Dune: Prophecy - S01E02 - Feedback

[00:00:00] Wünschst du dir jemanden, der dich versteht wie kein anderer? Jemand, der deine Wünsche wahr werden lässt und mit dir das schönste Abenteuer deines Lebens erleben möchte?

[00:00:10] Die Commerce-Plattform Shopify revolutioniert Millionen von Unternehmen weltweit. Mit Shopify richtest du im Nu deinen Online-Shop ein – ganz ohne Programmier- oder Designkenntnisse.

[00:00:21] Dank der effizienten Einrichtung und intuitiven Social-Media- und Online-Marketplace-Integration kannst du über Instagram, eBay und Co. werben und verkaufen.

[00:00:31] Neue Zielgruppen zu erreichen war noch nie so einfach. Shopify bietet auf einer einzigen, sicheren Plattform alle Tools, um dein Online-Business aufzubauen.

[00:00:40] Kostenlos testen und dein Business der Welt präsentieren.

[00:00:43] Shopify.de-try besuchen

[00:00:47] Einfach Shopify.de-try eingeben und loslegen

[00:00:51] Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify

[00:00:54] I'm Jeff Stormer and I host Party of One, an actual-play-podcast focused on two-player role-playing experiences.

[00:01:02] Every week I sit down with a friend.

[00:01:04] J.R. Goldberg

[00:01:05] Alvaro

[00:01:06] A.K.A. Wormtooth, formerly MC Blackwolf

[00:01:09] Danny Costello

[00:01:10] My name's Rich Howard

[00:01:11] I'm Charung Biswas

[00:01:13] We play a two-player role-playing game

[00:01:15] We share some laughs

[00:01:16] An absolute blast to play

[00:01:17] It was a delight to run my game with someone who got so into it

[00:01:22] It was so easy to do

[00:01:23] Seeing the creativity just blossom right in front of my eyes

[00:01:28] Maybe a few tears

[00:01:29] I've never had a game make me question my previously staunch moral compass

[00:01:34] Jeff makes the greatest serial killer

[00:01:37] And we have a really good time

[00:01:39] The great way to take a chance on a new role-playing game

[00:01:41] Truly exemplifies what is wonderful about a game with just two people driving the narrative together

[00:01:50] You can find new episodes every Tuesday at PartyofOnePodcast.com

[00:02:12] Welcome to the Dune Sisterhood Podcast

[00:02:15] Where the Lorehounds are your guides to the secrets of the sisterhood

[00:02:19] I'm David

[00:02:20] I'm Alicia

[00:02:21] And this is our part two of episode two, our feedback session

[00:02:27] We ran a little long yesterday on our podcast

[00:02:32] How unusual

[00:02:34] Very strange, isn't it?

[00:02:35] It doesn't occur that often

[00:02:37] I think I jinxed us when I said that we had a quick episode

[00:02:42] It would be a short word

[00:02:44] Famous last words

[00:02:45] Absolutely

[00:02:45] So we have a lovely outline that has been prepared by our hand of the pod

[00:02:51] Nancy is truly a godsend

[00:02:54] She is fielding all the feedback

[00:02:58] She has done a ton of work on the show guide

[00:03:01] The glossary is full of stuff

[00:03:04] She's worked on a timeline

[00:03:05] Like she's really gotten into this Dune universe stuff

[00:03:08] So it is so great to have her

[00:03:10] And she's broken up the feedback into two main sections

[00:03:15] Sort of spoiler free what we're seeing on air

[00:03:18] And then spoiler emails and comments that we'll put after a break

[00:03:25] So that way if you don't want to get spoiled by any of the book plot stuff

[00:03:31] We'll have that all as a separate section

[00:03:34] Alicia, anything else that you want to add coming out of our conversation yesterday on episode two?

[00:03:40] Or should we just jump right into it?

[00:03:42] Let's jump right in

[00:03:42] I know I have things I wanted to respond to in the feedback itself

[00:03:46] Okay, perfect

[00:03:47] Well, first up we have a voicemail from our favorite Tolkien scholar, Marilyn R. Pequila

[00:03:53] Marilyn studied Finnish

[00:03:55] So she's got some suggestions on our

[00:03:59] Is it Danish?

[00:04:00] It's Finnish, isn't it?

[00:04:02] It's Finnish, yeah

[00:04:02] Yeah, because the Harkonnens are, you know, the same way the Atreides trace their lineage back to ancient Greece

[00:04:08] The Harkonnens trace their lineage back to the Sami of northern Finland

[00:04:12] And I'm sure Marilyn can say that name better than me

[00:04:15] Perfect

[00:04:16] Here's Marilyn's voicemail

[00:04:19] Hello fellow lorehounds

[00:04:20] This is Marilyn

[00:04:21] I decided it was high time

[00:04:23] In fact, it was late of me

[00:04:25] But I was going to give you recordings of how I would pronounce a certain family names in the Dune series

[00:04:32] So we have Valja Harkonnen

[00:04:35] We have Tula Harkonnen

[00:04:38] And we have Harl Harkonnen

[00:04:42] Rolling R's didn't quite come up to speed there

[00:04:44] But I think you get the general idea

[00:04:47] Anyway, looking forward to the episodes

[00:04:49] Bye

[00:04:51] Oh, is that your sand trout back there?

[00:04:54] That's me, yeah

[00:04:54] Was that your little maker?

[00:04:55] Yes

[00:04:56] He says, I want the water of life

[00:04:58] He wants food

[00:05:01] Thank you, Marilyn, for sending in that voicemail and the pronunciations for the Harkonnen family

[00:05:08] You too can send in voicemails

[00:05:11] You could use your voice memo app on your phone

[00:05:15] Or you can go to our website

[00:05:17] We've got a voicemail recording tool that's built into our website

[00:05:20] That's on the contact page of our website

[00:05:22] Otherwise, general emails and voicemails can be sent to dune at the lorehounds.com

[00:05:29] Nancy's monitoring that email

[00:05:31] And she will make sure that your feedback gets included on future feedback episodes

[00:05:38] So, let's move forward

[00:05:40] Do you want to start off with Jordan M?

[00:05:43] Sure

[00:05:43] So, Jordan says, salut

[00:05:45] I am midway through your first episode coverage

[00:05:48] But found myself kindly screaming, how Sir Chasey is canon

[00:05:53] It's not just made up for this, haha

[00:05:56] And of course, yeah, we did

[00:05:58] We corrected ourselves on that in the main episode

[00:06:01] Thank you, Jordan

[00:06:02] He says, I haven't read the books in quite some time

[00:06:05] But at some point, the Richesies planet is mentioned as the leading technological planet of the Empire

[00:06:10] They are rivals to the Ixians who are super cool and build tech that skirts the butlerian jihad laws

[00:06:17] As they actively seek to replace the navigators with non-thinking technology

[00:06:21] Okay, back to your coverage

[00:06:23] How Sir Chasey exists

[00:06:25] We went more into that in the episode breakdown

[00:06:28] Yeah, thank you, Jordan, for that

[00:06:30] It is the case that in the original six books

[00:06:35] Frank will just mention something once

[00:06:38] Right

[00:06:38] And if you are, you know, depending on where you are with your reading

[00:06:43] Sometimes I read them through really fast

[00:06:45] Other times I do a slower, closer read

[00:06:47] And there's so much density

[00:06:50] Right

[00:06:50] The density of the books is so much that it's easy to forget or to miss a little name like this

[00:06:55] Yeah, and the house was more talked about in the Brian Herber books, but books I haven't read yet

[00:07:02] Right

[00:07:02] Like the next set of books I'm going to read is apparently mentions them and that's set during the Machine Wars

[00:07:09] And then I guess they also come up again and they have these

[00:07:12] He has these great houses books that are supposed to be quite good that are right before the original series

[00:07:17] Cool

[00:07:18] And chronologically

[00:07:19] Right, so that more would be there

[00:07:21] Cool

[00:07:22] All right

[00:07:23] The next section that Nancy has prepared for us is why we love the Lorehounds

[00:07:28] I'm blushing

[00:07:29] Davey Mac on the Discord says

[00:07:31] Fun pod on the first episode

[00:07:33] It's good for me because I've only ever read the first Dune books and seen the movies

[00:07:38] So it's good to have companions to talk through stuff I'm not aware of

[00:07:42] And Sub-Zero says

[00:07:43] This two and a half hour pod is taking me four hours because I have to keep rewinding

[00:07:49] It's so dense with lore

[00:07:51] I literally can't be focused on anything else

[00:07:53] Well done Lorehounds

[00:07:56] Sorry slash you're welcome

[00:07:59] Sorry not sorry

[00:08:00] I don't know

[00:08:01] I think the I think would be pushed two and a half hours that is it is a bit of a marathon for listeners

[00:08:07] Oh yeah

[00:08:08] It's a marathon for editors too

[00:08:09] We're not going for that

[00:08:11] But it's just we don't want to sell you short

[00:08:14] We don't want to hold back for you guys

[00:08:17] We have a reputation to live up to

[00:08:20] Do you want to read into the next section?

[00:08:22] Sure

[00:08:23] So how are we feeling about the show?

[00:08:25] Furralisa says

[00:08:26] Wow, once again that was a very dense episode

[00:08:28] So much political maneuvering and lore bombs

[00:08:31] Everyone has an agenda which is pretty wild

[00:08:34] There are no angels

[00:08:35] And Jordan says

[00:08:37] Bonjour les lorhounds

[00:08:39] I am behind in everything in life it seems these days

[00:08:42] So only just now able to watch the first episode as well as catch up with you awesome folks

[00:08:46] Man, I love following these shows with you all

[00:08:49] Oh, thank you Jordan

[00:08:50] Yeah, we love your feedback Jordan

[00:08:52] So keep it coming

[00:08:53] We love you making fun of John's mispronunciation of French

[00:08:57] I mean John's actually not bad

[00:09:00] He plays it up

[00:09:03] I love what did he say one time for denouement

[00:09:06] He said denouement

[00:09:07] Denouement, yeah

[00:09:11] Jordan says

[00:09:12] I feel the first episode was a good foundational episode

[00:09:16] If not slightly boring in the building

[00:09:18] Perhaps for those not as into the lore

[00:09:21] At least that is what I've heard from a few non-book reading friends

[00:09:25] For me it has everything I could wish for thus far

[00:09:28] Political intrigue, powerful women working against the patriarchy

[00:09:31] Hot swordsmen slash princes

[00:09:33] Yes, already shipping

[00:09:34] And super cool lizard toys

[00:09:36] The show can only go up from here

[00:09:38] And yeah, I mean it seems like a lot of people

[00:09:41] Found it easier to get into episode 2 than episode 1

[00:09:45] But maybe this is something about people into the lore

[00:09:49] I know you and I both kind of leaned episode 1

[00:09:52] Yeah, and they did

[00:09:55] I think one of the things that I was impressed by with episode 1

[00:09:58] Is how they walked the fine line between onboarding new fans or casual fans

[00:10:04] And then doing a lore dance episode to set up the world

[00:10:09] So that was really good

[00:10:10] And yeah, I think episode 2 definitely

[00:10:12] Now swings us back into the main story

[00:10:15] And that's hard to do with only 6 episodes

[00:10:20] To bring everybody in and get them up to speed

[00:10:23] And what to cut away and what to focus on

[00:10:25] That's really hard

[00:10:27] So even though there are a few elements of episode that I didn't enjoy

[00:10:31] Two episodes in

[00:10:33] I'm giving these showrunners a thumbs up for their efforts

[00:10:37] They are really balancing on a knife's edge here

[00:10:40] Of too much density and turning fans off

[00:10:43] Versus creating a drama that we can all understand

[00:10:46] It doesn't matter that there are

[00:10:47] Holtzman Fields and Guild Navigators

[00:10:50] It's like we understand

[00:10:52] Oh, okay, palace intrigue

[00:10:54] Balance of power

[00:10:56] You know, commodification of things

[00:10:58] And who controls that stuff

[00:11:00] So that's a very human story

[00:11:03] Yeah, absolutely

[00:11:05] All right, the new opening sequence

[00:11:08] Abby, who's the co-host of your book club for Wool Shift Dust

[00:11:12] And she's doing the

[00:11:13] Of the Hugh Howey stuff, yeah

[00:11:15] Right, and she's doing the spoiler cast with you on the silo?

[00:11:18] Mm-hmm

[00:11:18] Great

[00:11:20] I always love to hear from Abby

[00:11:22] She says, I'm intrigued by the intro sequence

[00:11:25] Partly it reminds me of the House of the Dragon season one intro

[00:11:30] With all the blood flowing

[00:11:31] That was also about bloodlines

[00:11:33] Although people didn't like it much

[00:11:35] The DNA spiral is shown

[00:11:36] Yes, this is about genetic manipulations

[00:11:39] And all resolving into the eye

[00:11:42] The great eye of who do we think?

[00:11:44] Who is the watcher?

[00:11:46] Hmm

[00:11:47] Well, I guess that should go in the book spoiler section

[00:11:49] But I did say who I think it is

[00:11:51] Right, right from the Marvel Universe, right?

[00:11:55] Oh, well, yeah, the watcher

[00:11:56] But I said who I think it is from the Dune Universe

[00:12:00] Right

[00:12:00] A person with the number two in their name

[00:12:03] Right

[00:12:05] These intros are all coming of a piece

[00:12:08] I think Foundation

[00:12:11] Game of Thrones, obviously

[00:12:13] I think of The Crown as well

[00:12:16] Had a beautiful opening

[00:12:17] Westworld, obviously

[00:12:19] So yeah, using these rings of power with the sand table

[00:12:25] So yeah, all of these are of a piece

[00:12:27] And I think I'll try to get around to

[00:12:30] Doing a quick roundup of the images that we see

[00:12:33] But this one is pretty straightforward

[00:12:35] It doesn't feel like they packed a lot of mystery into this opening

[00:12:38] You know what, though, about who I think the watcher is?

[00:12:42] Yeah

[00:12:43] I'm coming around to the idea that it could also be Paul Atreides from the original movie

[00:12:47] Because he can see everything, right?

[00:12:49] Right, right, that's a good point

[00:12:51] We can talk about that because that's in the second Villeneuve movie

[00:12:54] He's taken the water of life

[00:12:55] That's right, yeah, and just to recap the spoiler policy

[00:12:59] Lore versus spoiler, two different things

[00:13:01] We'll unpack lore and spoilers

[00:13:03] We're going to talk openly about the Dune one

[00:13:07] The first book, the first original book

[00:13:09] And then the two Villeneuve movies

[00:13:13] All right, do you want to read?

[00:13:14] And I guess 84, but that doesn't really

[00:13:15] It doesn't count

[00:13:17] Well, they show the space navigators in that

[00:13:21] Which they don't show in the Villeneuve movies

[00:13:24] That's true, I do love that movie, though

[00:13:26] Big nostalgia for that movie

[00:13:28] And Sting in winged underwear

[00:13:31] Absolutely

[00:13:33] Again, you know, hot swordsman

[00:13:34] There we go

[00:13:36] Well, yeah, or hot, Harkonnens

[00:13:38] Do you want to read Desmond's prophecies?

[00:13:41] Hot prophecies

[00:13:41] Sub-Zero says

[00:13:43] This male witch arc for Desmond is interesting

[00:13:46] I thought he was using some technology trick for the burning

[00:13:49] But for him to resist Valya's compulsion means he's had some training

[00:13:53] That was such a great scene

[00:13:56] You can tell Valya hasn't been that shocked in probably a hundred years

[00:14:00] Great facial acting by Emily Watson

[00:14:03] Yeah, I have a lot of questions about Desmond

[00:14:06] And I know this is something we are definitely going to talk more about in the spoiler section, but I still don't want it to be just magic.

[00:14:14] But it could be some sort of Quizzette's Hodorak prototype.

[00:14:23] The path is too short, so it's not the golden path.

[00:14:26] Right, like a little spur of a path.

[00:14:29] He has some of the initial genes that they need for making the Quizzette's Hodorak.

[00:14:35] But yeah, he's a short line.

[00:14:37] Maybe he'll inspire their long-term plans.

[00:14:41] Yeah, that's a good theory. I like that.

[00:14:45] I did like the comment that Desmond makes, which is, you know, I wondered what it would be like to see you, you know, or to see this situation, what would make you afraid.

[00:14:56] And it's that you're ineffective, basically, that you don't have the powers that you think you have.

[00:15:04] And that was pretty chilling.

[00:15:05] It's not that people don't hear you, it's that people hear you and don't listen.

[00:15:10] I'm like, oh, yeah.

[00:15:12] Pretty good.

[00:15:13] All right, you want to carry on with this whole section?

[00:15:15] Sure.

[00:15:16] So, Pausin20 says,

[00:15:20] The second episode of Doom Prophecy was really good and quite engaging as well.

[00:15:24] Looking forward to more episodes.

[00:15:25] Desmond is quite a character, able to resist the voice of Mother Superior, and now it will be interesting to see how the Sisterhood responds.

[00:15:33] The Emperor may have banished the Sisterhood, but a lot of major houses still employ them.

[00:15:40] Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts with the banishing.

[00:15:44] Clearly not 10,000 years, but...

[00:15:46] Well, and I think he just, the way I was reading it, he was just dismissing Valia from service.

[00:15:52] Like, yeah, we don't need you.

[00:15:54] But it didn't, it's not like he gave an edict out to saying that the Sisterhood is abolished or not useful.

[00:16:01] We don't know how much of the phrasing he used, where he was so dismissive of Valia and so finite.

[00:16:07] But I think that that probably comes a lot from him, and that's not how Javiko put it.

[00:16:14] And he's basically, you know, he's been given an inch and he's going to take his mile.

[00:16:18] Yeah, right.

[00:16:19] He's going to take as much power as quickly as possible.

[00:16:23] Right.

[00:16:24] Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:16:25] Okay.

[00:16:25] So, Brian8063 says, if Desmond is a machine, then humans tinkered with the technology in a major way.

[00:16:34] The machines in the jihad period didn't look that way.

[00:16:37] I wonder if he could be a mix of Sister and Mentat, where his powers are based on the mind and psychology.

[00:16:44] So, this is a big theory that's...

[00:16:47] Mm-hmm.

[00:16:48] Go ahead.

[00:16:48] I was going to say, that's kind of like a proto-Khrizaz Hadarach situation.

[00:16:52] Sure.

[00:16:53] And I think one of the big theories, too, that's kicking around is, is he some sort of cyborg, Cylon machine, you know, thing?

[00:17:01] Mm-hmm.

[00:17:01] I saw some Battlestar Galactica memes going around, you know, any one of us could be a Cylon kind of thing.

[00:17:07] But I think Brian's right.

[00:17:09] If he is a full machine, then that would be a radical advancement...

[00:17:15] ...of the technology, whereas a cyborg or to having some sort of cybernetic implants might be a half step that would be a little bit more conceivable in world.

[00:17:27] But I don't think...

[00:17:28] Well, yeah, and again, I haven't read any of the XD stuff, but in the...

[00:17:33] Not until the later books and some of the core stuff, we don't really have cybernetics as a thing.

[00:17:40] Yeah, I mean, and it's just, I would have so many questions about why is he on this anti-machine...

[00:17:47] I mean, I guess, you know, you can have hypocrisy in that sense, but what would be the purpose of him being dogmatically anti-machine?

[00:17:56] Unless it's to worm his way into Natalia's good graces.

[00:18:01] Right, right.

[00:18:02] Yeah, because she is violently anti-machine.

[00:18:07] Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:09] Yeah, okay.

[00:18:11] Well, Abby says, so Desmond Hart is an anti-sister.

[00:18:15] Much like the sisters break down the molecules of poison they ingest, does Hart manipulate his target's immune system and turn it against them so it burns them from the inside?

[00:18:25] Yeah, that's what they're suggesting, but I need to know more the mechanism of how.

[00:18:30] Yeah, and I mentioned this in the main pod that when Desmond sort of turns off his heat ray, I'm just going to call it that for now, they make a little mechanical sound like it's turning off or powering down.

[00:18:47] And again, I didn't know if that was supposed to be diegetic music or if that was just background sound effects to give us some clues about it.

[00:18:55] But it certainly was a clue that sounded to me mechanical or technological as opposed to magical activation or deactivation.

[00:19:07] Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:09] Okay, last one for this section.

[00:19:11] Rocky Zim says, well, I was right about Desmond Hart wanting to take down the sisterhood.

[00:19:15] He killed Kasha and the kid.

[00:19:17] Seems he has some eye implants or is a machine from the wars that lets him burn people, maybe a frequency or something.

[00:19:25] Yeah.

[00:19:26] Yeah, that's kind of going along with what I was thinking is like some sort of ray that activates frequencies.

[00:19:35] And yeah, he seems to have – he's touched his temple a couple of times and he's got those crazy eye looks.

[00:19:42] So those are some breadcrumbs that they've certainly laid out whether they prove or not to be.

[00:19:50] Is this a central mystery of the show, you think?

[00:19:53] This is a big one.

[00:19:55] It's really – they're really using it to drive – I think the – yeah, who is Desmond Hart and what is this power I think is the central mystery.

[00:20:03] That's the engine that's driving this season.

[00:20:05] The burning reckoning or whatever – what's the phrase?

[00:20:08] Tiran, Arifel, yeah, the burning truth.

[00:20:11] Yeah.

[00:20:12] Burning truth.

[00:20:13] Whether that's even the same thing because obviously we know what Tiran Arifel is from the books but that's much later.

[00:20:18] Right, right, exactly.

[00:20:20] Yeah, or is this a mini reckoning, right?

[00:20:23] Is this – is there more than one reckoning, more than one crisis moment?

[00:20:27] And that's the whole thing about sisterhood, about the sisters of the Bene Gesserits as well is that you're using stress points, conflict, crisis to advance things.

[00:20:43] So every crisis is a moment to advance the story of humanity and species survival, which I think is really interesting when you compare it with Foundation and with what Asimov was doing with psychohistory that you have these series of crises that Selden – I'm not going to spoil all of those.

[00:21:03] But that's a pretty well-known plot device that Asimov used was these different crisis points that Harry Selden predicts with psychohistory.

[00:21:14] And so that idea of crisis being translifted from Foundation and Frank Herbert is definitely writing in retrospect of Foundation.

[00:21:24] He was like, oh yeah, this is interesting, this giant human history and this giant story of us as a species across time.

[00:21:34] He's writing in reaction in many ways to that.

[00:21:37] So I like this idea of crisis being a point of transformation, a point of place where we as individuals and we as a species sort of move into a new understanding or a new way of doing things.

[00:21:51] Right. I mean, over 10,000 years between the two sets of stories, there's got to be a lot of crises.

[00:21:57] Yes, exactly. Exactly.

[00:21:59] They could make this show forever.

[00:22:02] All right. Power behind the throne?

[00:22:04] Question mark. David Kay, a.k.a. Groggy1 on Discord, wrote in an email.

[00:22:09] And I believe David Kay and there was another David.

[00:22:13] There's two new Davids in our Discord, but welcome both.

[00:22:16] It would be such a great irony.

[00:22:18] David's especially fans of you, of course.

[00:22:19] Yes. Our tribe. We are a tribe.

[00:22:23] It would be such a great irony if the Empress, who was very upset about the toy, but convinces the Emperor to use Desmond as a weapon, then gets back to the very thing she hates and fears by championing this brutal and powerful tool.

[00:22:40] I like this because if Desmond then does have some sort of technology or is himself technology, that's a delicious irony that the Empress uses Desmond.

[00:22:54] But then, oops, that's the thing that I hate the most.

[00:22:57] Yeah. Yeah, zealots.

[00:23:00] Yes, exactly.

[00:23:02] And then Abby adds in, so is the real ruler Natalia?

[00:23:07] I'm not sure that this is a good thing.

[00:23:10] She hates machines, but the magic religious explanation she is on with.

[00:23:16] Yeah.

[00:23:17] So adding to what you were saying about zealots.

[00:23:19] Mm-hmm.

[00:23:21] So the agony of wondering if Lila is really dead.

[00:23:27] That's Nancy's headline.

[00:23:29] So Furralisa says, poor, poor Lila.

[00:23:31] I hope she's not dead.

[00:23:33] Just in a coma of some sort.

[00:23:34] The agony was terrible.

[00:23:36] And SubZero says, I think Lila is going to pull through.

[00:23:39] If nothing else, there would be the added tension of that now someone knows Valya murdered Dorotea in episode one.

[00:23:47] Yeah, that brings me back to my questions about how does Dorotea, how can she communicate that unless.

[00:23:53] Mm-hmm.

[00:23:54] And Nancy, hand of the pod herself, said, I wonder if Lila is really dead.

[00:23:59] I didn't see any light for her to walk towards.

[00:24:02] I think Tula will continue talking in her ear and the ghosty Lila will hear and walk to the light.

[00:24:09] I really liked her and would be sad for her to go, but Dorotea sure did get her revenge.

[00:24:14] Which, Carol Ann, go to the light.

[00:24:17] Sorry.

[00:24:17] Go away from the light.

[00:24:18] The light's dangerous.

[00:24:19] Wait, what am I supposed to do?

[00:24:24] Yeah, I think there's a 0% chance that she's dead.

[00:24:28] I think first, just from a storytelling perspective, they wouldn't have put so much emphasis on this character and set all this up just to have her die quickly like that.

[00:24:46] But, yeah.

[00:24:49] It seemed like – I haven't gone back and looked at it again, but it seemed like a bunch of the other memories were crowding out that space or trying to climb into the light or climbing out of the light.

[00:24:59] And then that's when they sort of dogpile her and then the camera pulls back.

[00:25:03] So I think they did try to show it, but it just is a – it's a very quick flash of a scene.

[00:25:08] Yeah.

[00:25:10] And then that goes into the whole lore of other memories and that consciousness is sort of this spotlight.

[00:25:17] And when – of all of these other memories, some of them are more aggressive than others and that often a lot of them will crave the light.

[00:25:30] They want the consciousness.

[00:25:33] They want the experience of consciousness.

[00:25:35] They want to get into that spotlight.

[00:25:37] And so as a now reverend mother – because if you survive the agony, that's your test to becoming a reverend mother – a reverend mother is always balancing and managing all of those other voices.

[00:25:49] Because you're always aware of them.

[00:25:51] They're always in communication.

[00:25:52] You're always in communication with them.

[00:25:53] And so it does take a lot of training to be able to manage your own psychology when you have a multitude of voices whispering and talking at you in your head all the time.

[00:26:05] You're never alone anymore.

[00:26:07] Right.

[00:26:07] And that takes a lot of psychological stamina and strength, I guess you could say.

[00:26:12] Mm-hmm.

[00:26:13] Is that a way to explain it?

[00:26:15] So, all right.

[00:26:18] Really?

[00:26:18] More sex?

[00:26:19] Question mark?

[00:26:20] Is Nancy's comment.

[00:26:23] And yes, there was definitely some comments about HBO's 9 p.m. time slot.

[00:26:28] Sub-Zero says, it's a prestige show.

[00:26:32] Of course there's going to be sex scenes.

[00:26:33] Was it necessary?

[00:26:34] Nope.

[00:26:35] And it definitely dragged on way too long.

[00:26:38] My wife has a different take.

[00:26:40] She just wants equal exposure.

[00:26:42] Exposure.

[00:26:43] If we see boobs, then we need to see a man's butt.

[00:26:46] And full frontal needs to go both ways.

[00:26:49] Well, we did.

[00:26:50] So I was feeling the same way.

[00:26:53] I did notice at the very end he takes off.

[00:26:57] Because I was like, why is she undressed and he's fully clothed?

[00:27:00] Like that was giving me the ick, to be honest.

[00:27:03] Right.

[00:27:03] Not that like in your bedroom you can do whatever.

[00:27:05] But if you're just showing this on television, yeah.

[00:27:08] And then at the end we see his butt for a moment.

[00:27:11] Like he takes off the robe or whatever.

[00:27:13] But we just didn't need all the boobs flopping around.

[00:27:18] No, no, we didn't.

[00:27:20] Although if we're watching Foundation on Apple TV, Lee Pace, he certainly can be on screen plenty.

[00:27:27] It's got everybody on the bottom of Lee.

[00:27:30] Whoever we saw as Constantine could have been a body double.

[00:27:34] I mean, yes, that was a fine specimen of a human being.

[00:27:38] But it just gave me the ick, to the scene.

[00:27:41] Even though I am pro-sex, pro-sex in storytelling.

[00:27:47] Right.

[00:27:48] Yeah.

[00:27:48] Tina adds in, I really need John to come onto the podcast for this episode to rant about the gratuitous sex scenes on the show.

[00:27:55] And of course, our other host, John, is famously on record multiple times saying that it's okay if it advances the story.

[00:28:01] But Tina continues, I'm really open to nudity and sex scenes on screen if they tell us something new about the plot or the character.

[00:28:07] But seriously, Max, 13 years after season one of Game of Thrones and we're still doing this, I didn't care for the whole club drug sex scenes in episode one.

[00:28:18] But fine.

[00:28:19] I really have no idea why we needed this.

[00:28:21] For me, all these soapy meat market scenes just take something away from the otherwise intriguing show.

[00:28:30] Yeah, that's a question.

[00:28:31] Where's the balance?

[00:28:32] What will – does the gratuitousness of it drag the show down?

[00:28:38] So far, to me, it's just right on the border.

[00:28:41] Yeah.

[00:28:42] Yeah, I mean, it's leaning more uncomfortably that way than I expected, to be honest.

[00:28:48] Because it does – it's right.

[00:28:50] It feels like something from 13 years ago.

[00:28:52] But now, I don't know.

[00:28:54] I just – you know I worry.

[00:28:56] I love so much content on – it's still called HBO Max here.

[00:28:59] I'm still going to call it that.

[00:29:00] Yeah, that's what we kind of refer to.

[00:29:02] Even though they have merged now Discovery content onto there.

[00:29:05] And I have yet to watch a single Discovery show they put on there because I'm just a different audience, you know?

[00:29:09] And I don't have time to do it all.

[00:29:12] You don't?

[00:29:13] What?

[00:29:13] I know.

[00:29:14] Alicia, get a surprise.

[00:29:17] Yeah, I do my best, but I hurt myself.

[00:29:21] But yeah, I am worried.

[00:29:26] I'm on record many times being worried about Zaslav and the way he approaches things and the way he seems to have no understanding of the prestige TV brands.

[00:29:37] Right, right.

[00:29:38] And this just feels like a cheap thing you do to boost ratings and I don't like it.

[00:29:45] Yeah.

[00:29:45] No, and it's like cotton candy.

[00:29:47] There's no nutritional substance.

[00:29:49] It's like a flavor in the moment, but there's no longevity to that kind of stuff.

[00:29:53] Right.

[00:29:54] Yeah.

[00:29:54] And I just feel bad for the actress too whenever – yeah.

[00:29:58] Yeah.

[00:29:59] All right, last comment before we take a break and then get into the full spoiler section.

[00:30:05] Episode 1, Lore Nugget.

[00:30:07] Marilyn, our favorite Tolkien scholar again, says,

[00:30:10] I really, really like the whole betrothal scene.

[00:30:13] The symbolism of the pomegranate goes all the way back to Greek myths.

[00:30:17] It was because Persephone ate seeds from the pomegranate before she was released from her imprisonment by Hades in the underworld that she had to return for so many months out of every year.

[00:30:30] The pomegranate is also a symbol of fertility and was the symbol of Catherine of Aragon's family line.

[00:30:38] Aragon's family line?

[00:30:39] Is that right?

[00:30:40] Yeah.

[00:30:40] Yeah, she was the first wife of Henry VIII.

[00:30:45] Ah, okay.

[00:30:46] Got it.

[00:30:47] Any more insights on the pomegranate from your angle?

[00:30:51] I mean, yeah, I think Marilyn, as always, went even deeper than I did.

[00:30:59] So thank you, Marilyn.

[00:31:00] Yeah, and I like the fact this is – and then we get into the whole AI versus a writer's room kind of thing.

[00:31:06] And this is the kind of pulls that a writer or a group of writers is going to be able to do that I don't think a machine would ever do is to weave in these kinds of subtle historical elements and place them in a storyline that makes sense.

[00:31:23] And then to make them visually beautiful like they did because that overhead shot of the pomegranate, the case, which I noticed on the Dune Minute podcast, those guys mentioned that the three sections of that case opening up was kind of like the original worm design from the 84 movies.

[00:31:43] Yeah.

[00:31:43] Where it had three sections of a mouth that sort of peel back and open.

[00:31:47] Yeah.

[00:31:47] That was a nice little visual nod that those guys picked up on.

[00:31:50] I like that.

[00:31:51] So I'm going through in my head.

[00:31:53] I'm trying to link Catherine of Aragon to what we see, what's going on screen.

[00:31:57] So just for – I said it's Henry VIII's first wife.

[00:32:00] So basically he – Henry VIII said England is now Protestant just so he could divorce her and be with Anne Boleyn.

[00:32:09] Gosh.

[00:32:10] Let's change our national policy based on my predilections.

[00:32:14] And this was definitely – there's a lot of religious zealotry around this whole time period where her daughter, the king, Mary, a.k.a. Bloody Mary, was known as – she tried to make the country Catholic again by killing and torturing a bunch of people and that did not work out well.

[00:32:34] So yeah, I just wonder if there's something with the religious zealotry with the woman being set aside for another by the king.

[00:32:44] Right.

[00:32:45] Right.

[00:32:46] Yeah.

[00:32:46] And then that's definitely something that Frank Herbert deals with in a lot of the original six books is religion and government and state policy and how those things intermingle and intermix and feed off of each other.

[00:33:04] So it's a really potent area of exploration and conversation.

[00:33:08] I feel like I should say though I called her Bloody Mary but there is – historians say that we've been maybe a little too hard on her but she did oversee a lot of killing and torturing.

[00:33:20] Okay.

[00:33:21] Well, let's take a quick break and then when we come back we will get into full book spoilers.

[00:33:28] We've got a number of emails and comments that go into some deeper conversations.

[00:33:33] And again, we're doing this because we don't want to spoil too much of the latter original books because a lot of the theories about Desmond and some of the things that are going on really pull from that stuff.

[00:33:46] So if you're not interested in getting spoiled, now is the time for you to check out.

[00:33:51] Although we do encourage you to hang out and stick with us if you're interested in delving into that kind of stuff.

[00:33:59] Right. And to be honest, I look through what's here and –

[00:34:03] Yeah.

[00:34:03] I mean it's just speculation as far as this show because nobody knows.

[00:34:07] But what it is more spoilery quote unquote of is backstory details that may be revealed in the show and also maybe things that will be revealed in Dune Messiah, the third Villeneuve movie.

[00:34:19] Yeah, there's a couple of good comments about that and how movie three is going to get tied in and are they laying track – are they laying story track in this season of television to get us to the movie?

[00:34:32] Because this is the same production house, legendary productions.

[00:34:37] So – and Villeneuve was originally attached to be a director and be involved in this.

[00:34:44] So – all right.

[00:34:46] Anyway, we'll be right back.

[00:35:02] Thank you.

[00:35:51] And we are back.

[00:35:58] So here we go.

[00:36:00] We're going to get into some really fun stuff.

[00:36:03] Do you want to start off with David Max's email?

[00:36:08] Sure.

[00:36:08] Or Discord comment, I'm sorry.

[00:36:10] So this section is called Fans Fixated on Golas.

[00:36:14] And so, just joined Discord for the first time to mention my theory and Desmond.

[00:36:20] Speculative, possible spoiler for those who aren't familiar with Dune lore.

[00:36:24] I could be wrong, but it seems Desmond must be one of the earliest Golas, which would explain the eyes.

[00:36:30] However, the powers and memories seem to point to something more or completely different.

[00:36:35] I guess we'll see if Benny Tleilux gets introduced before Dune Part 3.

[00:36:41] So I guess we need to explain a few things here.

[00:36:44] Here we go.

[00:36:44] Yes.

[00:36:46] Here we go.

[00:36:47] We're getting weird.

[00:36:48] Frank gets really weird in the leader box.

[00:36:51] I love this Benny Tleilux.

[00:36:53] We actually saw – so they are the Benny Tleilux.

[00:36:57] And I said – I mentioned on the other episode breakdown that they were apparently involved in the ravaging of the planets where we found out that Desmond came from.

[00:37:10] Major fly, right?

[00:37:12] Major paint.

[00:37:13] Yeah.

[00:37:13] But they are – later in the timeline, they are best known as genetic engineers.

[00:37:21] So in the first Villeneuve movie, you might remember there's a certain moment where the Reverend Mother is talking to Baron Harkonnen and there's like this creature randomly in the background.

[00:37:34] It's like kind of like a black grass – giant grasshopper-y type of – I don't know how to describe it.

[00:37:39] But that was a creature that everyone assumes was made by the Benny Tleilux.

[00:37:44] And they can do stuff like that.

[00:37:46] But they can also do – I think we have to talk about Golas and Face Dancers.

[00:37:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:52] Absolutely.

[00:37:54] So Golas are – okay.

[00:37:56] Oh, we said big spoilers, big spoilers, big spoilers.

[00:38:00] Can't get mad at us from this point on.

[00:38:03] I'm pretty sure this is going to show up in Dune Messiah because Duncan Idaho, the character played by Jason Momoa,

[00:38:15] his character in the books comes back, but not as himself.

[00:38:19] It's a Gola.

[00:38:20] And a Gola is like a – like a clone of sorts that they recreate after someone dies.

[00:38:29] A Gollum.

[00:38:30] Yeah, I think he might have pulled – there's some questions about where he came up with the word Gola.

[00:38:35] Yeah, I always think of Gollum, yeah.

[00:38:36] Yeah.

[00:38:37] And the thing is –

[00:38:38] Not the Lord of the Rings type.

[00:38:40] Right, exactly.

[00:38:41] You need genetic material and it's got to be fresh, if I remember right.

[00:38:46] And then they have these axolotl tanks, these tanks where they can grow this genetic material and they can recreate and clone somebody.

[00:38:56] And then that being can have – has a certain amount of memory and identity, but they have to go through a agony.

[00:39:06] They have to go through a crisis.

[00:39:07] They have to go through a intense emotional crisis moment to be able to gain full access to their identity of who they were prior to when they died.

[00:39:21] And so in the books, they – the sadhukar are able to take some of Duncan Idaho's genetic material.

[00:39:30] That gets handed over and then, yeah, that's a big ongoing storyline is the Idaho's Duncan Idaho always being brought back.

[00:39:39] Yeah, big spoilers.

[00:39:40] It happens a lot.

[00:39:43] Do you want to talk a little bit about face dancers too?

[00:39:46] Yeah.

[00:39:46] So face dancers are not the same, but basically they're another Benet Tlilax invention, so to speak, where these face dancers, they can mimic the appearance of peoples, but they can also – they have like the ability to change their face on the spots kind of.

[00:40:08] So they can – they're shape shifters basically, and that's what the face dancing is about.

[00:40:12] And yes, the faceless men from A Song of Ice and Fire do seem to be based on the face dancers.

[00:40:20] Right, right.

[00:40:21] Yeah, and shape shifting is a common sci-fi theme, and we see it in Star Trek and a whole bunch of other properties.

[00:40:26] But yeah, so is Desmond Agola?

[00:40:31] Was he – and a lot of the counterargument that's going on around different communities, Dune communities is, is this too early?

[00:40:42] This is 10,000 years before, and so could they really have the – could the Benet Tlilax have that technology perfected enough at this stage to actually credibly bring Agola into the storyline?

[00:40:55] But that's where I like David Max's email here, which is we need to have some story element ready for Dune Part 3 so that that is not just some weird left field thing, but there's actually some story arc that has been laid down at least a little bit just so that there's credibility.

[00:41:18] See, I actually felt the opposite because I felt like it undermines the surprise of Duncan Idaho's return.

[00:41:24] Sure. Okay. That's interesting.

[00:41:26] But yeah, for me it's also – and this is always the problem with Dune, and I just like squint and forget about it.

[00:41:32] It did not have to be 10,000 years between these two parts of the storylines.

[00:41:36] That's just slightly excessive considering the amount of development.

[00:41:41] And I think that was some of the criticism people have leveled at the show.

[00:41:44] It's like, well, why is technology – why does everything look the same?

[00:41:48] And I guess –

[00:41:49] They had books.

[00:41:51] Some of that is the fact that part of what Frank was talking about was stagnation as well.

[00:41:57] Like we've reached a certain point and we need that next crisis moment.

[00:42:01] But you can argue about 10,000 years or not, and I guess that's where we – you can squint a little bit.

[00:42:06] I mean we've had a lot more crisis moments than that in our 2,000 years of written history.

[00:42:11] Yeah, that's true.

[00:42:13] Yeah, I just – I think that there is a point that is intentionally being made by Frank Herbert in the originals about just how this destroying of the machines.

[00:42:26] They are intentionally stagnating their own technological developments.

[00:42:31] And also just the way they have this – I keep referring to this universe as a chessboard, but that really is how he paints it.

[00:42:39] And they are constantly in check, you know, like where the sides are – all the different schools, the different great houses, they're all constantly in this holding pattern until – because they're all like as we see with the – or sorry, the sisters in this, that they are both supporting the emperor and undermining him at the same time just to keep the status quo.

[00:43:05] Right, right.

[00:43:07] And yeah, just feudalism.

[00:43:08] And then that sort of is a stasis that keeps everything locked in place.

[00:43:13] And then ultimately that's part of the driving factor of the original six books is that we need to change.

[00:43:18] We need to move forward.

[00:43:21] All right.

[00:43:21] Speaking of moving forward, let's get to David K's email.

[00:43:26] Hey, guys.

[00:43:26] Love the pod.

[00:43:27] Been listening for a while and really enjoy your takes and the Discord community.

[00:43:31] Thank you.

[00:43:32] And I'm glad you're enjoying the Discord community.

[00:43:34] I feel like we have a really fun place where a lot of great human beings are having conversation and Discord and sharing their thoughts and opinions about stuff.

[00:43:44] We have a great moderator team and everybody works really hard to keep it a fun place to hang out, you know, kind of a third place.

[00:43:53] So anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

[00:43:56] Carrying on, Desmond.

[00:43:57] I believe he is some sort of AI Gola.

[00:44:00] It would explain a lot.

[00:44:01] How did he survive being eaten by Shai Hulut?

[00:44:05] How does he have this burning power?

[00:44:07] How is it that he appears to have prescience but doesn't seem to have ingested spice?

[00:44:13] His story of growing up on some difficult planet with no real life story, his talk about faith to the Imperium mixed with some unclear faith to whatever power he has.

[00:44:23] Very fishy.

[00:44:24] But he believes all of it and is telling the truth, which still seems clouded.

[00:44:31] Another tell when Pruitt lost control of his AI toy, who stopped it?

[00:44:35] That very toy also disappeared when Desmond murdered him.

[00:44:40] AI is such a taboo thing in the universe, and the show goes out of its way to bring AI up right away, which, of course, is very, very relevant to our world right now.

[00:44:52] Curious to hear your thoughts about this.

[00:44:54] Thanks, David.

[00:44:56] Really good.

[00:44:57] You're bringing up a whole bunch of really good points here, especially about the AI in modern context stuff.

[00:45:04] And Alicia, you still don't have the lizard toy, so I don't know.

[00:45:07] I know.

[00:45:08] So it's still missing.

[00:45:09] Yeah.

[00:45:11] Any thoughts about the AI GOLA angle?

[00:45:15] So not only a GOLA, but some sort of AI-activated GOLA.

[00:45:19] I mean, then I have questions.

[00:45:22] What if the...

[00:45:25] So we know we have Richese here, and that their rivals are the Ix.

[00:45:32] Because the only times, as we talked about in the main app, the only times we really get much mention of the Richese is like second fiddle to the Ix in terms of technology.

[00:45:41] Right.

[00:45:41] What if they were working together?

[00:45:43] See, I'm going off the theory deep end.

[00:45:45] I'm like, what if they were working with the Benny Tleilax and they're creating something new together?

[00:45:50] Yeah.

[00:45:50] Yeah.

[00:45:51] Interesting.

[00:45:51] I don't know.

[00:45:52] I still think he's a man at this point, but I don't know.

[00:45:56] I think I'm just...

[00:45:58] This is one that I'm happy to be surprised by.

[00:46:01] Right along.

[00:46:01] Yeah.

[00:46:02] Exactly.

[00:46:03] Because, yeah, they really haven't given us...

[00:46:06] They've given us enough to get everybody talking about it, but they haven't given us enough in a single direction to really have a good solid theory.

[00:46:16] And I think showrunners these days in the modern context of television writing know that the Reddit detectives are out there.

[00:46:23] Right.

[00:46:23] And so they write relative to that as opposed to being naive about how much investigation people are going to do.

[00:46:29] They're very cognizant of the fandom.

[00:46:31] They're very cognizant.

[00:46:33] There are podcasts and blue sky skeeters.

[00:46:37] Is that what they're called?

[00:46:38] Yeah.

[00:46:39] You know, people out there who are digging into this stuff and who are going to share theories and break stuff down.

[00:46:44] And so I think they're being intentional about that a little bit.

[00:46:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:46:50] So.

[00:46:51] All right.

[00:46:51] You want to pick up with Tina?

[00:46:53] Yeah.

[00:46:53] So Tina says, question for the Dune lore nerds concerning the popular fan theory.

[00:46:58] I'm a little shaky on the lore here.

[00:46:59] In Dune Messiah, we are first introduced to the concept of a Gola in the form of hate.

[00:47:04] But hate wasn't able to access his full genetic memory, right?

[00:47:08] Well, yeah.

[00:47:08] David, you just talked a bit about.

[00:47:10] Yeah.

[00:47:10] You got to have a crisis.

[00:47:12] You have to go through an agony of sort of an emotional agony to be able to unlock your genetic memory.

[00:47:17] Right.

[00:47:18] Only through some complicated triggering and reliving of trauma were the Tlilaxu able to fully unlock that power for their Gola technology.

[00:47:26] Right.

[00:47:27] So if Desmond is some sort of proto-Gola, why does it take the Tlilaxu another 10,000 years to further improve this technology?

[00:47:34] Well, yeah.

[00:47:35] Yeah.

[00:47:36] Clearly, the Bene Gesserit came out on top of this conflict.

[00:47:40] Hmm.

[00:47:40] So maybe at the end of the show, the Bene Tlilaxu are kind of defeated for now and just focus on their other weird toys for the next 10,000 years.

[00:47:48] Like, yeah.

[00:47:50] Yeah.

[00:47:51] I think that's got to be it.

[00:47:52] Yeah.

[00:47:53] Yeah.

[00:47:53] If he is, then yeah.

[00:47:56] Yeah.

[00:47:56] Yeah.

[00:47:57] If he is, you know, and what are the Bene Gesserit doing?

[00:48:00] And the whole thing turns around for them is around the axolotl tanks and how they develop that technology.

[00:48:09] And it takes them a really long time because they're not able to reproduce other things with the tanks until much, much, much later.

[00:48:18] And which shifts the balance of power as well.

[00:48:21] But I think, you know, just going back to the world that Frank Herbert originally created in the original six books, I really love the multi-axis world that he's created between the Ixians, between the Guild, between the Sardaukar, between the Sisterhood, you know, between the Imperium, between the Bene Tlilax, you know, all of these.

[00:48:41] And then later on with the, what are they called?

[00:48:45] The other sisters from the scattering.

[00:48:48] Anyway, bringing all of this multi-axle thing where it's not just, oh, there's a good guy and a bad guy.

[00:48:57] But there's like a dozen different forces at play here all intermingling and everybody's trying to get a big enough lever to shift the world, to push things in the direction that they want to have him pushed.

[00:49:11] And yeah, I think it's really creative stuff too.

[00:49:15] Like we said, he gets really weird in the later books, but it's cool weird.

[00:49:20] It's cool weird.

[00:49:21] But I also like this part of the timeline for the extra complexity, for instance, with the Harkonnens, you know, that like Valia is kind of bad news for sure.

[00:49:30] Yeah.

[00:49:31] But Tula seems mostly okay.

[00:49:32] But then again, she didn't save her favorite, her supposed daughter, Lila.

[00:49:38] I mean, not literal, but you know what I mean?

[00:49:40] Yeah.

[00:49:42] But I, yeah, I like that this is a world where there's so many moving pieces that there can always be a new combination of like, you know, if we had like the Benny's Lilacs and the Ix together, that would be a new combination that could lead to something cool.

[00:50:01] But then, yeah, they would have to be defeated.

[00:50:04] Right.

[00:50:05] All right.

[00:50:06] You want to hit Jordan M's other email?

[00:50:08] Yes.

[00:50:09] So random spoilery thoughts.

[00:50:11] First, love that you brought up Holtzman, David.

[00:50:14] Fun fact, Holtzman, though admittedly a genius in his own right, was also the alpha male egoist type that stole credit for many of his inventions slash innovations from Norma Senva up to and including the famous glow globe lights they use.

[00:50:30] She would also go on to be the first navigator.

[00:50:34] Leading in from Norma, small nitpick with your insistence that psychic projected powers are not a thing in this world.

[00:50:40] Okay.

[00:50:42] Perhaps not so much with Frank, but in the prequels, Norma, who deserves her own show, by the way, fuses with a stone of some sort, if I recall, and is then able to physically transform herself from a misshapen dwarf to a beautiful woman.

[00:50:57] Mother issues abound here.

[00:51:27] Sorceress is, which are, they predated the sisterhood and they pretty much became the sisterhood.

[00:51:35] They were based on that Rosak, that planet with the pretty deadly jungle.

[00:51:41] That they also had, I mean, something more resembling magic in a similar way to this.

[00:51:48] And, and yeah, it is some sort of psychic manipulation of, of some sort of telekinetic or, yeah.

[00:51:57] Yeah.

[00:51:57] Um, so we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss it as magic woo woo maybe.

[00:52:04] Right.

[00:52:05] Yeah.

[00:52:06] And that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the knife sets that we're balancing on here is, is how, and that's, that I think is represented in the fandom as well between the XD, you know, uh, uh, Brian Herbert and, and Kevin J. Anderson versus Frank.

[00:52:21] And, you know, I don't want to put it in a, in a directly oppositional framework of versus, but you know, there's a body of work that Brian and, and, uh, Kevin have written.

[00:52:32] And there's a body of work that Frank wrote and they're not always in alignment, right?

[00:52:36] They don't always follow each other.

[00:52:38] Uh, so, and I think, uh, I think mostly though, I think more than people give credit for, I think there's, there are details where I'm like, Hmm.

[00:52:46] Yeah.

[00:52:47] But I think that's what Frank Herbert was really, and we've said this before is he was trying to keep his feet on the ground to a certain degree and, and, you know, not deal with aliens, not deal with, uh, warp drive.

[00:53:01] Uh, you know, he kept it when he gets there, he gets, he keeps it pretty simple and he doesn't go into it.

[00:53:07] Keep his feet on the ground.

[00:53:09] Have you heard of our Lord and savior to Cleto the second?

[00:53:13] Yes, exactly.

[00:53:16] I do, uh, this interesting facts though, about Holtzpin, which I don't know much about, cause that's again, XD stuff.

[00:53:21] But then I, it makes me think of Zephryn Cochran from the Star Trek universe and, uh, Solomon Epstein and the expanse universe that like, you know, you've got these, uh, and of course,

[00:53:31] our own human history where you have these key scientific figures who discover something and, oh, we lob them and we, we raise them up, but they're not always, you know, like, what do they say?

[00:53:43] Never meet your heroes.

[00:53:44] Right.

[00:53:44] They're, you know, they're still human beings.

[00:53:46] They're, they're not perfect just because they discovered something amazing.

[00:53:49] Right.

[00:53:50] Right.

[00:53:52] Oh, uh, and the Jordan's email continues, uh, that tech has not changed much in 10,000 plus years.

[00:54:00] It seems to, uh, seems legit to a fanatically anti-thinking machine society and does not bother me in the least.

[00:54:07] Oh, and last but not least, I got a glimpse of the Titans.

[00:54:11] Oh, wow.

[00:54:12] I'm, I'm now secretly hoping for Erasmus to be here somehow, maybe as the eyes.

[00:54:18] He is my favorite character after Lido, aka God Emperor, the best of all the books, by the way.

[00:54:25] Alors toujours un gros merci.

[00:54:27] Sorry, less friends than usual, unless I know John will be a guest.

[00:54:32] Mwahaha.

[00:54:32] Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

[00:54:34] Thank you for the great coverage and hi, and thanks to the amazing Nancy too.

[00:54:38] Cheers all.

[00:54:40] So Erasmus, yeah, that's a, that's a big one, right?

[00:54:43] That's the one.

[00:54:44] Are we thinking that, where are you with the Erasmus theory or the AI theory and are they, have they blended it in this story or are they keeping things a little separate?

[00:54:54] I'm curious.

[00:54:55] Yes.

[00:54:55] So Erasmus, I mentioned in the last spoiler section, I mentioned Erasmus because Erasmus ended up forming a close bond with the last princess from the Carina household who went to the sisterhood and that was Anna Carina.

[00:55:09] And they ended up, I mean, having like, they formed a bond and then she felt betrayed and she ended up like killing herself over it by walking out in the middle of this war out of her protection.

[00:55:22] And he ended up following her and stuff.

[00:55:25] But I would not be, because that's such a major character from the books trilogy that inspired this and they are pulling stuff directly from that book.

[00:55:36] I would not be surprised if Erasmus ended up in some way forming part of this story.

[00:55:44] But then, you know, that's, that's, there was a definitive end for this character, but then again, you know, science fiction.

[00:55:50] Yes, exactly. And they're certainly keeping something hidden from us in the genetic library.

[00:55:57] Right.

[00:55:57] And I think we were both on the same page of, of an early theory that there is some sort of AI down there helping them with that.

[00:56:06] Because I haven't finished the sisterhood book, but I believe there's a whole team of sisters working in the genetic library with an AI.

[00:56:12] Right. A handful at least. Yeah.

[00:56:14] Yeah. And a handful at least. Yeah. And in, in, in this story world, they're making it seem as if only Tula, Tula and Valia have access to this.

[00:56:25] Yeah. And Raquel before that.

[00:56:27] So if you need that much compute power, it's gotta be an AI that's dead.

[00:56:32] But obviously Dorotea knew about it and that's why Dorotea was like, she was taking the key and she's like, well, now that Raquel is dead, I'm going to go against her wishes and destroy this because she felt like, you know, she, Dorotea was so anti-machine.

[00:56:47] She felt like it was the right thing to do. And Valia's like, no, we need that. We need that AI. And that's, she made her kill herself.

[00:56:54] So, right. Exactly. I think, I think you're right. And, and Tula says, you know, we've gone there. We've great secrets that we've gone great lengths to keep. And now Lila spoilers. Uh, if you've watched the up next on, uh, episode three, Lila is alive.

[00:57:08] Right.

[00:57:08] Uh, they, they do show her. And, uh, so does Lila now know is Dorotea going to tell Lila and it does that complicate things?

[00:57:15] So, and, um, yeah, so Erasmus started, starts the sisterhood of Dune story. Um, as, so they have the sisters have this like hidden AI closet with it that's helping them do their genetic category and, you know, uh, prediction and planning stuff. Uh, but then the Mentats, the head of the school of the Mentats, uh, he has rescued a very important, important and powerful AI.

[00:57:42] AI Erasmus who actually raised him. And so that's the Mentats secret hidden clauses. He's actually talking to this AI Erasmus to help like do the planning for the school.

[00:57:55] Right. Exactly. So the whole, the whole Mentat, uh, protocol training protocol is based on AI.

[00:58:04] And yeah, AI helped come up with it. Yeah.

[00:58:07] Yeah. So, uh, Marilyn had written in, and, uh, this is further down the outline. I'll just jump it up now.

[00:58:12] In the spoiler portion of your episode, you mentioned that one of the forbidden computer AI systems was named Erasmus.

[00:58:19] And I chuckled because in academic search circles, the Erasmus program is known as the one that helps the offices of international studies to identify programs, track students, and so forth.

[00:58:31] A sort of, uh, young scholars abroad thing.

[00:58:35] Though this network is something that the European Union set up as a consortium back in 1987.

[00:58:41] But I expect that Alicia probably already knew that.

[00:58:45] Well, yeah, most of all, because Erasmus, the original scholar, Erasmus, uh, he's 15th, 16th century.

[00:58:53] Um, he's Dutch.

[00:58:54] So he, he's a very big name here.

[00:58:57] And yeah, there's this like student exchange program.

[00:58:59] So you'll, you know, every once in a while you'll meet a student from another country and like, oh, I'm an Erasmus student.

[00:59:05] Yeah.

[00:59:05] And then there was a Socrates program as well that I think helped, uh, faculty and, and, and do other technical exchange between, uh, universities.

[00:59:14] But I think that's all changed a bunch, uh, in recent years, but yeah, very cool program to help people, um, study in other countries and stuff.

[00:59:22] Yeah.

[00:59:24] Right.

[00:59:25] Uh, where were we?

[00:59:26] So we got Jordan.

[00:59:27] Do you want to do Abby's?

[00:59:29] Yeah.

[00:59:29] Okay, sure.

[00:59:30] Um, do the Benny's, uh, Tlilaxu exist?

[00:59:34] We're really making you say that word over again.

[00:59:36] You just have to say it more than I do.

[00:59:39] Struggle.

[00:59:39] Struggle.

[00:59:41] Um, exist at the, at this point in time.

[00:59:44] Yes.

[00:59:45] Uh, well, that girl, Lila was killed indirectly by Valia.

[00:59:48] Considering that sister came with her with a vengeance.

[00:59:51] You can't pick and choose who you contact with in genetic memory.

[00:59:55] 10,000 years later, maybe.

[00:59:57] Um, is this a nod to the later quote unquote relationship between, um, Aaliyah and the Baron?

[01:00:03] So, you know, it's okay.

[01:00:05] Uh, wait, we'll get back to the Aaliyah and the Baron thing in a minute, but just about the previous.

[01:00:10] My brain stops at the previous.

[01:00:12] Um, so what's interesting is in the books, um, what is it?

[01:00:18] Yeah.

[01:00:18] I think it was Dorothea did not realize that she, when Dorothea became the second Reverend mother, she found out who her mother, she found out her grandmother was Raquel and she found out who her mother was.

[01:00:33] And that her mother, like Raquel had taken her from her mother.

[01:00:36] And it was like this whole traumatic thing.

[01:00:38] Cause her mother didn't want to let her go.

[01:00:40] Um, but her mother was still alive at the time.

[01:00:42] And it was just like, it was, she just knew like as soon as she's like, oh, I, now I see the generations before me.

[01:00:50] Mm-hmm.

[01:00:50] And now I see who my mother is and who my grandmother is.

[01:00:54] Um, and it's just information.

[01:00:55] And she knew up to, and that's where there's a moment where it gets a little fuzzy, where she remembers her mother, like crying when she's being taken away from her.

[01:01:05] But I'm like, if, if you've already been born.

[01:01:08] You're supposed to know that.

[01:01:08] Yeah.

[01:01:08] Well, I guess if she was a baby physically present, then I guess maybe she would remember.

[01:01:13] She, you know, if you unlock.

[01:01:14] Sure, right.

[01:01:14] Yeah, yeah.

[01:01:15] Like she actual recall, like, uh.

[01:01:17] Right.

[01:01:17] Her own brain recalls.

[01:01:19] Yeah.

[01:01:19] Interesting.

[01:01:20] Okay.

[01:01:20] Okay.

[01:01:21] Yeah.

[01:01:21] Sorry.

[01:01:22] I talked through that.

[01:01:23] Yeah.

[01:01:23] Now I feel better.

[01:01:24] Okay, good.

[01:01:25] Yeah.

[01:01:26] One of the most interesting relationships is, uh, Alia and her uncle.

[01:01:30] It's his uncle or grandfather.

[01:01:31] I can't remember now.

[01:01:32] Um, well, it's Jessica grandfather.

[01:01:35] Cause it's Jessica's father.

[01:01:36] Right.

[01:01:37] Uh, and.

[01:01:38] But now the Baron.

[01:01:40] They've taken away.

[01:01:40] She can't be the one who kills him because he was killed by, um.

[01:01:45] Paul in the movies.

[01:01:46] Yeah.

[01:01:47] In the Villeneuve movies.

[01:01:47] Right.

[01:01:48] But then, so I'm confused about something and it only occurred to me now.

[01:01:52] Uh, or, you know, as we've been, uh, running up through this, she has a conversation.

[01:01:57] She has an other memory of the Baron, but it's, I thought it was matrilineal.

[01:02:01] I thought, oh, uh, other memories are only matrilineal.

[01:02:04] Yeah.

[01:02:05] It should be only matrilineal until Paul unlocks that, which I, the matrilineal thing kind of

[01:02:11] makes sense.

[01:02:12] If you say it's like on the second part of the X chromosome, you know, like that's why

[01:02:17] some things are passed through, um, XX and not XY.

[01:02:21] Right.

[01:02:21] Right.

[01:02:21] But then Paul comes along and he unlocks the ability for himself, but to also see the

[01:02:28] male line.

[01:02:29] Right.

[01:02:29] Right.

[01:02:30] Uh, well, I'd be curious to, I'd be, yeah, we have to figure that out a little bit more,

[01:02:33] but yeah, that is a, uh, I think you were right, Abby, that this is a definite nod to

[01:02:39] the relationship between Alia and her, uh, her grandfather in terms of how other memory

[01:02:45] works, because that's really where Frank goes into that whole interior world and how it

[01:02:51] works.

[01:02:51] And what we know about it is the relationship with, with her and the Baron.

[01:02:55] So, uh, we'll see how much more they dig into that lore.

[01:02:58] I mean, they, that's the one thing about the showrunners and the writers.

[01:03:00] They, they've studied the source material and you can see that in the story and, and

[01:03:06] little words and phrases and little nods to things that they're, they're paying attention

[01:03:09] to a lot of that stuff.

[01:03:11] All right.

[01:03:12] Uh, David Max, uh, I haven't read Mentats or Navigators yet, yet, but I have read almost

[01:03:20] all of the other prequels.

[01:03:21] Desmond's power could be from a Rossic sorcery, but those were female predecessors to the

[01:03:27] sisterhood.

[01:03:27] Could it be Ixian or Tlaxlou Tech as Tech 2?

[01:03:32] Tech 2?

[01:03:33] Uh, Tech, I'm thinking Techtoe now from the franchise.

[01:03:36] From the franchise, yeah.

[01:03:37] I'm loving that show, by the way.

[01:03:38] That was a fun show.

[01:03:39] I'm glad you recommended it.

[01:03:39] It's so fun.

[01:03:40] Yeah.

[01:03:41] Did you, uh, this week was a season finale, which I was kind of, I was like, this feels

[01:03:44] like a season finale.

[01:03:45] And then I looked it up and it was.

[01:03:47] Oh, okay.

[01:03:47] I think we're episode four or so.

[01:03:49] Okay.

[01:03:50] Okay.

[01:03:50] So it's eight episodes in total.

[01:03:51] Yeah.

[01:03:52] Yeah.

[01:03:52] Great show.

[01:03:52] Highly recommend it.

[01:03:53] Anyway, his resistance and hatred for the sisterhood seems to point to a previous

[01:03:57] relationship or training in their ways.

[01:03:59] Maybe the earliest sign of a possible Quisatz Haderach.

[01:04:02] However, they need to introduce Benny Tilex to maintain audience, to make Dune Messiah

[01:04:07] part three make sense.

[01:04:08] So why introduce them?

[01:04:09] So why not introduce them in the show?

[01:04:12] Right?

[01:04:12] So yeah, we had, we've sort of already talked about all of these things.

[01:04:15] This synthesizes everything we've been saying kind of.

[01:04:17] Exactly.

[01:04:18] Yeah.

[01:04:19] The, the, when Desmond does pull out his knife and put it to his throat, obviously he's just,

[01:04:23] you know, toying with her.

[01:04:24] I don't think he really is, but I think you're right about that weird bug creature.

[01:04:30] When Mahayim tells it to get out, it is sentient and it has language so she can affect it with

[01:04:35] the voice because the voice isn't a magic power.

[01:04:39] Voice is psychology.

[01:04:40] You have to have language to be able to have the voice affect something.

[01:04:46] So that creature had sentience and language.

[01:04:51] So does, is Desmond not human?

[01:04:55] And is that how he's able to resist the voice?

[01:04:57] Or, you know, is there some other magic power that they don't, but that's where my mind went.

[01:05:02] Like he's machine because a machine would be able to resist the voice.

[01:05:07] Well, I am more on board with the machine idea.

[01:05:10] Now that I think about it as him trying to, because I'm like, why all this, you know,

[01:05:16] this presenting himself as a zealot thing, but maybe whoever's controlling him, because

[01:05:22] we don't even know that he's controlling himself.

[01:05:24] Maybe whoever's controlling him wants to get closer to Natalia and knows that's the way in.

[01:05:29] Yeah.

[01:05:30] That's interesting.

[01:05:31] Yeah.

[01:05:32] Yeah.

[01:05:32] They're manipulating her religious zealotry.

[01:05:35] That would be interesting.

[01:05:37] Because I know she's the one who tells her husband what to do, apparently.

[01:05:40] Right.

[01:05:40] He's really-

[01:05:41] Well, with Kasha out of the way.

[01:05:44] I think they did the characterization of him perfectly for who I expected him to be.

[01:05:48] And Mark Strong is just absolutely playing it beautifully that the nuance of being, you know,

[01:05:54] you got to be the emperor, you got to be in charge, but always questioning himself and

[01:05:58] always uncomfortable in the role and the position.

[01:06:01] So, yeah.

[01:06:02] Good stuff.

[01:06:03] All right.

[01:06:03] Well, that was our last email.

[01:06:05] So, thank you everyone for writing in.

[01:06:07] We look forward to your comments after episode three.

[01:06:10] Remember, Nancy will be there to funnel all of your comments into this beautiful document

[01:06:15] that makes our lives so much easier.

[01:06:18] So, give Nancy a big thank you if you write in or if you're on the Discord.

[01:06:23] She's two kids, two dogs.

[01:06:26] Right.

[01:06:27] Dune at thelorehounds.com or go to the website, thelorehounds.com and go to the contact page.

[01:06:34] And there's a contact form and the voicemail tool is there.

[01:06:37] And then, of course, on the Discord, we have all the different channels for each episode

[01:06:42] so that you can remain spoiler free if you're catching up.

[01:06:45] Because I know a lot, there's a lot of content out right now and people are trying to balance

[01:06:49] all of that, especially with, for our American audience, this being Thanksgiving week.

[01:06:54] It always throws our watching schedules off.

[01:06:57] Speaking of Silo, how are things going over on the Wool Shift Dust feed?

[01:07:01] Yeah.

[01:07:02] Speaking of throwing off schedules, they released the episode two days early this week.

[01:07:05] So, yeah, I'm editing the main episode for that, but I'm also sick.

[01:07:13] So, I'm sorry if I'm a little slower on things I planned.

[01:07:16] But that's coming.

[01:07:18] Agatha's coming.

[01:07:20] Your final wrap-up.

[01:07:21] The final wrap-up personality quiz.

[01:07:24] It was a fun stitching project, putting it all together.

[01:07:27] Yeah.

[01:07:28] And there's also, we're doing a mailbag this week for Silo as well.

[01:07:32] So, keep sending in your thoughts.

[01:07:33] Please send them by email.

[01:07:35] I'm so appreciative when people send it to woolshiftdustpodcast at gmail.com.

[01:07:39] That just makes my life so much easier.

[01:07:41] Yeah.

[01:07:41] Single source to dip your well.

[01:07:44] You're a well dipper, as it were.

[01:07:47] Right.

[01:07:47] I think Radioactive Ramblings has another Red Rising book episode out.

[01:07:52] So, check them out.

[01:07:53] And I believe they're going to be covering...

[01:07:56] What's that animated show?

[01:07:57] I'm blanking the name of it.

[01:07:58] Oh, they already started.

[01:07:59] Arcane.

[01:08:00] Arcane.

[01:08:00] They did a season one wrap-up or summary recap.

[01:08:04] Right.

[01:08:04] That's the word.

[01:08:05] And they're going to be going into season two.

[01:08:07] So, check them out.

[01:08:09] Properly Howard Movie Review is back.

[01:08:11] They had a fun game where they used A Few Good Men, that movie, to draft a series of movies of actors and writers that were involved in that.

[01:08:22] And they just had the Tim Burton Batman.

[01:08:24] That was...

[01:08:24] I haven't listened to it yet, but people on the Discord have been saying that it's a pretty wacky episode, which is on brand for Steve and Anthony.

[01:08:31] So, look forward to that.

[01:08:34] We've got Skeleton Crew.

[01:08:36] John is going to be running point on that.

[01:08:39] And that kicks off next week, I believe.

[01:08:43] I don't know that we're going to do episode-to-episode coverage, but we'll probably do a couple of check-ins along the way.

[01:08:48] And, of course, we have all of our fun Netflix cheese Christmas rom-com coming up.

[01:08:54] Oh, yes.

[01:08:55] Wicked.

[01:08:55] I forget Wicked.

[01:08:56] Sorry.

[01:08:57] Man, Wicked is definitely making the waves.

[01:09:00] It's doing well.

[01:09:01] It's not even released here yet, but I have tickets for opening night.

[01:09:04] And it's sold out here opening night.

[01:09:06] I lived in Amsterdam, for anyone who doesn't know, and I looked at a bunch of different showings in the city center, and it is selling gangbusters.

[01:09:15] That's great.

[01:09:16] Well, maybe it's...

[01:09:17] Yeah, it's interesting because cinema is alive, but going to the theater, it's really got to be a marquee title to get people out.

[01:09:24] But that's great when it does happen.

[01:09:26] So, awesome.

[01:09:28] All right.

[01:09:29] Well, anything else, Alicia?

[01:09:30] Otherwise, I'll leave us out.

[01:09:31] Just also, starting next week, the day before, Skeleton Crew is Creature Commandos.

[01:09:37] Oh, right.

[01:09:37] Jean and I are going to do...

[01:09:39] We're going to do a versus while the show is running, and then in January, after it's over, we'll do a one-shot wrapping it up.

[01:09:45] But that's the first entry in the new James Gunn and Peter Safran-led DCU.

[01:09:51] Very cool.

[01:09:52] Very cool.

[01:09:53] All right.

[01:09:53] Well, tune into the Lorehounds for all your story world IP needs we've got covered here.

[01:10:00] All right.

[01:10:00] I will read us out.

[01:10:02] I'm going to just use the same 80s synth pop music that I used yesterday, since this is just part two of that episode.

[01:10:10] So, so groovy.

[01:10:12] Lorehounds shoutouts to our Discord server boosters.

[01:10:16] Aaron K., Tiller the Thriller, Dork of the Ninjas, Doove71, Athena Agilea, Tineek.

[01:10:24] Is that a new person?

[01:10:24] I haven't seen that name before.

[01:10:26] Thank you.

[01:10:26] Lestu, Nancy M., Ghost of Perdition, and Richard W.

[01:10:30] All of these folks donate their Nitro subscriptions to make our server, our community server, a better place.

[01:10:38] So thank you for serving the community.

[01:10:39] Everyone who does that and making our server a more fun place to be.

[01:10:45] To our Loremaster subscribers, our top tier subscribers, the people who really are the cornerstone of our publication empire.

[01:11:01] Thank you.

[01:11:09] Thank you.

[01:11:35] Thank you all so very much.

[01:11:37] We couldn't do it without your ongoing support.

[01:11:39] Thank you to everyone who subscribes.

[01:11:42] It's a very inexpensive subscription.

[01:11:46] We'd love to have your support.

[01:11:47] And thank you to everyone who listens, whether you subscribe or not.

[01:11:50] We're just glad that you're here and part of our community.

[01:11:53] And it's a fun place to nerd out on all the stories that we love.

[01:11:59] Alicia, we will see you on episode three.

[01:12:02] Thanks again.

[01:12:03] Bye.

[01:12:05] The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds.

[01:12:08] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact.

[01:12:14] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds.

[01:12:20] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities.

[01:12:25] Thanks for listening.