Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

What do you guys think Frank Herbert planned for Scytale's Null Entropy tube?

It would have been some yummy personas for a face dancer to acquire. Or for a ghola.

I think it also had something to do with gaining many of the Atreides abilities.

I think he would have continued to use it as a plot mechanism.

Serkanner wrote:I think he would have continued to use it as a plot mechanism.

That's all I saw it as. Maybe if Scytale had the opportunity to re-establish the Tleilaxu civilization it would be genetic source material for his minions. In no way could I see FH bringing back the Atreides as gholas.

Yeah, I believe it's one of the meanings for the last words of Chapterhouse
"Gholas, he's welcome to them."
As in, "you really think they are of importance ?"

And foreshadowing, since we all know what d-bag thought to himself "hey free gholas, and no one wants them! I'm havin' some o'that me!"

I've been thinking about it and I think Frank planned on Scytale losing those cells to Daniel and Marty. I think Scytale would successfully escape chapter house and assume the scattering face dancers are just as loyal as standard face dancers.i posted this to the Dune reddit forum (aka the peanut gallery). I wanted to know what you guys thought!

Since I now view the SFD's as being farmers of memories/personas just as the BG were farmers of genetic strains, I think the ghola cells in the nullentropy tube were going to merely be harvested to become part of the combined personas of some face dancer or another. They would have to grow and activate the memories of each gholas to do this, of course, but at that point they could be harvested by M&D and the original gholas be disposed of. We needn't ever have to see that process and could merely be informed later that this had been done.

Also possible is that since the BT experiment with Duncan succeeded and they were able to splice genetic material from different gholas into one and activate all the combined memories simultaneously, it's possible that at that point they could just take the entire lot of cells from the tube and mix it all into one being from the start. Activating that one being's memories would recreate the lot.

I'm currently reading HoD and the Nullentropy tube is bullshit. Waff nearly came at the idea of Atreides Bene Gesserit breeding mistress and the thought of what the BT might do with that raw genetic material.

Freakzilla wrote:I'm currently reading HoD and the Nullentropy tube is bullshit. Waff nearly came at the idea of Atreides Bene Gesserit breeding mistress and the thought of what the BT might do with that raw genetic material.

I kind of see what you're getting at, but what exactly is the contradiction? From what the books suggest it seems that the BT are good at mixing genes together and at messing around with a given template, but don't have the know-how to create their own genetic lines. What the BG do is basically the next-best thing to pure genetic engineering, where the BT really only do cross-pollination and splicing. Maybe they saw a BG breeding mistress as being a far better genetic template to begin with in creating gholas?

There is also the matter of the sharing, which gives each RM the full memories of all RM's who came before in the sharing, in addition to her natural genetic lineage. Even if they had Muad'dib's cells and could create and awaken a ghola of him they'd gain access to his genetic memories but not to any BG other than Jessica since Paul wasn't converted in the presence of a RM; hence no sharing. I suppose we can wonder whether his prescience gave him knowledge of specific BG lives, but I don't think that's quite the same thing as having the actual memories. By harvesting cells from a breeding mother the BT might be able to awaken a ghola that had full knowledge of the entire line of sisters going back perhaps to before the jihad. That kind of information is surely something they had never had access to before, and Waff likely assumed there's no way the BG would be able to realize what they were giving up by giving the BT access to their genetic material. Compared with masters, Gurney, Muad'dib and whomever else, that is something beyond what they had already.

I suppose that's possible but all a modern Atreides has is faster reflexes and the Siona gene, they could splice that in like they did with Duncan. A RM would kill herself before letting a face dancer take a memory print.

Freakzilla wrote:I suppose that's possible but all a modern Atreides has is faster reflexes and the Siona gene, they could splice that in like they did with Duncan. A RM would kill herself before letting a face dancer take a memory print.

Right, but if they merely got a few cells they could create RM gholas, or even add those cells to another ghola and potentially reawaken the entire RM genetic and shared memories in the gholas of a master.

Godemperorjames wrote:I've been thinking about it and I think Frank planned on Scytale losing those cells to Daniel and Marty. I think Scytale would successfully escape chapter house and assume the scattering face dancers are just as loyal as standard face dancers.i posted this to the Dune reddit forum (aka the peanut gallery). I wanted to know what you guys thought!

Just out of curiosity, why is the Dune Reddit the peanut gallery? Are you referring to the Preek fans on there who actually try to bring up Brian and KJA's fan fiction on a subreddit reserved for Dune?

I posted this recently as HrankFerbert about how if we complain about the BH and KJA book we should propose solutions to how they can make the books better or stop money grubbing. It seemed liked they get offended when you point out that complaints without solutions are kind of fruitless. Thats just my personal philosophy though.

Also, it feels like people on there think Dune is like the next GoT bandwagon to jump on. And they love to post really simple memes about the spice. We get it. There is spice irl.

Also, i posted about the null entropy tube and no one said anything about it. It's an interesting question, right?

georgiedenbro wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:I suppose that's possible but all a modern Atreides has is faster reflexes and the Siona gene, they could splice that in like they did with Duncan. A RM would kill herself before letting a face dancer take a memory print.

Right, but if they merely got a few cells they could create RM gholas, or even add those cells to another ghola and potentially reawaken the entire RM genetic and shared memories in the gholas of a master.

I don't think memories of Other Memory would be of any use. The reawakened ghola would have to go through The Agony AGAIN!

Freakzilla wrote:

georgiedenbro wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:I suppose that's possible but all a modern Atreides has is faster reflexes and the Siona gene, they could splice that in like they did with Duncan. A RM would kill herself before letting a face dancer take a memory print.

Right, but if they merely got a few cells they could create RM gholas, or even add those cells to another ghola and potentially reawaken the entire RM genetic and shared memories in the gholas of a master.

I don't think memories of Other Memory would be of any use. The reawakened ghola would have to go through The Agony AGAIN!

Now that I think of it, maybe Scytale would not lose to the new face dancers but take them over. He could be like Leto II and use all that Atreides information. I dont think Frank planned on bringing back Paul or anyone from the earlier books unless they were atrocities. He woud focus on the theme that the future is always better than the past.

Freakzilla wrote:

georgiedenbro wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:I suppose that's possible but all a modern Atreides has is faster reflexes and the Siona gene, they could splice that in like they did
I don't think memories of Other Memory would be of any use. The reawakened ghola would have to go through The Agony AGAIN!

I guess I'm not sure about this mechanic. When Leto II was born, for instance, we know he already had all of Paul's memories, including the complete information of all the prescient scanning Paul had ever done. But the text doesn't explicitly say that he also inherited Paul's knowledge from 'safaris' into his OM. FH didn't focus that much on OM when it came to Paul compared to how much it was discussed in GEoD. OM seems to be a bit different from 'memory', as according to Leto II one must actually take time to 'explore' it in order to see what's there. The RM's later on say this must be done carefully, which means it's not just as simple as 'remembering' something. But let's assume a RM had done a particular safari and learned some things. The way I think of it at the very least those discoveries would become part of her 'regular' memory; she'd now know them in the conventional sense without having to take a journey through the past to recollect those same events again later on. So maybe you're right that the entire breadth of OM (shared and genetic) wouldn't transfer to a ghola when awakened, but I still think it makes sense to assume that any knowledge gleaned already from particular safaris would be retained in the basic knowledge of the ghola when reawakened. But such such an awakened ghola would, as you say, have to still go through the agony again to conduct further exploration of the OM.

georgiedenbro wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:

georgiedenbro wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:I suppose that's possible but all a modern Atreides has is faster reflexes and the Siona gene, they could splice that in like they did
I don't think memories of Other Memory would be of any use. The reawakened ghola would have to go through The Agony AGAIN!

I guess I'm not sure about this mechanic. When Leto II was born, for instance, we know he already had all of Paul's memories, including the complete information of all the prescient scanning Paul had ever done. But the text doesn't explicitly say that he also inherited Paul's knowledge from 'safaris' into his OM. FH didn't focus that much on OM when it came to Paul compared to how much it was discussed in GEoD. OM seems to be a bit different from 'memory', as according to Leto II one must actually take time to 'explore' it in order to see what's there. The RM's later on say this must be done carefully, which means it's not just as simple as 'remembering' something. But let's assume a RM had done a particular safari and learned some things. The way I think of it at the very least those discoveries would become part of her 'regular' memory; she'd now know them in the conventional sense without having to take a journey through the past to recollect those same events again later on. So maybe you're right that the entire breadth of OM (shared and genetic) wouldn't transfer to a ghola when awakened, but I still think it makes sense to assume that any knowledge gleaned already from particular safaris would be retained in the basic knowledge of the ghola when reawakened. But such such an awakened ghola would, as you say, have to still go through the agony again to conduct further exploration of the OM.

Yes, the process of gaining OM evolved through the series. Jessica and Paul experienced no "agony". Irulan's contraceptive plus Chani's high spice diet during her pregnancy gave the twins access to other memory in the womb.

georgiedenbro wrote: Right, but if they merely got a few cells they could create RM gholas, ...

Could they? What makes a RM a RM? The Ghola needs to be able to survive the Agony and as far as I know that needs BG training.

EDIT: only now I have read the posts following the quote. It remains an interesting topic though.

Serkanner wrote:

georgiedenbro wrote: Right, but if they merely got a few cells they could create RM gholas, ...

Could they? What makes a RM a RM? The Ghola needs to be able to survive the Agony and as far as I know that needs BG training.

EDIT: only now I have read the posts following the quote. It remains an interesting topic though.

Yeah. I think that since the gholas of RM's would at least retain the memories of safaris they'd already done, that alone would be incalculably valuable to the BT. Even if a particular RM only had distinct knowledge of, say, a few dozen RM's from her past that she'd taken the time to study, that would already be an immense treasure trove of insight into the BG workings.

georgiedenbro wrote:

Serkanner wrote:

georgiedenbro wrote: Right, but if they merely got a few cells they could create RM gholas, ...

Could they? What makes a RM a RM? The Ghola needs to be able to survive the Agony and as far as I know that needs BG training.

EDIT: only now I have read the posts following the quote. It remains an interesting topic though.

Yeah. I think that since the gholas of RM's would at least retain the memories of safaris they'd already done, that alone would be incalculably valuable to the BT. Even if a particular RM only had distinct knowledge of, say, a few dozen RM's from her past that she'd taken the time to study, that would already be an immense treasure trove of insight into the BG workings.

Yes, it would provide information but the ghola would not be able to function as a RM.

Freakzilla wrote:I'm currently reading HoD and the Nullentropy tube is bullshit. Waff nearly came at the idea of Atreides Bene Gesserit breeding mistress and the thought of what the BT might do with that raw genetic material.

This always bothered me too. The BT should have sufficient skill to experiment with the "raw genetic material" that each master supposedly carries around with them with every incarnation.

I don't buy the searching of garments either. How, when? All the BT at Tabr are killed at the end of DM. There is a mad rush of urgency to preserve the flesh, so surely any small scrap of material left on clothing would have deteriorated by the time anyone got to rummage through it. I also can't believe that the Fremen would have left these garments laying about, they seemed more fastidious than that in all their actions.

I've seen it said elsewhere that perhaps there were face dancers at Tabr to do the rummaging, but I always took the early face dancers to be clumsy copies that risked exposure if observed too long, especially by people as observant as Fremen. From DM, where the conspiracy is introduced:

Or merely another Face Dancer?" Irulan asked.
"No Face Dancer," Edric said. "A Face Dancer risks exposure under prolonged
surveillance.