Chapter 21


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Freakzilla
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Chapter 21

Post by Freakzilla »

The sequential nature of actual events is not illuminated with lengthy precision
by the powers of prescience except under the most extraordinary circumstances.
The oracle grasps incidents cut out of the historic chain. Eternity moves. It
inflicts itself upon the oracle and the supplicant alike. Let Muad'dib's
subjects doubt his majesty and his oracular visions. Let them deny his powers.
Let them never doubt Eternity.

-The Dune Gospels

Hayt watches Alia cross the plaza from her temple to the keep and notices that she looks out of place, she belongs in the desert. He is uneasy from his interview with Bijaz. She moves like a hunted creature. Just before leaving the temple, Alia took the largest dose of spice she's ever attempted, trying to break through the tarot fog. She calls him Duncan but it disturbs him. She grabs onto the balcony and Hayt notices something is wrong with her. Out of her Bene Gesserit awareness, she knows that the Bene Gesserit want her child or Chani's, she can see her child in the visions but not the father. Hayt computes that they want a mating between Paul and Alia, this is why she cannot see the father. Hayt worries that she's taken too much spice, he feels a deep fear inside of losing an Atreides woman and having to explain that to Paul. She says that she gets in the way of her own vision, she cannot see through herself. Hayt wants to know how much spice she took but she just tells him that nature hates prescience. He wants to go get a doctor but she tells him not too, she must have the vision. He makes her lie down and then she senses people all around her, sees Hayt. She realizes he loves her and clings to this thought which brings her back to reality. The doctor sticks a tube down her throat, he also gives her a sedative. He says he will tell Paul about this. She sees that Hayt is the crucible. She finally sees the vision Paul sees and starts to cry, he must be stopped! She can tell that all the threads of Time focus through Paul like a lense and he refuses to let any of them change. She wonders why, does he hate Time itself because it hurt him? She says this out loud and Hayt thinks she's talking to him. She wishes she wasn't prescient, she never wanted to be different. She didn't want to be feared as the sister fo a god or part of history, she just wants to love and be loved. Hayt tells her he loves her. She interprets her vision and realizes that Paul is creating a universe in which he won't permit himself to live. He'll lose everything. She falls asleep and has more visions of her unborn child. She realizes it will be pre-born, just like her.
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dunaddict
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by dunaddict »

Was this a false vision? Alia never had a child with Duncan AFAIK...
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by Freakzilla »

dunaddict wrote:Was this a false vision? Alia never had a child with Duncan AFAIK...
The future is constantly changing.
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by ThirdEye of the Ibad »

Hello, all. I've been reading through your forums for a few days and you all seem really knowledgeable.

I'm reading through the whole saga again, this time with Hunters and Sandworms :? . I'm in this chapter of Dune Messiah and on page 285 in the last paragraph, in her spice trip, it is revealed that Alia had once, "...bridged Time to place her voice where he (Paul) had passed."

Anyone know what this is alluding to? I can't remember what this means (if I ever knew in the first place).

Thanks.

jason
Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another, the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy." -Paul Muad'dib
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by SandChigger »

Greetings, Jason/ThirdEye of the Ibad!

It refers to this, from Ch. 48 of Dune:
Paul closed his eyes, forcing grief out of his mind, letting it wait as he had once waited to mourn his father. Now, he gave his thoughts over to this day's accumulated discoveries—the mixed futures and the hidden presence of Alia within his awareness.

Of all the uses of time-vision, this was the strangest. "I have breasted the future to place my words where only you can hear them," Alia had said. "Even you cannot do that, my brother. I find it an interesting play. And...oh, yes—I've killed our grandfather, the demented old Baron. He had very little pain."

Silence. His time sense had seen her withdrawal.
Achlan wasachlan! :)
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by ThirdEye of the Ibad »

SandChigger wrote:Greetings, Jason/ThirdEye of the Ibad!

It refers to this, from Ch. 48 of Dune:
Paul closed his eyes, forcing grief out of his mind, letting it wait as he had once waited to mourn his father. Now, he gave his thoughts over to this day's accumulated discoveries—the mixed futures and the hidden presence of Alia within his awareness.

Of all the uses of time-vision, this was the strangest. "I have breasted the future to place my words where only you can hear them," Alia had said. "Even you cannot do that, my brother. I find it an interesting play. And...oh, yes—I've killed our grandfather, the demented old Baron. He had very little pain."

Silence. His time sense had seen her withdrawal.
Achlan wasachlan! :)
Gah, of course! :doh: It is amazing that that has never, ever stuck with me. ...and from a somewhat important and revelatory moment. Curse you TV for ruining my brain!!

Thank you, sirra SandChigger for the swift response and the welcome.
Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of power over another, the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy." -Paul Muad'dib
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by SandChigger »

:) One is glad to be of service.

(One is slightly less than overjoyed to be called "sirra", but them's the breaks! :lol: )
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Welcome! I like the Sparth avatar!
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by Hunchback Jack »

Yes, welcome, and nice avatar!

This event was always a bit out-of-place for me; it smacked too much of telepathy. Apart from the strange "mental attack" that Alia made on Mohaim at the end of Dune, I don't know if there's any other mention of mind-to-mind communication.

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Re: Chapter 21

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I think FH regretted it and backpedaled as best he could, never doing anything like it that I can recall in any other book. Of course, there is TP in Dune, the sharing between RMs, but I think he wanted the BG's powers to be more subtle.
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by Freakzilla »

I've always thought of it as a prescient trick.

Alia placed a message in an alternate future which only Paul can see.
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by Freakzilla »

After reading this chapter again, Alia's trick was to cast her voice into an alternate timeline which converges with a future-present where Paul would here it.

She cannot do this now because Paul has focused all timelines through himself and she cannot go around him.

If that makes any sense... :crazy:
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by Freakzilla »

Revised, cleaned.
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by gurensan »

I have troubles understanding how all that worked. But then, I'm not FH so whatev.

Off-topic comment deleted.
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Re: Chapter 21

Post by georgiedenbro »

I have a suspicion that Frank intended the non-linear aspect of prescience (as indicated in the chapter's epigram) to make the user be able to both see time outside of the chain of connecting events, and also to be able to affect events in time in a non-linear way. I agree that if this is so that Frank appeared later to shy away from this, since it begins to go more into the realm of fantasy than quasi-foreseeable science.

I think that Alia's psychic attack on Mohiam in Dune wasn't precisely a direct attack, but was an OM figure lashing out at Mohiam from the collective. I believe that Alia's ability to make this happen is linked to her ability to send Paul a prescient message, in that they both involve a breakdown of the basic understanding of the notions of linear time and cause-and-effect (both of which Frank tried to dispel throughout DM).

I think Freak is right that Alia couldn't do this any more once Paul took stern hold of the visions and locked time too much.
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