After the didactic portion of the studies in the practice of Tsai medicine, clinical studies were begun in surgery, emergency medicine, and brewing herbal remedies. A three-year standard internship followed, under the tutelage of an experienced Tsai physician. The Suk School officials preferred that these mentors be Suk-trained, but exceptions have been recorded.
Following internship, the young physician returned to the Suk School for final testing If the Conditioning was deemed complete, the physician was tattooed with a diamond on the forehead. The four points of the diamond represented the four tenets of the Suk School of Medicine as expressed by their oath: "I will give Loyalty, I will seek Knowledge, I will practice Healing, I will prolong Life." The tattoo did more than identify the physician as a Suk physician with Imperial Conditioning, it was ingenious in its intricacy. Every tattoo looked alike to the casual observer, but under special microscopes and lights subtle differences identified each Suk physician. The School Archives held complete records of each tattoo. As a further safeguard against "counterfeit" Suk physicians, a specific response to a specific stimulus was hypnotically implanted. Again, the individual response-stimulus was unique to each physician. This hypnotic response revealed a Tleilaxu counterfeit Suk physician produced in 10131. Although the Tleilaxu were able to reproduce the tattoo of their model Suk physician, they were unaware of the existence of the hypnotic suggestion, a tribute to the security of the Suk School.
Physicians with second-level conditioning bound their long hair in a silver ring. The ring of the first-level physicians was gold. Only one or two second-level graduates were produced each year. First-level graduates arose about every five years.
The extent of conditioning, as determined by the school, determined the price that the school would request for placing the physician with a family or group. Many of the Houses Minor or groups of businessmen would pool their resources to obtain and share the ministrations of a Conditioned Suk physician. The employers paid a lump sum, always large, to the school and recorded a contract with the individual physician.
Although the Suk School of Medicine still exists, it has greatly changed from the days when it produced physicians for the Imperial Family. The decline of the school began when the myth of unbreakable Imperial Conditioning exploded. The best documented case is that of the infamous Dr. Wellington Yueh, who was forced by Baron Harkonnen to consider the unthinkable and found, no doubt to his own surprise, that it was difficult but not impossible to betray his employer. Yueh's case is known, but we must wonder if other successful Suk-doctor betrayals remain unknown to this day.
The existence of possible levers for subverting the Imperial Conditioning must have been known to the officials of the Suk School, because Suk physicians with Imperial Conditioning were encouraged not to marry, although they were not forbidden to do so. After the facts concerning Yueh's subversion were revealed, the Suk School forbade its graduates of the Inner School to marry. Unfortunately, this move did not prevent other Suk Imperial Conditioned physicians from being subverted. Once the support of universal faith was removed, once the doctors themselves realized their vulnerability, they knew both good and evil thereafter.
Contributing to the demise of the Imperial Conditioning was the discovery that the Tleilaxu had produced a twisted Suk physician. The final blow came with the ascension of Leto II to the Imperial throne. Since Leto II had no need of a physician, he withdrew his financial support of the school.
In the midst of financial ills, the school officials were approached by a group of Ming practitioners in the year 12953 B.G. The Ming group had been denied Imperial permission to establish a separate medical school; and although Tsai and Ming are two very different forms of medicine, both technically and philosophically, the two groups reached an agreement to join forces to rejuvenate the dying Suk School of Medicine. Rivalry between the two had always been great, and it took hard negotiating to work the compromise, with many Tsai practitioners refusing to be a part of the merger.
The major difference between the Tsai school and the Ming school concerns the mode of treatment. The Tsai practitioners are herbalists, and their treatment, except in surgical cases, involves administration of natural herbal medicines, usually processed by the physician himself. The Ming practitioners, however, rely primarily on the manipulation of the body's musculoskeletal structure and utilization of vital "pressure points" to mobilize the body's immunological system.
When the two groups of physicians first began teaching together at the school, all students received the same basic medical education and then were allowed the choice of Ming specialization or Tsai specialization. Many students began to realize the advantages of each type of medicine and requested training in both. Most students at the Suk School of Medicine now opt for this dual training, and for this reason the school is presently thriving.
M.S.
Further references: YUEH, WELLINGTON; YUEH, WANNA; Fauna Jahid, Heal and Hurt: Villains in Medicine (Zimaona: Kinat); Fanna Jahid, History of the Suk School of Medicine (Grumman: United Worlds); Kamila Vanstonan, Ming Medicine. Acupuncture, and Osteopathy; A Comparative Study (Richese: New Caledonia State UP).
T
THORSE
(thorsus thorsensis). A six-legged animal used as a beast of burden throughout the empire. Unknown in the times of Muad'Dib, thorses were introduced on Arrakis after the ecological transformation of the planet was completed. Phylogeneticians and other biologists differ over its ancestry and origins. Its six-leggedness is unique, for no other known mammal possessed six limbs, although a very few species found only on Ecaz have rudimentary mid-torso organs. However, these creatures, most notably the slandai and the plake, have no other resemblance to the thorse, and most authorities now feel the coincidence is merely accidental and that the thorse is the only true hexaped.
Long bred for strength and sturdiness, the thorse is particularly well suited to planets with a wide range of climates. The fur-bearing thorse (thorsus thorsensis meyersei) was hunted to the point of extinction after Leto II banned all trade in whale fur, but it was saved when Leto extended the ban to the thorse and other fur-bearing animals.
Some authorities, most notably Noah Arkwright, maintain that Leto himself was responsible for the introduction of the thorse throughout the Imperium. Arkwright suggests, with some cogency, that the slowness of the thorse — even the fastest beast is capable of little better than ten kph — would make its use for transportation difficult if not virtually impossible, and, as one unattributed cynic cited by Arkwright once remarked, "A population which walks is easier to control."
Physical description of the beast is a far simpler task than tracing its phylogeny. Adult members of the breed have been known to weigh over 2000 kg and extend nearly six meters long. Despite their large size, their nutritional needs are relatively small, and the creature's multiple stomach-digestive systems permits ingestion of almost any type of vegetable matter. This fact alone permits its employment on many planets.
Phylogenetically it appears that the thorse is unique. No fossil remains of the thorse have ever been found, and many biologists have wondered about its apparently sudden introduction, Imperium-wide, within a few hundred years after the accession of Leto II. It was first found on Bela Tegeuse but was soon carried to hundreds of other planets, where its characteristics made it a common "burden animal of choice," displacing other, older species such as the horse, the rhino-zebra, and the fandor. One scholar in the later Letonian era, whose name was ordered expunged from Imperial records, suggested that Leto himself had ordered the Tleilaxu to breed an animal to his specifications. If this indeed be the case, it would mark the first time, aside from the preservation of the Duncan Idahos, that Tleilaxu biological science had been suborned to Imperial whim.
The thorse itself varies in colors, although its distinctive physical characteristics are quite uniform. Its gestation period is approximately 210 standard days, and multiple births are the norm. Some people raise the thorse to provi
de food. While stringy, the meat is tasty, and its flavor resembles that of other quadrupeds.
W.M.
THUMPER
The Fremen apparatus used to attract sandworms. An indispensable aid for travel and often for survival, the Fremen thumper was a spiceplastic stake pointed at one end and attached to a spring-driven clapper at the other. Zensunni records give credit for its invention to Naib Trekam of Sietch Alraab.
Predecessors of the thumper include another tool, called an impact hammer, used by Imperial geologists before the invention of ultrasound scanners to study subsurface rock structures. Similar in appearance, both tools produce rhythmic, low-frequency sound waves. Such sounds appear to have triggered the destruction of the unfortunate Arrakis Geological Survey Team, whose report was available to Trekam. The only survivor rescued by the Naib's tribe told Trekam that just moments after the activation of the impact hammer they were attacked by a giant "serpent." The shift to ultrasound scanners began soon after that accident, and impact hammers slipped from common use. But Trekam realized the value of the chance occurrence.
A thumper was part of every Fremkit and was used for two purposes. First, it called a sandworm. The caller drove his thumper into the more compact, windward face of a dune. He activated the clapper mechanism, which produced the drumlike "thumping." A long spring was held in tightly wound position by a fabric tie. Flipping the tie away freed the spring to unwind. As it flapped around, the spring clapped against a hollowed tube protruding from the top of the stake just above the spring (see diagram). The tube and stake resonated together to send out the low-frequency sound waves which lured the sand-worm to the thumper.
The second purpose of the thumper was to decoy a sandworm away from a Fremen. When this was necessary a fuse was put in a hole close to the spring, keeping the spring from unwinding until the tie had been ignited and burned away. The hunted Fremen would escape while the fuse burned, and marauding worms would attack the thumper.
Thumpers were simple, rather rough adaptations of a tool that had gone out of fashion. But they called sandworms to their location effectively, and so were useful when Fremen wanted to mount or to evade the great makers.
J.H.G.
Further reference: FREMKIT.
TLEILAXU
The inhabitants of Tleilax, lone planet of the star Thalim, a source of immoral, although tolerated, technological products following the Butlerian Jihad. As such, the enigmatic Tleilaxu posed a potential threat to the delicate technological prohibitions of the feudal Imperium. However, the Tleilaxu dealt in more than simple machine products. They also produced genetically engineered humans for specific purposes.
If any people should have been purged by the Jihad, it was the Bene Tleilax, whose technology recognized no restraints in pursuit of their scientific interests. The fact that the Great Revolt missed this isolated world stands in ironic contrast to the otherwise energetic thoroughness of the Jihad. Indeed, the Tleilaxu existed in a moral and ethical vacuum on the extreme periphery of the known universe. Initial scientific inquiry and insatiable curiosity expressed themselves in this void by Tleilaxu self-experimentation, a practice encouraged by the ample supply of lower-class subjects in their highly stratified society. This fundamental disposition endured through the ensuing millennia.
When they were discovered by an early Spacing Guild reconnaissance ship in 23 B.G., the science and technology of Thalim could no longer enjoy concealment. However, the Tleilaxu were able to persuade the Guild to purvey their products to the newly formed Imperium. Later, they were further protected from punishment under the edicts of the Great Convention when their security was guaranteed by both the Guild and House Corrino, and their products were welcomed by the less fanatical majority of the Imperium. The amoral and morally debilitating fecundity of the Tleilaxu, who defined everything as either tool or product, was unleashed on a nobility that had grown desensitized by time to the psychological and ethical monstrosities that necessitated the Butlerian Jihad.
The history of ancient Tleilax is undocumented. Located in the eleventh sector of the old Imperium, the planet has always been difficult to reach. Even the Guild, which discovered Tleilax, can provide little information on its past. The Bene Gesserit Library on Wallach IX is also not helpful. Once aware of the Bene Tleilax as a rival in mental and physical training, the Sisterhood set its spy network in motion too late to discover any significant information. The Tleilaxu were wise to have negotiated their pledges of security. For a time, these pledges were mutually beneficial: the Tleilaxu knew they were safe, and House Corrino and the Spacing Guild thought they were safeguarding the universe from technology while exploiting it themselves.
Such measures were necessary since the Bene Tleilax always viewed war, poverty, and religion as mere products or markets. Since most of their involvements in these areas involved human exploitation, Tleilaxu technology stressed generic fabrications and psycho-neural adepts. They provided humanoid, sentient tools. Face dancers, gholas, sex toys, generals, twisted Mentats, subverted Suk doctors, Guild navigators and artificial melange are major examples of their wares. The Tleilaxu Kwisatz Haderach, a result of their dabbling in archetypes and pure essences, might have been another had it not willed its own death. Their greatest successes were, of course, the Duncan Idaho gholas.
Throughout their involvement in the Imperium, from their discovery through the fall of the God Emperor Leto II and the rise of the Siona-Duncan union, the Tleilaxu were the objects of almost universal loathing, fear, and disbelief. Even in the fiercely competitive business and politics of the Corrino and Atreides eras, they were singled out and resented for their parsimony.
A naive interpretation might find this revulsion surprising. Did not the Tleilaxu supply Houses Major and Minor with technological necessities, weapons, and toys? This they did, for a price, but inherent in their offerings was the guilt that came to buyers from their violations of the Butlerian edicts. The frequency of the epithet "Dirty Tleilaxu" demonstrated how soiled people felt as a result of their sinful commerce with the inhabitants of Tleilax, and an entire corpus of superstitions and phobias arose from the resultant anxieties. The Fremen, for example, usually rejected Tleilaxian metal eyes, because they felt that the user would be darkly enslaved and wear an evil collar. On Gamont, it was believed that face dancers were erotic demons capable of becoming incubi or succubi, and the lower orders of the Bene Gesserit identified Tleilaxu sperm with deformed and retarded children.
Among the more educated and less superstitious, the Tleilaxu were thought of as too cruel to be human, and the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers frequently taunted the face dancers with the threat of the gom jabbar. The "human distrans" was one of the causes of this attitude, and such beings were generally considered unclean, a degeneration of humans into machines. In addition, the gholas were often thought of as reanimated dead, and many houses practiced cremation in fear of the ghola possibility. Face Dancers, because of the essential duplicity of their natures, were rarely trusted and were generally despised.
Even the God Emperor Leto II, usually distinguished by his tolerance, hated the Tleilaxu. Certainly, any Atreides had good reasons to loathe them for their constant belligerence. The Tleilaxu threats to the Atreides included the equipment to train the Laza tigers that tried to attack young Leto II and Ghanima; the attempted ghola-slavery of Chani and Paul Atreides and assassination of the twins and Paul; two direct assaults on Hwi Noree, one of which included Leto II himself; and the crucial delay of the ghola to replace Duncan-the-Last. However, the God Emperor's hatred was profound, the result of his own addiction to the company of the Duncan gholas, a need he never successfully conquered despite at least one serious attempt to do so.
While the numerous particular actions and products generated significant ill will, it is more likely that the Tleilaxu were generally loathed for a more primordial reason. Their genetic manipulations massed life and nature. The Bene Gesserit could be tolerated, even admired, for their pretension at
improving humanity, but the Bene Tleilax's distortions only inspired primal horror.
S.T. and R.S.
Further references: DUNCAN IDAHO entries; SCYTALE; Anon., The Tleilaxu Godbuk, Rakis Ref. Cat. 3-1142; Shao Lu Minh, "Self-Hatred in Tleilaxophobia," Journal of Psychology and History 50:99-118; Itiina Grezharee, Tleilaxu Products and Plans in the Atreides Imperium (Chusuk: Salrejina).
TRUTHSAYER
One of an elect group of Reverend Mothers adept in the ways of truthtrance and able to discern and identify falsehood, deceit, and insincerity. The hypnotic or ecstatic state called truthtrance was commonly induced by drug compounds known as "awareness spectrum" narcotics. However, recent evidence suggests that some experienced Truthsayers could self-induce truthtrance without the aid of any stimulants merely by the power of autosuggestion. What is indisputable is that narcotic or drug preparations entirely benign to the Truthsayer could prove fatal for anyone else inclined to secure the magic properties attributed to them.
Most eminent among celebrated Truthsayers was the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. Justly renowned born as practitioner of the art of truthtrance and as historian and analyst of the role of the Truthsayer since its inception just after the Butlerian Jihad, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen's service as Truthsayer to the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV offered her a unique, even inspired, vantage point from which to consider the office of Truthsayer, its function, purpose, and value. The treatise she wrote on the subject was respected, above all, for the authoritative simplicity and elegance of its style and the humility of tone it exhibited in its treatment of so exalted a subject. Her Prolegomena to the Sacred History of the Council of Nine is deeply indebted to the Sattva Codex, one of the priceless documents committed to the once secret archives of the Bene Gesserit.
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