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Author Topic: A Game of Thrones: Every time somebody uses the spoiler tags take a shot.  (Read 209521 times)

ChairmanPoo

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-snip-
Sorry you seem to be under the misapprehension that some books set in the dune universe were written by a blood descendant of  Frank Herbert and a StarWars EU writer. I can assure you thay you're imagining things and such a thing never happened.
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wierd

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No, The jihad, and the prohibition against thinking machines (and references to the war) are in the first book.  First few chapters even.

(The confusion is over what role Butler had in the jihad. That part was written by subsequent authors. The bits about it being an uprising against synthetic intelligence, and earth being destroyed, are well established in the very first book.)


Here's a nice little blurb from Wikipedia, which covers the first 3 books only.

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Thinking machines is a collective term for artificial intelligence in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. The Butlerian Jihad — a human crusade against thinking machines — is an epic turning point in the back-story of the Dune universe.[31][32] The thinking machines are first mentioned in 1965's Dune, the glossary of which includes the following:

JIHAD, BUTLERIAN: (see also Great Revolt) — the crusade against computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots begun in 201 B.G. and concluded in 108 B.G. Its chief commandment remains in the O.C. Bible as "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind."[31]

In Dune Messiah (1969), the Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale notes that "From the days of the Butlerian Jihad when 'thinking machines' had been wiped from most of the universe, computers had inspired distrust."[8] Herbert refers to thinking machines and the Jihad several times in his later works in the Dune series, but does not give much detail on how he imagined either.[32] In God Emperor of Dune (1981), Leto II Atreides indicates that the Jihad had been a semi-religious social upheaval initiated by humans who felt repulsed by how guided and controlled they had become by machines:

"The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed."[10]

Later in the same novel, Leto tests Siona Atreides, who experiences a vision of the future Leto is trying to prevent with his Golden Path — mankind's extinction at the hands of "seeking machines":[33]

He knew this experience, but could not change the smallest part of it. No ancestral presences would remain in her consciousness, but she would carry with her forever afterward the clear sights and sounds and smells. The seeking machines would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their burrows aware only that they could not escape . . . while all the time the mechanical movement approached, nearer and nearer and nearer ...louder...louder! Everywhere she searched, it would be the same. No escape anywhere.[10]

Herbert's death in 1986 left this topic unexplored and open to speculation.[32]

The implication is that humans created synthetic intelligence, and could not coexist with it. There was a war over ideology, with the thinking machines creating autonomous weapons that dispersed into the galaxy seeking out human civilizations to exterminate, and humans likewise exterminating synthetic intelligences wherever and whenever they encountered them, along with prohibitions against ever creating new ones. The potential that the remnants of the thinking machines would find humanity all clustered together in one place (and thus usher in a final extinction) was one of the potential futures the golden path (of diaspora) was meant to prevent.

See also, this wikipedia excerpt on Holtzman Drive

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Holtzman drive

Spacing Guild heighliner in the 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune
The effect is used in this case to fold space at the quantum level, allowing the Spacing Guild's heighliner ships to instantaneously travel far distances across space without actually moving at all. However, the chaotic and seemingly non-deterministic quantum nature of "foldspace" requires at least limited prescience on the part of the human navigator; otherwise the absurdly complex mathematics involved in producing reliable physical projections of such events would only be possible with advanced computers, which are strictly prohibited because of mankind's crusade against thinking machines, the Butlerian Jihad. To this effect, the Guild produces melange-saturated Navigators who intuitively "see paths through foldspace" in this way.[2] This stumbling block is overcome several thousand years after the events of Dune when Ixian scientists develop mechanical replacements for Guild Navigators.[5]


So, the basic premise of "because humans could not coexist with synthetic intelligence" is simply true, regardless of cymeks and pals being considered cannon or not.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2019, 11:00:56 am by wierd »
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ChairmanPoo

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The implication is that humans created synthetic intelligence, and could not coexist with it. There was a war over ideology, with the thinking machines creating autonomous weapons that dispersed into the galaxy seeking out human civilizations to exterminate
That's not my reading.

Quote
The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed
I see this as hinting at a luddite religious uprising, not a machine war
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sluissa

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I also always read it as a Skynet/Matrix style machine war which the humans eventually won and thus outlawed advanced computers to prevent it from happening again.


That said, I can see how you could read it as a luddite uprising type situation, especially with it written into a religious text and the potential for history to have been rewritten a bit by the victors.

I can see that angle, but it also is enough of a stretch that the machine war makes more sense without further context...
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Max™

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Oh god it's another "OH NO THE MASHEENZ WILL DOOM US ALL, WE MUST REMAIN PURE" fucktard like Roddenberry then?

Glad my initial impression didn't steer me wrong. In terms of "godmachines take over and run everything" settings it's Banks > anyone else for me, but if you want a big scary godtech hyperalien mind to fear, the Xeelee can check those boxes for you without being totally dependent on unnecessary human insecurities preventing us from improving ourselves like some moronic cult.
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wierd

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Not really.

The series is set several THOUSAND years after the machine war.  Mankind is run by royal dynasties, and computers have been replaced wholesale by humans abusing various drugs so that they can perform the same functions as computers. (Mentats, Guild navigators, et al.)

You will not find a single computer or AI in the series. Even a pocket calculator would be frowned on heavily.
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Dorsidwarf

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Its been forever since I read any Dune but I never got the sense that it was a terminator-like sitation, more like a "Once hostilities began for a reason long since forgotten, they could never be undone or rebuild trust, and the only option was a war of mutual extinction"
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scriver

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If we were talking in Swedish I could've made an excellent pun on A Game of Dunes

See Dune in Swedish is Dyna, which is not just used for Sanddynor (Sand Dunes) but also for Sittdynor (Sitting Dunes, the padded area of a chair or throne of similar sitting object (I including sitting pillows)).

And that would be an excellent pun.
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Love, scriver~

zombat

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Hopefully not talking about the book, because I can't read.
Audio books my friend
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