Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

@Omph - I need a poll option here ....

Norman Spinrad wrote: Knowing Frank's political philosophy, I once asked him
how he could keep writing this royalist stuff. He told me
he planned to end the series with a novel that would
transition to a fictional universe of democratic rule.

Consensus ?

are we accepting this as an under-lying premise for an OH Dune7?

I don't have any reason to doubt Spinrad.

possibly has something to do with the scattering, each pocket of humanity will be able to determine for itself how its civilization works without one overlying system controlling everything.

so not exactly vote per individual, but each pocket would be subject to the same opportunity of participation/revolution.

It makes sense to me. I don't have the PDF's in front of me, but there was some conversation about Democracy in Chapterhouse wasn't there?

Obviously, that would be what The Net would be used for. Everybody gets on The Net then everyone gets an instantaneous vote.

Hive mind.

Freakzilla wrote:Obviously, that would be what The Net would be used for. Everybody gets on The Net then everyone gets an instantaneous vote.

Hive mind.

Would Duncan get more than one vote? What do you suppose his role in all of that would be?

Nekhrun wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:Obviously, that would be what The Net would be used for. Everybody gets on The Net then everyone gets an instantaneous vote.

Hive mind.

Would Duncan get more than one vote? What do you suppose his role in all of that would be?

you're scaring me...

I honestly think he would have stuck with only dealing with the Old Empire, and just whatever aspects of the Scattering that directly involved the OE (ie: HM, Super Face Dancers, etc).

I don't doubt that he had in mind getting away from the "royalist" stuff and going to Democracy, but I can only see it having been about the OE honestly.

Freakzilla wrote:I don't have any reason to doubt Spinrad.

I completely agree.

Are you going to share your thoughts on this one Rider?
We've all been awaiting the big anouncement for a while, is this it?

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I don't doubt that he had in mind getting away from the "royalist" stuff and going to Democracy, but I can only see it having been about the OE honestly.

Why is that? Don't you think that after incorporating all of those lives that he would've determined that to be the only way to go?

with Arrakis destroyed, and the Bene Gesserit having risen to power, what would be the center of the democracy?

I guess an extensive census of the scattering would be necessary, but that seems counter to the golden path, scattering humanity to the four winds so no one entity would be able to control them, hell even know where they all are.

I would think it would lead the opposite direction to individual rule by planet or groups of planets and not beyond that.

It seems more likely the now Hybrid Bene Gesserit are more of a short term steward. Allow the recovery from the harsh years of the God Emperor( I know its been 1500 years, but that takes time).

I know all this is post finishing out the the main characters story and so forth, just my thoughts.

Freakzilla wrote:Obviously, that would be what The Net would be used for. Everybody gets on The Net then everyone gets an instantaneous vote.

Hive mind.

Hive five !

Ampoliros wrote:possibly has something to do with the scattering, each pocket of humanity will be able to determine for itself how its civilization works without one overlying system controlling everything.

so not exactly vote per individual, but each pocket would be subject to the same opportunity of participation/revolution.

I'd like to say this, but with the BG subtely pulling all the strings. Maybe each planet has its own government, or a group of planets, but you wouldn't see a return of the Great House system or the Landsraad.

what about the BG model ?
they seemed to have a pretty good balance on Chapterhouse as far as non-RM/acolytes go.

Their planning in advance above human lifetime length was quite appealing I believe.

Norman Spinrad wrote:he planned to end the series with a novel that would
transition to a fictional universe of democratic rule.

Maybe for a certain group of people. Everyone else would've been on their own, for good or ill.

Nekhrun wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I don't doubt that he had in mind getting away from the "royalist" stuff and going to Democracy, but I can only see it having been about the OE honestly.

Why is that? Don't you think that after incorporating all of those lives that he would've determined that to be the only way to go?

Because how COULD it realistically include all of humanity? Humanity has Scattered too far, if such a democracy was possible in the first place it would essentially defeat the purpose of the Scattering.

I will agree that this theoretical Democratic "nation" could have been bigger than the Old Empire, but not by that much realistically, and certainly not to encompass all of humanity.

Sure, the "net" or whatever plot device FH wanted COULD have allowed him to like all of humanity into one unified group, regardless of how far they'd fled, which would have been a nifty ending, but it doesn't jive with the whole message of the Golden Path in my opinion.

this "democracy" does not have to be "unified" ... in fact, while the Scattering does not ensure "democracy" to the
separate groups of humanity, it does ensure that all the groups cannot be ruled by one entity ... I think the Scattering
was the first step in the destruction of the "Empire of the Known Universe" ... and while certainly not a guarantee of a
"transition to democracy", it is a transition away from centralism ...

This

In a sense, its democracy in that you won't have a government with the resources of a galaxy to crush the people if they decide to rise up and change their government.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I honestly think he would have stuck with only dealing with the Old Empire, and just whatever aspects of the Scattering that directly involved the OE (ie: HM, Super Face Dancers, etc).

I don't doubt that he had in mind getting away from the "royalist" stuff and going to Democracy, but I can only see it having been about the OE honestly.

I definitely feel like he was leading up to some sort of liberated set up of humanity. Now whether that was to be democracy as we know it I think is debatable, but from what I read in his other works such as The Eyes Of Heisenberg I definitely feel like the theme of resistance to a controlling authority would have accumulated in something similar to democracy in 7 although perhaps not as direct as each individual voting on their government, but rather on high officials doing so.

SandRider wrote:this "democracy" does not have to be "unified" ... in fact, while the Scattering does not ensure "democracy" to the
separate groups of humanity, it does ensure that all the groups cannot be ruled by one entity ... I think the Scattering
was the first step in the destruction of the "Empire of the Known Universe" ... and while certainly not a guarantee of a
"transition to democracy", it is a transition away from centralism ...

I agree other than with the "first step" part, the Famine Times was the first step, the Scattering was the final in my opinion, that job is done, centralization is over.

Ampoliros wrote:This

In a sense, its democracy in that you won't have a government with the resources of a galaxy to crush the people if they decide to rise up and change their government.

That has nothing really to do with democracy though, you could have a democracy with that power (which would then cease to be a democracy of course) or you could have a bunch of non-democracies spread out without any of them having that power over the others. I think I'm missing something in your post here!

SandRider wrote:@Omph - I need a poll option here ....

Norman Spinrad wrote: Knowing Frank's political philosophy, I once asked him
how he could keep writing this royalist stuff. He told me
he planned to end the series with a novel that would
transition to a fictional universe of democratic rule.

Is it at all possible that this was perhaps a snarky or sarcastic reply from Frank?

When I first read the quote, that is the sort of tone I got from it.

Particularly from the usage of the word fictional, which in this particular context would normally be redundant.

We need to consider a few things. Spinrad didn't exactly qualify when he asked from about "this royalist stuff". Did he tell him that after Chapterhouse or at some point before? Admittedly, I haven't read Heretics & Chapterhouse in several years but they didn't seem very "royalist" to me. That in my recollection applied more to the previous 4 books. What this brings me to is, it is possible Frank may have planned on writing more past Dune 7. He may not have meant he was going to end it with Dune 7. Dune 7 could have been a giant leap in time the way GEoD was for all we know and a start to a new trilogy also. I don't know if Frank knew he was dying when he talked last to Spinrad about Dune and only figured he had one more book in him. We may never know. But one thing about Dune as it progressed through the 6 books is clear to me, Frank wasn't afraid of massive change and the growth of humanity and the human consciousness in his books. It would have been exciting to see where he would have taken it in Dune 7. When I first read Chapterhouse, I took it more as an opportunity to wipe the slate clean with the way it ended than a cliffhanger per se.

As to how he would have worked in democracy. That would have been so interesting !!!

I think Spinrad is dead on point saying "Never wrote it, of course. And Brian and Kevin certainly didn't from any 7 notes." As more time goes on, I'm more convinced the Hacks Twain only trotted out the reference to the Dune 7 discs and supposed 1000s of pages of notes to justify their radical departure from Frank's universe that they were taking which is truly of their own making before they ever "discovered" Dune 7 stuff.

"We take care of our own." That's a nasty echo.
"Then you know how that dilutes the vote. Chief symptom: People don't vote.
Instinct tells them it's useless."
"Democracy is a stupid idea anyway!"
"We agree. It's demagogue-prone. That's a disease to which electoral systems
are vulnerable. Yet demagogues are easy to identify. They gesture a lot and
speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervor and godfearing
sincerity."
~CH:D



However, Mother Superior did require the voting support of the proctors.