Talk:Melange (fictional drug)/Archive 1

BG failures
What happens to an acolyte who does NOT master the melange overdose experience? Does she leave her body permanently?

Curious minds want to know.

aloha from Maui.

--ed jor-el elkin evolutionary agent www.evolve.org www.jor-el.org


 * She essentially dies, I think because melange is a poison (much like alcohol). Reread the first book for a detailed account of Jessica's Spice Agony.


 * Does anyone think that it's worth mentioning the SPOILER SPOILER axlotl tanks as a secondary source of mélange? The current entry says that sandworms are the only source.

---perhaps not. axlotl tanks actually produce amal, not melange. granted, it has similar effects but in the strictest sense it is not melange.

That is not correct. The word "amal" never shows up anywhere in the original six books--that is a "new" canon term for synthetic spice. The Tleilaxu are making actual Melange in their tank. There is never any indication in the originals otherwise. Tleilax Master B 18:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Spice Agonies
spice agony does not occur through spice overdose. Spice is in fact not used at all. The narcotic consumed is the water of life: the exhaled bile of a drowning sandworm.


 * It is important to note that the water of life is deadly until it is changed by a Reverend Mother. Reverend Mothers can ingest the spice essence and alter their internal body chemistry in order to change the chemical make up of the water itself, making it safe for others to drink. However, the water of life remains a powerful narcotic which is then used in Freman spice orgies. --ben.kent@charter.net

Addictiveness
Blue eyes are a trait of someone exposed to the spice too much for too long a time. It may not even indicate an addict. And even if it does, visible physical changes are NOT a prerequisite for addiction, or even neccesarily a part of it.

It coincides with the addiction, it shares the same origin, but it is NOT evidence that the spice is addictive.

Here's an example: Argyria  The silver compounds that people who suffer from this took generally are NOT addictive, yet their skin turns grey. Same thing in this (fictional) context.

Effect on eyes
"Extensive use of the drug tints the cornea and iris of the user to a dark shade of blue"

I'm pretty sure it's the sclera (white of the eye) and not the cornea that is tinted blue by the spice. If the cornea was tinted blue, it would affect eyesight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by B.d.mills (talk • contribs) 17:42, 17 November 2005


 * The books speak of "blue within blue" eyes, and the movies show the same. I think it should indeed be the Sclera though, as the Cornea is in front of the Iris, and the pupil does not even glint blue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.120.85.242 (talk • contribs) 10:35, 17 December 2005


 * One thing I never understood is why the blue within blue eyes are unique to arrakis, even though rich nobles on other planets are addicted to the stuff and live longer. Even the emperor drinks that spice beer all the time and lives to be over 150. Why is he not showing the same side effects? ONLY people on arrakis, primarily fremen, are ever depicted with these eyes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.122.44.100 (talk • contribs) 18:59, 29 March 2007


 * The spice is literally everywhere in the deserts of Arrakis, the air, the sand; the saturation is high for inhabitants, I'm imagining like second-hand smoke! But there is some indication in the books (I'll research where) that nobles on other planets due sometimes suffer these effects but wear special lenses to hide them. TAnthony 03:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh hi, you replied to my inquiry about harkonnen uniforms! I would appreciate if you could find that information about the special lenses; as far as the idea that on Arrakis its everywhere, in the miniseries I remember they only portrayed fremen with the eyes and not local city inhabitants. But that is the series, for the book I cannot quite remember if they mention just local city dwellers having the eyes. Lol, spice is sooooooo expensive would it not pay for even a regular person to just save up to move to arrakis if he wanted all its benefits hehe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.122.44.100 (talk • contribs) 18:47, 30 March 2007


 * OK, I added some quotes regarding the lenses. Please sign all of your future posts. TAnthony 03:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Pre-spice mass
Support: Pre-spice mass is such a small article that it needs to be brought over. Lady Aleena | Talk 08:40, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Since this suggestion is 1,5 months old and no one objected to it I merged Pre-spice mass into Melange. Bisco 08:40, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Blue or brown-orange?
It is said that melange is somekind of orange in Herbert's books. But in Dune Encyclopedia it is stated that the colour of melange is blue due to a heme group (hemocyanin?). Could it be that whereas melange is produced naturally with an iron atom in its heme group, when it enters the body the iron atom is interchaged by two copper atoms (so that would be the reason of the blue eyes)?


 * No. The Dune Encyclopedia was not written by Herbert, and not only does he state it in a roundabout way in the intro to the Encyclopedia, but it has been stated by both Frank and Brian Herbert that it's not canon. Kuroji 06:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, its stated in the originals that it is blue also--but for some reason the gas in a Guild navigators tank is orange. Here is a quote from the GEoD:
 * "Great bins of melange lay all around in agigantic 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."
 * —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tleilax Master B (talk • contribs) 10:10, April 9, 2007


 * Actually, in Dune Messiah, melange is called "cinnamon colored." It is hard to find an accurate description of the stuff, despite its constant use. It seems to be a flakey powdery substance, which probably looks like cinnamon too, although I have yet to find a perfect description. (Stexe) 76.116.109.221 (talk) 12:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The actual text from Messiah to which I believe you're referring is "Behind the throne, draperies cascaded in burnt orange, curried gold of Dune earth, and cinnamon flecks of melange. To a trained eye, the symbolism was obvious, but it contained hammer blows to beat down the uninitiated." Mohiam is not really describing the melange itself, she's describing drapery; as the color gold suggests Dune to her, "cinnamon" (palette color or color of the kitchen spice itself?) suggests melange.  This requires interpretation, and so is tricky to add to the article. I think using all the bits it can be suggested that melange is orange and yet glows blue, but I'll check the texts before I add anything to the article. &mdash; TAnthonyTalk 17:31, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In Children of Dune it mentions violet melange sand spots. "They passed the leprous blotches of violet sand where a spiceblow had erupted and he held the worm firmly until they were well past the vein," I've found other references and the description seems to change from orange (spice gas) and cinnamon (fleck of melange) to blue (radiant blue) and violet (spiceblow). There was a discussion on this issue here: http://www.dunenovels.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=28074&highlight=#28074 and while it isn't official information, it does cite a large list of passages from Dune to Hunters. -Stexe 76.116.109.221 (talk) 06:30, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's face it, Folks, consistency was NOT Herbert's strong suit! (Anybody else ever notice the way various Atreides' powers vary from book to book?) However we can rationalize the contradictions by assuming that the Spice has different colors at different stages of processing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.120.218.110 (talk) 22:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Other meanings
Moved from article page -- Fagstein 08:59, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

See this website for an alternative use of the term - meaning rocket fuel ctod 21:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Bad movie!
Is there any reason that this article must quote David Lynch's "Dune" movie? It is largely unfaithful to the original work and does not feature the spice in any significant way. Why include a quote that is exclusive to it?--Thehighseer23 02:22, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The quote is not an endorsement of the film, it just sums up the importance of the spice pretty well. Some people like the film, some don't, does it matter? TAnthony 02:44, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

No, it doesn't matter.--Thehighseer23 16:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Source of the spice
The article says the only source of the spice is Dune. However, isn't it true that in later books worms (or at least one) are transfered to another planet to create a 'new' Dune? That said, the original source is Dune, but in the complete works of Frank Herbert, it's not the only source.

At least, this is what I can remember; I read the books years ago, so forgive me if my memory betrays me. :)

Van der Hoorn 03:15, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Fremen Use
I remember that in Dune the Fremen have spice-rugs and spice baskets (I think) and other things that seem to be made from spice or are at least imbued with spice. Should this be added? Master z0b (talk) 02:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)


 * CoD: "In the hour before dawn, Jessica sat immobile on a worn rug of spice‐cloth."
 * DM: "Someone had spilled unchanged spice essence and left it to combine there with a spice-based rug. It had not been a felicitous combination. Spice essence had dissolved the rug. Oily marks lay congealed on the plastone floor where the rug had been. He'd thought to send for someone to clean away the mess, but Harah, Stilgar's wife and Chani's closest feminine friend, had slipped in to announce Irulan."
 * You seem to be right. --Gwern (contribs) 16:32 10 December 2008 (GMT)


 * Hey thanks for the research! It always seemed to me that spice could be some sort of micro-fibre, if it can be woven into cloth or into rugs. Well that would be original research so I can't include it, but I think I could include something about spice-cloth from those references. Master z0b (talk) 03:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Spice and spice byproducts have been described in the first four books as being used by Fremen in part or in whole to make lamp oil, the plastics used in a stilltent and sandsnorkel, fibers for both clothing and rugs, a form of paper, and assorted foods. --68.54.217.235 (talk) 01:39, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Discussion of the impact of the novel
I noticed that, after I made an edit to this page, removing some citations of Dune as the "greatest SciFi novels of all time" etc, that it was reverted with the explanation that "This small bit of info about the novel lends notability to one of the novel's primary concepts."

Here's the thing. Either this article is note-worthy or it is not. So far, the issue has not come up. My feeling is that, should it come up, that TAnthony and others are well-armed to argue this article's merits based on this citation. However, this type of aside just doesn't belong in an article's lede. The text of an entry shouldn't be used to justify that entry's existence. I'm going to restore my edit. Let's use the talk page for the purpose it was designed; I welcome any counter-arguments. Louiebb (talk) 04:06, 30 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Uh, perhaps I took the lazy-man's route by simply restoring the sentence as it was previously written, but I'm not sure I understand why a well-cited sentence ("Herbert's originating 1965 novel Dune is often cited as one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, was the first bestselling hardcover science fiction novel, and is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history.") asserting the notability of the source novel is so objectionable. If I were to came across this article, I might think, "What's the big deal about this worm poop from some 60s novel?" Perhaps it could be presented differently, but it seems to me like it should be pointed out that Dune is one of the greatest sci-fi novels of all time, and so this is some notable worm poop ;) &mdash; TAnthonyTalk 05:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, TAnthony. I think there's a bit of a difference in the way we see people looking up articles in an encyclopedia. What you seem to feel (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it is the responsibility for an article to contain, in addition to its definition, a justification for its existence. I really don't think this is the case. An article should give the facts about its topic, solely. Dune's worth, or lack thereof, as well as its popularity, is a fact about the novel itself, not this "worm poop." And where do such statements stop? Should every article associated with "Dune" include statements regarding its commercial success? Should "Paul Atreides?" Taking things further, should the article on "King David" include the fact that Judaism is the oldest monotheistic religion extant?

It seems that you're concerned about the article's ability to meet the notability requirement for Wikipedia. However, the thing to do is to wait until someone challenges the article's right to exist, and then bring up the arguments you'd like to make, in its defense, rather than a preemptive move.

Lastly, on an aesthetic level, the whole thing just seems rather defensive (which of course it is). It weakens the tone of the article, and the article is stronger without such a statement. Thanks for the polite discussion. Louiebb (talk) 21:49, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

The term "geriatric"
The term "geriatric" is misused throughout the article. I would like to propose instead the more medically-appropriate term "gerontic" (which is similar, but not the same) or perhaps "anagathic" (used in science fiction to refer to anti-aging drugs). The drug's use throughout the series is never said to be intended to treat the old, and so use of the term in this light may be misleading. --Red Heron (talk) 04:50, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Herbert used the term "geriatric" to describe melange four times in Dune, three in Dune Messiah, twice in both Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune and once in Heretics of Dune.&mdash; TAnthonyTalk 05:09, 10 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Exactly. Perhaps we should somehow indicate that this usage is in-universe, that it's Herbert's usage rather than standard English, but to change the term to a real-world one would be far worse than the current situation. Andrewa (talk) 15:26, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Strange link
Why does the see also section list Limitless? It seems irrelevant. Andrewa (talk) 20:20, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * I think someone recognized that the drug in Limitless has mind-expanding properties and gives the user bright blue irises ... but I never really know how direct the connection needs to be for "see also" links, because links to "related" articles usually are or can be incorporated into the text of the article.&mdash; TAnthonyTalk 20:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)


 * The connection should at least be apparent once you've followed the link, surely? And this isn't even that. If we were to put that speculation into either article it would make the connection, but we need a reference to do that. Andrewa (talk) 05:48, 3 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Well actually I've never seen the film and had only a vague notion of its premise, and in following the link read about its properties and the blue eyes. I don't know that I would have added the See also link myself, but as a reader I do kind of think the screenwriter may have been inspired by Dune. But perhaps you're right, does there need to be a cited connection in the article? Again, the See also links are so subjective.&mdash; TAnthonyTalk 05:55, 3 March 2015 (UTC)