o alternative explanations of the causes or the effects of that information Hypothesists often pnded themselves on the number of differing interpretations they could see in a set of events A sample question How many motives might Muad Dib have had for walking into the desert9' might produce as many as seven possible reasons for his action The Hypothesis! would naturally provide his mas ter with at least a two-place ranking of the likelihood of the interpretations he offered The pnmary hypothesis was 92 to 98 percent reliable Mentals of Hypothesis! rank and higher, incidentally, were barred from official Cheops competition, for obvious reasons, but they enjoyed no special advantage at games of chance suppose that a roulette globe was imperfectly suspended, causing its operation to vary from strict randomness Given a sufficiently large record of results of the globe, a Hypothesis! could easily have ranked the likelihood of successive spins, but the assembling of the record would have re quired a lifetime spent at the gaming tables Commercially Hypothesists could be used to speculate on future market conditions commodity prices, outcomes of various eco nomic tactics, and likely changes in con sumption ot planets and populations MAJOR ORDERS The three senior ranks of Mentats were announced seventeen years after Albans first presented his Hypothesists to the worlds Two factors influenced his decision to expand Mentat training The first Mental Hypothesists went to CHOAM, but Albans realized thai his graduates could be remarkably useful to governments, but not just in the bureaucratic tasks that the juniors could fill Planetary governors, heads of Houses, generals, and politicians would all welcome reliable objective, loyal, discreet, and accurate advisors Junior-rank Mentats could not fill this need MENTAT ORGANIZATION 381 MENTAT ORGANIZATION Factor number two was Grodon Orpar PLayt UI (1186-1272), the ex-CHOAM director who joined the order and revised the Mentat Handbook to include flic three senior ranks of Geoerahst, Simulationist, and Advisor Piayt's Handbook was used, virtually un changed, through the history of the Order of Mentats Genemhst If Processors seemed inno cent and accepting, Centralists appeared haughty and pedantic Generalists overcame the naive literalism of tlie junior orders by ' 'bringing to decision making a healthy common sense,"2 but in achieving awareness of the "broad sweep of what is happening in his universe" (and note the relativism of "Aw umveise"), the Generalist risked bebev ing himself supreme in his encyclopedic store of knowledge Generalists were expected to possess broad and accurate knowledge of at least 94 75 percent of everything occurring in "his universe ', this knowledge, joined to the confidence-building Mentat training, led many a Generalist to annoy his comrades with an overblown sense of his own superiority The Handbook warned that principles of expertise can change, mat no one can catalogue all knowledge, and that the Generalist was himself part of the set of phenomena to be learned But even with these caveats, Gener-ahsts were very difficult people to work with Simulationist Mentats who freed their reasoning from dependence on absolutes, and who could correct for assumptions hidden in another's inferences achieved the title of Simulationist The Simulationist conceived and proposed in detail alternative futures courses of action, and explanations of events Economic, political, and military strategy depended heavily on the unfolding of options by Simulauomsts a good one could easily offer his master up to ten courses of action, and what is more, infer the dozens of possible consequences of pursuing, altering, combining, or disengaging any of these courses The Siimilatiomst saw every human being as a set of behavior patterns ready to be orchestrated Advisor.