Heh. “Budallah.”
But regarding Bridget Burke’s link, I don’t care for the writing, but it doesn’t seem so ludicrous to me that there might be amusement parks with Sandworm rides somewhere in the Dune universe prior to the events of Dune.
The DE has a huge section on the O.C. Bible, here’s a snip of what it has to say about the name specifically:
"…One of the hardest decisions for the C.E.T. was not merely to establish the contents of their Bible but to agree upon a title, one that would be brief yet broadly descriptive, one that would reflect the ecumenical spirit without appearing narrowly exclusive. In early fragments of his memoirs, Bertoli refers to it as the Koranjiyana Zenchristian Scriptures, or as the Zenchristian Navakoran, but after the fourth year it seems to be settled in his mind, at least, that Orange Catholic Bible was to be the name. We must suppose that a day or a week was given over to settling what may have become an embarrassing dispute. The terms “orange” and “catholic” do, however, seem to have established themselves as reflecting the more innovative and rational as opposed to the more conservative and traditional schools of thought, sometimes being used quite lightly, if we may judge by odd remarks of Bertoli–“what a delightfully pompous catholic statement”, “Catholic to a See”, “utterly Orange is the only word to describe that nonsense”, “for an Orange, that little acolyte of Bruin’s is quite a peach”, “all of those oranges are bananas” – remarks not at all clear to us now, but some were clearly meant as witticisms. The origin of the term Orange as applied to a religious sectarian is now obscure but its religious significance is so overwhelming nowadays that few remember it as the ancient name of a fruit now called portyguls.
I’m not sure why they would be. The sandworms were pretty obscure to the Imperium at large. Before the events of Dune, the only people who knew they had anything at all to do with melange were the Fremen, the Guild and the Bene Gesserit. The Atreides had no idea until after Paul started experiencing prescience.
It’s the utter banality of it that gets me. The pre-Atreides Imperium (and the post-Atreides Imperium, for that matter) had a certain feel to it, in the books, and big plastic fake sandworms as amusement park mascots weren’t it.
…and with regards to the canonity (canonessence?) of the DE itself, here’s the foreword in the DE from FH (since I’m now going to be up all night rereading this stuff ;):
"Here is a rich background (and foreground) for the Dune Chronicles, including scholarly bypaths and amusing sidelights. Some of the contributions are sure to arouse controversy, based as they are on questionable sources. Others round out long speculation. Specialists have had their field day here with problems geological, biological, astronomical, and mystical, with pronunciations, major biographies, histories and accounts of little known figures. The range of topics is catholic: cf. from games for amusement to games of life and death (Cheops or Pyramid Chess to “The Assassin’s Handbook”).
The history of the Financial Synod which spawned CHOAM gets its first airing in these pages. In fact, many secrets hidden in the Dune Chronicles are answered here.
How did Irulan first gain and then arouse the displeasure of Ghanima? Who was Jehanne Butler and why does the Butlerian Jihad carry her name? What are the hidden origins of the Spacing Guild? Where did spice-trance navigational techniques develop? What was Leto II’s private opinion of Holy Sister Quintinius Violet Chenoeh? Does Cheops have something in common with the three body problem?
I must confess that I found it fascinating to re-enter here some of the sources on which the Chronicles are built. As the first “Dune fan”, I give this encyclopedia my delighted approval, although I hold my own counsel on some of the issues still to be explored as the Chronicles unfold."
-Frank Herbert, Port Townsend WA, November, 1983.
Well, the nature of axolotl tanks, for a start. DE quite clearly states that they are a) mechanical artificial wombs and b) not invented by the Tleilaxu, only perfected. Of course, the later FH books contradict this quite a bit.
The beautiful thing about the DE is the literary conceit that it’s a collection of scholarship derived from a vast array of sources (but mostly the Dar es Balat finds of Leto’s journals). Some of it is accurate and correct. Some of it is obviously meant to mock the academic form (the skeptical article about Muad’Dib not possibly being the actual Paul Atreides). If Chapterhouse and Heretics contradict something in the DE…it was one of the speculative articles!
I do not extend this mercy to anything co-written, approved or sponsored by the son.
You know what it reminds me of? “Bored of the Rings”, and Dicky Dragon as the mascot of Serutan’s amusement park. Except this time it isn’t a parody.
The oc bible comes from Irish origins imho. The protestants were considered orange and the Catholic population green. The Irish flag has orange and green stripes separated by a white stripe to symbolize unity under a common theme of being Irish. It appears to be a juxtaposition of two disparate systems being united under one canonical text.
Ghola thread!
I haven’t wanted a “like” button this much in years…
I can see some Sufism in it, but very little Zen.
But who the fuck knows what kind of religious bulls … aaargghh. Dune zombie thread.
(makes horns sign with hand, invokes Shai-Hulud)
I must agree.
But you know the abuse that sort of the thing leads to …
IIRC the Jews are still around in a recognizable form.
Well to be fair…
…… Mohiam still needs Haronnen to impregnate her so there’s not much reason to stop the rape.
I always thought that was a mistake on Herbert’s part. Hell, the Jews of today don’t even come close to culturally resembling the Jews of Roman Judea, and that’s only 2000 years.
Okay, that was funny.
Given that they are using “wild” Reverend Mothers, it is possible that they recovered a more ancient version of their faith that way. Although I would expect a shift away from the patriarchal Rabbi-dominated faith which they seem to have developed.