Intermediaries for the Guild approached the Imperium in 12 B.G. After some initial difficulties in establishing trustworthy contacts, the Guild offered safe, reliable interstellar voyaging; they swore absolute abstention from politics; and they sweetened the offer by revealing the geriatric properties of melange. In return they asked for a total monopoly on hyperspace transport and a promise from the Imperium to forever respect the secrecy of Tupile. In his wisdom, Emperor Saudir the Great saw the advantage of a relief-valve for tensions boiling in the feudal structure he had so delicately balanced. He had already hoped for agreement from the Houses Major that warfare was to be strictly regulated according to the Great Convention. Now Saudir saw the chance to offer a tangible reward for compliance — the establishment of a haven for defeated houses, a sanctuary in which the survivors would be secure from the threat of extermination. Once the decision of victory or defeat was proclaimed, the signatories of the Convention were bound to end hostilities, and the emperor saw in the Guild a means of assuring compliance. Only the Guild, through its hyperspatial reach, could maintain the secrecy and guarantee the sanctity of such a haven, but only if they were granted the monopoly they asked. His counterproposal to the Guild offered the monopoly in return for their maintenance of the sanctuary, and the Guild accepted.
The hypothesis that this sanctuary existed in or near the Tupilian system rests on two arguments. The first notes the Guild's frequent use of misdirection as a tactic: a classic example is the Guild disclosure of melange as a life-prolonging agent to divert attention from the spice's navigational uses. If the Guild used a similar ploy after the Convention, they may have reasoned that the last place suspected for the haven was within their own system, just as no one would have expected them to reveal the spice they depended on. The second argument is strategic: only if the Guild were close by could they watch over the defeated houses, protecting them from themselves and others. A defeated force, even if it had the transport, could not venture forth with ambitions of revenge while the Guild patrolled the area. Guild reconnaissance ships could therefore guard both the sanctuary and Tupile at the same time. Add to this the disappearance from history of those few houses who took refuge on Tupile and the argument gains circumstantial weight.
One comment that deserves repeating is that Tupile, or the Tupiles, have never been proven to be a single star system. The wealth of the Guild's agents and factors suggests that they drew from many populated worlds, and many worlds suggests more than one star. By inference, then, as much as a whole sector may have been more or less under Guild control and exploitation as it grew. Keeping a region of this size secret would not be impossible, as other realities prove (the Tleilaxu, for example). The Spacing Guild must have had wide latitude in designating this or that planet as Tupile. If anyone knew the truth of the situation, it would have been Emperor Leto II, and his knowledge of Tupile may yet come to light among the Rakis manuscripts.
S.T.
Further references: SPACING GUILD, FOUNDATION; SPACING GUILD OPERATIONS; VENPORT, AURELIUS; CEVNA NORMA.
V
VENPORT, AURELIUS
(140-79? B.G.): Ixian scientist and explorer, called "Foster-father of the Spacing Guild."
Numbers of scientist-refugees from Richese were resettled on the abandoned planet Komos (renamed Ix) at the outset of the Butlerian Jihad, and among their offspring the most energetic and intelligent was Aurelius Venport: As a young man, he gained notoriety for advocating an overt maintenance of technology and for his astonishing progress in the field of interstellar spacecraft. His views were shared by Norma Cevna, with whom he also shared a liaison that lasted until his disappearance. Cevna shared his desire but differed with him on method; throughout their union, she provided a diplomatic brake on his enthusiasm.
By 110 B.G. Venport's researches had taken him beyond the capabilities of Ix's fledgling technology. The Ixians therefore encouraged Venport to build three ships, take his people, and leave the planet. These "Aurelian exiles" began ten years of wandering hampered by uncertain navigational techniques, but reached at last a planet which historians, more for convenience than for enlightenment, call "Tupile."
Tupile met the requirements Venport had in mind from the beginning: material resources, a salvageable industrial base, an intelligent labor supply, and a location wanted desperately: the opportunity for complete control and boundless power. The Aurelian exiles presented themselves to the Tupilians as saviors destined to restore the planet's science, bringing back the wealth and leisure they had known before the Jihad. Venport's instrument in the scheme was a quasi-religious organization of the Ixians, which he named the Society of Mystic Mariners. The Tupilians, mindful of their former prosperity and of their present wretchedness, welcomed the exiles. Venport unquestionably displayed the charisma and the shrewdness needed for his adopted role, and the Tupilians were eager for help from any quarter.
Venport combined the resources of planet and people with the trained cadre and scientific knowledge he had brought from Ix; in little more than a decade, Tupilian technology was recreated. But more important to Venport himself, he had made giant strides toward his secret goal, the development of hyperspace vessels able to function without computer-assisted navigation. Of course, the Ixians had not erected a technological society from nothing: in the Jihad Tupile had been scourged, not torn to pieces. Even so, the exiles achieved a marvel of organization.
During this same period (100-85 B.G.), the Society of Mystic Mariners discovered the navigational use of melange, probably through the mysterious befriending of Cevna by an alleged Bene Gesserit outcast, Dardanius Leona Shard. The properties of spice smoothed the way for the test of the prototype spacecraft, The Golden Advent, in 84 B.G., with Norma Cevna as both captain and navigator. The voyage was a partial success: the Advent crossed several light-years and returned to Tupile as planned within five days, but Cevna collapsed from the stress of her combined role and Venport himself had to navigate the last short leg of the trip in normal space.
Venport's disappointment tarnished his joy: the obsession of his life had been achieved by someone else (even though a loved one), and had brought her the power and recognition he craved. Cevna was unable to appreciate the honor she had gained: disabled for months, she showed little sign of improvement. As Arkiid Sidak, one of the Ixians, wrote of Venport's envy, "Never has one man traveled so far only to realize on reaching harbor that the real captain had been Penelope" (Fragments of an Odyssey, p. 13). Yet Venport plunged into ship construction and spice-trance education with fanatical energy, working both the exiles and their Tupilian assistants around the clock. By 80 B.G., twelve ships had been assembled, each with trained spice-assisted Ixians at the bridge. Through the next few months, test flights of limited range accustomed both captains and navigators to the tasks that had debilitated Cevna.
In 79 B.G. Venport began an extended test of coordinated ship movement through The Void, the first such mission attempted. The anonymous author of the Aurelian Memoirs describes the result:
While we in the other ships relied on a division of labor between captains and navigators, Aurelius in the flagship Norma Cevna insisted on doing both by himself — as she had — but better and safer, succeeding where she had failed. Since we were caught up in his fervor, there was no dissent, We dropped into The Void and lost radio contact, but when we reached our destination, only eleven ships emerged. We spiraled outward from Kovenek for three standard days, searching for the Norma Cevna, but we found nothing, neither at Kovenek nor at Tupile when we returned. A few superstitious Tupile technicians muttered about Ampoliros. I can't picture Venport as "the Wanderer of Space," but he might as well be: we Ixians are finished here. Now comes the day of the Tupilians. (p. 408)
Although Venport was gone, the Ixians had indeed completed their work. Like the dynamos of Old Richese, Venport had powered his Ixian colleagues and Tupilian worshipers alike toward the vision that lured him — the rebirth of fast, safe interstellar travel.
Further references: SPACING GUILD, FOUNDATION; SPACING GUILD OPERATIONS; INTERSTELLAR NAVIGATION, PRE-GUILD; CEVNA NORMA; Arkiid Sidak, Fragments of an Odyssey, tr. Shosta Graun (Topaz: Grimoire); Anon., Aurelian Memoirs, Lib. Conf. Temp. Series 684.
VOICE
One of the most impressive physical accomplishments of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood; the idiomatic terminology used to refer to the manipulation of speech to achieve complete control over the receiver; the production of extraperceptual auditory stimuli capable of implanting a message in an individual's unconscious, thus creating a compulsion to obey. Although Voice is founded on physical knowledge, only the Bene Gesserit were able to exploit for practical purposes the knowledge that others possessed but did not understand.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION. The production of extraperceptual auditory stimuli involves manipulation of the laryngeal musculature in a manner that generates overtones well above the 20,000 cycles per second (cps) limit for conscious reception. Bene Gesserit training enables adepts to control the thyroarytenoid, vocalis and cricothyroid muscles so as to intentionally regulate vocal quality in a manner that generated specific frequencies within the 25,000-35,000 cps range. Normal phonation, caused by tension of the vocal folds to effect condensations and rarefactions of the airstream, operates within a range of 500 to 4,000 cps, with random and only partially controlled overtones up to 10,000 cps.
It is the combinations of overtones — along with the resonating characteristics of the pharyngeal, nasal and oral cavities that amplify specific frequencies — that account in large measure for the vocal quality that makes each individual's voice somewhat unique. For instance, the trained singing voice owes its richness to overtones of more than ordinary amplitude. Skillful manipulation of Voice requires generating these overtones without altering the basic pitch or loudness of the perceived voice. Each individual word or phoneme requires a unique combination of perceived tones and extraperceptual frequencies. This perceptual/extraperceptual ratio (specific combination of perceptual and extraperceptual frequencies) must vary according to the position of a phoneme within a word, be it initial, medial or terminal.
PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTION. Extraperceptual stimuli trigger so-called uncommitted zones of the auditory cortex. That effect frequently has been measured in the laboratory using high-frequency sounds from whistles and animals. It also is recognized that numerous languages from Old Terra, Arrakis, and Richese relied extensively on tone to denote shades of meaning. In those languages, however, tone was a digital aspect of language that required knowledge of the message code to be understood. Voice, on the other hand, registers on the receiver and creates a compulsion to obey without any previous training or conditioning of the target. That aspect of Voice requires that we engage in extensive speculation in an effort to deduce its function.
Sometime in the prehistoric background of the human race, our ancestors possessed more acute hearing, sharing with numerous lesser creatures the ability to perceive high-frequency sounds. Although disuse has left us with no conscious ability to recognize or interpret such stimuli, rendering them extraperceptual, racial memory has locked that knowledge in our unconscious. Thus, segments of the auditory cortex are merely unused, as opposed to being uncommitted. Those zones are actually committed but the information stored there is unavailable to the conscious mind.
Scholars conclude that extraperceptual auditory stimuli do impinge on the nervous system by exciting portions of the auditory cortex which feeds information only to the individual's unconscious. Voice messages, therefore, go directly to the unconscious, are not subject to scrutiny by the conscious will of the receiver and compliance requires no voluntary decision. Bene Gesserit adepts, of course, are able to monitor and control all neural and physical functions of their bodies, permitting them to hear as well as generate such stimuli. They, as a result, can use Voice to compel obedience from others while they themselves are resistant to Voice commands.
BACKGROUND. The knowledge upon which the Bene Gesserit perfected Voice appears to have been drawn from two fields of traditional learning, physics and psychology. Instrumentation capable of measuring neural activity was invented sometime during the early stages of the computer era which eventually led to the Butlerian Jihad. It was at that time that our ancestors on Old Terra created numerous electronic toys of little practical value. No doubt their lack of understanding regarding physical phenomena caused the mania for measuring such events. Instruments for registering electrical variations in the central nervous system led to the discovery that sound waves outside the normal hearing range precipitated measurable neural activity. Although primitive man probably was aware that certain animals could hear sounds humans could not, and that the human vocal mechanism could produce sounds outside the human hearing range, the distinction between hearing and neural sensitivity must have perplexed the early scientists. The pre-Butlerian explanation for hearing was based on a mechanical-electrical process that would seem to indicate that the individual would "hear" any acoustical stimulus within the range received by the physical apparatus. Although modern science has gone well beyond such crude approximations, the "we-hear-what-we-cannot-hear" paradox was not fully explained until the secret Bene Gesserit records were uncovered by current researchers.
Contemporary neuroscientists involved in the Rakis project agree that the Bene Gesserit learned, probably with the help of spice, of the static barriers in the cortex (popularly called "force field boundaries") discovered less than a century ago by the legendary Sin Qadrin.
The study of psychology seems always to have been based on the theory that surface awareness is not all there is to be found in the human mind. Although only Muad'Dib and his bloodline were successful in harnessing and using the voices within, numerous pre-Scattering notions hinted at Qadrin's theorem regarding static barriers and why some humans seemingly could draw upon racial memories of which others were unaware. For instance, reincarnation postulated that a soul reappears in successive physical bodies and the experience of past lives can, upon occasion, be brought to the conscious level. The collective unconscious theory supposed that character images or personality archetypes, implanted in the unconscious mind but outside our direct view, governed the individual's behavior. Chansutra concepts may have come closer in the assertion that all behavior resulted from guidelines passed along as a part of the genetic pattern.
The body of thought developed by Qadrin and his successors in the new science clearly shows that humans possess the potential for remembering the experiences and thought processes of all who have gone before them in their bloodline. The information is stored in the now-unused zones of the cortex, held back by the static boundaries, the force fields of the mind. It no doubt was spice that first allowed the Bene Gesserit to penetrate those boundaries.
L.G.
Further references: BENE GESSERIT entries; Pitr Braccus, "Discussions of 'Voice' in the Rakis Records," Studia Neurophysiologica 213 (Grumman: Tern); Sin Qadrin, Static Barriers of the Cerebral Cortex (Richese: Univ. of Bailey Press), esp. Ch. 5.
W
WANNA
A Bene Gesserit adept, wife of the Suk School doctor Wellington Yueh, who betrayed Duke Leto Atreides. Wanna Marcus is believed to have been killed by order of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Information concerning a plot to kill Duke Leto Atreides substantiates the extent of Wanna's involvement in Bene Gesserit political infiltration plans.
Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam's journals indicate that Wanna Marcus was extremely talented, especially in the skills of truthtrance and truthsaying. She was being groomed for the role of Truthsayer and a possible place on the Cogita Vera Council. But certain developments, notably Reverend Mother Gaius Helen's discovery of the young Paul Atreides' exceptional abilities, caused the Reverend Mother to alter her plans for Wanna. Believing that the time of the Kwisatz Haderach had come, Mohiam was determined to usher it in without any delay. For this purpose Wanna Marcus was selected to act as decoy.
&nb
sp; Wanna was to infiltrate the Harkonnen entourage. Her presence would remind the Baron of her husband's intimate relationship with the House of Atreides and the position of responsibility the Suk doctor held in that household. The scheme turned on the strength of Yueh's love for his Bene Gesserit wife and the extent to which he could be depended upon to protect her from harm.
For Wanna's part, her commitment to the Sisterhood and its universal mission would overcome any scruples she might have regarding Duke Leto and take precedence over allegiance to her own husband. Wanna would be remembered, if at all, as a hapless innocent caught in the deadly Harkonnen net of pride and revenge.
Wanna was told her sacrifice would hasten the day of the Kwisatz Haderach by eliminating foreseeable contingencies on both sides, Atreides and Harkonnen. She was chosen, her order told her, because of her courage, her record of obedience, her special training, and her exquisite gifts. It was regretted, of course, that one so brilliantly endowed should be so prematurely lost to the Sisterhood, even in such a cause. Reverend Mother Gaius Helen noted that Yueh's capitulation to the blackmail was certain if he possessed the faintest hope that his treachery could keep Wanna alive. To Baron Harkonnen love was a fatal weakness that invited assault, and he played out his accustomed part perfectly.
The Dune Encyclopedia Page 106
