Day 4 | Night | Who will play God?

[Kannon]

"There is nothing wrong with charisma of good men like my father. It keeps Caladan together. I don't know if what you speak of is actually a worthy goal. Maybe such a 'lofty' purpose can be accomplished without the ordeal, maybe it can't. There is no way of telling until one can map the other futures. Which feels like something only a god could do."

This conversation was making him both excitable and uneasy and he didn't know why. His own dreams rushed into his direct thought like a wave, adab, the demanding memory, overwhelming him, then crashed against the dark hill as if water at the bottom of the glass that couldn't spill until toppled. He felt exposed to the terror Kiran had alluded to. ...Fear is the mind-killer... He wanted to flee, but he also felt he was stuck.

"Whoever could carry out such a terrible purpose would need to pay a terrible cost. I don't know if there can be anyone who'd pay it. It doesn't feel like a problem-solving exercise, a mentat choice of a scenario... more like resignation to swimming in strange waters for centuries, navigating the narrowest gullies, always seeing one's death from drowning or being consumed by the monsters in the deep... Being forever alone in the alien universe which is always one step beyond logic."

He shuddered, stopped, and leaned against the wall by the staircase, short of breath, sweat rolling from his forehead is if he had just awoken from a nightmare.

[Kiran Alsahar]

They listened, nodding quietly. They didn't know if it was appropriate for a Duke, but... he was also someone their age, struggling with something overwhelming. They put a hand on his shoulder. Their expression isn't pity, just support as he mentally navigates ideas thar are resonating with him uncomfortably. "It would be a lot," they understated vastly.

[Kannon]

Normally, Paul would have reacted defensively, out of security habit ingrained in him. In fact, Gurney Halleck would have been angry that he didn't. But he wasn't here. Paul squeezed the supporting hand before breaking the touch.

"I'm fine." He lied. "All this just hit some nerve I didn't even know was there. Must be some fallout of my mother's teachings."

[Kiran Alsahar]

That brought a smile to their face. They pulled their hand away politely when he claimed he was fine. Obviously untrue, but pushing at it wasn't helpful.

Instead, they continued moving once he seemed ready. "That's fair." They shrugged. "I'm not arguing for it, just trying to explain in the limited capacity I have to describe the experience."

They looked around as they walked. "It doesn't really match with it, or with what anyone else believes, really, but I think the future lies in connecting with each other, rather than one person taking on the world. We don't have to confront all this alone. That's why I'm sharing it. I admit, it probably comes across as naive."

[Kannon]

"There seems a natural upper limit to such close connections, imposed by our tribal proclivities, and that limit is well below the trillions in the Imperium. Beyond that, there are engineered communities that rarely hold for long if you don't put institutionalised oppression in the mix. Well, unless you douse them in the burning oil of religious fervour. But even that needs some unfortunate infidels out there for self-confirmation of the holy purpose." Paul sighed, still somewhere on the way to restore his centre. "Your idea might be fine for a less crowded or interdependent humanity. As it is, we keep stepping on each other's toes. It's a paradox, frankly."

[Kiran Alsahar]

They shivered at the idea. "Religious fervor is... a recipe for disaster. I say as religious leader to my own people."

"Still, it is a paradox. You'renot wrong." Still, they considered. "Of course, within that reasoning there's potential."

[Kannon]

Paul tacitly agreed. A vision of any jihad was scaring him to death. However, he was finding some comfort in that humanity may have been past that point, with Iblis Ginjo's Butlerians as the last possible galactic conflagration. There seemed to be no glaring blasphemy in sight any such movement could exploit.

For a moment, he stopped his mind from racing into the abyss of speculation about possible futures. It was addictive and yet sickening in the stomach. "Potential?"

[Kiran Alsahar]

They co sidered how to put it, walking in silence for a while. "We've spent a ridiculous amount of time pushing human limits on everything else, yet we're still limited by our tribal limit. Why would changing that limit be different than pushing any other human limit? Crowding and interdependancy are also very concrete issues."

They shrugged. "I fully admit I need to understand the Imperium better. Hard to come up with ideas with incomplete information. Who knows, maybe a perspective from outside of it can help someone, too."

They looked outside as they passed a window. "I can't know everyone individually. I just know that every one of those trillions has a complex life and thoughts and their own loved ones just as important as mine."

[Kannon]

Paul was educated to select and distil a revelatory thought when exposed to one. He looked at Kiran with eyes covered in a glassy film of mental strain that it required.

"This is brilliant. In principle, there is no reason to deny all those trillions a transformative potential to accept social impulses that transcend their evolutionary boundaries. I can now see how you, with your background, could come to this point. But that's the thing, background dependence."

He thought about it, despite an internal scream that advised against it.

"Yes, the humanity has found some workarounds to build potentialities we had once craved so much with the Thinking Machines, but this time using ourselves as the resource. But this has been cultivated in... labs. This is what all those schools are, labs. Growing exclusive sets of subjects through testing and conditioning. Mentats of Lampadas, Suk of Parmentier, Navigators of wherever they come from, even nobles of the faufreluches..." He patted the stone wall of the castle. "... are in the end very resource- and labour-intensive products. Even the Bene Gesserit, whose reach seems to be the widest of them all and who dare to play in the open, qualify strictly and keep sifting. This is a quiet admission of their failure, though I suppose maybe an honest one. To stick to microcosms they can actually do something in..."

"There's also the Tleilaxu solution." He added bitterly, his jaw clenched. "To dehumanise, subvert or instrumentalise everything that hasn't grown in their lab. Maybe that's their goal, to achieve background independence by destroying all other backgrounds that may exist."

This felt like going in circles, with no way to pierce the veil and see that one narrow path forward.

"No-one has the will or the means to enclose all humanity in a lab, even less so for the time needed to cultivate that change. I can't see a wider trigger. Historically, only religion has carried such energies. Unlike the lab growth, it can sprout from the grassroots. This seems to be why the Sisterhood pays so much attention to it. This may be why you, a religious leader, brings it all forth. What you postulate may be possible in particular Buddislamic communities. But to make it any bigger, to spill it over, you won't escape from the business of prophets, martyrs, and holy wars."

The terror was creeping back in.

[Kiran Alsahar]

"That's as impressive as it is disturbing," Kirsn oobserved.

Though they frowned at that. "Please don't lump me in like that."

[Kannon]

"...I don't. I don't see how any of us can be factors in any of this. It was... a misuse of my training anyway."

He shrugged, shaking off the figments of vision. He didn't trust it so much, with the desert girl likely not being the desert girl. The mentat-like projecting had been too costly for him anyway. He was drained, and too close to a breakdown for his own comfort. He gazed into the empty hall that opened before them.

"Especially in a moment of crisis. Let's return to our tasks. Protecting Caladan needs more immediate attention than humanity at large."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"Ah - Yes, obviously, you're right." They ran a hand through their hair with a sigh, realizing how oblivious to his condition they were being. Some failure of their normal duties that was. "I apologize for getting distracted." That wasn't really what they were apologizing for, but they had a feeling addressing what they'd actually done wrong would be taken as pity. Hopefully he'd get the message they were sending. From there, time to segue.

"Duncan mentioned an excursion to Lankiveil related to that."

[Kannon]

"I don't feel anything about being right is obvious. Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere, as my Bene Gesserit mother would caution with yet another of their proverbs. Without prescience, there is no way to wander and not be lost. Retreading the familiar is not wandering."

It was himself who he chided. It took him a moment to hop on the train of thought that would explain why Duncan might have done that.

"Right. The Buddhislamic Jaini of Lankiveil. Hawat projected that one of their monasteries in the high mountains can become our hidden base of operations. They have suffered a lot since Glossu Rabban took the fief from his father Abulurd. Still, navigating their doctrines may be key to securing their cooperation, by arresting their fear with their own spiritual rectitude."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"I'd make comment on the subject of prescience and being lost, but it would be way too easy to get sidetracked again," they admitted. "Maybe another time."

They nodded. "I think he thought my expertise would be helpful with them, yes. The diplomatic approach we took with the Southern Muadh here worked out very well, even if a lot of the rest of it turned out more complicated."

[Kannon]

Paul nodded, avoiding further discussion that could weaken him. His father may have been more tolerant of any argument that justified noble failures and honest mistakes, but at this point he was finding the cynical pragmatism of Bene Gesserit teachings to be his best anchor.

"May it work this time too. I trust Duncan and Thufir to make the best calls. But if you are going to be with the soldiers on the frigate, you should prepare as well. The departure is early."

[Kiran Alsahar]

"True," they agreed. "A pleasure meeting you. " They said it with a bow before heading elsewhere, anywhere else, really. He was clearly angling for the conversation for the conversation to end. They ran a hand down their face. Stupid, Kiran. You got way too carried away.

Where they were going, they weren't exactly sure. They hadn't exactly been preparing to be here and then here off somewhere else. Maybe Cala City had someplace they could pay for a room.

/Exit

[Kannon]

They were soon directed by one of Hawat's men Duncan had sent their way to the designated cavernous area near the base of the cliff where mission participants were having some rest before final departure. The Atreides soldiers they knew were already there, mostly getting some rest. The frigates were waiting just outside, deep underwater.

[End of Thread]