Two flaws

[Spectral Paladin]

It seems the Dune universe is so complex even its creator got confused in there. I 've two questions: How can Alia be possesed by the Baron since she is supposed to have only the female side in her memory?

Second one: Scytale in Heretics: Dune appears as a Tleilaxu Master but in Dune Messiah he was a face dancer. Possible answer is that Scytale may be a common Tleilaxu name but the problem is that in Heretics: Dune he is presented as the one who has spoken himself to Paul.

[Andrew]

There are dozens of flaws in the duniverse (original novels we should only talk about as prequels have hundreds ;)).

http://www.dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=24.0

http://www.dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=92.0

There are others, but I forget.

Mostly just the -400 degrees Kelvin and such.

[Spectral Paladin]

The link you gave I believe talk about errors in the prequels...

Why are the -400 degrees Kelvin considered a mistake  ???:O? On the contrary I believe it possible that in the future we may discover temperatures less than -273 C.

[Spectral Paladin]

the only thing I found in all his books that was a mistake is when he said something was negative 36 degrees kelvin. There are no negatives in the kelvin model. thats all I have found. frank herbert wrote the universe therefore its unflawed. brian cant do any better then what frank did. I love the prequels but it stays like that.

That's no mistake!! Obviously Frank Herbert meant that in the future there'll be temperatures lower than -273 C (which is 0 Kelvin degrees).

Merged from old thread, don't resurface very old topics when a new (same) topic has been made - Andrew

[Anathema]

While we're pointing out flaws, check this one.

When Jessica, Paul and Kynes (Duncan is also there but he's killed shortly afterwards) are in the planetologist station, Jessica hears a Fremen refer to Kynes as Liet and she then realises that they're the same person.

Paul was also there and should have heard it but he only finds out this fact later in the sietch, when news of Liets death has arrived.

Not really a flaw or a minor one at worst, but it seems weird to me that Paul "just missed" the fremen saying that, especially because he's been trained in the Bene Gesserit way of observation.

[Vanguard3000]

If you really want an explanation for the Alia thing, you could say that the circumstances surrounding Alia's 'journey within' were different from the average Reverend Mother.  Perhaps it allowed certain ambitious or 'stronger' (in a sense that he was only two generations away) psyches could emerge.  Not entirely adequate, but oh well.

THe Scytale question is one often pondered over.  SOme say Scytale is merely a common name, while some say the Face Dancer had been made a ghola and 'promoted' to Master status.  I wouldn't really call this a flaw, though.

I caught the -400 degrees Kelvin bit.  The problem is that modern science seems to suggest that 'absolute zero' - the point when matter becomes totally devoid of heat energy (and, I believe, become extremely brittle, as a flower after being immersed in liquid nitrogen) - occurs at -273 degrees Celcius, which is noted as 0 Kelvin.  Therefore, by this theory, nothing can ever become colder than 0 Kelvin.  But theories (or scientific notation) can very well change over tens of thousands of years.

Anathema:  I noticed that one too.  I had actually just reread that bit a few days ago.  Paul also hears one of the spice miners call Kynes Liet when the harvester was swallowed by the worm.  I think the thing was that they never thought Kynes was the Liet.  Keep in mind that when Duncan died, they still weren't sure Liet was a real person.

One flaw I remember was that, in a quote preceding one chapter, Irulan talks about Count Fenrig (My father the Emperor only had one true friend, etc).  In it she mentions her mother telling her something about Fenrig refusing to follow the Emperor's order after Muad'Dib takes the palace, and how they lived in retirement.  But in the Almanak En-Sharaf (the appendix explaining some of the main characters), it says Anirul, the Emperor's wife and Irulan's mother, died when Irulan was very young.

[Dante]

Why are the -400 degrees Kelvin considered a mistake  ? On the contrary I believe it possible that in the future we may discover temperatures less than -273 C.

That's no mistake!! Obviously Frank Herbert meant that in the future there'll be temperatures lower than -273 C (which is 0 Kelvin degrees).

At 0K matter reaches both 0 enthalpy and 0 entropy. Or at least, that's the theory. Nobody has actually got to 0K. They've got to within a fraction of a degree of it, but they haven't got it. Some say it's impossible. I say it's like trying to boil an egg in a saucepan of ice. The theory also states that therefore anything below 0K will not be matter, it will be anti-matter. Well well...

I always just decided that Alia's other memory was the same as Paul's. She was the daughter that should have produced the Kwisatz Haderach after all, her genetics was very close to his. Paul could see into both sides of the other memory, as could Leto II, and I figured that it made sense that Alia could as well.

As for Scytale, I don't think that's a mistake. The Tleilaxu can manipulate genetics, what's to stop them producing a Master with the memories and personality of a deceased Face Dancer? I fail to see the problem.

[Andrew]

And

CoD spoiler

[hide]Didnt Ghanima posess some other memory? Or was she just afraid of the female side (and had no male side)[/hide]

[Mahdi]

All pre-born had the memories of both male and female starting in CoD.  Before that it was just female.

The biggest mistake I ever saw was in Muad'dib being a star constellatioin pointing north int he first half of the book, and a shape in the moon for the second half of the book and on.

There were dozens more (inescapable considering the intricacies of the novel) but that's the one that always stood out to me.  Mostly 'cause I liked the constellation idea more than the moon idea, but the moon is what is kept in the future books.

[Vanguard3000]

Well, it can be both, can't it?  The Muad'Dib was an important image in Fremen mythology.

But I do like the constellation image better, as it pointed north, guiding the Fremen.

[driftingcloud]

I don't think Alia having an inner connection to the Baron is a mistake. Bene Gesserit have always had connections to all of their ancestors, but could only access the female side of their ancestry, hence the need to create a messiah, a boy child who can look where they cannot. It is suggested that going to that place would drive the sister mad, hence the existence of abomination and the various testings and consequences for such a being. Alia being pre-born does not have the built in safeguards against looking in that place that the Bene Gesserit fear, and as was pointed out above, she is supposed to be one generation away from the kwizatz haderach, but is in fact on the same genetic level with the kwizatz haderach. Paul came a generation early. The Bene Gesserit calcuations were off by one generation. So Alia does not know how to differentiate a good spirit from a bad, and her access to the male side is as uninhibited as her brother's.

There is actually a great deal of vagueness regarding the complet nature of the Bene Gesserit in all of FH's works. We never really learn what the totality of their existence is. We get glimpses, surprisingly few in the first few books, but there is a whole lot about them that we are never exposed to. Such as the traditional way a sister becomes a reverend mother. On Arrakis, they use the spice drug from a drowned maker, but surely it is never suggested that anyone is exporting the drowned maker drug to the rest of the off-world Bene Gesserit. Therefore, there must be another method for awakening the inner memories that we are never told about. Much more of the Bene Gesserit world is revealed in the later books, but that is after 4500+ years of evolution and existence under the tyrant's rule. How can we possibly assume that things in HoD and CHD occur exactly as they would during Dune? In fact, the way the Bene Gesserit are treated in the prequels really offends me as the mystery is pretty much thrown out the window. Everyone and their brother knows everything about the Bene Gesserit breeding programs, and how they operate on a day-to-day basis. Piter is even able to make the Baron some voice-resistant earplugs! That one just never sat well with me at all!

On the Scytale thing, you will recall that the Duncan gholas were bred in a variety of guises, some as mentats, some as killers, almost every conceivable combination was tried both to try to kill the tyrant and to please him over some 3500 years. So we learn that they have been doing the same with Scytale over they years. It is no surprise that after a certain point, Scytale will become a Tleilaxu Master. You amass enough lives and I am certain people will call you master too! There is another ambiguity in this one again (I love the abiguities!) in that if Scytale is a ghola of a ghola of a ghola, ad infinitum, then how many other Tleilaxu are as well? Is there a secret of their existence wrapped up in this one little expose? How could they give preferential treatment to one master, Scytale, and allow him hundreds of lives, but not offer the same to other worthy Tleilaxu?

The point about Paul not catching the "Liet" reference: Yes, they didn't know if Liet was real or a god at that point. Also, Paul may be Bene Gesserit trained, but he is not as trained as his mother. Recall the moment when he tries to use the voice in the thopter on the two Harkonnen guards. He is still a young boy, not fully cognizant of his abilities, and bound to be distracted and miss a few things. If he knew Chakobsa and could read encoded messages under leaves and catch every nuance of the fremen life that his mother does, then his mother would be a useless character for the rest of the book. Paul is the first of his kind, and he is bound to make mistakes and miss a few details along the way. He chose the easier path in the long run, that of messiah, and then of martyr. His son is the one with the courage to really manipulate the world as he sees fit. Paul is perhaps pre-ordained to choose the path that is safest as he sees it and that path will be reflected in his choices and observatiosn as a young man. It is the temptation of prescience after all. To know the future is to be trapped by the future.

[NHJ BV]

On Arrakis, they use the spice drug from a drowned maker, but surely it is never suggested that anyone is exporting the drowned maker drug to the rest of the off-world Bene Gesserit. Therefore, there must be another method for awakening the inner memories that we are never told about. Much more of the Bene Gesserit world is revealed in the later books, but that is after 4500+ years of evolution and existence under the tyrant's rule.

Now that you mention it, it is also impossible for the BG (I think) to amass enough "drowned-maker drug" to be able to continuously supply themselves with Reverend Mothers. Or is this explained somewhere?

Piter is even able to make the Baron some voice-resistant earplugs! That one just never sat well with me at all!

Where did this happen? I don't remember it  ???

[Andrew]

I thought the BG used pure spice essence or just plain spice overdose, kinda like concentrated spice from the worms (but not from drowned worms, just their spice).

[Dante]

Me too. Concentrated spice.

[Spectral Paladin]

Regarding the negative Kelvin thingy it may turn out to be impossible to lower temperature below 0K, then again it may turn out to be possible. My point is that Frank Herbert made no mistake, he was aware of the fact that currently we can't achieve temperature below 0K and it was merely a fictitious element.

As for Scytale being a face dancer and then becoming a Master, that seems highly unlikely since the face dancers are quite different from masters. They are mules, considered inferior, and I don't think a ghola can be made out of 'em.

[hide]The Face Dancers in Chapterhouse: Dune even after gathering enough personnas and becoming independent, there still is no mention that they had become similar to masters[/hide]

Furthermore, as I said earlier if Scytale is just a common name, why is Master Scytale presented as the one to have spoken to Paul?

Lastly, when reading the books I did not get the impression spice essense is just concentrated spice, I 'm not sure though, maybe I 'll look it up.

[Dante]

It's not a common name, it's the same person. The same person, with the same memories and personality. Fact is that he has been 'grown' again and again and at some point the Masters saw fit to slice a gene somewhere and make him one of them. Not complicated.

[Spectral Paladin]

How was he grown again and again? And when the Masters decided to make him one of them, how did they do it? How could they transform an inferior, mule, obedient to them creature into one of them?

[Dante]

Have you even read the books?

[Spectral Paladin]

Unless I 'm wrong what you describe is the way the Tleilaxu made themselves immortal, not their face dancers. The face dancers they grew out of tanks weren't created by people's genes nor did they have memory of previous lives. Where is that mentioned in the books? The only memories they appear to have come from people whose personnas they 've copied.

[Khan]

Regarding the negative Kelvin thingy it may turn out to be impossible to lower temperature below 0K, then again it may turn out to be possible. My point is that Frank Herbert made no mistake, he was aware of the fact that currently we can't achieve temperature below 0K and it was merely a fictitious element.

But there is a minimum temperature, just as, theoretically there should be a maximum temperature. When you cool any object down you are taking away it's internal energy, so the molecules of the object become slower and slower. Eventually the molecules will stop moving all together and therefore all of their energy is gone, at this point there is no possible way that the molecules can get any slower. Absolute zero is real, even if we can't reach it. And experiments have been done which show that it is most likely to be -273 C, and while they may be out by 5 or even 10 degrees, they aren't out by 400.

[Dante]

Unless I 'm wrong what you describe is the way the Tleilaxu made themselves immortal, not their face dancers. The face dancers they grew out of tanks weren't created by people's genes nor did they have memory of previous lives. Where is that mentioned in the books? The only memories they appear to have come from people whose personnas they 've copied.

The Face dancers are Tleilaxu. The lowest members of society, but Tleilaxu nevertheless. And of course they were created from people's genes, what else could have been used? And the face dancers don't have previous memories, hence why the Scytale afterwards was a Master, not a Face dancer.

[Vanguard3000]

At the time of Dune, the Bene Gesserit didn't use the Water of Life to initiate Reverend Mothers.  Jessica says this when she is taking the Water of Life.  She says it must be similar to their practises, but different in many ways as well (although nothing is specified).  Also, when seeing the memories of the previous Reverend Mothers flooding into her, she sees that the Fremen used this same technique even before Arrakis, using the poisons from a plant while on Rossak.

[Spectral Paladin]

But there is a minimum temperature, just as, theoretically there should be a maximum temperature. When you cool any object down you are taking away it's internal energy, so the molecules of the object become slower and slower. Eventually the molecules will stop moving all together and therefore all of their energy is gone, at this point there is no possible way that the molecules can get any slower. Absolute zero is real, even if we can't reach it. And experiments have been done which show that it is most likely to be -273 C, and while they may be out by 5 or even 10 degrees, they aren't out by 400.

Gee, even if it is scientifically proven that it is impossible to get below -273 C, that doesn't mean Frank Herbert made a mistake and thought there are negative numbers on the Kelvin scale... he probably only had more vague information on this and thought that in thousands of years we may get below -273.

And of course they were created from people's genes, what else could have been used?

That is your assumption? Plus in the end of Chapterhouse when the two Face Dancers talk to each other it is clearly said that their Masters never expected them to become that independent, let alone become a master  :O!!

[Dragoon Knight]

Well, I've found a flaw to end all flaws.

[Andrew]

That was for a good laugh indeed!

But I hope you know what it really meant...

I can see it now, Paul can't see what the Guild want, so he explodes. (Yes I know he wasn't yelling damnation because he couldn't see the guild, he was yelling at Stilgar for wanting him to see into the future etc etc.)