The Dune Encyclopedia

by Willis E McNelly

  In order for the pseudo-life to gain access to the child's consciousness, the child must initiate active communication by "calling" individuals. The more frequently the child "calls" a persona, the stronger the persona becomes, eventually being able to intrude upon the host consciousness at will. At some relatively early stage, the personae can be discerned to be either benign or malignant. The malignant individuals vie for domination of the host, but the benign can be persuaded to form a union called a "mohalata." Bene Gesserit training and encouragement can support the formation of a mohalata which then can serve as a protective barrier between the individual malignant persona and the host. If no mohalata is formed, the host is in danger of possession. The dominant malignant persona must first take control of the mind, then the nervous system, and finally the musculature. At this stage the body and mind no longer function at the host's will but are forever in the control of the pseudolife. To those not of the Bene Gesserit, the actions of such a "possessed" person can be construed as combinations of classic psychotic behavior, primarily involving schizophrenia, paranoia, and manic depression. The Bene Gesserit and their myth-dominated subcultures, however, do not call upon psychologists or psychiatrists to aid the afflicted person. Instead, ritualistic forms of trial determine Possession or Abomination; a guilty verdict brings death.

  The Bene Gesserit, believing the state of Abomination and Possession to be the most evil within which a person can live, give five "commandments" by which the Sisterhood hopes to avert any occurrence of this condition. They are found in The Azhar Book as "Protections Against Abomination":

  No woman who has become one with the Water of Life may thereafter bear a child.

  No woman may ever feel safe from the threat of possession, being mole susceptible than a man.

  No woman with child can participate in any form of the Water of Life ceremony on pain of death.

  No child born tinier the accursed conditions shall be suffered to live.

  No adult found to be possessed, even if born outside of the condition of abomination, shall be suffered to live.

  Almost all information an Abomination comes from Bene Gesserit documents. Yet, even though the Sisterhood created the appellation, then are questions which remained unanswered. For example, must one be an Abomination before one can be possessed? If so, why are all the Bene Gesserits trained in precise nerve and muscle control? The B.G. Basic Training Manual states in its introduction that "only through profound prana-bindu control can we be protected against possession." Perhaps possession and abomination were terms used indiscriminately to classify violent abnormal behavior or behavior threatening to the group as a whole, allowing the Bene Gesserit to avoid more expensive and time-consuming methods of diagnosis and treatment.

  In the Bene Gesserit open files in the Wallach IX library. Abomination Inquiry folios show surveillance of seven hundred suspected people between the Great Revolt and the God Emperor, five hundred and twenty of whom were executed. The file on Alia Atreides indicates that the most serious cases arose after the introduction of the Fremen Water of Life into the Sisterhood's rituals. This information corresponds with the recent hypothesis that the Atreides line carried a defective chromosome introduced by the line, a defect susceptible to the chemical composition of melange and the fluid of the dying "Little Maker" of the Fremen culture. Leto II acknowledges a dominant pseudo-life (a "Harum") in his recently discovered Journals, but so far there is no evidence to show that Ghanima was afflicted. (For an extensive discussion of the Bene Gesserit view of the Alia Case, see ATREIDES, ALIA, AS ABOMINATION.)

  Further references: AZHAR BOOK; Anon., The Azhar Book, ed. K.R. Barauz, AS 49 (Grumman: United Worlds); Pyer Briizvair, ed., Summa of Ancient Belief and Practice (Bolchef; Collegium Tarno); Sin Quadrin, Static Barriers of the Cerebral Cortex (Richese: U. of Bailey Press); Psechlitac Manni, "The Correlation of Mystic States and Psychotic States in Ancient Mythos; Abomination, Possession, or Psychosis?" Antares Journal of Medicine, 99: 135-168.

  AGARVES, BUER

  (10185-10219) One of the chief aides to Alia Atreides during her regency. Buer Agarves was born at Sietch Tabr, the only son of Zagros and Nacher in a family of four daughters. As a relative of Stilgar, Naib of Sietch Tabr, Buer was welcome in the yali of Paul Muad'Dib and thus counted Stilgar's and Harah's sons among his playmates. As a child he attended classes in language and other skills, learned the ways of the desert on long sojourns into the sand wilderness, and enjoyed the games and activities of childhood in and around the sietch. In his Diary, of which only a fragment remains, Agarves speaks nostalgically of hunting scorpions by light of a handglobe and of playing in the soft sands at the cliffbase.

  His childhood seems uneventful except for one fateful incident. Agarves notes in his Diary that, although he was only six years old at the time, he remembered vividly the upheaval in the sietch when Stilgar and his group returned with two outworlders: Usul and his mother Jessica.

  Agarves was also present at Sietch Tabr, a young man of twenty-four, when Paul Muad'Dib returned with Chani to await the birth of their children. A small man, Agarves had by this time the round-faced, sensual good looks that were later to attract Alia, a characteristic nervousness of manner, and an unshakable faith in the divinity of the Atreides. Agarves heard an account of the dramatic events attending the birth of the Atreides twins, including the sudden death of Scytale, the Face Dancer, from a crysknife thrown by the blind Paul. This act, as Agarves' rapturous comments in his Diary attest, greatly increased his fear and awe of the Atreides.

  Following Muad'Dib's disappearance into the desert, Agarves was brought to Arrakeen by Stilgar and given a position in the Temple Commissary. It did not take Agarves long to succumb to the softness of life in the city. According to one anonymous observer, he took to the luxurious life of the Keep "like a worm to the sound of a thumper." In the years that followed — years that saw Agarves go to water-fat — he held a variety of minor positions in the Office of the Minister of Finance and did a short stint in the Agriculture Experimental Center. He then came to the attention of Zia, Alia's Amazon aide and commander of the Temple guards, and was brought into Alia's service. Agarves' Diary does not elaborate on his relationship with Alia. But apparently it was common knowledge that he soon took Javid's place in Alia's bed and became her "little plaything."

  One of Agarves' first duties was to accompany Javid to Sietch Tabr with messages from Alia. He returned to recount the appalling outcome of that fatal mission and to carry Stilgar's "final obedience." According to the Temple Records, Agarves reported that he had been summoned by Stilgar to behold the dead bodies of Javid and Duncan Idaho being prepared for Huanui. Stilgar told him that Idaho had slain Javid and that Stilgar had killed Idaho.

  This account, however, does not jibe with Agarves' own version of the affair as given in his Diary. In his notes, Agarves recalls that he attended Javid the morning they went to Stilgar's quarters. As he stood aside to allow Javid to enter, he saw Idaho turn and sink his knife into the unsuspecting Javid. Although Agarves drew his own knife, he feared to challenge the fabled Duncan Idaho; he could only watch, frozen in indecision, as Idaho goaded Stilgar into a killing, mind-obliterating rage.

  Agarves confesses that he gave the Temple Records account "the small lie," as he called it, from fear of Alia's reprisal if she learned he had stood by and done nothing. He feared Alia had penetrated his lie when she asked, "Was there nothing you could do?" But Agarves felt justified in the deception. "For who knows," he writes in the final entry of his fragmentary Diary, "what the Heavenly Regent wanted me to do? Kill Idaho for killing Javid? Or Stilgar for Idaho? Who can know the mind of the Womb of Heaven?" Apparently, Agarves had seen too many of Alia's rages to risk being the target of one.

  Alia did, in fact, command Agarves to kill Stilgar. Although shocked by an order to slay his old Naib, Agarves energetically applied himself to the task of finding Stilgar, who had fled into the desert. With the limited resources Alia allowed him, howe
ver, Agarves' efforts proved fruitless. His plan was further hampered by Alia's frequent messages recalling him to Arrakeen.

  On one of his trips to Arrakeen, Alia confessed to Agarves that her initial command to kill Stilgar had been born of her ravaging grief. She had now forgiven him and needed Stilgar to return to Sietch Tabr. Having no reason to doubt Alia's sincerity, Agarves agreed to arrange a meeting with Stilgar and left for Red Chasm Sietch with no suspicion of the transmitter that Alia had secreted in the new boots she gave him as a parting gift.

  Nurel, Stilgar's friend at Red Chasm Sietch, was persuaded to send a distrans to Stilgar requesting a parley. When Stilgar consented, Agarves and nine companions were taken blindfolded to the abandoned djedida where Stilgar and his party had taken refuge.

  Although he did his duty in delivering Alia's terms of pardon to Stilgar, Agarves was by this time revolted by Alia's excesses. He denounced her openly, saying, "She fouls me." Agarves had only a moment to revel in his new freedom, however, before Alia's forces, whom he had unwittingly led to the djedida, swarmed into the meeting room. Stilgar had just enough time to bury his crysknife in Agarves' chest before he and his band were overwhelmed.

  Further references: Buer Agarves, Diary, Lib. Conf. Temp. Series 377; Stilgar, The Stilgar Chronicle, tr. Mityau Gwulador, AS 5 (Grumman: United Worlds); Ojah ben Badwi al-Zuqayqa, Temple Records, Rakis Ref. Cat. 1-T74, T75.

  AL-HARBA, HARQ. (also Aitu Cinoli)

  Born Yorba (Cygni Alpha-3) 10246, died Fides (Luytens-2) 10317; married Vela Cinoli 10286(7), four children. The "Dramatist Laureate" of the Atreidean period.

  In a period noted for the richness and variety of its dramatic accomplishments, Harq al-Harba was counted among the first rank of playwrights of his day. Since his death, his reputation has grown and today he is recognized as the absolute master of his time. Prior to the discovery of the Rakis Hoard, his plays were the best known account of the turbulent era from 10150 to 10219.

  LIFE. Harq al-Harba was born Aitu Cinoli (which translates into the Fremen "Harq al-Harba") in the town of Nelopus on the planet Yorba in 10246, the son of a well-to-do tailor and his wife, a music teacher. About his early life and education, nothing is known. According to tradition, he left home at twenty and spent the next ten years traveling between planets as a salesman of minimic filmbooks for the Gwent-Orlov publishing house on Yorba. (The account books of the company have survived, but since they list their personnel by employee identification numbers, they shed no light on this part of al-Harba's life.) If the tradition is correct, al-Harba's job was to depart on the circuit of planets in his territory, carrying with him the latest publications of Gwent-Orlov imprinted on shigawire. On arriving at his destination, he would contact publishers and negotiate with them for the reprint rights to the Yorban works. If he was successful in selling them, the works were transcribed from his minimic film, and he would then seek out local works, buy the reprint rights for them; have them copied onto his compact wire, and travel to the next planet. It was a job that required a good deal of both independent judgment and risk capital, because at no time were the travelers assured of a sale, and their material — the shigawire for the minimic film — was both fragile and extremely expensive.

  In 10276 he apparently decided that he could write as well as the authors whose works he was buying and selling, for he severed his attachment with Gwent-Orlov, and headed for the Imperial capital on Arrakis, where he spent the next thirty-seven years of his life. In 10278, he was discovered by Ghanima Atreides and Farad'n Corrino, who remained his patrons for thirty years.

  His first play, The Sandrider, met with acclaim in Arrakeen in 10280, and a handwritten letter from that year thanking a critic for a favorable review is preserved in the private papers of the Hoffinch family. In 10281 his signature appears (with that of "L. Fen Whately," of whom nothing is known) on the authorization card for an account at the Bank of Arrakeen. In the archives of the University of Aleppo on Grumman is a letter dated 13 nAvlardim 10291 to his publisher, H. H. Kanadel, raising a question about royalty payments. In 10295 he purchased half-interest in an Arrakeen restaurant (not a tavern, as is sometimes claimed), and the contract bears his signature. In 10306, he gave a deposition as a witness in a plagiarism suit brought by a fellow Arrakeen playwright against an author on Salusa Secundus. The original would have been taken to Salusa Secundus for the proceedings, where it has apparently been lost, but the document in the Arrakeen records is a copy attested and sealed by the Court Prothonotary. This comprises the entire documentary evidence of the life of Harq al-Harba in Arrakeen. All else is contained in his works themselves, or in statements by contemporaries and near-contemporaries.

  Tradition has it that he frequently stated in letters (now lost) to friends that he could work only in absolute solitude, seldom leaving his room, and almost never leaving his house. It has been suggested (by Dauwar Gwiltan) that al-Harba became afflicted with agoraphobia from his many space journeys, and the neurosis forced him to turn to writing. While this theory is attractive, and explains many personality quirks of the writer, it has no independent support.

  In 10313 he left Arrakeen and the writing of plays, and retired to an isolated home on Fides, where he died in 10317.

  WORKS. Al-Harba received more public acclaim for his history plays than for any other genre, but he was equally skillful in tragedy and comedy. Although he seems never to have written one of the melodramas so popular in Arrakeen, his plays contain many of the elements that gave the melodramas their appeal. Twenty-one plays are generally accepted as his authentic works, all but two of them included in the famous Works volume, edited by his wife Vela Cinoli, and published on Fides in 10320. In their order of composition, they are:

  10280 The Sandrider (History)

  10281 Kuursar Divided (History)

  10283 Shaddam IV (History)

  10283 The History of Duke Leto, Part I

  10285 The History of Duke Leto, Part II

  10288 "Sook," He Said (Comedy)

  10289 Players at the Game of Pebbles (Comedy)

  10292 The Dusty Palms (Comedy)

  10296 Hasimir (Historical Tragedy)

  10297 The Shuumkee Progressions (Comedy)

  10298 Plenty of Time for Love (Comedy)

  10299 Carthage (Tragedy)

  10300? Not the Worm Ouroboros (Comedy, not incl. in Works)

  10302 Water for the Dead (Tragedy)

  10303 Lichna (Historical Tragedy)

  10304 Ampoliros (Tragedy)

  10304 The Arrakeen Tarot (Tragedy)

  10305 Stilgar's Dream (Tragedy)

  10306 Chani (Historical Tragedy)

  10310 Troubadour, Another Melody (Comedy)

  10312 Don't Drink the Water (Comedy, not incl. in Works)

  Most of the works were originally performed in Fremen, and may indeed have been composed in that language, in which al-Harba was fluent. His native tongue, however, was the Yorban dialect of Galach, and it is thought by some that the translation into Galach of the Works is not a translation at all, but al-Harba's original version of the plays, which he then used as the basis for the Fremen versions. Al-Harba's deep insight into humanity, his understanding of society in its virtues and vices, and above all his profound compassion have made him a writer not of an age, but for all time.

  W.E.M.

  Further references: THE AL-HARBA QUESTION; Blaigvor Ewanz, ed. The Complete Works of Harq al-Harba (Grumman: Tern); Shuuralz H. Spiidak. The Stage History of al-Harba's Plays (Libermann: Pinetree); Muurkét Shaud, Al-Harba's Arrakeen (Grumman: Tern), the standard biography.

  AL-HARBA QUESTION, THE

  If Harq al-Harba the playwright had not been such a supreme embodiment of the dramatist's art, if what we know of the biography of Harq al-Harba the minifilm salesman had not been so little, and if what we do know had not seemed at odds with the qualities we associate with genius, there probably would never have been an al-Harba Question. Other humble people have risen to greatness, and even les
s is known about some of the great Atreideans than is known about the Yorban dramatist. But the interplay of these three factors was certain sooner or later to lead astray minds with a peculiar cast of thought. How, they asked, could the salesman and the poet have been the same man?

  It was not until 10630, more than three hundred years after al-Harba's death, that anyone challenged his authorship of the plays that bore his name. The controversy began with Avelarad Svif-Josif, a minor noble of House Rembo, who expressed doubts that a salesman could have possessed the ability to write the plays credited to him. This reservation was expounded at length by Kurt Zhuurazh, who asserted, in his Al-Ada and al-Harba (10635) that Harq al-Ada (Farad'n Corrino) was the true author of the plays. Admirers of the Royal Scribe have attributed various other Atreidean works to him, and the most liberal adherents of the theory credit him with (besides al-Harba's plays) Pander Oulson's St. Alia: Huntress of a Billion Worlds, Duncan Idaho's The Ghola Speaks and The Hayt Chronicle, and all the works of Princess Irulan; to this considerable total, Cybele Harik (The Prince/The Playwright) adds the authorized translation of the O.C. Bible and even Stilgar's Chronicle in Fremen.

  Thirty years passed (10666) before another contender was proposed: J. T. Duub nominated Count Hasimir Fenring in Half-a-Dozen Harbas. Duub's chief obstacle was Fenring's death in 10225, twenty-one years before Harq al-Harba was born, but as we shall see, this proved no insuperable obstacle to Fenring's proponents.

  A third powerful contingent entered the field in 10710, when A. J. Kiilwan claimed (in The Man Who Was al-Harba) that the plays were actually written by the emperor Leto II.

  COMMON ARGUMENTS. All these schools of thought share certain arguments denigrating the reputed author, Harq al-Harba. These arguments received their fullest expression in Al-Ada is al-Harba (10638), a handsome volume by a retired army officer from Kaitain, Bsh. Joon Piitpinail. He starts with the skimpiness of the documentary evidence for al-Harba, questioning the likelihood that the foremost dramatist of the day would have left so little trace. He then adds four objections, which have reappeared in all later claims.