Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Hi. I haven't read the conclusion of Dune and I don't ever intend to. All I know (from an irate Amazon review) is what turned out to be the huge threat against humanity. I don't care. The final Dune is crap fanfiction. I've read the first couple of prequels and wish I hadn't, so no way am I going to let these fools tarnish my appreciation of the master works.

But there's one thing I'm curious about. Was there ever an answer given as to why people in some kind of magic portal kept appearing to people. All I can think of is that no-chambers were more advanced, with mobile/dynamic openings, or that plus space-folding techs led to universe/timeline linking, and that has something to do with humanity's survival. Awesome if I'm right. And if Bri & Kev wrote something different then maybe they're wrong anyway, so I'll never know.

Oh, and... the people running really fast in bullet-time, defying physics... was that ever explained, or do we assume it's a weird and impossible genetic conclusion?

Thanks. =D


Edit: I should add that I know the magic portal folk are in the domain of Frank's works, but the forthcoming explanation for it, as far as I can remember, isn't. That's why I posted the question in the preq/seq dungeon forum.

Um... there was an answer given, but it's not Frank Herbert's answer. Even though they claimed they have his notes.

If you're REALLY REALLY REALLY sure you want to know, I'm sure there'll be plenty of people here willing to chime in on an answer. Or you can find it yourself in the course of reading through the threads in this forum.

Consider this just a final opportunity to change your mind!


Edit: I'll answer later if you're sure and nobody else jumps on it!

Haha, trust me. I'm not going to consider the BriKev answer to be rightful and final at all. I half want to know just to know what a mess they made of it, but I admit I hold out hope that they MIGHT have nailed the original intent, though I doubt it very much. I came to terms with the fact I'll never know for sure after reading the first line of House Attreides. Or whatever their first "book" was. I use it as a monitor raising block and part-tim soldering mat and thats not a joke.

Lay it on me. I'm ready for it. ;/ I'm already angry about the answer before I've heard it. I might as well know.

And as for Franks notes and that fabled floppy disk, it's pure going-to-hell marketting strategy. That's the other thing I came to terms with after reading the first sentense of House Attreides. He probably found a text file with "must remember to write final dune book and paint garage" and that's enough for Brian to attatch any outragous drama to it as long as he's suspiciously vague for ever and ever about what he's found.

Streaksy wrote:Lay it on me. I'm ready for it. ;/ I'm already angry about the answer before I've heard it. I might as well know.

Holy shit did you ask for it.

Let's put it this way - everything that was answered was answered to as full a degree as it ever will be in the original books, the "finale" 2 books from the hack don't explain anything at all, nothing.

Woa. That's actually the best I could have hoped for. Better than "it was him all along!" or "she's her own father" twists I was expecting.

I'd rather take up your knife-in-the-eye offer than endorse that attrocity with my money.

No, it's much worse than that.

Us explaining it to you wouldn't make much sense unless you've read their Legends of Dune series.

In that they had two characters, Omnious, the ruling AI and his cross-dressing robot majordomo, Erasmus. Both of which were admittedly their own creation and not directly from FH's notes.

The answer to your question is these two, the computer and the robot, survived the Butlerian Jihad and ended up being the people in Duncans visions and the Enemy of Many Faces that the Honored Matres are fleeing from.

And THEN it gets 8 million times worse than that - seriously, making Daniel annd Marty into Robots was pretty dumb when they were clearly some kind of advanced face dancers - BUT, that's actually one of the LEAST bad things in those 2 books in my opinion.

Um..

Anyone else had an inkling that the Golden Path led to the discovery of time/dimension-travel which is like a Great Scattering times infinity.. and the otherworldly voyeurs were from that future, ensuring a sort of eternal survival for the species?

Robots. Haha.

I remember Agamemnon and the titans... can't remember a whole lot about their context, but I remember that AI that is a network that sends self-updates over huge distances, and Agamemnon was probably a general of... blah who cares. It's trash. I read about a kid that could command sandworms... Duncan on a training world, recalling the RIDICULOUS advice "when unsure of the surface, bare feet is best." It's about as sensible as "use grenades to jump higher!"

Okay I see where this is going and I didn't expect better. ;/ Thanks.

Streaksy wrote:Anyone else had an inkling that the Golden Path led to the discovery of time/dimension-travel which is like a Great Scattering times infinity.. and the otherworldly voyeurs were from that future, ensuring a sort of eternal survival for the species?

I can't remember the passage or context, but I do remember that at least one of the characters in the last two books mentions the possibility that the Scattering had spread to entire other universes.

I didn't get the impression D&M were from the future, but there's really no evidence I can think of for or against it... plus I hate time travel SF most of the time so it's not something that occurs to me easily!

I don't mind time travel coming in to serious stories as long as it's not a super-accessible wormhole, timegate, or Delorian. I'm pretty sure I got the impression they were future people, but I was young. Certainly couldn't remember their names or whether they had names. Oh, didn't they call eachother by their names for the first time on the last page when they were all "do you realise what was in those capsules??" "Yep, that's why I let them go. It should make things interesting." or something. AAGH I've got to get my Dunes out! Even though I think the first character attatchment I felt after since Leto II and Ghanima were making their plans was the lead Bene Geserit sister in Chapterhouse. Or was it Heretics.... the one that discovers the big spice cache..? A little for Miles Teg, maybe..

You people with your Dune appreciation are about to make me in to a reader again. ;/

Edit: I keep trying blast through the series but Messiah keeps tying me up in its gloomy hyper-layering, and I have to stop to think too often. I'm not bright or disciplined enough. ;/

Messiah is one of my favourites, not always a fun read but it's really where the whole point of the first book is made I think.

Totally. It's where the bigger picture starts to dawn, even if it undermines the victory in the first book which seemed more epic before things opened up. The first Dune is more self-contained. I assume it wasn't intended to be successed. That makes it harder to success, but Frank didn't lose an grain of integrity and thats why his work is so engaging. Tell that to Brian.

Streaksy wrote:Tell that to Brian.

He wouldn't have any idea what you're talking about.

Streaksy wrote:Totally. It's where the bigger picture starts to dawn, even if it undermines the victory in the first book which seemed more epic before things opened up. The first Dune is more self-contained. I assume it wasn't intended to be successed. That makes it harder to success, but Frank didn't lose an grain of integrity and thats why his work is so engaging. Tell that to Brian.

Actually FH imagined and wrote the first 3 books basically as one - this is why the first book actually sends the exact opposite of one of FH's main messages, you don't get the message until book 2.

...and book three is the happy/scary ending.

When I said the first book, I meant the first 3 that were combined. Is that what you mean?

Paperclip cartoon character addressing Brian: "I see you're writing a sci-fi epic...."

Streaksy wrote:When I said the first book, I meant the first 3 that were combined. Is that what you mean?

I mean Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune. FH had all three of those in mind as one story when he was first writing Dune.

Everything after Children of Dune was definitely added on though.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:

Streaksy wrote:When I said the first book, I meant the first 3 that were combined. Is that what you mean?

I mean Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune. FH had all three of those in mind as one story when he was first writing Dune.

Everything after Children of Dune was definitely added on though.

More accurately, I think he said he had written parts of DM and CoD while writting Dune.

Freakzilla wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:

Streaksy wrote:When I said the first book, I meant the first 3 that were combined. Is that what you mean?

I mean Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune. FH had all three of those in mind as one story when he was first writing Dune.

Everything after Children of Dune was definitely added on though.

More accurately, I think he said he had written parts of DM and CoD while writting Dune.

I'm pretty sure he said he thought of all three as 1 book almost, I could be wrong though.

Either way, Dune was not intended to be a stand alone novel, DM and CoD were in the works before Dune was even released, before it was even done being written.

Some comments have been made about how bad the prequels/sequels/interquels? are. Really, you knew the books were going to be shit right from House Atreides. I mean, it wasn't long before things started feeling wrong- so wrong. I think shit really hit the fan when the "Elecran" made an appearance. Oh, my God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I know I shouldn't be saying "God" for just any reason, but, oh, my God- an Elecran! All those bad feelings I'd had, all those doubts... I kept hoping that they would turn things around... *sigh* Oh, my God... House Harkonnen wasn't any better... Hunters of Dune- based on Frank Herberts' notes... Oh, my God... We live in a beautiful world, but it has a flip-side... ohh... I'm about to go to sleep right now and am more than a little drunk... I don't have an answer for your original question- I forgot what it was...

One more thing... This whole Dune thing isn't all about Dune for me. It's about something beautiful that fell into unworthy hands. Something like that. Yeah, Dune is great. McDune is not. The Ying and the Yang... I wish that we could live in a perfect world- but how would we know what "bad" is if there wasn't "good"? Anyway, something, something, something....

JustSomeGuy wrote:One more thing... This whole Dune thing isn't all about Dune for me. It's about something beautiful that fell into unworthy hands. Something like that. Yeah, Dune is great. McDune is not. The Ying and the Yang... I wish that we could live in a perfect world- but how would we know what "bad" is if there wasn't "good"? Anyway, something, something, something....

Yin my friend, yin. Drives me nuts when people say yingyang! Funny pet peeve!

A Thing of Eternity wrote:Yin my friend, yin. Drives me nuts when people say yingyang! Funny pet peeve!

Well, I had logged out and then checked your response. Thank you for correcting me. I won't be making that mistake again! At least, I hope not! Later.

JustSomeGuy wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:Yin my friend, yin. Drives me nuts when people say yingyang! Funny pet peeve!

Well, I had logged out and then checked your response. Thank you for correcting me. I won't be making that mistake again! At least, I hope not! Later.

Ha, don't worry about it, you should hear all the shit I get wrong constantly! That one I just hear almost every day though, you're not alone! (Said it that way myself for years and years).