Like Paul Atreides, You Too Must Take the Gom Jabbar Test for Humanity!

A cache dedicated to Frank Herbert's Dune book series as well as the excellent SyFy Channel's mini-series back in 2000 (but NOT the 1984 movie ... which does get a 10 outta 10 for style, but minus a couple of million for faithfulness).

You've never heard of Dune? Look at the info below this cache info.

Cache Info

This cache is about the size of a small stack of 3 paperback novels and tucked quite out of sight. When you find it, please sign the log book with your name and date, then consider adding your favorite memory of the Dune series -OR- perhaps your favorite quote from anywhere. Definitely consider reading this groundbreaking and mindshifting series for yourself. This is a stash cache so please feel free to trade SWAG. Take something to move on into the cacheoverse and leave something of equal or greater value.

When you retrieve this cache you may recall shades of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie which involves a creature known as the Wood Beast. You will also quickly realize that this might seem like a multi-tiered gom jabbar test .... for you! Read below to learn what that means, but please know that this is totally safe and that I just can't resist adding a dramatic flair to this cache ;-)

Note 1: The terrain up to the cache is nice and level, BUT the last 20 feet or so are at a 45 degree angle, so the terrain rating only applies to the last part.

Note 2: There is a fork in the trail about 100 feet to the West of the cache. The North Eastern fork leads to a lovely little spot on the other side of creek (within earshot of the cache) with a bench and flat area just perfect for a picnic

Note 3: Take a careful look at how the top is fastened on before you undo it. Please take the time to put the cache back just as you found it, and be particularliy careful to fasten down the lid just the way you found it.

Explaining Dune

Set in the distant future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which various noble houses control planetary fiefs, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose family accepts the stewardship of the planet Arrakis. While the planet is an inhospitable and sparsely populated desert wasteland, it is the only source of melange, or "the spice," a drug that extends life and enhances mental abilities. Melange is also necessary for space navigation, which requires a kind of multidimensional awareness and foresight that only the drug provides. As melange can only be produced on Arrakis, control of the planet is thus a coveted and dangerous undertaking. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the factions of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its spice.

Herbert wrote five sequels: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune.

Explaining the Gom Jabbar

In Dune lore, the gom jabbar is a long needle, also known as “the high-handed enemy,” laced with a powerful poison called meta-cyanide. All noble houses keep a gom jabbar. They are also instruments used by the Bene Gesserit, a mysterious matriarchal order who’ve achieved superhuman abilities through fierce mental and physical conditioning combined with the use of spice melange—a powerful drug that sharpens these abilities.

Through the Bene Gesserit's prescience and planning, they determined that Lady Jessica Atreides would become the concubine of Duke Leto Atreides and birth a daughter whose son would be something known as the Kwisatz Haderach. The Kwisatz Haderach would essentially be a superhuman; the result of thousands of years of calculated breeding that yielded a man with preternatural powers and immense prescient abilities who would be under Bene Gesserit control. Defying the Bene Gesserit command to have a daughter for their plans, Jessica chooses to bear a son named Paul for her Duke (the Bene Gesserit can manipulate the genes of their children in utero to determine their sex, and the Duke wished for a boy ).

Once Paul is of age, the Bene Gesserit Mother Superior gives Paul the Gom Jabbar Test for Humanity; to discern his potential abilities and see if these unique circumstance accidentally created the Kwisatz Haderach a generation early. So she holds the needle to his neck, places his hand in a nerve-induction box, and tortures him to see if he will pull his hand out (showing he is just an animal in a trap, which means she will put him down with the gom jabbar) or choose to endure the mind-rending pain so that in true human form he might live to extract vengence on the person torturing him.

Can he control his pain enough to conquer his animal instincts? Will he prove his worth—or will he fail the test? If you haven’t read the book, you’ll find out what happens when you do.