Tag: dune

Diablo III pays more homage to Dune

Prasad AjinkyaLeave a comment

I have been playing Diablo III on and off for the last four years, and have started taking it up again. This is primarily because of the new concept of Seasons and Adventure Mode.

No more do I have to keep endlessly grinding … uhh… it is a clickfest of a game, but what I love about it is how it pays homage to different pop-cultures.

Like how you can find Shaitan, the worm from Dune in the game.

However, I found some more references to Dune –

  • Stilgar’s corpse
  • A separate Bounty called Wormsign

Wormsign

In Act IV, you are asked to go to a small dungeon and eliminate all Hellbearers. This is pretty easily done and on dispatching all four of them, you see the boss – Fenring.

Fenring2
Meeting Fenring in the Wormsign Bounty

Dune fans will recognize this reference to Count Hasimir Fenring, confidante, advisor and chief assassin for Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. The book series contains a fair number of Fenring’s exploits as an assassin, including one where he kills a victim using neural daggers (pretty cool way).

Dune references in Diablo3

Prasad Ajinkya2 Comments

Shaitan_BroodmotherI am a big fan of Blizzard, not only because the quality of their games completely sucks you in, but also since they manage to include a lot of popular culture within their games. For example, during Christmas, the whole of Azeroth would also celebrate it with the rest of the real world.

As I was farming Act II in Nightmare mode with my Demon Hunter, I was suddenly engulfed by a big rock worm, not only was it an elite boss, but it also had a lot of baby rockworm minions to accompany it. When I went back and looked closely at its name … it was Shaitan, The Broodmother … also known as the Great Maker!

Fans of the very popular Dune series, will easily link up the facts .. big ass worm + desert + great maker + shaitan … as a clear cut reference to the worms on Arrakis.

Dune references in Diablo3

On killing this elite, you get access to its random dungeon which spawns from where the worm appears. More loot and sadly no more references to dune. It would have been great if a dying fremen or two would have been there in that cave.

Dune

Prasad Ajinkya1 Comment

This is by far one of my favorite sci-fi novel series. I have read Asimov, but Frank Herbert (and his son in later parts) have really put together an interesting universe with Dune. If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend that you read the entire series.

It was with great anticipation that I sat down to see the movie. Having played both the games (which did not do the series justice), I had some sparing memories of the movie during my childhood. Enough to know that Paul was played by Kyle MacLachlan, the movie had Sting as one of the characters and the fremen had cobalt blue eyes :)

The actual movie as all movies based on books go, was a big disappointment. The movie has been made in 1984 (ominous no?) so I did not expect much in terms of special effects. However the richness of the sets and the good print of the movie had me astounded. It was even a pleasant surprise to see a young Patrick Stewart play the very likeable Gurney Halleck, and a very young Sean Young (no pun intended!) play Chani.

Perhaps the plots and plots within plots were too much for the movie to capture, or perhaps the director was trying to save his ass post production, I do not know what went wrong with the movie, however the movie lacked that certain impact! Paul fails to impress and the Baron who is supposed to be the devil incarnate seems to be a flying lunatic homosexual at the worst :)

Really not worth a movie of 2.5 hours. Huge plots such as the Kwisatch Haderach, the Bene Geserit, the Voice, and Paul’s struggle against the inevitable Jihad are omitted. The original movie was apparently 4 hours, and it was excised to fit the 2 hour length by the producers. A shame, because there was no lengthy directors cut available then. A movie only to be remembered the fans of the book.

 

Democracy

Prasad Ajinkya3 Comments

I just finished reading the sixth book of the Dune series. The story behind the plot is so esoteric that I do not want to divulge the details of the same in this blog … what is more interesting is that how the book sheds lights on issues like religion, governance and governance using religion.

If you decide to reflect on the same, then you will realize that there is some sense to it all. Right from our childhood, we have been taught that democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Is that really true … from school we come into real life all misty-eyed and full of ideals, then real life hits us with shades of grey and a despairing need of black and white.

The very leaders we adulated over, and voted into power, we know are of no good. The false promises that they make will be of no use. Thus, democracy itself is based upon and runs on mistrust. I do not trust my government, thats the whole reason for having an opposition party in parliament so that I have a double check on them.

The entire system is based layer upon layer of mistrust. The lower layer knowing and not trusting the higher layer. And surprisingly, it works!! Well, thats just democracy for you. What will heckle you further, is that when you think of a governing system which is hierarchical (like democracy) and is based on trust (rather than mistrust), then we have dictatorship!!

Funny, isnt it, whats good at an individual level, is not a necessary thing at a cumulative level? hmm…