Is this Outside Enemy even mentioned in the original books?

[A Thing of Eternity]

That's all I got out of it as well, I'm just saying I can see how someone might get that impression.

[muddism]

Here are a few of the quotes...

"Aren't you curious why the Tyrant never suppressed Ix?" he asked. And when she continued to stare at him: "He only bridled them. He was fascinated by the idea of human and machine inextricably bound to each other, each testing the limits of the other." "Cyborgs?" "Among other things." Didn't Idaho know the residue of revulsion left by the Butlerian Jihad even among the Bene Gesserit? Alarming! The convergence of what each -- human and machine -- could do. Considering machine limitations, that was a succinct description of Ixian shortsightedness. Was Idaho saying the Tyrant subscribed to the idea of Machine Intelligence? Foolishness! She turned away from him.

First the axlotl tanks and now this.
Necessity said they could not afford to lose specialists of Clairby's caliber.
They had few enough as it was. "Spread thin" did not describe it. Gaps were appearing. Cyborg Clairby, though, and that was the opening wedge.

Conditions of extremis said, "Cyborg him!" Was the Sisterhood that desperate?
She was forced to answer in the affirmative.
There it was then -- decision not entirely out of her hands, but the ready excuse at hand. Necessity dictates it.
The Butlerian Jihad had left its indelible mark on humans. Fought and won . . .
for then. And here was another battle in that long-ago conflict.
But now, survival of the Sisterhood was in the balance. How many technical specialists remained on Chapterhouse? She knew the answer without looking. Not enough.
Odrade leaned forward and keyed for transmit. "Cyborg him," she said.
Bellonda grunted. Approval or disapproval? She would never say. This was Mother Superior's arena and welcome to it!
Who won this battle? Odrade wondered.

I'm not saying this proves anything...but it seemed a bit like forshadowing. There are a few other references too. I didn't say they were AI overloards...but a possible allied faction of cyborgs. It was just a thought.

[Freakzilla]

Just as likely as and allied faction of Scattered BG with Sandtrout skin.

[Serkanner]

Here are a few of the quotes...

SNAP


I'm not saying this proves anything...but it seemed a bit like forshadowing. There are a few other references too. I didn't say they were AI overloards...but a possible allied faction of cyborgs. It was just a thought.

I fail to see the foreshadowing part in these quotes (and in the books).

[DuneFishUK]

My theory was that machines and their implications would have featured in FH's Dune 7 - those passages show that he was pondering something along those lines (although he wasn't above a red herring).

The hacks then interpret that in as wrong a way as possible - trying to join a single dot in one and a half pages of unfinished notes. FH scribbles something about machine thinking, and Keith's eyes light up - "Machines? Gee Brian, you ever seen Terminator?"

[Crysknife]

I think the whole series was about machines and their implications. But what would Frank be forshadowing? There had already been conscious robots and thinking machines in the past......the reason's for their destruction have already been given, and it's not what Brian and KJA have written. Why would new future machines be more forboding or dangerous? It's what the humans that had been corrupted by machine use would do with those machines that was the issue. Always has been.

[Sandwurm88]

Enemy of Many Faces always screamed Independent Face Dancers to me, as did the last chapter of Chapterhouse Dune...maybe that's why KJA and BH changed it to the "Mysterious Outside Enemy".

[Freakzilla]

Enemy of Many Faces always screamed Independent Face Dancers to me, as did the last chapter of Chapterhouse Dune...maybe that's why KJA and BH changed it to the "Mysterious Outside Enemy".

Why, because they didn't get it?

[Mandy]

I read something Superstring01 wrote on Sister Artemis' forum a long time ago where he explained why he thought machines were a threat, but I can't find it. (He didn't think Marty and Daniel were super cross dressing robots, of course) Maybe it's on some other old Dune forum.

Sister's forum will be lost completely someday, but there might some stuff you might want to save. Sister and String both wrote some articles, but they never finished the project http://sistersreadingroom.yuku.com/directory" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I miss Sister A!

[Omphalos]

I read something Superstring01 wrote on Sister Artemis' forum a long time ago where he explained why he thought machines were a threat, but I can't find it. (He didn't think Marty and Daniel were super cross dressing robots, of course) Maybe it's on some other old Dune forum.

Sister's forum will be lost completely someday, but there might some stuff you might want to save. Sister and String both wrote some articles, but they never finished the project http://sistersreadingroom.yuku.com/directory" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I miss Sister A!

I offered her a forum at T(A)U to archive all of her stuff. She said no thank you. Too bad.

[Mandy]

OH... I just found her! I'm gonna leave a comment on her blog.

[Demerzel]

The face dancers probably 'evolved' by absorbing the personalities of people. It seems to me that they overpowered their Scattered Tleilaxu masters, for Marty does mention how she would have 'liked to study another master'.

In my opinion, the entire series has been about how there is always an opposite to everything in the universe. This has been strongly emphasized throughout the series, from a Kwisatz Haderach who would kill himself rather than be his opposite, to the Honored Matres who were 'opposites' of the BG.

[A Thing of Eternity]

I don't know if I'd call that one of the central themes, but it certainly is one of em.

[Rymoah]

Since I concluded my first reading of the Chronicles, I've always imagined that the "Enemy of Many Faces" were indipendent face dancers; in its obviousness, I think this is the only logic explanation, seeing the hints that Frank Herbert disseminated in his books, particularly in Chapterhouse:Dune. I can't really believe that Frank could introduce, in an hypothetic Dune 7, an element so alien to the Dune ecumene, that is thinking machines in the ridicolous way the two hacks described.

I personally like the solution condensed by Serkanner's words:

Previously forbidden "new" technologies? Yes ... AI overlords? No.

Rymoah

[Demerzel]

I don't know if I'd call that one of the central themes, but it certainly is one of em.

Also consider the Malky-Hwi opposites. That was, or could have been, a 'game-changing moment'.