Post by Twisted Logic on May 18, 2010 20:57:04 GMT -5
Dune takes place in a feudal empire that spans over millions of planets. There are a few things to know about the universe:
Butlerian Jihad:
The Butlerian Jihad a.k.a. The Great Revolt -- two generations of chaos (200 BG - 108 BG). The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and a new concept was raised:
"Man may not be replaced."
Those two generations of violence were a thalamic pause for all humankind. Men looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition.
Hesitantly, the leaders of religions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions began meeting to exchange views. It was a move encouraged by the Spacing Guild, which was beginning to build its monopoly over all interstellar travel, and by the Bene Gesserit who were banding the "sorceresses".
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The Spacing Guild:
The Spacing Guild, also known as the Guild of Navigators, or more simply the Guild, is an organization which holds exclusive rights to faster than light space travel. The Guild monopoly on space travel and transport and upon interstellar banking is taken as the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar.
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Bene Gesserit:
The Bene Gesserit are a powerful and ancient order of women whose objectives and actions forms a critical element in the evolution of humanity and many of the major plot developments.
Bene Gesserit Abilities:
Oral Analysis: Upon tasting an item, a Bene Gesserit can break down the food into its ingredients, right down to its chemical composition.
Internal Organic-Chemical Control: Alteration of metabolism to render poisons harmless. This ability is use when potential Reverend Mothers took the Water of Life.
Prana Bindu: Alteration of blood flow, body temperature, heart rate, and level of consciousness, for the purposes of survival in harsh environments, or escaping from bonds.
Weirding Way: Superior hand-to-hand combat abilities. Bene Gesserit trained men and women are unrivalled in their fighting abilities. Only Imperial Sardaukar and the Fremen of Arrakis could approach the abilities of a Bene Gesserit in regards to combat techniques, attack speed, and resourcefulness.
Petit Perception: Monitor minutiae in others to detect concealed emotions, motivations, agendas, or even physical things such as concealed weapons, a false accent, surgery, or deception in general. This particular skill is useful in detecting face dancers.
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Bene Tleilax:
(Mini-Antagonist, Dune Universe; not affiliated with any other Antagonists.)
Bene Tleilax, or the Tleilaxu as they are more commonly called, are a group of secretive, genetically altered humans who inhabit Tleilax, the sole planet of the star Thalim.
The customs and ethics of the Bene Tleilax lead to widespread revulsion by the other cultures of the Known Universe, a reaction that does little to quench the Tleilaxu's hunger to subjugate their rivals.
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Landsraad:
The Landsraad is the body that represents all the Great Houses. It is ruled by the High Council and overseen by the Padishah Emperor.
The Landsraad Council met regularly, and provides a forum within which Great Houses could relate with one another, to either negotiate trade agreements, create alliances or conduct kanly, the formalized processes of vendetta, or feud. It is also supposed to protect the Great Houses from being singled-out by the Imperial House and eliminated by it.
In terms of military strength, all the Great Houses, are they to unite through the Landsraad, will supposedly have been a match for the Imperial Sardaukar forces.
The Landsraad is governed by the High Council. It presided over issues such as the forms of Kanly, and whether certain Houses should be banished for breach of the Great Convention.
Motions are passed by a vote. Great Houses maintains the "lion's share" of the vote, while the Imperial House also has a powerful vote. Minor Houses have a lesser vote. However, even the Emperor has to answer to the High Council on some issues.
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Sardaukar:
The Sardaukar are an elite military force controlled by the Padishah Emperor. They are renowned and feared throughout the Known Universe for their fanatical fighting abilities, and use ruthlessness, cruelty and deceit to accomplish their goals.
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House Harkonnon:
(Main Mini-Antagonist, Dune Universe)
House Harkonnen is a Great House. Their capital is Giedi Prime, a heavily industrialized planet with a low photosynthetic potential. House Harkonnen is most famous for its underhanded and sinister political tactics, and for an ancient feud it maintains with another Great House, House Atreides. In addition, House Harkonnen has a reputation for ambition, malevolence, hatred and brutality. It is typically ruled by a Siridar Baron.
(Based on Nazi Party)
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CHOAM:
The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles or CHOAM essentially controls all economic affairs across the cosmos, although it relies upon the Spacing Guild for transport across space due to the Guild's monopoly on faster-than-light travel.
CHOAM touches almost all products the Guild will transport, from art forms to technology and of course melange.
Many Houses depend on CHOAM profits, and an enormous proportion of those depend on melange.
CHOAM directorships are the real evidence of political power in the Imperium, passing with the shifts of voting strength within the Landsraad as it balances itself against the Emperor and his supporters. Directorship in the CHOAM is the key to wealth, each noble House dipping from the company's coffers whatever it could under this power.
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Spice Melange:
The Spice Melange, commonly referred to simply as 'the spice', is a naturally produced awareness spectrum narcotic that forms a fundamental block of commerce and technological development in the known universe for millennia. It also plays an important role in travel and cultural development.
It is produced exclusively on the planet Arrakis. This is because the conditions on Arrakis by which melange is created is unique to that planet.
Effects on those who consume melange are outlined below:
Mind altering: It could awaken dormant parts of the human mind and encourage expanded sensory perceptions. In some humans (notably the Bene Gesserit, Guild Navigators, and some members of the Atreides bloodline), heavy doses lead to powerful abilities that include prescience.
Health benefits: Taken regularly it increased life expectancy and fortified overall health levels (in many cases life expectancy is tripled).
Addictiveness: The spice has narcotic properties, thus increasing demand and creating a large and hungry market for it. An individual's addiction to the spice will worsen the more they consumed it.
Physical effects: Sustained use of the spice lead to human eyes being discolored so that the entire eye will be stained blue. Extensive exposure to the spice created a huge physical dependency that could radically alter the entire body (see Guild Navigators).
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Guild Navigators:
A Guild Navigator is a senior rank of artificially super evolved humans within the Spacing Guild, and for many Guildsmen the pinnacle of their ambitions. Mutated through the consumption of and exposure to massive amounts of the spice Melange, Navigators are able to use a mentally conditioned and trained form of prescience to safely navigate interstellar and galactic space in long range starships called Heighliners.
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Heighliner:
A Heighliner is a starship use by the Spacing Guild to transport people and equipment across the known universe.
Guild Heighliners are usually immense in size. An entire planet's population and all its equipment will only take a small percentage of their payload capacity.
Spacing Guild Heighliners could be use to fold space to travel vast distances across the universe in an instant. They are piloted by Guild Navigators and Steersmen (Highly Experienced Navigators).
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The Great Convention:
The Great Convention is a historic treaty brokered between the Great Houses, the Spacing Guild, and the Imperium shortly after the destruction of the thinking machines. It prohibited the use of atomics against human targets.
Every article of the Great Convention began with the term "The forms must be obeyed...".
The underlying philosophy of the Great Convention is that of human life being precious and superior to all other forms of existence. Its principal guideline is that human life is to be protected. As a result, strict rules are put in place for wars and feuds. Kanly is a principal example of this, as is the War of Assassins.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
War of Assassins:
A War of Assassins is a limited form of warfare that is permitted under the Great Convention and the Guild Peace.
It stipulated that formal declarations of intent are required, and it only permitted certain kinds of weapons and practices, as outlined in the Assassins' Handbook. These rules are put in place to protect innocent bystanders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guild Peace:
Guild Peace refers to the enforced peace that is put in place by the Spacing Guild monopoly on space travel, transport and Imperial banking.
The Guild Peace is also the basis of the Great Convention, kanly (see Landsraad), and the War of Assassins.
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Mentat:
A Mentat is a profession or discipline that is developed as a replacement to the computers and thinking machines following the Butlerian Jihad that banned the creation of machines in the human mind's image, just as the Spacing Guild and the Bene Gesserit took up similar functions.
Mentats are used extensively by the Great Houses, primarily as political advisers. Thanks to their vast memories and ability to organize huge amounts of data they often provide valuable insights that will otherwise be lost. Limited Mentat training is also use to augment individuals destined for other political or military roles.
Mentats are also use, to a lesser extent by the Bene Gesserit. Though unlike the Great Houses, all Bene Gesserit Mentats are pre-conditioned Reverend Mothers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reverend Mother:
A Reverend Mother is a title holds by female members of the Bene Gesserit who has completed training to an advanced level. Typically, Reverend Mothers (and Holy Sisters) has three names: The first is a Latin male name; the second, an English female name; the third, an Arabic or exotic name. The leader of the Bene Gesserit, the Mother Superior, is always chosen from the Reverend Mother ranks.
After completing many years of intellectual, physical, and psychological training with the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, a prospective Reverend Mother underwent a dangerous ritual that involved a significant amount of awareness spectrum narcotics. Specifically, the poison use is the Water of Life - the liquid exhalation of a sandworm produced at the moment of its death by drowning in regular water.
The drug entered her body as a poison, and it is her task to consciously transform the chemical into a benign substance. If the subject survived the process, the physical and mental trauma cause by the Water of Life will cause their genetic memory to emerge, that is, she will gain the memories of all her female ancestors, resulting in great and sudden accumulation of knowledge and power.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leto's Gambit:
Leto is known for his steady hand, and for always speaking his mind when it came to the truth. Leto insisted on testifying on behalf of House Vernius in front of the Landsraad, after being in office for only a short time. His staunch defense of the deposed house caught the attention of many noblemen, who are intrigued by the young man's honesty.
On the return trip home to Caladan from Kaitain, Leto is caught in Harkonnen treachery. The Harkonnen use their secret technological device, a no-ship; to fire on, and destroy a Tleilaxu vessel inside of a Guild Heighliner, making it appear that an Atreides vessel has done the deed. Once accuse, Leto protesting his innocence, demanded a Trial by Forfeiture in front of the Landsraad.
Leto traveled by to Kaitain again to face his Tleilaxu accusers in front of the entire Imperium. Unbeknownst to him, the Bene Gesserit has delivered to then Crown Prince Shaddam Corrino IV a forged note supposedly from Leto himself. The note talked about Leto's knowledge of House Corrino's Project Amal plan, their house's attempt to create synthetic melange, to break the spice monopoly. In actuality, Leto knew nothing of Project Amal; nor does he know of Shaddam's growing fear of Leto "spilling the beans".
As Leto faced the entire congress of nobility, and watched with fear as the Lansraad is just about to pronounce judgment against him, the Crown Prince strode to the podium. Shaddam announced to the entire assemblage that he wanted to start his reign with the "noble House Ateides" intact, and that Leto's reputation is impeccable. Shaddam gave his personal knife, what has come to be known as the Emperor's Blade, as a gift to Leto, and encouraged the Landsraad to confirm Leto's innocence, which they does, much to the dismay of the Tleilaxu and House Harkonnen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: For the purposes of this RP, the Dune Universe will take place just after Leto's Gambit. (It's as far as I am in the series xD)
ALSO NOTE: If you find anything else that confuses you in this list, feel free to ask, I'll oblige the best I can.
Butlerian Jihad:
The Butlerian Jihad a.k.a. The Great Revolt -- two generations of chaos (200 BG - 108 BG). The god of machine-logic was overthrown among the masses and a new concept was raised:
"Man may not be replaced."
Those two generations of violence were a thalamic pause for all humankind. Men looked at their gods and their rituals and saw that both were filled with that most terrible of all equations: fear over ambition.
Hesitantly, the leaders of religions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions began meeting to exchange views. It was a move encouraged by the Spacing Guild, which was beginning to build its monopoly over all interstellar travel, and by the Bene Gesserit who were banding the "sorceresses".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Spacing Guild:
The Spacing Guild, also known as the Guild of Navigators, or more simply the Guild, is an organization which holds exclusive rights to faster than light space travel. The Guild monopoly on space travel and transport and upon interstellar banking is taken as the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bene Gesserit:
The Bene Gesserit are a powerful and ancient order of women whose objectives and actions forms a critical element in the evolution of humanity and many of the major plot developments.
Bene Gesserit Abilities:
Oral Analysis: Upon tasting an item, a Bene Gesserit can break down the food into its ingredients, right down to its chemical composition.
Internal Organic-Chemical Control: Alteration of metabolism to render poisons harmless. This ability is use when potential Reverend Mothers took the Water of Life.
Prana Bindu: Alteration of blood flow, body temperature, heart rate, and level of consciousness, for the purposes of survival in harsh environments, or escaping from bonds.
Weirding Way: Superior hand-to-hand combat abilities. Bene Gesserit trained men and women are unrivalled in their fighting abilities. Only Imperial Sardaukar and the Fremen of Arrakis could approach the abilities of a Bene Gesserit in regards to combat techniques, attack speed, and resourcefulness.
Petit Perception: Monitor minutiae in others to detect concealed emotions, motivations, agendas, or even physical things such as concealed weapons, a false accent, surgery, or deception in general. This particular skill is useful in detecting face dancers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bene Tleilax:
(Mini-Antagonist, Dune Universe; not affiliated with any other Antagonists.)
Bene Tleilax, or the Tleilaxu as they are more commonly called, are a group of secretive, genetically altered humans who inhabit Tleilax, the sole planet of the star Thalim.
The customs and ethics of the Bene Tleilax lead to widespread revulsion by the other cultures of the Known Universe, a reaction that does little to quench the Tleilaxu's hunger to subjugate their rivals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Landsraad:
The Landsraad is the body that represents all the Great Houses. It is ruled by the High Council and overseen by the Padishah Emperor.
The Landsraad Council met regularly, and provides a forum within which Great Houses could relate with one another, to either negotiate trade agreements, create alliances or conduct kanly, the formalized processes of vendetta, or feud. It is also supposed to protect the Great Houses from being singled-out by the Imperial House and eliminated by it.
In terms of military strength, all the Great Houses, are they to unite through the Landsraad, will supposedly have been a match for the Imperial Sardaukar forces.
The Landsraad is governed by the High Council. It presided over issues such as the forms of Kanly, and whether certain Houses should be banished for breach of the Great Convention.
Motions are passed by a vote. Great Houses maintains the "lion's share" of the vote, while the Imperial House also has a powerful vote. Minor Houses have a lesser vote. However, even the Emperor has to answer to the High Council on some issues.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sardaukar:
The Sardaukar are an elite military force controlled by the Padishah Emperor. They are renowned and feared throughout the Known Universe for their fanatical fighting abilities, and use ruthlessness, cruelty and deceit to accomplish their goals.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
House Harkonnon:
(Main Mini-Antagonist, Dune Universe)
House Harkonnen is a Great House. Their capital is Giedi Prime, a heavily industrialized planet with a low photosynthetic potential. House Harkonnen is most famous for its underhanded and sinister political tactics, and for an ancient feud it maintains with another Great House, House Atreides. In addition, House Harkonnen has a reputation for ambition, malevolence, hatred and brutality. It is typically ruled by a Siridar Baron.
(Based on Nazi Party)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHOAM:
The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles or CHOAM essentially controls all economic affairs across the cosmos, although it relies upon the Spacing Guild for transport across space due to the Guild's monopoly on faster-than-light travel.
CHOAM touches almost all products the Guild will transport, from art forms to technology and of course melange.
Many Houses depend on CHOAM profits, and an enormous proportion of those depend on melange.
CHOAM directorships are the real evidence of political power in the Imperium, passing with the shifts of voting strength within the Landsraad as it balances itself against the Emperor and his supporters. Directorship in the CHOAM is the key to wealth, each noble House dipping from the company's coffers whatever it could under this power.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spice Melange:
The Spice Melange, commonly referred to simply as 'the spice', is a naturally produced awareness spectrum narcotic that forms a fundamental block of commerce and technological development in the known universe for millennia. It also plays an important role in travel and cultural development.
It is produced exclusively on the planet Arrakis. This is because the conditions on Arrakis by which melange is created is unique to that planet.
Effects on those who consume melange are outlined below:
Mind altering: It could awaken dormant parts of the human mind and encourage expanded sensory perceptions. In some humans (notably the Bene Gesserit, Guild Navigators, and some members of the Atreides bloodline), heavy doses lead to powerful abilities that include prescience.
Health benefits: Taken regularly it increased life expectancy and fortified overall health levels (in many cases life expectancy is tripled).
Addictiveness: The spice has narcotic properties, thus increasing demand and creating a large and hungry market for it. An individual's addiction to the spice will worsen the more they consumed it.
Physical effects: Sustained use of the spice lead to human eyes being discolored so that the entire eye will be stained blue. Extensive exposure to the spice created a huge physical dependency that could radically alter the entire body (see Guild Navigators).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guild Navigators:
A Guild Navigator is a senior rank of artificially super evolved humans within the Spacing Guild, and for many Guildsmen the pinnacle of their ambitions. Mutated through the consumption of and exposure to massive amounts of the spice Melange, Navigators are able to use a mentally conditioned and trained form of prescience to safely navigate interstellar and galactic space in long range starships called Heighliners.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heighliner:
A Heighliner is a starship use by the Spacing Guild to transport people and equipment across the known universe.
Guild Heighliners are usually immense in size. An entire planet's population and all its equipment will only take a small percentage of their payload capacity.
Spacing Guild Heighliners could be use to fold space to travel vast distances across the universe in an instant. They are piloted by Guild Navigators and Steersmen (Highly Experienced Navigators).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Great Convention:
The Great Convention is a historic treaty brokered between the Great Houses, the Spacing Guild, and the Imperium shortly after the destruction of the thinking machines. It prohibited the use of atomics against human targets.
Every article of the Great Convention began with the term "The forms must be obeyed...".
The underlying philosophy of the Great Convention is that of human life being precious and superior to all other forms of existence. Its principal guideline is that human life is to be protected. As a result, strict rules are put in place for wars and feuds. Kanly is a principal example of this, as is the War of Assassins.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
War of Assassins:
A War of Assassins is a limited form of warfare that is permitted under the Great Convention and the Guild Peace.
It stipulated that formal declarations of intent are required, and it only permitted certain kinds of weapons and practices, as outlined in the Assassins' Handbook. These rules are put in place to protect innocent bystanders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Guild Peace:
Guild Peace refers to the enforced peace that is put in place by the Spacing Guild monopoly on space travel, transport and Imperial banking.
The Guild Peace is also the basis of the Great Convention, kanly (see Landsraad), and the War of Assassins.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mentat:
A Mentat is a profession or discipline that is developed as a replacement to the computers and thinking machines following the Butlerian Jihad that banned the creation of machines in the human mind's image, just as the Spacing Guild and the Bene Gesserit took up similar functions.
Mentats are used extensively by the Great Houses, primarily as political advisers. Thanks to their vast memories and ability to organize huge amounts of data they often provide valuable insights that will otherwise be lost. Limited Mentat training is also use to augment individuals destined for other political or military roles.
Mentats are also use, to a lesser extent by the Bene Gesserit. Though unlike the Great Houses, all Bene Gesserit Mentats are pre-conditioned Reverend Mothers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reverend Mother:
A Reverend Mother is a title holds by female members of the Bene Gesserit who has completed training to an advanced level. Typically, Reverend Mothers (and Holy Sisters) has three names: The first is a Latin male name; the second, an English female name; the third, an Arabic or exotic name. The leader of the Bene Gesserit, the Mother Superior, is always chosen from the Reverend Mother ranks.
After completing many years of intellectual, physical, and psychological training with the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, a prospective Reverend Mother underwent a dangerous ritual that involved a significant amount of awareness spectrum narcotics. Specifically, the poison use is the Water of Life - the liquid exhalation of a sandworm produced at the moment of its death by drowning in regular water.
The drug entered her body as a poison, and it is her task to consciously transform the chemical into a benign substance. If the subject survived the process, the physical and mental trauma cause by the Water of Life will cause their genetic memory to emerge, that is, she will gain the memories of all her female ancestors, resulting in great and sudden accumulation of knowledge and power.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leto's Gambit:
Leto is known for his steady hand, and for always speaking his mind when it came to the truth. Leto insisted on testifying on behalf of House Vernius in front of the Landsraad, after being in office for only a short time. His staunch defense of the deposed house caught the attention of many noblemen, who are intrigued by the young man's honesty.
On the return trip home to Caladan from Kaitain, Leto is caught in Harkonnen treachery. The Harkonnen use their secret technological device, a no-ship; to fire on, and destroy a Tleilaxu vessel inside of a Guild Heighliner, making it appear that an Atreides vessel has done the deed. Once accuse, Leto protesting his innocence, demanded a Trial by Forfeiture in front of the Landsraad.
Leto traveled by to Kaitain again to face his Tleilaxu accusers in front of the entire Imperium. Unbeknownst to him, the Bene Gesserit has delivered to then Crown Prince Shaddam Corrino IV a forged note supposedly from Leto himself. The note talked about Leto's knowledge of House Corrino's Project Amal plan, their house's attempt to create synthetic melange, to break the spice monopoly. In actuality, Leto knew nothing of Project Amal; nor does he know of Shaddam's growing fear of Leto "spilling the beans".
As Leto faced the entire congress of nobility, and watched with fear as the Lansraad is just about to pronounce judgment against him, the Crown Prince strode to the podium. Shaddam announced to the entire assemblage that he wanted to start his reign with the "noble House Ateides" intact, and that Leto's reputation is impeccable. Shaddam gave his personal knife, what has come to be known as the Emperor's Blade, as a gift to Leto, and encouraged the Landsraad to confirm Leto's innocence, which they does, much to the dismay of the Tleilaxu and House Harkonnen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTE: For the purposes of this RP, the Dune Universe will take place just after Leto's Gambit. (It's as far as I am in the series xD)
ALSO NOTE: If you find anything else that confuses you in this list, feel free to ask, I'll oblige the best I can.