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Whi was humanity about to die when Leto II saved it?

posted 18 years ago by hero_moneo
17 replies | jump to latest

I know some of u thing that Paul is the reason whi mankind was in danger,but personally i have another opinion.I thing that mankind was condemned since the Spice was discovered.Since then humanity became addicted to this drug and surelly it would dissapeared if Arrakis would be destroyed(or Spice would dissapeared).thing about it:in the Heretics and Chapterhouse ,the people from the Scattering no longer use or deppend on Spice-therefor humanity escaped from it`s addiction.

[–] divk85 18 years ago

Just because you get away from Spice Addiction does not mean you are invincible. In Heretics and Chapterhouse, it is said that now that Leto II killed the need for spice, because the societies that sprang up found other ways of existance than Spice from Arrakis (Like the Guild substituting Ixian machinery and the Tanks), so Spice is no longer the issue. Those that returned from the Scattering were different from the societies who stayed in the known empire (BG, Guild, Fish Speakers, Tleilaxu, etc.). The people from the Scattering that came back, ie. HM, either subjugated or killed, and for the most part they killed. Eventually, the society dominated by the HM would have collapsed in on itself. There was something that drove the Scattered Ones back; if they were not human (perhaps they were machines?), and if the original societies were wiped out, and the Scattered Ones died out because they were being hunted, the Unknown enemies would be left and then humanity (as the BG defined it) would be destroyed.

But thats just what I think, if anyone has something different to say...

That Is All.
The End
Good-Bye.

[–] hero_moneo 18 years ago

Yes u r right:"Just because you get away from Spice Addiction does not mean you are invincible".Leto saved mankind only from this threat(spice addiction).
but humans spread so far in the universe that humanity is no longer an "endangered specie".the HM and the people from the Scattering that came back were afraid of the biologic wars from the Scattering and were looking for something to defend themselves(at least this is what FH says in the book).it is possible that the biologic weapons were created by thinking machines.

[–] LewDux 18 years ago

"but humans spread so far in the universe that humanity is no longer an "endangered specie"

Also humans became unvisible to prescients - Siona gene. That's why I think unknown enemy is not machines - they can't be prescient

Author of this article thinks that humanity is endangered by entropy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prescient

[–] divk85 18 years ago

Well, yes about entropy, but that is only in the real world. We have to suspend some belief, otherwise Dune loses its fun.

That Is All.
The End
Good-Bye.

[–] FrenchCelt 17 years ago

"Also humans became unvisible to prescients - Siona gene. That's why I think unknown enemy is not machines - they can't be prescient"

Well, what about the Ixian navigation machines? I don't think they were computers, or they would have been in violation of the ban on thinking machines.

[–] LewDux 17 years ago

"Well, what about the Ixian navigation machines? I don't think they were computers, or they would have been in violation of the ban on thinking machines."

Already at time of Paul ban on thinking machines wasn't implemented 100%. Metalic eyes for example. Later BG were using computers in libraries and cyborgization to prolong life of driver. SO ban cleary was loosing its power

[–] bikebryan 17 years ago

Ixian eyes and the computers used by the Bene Gesserit to store genetic information did not break the strictures of the Butlerian Jihad. They were simple machines and not "thinking" machines, which is what was the Jihad was all about when the Machines were defeatede.

Ix always pushed the limit, and many people were very suspicious about that.

By the way, how do Ixian metal eyes qualify as thinking machines?

[–] LewDux 17 years ago

Dune 1:
JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt) — the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. ...

we see that thinking machines and computers are different things, both prohibited

Dune 2:
(Paul) was a mentat, an intellect whose capacities surpassed those of the religiously proscribed mechanical computers used by the ancients.
-Analysis of History: Muad'dib by Bronso of Ix (Dune 2)

even mechanical computers were proscribed

As I understand computer is needed to convert optical signals to electric signals so the brain can understand what eyes see

/imho

[–] bikebryan 17 years ago

Perhaps in our time and universe - but not in the duniverse.

The Butlerian Jihad was originally brought about to overthrow the THINKING machines. It was the cult of Reyna that brought about the distrust of ALL machines, although this was conveniently overlooked when it suited them. A simple computer was dangerous, but not a spaceship, for example.

[–] lfeldmar 17 years ago

The threat for mankind was prescience, the fact that the entire species could be controlled by one person, as Paul and Leto II did. Leto saves mankind from that by breeding Siona, who had the gene that made her invisible to prescience, so mankind could never again be dominated by a single tyrant

[–] Ghosthunter123424 17 years ago

The purpose of the mentats is to replace the need for super computers to calculate things with skilled humans. Even a simple calculator would likely have been frowned upon at the very least.

As said though, it is the "duniverse" alot of which seems silly but its fun.

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[–] NoahBody 15 years ago

HM?

[–] mattmatthew808 15 years ago

Why was humanity about to die when Leto II saved it?

First, humanity was not about to die when Leto saved it.

Leto predicted that humanity would eventually extinguish itself, not because of spice addiction, but because of its reliance on prediction in the development of human affairs.

To quote Muad'dib, in Children of Dune:

"Absolute prediction equals death!"

Knowing the future creates stagnation, and stagnation means that people never experience the fears, the sublime joys, the highs and lows that are a part of life. If everything's all awesome or everything's all *beep* what's there to look forward to in life? We know happiness, we know achievement, we know progress, by the contrast of their opposites.

[–] calmeilles 8 years ago

From memory:

Paul saw and Leto also saw that without some stimulus humanity was doomed to stagnation, decadence and eventual extinction. The stultifying feudal society of the Empire was one of the more obvious signs of this.

The Bene Gesserit saw this too, albeit in limited fashion, and in part their breeding program was to stave this off but it was too little and too tightly focused.

Paul could not bring himself to do what was necessary, not willing to be the cause of deaths far in excess even of those caused by the jihad waged in his name.

Leto did it — perhaps in part enabled by the autocratic personality of the ancient Egyptian ancestor which forms such a large part of his personality. Leto's 'Golden Path' is not his reign but the explosive expansion of humanity far beyond the old empire which occurs as a result of his death.