The Machine Crusade

Even victories take their toll on a man.

The mannequins are not fitted with full simulation mechanics, so you will have to imagine the next part. Apparently it is a necessary procedure in proper courtship ritual. The man will kiss her ear, lick it, and promise his everlasting love. Traditionally, this causes the woman to go into heat.” He looked sternly at the boy. “Do you understand this so far?” Gilbertus nodded. Somewhat to Erasmus’s consternation, the boy displayed a detached curiosity with no uneasiness whatsoever, and no apparent urges of his own. “Next, the man will kiss her on the mouth. At this point both will begin to salivate heavily,” Erasmus said in a professorial tone. “Salivation is a key element in procreation. Apparently kissing serves to make the female more fertile.” The boy nodded, and half smiled. Erasmus took this to mean that he understood. Good! The robot began to rub the faces of the mannequins together, briskly. “Now this is very important,” Erasmus said. “Salivation and ovulation. Remember those two concepts and you will have a basic grasp of the human reproductive process. After the kissing, intercourse begins immediately.” He began to speak more rapidly. “That is all you need to know about human copulation. Do you have any questions, Gilbertus?

The only guarantee in life is death, and the only guarantee in death is its shocking unpredictability.

...the tough philosophy of Ginaz taught that there were no accidents, no excuses for failure. Every event was the result of a sequence of actions. Intentions were irrelevant to actual outcomes.

La falta de oportunidades no necesariamente convertía en estúpido al individuo, solo hacía que su inteligencia se adaptara para favorecer la supervivencia en lugar de la creatividad.

Eventually, if Quinto Paolo succeeded in his mission, at least Vorian Atreides would understand. Xavier asked for nothing more.

I have seen into the heart of the universe.

I will take their ridiculous peace and shove it down their cold metal throats.

The simplest solution is an immediate cessation of all hostilities between you and the League of Nobles,” Vidad said to Omnius. “You keep your Synchronized Worlds, and the free humans keep their League Worlds. In exchange, the mutual aggression ends. There will be no further deaths, no further violence between machine and man.

So I have failed you?” “Not at all. Your human frailties are not your fault.

Jool Noret, we admire you. You are the scourge of Omnius.” “I am merely doing my job.

Seurat’s flowmetal face gleamed in the lights from his update ship’s cockpit. “Then I regret having been such an excellent teacher.

Dhartha’s deep blue eyes flashed. “This is not about pride, Aurelius Venport. This is only about killing a pest of the desert.

Would it … would it be possible for me to speak with them?” “No,” the secondary said. In his exalted position, Iblis Ginjo was unaccustomed to hearing such a response.

Arrakis is ours because we have taken it,” Selim announced. “We have learned to survive under the harshest circumstances, without depending upon the benevolence of strangers or trade with offworld intruders.

But this … creature was none of those things. He was barely distinguishable from an animal. The young man—singlehandedly—seemed intent on increasing the universe’s entropy by an order of magnitude.

She suspected that Iblis Ginjo was a dangerous, duplicitous man, but saw no one more qualified to take the Jihad where it needed to go. For his own reasons, he did, after all, espouse the same cause as her Sorceresses: the utter annihilation of thinking machines. Iblis would, however, require the closest sort of scrutiny and would have to be handled with excruciating care.

Looking around, Ishmael noted that the humans in control here didn’t seem to care. Why is their religious fervor acceptable, while ours is a matter of scorn?

We humans exist on hope. It’s what separates us from thinking machines.

You will have to rebuild an entire city.” Xavier looked at Rhengalid with little sympathy. “But you can do that only because you are alive and free.

Poritrin nobles professed to follow gentle, bucolic Navachristianity, but their core beliefs did not extend to their daily lives. They had their festivals, and embraced religious trappings, but the Poritrin upper classes did little to demonstrate their true faith.

My child, human love is an infinite resource. No matter how many times it is expended, whether stolen or given away, love can grow again—like a flower from a bulb—and fill your heart.

From this day forward we shall call ourselves the Free Men of Arrakis.

Yet what is the point of maintaining anger against someone who is so deluded?

Religion, time and time again, brings down empires, rotting them from within.