water that is greater than water- Ran, the water that frees the soul If you be a Reveread Mother, it opens the universe to you Let Shai-HuUid judge now " As numerous documents show, the Lady Jessica did emerge from the ritual as a Rever end Mother, thus securing her and Paul's influence among the Premen However, the ritual's effect on the fetus that was to become Aha was to shape the Atreides tormented rate eataelysmically For, just as the Ceremony gave Jessica access to fee lives of all Fremen Reverend Mothers, it also subjected the psychically defenseless fetus to the same awareness This inadvertent assault on Alia was the cause of her alienation from even the child chenshmg Fremen and her later Abomination via possession by the personality of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen during her tragic regency A relatively short time later, the first Atreides Emperor Paul Muad'Dib also found it necessary to pursue the prescient vision provided by the Water of Life, tf only to gain independence from the Bene Gessent and the Spacing Guild It should be noted that Paul's success was directly influenced by Jessica's pioneering experience His con sumption of only one drop of the Water of Life was clearly a pivotal moment m the ascendency of the House Atreides and provided the awareness that was the basis of the Atrcides/Fremen Empire Emerging from a three-day coma when Chani revived him with the raw Water of Life it was obvious that Paul was the Kwisatz Haderach able to see in the direction-thai is dark, the place which is inaccessible to the Bene Gessent Ironically, even though the Ceremony of the Seed allowed Paul and the Atreides freedom from and dominance over the Bene Gessent, the Spacing Guild and House Corrmo the prehuente gained became the bane of the Atreides It took all of Leto II s immense reign to breed Siona Atreides and free his descendents from the fatalistic Arafel and Ijaz of melange awareness and restore chance to the universe Further references Harq al Ada The Dune Catastrophe tr Mngal Reed [Mukan Lothar) K R Barauz cd The Azhar Book Vol 1 4 Arrakis Studies 49 (Grumman United Worlds) Regor Kluursh The Ceremony of the Seed (Diana Synonym) Princess Irulan Atreides Comno ed The Dunebuk Rakis Ref Cat 7Z111 Prmcess Imlan Atreides Comno Muad Dib The Man tr Mityau Gwiilador Arrakis Studies 4 (Grumman United Worlds) andMuatFDib The Religious Issues Lib Conf Temp Senes 133 Pander Oulson St Aha Huntress of a Btl lion Worlds Rakis Ref Cat 2 A439 Q zara Tafwid ed The Pillars oj Wisdom Rakis Ref Cat 6 A698 CEVNA, NORMA (148 78 B G ) Ixian ship wnght and navigator Foster mother of the Spacing Guild Norma Cevna was the most ongmal and brilliant of the Ixian refugees CEVNA 154 CEVNA who left that planet in search of a world on which to solve the problem paramount in their minds the reunion of mankind by devel oping a computerless interstellar navigation system Cevna's common sense and mtelh gence complemented the ferocious energy of her lover Aurehus Venport, and the two of them made possible the later organization of the Spacing Guild, with all the effect on mankind which that implies On one of the stops during the wanderings of the Aurehan exiles Cevna accepted among their number a woman who claimed to be outcast from the Bene Gessent, one Dardamus Leona Shard The identity, purpose, and influence of the alleged ex-Reverend Mother are some of the many mysteries surrounding the early history of the Spacing Guild but it is clear that Leona and Cevna became close friends, establishing a comity that was later to direct the course of the exiles research On reaching lupile, the exiles began to develop a navigation system that would overcome the greatest handicap caused by the Butlcnan Jihad--Use loss of computers Cevna devoted her time to the design of hyperspace ships, she also became the first known pilot to experiment with the use of melange in ship direction Through her friendship with Leona, Cevna learned the ways of the Bene Gessent, but only those techniques that would realize the navigational potential of spice-trance prescience These studies strained her relationship with Vedport, as the anonymous Aureliaa Memoirs relate Venport supposedly said, 'You spend altogether too much time with the Gessent witch, it works to our hann," to which Cevna replied, *No, it works to our help, not only will I give you your shjp, I will show you how to guide it-pick the farthest star, and I will take it there and bnng it back' (p 166) And she kept almost all of that grandiose promise Using the industry rebuilt by Venport, she designed die first Guild ship, The Gold en Advent (legend has it that Cevna christened the ship for Venport's dream of the return of travel, and in his honor, playing on the meaning of his name, Venport, so the legend goes, wanted to call it die Jehanne Be Damned} When die ship was completed m 84 B G , ambitious, even revolutionary m its design, Norma Cevna piloted it on its maiden voyage and in this promise she failed m part through too heavy a reliance on technological traditions As both designer and accomplished pilot, Cevna was to serve as both captain and navigator but she was suspicous of the reha bility of melange and unable to free herself entirely from the allure of man/machine interfacing Simply put, she intended to short cut her way through die many problems still to be solved by replacing the computer with her own spice-heightened brain Terminals were implanted m both hemispheres of Cevna s cerebral cortex she was thus physically linked to the guidance subsystems slaved to the .