A Geek History of Time - Episode 118 - Finally Dune Part IV

Episode Date: July 31, 2021

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, I'm not gonna merge it. Who gives a fuck? Oh my god, which is a trickle, baby. You know what I'm saying? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice and it's not as cold as Buckleman.

So, yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle. If I'm a peasant boy who grabs sword out of a stone. Yeah, I'm able to Open people up. You will yeah any time I hit them with it, right? Yeah, so my cleave landing will make me a cavalier If sister thought it was empty headed The thought it was empty headed, would be entrashed. It's not gonna happen. It's really good and gruey. Ha ha ha.

Because cannibalism and murder, pull back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the rat heads. And it's a little bit gruey. And it's a little gruey. A thrill and tent doesn't exist. Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing it like a wuss.

Let me just... TRIVING TO TAKE A WIND TRIVING TO TAKE A WIND This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nervery to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California about to start a new assignment, which I'm very, very excited about in the fall. and I just got back from a trip to of all places Florida last week. My in-laws were planning on having a family reunion in the summer of 2020. Wow. Okay. In Florida. that didn't go according to plan.

No. And so it got pushed out by a year. And so we wound up going now after everybody in the family and had the opportunity to get fully vaccinated. And because of the year long delay, it meant that originally we had looked at it and said, well, you know, our little boy is only two. He's not going to remember anything about it.

And it's really expensive. So there's not really any point to going to Disney World, while we're there, even though we're going to be in Orlando, we'll just, you know, so we made plans to go to a restaurant outside the park where our plan at the time was, we were going to have a character breakfast where we're baking all the characters, you know, come to the table and he'd get to meet Mickey and it blows a little mind to be wonderful, you know. Well, in the ensuing year, he got to be a year older and we were able to save up the money to be able to afford to actually go to the magic kingdom. I was very disappointed to find out that Black Spire

Star Wars land in Disney World is not attached to the magic kingdom. It's associated with a separate park that we'd have to pay even more money to get access to. And so the trip wasn't about me getting another lightsaber, even though it would be, you know, a personal semi-religious experience. Yeah. Yeah. Through that, and I've heard from actually your brother and his wife about going through and doing it. Apparently she was left in tears and it was a really an emotional experience. Yes.

Uh, and like, that would would be the hodge for me. But it was about our little boy. Funnily enough, my wife who didn't identify as a nerd at all until we got married, wants to go to Star Wars Land when we go to Disneyland next, because they have a build your own droid and and she wants to build her own BB-8 variant. So she's really excited about that. And

of course I need another bladed weapon to add to my collection because Gryffindor. You know it acts like a blade. I mean it's function like one does it have an edge At no part not even at the tip. No, it's all rounded. Well, okay. No, here's the thing I'm pretty sure the moment you hand one to Anakin fucking Skywalker. It's all edge Because he's a fucking edge lord. I mean come on true come on Come on. Come on. Well, I mean, all the Jedi. Kyler ran for God's sake.

Well, constantly, yes. So anyway, we went and we went to Disney World, went to the Magic Kingdom. My son got to ride on his first roller coaster. He went on the Goofy's barn stormer, which he was big enough to go on. It was a genuine roller coaster. He went on the Goofy's barn stormer, which he was big enough to go on. It was a genuine roller coaster. You know, more gentle turns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazyness. Um, and he went on it with his mom, which was not expected because she doesn't,

she doesn't do roller coasters. It was a general, this was gentle enough for her to do. Uh, and he came off of it. Absolutely fucking amped. Nice. Like he came off of it absolutely fucking apt. Like he came running down the ramp. I said, how was it dude? We went zoom. And it was amazing. And it was also a deeply painful experience because he before I asked him the question, I'd picked him up. So I had him in my arms and when he said, we went zoom, he flailed all four limbs and caught me right in the nads.

Nice. Which, you know, defining dad moment right there. But no, no, the whole, and he was, he was a trooper. Like it is really easy and kind of almost the mode. For everybody to be cynical about going to Disneyland or Disney World, like, well, you know, you spend all this money and the kids are gonna win if having them held down because they get over tired.

And you know, it's all plastic and it's all fake and it's that and that. You know, here's a deal. Anybody wants to be a cynical edge lord about, you know, Disney milking me for all the money that I spent on this trip. Go ahead. That's fine. Yeah. I don't give a shit. It was amazing. And my son was absolutely entranced. Mm-hmm. Like consistently all day. Yeah. And I'm just gonna be a proud Papa here. Never had a meltdown.

Nice. Never, I mean, he was exhausted. We ran him so completely out of batteries that he took a three hour nap the following day. Right. You know, we completely, yeah, we just ran him completely out of power. But he never threw a fit.

He got a little whiny, a little fussy, a little clingy, his ability to listen, got a little bit foggy. Sure. But that was the worst of it. That was as bad as it got. We had a great trip. His cousins who were there with us at the same time, they were very well behaved too. No, we had a great trip. His cousins who were there with us at the same time, they were very well behaved too.

No, we had a great time. And it was absolutely amazing. I got to take him on the teacups, but he wasn't really there. He fell asleep. So his mom was like, no, I'm not going to see. I can't handle. I can't handle. Spin around. Spinning, yeah. Yeah, it's not gonna be a thing. No, if you're gonna do that, you're gonna do that. And don't spin it too fast while he's on there. I'm like, you're wrong, I'm not gonna. But it had, the T-Cups have a very serious emotional meaning for me because it's one of the memories.

I have Disney Land with my dad when I was little. Okay. It was a big deal for me to take him on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my wife hands him to me, I pick him up and he's he's worn out. It was it was late in the afternoon. Sure. She walks around to the other side of the ride. We get in line. It's only like a five minute weight to get on the ride at that point. That's T-Cups. And he passed out. to get on the ride at that point. That's Cheap Cups. And he passed out. He collapsed on my shoulder

and turned into a space heater, which was not fun in the Orlando heat. No. But absolutely just like out. And we got to the front of the line. I got on the ride, I kind of woke him up, sat him down. Yep, yep. and his eyes were open

But he was not he was not there There were a couple of photos his mom took of him and like, yeah, no, he's he's not there Okay, so we're gonna have to go do that next time we go to Disneyland which for us here in California is comparatively local But yeah, so that was, that's, that's my big news. Who are you? Who are you and what have you been up to? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm the other half of this show. And I am a Latin teacher up here in Northern California. Gonna be a drama teacher soon.

Trying to enjoy what I can of the summer and spend my time working out, which means I've been reading a lot more Star Wars books Because when I work out I usually use a recumbent bike and I got a recumbent bike specifically because it's easier to read books on Okay, and so I I just read That I'm saying this so that I can go back and find the episode to tell me what books to look at. Oh, right, right, right. So I just finished reading Trader, which is an ode to existentialism.

I remember that conversation. Yes. And it doesn't matter who you are. I mean, straight up, history doesn't matter. Your ascribe role doesn't matter. What matters is what you choose and that you do Yeah. That's the lesson that she's torturing him with. And then in the second or not the second book but in this next book which is called Destiny's Way, there are several conversations between Luke

Skywalker and very a lot of people call her Virgierre, I call her Virgierre because Latin teacher. Yeah, her name is literally the verb for to turn, which because she keeps betraying people or turning people and it's something like that. But yeah, it's a remarkably good, cogent analysis. And I thought of you specifically because It does this is why I love the EU so much it does in the EU what Lucas failed to do in the prequels and or the original the original the original

in that it actually gives a philosophical the bridge bridge in that it actually gives a philosophical understanding to the force and to the use thereof. And I think that's really helpful and really, really important. Okay. Well, yeah. And at that time, it was EU canon, which means you've got levels of canon

because the movie Super Seed anything, but it was EU canon and that that was really neat because it's like oh They're finally tidying up certain things So I really enjoyed that okay, so here's a question having having not read it Do you think What that book says about the philosophy of the force and use of the force. Do you think that has bearing on what Filoni and everybody have done with rebels and moving in the direction that the sequels have moved? Good question, because Filoni and...

good question because Filoni and no I don't think it does I don't say I don't think it does and here's why I think that the books that absolutely influenced the the sequels came later now it this book as well as several before it, have already set the tone for Spoiler Alert Jason's turn. But, which is essentially, he is the Proto-Kylo Ren. Yeah. And his sister, Jaina, is the Proto-Ray. Yeah. That's all there. But this particular series was so panned by so many people,

because this is the 19 book series, the Yu-jian Vong Invasion series. And very few people, like I'm gonna say people cut one way or the other, but like 90% of them cut in the direction of like this is shit, we don't like it. I'm that 10%, I loved it. I had a very hard time with the originalism coming into Star Wars. If something, something, something, something so novel.

So yeah, something so completely I'll push you back to that okay. Um did the eWox have technology? No, and they took on the Empire. Oh, yeah, well, I'm not so now we've inverted the power of the Empire and the technological Capabilities of the eWox. Yeah, so now the invading force is all powerful. And blind to the force, they represent death. And they use their technologies all biotech, basically. Which is interesting for a species that represents death. Like they are symbolic of slavery. They love dominion and dominating other things.

Yeah. So and spoiler alert from a book 20 years ago, they're banished from the force. That's why they should blank in the force. Okay. You never finished it, did you? No. Yeah, a lot of people.

I didn't get nowhere near finishing it. Oh, okay. Okay. And the thing is, my first exposure to the Yu-Juan Vong was not reading any of the novels. It was in role-playing game materials for that edition of the RPG. Okay.

And it was just, it was, it struck me as being of a piece with the, you know, 90s, you know, everything dark gritty stuff that, so for me tonally, there was, well, you know, okay, this is, this is all, you know, you're trying to come up with something new to throw into the universe. Right. Because you can't figure out how to work with what's already there, which bugged me

on a narrative level. But then there was just the tonal nature of it of, well, look how grim and evil these guys are. Right, right. So bad. Dude, okay, no. You don't need to outdo Darth Vader. Like you don't need to come up with a worse dragon

than Vader. Right, right. And I felt like that's what they were reaching for. Okay. And so to me, that was the turn off. Okay. It's fair. And so, you know, also there's just something about, you know, the, the

scarification they did with, you know, cutting off their noses. Yeah. Yeah. That visual, like on the cover of the books, just viscerally was like, I'm not, I'm not no sorry. Can't do it. Can't do it. So there was a squeamish this factor involved too. I got it for me. I got it admit. So yeah. OK. No, I find them fascinating. I don't think they're given nearly enough depth as characters.

There's a few that get them. You know, the author's all obviously loved nominor. And I mean, there's plenty of problems with the series. But also, you know what a fetish I have for things that existed before, during, and after 9-11. This is true, and that would be one of those things.

Yes. Absolutely. Be a 19 books long. Yes. Yeah. But so it's very interesting to track that change. Yeah. And also, this series is coming out while the prequels are coming out.

Oh, okay. And so the reverb. There's a reverb, yes. Really good word for it, yeah. So anyway, so yes, I'm working out more, not that anybody can tell yet, especially on the podcast, but I'm working out more, Not that anybody can tell yet, especially on the podcast

But I'm working out more which means I'm burning through these books a lot quicker I'm already I actually looking at it now one two three four five books away from finishing Nice the series very cool. So yeah, right. That's that's you know, we spent 15 16 minutes updating people. Oh, yeah Well, well, yeah So I want to hear more so much more about a desert-based economic analysis of 1960s If only there were a podcast that I think that you could go to yes, or that yes, well, you know It's a good thing you're sitting across the table for me right now because guess what I have for you. We could fit so much sand. That's baby. That's bitch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hate sand. It gets everywhere. So I love by the way

that the the Anakin pod may meme is getting so popular. Yeah, that's great. So. And in one of my 40K communities, I don't remember the back and forth on it, but the punchline is, you're going to paint these models, right? You know? Oh.

It was something like I just bought a new box at Primera's Bladeguard. Great. You're going to paint them next, right? You're going to paint them next, right? Like you can apply it to so many things. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, um, so when, when we left off, I had finished,

talking, explaining the Noble Houses and the Lance Rod. So when we left off, I had finished explaining the noble houses and the lands rod. Yes. And the relationship between the narrative relationship between House of Trade is the House Harkinan. Okay, our two main noble houses that we're introduced to. Now it's important to note, I haven't said very much about the emperor here.

The emperor by himself is kind of one of the three pillars that guys, Helen Mahayam, talked about in her, you know, wonderfully fluid and not at all, stilted ham-handed speech about the structure of society. See, I'm okay with the mother superior of like the order of murder nuns, talking like that always. I love murder nuns. Yes.

I'm going to have to remember that, and I'm going to appropriate that for how I refer to Sisters of Battle in 40K forever. Okay, murder nuns. Not, not, not. Oh, what God did they worship? The emperor of humanity. Okay. The God emperor of man. Okay. What else would they worship heretic? No. Let me wait. Okay. No, no, no, no, you sat across from me. I did. Often enough to focus on. Okay. Anyway. Yeah. Okay. What other gods? Yeah, what other gods would they fight against?

In 40k. Yes, the gods of chaos Okay, so corn okay corn and on his on his brazen throne. Uh-huh God of war. Yeah, a Nurgle God of disease and pestilence Okay, actually named for a Mesopotamian, I think Mesopotamian, demon or demon. Okay. Okay. Slah Nash, the referred to as the Prince of Pleasure, often pointedly a they figure because of his hermaphroditic

nature. Okay. And Zeech, changer of ways, God of magic and cunning and scheming and Wheels within wheels, okay? When you take on somebody whose characters worship those gods you need to sing How do you solve a problem like Murray? But fill in the gods Or like just use it. Yeah, how do you solve a problem like the nerve gold?

Had his own problem like hey, yeah, how do you grab corn down from this room? You know with bolter shells and righteous face in the god and brevman kind a flibbidi jibbit a clown A flippity jibbit, a clown. I- I- A- A- A- Sound of chainsawards in the background.

Slice. Every Murray. Every Murray. I like it. Yeah. So, no, but murder nuns. Murder nuns speak out of confalted language. Yeah.

Which I'm totally cool with. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go,

I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, I got to go, get into larger scale, like philosophical discussion of work is the natives of Dune. Okay. Now the natives of Dune, these are the Fremen.

Yes, okay, okay. And what's important to note is they are referred to by everybody in the book, they're the natives of Dune. Like they are, they are the people who live in the book, they're the natives of doing. Like, they are, they are the people who live in the desert. They are analogous to the Bedouin and we're gonna get into that relationship. You know, in a minute, they are the primitive natives, you know, living basically in the wilderness,

they're talking about the tropes that we're looking at with them. What's important to note is they are not natives because nobody's native to do and they're humans, they're originally from Earth, they are themselves colonists, but they've been living on the planet longer than anybody else. Sure. Like continuously, on the planet,

longer than anybody else has. And so they're, again, the Fremen. So they're, they're boars. No, no, no, no, because the boars, there were other people already there. Yeah, the boars were a colonizing force against an already native population. When the Fremen arrived on Iraqis, there were no other humans there. There are no aliens in the Dune universe. Yeah, okay. So, so yeah, empty places. Yeah. All right. Cool. Um, And so the Fremen, which by the way, is a contraction of free men.

Right. They are descended from Zen-Suni wanderers. Now, when I get to talking about religion as a theme, we're gonna touch again on Zen-Suni. I would hope so. Yeah. But, so they're descended from Zensoony wanderers. It's got that sounds like a combo that wouldn't work,

but at the same time, total wood. It really could. Yeah. It's like if you take ruffles and put them in creamy peanut butter. Like, that sounds terrible. That should be awful, but. Yeah.

But I like it. I like the idea. Yeah. Yeah, or that whole thing on TikTok about mustard on watermelon? Oh, have you tried that? I haven't tried it. But like everybody I've actually spoken to

who has tried it was like, yeah, no, it actually works. Like it might not be their favorite thing. But I think the salty is a big part of it. But I mean, not having tried it myself, I don't know. Sure, because my stepmom always pour salt on watermelon and it's way sweeter. Yeah, it if I step mom always pour salt on watermelon and it's way sweeter. Yeah, it's weird. It's like salt on chocolate.

Like if you do salted chocolate or salted caramel. Yeah. I was deeply, deeply suspicious. Skeptical, what was I'm looking for? It was deeply skeptical about salted chocolate until I tried it and I was like, okay, I get this now. Yeah. chocolate until I tried it and I was like, okay, I get this now. Yeah, yep. So anyway, the the Fremen, our Zen Sunni, who were kidnapped,

generations before the events of the novel and were forcibly resettled onto a rakis as a source of labor, as a population on the planet. Right, right. Okay, and I need to find another passage here. I promise it won't be as long as the one. It was Baron Harkin. It was Baron Harkin's thing monologue. But so to give you an understanding of the history we're talking about here, there's

conversation going on between the lady Jessica, her son's consort, Cheney, and a couple of other women in the Fremen's Sitch, where Paul has now become a war leader among the Fremen after fleeing into the desert. Oh wow, how Messianic. Oh yeah. Well, yeah, Dune Messiah is the title of one of the other novels in the series. So yeah, no, no, remember what you said about?

There's no nuance here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah the series. So, you know, remember what she said about, there's no new aunt here? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, so Jessica has become a Reverend mother, meaning she has essentially been elevated to the pinnacle of what her training will allow her to be as a Benny Jeserid. She is effectively psychic.

It's described in a way that it's not quite like you ever would ever. She reads body language and facial text. But now beyond that, she's able, she has expanded her consciousness to an extent to be able to go into ancestral memory. Oh wow, okay. Yeah. Remember the bit about, because I talked about the quiz ancestral memory. Oh wow, okay. Yeah.

Remember the bit about, because I talked about the quiz, that's hoterock before. Right. That the Benny Jesuit Reverend mothers can go back into ancestral memory, but only down the female line. Right, right, right.

And that's the whole thing about that. And the quiz, that's hoterock is gonna be able to go down into male ancestral memory as well. Okay, so she is now at that level. In the process of her becoming a Reverend mother, the daughter who was in her womb at the time is Paul's younger sister, Alia, who is now three or four years old, if I'm remembering, and able to speak almost like an adult and went through the same transformation at the same time.

And so is weird in that, you know, an eldritch and kind of strange. So anyway, they're having a conversation about the fact that the people of the Siche are weirded out by Alia and other stuff that's going on that I won't get into. And in the middle of all this, there is a celebration is the wrong word. There's a commemoration that happens

in the middle of all this happening. And so, she broke off, Alia is in the middle of a, in the middle of a statement to somebody else. She broke off tipping her head to listen. Haara, one of the other women in the room, rocked back on her heels against the sitting cushion, stared at Alia, bringing her attention then up to Jessica's face. Didn't you suspect, Jessica asked? Shhh, Alia said.

A distant rhythmic chanting came to them through the hangings that separated them from the CH corridors. It grew louder, carrying distinct sounds now. YAH YAH YOM! YAH YAH YOM! MUSAIN WALA! YAH YAH YOM! MUSAIN WALA! Yom, mosaic, wala, yah, yah, yom, mosaic, wala." The chanters passed the outer entrance, and their voices boomed through to the inner

apartments. Slowly the sound receded. When the sound had dimmed sufficiently, Jessica began the ritual, the sadness in her voice. It was Ramadan, and April on Belateguu-u-C. My family sat in their pool courtyard, Harasad, in air bathed by the moisture that arose from the spray of a fountain. There was a tree of portagels, round and deep in color near at hand. There was a basket with mish-mish and baklava and mugs of liban, all manner of good things

to eat. In our gardens and in our flocks there was peace. Peace in all the land. Life was full with happiness until the raiders came," Alia said. "'Blood ran cold at the scream of friends,' Jessica said, and she felt the memories rushing through her out of all those other pasts she shared. La la la la, the women cried," said Harah. The raiders came through the mush-tumall, rushing at us with their knives dripping red from the lives of our men," Jessica said. Silence came over the three of them as it was in all the apartments of the Siege, the silence

while they remembered and kept their grief thus fresh. Presently Hara uttered the ritual ending of the ceremony, giving the words a harshness that Jessica had never before heard in them. We will never forgive and we will never forget, Hara said. In the thoughtful quiet that followed her words, they heard a muttering of people, the swish of many robes, just like a sense, someone standing me on the hangs that shielded her chamber. So there is a very definite, very specific real world history attached to this, attached to the Fremen. There is a very specific memory in Jessica's transformation into a

Reverend Mother, one of the memories that comes literally wailing at her out of ancestral memory is the cry. they denied us the hodge. Gotcha. Okay. And so the Fremen are the descendants of a essentially an enslaved population, a group of people who have been persecuted, who have been driven to this planet, who have fled. Like they got transported to Iraq, and they said, you know, fuck you, we're going to the desert where you can't follow us. Right. into this planet who have fled, like they got transported to Iraqis

and they said, you know, fuck you, we're going in a desert where you can't follow us. They have learned how to survive in this incredibly harsh environment. And they have a dream of turning Iraqis into a livable planet. To them, a paradise,

where there will be green growing things and there will be standing water on the a livable planet. To them, a paradise, where there will be green growing things, and there will be standing water on the surface of the planet. And this dream is one that was given to them by a character I haven't even mentioned yet, the Imperial Planetologist, Kines, who is an important figure. At the beginning of the book, winds up dying

Shortly after the tradies get overthrown by the harkinan. He's also the fought well There is the elder kind who was the first one to say we can turn this planet into we can change the ecology of this planet We can make it into a livable world. Mm-hmm. His son took over from him his son is the kind that we actually meet in the novel, and kind of his daughter is Cheney who winds up becoming Paul's concubine, partner, okay. Okay. In fact, wife, but right, right. And so everybody discounts them, literally under counts them.

Like the estimates that everybody has of how many people can be out in the desert. Like one of the things that Sue Fearhawat points out early in the book is they travel single file to hide their numbers. Yeah. Yeah. But but Hawat literally says, no, no, based on the number of them we've seen coming into town. Everybody's calculations of how many of them there are are off by more than one order of magnitude.

So they're undercounted and the Harkinian attitude towards them is they're desert rats. They're their pests, they treat them like vermin, but Lato, a trade ease, again, going into a racus, seeing that it's a trap, knowing the emperor has it in for me,

Harkin indefinitely has it in for me. This is not what it looks like. He sees an opportunity because there are more of them than everybody thinks. They've figured out how to survive in this harsh environment. If we can make them hours, if we can, if we can bring them, if we can get them to love us.

Turn their respect in some sort of ritualized combat, I assume. Well, that's not a detail that Lato ever mentions. But that's what's going to happen. Something comes up in the story because that's the trope for this kind of tale. And so he sees Lato and, too, if you're how I see that they could become a force like the Sardakar, the Emperor's feared terror troops. I'm not sure that I'm actually thinking first episode. Yeah, yeah.

And nobody talks about the planet, the Sardakar from or how the Sardakar get trained or any of that kind of stuff, it's a closely guarded secret. Well okay, Thufir Haw how up the men tat has done some thinking about it and has figured something out. Okay. The Sardicar are from a hell world. And, you know, the Emperor's prison planet is the hell world the Sardicar actually come from.

Okay. They are told, you know, you're tougher than everybody else, you're better than everybody else. You know how to survive in this environment. You know, you are the elite of the elite and I am going to get you out of this place and I am going to send you out into a galaxy. You're going to dominate and everybody's going to fear you and it is through me that you will get all of this.

And so the Sardakar is finatically loyal. Okay. Okay. Okay. And that is what Lato thinks if we can get this, then this isn't going to be a trap for us, we'll have our own thing that we can use to turn the trap around. Okay. And so it's a double source of potential power, control of the spice which everybody needs

and is a source of incredible wealth and super trips. Okay. Super soldiers. Right. And so in addition to that, the Benny Jeseret have a specific arm of the sisterhood called the Missionaria Protectiva, who travel all across the galaxy and amongst their words primitive, superstitious populations, they they set themselves up within those populations and they introduce prophecies in a can. Okay. That Ben and Jesuit operatives are trained to know, recognize, oh, this is prophecy three prophecy three, simplifying, but, you know, I'm hearing these people reciting this religious passage, I know they're looking for this response. Right. And being able to then step into the war of the

prophesied, you know, people as a way of getting help and support and. so this is a way to set yourself up as the mockty come lately basically. I love how you use the word machdi. Oh, because that's literally on the day that Paul and his father and his mother arrive in Erichin city as they are riding through the streets. People see Paul and see his mother, a Reverend mother, which is part of the prophecy. And they immediately start shouting, Mahdi, Mahdi. And then they throw rocks at him and stone him off his ass.

No, no, different Paul, different Paul. Okay, different. And different source for the, for the getting knocked off. Good point, good point. Off is donkey onto his ass. Yes. And asked to ask, Yeah, yes to ass. Oh, back to, back to,

yeah, we're talking about a big big part of your dream. Oh, yeah, okay, is that too. So, make an ends meet. I like it. So, no, I don't, I really don't. But, no one should. No one, yeah.

So, so, and of course course the name he winds up taking when he joins the Fremen is Maudib. Okay. Which Maudib. Maudib. Yeah. Now, and I remember in the movie, my name is a killing name. Yeah. My name, okay. So, quick segue. Sure. The Weirding Way, as it's used in the book, when he talks about the Weirding Way of Combat, that isn't the Weird Voice Amplifier thing, my name is a killing, no, no. That was a way to take the concept and translate it into a lynchian visual kind of kind of thing.

What Jessica agrees to teach the Fremen, when they first get rescued by still garners, as people when they're on the run from Harkinon, Jessica says, I will teach your people the weirding way of combat, which is the prana bendu, I know how to control every muscle of my body. I have, you know, I have, I have superhuman control of all of it. I could give you a one inch punch. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

That's that's my finger death touch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the weirding way as it is in the book. Okay. But in Paul and, and they see immediately that Paul has been trained in it too. Oh, which by the way, turns out to be another, another key note in, in the prophecy. Prophecy number six. Yeah, you know, um, the, the infectious prophecy. Yeah. And,

and so, um, and, and so Paul, um, winds up, uh, being, being rescued by the Fremen after his father is killed by Harkin and and his army is destroyed by Harkin and he and his mother flee to join the Fremen because the way because the way has been paved for them already right now here's the thing though over the course of the novel, as the reader, you know that the missionary of Protectiva showed up ahead of time and ceded the prophecy, but Paul, on the night that his father dies, Paul has an expansion of consciousness event.

He does mention it. Triggered, well well triggered by the spice. So yes sort of which you'd mentioned in episode one of this. Yeah, he he he the the the spice and all the food he's been eating sure days the exposure to the stresses of everything he's been through and everything else, force him into being a man-tat. Like he finds out, remember Thufir Hawaat, men-tat's human computers. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In the first few pages of the book, we find out that, you know, from a very young age,

Thufir looked at him and said, he has the traits that could make him a mentat. His father went, well, okay, if he's gonna be a duke, being able to do what a mentat can do is an amazing tool. Cool, okay. So, and so he gets told by his father,

at some point in the training of a mentat, you need to be made aware of the fact that the training has been happening, and you have to make the choice about whether or not you're going to continue. Okay. Sounds like taking your first confirmation or something. Kind of. There are some parallels there. And so Paul does the calculations.

Natch. Yeah. And says, yes, I want to continue the training. And then has this series of experiences and the infusion of spice into his diet, which basically flings him into full-blown men-tat status. Terran Genesis for Dune. Essentially, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, good, again, also good analogy. And he sees, he literally finds himself having to find a way to anchor himself in time because his consciousness is moving. He's expanded his consciousness out and now he sees all the possibilities of all things. Yeah. And he can trace all of the future timelines going forward. Right. And in the same moment, he finds that he cannot access his own emotions in order to mourn his father. And so there's this multiple page passage about this experience he has. And the thing is, once he taps into that precognition, you as the reader start to wonder, okay, yes, this prophecy was left here as a tool. Right. And we've

been told it was left here as a tool, but one of the things that Herbert is trying to say something about is destiny and fate and the mass consciousness of humanity. Okay. And it starts to be a question about how much of this prophecy is just hook him. Right. And how much of it really is actually prophecy. Right. The phrase terrible purpose comes out throughout the book.

Paul has this sense of terrible purpose. From the beginning of the book, he has this sense of terrible purpose. From the beginning of the book, he has this sense of being fated. Okay. Uh, this, this kind of fatalistic, I know, I know that there is something pressing on me. Mm-hmm. Once he awakens to his precognitive potential, he realizes it is the, the human urge toward the survival of the species. Okay. That is pushing on him. And there's stuff about genetics and sex and all of that kind of stuff. Your middle school teacher, this sounds like terrible purpose.

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So, and so the going amongst the Fremen with this prophecy, it winds up becoming a theme that we're like, okay, we know that part of this prophecy is Herbert telling us something about religion and about organized religion and. At the same time, he's also talking to us about the philosophical idea of fate. Do you think he's just kind of, he's got big ideas, he's trying to make a big point about religion and he's still stuck in the tropes of well, when we write these things,

we have to write about fate. No. Okay. No. No. There are plenty of tropes that he falls into, just because it was the shape of the genre and it was the era and all that kind of stuff.

And I'll talk about that for sure, but I don't't all of the ones that have anything to do with philosophy or politics or religion, he was very conscious of. Okay, okay. Like, I mean, in my analysis, I said, yeah. Sure, somebody else could go like,

nah, it was a fucking hack, you know. Okay, so he goes through Dune World's Taren Genesis. Yeah. Okay, so he goes through Dune World's Terran Genesis. Yeah. Becomes, does he accept his role as the mock thee? He tries to fight against it because he sees that it's inevitably going to lead to Jihad. Specifically that word.

Specifically that word. Okay. And he gradually over the course of the remainder of the novel. This is his Realizes yeah, he realizes there are fewer as time goes on There are fewer and fewer pads available to him to prevent the jihad So you might as well get out in front of it itself and the second novel actually starts with no no He's been the emperor for Ten years or something oh in the second novel actually starts with no, no, he's been the emperor for 10 years or something oh in the second book is he's been yeah, okay, and and the jihad has happened

Okay, and is still happening and He he can only he can only try to direct it or ride it to... So when he becomes emperor, this is his uneasy alliance, is the force of G-Hod as opposed to the force of Averis amongst nobles. Yes. Purity of ideology compared to... Fnaticism. If fanaticism, well, I'm actually going to go back to purity of ideology compared to total lack of ideology. Yes. Yeah. And one of the things that

and yeah, fanatic would consider their ideology pure. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things I didn't get into talking about with with the noble houses, part of his calculation in the climax of the first book to get back to the first book the climax of the first book involves him doing math No, okay, no You remember in the in the movie. Yeah, we have warm sign the likes of which god has never seen I'll pretend that I remember that line. I remember he was standing on top of a worm Okay, yeah, so I'll pretend that I remember that line. I remember he was standing on top of a worm. Okay. Yeah. So the capital of a racquet, which at that point is controlled by the Harkinans.

Right. And the emperor and all of the noble houses of the lands red have shown up. Does the emperor basically stay out of it when Harkinans kills Paul's dad? It's an interesting kind of, it's an interesting, again, talking about knife edges and balances of power. What's interesting about it is when Leito dies,

shortly, and one of the things that Harkin says is, I need somebody in here right now to clean all of this up because Leito is a threat to the emperor, is I need somebody in here right now to clean all of this up because Lato is a threat to the emperor, but he is still the emperor's cousin. Right. And he is a duke of a noble house. Right. And so he, the emperor has apparently given Vladimir

Harkin in very specific instructions. He needs to die quickly and in a way befitting, an honorable cousin of the emperor. Sure, sure. Like, no, no, ruthlessness is ruthlessness. You know, he's gotta go, but his dignity has to be kept intact. Sure, okay.

And his dignity is not kept intact. He's abused before he dies. Because Harkin and Realize is a guy. I'm the tiger that he's holding the tail of. Yeah, yeah. What are you gonna do now? Well, no. Harkin and immediately says, clean all of this up.

Oh, okay. Because a Sarticar commander shows up and says, I wanna see the body, right, fucking now. Oh, okay. I have orders from the emperor and you're gonna bring him out here. Okay. Or I'm gonna rip everybody in this room a new one.

Okay. And because we're in this, because of the nature of the deal that got struck, you don't have anybody to go to. If I kill you right fucking now. Guys, we've basically just rebalances. We rebalance the scales. Right, and everybody's kind of down for that.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Okay, all right. So, so no, he's on top of the third warning, he says a really cool thing. Well, he asks, in the movie, he asks, Gernie, do we have Wormsign and Gernie Response? We have Wormsign the likes of which God has never seen. Or no, it's still Gernie, he asks that.

But anyway, it's a great moment in the film. But what needs to happen, the city of Eirachine is located in a sheltered place. Basically, there's a range of large rocky hills or low rocky mountains that create a basin, but gets into a lot of geography, that essentially shelters the city from the worst of the massive sandstorms that the planet can throw. Okay. Well, in order to get his army up to where the emperor is

Paul uses his family's Atomics, which were hidden away in a safe place before the Harkinan took over He has those retrieved and uses nuclear weapons to blow up the hills To let the full force of the storm hit for his men who are fremen at this point, you know how to deal with that. How to deal with that. To ride in on sandworms, take everybody by surprise and wreck shit. Catch everybody with their pants down.

Now, the thing is, there's a back and forth between him and gurney Halleck. Gurney says, I don't like using the Atomics. All of the other houses of the Landsrad are up there. This is going to turn them on us. This is against the great convention. Okay, because we have an agreement. You don't use nukes against people.

Okay. Paul says, I'm not using them against people. I'm using them to blow a hole in the mountains. That's a really fine line. It's fine enough for the hair splitters who are going to be an orbit above us. If it acts of genocide reason not to take action. Right. Okay. And when I have revealed to everybody what exactly the emperor did, they're not going to care

that I used the House of Tomics because they're going to see that he could do it to any of that. Right. Right. So it's that inertia of the noble houses and that institutional like, we want status quo. That institutional, well, you know, I'm a moderate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. Well, this reminds me of the five families in the Godfather.

Yes. You know. Very much, yeah. Yeah, that's a good analogy. have families in the Godfather. Yes, you know. Very, yeah. Yeah, that's a good analogy. So, yeah, so he uses nuclear weapons to blow up a mountain range. The emperor calls him on it when they have their meeting finally, the emperor says, you violated a great convention.

He says, I didn't violate the great convention. I blew up mountains. I didn't kill people. Besides which, everybody knows the great convention is just is a threat to keep people in line. If anybody could get away with using nukes, they would. And we all know it. You know, just lays it all completely bare.

Okay. And then he turns around. And with his new, you know, desert army, the guild, he turns the guild and says, you're gonna send a message, all the ships that are up in orbit right now, the guild representative gets a huffy, he says, you don't give the guild orders. He says, no, no, you two are low ranking guild navigators. So you can see the future. I'm paraphrasing. Yeah, yeah. He says, listen to what I'm telling you.

And you know, it's true. If you don't, if you don't do what I tell you to do right now, I will destroy the spice forever. Okay. And, and it's a great moment because the destroyer thing is to control thing. Yes. And, and both of them, their tone immediately changes because they realize oh no No, we can see the timelines Mm-hmm and there are multiple timelines in which we don't see anything anymore, right? Okay, no and they yeah, and they immediately turn right on go to the radio and and the emperor is shouting at him And he's like no, no, no, no, no, no Look me okay, yeah, yeah, I am the captain no, no, no, no, no, look. Okay. Yeah.

Talk to me. Talk to me. Talk to me. I'm the emperor now. Yeah. You know, um, and so, and so it is, it is through that, that balancing of forces and through the Fremen, that he winds up bringing about the culmination of the very simple revenge story

that lies in the heart of the plot. And it's also through the Fremen that we get a lot of the exploration of religion and ecology. And it's within the context of joining the Fremen and living amongst the Fremen and becoming their leader that we get a lot of the post-humanism and we get a lot of the psychedelia and expansion of consciousness, which is another way of saying psychedelia. So that is the crucial kind of elements of the world building. Okay. And so from there,

we can talk about themes, as they get brought up in the tropes that get thrown around. Right. And then talk about dunes roll within the canon of science fiction. Okay. And so I think the first theme I wanna touch on, because I can do it kinda quickly,

because we're getting close to what would normally be the end of the time. I wanna begin here, and if we need to, we can carry this over. Yeah, yeah. Now, we can just kind of discuss this stuff, but colonialism is obviously a huge thing within its story. And colonialism in the context of this is an empire that is dying. Yeah.

Or the way Herbert, yeah, decaying stagnant. Yeah. Herbert makes a really big point about Paul's terrible purpose is that humanity has, what Paul discovers is humanity has become stagnant. The same house, house carino has held the throne for a thousand years. And so the zitgeist, the human guest-alte consciousness has this urge to mingle genes. And it's been pent up and it's been trapped in this house of cards structure. And so they're all of these, essentially,

they're all of these pressures building toward this violent blood-letting spasm of jihad, which is going to send vitality in this force of the Fremen. Oh, wow. You know, coursing through the cosmos in this huge religious war that's going to lead to intermingling of bloodlines and... A cataclysmic creation, essentially. And so it's easy for us to look at the historical context in which it was written and see an empire that's falling apart.

Herbert, either might have thought that was too on the nose, or it might not have lined up with what he wanted to talk about. Do you think he was calling out De Tant? He might have been. I don't, as you've already noted, he never saw an anvil, he didn't like. Right, right. And there isn't any overt, like, well, you know, the Harkin and have everything over here, and we have everything over here, and we can't really do anything and we're stuck. Right, right. There's like, I would expect him to be more on the nose if he was going after Daytona. It sounds like he's saying, look, there was a long ass Daytona and now we're to the point

in the story where shit's moving. Could be. Either that or he's a fan of ancient Rome. They will. Yeah. You know, you talk about Empire. That's, I mean, that's the Western model. Yeah, template for that. And and so I never

really thought of the Roman Empire is having any long piece. But that's because I always look at the provinces. Yeah, whereas if you're a Roman, you might just look at Rome. See, I even even there, I'm like, no, cause there's only like, I mean, literally, there are only five good emperors. That's what they call that. And then Augustus, like, and anybody else pretty much,

I'm gonna, I'm gonna say Claudius is cool, but like, he also killed off all the Druids. So easy. But, when Augustus was a dick too, don't they? I mean, they're all, I mean, they're, they're, they're emperors. But like, there's no way around them. Most of your emperors died of not so natural causes.

Yeah. And Claudius doesn't get down in the, one of the themes in my seventh grade class is, you know, the best way to become emperor was killed last guy. It was emperors. You know, or one of those know, one of those common ones. Yeah, yeah, there is no retirement.

Well, there was one who retired and he retired to grow cabbages. And when they came to him, I believe it was Demetian. They came to him, they were like, hey, we need you to kind of come back and take up the reins. He's like, are you kidding? Have you seen these cabbages? And he says no. Well, yeah.

Because cabbages. He won. Yeah. He won. The only way to win was to get out of the fucking game. Right. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no.

No. I got a house. Yeah. I got a view. Yeah. I got cabbages. Yes. I don't have to deal with worrying about whether one of my own bodyguards

Is it gonna stab me in the back whether My nephew is gonna have me poison no, right? I'm done. I'm not I Successfully became a non-entity. Yes. Do you and can you imagine? How valuable that is no of course you can. You're standing here in front of me. And you're in a dumb back area. Begging me to jump, you're a moron. Fuck off. Yeah, I have cabbages.

No, I have cabbages. Screw off. Okay, so, so, cabbages notwithstanding. Yes. This seems very much like he's in love with Rome with just the back biting and stuff like that of two noble families, blah, blah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, in the shifting alliances and an emperor. And I'd be interested. I haven't done enough meaningful reading on the Byzantines. But I'd like to see, like, if I have, if I get the opportunity to do some more looking into, you know, uh, those, because that's that, what my understanding is the, the, I don't know if aesthetic is the right word, but the vibe that one, that one gets out of reading about the court of the Podysha Emperor is that it's more Eastern Empire.

Yeah. And in the, no, no, no, no. We all have RMEs at our back-and-call, but using those is, I mean, not only clumsy and unwieldy, it's just kind of day-class. Right. Yeah. You know, I mean, we're going to do this politically. This is all going to be war of, you know, diplomatic mean we're gonna we're gonna do this politically. This is all gonna be war of you know diplomatic maneuver and politics and money and you know and

When it comes to it knives in the dark. Yeah, yeah, you know rather than you know, okay? Armies. No, no, Melvian bridge fuck you. Yeah, you know, that's that like come on right? It's clown shoes. Yeah, you know And so like, come on. Right. It's clown shoes. Yeah. Um, and so, yeah, that's my, that's my, that's my feel on that. Sure. Also, there's the pervasive orientalism involved in this, which ties in with Byzantine a bit more than Western Empire. Although, although I would say that some have laid and I don't think necessarily correctly, the decline of Rome at the feet of Christianity becoming a state religion, and that did come out of the East from desert dwelling. Okay.

Okay. It feels stretchy. It feels like a stretch. It feels stretchy. It's like, oh, you put mango in this salsa. It's got that kind of feel to it. You know? So, am I tasting mango?

Okay. Did I ever tell you when I put Tab basketball and somebody's chococola? No Do this? Who did you hate nobody? We're just You know at virtual but was it was it was it producer George? No, okay? No, he would have liked it I get well Yeah, cuz you put to basketball and Coca-Cola and nobody can taste it because all the fizziness But then when they burped they're like what the fuck You gotta do it. Oh, that's pricing. I gotta do it. Oh shit. Yeah, wait. Yeah, so so how much how much are we talking about?

I'm not enough that you can see it at the bottom And then you do need to make sure you stir it. Okay. Yeah, but yeah Because if you don't then the straw goes straight to the Okay. Yeah, but yeah, that's, because if you don't, then the straw goes straight to the bottom. Oh, yeah, all these good hot sauce. And yeah, that's messed up. But see, I like the kind of paperwork. That's a work crime.

Yeah, that's an active genocide. It's not genocide, but, you know, yeah. I like doing little harmless pranks like that where like when you burp, you taste the vasco. Like, I kind of want to make a I was talking to my daughter the other day about like I want to make a a sorcerer whose only thing is dispel magic and counter-spell. That's all he ever does. He's just no. Yeah. No. Oh he thought so huh? No. Yeah. Oh you're large now? No you're not. No. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever play Magic of the Gathering?

I bought her a starter pack. Okay. And one of my friends at work is very into Magic and he's going to come over and teach her how to play it. So ask me that question in six months and the answer will be yes. Okay, because what you just described with that sorcerer is a or was back when I actually played the game back longer ago than I

want to admit right in college. That was a part of the part of the meta of like tournament gaming was no denial deck. I'm going to play a blue white denial deck. Okay. I have some of this thing. No, you know, so you're just data. I am putting strategic. Yeah, yeah, just just no no no fuck you no Oh, and by the way, Bing no no no and I hit you no no no and I hit you again no no And the thing is in a in a one-on-one game Mm-hmm it it would be a very slow but very effective way right to fuck somebody over Yeah, you're boy may weathering them.

Yeah, yeah. Winning on points. Just like, I'm only hitting you. I'm only hitting you for a little bit of damage at a time, but you're not gonna get anything through on me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm gonna take you out in a five person game. There are five person games.

Oh yeah, multi hand games. Wow. Now, I don't know how common they are 5 person games. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Multi hand games. Wow. Now, I don't know how common they are anymore. Sure. But back when the game was young, and I was too, playing it in the dorm, that was how we did it. We'd have four or five people playing at the time. Mostly because if you actually got into a one-on-one game with some of the guys in my dorm,

it would switch blades. It would take a little bit of the brutal. Who's awful. So I didn't ever enjoy playing when there were fewer than three players. Okay, yeah. But in a four or five person game that Blue White denial deck,

basically would get you nuke did like turn four Everybody is able to say was like no no no you can only counter enough of us like like if we hit you early You don't have enough man to stop all of us. We're going to bury you Okay, and then you'd get to sit and watch everybody else then yeah Yeah, no and yeah, so back back to doing the decline in rot of empire. Yeah, okay, and and yeah, I'm stretching to get to the the Rome thing But you're saying it's more business. Yeah, yeah, there's shades of it again like you said It's the template for what we as you know Westerners think of when we think of empire, okay, And so I think now is a good place for us to, to, to, you know, put, put an intermission in the middle of this again.

Ooh, ooh, ooh. I just had a thought though. Okay. With the Romans. Yeah. Um, Alaric comes in with trained ass armies. Yes. That the Romans had always looked down on it.

And they're like, no, no, we have centurions. Uh-huh. So Alaric is Paul and the the the Goths and whatnot are the Fremen and the centurions are the what are they called? Those guys Could be. Oh, yeah. No, that's a great. That's I mean, it's a great historical analogy I don't know how how

No, that's a great, I mean, that's a great historical analogy. I don't know how, how versed in all of the details of that history her book was, but that's for, for, if you wanted to say, okay, look, your history type, I'm gonna, I'm gonna explain Dune to you in terms that you know, that's a great analogy. It's a bit of this, okay, cool. All right, so cool. Okay, so do you have any recommendations for people this week?

No, this time around I do not. Okay, well I'm going to keep plugging bigblackdice.com. Okay. Go there, Theo Morgan runs a show called Diversity and Dragons. And just a small bit about Theo. I want to have him on our show and actually interview him. Because his story is fascinating, but essentially he grew up in a rough circumstance, and D&D was a good escape for him.

But he also is, he's half-black, half-white. And I don't want to speak too much for him, but as we know, historically, D&D is a white boy club. And so the way that he came to it and navigated through it is quite fascinating and he's made a show that is like deliciously subversive for me. Okay.

And it's just, it's so much fun. If you get a chance to go see it. Okay. Go see it. I know, I buy. I'm intrigued for sure. Yeah. As of this recording, I think there's still time to secure a ticket for, again, go to bigblackdice.com because there's a show that's on July 29th.

Okay. So is this like a one one man show kind of thing? No, he has people up there playing D&D with him. Okay. But it's not D&D, it's his system. Okay. But it borrows from D&D, but it also, it's a very different system.

Okay. And I mean, he's got Big Black Dice, and he has audience members role to determine things for people. And he's got maps and all kinds of stuff. There's customing that happens. Oh, wow. And there's some very funny comedians

who are a part of it. Okay. So yeah, that's what I'm gonna recommend. Go see on Thursday, July 29th, diversity and dragons. And you can get to that via bigblackdice.com. All right. So next week I'll have books for you to read, but right now, just the bigblackdice.com.

Very cool. Yeah. Where can people find you on the social medias? I can be found on social media at EH Blalock on Twitter. I can be found under the same address on Instagram, sorry, had a blank there for a moment, and then on TikTok I am Mr. Blaylock. Where can you be found? You can find me at Do Harmony on both the Insta and the Twitter. You can also find me every Tuesday night on Twitch.tv, forward slash capital puns, 8.30

on Tuesdays, 8.30pm, Pacific time. So we're still not doing any live shows just yet, but we will eventually get back out there essentially I'm waiting until my kids get vaccinated. And hopefully there won't be Delta and Delta Plus variants that sidestep it for us. We'll see. Fingers crossed. Yeah. But which seems to be the health plan of most school districts

now is just cross your fingers and hope. Yeah. This hope is free. Yeah. But yeah, you can find me in those places. You can also find me at iMacPun, Twitch.tv, forward slash iMacPun, if I recall correctly. Because I and my friend in put out a show every

Thursday although i think we're switching to monthly now but every Thursday or i'm sorry every Friday we put out a show about scope leaves marvel strike force okay um and they they just had pride month. It's winding to a close Interestingly iceman became much more Accessible, which is really cool. Okay. I love ice man. Yeah, um and the They they tried and failed miserably Sorry, Facebook post about this. Yeah to be inclusive They so all the characters that they've

made easier for you are characters that are queer and or were queer coded a long time ago. And most of where. Iceman, Fyla Vel, Moon Dragon, because those two are lovers. Iceman, I believe, yeah, Kitty Pride also Pride Month. Yeah, also she as she has come out as by And I want to say Steak Oddly enough. No She's like the most gender food character. Yeah poster being for gender fluidity like I do think Jubilee I could be wrong though. No, I can't find Jubilee to save my goddamn life actually. No, so not Jubilee and then

also not Loki Yeah, so there's stepping on that a little bit. Yeah, they did can so step it on something me Yeah, okay, and then so what they can do though in the in the game is you can create tags for characters So like you know what team this character belongs to. So the infinity watch or the Avengers or the secret Avengers or the X-Men or the X-Men or X-Force. Hydra shield. And some players have or some some characters have like four or five things. tags. Well, all the ones that were made easy, they were given the tag of quirky, which I like that term. They did bad, but I like the term. That's all I need to say on that, just quirky. It just, what they meant was queer, but they said quirky. I need to look up

and see if America chavvets is. Did they think somehow that like, well, you know, we don't want to use that term because they don't want to upset the the whiny piss boys is what it is, but they also want to like throw a bone to the more quiet and yeah, to the more quiet and, you know, used to getting scraps. You know used to getting scraps LGBQ community yeah, yeah, and so what they did was Half-assed it. Yeah, you know, it's it's one of those day Walk down the middle of the road less than half the loaf. No, you know what? That's not middle no fuck that no Speaking we've I've already said I'm I'm a moderate like I'm really genuinely a moderate That's no that's not the middle of the fucking road

I know what the middle of the road is that's that ain't it that ain't it. That's chicken shit. That's that's the worst kind of token. Oh Look, you know like no fuck that. You know what? Mystique is actually quirky Here's a list of characters who are quirky. I love. Iceman, yo yo, Fyla Vel, Falcon, Luke Cage, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Spider-Man, Killmonger, Deadpool. Wait, back up.

Yeah, I know. Back up, Luke Cage. He's not the best thing. So they're, they're, they're not even really So they're not even really committing. No, like it goes more Iron Man, Spider-Man Killmonger, Deadpool, Mystique, Ant-Man, Miles Morales, Electra, Domino, America Chavez, Miss Marble, Kitty Pride, Gamora, Stature, Negasonic.

She was easier to get to. Mantis, Rocket Raccoon, Negasonic. She was easier to get to. Yeah. Mantis, Rocket Raccoon, Shatterstar Toad, Drax, Misty Knight, Moon Dragon, Moon Knight. Okay, so they're either a player or part of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Or, like, I mean, yeah, there's plenty of here that aren't, you got Miles Morales and Spider-Man. here that aren't you got Miles Morales and Spider-Man. Multiple man which I completely believe just because he can make multiple of himself. Why not explore all of it. Jubilee and start. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait Does that count as a homosexual act or is it just masturbation? Well, so I would come back to this. What define what a homosexual act is?

Okay. I guess Webster would say sexual act with somebody of the same sex or gender. Okay. Fair. And or gender. Then all masturbation is a homosexual act Good point. All right. Yeah, unless you say we saw that and other yeah, I saw that I saw that that Way of parsing it. Yeah, like headed at me. Yeah, you're like okay No, I see where the crosshairs are gonna follow this one. Okay, but yeah, okay. All right, so yeah, yeah

so yeah. Yeah, so here at the Geek History of Time, we answer the hard questions. Yeah. Until they're soft. So, anyway, those are the places you can find me. Yeah. Corpies, it might be. Yeah, so.

Corpies. Cool. Like, come on. Okay, so people want to take us on corporately, where can they find us? Yes, if you want to hit us as an aggregate, we can be found on Twitter at Geek History Time. We can also be found online at Geek History Time.com,

if you want to go to the website where you will be able to find all of the episodes of the podcast that have been published so far Of course, please Subscribe Whatever whatever application it is you found us through please hit the subscribe button. Yeah, give us a review Give us five stars. God knows I've done the research for doing please please please throw me a bone here Not not like a quirky bone please but you know he's married me throw me something yeah yeah um but yeah so give us give us those five stars and that's all I've got cool well then in that case for a geek history of time I'm Damien Harmony

I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time keep rolling 20s for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.