The Ones of Many Faces

[MrFlibble]

One of the many things that left me wondering in Heretics is this mention of the people from the Scattering who aid Burzmali, Lucilla and Duncan, claiming that they are the enemies of the Honored Matres. One of those people is shown to be able to change her appearance:

Lucilla wet her lips with her tongue. Sirafa spoke with the confident assurance of a House Proctor.

Sirafa draped the dragon robe over the back of the settee. She stood revealed in a clinging black leotard that concealed nothing of a body still lithe and supple, even well rounded. The body looked much younger than the face. As Lucilla looked at her, Sirafa passed her palms across her forehead and cheeks, smoothing them backward. Age lines grew shallow and a younger face was revealed.

A Face Dancer?

Lucilla stared hard at the woman. There were none of the other Face Dancer stigmata. Still...

"Get your robe off!" Sirafa ordered. Now her voice was younger and even more commanding.

The origins of these people are obscured, and IIRC they are not mentioned again in Chapterhouse. Another quote from that scene in Heretics:

"Very good. But I will have to instruct her. She must make no mistakes or they will have both of you like that!" Sirafa clapped her hands for emphasis.

Where have I seen that gesture? Lucilla asked herself.

Duncan touched the back of Lucilla's right arm, his fingers secretly quick-talking: "That hand clap! A mannerism of Giedi Prime."

Other Memories confirmed this for Lucilla. Was this woman part of an isolated community preserving archaic ways?

Do you think these people could have something to do with the Ones of Many Faces the Honored Matres fear so much, as revealed in Chapterhouse?

"Embassies from great religions are on Gammu now," Sirafa said. "Some you have never encountered. They are from what you call the Scattering."

"And what do you call it?"

"The Seeking." Sirafa raised a placating hand. "Do not fear! We have a common enemy."

"The Honored Matres?"

Sirafa turned her head to the left and spat on the floor. "Look at me, Bene Gesserit! I was trained only to kill them! That is my only function and purpose!"

Lucilla spoke carefully: "From what we know, you must be very good."

"In some things, perhaps I am better than you."

[Dunenewt]

I'm going to have to reread HoD before any kind of response.  Its not something I've picked up on in the past though, interesting.

[gunner154]

Damn, I somehow don't remember this at all...

[Dante]

Me neither. Clearly it was made up, if none of us can remember it. Burn the witch!

[SandChigger]

What ... you mean Flibble is a Wiccan?  ??? :O

Maybe it's something FH planned to come back to in "Dune 7"?

(I got no joy for you at the moment, either.)

[Dunenewt]

Damn, Flibble has stumped us all...

[MrFlibble]

Come on, I did nothing more than re-read Heretcis. It wasn't even a thorough re-reading from the beginning till end, more of re-reading single chapters or 2-3 chapter sequences picked at random. I've wondered about these mysterious people a while ago, but did not start ay discussion of them back then.

[arnoldo]

One of the many things that left me wondering in Heretics is this mention of the people from the Scattering who aid Burzmali, Lucilla and Duncan, claiming that they are the enemies of the Honored Matres. One of those people is shown to be able to change her appearance:The origins of these people are obscured, and IIRC they are not mentioned again in Chapterhouse. Another quote from that scene in Heretics:Do you think these people could have something to do with the Ones of Many Faces the Honored Matres fear so much, as revealed in Chapterhouse?

They could be Handlers who hunted the HM with futars.  My guess is that they were trying to play the BG against the HM for their own Ascendancy.  To their shock, Odrade does the unexpected and attempts to unite these two warring factions.  In Hunters of Dune, it is revealed that Murbella's implementation of Odrade's plan to unite the BG and HM is being thwarted by face dancers.  Most of the rebel HM who refuse to unite with the BG are in fact led by face dancers disguised as Honored Matre commanders. 

[MrFlibble]

My guess is that they were trying to play the BG against the HM for their own Ascendancy.

What made you come to such a conclusion? ???

[arnoldo]

What made you come to such a conclusion? ???

From reading Sandworms of Dune. . .Khrone, the leader of the face dancers, seeks to weaken the BG and HM simultaneously for their own purposes. 

[SandChigger]

Yes, bad fan fiction written twenty-some years after the fact really can open up the secrets of Frank Herbert's Dune novels.  ::)

[Wolf]

Well... and I thought Khrone was the Blood God of the Chaos Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000. Good to know that the modern iteration of Dune isn't utterly bereft of creativity.

My own personal opinion (only from reading Chapterhouse) was that the face dancers--who had always been something of a dark mirror of the Bene Gesserit--had finally achieved their own success in the area of superhuman breeding, and had reached their own new stage in human evolution. My own take (having read Chapterhouse at about the same time I was reading some of Ray Kurzweil's work) was that the face dancers had reached a trans- or post-human state. Much as Paul, Leto II, and Duncan were the realization of a higher stage of human evolution in one direction, different "environmental" concerns had produced the "ones of many faces," which I, at the time, took to include the fabled Daniel and Marty. It's a lengthy discussion, but I believe the Bene Gesserit school's goal was to create a being with perfect or near-perfect genetic memory, and a perfect, or near-perfect ability for the emergent consciousness to control directly the body's physical states--down to the cellular level. The Bene Tleilax school's goal, if it even had one, seems to have been in the opposite direction: by stealing physical states and, eventually, even personalities, the Bene Tleilax had no need for "genetic memory," or the ability of the emergent conscious to control physical states. Indeed, it seemed to be the reverse: the physical states of the Tleilaxu began to control the emergent consciousness of face dancers. Truly, Daniel and Marty would have been a terrifying foe.

EDIT: At the risk of pulling a Hwi, I wanted you all to know that this is a debate that is ongoing, even today. "Emergent Downward Causation" is a term that describes the possibility for an emergent, or conscious state to have an impact on the physical states that produce it. Should that prove to be true, then there's certianly the possibility that--on a very basic level, mind you--Frank Herbert wasn't far off the mark in the 1950s and 60s. I don't know about you all, but I find that fairly impressive: I defy you to put your fingers on what will be the key issues in 50 years in about a dozen different fields ranging from environmental law to neuroscience, and be right.

[MrFlibble]

From reading Sandworms of Dune. . .Khrone, the leader of the face dancers, seeks to weaken the BG and HM simultaneously for their own purposes. 

Well, are there any indications that the Face Dancers and the people that help Lucilla and Burzmali in Heretics are the same thing? It is specifically stated in the quote above that Lucilla doubted if Sirafa was a Face Dancer, as the usual signs were not present.

Well... and I thought Khrone was the Blood God of the Chaos Space Marines from Warhammer 40,000. Good to know that the modern iteration of Dune isn't utterly bereft of creativity.

The only thing is that the name's spelled differently :) Good observation, anyway.

My own personal opinion (only from reading Chapterhouse) was that the face dancers--who had always been something of a dark mirror of the Bene Gesserit--had finally achieved their own success in the area of superhuman breeding, and had reached their own new stage in human evolution. My own take (having read Chapterhouse at about the same time I was reading some of Ray Kurzweil's work) was that the face dancers had reached a trans- or post-human state. Much as Paul, Leto II, and Duncan were the realization of a higher stage of human evolution in one direction, different "environmental" concerns had produced the "ones of many faces," which I, at the time, took to include the fabled Daniel and Marty.

Let us not forget that the topic, however misleading its title might be, was supposed to be about the mysterious people who helped Lucilla and Burzmali, and whose status as Face Dancers/Tleilaxu was not confirmed. The more interesting it would be if FH actually hinted at the fact that some other faction unrelated to the Tleilaxu developed similar appearance-altering techniques.

The Bene Tleilax school's goal, if it even had one, seems to have been in the opposite direction: by stealing physical states and, eventually, even personalities, the Bene Tleilax had no need for "genetic memory," or the ability of the emergent conscious to control physical states. Indeed, it seemed to be the reverse: the physical states of the Tleilaxu began to control the emergent consciousness of face dancers.

The stealing of physical states per se was not the "goal" of Bene Tleilax; their ultimate goal was to conquer the powindah universe. The Face Dancers' ability to mimic appearance and behavior of other people required the stealing of physical states, as you put it, to avoid detection. It backfired when the Face Dancers mimicked their targets so well that they actually became the people they impersonated. Daniel and Marty seem to be another development of this, when the accumulated personae granted the Face Dancers extreme powers.

As for the Bene Tleilax not needing any "genetic memory", they had a pretty nice analog of the Other Memory in the form of serial ghola-lives of their Masters.

[MrFlibble]

I've just discovered an interesting passage in Chapterhouse that seems to be related to the one from Heretics I quoted in the first post:

The heart of the message was fascinating. Futars wished to ally themselves with Reverend Mothers in opposition to Honored Matres. How much of a force these Futars commanded was difficult to assess, Dortujla said.

"They refused to say when I asked."

Odrade had assessed many stories about Futars. Killers of Honored Matres? There were reasons to believe it but Futar performance was confusing, especially in accounts from Gammu.

"How many in this party?"

"Sixteen Futars and four Handlers. That's what they called themselves: Handlers. And they say Honored Matres have a dangerous weapon they can use only once."

"You only mentioned Futars. Who are these Handlers? And what is this about a secret weapon?"

"I reserved mention of them. They appear to be human within variables noted from the Scattering: three men and a woman. As to the weapon, they would not say more."

"Appear to be human?"

"There you have it, Mother Superior. I had the odd first impression they were Face Dancers. None of the criteria applied. Pheromones negative. Gestures, expressions - everything negative."

"Just that first impression?"

"I cannot explain it."

It seems that the Handlers produce the same impression on Dortujla as Sirafa on Lucilla. They might very well belong to the same group. The more interesting it is, then, that Sirafa displays a mannerism from the old Giedi Prime days, indicating that either her memory or the tradition of her people went back to those times (although it is also possible that this was just an act of deception, aimed at Lucilla's access to Other Memory that supplied her with the information about the Giedi Prime hand clap).