Those ALIEN Roads

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 17 Dec 2008 23:23

I agree. I don't think Keith has any interest at all in what goes on
on that board. I think it's ALL Merritt. I think he's running around
like a slobbering dog begging for attention from an abusive master,
saying things he THINKS Keith would WANT him to say, IF Keith ever
spoke to him.

That about sum it up, Merritt ?
(Oh by the way, this just in : Frank didn't like you. At all.)

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 18 Dec 2008 00:50

Over There » All Things Dune » True Aliens in Dune // today
Redstar wrote:
arnoldo wrote:
Redstar wrote:I forget which novel it is, either Heretics or C:H, but it is briefly mentioned that the sandworms may have been planted on Dune by an alien race for reasons unknown. . .
"The sandtrout," he repeated, "was introduced here from some other place. This was a wet planet then.
~CoD
No, the quote I'm thinking of is in the mental workings of one of the Bene Gesserit, possibly Lucilla. But that quote also adds to the theory.

I also recall the reasoning behind arming the noble families with atomics against some "other intelligence," which I believe is the first mentioning of a possible encounter with alien races.

Each quote is almost trivial in that it's a side-thought to make you think of the sheer size of the Universe, in that we've explored it for thousands of years, yet have never encountered so much as a smart virus. But putting them together in the context of Heretics and CH:D, where the onslaught of the HM, Futars, and Phibians, it seems to me that our loneliness in the universe is coming to an end and being challenged by things that aren't quite human. Face Dancers themselves are treated like a powerful enemy, something more than human and far deadlier that anything we've yet encountered.

It almost feels like FH was leading up to an encounter with SOMETHING. Dune to GoD are all about humans, while the final two books start exploring organisms beyond humanity.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 18 Dec 2008 03:08

Hopefully the idiocy over there will reach a critical mass and the entire server implode.

(Oh...wait....whew, OK...I use the same provider, but we're on different servers. Let 'er R.I.P.

)

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 18 Dec 2008 11:52

As unbelievable as it may sound, Dumbnovels has yet to attain the level of mediocrity that is KJA. Therefore, it's safe to assume that Dumbnovels has none of his influence, only his apologists

Drunken Idaho · Post by **Drunken Idaho** » 18 Dec 2008 13:18

GamePlayer wrote:As unbelievable as it may sound, Dumbnovels has yet to attain the level of mediocrity that is KJA. Therefore, it's safe to assume that Dumbnovels has none of his influence, only his apologists

I wouldn't be surprised if he scours the board from time to time, telling Byron to ban this and delete that...

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 18 Dec 2008 13:29

I'd be real surprised if he did that. I say it's ALL Merritt.

Keith can't even be bothered to produce more than one blog
entry every other week, spread out over three sites.

Maybe in the past, but I think now he thinks he's got
total control - fuck what we say or think. And Merritt's got
his own ideas of what should and should not be discussed
Over There. I could surely be wrong, but I just don't see
Keith being involved with the internet Jihad. Merritt is like
fuck, what's that Nazi ? The one that never met Hitler, but
went totally nuts with The Program, to please Der Furher ?

Hunchback Jack · Post by **Hunchback Jack** » 18 Dec 2008 14:38

Redstar wrote:Each quote is almost trivial in that it's a side-thought to make you think of the sheer size of the Universe, in that we've explored it for thousands of years, yet have never encountered so much as a smart virus. But putting them together in the context of Heretics and CH:D, where the onslaught of the HM, Futars, and Phibians, it seems to me that our loneliness in the universe is coming to an end and being challenged by things that aren't quite human. Face Dancers themselves are treated like a powerful enemy, something more than human and far deadlier that anything we've yet encountered.

It almost feels like FH was leading up to an encounter with SOMETHING. Dune to GoD are all about humans, while the final two books start exploring organisms beyond humanity.

Why are these guys reaching so much to bring aliens into the mix? The text doesn't really indicate it at all. And the reference to "Phibians" kind of undercuts the argument - they only appeared in HoD and SoD, IIRC.

FH was always interested in the limits of humanity - Guild Navigators and gholas spring to mind, offhand. Futars and SFDs are variations on a theme, not a new direction.

HBJ

Frybread · Post by **Frybread** » 18 Dec 2008 14:56

Hunchback Jack wrote:
Redstar wrote:Each quote is almost trivial in that it's a side-thought to make you think of the sheer size of the Universe, in that we've explored it for thousands of years, yet have never encountered so much as a smart virus. But putting them together in the context of Heretics and CH:D, where the onslaught of the HM, Futars, and Phibians, it seems to me that our loneliness in the universe is coming to an end and being challenged by things that aren't quite human. Face Dancers themselves are treated like a powerful enemy, something more than human and far deadlier that anything we've yet encountered.

It almost feels like FH was leading up to an encounter with SOMETHING. Dune to GoD are all about humans, while the final two books start exploring organisms beyond humanity.
Why are these guys reaching so much to bring aliens into the mix? The text doesn't really indicate it at all. And the reference to "Phibians" kind of undercuts the argument - they only appeared in HoD and SoD, IIRC.

FH was always interested in the limits of humanity - Guild Navigators and gholas spring to mind, offhand. Futars and SFDs are variations on a theme, not a new direction.

HBJ

Maybe for some people good science fiction has to include aliens (non-humans), and not just humans who have altered themselves to the point of being alien (weird, unfamiliar, etc.) to us.

Personally, I like the idea of humans evolving physically, technologically, and culturally to the point of being alien than some little green men from Mars who allegedly bred worms and planted them on Arrakis.

Hunchback Jack · Post by **Hunchback Jack** » 18 Dec 2008 15:03

As an aside, it's not at all clear to me why sandworms couldn't have evolved on Dune.

Sandtrout-like creatures could have evolved as river creatures, which then developed the abilty to store water underground to protect themselves during drought times. They then succeeded too well.

There's nothing to prevent a creature from evolving into something that effectively destroys the living environment for everything else.

HBJ

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 18 Dec 2008 16:21

Like human beings on THIS planet ?

Hunchback Jack · Post by **Hunchback Jack** » 18 Dec 2008 16:24

Indeed.

HBJ

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 18 Dec 2008 19:46

Unless FH did eventually plan to reveal that the worms had been artificially created, they would have had to have evolved somewhere.

We know that the worms didn't evolve on Arrakis because Leto II, apparently looking into his Other Memory (before taking the sandtrout skin, at the beginning of CoD), tells Ghanima that someone brought sandtrout to the planet. (If he remembers it, that means at least that some human ancestor of his witnessed it. The agents responsible were undoubtably human as well, because if they weren't, that same witnessing ancestor would have probably known or sensed that as well, and Leto II would also have known it.)

As I've mentioned before, this was extremely prophetic of FH, because we now know that Canopus is the type of star that will exist only for a few hundred million years or so and then go boom. If it has any planets at all, there won't be enough time for life as complex as the worms to evolve there.

loremaster · Post by **loremaster** » 19 Dec 2008 03:30

Just want to add, worms eat sand.

Occum therefore suggests that they are predominantly silicon.

NOT carbon based.

You cant have one silicon based lifeform evolve in lots of carbon based ones, as there is no precursor.

Therefore they are either part of a complete silicon ecosystem (along with worms and plankton) OR they are an engineering project.

Personally, i think that it may well have been that silicon life evolved somewhere else. They were transported to arrakis and THEN evolved some more.

EsperandoAGodot · Post by **EsperandoAGodot** » 19 Dec 2008 05:12

While I think you may be right that they're silicon based, they actually eat sandplankton.

loremaster · Post by **loremaster** » 19 Dec 2008 11:04

EsperandoAGodot wrote:While I think you may be right that they're silicon based, they actually eat sandplankton.

Where is that written? I thought there was a passage where it was written they eat sand?

I could be very wrong, very very wrong. I dont mind, i just thought they ate sand.

Happy to be proved wrong, would be quite cool for them to be filter feeders. just didnt think that was the case.

Lisan Al-Gaib · Post by **Lisan Al-Gaib** » 19 Dec 2008 11:20

loremaster wrote:
EsperandoAGodot wrote:While I think you may be right that they're silicon based, they actually eat sandplankton.
Where is that written? I thought there was a passage where it was written they eat sand?

I could be very wrong, very very wrong. I dont mind, i just thought they ate sand.

Happy to be proved wrong, would be quite cool for them to be filter feeders. just didnt think that was the case.

Dune written by Frank Herbert, Appendix. The Pardot Kynes' part.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 19 Dec 2008 12:31

Ahp, the "Ecology" appendix.

It also says that the sand plankton grow into sandtrout, so there are really three "vectors" of the one lifeform: sand plankton, sandtrout, and sandworms. We know the sandtrout propagate; it stands to reason that the plankton do as well. The three essentially kill a planet's biosphere and establish a new one composed entirely of themselves.

The problem with the picture is the main power source for the system. Sibylle Hechtel in that Science of Dune book proposes deep sulfur vents from the mantle, tapped by the sandtrout ... who incidentally culture some sort of fungus like leaf-cutter ants. None of which has any support in the books.

The sand plankton eat the spice (which is spread about by the worms, who are drawn to the areas of spice blows), so they're near to the surface. Maybe they also absorb energy/heat from the sands warmed by the sun?

Anyway, loremaster, I believe there's a passage somewhere in which Leto II tells someone (Hwi) that he eats sand. Maybe that's where you got the idea?

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 19 Dec 2008 16:03

Over There » For Lovers of both the Classic Dune AND the Prequels » God Emperor of Dune (Let's Review) // today

Hypatia wrote:
The whole idea of "machine cities" is nonsense, anyway. Why would machines even need a city? They don't need living space, recreation facilities, parks, schools (unless you want to consider their programming as serving a school's function), markets, financial institutions, social and cultural groups, and a whole plethora of other buildings, spaces, and institutions that human cities have. Since machines are presumed to operate on logic, they would build only what was necessary for maintaining their existence, and other things would be considered unnecessary -- if they were ever thought of at all.

She also made three other posts Over There today.
I've got shit to do, I can't mess around with this crap all day.
Later.

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 19 Dec 2008 16:14

Who am I kidding ? I gots no job ...

Over There » All Things Dune » True Aliens in Dune // today
Merritt wrote:
Hypatia wrote:
murmur wrote:
Merritt wrote: I think given enough time and with foldspace technology, Frank believed it inevitable we'd meet aliens of some kind. He knew there were billions and billions of stars and that to have humanity be the only sentient creatures out there is such a waste of space.
Yeah, that's exactly what my thoughts are (you articulated it alot better than I)
Byron is quasi-quoting from the movie Contact, which was based on Carl Sagan's novel.

I was? Okay. Perhaps I was channeling Jodi Foster

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 19 Dec 2008 16:20

Over There » For Lovers of Classic Dune Only » Chapter House Dune finale //today
Merritt wrote:
Hypatia wrote:
Merritt wrote:
murmur wrote:
Merritt wrote:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It might interest you to know, too, that there are face dancer enemies in Hunters and Sandworms. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Hehe, so basically what you're saying is, I should read them, because I'm rushing to conclusions?
No. You should probably do whatever you think is right for you. Just wanted you to be aware that there are elements that many anti-fans left out of their "toastings" of the sequels.
Byron, WTF is an "anti-fan"? That's as nonsensical as calling us "Talifans."

You can't possibly claim that people who don't like the pre/sequels are anti-Frank Herbert, or anti-Dune. We are anything BUT "anti-fans."

But if you mean that we're "anti-pre/sequels written by KJA/BH for too many reasons to go into here," that would be more accurate.

If you're going to describe people in insulting terms, please get your terms correct.

Duly noted.

Oh. My. G-d.

Post by **Omphalos** » 19 Dec 2008 16:30

It lives! And it still pretends its one of us!

SandRider · Post by **SandRider** » 19 Dec 2008 16:33

And Merritt is scared of It ......

TheDukester · Post by **TheDukester** » 19 Dec 2008 16:36

If I'm reading that nested-quote ziggarut correctly ... she's actually correct. Sort of.

"Anti-fan" really makes no sense at all; it would mean, strictly speaking, someone who was against fans.

But what numbnuts was trying to say when he vomited that term up a few days ago was anti-KJA or anti-nuDune. But he did it wrong ... and try to imagine my surprise at that.

Tleszer · Post by **Tleszer** » 19 Dec 2008 16:37

Well, who wouldn't be scared of a hulking pussy (cat)?

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 19 Dec 2008 16:41

No he isn't. Byron might be many things, but he has no reason to be afraid of her. Hybitch might be an asshole, but she's on a leash there the same as everyone else. All Byron has to do is tighten it and she's gone (and she knows it).

All the same, I expect the two will bounce between each other for perhaps even years before one grows tired of the other and acts. I will say this: it appears Hybitch has finally succumbed to her need for attention. She could only hold out so long