Melange


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Tleilax Master B
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Post by Tleilax Master B »

orald wrote:TMB, maybe you should rephrase that "organic" notion and call it "cellular" or "living cell". A molecule of fat is organic, but it's not what you mean, right? What you mean is a spore or cell of some kind.
Chigger addressed that; organic as in "relating to or derived from living matter." More specifically, I suggest it is cellular.

If Sandtrout are "haploid", as chigger states, they contain only one set of the chromosome pair. Somehow, they have to "pair up", probably with another sandtrout. Thus, I would suggest that surviving sandtrout in the cyst must pair up to form the little worms, as chigger stated. Maybe this is how they were able to interlock on Leto II as well???
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Post by Mandy »

How similar do you guys think melange is to the WoL (molecularly)? I know it at least smells like the spice and certainly must have spice in it. The reason I ask this is because Jessica describes some of the molecules in the WoL when she changes it the first time, and it does have a carbon molecule.
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A Thing of Eternity
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

As far as I know, the WoL (pre changing) is essentially a spice concentrate - that's what the BG uses to acheive the same effect anyways. So it would follow that it is identical. Do you mind posting the passage where it says there is a carbon mol? I'm not a chemist, but could it have carbon and silicon componants? I believe they both have the same number of bond sites (sorry, forgot the proper terminology for this).
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Post by orald »

The stuff was dancing particles within her, its motions so rapid that even frozen time could not stop them. Dancing particles. She began recognizing familiar structures, atomic linkages: a carbon atom here, helical wavering . . . a glucose molecule. An entire chain of molecules confronted her, and she recognized a protein . . . a methyl-protein configuration.
Ah-h-h! It was a soundless mental sigh within her as she saw the nature of the poison.
With her psychokinesthetic probing, she moved into it, shifted an oxygen
mote, allowed another carbon mote to link, reattached a linkage of oxygen . . . hydrogen.
The change spread . . . faster and faster as the catalyzed reaction opened
its surface of contact.
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A Thing of Eternity
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

thanks orald I don't have these fancy text files that everyone else seems to have. Anyone know enough about chemistry to confirm/squash my idea about melange possibly being part silicon based part carbon based?
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Mandy
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Post by Mandy »

The WoL is not identical to the spice. They get WoL from drowning a sandworm. I think it must be very similar though.
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A Thing of Eternity
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I only assumed they were pretty much the same because the BG use a spice concentrate to induce the agony. as far as how similar... I doubt we can come up with an accurate answer. I guess that doesn't leave me any closer to a guess about the chemical make up of Melange.
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Post by SandChigger »

We know carbon is present in the pre-spice mass because the bubble that causes the spice-blow is said to be carbon-dioxide.

(This was one of the things I was hoping for from that Science of Dune book: a biochemist actually working out a hypothetical cycle of reactions and substances that could fit the bill. Hechtel said she didn't take that approach because it would have made her article into fanfic. I don't agree necessarily. I note that there have been those on the DN BBS recently who also disparage such speculations. Little minds don't like to strain too hard, huh?)
Tleilax Master B wrote:Chigger addressed that; organic as in "relating to or derived from living matter." More specifically, I suggest it is cellular.
Hmmm. I'm having a hard time seeing how it could be cellular (meaning formerly alive?) except for any dead cells injected into the water capsule by the surrounding sandtrout. Could you elaborate on what you're thinking, B?

Um...IMO WoL isn't exactly the same thing as spice although they must be very close (source is different life-phases of the same super-organism; both have similar effects on humans). Concentrated spice in liquid form isn't WoL.

Spice is from spice-blows, WoL/spice essence comes from...wetting yer worm. ;)
FH in CoD wrote:[The] sandworm vector could handle small amounts of water—the amounts held in cellular bondage by human flesh, for example. But confronted by large bodies of water, their chemical factories went wild, exploded in the death-transformation which produced the dangerous melange concentrate, the ultimate awareness drug employed in a diluted fraction for the sietch orgy.
Here's the only passage by FH that I've found which can remotely be interpreted to mean that the worms themselves produce spice internally:
FH in CoD wrote:It was a small worm, but strong. He could sense the strength in its twisting as it hissed across the dunes. There was a following breeze and he felt the heat of their passage, the friction which the worm converted to the beginnings of spice within itself.
But note that he wrote "the beginnings of spice", not spice per se; open to interpretation, IMO. Other than the bit about the worms scattering the spice (of a blow), FH writes nothing about the worms excreting spice or spice-like substances from their bodies in any of his books. (He certainly never has them depositing "veins" of spice like in Sadworms.)

If there's something contradictory to this in the Notes, let them reveal it. (Unedited verbatim text, backed up by an unretouched image [blocking out of surrounding, unrelated text acceptable], authenticity notarized by a reputable third party willing to provide documentation thereof. That's right: their word and a few pix on a website don't buy it anymore.)

Leto's body produced spice essence from little cowl teats. But he was a special case, a hybrid of sandtrout/worm and human. Which, IIRC is the excuse Kevin gave for the new/post-Leto worms producing spice internally, no?

Sorry, this is a bit scattered...like spice after a worm passes? ;)
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Post by Mandy »

SandChigger wrote:
Um...IMO WoL isn't exactly the same thing as spice although they must be very close (source is different life-phases of the same super-organism; both have similar effects on humans). Concentrated spice in liquid form isn't WoL.

Spice is from spice-blows, WoL/spice essence comes from...wetting yer worm. ;)
Yeah, we just discussed that two posts up :P

The reason I mentioned WoL is because I believe it must have many of the same compounds as the spice and it's the only time I can remember that a chemical description is given of either the spice or WoL. So it's a good place to begin analyzing the spice.

A carbon molecule in the make-up of the WoL makes it carbon based, right? So, if the sandworms (and all of their various life phases) create the spice, that would make them carbon based too, wouldn't it? I think calling the spice organic matter is completely accurate, since it is made from living organisms... whether it's sperm or dead little maker juice, (lol).

Somewhere in the thread it is mentioned that in the series FH says the worms are silicon based, but I don't remember that, that's not something that would catch my attention anyway. I always thought silicon based meant robots and computers.
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Post by orald »

Children of Dune wrote:The worm which had brought him here had come to the stamping of his foot and, rising up in front of him, had stopped like an obedient beast. He'd leaped atop it and, with only his membrane-amplified hands, had exposed the leading lip of the worm's rings to keep it on the surface. The worm had exhausted itself in the nightlong dash northward. Its silicon-sulfur internal "factory" had worked at capacity, exhaling lavish gusts of oxygen which a following wind had sent in enveloping eddies around Leto. At times the warm gusts had made him dizzy, filled his mind with strange perceptions.
In memory of Perach, who suffered and died needlessly.

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Post by SandChigger »

Silicon-based life is something that's been bandied about for ages, based on the location of silicon compared to carbon on the periodic table (IIRC it's right below carbon?). Unfortunately, it doesn't play as well with other elements as carbon does, and doesn't form water-soluble compounds as readily in conditions like here on Earth. It would require radically different environmental conditions to get even close, and I'm not sure if the conditions as described on Arrakis would be the right ones.

Anyway, FH set the parameters: silicon and sulfur. Another piece:
FH in Dune wrote:Even shai-hulud had a place in the charts. He must never be destroyed, else spice wealth would end. But his inner digestive "factory," with its enormous concentrations of aldehydes and acids, was a giant source of oxygen. A medium worm (about 200 meters long) discharged into the atmosphere as much oxygen as ten square kilometers of green growing photosynthesis surface.
The fact that the worms give off enormous amounts of oxygen is a factor to remember.
aldehyde an organic compound containing the group ?CHO, formed by the oxidation of alcohols. Typical aldehydes include methanal (formaldehyde) and ethanal (acetaldehyde).
It'd be neat if these could be worked (=rationalized) into a somewhat realistic model. ;)
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Post by Freakzilla »

But the sandtrout aren't from Arrakis.
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orald
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Post by orald »

Alcohols? Now I know how spice-beer is made! :lol:
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Post by SandChigger »

Freakzilla wrote:But the sandtrout aren't from Arrakis.
But they have to be able to survive there.

So IF the temperatures and pressures required for silicon to behave like carbon are too extreme—even more extreme than those on Arrakis—the worms wouldn't be able to live on Arrakis.

Planets that can be areoformed by the sandtrout/worms have to be within the range of environmental conditions at which their biochemistry can function sufficiently.

I assume you're familiar with the conditions on the surface of say Venus, or Titan. Lifeforms which evolved there would die almost immediately if somehow instantaneously transported into your living room. (And I don't mean from the gunshots, either. ;) ) You see what I'm getting at?
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Post by SandChigger »

orald wrote:Alcohols? Now I know how spice-beer is made! :lol:
alcohol any organic compound whose molecule contains one or more hydroxyl groups attached to a carbon atom.
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Post by orald »

Yea, yea, I know, 'twas a bloody joke you drunk twit! :P
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Post by Omphalos »

orald wrote:Yea, yea, I know, 'twas a bloody joke you drunk twit! :P
The humorless should refrain from making jokes. :wink:
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orald
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Post by orald »

You're very right, Omph. Is that why you're not making any yourelf?
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Post by Omphalos »

orald wrote:You're very right, Omph. Is that why you're not making any yourelf?
If I had a sense of humor, you might have made me chuckle there. But probably not. :wink:
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Post by Rakis »

orald wrote:
Children of Dune wrote:The worm which had brought him here had come to the stamping of his foot and, rising up in front of him, had stopped like an obedient beast. He'd leaped atop it and, with only his membrane-amplified hands, had exposed the leading lip of the worm's rings to keep it on the surface. The worm had exhausted itself in the nightlong dash northward. Its silicon-sulfur internal "factory" had worked at capacity, exhaling lavish gusts of oxygen which a following wind had sent in enveloping eddies around Leto. At times the warm gusts had made him dizzy, filled his mind with strange perceptions.
Hmmm...maybe only part of the inside is made of silicon, or the silicon is part of the chain reaction of the factory inside the worm...could that be possible? :|
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Post by SandChigger »

Anything is possible...it's the probabilities that are worrying. ;)
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Post by orald »

I think FH probably stuck whatever elements he picked with a blindfold and a finger from the atomic chart into the story. :roll:

I don't think you could really construct anything half baked from his writings. Then again, I've no chimistry education.
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Post by Mandy »

Well, it seems like he started out with carbon based worms , and then got the idea for silicon based later. He probably didn't have a clue that there would be nerds examining every detail 40 years later. The science in the book is shaky, but that's not what I read it for anyway. I like the politics and religion.
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Post by orald »

Politics and religion? I read it just for the hot BG chicks! :P
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A Thing of Eternity
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Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Freakzilla wrote:But the sandtrout aren't from Arrakis.
Is there anywhere that hints at how the worms got to Arrakis, or where they came from. I don't remember it being mentioned, but thought I'd ask.
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