Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Freakzilla wrote:This leads me to suspect at the very least, Marty and Daniel could track no-ships via their navigation computer.

The impression I took away from that was that it was a prescient future echo effect. Don't ask me to explain that as I've confused flatulence and inspiration often.

Well, I was basing mine on the actual text... I know how crazy that sounds.

So rather than it being a prescient foreshadowing you see A.I., that's fine. But please don't presume my assumption's not as based on the text as yours.

inhuien wrote:So rather than it being a prescient foreshadowing you see A.I., that's fine. But please don't presume my assumption's not as based on the text as yours.

Well, the dude's got a point. If the Ixian Navigation Machine is a machine that does the job or a Guild Navigator, not only is it AI, it's fucking prescient. It may be what you said but it's the INM doing it for them.

Freakzilla wrote:If the Ixian Navigation Machine is a machine that does the job or a Guild Navigator, not only is it AI, it's fucking prescient.

Is that necessarily true? I thought that the Navigators' prescience were a substitute for computation-based navigation; could the INM simply be able to compute a safe course through space, rather than forsee it?

HBJ

Hunchback Jack wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:If the Ixian Navigation Machine is a machine that does the job or a Guild Navigator, not only is it AI, it's fucking prescient.

Is that necessarily true? I thought that the Navigators' prescience were a substitute for computation-based navigation; could the INM simply be able to compute a safe course through space, rather than forsee it?

HBJ

Not if it's moving or "folding" faster than light. Then any form of navigation would have to be prescient in a sense, because the ship would be moving "relatively" faster than time itself.

It was never really said how the INM works.

Fair enough. Just checking.

HBJ

It was said "what was said" about it:

Luyseyal leaned toward him. "The lxians boast that their machine will transcend
Time in the way that you do it, Lord."

...

Luyseyal discarded all pretense of Bene Gesserit self-control, a fine comment on
her recognition of Leto's powers. Her voice almost screeched: "Do you know what
the lxians boast? That their machine will predict your actions!"

Could it also be that the net was an interpretation in Duncan's mind? Like the moon falling. The ship may have had a set of coordinates it was going to and the possibility of coming back lets Daniel and Marty know where it is going. Also if they command trillions of other Face Dancers...

But you could be right about the nav computer. The HMs dumped their home addresses when they came into the old empire.
Security measure? I also wonder if all the BG that scattered in chapterhouse went directly to Daniel and Marty, not passing GO.

as to the democracy thing, frank mentioned the need for all powerful juries, and Duncan suspects these two may have voted against the HMs. Or they drove them back. I like the idea of Marty and Daniel being the new teachers/shepaeds. They could be a good test of the GP, or maybe they would help against Sheena.

Well, back on the topic of Daniel and Marty,

Am I the only one who think they are (a metaphor for) Bev and Frank Herbert themselves, having a dialogue about creation - in a typical "creators meeting their creatures" way ?

This chapter never felt like science-fiction to me. Two old persons, a male and a female, pruning roses by a beautiful morning, discussing the future of a group of characters. It feels so much more like a conclusion and an avowal from a great artist : "well, see how many wonderfull stories I could have create/written with these characters? There are two mentats, many gholas, a Thleilax master, a few rogue Bene Gesserits and Duncan Idaho!" But you let them escape, tells Bev-Marty to Frank-Daniel! And now they have escaped the net and they will have a life of their own - in the mind and imagination of thousands and thousands of readers...

Marty-Bev even tells Daniel-Frank that he let them escape because of the possible gholas :

"That Master had a nullentropy tube in his chest. Full of ghola cells, too!"
"I saw it."
"That's why you let them get away!"

Because it opens the door to too many plots, too many possible stories, in an infinite multiverse created by the scattering, the possibilities becomes endless. So Daniel-Frank decided to let them go...

I know it is a very provocative interpretation that I propose here. But I like it because it gives a closure to the series. Because of that chapter, I never expected another Dune novel. I knew it was over, that the author gave me the right to continue the saga, in my imagination, with the characters he created.

Well, now that I shook the dust of this thread, I would really like to hear your input on that interpretation. Please discuss!

The theory that M&D are Bev and Frank is an old one, but I do like the spin that the ending is a point-blank statement that Dune 7 was never to be made due to the lack of inevitability of what might come next. The Golden Path not only prevents tracking humanity, it even prevents the author from predicting them!

I was actually searching for this thread and couldn't find it for some reason when I semi-recently posted my epistle about what I think the ending means. Dunno if I should transfer it over...probably not. My theory, which is that FH was setting us up for a new definition of marriage/relationship, would actually tie in nicely with the Bev-Marty Frank-Daniel theory, since I think that not only are M&D sexually bonded but I think that would have been a very important point for any Dune 7 story.

... and with the DNA in the nullentropy tube we also have all the other characters of the series "escaping". That would fit the ide of Frank letting go.

I have to admit though that every time I read Chapterhouse I have the feeling something more is coming after the final chapter. But it has been quite some time since my last read, so perhaps I should re-read it again to see if my opinion has changed.