#bene tleilax

Soundwise first of all, “tleilax” sounds very much like Nahuatl, to my very amateur mind anyway, not to mention the “axolotl” tanks and the mention of pyramids on their planet at some point in the books. Their relationship to the concepts of life and death was also very much a mix of Christian and religious Aztec philosophy to me, and the way they treated women seemed especially Christian.

Anywayy, yet another example of how much of an intelligent, cultured and subtle writer F. Herbert was. Forever fascinated with his work.

My joints are sore and my brain is mush, but like the Horrors, I just keep on going.

A group of dwarves, who weren't actually dwarves, but became insufferable dwarves after just spending too much time with themselves or something.

There isn't much about the Tleilaxu in Frank's books, and I haven't read all of his son's books yet.

There is something about Pasqal pulling a fucking Cawl, and turning himself into something inhuman, something more than human, simply by adding more humanity into himself. I don't know. I think it is because since I have read Dune, I find myself looking at the admech from the same perspective as the Tleilaxu from Dune. Who are clearly their inspiration. This transhumanist, secretive group of people, who have done everything to lose all their regular humanity. In general in Dune there is this theme of humans losing their humanity by becoming "more". Sometimes for the better, often for the worse for the people they influence. Mentats lose their humanity and see the world around them as a giant pool of data from which calculations and derivations are made, the Bene Gesserit become teachers of humanity, but therefore suppress their own humanity in the process. Paul loses his humanity as Kwisatz Haderach in order to become the Emperor and allow for the Jihad to happen. And Leto II (the second) shows that the one thing that stopped Paul from fully embracing the Golden Path was actually his last shred of humanity, by attaching himself to Chani.

With Pasqal and particularly with Amarnat I feel like it was the first time I really started seeing that part back. With how he combines multiple humans, and clearly, after becoming Amarnat, he is less human than he was before. He knows more, understands more of the world around him, but it came at the cost of losing a big part of his humanity. He joins the consciousness of 7 techpriests, each with their own qualities together to become something greater even than simply the sum of those 7. This combined with all the Buddhist speaking (Cycles being disconnected, suggesting a kind of Nirvana being reached as Amarnat). It truly feels like Amarnat has become for me the true techpriest. Becoming simultaneously more and less than human in a single action.

I think it also shows what, in the larger GW narrative, is missing for me with the admech as a whole. Right now they have just become the people who hand out the macguffins for the imperium whenever they need one, but a stronger focus needs to lie on this weird, secretive theological side, this strong philosophical difference with the larger Imperium, and quite frankly, all other factions in warhammer. It is why I genuinely hope that we get a new named character for the Admech which is some kind of religious messianic figure, who stands in absolute opposition to Cawl.