Speculation (spoiler warning!)

[SiliconWarrior]

Remember those "special weapons" the Honored Matres had? They didn't know how to refill them, or how to make more, so i figure they stole them from the cymeks.

[Anathema]

Didn't Heretics or Chapterhouse mention something about "Ix will be crushed by the competition from the dispersion (or whatever it was called in the enlgish version)? If they were more skilled in science they could easily have made intelligent machines.

[AlteaDeo]

yeah, they where just not bound anymore to the butlerian jihad things...

Still, my though is that, they didn't developped new or higher technologies.... They just founded some relics from the thinking machine, or the thinking machines theselves, and adapted to their needs...

[Anathema]

Also, in GEoD there was the danger that Ix would invent an artificial intelligence- at the end, LetoII said something like:

"Don't worry, Ix won't invent Rafel (or somehting like that)"

Rafel being the end of the universe (as I recall). Ix wouldn't invent it. But that doesn't mean nobody else will.

[Dude_Doc]

Or maybe the phrase "End of the Universe" means end of the universe, no, death of the universe, more specific: end of all life in the universe. Also, maybe Rafel was a beacon for the unknown enemy, so if they invented the Rafel after all, it would draw the machines to the humans, "End of the Universe", or death of humans, something like: "Nooo, I didn't achieve bla bla goal, end of the world", something like that phrase. Indeed the universe will end, for humans :)...

[AlteaDeo]

rafel may be a sort of first artificial intelligence invented, the one at the source of the thinking machine... ?

[Dude_Doc]

Yeah, maybe the machines somehow wanted the humans to invent something, or whatever... I don't know. But I think there is more in Dune if you take a look at the bigger picture. FH for example, always repeats of the Butlerian Jihad in every book, how the humans beated them, why and where everyone came from etc...

[AlteaDeo]

of course he did, that is the base line of everything for the people in his universe!