Varying Body Size: The ability to vary apparent body weight was a more complicated matter. As mentioned above, face dancers were bred for slender, almost frail body types. When they needed to impersonate more robust victims, they made use of structures already present in the normal body — the celomic sacs. Adult humans have four major celomic sacs: two pleural sacs, one pericardial sac, and one peritoneal sac. They may be pictured as closed, deflated balloons within the body cavity, surrounding but not containing the inner organs. If one were to drape a large, deflated balloon over one's fist, it can be seen how the balloon (the sac) can surround but not contain the fist (the organs). In the face dancer embryo, the pericardial sac (more accurately, the primordium of the sac) was caused to migrate upward to a position beneath the skin of the neck; the pleural sacs retained their relative positions, but were caused to develop outside rather than inside the rib cage, just below the surface of the skin.
After puberty when the face dancer had attained maximum growth, tubes of artificial tissue were implanted connecting the respiratory system to the celomic sacs. The tubes contained internal valves whose normal position was closed. The face dancer opened the valves by muscular action and, by closing the glottis, pumped air from the lungs into the expanding sacs, much as one might puff up one's cheeks. When the desired size had been achieved, the valve muscles were relaxed and the valves closed, trapping the air inside the sacs until such time as the dancer decided to "deflate," Pumping varying amounts of air into the pleural sacs alone gave an accurate appearance of breasts of the desired size.
As a side note, it might be mentioned that these extra air chambers gave the dancer an advantage in the water. The increased buoyancy of the trapped air made the dancer unsinkable.
The celomic sacs, when inflated, increased the apparent bodily size of the face dancer. Similar small pouches artificially produced within the layers of cheek muscle performed the same disguising function for the face. The overdeveloped muscles along the spine gave a permanent appearance of obesity from the rear, and the size of the arms and legs could be increased somewhat through controllable edemas, although the functioning of this last effect if not fully understood, nor was it as swift and as reliable as the others.
This method was a relative weak spot in the face dancer's disguise: although the face dancer may have looked like he weighed 120 kg, he in fact remained at his normal body weight, perhaps 55 or 60 kg. Moreover, the use of the celomic sacs was one reason why face dancers were never females, nor even true hermaphrodites, but rather immature, sterile males: in the normal female, the uterine tubes open into the peritoneal sac.
Varying the Face: Manipulation of the facial features was the face dancer's most striking ability, if not the most complicated technically. The bones of the skull come from two sources: a specialized layer of embryonic cells called the mesenchyme differentiates either into cartilage, which is replaced by bone, or into a thick, tough membrane also replaced by bone. Replacement of membrane is not complete in the normal human until the sixth year. Face dancers received injections shortly after birth that slowed and eventually stopped ossification, and stimulated replacement of the membrane by muscle like tissue. Later localized injections reversed the cartilage-to-bone process in limited areas. These areas softened into cartilage cells called chondrocytes enclosing masses of disconnected chondrocytes and organic salts. In place of certain facial bones, then, the face dancer had envelopes of elastic cartilage filled with material of a puttylike consistency. This specialized cartilage also replaced the normal material of the nose and ears.
During the years before puberty exercises allowing for the differential stimulation of the muscles of the face were performed daily. Of course, these exercises were not unique to face dancers: the Fremen woman Harah was known to have been disturbed at the sight of Alia sitting and staring at a rock, "moving only one muscle beside her nose" (P. Oulson, St. Alia, Huntress of a Billion Worlds, Ch. 7), an indication of a Bene Gesserit regimen of the same kind. By mastery of these muscles, the face dancer changed such things as the size and shape of his "cheekbones" as easily and quickly as one might smile. For longer-lasting disguises, the face dancer, working from likenesses of the victim, would mold the matter within the cartilage envelopes to the desired form, which would then be retained indefinitely barring some trauma or unusual exertion of the facial muscles.
The muscles that replaced the membranes between the large bones of the vault of the skull could be manipulated to increase or decrease the size of the skull within narrow limits, or to change somewhat the shape of the skull.
Varying Hair and Eye Color. The muscle-covered fontanelles in the skull also indirectly permitted the change of hair color. Cellular manipulation of the embryo created an increased branching of the vertebral artery. Several small extensions of this artery through the fontanelles supplemented the normal flow of blood to the scalp. Early face dancers made use of the time-honored methods of hair dyes and wigs, but later master face dancers could increase the temperature of the scalp through a range of 4° C by consciously varying the supply of blood. These masters had no natural hair on their scalps; instead, each follicle was implanted with a strand containing a liquid crystal which responded to changes in temperature by changing color. The temperature-sensitive part was implanted deep in the skull to protect it from ambient temperature changes. The method was almost a thousand years in development early master face dancers could sometimes have their hair color change in response, for example, to the heat of the sun.
Face dancers could never make quick voluntary changes in the length of their hair. However, they could give the appearance of almost instantaneous growth by still another prenatal modification. Cellular manipulation of the embryo caused certain nerves to develop as voluntary nerve cells rather than as sympathetic autonomic ones. These were the nerves that stimulated the erector muscle attached to the root of each hair (arrectores pilorum). Thus the face dancer could cause his hair to lie flat, to stand on end, or to assume any midway position with astonishing facility. The erection of the hair gave an immediate impression of longer hair, and stimuli to patches of the scalp could make the hair look freshly cut, well trained, or unruly as desired.
Quick changes of eye color could be achieved only by the use of colored contact lenses. Better prepared changes in eye and skin color were produced over several days by stimulating the production of hormones from the pineal and pituitary glands to disperse or concentrate melanin in pigment-containing cells, or to break down the melanin to melanoid, lending a yellowish tint to the skin.
Changes of Sex. It was noted earlier that face dancers were always sexually immature sterile males. The reasons for this were twofold: first, the longstanding parsimony of the Tleilaxu culture caused its technicians to shrink from doing more than was required to produce an effect. It would have been no great trouble, for instance, to close the uterine tubes in the peritoneal celomic sacs of the female. But with males this step was unnecessary; using males represented that much saving of time and labor. The second reason was even more important. Face dancers might be required to impersonate either men or women under conditions where the genitalia might be viewed or required to function. Hence, in the early fetal stage of the male dancer-to-be, hormonal stimulus prevented the urethral groove from closing at the proximal end. Further related measures equipped the face dancer with both a small but functional penis and a functional vagina (face dancers lacked, of course, uterus and ovaries). Relatively minor surgery produced a fold in the mons veneris in which the penis was hidden when the dancer impersonated a woman. The disguise was completed by the voluntary control the face dancer possessed over the cremaster muscles in the scrotum, which allowed the retraction of the testes into the abdomen.
The result of this chemical and hormonal intervention was to make the face dancer operative as either sex, but sterile.
Other Modifications. As a result of their training, face dancers exercised marvelous differential muscular control, an
d yogalike practices endowed them with astonishing control over autonomic nerves, augmented by surgical changes where needed. Even apprentice face dancers were the result of an expensive process of adaptation and training that consumed years of intensive study. For example, as genetic castrati, the face dancers enjoyed an extended vocal range, and voice lessons alone occupied the better part of six years. Similar long investments of time were required to enable the face dancer to give the appearance of youth or old age.
But despite all the miracles of technology, the very best face dancers brought a talent to their work that training and technology could not replace, nor could breeding produce on demand. Talent is not distributed evenly across populations, and the shortage of such individuals following the ascension of Leto II to the throne led to the notable decline of the face dancers during the latter half of his reign. Such misguided tactics as the mass use of face dancers in the attempted assassination of Leto II or the attack on the Ixian embassy on Arrakis show the desperation of the Tleilaxu and the decline of a great if twisted profession.
W.E.M.
Further references: G.Z. Hiivalatan and Z.D. Bwid, "Development of the Tleilax Face Dancer in the First Three Months." Antares J. Anat. 94: 297-328; A.T. Hersag, Z. Rouk and E.S. Iizavz, "A Description of 34 Face Dancers through the First Ten Years of Development," Antares J. Anat. 98: 435-93; R. Kunazhatunfar, "Development of the Face Dancer Celomic Sacs," Atreides Mem. Contrib. Embryol. 124: 59-91; E.K. Sentenag, "The Early Development of the Face Dancer Vertebral Column," Amides Mem. Contrib. Embryol. 133: 21-31; T. Shiganuum, "Comparison of Normal and Face Dancer Skull Development," Interp. Anat. Rec. 376: 183-203.
FAMILY ATOMICS, HISTORY OF
INVENTION TO GREAT CONVENTION. The practice of maintaining stockpiles of atomic weapons as an integral part of a House's defenses began when primitive nuclear weapons were invented on Old Terra on the eve of the Little Diaspora, by the "Raw Mentat," Einstein, who was working for House Washington. When Einstein succeeded in his attempts to construct these weapons, two of the first were used to settle a trade dispute with House Nippon. These weapons were of such a primitive nature that fewer than a million casualties were caused by the explosions — but one must remember that the entire empire at this time had only three billion subjects, all on one planet. The demonstration, though unremarkable by later standards, served two purposes: the destruction of two small cities and the threat of the destruction of others forced House Nippon to concede the lucrative Pacific trade routes to House Washington; and possession of the Empire's only atomic weapons gave House Washington the prestige and power it needed to displace House Windsor.
Naturally, the other Houses Major spared no expense in their own research and espionage efforts in an attempt to equalize their power with that of House Washington. Despite the best efforts of the counterespionage directorates of King George (the first Emperor of House Washington), the secret of how to construct atomic explosives was soon known to House Steel, which immediately began constructing a stockpile and secreting it throughout the House domains in Russia: thereafter, over the course of only thirty years, Houses Windsor (Londinium), Abraham (Jerusalem), Zedong (Khitai), De Gaulle (Zurich?), Ghandi (Indus), and Ul-Haq (Karachi) all had built their own House stocks. It is interesting to note that, even this early in the development of atomics, the Houses Minor were also stockpiling atomics, even though, then as later, a stockpile of nuclear weapons was an expensive proposition.
The existence of stockpiles of nuclear weapons caused warfare to adopt a new complexion in the Empire. Before, when a pretender's House attempted to seize power, the Imperial House would usually destroy the upstart House (as House Windsor did when the pretender Hitler attempted to seize the throne in the decade immediately before the development of atomics), or else be displaced (as House Windsor displaced House Bourbon three centuries before). But the advent of atomics made the total defeat of a House with a stockpile an impossible task, since it was inalterably in the power of any atomic-armed House to destroy any other House. But the Houses soon realized that a House could not use its atomics on an enemy that it could not identify, and wars began to be fought with economic power, terrorism, and surrogates. From the first use of atomic weapons in warfare to the second was a span of three hundred years.
After the Little Diaspora, the dispersion of the Houses to different planets caused a fundamental change to occur in the conduct of atomic warfare. It was discovered that if one destroyed a House's interstellar fleet, one was immune from that House's atomics, and could thus use atomics against that House with impunity, in order to conquer the planet or force favorable concessions. Even so, after this ability was first demonstrated in the Slagging of Ecaz, when the Imperial atomics were used to end both a rebellion and all trace of a Major House, the use of atomics once again lapsed — now, a House would surrender to an enemy once that enemy had succeeded in emplacing orbital atomic platforms.
After the development of the Holtzman Generator and the ability to travel rapidly from one planetary system to another, the strategy of atomics devolved even further, back to the old "massive retaliation" theory, since Houses were then able to keep their atomics not on the surface of their planets, but at a secret location or locations anywhere within several lightyears of the planet, to be dispatched and used should anyone attack the planet.
The only time that atomics were used generally, instead of as isolated spasms indicative of the collapse of decrepit Houses, was during the Butlerian Jihad, when atomic bombardment was often the only way to force machine cultures to surrender. The targets often attempted to retaliate, but in many cases their high commands were riddled with Butlerians, who sabotaged or betrayed the atomics; in other cases, there were simply too many attackers to allow even the largest stockpile any real chance of destroying all of the attackers' homeworlds.
Nevertheless, the widespread use of atomics during the Jihad led to profound anti-atomic feelings among all the survivors, which resulted in the Great Convention of 337, which codified the earlier principles of "massive retaliation" into Imperial law, and to which all of the Houses were adherents.
SINCE THE GREAT CONVENTION. Although all of the Houses maintained their atomics stockpiles until the reign of Emperor Leto, there are only two instances of their use. Each was brought about by an insane leader somehow compelling his own forces to use atomics, whereupon all Houses within striking distance combined their forces and obliterated the House.
The first of these was House B'ganne, in 410. Apparently not believing that the other Houses would stand by the Convention when push came to shove, Duke Quentin decided to use the B'ganne atomics to force the surrender of the planet Formannis, whose atomics Quentin had seized in a very clever coup. When the commander of Formannis refused to surrender, Duke Quentin began bombarding the surface of the planet with the B'ganne atomics.
House B'ganne was a Major House, but it was probably the perfect target for a test of the Convention, since Duke Quentin was a rival of the Emperor, Wallach I, and had a manner and personality that had earned him the nickname "the Foul." He had antagonized nearly every one of his neighbors and "allies" with his highhanded, needlessly cruel, and generally improvident behavior. Thus it was with some relish that the Formanni garrison commander sent a wave to every possible system, informing them of what Quentin was doing, and invoking the Convention. Everyone who heard the call realized that this was the test of the convention, and thanked his personal icons that it would be such an easy decision to make.
The obliteration of House B'ganne was the true ratification of the Great Convention. The Convention was never invoked again, except once in the case of Yware, a totally mad pretender to the throne, who somehow obtained a small cache of atomic weapons and used them to attack the Imperial Seat in 5506. His home "world" was a hollow planetoid circling Fallow Eight: it had a population of approximately ten thousand, and took only three hydrogen warheads before it split open.
The actions — known as The Gathe
ring — of Emperor Leto, who forced the Houses to turn over their family atomics to him during his reign, closed the subject and ended millennia of dependence on stockpiled terror.
W.D.I.
FEDAYKIN
The most dreaded warriors of their time, more feared than the Sardaukar of the Padishah Empire, considered by some to have been the equal of the Fish Speakers. To a man the Fedaykin were Fremen who served Paul Muad'Dib in his first battle against the House Corrino and the Harkonnen Forces, and then as his elite troops in the Second Jihad. With the possible exception of the Sardaukar, no other troops were more fanatical or more skilled in killing. The scanty records that remain from this era of over fifty-three hundred years ago appear to indicate that whenever the Sardaukar and Fremen Fedaykin engaged in battle, the Fedaykin soundly defeated their foes.
Beyond what appears to be the military superiority of the Fedaykin, they had one further advantage over the Sardaukar. In fact this advantage may explain why the Fremen warriors were so much the superior: While the Sardaukar were warriors who, through a vicious upbringing, had instilled cruelty and pride into their very being, the Fremen were Fedaykin because of their extreme faith in Paul Muad'Dib. Such a difference made the Fedaykin fanatics beyond the pale of human imagination. A skilled warrior who is driven berserk by a holy mission will necessarily overcome an equally skilled warrior who fights merely because it is what his nature dictates. For the Sardaukar, it was the fighting that counted, but for the Fedaykin, only victory mattered. Thus, driven by their loyalty to the cause of Paul Muad'Dib, the Fedaykin were virtually unstoppable. But when, in10208, Paul Muad'Dib was blinded in the attempt against his life, the central reason for the existence of the Fedaykin ended. Unlike that of the Sardaukar, the history of the Fedaykin was brief, lasting less than fifty years.
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