trans_9 | Fanatics find their heaven in never ending storming wind [closed]

Responding to Sheeana's Omnicom post, Luke came down to the city as asked, following the impression in the force that was Sheeana. It was like Arha's, but sharper, a biting and swift wind rather than a clean breeze. He hadn't felt Arha's mind in a while. Reaching out to it was like trying to see in a vicious sandstorm; she'd put up walls, and he respected her obvious wishes to be left alone.

The thought still made him sad.

"I'm here," he called, coming round the corner. "It's Luke, Sheeana."

"Come in!" She called warmly. The worm came up from the sand, curving sinuous waves down its length. Next to her, at the lip of the pool lay a small collection of wires and her own omnicomm. "I have no hollow-crons from my world and only the most cursory books. However I have the most important person in the history of my universe here. Luq Skaiwaqer, meet Leto Atreides the Second...The Tyrant." She glanced down at the worm. "You met before when you met me, of course, but now he is prepared to share himself with you."

Luke stared at the worm, then realized he was being quite rude and looked at Sheeana instead. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid I don't really understand."

Sheeana patted the sand next to her. She was not going to conduct this whole conversation through shouting. "What do you know about the sandworm life cycle?"

He came and sat next to Sheeana as indicated, reaching out to the sandworm gamboling through the sand. "I don't know much about that," he said. "Why?"

"The second stage of the life cycle of Geonemetoda Arrakis is the sandtrout. These are small creatures..." She tapped a button on her omnicomm and a rotating holo appeared: A creature about six inches long, like a leathery flatworm or pill bug, brown and segmented. "These creatures seal away moisture. When they have sealed enough moisture in the water away, they may aggregate into the adult form you see here." She stroked the leathery flanks. "Fremen children play a game where they make a 'glove' by allowing a sandtrout to crawl onto their hand, allowing the creature to form to it. Normally they drop off after a few minutes. But what do you think would happen if someone supersaturated with Spice covered themselves with them?"

Luke looked between the holo of the sandtrout and the sandworm Sheeana was stroking. "It'd be like a full-body glove," he said at last. "Is that right?"

"Close. It would be armor, fused with the skin. A kind of living stillsuit. The life cycle wouldn't end there, however. As the sandtrout matured, they would start to move into their worm form, and the human inside would become a hybrid with the creature's giant adult form." She flicked the omnicomm again and another image showed: a man-worm hybrid (http://www.duneinfo.com/michael/images/leto2nd.jpg), humanity subsumed in the great leathery plates, useless vestigial arms and legs, face poking through barely. "Leto did that. He lived that way for thirty five hundred years. He was the most charismatic ruler in history. He inspired the most fanatic worship. He was god, and he gave the people peace. Thousands of years of it. Eons of life that slipped slowly towards death. For this peace he only took one thing from his people: The right to participate in history." She smiled slightly. The worm was now at Luke's side, presenting its 'head'. "It seems he wants to show you himself, through your Jed-eye abilities."

Luke tilted his head at the worm, stretching out a hand to it. The hide was smooth as he caressed it with his real hand, stroking it as he would a pet. The idea of a man morphing into a creature like this was difficult to believe, but there was no lie in Sheeana's voice, and no reason to lie, and he'd always wanted to know more about where the Bene Gesserit were from, what kind of a place it was that they lived in.

But to think of this as a tyrant? Perhaps seeing it would make it easier.

"I'd like to know," he said, addressing the worm. "If you want, show me." Closing his eyes, Luke shifted into a meditative position and opened his mind to the Force, letting it flow through and fill him. He could feel Sheeana and the worms in its passing; they were eddies in its great river. Fully prepared, Luke sent a little mental push to the worm. I'm ready.

A voice in Luke's mind, commanding yet sardonic. I knew you would be.

Thousands of years of history gibbered and flowed through that hand.

The ancient Bene Gesserit, looking and breeding for the man who could control the future. They got it in Paul Atreides...Or Muad'dib as he was known to his Fremen legions. Paul, the exiled son of a duke, cast out into the desert, he came back as the Kwisatz Haderach: The prophesied one who could control the future. He had arrived a generation early because the Reverend Mother who was to bear his father gave her beloved duke a son instead.

The effect was immediate. He inspired fanatic loyalty. When he became emperor, he became messiah as well. The universe danced to his will.

This was not a good thing for human societies. Humans who seek the security of being in a comfortable place, who deny the wild part of themselves, they are unprepared for threats the universe may throw at them.

Muad'dib's visions had locked humanity onto the path of ultimate extinction. Complacent and self righteous, he knew that if he continued as he was, that would be the eventual end of humanity. Yet he could bear to do no else. Otherwise...The death of his beloved Chani. He knew it would come eventually, but damn the universe for a few more years with her.

That's where I and my sister came in.

They were born to both their father's ancestral memories and his visions. Ghanima and Leto, the oldest children ever born.

I saw the only way out. The Golden Path.

When it came Leto's turn to rule, he gave the people exactly what they'd wanted. Over his three thousand year lifespan, he gave them peace. Thousands of years of perfect, boring peace with no surprises. He was the God-Emperor, the greatest tyrant the universe had known. Leto's peace came with a price. He took from them the right to participate in history.

Changes in the predator produce changes in the prey. I was the ultimate predator. In taking their freedoms I made them love them on an instinctual level. In locking the universe down with my visions I forced them to develop countermeasures. In giving them a universe of black and white, good and evil, I forced them to think more subtly.

Sheeana stared, concerned. Am I harming him? Was this a mistake? Knowledge such as this almost drove Leto mad...What will it do to him? She hesitated, searching for signs that she would have to pull his hand away. Shaitan please...He is my friend. You have taken so much from me, do not take him as well. For she knew Leto was not done yet.

Luke reeled from the flood of information and images transmitted directly to his head. It was overwhelming, like joining a battle-meld in the middle of a dogfight. Still, he managed to keep it manageable and process each one, and the tale the worm was telling him, as perfectly insane as it sounded. There wasn't any hint of a lie in the worm's... Leto's... words.

He sat there, hand pressed against the hide of the worm, dazed. The logic that had gone into Leto's thinking was laid out before him, and Luke saw the whole terrible thing there, could follow its lines of reasoning to their conclusions. And yet, it was so abhorrent to his own view of life in a way he couldn't begin to put his finger on. Something about it struck him as completely wrong--perhaps, Luke thought, the way that the path of life had been engineered. It was his belief that while a dichotomy existed in the Force, it was to be left to the individual to make the choice of what side they served, even for those who had no Force-sensitivity.

These and other thoughts chased themselves around his mind as he fought to process everything. Beside him, Luke could feel Sheeana's worry, and sent a little bit of reassurance to her. The channel between Sheeana and himself was not at all as strong as the one between himself and Arha, but the Jedi felt it enough to get the idea that he would be all right across.

From her, he got the sense in return that it wasn't over yet, and gently stroked his fingers over the worm's hide again. Please, friend, continue. I am ready.

Reassurance wiped some of the worry...another Force ability, she guessed and was glad for it.

Then I will. Leto's voice again.

Events came to a head in the final year of his reign. Enemies of Leto had engineered a woman as the perfect trap. Innocent of how she was being used, sweet and gentle Hwi Noree and Leto fell in love. She loved him despite his hideous fusion with the Worm. He wavered: Marrying her would mean the end of the Golden Path he had worked so long for.

Meanwhile: The God-Emperor had kept careful watch on Arha's descendants. Siona Atreides...His many times great grandniece, and rebel against him. Unwittingly, she too served the Golden Path for she was the first human to be born with the gene that makes one invisible to prescience. She plotted with the Ghola (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghola) Duncan Idaho, who had known Leto as a boy in his original incarnation.

As Leto and Hwi Noree crossed a bridge towards their wedding, Duncan and Siona shot the bridge supports out. God-Emperor, Bride and entourage went spilling into the river hundreds of meters below. Hwi Noree was killed instantly. The choice had been made for him.

Water is poison to the worm. Leto lay dying on the riverbank and thanked Duncan Idaho with his last breath. Now humanity had been immunized. There could never be another tyrant like Leto. Humans would seek the wild and new on an instinctual level, would stop looking for easy answers and giving their freedom to tyrants. And prescience could never doom the universe again.

And since he was the last sandworm, as the sandtrout that fell from his body bred and spread out across the planet (turning it to desert again in the process) and aggregated into sandworms again, each would carry a pearl of his consciousness within them, eternally dreaming. They would forever ensure his Golden Path continued.

You may finish, my many times great grand-niece.

Sheeana took Luq's hand as if on some invisible signal. "I am one of Siona's distant descendants...which you probably knew by now. When I was eight and gathering Spice in the desert, a worm broke through the moisture seal around my village." Bene Gesserit control hid most of the pain that came from this admittance. But then she thought: What exactly was the point? He would read it through the Force anyway. She let her mask down.

"It left noone inside alive. I ran up to the creature...I was, I suppose, mad with grief. I demanded the worm eat me too but it just lay there like a...an eager dog. It let me climb on its back and went where I told it. Leto's priesthood took me in and worshipped me as their holy child. Then the Honored Matres came...They used their obliterator weapons, burned my homeworld to a crisp. Some people hadn't learned Leto's lessons about power, it seems. The Bene Gesserit got me out just in time. When I was a full Reverend Mother, I was put in charge of seeding the last worm on a new planet, so there would be more Dunes. This is the path I have devoted my life to." She shifted a little. "I'm still unsure of all my reasons for telling and showing you these things. Perhaps it's one of those hunches you learn to trust when people look to you for leadership. Or perhaps it's that I know I can trust you."

Luke sat a moment, quietly processing all this. The Force had helped him keep the tide of information from overwhelming him completely, and now he sat in silent meditation upon the things he had learned here. Something about this line of thinking Leto had seemed so inherently wrong to him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. Still, he was grateful for the exchange of information, even if he didn't agree with it.

His brilliant blue eyes opened slowly, fixing on Sheeana. The hand that she held tingled, that strange static that he'd always felt touching Arha sparking between them. "Thank you for trusting me with this," he said softly. "I'm grateful."

He bit his lip, thinking. "But was Leto's trust in humanity so little that he had to guide them along the way, extending his life so unnaturally to do so? Did he truly believe so strongly in the truth of his visions--could it not be that his belief in the unchanging nature of the future cemented the path?"

She squeezed his hand gently, feeling the hum and buzz that was a corona around all Jed-eye. It was an innocent, warm gesture that most would not guess was in the master seductress's repoirtoire.

"Visions...prescience...has done exactly what you describe. Leto's father's visions did that: made the future unchanging. The Golden Path is the opposite. It's an end to all predetermined futures. As for his trust...well, he knew he was...is arrogant. But anyone is sensitive can verify this for themselves, with enough Spice."

"But the future is forever changing," Luke said, meeting her blue-in-blue eyes. "As Jedi, we are taught to acknowledge any visions of the future we may have, talk them over with our masters or colleagues, but to realize that they are not the only end of the path. There are many outcomes to each, and to us it'd be folly to assume one was more true than the others."

He looked over at the sand, watching the little displacements caused by the worms. "I can see what he meant to do by it, and it's true that in the end he did good, freeing humanity from its shackles. But..." Luke shook his head. "I can't agree with it."

"Your future was ever-changing and you are lucky for it. Oh, I remember you telling me about the Empire, and they sound quite vicious indeed. I would not deny the weight of your oppression...But you could still make the choice to fight knowing that it wasn't predetermined. None of us would have had that choice without Leto and he paid dear for it. That is what we Bene Gesserit are too: The ones who make the difficult decisions, who pay the prices that need to be paid. Can you say a Jed-eye would alway have done different facing the same choice he did?" She paused for breath briefly. Her eyes seemed to plead: Please, understand me, understand this!

Luke thought about it, turning the situation over in his mind. "We would have made the same choice Leto did," he said at last. Like the Bene Gesserit, the Jedi made the tough decisions, took things upon themselves. "Though I think we'd have tried to go about it a different way if we could. Tyrannic rule isn't something a Jedi ought to do, it comes dangerously close to the Dark Side. Jedi aren't rulers, and each time one has tried they have fallen."

"If there had been any other way, I think he would have done it. And he did f..." The worm had come again to nuzzle under her hand. Being sapient for that time had drained its mental energy. "And would any Jed-eye make Muad'dib's choice?" That of damning the universe to save the ones you love.

"My father did," Luke said quietly. "And look where it got him. The Jedi Order was almost decimated, my sister and I sent into hiding when we were barely days old..." he sighed. Luke didn't hold any animosity towards his father for that, but it still tough being the son of one of the most notorious mass murderers and Sith in the galaxy.

Jacen had made that choice. He had sacrificed his life and his reputation to make sure his beloved daughter was safe.

"We aren't supposed to make that choice, anyway," he said. "Not like that."

Sheeana wrapped an arm around his shoulder and gave it a Sisterly squeeze. "The difficult choices find us anyway. I have a feeling...one I dare not confirm for fear of undoing Leto's work...that more of them are on their way."

Luke nodded, looking at her seriously. "You feel it too?"

The characteristic little sardonic smile didn't leave her face entirely but it dropped a few millimeters. "Of course I do. I have Atreides genes too. Yet if I can find a way to breed these worms, I can know without endangering our timeline."

Luke looked at the worms--Arha's more sedate one, and Sheeana's. "They don't mate like other life-forms?" he asked curiously. Other than what the two women had told him, he knew next to nothing about the worms, though he was very eager to know.

"They do, however...they also require the presence of their earlier stage. The sandtrout." She taps her comm again and an image appears of a leathery, pillbuglike creature, about a foot long. "And they in turn require sandplankton, the first stage. Each of them is like a separate species, capable of independent reproduction, yet each makes the next form possible and each aggregates into the next larger form. Sandplankton becomes sandtrout becomes sandworm. Leto's consciousness spread in each of them makes it even more complicated. I was in charge of the desertification process on Chapterhouse and I still don't know all the details of that."

"So unless you have all these forms, the life cycle stops at this stage?" Curious. Luke hadn't heard of anything like it.

"Yes. But worm can be broken down into trout and plankton by applying its weakness. I'll let you figure out what that is." Again that mischevious grin.

He thought about what he knew regarding these organisms; where they were from, how Arha and Sheeana thought about them. It was something Sheeana... or perhaps the worm... had said earlier...

"Water?"

"You are quick as always, Luq. Yet a drowned worm produces the Water of Life. Humans have been living with the worm for ten thousand years yet we haven't penetrated all of its secrets." She tapped the comm again: Squishy, cilia'd microorganisms.

"So it's a lack of knowledge... and the fact that I don't think either one of you wants to sacrifice their worm for this." Luke tilted his head. These things were strong in the Force, sentient almost--Sheeana's certainly. It would be wrong, perhaps, to torment them as though they were little more than animals.

"No, not particularly. But our order has asked so much of Arha already. I will not sacrifice the friend who supported her when we couldn't." She remembered sharing her memories, the years preparing to be the Sisterhood's spy on Dune, the crash, the things she'd had to do to hole out a place for herself. "Anyway, with Leto inside mine, it will go willingly."

"You think it's a good idea to do this here, on the ship?" he asked, watching the movements of the worms.

Sheeana chuckled. "Think of the tools we could have if we needed them. If there were another Muad'dib...in fact, any entity who negatively effected the flow of time...We would have the solution, instantly. And if the Thinking Machine somehow depends on the incessant moisture here to survive, we could threaten it. And most importantly, we would have a steady supply of Spice."

"You need it to survive, don't you? Doesn't Stacy already provide it in your food?"

"Some of it. But it's not enough. And the chemical structure is incomplete." Not to mention the taste. Sheeana made a little face.

"Incomplete?" This made him rather curious--if the spice was a necessary component of their diet it didn't seem to make sense that it'd be administered in an incomplete form. Just how much did they need, anyway?

"For the same reason those who use mechanical armor are denied it, I suspect. The thinking machine does not want us at our full power." It was obvious by the way she said 'thinking machine' that she felt no small amount of disdain for such things.

"Then why would she let the Jedi here keep full use of their abilities?" If Stacy didn't want them at full power, then he should have felt some lessening of his connection to the Force, but if anything it was stronger than ever here.

She shrugged. "Perhaps she can't? The Force is part of you. Maybe part of all of us. She is limited."

"Not to be callous," he said, "But maybe there's a reason she doesn't want you to have more than the necessary amount of spice."

Fanatics find their heaven in never ending storming wind [closed]

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