After Dark [LE8]

[Cuyler Gray]

"I want to believe." Cuyler whispered.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

In the midst of his own epiphany, he would still catch the whisper of the woman he sat next to. He would offer a friendly, comforting hand and nod of understanding. Glancing to her eyes then out over the dunes.

[Claudius Reins]

Addison Understand/Faith Observe or pilot? 12/?7: 2#1d20 2 7

Addison kept her mind on flying the thopter but of course it wandered somewhat.

(2 or 4 Successes)

[Dorian Drake]

Oblivious to what was going on with his companions, Edwell peered outward to the dunes while searching inward for resolution.

Through the extensive training of his youth, the importance, the necessity of logic and order had been drilled into him. Following the patterns in data and the laws of probability with which not only the past and present, but even the future can be understood. However, what set them above others, what brought their minds to surpass all others and replace thinking machines, was the naive mind. To reach the peaks of logical deduction, one must remove all preconceptions and prejudice and rely solely on the data.

What he needed to do now was set aside his own prejudice, set aside his need for a logic chain connecting cause and effect. Let go of what logic would dictate and surpass it. If he could not project what result this behavior would bring about, then he would have to take a leap. What need, what desire would warrant asceticism to such an extent to obtain, regardless of the means?

[Kannon]

Bomilcar looked to Mapes and wondered what it was that she felt in that moment. He looks out over the dunes, over Dune. He wondered...

D8 LE, Understand + Faith, TN 12, Difficulty 2: 2#1d20 1 1
4 successes, momentum to improve understanding of Fremen mindset as well

He saw Mapes in her own wonder and epiphany, with a homecoming expression. He could tell she held deep affection for what she saw, awe and wonder. Her moving lips finally coalesced into words in Bom's mind.

"Bless the Maker and His water.
Bless the coming and going of Him.
May His passage cleanse the world.
May He keep the world for His people."

The Maker? Did she mean God? But coming, going, passage... did they mean one of the celestial bodies, their sun of Canopus, one of the two moons? Such religions weren't rare, even in times of interstellar travel. But he didn't feel it right, in first case the prayer would make sense as a diurnal, not a nocturnal call, and if it were the moon, why would they worship one rather than the other? No, it didn't feel right. The storm then? That was a distinct possibility, it was the storm that had shaped the landscape, the Coriolis force kept remaking the endless sea of sand each time it passed. But water? Also, he had been with Korba during the storm, the man hadn't displayed any special reverie, just caution. He could be less religious, but still...

The worm then? The worm! This was certainly his domain! He didn't see any where Mapes was looking, but it was possible she was seeing something he couldn't - worms travelled underground and they would surface for a reason. But the implications would be profound. The worm's water? He already knew the scarcity and the sanctity of water among these people, did the worm hold some key to how they could access it? Or was it some metaphor akin to manna in the desert from the Orange Catholic Bible when God saved his faithful on Old Terra?

May he keep the world for his people? Did the Fremen consider themselves people of the worm, did they share some affinity? It made sense on some level. For the whole Imperium, the sandworm epitomised a terrifying, inescapable predation and hostility, an ultimate denier of access to the humankind's greed and ambition. But that could be making him the ally of the Fremen, the protector of their land from encroachment of forces beyond their power. Did they truly deify the worm? There were many, so there was a theological conundrum here, unless they treated each as a manifestation of a greater being. But the water... given how covetous the Fremen were about water, but it was more likely that the worm had something to do with spice rather than water. There were signs that there had been more water on Arrakis - no, Dune, this is how they called it - in some ancient times, all the salt and gypsum he had seen in the Cielago Depression, but the worm dominated the parched landscape. Even if the water was still there somewhere, it must have been sealed off - was the worm guarding those reservoirs? It was unlikely the Fremen could access them though. The worm's water... He felt he was on a cusp of some revelation but this is where his mind met too much resistance. In the end, it might have just been a metaphor. Prayers were made this way.

[Kannon]

Addison Understand/Faith Observe or pilot? 12/?7: 2#1d20 2 7

Addison kept her mind on flying the thopter but of course it wandered somewhat.

(2 or 4 Successes)

As they were flying south into the deep desert, at least for the time being, Allison had a random thought: if it is the North Pole where human habitation concentrated on Arrakis, why not the South Pole? Clearly, some aspects of geological conditions must have been similar, like water locked in the cap that could be mined, this crucial enabler. Of course the Shield Wall could be making all the difference, it provided an enclosure for human population to reach into tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe the South Pole was less endowed with volcanic rock. But it was unlikely that none was there, nothing to make an outpost, and the spice was making any such endeavour immediately profitable. Even if the storms were making the area prohibitive, there were always caves. The Harkonnen, nor any siridar before them to the best of Allison's knowledge, had ever boasted any presence there. Perhaps they were lying, and this is where they should be looking for illicit spice operations, having been on the wrong Pole all along. But it would have resulted in greater financial trails than the one Claudius had found in Harkonnen books. So whose it could be? The smugglers'? The Guild's? The Fremen's? Truly no-one's?

Whosever, there was a blank spot there. A blank spot for the Imperium perhaps, but not for the Guild. They had to know. The Spacing Guild was notoriously secretive, but also notoriously susceptible to financial incentives: they could agree to carry whole armies from planet to planet and enable one house obliterating another as long as they were duly paid. Especially if the spice was the coin, oh how they coveted the spice! All their special treatment of Arrakis, no weather control, no satellites, exorbitant prices for anything that moved to and fro here, they must be deeply complicit in keeping the Imperium in the dark. But were they doing so out of their enlightened self-interest, or were they being bribed?

Why not both, but by whom? Someone on the South Pole? Allison wished she had time, means and mandate to check! Alas. This was the penultimate day of their audit.

[Kannon]

Oblivious to what was going on with his companions, Edwell peered outward to the dunes while searching inward for resolution.

Through the extensive training of his youth, the importance, the necessity of logic and order had been drilled into him. Following the patterns in data and the laws of probability with which not only the past and present, but even the future can be understood. However, what set them above others, what brought their minds to surpass all others and replace thinking machines, was the naive mind. To reach the peaks of logical deduction, one must remove all preconceptions and prejudice and rely solely on the data.

What he needed to do now was set aside his own prejudice, set aside his need for a logic chain connecting cause and effect. Let go of what logic would dictate and surpass it. If he could not project what result this behavior would bring about, then he would have to take a leap. What need, what desire would warrant asceticism to such an extent to obtain, regardless of the means?

The ultimate dictum of the Corrino rang in his mind "Law is the ultimate science." The reverse relationship. He remembered this bugging him when he was learning to be lawtech, but he later dismissed it as a needless philosophical nitpicking that had to give way to a universe moving according to the universal laws. Surely, there were quantum effects mastered by Tio Holtzman to enable shields and fold-space travelling, but at human level, the world seemed classical enough, even as esoteric forces like the Bene Gesserit might disagree.

But what if science didn't reveal laws that could be mathematically described, it was the other way around, just like the adage went? Was it not what the haze of the Butlerian Jihad was asserting? Laws making the universe, mutable, changeable laws, and lawmakers as demiurges? Can things be willed to be by decreeing them? Oh, Padishahs clearly believed as much in the sociopolitical domain, and they were sometimes proven right, but what if it extended to the physical bedrock of the universe? Were the Fremen believing they could break the rules that were binding everyone else? Clearly, Zensunni philosophies were conducive to such outlooks.

But what laws of nature were here on Arrakis to be broken or altered?

[Kannon]

"I want to believe." Cuyler whispered.

But what was there to believe in? What kind of infinity, immensity, incomprehensibility? What kind of... God? Humankind had a rich stock of those. Cuyler's mind was like this desert below now, rippled by intricate and chaotic forms, but clean and empty, ready to be impressed on by whatever force to manifest itself with power into her awareness.

Man is but a pebble dropped in a pool. And if man is but a pebble, then all his works can be no more. Her newly mystical mind whispered.

She was the grain of sand.

Uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be seen. More questions!

Roots. The only thing that had allowed her to see deeper into her past was the spice.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He watched as the sands passed beneath them and wondered. Just how many worms are there. Was it coincidence that the worm in the depression had arrived so quickly? Or were there so many of them them here that moments was all it took for the nearest to reach any spot on the planet.

The water... the spice blow... it had been wet. It stuck to the thopter in the way mud might. Where had the water for that come from? So much water if it had truly been wet and not just some other liquid. Is that what the bats had been after? They had reacted to his water so intensely.

The Maker... they used that term so frequently. And they but had it been in different contexts? He wasn't certain if he remembered. Did they refer to God when speaking about one thing and maker when speaking of another? Like different aspects of god: father, son and holy spirit? God and the Maker? He wasn't sure, but it was possible he had missed context. He seemed to think that reference to God focused on being tested. Had Maker been used in a similar way?

For him, the Maker had always been a reference to the being that had made everything. Was it different for the Fremen? Was God different for them. Certainly other words were. Water in particular. The curiosity about where the water went did bother him. It could not all be in the polar sink. How much water did the worm have? How many worms were there? Had they consumed the oceans? Were there that many? An oceans worth?

[Kannon]

Then, a revelation struck Bom just when he'd been wondering about the water cycle: there was so much oxygen here, the atmosphere was perfectly breathable. But there were almost no plants in sight. Where was all the oxygen coming from? He remembered the odour of ozone when the worm had almost got them!

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

So the worms were the source of oxygen. They performed some process similar to photosynthesis. But... the entire planet. On the backs of the worms. The number of them had to be staggering. Incomprehensible. On most planets it was forests and seaweed... here it was the worm. It didn't just rule, it literally made life possible.

What was the process? They took oxygen from something that would eventually be expelled. What did they consume in a large enough quantity to support the production of so much oxygen? There was something beneath the surface, where only they dwelled, that would support their likely immense need for sustenance.

The Fremen had been here for years. They would be aware of all of this. But had they dug deep to see the worms world? Or did they revere too much to encroach on the domain?

[Claudius Reins]

Addison speaks, almost absent mindedly, "The South Pole, there is something hidden there, a secret base, not sure whose"

[Cuyler Gray]

Roots. The only thing that had allowed her to see deeper into her past was the spice.

So many questions without answers. Or were the answers more questions?

[Kannon]

So many questions without answers. Or were the answers more questions?

The only way to measure infinity, to put a stop to anything, was to make a cut, to react to the universe by bringing violent will upon it.

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.'

No innocent bystanders. No detached observers. Every moment within the maelstrom of life.

[Kannon]

So the worms were the source of oxygen. They performed some process similar to photosynthesis. But... the entire planet. On the backs of the worms. The number of them had to be staggering. Incomprehensible. On most planets it was forests and seaweed... here it was the worm. It didn't just rule, it literally made life possible.

What was the process? They took oxygen from something that would eventually be expelled. What did they consume in a large enough quantity to support the production of so much oxygen? There was something beneath the surface, where only they dwelled, that would support their likely immense need for sustenance.

The Fremen had been here for years. They would be aware of all of this. But had they dug deep to see the worms world? Or did they revere too much to encroach on the domain?

The Maker.

And then, Allison's comment struck him, brought him back from the depths of introspection. By then, Mapes had closed off, no longer giving him hints for further dwelling on the nature of this planet. Was it in reaction to what Allison had said?

[Cuyler Gray]

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: 'Now, it's complete because it's ended here.'

No innocent bystanders. No detached observers. Every moment within the maelstrom of life.

No. That's not right. Every ingredient must be in place. Everything mixed and bound together. Then it's complete.

[Bomilcar Thorvald]

He observes Mapes for a few moments, then speaks up. "Maybe something. Probably nothing. Mining near Arrakeen. No support there."

The thought he had about the sietches while speaking with Korba. Did the Fremen have people there? Living away from the Harkonnen?

[Kannon]

No. That's not right. Every ingredient must be in place. Everything mixed and bound together. Then it's complete.

Place? Ingredient? Her mystical streak mocked such terms. As convenient approximations of systems that didn't exist until you carved them, doing violence onto a seamless, moving universe.

Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.

Where were all the Zensunni toughts coming from?!

[Cuyler Gray]

A dash here and there. Add in something new, an unexpected flavor. It wasn't precision it was instinct. That was how a true chef created. That's how you made something never tasted before.

[Kannon]

A universe of surprises!