Chapter 02

[Freakzilla]

CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?"
RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworm."
CHALLENGE: "What about that sandworm?"
RESPONSE: "It gives us the air we breathe."
CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?"
RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it."
-Riddles of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada

Leto II and Ghanima rise an hour before dawn according to Fremen custom and put on their stilsuits with capes and have breakfast, Harah greets them and assumes they've dressed nicely to honor Jessica, whom they will meet for the first time today. Ghani asks how Alia is dressed but Harah hasn't seen her. They secretly wonder if Jessica will notice the signs of abomination they've seen in Alia and why it hasn't happened to them. They wonder if the Preacher is their father and agree they shouldn't discuss it with their grandmother, they've noticed that Alia fears him. Leto thinks they've not yet become possessed because they haven't undergone the spice trance yet. Alia greets them with hostility in the central passage and warns them not to provoke Jessica. They believe Alia to be posessed by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Alia tells them to wait while she goes to the spaceport to get Jessica. Leto asks Ghani if she's ever curious if she's stronger than all her ancestral memories, they wonder why there's no preborn in their memories and if they really do have access to all of their experiences. They decide to delay the spice trance, which Alia has been pushing on them. They decide to discuss this with Jessica, which her ancestral persona within them has been urging them to do. To much knowledge never makes for simple decisions.

[leagued]

Do they know, or suspect, at this point which memory-persona is possessing her?

[Freakzilla]

Do they know, or suspect, at this point which memory-persona is possessing her?

They suspect she is possessed but I don't think they know for sure that it is by the Baron.

Leto shook his head, wondering: Why does Alia not see what we suspect? Is
she too far gone? And he made special note of the subtle gene-markers on Alia's
face which betrayed the presence of her maternal grandfather. The Baron Vladimir
Harkonnen had not been a pleasant person. At this observation, Leto felt the
vague stirrings of his own disquiet, thinking: My own ancestor, too.

[A Thing of Eternity]

That sounds like Leto's pretty sure that it's the Baron possessing her to me.

[leagued]

I think its more of a foreshadowing of the actual revelation. I don't think they confirm it until they play the mother-father game when memory-Paul states it flat out. Of course, if Paul's confirmation has to come from Leto's observances so... I'd say Leto unconsciously knew it and it was confirmed by Paul. Obviously not a big point, just a curiosity I had.

[Freakzilla]

I think Leto knows but still hopes he's wrong.

[Eyes High]

I think Leto knows but still hopes he's wrong.

Just started on this book, and that is the impression I get. It's like when we know something but hope we are wrong.

[Freakzilla]

Revised, clean.

[Apjak]

I think Leto knows but still hopes he's wrong.

Just started on this book, and that is the impression I get. It's like when we know something but hope we are wrong.

Hope Clouds Observation

[Freakzilla]

They obviously knew she was possessed and by who.

[georgiedenbro]

Seeing this finery, Harah, who was one of Stilgar's wives, said: "I see you
have dressed to honor your grandmother." Leto picked up his breakfast bowl
before looking at Harah's dark and wind-creased face. He shook his head. Then:
"How do you know it's not ourselves we honor?"

This passage rocks. What a hilarious thing to say about an upcoming meeting with someone they have in Other Memory who is still alive. Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities, there is a very serious extent to which Leto is in part literally his own grandmother, and in honoring her honors himself. This is just the kind of humorous thought Frank would have that wouldn't occur to another author, and Frank puts it in the form of a teasing joke to Harah. Too good.

"You think it's because we haven't dared the spice trance and Alia has,"
Ghanima said.
"That's exactly what I think."

I'm surprised that neither of them thought of this: Alia isn't a mentat. I think this fact has ramifications not only on her ability to handle her visions, but also makes Other Memory too much of a tangle to sort out. Here's an interesting passage back from Dune Messiah:

"Don't you understand?" she demanded. "My vision's incomplete, just
fragments. It flickers and jumps. I have to remember the future. Can't you see
that?"

At first glance this may seem to just refer to the fact that Alia was having a harder time accessing prescience and that she hadn't yet had a chance to finish looking at the future for the right path. But she had nearly as long as Paul did to look at the future and have visions, maybe even longer since he only had his RM awakening near the end of Dune when Alia was 2 or 3 and a full RM with oracular power. So either Alia couldn't sift through future paths as quickly as Paul could due to her not being a mentat, or maybe she did see the future paths already and couldn't remember a lot of it. From the tenor of this passage I'm inclined to believe that Alia couldn't handle all the data from her prescience like Paul could from his, and that she grasped to recall the paths she needed to. Compare with Paul, who knew the paths so well that he could remember all details down to minutiae from memory and not even need his eyes.

If I'm right about this, it would suggest that Alia also wouldn't be able to handle the data from her billions of ancestral memories, and being pre-born and unable to keep them away, she'd be lost amid a sea of data and facts. It would be hard to even keep track of which memories are from her life and which from other lives, which traits are hers and which are from the past, and which thoughts are even her own. I'd suggest it might just be too much for a non-mentat to process. Leto II and Ghanima, on the other hand, have OM of Paul and so I assume they'd have mentat capabilities. It's quite possible that Alia had no mentats in her entire OM.

[Serkanner]

Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities,

I am not sure I agree with this statement.

[Freakzilla]

Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities,

I am not sure I agree with this statement.

I think it was a large part of their personalities but part of it was also formed from their life at Sietch Tabr.

[Freakzilla]

It is made quite clear in Dune that the KH was intended to have mentat capabilities, so that could be a big problem. I think it may have a lot to do with her being female, too.

[georgiedenbro]

Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities,

I am not sure I agree with this statement.

I think it was a large part of their personalities but part of it was also formed from their life at Sietch Tabr.

Yes, for sure, the environment would help shape who they were. I think we can safely say that their environment made them Fremen, and Stilgar's guidance probably made them a bit more since he was an extraordinary Fremen. But the starting point would be just the combined memories; they'd already have begun life as a conglomerate of people and continued from there. What is personality, after all, but memory plus bodily tendency?

I think there's a quote from GEoD to this effect, but I won't find it for this thread since spoilers.

[D Pope]

Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities,

I am not sure I agree with this statement.

I think it was a large part of their personalities but part of it was also formed from their life at Sietch Tabr.

Yes, for sure, the environment would help shape who they were. I think we can safely say that their environment made them Fremen, and Stilgar's guidance probably made them a bit more since he was an extraordinary Fremen. But the starting point would be just the combined memories; they'd already have begun life as a conglomerate of people and continued from there. What is personality, after all, but memory plus bodily tendency?

I think there's a quote from GEoD to this effect, but I won't find it for this thread since spoilers.

Note that there's no pre-born in their memories. This means that they're
looking, every other memory they have says abomination ends in possession.
The difference between the twins is right there in Freaks condensed chapter,

Leto asks Ghani if she's ever curious if she's stronger than all her ancestral memories

I don't have much of a problem with the quoted statement Serk, to be pre-born
is to be all ancestors with no other definition of self.

[Serkanner]

I don't have much of a problem with the quoted statement Serk, to be pre-born
is to be all ancestors with no other definition of self.

At the moment they "awake" ... perhaps. After that they build there personality with nu-life experiences.

From a philosophical point of view I am not convinced, that who we are (our personality), is "just" our memories.

[D Pope]

I see what you mean. I was off in another direction completely yesterday.

[Freakzilla]

Sure nature and nurture has an impact, but the problem with the preborn is that they don't have a chance to form their own persona. From before birth they're fighting possession.

[georgiedenbro]

I don't have much of a problem with the quoted statement Serk, to be pre-born
is to be all ancestors with no other definition of self.

At the moment they "awake" ... perhaps. After that they build there personality with nu-life experiences.

From a philosophical point of view I am not convinced, that who we are (our personality), is "just" our memories.

If you haven't seen it, Dark City is a fantastic movie entirely on this subject.

[Serkanner]

I don't have much of a problem with the quoted statement Serk, to be pre-born
is to be all ancestors with no other definition of self.

At the moment they "awake" ... perhaps. After that they build there personality with nu-life experiences.

From a philosophical point of view I am not convinced, that who we are (our personality), is "just" our memories.

If you haven't seen it, Dark City is a fantastic movie entirely on this subject.

I haven't seen it. I'll make sure to put in on my to-watch-list. Thanks for the tip.

[georgiedenbro]

Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities,

I am not sure I agree with this statement.

Here's a passage from CoD:

"Alia is possessed," she said. "That could happen to us. It could already
have happened and we might not know it."
"No." He shook his head, met her gaze. "Alia resisted. That gave the powers
within her their strength. By her own strength she was overcome. We've dared to
search within, to seek out the old languages and the old knowledge. We're
already amalgams of those lives within us. We don't resist; we ride with them.
This was what I learned from our father last night. It's what I had to learn."

Substitute "lives within us" for "memories within us" and there you have it. I don't know whether this implies Alia resisted from birth, or only began resisting later, but it seems that the twins never did. They lived with their OM and just allowed themselves to be an amalgam of the previous lives, their own memories being almost indistinguishable from the ancestral ones. That they can be easily confused with one's own memories can be seen here:

She [Alia] recalled asking the boy how he would deal with Gurney Halleck. And Leto,
sensing undercurrents in her question, had said Halleck was loyal "to a fault,"
adding: "He adored . . . my father."
She'd noted the small hesitation. Leto had almost said "me" instead of "my
father." Yes, it was hard at times to separate the genetic memory from the chord
of living flesh. Gurney Halleck would not make that separation easier for Leto.

It seems that separating OM from the memories of Leto's own life was perhaps more a process of sorting the data, rather than one clearly being one's memory and the others more of a data storage. I think we're to believe that memory is memory, and if OM is a part of everyday life as it is for pre-born then they are the people whose lives they remember.

[Serkanner]

Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities,

I am not sure I agree with this statement.

Here's a passage from CoD:

"Alia is possessed," she said. "That could happen to us. It could already
have happened and we might not know it."
"No." He shook his head, met her gaze. "Alia resisted. That gave the powers
within her their strength. By her own strength she was overcome. We've dared to
search within, to seek out the old languages and the old knowledge. We're
already amalgams of those lives within us. We don't resist; we ride with them.
This was what I learned from our father last night. It's what I had to learn."

Substitute "lives within us" for "memories within us" and there you have it. I don't know whether this implies Alia resisted from birth, or only began resisting later, but it seems that the twins never did. They lived with their OM and just allowed themselves to be an amalgam of the previous lives, their own memories being almost indistinguishable from the ancestral ones. That they can be easily confused with one's own memories can be seen here:

She [Alia] recalled asking the boy how he would deal with Gurney Halleck. And Leto,
sensing undercurrents in her question, had said Halleck was loyal "to a fault,"
adding: "He adored . . . my father."
She'd noted the small hesitation. Leto had almost said "me" instead of "my
father." Yes, it was hard at times to separate the genetic memory from the chord
of living flesh. Gurney Halleck would not make that separation easier for Leto.

It seems that separating OM from the memories of Leto's own life was perhaps more a process of sorting the data, rather than one clearly being one's memory and the others more of a data storage. I think we're to believe that memory is memory, and if OM is a part of everyday life as it is for pre-born then they are the people whose lives they remember.

Convincing quotes indeed.

Especially as pre-born, where the combined memories are their personalities,

I interpreted the sentence as if it would say "only the combined memories are their personalities," I see now with the other quotes what you mean and I agree. The twins don't see their ancestral memories as if not their own. I wonder how they would look at themselves growing older, especially Leo of course with his lifespan of 3500 years. Would they see their personality change or not as they grow older, like we do when we go through the different phases of life. Perhaps GEOD will tell us more about that.