Salutations


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merkin muffley
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Re: Salutations

Post by merkin muffley »

Another thing that's funny about lukecash12 criticizing your writing is that he's a terrible writer. HIs English pieces of prose are awkward, pretentious, full of unnecessary adjectives, and hopelessly convoluted. Maybe it's intentional, and he really does think sophistry is a good thing.
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Re: Salutations

Post by Ampoliros »

He's a Thesaurus.


More seriously:

Duncan isn't a KH, he's something else, something unique like Teg. Where Paul is a genetic KH, Duncan is more like a Lego Male BG, built life by life. The combination gives him an extra sensory perception that emulates static prescience without foresight, "now-science".

Erasmus was completely a BH/KJA creation. The "notes" are another one of those fabrications. Until they can reveal some concrete proof that the notes exist as they say they do and were used in the creation of the books 7 then I call BS. The notes serve one purpose and that is to legitimize shit writers writing in Dune.

The Tleilaxu religion fails to entropy? Where did you get the idea it would entropy at all? Fanatics never die.
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lotek
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Re: Salutations

Post by lotek »

Serkanner wrote:
lukecash12 wrote:
To me you couldn't have been wrong more. It also makes me doubt very much you are an academic. ANY person with the tiniest bit of intelligence should immediatley see the many many flaws in these Atrocities ( = prequels, sequels and inbetween books by BoBo and TehKJA ). I am not an academic but can recognize bad writing, inconcitencies, flat characterisation and bad grammer in a language which I am not native to.
I find it humorous that you display a tendency towards ad hominem in the very first instance of your text that I see. Not to mention that you misspell "inconsistency", "characterization", "grammar", "in-between"- of which concept the proper word is "betwixt", if you don't want to use a hyphenated word- and "immediately". Not to make it look like ad hominem on my own part, but your display and concession that English isn't your native language has to do with your own qualification (and not your personal character), as far as your ability to criticize an English piece of prose.

Now that we've exchanged the inevitable pleasantries that occur when you open up with ad hominem, I'd like to show you my cordially impersonal side by requesting that you directly support these claims:

1. That they were inconsistent.
2. That they used flat characterization.
3. That bad grammar was used.

Mind you, I am willing to grant all three because I've seen instances of them; However, a vast majority of modern authors use "bad grammar", and that is simply a reflection of modern prose. You see, they may not use the "proper grammar" of a textbook, but they manage to write with a cogent thought process all the same.
And fuck you too. My next post will be in Dutch and I expect your essays to be in Dutch as well. Moron.
how do you say "douchebag" in Dutch ?
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A Thing of Eternity
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Re: Salutations

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

lukecash12 wrote:
Then what is there that was actually based on Herbert senior's notes?
Probably very little, if the notes in fact exist (I personally believe they do exist, just that they were not followed, and that they were probably very minimal). Some here believe that one thing from the final books that does seem like something FH might have written is the idea that the Honoured Matres were descendants of Tleilaxu tanks - that's a good idea, so maybe FH put it in the notes, and if not, if KJA and BH made it up themselves, then good work I say, one of their very few good ideas.
Also, it seemed perfectly fine to me for Idaho to be a KH. It just wasn't treated right, because they played with the idea of KH like a toy.
See what Ampoliros wrote about this, I agree with his take on it based upon the last 2 novels FH wrote.
Plus, I wouldn't play down a KH too much; Paul (the grandmaster's creation) was able to operate without eyesight by abandoning everything else in favor of the prescience trap. Leto II, by way of both paternal and maternal ancestral memory, was of an intellectual pluck that set him on a pedestal above everyone else for thousands of years
You completely missed my point. I'm not playing down a KH, I'm playing down the power of a KH post-LetoII. LetoII's intellect didn't just come from having those ancestral memories either, he had powerful prescience and used it often, and he wasn't just a KH - he was a hive mind. He allowed himself to be possessed by a massive swarm of dead personas, so he didn't just have ancestral memory in the way a KH or BG does, he had access to it like it was his own memory, and he was a composite personality of all those people as well as himself. That, combined with his prescience is what made him so powerful.

But after his Golden Path was in place, a KH would be reduced to simply "double a BG" by virtue of having access to both lines of ancestral memory, his prescience would be basically useless.

Also, there'd be no real point to the KH in the way that KJA wrote it (lets not kid ourselves, BH's contribution seems to be minimal based upon the writing style and how fast we know KJA writes versus BH) - after the Scattering the idea that the ultra-KH (what does that even MEAN?!) could somehow reunite humanity is both impossible and also goes against the whole point of what FH was trying to teach us (the readers) with the Golden Path.

Also, if you read the final two books, KJA completely had no understanding of what the Scattering was. AT ALL. He didn't understand even remotely how big it was or what it's purpose was. Of course, given his extremely limited grasp of science itself I'm not surprised, I'd be surprised if he even knew what a galaxy was versus a solar system versus a universe, and the distances involved in any of that.
So, since when did they one-up Herbert senior? I mean, you can say that they were crap writers, but Idaho was bound to be a KH anyway, right?
No, not "bound to be a KH". It's not something I can rule out 100%, but it's highly unlikely that that was where FH was going with Duncan based upon the last 2 real Dune novels.

When did they one-up him? Always, constantly, it never ends in their writing. FH had a KH, KJA writes an ultimate-KH. FH wrote about Leto II, a near-god to teach people to stay away from gods and to stay away from centralization, KJA writes Norma Cenva, an actual god-being who teaches the exact opposite, that humanity is doomed without a god to save them, and that with the ultra KH humanity needs to go back to centralization.

There are endless examples from their books where everything they write just has to be bigger and cooler than the originals. They even threw in a sandworm made out of several sandworms combining into one (kewl, a new super power for sandworms!) that according to the authors was bigger than any ever seen before (which was a mistake on their behalf also, because the size of those worms that combined is spelled out in the books, and I did the math, their combined size wouldn't come close to even HALF the size of the worm that Paul first rode back in Dune).

Seriously man, more lasers, more explosions, super heroes that are more super, that's all KJA can come up with. He can't come up with any kind of serious plotline or character that is/are compelling on their own.
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Re: Salutations

Post by Serkanner »

lotek wrote: how do you say "douchebag" in Dutch ?
In all honesty there is no real translation for the term douchebag in Dutch. There are of course examples to find that come close in regard to the meaning of douchebag. The simplest "translation" would be the all time favourite Dutch invective ( am I supposed to know this word? ) 'Klootzak', which literately translates as "scrotum". Similar type of terms of abuse for a douchebag are: eikel, sufkut, droplul, kuttekop, minkukel, anushoofd and plenty more.
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Re: Salutations

Post by Mandy »

I vote for anushoofd!
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Re: Salutations

Post by Omphalos »

I like kuttlekop. Next time I register somewhere, that's my name.
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Re: Salutations

Post by Serkanner »

Omphalos wrote:I like kuttlekop. Next time I register somewhere, that's my name.
Lose the L ... literally it translates as: cunthead
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Re: Salutations

Post by Serkanner »

Mandy wrote:I vote for anushoofd!
That's my favourite one for tehKJA.
"... the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve but a reality to experience."

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Re: Salutations

Post by Nekhrun »

So what are you saying Serk, you can't buy douche where you are?
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Re: Salutations

Post by Omphalos »

In Spain a douche is a shower.
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Re: Salutations

Post by lukecash12 »

merkin muffley wrote:Well, to be fair, quinta battuta is a rather old and unfashionable term. Yet the sense of it -- "beaten fifth" -- is completely apt, and even Bach has at least one in WTC.

But it was FIRST SPECIES, for the love of God! Counterpoint exercises are meant to be abstractions of music, not actual music. The rules are stricter. Species counterpoint is where you're supposed to learn how to handle fifths with care. But now it's all hip-hop and rock-and-roll.
Meh, I wasn't always impressed by the people who taught me either. It was always the case in college (at least with me) that you tried to figure out what it is the professor wanted from you, and just gave to him/her, then your grade followed suit.

@Nekhrun:
That's just it, if you take into account anything that the hacks have tried to change/add to Dune then you lose something of Frank's original text and intent.

There is a fundamental diference to relying on self/humanity/community to relying on a god to come in and save the day.
That last bit: "relying on a god to come in and save the day" It probably sums up most of what I found to be ignorant in the new books, aside from the House books, which were much more terrible for mucking up details about Paul and Duncan.
Ampoliros wrote:He's a Thesaurus.


More seriously:

Duncan isn't a KH, he's something else, something unique like Teg. Where Paul is a genetic KH, Duncan is more like a Lego Male BG, built life by life. The combination gives him an extra sensory perception that emulates static prescience without foresight, "now-science".

Erasmus was completely a BH/KJA creation. The "notes" are another one of those fabrications. Until they can reveal some concrete proof that the notes exist as they say they do and were used in the creation of the books 7 then I call BS. The notes serve one purpose and that is to legitimize shit writers writing in Dune.

The Tleilaxu religion fails to entropy? Where did you get the idea it would entropy at all? Fanatics never die.
Well, it's disappointing that there weren't any notes. And I agree that Duncan was bound to be something unique.

What I meant by entropy is that an original died out, and was replaced by another "original", until the religion became completely inauthentic.

@A Thing of Eternity:
Probably very little, if the notes in fact exist (I personally believe they do exist, just that they were not followed, and that they were probably very minimal). Some here believe that one thing from the final books that does seem like something FH might have written is the idea that the Honoured Matres were descendants of Tleilaxu tanks - that's a good idea, so maybe FH put it in the notes, and if not, if KJA and BH made it up themselves, then good work I say, one of their very few good ideas.
I'm not so sure about that. I really just preferred the idea that the Honored Matres were Bene Gesserit that went into the Scattering.
You completely missed my point. I'm not playing down a KH, I'm playing down the power of a KH post-LetoII. LetoII's intellect didn't just come from having those ancestral memories either, he had powerful prescience and used it often, and he wasn't just a KH - he was a hive mind. He allowed himself to be possessed by a massive swarm of dead personas, so he didn't just have ancestral memory in the way a KH or BG does, he had access to it like it was his own memory, and he was a composite personality of all those people as well as himself. That, combined with his prescience is what made him so powerful.
Really, Leto II was more vulnerable than anyone knew, considering the whole water aversion and how he wasn't exactly covered in an impervious shield.
But after his Golden Path was in place, a KH would be reduced to simply "double a BG" by virtue of having access to both lines of ancestral memory, his prescience would be basically useless.
Right, no more squabbling over spice.
No, not "bound to be a KH". It's not something I can rule out 100%, but it's highly unlikely that that was where FH was going with Duncan based upon the last 2 real Dune novels.

When did they one-up him? Always, constantly, it never ends in their writing. FH had a KH, KJA writes an ultimate-KH. FH wrote about Leto II, a near-god to teach people to stay away from gods and to stay away from centralization, KJA writes Norma Cenva, an actual god-being who teaches the exact opposite, that humanity is doomed without a god to save them, and that with the ultra KH humanity needs to go back to centralization.

There are endless examples from their books where everything they write just has to be bigger and cooler than the originals. They even threw in a sandworm made out of several sandworms combining into one (kewl, a new super power for sandworms!) that according to the authors was bigger than any ever seen before (which was a mistake on their behalf also, because the size of those worms that combined is spelled out in the books, and I did the math, their combined size wouldn't come close to even HALF the size of the worm that Paul first rode back in Dune).

Seriously man, more lasers, more explosions, super heroes that are more super, that's all KJA can come up with. He can't come up with any kind of serious plotline or character that is/are compelling on their own.
I'll have to do some digging on the subject of Duncan, maybe bring up the KH thing another time.
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A Thing of Eternity
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Re: Salutations

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

lukecash12 wrote: @A Thing of Eternity:
Probably very little, if the notes in fact exist (I personally believe they do exist, just that they were not followed, and that they were probably very minimal). Some here believe that one thing from the final books that does seem like something FH might have written is the idea that the Honoured Matres were descendants of Tleilaxu tanks - that's a good idea, so maybe FH put it in the notes, and if not, if KJA and BH made it up themselves, then good work I say, one of their very few good ideas.
I'm not so sure about that. I really just preferred the idea that the Honored Matres were Bene Gesserit that went into the Scattering.
It's been quite a while since I read the new books, but I think KJA said they were the descendants of the Bene Gesserit, just that they were also descended from the tanks. I liked the idea, and SOMETHING has to explain why their ancestral memory just stops at a point in history not very long ago (some time post-Scattering), and them having spent hundreds of generations as mindless baby-vats is actually a pretty decent explaination for that in my opinion.

Now, changing Marty and Daniel from some kind of advanced face dancers into evil robots... now THAT was a bad idea that clearly had zero FH input!
You completely missed my point. I'm not playing down a KH, I'm playing down the power of a KH post-LetoII. LetoII's intellect didn't just come from having those ancestral memories either, he had powerful prescience and used it often, and he wasn't just a KH - he was a hive mind. He allowed himself to be possessed by a massive swarm of dead personas, so he didn't just have ancestral memory in the way a KH or BG does, he had access to it like it was his own memory, and he was a composite personality of all those people as well as himself. That, combined with his prescience is what made him so powerful.
Really, Leto II was more vulnerable than anyone knew, considering the whole water aversion and how he wasn't exactly covered in an impervious shield.
Not sure I agree with you there - yes he had weaknesses, but he also had the power to prevent every attack ever made on him from even occuring in the first place by simply looking into the future. By the time we get to see him in GEoD he's grown pretty lax though, hence him getting killed.

But a person's power doesn't just stem from how hard they are to kill physically, that's one of the least important parts - every human in history has been roughly the same "toughness" (Rasputin doesn't count... that dude was bloody hard to kill!), but have had massive variances in their power simply because of how they were capable of dealing with other people.

Leto II had the experience of countless people to call upon, and the ability to see the future. Add that up and it doesn't matter if you could kill him by looking at him, he'd still be vastly vastly more powerful than any KH born after him had a hope in hell of being.
But after his Golden Path was in place, a KH would be reduced to simply "double a BG" by virtue of having access to both lines of ancestral memory, his prescience would be basically useless.
Right, no more squabbling over spice.
I'm not totally following the spice reference here, we may have gotten each other confused a bit - I'm referring to how after Leto II (and a period of time passing, which has happened by the next books), pretty much everyone is invisible to prescience because of the Siona gene. The prescience of say Navigators would even be reduced, but still useful for their purpose of figuring out whether or not their path is safe.
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Re: Salutations

Post by JustSomeGuy »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:after Leto II (and a period of time passing, which has happened by the next books), pretty much everyone is invisible to prescience because of the Siona gene.
It seems to me that relatively few people would be invisible to prescience, even after all that time. I'm talking about the general population, here.

As to the Honored Matres being descendants of Tleilaxu axolotl tanks... how would that even be possible? It's not like those blobs of flesh could've just gotten up one day and said, "Fuck this, we're out!"
Someone, please, enlighten me.
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Re: Salutations

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

JustSomeGuy wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:after Leto II (and a period of time passing, which has happened by the next books), pretty much everyone is invisible to prescience because of the Siona gene.
It seems to me that relatively few people would be invisible to prescience, even after all that time. I'm talking about the general population, here.
Yes but we're also talking about over 1500 years. I've heard reputable scientists estimate that today as many as one in every two hundred people is descended from Genghis Khan - and that's less than 800 years. So it's not impossible at all. Also I'm pretty sure (don't have my books on hand to quote) that it was stated in the final 2 books by FH that pretty much everyone had the gene.
As to the Honored Matres being descendants of Tleilaxu axolotl tanks... how would that even be possible? It's not like those blobs of flesh could've just gotten up one day and said, "Fuck this, we're out!"
Someone, please, enlighten me.
No, but they easily could have been rescued by the BG (or anyone really, but given the HM similarity to the BG I think the BG are a good guess) in the Scattering. BAM, question answered.
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Re: Salutations

Post by JustSomeGuy »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
JustSomeGuy wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:after Leto II (and a period of time passing, which has happened by the next books), pretty much everyone is invisible to prescience because of the Siona gene.
It seems to me that relatively few people would be invisible to prescience, even after all that time. I'm talking about the general population, here.
Yes but we're also talking about over 1500 years. I've heard reputable scientists estimate that today as many as one in every two hundred people is descended from Genghis Khan - and that's less than 800 years. So it's not impossible at all. Also I'm pretty sure (don't have my books on hand to quote) that it was stated in the final 2 books by FH that pretty much everyone had the gene.
These quotes within quotes are time consuming. I keep forgetting how to do them.
Anyway... I'm willing to believe the Genghis Khan story. We are all descended from Adam and Eve, after all. The thing is- there were less people back in Genghis Khan's day. I think I remember reading that during Paul Atreides' time there were mega-trillions. Imagine how many more people there would've been by the time Siona came to be. That is why I believe that the Siona Gene could not have spread to all that many people. It may be that nearly everyone of the Bene Geserit had the gene, but that leaves out an unimaginably huge shitload of people. Then again, if FH came out and said that pretty much everyone had the gene, well then, that's that.
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Re: Salutations

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

JustSomeGuy wrote:We are all descended from Adam and Eve, after all.


You're kidding right?
Then again, if FH came out and said that pretty much everyone had the gene, well then, that's that.
I'm pretty sure he did, though I do share your skepticism about the math.
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Re: Salutations

Post by lukecash12 »

It's been quite a while since I read the new books, but I think KJA said they were the descendants of the Bene Gesserit, just that they were also descended from the tanks. I liked the idea, and SOMETHING has to explain why their ancestral memory just stops at a point in history not very long ago (some time post-Scattering), and them having spent hundreds of generations as mindless baby-vats is actually a pretty decent explaination for that in my opinion.

Now, changing Marty and Daniel from some kind of advanced face dancers into evil robots... now THAT was a bad idea that clearly had zero FH input!
In Chapterhouse Odrade ruminates several times that the HM could have been the BG who went into the Scattering. The ancestral memory issue is simple, though: The BG that went out in the Scattering wouldn't be capable of inducing spice agony any more.
Not sure I agree with you there - yes he had weaknesses, but he also had the power to prevent every attack ever made on him from even occuring in the first place by simply looking into the future. By the time we get to see him in GEoD he's grown pretty lax though, hence him getting killed.

But a person's power doesn't just stem from how hard they are to kill physically, that's one of the least important parts - every human in history has been roughly the same "toughness" (Rasputin doesn't count... that dude was bloody hard to kill!), but have had massive variances in their power simply because of how they were capable of dealing with other people.

Leto II had the experience of countless people to call upon, and the ability to see the future. Add that up and it doesn't matter if you could kill him by looking at him, he'd still be vastly vastly more powerful than any KH born after him had a hope in hell of being.
Right, he ultimately killed himself. I was actually serving the illustration you wanted to make by pointing out that the despotic ruler of humanity, who had reigned for thousands of years, was more physically vulnerable than everyone expected.
I'm not totally following the spice reference here, we may have gotten each other confused a bit - I'm referring to how after Leto II (and a period of time passing, which has happened by the next books), pretty much everyone is invisible to prescience because of the Siona gene. The prescience of say Navigators would even be reduced, but still useful for their purpose of figuring out whether or not their path is safe.
I was pointing out that a KH with the kind of stranglehold over humanity that Leto II had wasn't conceivable, now that countless unreachable people were out there, no longer sucking on the teet of a single, limited resource.

But yes, now that you've admonished me to really give the Siona gene a second thought, it should have been apparent to me that prescience is invalid post Leto II. Only leaders strong in deduction, observation, and timely response would be effective.

As for that bit about Adam and Eve: I'm sure we can all agree on a close ancestry in the initial phase of our species?
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Re: Salutations

Post by SandChigger »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
JustSomeGuy wrote:We are all descended from Adam and Eve, after all.


You're kidding right?
Actually, the resulting inbreeding would explain the religious... :think:

And McDune fans. ;)
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Re: Salutations

Post by Nekhrun »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
JustSomeGuy wrote:We are all descended from Adam and Eve, after all.


You're kidding right?
He needs to read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondr ... only_woman" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Salutations

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

lukecash12 wrote:
It's been quite a while since I read the new books, but I think KJA said they were the descendants of the Bene Gesserit, just that they were also descended from the tanks. I liked the idea, and SOMETHING has to explain why their ancestral memory just stops at a point in history not very long ago (some time post-Scattering), and them having spent hundreds of generations as mindless baby-vats is actually a pretty decent explaination for that in my opinion.

Now, changing Marty and Daniel from some kind of advanced face dancers into evil robots... now THAT was a bad idea that clearly had zero FH input!
In Chapterhouse Odrade ruminates several times that the HM could have been the BG who went into the Scattering. The ancestral memory issue is simple, though: The BG that went out in the Scattering wouldn't be capable of inducing spice agony any more.
That actually doesn't answer it at all, plus the characters in the books would have figured that out, they wouldn't be considering it the mystery that they do (unlike KJA, when FH told us a character was intelligent, he also SHOWED them being intelligent, unlike KJA who wrote every character to be completely mentally incapable of basic reasoning!). Ancestral Memory goes back long before spice was discovered - it's genetic (in the book universe), spice poision or a replacement is just needed to unlock access to it. So it doesn't matter that they had no spice out in the Scattering, as soon as they came back and went through the agony they should have had access to all those memories - which would have instantly answered where they came from (and would have gone back all the way into human history), but this turned out to not be the case. When an HM goes through the agony and becomes an RM, their ancestral memory just stops all of a sudden at some point in time out in the Scattering.

This requires some kind of very extreme explanation - which them being descended from mindless tanks might be considered to be a good explaination indeed.
lukecash12 wrote:As for that bit about Adam and Eve: I'm sure we can all agree on a close ancestry in the initial phase of our species?
Yup.
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Re: Salutations

Post by lukecash12 »

That actually doesn't answer it at all, plus the characters in the books would have figured that out, they wouldn't be considering it the mystery that they do (unlike KJA, when FH told us a character was intelligent, he also SHOWED them being intelligent, unlike KJA who wrote every character to be completely mentally incapable of basic reasoning!). Ancestral Memory goes back long before spice was discovered - it's genetic (in the book universe), spice poision or a replacement is just needed to unlock access to it. So it doesn't matter that they had no spice out in the Scattering, as soon as they came back and went through the agony they should have had access to all those memories - which would have instantly answered where they came from (and would have gone back all the way into human history), but this turned out to not be the case. When an HM goes through the agony and becomes an RM, their ancestral memory just stops all of a sudden at some point in time out in the Scattering.

This requires some kind of very extreme explanation - which them being descended from mindless tanks might be considered to be a good explaination indeed.
I hadn't considered that bit, that the HM demonstrably didn't have ancestral memory. But I think they may have been unable to retrieve it because they didn't retain it, like the BG did. Remember that there is a transmission process on top of the cellular memory, so no Reverend Mothers may very well mean no more transferable tradition. That is, if you work under the assumption that only those personal memories that have been transferred are part of the ancestral memory, which is what I had assumed; You work under the assumption of a complete recollection of the female ancestry in the cellular makeup? That would seem to void the process of personal transmission, in a way.

The BG from Lampadas come to mind, so I'll have to take a good look at those early parts of Chapterhouse.
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Re: Salutations

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

lukecash12 wrote:
That actually doesn't answer it at all, plus the characters in the books would have figured that out, they wouldn't be considering it the mystery that they do (unlike KJA, when FH told us a character was intelligent, he also SHOWED them being intelligent, unlike KJA who wrote every character to be completely mentally incapable of basic reasoning!). Ancestral Memory goes back long before spice was discovered - it's genetic (in the book universe), spice poision or a replacement is just needed to unlock access to it. So it doesn't matter that they had no spice out in the Scattering, as soon as they came back and went through the agony they should have had access to all those memories - which would have instantly answered where they came from (and would have gone back all the way into human history), but this turned out to not be the case. When an HM goes through the agony and becomes an RM, their ancestral memory just stops all of a sudden at some point in time out in the Scattering.

This requires some kind of very extreme explanation - which them being descended from mindless tanks might be considered to be a good explaination indeed.
I hadn't considered that bit, that the HM demonstrably didn't have ancestral memory. But I think they may have been unable to retrieve it because they didn't retain it, like the BG did. Remember that there is a transmission process on top of the cellular memory, so no Reverend Mothers may very well mean no more transferable tradition. That is, if you work under the assumption that only those personal memories that have been transferred are part of the ancestral memory, which is what I had assumed; You work under the assumption of a complete recollection of the female ancestry in the cellular makeup? That would seem to void the process of personal transmission, in a way.

The BG from Lampadas come to mind, so I'll have to take a good look at those early parts of Chapterhouse.
Mine is no assumption - ancestral memory goes all the way back to the dawn of humanity for sure. What you're thinking about is the sharing that RM can do with each other, telepathically transmitting their version of the memory to another RM (presumably the more recent memories would be the only ones that would matter, as the further back in time you went the more people would share those personas).

So yeah, there definitely has to be something huge that blocked the HM's "other memory". If it was as simple as them stopping transmitting it, then it wouldn't be a mystery to the people in the books, the BG characters would know immediately what had caused it.

As a simple example of something in the books that shows that OM doesn't have to be transferred, look at Paul. He didn't have ancestral memory transferred to him, it was just unlocked when he went through the Agony. The same would apply to anyone who survived the agony regardless of whether they also had a "sharing" experience at the same time (Jessica had a sharing at the same time, which is probably part of what's confusing you).
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Re: Salutations

Post by lukecash12 »

Nekhrun wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:
JustSomeGuy wrote:We are all descended from Adam and Eve, after all.


You're kidding right?
He needs to read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondr ... only_woman" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mitochondrial Eve... Interesting, but still pretty theoretical. Of course, that a Mitochondrial Eve does exist is a mathematical fact, but the work done towards pinpointing one has been theoretical so far.

In terms of geology, estimates like 50,000-80,000 years are much more acceptable, but that's pretty vague an estimate when it comes to DNA related biology (and I point this out because your wiki article gave that estimate for the difference in time between our Mitchondrial Eve and Y Chromosomal Adam). She herself was part of a group that was estimated to exist from 152,000 to - 234,000 BP, and they've only rounded their estimate between the two so far.

Plus, according to one of the sources of that very wiki article you liked, the Mitochondrial Eve doesn't exactly transfer over into a religion related discussion of us having one common genetic ancestor:
The Mitochondrial Eve of 200,000 years ago (ME for short henceforth) is NOT our common ancestor, or even common genetic ancestor. She is the most-recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent. That may seem like a mouthful, but without even a single one of those qualifying phrases, any description or discussion of the ME reduces to a lot of nonsense.
It's not exactly necessary to think of Adam and Eve as our matrilineal ancestors, in order to think of them as two common ancestors of everyone. Just after that in the article, the idea of matrilineal ancestry is visited:
That may seem like a mouthful, but without even a single one of those qualifying phrases, any description or discussion of the ME reduces to a lot of nonsense.
While each of us necessarily has two parents, we get our mitochondria and mitochondrial DNA from the ovum (and hence from our mothers). Our mothers got their mitochondrial DNA from their mothers and so on. Thus, while our nuclear DNA is a mish-mash of the DNA of our four grandparents, our mitochondrial DNA is an almost exact copy of the DNA of our maternal grandmother (the match may not be exact due to mutations. In fact, the mutations in the mitochondrial DNA provide the molecular clock that allows us to determine how much time has elapsed since the ME lived).
The ME represents that woman whose mitochondrial DNA (with mutations) exists in all the humans now living on Earth. That does not mean that she is our lone woman ancestor. We have ancestors who are not via matrilineal descent. For example, our father's mother (who did pass on her mitochondrial DNA to her daughters) is an example of an ancestor who is not matrilineal to us. However, she did exist at one time and was probably of the same age as our mother's mother, who is a matrilineal ancestor of ours and from whom we got our mitochondrial DNA.
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Re: Salutations

Post by Nekhrun »

lukecash12 wrote:
Nekhrun wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:
JustSomeGuy wrote:We are all descended from Adam and Eve, after all.


You're kidding right?
He needs to read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondr ... only_woman" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Mitochondrial Eve... Interesting, but still pretty theoretical. Of course, that a Mitochondrial Eve does exist is a mathematical fact, but the work done towards pinpointing one has been theoretical so far.

In terms of geology, estimates like 50,000-80,000 years are much more acceptable, but that's pretty vague an estimate when it comes to DNA related biology (and I point this out because your wiki article gave that estimate for the difference in time between our Mitchondrial Eve and Y Chromosomal Adam). She herself was part of a group that was estimated to exist from 152,000 to - 234,000 BP, and they've only rounded their estimate between the two so far.

Plus, according to one of the sources of that very wiki article you liked, the Mitochondrial Eve doesn't exactly transfer over into a religion related discussion of us having one common genetic ancestor:
The Mitochondrial Eve of 200,000 years ago (ME for short henceforth) is NOT our common ancestor, or even common genetic ancestor. She is the most-recent common ancestor of all humans alive on Earth today with respect to matrilineal descent. That may seem like a mouthful, but without even a single one of those qualifying phrases, any description or discussion of the ME reduces to a lot of nonsense.
It's not exactly necessary to think of Adam and Eve as our matrilineal ancestors, in order to think of them as two common ancestors of everyone. Just after that in the article, the idea of matrilineal ancestry is visited...
I think that referring to Mitochondrial Eve as one person still means you missed the point. We do not all have two common ancestors. Do you think all dogs are related to the same two wolves?

Also, Adam is not a matrilineal ancestor. You can't just throw a bunch of word salad out and toss in a few words and think we won't know what's going on.
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