Chapter 54

[Freakzilla]

Excerpt from the Hadi Benotto secret summation on the discoveries at Dar-es-
Balat:

Herewith THE minority report. We will, of course, comply with the majority
decision to apply a careful screening, editing and censorship to the journals
from Dar-es-Balat, but our arguments must be heard. We recognize the interest of
Holy Church in these matters and the political dangers have not escaped our
notice. We share a desire with the Church that Rakis and the Holy Reservation of
the Divided God not become "an attraction for gawking tourists."
However, now that all of the journals are in our hands, authenticated and
translated, the clear shape of the Atreides Design emerges. As a woman trained
by the Bene Gesserit to understand the ways of our ancestors, I have a natural
desire to share the pattern we have exposed which is so much more than Dune to
Arrakis to Dune, thence to Rakis.
The interests of history and science must be served. The journals throw a
valuable new light onto that accumulation of personal recollections and
biographies from the Duncan Days, the Guard Bible. We cannot be unmindful of
those familiar oaths: "By the Thousand Sons of Idaho!" and "By the Nine
Daughters of Siona!" The persistent Cult of Sister Chenoeh assumes new
significance because of the journals' disclosures. Certainly, the Church's
characterization of Judas/Nayla deserves careful reevaluation.
We of the Minority must remind the political censors that the poor sandworms in
their Rakian Reservation cannot provide us with an alternative to Ixian
Navigation Machines, nor are the tiny amounts of Church-controlled melange any
real commercial threat to the products of the Tleilaxu vats. No! We argue that
the myths, the Oral History, the Guard Bible, and even the Holy Books of the
Divided God must be compared with the journals from Dar-es-Balat. Every
historical reference
to the Scattering and the Famine Times has to be taken out and reexamined! What
have we to fear? No Ixian machine can do what we, the descendants of Duncan
Idaho and Siona, have done. How many universes have we populated? None can
guess. No one person will ever know. Does the Church fear the occasional
prophet? We know that the visionaries cannot see us nor predict our decisions.

No death can find all of humankind. Must we of the Minority join our fellows of
the Scattering before we can be heard? Must we leave the original core of
humankind ignorant and uninformed? If the Majority drives us out, you know we
never again can be found!
We do not want to leave. We are held here by those pearls in the sand. We are
fascinated by the Church's use of the pearl as "the sun of understanding."
Surely, no reasoning human can escape the journals' revelations in this regard.
The admittedly fugitive but vital uses of archeology must have their day! Just
as the primitive machine with which Leto I concealed his journals can only teach
us about the evolution of our machines, just so, that ancient awareness must be
allowed to speak to us. It would be a crime against both historical accuracy and
science for us to abandon our attempts at communication with those "pearls of
awareness" which the journals have located. Is Leto II lost in his endless dream
or could he be reawakened to our times, brought to full consciousness as a
storehouse of historical accuracy? How can Holy Church fear this truth?
For the Minority, we have no doubt that historians must listen to that voice
from our beginnings. If it is only the journals, we must listen. We must listen
across at least as many years into our future as those journals lay hidden in
our past. We will not try to predict the discoveries yet to be made within those
pages. We say only that they must be made. How can we turn our backs on our most
important inheritance? As the poet, Lon Bramlis, has said: "We are the fountain
of surprises!"

The End

[Omphalos]

Yea! Congratulations! Your employer will be so glad you're finishing this!

[Freakzilla]

Yea! Congratulations! Your employer will be so glad you're finishing this!

Yeah, our customers too!

I still have a couple chapters left in CoD to go and I'll have read all six books at once.

[Freakzilla]

Gets better every time.

[Cpt. Aramsham]

Just to point out that the name of the poet "Lon Bramlis" is of course an anagram for Bill Ransom.

[Freakzilla]

Just to point out that the name of the poet "Lon Bramlis" is of course an anagram for Bill Ransom.

[xcalibur]

I always appreciated the framing device of GEoD, as an unearthed ancient text. It adds flavor.

[xcalibur]

Not sure where else to put this, so I'll say it here: I just found out that "moneo" is latin for "I warn". Definitely worth consideration...

[georgiedenbro]

Not sure where else to put this, so I'll say it here: I just found out that "moneo" is latin for "I warn". Definitely worth consideration...

I guess that's a suitable name for his herald, since his entire life consists of warning people against dangers.