial Law. Every House, Great and Minor, will be audited by CHOAM, in cooperation with the Spacing Guild. All outlawed spice hoards not voluntarily surrendered will be rooted out, wherever they are, and the perpetrators punished severely. Witness Zanovar. Let all be warned.” In the low illumination, Shaddam maintained his stony expression. He watched the panicked expressions on the faces of the representatives. Within hours they would race back to their homeworlds to comply, fearing his next reprisal. Let them tremble. As the parade of horrific images continued in the air, Anirul studied her husband. She had a closer vantage now, with no need to stand in the shadows. The Emperor had been extraordinarily tense lately, preoccupied with something more significant than his usual games of intrigue and court politics. Recently, something important had changed. For years, Anirul had waited and observed in the patient manner of a Bene Gesserit, gathering and interpreting tidbits of information. Long ago, she had heard of Project Amal, but hadn’t known what it meant-just a fragment picked up when she’d walked in on a conversation between Shaddam and Count Fenring. Upon seeing her, the men had fallen silent, and the stricken looks on their faces revealed much. She had held her silence and kept her ears open. Finally, the remaining glowglobes brightened, and the ion torches were lit on either side of the dais, diluting the still-playing images of blasted Zanovar. For comparison, lush and green promotional images of the planet’s former beauty were projected beside the horrible devastation. Shaddam had never been a man for subtlety or restraint. Before the audience could erupt into an uproar, two squads of Sardaukar marched forward. They stood at attention around the perimeter of the room, a chilling punctuation mark to the Emperor’s startling ultimatum. Now, he gazed dispassionately out on the assemblage, assessing the guilt or innocence he perceived in their faces. With his advisors he would study recorded images later, to see what could be learned from the reactions of these representatives. From this moment forward, the Landsraad would fear him. No doubt he had also thrown Anirul’s own plan into confusion, whatever it was. At least he hoped so. But it didn’t really matter. Even without the support of the Bene Gesserit, Shaddam would soon have his amal. Then he would need no one else.

Later

Truthfully, he intended to do little to investigate the crime. The kidnapper-assassin had vanished, and if he posed no threat to the crown, Shaddam didn’t particularly care who had done it. Most of all he was relived that the troublesome, meddling witch would no longer interfere with his daily decisions. He would leave her empty throne in place for a few months out of feigned respect, and then would have it removed and destroyed.

Cone of Silence/Ixian Damper

Dune

Cone of Silence

The Baron noted how all conversation among the Houses Minor there stopped at her approach, how the eyes followed her. Bene Gesserit! the Baron thought. The universe would be better rid of them all! "There's a cone of silence between two of the pillars over here on our left," the Baron said. "We can talk there without fear of being overheard." He led the way with his waddling gait into the sound-deadening field, feeling the noises of the keep become dull and distant. The Count moved up beside the Baron, and they turned, facing the wall so their lips could not be read.

• CONE OF SILENCE: the field of a distorter that limits the carrying power of the voice or any other vibrator by damping the vibrations with an image-vibration 180 degrees out of phase.

Heretics of Dune

Ixian Damper

Young girl and teacher had been out here in the roof garden, facing each other on two benches, a portable Ixian damper hiding their words from anyone who did not have the coded translator. The suspensor-buoyed damper hovered over the two like a strange umbrella, a black disc projecting distortions that hid the precise movements of lips and the sounds of voices.

Duncan sees old couple

Idaho, seated alone at his console, encountered an entry he had stored in Shipsystems during his first days of confinement, and found himself dumped (he applied the word later) into attitudes and sensory awareness of that earlier time. It no longer was afternoon of a frustrating day in the no-ship. He was back there, stretched between then and now the way serial ghola lives linked this incarnation to his original birth.

Immediately, he saw what he had come to call "the net" and the elderly couple defined by criss-crossed lines, bodies visible through a shimmering of jeweled ropes -- green, blue, gold, and a silver so brilliant it made his eyes ache.

He sensed godlike stability in these people, but something common about them. The word ordinary came to mind. The by-now-familiar garden landscape stretched out behind them: floral bushes (roses, he thought), rolling lawns, tall trees.

The couple stared back at him with an intensity that made Idaho feel naked.

New power in the vision! It no longer was confined to the Great Hold, an increasingly compulsive magnet drawing him down there so frequently he knew the watchdogs were alerted.

Is he another Kwisatz Haderach?

There was a level of suspicion the Bene Gesserit could achieve that would kill him if it grew. And they were watching him now! Questions, worried speculations. Despite this, he could not turn away from the vision.

Why did that elderly couple look so familiar? Someone from his past? Family?

Mentat riffling of his memories produced nothing to fit the speculation. Round faces. Abbreviated chins. Fat wrinkles at the jowls. Dark eyes. The net obscured their color. The woman wore a long blue and green dress that concealed her feet. A white apron stained with green covered the dress from ample bosom to just below her waist. Garden tools dangled from apron loops. She carried a trowel in her left hand. Her hair was gray. Wisps of it had escaped a confining green scarf and blew around her eyes, emphasizing laughter lines there. She appeared . . . grandmotherly.

The man suited her as though created by the same artist as a perfect match. Bib overalls over a mounded stomach. No hat. Those same dark eyes with reflections twinkling in them. A brush of close-cropped wiry gray hair.

He had the most benign expression Idaho had ever seen. Up-curved smile creases at the corners of his mouth. He held a small shovel in his left hand, and on his extended right palm he balanced what appeared to be a small metal ball. The ball emitted a piercing whistle that made Idaho clap his hands over his ears. This did not stop the sound. It faded away of itself. He lowered his hands.

Reassuring faces. That thought aroused Idaho's suspicions because now he recognized the familiarity. They looked somewhat like Face Dancers, even to the pug noses.

He leaned forward but the vision kept its distance. "Face Dancers," he whispered.

Net and elderly couple vanished.

They were replaced by Murbella in practice-floor leotards of glistening ebony. He had to reach out and touch her before he could believe she really stood there.

"Duncan? What is it? You're all sweaty."

"I . . . think it's something the damned Tleilaxu planted in me. I keep seeing . . . I think they're Face Dancers. They . . . they look at me and just now . . . a whistle. It hurt."

She glanced up at the comeyes but did not appear worried. This was something the Sisters could know without it presenting immediate dangers . . . except possibly to Scytale.

She sank to her haunches beside him and put a hand on his arm. "Something they did to your body in the tanks?"

"No!"

"But you said . . ."

"My body's not just a piece of new baggage for this trip. It has all of the chemistry and substance I ever had. It's my mind that's different."

That worried her. She knew the Bene Gesserit concern over wild talents. "Damn that Scytale!"

"I'll find it," he said.

He closed his eyes and heard Murbella stand. Her hand went away from his arm.

"Maybe you shouldn't do that, Duncan."

She sounded far away.

Memory. Where did they hide the secret thing? Deep in the original cells? Until this moment, he had thought of his memory as a Mentat tool. He could call up his own images from long-ago moments in front of mirrors. Close up, examining an age wrinkle. Looking at a woman behind him -- two faces in the mirror and his face full of questions.

Faces. A succession of masks, different views of this person he called myself. Slightly imbalanced faces. Hair sometimes gray, sometimes the jet karakul of his current life. Sometimes humorous, sometimes grave and seeking inward for wisdom to meet a new day. Somewhere in all of that lay a consciousness that observed and deliberated. Someone who made choices. The Tleilaxu had tampered with that.

Idaho felt his blood pumping hard and knew danger was present. This was what he was intended to experience . . . but not by the Tleilaxu. He had been born with it.

This is what it means to be alive.

No memory from his other lives, nothing the Tleilaxu had done to him, none of that changed his deepest awareness one whit.

He opened his eyes. Murbella still stood near but her expression was veiled. So that's how she will look as a Reverend Mother.

He did not like this change in her.

"What happens if the Bene Gesserit fail?" he asked.

When she did not reply, he nodded. Yes. That's the worst assumption. The Sisterhood down history's sewerpipe. And you don't want that, my beloved.

He could see it in her face when she turned and left him.

Looking up at the comeyes, he said: "Dar. I must talk to you, Dar."

No response from any of the mechanisms around him. He had not expected one. Still, he knew he could talk to her and she would have to listen.

"I've been coining at our problem from the other direction," he said. And he imagined the busy whirring of recorders as they spun the sounds of his voice into ridulian crystals. "I've been getting into the minds of Honored Matres. I know I've done it. Murbella resonates."

That would alert them. He had an Honored Matre of his own. But had was not the proper word. He did not have Murbella. Not even in bed. They had each other. Matched the way those people in his vision appeared to be matched. Was that what he saw there? Two older people sexually trained by Honored Matres?

"I look at another issue now," he said. "How to overcome the Bene Gesserit."

That threw down the gauntlet.

"Episodes," he said. A word Odrade was fond of using.

"That's how we have to see what's happening to us. Little episodes. Even the worst-case assumption has to be screened against that background. The Scattering has a magnitude that dwarfs anything we do."

There! That demonstrated his value to the Sisters. It put Honored Matres in a better perspective. They were back here in the Old Empire. Fellow dwarves. He knew Odrade would see it. Bell would make her see it.

Somewhere out there in the Infinite Universe, a jury had brought in a verdict against Honored Matres. Law and its managers had not prevailed for the hunters. He suspected that his vision had shown him two of the jurors. And if they were Face Dancers, they were not Scytale's Face Dancers. Those two people behind the shimmering net belonged to no one but themselves.

Guildsmen

I know the discussion still rages on whether this article should exist and, if so, what its content should be. However, regarding the "Guildsman disrepancy" cited here, I must note that whoever added this is misreading the text. In Messiah it is a Guild Navigator, tank and all, who shields the conspirators with his heightened prescience. The "Guildsmen" referenced in Dune are merely emmissaries of the Guild; the particular phrase quoted may seem vague, but every other mention of "Guildsmen" refers to them being a presence on Arrakis, etc. There are some Guildsmen standing around with Shaddam's party at the end of the novel; these are obviously not Navigators.

People.

He saw them in such swarms they could not be listed, yet his mind catalogued them.

Even the Guildsmen.

And he thought: The Guild--there' d be a way for us, my strangeness accepted as a familiar thing of high value, always with an assured supply of the now-necessary spice.

But the idea of living out his life in the mind-groping-ahead-through-possible-futures that guided hurtling spaceships appalled him. It was a way, though. And in meeting the possible future that contained Guildsmen he recognized his own strangeness.

I have another kind of sight. I see another kind of terrain: the available paths.

"Gurney," he said, "are there many Guildsmen around Rabban?"

Gurney straightened, eyes narrowed. "Your question makes no . . . "

"Are there?" Paul barked.

"Arrakis is crawling with Guild agents. They're buying spice as though it were the most precious thing in the universe. Why else do you think we ventured this far into . . . "

"It is the most precious thing in the universe," Paul said. "To them."

He looked toward Stilgar and Chani who were now crossing the chamber toward him. "And we control it, Gurney."

"The Harkonnens control it!" Gurney protested.

"The people who can destroy a thing, they control it," Paul said. He waved a hand to silence further remarks from Gurney, nodded to Stilgar who stopped in front of Paul, Chani beside him.

The Emperor scowled. "Child, your cause is hopeless. I have but to rally my forces and reduce this planet to --"

"It's not that simple," Alia said. She looked at the two Guildsmen. "Ask them."

"It is not wise to go against my desires," the Emperor said. "You should not deny me the least thing."

In the shock of comparative silence within the ship, the Emperor stared at the wide-eyed faces of his suite, seeing his oldest daughter with the flush of exertion on her cheeks, the old Truthsayer standing like a black shadow with her hood pulled about her face, finding at last the faces he sought -- the two Guildsmen. They wore the Guild gray, unadorned, and it seemed to fit the calm they maintained despite the high emotions around them. The taller of the two, though, held a hand to his left eye. As the Emperor watched, someone jostled the Guildsman's arm, the hand moved, and the eye was revealed. The man had lost one of his masking contact lenses, and the eye stared out a total blue so dark as to be almost black.

The smaller of the pair elbowed his way a step nearer the Emperor, said: "We cannot know how it will go." And the taller companion, hand restored to eye, added in a cold voice: "But this Muad'Dib cannot know, either."

The words shocked the Emperor out of his daze. He checked the scorn on his tongue by a visible effort because it did not take a Guild navigator's single-minded focus on the main chance to see the immediate future out on that plain. Were these two so dependent upon their faculty that they had lost the use of their eyes and their reason? he wondered.

"Oh, yes," Paul said, "I almost forgot about them." He searched through the Emperor's suite until he saw the faces of the two Guildsmen, spoke aside to Gurney. "Are those the Guild agents, Gurney, the two fat ones dressed in gray over there?"

"Yes, m'Lord."

"You two," Paul said, pointing. "Get out of there immediately and dispatch messages that will get that fleet on its way home. After this, you'll ask my permission before --"

"The Guild doesn't take your orders!" the taller of the two barked. He and his companion pushed through to the barrier lances, which were raised at a nod from Paul. The two men stepped out and the taller leveled an arm at Paul, said: "You may very well be under embargo for your --"

"If I hear any more nonsense from either of you," Paul said, "I'll give the order that'll destroy all spice production on Arrakis . . . forever."

"Are you mad?" the tall Guildsman demanded. He fell back half a step.

"You grant that I have the power to do this thing, then?" Paul asked.

The Guildsman seemed to stare into space for a moment, then: "Yes, you could do it, but you must not."

"Ah-h-h," Paul said and nodded to himself. "Guild navigators, both of you, eh?"

"Yes!"

The shorter of the pair said: "You would blind yourself, too, and condemn us all to slow death. Have you any idea what it means to be deprived of the spice liquor once you're addicted?"

"The eye that looks ahead to the safe course is closed forever," Paul said. "The Guild is crippled. Humans become little isolated clusters on their isolated planets. You know, I might do this thing out of pure spite . . . or out of ennui."

"Let us talk this over privately," the taller Guildsman said. "I'm sure we can come to some compromise that is --"

"Send the message to your people over Arrakis," Paul said. "I grow tired of this argument. If that fleet over us doesn't leave soon there'll be no need for us to talk." He nodded toward his communications men at the side of the hall. "You may use our equipment."

"First we must discuss this," the tall Guildsman said. "We cannot just --"

"Do it!" Paul barked. "The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it. You've agreed I have that power. We are not here to discuss or to negotiate or to compromise. You will obey my orders or suffer the immediate consequences!"

"He means it," the shorter Guildsman said. And Paul saw the fear grip them.

Slowly the two crossed to the Fremen communications equipment.

"Will they obey?" Gurney asked.

"They have a narrow vision of time," Paul said. "They can see ahead to a blank wall marking the consequences of disobedience. Every Guild navigator on every ship over us can look ahead to that same wall. They'll obey."

A flurry of robes, scraping of feet, low-voiced commands and protests accompanied obedience to Paul's command. The Guildsmen remained standing near the communications equipment. They frowned at Paul in obvious indecision.

They're accustomed to seeing the future, Paul thought. In this place and time they're blind . . . even as I am. And he sampled the time-winds, sensing the turmoil, the storm nexus that now focused on this moment place. Even the faint gaps were closed now. Here was the unborn jihad, he knew. Here was the race consciousness that he had known once as his own terrible purpose. Here was reason enough for a Kwisatz Haderach or a Lisan al-Gaib or even the halting schemes of the Bene Gesserit. The race of humans had felt its own dormancy, sensed itself grown stale and knew now only the need to experience turmoil in which the genes would mingle and the strong new mixtures survive. All humans were alive as an unconscious single organism in this moment, experiencing a kind of sexual heat that could override any barrier.

And Paul saw how futile were any efforts of his to change any smallest bit of this. He had thought to oppose the jihad within himself, but the jihad would be. His legions would rage out from Arrakis even without him. They needed only the legend he already had become. He had shown them the way, given them mastery even over the Guild which must have the spice to exist.

OC Bible

Appendix II: The Religion of Dune

Before the coming of Muad'Dib, the Fremen of Arrakis practiced a religion whose roots in the Maometh Saari are there for any scholar to see. Many have traced the extensive borrowings from other religions. The most common example is the Hymn to Water, a direct copy from the Orange Catholic Liturgical Manual, calling for rain clouds which Arrakis had never seen. But there are more profound points of accord between the Kitab al-Ibar of the Fremen and the teachings of Bible, Ilm, and Fiqh. Any comparison of the religious beliefs dominant in the Imperium up to the time of Muad'Dib must start with the major forces which shaped those beliefs: 1. The followers of the Fourteen Sages, whose Book was the Orange Catholic Bible, and whose views are expressed in the Commentaries and other literature produced by the Commission of Ecumenical Translators. (C.E.T.); 2. The Bene Gesserit, who privately denied they were a religious order, but who operated behind an almost impenetrable screen of ritual mysticism, and whose training, whose symbolism, organization, and internal teaching methods were almost wholly religious; 3. The agnostic ruling class (including the Guild) for whom religion was a kind of puppet show to amuse the populace and keep it docile, and who believed essentially that all phenomena -- even religious phenomena -- could be reduced to mechanical explanations; 4. The so-called Ancient Teachings -- including those preserved by the Zensunni Wanderers from the first, second, and third Islamic movements; the Navachristianity of Chusuk, the Buddislamic Variants of the types dominant at Lankiveil and Sikun, the Blend Books of the Mahayana Lankavatara, the Zen Hekiganshu of III Delta Pavonis, the Tawrah and Talmudic Zabur surviving on Salusa Secundus, the pervasive Obeah Ritual, the Muadh Quran with its pure Ilm and Fiqh preserved among the pundi rice farmers of Caladan, the Hindu outcroppings found all through the universe in little pockets of insulated pyons, and finally, the Butlerian Jihad. There is a fifth force which shaped religious belief, but its effect is so universal and profound that it deserves to stand alone. This is, of course, space travel -- and in any discussion of religion, it deserves to be written thus:

SPACE TRAVEL!

Mankind's movement through deep space placed a unique stamp on religion during the one hundred and ten centuries that preceded the Butlerian Jihad. To begin with, early space travel, although widespread, was largely unregulated, slow, and uncertain, and, before the Guild monopoly, was accomplished by a hodgepodge of methods. The first space experiences, poorly communicated and subject to extreme distortion, were a wild inducement to mystical speculation. Immediately, space gave a different flavor and sense to ideas of Creation. That difference is seen even in the highest religious achievements of the period. All through religion, the feeling of the sacred was touched by anarchy from the outer dark. It was as though Jupiter in all his descendant forms retreated into the maternal darkness to be superseded by a female immanence filled with ambiguity and with a face of many terrors. The ancient formulae intertwined, tangled together as they were fitted to the needs of new conquests and new heraldic symbols. It was a time of struggle between beast-demons on the one side and the old prayers and invocations on the other. There was never a clear decision. During this period, it was said that Genesis was reinterpreted, permitting God to say: "Increase and multiply, and fill the universe, and subdue it, and rule over all manner of strange beasts and living creatures in the infinite airs, on the infinite earths and beneath them." It was a time of sorceresses whose powers were real. The measure of them is seen in the fact they never boasted how they grasped the firebrand. Then came the Butlerian Jihad -- two generations of chaos. The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and a new concept was raised: "Man may not be replaced." Those two generations of violence were a thalamic pause for all humankind. Men looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition. Hesitantly, the leaders of religions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions began meeting to exchange views. It was a move encouraged by the Spacing Guild, which was beginning to build its monopoly over all interstellar travel, and by the Bene Gesserit who were banding the sorceresses. Out of those first ecumenical meetings came two major developments: 1. The realization that all religions had at least one common commandment: "Thou shall not disfigure the soul." 2. The Commission of Ecumenical Translators. C.E.T. convened on a neutral island of Old Earth, spawning ground of the mother religions. They met "in the common belief that there exists a Divine Essence in the universe." Every faith with more than a million followers was represented, and they reached a surprisingly immediate agreement on the statement of their common goal: "We are here to remove a primary weapon from the hands of disputant religions. That weapon -- the claim to possession of the one and only revelation." Jubilation at this "sign of profound accord" proved premature. For more than a standard year, that statement was the only announcement from C.E.T. Men spoke bitterly of the delay. Troubadours composed witty, biting songs about the one hundred and twenty-one "Old Cranks" as the C.E.T. delegates came to be called. (The name arose from a ribald joke which played on the C.E.T. initials and called the delegates "Cranks-Effing-Turners.") One of the songs, "Brown Repose," has undergone periodic revival and is popular even today:

"Consider leis. Brown repose -- and The tragedy In all of those Cranks! All those Cranks! So laze -- so laze Through all your days. Time has toll'd for M'Lord Sandwich!"

Occasional rumors leaked out of the C.E.T. sessions. It was said they were comparing texts and, irresponsibly, the texts were named. Such rumors inevitably provoked anti-ecumenism riots and, of course, inspired new witticisms. Two years passed . . . three years. The Commissioners, nine of their original number having died and been replaced, paused to observe formal installation of the replacements and announced they were laboring to produce one book, weeding out "all the pathological symptoms" of the religious past. "We are producing an instrument of Love to be played in all ways," they said. Many consider it odd that this statement provoked the worst outbreaks of violence against ecumenism. Twenty delegates were recalled by their congregations. One committed suicide by stealing a space frigate and diving it into the sun. Historians estimate the riots took eighty million lives. That works out to about six thousand for each world then in the Landsraad League. Considering the unrest of the time, this may not be an excessive estimate, although any pretense to real accuracy in the figure must be just that -- pretense. Communication between worlds was at one of its lowest ebbs. The troubadours, quite naturally, had a field day. A popular musical comedy of the period had one of the C.E.T. delegates sitting on a white sand beach beneath a palm tree singing:

"For God, woman and the splendor of love We dally here sans fears or cares. Troubadour! Troubadour, sing another melody For God, Woman and the splendor of love!"

Riots and comedy are but symptoms of the times, profoundly revealing. They betray the psychological tone, the deep uncertainties . . . and the striving for something better, plus the fear that nothing would come of it all. The major dams against anarchy in these times were the embryo Guild, the Bene Gesserit and the Landsraad, which continued its 2,000-year record of meeting in spite of the severest obstacles. The Guild's part appears clear: they gave free transport for all Landsraad and C.E.T. business. The Bene Gesserit role is more obscure. Certainly, this is the time in which they consolidated their hold upon the sorceresses, explored the subtle narcotics, developed prana-bindu training and conceived the Missionaria Protectiva, that black arm of superstition. But it is also the period that saw the composing of the Litany against Fear and the assembly of the Azhar Book, that bibliographic marvel that preserves the great secrets of the most ancient faiths. Ingsley's comment is perhaps the only one possible: "Those were times of deep paradox." For almost seven years, then, C.E.T. labored. And as their seventh anniversary approached, they prepared the human universe for a momentous announcement. On that seventh anniversary, they unveiled the Orange Catholic Bible. "Here is a work with dignity and meaning," they said. "Here is a way to make humanity aware of itself as a total creation of God." The men of C.E.T. were likened to archeologists of ideas, inspired by God in the grandeur of rediscovery. It was said they had brought to light "the vitality of great ideals overlaid by the deposits of centuries," that they had "sharpened the moral imperatives that come out of a religious conscience." With the O.C. Bible, C.E.T. presented the Liturgical Manual and the Commentaries -- in many respects a more remarkable work, not only because of its brevity (less than half the size of the O.C. Bible), but also because of its candor and blend of self-pity and self-righteousness. The beginning is an obvious appeal to the agnostic rulers. "Men, finding no answers to the sunnan [the ten thousand religious questions from the Shari-ah] now apply their own reasoning. All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness." In their conclusion, though, the Commentaries set a harsh tone that very likely foretold their fate. "Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you've always known." There was an odd sense of calm as the presses and shigawire imprinters rolled and the O.C. Bible spread out through the worlds. Some interpreted this as a sign from God, an omen of unity. But even the C.E.T. delegates betrayed the fiction of that calm as they returned to their respective congregations. Eighteen of them were lynched within two months. Fifty-three recanted within the year. The O.C. Bible was denounced as a work produced by "the hubris of reason." It was said that its pages were filled with a seductive interest in logic. Revisions that catered to popular bigotry began appearing. These revisions leaned on accepted symbolisms (Cross, Crescent, Feather Rattle, the Twelve Saints, the thin Buddha, and the like) and it soon became apparent that the ancient superstitions and beliefs had not been absorbed by the new ecumenism. Halloway's label for C.E.T.'s seven-year effort -- "Galactophasic Determinism" -- was snapped up by eager billions who interpreted the initials G.D. as "God-Damned." C.E.T. Chairman Toure Bomoko, an Ulema of the Zensunnis and one of the fourteen delegates who never recanted ("The Fourteen Sages" of popular history), appeared to admit finally the C.E.T. had erred. "We shouldn't have tried to create new symbols," he said. "We should've realized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive. What is this shadow across the highway of Divine Command? It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all attainable knowledge." The bitter double edge in this "admission" did not escape Bomoko's critics and he was forced soon afterward to flee into exile, his life dependent upon the Guild's pledge of secrecy. He reportedly died on Tupile, honored and beloved, his last words: "Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, 'I am not the kind of person I want to be.' It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied." It is pleasant to think that Bomoko understood the prophecy in his words: "Institutions endure." Ninety generations later, the O.C. Bible and the Commentaries permeated the religious universe. When Paul-Muad'Dib stood with his right hand on the rock shrine enclosing his father's skull (the right hand of the blessed, not the left hand of the damned) he quoted word for word from "Bomoko's Legacy" -- "You who have defeated us say to yourselves that Babylon is fallen and its works have been overturned. I say to you still that man remains on trial, each man in his own dock. Each man is a little war." The Fremen said of Muad'Dib that he was like Abu Zide whose frigate defied the Guild and rode one day 'there' and back. 'There' used in this way translates directly from the Fremen mythology as the land of the ruh-spirit, the alam al-mithal where all limitations are removed. The parallel between this and the Kwisatz Haderach is readily seen. The Kwisatz Haderach that the Sisterhood sought through its breeding program was interpreted as "The shortening of the way" or "The one who can be two places simultaneously." But both of these interpretations can be shown to stem directly from the Commentaries: "When law and religious duty are one, your selfdom encloses the universe." Of himself, Muad'Dib said: "I am a net in the sea of time, free to sweep future and past. I am a moving membrane from whom no possibility can escape." These thoughts are all one and the same and they harken to 22 Kalima in the O.C. Bible where it says: "Whether a thought is spoken or not it is a real thing and has powers of reality." It is when we get into Muad'Dib's own commentaries in "The Pillars of the Universe" as interpreted by his holy men, the Qizara Tafwid, that we see his real debt to C.E.T. and Fremen-Zensunni.

Muad'Dib: "Law and duty are one; so be it. But remember these limitations -- Thus are you never fully self-conscious. Thus do you remain immersed in the communal tau. Thus are you always less than an individual." O.C. Bible: Identical wording. (61 Revelations.) Muad'Dib: "Religion often partakes of the myth of progress that shields us from the terrors of an uncertain future." C.E.T. Commentaries: Identical wording. (The Azhar Book traces this statement to the first century religious writer, Neshou; through a paraphrase.) Muad'Dib: "If a child, an untrained person, an ignorant person, or an insane person incites trouble, it is the fault of authority for not predicting and preventing that trouble. " O.C. Bible: "Any sin can be ascribed, at least in part, to a natural bad tendency that is an extenuating circumstance acceptable to God." (The Azhar Book traces this to the ancient Semitic Tawra.) Muad'Dib: "Reach forth thy hand and eat what God has provided thee; and when thou are replenished, praise the Lord." O.C. Bible: a paraphrase with identical meaning. (The Azhar Book traces this in slightly different form to First Islam.) Muad'Dib: "Kindness is the beginning of cruelty." Fremen Kitab al-Ibar: "The weight of a kindly God is a fearful thing. Did not God give us the burning sun (Al-Lat)? Did not God give us the Mothers of Moisture (Reverend Mothers)? Did not God give us Shaitan (Iblis, Satan)? From Shaitan did we not get the hurtfulness of speed?" (This is the source of the Fremen saying: "Speed comes from Shaitan." Consider: for every one hundred calories of heat generated by exercise [speed] the body evaporates about six ounces of perspiration. The Fremen word for perspiration is bakka or tears and, in one pronunciation, translates: "The life essence that Shaitan squeezes from your soul.")

Muad'Dib's arrival is called "religiously timely" by Koneywell, but timing had little to do with it. As Muad'Dib himself said: "I am here; so . . . " It is, however, vital to an understanding of Muad'Dib's religious impact that you never lose sight of one fact: the Fremen were a desert people whose entire ancestry was accustomed to hostile landscapes. Mysticism isn't difficult when you survive each second by surmounting open hostility. "You are there -- so . . . " With such a tradition, suffering is accepted -- perhaps as unconscious punishment, but accepted. And it's well to note that Fremen ritual gives almost complete freedom from guilt feelings. This isn't necessarily because their law and religion were identical, making disobedience a sin. It's likely closer to the mark to say they cleansed themselves of guilt easily because their everyday existence required brutal judgments (often deadly) which in a softer land would burden men with unbearable guilt. This is likely one of the roots of Fremen emphasis on superstition (disregarding the Missionaria Protectiva's ministrations). What matter that whistling sands are an omen? What matter that you must make the sign of the fist when first you see First Moon? A man's flesh is his own and his water belongs to the tribe -- and the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve but a reality to experience. Omens help you remember this. And because you are here, because you have the religion, victory cannot evade you in the end. As the Bene Gesserit taught for centuries, long before they ran afoul of the Fremen: "When religion and politics ride the same cart, when that cart is driven by a living holy man (baraka), nothing can stand in their path."