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Chapter 44

Posted: 09 Jun 2008 15:42
by Freakzilla
The Duncans sometimes ask if I understand the exotic ideas of our past? And if I
understand them, why can't I explain them? Knowledge, the Duncans believe,
resides only in particulars. I try to tell them that all words are plastic. Word
images begin to distort in the instant of utterance. Ideas imbedded in a
language require that particular language for expression. This is the very
essence of the meaning within the word exotic. See how it begins to distort?
Translation squirms in the presence of the exotic. The Galach which I speak here
imposes itself. It is an outside frame of reference, a particular system.
Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their
creators. Adopt a system, accept its beliefs, and you help strengthen the
resistance to change. Does it serve any purpose for me to tell the Duncans that
there are no languages for some things? Ahhh! But the Duncans believe that all
languages are mine.

-The Stolen Journals


Siona didn’t start using her stilsuit face mask for two full days and nights until after Leto spoke to her about children. She then remembered Moneo telling her about the stilsuit face mask. He reminded her to guard the moisture in her breath, by then she was near death and would not make it out of the desert without Leto’s help. Leto offers her spice essence. Siona knows that being Atreides, she has been bred to be sensitive to the spice and it could kill her. She accepts and has visions of humans being hunted down by something mechanical and there is no place to hide. Without Leto there would by now be no people anywhere. She doesn’t retain memories of her ancestors but she can feel the Golden Path. She also sees that she is invisible to his prescience. Leto tells her she must breed to preserve this trait and she must teach people how to be Fremen after he’s gone. She is the Golden Path. They are caught in a rainfall and she watches Leto writhe in agony from the poison that water is to his sandworm body. Rebellion returns to her thoughts and decides to use his aversion to water against him. Leto wishes he could escape into the world of his ancestral memories but there is one more lesson to teach by example.

Posted: 10 Sep 2008 09:23
by Seraphan
She accepts and has visions of humans being hunted down by something mechanical and there is no place to hide.
This part has always interested me and it is from where i had the idea that the new face dancers, mentioned in chapter house, had broken the prohibitions of the Butlerian Jihad and used machines for their benefit. Again if you take the quotation from Dune that says that in the butlerian jihad it was humans with machines vs humans without machines, it's the only use of thinking machines in Dune 7 that makes sence to me.
In 1980, Frank Herbert wrote "The Essential Guide to Home Computers" Without Me You're Nothing ....." with Max Barnard. My point being that Frank, with his knowledge of computers, was probably going to explore the man-machine interface as one of the themes in Dune 7 as opposed to the humans vs thinking machines matrix style showdown.
What's your opinion on this folks?

Posted: 10 Sep 2008 09:46
by Freakzilla
Seraphan wrote:
She accepts and has visions of humans being hunted down by something mechanical and there is no place to hide.
This part has always interested me and it is from where i had the idea that the new face dancers, mentioned in chapter house, had broken the prohibitions of the Butlerian Jihad and used machines for their benefit. Again if you take the quotation from Dune that says that in the butlerian jihad it was humans with machines vs humans without machines, it's the only use of thinking machines in Dune 7 that makes sence to me.
In 1980, Frank Herbert wrote "The Essential Guide to Home Computers" Without Me You're Nothing ....." with Max Barnard. My point being that Frank, with his knowledge of computers, was probably going to explore the man-machine interface as one of the themes in Dune 7 as opposed to the humans vs thinking machines matrix style showdown.
What's your opinion on this folks?
I have always interpreted Siona's visions as the possible past that Leto prevented with his transformation. The purpose of Siona's Test was to sensitize her to the Golden Path. A vision of the Butlerian Jihad or a future where the Golden Path fails would do nothing to win Siona over to Leto's cause.

IMO the machines she hears in her vision are the self-improving hunter-seekers that Leto stopped Ix from making.

Posted: 10 Sep 2008 12:25
by Seraphan
Now that i think about it, that makes sence. Showing her an alternative to the golden path and the death it caries with it; but how did you came to the conclusion that it was the self improving hunter seekers? My memory as a bit off.
Thanks anyway Freak :D

Posted: 10 Sep 2008 12:40
by Freakzilla
Seraphan wrote:Now that i think about it, that makes sence. Showing her an alternative to the golden path and the death it caries with it; but how did you came to the conclusion that it was the self improving hunter seekers? My memory as a bit off.
Thanks anyway Freak :D
In a chapter just prior (maybe even the previous one), Leto tells Hwi about the hunter-seekers the Ixians wanted to make.

In Siona's test, he tells her her that without him there would by then be no people anywhere.

I just put two and two together.

Posted: 10 Sep 2008 17:58
by SandChigger
Freakzilla wrote:I have always interpreted Siona's visions as the possible past that Leto prevented with his transformation. The purpose of Siona's Test was to sensitize her to the Golden Path. A vision of the Butlerian Jihad or a future where the Golden Path fails would do nothing to win Siona over to Leto's cause.

IMO the machines she hears in her vision are the self-improving hunter-seekers that Leto stopped Ix from making.
I still agree with Freak about the pointlessness of showing her something from the Jihad. I used to agree on the once-possible-but-now-prevented alternative past/present idea as well, but am not so sure now.

Leto could cause the Golden Path to "wink" in and out of existence just by thinking about doing away with himself in a way that would prevent the sandtrout in his body of finding water and surviving to start up the spice/worm cycle again. (This is shown in the scene where he imagines throwing himself off the top of his tower in the Sareer.)

IMO what Siona sees is Arafel, which by the time of and due to the circumstances of Leto's death can no longer be created by the Ixians.

Posted: 10 Sep 2008 18:26
by A Thing of Eternity
I agree as well, and I used to hate trying to get Byron to understand that there is simply no way Leto II was showing something from the Jihad, or as Chig says, from the possible future. I don't really know how anyone could read every word in that passage and think that, makes no sense.

Posted: 11 Sep 2008 06:07
by SandChigger
Is that what I said? :?

:D

At the point in time of Siona's testing, it was still possible for the GP to fail if Leto died under the proper circumstances. What I think he did was get her (and predecessors similarly tested) spice loopy off his cowl tit and then imagined such a worst case scenario, causing the GP to "wink" out of existence...permitting Arafel...which the trancing Siona/Atreides then saw in her/their visions.

I guess another possibility would be that the spice essence initiated a type of Sharing event and Leto imparted visions of what he foresaw along alternate time/world-lines. But the line in GEoD about him knowing what she was seeing makes me think he's not actively transmitting the images to her himself, through such a mini-Sharing/T-P method. Instead, he knows what she must be seeing because of the conditions he has set up.

At least that's my PoV at the moment. ;)

Posted: 11 Sep 2008 06:39
by Freakzilla
SandChigger wrote:At the point in time of Siona's testing, it was still possible for the GP to fail if Leto died under the proper circumstances. What I think he did was get her (and predecessors similarly tested) spice loopy off his cowl tit and then imagined such a worst case scenario, causing the GP to "wink" out of existence...permitting Arafel...which the trancing Siona/Atreides then saw in her/their visions.
I've never put much thought into how it was done but that makes a lot of sense.

Posted: 11 Sep 2008 07:36
by Seraphan
I also forgot that Leto was "breeding", so to speak, for a universe without prescience, without predetermined futures. It makes no sence having Siona's vision to be the machines that the new Face Dancers create since at that point they are already walking Leto's Golden Path. Who said it was the Butlerian Jihad?
Wether or not the new FD's lifted the prohibition against thinking machines i dont know, i just think it would be something that the Bene Gesserit would've been shocked to learn and would've made some good chapters like the one in Chapter House when Odrade is in Junction.
SandChigger's idea makes all the sense for me. All i know is that i have to re-read GEoD and Heretics.

Posted: 14 Oct 2008 13:52
by Laphtiya
SandChigger wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:I have always interpreted Siona's visions as the possible past that Leto prevented with his transformation. The purpose of Siona's Test was to sensitize her to the Golden Path. A vision of the Butlerian Jihad or a future where the Golden Path fails would do nothing to win Siona over to Leto's cause.

IMO the machines she hears in her vision are the self-improving hunter-seekers that Leto stopped Ix from making.
I still agree with Freak about the pointlessness of showing her something from the Jihad. I used to agree on the once-possible-but-now-prevented alternative past/present idea as well, but am not so sure now.

Leto could cause the Golden Path to "wink" in and out of existence just by thinking about doing away with himself in a way that would prevent the sandtrout in his body of finding water and surviving to start up the spice/worm cycle again. (This is shown in the scene where he imagines throwing himself off the top of his tower in the Sareer.)

IMO what Siona sees is Arafel, which by the time of and due to the circumstances of Leto's death can no longer be created by the Ixians.
I've always thought that it was a future where Leto death didn't start the spice cycle or the Golden Path. Because without the spice they would have made thinking machines again to keep the empire going, alot of them would die through spice withdrawl. And once you cross the line and make one thinking machine whats to stop you making more? So it could have been a vision of what could be if the GP fails.

Re: Chapter 44

Posted: 03 Aug 2012 11:48
by Freakzilla
Revised, cleaned.

Re: Chapter 44

Posted: 18 Feb 2013 06:12
by leagued
Just read the chapter again, one of my faster re-reads of GEoD so a lot of different threads are sticking together better. Maybe.

I think, as most on this thread seem to agree, that Siona saw what would happen if the GP failed and mankind was wiped out by Ixian hunter-killer machines. The reason this isn't already eliminated by Leto stopping the Ixians the first time they wanted to make the machines (though he just says they once thought of doing it, not that he actually stopped them) is because the HKs are an idea, and ideas have their own life/power. Once contemplated they couldn't entirely be un-thought of; the genie couldn't be put back in the bottle.
Combined with the Ixian prescient computer there was always the threat that a future generation of Ixians would build prescient hunter-killer thinking machines and lose control of them and mankind would be reduced to base organic components. No edict of the GE could fully stop that threat forever.
Hence the need to re-start the spice cycle which would fuel the Scattering and spread mankind across the universe (or universes) as well as the need for Siona w/ her invisibility genes so that no machine could ever hunt them all down. In fact, the mere existence of prescient-invisible people makes the HK's less valuable and therefore gives less incentive for anyone to ever spend resources to develop them.

Re: Chapter 44

Posted: 27 Mar 2013 11:08
by Jacob.B
Love this chapter and really enjoyed it during my most recent re-read.

During the exchanges leading up to Siona's drinking of the spice-essence, I thought FH communicated brilliantly through Siona's expectations and subsequent reactions to Leto the human instincts Leto was both manipulating and contending with to maintain the GP. This chapter along with 42, where the reader can get a sense of Leto's sensitivity towards Siona and his humanity itself, in my opinion showcase some of the "human substance" associated with the GP and what it meant for Leto.

Re: Chapter 44

Posted: 27 Mar 2013 18:59
by Freakzilla
Jacob.B wrote:Duncan was one of the...
Please try not to post spoilers in the reading group.

Thanks

Re: Chapter 44

Posted: 28 Mar 2013 00:05
by Jacob.B
Apologies, edited.

Re: Chapter 44

Posted: 28 Mar 2013 03:58
by Freakzilla
:D