04-20-2016, 04:35 PM
Muad'dib nodded, “Time does indeed flow strangely. I would not more count on it than on what lays over the next hill...” He said, a touch of chagrin added to his voice. He didn’t like all the unknowns here. His latent prescience did help him- but the notions Paul was aware of were thought of as “intuition” or “hunches” by his conscious mind. In this reality, unbeknownst to him, they may simply have been the machinations of Omni guiding Paul where he needed to go for his amusement.
The Fremen watched the display of Matrix’s abilities approvingly. The prime was strong- that much he could glean without any special knowledge.
Paul had a plan in his mind but information was scarce and the variables too many.
“One moment... I do not possess the same kind of mentat mental faculties I seemed to in life. I was trained as what you might call... I suppose the best way to describe it was a human mind trained to mimic the logic-functions of a non-networked pre-Butlerian computer. I seemed to be largely robbed of my higher capacities but still possess a glimmer of it. The projections will take... longer than they normally would.”
It felt like Paul had been robbed of something he had worked very hard to obtain. He had never become a full mentat, his training with Thufir Hawat had been interrupted. His family had one day hoped to be lead by a mentat-Duke but their hopes had been dashed by House Harkonnen. Still, he had been a natural mentat and progressed farther than most of his age. He would have to work to regain that mental clarity. Perhaps if he found Sapho juice... or created it... he could return himself to that level of logical proficiency.
Still, he centered his mind and to began to dissect the base from an analytic standpoint. For a moment he closed his blue-within-blue eyes to help. He couldn’t employ supra-logical hypothesizing, that was beyond him for some reason now. Still he could cultivate "the naïve mind", a mental state without preconception or prejudice that could allow him to perhaps see something he had missed. He took in the structure. It had 3 stories, was circular in nature, formed of stone, seemed to have been made somewhat recently, resembled 15th century Earth architecture, and had a gated portcullis on the lowest floor. Each floor had a single embrasure in each of the cardinal directions and were lit from within with a wavering light- logical protections told him it was a candle or something of that nature. The occasional interruption of the light told him that they were occupied. Every floor but the top one. The top floor was dark and there appeared to be no way to get in from the roof- it seemed unadorned and functional. As it too was stone, though conical, it was likely to withstand what was placed upon it.
“I believe I have our entrance, if you are willing to lend a hand Mr. Matrix.” Paul said respectfully as he returned to the external world and opened his eyes.
“Gurney. Lay down fire on the second floor. See if you can shoot though the embrasures or at least give the impression you are aware of it. Duncan, the second. Matrix, they will no doubt flee through the front gate- there are no other exits. When they exit they will be at a choke point and will be an easy shot. They may return fire from their positions but if you three use the sand dunes for cover they will not have a good angle to shoot you. You will draw the fire towards this, the southern side if the sun today could be trusted, and I will approach from the north and enter in the 3rd floor. Those that do not flee out to engage you will fall to me once I have infiltrated inside. My calculations... though they are not what they use to be, project a 73% chance of a lack of injury on our side and a 98% chance of a lack of casualty. We do have a sizable, 8-12%, margin for error in that the nature of the enemies are not known to us but we can assume they follow the same rules as the rest of the inhabitants of the Omniverse and be reasonably sure.” Paul explained in a militant fashion, though there was a noble, graceful, detachment that made his explanation seem almost casual.
Gurney and Duncan nodded and began to set up, drawing their newly cleaned weapons and laying them on rags on the sand atop a dune so only their barrels could be potentially spotted. The lasguns would make quite the light show in the twilight darkness- they only waited for Matrix to begin the show.
The Fremen watched the display of Matrix’s abilities approvingly. The prime was strong- that much he could glean without any special knowledge.
Paul had a plan in his mind but information was scarce and the variables too many.
“One moment... I do not possess the same kind of mentat mental faculties I seemed to in life. I was trained as what you might call... I suppose the best way to describe it was a human mind trained to mimic the logic-functions of a non-networked pre-Butlerian computer. I seemed to be largely robbed of my higher capacities but still possess a glimmer of it. The projections will take... longer than they normally would.”
It felt like Paul had been robbed of something he had worked very hard to obtain. He had never become a full mentat, his training with Thufir Hawat had been interrupted. His family had one day hoped to be lead by a mentat-Duke but their hopes had been dashed by House Harkonnen. Still, he had been a natural mentat and progressed farther than most of his age. He would have to work to regain that mental clarity. Perhaps if he found Sapho juice... or created it... he could return himself to that level of logical proficiency.
Still, he centered his mind and to began to dissect the base from an analytic standpoint. For a moment he closed his blue-within-blue eyes to help. He couldn’t employ supra-logical hypothesizing, that was beyond him for some reason now. Still he could cultivate "the naïve mind", a mental state without preconception or prejudice that could allow him to perhaps see something he had missed. He took in the structure. It had 3 stories, was circular in nature, formed of stone, seemed to have been made somewhat recently, resembled 15th century Earth architecture, and had a gated portcullis on the lowest floor. Each floor had a single embrasure in each of the cardinal directions and were lit from within with a wavering light- logical protections told him it was a candle or something of that nature. The occasional interruption of the light told him that they were occupied. Every floor but the top one. The top floor was dark and there appeared to be no way to get in from the roof- it seemed unadorned and functional. As it too was stone, though conical, it was likely to withstand what was placed upon it.
“I believe I have our entrance, if you are willing to lend a hand Mr. Matrix.” Paul said respectfully as he returned to the external world and opened his eyes.
“Gurney. Lay down fire on the second floor. See if you can shoot though the embrasures or at least give the impression you are aware of it. Duncan, the second. Matrix, they will no doubt flee through the front gate- there are no other exits. When they exit they will be at a choke point and will be an easy shot. They may return fire from their positions but if you three use the sand dunes for cover they will not have a good angle to shoot you. You will draw the fire towards this, the southern side if the sun today could be trusted, and I will approach from the north and enter in the 3rd floor. Those that do not flee out to engage you will fall to me once I have infiltrated inside. My calculations... though they are not what they use to be, project a 73% chance of a lack of injury on our side and a 98% chance of a lack of casualty. We do have a sizable, 8-12%, margin for error in that the nature of the enemies are not known to us but we can assume they follow the same rules as the rest of the inhabitants of the Omniverse and be reasonably sure.” Paul explained in a militant fashion, though there was a noble, graceful, detachment that made his explanation seem almost casual.
Gurney and Duncan nodded and began to set up, drawing their newly cleaned weapons and laying them on rags on the sand atop a dune so only their barrels could be potentially spotted. The lasguns would make quite the light show in the twilight darkness- they only waited for Matrix to begin the show.
![[Image: AXsJ8wI.png]](http://i.imgur.com/AXsJ8wI.png)