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Axlotl Tanks
Posted: 11 Mar 2008 13:19
by Tleilax Master B
Thought we could have a general topic here to discuss axolotl tanks.
I think this is one of the best descriptions in the book, provided by Duncan when he regains his serial memories in HoD:
The axlotl tanks!
He remembered emerging time after time: bright lights and padded mechanical hands. The hands rotated him and, in the unfocused blurs of the newborn, he saw a great mound of female flesh -- monstrous in her almost immobile grossness . . . a maze of dark tubes linked her body to giant metal containers.
Obviously a combination of a brain-dead female for use of her womb and a variety of mechanical parts, including tubes connected to metal tanks. I never really noticed before the "padded mechanical hands", which I presume are operated by a Master or Domel as opposed to be automated when extracting ("decanting" a Frank put it) a ghola or clone.
Anyway, feel free to add other insights, comments, etc on tanks here...
Re: Axoltl Tanks
Posted: 11 Mar 2008 17:01
by orald
Tleilax Master B wrote:Thought we could have a general topic here to discuss axolotl tanks.
Figures the dirty, scheming Tleilaxu would want to set up an Axoltl Tank thread...
Re: Axoltl Tanks
Posted: 11 Mar 2008 17:07
by Tleilax Master B
orald wrote:Tleilax Master B wrote:Thought we could have a general topic here to discuss axolotl tanks.
Figures the dirty, scheming Tleilaxu would want to set up an Axoltl Tank thread...
(I am an evil little Master)
Re: Axoltl Tanks
Posted: 11 Mar 2008 21:11
by Rakis
Tleilax Master B wrote:Thought we could have a general topic here to discuss axolotl tanks.
I think this is one of the best descriptions in the book, provided by Duncan when he regains his serial memories in HoD:
The axlotl tanks!
He remembered emerging time after time: bright lights and padded mechanical hands. The hands rotated him and, in the unfocused blurs of the newborn, he saw a great mound of female flesh -- monstrous in her almost immobile grossness . . . a maze of dark tubes linked her body to giant metal containers.
Obviously a combination of a brain-dead female for use of her womb (...)
Is there a quote somewhere about the female, if she is really brain-dead (in the original books)?
Posted: 11 Mar 2008 21:41
by orald
FH should have been punched in the face for having such a spelling-difficult word made in his duniverse. We've already spelled it twice differntly in this thread, non of which is the right spelling.
It's
axlotl.
Anyway, I'd find it hard to imagine the Tleilaxu not making it "brain-dead", or some form of unconsciousness. Having it concious and supposedly in pain/fear/discomfort would only serve to damage it and make control over it more difficult.
Here'r more descriptions, from ChD:
Clever, clever, the Bene Tleilax. Far more clever than we suspected. And they have dirtied us with their axlotl tanks. The very word "tank" -- another of their deceptions. We pictured containers of warmed amniotic fluid, each tank the focus of complex machinery to duplicate (in a subtle, discrete and controllable way) the workings of the womb. The tank is there all right! But look at what it contains.
The Tleilaxu solution was direct: Use the original. Nature already had worked it out over the eons. All the Bene Tleilax need do was add their own control system, their own way of replicating information stored in the cell.
"The Language of God," Scytale called it. Language of Shaitan was more appropriate.
Feedback. The cell directed its own womb. That was more or less what a fertilized ovum did anyway. The Tleilaxu merely refined it.
"That accumulation could be very valuable to us, Duncan. Do you also remember the axlotl tanks?"
Her question sent his thoughts into the misty probings that caused him to imagine strange things about the Tleilaxu -- great mounds of human flesh softly visible to the imperfect newborn eyes, blurred and unfocused images, almostmemories of emerging from birth canals. How could that accord with tanks?
BTW, I thought human babies can't see anything until at least a few day/weeks after birth. Is this a FH(or sceince of his day) error(or possiblly a plot device so Duncan can remember) or can they really see, if imperfectly?
Posted: 11 Mar 2008 22:17
by Rakis
Maybe something related to Duncan only, part of his capacity to remember all his ghola lives ?
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 06:35
by orald
That would account for the part that he actually seem to be able to remember stuff from day 1, so I dropped that issue as either a plot-device for revealing stuff to the reader, or in-text explenation as being a feature in the Duniverse- after all, that's what OM are capable of, so lets assume in the Duniverse it's possible. But unless newborns can actually see a bit, he should've had a memory of everything but sight.
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 08:30
by Tleilax Master B
orald wrote:FH should have been punched in the face for having such a spelling-difficult word made in his duniverse. We've already spelled it twice differntly in this thread, non of which is the right spelling.
It's axlotl.
(My bad, I fixed the spelling in the topic title)
Actually, Frank spells it "axolotl" in Dune Messiah and then changes it to "axlotl" in the rest of the books. Of course, the TRUE spelling is "axolotl" if we assume its refers to the salamander of the same name. I think that is a safe assumption, since that particular salamander has the amazing ability to regenerate body parts.
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 08:37
by orald
Well, lets suppose the word got twisted around a bit during the millenia.
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 12:13
by Phaedrus
IANAB, but I'm pretty sure human infants can see at birth. Cats can't, I know, but I've never heard anything about humans being incapable of seeing things right out of the womb.
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 19:20
by SandChigger
Phaedrus wrote:seeing things right out of the womb.
You mean, like, peeking first to decide if they REALLY want to come out or not?
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 19:27
by orald
Does KJA have any kids? If not, we can understand why now.
Posted: 12 Mar 2008 19:27
by Freakzilla
Talk about the white light at the end of the tunnel!
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 03:34
by SandChigger
orald wrote:Does KJA have any kids? If not, we can understand why now.
On his MySpace page he describes himself as a "Proud parent". But it's not HIS kid:
Rebecca has a son, Jonathan, by her first husband, whom she divorced in '90 to marry Kevin (in '91).
According to WikiPeeeeee.
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 07:55
by orald
So indeed no true offspring of his loins has yet to choose to come out and play...something we should all be thankful for.
Here's a toast to KJA's appearant sterility! *toasting smiley that we've yet to actually have*
Maybe he should ask fellow fruitcake Tom Cruise how to make a baby after 10 years or so of trying...that is, let his wife get impregnated by a bunch of fellow scientologists in Tom's case.
You'll eventually see I'm right about this...
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 08:27
by Tleilax Master B
orald wrote:So indeed no true offspring of his loins has yet to choose to come out and play...something we should all be thankful for.
Here's a toast to KJA's appearant sterility! *toasting smiley that we've yet to actually have*
Maybe he should ask fellow fruitcake Tom Cruise how to make a baby after 10 years or so of trying...that is, let his wife get impregnated by a bunch of fellow scientologists in Tom's case.
You'll eventually see I'm right about this...
I'd like to impregnate Tom Cruise's wife; but I'm not a scientologist.
Maybe KJA should spend more time trying to knock-up his wife, and less time writing shitty dune books.
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 09:17
by SandChigger
How about shitty books, period?
'Becca is 52 now. We're talking huevos
raunchyros, dude.
Oh...oh...what's that great slam from
The Lion in Winter again?!
[O Kevin!] What kind of spindly, rickett-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed, gammy-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 09:30
by Tleilax Master B
SandChigger wrote:How about shitty books, period?
'Becca is 52 now. We're talking huevos
raunchyros, dude.
Oh...oh...what's that great slam from
The Lion in Winter again?!
[O Kevin!] What kind of spindly, rickett-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed, gammy-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?
OK, OK, so that would be a waste of time. How 'bout taking up a hobby then? Maybe hiking?
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 09:52
by Nekhrun
Maybe one day his kid will find his notes somewhere and actually turn them into something good to kind of balance the universe out.
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 12:21
by Omphalos
There could not possibly be any unused ideas that spring into his head. If he thinks it, it goes in, no matter if it fits or not. So Im not sure that anything useful will be in those "notes" (read: "micro-cassettes").
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 17:04
by orald
Tleilax Master B wrote:OK, OK, so that would be a waste of time. How 'bout taking up a hobby then? Maybe hiking?
Maybe dying? Please?
Nekhrun wrote:Maybe one day his kid will find his notes somewhere and actually turn them into something good to kind of balance the universe out.
I think his writings are to balance FH's glorious ones, so we don't get any karma points deposited in out favour for later use.
Tleilax Master B wrote:I'd like to impregnate Tom Cruise's wife; but I'm not a scientologist.
Yea, bummer we'd have to sacrifice our souls to have a go.
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 22:28
by Rakis
Nekhrun wrote:Maybe one day his kid will find his notes somewhere and actually turn them into something good to kind of balance the universe out.
Hey...maybe there's hope with Brian's kids (don't know if he has any?). Genetics sometimes skips a generation or two...
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 22:42
by orald
Brian has a daughter, Kim, no? From what I saw in a glancing remark in Chig's blog we shouldn't be setting our hopes high in her case. Or did I misinterpert it?
Posted: 13 Mar 2008 23:07
by Rakis
orald wrote:Brian has a daughter, Kim, no? From what I saw in a glancing remark in Chig's blog we shouldn't be setting our hopes high in her case. Or did I misinterpert it?
Hmmmm...does she have kids? Does she want kids? Oh...the hell with it...we just need a scratch of her skin and a Tlelaxu Master
Posted: 14 Mar 2008 03:52
by orald
Rakis wrote:Hmmmm...does she have kids? Does she want kids?
I hereby volunteer for the Dune Ressistence! I'll get us a true heir in no time!
Does this constitutes as a rape threat against her?
How did we get so far from topic?