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diff --git a/chapterhouse-dune b/chapterhouse-dune new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0d83e7 --- /dev/null +++ b/chapterhouse-dune @@ -0,0 +1,294 @@ +Those who would repeat the past must control the teaching of history. + + -- Bene Gesserit Coda +% +When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path I promised a lesson their +bones would remember. I know a profound pattern humans deny with words even +while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet, +conditions they call peace. Even as they speak, they create seeds of turmoil +and violence. + + -- Leto II, the God Emperor +% +The person who takes the banal and ordinary and illuminates it in a new way can +terrify. We do not want our ideas changed. We feel threatened by such +demands. "I already know the important things!" we say. Then Changer comes +and throws our old ideas away. + + -- The Zensufi Master +% +Rules build up fortifications behind which small minds create satrapies. +A perilous state of affairs in the best of times, disastrous during crises. + + -- Bene Gesserit Coda +% +We tend to become like the worst in those we oppose. + + -- Bene Gesserit Coda +% +You cannot know history unless you know how leaders move with its currents. +Every leader requires outsiders to perpetuate his leadership. Examine my +career: I was leader and outsider. Do not assume I merely created a +Church-State. That was my function as leader and I copied historical models. +Barbaric arts of my time reveal me as outsider. Favorite poetry: epics. +Popular dramatic ideal: heroism. Dances: wildly abandoned. +Stimulants to make people sense what I took from them. What did I take? +The right to choose a role in history. + + -- Leto II (The Tyrant): Vether Bebe Translation +% +You cannot manipulate a marionette with only one string. + + -- The Zensunni Whip +% +Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life. +The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game +whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, +you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. +Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They +refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological +personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the +corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a +condition to which they are quickly addicted. + + -- Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto) +% +The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical +accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events. + + -- The Bashar Teg +% +Corruption wears infinite disguises. + + -- Tleilaxu Thu-zen +% +Education is no substitute for intelligence. That elusive quality is defined +only in part by puzzle-solving ability. It is in the creation of new puzzles +reflecting what your senses report that you round out the definition. + + -- Mentat Text One (decto) +% +Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them +intellectual subjects. It is possible to know so much about a subject that +you become totally ignorant. + + -- Mentat Text Two (dicto) +% +Religion (emulation of adults by the child) encysts past mythologies: guesses, +hidden assumptions of trust in the universe, pronouncements made in search of +personal power, all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. And always an +unspoken commandment: Thou shalt not question! We break that commandment +daily in the harnessing of human imagination to our deepest creativity. + + -- Bene Gesserit Credo +% +Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine +point on which all the legal professions of history have based their job +security. + + -- Bene Gesserit Coda +% +We do not teach history; we recreate the experience. We follow the chain of +consequences -- the tracks of the beast in its forest. Look behind our words +and you see the broad sweep of social behavior that no historian has ever +touched. + + -- Bene Gesserit Panoplia Propheticus +% +They say Mother Superior can disregard nothing -- a meaningless aphorism +until you grasp its other significance: I am the servant of all my Sisters. +They watch their servant with critical eyes. I cannot spend too much time on +generalities nor on trivia. Mother Superior must display insightful action +else a sense of disquiet penetrates to the farthest corners of our order. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +All states are abstractions. + + -- Octun Politicus, BG Archives +% +Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than +dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might lift +them out of resentment-filled illusions of security. + + -- Alma Mavis Taraza +% +To know a thing well, know its limits. +Only when pushed beyond its tolerances will true nature be seen. + -- The Amtal Rule + +Do not depend only on theory if your life is at stake. + -- Bene Gesserit Commentary +% +Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous +form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. +The judgmental precedents of law function that way, littering your path with +dead ends. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary. + + -- Mentat Fixe (adacto) +% +Major flaws in government arise from a fear of making radical internal changes +even though a need is clearly seen. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +Time does not count itself. You have only to look at a circle and this is +apparent. + + -- Leto II (The Tyrant) +% +A major concept guides the Missionaria Protectiva: Purposeful +instruction of the masses. This is firmly seated in our belief +that the aim of argument should be to change the nature of truth. +In such matters, we prefer the use of power rather than force. + + -- The Coda +% +The best art imitates life in a compelling way. If it imitates a dream, it +must be a dream of life. Otherwise, there is no place where we can connect. +Our plugs don't fit. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +Uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be seen. +More questions! + + -- Mentat Zensufi +% +Humans are born with a susceptibility to that most persistent and debilitating +disease of intellect: self-deception. The best of all possible worlds and the +worst get their dramatic coloration from it. As nearly as we can determine, +there is no natural immunity. Constant alertness is required. + + -- The Coda +% +Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. +Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends +to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +No sweeteners will cloak some forms of bitterness. +If it tastes bitter, spit it out. +That's what our earliest ancestors did. + + -- The Coda +% +Enter no conflict against fanatics unless you can defuse them. +Oppose a religion with another religion only if your proofs (miracles) +are irrefutable or if you can mesh in a way that the fanatics accept +you as god-inspired. This has long been the barrier to science assuming +a mantle of divine revelation. Science is so obviously manmade. +Fanatics (and many are fanatic on one subject or another) must know where +you stand, but more important, must recognize who whispers in your ear. + + -- Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching +% +We walk a delicate line, perpetuating Atreides (Siona) genes in our population +because that hides us from prescience. We carry the Kwisatz Haderach in that +bag! Willfulness created Muad'Dib. Prophets make predictions come true! +Will we ever again dare ignore our Tao sense and cater to a culture that hates +chance and begs for prophecy? + + -- Archival Summary (adixto) +% +We witness a passing phase of eternity. Important things happen but some +people never notice. Accidents intervene. You are not present at episodes. +You depend on reports. And people shutter their minds. What good are reports? + History in a news account? Preselected at an editorial conference, digested +and excreted by prejudice? Accounts you need seldom come from those who make +history. Diaries, memoirs and autobiographies are subjective forms of special +pleading. Archives are crammed with such suspect stuff. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +Spend energies on those who make you strong. Energy spent on weaklings drags +you to doom. (HM rule) Bene Gesserit Commentary: Who judges? + + -- The Dortujla Record +% +Ish yara al-ahdab hadbat-u. +(A hunchback does not see his own hunch. -- Folk Saying.) + +Bene Gesserit Commentary: The hunch may be seen with +the aid of mirrors but mirrors may show the whole being. + + -- The Bashar Teg +% +Religion must be accepted as a source of energy. It can be directed +for our purposes, but only within limits that experience reveals. +Here is the secret meaning of Free Will. + + -- Missionaria Protectiva, Primary Teaching +% +Our household god is this thing we carry forward generation after generation: +our message for humankind if it matures. The closest thing we have to a +household goddess is a failed Reverend Mother -- Chenoeh there in her niche. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +When are the witches to be trusted? Never! The dark side of the magic +universe belongs to the Bene Gesserit and we must reject them. + + -- Tylwyth Waff, Master of Masters +% +Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. +Seek discipline and find your liberty. + + -- The Coda +% +Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. +Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) +choices are not known, Intelligence takes chances with limited data in +an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +Ultimately, all things are known because you want to believe you know. + + -- Zensunni koan +% +Answers are a perilous grip on the universe. They can appear sensible yet +explain nothing. + + -- The Zensunni Whip +% +Battle? There's always a desire for breathing space motivating it somewhere. + + -- The Bashar Teg +% +Do not be quick to reveal judgment. Hidden judgment often is more potent. +It can guide reactions whose effects are felt only when too late to divert them. + + -- Bene Gesserit Advice to Postulants +% +Looked at one way, the universe is Brownian movement, nothing predictable at +the elemental level. Muad'Dib and his Tyrant son closed the cloud chamber +where movement occurred. + + -- Stories from Gammu +% +What do Holy Accidents teach? Be resilient. Be strong. +Be ready for change, for the new. Gather many experiences +and judge them by the steadfast nature of our faith. + + -- Tleilaxu Doctrine +% +When you think to take determination of your fate into your own hands, +that is the moment you can be crushed. Be cautious. Allow for surprises. +When we create, there are always other forces at work. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves. + + -- Darwi Odrade +% +Paired opposites define your longings and those longings imprison you. + + -- The Zensunni Whip +% diff --git a/chapterhouse-dune.dat b/chapterhouse-dune.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d21047 Binary files /dev/null and b/chapterhouse-dune.dat differ diff --git a/children-of-dune b/children-of-dune new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a543071 --- /dev/null +++ b/children-of-dune @@ -0,0 +1,614 @@ +Muad'Dib's teachings have become the playground of scholastics, of the +superstitious and the corrupt. He taught a balanced way of life, a philosophy +with which a human can meet problems arising from an ever-changing universe. +He said humankind is still evolving, in a process which will never end. +He said this evolution moves on changing principles which are known only +to eternity. How can corrupted reasoning play with such an essence? + + -- Words of the Mentat Duncan Idaho +% + CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?" + RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworm." + CHALLENGE: "What about that sandworm?" + RESPONSE: "It gives us the air we breathe." + CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?" + RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it." + + -- Riddles of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada +% + The sietch at the desert's rim + Was Liet's, was Kynes's, + Was Stilgar's, was Muad'Dib's + And, once more, was Stilgar's. + The Naibs one by one sleep in the sand, + But the sietch endures. + + -- from a Fremen song +% +melange (me'-lange also ma,lanj) n-s, origin uncertain (thought to derive from +ancient Terran Franzh): a. mixture of spices; b. spice of Arrakis (Dune) with +geriatric properties first noted by Yanshuph Ashkoko, royal chemist in reign of +Shakkad the Wise; Arrakeen melange, found only in deepest desert sands of +Arrakis, linked to prophetic visions of Paul Muad'Dib (Atreides), first Fremen +Mahdi; also employed by Spacing Guild Navigators and the Bene Gesserit. + + -- Dictionary Royal fifth edition +% +The Fremen must return to his original faith, to his genius in forming human +communities; he must return to the past, where that lesson of survival was +learned in the struggle with Arrakis. The only business of the Fremen should be +that of opening his soul to the inner teachings. The worlds of the Imperium, +the Landsraad and the CHOAM Confederacy have no message to give him. +They will only rob him of his soul. + + -- The Preacher at Arrakeen +% +I give you the desert chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the +background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology +and the foundations of a personal identity. + + -- Book of Diatribes from the Hayt Chronicle +% +The Universe is God's. It is one thing, a wholeness against which all +separations may be identified. Transient life, even that self-aware and +reasoning life which we call sentient, holds only fragile trusteeship on any +portion of the wholeness. + + -- Commentaries from the C.E.T. (Commission of Ecumenical Translators) +% +And I beheld another beast coming up out of the sand; and he had two horns like +a lamb, but his mouth was fanged and fiery as the dragon and his body shimmered +and burned with great heat while it did hiss like the serpent. + + -- Revised Orange Catholic Bible +% +It is commonly reported, my dear Georad, that there exists great natural +virtue in the melange experience. Perhaps this is true. There remain within +me, however, profound doubts that every use of melange always brings virtue. +Me seems that certain persons have corrupted the use of melange in defiance +of God. In the words of the Ecumenon, they have disfigured the soul. +They skim the surface of melange and believe thereby to attain grace. +They deride their fellows, do great harm to godliness, and they distort +the meaning of this abundant gift maliciously, surely a mutilation beyond +the power of man to restore. To be truly at one with the virtue of the spice, +uncorrupted in all ways, full of goodly honor, a man must permit his deeds and +his words to agree. When your actions describe a system of evil consequences, +you should be judged by those consequences and not by your explanations. +It is thus that we should judge Muad'Dib. + + -- The Pedant Heresy +% +Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to +believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. +Indeed, knowing the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered +under conventional assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of +Time and, second, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity, +it can be shown that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship to +each or inaccuracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is +impossible to engage in accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we +explain the continued seeking after this visionary goal by respected scientists? +How, then, do we explain Muad'Dib? + + -- Lectures on Prescience by Harq al-Ada +% +I hear the wind blowing across the desert and I see the moons of a winter night +rising tike great ships in the void. To them I make my vow: I will be resolute +and make an art of government; I will balance my inherited past and become a +perfect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for kindliness +more than for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of time for as +long as humans exist. + + -- Leto's Vow, After Harq al-Ada +% +These are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must +promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is +the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a +good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans +protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient +mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness . . . + + -- From the Instruction Manual: Missionaria Protectiva +% +A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the +human's way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape +with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of +those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. +It requires a measure of respect for the inertial power within such natural +systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called +"being primitive." The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can +become sophisticated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage. + + -- The Leto Commentary, After Harq al-Ada +% +This was Muad'Dib's achievement: He saw the subliminal reservoir of each +individual as an unconscious bank of memories going back to the primal cell of +our common genesis. Each of us, he said, can measure out his distance from that +common origin. Seeing this and telling of it, he made the audacious leap of +decision. Muad'Dib set himself the task of integrating genetic memory into +ongoing evaluation. Thus did he break through Time's veils, making a single +thing of the future and the past. That was Muad'Dib's creation embodied in his +son and his daughter. + + -- Testament of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada +% +And he saw a vision of armor. The armor was not his own skin; it was stronger +than plasteel. Nothing penetrated his armor -- not knife or poison or sand, not +the dust of the desert or its desiccating heat. In his right hand he carried +the power to make the Coriolis storm, to shake the earth and erode it into +nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Golden Path and in his left hand he +carried the scepter of absolute mastery. And beyond the Golden Path, his eyes +looked into eternity which he knew to be the food of his soul and of his +everlasting flesh. + + -- Heighia, My Brother's Dream from The Book of Ghanima +% +Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who +learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating +argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms +the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a +barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future +atrocities thus bred. + + -- The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib +% +I will not argue with the Fremen claims that they are divinely inspired to +transmit a religious revelation, it is their concurrent claim to ideological +revelation which inspires me to shower them with derision. Of course, they make +the dual claim in the hope that it will strengthen their mandarinate and help +them to endure in a universe which finds them increasingly oppressive. +It is in the name of all those oppressed people that I warn the Fremen: +short-term expediency always fails in the long term. + + -- The Preacher at Arrakeen +% +The life of a single human, as the life of a family or an entire people, +persists as memory. My people must come to see this as part of their maturing +process. They are people as organism, and in this persistent memory they store +more and more experiences in a subliminal reservoir. Humankind hopes to call +upon this material if it is needed for a changing universe. But much that is +stored can be lost in that chance play of accident which we call "fate." +Much may not be integrated into evolutionary relationships, and thus may not +be evaluated and keyed into activity by those ongoing environmental changes +which inflict themselves upon flesh. The species can forget! This is the +special value of the Kwisatz Haderach which the Bene Gesserits never suspected: +the Kwisatz Haderach cannot forget. + + -- The Book of Leto, After Harq al-Ada +% +A Fremen dies when he is too long from the desert; this we call "the water +sickness." + + -- Stilgar, the Commentaries +% + You have loved Caladan + And lamented its lost host -- + But pain discovers + New lovers cannot erase + Those forever ghost. + + -- Refrain from The Habbanya Lament +% +The assumption that humans exist within an essentially impermanent universe, +taken as an operational precept, demands that the intellect become a totally +aware balancing instrument. But the intellect cannot react thus without +involving the entire organism. Such an organism may be recognized by its +burning, driving behavior. And thus it is with a society treated as organism. +But here we encounter an old inertia. Societies move to the goading of ancient, +reactive impulses. They demand permanence. Any attempt to display the universe +of impermanence arouses rejection patterns, fear, anger, and despair. Then how +do we explain the acceptance of prescience? Simply: the giver of prescient +visions, because he speaks of an absolute (permanent) realization, may be +greeted with joy by humankind even while predicting the most dire events. + + -- The Book of Leto, After Harq al-Ada +% +Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of +those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the +will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of +government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. + + -- Law and Governance, The Spacing Guild Manual +% +This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, +a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that +things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. Paul Muad'Dib taught +this lesson to the Sardaukar on the Plains of Arrakeen. His descendants have +yet to learn the lesson for themselves. + + -- The Preacher at Arrakeen +% +When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to +your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because +that is according to my principles. + + -- Words of an ancient philosopher (Attributed by Harq al-Ada to one Louis +Veuillot) +% +You Bene Gesserit call your activity of the Panoplia Prophetica a "Science of +Religion." Very well. I, a seeker after another kind of scientist, find this an +appropriate definition. You do, indeed, build your own myths, but so do all +societies. You I must warn, however. You are behaving as so many other +misguided scientists have behaved. Your actions reveal that you wish to take +something out of [away from] life. It is time you were reminded of that which +you so often profess: One cannot have a single thing without its opposite. + + -- The Preacher at Arrakeen: A Message to the Sisterhood +% +The universe is just there; that's the only way a Fedaykin can view it and +remain the master of his senses. The universe neither threatens nor promises. +It holds things beyond our sway: the fall of a meteor, the eruption of a +spiceblow, growing old and dying. These are the realities of this universe and +they must be faced regardless of how you feel about them. You cannot fend off +such realities with words. They will come at you in their own wordless way and +then, then you will understand what is meant by "life and death." +Understanding this, you will be filled with joy. + + -- Muad'Dib to his Fedaykin +% +It is said of Muad'Dib that once when he saw a weed trying to grow +between two rocks, he moved one of the rocks. Later, when the weed +was seen to be flourishing, he covered it with the remaining rock. +"That was its fate," he explained. + + -- The Commentaries +% +Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. +No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the +aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in +the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, +oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. + + -- Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual +% +In this age when the means of human transport include devices which can span +the deeps of space in transtime, and other devices which can carry men swiftly +over virtually impassable planetary surfaces, it seems odd to think of +attempting long journeys afoot. Yet this remains a primary means of travel on +Arrakis, a fact attributed partly to preference and partly to the brutal +treatment which this planet reserves for anything mechanical. In the strictures +of Arrakis, human flesh remains the most durable and reliable resource for the +Hajj. Perhaps it is the implicit awareness of this fact which makes Arrakis the +ultimate mirror of the soul. + + -- Handbook of the Hajj +% +In all major socializing forces you will find an underlying movement to gain +and maintain power through the use of words. From witch doctor to priest to +bureaucrat it is all the same. A governed populace must be conditioned to +accept power-words as actual things, to confuse the symbolized system with the +tangible universe. In the maintenance of such a power structure, certain +symbols are kept out of the reach of common understanding -- symbols such as +those dealing with economic manipulation or those which define the local +interpretation of sanity. Symbol-secrecy of this form leads to the development +of fragmented sub-languages, each being a signal that its users are +accumulating some form of power. With this insight into a power process, our +Imperial Security Force must be ever alert to the formation of sub-languages. + + -- Lecture to the Arrakeen War College by, The Princess Irulan +% +The password was given to me by a man who died in the dungeons of Arrakeen. +You see, that is where I got this ring in the shape of a tortoise. +It was in the suk outside the city where I was hidden by the rebels. +The password? Oh, that has been changed many times since then. +It was "Persistence." And the countersign was "Tortoise." +It got me out of there alive. That's why I bought this ring: a reminder. + + -- Tagir Mohandis: Conversations with a Friend +% +I saw his blood and a piece of his robe which had been ripped by sharp claws. +His sister reports vividly of the tigers, the sureness of their attack. +We have questioned one of the plotters, and others are dead or in custody. +Everything points to a Corrino plot. A Truthsayer has attested to this testimony. + + -- Stilgar's Report to the Landsraad Commission +% +Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is +wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and +specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit +picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the +other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must +not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe. +He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the +moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct +that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything +which we can identify as our universe is merely part of larger phenomena. +But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own +specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, +knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the +characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. +There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. +You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: +"Now what is this thing doing?" + + -- The Mentat Handbook +% +The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for +problems. Such problems may never arrive. Instead, tend to the wolf within +your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist. + + -- The Azhar Book; Shamra I:4 +% +Only in the realm of mathematics can you understand Muad'Dib's precise view of +the future. Thus: first, we postulate any number of point-dimensions in space. +(This is the classic n-fold extended aggregate of n dimensions.) With this +framework, Time as commonly understood becomes an aggregate of one-dimensional +properties. Applying this to the Muad'Dib phenomenon, we find that we either +are confronted by new properties of Time or (by reduction through the infinity +calculus) we are dealing with separate systems which contain n body properties. +For Muad'Dib, we assume the latter. As demonstrated by the reduction, the point +dimensions of the n-fold can only have separate existence within different +frameworks of Time. Separate dimensions of Time are thus demonstrated to +coexist. This being the inescapable case, Muad'Dib's predictions required that +he perceive the n-fold not as extended aggregate but as an operation within a +single framework. In effect, he froze his universe into that one framework +which was his view of Time. + + -- Palimbasha: Lectures at Sietch Tabr +% +We can still remember the golden days before Heisenberg, who showed humans +the walls enclosing our predestined arguments. The lives within me find this +amusing. Knowledge, you see, has no uses without purpose, but purpose is what +builds enclosing walls. + + -- Leto Atreides II, His Voice +% +If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you +believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions +in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of +holes, but remain most precious to the convinced. + + -- The Open-Ended Proof from, The Panoplia Prophetica +% +Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind +remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, +word-oriented framework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of +effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to +crises. + + -- Liet-Kynes, The Arrakis Workbook +% +You will learn the integrated communication methods as you complete the next +step in your mentat education. This is a gestalten function which will overlay +data paths in your awareness, resolving complexities and masses of input from +the mentat index-catalogue techniques which you already have mastered. Your +initial problem will be the breaking tensions arising from the divergent +assembly of minutiae/data on specialized subjects. Be warned. Without mentat +overlay integration, you can be immersed in the Babel Problem, which is the +label we give to the omnipresent dangers of achieving wrong combinations from +accurate information. + + -- The Mentat Handbook +% + O Paul, thou Muad'Dib, + Mahdi of all men, + Thy breath exhaled + Sent forth the hurricane. + + -- Songs of Muad'Dib +% +Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of +Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. +Note the relative motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, +but still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. +The Church hierarchy of Auqaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of +Muad'Dib's heir. CHOAM wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his +Sardaukar sought a return to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared +the equation Arrakis = melange; without the spice they could not navigate. +Jessica wished to repair what her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. +few thought to ask the twins what their plans might be, until it was too late. + + -- The Book of Kreos +% +There is no guilt or innocence in you. All of that is past. Guilt belabors the +dead and I am not the Iron Hammer. You multitude of the dead are merely people +who have done certain things, and the memory of those things illuminates my path. + + -- Leto II to His Memory-Lives, After Harq al-Ada +% +Humankind periodically goes through a speedup of its affairs, thereby +experiencing the race between the renewable vitality of the living and the +beckoning vitiation of decadence. In this periodic race, any pause becomes +luxury. Only then can one reflect that all is permitted; all is possible. + + -- The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib +% +Natural selection has been described as an environment selectively screening +for those who will have progeny. Where humans are concerned, though, this is an +extremely limiting viewpoint. Reproduction by sex tends toward experiment and +innovation. It raises many questions, including the ancient one about whether +environment is a selective agent after the variation occurs, or whether +environment plays a pre-selective role in determining the variations which it +screens. Dune did not realty answer those questions: it merely raised new +questions which Leto and the Sisterhood may attempt to answer over the next +five hundred generations. + + -- The Dune Catastrophe, After Harq al-Ada +% + One small bird has called thee + From a beak streaked crimson. + It cried once over Sietch Tabr + And thou went forth unto Funeral Plain. + + -- Lament for Leto II +% +Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work +toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble +with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance. + + -- The Words of My Father: an account of Muad'Dib reconstructed by Harq al-Ada +% +This rocky shrine to the skull of a ruler grants no prayers. It has become +the grave of lamentations. Only the wind hears the voice of this place. +The cries of night creatures and the passing wonder of two moons, all say his +day has ended. No more supplicants come. The visitors have gone from the feast. +How bare the pathway down this mountain. + + -- Lines at the Shrine of an Atreides Duke, Anon. +% +There exist obvious higher-order influences in any planetary system. This is +often demonstrated by introducing terraform life onto newly discovered planets. +In all such cases, the life in similar zones develops striking similarities of +adaptive form. This form signifies much more than shape; it connotes a survival +organization and a relationship of such organizations. The human quest for this +interdependent order and our niche within it represents a profound necessity. +The quest can, however, be perverted into a conservative grip on sameness. +This has always proved deadly for the entire system. + + -- The Dune Catastrophe, After Harq al-Ada +% +What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom +find real loyalties in commerce. When did you last hear of a clerk giving his +life for the company? Perhaps your deficiency rests in the false assumption +that you can order men to think and cooperate. This has been a failure of +everything from religions to general staffs throughout history. General staffs +have a long record of destroying their own nations. As to religions, I +recommend a rereading of Thomas Aquinas. As to you of CHOAM, what nonsense you +believe! Men must want to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, +not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great +civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon the quality of the +individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, +suppress their urge to greatness -- they cannot work and their civilization +collapses. + + -- A letter to CHOAM, Attributed to The Preacher +% +The future of prescience cannot always be locked into the rules of the past. +The threads of existence tangle according to many unknown laws. Prescient +future insists on its own rules. It will not conform to the ordering of the +Zensunni nor to the ordering of science. Prescience builds a relative +integrity. It demands the work of this instant, always warning that you +cannot weave every thread into the fabric of the past. + + -- Kalima: The Words of Muad'Dib, The Shuloch Commentary +% +Fremen speech implies great concision, a precise sense of expression. It is +immersed in the illusion of absolutes. Its assumptions are a fertile ground for +absolutist religions. Furthermore, Fremen are fond of moralizing. They confront +the terrifying instability of all things with institutionalized statements. +They say: "We know there is no summa of all attainable knowledge; that is the +preserve of God. But whatever men can learn, men can contain." Out of this +knife-edged approach to the universe they carve a fantastic belief in signs and +omens and in their own destiny. This is an origin of their Kralizec legend: the +war at the end of the universe. + + -- Bene Gesserit Private Reports/folio 800881 +% +The spirit of Muad'Dib is more than words, more than the letter of the Law +which arises in his name. Muad'Dib must always be that inner outrage against +the complacently powerful, against the charlatans and the dogmatic fanatics. +It is that inner outrage which must have its say because Muad'Dib taught us +one thing above all others: that humans can endure only in a fraternity of +social justice. + + -- The Fedaykin Compact +% +Limits of survival are set by climate, those long drifts of change which a +generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the +pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of +annual weather and, occasionally may observe such things as "This is a colder +year than I've ever known. " Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom +alerted to the shifting average through a great span of years. And it is +precisely in this alerting that humans learn how to survive on any planet. +They must learn climate. + + -- Arrakis, the Transformation, After Harq al-Ada +% +Thou didst divide the sand by thy strength; Thou breakest the heads of the +dragons in the desert. Yea, I behold thee as a beast coming up from the dunes; +thou hast the two horns of the lamb, but thou speakest as the dragon. + + -- Revised Orange Catholic Bible Arran 11:4 +% +Fremen were the first humans to develop a conscious/unconscious symbology +through which to experience the movements and relationships of their planetary +system. They were the first people anywhere to express climate in terms of a +semi-mathematic language whose written symbols embody (and internalize) the +external relationships. The language itself was part of the system it +described. Its written form carried the shape of what it described. +The intimate local knowledge of what was available to support life was implicit +in this development. One can measure the extent of this language/system +interaction by the fact that Fremen accepted themselves as foraging and +browsing animals. + + -- The Story of Liet-Kynes by Harq al-Ada +% +After the Fremen, all Planetologists see life as expressions of energy and look +for the overriding relationships. In small pieces, bits and parcels which grow +into general understanding, the Fremen racial wisdom is translated into a new +certainty. The thing Fremen have as a people, any people can have. They need +but develop a sense for energy relationships. They need but observe that energy +soaks up the patterns of things and builds with those patterns. + + -- The Arrakeen Catastrophe, After Harq al-Ada +% +Any path which narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans +are not threading their way through a maze; they scan a vast horizon filled +with unique opportunities. The narrowing viewpoint of the maze should appeal +only to creatures with their noses buried in sand. Sexually produced uniqueness +and differences are the life-protection of the spices. + + -- The Spacing Guild Handbook +% +By these acts Leto II removed himself from the evolutionary succession. +He did it with a deliberate cutting action, saying: "To be independent is to be +removed." Both twins saw beyond the needs of memory as a measuring process, +that is, a way of determining their distance from their human origins. But it +was left to Leto II to do the audacious thing, recognizing that a real creation +is independent of its creator. He refused to reenact the evolutionary sequence, +saying, "That, too, takes me farther and farther from humanity." He saw the +implications in this: that there can be no truly closed systems in life. + + -- The Holy Metamorphosis, by Harq al-Ada +% +Muad'Dib was disinherited and he spoke for the disinherited of all time. +He cried out against that profound injustice which alienates the individual +from that which he was taught to believe, from that which seemed to come to +him as a right. + + -- The Mahdinate, An Analysis by Harq al-Ada +% +Church and State, scientific reason and faith, the individual and his +community, even progress and tradition -- all of these can be reconciled in the +teachings of Muad'Dib. He taught us that there exist no intransigent opposites +except in the beliefs of men. Anyone can rip aside the veil of Time. You can +discover the future in the past or in your own imagination. Doing this, you win +back your consciousness in your inner being. You know then that the universe is +a coherent whole and you are indivisible from it. + + -- The Preacher at Arrakeen, After Harq al-Ada +% +Muad'Dib gave us a particular kind of knowledge about prophetic insight, about +the behavior which surrounds such insight and its influence upon events which +are seen to be "on line." (That is, events which are set to occur in a related +system which the prophet reveals and interprets.) As has been noted elsewhere, +such insight operates as a peculiar trap for the prophet himself. He can become +the victim of what he knows -- which is a relatively common human failing. The +danger is that those who predict real events may overtook the polarizing effect +brought about by overindulgence in their own truth. They tend to forget that +nothing in a polarized universe can exist without its opposite being present. + + -- The Prescient Vision, by Harq al-Ada +% +The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of +man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not +have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my +strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what +not to believe, of what to be and what not to be." + + -- Leto Atreides II, The Harq al-Ada Biography +% +The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through +an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. +This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves +scientists and technologists. + + -- The Butlerian Jihad, by Harq al-Ada +% +As with so many other religions, Muad'Dib's Golden Elixir of Life degenerated +into external wizardry. Its mystical signs became mere symbols for deeper +psychological processes, and those processes, of course, ran wild. What they +needed was a living god, and they didn't have one, a situation which Muad'Dib's +son has corrected. + + -- Saying attributed to Lu Tung-pin, (Lu, The Guest of the Cavern) +% diff --git a/children-of-dune.dat b/children-of-dune.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..098b433 Binary files /dev/null and b/children-of-dune.dat differ diff --git a/dune b/dune new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d44028b --- /dev/null +++ b/dune @@ -0,0 +1,413 @@ +A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are +correct. This every sister of the Bene Gesserit knows. To begin your study of +the life of Muad'Dib, then, take care that you first place him in his time: +born in the 57th year of the Padishah Emperor, Shaddam IV. And take the most +special care that you locate Muad'Dib in his place: the planet Arrakis. Do not +be deceived by the fact that he was born on Caladan and lived his first fifteen +years there. Arrakis, the planet known as Dune, is forever his place. + + -- from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +To attempt an understanding of Muad'Dib without understanding his mortal +enemies, the Harkonnens, is to attempt seeing Truth without knowing Falsehood. +It is the attempt to see the Light without knowing Darkness. It cannot be. + + -- from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: "The Reverend Mother must combine the +seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin +goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her +youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the +place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning +and resourcefulness." + + -- from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan +% +You have read that Muad'Dib had no playmates his own age on Caladan. The +dangers were too great. But Muad'Dib did have wonderful companion-teachers. +There was Gurney Halleck, the troubadour-warrior. You will sing some of +Gurney's songs, as you read along in this book. There was Thufir Hawat, the old +Mentat Master of Assassins, who struck fear even into the heart of the Padishah +Emperor. There were Duncan Idaho, the Swordmaster of the Ginaz; Dr. Wellington +Yueh, a name black in treachery but bright in knowledge; the Lady Jessica, who +guided her son in the Bene Gesserit Way, and -- of course -- the Duke Leto, +whose qualities as a father have long been overlooked. + + -- from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +YUEH (yu'e), Wellington (weling-tun), Stdrd 10,082-10,191; medical doctor of +the Suk School (grd Stdrd 10,112); md: Wanna Marcus, B.G. (Stdrd +10,092-10,186?); chiefly noted as betrayer of Duke Leto Atreides. (Cf: +Bibliography, Appendix VII [Imperial Conditioning] and Betrayal, The.) + + -- from "Dictionary of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +How do we approach the study of Muad'Dib's father? A man of surpassing warmth +and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the +way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he +held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there -- +a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory +of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father? + + -- from "Muad'Dib, Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan +% +With the Lady Jessica and Arrakis, the Bene Gesserit system of sowing +implant-legends through the Missionaria Protectiva came to its full fruition. +The wisdom of seeding the known universe with a prophecy pattern for the +protection of B.G. personnel has long been appreciated, but never have we seen +a condition-ut-extremis with more ideal mating of person and preparation. The +prophetic legends had taken on Arrakis even to the extent of adopted labels +(including Reverend Mother, canto and respondu, and most of the Shari-a +panoplia propheticus). And it is generally accepted now that the Lady Jessica's +latent abilities were grossly underestimated. + + -- from "Analysis: The Arrakeen Crisis" by the Princess Irulan [Private +circulation: B.G. file number AR-81088587] +% +"Yueh! Yueh! Yueh!" goes the refrain. "A million deaths were not enough for +Yueh!" + + -- from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +Many have marked the speed with which Muad'Dib learned the necessities of +Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit, of course, know the basis of this speed. For the +others, we can say that Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was +in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could +learn. It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, +and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every +experience carries its lesson. + + -- from "The Humanity of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +What had the Lady Jessica to sustain her in her time of trial? Think you +carefully on this Bene Gesserit proverb and perhaps you will see: "Any road +followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just +a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you +cannot see the mountain." + + -- from "Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan +% +It is said that the Duke Leto blinded himself to the perils of Arrakis, that he +walked heedlessly into the pit. Would it not be more likely to suggest he had +lived so long in the presence of extreme danger he misjudged a change in its +intensity? Or is it possible he deliberately sacrificed himself that his son +might find a better life? All evidence indicates the Duke was a man not easily +hoodwinked. + + -- from "Muad'Dib: Family Commentaries" by the Princess Irulan +% +Over the exit of the Arrakeen landing field, crudely carved as though with +a poor instrument, there was an inscription that Muad'Dib was to repeat many +times. He saw it that first night on Arrakis, having been brought to the ducal +command post to participate in his father's first full staff conference. +The words of the inscription were a plea to those leaving Arrakis, but they +fell with dark import on the eyes of a boy who had just escaped a close brush +with death. They said: "O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us +in your prayers." + + -- from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +On that first day when Muad'Dib rode through the streets of Arrakeen with his +family, some of the people along the way recalled the legends and the prophecy +and they ventured to shout: "Mahdi!" But their shout was more a question than a +statement, for as yet they could only hope he was the one foretold as the Lisan +al-Gaib, the Voice from the Outer World. Their attention was focused, too, on +the mother, because they had heard she was a Bene Gesserit and it was obvious +to them that she was like the other Lisan al-Gaib. + + -- from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +"There is probably no more terrible instant of enlightenment than the +one in which you discover your father is a man--with human flesh." + + -- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +My father, the Padishah Emperor, took me by the hand one day and I sensed in +the ways my mother had taught me that he was disturbed. He led me down the Hall +of Portraits to the ego-likeness of the Duke Leto Atreides. I marked the strong +resemblance between them--my father and this man in the portrait--both with +thin, elegant faces and sharp features dominated by cold eyes. +"Princess-daughter," my father said, "I would that you'd been older when it +came time for this man to choose a woman." My father was 71 at the time and +looking no older than the man in the portrait, and I was but 14, yet I remember +deducing in that instant that my father secretly wished the Duke had been his +son, and disliked the political necessities that made them enemies. + + -- "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan +% +Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in +part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences +greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is +projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is +what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that +permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional +greatness will destroy a man. + + -- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +"There is no escape--we pay for the violence of our ancestors. " + + -- from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% + Do you wrestle with dreams? + Do you contend with shadows? + Do you move in a kind of sleep? + Time has slipped away. + Your life is stolen. + You tarried with trifles, + Victim of your folly. + + -- Dirge for Jamis on the Funeral Plain, + from "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times +and oppression to develop psychic muscles. + + -- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife--chopping off what's +incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here." + + -- from "Collected Sayings of, Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +There is a legend that the instant the Duke Leto Atreides died a meteor +streaked across the skies above his ancestral palace on Caladan. + + -- the Princess Irulan: "Introduction to A Child's History of Muad'Dib" +% + O Seas of Caladan, + O people of Duke Leto-- + Citadel of Leto fallen, + Fallen forever . . . + + -- from "Songs of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +When my father, the Padishah Emperor, heard of Duke Leto's death and the +manner of it, he went into such a rage as we had never before seen. He blamed +my mother and the compact forced on him to place a Bene Gesserit on the throne. +He blamed the Guild and the evil old Baron. He blamed everyone in sight, not +excepting even me, for he said I was a witch like all the others. And when I +sought to comfort him, saying it was done according to an older law of +self-preservation to which even the most ancient rulers gave allegiance, he +sneered at me and asked if I thought him a weakling. I saw then that he had +been aroused to this passion not by concern over the dead Duke but by what +that death implied for all royalty. As I look back on it, I think there may +have been some prescience in my father, too, for it is certain that his line +and Muad'Dib's shared common ancestry. + + -- "In My Father's House," by the Princess Irulan +% +My father once told me that respect for the truth comes close to being the +basis for all morality. "Something cannot emerge from nothing," he said. +This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable "the truth" can be. + + -- from "Conversations with Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% + +Muad'Dib could indeed, see the Future, but you must understand the limits +of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. +If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. +Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious +terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps +the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the +future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through +it, time becomes a narrow door." And always, he fought the temptation to +choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into +stagnation." + + -- from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan +% +What do you despise? By this are you truly known. + + -- from "Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence. + + -- from "A Child's History of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +We came from Caladan--a paradise world for our form of fife. There existed no +need on Caladan to build a physical paradise or a paradise of the mind--we +could see the actuality all around us. And the price we paid was the price men +have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life--we went soft, we lost +our edge. + + -- from "Muad'Dib: Conversations" by the Princess Irulan +% +Family life of the Royal Creche is difficult for many people to understand, +but I shall try to give you a capsule view of it. My father had only one real +friend, I think. That was Count Hasimir Fenring, the genetic-eunuch and one of +the deadliest fighters in the Imperium. The Count, a dapper and ugly little +man, brought a new slave-concubine to my father one day and I was dispatched +by my mother to spy on the proceedings. All of us spied on my father as a matter +of self-protection. One of the slave-concubines permitted my father under the +Bene Gesserit-Guild agreement could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, +but the intrigues were constant and oppressive in their similarity. We became +adept, my mother and sisters and I, at avoiding subtle instruments of death. +It may seem a dreadful thing to say, but I 'm not at all sure my father was +innocent in all these attempts. A Royal Family is not like other families. +Here was a new slave-concubine, then, red-haired like my father, willowy and +graceful. She had a dancer's muscles, and her training obviously had included +neuro-enticement. My father looked at her for a long time as she postured +unclothed before him. Finally he said: "She is too beautiful. We will save her +as a gift. " You have no idea how much consternation this restraint created in +the Royal Creche. Subtlety and self-control were, after all, the most deadly +threats to us all. + + -- "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan +% +This Fremen religious adaptation, then, is the source of what we now +recognize as "The Pillars of the Universe," whose Qizara Tafwid are among us +all with signs and proofs and prophecy. They bring us the Arrakeen mystical +fusion whose profound beauty is typified by the stirring music built on the +old forms, but stamped with the new awakening. Who has not heard and been +deeply moved by "The Old Man's Hymn"? + + I drove my feet through a desert + Whose mirage fluttered like a host. + Voracious for glory, greedy for danger, + I roamed the horizons of al-Kulab, + Watching time level mountains + In its search and its hunger for me. + And I saw the sparrows swiftly approach, + Bolder than the onrushing wolf. + They spread in the tree of my youth. + I heard the flock in my branches + And was caught on their beaks and claws! + + -- from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan +% +Prophecy and prescience--How can they be put to the test in the face of the +unanswered questions? Consider: How much is actual prediction of the "waveform" +(as Muad'Dib referred to his vision-image) and how much is the prophet shaping +the future to fit the prophecy? What of the harmonics inherent in the act of +prophecy? Does the prophet see the future or does he see a line of weakness, +a fault or cleavage that he may shatter with words or decisions as a +diamond-cutter shatters his gem with a blow of a knife? + + -- "Private Reflections on Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called +"spannungsbogen"--which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing +and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing. + + -- from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +My father, the Padishah Emperor, was 72 yet looked no more than 35 the year +he encompassed the death of Duke Leto and gave Arrakis back to the Harkonnens. +He seldom appeared in public wearing other than a Sardaukar uniform and +a Burseg's black helmet with the imperial lion in gold upon its crest. +The uniform was an open reminder of where his power lay. He was not always +that blatant, though. When he wanted, he could radiate charm and sincerity, +but I often wonder in these later days if anything about him was as it seemed. +I think now he was a man fighting constantly to escape the bars of an invisible +cage. You must remember that he was an emperor, father-head of a dynasty that +reached back into the dimmest history. But we denied him a legal son. +Was this not the most terrible defeat a ruler ever suffered? My mother obeyed +her Sister Superiors where the Lady Jessica disobeyed. Which of them was the +stronger? History already has answered. + + -- "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan +% +God created Arrakis to train the faithful. + + -- from "The Wisdom of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism +to shield us from the terrors of the future. + + -- from "Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +Muad'Dib tells us in "A Time of Reflection" that his first collisions with +Arrakeen necessities were the true beginnings of his education. He learned then +how to pole the sand for its weather, learned the language of the wind's +needles stinging his skin, learned how the nose can buzz with sand-itch and how +to gather his body's precious moisture around him to guard it and preserve it. +As his eyes assumed the blue of the Ibad, he learned the Chakobsa way. + + -- Stilgar's preface to "Muad'Dib, the Man" by the Princess Irulan +% +The hands move, the lips move -- +Ideas gush from his words, +And his eyes devour! +He is an island of Selfdom. + + -- description from "A Manual of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +No woman, no man, no child ever was deeply intimate with my father. The closest +anyone ever came to casual camaraderie with the Padishah Emperor was the +relationship offered by Count Hasimir Fenring, a companion from childhood. The +measure of Count Fenring's friendship may be seen first in a positive thing: he +allayed the Landsraad's suspicions after the Arrakis Affair. It cost more than +a billion solaris in spice bribes, so my mother said, and there were other +gifts as well: slave women, royal honors, and tokens of rank. The second major +evidence of the Count's friendship was negative. He refused to kill a man even +though it was within his capabilities and my father commanded it. I will relate +this presently. + + -- "Count Fenring: A Profile" by the Princess Irulan +% +Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that +makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. + + -- from "The Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, +elegance, and grace -- those qualities you find always in that which the true +artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, in the way sand +trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush or the +pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and our +society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is +possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that +the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things +move toward death. + + -- from "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +"Control the coinage and the courts -- let the rabble have the rest." Thus the +Padishah Emperor advises you. And he tells you: "If you want profits, you must +rule." There is truth in these words, but I ask myself: "Who are the rabble and +who are the ruled?" + + -- Muad'Dib's Secret Message to the Landsraad from "Arrakis Awakening" by the +Princess Irulan +% +You cannot avoid the interplay of politics within an orthodox religion. This +power struggle permeates the training, educating and disciplining of the +orthodox community. Because of this pressure, the leaders of such a community +inevitably must face that ultimate internal question: to succumb to complete +opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule, or risk sacrificing +themselves for the sake of the orthodox ethic. + + -- from "Muad'Dib: The Religious Issues" by the Princess Irulan +% +When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully +conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an +individual. + + -- from "Muad'Dib: The Ninety-Nine Wonders of the Universe" by Princess Irulan +% +How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is +telling him. + + -- "The Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib" by the Princess Irulan +% +And it came to pass in the third year of the Desert War that Paul-Muad'Dib lay +alone in the Cave of Birds beneath the kiswa hangings of an inner cell. And he +lay as one dead, caught up in the revelation of the Water of Life, his being +translated beyond the boundaries of time by the poison that gives life. Thus +was the prophecy made true that the Lisan al-Gaib might be both dead and alive. + + -- "Collected Legends of Arrakis" by the Princess Irulan +% +And that day dawned when Arrakis lay at the hub of the +universe with the wheel poised to spin. + + -- from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan +% +And Muad'Dib stood before them, and he said: "Though we deem the captive dead, +yet does she live. For her seed is my seed and her voice is my voice. And she +sees unto the farthest reaches of possibility. Yea, unto the vale of the +unknowable does she see because of me." + + -- from "Arrakis Awakening" by the Princess Irulan +% diff --git a/dune-messiah b/dune-messiah new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ce51993 --- /dev/null +++ b/dune-messiah @@ -0,0 +1,222 @@ +Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Muad'dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his +sister, Alia, it is difficult to see the real persons behind these veils. +But there were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. +Their flesh was subject to space and time. And even though their oracular +powers placed them beyond the usual limits of time and space, they came from +human stock. They experienced real events which left real traces upon a real +universe. To understand them, it must be seen that their catastrophe was the +catastrophe of all mankind. This work is dedicated, then, not to Muad'dib or +his sister, but to their heirs -- to all of us. + + -- Dedication in the Muad'dib Concordance + as copied from The Tabla Memorium of the Mahdi Spirit Cult +% +There exists no separation between gods and men: +one blends softly casual into the other. + + -- Proverbs of Muad'dib +% +Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, +betray or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity. + + -- Tleilaxu Theorem (unproven) +% +The advent of the Field Process shield and the lasgun with their explosive +interaction, deadly to attacker and attacked, placed the current +determinatives, on weapons technology. We need not go into the special role of +atomics. The fact that any Family in my Empire could so deploy its atomics as +to destroy the planetary bases of fifty or more other Families causes some +nervousness, true. But all of us possess precautionary plans for devastating +retaliation. Guild and Landsraad contain the keys which hold this force in +check, No, my concern goes to the development of humans as special weapons. +Here is a virtually unlimited field which a few powers are developing. + + -- Muad'dib: Lecture to the War College from The Stilgar Chronicle +% +Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is +when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague +ritual. + + -- Words of Muad'dib by Princess Irulan. +% +"Once more the drama begins." + + -- The Emperor Paul Muad'dib on his ascension to the Lion Throne +% +Truth suffers from too much analysis. + + -- Ancient Fremen Saying +% +The Fremen see her as the Earth Figure, a demigoddess whose special charge is +to protect the tribes through her powers of violence. She is Reverend Mother to +their Reverend Mothers. To pilgrims who seek her out with demands that she +restore virility or make the barren fruitful, she is a form of antimentat. +She feeds on that proof that the "analytic" has limits. She represents ultimate +tension. She is the virgin-harlot -- witty, vulgar, cruel, as destructive in +her whims as a coriolis storm. + + -- St. Alia of the Knife as taken from The Irulan Report +% +The most dangerous game in the universe is to govern from an oracular base. +We do not consider ourselves wise enough or brave enough to play that game. +The measures detailed here for regulation in lesser matters are as near as +we dare venture to the brink of government. For our purposes, we borrow a +definition from the Bene Gesserit and we consider the various worlds as gene +pools, sources of teachings and teachers, sources of the possible. Our goal +is not to rule, but to tap these gene pools, to learn, and to free ourselves +from all restraints imposed by dependency and government. + + -- "The Orgy as a Tool of Statecraft," Chapter Three of The Steersman's Guild +% + Here lies a toppled god -- + His fall was not a small one. + We did but build his pedestal, + A narrow and a tall one. + + -- Tleilaxu Epigram +% +I think what a joy it is to be alive, and I wonder if I'll ever leap inward +to the root of this flesh and know myself as once I was. The root is there. +Whether any act of mine can find it, that remains tangled in the future. +But all things a man can do are mine. Any act of mine may do it. + + -- The Ghola Speaks Alia's Commentary +% +"You do not beg the sun for mercy." + + -- Maud'dib's Travail from The Stilgar Commentary +% +"I've had a bellyful of the god and priest business! You think I don't see my +own mythos? Consult your data once more, Hayt. I've insinuated my rites into +the most elementary human acts. The people eat in the name of Muad'dib! They +make love in my name, are born in my name -- cross the street in my name. +A roof beam cannot be raised in the lowliest hovel of far Gangishree +without invoking the blessing of Muad'dib!" + + -- Book of Diatribes from The Hayt Chronicle +% + Oh, worm of many teeth, + Canst thou deny what has no cure? + The flesh and breath which lure thee + To the ground of all beginnings + Feed on monsters twisting in a door of fire! + Thou hast no robe in all thy attire + To cover intoxications of divinity + Or hide the burnings of desire! + + -- Wormsong from the Dunebook +% +The audacious nature of Muad'dib's actions may be seen in the fact that He knew +from the beginning whither He was bound, yet not once did He step aside from +that path. He put it clearly when He said: "I tell you that I come now to my +time of testing when it will be shown that I am the Ultimate Servant." +Thus He weaves all into One, that both friend and foe may worship Him. +It is for this reason and this reason only that His Apostles prayed: "Lord, +save us from the other paths which Muad'dib covered with the Waters of His Life." +Those "other paths" may be imagined only with the deepest revulsion. + + -- from The Yiam-el-Din (Book of Judgment) +% +No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments +of life and society nor the complexity of the machine / human interface, there +always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very +future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single +individuals. + + -- from The Tlielaxu Godbuk +% +Production growth and income growth must not get out of step in my Empire. +That is the substance of my command. There are to be no balance-of-payment +difficulties between the different spheres of influence. And the reason for +this is simply because I command it. I want to emphasize my authority in this +area. I am the supreme energy-eater of this domain, and will remain so, alive +or dead. My Government is the economy. + + -- Order in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'dib +% +The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from +ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of +one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a +difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. +Elaborate euphemisms may conceal your intent to kill, but behind any use of +power over another the ultimate assumption remains: "I feed on your energy." + + -- Addenda to Orders in Council The Emperor Paul Muad'dib +% + He has gone from Alia, + The womb of heaven! + Holy, holy, holy! + Fire-sand leagues + Confront our Lord. + He can see + Without eyes! + A demon upon him! + Holy, holy, holy + Equation: + He solved for + Martyrdom! + + -- The Moon Falls Down Songs of Muad'dib +% +Tibana was an apologist for Socratic Christianity, probably a native of IV +Anbus who lived between the eight and ninth centuries before Corrino, likely in +the second reign of Dalamak. Of his writings, only a portion survives from +which this fragment is taken: "The hearts of all men dwell in the same +wilderness." + + -- from The Dunebuk of Irulan +% +The sequential nature of actual events is not illuminated with lengthy +precision by the powers of prescience except under the most extraordinary +circumstances. The oracle grasps incidents cut out of the historic chain. +Eternity moves. It inflicts itself upon the oracle and the supplicant alike. +Let Muad'dib's subjects doubt his majesty and his oracular visions. +Let them deny his powers. Let them never doubt Eternity. + + -- The Dune Gospels +% +There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without +destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. +Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, +never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. +You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. + + -- Muad'dib on Law, The Stilgar Commentary +% + There was a man so wise, + He jumped into + A sandy place + And burnt out both his eyes! + And when he knew his eyes were gone, + He offered no complaint. + He summoned up a vision + And made himself a saint. + + -- Children's Verse from History of Muad'dib +% +We say of Muad'dib that he has gone on a journey +into that land where we walk without footprints. + + -- Preamble to the Qizarate Creed +% + No bitter stench of funeral-still for Muad'dib. + No knell nor solemn rite to free the mind + From avaricious shadows. + He is the fool saint, + The golden stranger living forever + On the edge of reason. + Let your guard fall and he is there! + His crimson peace and sovereign pallor + Strike into our universe on prophetic webs + To the verge, of a quiet glance -- there! + Out of bristling star-jungles: + Mysterious, lethal, an oracle without eyes, + Catspaw of prophecy, whose voice never dies! + Shai-hulud, he awaits thee upon a strand + Where couples walk and fix, eye to eye, + The delicious ennui of love. + He strides through the long cavern of time, + Scattering the fool-self of his dream. + + -- The Ghola's Hymn +% diff --git a/dune-messiah.dat b/dune-messiah.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..86d8311 Binary files /dev/null and b/dune-messiah.dat differ diff --git a/dune.dat b/dune.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..69eca8b Binary files /dev/null and b/dune.dat differ diff --git a/god-emperor b/god-emperor new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6cc7a1e --- /dev/null +++ b/god-emperor @@ -0,0 +1,551 @@ +I am the most ardent people-watcher who ever lived. I watch them inside me and +outside. Past and present can mingle with odd impositions in me. And as the +metamorphosis continues in my flesh wonderful things happen to my senses. +It's as though I sensed everything in close-up. I have extremely acute hearing +and vision, plus a sense of smell extraordinarily discriminating. I can detect +and identify pheromones at three parts per million. I know. I have tested it. +You cannot hide very much from my senses. I think it would horrify you what +I can detect by smell alone. Your pheromones tell me what you are doing or are +prepared to do. And gesture and posture! I stared for half a day once at an old +man sitting on a bench in Arrakeen. He was a fifth-generation descendant of +Stilgar the Naib and did not even know it. I studied the angle of his neck, +the skin flaps below his chin, the cracked lips and moistness about his +nostrils, the pores behind his ears, the wisps of gray hair which crept from +beneath the hood of his antique stillsuit. Not once did he detect that he was +being watched. Hah! Stilgar would have known it in a second or two. But this +old man was just waiting for someone who never came. He got up finally and +tottered off. He was very stiff after all of that sitting. I knew I would +never see him in the flesh again. He was that near death and his water was +sure to be wasted. Well, that no longer mattered. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Oh, the landscapes I have seen! And the people! The far wanderings of the +Fremen and all the rest of it. Even back through the myths to Terra. Oh, the +lessons in astronomy and intrigue, the migrations, the disheveled flights, the +leg aching and lung-aching runs through so many nights on all of those cosmic +specks where we have defended our transient possession. I tell you we are a +marvel and my memories leave no doubt of this. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Sometimes I indulge myself in safaris which no other being may take. I strike +inward along the axis of my memories. Like a schoolchild reporting on a +vacation trip, I take up my subject. Let it be . . . female intellectuals! +I course backward into the ocean which is my ancestors. I am a great winged +fish in the depths. The mouth of my awareness opens and I scoop them up! +Sometimes... sometimes I hunt out specific persons recorded in our histories. +What a private joy to relive the life of such a one while I mock the academic +pretentions which supposedly formed a biography. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +You, the first person to encounter my chronicles for at least four thousand +years, beware. Do not feel honored by your primacy in reading the revelations +of my Ixian storehouse. You will find much pain in it. Other than the few +glimpses required to assure me that the Golden Path continued. I never wanted +to peer beyond those four millennia. Therefore, I am not sure what the events +in my journals may signify to your times. I only know that my journals have +suffered oblivion and that the events which I recount have undoubtedly been +submitted to historical distortion for eons. I assure you that the ability +to view our futures can become a bore. Even to be thought of as a god, +as I certainly was, can become ultimately boring. It has occurred to me +more than once that holy boredom is good and sufficient reason for the +invention of free will. + + -- Inscription on the storehouse at bar-es-Balat +% +I tell you this in the hope that it will help you understand why I ad as I do +in the full knowledge that great forces accumulate in my Empire with but one +wish-the wish to destroy me. You who read these words may know full well what +actually happened, but I doubt that you understand it. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Some say I have no conscience. How false they are, even to themselves. +I am the only conscience which has ever existed. As wine retains the perfume +of its cask, I retain the essence of my most ancient genesis, and that is +the seed of conscience. That is what makes me holy. I am God because I am +the only one who really knows his heredity! + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to +our history. This is the fund of energy I -draw upon when I address the +mentality of war. If you have not heard the moaning cries of the wounded and +the dying, you do not know about war. I have heard those cries in such numbers +that they haunt me. I have cried out myself in the aftermath of battle. I have +suffered wounds in every epoch-wounds from fist and club and rock, from +shell-studded limb and bronze sword, from the mace and the cannon, from arrows +and lasguns and the silent smothering of atomic dust, from biological invasions +which blacken the tongue and drown the lungs, from the swift gush of flame and +the silent working of slow poisons. . . and more I will not recount! I have +seen and felt them all. To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say: With +my memories, I can do nothing else. I am not a coward and once I was human. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart. Your soul suffices this day as +a reckoner against you. I need no witnesses. You do not listen to your soul, +but listen instead to your anger and your rage. + + -- Lord Leto to a Penitent, From the Oral History +% +Odd as it may seem, great struggles such as the one you can see emerging from +my journals are not always visible to the participants. Much depends on what +people dream in the secrecy of their hearts. I have always been as concerned +with the shaping of dreams as with the shaping of actions. Between the lines of +my journals is the struggle with humankind's view of itself-a sweaty contest on +a field where motives from our darkest past can well up out of an unconscious +reservoir and become events with which we not only must live but contend. +It is the hydraheaded monster which always attacks from your blind side. +I pray, therefore, that when you have traversed my portion of the Golden Path +you no longer will be innocent children dancing to music you cannot hear. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +How sad it was that the Shadout of old had become today's Fish Speaker. And a +true crysknife had been used to bind a servant more strongly to her master. +He knew that some thought his Fish Speakers were really priestesses + + -- Leto's answer to the Bene Gesserit. +% +The Duncans always think it odd that I choose women for combat forces, but my +Fish Speakers are a temporary army in every sense. While they can be violent +and vicious, women are profoundly different from men in their dedication to +battle. The cradle of genesis ultimately predisposes them to behavior more +protective of life. They have proved to be the best keepers of the Golden Path. +I reinforce this in my design for their training. They are set aside for a time +from ordinary routines. I give them special sharings which they can look back +upon' with pleasure for the rest of their lives. They come of age in the +company of their sisters in preparation for events more profound. What you +share in such companionship always prepares you for greater things. The haze +of nostalgia covers their days among their sisters, making those days into +something different than they were. That's the way today changes history. +All contemporaries do not inhabit the same time. The past is always changing, +but few realize it. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people. The balance is +delicate in the extreme. I know that few of you who read my words have ever +thought about your ancestors this way. It has not occurred to you that your +ancestors were survivors and that the survival itself sometimes involved savage +decisions, a kind of wanton brutality which civilized humankind works very hard +to suppress. What price will you pay for that suppression? Will you accept your +own extinction? + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +What is the most profound difference between us, between you and me? You +already know it. It's these ancestral memories. Mine come at me in the full +glare of awareness. Yours work from your blind side. Some call it instinct or +fate. The memories apply their leverages to each of us-on what we think and +what we do. You think you are immune to such influences? I am Galileo. I stand +here and tell you: "Yet it moves." That which moves can exert its force in ways +no mortal power ever before dared stem. I am here to dare this. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +The female sense of sharing originated as familial sharing-care of the young, +the gathering and preparation of food, sharing joys, love and sorrows. Funeral +lamentation originated with women. Religion began as a female monopoly, wrested +from them only after its social power became too dominant. Women were the first +medical researchers and Practitioners. There has never been any clear balance +between the sexes because power goes with certain roles as it certainly goes +with knowledge. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Unceasing warfare gives rise to its own social conditions which have been +similar in all epochs. People enter a permanent state of alertness to ward +off attacks. You seethe absolute rule of the autocrat. All new things become +dangerous frontier districts-new planets, new economic areas to exploit, new +ideas or new devices, visitors-everything suspect. Feudalism takes firm hold, +sometimes disguised as a politbureau or similar structure, but always present. +Hereditary succession follows the lines of power. The blood of the powerful +dominates. The vice regents of heaven or their equivalent apportion the wealth. +And their know they must control inheritance or slowly let the power melt away. +Now, do you understand Leto's Peace? + + -- The Stolen Journals +% + +Our ancestor, Assur-nasir-apli, who was known as the cruelest of the cruel, +seized the throne by slaying his own father and starting the reign of the +sword. His conquests included the Ururnia Lake region. which led him to +Commagene and Khabur. His son received tribute from the Shuites, from Tyre, +Sidon, Gebel and even from Jehu, son of Omri whose very name struck terror +into thousands. The conquests which began with Assur-nasirapli carried arms +into Media and later into Israel, Damascus, Edom, Arpad, Babylon and Umlias. +Does anyone remember these names and places now? I have given you enough clues: +Try to name the planet. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +I am beginning to hate water. The sandtrout skin which impels my metamorphosis +has learned the sensitivities of the worm. Moneo and many of my guards know my +aversion, Only Moneo suspects the truth, that this marks an important waypoint. +I can feel my ending in it, not soon as Moneo measures time, but soon enough as +I endure it. Sandtrout swarmed to water in the Dune days, a problem during the +early stages of our symbiosis. The enforcement of my will power controlled the +urge then, and until we reached a time of balance. Now, I must avoid water +because there are no other sandtrout, only the half dormant creatures of my +skin. Without sandtrout to bring this world back to desert, Shai-Hulud will not +emerge; the sandworm cannot evolve until the land is parched. I am their only +hope. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +"Another Festival so soon?" the Lord Leto asked. +"It has been ten years," the majordomo said. +Do you think by this exchange that the Lord Leto betrays an ignorance of time's +passage? + + -- The Oral History +% +From that welter of memories which I can tap at will, patterns emerge. They are +like another language which I see so clearly The social-alarm signals which put +societies into the postures of defense attack are like shouted words to me. +As a people. you react against threats to innocence and the peril of the +helpless young. Unexplained sounds, visions and smells raise the hackles you +have forgotten you possess. When alarmed, you cling to your native language +because all the other patterned sounds are strange. You demand acceptable +dress because a strange costume is threatening. This is system feedback at +its most primitive level. Your cells remember + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, +the patterns Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the +extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over +any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It's true! Liberal +governments always develop into aristocracies The bureaucracies betray the true +intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little +people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens +found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of +course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern. but what a hypocrisy to find +this even under a communized banner Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything +it's that patterns are repeated. My oppressions. by and large, are no worse +than any of the others and, at least. I teach a new lesson. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +The trance-state of prophecy is like no other visionary experience. It is not +a retreat from the raw exposure of the senses (as are many trance-states) but +an immersion in a multitude of new movements. Things moue. It is an ultimate +pragmatism in the midst of Infinity, a demanding consciousness where you come +at last into the unbroken awareness that the universe moves of itself, that it +changes, that its rules change. that nothing remains permanent or absolute +throughout all such movement, that mechanical explanations for anything can +work only within precise confinements and, once the walls are broken down, the +old explanations shatter and dissolve, blown away by new movements. The things +you see in this trance are sobering, often shattering They demand your utmost +effort to remain whole and. even so, you emerge from that state profoundly +changed. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +When I set out to lead humankind along my Golden Path. I promised them a lesson +their bones would remember. I know a profound pattern which humans deny with +their words even while their actions affirm it. They say they seek security and +quiet, the condition they call peace. Even as they speak. they create the seeds +of turmoil and violence. If they find their quiet security. they squirm in it. +How boring they find it. Look at them now. Look at what they do while I record +these words. Hah! I give them enduring eons of enforced tranquility which plods +on and on despite their every effort to escape into chaos. Believe me, the +memory of Leto's Peace shall abide with them forever. They will seek their +quiet security thereafter only with extreme caution and steadfast preparation. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +As each day passes, you become increasingly unreal, more alien and remote from +what I find myself to be on that new day. I am the only reality and, as you +differ from me, you lose reality. The more curious I become, the less curious +are those who worship me. Religion suppresses curiosity. What I do subtracts +from the worshipper. Thus it is that eventually I will do nothing, giving it +all back to frightened people who will ,find themselves on that day alone and +forced to act for themselves. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God? + + -- Muad'Dib. From the Oral History +% +I am both father and mother to my people. I have known the ecstasy of birth and +the ecstasy of death and I know the patterns that you must team. Have I not +wandered intoxicated through the universe of shapes? Yes! I have seen you +outlined in light. That universe which you say you see and feel, that universe +is my dream. My energies focus upon it and I am in any realm and every realm. +Thus, you are born. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +I have isolated the city-experience within me and have examined it closely. +The idea of a city fascinates me. The formation of a biological community +without a functioning, supportive social community leads to havoc. Whole +worlds have become single biological communities without an interrelated +social structure and this has always led to ruin. It becomes dramatically +instructive under overcrowded conditions. The ghetto is lethal. Psychic +stresses of overcrowding create pressures which will erupt. The city is an +attempt to manage these forces. The social forms by which cities make the +attempt are worth study. Remember that there exists a certain malevolence +about the formation of any social order. It is the struggle for existence +by an artificial entity. Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. +Many injuries occur and, thus, the need for laws. The law develops its +own power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma +can be healed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate +identifies the healer. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. +It is a thing of ultimate beauty. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Groups tend to condition their surroundings for group survival. When they +deviate from this it may be taken as a sign of group sickness. There are +many telltale symptoms. I watch the sharing of food. This is a form of +communication, an inescapable sign of mutual aid which also contains a deadly +signal of dependency. It is interesting that men are the ones who usually tend +the landscape today. They are husband-men. Once, that was the sole province of +women. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +If you know all of your ancestors, you were a personal witness to the events +which created the myths and religions of our past. Recognizing this, you must +think of me as a myth-maker. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Let there be no doubt that I am the assemblage of our ancestors, the arena in +which they exercise my moments. They are my cells and I am their body. This is +the favrashi of which I speak, the soul, the collective unconscious, the source +of archetypes, the repository of all trauma and joy. I am the choice of their +awakening. My samhadi is their samhadi. Their experiences are mine! Their +knowledge distilled is mfr inheritance. Those billions are my one. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +"Make no heroes," my father said. + + -- The voice of Ghanima, From the Oral History +% +The prophet is not diverted by illusions of past, present and future. The +fixity of language determines such linear distinctions. Prophets hold a key to +the lock in a language. The mechanical image remains only an image to them. +This is not a mechanical universe. The linear progression of events is imposed +by the observer. Cause and effect? That's not it at all. The prophet utters +fateful words. You glimpse a thing "destined to occur." But the prophetic +instant releases something of infinite portent and power. The universe +undergoes a ghostly shift. Thus, the wise prophet conceals actuality behind +shimmering labels. The uninitiated then believe the prophetic language is +ambiguous. The listener distrusts the prophetic messenger. Instinct tells +you how the utterance blunts the power of such words. The best prophets +lead you up to the curtain and let you peer through for yourself. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +The pattern of monarchies and similar systems has a message of value for all +political forms. My memories assure me that governments of any kind could +profit from this message. Governments can be useful to the governed only so +long as inherent tendencies toward tyranny are restrained. Monarchies have +some good features beyond their star qualities. They can reduce the size and +parasitic nature of the management bureaucracy. They can make speedy decisions +when necessary. They fit an ancient human demand for a parental (tribal/feudal) +hierarchy where every person knows his place. It is valuable to know your +place, even if that place is temporary. It is galling to be held in place +against your will. This is why I teach about tyranny in the best possible way +by example. Even though you read these words after a passage of eons, my +tyranny will not be forgotten. My Golden Path assures this. Knowing my message, +I expect you to be exceedingly careful about the powers you delegate to any +government. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +You know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard? Yes, I know about that story, too. +A majordomo brought it to me one day to amuse me. The story says there is a +hoard of melange, a gigantic hoard, big as a great mountain. The hoard is +concealed in the depths of a distant planet. It is not Arrakis, that planet. +It is not Dune. The spice was hidden there long ago, even before the First +Empire and the Spacing Guild. The story says Paul Muad'Dib went there and +lives yet beside the hoard, kept alive by it, waiting. The majordomo did not +understand why the story disturbed me. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Memory has a curious meaning to me, a meaning I have hoped others might share. +It continually astonished me how people hide from their ancestral memories, +shielding themselves behind a thick barrier of mythos. Ohhh, I do not expect +them to seek the terrible immediacy of every living moment which I must +experience. I can understand that they might not want to be submerged in a mush +of petty ancestral details. You have reason to fear that your living moments +might be taken over by others. Yet, the meaning is there within those memories. +We carry all of our ancestry forward like a living wave, all of the hopes and +joys and griefs, the agonies and the exultations of our past. Nothing within +those memories remains completely without meaning or influence, not as long as +there is a humankind somewhere. We have that bright Infinity all around us, +that Golden Path of forever to which we can continually pledge our puny but +inspired allegiance. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +The realization of what I am occurs in the timeless awareness which does not +stimulate nor delude. I create a field without self or center, a field where +even death becomes only analogy. I desire no results. I merely permit this +field which has no goals nor desires, no perfections nor even visions of +achievements. In that field, omnipresent primal awareness is all. It is the +light which pours through the windows of my universe. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +One of the most terrible words in any language is Soldier. The synonyms parade +through our history: yogahnee, trooper, hussar, kareebo, cossack, deranzeef, +legionnaire, sardaukar, fish speaker... I know them all. They stand there in +the ranks of my memory to remind me: Always make sure you have the army with +you. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Do you know what guerrillas often say? They claim that their rebellions are +invulnerable to economic warfare because they have no economy, that they are +parasitic on those they would overthrow. The fools merely fail to assess the +coin in which they must inevitably pay. The pattern is inexorable in its +degenerative failures. You see it repeated in the systems of slavery, of +welfare states, of caste-ridden religions, of socializing bureaucracies-in +any system which creates and maintains dependencies. Too long a parasite and +you cannot exist without a host. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +In the cradle of our past, I lay upon my back in a cave so shallow I could +penetrate it only by squirming, not by crawling. There, by the dancing light of +a resin torch, I drew upon walls and ceiling the creatures of the hunt and the +souls of my people. How illuminating it is to peer backward through a perfect +circle at that ancient struggle for the visible moment of the soul. All time +vibrates to that call: "Here I am!" With a mind informed by artist-giants who +came afterward, I peer at handprints and flowing muscles drawn upon the rock +with charcoal and vegetable dyes. How much more we are than mere mechanical +events! And my anti-civil self demands: "Why is it that they do not want to +leave the cave?" + + -- The Stolen Journals +% + +The Duncans sometimes ask if I understand the exotic ideas of our past? +And if I understand them, why can't I explain them? Knowledge, the Duncans +believe, resides only in particulars. I try to tell them that all words are +plastic. Word images begin to distort in the instant of utterance. Ideas +imbedded in a language require that particular language for expression. +This is the very essence of the meaning within the word exotic. See how it +begins to distort? Translation squirms in the presence of the exotic. +The Galach which I speak here imposes itself. It is an outside frame of +reference, a particular system. Dangers lurk in all systems. Systems +incorporate the unexamined beliefs of their creators. Adopt a system, accept +its beliefs, and you help strengthen the resistance to change. Does it +serve any purpose for me to tell the Duncans that there are no languages +for some things? Ahhh! But the Duncans believe that all languages are mine. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Given enough time for the generations to evolve, the predator produces +particular survival adaptations in its prey which, through the circular +operation of feedback, produce changes in the predator which again change the +prey etcetera, etcetera, etcetera .... Many powerful forces do the same thing. +You can count religions among such forces. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +It required almost a thousand years before the dust of Dune's old planet-wide +desert left the atmosphere to be bound up in soil and water. The wind called +sandblaster has not been seen on Arrakis for some twenty-five hundred years. +Twenty billion tons of dust could be carried suspended in the wind of just one +of those storms. The sky often had a silvery look to it then. Fremen said: +"The desert is a surgeon cutting away the skin to expose what's underneath." +The planet and the people had layers. You could see them. My Sareer is but +a weak echo of what was. I must be the sandblaster today. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Most civilization is based on cowardice. It's so easy to civilize by teaching +cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. +You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. +You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. +You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +What is the most immediate danger to my stewardship? I will tell you. +It is a true visionary, a person who has stood in the presence of God +with the full knowledge of where he stands. Visionary ecstasy releases +energies which are like the energies of sex-uncaring for anything +except creation. One act of creation can be much like another. +Everything depends upon the vision. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% + +You cannot understand history unless you understand its flowings, its +currents and the ways leaders move within such forces. A leader tries to +perpetuate the conditions which demand his leadership. Thus, the leader +requires the outsider. I caution you to examine my career with care. +I am both leader and outsider. Do not make the mistake of assuming that I +only created the Church which was the State. That was my function as leader +and I had many historical models to use as pattern. For a clue to my role as +outsider, look at the arts of my time. The arts are barbaric. The favorite +poetry? The Epic. The popular dramatic ideal? Heroism. Dances? Wildly +abandoned. From Moneo's viewpoint, he is correct in describing this as +dangerous. It stimulates the imagination. It makes people feel the lack of +that which I have taken from them. What did I take from them? The right to +participate in history. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +You think power may be the most unstable of all human achievements? +Then what of the apparent exceptions to this inherent instability? +Some families endure. Very powerful religious bureaucracies have been known +to endure. Consider the relationship between faith and power. Are they +mutually exclusive when each depends upon the other? The Bene Gesserit have +been reasonably secure within the loyal walls of faith for thousands of +years. But where has their power gone? + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +Think of it as plastic memory, this force within you which trends you and your +fellows toward tribal forms. This plastic memory seeks to return to its ancient +shape, the tribal society. It is all around you-the feudatory, the diocese, the +corporation, the platoon, the sports club, the dance troupes, the rebel cell, +the planning council, the prayer group . . . each with its master and servants, +its host and parasites. And the swarms of alienating devices (including these +very words!) tend eventually to be enlisted in the argument for a return to +"those better rimes." I despair of teaching you other ways. You have square +thoughts which resist circles. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +What am I eliminating? The bourgeois infatuation with peaceful conservation +of the past. This is a binding force, a thing which holds humankind into one +vulnerable unit in spite of illusionary separations across parsecs of space. +If I can find the scattered bits, others can find them. When you are +together, you can share a common catastrophe. You can be exterminated +together. Thus, I demonstrate the terrible danger of a gliding, passionless +mediocrity, a movement without ambitions or aims. I show you that entire +civilizations can do this thing. I give you eons of life which slips gently +toward death without fuss or stirring, without even asking 'Why?' I show you +the false happiness and the shadow-catastrophe called Leto, the God +Emperor. Now, will you learn the real happiness? + + -- The Stolen Journals +% +In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. +This universe presents only changing relationships which are sometimes seen as +laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshly sensoria which we call self are +ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary +conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. +If you must label the absolute, use it's proper name: Temporary. + + -- The Stolen Journals +% diff --git a/god-emperor.dat b/god-emperor.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fecf193 Binary files /dev/null and b/god-emperor.dat differ diff --git a/heretics-of-dune b/heretics-of-dune new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f75bcff --- /dev/null +++ b/heretics-of-dune @@ -0,0 +1,358 @@ +Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. +Do not ask Why? Be cautious with How? Why? leads inexorably to paradox. +How? traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite. + + -- The Apocrypha of Arrakis +% +Explosions are also compressions of time. Observable changes in the natural +universe all are explosive to some degree and from some point of view; +otherwise you would not notice them. Smooth Continuity of change, if slowed +sufficiently, goes without notice by observers whose time/attention span is +too short. Thus, I tell you, I have seen changes you would never have +marked. + + -- Leto II +% +The existence of no-ships raises the possibility of destroying entire +planets without retaliation. A large object, asteroid or equivalent, may be +sent against the planet. Or the people can be set against each other by +sexual subversion, and then can be armed to destroy themselves. These +Honored Matres appear to favor this latter technique. + + -- Bene Gesserit Analysis +% +Humans live best when each has his place to stand, when each knows where he be +longs in the scheme of things and what he may achieve. Destroy the place and +you destroy the person. + + -- Bene Gesserit Teaching +% +Has not religion claimed a patent on creation for all of these millennia? + + -- The Tleilaxu Question, from Muad'dib Speaks +% +Some days it's melange; some days it's bitter dirt. + + -- Rakian Aphorism +% +The trouble with some kinds of warfare (and be certain the Tyrant knew this, +because it is implicit in his lesson) is that they destroy all moral decency +in susceptible types. Warfare of these kinds will dump the destroyed +survivors back into an innocent population that is incapable of even +imagining what such returned soldiers might do. + + -- Teachings of the Golden Path, Bene Gesserit Archives +% +Ten thousand years since Leto II began his metamorphosis from human into the +sandworm of Rakis and historians still argue over his motives. Was he +driven by the desire for long life? He lived more than ten times the normal +span of three hundred SY, but consider the price he paid. Was it the lure +of power? He is called the Tyrant for good reason but what did power bring +him that a human might want? Was he driven to save humankind from itself? +We have only his own words about his Golden Path to answer this and I cannot +accept the self-serving records of Dar-es-Balat. Might there have been +other gratifications, which only his experiences would illuminate? Without +better evidence the question is moot. We are reduced to saying only that +"He did it!" The physical fact alone is undeniable. + + -- The Metamorphosis of Leto II, 10,000th Anniversary Peroration by Gaus Andaud +% +Technology, in common with many other activities, tends toward avoidance of +risks by investors. Uncertainty is ruled out if possible. Capital +investment follows this rule, since people generally prefer the predictable. +Few recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes severe limits on +variability and thus makes whole populations fatally vulnerable to the +shocking ways our universe can throw the dice. + + -- Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives +% +In my estimation, more misery has been created by reformers than by any +other force in human history. Show me someone who says "Something must be +done!" and I will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no +other outlet. What we must strive for always! is to find the natural flow +and go with it. + + -- The Reverend Mother Taraza, Conversational Record, BG File GSXXMAT9 +% +The Tleilaxu secret must be in their sperm. Our tests prove that their +sperm does not carry forward in a straight genetic fashion. Gaps occur. +Every Tleilaxu we have examined has hidden his inner self from us. They are +naturally immune to an Ixian Probe! Secrecy at the deepest levels, that is +their ultimate armor and their ultimate weapon. + + -- Bene Gesserit Analysis, Archives Code: BTXX441WOR +% +The outer surface of a balloon is always larger than the center of the +damned thing! That's the whole point of the Scattering! + + -- Bene Gesserit response to an Ixian suggestion that new + investigative probes be sent out among the Lost Ones +% +The failure of CHOAM? Quite simple: They ignore the fact that larger +commercial powers wait at the edges of their activities, powers that could +swallow them the way a slig swallows garbage. This is the true threat of +the Scattering -- to them and to us all. + + -- Bene Gesserit Council notes, Archives #SXX90CH +% +At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an indeterminate place, +predictable in a statistical way only when you employ large enough numbers. +Between that universe and a relatively predictable one where the passage of +a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, other forces come into play. +For the in-between universe where we find our daily lives, that which you +believe is a dominant force. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily +events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief +structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order. + + -- Analysis of the Tyrant, the Taraza File: BG Archives +% +Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual +regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it. + + -- Chenoeh: "Conversations with Leto II" +% +Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and +legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has +the clout? + + -- Bene Gesserit Council Proceedings: Archives #XOX232 +% +The basic rule is this: Never support weakness; always support strength. + + -- The Bene Gesserit Coda +% +Nothing surpasses the complexity of the human mind. + + -- Leto II: Dar-es-Balat Records +% +The significant fact is this: No Bene Tleilax female has ever been seen +away from the protection of their core planets. (Face Dancer mules who +simulate females do not count in this analysis. They cannot be breeders.) +The Tleilaxu sequester their females to keep them from our hands. This is +our primary deduction. It must also be in the eggs that the Tleilaxu +Masters conceal their most essential secrets. + + -- Bene Gesserit Analysis -- Archives #XOXTM99 ..... 041 +% +What social inheritances went outward with the Scattering? We know those +times intimately. We know both the mental and physical settings. The Lost +Ones took with them a consciousness confined mostly to manpower and +hardware. There was a desperate need for room to expand driven by the myth +of Freedom. Most had not learned the deeper lesson of the Tyrant, that +violence builds its own limits. The Scattering was wild and random movement +interpreted as growth (expansion). It was goaded by a profound fear (often +unconscious) of stagnation and death. + + -- The Scattering: Bene Gesserit Analysis (Archives) +% +Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas +of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute +monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling +by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would +never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very +existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such +ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. +This is the most basic key to my life. + + -- Leto II, God Emperor of Dune: Dar-es-Balat Records +% +Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild research. +Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a long history of producing +unwanted competition. The powerful want a "safe line of investigations," +which will develop only those products and ideas that can be controlled and, +most important, that will allow the larger part of the benefits to be +captured by inside investors. Unfortunately, a random universe full of +relative variables does not insure such a "safe line of investigations." + + -- Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives +% +Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more +than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the +old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look +inept. Who enjoys appearing inept? + + -- A Guide to Trial and Error in Government, Bene Gesserit Archives +% +The long table on the right is set for a banquet of roast desert hare in +sauce cepeda. The other dishes, clockwise to the right from the far end of +the table, are aplomage sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with melange +(note the hawk crest of the Atreides on the urn), pot-a-oie and, in the +Balut crystal bottle, sparkling Caladan wine. Note the ancient poison +detector concealed in the chandelier. + + -- Dar-es-Balat, Description at a Museum Display +% +People always want something more than immediate joy or that deeper sense +called happiness. This is one of the secrets by which we shape the +fulfillment of our designs. The something more assumes amplified power with +people who cannot give it a name or who (most often the case) do not even +suspect its existence. Most people only react unconsciously to such hidden +forces. Thus, we have only to call a calculated something more into +existence, define it and give it shape, then people will follow. + + -- Leadership Secrets of the Bene Gesserit +% +There was this drylander who was asked which was more important, a literjon +of water or a vast pool of water? The drylander thought a moment and then +said: "The literjon is more important. No single person could own a great +pool of water. But a literjon you could hide under your cloak and run away +with it. No one would know." + + -- The Jokes of Ancient Dune, Bene Gesserit Archives +% +By your belief in singularities, in granular absolutes, you deny movement, +even the movement of evolution! While you cause a granular universe to +persist in your awareness, you are blind to movement. When things change, +your absolute universe vanishes, no longer accessible to your self-limiting +perceptions. The universe has moved beyond you. + + -- First Draft, Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives +% +We have long known that the objects of our palpable sense experiences can be +influenced by choice -- both conscious choice and unconscious. This is a +demonstrated fact that does not require that we believe some force within us +reaches out and touches the universe. I address a pragmatic relationship +between belief and what we identify as "real." All of our judgments carry a +heavy burden of ancestral beliefs to which we of the Bene Gesserit tend to +be more susceptible than most. It is not enough that we are aware of this +and guard against it. Alternative interpretations must always receive our +attention. + + -- Mother Superior Taraza: Argument in Council +% +This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic: There are no atoms, only waves +and motions all around. Here, you discard all belief in barriers to +understanding. You put aside understanding itself. This universe cannot be +seen, cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed perceptions. +It is the ultimate void where no preordained screens occur upon which forms +may be projected. You have only one awareness here -- the screen of the +magi: Imagination! Here, you learn what it is to be human. You are a +creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an organizer of chaos. + + -- The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives +% +This room reconstructs a bit of the desert of Dune. The sandcrawler +directly in front of you dates from the Atreides times. Grouped around it, +moving clockwise from your left, are a small harvester, a carryall, a +primitive spice factory and the other support equipment. All are explained +at each station. Note the illuminated quotation above the display: "FOR +THEY SHALL SUCK OF THE ABUNDANCE OF THE SEAS AND OF THE TREASURE IN THE +SAND." This ancient religious quotation was oft repeated by the famous +Gurney Halleck. + + -- Guide Announcement, Museum of Dar-es-Balat +% + Our fathers ate manna in the desert, + In the burning place where whirlwinds came. + Lord, save us from that horrible land! + Save us, oh-h-h-h-h save us + From that dry and thirsty land. + + -- Songs of Gurney Halleck, Museum of Dar-es-Balat +% +All organized religions face a common problem, a tender spot through which we +may enter and shift them to our designs: How do they distinguish hubris from +revelation? + + -- Missionaria Protectiva, the Inner Teachings +% + I remember friends from wars all but we forgot. + All of them distilled into each wound we caught. + Those wounds are all the painful places where we fought. + Battles better left behind, ones we never sought. + What is it that we spent and what was it we bought? + + -- Songs of the Scattering +% +It is your fate, forgetfulness. All of the old lessons of life, you lose and +gain and lose and gain again. + + -- Leto II, the Voice of Dar-es-Balat +% +Survival of self, of species, and of environment, these are what drive +humans. You can observe how the order of importance changes in a lifetime. +What are the things of immediate concern at a given age? Weather? The +state of the digestion? Does she (or he) really care? All of those various +hungers that flesh can sense and hope to satisfy. What else could possibly +matter? + + -- Leto II to Hwi Noree, His Voice: Dar-es-Balat +% +There was a man who sat each day looking out through a narrow vertical +opening where a single board had been removed from a tall wooden fence. +Each day a wild ass of the desert passed outside the fence and across the +narrow opening -- first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long +brown back, the hindlegs, and lastly the tail. One day, the man leaped to +his feet with the light of discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who +could hear him: "It is obvious! The nose causes the tail!" + + -- Stories of the Hidden Wisdom, from the Oral History of Rakis +% +Historians exercise great power and some of them know it. They recreate the +past, changing it to fit their own interpretations. Thus, they change the +future as well. + + -- Leto II, His Voice, from Dar-es-Balat +% +"I must rule with eye and claw -- as the hawk among lesser birds." + + -- Atreides assertion (Ref: BG Archives) +% +Memory never recaptures reality. Memory reconstructs. All reconstructions +change the original, becoming external frames of reference that inevitably +fall short. + + -- Mentat Handbook +% +Concealed behind strong barriers the heart becomes ice. + + -- Darwi Odrade, Argument in Council +% +When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom +and training. + + -- The Lady Jessica, from "Wisdom of Arrakis" +% +May you die on Caladan! + + -- Ancient Drinking Toast +% +The worst potential competition for any organism can come from its own kind. +The species consumes necessities. Growth is limited by that necessity which +is present in the least amount. The least favorable condition controls the +rate of growth. (Law of the Minimum) + + -- From "Lessons of Arrakis" +% +O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers. + + -- Sign over Arrakeen Landing Field (Historical Records: Dar-es-Balat) +% + The world is for the living. Who are they? + We dared the dark to reach the white and warm. + She was the wind when the wind was in my way. + Alive at noon, I perished in her form. + Who rise from the flesh to spirit know the fall: + The word outleaps the world and light is all. + + -- Theodore Roethke (Historical Quotations: Dar-es-Balat) +% +Justice? Who asks for justice. We make our own justice. We make it here on +Arrakis -- win or die. Let us not rail about justice as long as we have arms +and the freedom to use them. + + -- Leto I: Bene Gesserit Archives +% +We are not looking at a new state of matter but at a newly recognized +relationship between consciousness and matter, which provides a more +penetrating insight into the workings of prescience. The oracle shapes a +projected inner universe to produce new external probabilities out of forces +that are not understood. There is no need to understand these forces before +using them to shape the physical universe. Ancient metal workers had no +need to understand the molecular and submolecular complexities of their +steel, bronze, copper, gold, and tin. They invented mystical powers to +describe the unknown while they continued to operate their forges and wield +their hammers. + + -- Mother Superior Taraza, Argument in Council +% diff --git a/heretics-of-dune.dat b/heretics-of-dune.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6e7393 Binary files /dev/null and b/heretics-of-dune.dat differ diff --git a/house-atreides b/house-atreides new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3792818 --- /dev/null +++ b/house-atreides @@ -0,0 +1,514 @@ +Melange is the financial crux of CHOAM activities. Without this spice, +Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers could not perform feats of observation and +human control, Guild Navigators could not see safe pathways across space, +and billions of Imperial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal. +Any simpleton knows that such dependence upon a single commodity +leads to abuse. We are all at risk. + + -- CHOAM Economic Analysis of Materiel Flow Patterns +% +We are generalists. You can't draw neat +lines around planetwide problems. +Planetology is a cut-and-fit science. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, Treatise on the Environmental Recovery + of Post-Holocaust Salusa Secundus +% +Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. + + -- Chief commandment resulting from the Butlerian Jihad, + found in the Orange Catholic Bible +% +Spacing Guild: one leg of the political tripod maintaining the Great +Convention. The Guild was the second mental-physical training school +(see Bene Gesserit) after the Butlerian Jihad. The Guild monopoly on +space travel and transport and upon international banking is taken as +the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar. + + -- Terminology of the Imperium +% +The highest function of ecology is the understanding of consequences. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, Ecology of Bela Tegeuse, Initial Report to the Imperium +% +One observes the survivors, and learns from them. + + -- Bene Gesserit Teaching +% +The populace must think their ruler is a greater man than they, +else why should they follow him? Above all a leader must be a showman, +giving his people the bread and circuses they require. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% +N'kee: Slow-acting poison that builds up in the adrenal glands; one of the +most insidious toxins permitted under the accords of Guild Peace and the +restrictions of the Great Convention. (See War of Assassins.) + + -- The Assassins' Handbook +% +Kwisatz Haderach: "Shortening of the Way." This is the label applied by +the Bene Gesserit to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution: +a male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time. + + -- Terminology of the Imperium +% +In response to the strict Butlerian taboo against machines that perform mental +functions, a number of schools developed enhanced human beings to subsume most +of the functions formerly performed by computers. Some of the key schools +arising out of the Jihad include the Bene Gesserit, with their intense mental +and physical training, the Spacing Guild, with the prescient ability to find a +safe path through foldspace, and the Mentats, whose computerlike minds are +capable of extraordinary acts of reasoning. + + -- Ikbhan's Treatise on the Mind, Volume I +% +The paintbrush of history has depicted Abulurd Harkonnen in a most unfavorable +light. Judged by the standards of his older half brother, Baron Vladimir, and +his own children Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha Rabban, Abulurd was a different +sort of man entirely. We must, however, assess the frequent descriptions of +his weakness, incompetence, and foolhardy decisions in light of the ultimate +failure of House Harkonnen. Though exiled to Lankiveil and stripped of any +real power, Abulurd secured a victory unmatched by anyone else in his extended +family: He learned how to be happy with his life. + + -- Landsraad Encyclopedia of Great Houses, post-Jihad edition +% +Four things cannot be hidden -- Love, smoke, a pillar of fire, +and a man striding across the open bled. + + -- Fremen Wisdom +% +Who can know whether Ix has gone too far? They hide their facilities, +keep their workers enslaved, and claim the right of secrecy. +Under such circumstances, how can they not be tempted to step +beyond the restrictions of the Butlerian Jihad? + + -- COUNT ILBAN RICHESE, third appeal to the Landsraad +% +There are weapons you cannot hold in your hand. +You can only hold them in your mind. + + -- Bene Gesserit Teaching +% +The basic rule is this: Never support weakness; always support strength. + + -- The Bene Gesserit Azhar Book, Compilation of Great Secrets +% +Many elements of the Imperium believe they hold the ultimate power: the +Spacing Guild with their monopoly on interstellar travel, CHOAM with its +economic stranglehold, the Bene Gesserit with their secrets, the Mentats with +their control of mental processes, House Corrino with their throne, the Great +and Minor Houses of the Landsraad with their extensive holdings. Woe to us on +the day that one of those factions decides to prove the point. + + -- COUNT HASIMIR FENRING, Dispatches from Arrakis +% +The slave concubines permitted my father under the Bene Gesserit-Guild +agreement could not, of course, bear a Royal Successor, but the intrigues were +constant and oppressive in their similarity. We became adept, my mother and +sisters and I, at avoiding subtle instruments of death. + + -- From "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan +% +The working Planetologist has access to many resources, data, and projections. +However, his most important tools are human beings. Only by cultivating +ecological literacy among the people themselves can he save an entire planet. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, The Case for Bela Tegeuse +% +It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire. + + -- THUFIR HAWAT, Mentat and Security Commander to House Atreides +% +We consider the various worlds as gene pools, sources of teachings and +teachers, sources of the possible. + + -- Bene Gesserit Analysis, Wallach IX Archives +% +Many inventions have selectively improved particular skills or abilities, +emphasizing one aspect or another. But no achievement has ever scratched +the complexity or adaptability of the human mind. + + -- Ikbhan's Treatise on the Mind, Volume II +% +We must do a thing on Arrakis never before attempted for an entire planet. +We must use man as a constructive ecological force -- inserting adapted +terraform life: a plant here, an animal there, a man in that place -- +to transform the water cycle, to build a new kind of landscape. + + -- Report from Imperial Planetologist PARDOT KYNES, + directed to Padishah EMPEROR ELROOD IX (unsent) +% +My Father had only one real friend, I think. That was Count Hasimir Fenring, +the genetic-eunuch and one of the deadliest fighters in the Imperium. + + -- From "In My Father's House" by the Princess Irulan +% +Blindness can take many forms other than the inability to see. +Fanatics are often blinded in their thoughts. +Leaders are often blinded in their hearts. + + -- The Orange Catholic Bible +% + +Hope can be the greatest weapon of a downtrodden people, +or the greatest enemy of those who are about to fail. +We must remain aware of its advantages and its limitations. + + -- LADY HELENA ATREIDES, her personal journals + +% +History allows us to see the obvious -- but unfortunately, +not until it is too late. + + -- PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO +% +Like the knowledge of your own being, the sietch forms a firm base +from which you move out into the world and into the universe. + + -- Fremen Teaching +% +Two hundred thirty-eight planets searched, many of only marginal habitability. +(See star charts attached in separate file.) Resource surveys list valuable +raw materials. Many of these planets deserve a second look, either for +mineral exploitation or possible colonization. As in previous reports, +however, no spice found. + + -- Independent scout survey, third expedition, + delivered to EMPEROR FONDIL CORRINO III +% +The Spacing Guild has worked for centuries to surround our elite Navigators +with mystique. They are revered, from the lowest Pilot to the most talented +Steersman. They live in tanks of spice gas, see all paths through space and +time, guide ships to the far reaches of the Imperium. But no one knows the +human cost of becoming a Navigator. We must keep this a secret, for if they +really knew the truth, they would pity us. + + -- Spacing Guild Training Manual Handbook for Steersmen (Classified) +% +The human body is a machine, a system of organic chemicals, fluid conduits, +electrical impulses; a government is likewise a machine of interacting +societies, laws, cultures, rewards and punishments, patterns of behavior. +Ultimately, the universe itself is a machine, planets around suns, stars +gathered into clusters, clusters and other suns forming entire galaxies . . . . + Our job is to keep the machinery functioning. + + -- Suk Inner School, Primary Doctrine +% +The leaders of the Butlerian Jihad did not adequately define artificial +intelligence, failing to foresee all possibilities of an imaginative society. +Therefore, we have substantial gray areas in which to maneuver. + + -- Confidential Ixian Legal Opinion +% +No outsider has ever seen a Tleilaxu female and lived to tell about it. +Considering the Tleilaxu penchant for genetic manipulation -- see, e.g., +related memos on clones and gholas -- this simple observation raises a +wealth of additional questions. + + -- Bene Gesserit Analysis +% +Like many culinary delicacies, revenge is a dish best savored slowly, +after long and delicate preparation. + + -- EMPEROR ELROOD IX, Deathbed Insights +% +In the Imperium there exists the "principle of the individual," noble but +rarely utilized, whereby a person who violates a written law in a situation +of extreme peril or need can request a special session of the court of +jurisdiction in order to explain and support the necessity of his actions. +A number of legal procedures derive from this principle, among them the Drey +Jury, the Blind Tribunal, and the Trial by Forfeiture. + + -- Law of the Imperium: Commentaries +% +Even the poorest House can be rich in loyalty. Allegiance that must be +purchased by bribes or wages is hollow and flawed, and could break at the worst +possible moment. Allegiance that comes from the heart, though, is stronger +than adamantium and more valuable than purest melange. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% +Only God can make living, sentient creatures. + + -- The Orange Catholic Bible +% +Without a goal, a life is nothing. Sometimes the goal becomes a man's entire +life, an all-consuming passion. But once that goal is achieved, what then? +Oh, poor man, what then? + + -- LADY HELENA ATREIDES, her personal journals +% +History has seldom been good to those who must be punished. +Bene Gesserit punishments cannot be forgotten. + + -- Bene Gesserit Dictum +% +How simple things were when our Messiah was only a dream. + + -- STILGAR, Naib of Sietch Tabr +% +The haughty do but build castle walls behind which they seek to hide their +doubts and fears. + + -- Bene Gesserit Axiom +% +Any path that narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. +Humans do not thread their way through a maze; they scan a vast +horizon filled with unique opportunities. + + -- The Spacing Guild Handbook +% +Perceptions rule the universe. + -- Bene Gesserit Saying +% +You of fearful heart, be strong and fear not. Behold, your God will come with +a vengeance; He will come and save you from the worshipers of machines. + + -- The Orange Catholic Bible +% +Man is but a pebble dropped in a pool. +And if man is but a pebble, then +all his works can be no more. + + -- Zensunni Saying +% +Among the responsibilities of command is the necessity to punish . . . +but only when the victim demands it. + + -- PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Leadership in a Galactic Imperium, + 12th Edition +% +Speak the truth. That is always much easier, +and is often the most powerful argument. + + -- Bene Gesserit Axiom +% +Imperfections, if viewed in the proper light, can be extremely valuable. +The Great Schools, with their incessant questing for perfection, often +find this postulate difficult to understand, until it is proven to them +that nothing in the universe is random. + + -- From The Philosophies of Old Terra, one of the recovered manuscripts +% +One who rules assumes irrevocable responsibility for the ruled. +You are a husbandman. This demands, at times, a selfless act of +love which may be amusing only to those you rule. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% +Machine-vaccine principle: Every technological device contains +within it the tools of its opposite, and of its own destruction. + + -- GIAN KANA, Imperial Patent Czar +% +The ultimate question: Why does life exist? +The answer: For life's sake. + + -- ANONYMOUS, thought to be of Zensunni origin +% +The surest way to keep a secret is to make +people believe they already know the answer. + + -- Ancient Fremen Wisdom +% +Hatred is as dangerous an emotion as love. The capacity for either one is the +capacity for its opposite. + + -- Cautionary Instructions for the Sisterhood, Bene Gesserit Archives, Wallach IX +% +I must rule with eye and claw -- as the hawk among lesser birds. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES, The Atreides Assertion +% +In adverse circumstances, every creature becomes something else, evolving or +devolving. What makes us human is that we know what we once were, and -- +let us hope -- we remember how to change back. + + -- AMBASSADOR CAMMAR PILRU, Dispatches in Defense of Ix +% +We all live in the shadows of our predecessors for a time. But we who +determine the fate of planets eventually reach the point at which we +become not the shadows, but the light itself. + + -- PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Leadership +% +History demonstrates that the advancement of technology is not a steady upward +curve. There are flat periods, upward spurts, and even reversals. + + -- Technology of the Imperium, 532nd Edition +% +Memory and History are two sides of the same coin. In time, however, History +tends to slant itself toward a favorable impression of events, while Memory is +doomed to preserve the worst aspects. + + -- LADY HELENA ATREIDES, her personal journals +% +What senses do we lack that we cannot see or hear another world all around us? + + -- The Orange Catholic Bible +% +No one but a Tleilaxu may set foot in Bandalong, holiest city of the Bene +Tleilax, for it is fanatically guarded hallowed ground, purified by their God. + + -- Diplomacy in the Imperium, a Landsraad publication +% +Our timetable will achieve the stature of a natural phenomenon. A planet's +life is a vast, tightly interwoven fabric. Vegetation and animal changes +will be determined at first by the raw physical forces we manipulate. +As they establish themselves, though, our changes will become controlling +influences in their own right -- and we will have to deal with them, too. +Keep in mind, though, that we need control only three percent of the energy +surface -- only three percent -- to tip the entire structure over into our +self-sustaining system. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, Arrakis Dreams +% +Even innocents carry within them their own guilt in their own way. +No one makes it through life without paying, in one fashion or another. + + -- LADY HELENA ATREIDES, her personal journals +% +Innovations seem to have a life and a sentience of their own. When conditions +are right, a radical new idea -- a paradigm shift -- may appear simultaneously +from many minds at once. Or it may remain secret in the thoughts of one man +for years, decades, centuries . . . until someone else thinks of the same +thing. How many brilliant discoveries die stillborn, or lie dormant, +never to be embraced by the Imperium as a whole? + + -- OMBUDSMEN OF RICHESE, Rebuttal to the Landsraad, The True Domain + of the Intellect -- Private Property, or Resources for the Galaxy? +% +They demonstrate subtle, highly effective skills in the aligned arts of +observation and data collection. Information is their stock-in-trade. + + -- Imperial Report on the Bene Gesserit, used for tutoring purposes +% +When the center of the storm does not move, you are in its path. + + -- Ancient Fremen Wisdom +% +Storms beget storms. Rage begets rage. +Revenge begets revenge. Wars beget wars. + + -- Bene Gesserit Conundrum +% +Tio Holtzman was one of the most productive Ixian inventors on record. +He often went on creative binges, locking himself up for months on end +so that he could work without interruption. Sometimes upon emerging he +required hospitalization, and there were constant concerns over his +sanity and well-being. Holtzman died young -- barely past thirty Standard +Years -- but the results of his efforts changed the galaxy forever. + + -- Biographical Capsules, an Imperial filmbook +% +In the long history of our House, we have been constantly shadowed by +Misfortune, as if we were its prey. One might almost believe the curse +of Atreus from ancient Greek times on Old Terra. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES, from a speech to his generals +% +Truth is a chameleon. + + -- Zensunni Aphorism +% +In a Trial by Forfeiture, the normal rules of evidence do not apply. There are +no disclosure requirements that evidence be revealed to the opposition or to +the magistrates prior to the court proceedings. This places the person with +secret knowledge in a uniquely powerful position -- commensurate with the +extreme risk he takes. + + -- Rogan's Rules of Evidence, 3rd Edition +% +The written Law of the Imperium cannot be changed, no matter which Great House +holds dominion or which Emperor sits on the Golden Lion Throne. The documents +of the Imperial Constitution have been established for thousands of years. +This is not to say that each regime is legally identical; the variations stem +from subtleties of interpretation and from microscopic loopholes that become +large enough to drive a Heighliner through. + + -- Law of the Imperium: Commentaries and Rebuttals +% +The worst sort of alliances are those which weaken us. Worse still is +when an Emperor fails to recognize such an alliance for what it is. + + -- PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Leadership +% +The worst sort of protection is confidence. The best defense is suspicion. + + -- HASIMIR FENRING +% +As seen from orbit, the world of Ix is pristine and placid. But beneath +its surface, immense projects are undertaken and great works are achieved. +In this way, our planet is a metaphor for the Imperium itself. + + -- DOMINIC VERNIUS, The Secret Workings of Ix +% +When faced with necessary actions, there are always choices. So long as the +job gets done. + + -- COUNT HASIMIR FENRING, Dispatches from Arrakis +% +In plotting any course of revenge, one must savor the anticipation phase +and all its moments, for the actual execution often differs widely from the +original plan. + + -- HASIMIR FENRING, Dispatches from Arrakis +% +What matters more, the form of justice or the actual outcome? No matter how a +court may dissect the evidence, the foundation of genuine truth remains +unblemished. Unfortunately for many of the accused, such genuine truth is +often known only to the victim and the perpetrator. All others must make up +their own minds. + + -- Landsraad Law, codicils and analyses +% +We do what we must. Friendship and loyalty be damned. We do what we must! + + -- LADY HELENA ATREIDES, +her personal journals +% +All persons are contained within a single individual, just as all time is in a +moment, and the entire universe is in a grain of sand. + + -- Fremen Saying +% +In the final analysis, the legendary event called Leto's Gambit became the +basis of the young Duke Atreides's immense popularity. He successfully +projected himself as a shining beacon of honor in a galactic sea of darkness. +To many members of the Landsraad, Leto's honesty and naivete became a symbol of +honor that shamed many of the Great and Minor Houses to alter their behavior +toward each other . . . for a short time, at least, until familiar old patterns +reemerged. + + -- Origins of House Atreides: Seeds of the Future in the Galactic Imperium, + by Bronso of Ix +% +The universe contains untapped and heretofore unimagined energy sources. +They are before your very eyes, yet you cannot see them. +They are in your mind, yet you cannot think them. But I can! + + -- TIO HOLTZMAN, Collected Lectures +% +Only fools leave witnesses. + + -- HASIMIR FENRING +% +Progress and profit require a substantial investment in personnel, equipment, +and capital funding. However, the resource most often overlooked, yet which +can often provide the greatest payoff, is an investment in time. + + -- DOMINIC VERNIUS, The Secret Workings of Ix +% +A world is supported by four things: the teaming of the wise, the justice +of the great, the prayers of the righteous, and the valor of the brave. +But all of these are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. + + -- PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Galactic Leadership +% +A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. +Creativity keeps the creator alive. + + -- FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes +% diff --git a/house-atreides.dat b/house-atreides.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7db41c4 Binary files /dev/null and b/house-atreides.dat differ diff --git a/house-harkonnen b/house-harkonnen new file mode 100644 index 0000000..090df36 --- /dev/null +++ b/house-harkonnen @@ -0,0 +1,577 @@ +Discovery is dangerous . . . but so is life. +A man unwilling to take risk is doomed +never to learn, never to grow, never to live. + + -- PLANETOLOGIST PARDOT KYNES, An Arrakis Primer, written for his son Liet +% +Behold, O Man, you can create life. You can destroy life. +But, lo, you have no choice but to experience life. +And therein lies both your greatest strength and +your greatest weakness. + + -- Orange Catholic Bible, Book of Kimla Septima, 5:3 +% +Secrets are an important aspect of power. +The effective leader spreads them in +order to keep men in line. + + -- PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Leadership + in a Galactic Imperium, Twelfth Edition +% +In the days of Old Terra there were experts in poisons, deviously clever +persons who dealt in what were known as "the powders of inheritance." + + -- Filmbook excerpt, Royal Library of Kaitain +% +It is said that there is nothing firm, nothing balanced, nothing durable in all +the universe -- that nothing remains in its original state, that each day, each +hour, each moment, there is change. + + -- Panoplia Propheticus of the Bene Gesserit +% +Nature commits no errors; right and wrong are human categories. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, Arrakis Lectures +% +Before us, all methods of learning were tainted by instinct. Before us, +instinct-ridden researchers possessed a limited attention span -- often no +longer than a single lifetime. Projects stretching across fifty or more +generations never occurred to them. The concept of total muscle/nerve training +had not entered their awareness. We learned how to learn. + + -- Bene Gesserit Azhar Book +% +"Xuttuh" is a word that means many things. Every Bene Tleilax knows it was the +name of the first Master. But just as that man was more than a mere mortal, so +there are depths and complexities in the appellation. Depending upon tone and +vocal inflection, "Xuttuh" can mean "hello" or "blessings be upon you." Or it +can constitute a prayer encompassed in a single word, as a devotee prepares to +die for the Great Belief. For such reasons, we have chosen this as our new +name for the conquered planet formerly known as Ix. + + -- Tleilaxu Training Disk +% +A center for the coordination of rebellion can be mobile; it does not need to +be a permanent place where people meet. + + -- CAMMAR PILRU, Ixian Ambassador in Exile: Treatise on the Downfall + of Unjust Governments +% +It is said that the Fremen has no conscience, having lost it in a burning +desire for revenge. This is foolish. Only the rawest primitive and the +sociopath have no conscience. The Fremen possesses a highly evolved worldview +centered on the welfare of his people. His sense of belonging to the community +is almost stronger than his sense of self. It is only to outsiders that these +desert dwellers seem brutish . . . just as outsiders appear to them. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, The People of Arrakis +% +An empire built on power cannot attract the affections and loyalty that men +bestow willingly on a regime of ideas and beauty. Adorn your Grand Empire with +beauty, with culture. + + -- From a speech by CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO: L'Institut de Kaitain Archives +% +Military victories are meaningless unless they reflect the wishes +of the populace. An Emperor exists only to clarify those wishes. +He executes the popular will, or his time is short. + + -- Principium, Imperial Leadership Academy +% +Organizational structure is crucial to the success of a movement. +It is, as well, a prime target for attack. + + -- CAMMAR PILRU, Ixian Ambassador in Exile: Treatise on the Downfall + of Unjust Governments +% +The universe is our picture. Only the immature imagine the cosmos to be what +they think it is. + + -- SIGAN VISEE, First Head Instructor, Guild Navigator School +% +War is a form of organic behavior. The army is a means of survival for the +all-male group. The all-female group, on the other hand, is traditionally +religion-oriented. They are the keepers of sacred mysteries. + + -- Bene Gesserit Teaching +% +What is this Love that so many speak of with such apparent familiarity? +Do they truly comprehend how unattainable it is? Are there not as many +definitions of Love as there are stars in the universe? + + -- The Bene Gesserit Question Book +% +When you ask a question, do you truly want to know the answer, or are you +merely flaunting your power? + + -- DMITRI HARKONNEN, Notes to My Sons +% +Some lies are easier to believe than the truth. + + -- Orange Catholic Bible +% +The strictest limits are self-imposed. + + -- FRIEDRE GINAZ, Philosophy of the Swordmaster +% +Special knowledge can be a terrible disadvantage if it leads you too far along +a path that you cannot explain anymore. + + -- Mentat Admonition +% +Too much knowledge never makes for simple decisions. + + -- CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Leadership +% +The desert is a surgeon cutting away the skin to expose what is underneath. + + -- Fremen Saying +% +The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth. + + -- Bene Gesserit Precept +% +Religion is the emulation of the adult by the child. Religion is the +encystment of past beliefs: mythology, which is guesswork, the hidden +assumptions of trust in the universe, those pronouncements which men have made +in search of personal power . . . all mingled with shreds of enlightenment. +And always the ultimate unspoken commandment is "Thou shalt not question!" +But we do anyway. We break that commandment as a matter of course. +The work to which we have set ourselves is the liberating of the imagination, +the harnessing of imagination to humankind's deepest sense of creativity. + + -- Credo of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood +% +Humiliation is a thing never forgotten. + + -- REBEC of Ginaz +% +Learn to recognize the future the way a Steersman identifies +guiding stars and corrects the course of his vessel. +Learn from the past; never use it as an anchor. + + -- SIGAN VISEE, First Head Instructor, Guild Navigator School +% +The Unknown surrounds us at any given moment. That is where we seek knowledge. + + -- MOTHER SUPERIOR RAQUELLA BERTO-ANIRUL: Oratory Against Fear +% +Thinking, and the methods by which thoughts are communicated, +inevitably create a system permeated by illusions. + + -- Zensunni Teaching +% +There is no reality -- only our own order imposed on everything. + + -- Basic Bene Gesserit Dictum +% +Immobility is often mistaken for peace. + + -- EMPEROR ELROOD CORRINO IX +% +To learn about this universe, one must embark on a course of discovery where +real dangers exist. Education cannot impart this discovery; it is not a thing +to be taught and used or put away. It has no goals. In our universe, we +consider goals to be end products, and they are deadly if one becomes fixated +on them. + + -- FRIEDRE GINAZ, Philosophy of the Swordmaster +% +Never underestimate the power of the human mind to believe +what it wants to believe, no matter the conflicting evidence. + + -- CAEDMON ERB, Politics and Reality +% +It is the Atreides way to be examples of honor for our children, +so that they may be the same for their own progeny. + + -- DUKE LETO ATREIDES, First Speech to the Caladan Assembly +% +It is true that one may become rich through practicing evil, but the power of +Truth and Justice is that they endure . . . and that a man can say of them, +"They are a heritage from my father." + + -- Fifth Dynasty (Old Terra) calendar: The Wisdom of Ptahhotep +% +A man who persists in stalking game in a place where there is none may wait +forever without finding any success. Persistence in search is not enough. + + -- Zensunni Wisdom of the Wanderings +% +The effective ruler punishes opposition while rewarding assistance; he shifts +his forces in random fashion; he conceals major elements of his power; he sets +up a rhythm of counter movement that keeps opponents off balance. + + -- WESTHEIMER ATREIDES, Elements of Leadership +% +The Universe operates on a basic principle of economics: everything has +its cost. We pay to create our future, we pay for the mistakes of the past. +We pay for every change we make . . . and we pay just as dearly if we +refuse to change. + + -- Guild Bank Annals, Philosophical Register +% +The increasing variety and abundance of life itself vastly multiplies the +number of niches available for life. The resulting system is a web of makers +and users, eaters and eaten, collaborators and competitors. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, Report to Emperor Shaddam IV +% +To know what one ought to do is not enough. + + -- PRINCE RHOMBUR VERNIUS +% +Facts mean nothing when they are preempted by appearances. +Do not underestimate the power of impression over reality. + + -- CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, The Rudiments of Power +% +If you surrender, you have already lost. If you refuse to give up, though, +no matter the odds against you, at least you have succeeded in trying. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% +Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer. + + -- LIET-KYNES, In the Footsteps of My Father +% +Water is the image of life. We came from water, adapted from its +all-encompassing presence . . . and we continue to adapt. + + -- IMPERIAL PLANETOLOGIST PARDOT KYNES +% +I stand in the sacred human presence. As I do now, so should you stand some +day. I pray to your presence that this be so. Let the future remain uncertain +for that is the canvas to receive our desires. Thus the human condition faces +its perpetual tabula rasa. We possess no more than this moment where we +dedicate ourselves continuously to the sacred presence we share and create. + + -- Bene Gesserit Benediction +% +I fought in great wars to defend the Imperium and slew many men in the +Emperor's name. I attended Landsraad functions. I toured the continents of +Caladan. I managed all the tedious business matters required to run a Great +House. And still the best of times were those I spent with my son. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% +Body and mind are two phenomena, observed under different conditions, but of +one and the same ultimate reality. Body and mind are aspects of the living +being. They operate within a peculiar principle of synchronicity wherein +things happen together and behave as if they are the same . . . yet can be +conceived of as separate. + + -- Staff Medical Manual, Ginaz School +% +The Universe is a place inaccessible, unintelligible, completely absurd . . . +from which life -- especially rational life -- is estranged. There is no place +of safety, or basic principle upon which the Universe depends. There are only +transitory, masked relationships, confined within limited dimensions, and bound +for inevitable change. + + -- Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text +% +The Bene Gesserit tell no casual lies. Truth serves us better. + + -- BENE GESSERIT CODA +% +The man who gives in to adrenaline addiction turns against all humanity. +He turns against himself. He runs away from the workable issues of life and +admits a defeat which his own violent actions help to create. + + -- CAMMAR PILRU, Ixian Ambassador in Exile: Treatise on the Downfall of Unjust +Governments +% +There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. + + -- Bene Gesserit Axiom +% +Infinity attracts us like a floodlight in the night, blinding us to the +excesses it can inflict upon the finite. + + -- Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text +% +Love is the highest achievement to which any human may aspire. +It is an emotion that encompasses the full depth of heart, mind, and soul. + + -- Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering +% +It is possible to become intoxicated with rebellion for rebellion's sake. + + -- DOMINIC VERNIUS, Ecaz Memoirs +% +What is each man but a memory for those who follow? + + -- DUKE LETO ATREIDES +% +A man may fight the greatest enemy, take the longest journey, survive the most +grievous wound -- and still be helpless in the hands of the woman he loves. + + -- Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering +% +Political leaders often don't recognize the practical uses of imagination and +innovative new ideas until such forms are thrust under their noses by bloody +hands. + + -- CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, Discourses on Galactic Leadership +% +Enemies strengthen you; allies weaken. + + -- EMPEROR ELROOD IX, Deathbed Insights +% +The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be +experienced. + + -- Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text +% +The work to which we have set ourselves is the liberating of the imagination, +and the harnessing of the imagination to man's physical creativity. + + -- FRIEDRE GINAZ, Philosophy of the Swordmaster +% +Nature has moved inexplicably backward and forward to produce this marvelous, +subtle Spice. One is tempted to suggest that only divine intervention could +possibly have produced a substance which in one aspect extends human life and +in another opens the inner doors of the psyche to the wonders of Time and +Creation. + + -- HIDAR FEN AJIDICA, Laboratory Notes on the Nature of Melange +% +Freedom is an elusive concept. Some men hold themselves prisoner even +when they have the power to do as they please and go where they choose, +while others are free in their hearts, even as shackles restrain them. + + -- Zensunni Wisdom from the Wandering +% +Heaven must be the sound of running water. + + -- Fremen Saying +% +Look inside yourself and you can see the universe. + + -- Zensunni Aphorism +% +Unceasing warfare gives rise to its own social conditions, which have been +similar throughout the ages. One such condition is a permanent state of +alertness to ward off attack. Another is the rule of the autocrat. + + -- CAMMAR PILRU, Ixian Ambassador in Exile: Treatise on the Downfall + of Unjust Governments +% +Beneath a world -- in its rocks, its dirt and sedimentary overlays -- +there you find the planet's memory, the complete analog of its existence, +its ecological memory. + + -- PARROT KYNES, An Arrakis Primer +% +A Duke must always take control of his household, for if he does not +rule those closest to him, he cannot hope to govern a planet. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% +We create our own future by our own beliefs, which control our actions. +A strong enough belief system, a sufficiently powerful conviction, +can make anything happen. This is how we create our consensus reality, +including our gods. + + -- REVEREND MOTHER RAMALLO, Sayyadina of the Fremen +% +Challenge: Time? +Answer: A brilliant, many-faceted gem. + +Challenge: Time? +Answer: A dark stone, reflecting no visible light. + + -- Fremen wisdom, from The Riddle Game +% +It requires a desperate and lonely sort of courage to challenge the accepted +wisdom upon which social peace of mind rests. + + -- CROWN PRINCE RAPHAEL CORRINO, In Defense of Change in the Face of Tradition +% +There is no such thing as a law of nature. There is only a series of laws +relating to man's practical experience with nature. These are laws of man's +activities. They change as man's activities change. + + -- PARROT KYNES, An Arrakis Primer +% +One uses power by grasping it lightly. To grasp with too much force is to be +taken over by power, thus becoming its victim. + + -- Bene Gesserit Axiom +% +No one has yet determined the power of the human species . . . what it may +perform by instinct, and what it may accomplish with rational determination. + + -- Mentat Objective Analysis of Human Capabilities +% +Power and deceit are tools of statecraft, yes. But remember that power deludes +the ones who wield it -- making them believe it can overcome the defects of +their ignorance. + + -- COUNT FLAMBERT MUTELLI, early speech in Landsraad Hall of Oratory +% +Never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die. + + -- Fremen Saying +% +If a man can accept his sin, he can live with it. If a man cannot accept +personal sin, he suffers unbearable consequences. + + -- Meditations from Bifrost Eyrie, Buddislamic Text +% +The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The +willingness to learn is a choice. + + -- REBEC OF GINAZ +% +How to define the Kwisatz Haderach? The male who is everywhere simultaneously, +the only man who can truly become the greatest human of all of us, mingling +masculine and feminine ancestry with inseparable power. + + -- Bene Gesserit Azhar Book +% +You carve wounds upon my flesh and write there in salt! + + -- Fremen Lament +% +The stone is heavy and the sand weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than +them both. + + -- DUKE LETO ATREIDES +% +Innovation and daring create heroes. Mindless adherence +to outdated rules creates only politicians. + + -- VISCOUNT HUNDRO MORITANI +% +How easily grief becomes anger, and revenge gains arguments. + + -- PADISHAH EMPEROR HASSIK III, Lament for Salusa Secundus +% +Paradise on my right, Hell on my left, and the Angel of Death behind me. + + -- Fremen Conundrum +% +If God wishes thee to perish, He causes thy steps to +lead thee to the place of thy demise. + + -- Cant of the Shariat +% +Treachery and quick-thinking will defeat hard-and-fast rules any day. +Why should we be afraid to seize the opportunities we see? + + -- VISCOUNT HUNDRO MORITANI, Response to Landsraad Court Summons +% +All technology is suspect, and must be considered potentially dangerous. + + -- BUTLERIAN JIHAD, Handbook for Our Grandchildren +% +The seats of power inevitably try to harness any new knowledge to their own +desires. But knowledge can have no fixed desires -- neither in the past nor in +the future. + + -- DMITRI HARKONNEN, Lessons for My Sons +% +The haughty do but build castle walls behind which they try to hide their +doubts and fears. + + -- Bene Gesserit Axiom +% +The individual is the key, the final effective unit of all biological processes. + + -- PARDOT KYNES +% +Good leadership is largely invisible. When everything runs smoothly, no one +notices a Duke's work. That is why he must give the people something to cheer, +something to talk about, something to remember. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% +War, as the foremost ecological disaster of any age, merely reflects the larger +state of human affairs in which the total organism called "humanity" finds its +existence. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, Reflections on the Disaster at Salusa Secundus +% +Beware the seeds you sow and the crops you reap. Do not curse God for the +punishment you inflict upon yourself. + + -- Orange Catholic Bible +% +Every man dreams of the future, though not all of us will be there to see it. + + -- TIO HOLTZMAN, Speculations on Time and Space +% +Knowledge is pitiless. + + -- Orange Catholic Bible +% +The greatest and most important problems of life cannot be solved. +They can only be outgrown. + + -- SISTER JESSICA, private journal entry +% +Why look for meaning where there is none? +Would you follow a path you know leads nowhere? + + -- Query of the Mentat School +% +Humans must never submit to animals. + + -- Bene Gesserit Teaching +% +To keep from dying is not the same as "to live." + + -- Bene Gesserit Saying +% +We are always human and carry the whole burden of being human. + + -- DUKE LETO ATREIDES +% +No one person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. +We are all Face Dancers in our souls. + + -- Tleilaxu Secret Handbook +% +We as humans tend to make pointless demands of our universe, asking meaningless +questions. Too often we make such queries after developing an expertise within +a frame of reference which has little or no relationship to the context in +which the question is asked. + + -- Zensunni Observation +% +The ego is only a bit of consciousness swimming upon the ocean of dark things. +We are an enigma unto ourselves. + + -- The Mentat Handbook +% +The individual is shocked by the overwhelming discovery of his own mortality. +The species, however, is different. It need not die. + + -- PARDOT KYNES, An Arrakis Primer +% +The man faced with a life-and-death decision must commit himself, +or he will remain caught in the pendulum. + + -- From "In My Father's House," by the Princess Irulan +% +Love is an ancient force, one that served its purpose in its day but is no +longer essential for the survival of the species. + + -- Bene Gesserit Axiom +% +How will I be remembered by my children? This is the true measure of a man. + + -- ABULURD HARKONNEN +% +Some say that the anticipation of a thing is better than the thing itself. +In my view, this is utter nonsense. Any fool can imagine a prize. +I desire the tangible. + + -- HASIMIR FENRING, Letters from Arrakis +% +Though death will cancel it, life in this world is a glorious thing. + + -- DUKE PAULUS ATREIDES +% diff --git a/house-harkonnen.dat b/house-harkonnen.dat new file mode 100644 index 0000000..07e9529 Binary files /dev/null and b/house-harkonnen.dat differ