Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

I was lying on the beaching today, skimming over Chapterhouse, and I began thinking about the different weapons. Sorry if this has been posted before (couldn't find anything), but I thought that an open discussion on this topic might be worthwhile.

So, what do we know?

The Honored Matres have a 'bloodless' weapon they brought with them from the Scattering. Nothing of the sort that the hacks envisioned: It requires a Charge to be united with the Weapon in order for it to fire, resembling a hand-held black tube. They only possess 300 units.

The Ones of Many Faces used a weapon that turned HM into vegetables, forcing them back to the Old Empire. Plus their arsenal includes that list that Duncan stumbled upon: Disruptors, miniaturized Holtzmann generators, null-g seekers (any relation to those seeker machines in Leto II's shared vision with Siona?), animals (Futars, are OMF the same as Handlers?), explosives, bacterialogicals, energizers, etc.

Related to the HM discussion, this passage:

And the Ones of Many Faces, curse them through eternity, had caused the
disaster. Them and their Futars! The ease with which all but that handful of
The Weapon had been confiscated! Awesome powers. We must arm ourselves well
before we return to that battle. Dama is right.

I read this as stating that the OMF stole HM's Weapon from them, and that the HM fled with whatever they had left, contrary to the story presented in Hunters and Sadworms about HM stumbling into Omnius and stealing those ridiculous 'Devestators.' The penultimate sentence also leads me to think that the third book, if Frank envisioned a battle, might've been a preemptive strike against the OMF (BG could select individuals with Siona gene, creating an invisible-to-prescience attack force).

Any thoughts?

The Siona Gene went out into the Scattering, too, so the HM could have done their own testing and created such a force on their own.

I think the common/received interpretation around these parts is that the OMF used a biological weapon on the HM (that turned them into "vegetables") and they fled back to the Old Empire to try to wrestle the secrets of bodily control and immunity to disease from the BG.


(OMF = Super Face Dancers = users of BT tech = people who need lots of braindead women for tanks? )

What's the consensus regarding the stolen or had stolen Weapon units?

SandChigger wrote:(OMF = Super Face Dancers = users of BT tech = people who need lots of braindead women for tanks? )

What's the sense in harvesting brain-dead females when you could create replacements from your own tanks?

Slugger wrote:What's the consensus regarding the stolen or had stolen Weapon units?

Not sure.

SandChigger wrote:(OMF = Super Face Dancers = users of BT tech = people who need lots of braindead women for tanks? )

What's the sense in harvesting brain-dead females when you could create replacements from your own tanks?

Why take the time to grow & raise your own bints when you've got a female enemy you're planning on taking out anyway and can turn them into tanks right away? A bint's a bint, a tank's a tank.

I'm just speculating here.

OMF = Super Face Dancers = users of BT tech = people who need lots of braindead women for tanks?

so it is assumed on dune forums. I read the book with this question in mind. there is not quite enough information to prove it conclusively, although there are hints.

Chig make yourself useful and compile a list of quotes from the books to lucidly argue for a case that OMF are the same as SFD; as it is guesswork that there even are such thing as super facedancers. Its an assumption. The story in the books has other possibilities. It depends what info you relate to what info. I found when I read Dune that the world the bene gesserrit are facing in the latter books is moving faster than they are able to keep up with; they are becoming a pokey old religion rather than a ruling elite. The sisterhood is realising that they no longer have control of all the pieces; there are entities emerging from the Scattering that are beyond our comprehension, that our most evolved ones are only just beginning to realise even exist. It is comfortable to say, oh yeah that must be SFD then. But we have no actual verification.

As we clutch at straws and draw links between seemingly unassociated incidents, as we fit these together to make a cohesive model, guesswork... this is where we dare to step into the reality version we assume, as if it is real. The awareness of this step is a crucial factor that the books are trying to make us aware of throughout the series in many different ways. To hold that mentality perpetually. Lucid awareness combined with confidence in the consequence of our actions.

What we do know for certain is that the original 2nd generation FD were so good at replacing their targets that they totally became them and forgot their origin as tleilaxu agents. I do not know if a 3rd generation is mentioned in the books or if this is a forum consensus, although there is a mention in GEoD that the tleilaxu have taken over Ix wholesale which is after the failed 2nd gen FD. It is convenient to assume OMF are SFD because it holds together one theory for an aspect of Dune but it does not explain all of the missing elements. So we are left wondering, is there another mystery to solve as well as this, or is our current working hypothesis in err?

We are left questioning ourselves as we imprint our own version of reality upon it by taking that step.
Leto is laughing.

slugger wrote:The Honored Matres have a 'bloodless' weapon they brought with them from the Scattering. Nothing of the sort that the hacks envisioned: It requires a Charge to be united with the Weapon in order for it to fire, resembling a hand-held black tube. They only possess 300 units.

The Ones of Many Faces used a weapon that turned HM into vegetables, forcing them back to the Old Empire.

And the Ones of Many Faces, curse them through eternity, had caused the
disaster. Them and their Futars! The ease with which all but that handful of
The Weapon had been confiscated! Awesome powers. We must arm ourselves well
before we return to that battle. Dama is right.

Assuming that facedancers are chasing honored matre to use them as breeding tanks. a weapon that would turn a battlefield into vegetables would be exactly the right tactic they would use.
By contrast, Futar are used to hunt honored matre. They are not designed to capture them as with the shockwave device, they are designed to rip them to shreds. To create such a weapon reveals a different strategy of its creators.

semuta wrote:Chig make yourself useful and compile a list of quotes from the books

Go fuck yourself and then do your own research.

there is a mention in GEoD that the tleilaxu have taken over Ix wholesale which is after the failed 2nd gen FD

No, I believe you're mixing in McDune bullshit again. Like that crashed Heighliner.

semuta wrote:Assuming that facedancers are chasing honored matre to use them as breeding tanks. a weapon that would turn a battlefield into vegetables would be exactly the right tactic they would use.

Wow ... it makes so much more sense when you say it!

OMF = Super Face Dancers = users of BT tech = people who need lots of braindead women for tanks?

semuta wrote:I do not know if a 3rd generation is mentioned in the books or if this is a forum consensus, although there is a mention in GEoD that the tleilaxu have taken over Ix wholesale which is after the failed 2nd gen FD.

No there isn't.

EDIT: I see the bug already caught this.

Actually, I was driving home and it suddenly hit me what he was probably babbling about: the Face Dancer take-over of the Ixian embassy on Arrakis, when they killed and replaced everyone but Hwi.

As usual, he managed to screw up the details into something not immediately recognizable.

(But there was no Heighliner crash on Chapter House Planet.)

SandChigger wrote:Actually, I was driving home and it suddenly hit me what he was probably babbling about: the Face Dancer take-over of the Ixian embassy on Arrakis, when they killed and replaced everyone but Hwi.

As usual, he managed to screw up the details into something not immediately recognizable.

(But there was no Heighliner crash on Chapter House Planet.)

Possible yes. But, "taken over Ix wholesale," sounds to me like McDune crap.

Serkanner wrote:Possible yes. But, "taken over Ix wholesale," sounds to me like McDune crap.

Oh, to me, too.

I've no doubt that he's read the McDune books, what with the Heighliner thing. I just think maybe I figured out the connection (well, short circuit, maybe?) that leads him to think the whole "Tleilaxu on Ix" arc was part of the originals and in GEoD.

Even the Heighliner thing has a weird sort of thread running through it: in McDune a Heighliner crashes on Wallach IX, the BG home/main planet. In CHD, Chapter House Planet is the BG home world. It's like he's bridging the two into one.

The "3rd generation" of face dancers is all but shouted out in the last chapter of Chapterhouse: Dune.

semuta wrote:Assuming that facedancers are chasing honored matre to use them as breeding tanks. a weapon that would turn a battlefield into vegetables would be exactly the right tactic they would use.

Nothing in the books state that they are chacing them for that , only indications that some went into a coma and from the last chapter in CH:D, one can assume that they were possibly used as axlotl tanks.

semuta wrote:By contrast, Futar are used to hunt honored matre. They are not designed to capture them as with the shockwave device, they are designed to rip them to shreds. To create such a weapon reveals a different strategy of its creators.

How is it a contrast to use geneticaly engineered (someone hit me if i'm wrong) species that can paralise honored matres with a howl? (again hit me if i'm wrong)

Edited: By the way, didnt you anounce that you were leaving?

People who announce that they are leavng rarely do.

There's so much missinformation here...

1. Heighliners don't crash.

2. The "Bloodless Weapon" the HM used killed people, it did not make them vegetables.

3. No reason is ever given for why the HMs have been chased back to the Old Empire. It is suggested that they came back seeking BG knowledge of immunity from desease. This leads the BG to think they are running from biological warefare.

only indications that some went into a coma

Damn it, i thought i had all this mcDune shit out of my system.

Also, I don't think you need a reason to kill Honored Matres. They were HMs is usually good enough.

Seraphan wrote:

semuta wrote:Assuming that facedancers are chasing honored matre to use them as breeding tanks. a weapon that would turn a battlefield into vegetables would be exactly the right tactic they would use.

Nothing in the books state that they are chacing them for that , only indications that some went into a coma and from the last chapter in CH:D, one can assume that they were possibly used as axlotl tanks.

semuta wrote:By contrast, Futar are used to hunt honored matre. They are not designed to capture them as with the shockwave device, they are designed to rip them to shreds. To create such a weapon reveals a different strategy of its creators.

How is it a contrast to use geneticaly engineered (someone hit me if i'm wrong) species that can paralise honored matres with a howl? (again hit me if i'm wrong)

Edited: By the way, didnt you anounce that you were leaving?

Yep, the HM could be briefly immobilized by a scream that the futars make. Dortujla confirms this. She says that most of the HM wanted to kill their captive futars, but Spider Queen felt that they were "too valuable alive."

Freakzilla wrote: 3. No reason is ever given for why the HMs have been chased back to the Old Empire. It is suggested that they came back seeking BG knowledge of immunity from desease. This leads the BG to think they are running from biological warefare.

There is a moment in Chapterhouse when Spider Queen is basically just thinking to herself. She says that if it weren't for the facedancers, then they never would have had to retreat back into the Old Empire. So I'm thinking that it's not the facedancers that had biological weapons, but instead they WERE the biological weapons. Maybe the OM were seeking FD immunity?

Two passages from CHD:

Well within Teg's original timetable, Murbella picked her Honored Matre entourage and returned to Chapterhouse. She expected certain problems and the messages she sent ahead paved the way for solutions.

"I bring Futars to attract Handlers. Honored Matres fear a biological weapon from the Scattering that made vegetables of them. Handlers may be the source."

"Prepare to keep Rabbi and party in no-ship. Honor their secrecy. And remove the protective mines from the ship!" (That went in keeping of a Proctor messenger.)

No one challenged but orange flecks were there.

"You are children with no knowledge of what you might become," she said. "Would you return defenseless to face the ones of many faces? Would you become vegetables?"

That caught their interest. They were accustomed to this tone from older commanders. The content held them now. It was difficult to accept from one so young...still...the things she had done. And to Logno and her aides!

SandChigger wrote:Two passages from CHD:

Well within Teg's original timetable, Murbella picked her Honored Matre entourage and returned to Chapterhouse. She expected certain problems and the messages she sent ahead paved the way for solutions.

"I bring Futars to attract Handlers. Honored Matres fear a biological weapon from the Scattering that made vegetables of them. Handlers may be the source."

"Prepare to keep Rabbi and party in no-ship. Honor their secrecy. And remove the protective mines from the ship!" (That went in keeping of a Proctor messenger.)

No one challenged but orange flecks were there.

"You are children with no knowledge of what you might become," she said. "Would you return defenseless to face the ones of many faces? Would you become vegetables?"

That caught their interest. They were accustomed to this tone from older commanders. The content held them now. It was difficult to accept from one so young...still...the things she had done. And to Logno and her aides!

He claimed the HM secret weapon turned people into vegetables, not Futars/NFDs. At least that's what I thought he was saying.

I'm no longer sure who's claiming what.

I just want a vegetable HM of my very own to play with!

SandChigger wrote:I'm no longer sure who's claiming what.

I just want a vegetable HM of my very own to play with!

Hell, I want one at full strength to play with me!

I think it was more than ONE reason, in common with a lot of Frank's plots.

The HM wanted BG training for a variety of reasons, one of which was possibly immunity to disease (we see the evidence when spider queen recites to lucilla and in the tests on dortujla). They also possbly wanted resistance to futar screams, any new weapons from the "old empire" etc. I'm not sure bene gesserit immunity to disease was common knowledge though? Plus if im right HM were descendant from RM who went out into the scattering, so theoretically the knowledge went with them, did they lose it?

More likely they were fleeing, to regroup their strength, their are few good quotes to support this, none of which i have with me. Remember also they charged the ixians with workout out how to replicate the bloodless weapon. So they wanted ixian alliance/submission. Tleilaxu too, probably, that is why they were "bargaining" with Waff. Logno/maybe the other one appeared willing to negotiate with the BG. Even after their unleashing Duncan trained males to ensnare HM.

And all the HM saw the power evident in murbella at the end of CH:D. They might not have liked her symbiosis, but they all saw its power. Murbella was exactly what the HM believed they needed to take the fight to the enemy of many faces.

I dont think Handlers and SFDs are the same at all. Sirafi is clearly flesh and blood, not a superpowered entity. She appears capable of altering her face, although not to the extent that Face Dancers can. She appears to be lacking quite a bit of knowledge the Bene Gesserit have too, not in keeping with the comments by marty about "we have so many of them" (i know thats masters). Are handlers related to or descended from the tleilaxu? certainly. But out in the scattering their have been schisms amongst the tleilaxu too. Handlers and Futars hunt HM, yet other Tleilaxu work alongside them, because its scattered tleilaxu that betray Waff with their secrets.

We only see two SFDs, and they appear, well, super. Prescient-esque to a degree even Leto would have been astonished by. Everyone fails to notice that they even saw SHEANNA on the ship. Therefore they can SEE atreides, even teg couldnt do that, possibly. (i havent decided if meeting odrade in the desert counts yet). Was it something to do with their connection to techonology then? It was Duncan dumping the memory which stopped them tracking the no-ship. Maybe they used ship cameras rather than prescience? They seem far more abstract and metaphorical to me than mere "mortal" face dancers.

Who knows? Part of me wonders if even Frank could have written a conclusion to CH:D which lived up to all the expectations my mind creates:

Who/what were marty and daniel? How did they SEE atreides/into the no-ship?
Just where the fuck did sheanna think she was going?
Will that whistling trick ever be used on duncan, for that matter, what IS it with duncan?
Will the BG step up to assimilate the HM? Will they finally feel a "noble purpose" and step to it like leto asked? what would it be?
What were the futars and handlers? exactly? origins? purpose?

Concluding this would have saved me many hours pondering, probably. Maybe the next book would have been worse. I'll never forget the mind blowing immensity of my first reading of children, and the jaw dropping scope and vision i realised Frank had when he wrote GEoD after that.

Logno (or was it Dama?) tried to poison Odrade and was extremely pissed when Odrade explained how whe neutralized it. I think the HM had heard but was unsure as to the extent of their abilities.

A subverted RM with no spice and no one to pass on her OM too would not be able to pass on much training.

Is it too far to suppose that the HM were also seeking a source of spice? In CH:D (or HoD?) it talks about how that adrenaline-production-drug substitute didn't function nearly as well as melange. Granted, they destroyed Dune, but they were provoked by Teg, and this could be an example of their carelessness and recklessness?

Slugger wrote:Is it too far to suppose that the HM were also seeking a source of spice? In CH:D (or HoD?) it talks about how that adrenaline-production-drug substitute didn't function nearly as well as melange. Granted, they destroyed Dune, but they were provoked by Teg, and this could be an example of their carelessness and recklessness?

They destroyed the Tleilaxu also, the only other source of spice.