Chapter 09


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Freakzilla
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Chapter 09

Post by Freakzilla »

It is commonly reported, my dear Georad, that there exists great natural virtue
in the melange experience. Perhaps this is true. There remain within me,
however, profound doubts that every use of melange always brings virtue. It
seems that certain persons have corrupted the use of melange in defiance of God.
In the words of the Ecumenon, they have disfigured the soul. They skim the
surface of melange and believe thereby to attain grace. They deride their
fellows, do great harm to godliness, and they distort the meaning of this
abundant gift maliciously, surely a mutilation beyond the power of man to
restore. To be truly at one with the virtue of the spice, uncorrupted in all
ways, full of goodly honor, a man must permit his deeds and his words to agree.
When your actions describe a system of evil consequences, you should be judged
by those consequences and not by your explanations. It is thus that we should
judge Muad'Dib.

-The Pedant Heresy

Bashar-Aide Tyekanik and Princess Wensicia Corrino are in a control room discussing their plan to kill the Atreides twins with a pair of Laza Tigers, which they have just watched kill a pair of children dressed as the twins. Tyek doesn't think Prince Farad'n will like the plan. We learn that Javid has assured them that he will take care of Alia. Tyek worries about the Fremen and they plan to introduce Farad'n to Muad'dib's religion. The Princess has the tigers kill their Levenbreach trainer and orders Tyek to have the pilot who brought them killed. Wensicia orders Tyek to send a pair of robes, like the late victems wore, to the Atreides twins as a gift.
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Freakzilla
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Re: Chapter 09

Post by Freakzilla »

Revised.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
georgiedenbro
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Re: Chapter 09

Post by georgiedenbro »

Children of Dune wrote:"Do you hear me, Tyekanik?"
"I hear, Princess."
"I want you to embrace this Muad'Dib religion," she said.
"Princess, I would walk into fire for you, but this . . ."
"That is an order, Tyekanik!"
He swallowed, stared into the screen. The Laza tigers had finished feeding
and now lay on the sand completing their toilet, long tongues moving across their forepaws.
"An order, Tyekanik -- do you understand me?"
"I hear and obey, Princess." His voice did not change tone.
A deceptively important passage. Tyekanik gives only the smallest glimmer of vocal resistance in this scene to adopting Muad'dib's religion, but we feel his reservations are deep. Why might he be so opposed to Wensicia's plan? Maybe he is too honorable to lie about his beliefs, being a simple soldier? But then recall this part of the entry for Sardaukar in the Dune glossary:
Dune wrote:By the time of Shaddam IV, while they were still formidable, their
strength had been sapped by overconfidence, and the sustaining mystique of their
warrior religion
had been deeply undermined by cynicism.
It wasn't only the promise of riches and glory that kept the Sardaukar in line, but also their warrior religion; the two were probably connected. Wensicia doesn't realize, even though Tyekanik tries to tell her, that if the Sardaukar's religion - of which the Sardaukar were already becoming cynical - were to be undermined and replaced with a new religion, the Sardaukar would become even more cynical and they would cease to be controllable. The mystique that held them in line would be seen to be rubbish with no possibility of confusion. The most dangerous possibility, though, would be if the Sardaukar actually did adopt Muad'dib's religion; in that case they might well declare Wensicia and Farad'n to be heretics and remove them, just as was the danger with Paul's family in DM. This scene almost plays like an amateur-hour version of what Paul pulled off, with Wensicia being way over her head in the forces she's trying to harness. Mixing religion and politics was a crazy enough project for someone like Paul to undertake, and even Jessica told Alia that it would go out of control.
"um-m-m-ah-h-h-hm-m-m-m!"
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