This started at the Amazon discussion board, here:
http://www.amazon.com/Fake-Reviews-Bewa ... tore=books
I am replying to Brian Conway (again), on the old argument that Ship was an AI, and hence the Dune universe is enriched by the addition of a murderous, humanity-betraying, insane AI as a threat to all of humanity (which was at that point safeguarded from any one threat).
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> "Ship sought to force Humanity to WorShip or perish."
And the whole point of The Jesus Incident is what WorShip means. My point still stands; control or realizing potential?
< "Seems to me the danger of Thinking Machines taking control of Humanity may have been on Frank Herbert's mind..."
You might notice that it is Ship, not the Ox, that takes control. Also, that Ship is more akin to a god than anything else. Ship exists on a whole new level than anything before it, which is made quite clear in the books - there is no fight against it, and it has no wish to eradicate mankind, nor keep them as pets or subjects. Except for its mechanical origins, there is no similarity to Omnious/Skynet, adn despite what your argumentation needs as a premise, The Jesus Incident is nothing like The Terminator or the Legend series.
Also, you may want to read "Without Me, You're Nothing" before you go on about what Herbert thought about the Skynet scenario - you might find yourself surprised and educated
> "That is an odd argument coming form someone who fails to accept that there may be multiple interpretations of key elements of Dune."
Please stop lying about my position. I have never claimed there is only one true interpretation, just that there is such a thing as a false one. One that claims that Alia believes that "you could never distrust a machine", while still fully knowledgable about how a machine turned on its makers and tried to wipe out humanity is, for instance, just plain wrong. (And stupid, and a mockery of Herbert's originals, of Herberts beliefs and thoughts and his fans who felt inspired by them).
> "Is it possible that, as he was thinking about how to wrap up Dune, he may have considered a Deus ex Machina approach for the end..."
Why would he? He was a better writer than that (Deux ex Machina is, on its own, a derogatory term, in case you have not noticed), and Dune was specifically about not trusting simple solutions and heroes to save the day - we have the guy saying this on the record, for christ sakes!
> "(a concept that had already been used and accepted in Sci Fi)."
What does this mean? Because someone else used this type of ending, Herbert must have considered it? WTF? Does this mean he considered an "it was all a dream"-ending too? A "they lived happily ever after"-ending too?
Speculating on that Herbert might have considered, based on what other, unrelated, persons wrote is just silly, sorry.
> "One of the most interesting things I read in destination void was how, when given the opportunity to revise it a decade later, Frank Herbert did revise it. He was not afraid to tweek things to fit his most current vision."
For the love of god, Brian! The foreword is clear that the book was updated on technical terms, and the story still follows the same basic premise and ending and... Just WTF?
Because Frank Herbert revised a story, it is ok for someone else to rewrite his other stories? Because Herbert incorporated new knowledge in a book himself, Anderson is free to invent "Paul joins the circus"-young-adult adventures and claim they are more correct than Herberts own books?
Please explain this to me, I have no clue how you believe that argument works...
That would be more something like deus-qua-machina, maybe? (God-as-machine? Actually, machina-qua-deus, machine-as-god! 
)
