Freakzilla wrote:I don't think "The Net" that Duncan saw was a no field. Maybe another use of Holtzman's equations though.
More than just this. Duncan, M&D all blatantly could not see no-ships, which Teg could. His abilities and theirs are, so far, mutually exclusive. He has fast-consciousness and the ability to see no-ships, while Duncan and M&D have the ability to use 'the net', whatever that is. Teg cannot do what they do, and they cannot do what he does. So let's just remove Teg from this equation.
What M&D
can do, apparently, is locate
individuals, and I'm not even convinced that just any individual could be seen by them. So far the only definitive thing we know is they could see Duncan, and they could see the RM's who went into the Scattering (and even in the latter case I cannot be 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure). What those have in common is being 'stretched thin'. There is no direct evidence M&D could see anyone else other than RM's and Duncan. That's number one. Number two is that they couldn't even see Duncan once he wiped the computer's navigation records, meaning they couldn't know where Duncan was if he didn't (or the ship didn't). With the computer wiped they were entirely blind to him, which means that somehow either the computer itself mattered, or else some particular in Duncan's awareness mattered; for instance, his awareness of his own location. We don't know which it is.
Godemperorjames, you still seem to be stuck on "outside of time", though, using it for the purpose of definitions but never defining it. You have tried to link being "spread thin" with the trait attributed to the KH, which is being "many places at once". And yet Duncan apparently does not believe he's any kind of KH. He certainly doesn't possess the abilities we'd normally attribute to the KH, such as potential for the agony or prescient visions like Paul had. He showed some signs earlier of being a potential prescient but even so it wasn't clear-cut as it was with Paul and Leto II. Even after Duncan's awakening the abilities he has do not resemble those of the KH, and indeed his awareness of the net is NOT something the KH was able to do, despite the fact that all the KH's we've seen were spread thin in the BG way. So linking the visual imagery of being "many places at once" and "spread thin" seems to me a linguistic short circuit. The words sound similar, but nothing in the book suggests they are alike. Now, that being said, it does seem logical to me to suppose that
something about how prescience works can be linked to how the net works; my guess is that both are uses of Holtzmann's theories, one instinctive, and the other bio-technological. But that does not mean that to use the biotech one must be a KH. The series seems to me to suggest that at this point being a KH is obsolete and not worth all that much fuss. Duncan is something new, as is Teg in a different way.
Another difference between Duncan & the BG is that the BG have to develop a singular personality before the agony so that the memories don't take over, while Duncan actually is the sum of all of his memories. In way that makes him like an abomination, but since the memories are of similar selves perhaps that doesn't create much destructive tension and he can function. Likewise, perhaps M&D are also the sum of their memories/personas, and I've thought for a while that they are probably abominations as well. But they are apparently stable ones, and so we could ask how they function like this. Leto II and Ghanima found a way to survive being abominations, and in Leto's case it required submitting fully to being a tyrant like the once persona in him that controlled the others. Ghani used a different trick. Still, the twins couldn't see 'the net', nor could Alia, and so being an abomination might be required but not sufficient to see the net. Perhaps it also requires artificial biotech, or perhaps there's some other factor. I've mentioned before that both Duncan and M&D are (IMO) double-imprinted, and I still think this is the key to the puzzle. Maybe being bonded to each other simply
forces M&D to retain control over the voices since their absolute need for each other may override their succumbing to the voices.
Whatever the explanation is, "Duncan exists outside of time" seems to me an oversimplified suggestion lacking clear terms.
I applaud all the thinking you're doing, but don't think you've got it yet.