Dune Novels

[orald]

Maybe it's the wee hour of the morn, but I'm finding this one a bit obscure.

In short, Edric was nagging me about being anti P&B, then he took over, then he got a new admin, then the admin seems to have made the board collapse.
You blame the later, but not the one who appointed(or in other words, sent her to ruin it) her.

[SandChigger]

Hence the obscurity...this being about the troubles on DN, not Arrakeen.

I think I've stated that I hold Edric somewhat accountable for the way he left things (=with her the head admin), but he had computer problems. (Ooh, one of those REAL LIFE issues!) I'm not sure why it took so long for him to get online again, even only partially as at present, but does it really matter? She's not some marionette dancing to his direction. She made her own choices and decisions and acted on them. She's the one who shut the board down. And she keeps it that way since he is blocked from accessing it in his current situation.

He will, of course, be responsible for whatever he decides to do once he has access to the site again.

[Phaedrus]

It seems unlikely because he's painting the guy as a serial board-killer, trying to destroy all the boards other than DN. It would be crazy if it were true, but I think there's plenty of difference between Edric not knowing(or not caring?) about certain characteristics, and him relying on those characteristics in sending out his henchman to wreak havoc. What's the next conspiracy, orald? Is Arnoldo Edric's other account, come to destroy any semblance of rational thought on DN, and to completely decimate another?

I don't see why you paint him as evil, that's completely silly.

[Mandy]

Because Orald was an admin at Arrakeen before Edric or Hypatia. He thinks Edric is evil for much the same reason everyone thinks Hypatia is evil now... minus the closing down of the board and the cackling over the archives

[chanilover]

Because Orald was an admin at Arrakeen before Edric or Hypatia. He thinks Edric is evil for much the same reason everyone thinks Hypatia is evil now... minus the closing down of the board and the cackling over the archives

I don't think she's evil, I just think she's a HOT MESS.

[Omphalos]

Because Orald was an admin at Arrakeen before Edric or Hypatia. He thinks Edric is evil for much the same reason everyone thinks Hypatia is evil now... minus the closing down of the board and the cackling over the archives

She is too stoopid to be evil. Evilness requires purpose.

[orald]

Hence the obscurity...this being about the troubles on DN, not Arrakeen.

For which Hyp is of course responsible, hence mentioning her here, right?

It seems unlikely because he's painting the guy as a serial board-killer, trying to destroy all the boards other than DN. It would be crazy if it were true

Hey, life is crazy.

All we know is that in order to put his puppet in place he had to get rid of an admin who was strong yet generous, clever, just, diligent, loyal to my friends and terrible to my enemies, yet capable of forgiveness, patient-

"-humble?" Catelyn supplied.
Renly laughed. "You must allow a king some flaws, my lady."

[Mandy]

lol.. at least you didn't say she's a hot tranny mess.

[orald]

She is too stoopid to be evil. Evilness requires purpose.

One vision, one purpose! Technology of Hyp! Hyp through power! Hyp through power!

[SandChigger]

I'm not so sure about someone being too stupid to be evil.

We may have to have a new thread on this one....

But first, let me check something:

message_die() was called multiple times. This isn't supposed to happen. Was message_die() used in page_tail.php?

D'oh!

[Crysknife]

I kind of agree with orald on this. I know if Edric were an Admin on this site, many comments would have already been deleted or censored. He was much like Hyp when it came to swear words or off topic rants. I think this is the reason Hyp appealed to him as an Admin. I don’t know, maybe I’m remembering wrong, but Edric didn’t give anyone much of a leash.

I'm not sure about orald's conspiracy theory, but Edric certainly isn't absolved of all responsibility in the fall of Arrakeen.

I think Freak and Omph have the right(better) idea when it comes to running a site. Keep it decent but don't mod the place to death.

[SandChigger]

Well, I trust that there are no plans at present to promote Edric to even a moderatorship here, and I'm damned certain that Hell Itself will freeze over before the ephemera you also mentioned will have any power here, so there's really nothing for Orald to worry about, now is there?

[Pardot Kynes]

Ironically, Baron, the original, didn't give a flying fuck about off topics and language.

[Nekhrun]

I can't wait to read all of the preq comments when that site comes back. If it ever does.

Duhh, whaaa hapened? Who broke Dune?

Or even better,

While the board was down I had some spare time and actually read Dune again, you guys were right, those books suck!

[SandChigger]

^^^ Still thinks someone is buying it.

[Simon]

I also read a post where some of this place's members tried very hard to explain that the human empire/scattering is WAY over 15000 LY across, therefor it is impossible for Omniass to have rode a radio wave at the speed of light for 15000 years and somehow end up far beyond that distance.

I'm not sure that they ever specified the signal that Omnius rode out on as being a "radio wave".... I could be wrong but I just don't remeber that.
A radio wave wouldn't gert very far before it degenerated into nothing (except static)

No matter how clearly it was stated, the people who were fans of the new books just didn't even grasp the concept.

That's an idiotic generalization.

Forget KJA and BH conflicting with the originals, they conflict with the scifi genre in general, to say nothing of conflicting with reality.

Wha?? I get the conflicting with the originals statement, but what do you mean they conflict with "Sci-Fi" in general? That makes no sense, clarify.

To say nothing of reality??
WTF does reality have to do with science "FICTION"??

[SandChigger]

Well, it wasn't said to be a tachyon signal, now was it?

Hang on....

OK. Found what I wanted and am back. It was some sort of light beam. Let's be generous and call it a laser, shall we?

Soldiers shouted, and the Cultists made warding signs, screaming to vanquish the unexpected demon. The liquid-silver flowmetal spire twisted and reshaped, billowing out at the end like an inverted umbrella, a parabolic dish of some sort. A transmitter!

With a groan like a dying sea beast, the Central Spire convulsed and then vomited a flash of light, shooting a signal upward through the atmosphere like a scream out into space, where it would dissipate across the parsecs. Then the Central Spire collapsed, lost its integrity, and splattered into puddles across the broad, rubble-strewn plaza.

Wow...dramatic!

How long does a "flash" last? Not very long, right? Well, that's a big problem in any fictional world which even pretends to lay a claim to plausibility. Especially if you remember what that "flash of light" was supposed to contain:

Before the two faulty copies struck him down, Omnius Prime had developed a perfectly acceptable means of escape, a way to allow the core copy of his evermind to survive. He had the ability to code all the information that comprised his entity into a giant datapacket. As a mere signal, not a gelcircuitry construction, it would be able to pass through the scrambler net. "Omnius" would drift across the galaxy until he found some receiver, anything that could download him. Anything he could inhabit.

I'm not sure I can explain just how UTTERLY STUPID this is and how FUCKING INSULTING it is to anyone who knows anything at all about science.

Should I try, or are you content to continue in evident ignorance?

And that before or after we begin with your unbelievably simplistic notion of what fiction is.

[chanilover]

Wow. Reading those excerpts has just reminded me of how those books actually deteriorated as they went on.

I'd never expect to read the word 'umbrella' in a Dune book, for some reason. The dying sea beast's groan was a bit odd, as well. Has anyone heard a dying sea beast's groan? Is it like "uuggghhh", or more like "typical, just when I'd spotted a nice big patch of plankton".

[Nekhrun]

Before the two faulty copies struck him down, Omnius Prime had developed a perfectly acceptable means of escape, a way to allow the core copy of his evermind to survive. He had the ability to code all the information that comprised his entity into a giant datapacket. As a mere signal, not a gelcircuitry construction, it would be able to pass through the scrambler net. "Omnius" would drift across the galaxy until he found some receiver, anything that could download him. Anything he could inhabit.

I'm not sure I can explain just how UTTERLY STUPID this is and how FUCKING INSULTING it is to anyone who knows anything at all about science.

Should I try, or are you content to continue in evident ignorance?

And that before or after we begin with your unbelievably simplistic notion of what fiction is.

C'mon Chig. They wrote that "he had the ability". I don't know what more you want, but they plainly spell it out right there. He could do it. Those four words justify pretty much all of Dune 7. No further explanation needed. If he could do it, that means you can turn your brain off and enjoy!

[A Thing of Eternity]

I also read a post where some of this place's members tried very hard to explain that the human empire/scattering is WAY over 15000 LY across, therefor it is impossible for Omniass to have rode a radio wave at the speed of light for 15000 years and somehow end up far beyond that distance.

I'm not sure that they ever specified the signal that Omnius rode out on as being a "radio wave".... I could be wrong but I just don't remeber that.
A radio wave wouldn't gert very far before it degenerated into nothing (except static)

No matter how clearly it was stated, the people who were fans of the new books just didn't even grasp the concept.

That's an idiotic generalization.

Forget KJA and BH conflicting with the originals, they conflict with the scifi genre in general, to say nothing of conflicting with reality.

Wha?? I get the conflicting with the originals statement, but what do you mean they conflict with "Sci-Fi" in general? That makes no sense, clarify.

To say nothing of reality??
WTF does reality have to do with science "FICTION"??

I'm too lazy to split this up all fancy but here I go.

1. As Chigger posts, it is a burst of light, which would travel at the same speed as radio, makes zero impact on my statement despite my mistaken term. BH and KJA did NOT specify a faster than light signal, so obviously the distance vs time issue had not even occured to them. There was a big post by me at DN going over how if Omnuis had FTL signals he would have used those for most consistant updates that that silly ship. ANYWAYS....

2. You are correct, that was an idiotic generalization. I apologize. It should have read: Some people couldn't even grasp the concept.
I was in a mood.

3. I'm going to see If I have a copy of my DN post so you can see why this is true... ah good, I still have an early copy. I'll get it up here.

4. keeping some coherance with reality is what makes scifi believable to the discerning reader. I'm okay with breaking the laws of physics as a neccessary plot device (almost every sf bok ever has) but those two blatantly don't care about thinking it through, as you will se when you read my super post, specifically the section where I talk about how the humans were subject to accelleration g-forces and the many reasons that is foolish given the info we are presented by the authors themselves.

[A Thing of Eternity]

A lot of people like to discuss the inconsistencies between the new books and the originals. I haven’t been reading Dune for nearly as long as some of the heavyweights around here, so I don’t think there is much I could point out that they haven’t already on this topic. I have however been taking fiction seriously for quite some time, and in the interest of constructive criticism (not that the inconsistency discussions are not constructive, I just feel that we are neglecting to constructively criticize these books in ways not relating to the originals) I would like to start a thread discussing the writing of the new authors in comparison with all Fiction. This thread is also to discuss passages where these new novels contradict themselves. I would like to start with what I feel are a couple of weak points.

This is something that’s bothered me for a while now, since I first read the Legends Series. I am a bit perplexed by the way space travel is portrayed in these books. In these three books the Starships used by both the Humans and the Machines appear to use conventional drive systems (systems which burn fuel to achieve acceleration)

Aft engines blazed pure fire, pushing the vessels to accelerations that would have crushed mere
biological passengers. (Bulterian Jihad)

Work crews assembled merchant vessels and warships, most with safe conventional engines, though some were outfitted with the remarkable space-folding (Battle of Corrin)

and yet they are able to travel from star system to star system in weeks or months.

During the tedious month-long journey across space to visit her daughter on Poritrin, Zufa Cenva... (Butlerian Jihad)

Once he escaped from Corrin, it took him almost two months in transit to get to the vulnerable heart of the League of Nobles. (Battle of Corrin)

This is obviously faster than light can travel, (one of the destinations in the books is Earth, whose closest neighboring star is Alpha Centauri which lies 4.35 light-years away) - this is completely impossible and bad Sci-fi. For those of you who don’t know what a light year is (I know this seems ridiculous, but I’ve been told that you are out there), it is the distance that light will travel in a vacuum (space) in one year – to traverse that same distance in less time is to move faster than light. Under the Laws of Physics (special theory of relativity), a particle (that has mass) with subluminal velocity (is currently moving slower than light) needs infinite energy to accelerate to the speed of light. Thus, to even get up to the speed of light you would need more energy than the entire universe contains, surpassing that speed isn’t even an option. If you want to argue this - fine, but Einstein will be rolling over in his grave. This is a widely agreed upon topic in Science Fiction, if your ships must go faster than light they must use an FTL drive of some kind which allows the current laws of physics to be circumvented.

Do the authors have an explanation for their magic-faster-than-light-but-conventionally-propelled-space-craft?

One of the arguments I expect to hear is that they also utilize some sort of FTL drive or other space-time altering technology to break light speed. I don’t believe that there is anything in the novels to support this (please -quote away if I’m wrong), and the fact that the authors mention the g-forces acting upon the passengers during acceleration proves that they are not using FTL (see below under warp for the logic behind this).

The way that g-force is used is another huge issue with these novels (again I discuss this more below) because the ships obviously have artificial gravity:

On the bridge of the Armada flagship, proud and stony Segundo Xavier Harkonnen stood in full dress uniform, studying thepeaceful-looking planet. (Butlerian Jihad)

Held in place by the craft's gravity system, which rapidly increased, like a heavy boot crushing her body, Norma could barely breathe. (Machine Crusade)

This same technology would easily be used to nullify the g-forces acting upon the passengers. That the reader is expected to believe that these societies (man and machine) could invent something as advanced as artificial gravity, but not think to use it to counteract g-force is weak writing and shows a lack of depth in world building. The authors obviously thought that the g-forces were a necessary plot device to show machine dominance (the machines, being able to withstand higher g-forces than the humans could reach destinations faster); this was in my opinion completely unnecessary, as they could have just used the higher numbers and more advanced weaponry of the enemy to the same effect. There was no need for the machines to have speed as another advantage.



Why I think these are weakness in writing and cannot be defended as “style”:



One of the most important elements of fiction is creating an environment that the reader can believe in, and if that environment must be somewhat outside the realm of reality, then the writer must take care to do it in such a way that the reader is able to suspend his or her disbelief. The methods used to do this are a large part of what separates genres of fiction, such as Mystery, Horror, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi. As an example: if an author is writing a Mystery novel and feels compelled to include an imaginary item like, say, an antigravity device (maybe the detective has to find it), this is no longer a pure Mystery novel; it is now Sci-fi. If in the same story the protagonist could cast spells that worked, it is now Fantasy, and so forth. In any given genre, even those outside of the ‘real world’ there some standards put in place to help the reader suspend his/her disbelief.

In all true Science Fiction there are some standards concerning space travel. To be fair, some of these are outside of conventional physics (example hyperdrive / foldspace), in all cases however the reader is told that there is a new technology which has solved this problem. Disbelief is suspended. For example, one can believe in a ship with a hyperspace engine making a hyperspace jump, but a reader cannot believe in an un-modified bicycle doing the same. Agreed? Moving on. Here are those standards, and they are not ‘rules’ that can be broken for artistic purposes, they are simply the methods which work in maintaining the reader’s belief, whilst other methods leave holes for readers to poke.

Option 1: STL (slower than light) This can use any of many engine designs, most of which are still far beyond modern technological capabilities. The main rules: the ship will not get up to or surpass 100% of light speed, and the occupants will be subjected to acceleration/deceleration g-forces. (Unless the ships utilize some kind of artificial gravity or anti gravity device, in which case this could be easily used to counteract the g-force by simply applying some artificial gravity to the subjects pulling in the opposite direction of the g-force.) It is completely impossible for a ship using a conventional drive system to accelerate to the speed of light. Even using some kind of field drive would not allow this, unless that field drive is used to alter space-time (see warp).

Option 2: FTL (faster than light and instantaneous) This can also utilize many systems, and while outside conventional physics, there are some standards. Ships can use wormholes and hyperspace drives for instantaneous travel, or they can use some variation of the ‘warp’ drive to travel faster than light, but not instantaneously.

2.1 Instantaneous This can have a wide variety of descriptions, and as this is the furthest from real science there are fewer theories about what effect it would have on the passenger. For example, in Asimov’s Foundation series there are no effects on the passenger whatsoever. If that passenger wasn’t looking at the star field when the jump occurred to see the star patterns change, they would have no idea that they had jumped at all. In this universe the ship only has to be a safe distance from a large gravitational field to make a jump. In Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium series the passengers experience extreme disorientation after making a jump and they can only entire and exit hyperspace at certain very specific locations which are based on the luminosity of nearby stars. Some stories use wormholes, Dune uses foldspace, the point is that these systems are so far advanced from what we know about physics that we really cannot predict what it would be like to travel using them.

2.2 Warp drives now also known as Alcubierre drives. There are more guidelines here than with instantaneous drives, because this is somewhat within the realm of predictability. The only predicted way to travel faster than light (but slower than instantaneous) is to “warp” space time around the ship, expanding it behind and contracting it in front of the vessel. The bubble moves through space faster than light, but the object inside is not traveling FTL in it’s local space. Because of the fact that ship is not actually moving in it’s local space the occupants would feel no acceleration whatsoever. (this is why the Butlerian Jihad ships cannot be utilizing any kind of space-time altering drive systems, it would not allow for the passengers to feel any g-force).



To tell the reader that the ships use conventional drives to accelerate to and surpass the speed of light is in my opinion a bit of an insult to the reader’s intelligence, and it removes the writing from the genre of serious science fiction altogether. It is akin to saying that one can construct a time machine out of paperclips and chewing gum.

[SandChigger]

Ah...I remember reading that. There were no real replies over there, were there?

What I love in the bits I quoted above is the idea of the "giant datapacket", launched in that "flash of light" like it was some tangible object that could "drift across the galaxy".

They weren't even trying there. That's another thing that's insulting about it. "Here, give us your money for this piece of shit we've just slapped two book covers around and put 'Dune' on! You'll love it! After all, you've swallowed the five turds preceding it, right?"

And they didn't learn anything by or try any harder in Sadworms:

That transmission had traveled for thousands of years, degrading along the way, deteriorating into something else. Erasmus had no memory of that endless, silent journey at the speed of light. After their incalculable trek through static and interstellar waste, the Omnius signal had encountered one of the long-dispatched probes and seized upon it as a beachhead. Far, far from any taint of human civilization, the restored Omnius began to re-create itself. Over millennia it had regenerated, building a new Synchronized Empire-and Omnius had begun making plans to return, this time with a far superior machine force.

"[T]housands of years ... at the speed of light" does NOT an "incalculable trek" make; you wind up only (only!) a few thousand light years from where you started. Which means the probe picked up the signal somewhere well within what would later become the Imperium.

They still haven't learned that just because they say it, put it down on paper, it makes it so or it makes sense.

Fucking unbelievable.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Thanks for that quote from Sadworms, I haven't read that one yet. Pretty much puts the "well, maybe it was a Tachyon signal" to bed. Thank you KJA&BH, how you manage to pound the nails into your own coffin is the only thing I find amazing.

EDIT: And no, there was not one single reply to my statements. The thread went on for a bit, but no one had anything at all to say in rebuttal. Nothing. Nada.

[orald]

Wait, wwasn't the signal born on a laser beam? Isn't that kinda focused? I didn't see it written it was sent in all kinds of directions, so WTF are the chances for an Omnibus Prime probe to be at the correct angle to pick it up after thousands of years?
And if it's degraded, then where do we see any failures, hmm? IDK much about programs, but if I messed up lots of lines(or even a few) of the code, wouldn't it usually not function?

Oh, and sorry if you pointed that out in your longish post, I only read bits.
Too damn long, man.

[A Thing of Eternity]

Wait, wwasn't the signal born on a laser beam? Isn't that kinda focused? I didn't see it written it was sent in all kinds of directions, so WTF are the chances for an Omnibus Prime probe to be at the correct angle to pick it up after thousands of years?
And if it's degraded, then where do we see any failures, hmm? IDK much about programs, but if I messed up lots of lines(or even a few) of the code, wouldn't it usually not function?

Oh, and sorry if you pointed that out in your longish post, I only read bits.
Too damn long, man.

Nope, my post has nothing to do with the omnius signal. Just Drive systems, logical technology uses which were ignored and use of science in Science Fiction.