ccrunner609 wrote:
Watch this and you will know spice!
The Spice Melange, commonly referred to simply as 'the spice', was a naturally produced awareness spectrum narcotic that formed a fundamental block of commerce and technological development in the known universe for millennia. It also played an important role in travel and cultural development.
Since its discovery several thousand years prior to the ascent of House Atreides it was produced exclusively on the planet Arrakis. This was because the conditions on Arrakis by which melange was created was unique to that planet. However, some 1500 years after the death of the God-Emperor Leto II, the Bene Tleilax had managed to successfully replicate it.
The spice originated on the planet Arrakis, where it was produced deep beneath the sands. It was created in a process whereby the fungal excretions of sandtrout would mix with water to form a pre-spice mass. This mass would then be brought to the surface of the desert through an explosion of pressure, and under the intense heat and air of Arrakis, melange would form. When the worms died, sandtrout would be released into the sand, and the cycle of creation would repeat.
By the time House Atreides arrived on Arrakis melange had become the single resource that was capable of creating or destroying the empire. Consequently, Arrakis had gone from being a distant, poor, and unimportant desert world to a greatly prized fief, and management of the spice mining operations were considered a prestigious but difficult task. Spice collection was hindered both by the aggressive and territorial sandworms, and by the guerilla tactics employed by the Fremen, who resented the presence of off-worlders (especially Imperial agents) who mined the spice for themselves.
During the time of the God-Emperor Leto Atreides II, spice production lessened significantly due to terraforming efforts on Arrakis, and also due to Leto II's desire to control who within his empire could consume spice, and how much was consumed. However, by this time significant stockpiles of spice had been collected and hidden by Leto II. These later prove valuable for a variety of reasons.
Spice is the basis for many of the things found in Fremen daily life - it can be processed to create things such as spice paper, spice fibre or chemical explosives. It could also be refined to create spice essence or spice gas. It's actual appearance is only alluded to a handful of times throughout the saga:
In Dune Messiah it is stated that Guild Navigator Edric "swam in a container of orange gas ... His tank's vents emitted a pale orange cloud rich with the smell of the geriatric spice, melange.", and in God Emperor of Dune Moneo notes, "Great bins of melange lay all around in a gigantic room cut from native rock and illuminated by glowglobes of an ancient design with arabesques of metal scrollwork upon them. The spice had glowed radiant blue in the dim silver light. And the smell - bitter cinnamon, unmistakable." Throughout the chronicles it is said that melange possesses the odor of cinnamon.
In Dune, Lady Jessica notes that her first taste of spice "tasted like cinnamon." Dr. Yueh adds that the flavour is "never twice the same .. It's like life - it presents a different face each time you take it. Some hold that the spice produces a learned-flavour reaction. The body, learning a thing is good for it, interprets the flavour as pleasurable -; slightly euphoric. And, like life, never to be truly synthesized."
During the days of the Corrino Empire, the spice was the rarest and most valuable commodity in the known universe. It was said that it was so valuable that one briefcase full of spice would be enough to purchase an entire planet.
Great Houses of the Imperium were often considered rich and influential if their ruling members could afford to consume melange regularly, or, worse still, stockpile it. However, stockpiling melange was generally considered to be a very risky and dangerous endeavour, since the Emperor, the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax, the Spacing Guild, and rival Great Houses could potentially regard such stockpiles as a threat to their position within the Imperium, as well as a threat to their supply.
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 led to powerful abilities that include prescience;
* Health benefits: taken regularly it increased life expectancy and fortified over all health levels (in many cases life expectancy was tripled);
* Addictiveness: the spice had narcotic properties, thus increasing demand and creating a large and hungry market for it. An individual's addiction to the spice would worsen the more they consumed it.
* Physical effects: sustained use of the spice led to human eyes being discolored so that the entire eye would be stained blue. Extensive exposure to the spice created a huge physical dependency that could radically alter the entire body
I must be completely out of the loop, but we just got briefed on a new drug called spice that will pop on piss tests so obviously we can't use it. So I'm assuming someone from freehuddle has used it.
Its kinda like weed.....its a mixture of different herbs that give you a pot-like high.
Don't watch that horrible movie.
friends don't let friends try Spice.
Just looking to enrage Heretic.
