they picked edric?!?!


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distrans
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they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

their existence actively threatened and they choose that their best interests are serviced by a representative obviously subservient to the tleilax and the gesserit?

why did the guild choose edric for this?

why are their only 9 threads about the guild here?
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by Freakzilla »

I assume you're referring to the cabal against Paul in Dune Messiah. Why not Edric?

There probably aren't many topics on the Guild because they remain largely mysterious in the books.
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georgiedenbro
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

They needed an oracle to obscure the conspiracy, so it most likely follows that Edric is the most accomplished oracle they could afford. What he seems to sometimes lack in being quick on the uptake he mostly likely makes up for in being a really good cloaking device. I don't see him as being subservient, so much as willing to let others do the thinking at times when it will obtain him the desired result anyhow. I imagine that the Guild was pretty desperate at this point, so if that meant temporarily letting the BG and BT have a strong say in affairs they would accept it.

I agree with Freak, and think that the reason there isn't much to write about them is because there isn't all that much to them in general. They are pretty straightforward, and what Paul describes about them in Dune appears to be most of what there is to say on the matter: they are very control-oriented, logical, and efficient at balancing forces to make outcomes predictable. Once you know they desire predictability it seems to me that you know about as much about them as you need to. They are stuck in the pursuit of that goal, to a fault.
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distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

I still find it striking that they can foresee paul as the problem and yet not offer an operative better than edric years later in attempt to thwart him

mabe the guild as a whole wasn't involved with the actions which too place...



I don't believe edric was acting with the guilds consent as he involved himself in the conspiracy

wonder how it was drawn into it in the first place...
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

distrans wrote:I still find it striking that they can foresee paul as the problem and yet not offer an operative better than edric years later in attempt to thwart him
The Guild doesn't change. To them their 'best' is probably - from Paul's perspective - the most lame and predictable. Their entire ethos is about stability, and the most powerful navigator who studies their methods would likely also be the least adventurous and able to improvise. That is their fault. That Edric was potentially the best they had to offer is a testament to how inflexible and rooted in their ways there are. Based on what we learn in the last two books about the need to never be immobile and always improvising, we can look back on the Guild in the first three books and pretty easily conclude that they have become irrelevant and are useless. They are pretty much the opposite of being a group that can have any real effects on the universe after Paul came.
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by Freakzilla »

distrans wrote:wonder how it was drawn into it in the first place...
He was only involved to shield them with his prescience from Paul.
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by pcqypcqy »

I think Edric only appears to be useless as a counterpoint to demonstrate the sort of intellectual plane that Scytale and the BG normally operate on. To all normal people, Edric would appear to be all powerful and incredibly intelligent.

I think Edric and the Guild were full partners in the consipiracy, as it brought together the remaining non-imperial power bases in the universe in the Guild, BG, and BT (assuming that the Landsraad and Great Houses are generally redundant at this stage).

As someone mentioned above, I think the first few books (really just Dune) show how the Guild was once such a power, yet have been on the decline without realising. This is revealed with a sudden bang at the end of Dune. After that, they're harnessed and not all that powerful any more.
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by Freakzilla »

pcqypcqy wrote:As someone mentioned above, I think the first few books (really just Dune) show how the Guild was once such a power, yet have been on the decline without realising. This is revealed with a sudden bang at the end of Dune. After that, they're harnessed and not all that powerful any more.
Not entirely true. At the end of Dune, it is the Guild who appoints Paul Emperor, simply because he can destroy the spice and interstellar travel. The Guild still has a monopoly on space travel afterwards. They still enforce the Great Convention.
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by pcqypcqy »

Freakzilla wrote:
pcqypcqy wrote:As someone mentioned above, I think the first few books (really just Dune) show how the Guild was once such a power, yet have been on the decline without realising. This is revealed with a sudden bang at the end of Dune. After that, they're harnessed and not all that powerful any more.
Not entirely true. At the end of Dune, it is the Guild who appoints Paul Emperor, simply because he can destroy the spice and interstellar travel. The Guild still has a monopoly on space travel afterwards. They still enforce the Great Convention.
They do all this only on Arteides sufferance.

I don't think the Guild appointed Paul, he did that himself. The Guild withdrew their support for Shaddam, which is when Shaddam realised he was finished.
distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

I would like to have read some of the run ins the guild had with paul and leto over the years as he placed himself in their paths as demonstration of their place in the world of the time

like he did with the sisters with his note to them he left hidden down in sitch tabr 2000 years before they found it...
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

pcqypcqy wrote: They do all this only on Arteides sufferance.

I don't think the Guild appointed Paul, he did that himself. The Guild withdrew their support for Shaddam, which is when Shaddam realised he was finished.
It all depends on who's more afraid of losing what they have. Paul had the power to destroy the spice, and thus end the Guild. But the Guild still had monopoly and therefore the power to end space travel, which would be just as devastating (and have a similar effect). Between the two we might have thought that this would result in a stalemate, except that clearly the Guild were much more afraid of losing what they had than Paul was. The Guild's entire way of thinking was focused on preventing loss and avoiding risk, so in the game of chicken with even footing it seems they buckled immediately. The irony of the situation is that the Guild's source of power had always been that they were the ones with the power to destroy space travel. Paul did to them exactly what they had been doing to everyone else.

That said I do agree with Freak that even though Paul seemed to be calling the shots, the relevant point is that the Guild withdrawing support from Shaddam is why we know Paul became Emperor right then and there. Shaddam wasn't even a party to that decision and wasn't required to accept. Whoever the Guild agreed to support *was* Emperor, which goes to show how much power they had been wielding thus far even though it was the Emperor the Great Houses feared.
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distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

ive always concidered it that the nature of "the empire" changed a great deal that day

somewhat like rome transitioned from a republic to an empire

i think that the guilds action that day changed the nature of how power was distributed in that system
far more than just an exchange of emperors
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

distrans wrote:ive always concidered it that the nature of "the empire" changed a great deal that day

somewhat like rome transitioned from a republic to an empire

i think that the guilds action that day changed the nature of how power was distributed in that system
far more than just an exchange of emperors
I see it more as everyone realizing what the real power structure had been all along. What changed was that it was finally made clear what happens when a person has control over the thing everyone needs. The Guild had that power before and chose to use it simply to make money and establish dominance. They apparently didn't want to rule as such, and maybe preferred others to play around with titles and fighting while they just sat back and wallowed in their control. But imagine what would have happened if the Guild had announced one day that unless they were put in control they'd simply cease allowing space flight? No one would have any choice, except that this would eventually cause a rebellion or resistance to form that would undo them. Being in charge makes you a target and so their conclusion - after having full option to be in charge - was that they preferred another to have the target painted on them and to have to do all the annoying work. It's almost like the Emperor was their lackey in a sense.

What changed with Paul was that the Guild no longer had a monopoly on threatening to end space flight, and they were more afraid of it than he was. So while they had all the power they had previously in terms of being able to make good on that threat, they were no longer the only party that could do this. And because of their unwillingness to take risks Paul knew he could completely dictate terms to them. As Scytale put it in DM, the Guild's limited prescience was their own downfall. Their power was specialized in risk avoidance, and they relied on it so much that they couldn't use any other method of reasoning.
Last edited by georgiedenbro on 26 Jun 2018 10:05, edited 2 times in total.
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pcqypcqy
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by pcqypcqy »

What's the line, always chosing the safe path leads ever downwards into stagnation? I think that was a major theme of the first book, which was picked up again and again in the series.

As to the nature of the empire, we are led to believe that before the battle of Arrakeen, the powers are the Emperor, the Landsraad, and the Guild (this is on Mohaim's little exposition on Caladan). Quite where the BG, BT or CHOAM fit in isn't really mentioned. The BT don't even get a mention in Dune (other than Tleilax simply being a planet that is the source of Twisted Mentats). CHOAM we are constantly told will rally around profits. The BG emerge as a power (at least to us as the reader) throughout the book.

I think what happened in the final chapters goes loosely as follows:

1. Paul exerted control over the Guild over his threat to spice. The Guild, being to weak to contemplate exercising their similar (though theoretical) threat to space travel, complied.
2. The Emperor sees the writing on the wall, realising the Guild is against him. Though like someone said, he wasn't really required to agree, it just made things simpler.
3. The Landsraad goes along with it because they can do nought else. Presumably the Landsraad IS Choam (at least those shares outside of the emperor's control), so they know a good deal when the see one (considering the alternative).


What happens after this as we know from subsequent books is that all power is concentrated in the emperor. This process must have taken some time (i.e. 12 years of Jihad), but by the time we read Dune Messiah, it's more or less accomplished.

But the other powers from pre-Dune still exist to some extent:

The Guild is still somewhat independent (i.e. discussion of the Tupile treaty), but as that discussion shows, Paul has the power to exert his will on them if he choses to. He choses not to for political (or other) reasons. The prolgue also mentions that He brought the Spacing Guild to its knees.

The Landsraad are mentioned in passing, but obviously they tried to resist in the intervening period (the prologue of Messiah talks of mercenaries bought with money voted in the Landsraad).

The BG and BT still play in the shadows as well.

So I dunno. I'd agree with teh statement that the nature of the empire has changed, but it looks to me that at least the facade of the previous power structure has been kept in place. Maybe to placate the masses.
distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

frank worked in the idea that it morally correct to allow a way out for your intended victim


did he get this idea from somewhere or was this is own original idea?
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

distrans wrote:frank worked in the idea that it morally correct to allow a way out for your intended victim


did he get this idea from somewhere or was this is own original idea?
Well, if we're going to go down the "Tleilaxu = Islam" road, the concept would seem to loosely be a variant on the "convert or die" theme, which involves giving potential targets an out if they comply with changing their views. In the case of the Tleilaxu they're not trying to convert anyone, but they do seem to make plans around converting the agendas of others.

That said, I wonder whether the "way out" thing is meant to be a moral stance taken by the Tleilaxu, or more of a weird tick, like how the Riddler always has to announce his plans through Riddles, risking being caught. I sort of thought it was more of a Riddler thing, like they're trying to be oh so clever by placing an escape for their victims.
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distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

yes,
im interested in the play of things which could drive its impliment...
distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

there is another direction the story could have easily gone but didnt.

the guild refuses to adore paul emperor
paul refuses to destroy the planets spice cycle.

then off would commence a cold war...


paul would have been doubly tempted assume the sand trout
despreate measures pushing him past the reluctances which win in the book

the guild would have hyper rationed space flight and both would, operating on their projections then would have been operating in the face of what happened on the ground as time ground on.

this would involve the guild having aspect; factions. ive always seen edric as a faction of either the dumb guild or a revelation of at least that the guild wasnt able to police itself in grave matters.
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

What cold war would commence?
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distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

the guild against paul,
who had enough spice to outlast the other

unless im mistake weve never been presented with leading consumers requirement compared to dunes production at full desert.


we dont see anything of religion among the guild but surely they would at least have had some thought experiment regarding the end of spice and how they would act knowing

and it was in their power to isolate dune and gut the empire to ribbons trying to last into some future era where they might have more leverage over what remained of the fremen after several eons of isolating them...


the spice must flow is an ideal
nobody sane counts on that no matter how dependant

if they honestly did they would have ended fremen isolation long before
distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

concerning edric,

do we believe he was acting as the guild officially,
or was he acting independently of the guild when he conspired?
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

None of that could have happened, though, because the Guild would never call Paul's bluff (which it wasn't). Their entire problem is they will prop up the status quo at all costs. Compared to risking the flow of spice they wouldn't care at all who is emperor, nor would they have any reason to believe that Emperor Paul would want spice production to ever stop. For that alternate history to happen the Guild would have to be different than it was.
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distrans
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

so do you think that ix hid their machine that could reliably fold space until they had distributed their ability to manufacture them far enough that the guild couldnt isolate ix and their ability to propagate the technology?
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by distrans »

do you think that ix hid their machine that could reliably fold space until they had distributed their ability to manufacture them far enough that the guild couldnt isolate ix and their ability to propagate the technology?


mabe ix could seed another world with the ability in a ship or three and thus theyd nothing to fear


it seems the guild just accepted that their monopoly was broken and that was that...
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Re: they picked edric?!?!

Post by georgiedenbro »

distrans wrote: 03 Jul 2023 19:46 so do you think that ix hid their machine that could reliably fold space until they had distributed their ability to manufacture them far enough that the guild couldnt isolate ix and their ability to propagate the technology?
Do you mean after GEoD?
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