Yueh a Tleilaxu creation?

[lotek]

Perhaps Yueh's wife inadvertantly had a hand in the matter.

sorry had to point that one out


But are we talking BT or BG here?
As for the Bg's involvement in Yueh's betrayal, I seriously doubt the Breeding Mistresses would have allowed anyone to fuck with their precious plan, especially after Jessica...

And love is like a lesser imprinting no matter who, no?

[Freakzilla]

And love is like a lesser imprinting no matter who, no?

That's the way I see it.

[Ziggy]

Didn't mean to imply they conspired to have Yueh betray House Atreides. Not unreasonable to speculate that some BG implanted a little insurance policy in the minds of their spouses routinely. Personally I lean towards events being as told in the first book but it is an intiguing comment, and I often wonder if Frank did consider adding an extra layer to the Yueh affair.

[Freakzilla]

...and I often wonder if Frank did consider adding an extra layer to the Yueh affair.

I think it's the weakest point of the whole story and that's entirely possible.

[lotek]

meaning Yueh's conditionning would have already been weakened by his wife possible imprinting?

Something of a seemingly random accident having not so random consequences?
Along with Jessica birthing a son, the Atreides being sent to Dune... all leading to... what? Paul, Leto II and the Golden Path?

[Freakzilla]

Yeah, the whole original setup, I guess. But since FH comes right out the gate telling you Yueh is the traitor it's not that big a deal why.

[lotek]

well there is that quote about how the BG blotched the whole Jessica affair, proving point by point they could not have foreseen it unless blinded by a bigger "power", don't you think it would be all too easy to apply this to any event that precipitated Paul meeting Arrakis?

[Freakzilla]

well there is that quote about how the BG blotched the whole Jessica affair, proving point by point they could not have foreseen it unless blinded by a bigger "power", don't you think it would be all too easy to apply this to any event that precipitated Paul meeting Arrakis?

Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes?

[lotek]

well there is that quote about how the BG blotched the whole Jessica affair, proving point by point they could not have foreseen it unless blinded by a bigger "power", don't you think it would be all too easy to apply this to any event that precipitated Paul meeting Arrakis?

Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes?

yup that's the one

To me BGs with their superior powers of deduction(and all those Mentats!!!)not putting the pieces together is as improbable as anyone fiddling with Yueh to make him vulnerable to Piter...
This happening by accident could be acceptable without the big picture and all that talk of destiny and shaping the future.

So just to be sure are we talking of Yueh's betrayal being down to chance or being part of someone's plan to... ?

[Freakzilla]

well there is that quote about how the BG blotched the whole Jessica affair, proving point by point they could not have foreseen it unless blinded by a bigger "power", don't you think it would be all too easy to apply this to any event that precipitated Paul meeting Arrakis?

Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes?

yup that's the one

To me BGs with their superior powers of deduction(and all those Mentats!!!)not putting the pieces together is as improbable as anyone fiddling with Yueh to make him vulnerable to Piter...
This happening by accident could be acceptable without the big picture and all that talk of destiny and shaping the future.

So just to be sure are we talking of Yueh's betrayal being down to chance or being part of someone's plan to... ?

It's so improbable that I don't think any of it was an accident.

[lotek]

nor any of the events that brought the Atreides on Dune for that matter

[SandRider]

Perhaps Yueh's wife inadvertantly had a hand in the matter. His love for her may have been in part down to BG manipulation, a sort of lesser imprinting. An ironic twist of fate if she had been instructed to engineer such a strong sense of loyalty and devotion in her husband.

very good point, added to the Real Dune Discussion, and you
didn't even use the word fuck once.

Ziggy get cookie:

[georgiedenbro]

well there is that quote about how the BG blotched the whole Jessica affair, proving point by point they could not have foreseen it unless blinded by a bigger "power", don't you think it would be all too easy to apply this to any event that precipitated Paul meeting Arrakis?

Appendix III: Report on Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes?

yup that's the one

To me BGs with their superior powers of deduction(and all those Mentats!!!)not putting the pieces together is as improbable as anyone fiddling with Yueh to make him vulnerable to Piter...
This happening by accident could be acceptable without the big picture and all that talk of destiny and shaping the future.

So just to be sure are we talking of Yueh's betrayal being down to chance or being part of someone's plan to... ?

It's so improbable that I don't think any of it was an accident.

I hadn't given much thought to Yueh's betrayal before, but it occurs to me now that he was most likely an unwilling participant in what I call the Grand Plan by the BG, Guild, Harkonnens and Corrinos. The suggestion earlier that Yueh may have been imprinted help me put the pieces together. There is no textual proof of the following, but here is the idea:

Once Jessica bore a daughter, the BG & al went ahead and made a coalition purely for the purposes of setting the events of Dune in motion. Poison and assassins would be most likely to fail as methods of killing an Atreides, and with a male heir in play they'd have to kill both Leto and the heir, making such a plan too risky. I submit that perhaps the BG planted Wanna with Yueh at this time knowing full well that he was a renowned Suk doctor who was known to be unimpeachable. I actually have asked myself many times why a BG would choose to become the wife (not just consort, but wife) of a mere doctor with no political power. He does have access to important people, but we know from the text that Wanna never came into contact with anyone from House Atreides. I think Yueh was set up *way* in advance as a tool of the Grand Plan. We also know that Wanna taught Yueh some BG techniques, which sounds like a strange thing to do from what we know of the BG spouses/concubines tending to keep their mates at arm's length. Maybe this education was part of the imprinting process, or of gaining his trust? It could have been out of love but that's a bit pat. If she imprinted him then he'd basically *have to* do anything he could do save her, even despite his own better sense telling him that it was against his Suk conditioning. We might also ask how Piter knew he could break a Suk, since this had presumably never been done before and also presumably tried many times. Maybe because Piter was given intelligence suggesting that Yueh was breakable?

I asked myself just now as I re-read Dune what the Harkonnens would have done had they simply failed to break Yueh. I guess the whole scheme to send the Atreides to Dune wouldn't have been possible and they'd have had to let the Atreides sit around on Caladan doing what they had been doing, and to raise Paul in peace. Since, however, I believe that the BG and others would not have accepted Paul being allowed to rise to lead his House, I submit that they came up with Yueh, through Wanna, as a reliable weapon to set the plan in motion.

So no, I don't think the BT had any hand in breaking Yueh, other than to agree with Freak's conclusion that they could claim 'a little' credit since Piter was theirs.

About the 'killer medic', who knows :p

[Freakzilla]

The problem with that is all Yueh did was lower the House Sheilds. House Atreides was crushed militarily by the combined Harkonnen and Imperial forces and they would have eventually taken the Governor's Mansion. It seems to me that the function of Yueh was to allow the Baron to get to the Duke and Paul before the Emperor did. Irulan's commentary notes that the Emperor was very upset at the manner of the Dukes death.

[georgiedenbro]

The problem with that is all Yueh did was lower the House Sheilds. House Atreides was crushed militarily by the combined Harkonnen and Imperial forces and they would have eventually taken the Governor's Mansion. It seems to me that the function of Yueh was to allow the Baron to get to the Duke and Paul before the Emperor did. Irulan's commentary notes that the Emperor was very upset at the manner of the Dukes death.

I definitely agree that even within the conspiracy there were conflicting sub-plots. The problem the 'alliance' had was that if it engaged in a prolonged siege of Arrakeen then there might have been time to get a message off-planet or even to convene an emergency Landsraad session. The problem the alliance had before it wasn't whether they could destroy the Atreides, but rather how to do so while making the whole thing look legit. It was all about keeping the secrecy of Sardaukar involvement, that's it. This meant they had to overcome the Atreides quickly enough that no emergency measures could be taken, and had to also ensure that there were virtually zero survivors to tell the tale. Since the Sardaukar weren't very hard to identify by experts, the fake Harkonnen uniforms were good enough to maybe fool Arrakeen locals who might see something, but the Atreides knew right away who they were (as did the Fremen) and so no Atreides forces could be allowed to leave the planet.

Leto had even made complete arrangements with Tuek to shuttle the Atreides family to safety off-planet should things go bad, and his body was the first thing Leto saw on the floor the night of the attack. If not for a completely stealthy and a swift defeat the Atreides would have been taken to safety by Tuek and the Harkonnens and Shaddam would have been exposed to the Landsraad as breaching the Great Convention. Tuek is also the only reason Gurney's troop survived, and it is probably safe to assume that Gurney and his men were literally the only Atreides survivors on Arrakis besides Paul and Jessica.

Therefore Yueh's role was twofold: a) To kill Tuek and thwart the possibility of saving the whole Atreides family, and b) to lower the shield quietly and ensure a complete defeat almost immediately. Even when Duncan found Paul and Jessica in the desert Paul doubted whether any Atreides forces at all would survive the massacre. The fact was that for Yueh's personal bargain with the Baron he did need Leto to die, but Yueh saved Paul and Jessica. Tuek would have saved them all which is why he had to die.

I do think that Yueh was the linchpin to the alliance plan. With the shields still up I don't know how they could be breached, since the tech details are never disclosed. Lasgun use would immediately doom House Harkonnen to jihad by the rest of the Landsraad, and whether shields can be taken down by brute force is anyone's guess. Maybe troops can walk through a large shield slowly, which in any case would probably result in them walking into a deadly fire-zone as they got through, greatly increasing attacker casualties.

[Freakzilla]

As long as the guild was in cahoots with the Emperor, no message could have left Arrakis. I don't even think Tuek could have helped without the Guild. He could have gotten them off-planet, but then what?

[georgiedenbro]

As long as the guild was in cahoots with the Emperor, no message could have left Arrakis. I don't even think Tuek could have helped without the Guild. He could have gotten them off-planet, but then what?

We aren't really told how the Guild plotted with the alliance, or what their total contribution is to the scheme. We do know that they charged the Baron full price to transport the army to Arrakis (which would take ~60 years of 'squeezing' to pay for), and that they accepted bribes from the Fremen to avoid surveillance (maybe even prescient surveillance) and kept the secrecy of this deal even though it possibly made things harder for the alliance. Both of these facts suggest that the Guild didn't have any real loyalty except to their own spice profits, and that even as participants in the alliance they would offer certain aid but otherwise conduct business as usual. If besieged Atreides wanted to pay them for transport of messages or personnel we have no reason to believe they'd refuse since their faction would in no way be compromised by the alliance plot being exposed. The only groups in need of maintaining secrecy were the Corrinos and the Harkonnens, and those two Houses had zero leverage over the Guild to make them do or not do anything. If anything, the need for secrecy would give the Guild and the BG power over both Houses, rather than the other way around. David Lynch had the interesting idea, even though it was his own creation, to include in his film the scene of the Guild navigator explicitly telling Shaddam to destroy the Atreides. If such a scene really occurred before Dune's events and if there were witnesses that could be subjected to a truthsayer, then the Guild would also be exposed by the plot, I suppose. Even so all they apparently did was agree to transport the Baron's troops together with Shaddam's, which I'm not sure was a breach of the Convention in any way. Maybe it would have been the Guild's duty to report a breach of the convention, and neglecting to do so was their main contribution?

We also do know that the Guild was always available to help fleeing Houses escape to hidden safety and to disappear forever. I think it was very important for them to always maintain this policy, since if they were ever construed as closing their doors to someone who could pay they'd be seen as partisan and would face direct opposition from the Landsraad. The Guild knows that the best long-term business practice is to take no sides and to offer aid to any who ask for it, even opponents at war with each other. This is standard current banking practice in our world. The Guild highliners are combat-free zones, but otherwise I don't think the Guild cares who is killing whom so long as the spice flow continues.

As for Tuek, there is a hint in Dune that Tuek and the other smugglers have capabilities of space travel outside of normal channels. I'm not sure if this means through private deals with the Guild (through spice bribes) or if it means that the smugglers actually have a navigator of their own or illegal navtech. I don't have a pdf of Dune (I wish I did) so I'll have to rummage through the book when I get home tonight to find a quote supporting this comment.

[Freakzilla]

I don't think the Guild transporting Sardaukar was against the Great Convention, I think they wanted Paul dead, like in Lynch's made up scene. Not only that, the Atreides - Harkonnen feud was a threat to their spice supply. If things went badly for the Corrino-Harkonnen forces, there would be, like you mentioned, an uprising in the Landsraad.

I believe the Guild monopoly on interstellar travel was absolute up until the invention of the Ixian Navigation Machine. Even the smugglers had to ride with them.

[georgiedenbro]

I think you're right. I skimmed through the first 150 pages and found a few references to the hope of escaping Arrakis on frigates, and to the fact that Tuek had "fast ships" that could get them off-planet, but there's no mention of anything indicating that the smugglers could go around without the Guild. Your question about "but then what?" after Tuek's fast ships got them off-planet is a good one. What the heck did Jessica and Leto actually think would happen once Tuek had them on a frigate in orbit? Jessica seemed pretty sure that this was a legitimate escape option, so I wonder what her next step was.

This also brings up a question I'd never considered, which is - how the heck does anyone actually summon a Guild ship for transport? I cannot recall mention anywhere of FTL communications tech, and in the absence of that how could anyone actually communicate to the Guild to come pick them up? If the only source of FTL travel is through folding space, and if that can only be done accurately by a Guild navigator, then it seems unlikely that anyone other than the Guild could even communicate from planet to planet. Maybe the Guild makes regular stops at all colonized planets just in case they're needed or to ferry messages around? But then what of Great Houses in peril that need emergency evacuation, or of the Atreides fallback plan to escape Arrakis to which Leto refers?

Maybe the prescient navigators can foresee someone requesting their assistance and plan jumps to systems before the people who hire them even think of the idea. "We predicted you'd want to see us, here we are." "Whoa!" This would make being a kwizatz haderach a great annoyance since the Guild mailmen wouldn't be able to ever know if you wanted them there or not

That said, some of these star systems aren't all that far from each other. Canopus III (Arrakis) may be 310 LY from Earth, but it is probably within 5-10 LY from its nearest neighbor. Proxima Centauri, for instance, is only 4 LY from Earth. If Dune has such a neighbor that is inhabited then a sub-light ship going at even 0.25 light speed could get there using an initial thruster burst and then drifting in maybe 16-20 years, which is not too bad at all in terms of saving your House without Guild assistance. Maybe "fast ship" implies a decent ability to travel between close star systems without foldspace tech?

I got a bit off-topic here, but I guess I'm trying to show that Yueh was needed to ensure the battle would end very quickly and that neither Leto nor Paul could command their forces during it. He also ensured that Jessica would not pose a problem in capturing her, by giving the Harkonnens her precise biological details and arranging to have her drugged. Even if the Guild had intended to stonewall Leto's family had the shields stayed up, they still could have had time to escape to the Fremen or the smugglers. Eventually they could have perhaps gotten off-planet in disguise on a Guild ship once things settled down, through the smugglers or with help from the Fremen. If we assert that the Old Empire did have FTL data transmission then in a prolonged battle the Atreides could have simply contacted the Landsraad and it would have been over for the alliance. In the book Leto doesn't even know the shields are down until it's too late, and Paul and Jessica had already been drugged by that time, so there was no one in charge to send messages off-planet even if they had the tech.

[Freakzilla]

I do believe that interplanetary communication was done through the Guild but with your own messengers. Later in the series (HoD?) this is revealed as one of the functions of Reverend Mothers. Surely the Guild made regular stops at Arrakis if for no other reason, for spice, and probably all the major planets. The Guild was also the main bank, so...

While I agree that a quick, decisive victory was important, if the Guild didn't want it to happen, I think there was little chance of the Atreides getting to another world, besides exile on Tupile, or even a message to the Landsraad. Sure, a fast smuggler ship might eventually get the Atreides to another world but merely as refugees.

[georgiedenbro]

Do you think it's possible that prescient Guildsmen might be sensitive to each other and could communicate with each other remotely, perhaps just in terms of a feeling or intuition? Although we know that prescience grants shielding from others with the same power, perhaps this is only so when those persons have conflicting agendas. Maybe prescients who are 'on the same page' might be able to instead open up their presence and even make it very visible? If this were possible it would allow for the Guild to place prescient agents on all colonized planets and to signal to each other when to send Guild heighliners.

This is obviously a stretch, and your idea is probably right, but I do wonder that if all planet-bound peoples were restricted to both travel and to sending messages only at pre-appointed times when a Guild ship was scheduled to make its rounds, that no one in all six books ever makes reference to this. You'd think it would be a major facet of logistics for the wealthy, and also a very important strategic point to work around in any sort of planning.

Side question: Do we assume that anyone returning from The Scattering is doing so using Ixian navtech and that the Guild is no longer in the picture? If so, I wonder whether anyone at all uses the Guild anymore (why pay spice for a service you can have a computer do), and I therefore also wonder why computers wouldn't be found in other functions as well. The BG seem to indicate that artificial intelligence is still taboo, in which case I wonder how everyone would justify going around the Guild for transport using machines. The no-ships definitely are not Guild-driven (at least specifically not the one that Duncan et al leave in).

[Freakzilla]

Do you think it's possible that prescient Guildsmen might be sensitive to each other and could communicate with each other remotely, perhaps just in terms of a feeling or intuition? Although we know that prescience grants shielding from others with the same power, perhaps this is only so when those persons have conflicting agendas. Maybe prescients who are 'on the same page' might be able to instead open up their presence and even make it very visible? If this were possible it would allow for the Guild to place prescient agents on all colonized planets and to signal to each other when to send Guild heighliners.

This is obviously a stretch, and your idea is probably right, but I do wonder that if all planet-bound peoples were restricted to both travel and to sending messages only at pre-appointed times when a Guild ship was scheduled to make its rounds, that no one in all six books ever makes reference to this.

It was just a fact of life in the Imperium. In Dune they mention regular landings of Guild lighters to pick up spice shipments, in Dune Messiah space was filled with pilgrims on the Hajj, in Children of Dune it's mentioned that the transport that brought Jessica left with spice and also that Jessica refused to let Caladan be a stop on the Hajj. I don't think you had to wait long for the next Guild ship in the old Empire.

You'd think it would be a major facet of logistics for the wealthy, and also a very important strategic point to work around in any sort of planning.

The Guild is cursed nearly every time they're mentioned in the first three books especially by the Baron who constantly complains about the cost of shipping their combined forces. Keep in mind that the Guild was one of the factions charged with maintaining the Great Convention. By keeping military transport costs high they could thus limit conflict.

Side question: Do we assume that anyone returning from The Scattering is doing so using Ixian navtech and that the Guild is no longer in the picture? If so, I wonder whether anyone at all uses the Guild anymore (why pay spice for a service you can have a computer do), and I therefore also wonder why computers wouldn't be found in other functions as well. The BG seem to indicate that artificial intelligence is still taboo, in which case I wonder how everyone would justify going around the Guild for transport using machines. The no-ships definitely are not Guild-driven (at least specifically not the one that Duncan et al leave in).

Yes, the INM is what sparked The Scattering, along with Leto's prohibition on space. The Guild still serves the old empire but even they use the INM (with a navigator on board). I imagine the Guild was still useful for making large shipments, since they have the infrastructure in place, but the BG obviously don't rely on them for military transport. In the last two books computers seem to be loosing some of their taboo. As Leto II points out, there is a difference between automation and intelligence.

[Mr. Melange]

While I agree that a quick, decisive victory was important, if the Guild didn't want it to happen, I think there was little chance of the Atreides getting to another world, besides exile on Tupile, or even a message to the Landsraad. Sure, a fast smuggler ship might eventually get the Atreides to another world but merely as refugees.

At first I thought I disagreed with you, but I suppose you are right. It would be naive to believe that there was no suitable backup plan for destroying the Atreides. Between four great powers, I doubt there would be trouble controlling the flow of information to the point where it threatens their own power. And even if for some reason they did escape, they would just be fugitives, and thats little different than dead in my eyes. This is Dune, not "Paul Vs. The Universe".

Although, I do believe that the whole Yueh plan was a plan years in the making, and it is highly likely that Wanna imprinted Yueh. The only thing I see going wrong with this whole plan is that somehow Paul was able to survive a Coriolis storm. Hell I bet it would have even been in the Imperiums favor is Leto succeeded in killing the Baron. It stinks of BG goodness.

But I guess it could have just been Piter's flawless plan. I dunno.

[Freakzilla]

Supposedly the Emperor feared House Atreides growing powerful and popular and becoming a rival of the Saurdaukar and for the throne. House Harkonnen was powerful, but backing their attack on the Atreides would deplete their resources so that they wouldn't be much of a threat for a long time.

[georgiedenbro]

Supposedly the Emperor feared House Atreides growing powerful and popular and becoming a rival of the Saurdaukar and for the throne. House Harkonnen was powerful, but backing their attack on the Atreides would deplete their resources so that they wouldn't be much of a threat for a long time.

I can see this, except that House Atreides was described as a fairly low-budget House, as far as it went, and from what we know of Leto I he didn't seem to have grand aspirations beyond taking care of his family and his people. The scene where he daydreams about being able to just run away with Jessica and live a quiet life wouldn't seem to be the thinkings of a man who thirsts to take the throne, especially since when discussing Paul's mentat training he refers to how a mentat would make for a formidable Duke But maybe he did intend to do more than he showed, or trained Paul for that purpose. After all, we only see him at work when his House is suddenly shunted off to Arrakis into a trap.

Could Leto I's popularity with the Landsraad have eventually made him some kind of inter-House leader to challenge the Imeprium? Maybe, since we are told at various times that people are quick to swear fierce loyalty first to Leto and then to Paul; even Jessica, after years of BG training, shifts her loyalties towards Leto and gives him a son. Jessica (I think) was amazed to see how fast Stilgar made an accord with Leto involving both trust and fair exchange. Lynch made up the Atreides 'weirding modules' as an explanation of why Shaddam feared him, but what Leto really had was his sense of honor and loyalty (Leto the Just), and a streak of cunning unpredictability.