Paul of Dune Excerpt

[A Thing of Eternity]

It's hard for me to believe Fremen would wear off-world stillsuits even if they WERE better.

Ye, exactly. It cant be a inconsistency, but is really anoying how they care about the details, the congruencies and the "life style" of the character. it's non-existent.

sandchigger made a strong question: Why Muad'dib, a accepted fremen, would use fine clothes from offworld? Only to insult his people? it's non-sense.

Agreed. It's out of character for Paul to do something like that.

[leagued]

That was basically my whole point behind the extended apologistic rant, so I'm glad that people agree that the gun does get jumped at times.

And I also think that it's entirely possible that in a following chapter KJA/BH will demonstrate that the new stillsuits have built-in jetpacks and non-worm-calling shields.

And while the trend shown in DM was for Fremen to loose water discipline rather than seek improvements, it makes sense that offworlders would want to try and develop better stillsuits for sale on Dune or as gifts to the new Emperor. When some civilization/race/culture is kicking your ass all over the place, you look for what makes them better and then you try and adopt that and improve (in your opinion) on it. If anyone reads Robert Jordan there's a great example of this in the way the Cairhein adopt/alter the ji'e'toh of their Aiel (*cough*Fremen*cough*) conquerors. And if no one else reads Jordan, then that's not a very useful example.

[Worm]

I don't think we are jumping anything here. Why would a Fremen trust his life to an offworld manufactured stillsuit?

I wouldn't give a crap if they were said to be "superior" to Fremen made suits. I would KNOW that the people that made my stillsuit made it with all the attention and care to protect my LIFE, not because they wanted gizmos in the suit to make it flashy and "high tech".

Where is this attitude about not trusting offworld technology? Paul, in his efforts to relate to the Fremen, wouldn't jeopardize such a newly found alliance by insulting the Fremen by wearing an offworld stillsuit, and then coercing other Fremen into wearing the knock-off stillsuits over their tried and tested Fremen made models.

So I think it is a valid complaint and obvious inconsistency with the original books.

[leagued]

Where does it say he coerced anyone into wearing them? Only Paul and his three companions are said to be wearing the suits. Also, I'll point out again that the paragraph could, and by proper English rules should, be referring to the cloaks and not to the stillsuits.

I wouldn't give a crap if they were said to be "superior" to Fremen made suits. I would KNOW that the people that made my stillsuit made it with all the attention and care to protect my LIFE, not because they wanted gizmos in the suit to make it flashy and "high tech".

Nothing in the excerpt mentions any high-tech gizmos or that the suits are flashier. In fact, the garments are said to look weathered.

I don't think we are jumping anything here. Why would a Fremen trust his life to an offworld manufactured stillsuit?

Because this is Paul and he can be reasonably sure he won't die because of wearing it. Maybe he was curious about the offworld suit and wanted to test them and he knows that the best way to test a stillsuit is in the desert. And yes, he could theoretically use his prescience to look down a possible future of him wearing the suit and see how it went rather than just wearing the damn thing, but to me that kind of frivolous use of prescience violates Frank's intent far more than having Paul at one time put on a stillsuit of non-Fremen make and walk around in the desert a little.

[SandChigger]

I'm just having a hard time believing that any amount of jumping the gun is going to make us look worse than them, after all the shit they've pulled.

Go search Messiah for "stillsuit". This is about Paul (emphasis added):

Compared to those other days, the peril in his lonely walks remained minor. But, putting on a stillsuit, he put on the desert. The suit with all its apparatus for reclaiming his body's moisture guided his thoughts in subtle ways, fixed his movements in a desert pattern. He became wild Fremen. More than a disguise, the suit made of him a stranger to his city self. In the stillsuit, he abandoned security and put on the old skills of violence. Pilgrims and townfolk passed him then with eyes downcast. They left the wild ones strictly alone out of prudence. If the desert had a face for city folk, it was a Fremen face concealed by a stillsuit's mouth-nose filters.

Yeah, this is a man who is going to wear an offworld suit just to appease some corporation on the occasion of one of the more important events in his life, the burial of his father.

Sorry, I don't buy it.

[SandChigger]

WhyTF would he want to experiment with a stillsuit on this particular day?

[Rakis]

WhyTF would he want to experiment with a stillsuit on this particular day?

I'm sure we are gonna know later that it was made in Kaitain...

[Lisan Al-Gaib]

WhyTF would he want to experiment with a stillsuit on this particular day?

I'm sure we are gonna know later that it was made in Kaitain...

That it will be the worse. I'm a little curious, and very concern, in how they will put this information in Paul of Dune. Whatever they do, the mess is done...

[leagued]

My point is that there exist several, to my mind, plausible reasons to explain it. There are plenty of examples of why KJA is a hack and why the prequels/sequels are horribly inferior. Having Paul wear an offworld stillsuit as a way of showing how the Empire has changed in the wake of Paul's ascendancy to the throne is not one of the better ones. It doesn't contradict anything that Frank wrote.
Why would he pick this day to wear an offworld stillsuit (and I still contend that there is no definitive evidence in that passage to show that the stillsuit and not the cloak is of offworld manufacture) when he visits the shrine of his father? Why not? Duke Leto was never Fremen and he was also an offworlder, I can't see it being offensive to his memory to wear an offworld garment.

But I know, I know, just by making a rational case for anything about the prequels having even the slimmest chance of not contradicting the original works probably is heresy.

They aren't always raping the corpse people, sometimes they have to pause to get a drink of water. Maybe someday they'll throw a reach-around by writing an entire chapter without a contradiction in it.

[SandChigger]

But I know, I know, just by making a rational case for anything about the prequels having even the slimmest chance of not contradicting the original works probably is heresy.

No, that's not it at all, so calm your apologist ass down already.

You're making what you consider a rational case in your terms, but don't seem to be getting the points we're trying to make IN STORY TERMS at all.

To wit: THE PEOPLE THIS IS SUPPOSEDLY ABOUT WOULDN'T ACT THAT WAY.

Really a minor point to be so worked up about, no?

Please, reveal your true face that we may know you.

[Freakzilla]

I don't think it's a major point but it again clearly indicates a lack of understanding of the details in FH's books.

[Mr. Teg]

My point is that there exist several, to my mind, plausible reasons to explain it. There are plenty of examples of why KJA is a hack and why the prequels/sequels are horribly inferior. Having Paul wear an offworld stillsuit as a way of showing how the Empire has changed in the wake of Paul's ascendancy to the throne is not one of the better ones. It doesn't contradict anything that Frank wrote.
Why would he pick this day to wear an offworld stillsuit (and I still contend that there is no definitive evidence in that passage to show that the stillsuit and not the cloak is of offworld manufacture) when he visits the shrine of his father? Why not? Duke Leto was never Fremen and he was also an offworlder, I can't see it being offensive to his memory to wear an offworld garment.

But I know, I know, just by making a rational case for anything about the prequels having even the slimmest chance of not contradicting the original works probably is heresy.

They aren't always raping the corpse people, sometimes they have to pause to get a drink of water. Maybe someday they'll throw a reach-around by writing an entire chapter without a contradiction in it.

"Making a rational case for anything about the prequels is...heresy."

Cute

You overplayed your hand.

[Crysknife]

The stillsuit issue jumped out at me as soon as I read it. What a damn joke this is! Let's see, the fremen have been wearing these suits for who knows how many hundreds of years, surviving, redesigning, honing into the single most important thing a fremen would ever own, and Paul just goes and shits on all that tradition and hard work for a cheap garment made by offworlders that can't be trusted.

Why would the emperor of the known universe wear something made by people who don't have his back? Why would he take the chance that it would fail at just the right time when he needed it most(and when the makers wanted it to)? The Fremen didn't do things the easy way on purpose! I find it hard to believe that any of them would accept an offworld stillsuit and trust it with their lives when they could have a fremen stillsuit made by people who know the value of making them right. It's not till years later when we start to see the old ways fail....not one year after the Jihad started! And even then, no fremen of the deep desert would wear such a thing.

I find it more plausible to think that a fremen warrior would slit the throat of whoever would dare present such a garment to Paul in the first place.

"Oh, don't hurt him Stilgar, he's just trying to be polite"

I mean WTF!! We're talking about the Fremen here, one of whom was ready to slit the throats of Paul's children to keep the old ways!

And this is why I will read these books....no escape here for the two hacks. Now they're messing with ends that aren't left open.

[SandChigger]

Let's move on.

Why is he going to Caladan?

Right, got this Jihad just getting started and lots of corporate product adds to film (gots to keep CHOAM happy!) and evidently—according to the book synopsis—lots of plots within plots within mini almost-chapters brewing along with something about losing my mind from the stress of it all so what do I do next but

run back to my original birthworld and old home so the hack authors can introduce lots of imagined episodes from my boyhood there.

Yeah, THAT makes a lot of sense, too.

(Sorry, am I being TOO nitpicking? )

[Omphalos]

I swear they are doing this shit just to stir our pot.

[SandChigger]

Something I wouldn't put past Kevin, actually.

I thought Kevin blawgged during his and 'Becca's trip to Alaska last year that he had been inspired by the verdant forests and was going to use that experience in describing Ecaz in PoD.

Ecaz (ALF Ken B IV) is only 16.5 ly from Caladan (DEL Pav III), so maybe he'll pop over for a visit, maybe even take one of those "make your own fogwood sculpture" day classes offered by the artsy-fartsy hippy locals while there, during this little sojourn on Caladan.

[Ampoliros]

It is bait, because it both says they are superior, while saying they never could be superior in Paul's eyes. "Clever Girl" How's that working out for you Kevin, being clever?"

On their trek, Paul and his three companions wore new stillsuits covered by mottled cloaks to camouflage them in the desert. Though the garments looked well worn, they were actually finer than any Paul had used when he’d lived as a fugitive among the Fremen.

This states both that Paul is wearing them and that they are actually finer.

Their makers claimed that these durable offworld imports were superior to the simpler versions that had traditionally been made in hidden sietches.

Bad. Classic KJA. Again, someone reverse engineers a stillsuit and within a year they have created new stillsuits that are better than those created by people who make them themselves because they trust their lives to the suit. Kinda like saying Wal-mart started its own line of Assault Rifles that were "improved" versions of the M-16. The soldiers break them out of the box and immediately charge into battle. How can the guns fail? they are "IMPROVED." I'll trust my life to what it says on the box!

The manufacturers mean well, he thought. They do it to show their support for me, without realizing the implied criticism in their “improvements.”

"GOTCHA! YOU IDIOT OH"S LOL111. You got all mad cause I said Off-world stillsuits were better! hahahahahaha look at your rabid faces! This totally gets you back for the T-shirt. And now you look like fools cause I have Paul say that no they aren't superior. Okay, well I don't want to trash MY stillsuits, so i'll have him suggest they aren't "all that and a bag of chips".


Sorry Kev, nice try. We have to point out your major flaw: that Paul is wearing either a sub-standard stillsuit in the desert, or one that is "superior" to those crafted by Fremen. Don't even try to retconn it that some Fremen left Dune and set up a manufacturing plant off world. Still fails.

As it has been said before this falls under the very strict rules of water use among Fremen. If you are slack on water discipline you are hurting your tribe. Accidentally is one thing, but deliberately? They don't care if your Mua-muther-effin'Dib. One of the Feydakin would have gut stabbed Paul and left his water to spill on the sand for such a blatant disrespect of custom.










Oh and you still fail because the Shrine to Duke Leto was built in between Books 2 and 3 of Dune.

What's that you say? the Joke is on us? YOU GET TO WRITE 3 MORE BOOKS AFTER THIS ONE?

[Lisan Al-Gaib]

Let's move on.

Why is he going to Caladan?

I was thinking about that too. There isnt write in DM or CoD that Paul nevermore put his feet out of Dune? I remember he saying something about never see the rain again.

I think he said something about that in the end of Dune too. I will verify.

[Ampoliros]

Couldn't resist. Anyone think maybe that thing they are riding in the background is one of the new improved stillsuits? I bet you a fiver the new improved stillsuits are made from wormskin. Paul will find this strangely ironic in a way he can't put his finger in, er on.

[Tleilax Master B]

^^hehe, classic! Love it!

[Ampoliros]

by the way what it T(A)U?

[A Thing of Eternity]

by the way what it T(A)U?

The (Almost) Undeleted is Omphalos's forum for OH and general SF discussion.
http://bb.solahpmo.com

[Ampoliros]

Wow, i was accepted and then banned from DN before i got more than 1 post off. I would have been civil there Byron!

this would have been my second

In my Professional Opinion, its yet more attempts to improve the landscape by bulldozing over "What Was Once Small and Minor" in the attempt to build Teh Wowzers.

Logic dictates that some old dinky shrine built in the 70's is not wordfire-rrific enough for DUNE. We must have something photogenic, with a little dialogue, but mostly just new gadgets and supercool "better than Dune Messiah" drama.

No, No, but I must hold my temper here. We are in the sovereign space of Arrakis here...right?

[A Thing of Eternity]

Wow, i was accepted and then banned from DN before i got more than 1 post off. I would have been civil there Byron!

this would have been my second

In my Professional Opinion, its yet more attempts to improve the landscape by bulldozing over "What Was Once Small and Minor" in the attempt to build Teh Wowzers.

Logic dictates that some old dinky shrine built in the 70's is not wordfire-rrific enough for DUNE. We must have something photogenic, with a little dialogue, but mostly just new gadgets and supercool "better than Dune Messiah" drama.

No, No, but I must hold my temper here. We are in the sovereign space of Arrakis here...right?

Maybe he's just banning anyone who's a member here and hasn't been posting at DN for ages. Still doesn't explain why Lisan got the boot though.

[orald]

Don't even try to retconn it that some Fremen left Dune and set up a manufacturing plant off world. Still fails.

For some reason I find this idea hilarious.



My poor efforts at making a picm using Painter and Google.