Forgive me ... I haven't read it, and probably couldn't get through it anyway, but I'm so fascinated by this. I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, believe me, but this is -- literally -- the longest post I have ever, personally, seen on this site.
Well, now you've seen something new. Humans stagnate without new experiences (one of the points Frank Herbert made, regarding the enforced stagnation Leto II imposed on the old Imperium during his 3000-year-long reign), so this is a good thing.
I don't believe nuDune shouldn't exist. I'm mostly disappointed - well, borderline angry in the past - that its general quality is so poor and that it reads like revisionist history while casting that aspersion on FH's original novels. If FH chose not to request that no-one be allowed to write continuation novels then so be it. Perhaps he thought it was a good way to help provide for his family's financial security and couldn't give two hoots about his legacy being potentially tarnished.
I believe the late Iain M Banks specified that no-one is permitted to write Culture novels after his death until the copyright expires. I wonder how common it is for writers to specify such a restriction.
Some authors put strict conditions on who gets to continue their work, or if anyone does at all. Due to a legal situation with a fan writer, for example, Marion Zimmer Bradley/her estate forbids any and all Darkover fanfiction, even telling people "if you have any stories around, you must either rewrite them so nobody could tell they have anything to do with Darkover, or you must destroy them."
Well, I have written some Darkover material (a few incomplete stories that I doubt will ever be finished, let alone shared, and a filk or two), and one of the shelves in my fanzine book case is filled with '70s/'80s Darkover print 'zines that MZB herself contributed to. No, I have no intention of destroying any of that. But neither will I post any of it online or sell any of it on eBay. In the meantime, there are new Darkover novels being written by various authors approved by MZB/her estate, as well as an annual anthology (edited by an approved editor).
I'd have to re-read
Dreamer of Dune to refresh my memory about what Brian says his father said about anyone continuing the series. They did collaborate on non-Dune material.
^ Having such a strong reaction is exemplary of part of what I was talking about when I said I thought some Dune fans were taking things way too seriously.
If the nuDune stuff isn't to your liking, so be it, but I think it's an overreaction to behave as if your opinion of their quality is somehow an affront to the OG!Dune stuff and Frank Herbert's legacy.
Please do everyone a favor and actually read
Dune and either
House Atreides or T
he Butlerian Jihad before you make any more judgmental comments like this. Without knowing where we're coming from, you literally do not know what you're talking about.
I would have liked to see the plot outline of the Butlerian Jihad novel FH had made with McNelly, although it's not supposed to be much different the DE write up.
Same here.
I've just dug out my copy (actually, one of two copies) of the
Dune Encyclopedia. For anyone who has the large paperback edition, the entries for the Butlerian Jihad start on page 137. The entries are as follows:
BUTLER, JEHANNE (And the history of the Butlerian Jihad.) [pp. 137-141]
BUTLERIAN JIHAD ("THE GREAT REVOLT"): ITS CAUSE AND EFFECT. [pp. 141-143]
A brief summary (my own words; I'm honestly trying to condense this):
Jehanne Butler (b. 230 B.G. [Before Guild]; died 182 B.G., planet of origin was Komos in the Eridani A system (the neighboring planet was Richese, supplier of AI and ruled by scientists/technicians). She married Thet'r Butler in 205 B.G. They had no children...
...because her full-term fetus was aborted just before it would have been born. Jehanne went to the hospital to give birth to a daughter she had already named, but after coming out of anesthesia, she was told the baby had been too deformed to live and that the abortion was "therapeutic."
Jehanne Butler was Bene Gesserit-trained, so she knew this wasn't true. She was able to get access to hospital records and discovered that her abortion wasn't the only one done at the decision of the "hospital director" - "the first self-programming machine on Komos" (p. 137). There were many others.
Jehanne Butler wasn't only Bene Gesserit; she was also a priestess of Kubebe, which was a Mother-goddess type of religion followed on Komos and from what I can gather from the article, was followed by people who were more in touch with nature and
humanity and preferred not to have their lives controlled by AI and the computers imposed on them by the dominant neighboring planet, Richese.
Jehanne went to the priestesses of Kubebe to ask for support for "creating a movement against the domination by Richese" (p. 137).
In addition to trying to get support from the religious populace, Jehanne and her husband began a secular movement, the objective of which was also to end this domination by the neighboring planet.
Both the priestesses' efforts and the secular movement's efforts had the same end goal in mind, so they were able to work together effectively. Both camps wanted to end Richese's domination and control by AI. The "therapeutic abortions" - none of which should have happened - were the catalyst for this.
Like the Jihad over 10,000 years later, in the name of Muad'Dib, the Butlerian Jihad could not be stopped, even though the person in whose name it began would have preferred that it not have happened. Jehane Butler's name was attached to it, but the priestesses of Komos decided it would happen in the first place. When they traveled to Richese, they found that the scientists there that had created the self-programming AI that had been aborting babies on Komos had been experimenting on the population of Richese. The Encyclopedia is a bit vague about what exactly had been done, but says this:
The Dune Encyclopedia said:
The Komans... discovered there the extent to which their hospital director was simply a reflection of a state of society beyond their imagination. The degree to which machines controlled the population of Richese, and had altered the emotional and intellectual characteristics of its inhabitants over centuries, was literally incredible to the Komans.
The leader of the priestesses informed one of the scientists that "his work violated fundamental principles of respect for human life, not to mention the offense of the worship of the Goddess." (p. 138)
After the scientist was killed (for giving further insult to the worship of Kubebe), the priestesses began to preach Jihad to the faithful of Komos, turning the people against "the thinking machines and all who find their gods within them." (p. 138)
Jehanne Butler herself was appalled at the increasing violence of the Jihad, urged mercy toward the enemy, but continued to serve as a tactician. Like Paul Atreides 10,000+ years later, she knew she couldn't have stopped the Jihad. The Koman priestesses were honestly afraid that other worlds might come to be dependent on, and be dominated by, thinking machines/AI and those who controlled them. They felt that was an affront to humanity itself - not surprising given the tenets of their religion that emphasized home, family, and the role of women in holding that together. The thinking machines and their controllers had violated that on Richese, were in the process of violating it on Komos, and if not stopped, would have continued on to other worlds.
The Jihad went on for over a century, although Jehanne Butler was still young when she was killed (her ship was blown up when it came in contact with an undetected mine in orbit around one of the planets). It carried on from world to world, rooting out any "machine dominance of man" (p. 138), and the article mentions that care was taken to emphasize winning/achieving surrender of the planets through use of power, rather than force.
The Encylopedia also points out that the priestesses of Kubebe were not the only people who were disturbed by machines usurping humans. Other groups had also wanted to be rid of computers, and so their goals matched those of the Komans.
Eventually, of course, the thinking machines/computers/AI (whichever term applies) and their creators/controllers were destroyed, and this also temporarily destroyed interstellar trade, as there were no more computers available for ships to use for navigation. The Encyclopedia article about Norma Cenva states that she wanted to solve the problem of "the reunion of mankind by developing a computerless interstellar navigation system." (p. 154) She did succeed in using melange as a navigational aid, but instead of becoming a superduper deus-ex-machina being (as described in the nuDune novels), she didn't survive. Others carried on her research, and the Guild Navigators and Heighliners were created.
The Butlerian Jihad was destructive, but because the crutch that had been provided by computers and thinking machines had been taken away, humans were forced to improve, in order to keep civilization going. The Bene Gesserit had already existed pre-Jihad. The first Mentat school began over 1200 years
after the end of the Butlerian Jihad (p. 376).
So any novel that followed the Dune Encyclopedia version of events would not have had cartoonish monster robots and manaical, moustache-twirling villains who were evil just for the sake of being evil. Each side would have been presented as having what they saw as a legitimate points of view, and the Jihad would have been presented as a war of opposing ideologies and faiths: Man Who Believes Computers/AI Is Evil vs. Man Who Believes Computers/AI is Good.
(I've run into the character limit for posts again, so this will be continued below.)
