You are Ophelia, twisted mentat and captain of the Spacing Guild Heighliner Exuberance, on a mission to explore wild space, surveying uncharted worlds to expand the bounds of the known universe. Last thread, you folded space to 1195 Tloni, an orange star orbited by an uncharted habitable planet. Your most junior navigator thinks there’s something hidden on the ice planet at the farthest reaches of the solar system, but you made the executive decision to focus first on the earth-like planet, which you can reach without folding space or expending weeks of precious time.
Currently you’re en route to a parking orbit around the planet, which you have yet to name. One of the inconveniences of folding to uncharted systems is that navigators often can’t get you within spitting distance of your target (whatever it might be) sight unseen. You have almost a week to eat up before you arrive, and there are several ways you might spend it.
What would you like to start with?
>Combat training >Experimenting and optimizing thought processes >Observing and auditing the crew and their various functions >Or something else (write in)
Joshua Anderson
>>Observing and auditing the crew and their various functions
Nolan Cruz
>>Observing and auditing the crew and their various functions Oh nice, it's back.
Isaiah Collins
A mentat requires data. Firsthand observation of your ship and its crew will give you information that your subordinates and their reports might miss. Which deck of the Heighliner will you inspect?
>Engineering & Maintenance >Crew Section >Soldiers and Armory >Navigators and Hold >Or somewhere else (write in)
Top vote getter wins
Ryder Wright
Dammit
Colton Wilson
>>Soldiers and Armory I bet we move to the ice world next, and I'd want to be able to size up our ability to fight as best as I could.
Grayson Smith
Writing
Benjamin Gutierrez
You decide to inspect the armory, the barracks where the marines are housed, and the ship’s weapons systems. This section of the ship is commanded by the Weapons Master, Llomar Kadmin, a Guild ‘lifer’ and a veteran officer. Supposedly he was born on board a Heighliner, his enormous height and exaggerated proportions certainly speak to a life spent offworld. Either that or some genetic disorder the Guild didn’t see the need to cull from the line. He greets you with a crisp salute and a “Captain,” totally hairless head nearly scraping the ceiling as he stands bolt upright.
“As you were, Weapons Master.” You ask for a summary of the ship and crew’s combat readiness, which he quickly provides.
>194 Guild marines, trained in both shielded and unshielded fighting, vacsuit fighting, hand to hand and ranged combat. An additional 92 crewmen who can be called up as reserves to fight if necessary. Notably, although they are well drilled, few have seen serious combat. In a fight against veteran opponents with equal equipment they would likely be outmatched. >112 personal shield belts, 56 lasguns and 17 suits of conflict armor, as well as assorted hunter seekers, poisons and other weapons of assassination >Enough shuttles, groundcars and ‘thopters to carry 450 people >Shipboard weaponry consists of two naval lascannons, 9 atomic warheads and 21 stone burners. Both types of atomics can be dropped on planetary targets like conventional bombs, fired from artillery pieces, or mounted to missiles or torpedoes.
(cont)
Wyatt Watson
Interesting. Landsraad Convention only prevents atomic war between the parties of the convention, right? It doesn't stipulate anything about any unsigned parties?
Aiden Brooks
He takes you through the troops’ gymnasium to watch the marines train hand to hand fighting. They spar paired off or in small scrimmages, some shielded and some bare, armed with kindjals, knives, rapiers, talwars and slip tips, as well as their bare hands. Your immediate concern from looking at them is that a lack of practical experience is limiting them and making their fighting art predictable. Like everything on board a Guild ship they’re designed to perform a specific function, no matter how mindlessly and repetitively. (‘But look at the muscles on that one there,’ Agilus slavers bawdily, ‘Let him get his arms around you, and he’ll show us a thing or two! Though, perhaps not about fighting.’) In a straight fight vs any of the Great Houses’ troops, let alone Sardaukar or Ginaz-trained swordsmen, your forces would be demolished.
“Did Captain have a specific regimen of training in mind?” the Weapons Master queries, arms clasped behind his back, watching a private fence inexpertly with a training dummy.
Would you like the soldiers to train >Ranged fighting (useless vs shielded foes, but devastating against unshielded opponents) >Shield fighting (essential vs ‘civilized’ foes who will also be using shields) >Vacsuit fighting (crucial in the vacuum of space, or other hostile environments) >Something else (write in)
Top vote getter wins. Also, you can ask for information about anything you want whenever you like
James Ross
Correct. Outside the known universe, you can nuke anyone or anything you want, the only constraint being that a mostly-pristine planet sells for more than a smear of radioactive glass (although stone burners don't generate fallout in the same way as conventional atomics).
Michael Martin
If we're able to revisit this choice again in the future, perhaps as additional training, I'd choose vacsuit training. Otherwise, I'd choose Shield Training.
Gavin Kelly
>Shield fighting Hopefully we get to choose again.
Joshua Robinson
You instruct Kadmin to prepare a regimen of shield training for the marines. If you encounter any foes with Holtzman shields on your travel, it’s absolutely essential that your troops be able to counter them. And if you have to fight unshielded barbarians in some galactic backwater, you’ll still have a massive advantage. There will be ample time for vacsuit practice later. If for some reason they ever have to fight in an airless void, or in a hazardous atmosphere, they’ll be impaired by their bulky pressurized fatigues, and you want to minimize the loss in combat effectiveness should that need arise.
“Yes sir.” He salutes, enormous hands like pale spiders on the ends of his wrists. “Anything else, Captain?” The private fencing with the training dummy appears to have gotten the upper hand, deflecting the mechanical arms with the dagger held in his off-hand and striking at the target with the tip of his blade.
Would you like to >Inspect some other part of the weapons deck (write in which) >Inspect some other deck of the ship (choose from ) >Do something else (choose from )
Ian Gomez
>Inspect some other deck of the ship Engineering & Maintenance. I need to know the resource cost for operation and maintenance of the ship at the least, and projection of operation at current store levels.
Elijah Garcia
Well, without getting into the fine details, we need at least twice enough of whatever we need to get to where we're going, and I'd like a third because journeying is hazardous on its own.
Joshua Nguyen
You dismiss Kadmin, who immediately organizes an impromptu demonstration of how to wrestle a shielded opponent, and catch a lift to Engineering.
Gell Voivode, Head Engineer, greets you with a smile and a salute. His sunny disposition is typical of a Gamont native, but his origins on that ‘harem world’ belies his capable mechanical mind. His hands are smeared with a faintly iridescent liquid you surmise is coolant, and when you ask for a report he immediately assures you that the leak will not be a problem, sir.
Your stores are as follows
>Enough spice for 760 days at the current rate the Navigators are consuming it >Enough food, water and oxygen (at the current rate all three are being recycled) for 1,571 days >Reaction mass enough for 26 foldspace operations (local maneuvering via the ship’s engines will reduce this amount) >Spare and replacement parts sufficient to maintain the ship’s neutrino circuitry for 31 foldspace operations
“The coolant leak in the reactor is all fixed, if you want to speak to the Mentat-Engineers on duty there, they’d be glad to set your mind at ease. I’ve disciplined them and their staff for the foul-up, but if you want them punished further, I live to serve. The engines are running just fine, we had a hiccup in nacelle 3 but it turned out to just be a loose connector plug in one of the firing circuits, which we can fix once we start braking.” At the mention of discipline, the back of your leg explodes in pain for the fraction of a second it takes to force your nerves into compliance.
Do you want to >Inspect the reactor and the engineers in charge >Inspect the engines >Inspect the life support systems >Inspect some other system (write in)
Hunter Johnson
>>Inspect the life support systems He didn't mention anything about the life support systems. Examine closely at things others would not.
Benjamin Roberts
The ship’s life support systems recycle carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, and purify as much of the sewage and greywater used by the crew as possible. The head engineer accompanies you past enormous rebreathers and oxygen scrubbers, pipes and valves and vats, plumbers and dwarf-technicians specially bred to crawl into cramped maintenance shafts. You update your mental model of the ship’s inner workings based on the tour. (‘A process cannot be understood by stopping it,’ Agilus admonishes, ‘Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.’ The swing from crude sexual suggestions to orthodox quotations from the Mentat handbook is part of a worrying trend with him you should really investigate later)
A clanging from somewhere up above distracts you, followed by a thunderous ripping sound. Gell asks what sound you’re talking about. It could be yet another hallucination, or that could be what he wants you to think. You don’t know which of your officers know about your little condition, but Agilus insists this one could easily have learned.
Do you >Investigate the clanging >Inspect some other part of the engineering deck >Inspect some other deck of the ship (choose from ) >Do something else (choose from )
Nolan Hall
>Investigate the clanging Let's venture somewhat.
Isaiah Nguyen
As an aside, what do you think of my ranking? Dune>Children of Dune>Dune Messiah>God-Emperor of Dune>Shit >Rest of books.
Chase Baker
>Investigate the clanging
Bentley Ross
I found Children of Dune the most forgettable one, though I did like the Egyptian aesthetic they gave to the twins in contrast to the usual not-Arabia
God-Emperor if nothing else manages to bring the initial feeling of surrealism back. Out of all the books it's the one I remember the most. I've never found anything quite like it within sci-fi. I couldn't say it's good or bad, but it was definitely interesting. It would have been a good end.
I don't get it why most people don't like the last two books. They're kind of redundant, yes, but the characters are actually rather well-developed and the prose is good, which had been the greatest of Dune's flaws up to that point. It also gives a definitive end to the recurrent topics on the series - Arrakis is destroyed, the population at large no longer relies on the Spice, people start letting go off the grudges against technology from the Butlerian Jihad, there's no single body ruling over or holding sway upon any significant amount of humanity other than the Bene Gesserit and the Golden Path is completed.
Ayden Jones
Gell says there isn’t anything above you besides an organic recycler. You’ll be the judge of that. You roll up the legs of your trousers so they won’t catch on anything, tie off the tails of your coat so they won’t catch, and climb up the nearest access ladder. The noise echoes above you, a metallic groan that always seems to come from somewhere up above the next pipe, the next tank, the next catwalk. A lanky maintenance tech, naked to the waist, reads the meters on the side of a microbal bioreactor in the flickering light of a glowglobe tethered to his tool belt. He hurriedly salutes you as you climb past, then turns back to his work, perched barefoot with prehensile toes wrapped around the narrow support beam below him. Every time you think you’re about to reach it, the noise moves further up. Eventually you hit the bulkhead, and you swear the grating, rending sound is still audible from the next deck up, through the separating layers of metal and plasteel.
Do you
>Find the nearest corridor or access hatch to the next level up and continue chasing the sound >one of the other choices from
Joseph Ward
I liked Children of Dune as much as I did because of the background. It shows Arrakis bereft of its monolithic hero, and I loved the difference that made. Dune Messiah touched on many of the same concepts, but it was wrapped up in the characters enough to sound like a soap. >Find the nearest corridor or access hatch to the next level up and continue chasing the sound
Ayden Davis
How the fuck did the Honored Matres exterminate the Tleilaxu? They couldn't detect Face Dancers! Was the pussy game really that strong?
Ayden Howard
>They couldn't detect Face Dancers! Don't need to detect them when Honored Matre techniques are good enough to break their genetic loyalty and make them reveal themselves.
>Find the nearest corridor or access hatch to the next level up and continue chasing the sound We're both hearing this, right, Agilus?
Alexander Nguyen
Writing
Kevin Lee
>We're both hearing this, right, Agilus? (‘No, although that doesn’t prove anything. I often hear things you don’t, though I’m more reticent about sharing’).
There’s a maintenance hatch to the next level, you scramble up the lattice of catwalks and staircases through it, into what you recognize as the boiler room for the communal showers on the crew level. The clanging is somewhere up above you, right about where the library should be. You exit into the hallway, startling a clutch of cargo handlers and attendants still wet from the showers. A couple of them accidentally drop the towels from their waists in their hurry to salute you. Your query about the noise is met with puzzled expressions, and you bustle past them to the lift up to the next floor.
Tearing down the hallway to the library, you almost collide with one of the face dancer-escorts as s/he emerges from their shared study, heavyset and with full lips suggestive of the Harkonnen bloodline. You’d love to commiserate with another despised product of the Bene Tleilax’ twisted imagination, but you have more important matters than shooting the breeze with one of the ship’s whores. At any rate, you can always find either of them if you want to talk: they’ve got implants to track their location, in case they ever get ideas about impersonating any of the crew.
The library is empty, aside from a planetologist and an accountant, sharing a pair of headphones and giggling at something from the ship’s shigawire collection. The grinding continues from up above, having increased in volume.
(cont)
Oliver Miller
The floor above is another maintenance level, directly beneath the hull, with jefferies tubes and tunnels allowing access to the neutrino circuitry lining the shell of the ship, as well as the shield projectors and various other equipment. There are also several airlocks allowing access to the exterior of the ship, with vacsuits and suspensor modules ready for EVA. The ship is shaped like a cylinder, gravity is provided by generators along the spine at the center, which use ‘reversed’ 3 dimensional holtzman projectors to create the antithesis of the suspensor effect.
The banging is coming from somewhere up above, outside the ship. It’s horrible. You ask the bridge for a report, and they reply that there’s nothing unusual happening to or outside the hull, the cameras and sensor arrays don’t show anything out of the ordinary.
Do you want to >Suit up for a spacewalk (or get one of your subordinates to do it) >one of the other choices from >something else
Jonathan Carter
>jefferies tubes I see you motherfucker. >Suit up for a spacewalk (or get one of your subordinates to do it) Get out there and beat that monkey off the side of the plane already.
Andrew Fisher
>something else Check how much time has passed since we first heard the sound, and compare it against all previous auditory hallucinations we've experienced. Compare and calculate the probability that this is another hallucination, bounded by past experience and our knowledge of our genetic flaw.
Aaron Scott
Writing
Daniel Garcia
It's been less than half an hour since you first heard the sound. You've had hallucinations that lasted for literal days, long after you verified they weren't real. This is completely consistent with your usual symptoms. The noises are a hallucination.
And yet, you still climb into one of the vacsuits from the nearest EVA lounge, attaching the bulky pressurized gauntlets and boots to the main body of the suit. This is a subtle danger every mentat was warned about in school: the need to be absolutely sure, the mentat’s obsession with the outlier that skews the whole set. It’s poison and you know it, and you willingly swallow. You check the seals on your helmet and cycle the airlock, radioing to the bridge that you’re going for a walk on the hull.
The magnets in your boots power on, you open the exterior door and reach out to attach your tether to the exterior of the hull.
You step out into the void.
(cont)
Christian Morris
The magnetic boots secure you to the hull. You walk, ensuring only one foot is ever off the hull at a time, along the curvature of the ship, an alien sky (but then, they’re all alien to you) filling the horizon. After a few minutes of walking to the spot where the noise was coming from (it’s gone silent, no surprise given you’re in a vacuum) you find…
Nothing.
You crouch to examine the hull carefully, the aluminum shell over the exterior is as smooth and shiny as the day it was forged, the delicate-
(‘Get back, right now’)
You stand, puzzled
(‘NOW’)
Agilus seizes control of your body, turning and walking you toward the airlock as fast as you can move in your boots. You move like a child’s windup toy, marching with one leg in the air at a time. Your pedipalps grind furiously against one another and you wonder if, as you feared, your companion is fissioning into two separate personalities.
The opposite end of the tether comes sailing up over the horizon, severed.
(cont)
Dominic Cooper
You instantly compute the time it will take to reach the airlock. The amount of air left in your suit. The comlink isn’t working. All you can do is frantically spitball who might be responsible for this, what their next move might be while Agilus guides you back to safety.
Ten meters out from the airlock door, the hull begins to shimmer, pentashield powering up. Agilus pushes off and clears the rest of the distance with a flying leap, seconds before the hull beneath your feet would have pushed you into the vacuum of space, magnetic boots no longer sufficient to keep you attached. You slam into the airlock door, hands scrambling wildly at the slippery access handle, before prudence prevails and you remember to slowly press your hand through the shield to firmly grasp the handhold.
After two minutes thirty one point sixty six seconds of holding onto the hull white knuckles, planning your next move, the shields die down and your communications come back online. You immediately order your first mate and a team of marines to secure the airlock and let you back in, instructing them to check carefully for traps before opening it.
Someone just tried to kill you.
Noah Thompson
Inside the ship, from the safety of your most secure, secret bolthole, you review the facts.
Engineering reported a power spike to the shields, nobody on the bridge noticed anything and so far they’ve been unable to find the origin. Nobody saw anyone follow you to the airlock, and there weren’t any recording devices in the hall that would have spotted your would-be assassin.
You apologize to Agilus for thinking he’d gone mad. He apologizes for not figuring out it was a setup sooner. The obvious suspect is the chief engineer, considering he knew where you were going and denied any knowledge of the noise. But, then, nobody else heard it either. The most likely explanation is chaumas or chaumurky, poison introduced somewhere in your diet by someone who knows about your condition, designed to trigger it in such a way that would leave you vulnerable. That means you can narrow your list of suspects down to anyone who’s read your dossier, or anyone who might know about your little problem. So mister Gell Voivode isn’t exonerated after all, not yet. And you’ll be passing everything that goes into your body through a poison snooper from now on. Assuming it’s not something else they’re using to induce hallucinations, subconscious suggestion or hypnosis. To your knowledge nobody on board is trained in the Voice, but there are other, just as subtle ways to manipulate people.
Mason Cook
That's going to do it for tonight. As usual, thanks for reading and replying.
What do you call them? 'Futuristic space age tubes'?
