Tlilaxian adoration of the God Emperor

[MrFlibble]

Regardless of the real-world meaning of the word selamlik, I think that passage from Heretics makes it pretty clear this was the place for Tleilaxu women, an equivalent of a harem.

As for another quote about what Miles' mother tells him:

"What are the Tleilaxu women like?" Miles asked.

It was a perceptive question that sent a surge of pride through the Lady Janet. Yes, it was almost a certainty that she had a potential Mentat here. The breeding mistresses had been right about the gene potential of Loschy Teg.

"No one outside of their planets has ever reported seeing a Tleilaxu female," the Lady Janet said.

"Do they exist or is it just the tanks?"

"They exist."

[inhuien]

MrFlibble I think you're approaching this from an enlightened 21st century perspective. The Bene Tleilax opinion of their woman is that they are chattel, possessions, tools. It would be akin to me saying that the Kitchen is the white goods, just because they happen to be there.

It was proper that even Waff, the most powerful of all Tleilaxu, could not leave
his world and be readmitted without abasing himself in the ghufran, begging
pardon for contact with the unimaginable sins of aliens. To go out among the
powindah could soil even the mightiest. The khasadars who policed all Tleilaxu
frontiers and guarded the selamliks of the women were right to suspect even
Waff. He was of the people and the kehl, yes, but he must prove it each time he
left the heartland and returned, and certainly every time he entered the
selamlik for the distribution of his sperm.

[MrFlibble]

Actually my points were that a) the Tleilaxu had women in their society and b) misogyny does not equal male chauvinism and/or discrimination of females in a society. Never did I project the attitude to women characteristic of the "enlightened" modern Western society on the Bene Tleilax.

[inhuien]

Actually my points were that a) the Tleilaxu had women in their society and b) misogyny does not equal male chauvinism and/or discrimination of females in a society. Never did I project the attitude to women characteristic of the "enlightened" modern Western society on the Bene Tleilax.

Okay. What the fuck ever.

[Tycho]

I think the reason the BT accepted the God Emperor as a holy prophet is because for some reason he spared them. Leto II must have known about all their dirty secrets and all their plans for world domination, but for some reason he just let them be. How else were they to interpret this? They simply concluded Leto II was sympathetic to their cause and actually cleared the path for their ascendancy.

Also, they told themselves their genetic manipulation was the Language of God and Leto II was the only other being to indulge in biological metamorphosis Etc.

[Freakzilla]

The BT broke the spice monopoly, I imagine that was the main reason Leto spared them... besides manufacturing his Duncans.

[MrFlibble]

I suppose that, no matter how he personally detested the Tleilaxu experiments, Leto II did not feel it justified to intervene and destroy them. He created the Golden Path by applying pressures where necessary (e.g. by banning Mentats and closing down Mentat schools), and presumably removing the Tleilaxu was not among those planned pressures.

[Tycho]

Yes undoubtedly artificial mélange is what saved their skin, but the Tlielaxu themselves didn't know that at the time, and maybe not even afterwards (seems it took a long long time before people even realised what The Golden Path was actually about).

[georgiedenbro]

Leto II used all the major factions to his purposes during his reign, and in forcing them to work 'for him' in certain ways he therefore also made it so that they were inadvertently working with each other for common purpose for the first time. From their perspective it probably seemed more like him subjugating them, but the Tleilaxu always seemed to me to be beyond the other factions in recognizing certain intricacies. Take, for example, Scytale's famous conversation with Mohiam and Edric in DM where he describes the BT experiment with their KH. Unlike the BG, the BT not only knew what a KH was really about but also examined what it would be like to be one and how to stop one. The BG, prior to Paul, seemed comparatively clueless from what we can see.

Similarly, I think the BT would have been able to see through Leto II's 'subjugation' and somewhat understand what he was trying to do, compared to the other factions that merely endured his reign. They, too, were long-term planners, and probably respected him for that. That they eventually determined how to produce spice may or may not have even been a project secretly commissioned by Leto II in the first place, since he knew they'd be the only ones equipped for such a task. I don't think Leto II kept them around 'just because they had their uses,' though.

Consider the Duncans, who, it turns out, were a crucial part of the events that later unfolded in the series. The Duncans eventually made way for the CH:D Duncan who could do what he did. Did the BT foresee this eventuality, or at least hope for it, much in the way they hoped for the final result they got with Hayt? My guess would be yes, and my guess would also be that Leto II did as well. I see the breeding and progression of the Duncans as being a combined effort between the BT and Leto II to produce a certain result, part of which was to propagate the Siona gene when the time was right, but another part being the eventual creation of a Duncan-whatever-he-is in CH:D. I sincerely doubt Leto II kept Duncan around just to amuse himself or for Atreides nostalgia, because then he could just as soon have picked Gurney or others to bring back as gholas. This brings up the question of what, exactly, the final Duncan was. Was he a tool that would teach them how to defeat the New Face Dancers that would eventually lead to Marty and Daniel (this would mirror the use of their KH, who was a tool to teach them how to defeat Paul)? We don't know how early the masters came up with or knew of the possibility of NFD and that Marty and Daniel could come to be. M&D claim that the masters could never have thought that a NFD could become independent, but I give the masters more credit than that.

If, as I suspect, Leto II and the BT were guarding against an eventual problem with the NFD, and if, also, we can agree that Leto II deliberately helped them to achieve a new level of ghola-tech, much as Paul unwillingly did by way of Hayt, then we could see why the BT would revere him as a prophet. It would mean that Leto II was perhaps the only powindah ever to be privy to some of their secret planning and to even partake in it and help out. None of this is 'fact', as such, but so many of the events in this series happen behind the scenes that some connecting of dots is needed, even at the risk of having to engage in conjecture sometimes.

[Freakzilla]

Leto likely had no idea what was going on during the time of the last Duncan because he spent most of his time in a no-field and everyone he was interacting with had the Siona Gene. Non of it really mattered, humanity couldn't be destroyed. Besides, he said that he didn't look past his death except for glimpses to ensure the GP endured.

[georgiedenbro]

No no, I meant that Leto II and the BT could foresee the technological/biological development of a dangerous form of NFD, much as the BG presumably foresaw the possibility of the KH long before Paul was born. I don't mean at all that Leto II could see any of this using prescience; I meant the old fashioned way, by thinking it over

I also don't know whether Leto II would necessarily have cooperated with the BT on this as part of the Golden Plan; it could have been a quite different operation. While the Golden Plan was the reason Leto II needed to live for 3,500 years, that doesn't mean he couldn't work on other important things with his time during his term. The survival of the species obviously had to be paramount, and the avoidance of prescient traps a secondary objective (a good reason not to look beyond his own death). The idea that you've expressed a few times that Leto II might have created a more elaborate prescient trap is an interesting one, but also one that ceases to be relevant once The Scattering takes place, since it was beyond Leto's powers to trap humanity's future once it had scattered. His Golden Plan secures humanity not only from itself, but from him.

Nevertheless, I think the business with the Duncans was another secondary objective, and it is my hypothesis that this objective was (at least in part) to prevent some bad news that could come of NFD biotech. Even if the NFD couldn't threaten the Golden Plan in the long-term they could still make things very unpleasant for a whole lot of people. That, and it would kind of be 'a shame' to lose all the BT biotech should they be wiped out. His public image aside, I think Leto II really did care about the well-being of humanity, not just its basic survival.