Since the only state the Komans knew was Richese, they recognized no state. The most important political unit on Komos was also the chief social unit: the family.
The Komans thought of the family as an organic entity. It was to be cared for in the same way that their land was tended or their crops were cultivated. The adults, and their ancestors, provided the resources out of which the future of the family would be created, and that future achieved form and life in their children. Fathers retained control of the lives of their progeny for their lives; when a father died each of his adult sons, whether married or not, became a fully independent individual for the first time.
Women on Komos, though they enjoyed no legal status in that they could not appear in court or inherit without the appointment of a guardian, nonetheless possessed great powers within the family and society at large. Since the religion of Komos was controlled by priestesses, the religious life of the family was in the hands of the father's wife. Just as every male hoped to head his own family one day, so every young woman hoped to guide the sacred well-being of her family.
The only other social entity worthy of note was the tribe. Members of a tribe traced their ancestry to a common male ancestor. They shared certain religious observances and a common burial ground.
Religious rites, from birth to death, focused around the worship of the goddess Kubebe. She was a mother-goddess, regarded as the source of all life, animal and plant. In common with similar religions, her followers believed that each year the world died as a result of the absence of their goddess.
While explanations for this departure might vary from region to region, the result was constant: the "death" of the world. This death explained the passage of the seasons and the infertility of fall and winter.
Naturally, the Komans were aware that these beliefs could not be reconciled with the astronomical facts of their star system. The stories were regarded as having meaning only with respect to the actions of their deity. If Kubebe chose to create winter by the revolution of their planet around their star, so be it. If she desired, she could also see to it that winter continued, rather than turning into the spring. That might mean changing the course of their planet's orbit, or it might not — who knew?
As Kubebe's absence killed their planet, only her return could resurrect it. To ensure that return even the most serious rituals of mourning, cleansing, reinvigoration, and finally rejoicing became a yearly cycle. These rituals were directed by a tribe's chief priestess, who was seen as the link between the goddess and the Komans.
Priestesses were trained at any of several primary training centers, but there was only one higher-level school which graduated priestesses. There they received an introduction into the training of the Bene Gesserit. All priestesses were at least qualified members of the order; it is probable that the chief priestesses were all Reverend Mothers.
Considering their vital rote in Komos' social history, it is not surprising that the priestesses of Kubebe played an essential part in the Butlerian Jihad, the Great Revolt which began in 200 B.G. (see BUTLERIAN JIHAD, JEHANNE BUTLER). After centuries of a bucolic existence under the thumb of Richese, the population of Komos arose and, almost unanimously, traveled to Richese as a conquering army.
In 198 B.G., with the Jihad about to leave Richese for the far reaches of the galaxy, Jehanne Butler ordered those Richesans who did not choose to join her crusade to be transported to the now nearly-deserted Komos. Since the farming technology of Komos had been computerized only at a very elementary level, it had not been destroyed in the first stages of the Great Revolt. The survival of these machines, as well as the astonishing fecundity of the planet, ensured that many of the new settlers would live. A substantial number of the technicians and mechanics from Richese survived the wars and chose to stay behind on Komos. Most of these men and women, able to think and act for themselves, lived to form the basis for the new population of Komos. So began the transition of agrarian Komos to highly technological Ix.
This population was provided with two great advantages. First, the position of Eridani A within the inhabited worlds was a great boon. The system was oddly isolated within its galaxy, which in turn was on the fringes of human settlement. The ravages of the Jihad, especially severe in the sector of Eridani A, resulted in even greater isolation. Indeed, for several centuries after the Jihad those on Komos were cut off from contact with the rest of the human race. At first this isolation was involuntary; after that, it was by choice. Second, the immediate riches of the vast agricultural development of Komos produced a life of ease for the inhabitants, who thus had leisure time in which to think and experiment.
The resettled technicians and mechanics of Richese naturally turned to machine technology as one way to occupy their time, taking great care to avoid the development of population-controlling machines. There was some early resistance to this technology, but as the decades passed and the planet remained alone in a forgotten corner of the universe, decisive steps in the rebirth of truly sophisticated technology were taken.
By the year 110 B.G., Aurelius Venport and Norma Cevna had pioneered in the field of interstellar travel to a point beyond the capabilities of the new technology, and so they were reluctantly forced to take their research elsewhere. But, within a century of their leaving, the riches of Komos — now known by its inhabitants as Ix (derived from an ancient system of reckoning which identified the number we know by the symbol 9 as Ix) — had combined with the benefits of the finest scientific work being done in a technologically devastated universe to make of the planet something unique. In effect, Ix had become a research and development center for all types of scientific inquiry. The most extraordinary care was exercised to maintain the appearance of a bucolic world devoted to agriculture. All scientific centers and the few manufacturing complexes permitted were concealed below ground. Above ground, all one saw was the life of the farmer and the rancher.
By 25 B.G., the Ixians had begun to venture back into the settled worlds. Their trips were solely exploratory, made in order to judge the state of civilization within the rest of human society and to ascertain if there was any threat to their anonymity. The possibility of trade in technological items was discussed but firmly rejected when the depth of feeling regarding the Jihad and computing machines was determined.
The deliberate isolation of Ix continued until the first century of the rule of House Corrino. Once the Imperium had been established and the Spacing Guild had reintroduced space travel into common use, the situation of Ix changed. It became apparent that in time their system would attract the attention of an expansionary society carried through the stars by the Guild: Once their machines were discovered, as they would be ultimately, the Ixians had no doubt of their fate: Ix would be destroyed. In order to avoid annihilation, the Ixians made the first move themselves. With a caution equalled only by the first contacts of the Guild with the Imperial house, the Ixians sent an ambassador to Emperor Saudir I in 55.
Once the shock of the news had been assimilated, the possibilities of the situation became obvious. If a controlled source of technology were available to the Imperial house, the Guild, and the Great Houses, they could have the advantages of machines without their dangers to the sociopolitical system. Any other solution, such as any one of the powers of the Imperium seizing control of Ix, would destabilize the Imperium. An arrangement was made: Ix would remain isolated; the Guild would make certain that no unapproved visitors reached the system of Eridani A. The Ixians would continue to exploit Richese and Richese would become the manufacturing center for Ix. The interests of all parties were served by these balanced concessions, so typical of the Imperium. This state of affairs obtained throughout the millennia of the domination of House Corrino.
After the defeat of House Corrino by the Atreides and the subsequent ascension of Leto II, the position of Ix changed little, except that it became increasingly public. During the last few centuries of Leto's reign, however, the policies of the emperor with respec
t to Ix underwent a subtle but consistent change. Leto ceased to enforce so strictly the ban against thinking machines, and even began to use certain Ixian products himself which would have been anathema in his early reign. Ix was also tacitly permitted to begin investigation and experimentation with machines which had the potential to replace Guild navigators. The scientists of Ix believed that Leto was unaware of their progress on these constructions; indeed he was clandestinely assisting them by providing them with certain necessary ores and alloys through private channels which the Ixians believed to be their own discovery.
Leto's attitude toward Ix was at least as ambiguous as that of other powers whose existence Leto permitted. The entire question of maintaining a powerful interstellar civilization without the use of computers or other thinking machines has troubled humanity since the days of the Butlerian Jihad, Whatever the ultimate solution of the problem, surely one of the great ironies of history lies in the fact that the planet which conceived the anti-machine Jihad also birthed the supreme technology of Ix.
F.M.
Further references: BUTLERIAN JIHAD; IMPERIUM, FEUDAL PATTERNS OF; R.C. Neltan, The Identity of the Planets Komos and Ix in the Light of the Rakis Hoard (Mukan: Lothar).
IXIAN NO-ROOMS
An effect produced by devices developed by the Ixians at least as early as 13500 for the concealment of objects within an area or of the area itself.
MODERN NO-ROOMS. A modern no-room, variable in size, consists of the space common to pairs of doubled, near-concentric spheres of oscillating Holtzman Effect fields (see Diagram 1). Each sphere is composed of two overlapping shells, oscillating in harmony ("A" and "a", for example, or "B" and "b"). Each shell has two variable properties: function (to absorb or emit radiant energy) and frequency (the rate of oscillation). When radiation of any kind — gamma rays, visible light, radio waves, etc. — impinges on a shell (as π does on shell "A"' in the diagram), it stimulates the shell to absorb energy of that wavelength. This action reverses the function of the harmonic shell ("a"), causing it to become an emitter across the spectrum except for waves of the frequency that triggered its partner (emission represented as -π). Roughly half of this energy is absorbed by the inner side of the first shell, but where the harmonic shell lies outside the first, this broadband radiation escapes into the second sphere (shells "B", "b"). Impinging on the inner shell of the second sphere ("b"), the radiation stimulates that shell to absorb energy of the received wavelength (the whole spectrum except for π). The outer shell then becomes the harmonic, and reverses its function to become an emitter across the spectrum except for waves of the frequency that triggered its partner. Since "b" is absorbing everything but π, "B" emits only π, at the wavelength identical to the original stimulus. The space within the no-room is, therefore, effectively invisible since light, for example, is stopped before it enters the no-room and is recreated on its other side. The no-room is similarly "not there" for radio waves, gamma waves, X rays, and the like.
DIAGRAM 1
Note that the generators of the Holtzman Effect fields, GA, Ga, Gb, and GB, lie within the no-room and are themselves concealed.
For the sake of simplicity in exposition, only two overlapping spheres are shown in the diagram. Such an arrangement would provide invisibility to an observer standing within the open end of a cone, with the point of the cone lying at the center of the no-room, and the axis of the cone lying on an imaginary line drawn through the generators, opening to an extent of about 120°. Existing no-rooms utilize three sets of paired spheres and twelve generators for invisibility in all three dimensions.
LETO'S NO-ROOM. The no-room that sheltered the Rakis Finds is perhaps the earliest example of the effect known, and although similar in effects achieved, is considerably different in its mechanism. The technology that enables the generation of harmonic, self-triggering Holtzman Effect fields was not available when Leto made, or caused to be made, his no-room. Yet the technology he had was used to surprisingly good advantage, considering its rudimentary and truly primitive nature.
DIAGRAM 2
The outer line represents the Holtzman Effect surface; the inner line the glowplant layer. The diagram is only schematic, since the separation between the two layers averaged 1 micron.
Leto's no-room was composed of a partially collapsed Holtzman Effect sphere (see Diagram 2). Inside the surface of the Field and parasitic on its energy leakage was a network of genetically modified glowplants from the planet Niflheim. These plants, long misclassified as crystals, formed an almost solid intertwined layer of monofilament strands no more substantial than a cobweb. They functioned similarly to fiber optics, except that they transmitted not just light but any received radiation. Such plants absorb radiant energy at their positive end, step it down by one chronon (an amount too negligible to be detected), and emit the radiation at their negative ends as waste. Rather than absorbing and recreating radiation as the modern no-room does, they channeled radiation around the no-room. When implements at the construction site above the perimeter of the no-room fell through the weakened ceiling, the relatively enormous amount of solar energy falling on the plants stimulated growth to close the gap at a rate too fast to be seen through the obscuring dust. What workers at the site took for the excavation floor was, in fact, light reflected from the floor of the chamber, channeled around the contents of the chamber, and emitted from the now-exposed glowplant layer.
W.E.M.
Further references: IX; Ruuzhar S. Kaunan, "Radiation Transfer in Proteocrystallum celerum," Science (Loomar) 98:271-91; T.B. Jones, Past Horizons: The Discovery of the Imperial Library on Rakis, Arrakis Studies 1 (Grumman: United Worlds).
J
JACURUTU
A legendary sietch, declared tabu by Fremen generations before the initiation of the Kynesian ecological transformation. Jacurutu had, by the time of the Aliate Imperial Regency, long since become a myth — its actual historical existence doubled and its name invoked as a fearful object lesson in the discipline of water-conservation that pervaded Fremen society.
Sietch Jacurutu was originally inhabited by a tribe known as the Iduali, "water insects." It was so known because its members would not hesitate to steal another Fremen's water — the most heinous crime under Fremen law, threatening not simply the survival of the individual but that of the tribe and, ultimately, Fremen as a people. For them it was adenb alaguil gual quibir, "the first and greatest sin." The gravity of the crime was directly proportional to the scarcity of moisture on the harsh world of Arrakis. This scarcity can easily be underestimated. To appreciate it is to understand what Jacurutu represented in Fremen myth: the ultimate treachery.
The manifold responses to water scarcity among the Fremen is well-documented. The conservation of water was at the core of Fremen culture — central to their laws, rituals, social obligations and religious aspirations. No aspect of Fremen life was unaffected by it. For Fremen, water was Life. By their crimes, the Iduali of Jacurutu violated Fremen values on every pertinent level. The gravity of the transgression was, of course, deepened by the fact that the Iduali were Fremen as well.
According to legend, Jacurutu was assaulted and its people annihilated by a general alliance of Fremen tribes. Thereafter, the Iduali were referred to as the Cast Out and the sietch declared tabu. It is undoubtedly a measure of Fremen psychology that only the inhabitants of Jacurutu were destroyed, while the windtrap and other devices used for the collection and storage of water were left intact.
During the power struggle preceding the accession of Leto II to the Imperial throne, it became apparent that Jacurutu was no myth, and that the "water insects" had not been completely wiped out. Although dispersed, remnants of the Iduali regrouped after many years and became smugglers of melange for off-world shipment. They, with the false pride of the justly persecuted, swore vengeance on any who were not among the Cast Out. Those hapless enough to discover their sanctuaries were murdered and their bodies sent to the deathstill. These sanctuaries were in t
wo places: Jacurutu itself, then known as Fondak — a smuggler place of uncertain location; and Shuloch. Both enjoyed comparative safety — Jacurutu because it was tabu; Shuloch because, as another sietch mentioned only in story, its actual existence was discredited and its location unknown.
Jacurutu emerged prominently from myth to contemporary history in two respects during the final days of the Imperial Regency. It was discovered that Muad'Dib, the blind Paul Atreides, found a qualified sanctuary there. And Leto II, Muad'Dib's son, underwent there his terrible Trial of Possession.
Muad'Dib and the Cast Out at Fondak formed a rather unholy alliance. Eyeless, Paul Atreides wandered into the desert supposedly to die, but instead returned as The Preacher, whose sermons purposed to purify the fanatic religion founded upon his own myth and later corrupted by Alia and her Priesthood into a cynical tool of political power. By the time he reached Fondak/Jacurutu, however, Paul was nearly a broken man. The Cast Out, appreciating his value, allowed him to live, hoping to weaken him further and use him as an instrument of revenge. Both were rebels against the present Imperial government, and at Jacurutu Paul encouraged the illegal off-world shipment of sandworms to similar desert climates in the hope they would thrive and thus break Alia's control of the spice monopoly. But, in his own words, Paul "never gave them one vision" to use for their own designs. Yet, as The Preacher, he needed a place of refuge which only Jacurutu could adequately provide.
Leto II, following his own visions, journeyed to Jacurutu in search of his father. He found Gurney Halleck who, by command of the Lady Jessica in league with the Bene Gesserit, forced him to undergo the Trial of Possession through the administration of an overdose of spice essence. Leto passed the test, and it is ironic that the Trial itself paved his way along the Golden Path. By mastering his inner lives, Leto was able to take the next great step on the Path, merging with sandtrout to become the human embodiment of Shai-Hulud and carrying within his consciousness the entire spectrum of human history.
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