Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Greetings. Glad to see a place that celebrates the original dune books and shuns the new trash that have nothing to do with the original. I'd prefer to just pretend the new stuff ever happened, but anyway.

I am a devout reader of the last three books. God Emperor, Heretics and Chapterhouse. I re-read them and listen to the audio books a little everyday and still learn something every time.

I like the first three but I think the last three have so much content. I believe the seventh would have been the greatest book ever written and sometimes fantasize about an alternate universe where it was. Would war, hunger, poverty be eliminated if it was printed? Probably. There is a saying in one of the books, I don't remember, about a fremen way of ending things. You just take a knife to it, cut it off, and say here is the end now.

The one allusion I see most in the books is of family. It's basically about a big old-world jewish family. The bene gesserit are the women in the family. They really run things while the men fight over who is the head of the household and the family business. The other memory is the same as you knowing exactly what a family member would say about something without even asking them. Hell, GEoD is practically a manual on how to raise your children.

I should probably save this stuff for the other sections, so I'll just say thanks for this corner of the internet.

Interesting take. Welcome, Twice Welcome.

Sandrider will be here presently to claim your water for the tribe.

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife--chopping off what's incomplete and
saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
-from "Collected Sayings of, Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan

That's from Dune, BTW.

So is 'Noble Purpose'...

Ah thanks. I knew someone would post the whole quote. I think it is fitting for the last book.

I searched my pdf of dune and didn't see anything about noble purpose though. I didn't think it was mentioned until heretics. Being what Leto II wanted to instill in the BG.

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:Ah thanks. I knew someone would post the whole quote. I think it is fitting for the last book.

I searched my pdf of dune and didn't see anything about noble purpose though. I didn't think it was mentioned until heretics. Being what Leto II wanted to instill in the BG.

In Dune, Paul called it 'Terrible purpose'.

But he felt no letup in the cold precision of his being. He sensed that his
new awareness was only a beginning, that it was growing. The sense of terrible
purpose he'd first experienced in his ordeal with the Reverend Mother Gaius
Helen Mohiam pervaded him. His right hand--the hand of remembered pain--tingled
and throbbed.

Recalling the experience, he recognized his own terrible purpose--the
pressure of his life spreading outward like an expanding bubble . . . time
retreating before it . . .

And he thought: I'm a seed.
He suddenly saw how fertile was the ground into which he had fallen, and
with this realization, the terrible purpose filled him, creeping through the
empty place within, threatening to choke him with grief.

"I don't understand you, Paul," his mother said.
He remained silent, thinking like the seed he was, thinking with the race
consciousness he had first experienced as terrible purpose. He found that he no
longer could hate the Bene Gesserit or the Emperor or even the Harkonnens. They
were all caught up in the need of their race to renew its scattered inheritance,
to cross and mingle and infuse their bloodlines in a great new pooling of genes.
And the race knew only one sure way for this--the ancient way, the tried and
certain way that rolled over everything in its path: jihad.


There's more, Paul was a noble.

Ah that makes sense. The Jihad. The Mahdi. Paul's terrible purpose he could not stop because his prescience had locked him into it and he hated it. Leto knew it and it took him 3000 years to undo it. He sees the error and prods the BG towards a noble purpose.

I had not put the two together until now. Thanks. Crazy how the later books seem so different but are still tied to the first one so perfectly.

I exist only to serve.

First let me preface this by saying... I'm quite drunk.

What Leto II taught the BG doesn't mean shit. Sure, It may have made the Old Empire a little better, but in the long run it didn't matter. As long as there were people somewhere...

It would matter because they would be the most powerful force in the universe after merging with the HM and defeating the face dancer threat.

Welcome.

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:It would matter because they would be the most powerful force in the universe after merging with the HM and defeating the face dancer threat.

What difference is that to Leto? His only goal was the survival of humanity. It didn't matter to him who won that little skirmish because at that point nothing could stop human survival.

Well why would Leto leave the message at Sietch Tabr for Darwi if it didn't matter to him? That just doesn't make sense.

And with your attitude why read anything after God Emperor lol.

Perhaps the noble purpose was necessary to ensure the golden path. Perhaps he just wanted the BG, who were most like him, to be more than selfish uncaring bitches. He said he almost destroyed them because of their selfishness so it obviously mattered to him.

Nekhrun wrote:Welcome.

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:It would matter because they would be the most powerful force in the universe after merging with the HM and defeating the face dancer threat.

What difference is that to Leto? His only goal was the survival of humanity. It didn't matter to him who won that little skirmish because at that point nothing could stop human survival.

On the other hand, he did write:

"WHAT IS SURVIVAL IF YOU DO NOT SURVIVE WHOLE?"

Maybe Leto thinks there is more to survival that simply staying alive.

There is a quote somewhere about not just survival, but what conditions there are for the survivors. I can't quite recall the exact wording of it and couldn't find it, so I might be making that up though...

Welcome!

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:It would matter because they would be the most powerful force in the universe after merging with the HM and defeating the face dancer threat.

That's still only a local event.

Welcome!

The HM were the most powerful force in the scattering until the face dancers ran them off. Once the Face Dancers were defeated the BG would be the biggest. I guess you could argue the percentage of what portion of the scattering they would influence but it would certainly be nothing to scoff at. Remember not one reverend mother came back from the scattering. The HM got them all.

Leto just said the scattering would produce numbers large enough that one force would not be able to wipe out everyone . With the Siona gene that actually doesn't have to be that much if you think about it. It's certainly a large number of people but it's not infinite.

Scaled down the old empire would be like a country or continent and the scattering the rest of the world. E.g. the potato famine in Ireland. At least that's how I see Herbert's intended allusion here.

Thanks for the welcomes btw

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:Well why would Leto leave the message at Sietch Tabr for Darwi if it didn't matter to him? That just doesn't make sense.

That's a good question. He does share some similarities with them. Perhaps he just wanted to let them know that he was one up on them even at this much later date. If they wanted to survive then they could understand his journals from a different perspective. I agree with your comment below...

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:Perhaps the noble purpose was necessary to ensure the golden path. Perhaps he just wanted the BG, who were most like him, to be more than selfish uncaring bitches. He said he almost destroyed them because of their selfishness so it obviously mattered to him.

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:And with your attitude why read anything after God Emperor lol.

I see that you are kidding, but I don't understand the reasoning. It was the same reason I started reading McDune, I was hoping for another engaging story in the Dune Universe. At least Frank delivered.

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:The HM were the most powerful force in the scattering until the face dancers ran them off. Once the Face Dancers were defeated the BG would be the biggest. I guess you could argue the percentage of what portion of the scattering they would influence but it would certainly be nothing to scoff at. Remember not one reverend mother came back from the scattering. The HM got them all.

I've always thought that this was strange considering how the BG handled the HM that came back to the old empire. It was not easy, sure, but it's not like they didn't hold their own.

Nekhrun wrote: I've always thought that this was strange considering how the BG handled the HM that came back to the old empire. It was not easy, sure, but it's not like they didn't hold their own.

They sexually imprinted them.

Bellonda's mentat projection in Chapterhouse:

Earlier, Bellonda had offered her hypothesis:
Honored Matre with captive Reverend Mother taken prisoner in that first
Scattering. "Welcome, Reverend Mother. We would like you to witness a small
demonstration of our powers." Interlude of sexual demonstration followed by a
display of Honored Matre physical speed. Then -- withdrawal of melange and
injection of the adrenaline-based substitute laced with a hypnodrug. In that
hypothetical trance, the Reverend Mother was sexually imprinted.
That coupled to the selective agony of melange withdrawal (Bell suggested) might
make the victim deny her origins.

And here's the rub, Sheanna is immune to imprinting, and so are Duncan's trainees. Obvious setup for the next book. One of the chapters ends on Bel thinking about it.

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:

Nekhrun wrote: I've always thought that this was strange considering how the BG handled the HM that came back to the old empire. It was not easy, sure, but it's not like they didn't hold their own.

They sexually imprinted them.

I don't think we're talking about the same thing then. I was talking about BG interaction with HM. Every time we see them together in the book the BG seem to have the upper-hand in terms of being able to read them and their emotions and directing them where they'd like them to go being careful not to anger them too much. They may not have been able to match them physically in most cases but controlling a discussion is certainly a form of power/control.

You're wondering how the BG succumbed to the HM in the scattering right? They drugged them and then sexually imprinted them. They don't do this to Lucilla. That's why she is able to take control of the conversation... until she f's up.

[Edit] Lucilla not Lucinda. Lucinda is my friend's cat lol

The Ixian Ambassador wrote:You're wondering how the BG succumbed to the HM in the scattering right? They drugged them and then sexually imprinted them. They don't do this to Lucinda. That's why she is able to take control of the conversation... until she f's up.

What I'm wondering is why didn't they just do that same thing to the Old Empire group of BG. Seems like they missed their opportunity.

Oh OK. I think it says something about the HM wanting something from the BG. Their secrets. To help them fight the face dancers. I guess if they did the same technique of adrenaline drug and sexual imprinting they wouldn't get that. Belonda said it would make them deny their past. I think it also says only the top level HM would know this. That's why Murbella doesn't know anything about the HM absorbing BG.