Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

redbugpest wrote:we can infer that the probe must have jumped away to the far reaches of the galaxy / universe /whatever

No, we couldn't, because the probes didn't have "jump" (by which you mean spacefolding?) capability.

Some hack in The Butlerian Jihad wrote: The humans had designed and begun to assemble a new model of long-distance space probe, an explorer of far-off planets. Such probes could be adapted as emissaries for the thinking machines, new substations for the computer evermind.

On the galactic map Omnius noted the travel times required by even a high-acceleration machine probe. He scanned territory designated as "Unallied Planets," not yet claimed by machines or human vermin. So many star systems for him to explore, conquer, and develop, and these prototype Giedi Prime probes would make that possible. The new evermind saw this as an opportunity—and so would his allied computers on all Synchronized Worlds.

And again, from the section I posted earlier:

Same hack in same book wrote:When the work had been completed, Omnius used his watcheyes to observe the flurry of launches—five thousand probes simultaneously taking flight, programmed to scatter to the farthest corners of the galaxy, even if such flights took millennia. Timescales did not matter.

So even if there WERE anything in the text to imply that the probe moved on, it would still take it MORE millennia to get there.

Oops ... sorry, GAME OVER, Petal.

Same hack in Hunters of Dune wrote: A small and innocuous-looking probe.

"Even seemingly insignificant things have great import. As this device proves."

Centuries before the Battle of Corrin, the last great defeat of the thinking machines, one of the evermind copies had dispatched probes out to the unexplored reaches of the galaxy with the intent of setting up receiving stations, planting seeds for the later expansion of the machine empire. Most of the probes had been lost or destroyed, never reaching a solid world.

Erasmus looked down at the small device, marvelously engineered, pitted and discolored from its many centuries of unguided flight. This probe had found a distant planet, landed, and begun its work, waiting ... and listening.

The probe was NOT IN SPACE. It received the signal ON THE SURFACE OF A PLANET where it had already begun rebuilding a machine civilization.

And lest you try to weasel around and claim that the probe on the altar wasn't the one that received the signal:

[Erasmus] looked down at the small probe on its altarlike stand. If that receiver hadn't been in the right place, the Omnius signal might still be drifting, attenuating. Quite an ignominious end ...

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

Huh ... I guess Real Life called him away again?

BUG SCORE!!!

SandChigger wrote:

redbugpest wrote:we can infer that the probe must have jumped away to the far reaches of the galaxy / universe /whatever

No, we couldn't, because the probes didn't have "jump" (by which you mean spacefolding?) capability.

Did I say folded space?

Some hack in The Butlerian Jihad wrote: The humans had designed and begun to assemble a new model of long-distance space probe, an explorer of far-off planets. Such probes could be adapted as emissaries for the thinking machines, new substations for the computer evermind.

On the galactic map Omnius noted the travel times required by even a high-acceleration machine probe. He scanned territory designated as "Unallied Planets," not yet claimed by machines or human vermin. So many star systems for him to explore, conquer, and develop, and these prototype Giedi Prime probes would make that possible. The new evermind saw this as an opportunity—and so would his allied computers on all Synchronized Worlds.

And again, from the section I posted earlier:

Same hack in same book wrote:When the work had been completed, Omnius used his watcheyes to observe the flurry of launches—five thousand probes simultaneously taking flight, programmed to scatter to the farthest corners of the galaxy, even if such flights took millennia. Timescales did not matter.

So even if there WERE anything in the text to imply that the probe moved on, it would still take it MORE millennia to get there.[/quote]

Wrong - That was not a literal use of time, but an Omnius reflecting on how it wouldn't matter if they did wander for a millennia

Same hack in Hunters of Dune wrote: A small and innocuous-looking probe.

"Even seemingly insignificant things have great import. As this device proves."

Centuries before the Battle of Corrin, the last great defeat of the thinking machines, one of the evermind copies had dispatched probes out to the unexplored reaches of the galaxy with the intent of setting up receiving stations, planting seeds for the later expansion of the machine empire. Most of the probes had been lost or destroyed, never reaching a solid world.

Erasmus looked down at the small device, marvelously engineered, pitted and discolored from its many centuries of unguided flight. This probe had found a distant planet, landed, and begun its work, waiting ... and listening.

The probe was NOT IN SPACE. It received the signal ON THE SURFACE OF A PLANET where it had already begun rebuilding a machine civilization.

And lest you try to weasel around and claim that the probe on the altar wasn't the one that received the signal:

[Erasmus] looked down at the small probe on its altarlike stand. If that receiver hadn't been in the right place, the Omnius signal might still be drifting, attenuating. Quite an ignominious end ...

THANKS FOR PLAYING! [/quote]

Funny - but I don't see anything here that says that the probe was ALREADY on the planet when it received the signal originally. Also, you might note that from a physical standpoint that it IS possible that Omnius found a corner of this galaxy that Humanity had not explored in that 15k years, even with fold space tech.

No points for you this round, try again.

SandChigger wrote:Huh ... I guess Real Life called him away again?

BUG SCORE!!!

What a dufus - I'm not sitting here WAITING for you to post - Oh, Are you hanging on my every word???

PEST SCORE!

redbugpest wrote:Well, that might be how YOU interpreted it, and, of course you are a representative cross section of readers, so most everyone must take it that way...

Well, the problem is that it's not very clear *what* happened, or could happen, and it does matter, because it's a fairly crucial plot point.

If it were clear that a copy of Omnius was in a probe that was capable of FTL travel, and that was how it got out beyond the Scattering, then that would be fine.

But it's not clear. There's all this talk of Omnius not using FTL ships, and of a signal sent by the dying Omnius being picked up by a probe already out beyond the known empire. The explanation of how this happened is so muddled that you're having to invent stuff that isnt in the text just to explain it. And it *needs* to be explained because as it stands, it doesn't make sense. Suspension of disbelief if undermined when you come across little details like this that haven't been thought about.

Furthermore, the whole idea of a signal being picked up by a probe in *one location* and then Omnius getting resurrected and building a machine empire that *completely surrounds the Scattering* using STL ships is simply absurd. You could say that these are just quibbles, that we should just accept it happened and sit back and enjoy the book, but the *whole central Dune 7 conflict* is about this. Its pertains not only to how the protagonists got into the situation they're in, but also how they can realistically get out of it. Again, if there's an explanation it has to come from outside the text.

This matter is just one of *many* that indicate the authors just weren't paying enough attention to the details.

The mention of FHs mistake is to forestall the response of "the originals had mistakes, too". Clearly:
* Frank made a mistake about the arm, but it was of a fairly minor plot detail.
* Everyone concerned admits that it was probably just a mistake, and moves on.

Contrast this with these kind of errors:
* they concern major plot points on which much of the story and resolution depends.
* everyone concerned bends over backwards trying to explain them away, rather than just conceding that the authors probably just weren't careful enough about being consistent.

HBJ

redbugpest wrote:Funny - but I don't see anything here that says that the probe was ALREADY on the planet when it received the signal originally.

That's because you obviously can't comprehend or integrate what you read:

This probe had found a distant planet, landed, and begun its work, waiting ... and listening.

Why would it still be listening if it had already received the transmission?

Sorry, YOU LOSE. But I'm not surprised that you can't/won't admit it.

(And, sorry, fuckwad, but I'm currently ONLINE and hit the new posts link. I'm not hanging on your every post, this is just what I do WHEN I'M ONLINE. )

redbugpest wrote:

SandChigger wrote:Huh ... I guess Real Life called him away again?

BUG SCORE!!!

What a dufus - I'm not sitting here WAITING for you to post - Oh, Are you hanging on my every word???

PEST SCORE!

Well, you did react pretty fast to that BUG SCORE post, so i guess the answer will be yes : you are sitting there WAITING for him to post...

See guys, it's all about interpretation. You can interpret "black" as "white" and it all makes sense!

Schu wrote:See guys, it's all about interpretation. You can interpret "black" as "white" and it all makes sense!

Right. Like when Bel Moulay interprets "island" as "island, or satellite, or something else on or around a planet"

Ah ... I had forgotten about that particularly choice turd of "reasoning".

I think TAZ originally came up with it, though.

And since he is an idiot of classic proportions, I imagine it came from KJA himself.

redbugpest wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:

redbugpest wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:

redbugpest wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote: This is a pretty huge mistake by KJA. 15kLY is not very far, our galaxy is around 100kLY across. And Galaxies are MILLIONS of LY apart. Even if the signal started at the edge of our galaxy (which it didn’t), the furthest away from our galaxy it could have travelled is 15kLY… but the empire was already in OTHER galaxies by the time of the God Emperor… and the Scattering took humanity so much further beyond that point that the empire lost track of where everyone went… and the HM came back from the Scattering… which is a hell of a lot further from the Old Empire than this signal could have travelled…
I think you see the problem. That signal couldn’t have gotten Omius very far WITHIN the empire, let alone outside it, really let alone outside the scattering.
And if you think this is a big mistake in their writing, wait for my next thread – this mistake is actually just laying the groundwork for a muuuuuch larger mistake.

Well, lets start with this. The mistake if taking one small paragraph from "The Battle of Corrin" and applying the narrowest possible interpretation as if it is gospel. As I recall, earlier in the series (in Machines i think) one of the other copies of the synchronized Omnius Everminds had the bright idea to send out a few thousand copies of itself in a machine version of the scattering. I think that it is just as plausible that the data packet beamed by the Corrin Omnius could have been received either by one of those Omnius copies.
More later, when I have more time (like I said on an earlier post, still about a week out on getting through all of my priority projects, though I am getting *some* more time now...

So... you're saying that probes are faster then electromagnetic waves?

No - sent out prior to the data packet on update ships - I'll have to find the reference in Machine to determine how long before - and am still looking into the faster than light / light speed issue.
Off for the night

ALLLLLrighty than. I see everyone else has already gone over most of the obvious reasons that your argument makes little sense.
I didn't take one little paragraph from the battle of corrin, I took info from the Dune 7 novels - where it specifically says that the transmission WAS picked up by one of the probes that had been sent out (which actually DID travel at faster than light speeds, you are correct) - this changes nothing, the transmission still would have only been able to travel 10 or so thousand lightyears.
I knew there was going to be some goofy ideas to retcon this mistake, but I was expecting better than this. The FACT is that the AUTHORS DIDN'T THINK OF ANY OF THIS. They didn't even KNOW they had made a mistake. Only now, years after the books are written are they beginning to grasp the flaws and come up with excuses. If readers have to make as rediculous a stretch as you are to justify an oversight by the author this is a huge problem.
For example, Freakzilla once jokingly said that the magical reapearing arm scene (FH mistake in Messiah) wasn't really a mistake, the character had started with THREE arms! He was joking, the truth of the matter is that FH slipped up in editing and obviously latter changed the character to a one armed man, and missed removing a sentence where he had two arms in revision. How much better it is to just admit that FH made an editing mistake than to try to come up with crazy BS to cover for him.
See my point? KJA wasn't aware that this was even a problem, or else he would have written an explanation into the book. If he DID know it was a problem, he just ignored it, assuming no one was smart enough to notice.

Hmmm - but here YOU are making such a fuss about how important this is, and how it shows that the books are garbage. Why is it important to you that according to physics the signal could only have traveled X distance? Why are you asking me to explain it in the first place if you were just going to chalk it up as an oversight?
Oh, and I didn't have to come up with crazy BS. The signal was received - Omnius went and set up a new empire.
We can agree that this is a fact from the books, your only problem is that YOU are the guys who are obsessing with how far a signal traveled at light speed, and how it couldn't work.
The flow of the entire story is not dependent on having an explanation written anywhere about EXACTLY how far the signal traveled, and how it was picked up, etc. What makes you think that the authors are scrambling to cover this up?
Your set of issues are build on a shaky foundation of minutia that you are extrapolating into something it is not.
If you already have this prized piece of logic mapped out, how about posting the chapter and verse from Dune 7 and I'll read it myself.

Man, I'm sorry, this is no small oversight. This is ONE example of how poorly KJA thinks things through. And we're not talking about the signal having gone "a little bit" further than it should have, necessary as a plot device. It travelled only 10Kly or so - the scattering was MILLIONS or BILLIONS of ly across. Even if the signal had been picked up by an FTL probe, looking at the max speeds of machine FTL in the prequils we see that it would have taken that probe HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS to get to the outside of the scattering.

AND - this is the only thread you are replying in. This complaint of mine is a PIECE of the bigger mistake, which is not that KJA forgot about the speed of light - no, the real mistake is that he FORGOT ABOUT THE SCATTERING'S SIZE. This is addressed in another of my threads I believe. The "enemy" from Chapterhouse was from the furthest reaches of the scattering, or at least close to that. NOT within the milkyway, which is EXACTLY where KJA placed the new machine empire. This is a blatent lack of research, or a blatant lack of understanding. Either way, a new author should be much more careful and respectful when writing in the universe of a great master.

just kinda scanned over this thread, not really following
the specifics of the argument, and anyway, there's WAY
too much detail about the hack's plot-lines ....

which brings me to my question, from a few pages back :

did Keith actually name a character Barbarosa ?




and Pest, this is why I have no need to actually read
The Jacket's books to know they suck ... alot of these people
have read them, told me more about them that I ever wanted to
know, and every now then I accidently pick up a detail like that and

SandRider wrote:did Keith actually name a character Barbarosa ?

Why, yes, he did!

The Titans most notably include Agamemnon, Ajax, Barbarossa, Dante, Hecate, Juno, Tlaloc and Xerxes. Of the remaining twelve Titans, only Alexander and Tamerlane are explicitly named.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Dune)

None of the "Titans" are actually named after any of the Titans of Greek myth. Like naming the no-ship Ithaca, it shows either a complete lack of research or complete lack of regard for the concepts borrowed.

Fucking hack.

(Edit: fixed link)

redbugpest wrote:If all through FH Dune and into Dune 7 we are wondering what the threat from out in the scattering is

We weren't. The Scatterning occured between GEoD and HoD. The threat that chased the Honored Matres back to the old empire was independant face dancers.

Ouch.

Stick a fork in this one.

Freakzilla wrote:

redbugpest wrote:If all through FH Dune and into Dune 7 we are wondering what the threat from out in the scattering is

We weren't. The Scatterning occured between GEoD and HoD. The threat that chased the Honored Matres back to the old empire was independant face dancers.

don't know why I try - Pest & the pretards won't listen,
don't get it, won't get it ... {Alien Roads, anyone ?}

here's a specific point you can answer, Pest -

Frank clearly {clearly, mind you} indicated that Marty & Daniel were facedancers.

The Jacket says they were robots.

That kinda changes the story a little, huh ?

Frank clearly {clearly, eh ?} indicated that the Butlerian Jihad was a fight
between men .... men with (thinking) machines and men without
these machines ....

The Jacket says the Butlerian Jihad was a war between men & the thinking machines acting independently ....

these are two different stories.

the argument of quality of the writing is a different thing ....

your turn.
ignore these issues .... now

Its a simple mistake that even KJA could have explained with "Oh Omnius had fould space already and didnt really trust it for major ops, but felt like sending his probes out was worth the risk, and the signal was actually another one of these probes designed to go out and find its mate, then start rebuilding the Machine Empire.

a crap answer but one that actually follows the rules of the universe he set up.

Instead, we got "Shut up hater's you're wrong, ignore physics and stretch your imagination. Why would you want your SCI-FANTASY to have to follow real rules anyway, thats boring. BTW radio signals travel very fast so of course he could build the empire in 10,000 yrs. duh."

A Thing of Eternity wrote:

redbugpest wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:

redbugpest wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:

redbugpest wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote: This is a pretty huge mistake by KJA. 15kLY is not very far, our galaxy is around 100kLY across. And Galaxies are MILLIONS of LY apart. Even if the signal started at the edge of our galaxy (which it didn’t), the furthest away from our galaxy it could have travelled is 15kLY… but the empire was already in OTHER galaxies by the time of the God Emperor… and the Scattering took humanity so much further beyond that point that the empire lost track of where everyone went… and the HM came back from the Scattering… which is a hell of a lot further from the Old Empire than this signal could have travelled…
I think you see the problem. That signal couldn’t have gotten Omius very far WITHIN the empire, let alone outside it, really let alone outside the scattering.
And if you think this is a big mistake in their writing, wait for my next thread – this mistake is actually just laying the groundwork for a muuuuuch larger mistake.

Well, lets start with this. The mistake if taking one small paragraph from "The Battle of Corrin" and applying the narrowest possible interpretation as if it is gospel. As I recall, earlier in the series (in Machines i think) one of the other copies of the synchronized Omnius Everminds had the bright idea to send out a few thousand copies of itself in a machine version of the scattering. I think that it is just as plausible that the data packet beamed by the Corrin Omnius could have been received either by one of those Omnius copies.
More later, when I have more time (like I said on an earlier post, still about a week out on getting through all of my priority projects, though I am getting *some* more time now...

So... you're saying that probes are faster then electromagnetic waves?

No - sent out prior to the data packet on update ships - I'll have to find the reference in Machine to determine how long before - and am still looking into the faster than light / light speed issue.
Off for the night

ALLLLLrighty than. I see everyone else has already gone over most of the obvious reasons that your argument makes little sense.
I didn't take one little paragraph from the battle of corrin, I took info from the Dune 7 novels - where it specifically says that the transmission WAS picked up by one of the probes that had been sent out (which actually DID travel at faster than light speeds, you are correct) - this changes nothing, the transmission still would have only been able to travel 10 or so thousand lightyears.
I knew there was going to be some goofy ideas to retcon this mistake, but I was expecting better than this. The FACT is that the AUTHORS DIDN'T THINK OF ANY OF THIS. They didn't even KNOW they had made a mistake. Only now, years after the books are written are they beginning to grasp the flaws and come up with excuses. If readers have to make as rediculous a stretch as you are to justify an oversight by the author this is a huge problem.
For example, Freakzilla once jokingly said that the magical reapearing arm scene (FH mistake in Messiah) wasn't really a mistake, the character had started with THREE arms! He was joking, the truth of the matter is that FH slipped up in editing and obviously latter changed the character to a one armed man, and missed removing a sentence where he had two arms in revision. How much better it is to just admit that FH made an editing mistake than to try to come up with crazy BS to cover for him.
See my point? KJA wasn't aware that this was even a problem, or else he would have written an explanation into the book. If he DID know it was a problem, he just ignored it, assuming no one was smart enough to notice.

Hmmm - but here YOU are making such a fuss about how important this is, and how it shows that the books are garbage. Why is it important to you that according to physics the signal could only have traveled X distance? Why are you asking me to explain it in the first place if you were just going to chalk it up as an oversight?
Oh, and I didn't have to come up with crazy BS. The signal was received - Omnius went and set up a new empire.
We can agree that this is a fact from the books, your only problem is that YOU are the guys who are obsessing with how far a signal traveled at light speed, and how it couldn't work.
The flow of the entire story is not dependent on having an explanation written anywhere about EXACTLY how far the signal traveled, and how it was picked up, etc. What makes you think that the authors are scrambling to cover this up?
Your set of issues are build on a shaky foundation of minutia that you are extrapolating into something it is not.
If you already have this prized piece of logic mapped out, how about posting the chapter and verse from Dune 7 and I'll read it myself.

Man, I'm sorry, this is no small oversight. This is ONE example of how poorly KJA thinks things through. And we're not talking about the signal having gone "a little bit" further than it should have, necessary as a plot device. It travelled only 10Kly or so - the scattering was MILLIONS or BILLIONS of ly across. Even if the signal had been picked up by an FTL probe, looking at the max speeds of machine FTL in the prequils we see that it would have taken that probe HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS to get to the outside of the scattering.

AND - this is the only thread you are replying in. This complaint of mine is a PIECE of the bigger mistake, which is not that KJA forgot about the speed of light - no, the real mistake is that he FORGOT ABOUT THE SCATTERING'S SIZE. This is addressed in another of my threads I believe. The "enemy" from Chapterhouse was from the furthest reaches of the scattering, or at least close to that. NOT within the milkyway, which is EXACTLY where KJA placed the new machine empire. This is a blatent lack of research, or a blatant lack of understanding. Either way, a new author should be much more careful and respectful when writing in the universe of a great master.

You never did respond to this post. I'm becoming increasingly unimpressed with your ability to debate, you appear to be entirely typical of what I've come to expect of someone who can call KJA a real author. I've tried to avoid being rude, but this is just getting pathetic, either you can debate the evidence against him as both an author and as someone who gives even the tiniest shit about frank Herbert's work, or you can't.

Pick one and run with it.

I thought this one had a fork stuck in it?

SandChigger wrote:I thought this one had a fork stuck in it?

It sure as fucking hell does on our end, I'm just waiting to see if this guy will A: admit it, B: try for who knows what godsdamned reason to continue his excessively weak argument, or C: hide from this and other threads that show just how poor a writer KJA really is and hope none of us notice, so that he can just trade childish insults with people.

A is the obviously correct course of action, but I would accept B as well. C is pretty much as close to proof we can get that he really does know that KJA is a bad writer, and is just willing to live with it and support him anyways.

SandRider wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:

redbugpest wrote:If all through FH Dune and into Dune 7 we are wondering what the threat from out in the scattering is

We weren't. The Scatterning occured between GEoD and HoD. The threat that chased the Honored Matres back to the old empire was independant face dancers.

don't know why I try - Pest & the pretards won't listen,
don't get it, won't get it ... {Alien Roads, anyone ?}

here's a specific point you can answer, Pest -

Frank clearly {clearly, mind you} indicated that Marty & Daniel were facedancers.

The Jacket says they were robots.

That kinda changes the story a little, huh ?

Frank clearly {clearly, eh ?} indicated that the Butlerian Jihad was a fight
between men .... men with (thinking) machines and men without
these machines ....

The Jacket says the Butlerian Jihad was a war between men & the thinking machines acting independently ....

these are two different stories.

the argument of quality of the writing is a different thing ....

your turn.
ignore these issues .... now

Men and Thinking Machines….

Agamemnon and crew with Omnius – Check

Indicated that Marty and Daniel were face dancers – well, I would call it more “suggested”

redbugpest wrote:Men and Thinking Machines….

Agamemnon and crew with Omnius – Check

NOT what was meant.

Stupid, unoriginal, boring, crap. Regurgitation of some old shit. YAWN.

SandChigger wrote:

redbugpest wrote:Men and Thinking Machines….

Agamemnon and crew with Omnius – Check

NOT what was meant.

Stupid, unoriginal, boring, crap. Regurgitation of some old shit. YAWN.

To be honest I thought the BJ really was a Terminator-style war against robots when I first read Dune, but mostly because it wasn't clarified as well as in the later books in the series and because I thought it was a simple plot device that set up the universe. (To be fair it really was and didn't gain importance relating to the universal zeitgeist until later on)

But as I read the later books I realized it was not that form of war, and in retrospect it really does not fit Herbert's themes and philosophy. I don't understand how anyone can see it as anything but what it really was if they've read farther than book 1.

They haven't. Or just the Cliffs Notes. Or the biased recap in the crap.