The Dune Encyclopedia

by Willis E McNelly

  W.E.M.

  Further references: HARQ AL-HARBA; Karené Ambern, Champagne in My Slipper: The Autobiography, as told to Ruuvars Dillar (Zimaona: Kinat); Izhnaikas Bauf, The Great Cryptogram. Rakis Ref. Cat. 31-BL9O4; S. T. Duub, Half-a-Dozen Harbas, Rakis Ref. Cat. 42-BL65; Cybele Harik. The Prince/The Playwright (Zimaona: Kinat); Tovat Gwinsted, Chronicles of the Conquerors (Caladan: INS); A. J. Kiilwan, The Man Who Was al-Harba, Rakis Ref. at. 75-BL791; E S. Marik, Monuments of Atreidean Drama, 5 v. (Grumman; Hartley Univ. Press); Pander Oulson, St. Alia, Huntress of a Billion Worlds, Rakis Ref. Cat. 2-A439; Naib Guaddaf, Judgment on Arrakeen, Rakis Ref. Cat, 29-Z182; Bsh. Joon Piitpinail, Al-Ada Is al-Harba, Rakis Ref. Cat. S-BL469; Tonk Shaio, Arrakeen Corners, Rakis Ref. Cat. 61-BL757; Kurt Zhuurazh, Al-Ada and al-Harba, Rakis Ref. Cat. 27-BL637.

  AMPOLIROS, LEGEND OF

  A pre-Guild legend appearing on many planets, including Arrakis, Ix, Kronin, Reenol, Ecaz, Caladan, Bela Tegeuse, Giedi Prime, Gamont and all the planets of Niushe. It tells the story of the "starsearcher" spacecraft Ampoliros, in reality a limited-range interplanetary cruiser of class three, power amplitude 7. In the legend the Ampoliros takes on grander proportions, becoming a class nine, power amplitude 35, long-range explorer with the military capability of a support fighter.

  In the legend's simplest form, Captain Fregonokon and her crew of fourteen had set off toward the Niushe system in the year 480 B.G., a significantly difficult journey in those days before faster-than-light travel. About two-thirds of the way to their destination they came upon an abandoned cargo ship adrift in space. Upon returning from examining the empty ship they resumed their journey. Two weeks later the entire crew was stricken by what must have been an anticytologic microspore. The manifestations were high fever, sweating, dizziness and dementia magnum. In a word, the crew went mad. They experienced the rarest form of psychosis, group paranoia. In a matter of three weeks they became convinced that all of civilization had been destroyed by an invasion force of hideous aliens who attacked with unstoppable weapons from invisible starships. They radioed this information to all receivers using the widest spectrum of emergency bands.

  The crew told of their decision to strap themselves to their guns and fly until they ran out of stores, searching for the invisible aliens, hoping to attack and destroy at least some of them before starvation or the aliens killed them. The Ampoliros was never found. It is said to be still searching the stars, ever ready to attack; the time-dilation effect of near-light speed travel making the crew almost immortal.

  The legend was often used to explain to children how allowing themselves to be carried away by imaginary fears could lead to real difficulties. It was also used to suggest to adults that too much idle time was destructive to a well-tuned army or skilled work force. "Forever prepared and forever unready" was often a phrase used to deride the crew of the Ampoliros and the state of any tactical force that has waited too long to be tested in a real fight.

  The legend was at times embellished by such changes as having some of the crew die of fever or abandon ship alone in deep space. Another version says they went mad not from microspore infestation but from the colossal, crushing loneliness of deep space. In its various forms the legend describes the crew as suffering real or fanciful symptoms such as emotional seizures, tremors of the eye muscles, ego hemorrhaging and braincell fusion. Often the story speaks of the crew engaging in attacks on other friendly vessels, planets, asteroids, and even imaginary targets such as scanner blips and psycho-projections.

  The legend is first recorded as being part of the folk culture of Bela Tegeuse; from there it was carried to most of the planets of the pre-Guild system. Of course, in the post-Guild era it spread to scores of other planetary systems. The legend is said to have been still popular well into the second millennium of Lord Leto II's reign. But its popularity diminished as space travel came to be less of a factor in the daily lives of most communities.

  Further references: Zheraulaz Kin, Ballads from the Border Stars, Studies in Atreidean History 263 (Paseo: Inst. of Galacto-Fremen Culture); Karal Aniika Zhaivz, Pre-Guild Stories for Children (Caladan: INS); Ikomius Pronimun and G. Duse, More Leaves from the Golden Bough (Fides: Malthan).

  AMTAL or AMTAL RULE

  A philosophical concept with the basic premise that in order to know a thing well, one must know its limits. In other words, only when an object is pushed beyond its limits will its true nature be seen. For societies that live in the harshest of environments, Amtal is the only logical test of objects upon which people depend for survival. On Arrakis, for example, during the years before Paul Muad'Dib, the Fremen were strict practitioners of Amtal. Whether it be a stillsuit to hold the body's water, a thumper to call the great worms of Dune, or a maker hook for capturing and steering the worms, every design as well as every piece of material was tested until it was literally destroyed.

  It is not difficult to understand why such societies would so zealously apply Amtal. Theory could not be depended on if one's own life and the life of the community was at stake. However, such societies rarely viewed Amtal as merely a practical way of reducing the dangers of failure. For the Fremen, Amtal became religious ritual. To them, life on Arrakis was the ultimate test in which all things were known by how they were destroyed. The hostile nature of the environment was superstitiously personified by Shai-Hulud, the indestructible giant sandworm. Only Shai-Hulud appears to have been exempt from Amtal, and the reason seems to be that this deity was the ultimate tester, the final applier of Amtal to all things on Arrakis.

  With such a mythology, Amtal, in even its simplest forms, takes on a metaphorical dimension. In any of its applications it represents life itself, and is applied finally to human beings as well as to objects. If a failed stillsuit meant certain death for an individual Fremen, the failure of a Fremen to carry out a necessary task meant the death of an entire community. All Fremen were, as a consequence, subject to Amtal at all stages of their lives. Every act became a further test to prove the worth of each individual to the community. If an individual failed that test, the consequences were the same as if an object had been pushed beyond its limits: The individual was destroyed.

  It must be pointed out, however, that an individual's failure and death did not necessarily mean shame. For the Fremen, how the individual faced that failure was highly significant. After all, it was in the ending, in the extension beyond natural limits that the truth was revealed. Thus for societies like the Fremen living on Arrakis thousands of years ago, Amtal was the very cycle of life and death.

  Further references: FREMEN CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT; Defa 'l-Fanini, Taaj 'l-Fremen, 12 v. (Salusa Secundus: Morgan and Sharak); Anon., The Traveler's Introduction to Arrakis, Rakis Ref. Cat. 6-Z295.

  ANTEAC, REVEREND MOTHER TERTIUS EILEEN

  A figure treated with curious ambiguity in the mythos of the Holy Church and in the legends of the Oral History, R.M. Tertius Eileen Anteac has become an historical actuality through material discovered in the Rakis Hoard and through subsequent information released from the Bene Gesserit Archives. R.M. Anteac has been known in the legends variously as "the witch" who in some way contributed to the death of both the God Emperor and his Lady Hwi Noree and as the martyr who gave her life in an attempt to follow the God Emperor's orders. From recent information we now see a woman, trained as a Bene Gesserit Truthsayer, who found herself caught between conflicting commitments, both of which were ultimately crucial to her Sisterhood. She stands in the Compendium Matres as a martyr for the Sisterhood and is recorded there as being not only a Truthsayer but also a member of the Sisterhood's General Council, a Mater Felicissima for the final ten years of her life. In this same record, there is an indication she had also received some mentat training, officially illegal during Leto II's Imperium.

  Bene Gesserit records list Paquita as Anteac's birthplace. Though there were no official Bene Gesserit headquarters on that planet during the later part of Leto's empire, some of the professors at the University wer
e Bene Gesserits of Hidden Rank, and apparently one of their "unofficial" duties was to watch for girls who showed signs of having special abilities such as strong analytical skills or empathetic sensitivity. Eileen came to the attention of a Sister during a riot in the square facing the University entrance gates. A group of children and adults were stoning three little girls, calling them "witch's spawn" and accusing them of placing spells on the townspeople. By the time the Sister had called reinforcements and had scattered the crowd, only one of the girls still lived —Eileen.

  Eileen was cared for at the University, and when she was strong enough, she was sent to the Chapter House on Wallach IX for training. All her life Anteac carried a scar on her forehead as a reminder of the day she was almost killed for being a "witch." Academic records show that Anteac was a brilliant analyst, and her training soon specialized in data collection, synthesization, and analysis. She was given parallel work, however, in Truthsayer apprenticeship, her empathetic skills being abnormally high. She became one of the youngest women to be initiated as a Reverend Mother and was apprenticed to the legendary R.M. Marius Luanna Cattalane, the woman who challenged Leto II and regained a small measure of the melange deposit hidden by the Bene Gesserit on Bela Tegeuse during the Corrino era. From R.M. Cattalane, Anteac learned the diplomatic skills for which she was to become famous. By the time she was fifty, Anteac had become one of the most important members of the annual delegation to Arrakis, working closely under her superior, R.M. Syaksa.

  The Bene Gesserit Annals also note that Anteac's philosophy showed a strong sense of the absurd and that she had the sometimes inconvenient habit of expressing her perceptions openly. Some Reverend Mothers, members of an ultraconservative sect within the Sisterhood, attempted to censure what they labeled her "unconventional and disconcerting sense of humor," but were unsuccessful. Anteac was also known as a defender of the younger Sisters when they attempted reforms within the organization: The political support which elected her to the General Council seems to have come from the liberal and radical factions. The records show Anteac as being an intelligent woman fully capable of making independent decisions, taking the responsibility for them, and giving her life in support of their execution.

  Further references: Bene Gesserit Annual Chapter House Reports; Bene Gesserit Compendium Matres; Bene Gesserit Ordines Matres; Leto Atreides II, Journals, Ir. Hadi Benotto, Rakis Ref. Cat.

  ARAMSHAM, OTTO

  The Sardaukar captain discredited in the Arrakis action of 10193. Having infiltrated Gurney Halleck's crew of melange smugglers, he and his patrol failed to assassinate Paul Atreides when Paul and Gurney were reunited. Later used as an Atreides messenger to House Corrino, he was returned to Salusa Secundus in disgrace. He became obsessed with his failure and with his cowardly refusal to commit suicide when captured by the Fremen. His guilt led to his authorship of The Sardaukar Strike (Salusa Secundus: Ogden) a manic and highly jingoistic history of the soldier-fanatics. More significantly, he founded an extremist group of disenchanted Sardaukar, known as the "Final Force," which advocated a return to the spartan regimen of past glories. Some one hundred years later, (11099-11103) this group joined with Duncan Idaho in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the God Emperor. Aramsham died a bitter man, feeling that he had never atoned for his sin. While the circumstances of his death are uncertain, one account indicates he died in 10196 of wounds received when he attacked Count and Lady Fenring as they returned from Rakis with the deposed Shaddam IV (see LADY MARGOT FENRIG). However, the time involved in his return, his writing of The Sardaukar Strike, and his formation of the "Final Force" make his death at such an early date unlikely. Another, more acceptable record indicates he committed ritual suicide.

  ARRAKEEN, Conservatory

  When she explored the old government mansion at Arrakeen, the Lady Jessica discovered a wet-planet conservatory concealed beyond an airlock, with a palm lock on the oval outer door. This room, about ten meters square, was not part of the building's original construction but had been added to the roof as a bridal present from Tsimpo, one of the early governors of Arrakis, to his fourth wife, Hawtina, who came from the water planet Humidis. Filter glass was used to convert the harsh, white sun of Arrakis into a softer yellow light source. Every available space in the room was crowded with exotic wet-climate plants, mostly dwarf varieties kept in pots or severely pruned. The plants included mimosa; a flowering quince; dwarf cypresses and cedars; a sondagi, the fern tulip of Tupali; a green-blossomed pleniscenta, grown for its rich fragrance; a green-and-white-striped Akarso from Sikun; false orchids; a golden kowhai; flowering fogwood from Ecaz; giant mosses and broad-leaved aspidistras. Above all there were fabulous roses of several varieties, pink, white, blue, variegated. In the center of the room was a small low fountain with fluted lips. Water was distributed among the fern trees and thirsty rubber plants by a simple clock-set servok with pipe and hose arms. A more elaborate robotic mulcher and dresser, the design of which was well outside the Butlerian limits, performed automatic gardening routines; it was programmed to remain concealed within the wall when humans were present.

  Lady Jessica's predecessor as chatelaine, Margot, Lady Fenring, left a warning message to her Bene Gesserit sister in this private room. Jessica found a note which cryptically directed her to a hidden message on the under surface of a fan leaf overhanging the table. The warning was found too late to prevent the hunter-seeker attack on Paul, but the fountain was useful in shorting out the deadly sliver's motor.

  The function of the wet-planet conservatory as a haven for the homesick wives of governors on a desert planet, as a supremely luxurious enclosed garden of delights, was less important to the Atreides family than its political significance. On a planet where the natives resented date palms for the amount of water they consumed, the idea of a sealed room in which water that could support at least a thousand persons was wasted on exotic plants was anathema. The conservatory was known to the Fremen as the "weirding room" — fit only for witches — and it is recorded that the head housekeeper of the mansion, the Shadout Mapes, regarded the room with loathing. The conspicuous waste of water was a deliberate status symbol, a statement of the power and wealth of the Imperial government. Duke Leto properly terminated the grossly humiliating custom of water slopping at government dinners, but when the water-shipper Lingar Bewt challenged him to extend the principle to the conservatory, the Lady Jessica intervened with a response that made a significant impression on the planetologist, Liet-Kynes. Bewt had said: "I'm curious what you intend about the conservatory attached to this house. Do you intend to continue flaunting it in the people's faces... m'Lord?" Jessica replied: "My Lord, the Duke, and I have other plans for our conservatory. We intend to keep it, certainly, but only to hold it in trust for the people of Arrakis. It is our dream that someday the climate of Arrakis may be changed sufficiently to grow such plants anywhere in the open." This response chimed so well with the most precious dream of Liet-Kynes, the gradual transformation of the desert planet to a paradise flowing with water, that he asked her directly whether she brought "the shortening of the way." Jessica's response completely changed the attitude of this influential Fremen to the Atreides government.

  In the message left for the Lady Jessica by Margot, Lady Fenring lay a deeper warning or lesson conveyed by the conservatory: "The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulge. On that path lies danger." Liet-Kynes said something to Jessica of similar import: "Remember that growth itself can produce unfavorable conditions unless treated with extreme care." The Fremen coveted water greedily: to put it crudely, they were dupes for the ecological dreams of Liet-Kynes as fulfilled by Paul Muad'Dib and they did not understand the danger to them in the dream's so-rapid fulfillment. Consequently, they were destroyed as a race. Packed into Jessica's wet-planet conservatory was genocidal dynamite.

  The Fremen awe at the idea of duplicating the conditions of the conservatory over a whole planet sprang forth after Paul and Jessica reoccupied the A
rrakeen house. Jessica went to the "weirding room" and Paul explained to Stilgar that she was "sick with longing for a planet she may never see… Where water falls from the sky and plants grow so thickly you cannot walk between them." Stilgar's reverent response showed to Paul how much he had become a creature of the Lisan al-Gaib, the Giver of Water. Stilgar was thereby lessened. It was also an omen of the jihad that would send the Fremen offplanet to goggle at rivers, lakes, oceans and jungles — and then to seek their reduplication on Dune.

  After the jihad years, Paul was content-plating a moonlit enclosed garden at Arrakeen, with its fish pond, its sentinel trees, their broad leaves and wet foliage, when he momentarily saw the garden through Fremen eyes: alien, menacing, dangerous in its use of water. It is recorded that he thought men of the Water Sellers, their way destroyed by the lavish dispensing from his hands, who hated him because he had slain their past. Others hated him for changing the old ways. Muad'Dib's presumption in making over a whole planet had yet wider implications. The universe beyond would hate the name of Atreides when Arrakis had become itself a larger wet-planet conservatory, although it would be loathed and coveted not for its water but for its desert-derived spice and the power it symbolized.

  Further references: ARRAKIS, KYNES, PARDOT; Atreides, Lady Jessica, The Years on Arrakis, tr. Zhaiv Aultan (Caladan: Apex).

  ARRAKEEN, Palace Construction at.

  The palace at Arrakeen, the single most colossal structure known in all of human history, was built during the twelve-year reign of Paul Muad'Dib and the Fremen Jihad. Its construction was financed by spice trade: the jihad and the demands placed on the Guild navigators, encouraged by deliberate Imperial policy, inflated the already high value of spice so greatly that Arrakis became the wealthiest planet of the Imperium. The labor for the building of the palace was in largest part supplied by the transport to Arrakis of huge workforces from planets conquered by the jihad. Also, many whole structures from subjected planets were brought in heighliners to become part of the palace. The most important eye-witness accounts of the interior of the Imperial Keep are those of Farok, who was entertained there with other Fremen warriors at a feast celebrating the Molitor victory, and more extensively those of R.M. Gaius Helen Mohiam. Farok was not overimpressed: "It was cold in all that stone despite the best Ixian space heaters… He has trees in there, you know — trees from many worlds. And somewhere deep inside, I am told, he and Chani live a nomadic life and that all within the walls of their Keep. Out to the Great Hall he comes for the public audiences. He has reception halls and formal meeting places, a whole wing for his personal guard, places for the ceremonies and an inner section for communications. There is a room far beneath his fortress, I am told, where he keeps a stunted worm surrounded by a water moat with which to poison it. There he reads the future." The Emperor entered and left the Keep by a 'thopter landing jutting from an inner wall.