Fremen & SPICE


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lotek
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by lotek »

yes!
Spice is the worm's gonads.
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by SandRider »

are they both correct ?
I ain't feelin' like study'n on that their mess, makes my head hurt
and I had enough of that kinda crap when I was workin' ....

I'd like to see an "OH-approved" version of this, tho, for quick reference and rebuttal-postings
at "TehKJA" sycophants ... I'd like to get the SandChigger's certification on it , I think he's the only
one who really understands all that spice-cycle stuff ...
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
how to fully interact with people.
~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008
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Freakzilla
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Freakzilla »

SandRider wrote:are they both correct ?
Except for the corrections I recommended it is, as far as I can tell.
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merkin muffley
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by merkin muffley »

Freakzilla wrote:
SandRider wrote:are they both correct ?
Except for the corrections I recommended it is, as far as I can tell.
I was wondering if it had any McDune ideas in it. Since it's all Frank Herbert, I think it's totally awesome, dude. If it was McDune, it would be sheeshtastic. But I've tried to figure out the Spice Cycle before, but utterly failed at getting my head around it. Powerpoint Rulez.
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by SandRider »

what does Sandtrout >> "squanders" >> Water mean ?
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
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Freakzilla
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Freakzilla »

SandRider wrote:what does Sandtrout >> "squanders" >> Water mean ?
They link together and encapsulate water below the sand.
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by SandRider »

how does this = "squandering" ?
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
how to fully interact with people.
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SadisticCynic
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by SadisticCynic »

Verb

to squander (third-person singular simple present squanders, present participle squandering, simple past and past participle squandered)

1.To waste, lavish, splurge

I was wondering the same thing myself. It seems an odd word choice, if not actually wrong.
Ah English, the language where pretty much any word can have any meaning! - A Thing of Eternity
aethereon
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by aethereon »

This is intended to be a reference for the masses, so I will do my best to satisfy all - as long as it remains "orthodox."

I will replace "squanders." It isn't a sterile term, I admit.

In FH's appendix to Dune, kynes refers to the sandtrout as "water stealers."

squandering and stealing have different definitions, but similar connotations...

How about "stockpiles" or "caches" (caches sounds nice, but may that be used as a verb?) Or, "fervently seek and absorb."

*Freak, although I can't find proof positive of your suggestions, I will render new mindmaps to reflect them.

**I use "XMind" (a mind-mapping app) to render stuff like this. I believe there is a plugin of sorts to use within phpbb to edit the mind-map without dropping a new image file. I'll look it up. I'm pretty sure it exists, and it would be great for a responsible communal project, such as: timelines, family trees, etc.

***Powerpoint is now damned near completely useless... especially when it comes to simple brainstorming.***

I WILL USE THE SACRED FONT AS WELL
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Freakzilla »

Outstanding! :D

Anyone not agree that sandtrout and little makers are the same thing or that the organic material and excretions are the same?
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Nekhrun
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Nekhrun »

I'm not sure. Wouldn't a little maker just be a small sand worm while the sandtrout might look a little more like a leathery flap? I'll take a look through Children of Dune for a reference maybe.

It seems that much of the insight for how this might work comes from the McNeely interview we have archived somewhere. The one where the missing pages were finally added a few years ago.
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aethereon
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by aethereon »

"Then he heard the sand rumbling. Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface." - DUNE

Sand Plankton: Feeds on melange (air/sun exposed spice) burrows to become "Little Maker." Sandworms seek sand plankton as food. - DUNE Appendix/Terminology of the Imperium

Little Maker: "the half-plant-half-animal deep-sand vector of the Arrakis sandworm." - Fremen observations - DUNE Terminology of the Imperium

Sandtrout - "water stealers" "few survivors *(of the spiceblow)* entered a semidormant cyst-hibernation to emerge in six years as small...sandworms." - DUNE appendix

"sandtrout, when linked edge to edge against the planet's bedrock, formed living cisterns." - CHILDREN

"The sandtrout ... was introduced here from some other place. This was a wet planet then. They proliferated beyond the capability of existing ecosystems to deal with them. Sandtrout encysted the available free water, made this a desert planet, they did it to survive. In a planet sufficiently dry, they could move to their sandworm phase." - CHILDREN

The BG escape the destruction of Rakis with a worm that is drowned in spice water. It fissions into sandtrout that are used to dunify chapterhouse and other fertile worlds. - HERETICS

It seems this is the best cumulative start.
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by aethereon »

Nekhrun wrote:I'm not sure. Wouldn't a little maker just be a small sand worm while the sandtrout might look a little more like a leathery flap? I'll take a look through Children of Dune for a reference maybe.

It seems that much of the insight for how this might work comes from the McNeely interview we have archived somewhere. The one where the missing pages were finally added a few years ago.
The maker was a direct reference to a small worm. I'm fairly certain of this.

The maker hooks were used to subdue/goad the little worm and were used as an implement to wrangle the big boys, along with other tools, right? **edited this statement - was intended to be a question, previously it incorrectly appeared as a stated fact**

"little maker" appears to be something of a precursor to the maker (little worm).

i.e. sandplankton, sandtrout, little maker, maker (little worm), Giant sandworm... something like that.

please correct faulty presumtion.
Last edited by aethereon on 07 Sep 2010 10:07, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Freakzilla »

"You will die, too," his father said, "if you don't get off the bubble
that's forming right now deep underneath you. It's there and you know it. You
can smell the pre-spice gasses. You know the little makers are beginning to lose
some of their water into the mass."
The thought of that water beneath him was maddening. He imagined it now--
sealed off in strata of porous rock by the leathery half-plant, half-animal
little makers--and the thin rupture that was pouring a cool stream of clearest,
pure, liquid, soothing water into . . .
A pre-spice mass!

"The Arrakeen environment built itself into the evolutionary pattern of
native life forms," his father said. "How strange that so few people ever looked
up from the spice long enough to wonder at the near-ideal nitrogen-oxygen-CO2
balance being maintained here in the absence of large areas of plant cover. The
energy sphere of the planet is there to see and understand--a relentless
process, but a process nonetheless. There is a gap in it? Then something
occupies that gap. Science is made up of so many things that appear obvious
after they are explained. I knew the little maker was there, deep in the sand,
long before I ever saw it."

Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the
noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass
had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had
reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxide
was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a dust
whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand
for whatever lay on the surface.


The maker, after emerging from its little maker vector, avoided water for the poison it was.

"The Water of Death," he said. "It'd be a chain reaction." He pointed to the
floor. "Spreading death among the little makers, killing a vector of the life
cycle that includes the spice and the makers. Arrakis will become a true
desolation -- without spice or maker."

Now they had the circular relationship: little maker to pre-spice mass;
little maker to shai-hulud; shai-hulud to scatter the spice upon which fed
microscopic creatures called sand plankton; the sand plankton, food for shaihulud,
growing, burrowing, becoming little makers.

LITTLE MAKER: the half-plant-half-animal deep-sand vector of the Arrakis
sandworm. The Little Maker's excretions form the pre-spice mass.

PRE-SPICE MASS: the stage of fungusoid wild growth achieved when water is
flooded into the excretions of Little Makers. At this stage, the spice of
Arrakis forms a characteristic "blow," exchanging the material from deep
underground for the matter on the surface above it. This mass, after exposure to
sun and air, becomes melange (See also Melange and Water of Life.)


Sandtrout=Little Maker
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by SandRider »

freak beat me to all those quotes - guess that what's happens when you can sit in your
"office" at your "job" and post on internet forums all day...

Maker = Shai-Hulud = Giant Sandworm of Arrakis
Little Maker = Sandworm Vector = Sand Trout

I've also wondered recently, meaning in like the last fifteen years or so, what the exact definition of "vector" was
in the early sixties when Frank was writing Dune ... I think he meant it in the sense of a component part that
could be combined, which makes sense in the context .... these are "modern" definitions for "biological vector":
biological vector (noun): A vector that is essential in the life cycle of a pathogenic organism.
vector (noun): 1. An organism, such as a mosquito or tick, that carries disease-causing microorganisms from one host to another. 2. A bacteriophage, a plasmid, or another agent that transfers genetic material from one location to another. 3. A quantity, such as velocity, completely specified by a magnitude and a direction.
{The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt}

Vector (biology)
In epidemiology, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but which spreads infection by conveying pathogens from one host to another. A classic example is the anopheles mosquito which acts as a vector for the disease malaria by transmitting the malarial parasite plasmodium to humans. In this case plasmodium is harmless to the mosquito (its intermediate host) but causes the disease malaria in humans (its definitive host). In molecular biology and genetic engineering a vector is a vehicle for transferring genetic material into a cell.
http://www.babylon.com/definition/vecto ... 29/English" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
we've hit this area of speculation before, in that it's essential to remember the state of science & technology
at the time Frank was writing ... you can't take new discoveries and try to fit them into Frank's Dune ...
well, you can, but you end up being wrong and sounding like an Asshat (Onasander, shishit, newfacedancer,
Arnolodo, TAZ, Byron Merritt) ....

in the same thought, tho, keep in the mind the (real life) time gap between Dune & God-emperor ...


aethereon wrote: How about "stockpiles" or "caches" (caches sounds nice, but may that be used as a verb?) Or, "fervently seek and absorb."
How about the word Frank used ?
Only a water barrier stopped it -- and sandtrout, encapsulating water, were a water barrier. ~ Children of Dune

Sandtrout wanted to rush to the water and encapsulate it. ~ God-emperor of Dune

I no longer feel the sandtrout cilia probing my flesh, encapsulating the water of my body within their placental barriers. ~ Leto II

and I'd say use Appendix I: The Ecology of Dune as the "canon" text ...
Now they had the circular relationship: little maker to pre-spice mass;
little maker to shai-hulud; shai-hulud to scatter the spice upon which fed
microscopic creatures called sand plankton; the sand plankton, food for shai-
hulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers.
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
ImageImage

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
how to fully interact with people.
~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Freakzilla »

SandRider wrote:freak beat me to all those quotes - guess that what's happens when you can sit in your
"office" at your "job" and post on internet forums all day...
I was off today. You know, Labor Day? :P
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by aethereon »

Mini-update...

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lotek
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by lotek »

nice!
Spice is the worm's gonads.
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Freakzilla
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Freakzilla »

Outstanding!
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by merkin muffley »

that's awesome. thanks!
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by SandChigger »

Sandtrout, water-stealer, sandswimmer and LIttle Maker are all one and the same critter. (Actually half-plant/half-animal.)

Referring to this version:

Image

What is the significance of solid vs dotted lines?

Where does "primitive worm" come from in the texts? Is that supposed to be the "stunted worm" of the Minor Erg drowned by the Fremen to obtain WoL? That's not the same thing.

A spice blow creates both spice and shell-shocked sandtrout, which join together and encyst = form a cyst capsule from which a small (three-meter) worm emerges after a metamorphosis of six years. If it survives (=escapes older, larger worms; doesn't blunder into a volume of sandtrout encapsulated water; etc), it grows into a shai-hulud.

One way of interpreting the "seminal" stuff from the McNelly interview is to view the spice from the spice blow as a necessary catalyst in the formation of the worm-making cysts by some of the few sandtrout who survive the pressure and temperature changes during the spice blow.

The sandtrout propagate (increase in number) on their own as well as fission out of old or dying sandworms. You kind-of have to assume the same for the sandplankton; or assume that they are produced by the sandtrout (or worms).
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by Freakzilla »

Yeah, that.

You could get rid of "Primitive Worm" and remove "Giant" to just leave "Sandworm".
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aethereon
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by aethereon »

Noted. Update soon.
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by aethereon »

mini update

Image

didn't include *all* suggestions yet. I will.
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Re: Fremen & SPICE

Post by SandRider »

there is a difference between "sandworm" & "giant sandworm" ...

I'm thinking of a passage in Dune somewhere where it's clear that "Shai-Hulud" refers to
the giant worms, the "Old Men of the Desert" ....

as Chigger said, there are also the "stunted worms" used to produce the Water of Life;
this would seem to me to be a part of the spice cycle and should be included somewhere ...

& Chigger, I think it would help this project if you'd list out the spice cycle as you understand it
in a simple, bullet-point format ... I'd like to see this completed into a chart that can be defended
as Frank's concept as well as can be determined ... then really done up well with the Dunefish fonts
and some (simple) artwork into poster-size ...

I also think the title should be changed to "Spice Cycle" ...

aethereon, good work, thanks for doing it ... that's how all this has to work, a collaborative effort
with input from members, debate, consensus, and a point-man to pull it all together & produce ...

1969 McNelly interview here:
http://tau.solahpmo.com/viewtopic.php?f=615&t=1218" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
WM: And in that sense there is no right answer to the final…let’s say, the complete life cycle of Shai-Hulud.

FH: Yes. Do you want me to pin it down for you? I can. I mean, I had it in mind…

WM: You had it in mind?

FH: Yes, but…

WM: I had it worked our, too. Let’s…let’s compare notes.

FH: Well, I’d be interested, before I say anything…I…to hear what you have to say.

~~~~

WM: Oh, I was going to trace Shai-Hulud for you. Well, I can’t quite do it completely without referring to the text and I'm afraid that most of it is given in the text, but I think that the question of the sand trout and the...

FH: That's right.

WM: Is one of the vectors from the sand trout to the dry leathery, to the sand trout...no...dry leathery thing...sand trout...to little maker...to...a...

FH: To the big...to the worm...to the big one.

WM: To the...yes...well...but it...it goes through...does little maker just go directly into the worm, or is there another...

FH: No, that's...it goes directly into the worm.

WM: Goes directly into the worm.

FH: It's a matter of growth process.

WM: All right. To the...to Shah'halud itself, and then Shah'halud spice, I think, becomes the eggs.

FH: Well, the spice, as I conceived it...

WM: Spermatic material...

FH : The spice as I conceived it was necessary for the development from, let's say, the pupil stage.

WM: Yes.

FH: For him to go beyond the pupil stage, they had to have to be in the presence of the spice. That's the way I conceived it.

WM: I see.

FH: That's why it's so...

WM: I think the spice itself is almost, as being spermatic material.

FH: That's right. That's exactly right.

WM: And then there's spice growing into the...well, ultimately the little maker.

FH: U-huh.

WM: As I saw it.

BH: Is that something like royal honey, royal nectar.

FH: No, the way I saw it is slightly different but…the spice in the presence of a…of a dead…worm.

WM: Oh yes. Killed by the water of life. Then this becomes…and you’re off in the spice blow.

FH: That’s right. This becomes the…the seed of the new life cycle.

WM: Ok. Yes. It’s almost orgasmic in that sense.

FH: That’s right. Yes.


I'd not take alot a this conversation as "canon" - simply because in the context of the entire interview,
it's very clear that McNelly and Frank were good friends, intelligent, intellectual men who often sat
around talking speculatively ... and I wonder how often, when McNelly was talking, Frank's mind might
have wandering off, sparked by some phrase McNelly said, and brought back to the conversation when
McNelly would say "Is that right ?" and Frank would grunt ...

I just spent a little time wandering thru this interview again ... it's a gem ... I certainly wish there were
alot more of this type of material, Frank and Beverly and friends sitting around talking ... I'd also point
to this interview as the example of Beverly's involvement in and influence on Frank's work ...
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
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I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
how to fully interact with people.
~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008
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