title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In the communist socio-economic organization, the relations of production would operate the mode of production and employ each worker according to their abilities and benefit each worker according to their needs. Hence, each worker could direct their labour to productive work suitable to their own innate abilities, rather than be forced into a narrowly defined, minimum-wage "job" meant to extract maximal profit from individual labour as determined by and dictated under the capitalist mode of production. In the classless, collectively-managed communist society, the exchange of value between the objectified productive labour of one worker and the consumption benefit derived from that production will not be determined by or directed to the narrow interests of a bourgeois capitalist class, but instead will be directed to meet the needs of each producer and consumer. Although production will be differentiated by the degree of each worker's abilities, the purpose of the communist system of industrial production will be determined by the collective requirements of society, not by the profit-oriented demands of a capitalist social class who live at the expense of the greater society. Under the collective ownership of the means of production, the relation of each worker to the mode of production will be identical and will assume the character that corresponds to the universal interests of the communist society. The direct distribution of the fruits of the labour of each worker to fulfill the interests of the working class—and thus to an individuals own interest and benefit—will constitute an un-alienated state of labour conditions, which restores to the worker the fullest exercise and determination of their human nature.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: Capitalism reduces the labour of the worker to a commercial commodity that can be traded in the competitive labour-market, rather than as a constructive socio-economic activity that is part of the collective common effort performed for personal survival and the betterment of society. In a capitalist economy, the businesses who own the means of production establish a competitive labour-market meant to extract from the worker as much labour (value) as possible in the form of capital. The capitalist economy's arrangement of the relations of production provokes social conflict by pitting worker against worker in a competition for "higher wages", thereby alienating them from their mutual economic interests; the effect is a false consciousness, which is a form of ideological control exercised by the capitalist bourgeoisie through its cultural hegemony. Furthermore, in the capitalist mode of production the philosophic collusion of religion in justifying the relations of production facilitates the realization and then worsens the alienation ("Entfremdung") of the worker from their humanity; it is a socio-economic role independent of religion being "the opiate of the masses".


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In Marxist theory, "Entfremdung" ('alienation') is a foundational proposition about man's progress towards self-actualisation. In the "Oxford Companion to Philosophy" (2005), Ted Honderich described the influences of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Ludwig Feuerbach upon Karl Marx: For Hegel, the unhappy consciousness is divided against itself, separated from its "essence", which it has placed in a "beyond".


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: As used by philosophers Hegel and Marx, the reflexive German verbs "entäussern" ('to divest one's self of') and "entfremden" ('to become estranged') indicate that the term "alienation" denotes self-alienation: to be estranged from one's essential nature. Therefore, alienation is a lack of self-worth, the absence of meaning in one's life, consequent to being coerced to lead a life without opportunity for self-fulfillment, without the opportunity to become actualized, to become one's self.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In "The Phenomenology of Spirit" (1807), Hegel described the stages in the development of the human "Geist" ('spirit'), by which men and women progress from ignorance to knowledge, of the self and of the world. Developing Hegel's human-spirit proposition, Marx said that those poles of idealism—"spiritual ignorance" and "self-understanding"—are replaced with material categories, whereby "spiritual ignorance" becomes "alienation" and "self-understanding" becomes man's realisation of his "Gattungswesen" (species-essence).


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In Part I: "Feuerbach – Opposition of the Materialist and Idealist Outlook" of "The German Ideology" (1846), Karl Marx said the following:Things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but also, merely, to safeguard their very existence.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: That humans psychologically require the life activities that lead to their self-actualisation as persons remains a consideration of secondary historical relevance because the capitalist mode of production eventually will exploit and impoverish the proletariat until compelling them to social revolution for survival. Yet, social alienation remains a practical concern, especially among the contemporary philosophers of Marxist humanism. In "The Marxist-Humanist Theory of State-Capitalism" (1992), Raya Dunayevskaya discusses and describes the existence of the desire for self-activity and self-actualisation among wage-labour workers struggling to achieve the elementary goals of material life in a capitalist economy.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In Chapter 4 of "The Holy Family" (1845), Marx said that capitalists and proletarians are equally alienated, but that each social class experiences alienation in a different form: The propertied class and the class of the proletariat present the same human self-estrangement. But the former class feels at ease and strengthened in this self-estrangement, it recognizes estrangement as its own power, and has in it the semblance of a human existence. The class of the proletariat feels annihilated, this means that they cease to exist in estrangement; it sees in it its own powerlessness and in the reality of an inhuman existence. It is, to use an expression of Hegel, in its abasement, the indignation at that abasement, an indignation to which it is necessarily driven by the contradiction between its human nature and its condition of life, which is the outright, resolute and comprehensive negation of that nature. Within this antithesis, the private property-owner is therefore the conservative side, and the proletarian the destructive side. From the former arises the action of preserving the antithesis, from the latter the action of annihilating it.


title: Marx's theory of alienation

text: In discussion of "aleatory materialism" ("matérialisme aléatoire") or "materialism of the encounter," French philosopher Louis Althusser criticized a teleological (goal-oriented) interpretation of Marx's theory of alienation because it rendered the proletariat as the subject of history; an interpretation tainted with the absolute idealism of the "philosophy of the subject," which he criticized as the "bourgeois ideology of philosophy".


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: Dancer in the Dark is a 2000 musical drama film written and directed by Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. It stars Icelandic musician Björk as a factory worker who suffers from a degenerative eye condition and is saving for an operation to prevent her young son from suffering the same fate. Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Cara Seymour, Peter Stormare, Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Joel Grey also star. The soundtrack for the film, "Selmasongs", was written mainly by Björk, but a number of songs featured contributions from Mark Bell and some of the lyrics were written by von Trier and Sjón.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: "Dancer in the Dark" is the third film in von Trier's "Golden Heart Trilogy", following "Breaking the Waves" (1996) and "The Idiots" (1998). It was an international co-production among companies based in thirteen European and North American countries and regions. It was shot with a handheld camera, and inspired by a Dogme 95 look.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: "Dancer in the Dark" premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival to standing ovations and polarized reviews from critics, but was nonetheless awarded the Palme d'Or, along with the Best Actress award for Björk. The song "I've Seen It All", with Sjón and von Trier, were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song but lost to "Things Have Changed" by Bob Dylan from "Wonder Boys".


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: In Washington state in 1964, Selma Ježková, a Czech immigrant, has moved to the United States with her 12-year-old son, Gene Ježek. They live a life of poverty as Selma works at a factory with her good friend Kathy, whom she nicknames Cvalda. She rents a trailer home on the property of town policeman Bill Houston and his wife, Linda. She is also pursued by the shy but persistent Jeff, who also works at the factory.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: Selma is gradually losing her vision due to a degenerative eye condition, but is saving money to pay for an operation that will prevent Gene from sharing her fate. She also takes part in rehearsals for a production of "The Sound of Music" and accompanies Kathy to the local cinema, where together they watch Hollywood musicals, as Kathy describes them to her.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: In her day-to-day life, Selma slips into daydreams, imagining herself in a musical. Jeff and Kathy begin to realize that Selma's vision is worse than they thought, and that she has been memorizing eye charts in order to pass vision tests and keep her job. Bill reveals to Selma that Linda's excessive spending has put the couple's house in danger of foreclosure by their bank. He has contemplated suicide, but cannot bring himself to carry out the act. Selma promises to keep his secret and confides in him about her advancing vision loss. Bill pretends to leave the trailer but stays, knowing that Selma cannot see him, and watches her hide her money in a tin.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: The next day, Selma accidentally breaks a machine at the factory and is fired from her job. She returns home to add her last wages to the tin, but discovers it to be empty. Realizing that Bill has robbed her, she goes to his house to confront him. Linda accuses Selma of trying to seduce her husband, explaining that Bill told her Selma wanted him for his money. Not wanting to reveal her knowledge of the impending foreclosure, Selma ignores Linda and confronts Bill about the theft. They fight over the money, with Bill drawing a gun only to be accidentally shot by Selma.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: Bill yells for Linda to call the police, saying that Selma has tried to rob him, then begs Selma to kill him; he claims that it is the only way she will ever reclaim her stolen money. Selma shoots Bill several times, but only wounds him further due to her poor vision, and finally beats him to death with a safe deposit box once the gun runs out of ammunition. She slips into a trance and imagines that Bill's corpse stands up and slow dances with her. Taking her money back, she flees the house and pays for Gene's operation.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: Not knowing about the murder, Jeff takes Selma to rehearsal, where her director calls the police to have her arrested. In court, she is accused of being a Communist sympathizer and of pretending to be blind to exploit the American healthcare system. Although she tells as much truth about the situation as she can, she refuses to reveal Bill's secret, saying that she had promised not to. When her claim of sending all her money to her father in Czechoslovakia is proven false, she is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Kathy and Jeff eventually figure out what happened and get back Selma's money, using it instead to pay for a trial lawyer who can free her. Selma refuses the lawyer, opting to face execution by hanging rather than let her son go blind, but she is deeply distraught as she awaits her death. As Selma begins crying, Kathy runs in to tell her that the operation was successful and that Gene will see. Relieved, Selma sings the final song on the gallows with no musical accompaniment. The trap door opens and she is hanged before she can finish the last verse, whose lines are displayed as the proceedings conclude.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: The film's title suggests the Fred Astaire/Cyd Charisse duet "Dancing in the Dark" from the 1953 film "The Band Wagon", which ties in with the film's musical theatre theme.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: Actress Björk, who is known primarily as a contemporary musician, had rarely acted before, and described the process of making this film as so emotionally taxing that she would not act in any film ever again (although she appeared in Matthew Barney's film installation "Drawing Restraint 9" in 2005, and in Robert Eggers' "The Northman"). Trier and others have described her performance as feeling rather than acting. Björk has said that it is a misunderstanding that she was put off acting by this film; rather, she never wanted to act but made an exception for Lars von Trier.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: The musical sequences were filmed simultaneously with over 100 digital cameras so that multiple angles of the performance could be captured and cut together later, thus shortening the filming schedule.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: Björk lies down on a stack of birch logs during the "Scatterheart" sequence. In Icelandic and Swedish, "björk" means "birch".


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: A Danish MY class locomotive (owned by Swedish train operator TÅGAB) was painted in the American Great Northern scheme for the movie, and not repainted afterward. A T43 class locomotive was repainted too, though never used in the film.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: Much of the film has a similar look to von Trier's earlier Dogme 95-influenced films: it is filmed on low-end, hand-held digital cameras to create a documentary-style appearance. It is not a true Dogme 95 film, however, because the Dogme rules stipulate that violence, non-diegetic music, and period pieces are not permitted. Trier differentiates the musical sequences from the rest of the film by using static cameras and by brightening the colours.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: In October 2017, Björk posted on her Facebook page that she had been sexually harassed by a "Danish film director she worked with". She commented:


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: The "Los Angeles Times" found evidence identifying him as Lars von Trier. Von Trier has rejected Björk's allegation that he sexually harassed her during the making of the film "Dancer in the Dark", and said "That was not the case. But that we were definitely not friends, that's a fact," to Danish daily "Jyllands-Posten" in its online edition. Peter Aalbæk Jensen, the producer of "Dancer in the Dark", told "Jyllands-Posten" that "As far as I remember we [Lars von Trier and I] were the victims. That woman was stronger than both Lars von Trier and me and our company put together. She dictated everything and was about to close a movie of 100m kroner [$16m]."


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: "The Guardian" later found that Jensen's studio, Zentropa, with which von Trier frequently collaborated, had an endemic culture of sexual harassment. Jensen stepped down from CEO position of Zentropa as further harassment allegations came to light in 2017.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: At the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "Dancer in the Dark" earned positive reviews from 69% of 121 critics, with an average rating of 6.8/10. The critics consensus on the website reads, ""Dancer in Dark" can be grim, dull, and difficult to watch, but even so, it has a powerful and moving performance from Björk and is something quite new and visionary." According to Metacritic, which assigned the film a weighted average score of 61/100 based on 33 critic reviews, the film received "generally favorable reviews".


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: On "The Movie Show", Margaret Pomeranz gave it five stars while David Stratton gave it a zero, a score shared only by Geoffrey Wright's "Romper Stomper" (1992). Stratton later described it as his "favourite horror film". Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" dubbed "Dancer in the Dark" the "most shallow and crudely manipulative" film of 2000, and in 2009 he described it as "one of the worst films, one of the worst artworks and perhaps one of the worst things in the history of the world".


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: The film was praised for its stylistic innovations. Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" stated: "It smashes down the walls of habit that surround so many movies. It returns to the wellsprings. It is a bold, reckless gesture." Edward Guthmann from the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote, "It's great to see a movie so courageous and affecting, so committed to its own differentness." However, criticism was directed at its storyline. Jonathan Foreman of the "New York Post" described the film as "meretricious fakery" and called it "so unrelenting in its manipulative sentimentality that, if it had been made by an American and shot in a more conventional manner, it would be seen as a bad joke". Fiachra Gibbons, writing for "The Guardian", considered the film to be "the most unusual, extraordinary feel-good musical ever made."


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: In 2016, David Ehrlich ranked "Dancer in the Dark" as one of the best films of the 21st century, hailing Björk's performance as the "single greatest feat of film acting" since 2000. Björk's performance is also ranked in the "25 Best Performances Not Nominated for an Oscar of the 21st Century" list.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: It grossed $45.6 million worldwide, including $4.2 million in the United States and Canada. It was number one at the Japanese box office for three weeks.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: "Dancer in the Dark" premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded the Palme d'Or, along with the Best Actress award for Björk. The song "I've Seen It All" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, at the performance of which Björk wore her famous swan dress.


title: Dancer in the Dark

text: "Sight & Sound" magazine conducts a poll every ten years of the world's finest film directors to find out the Ten Greatest Films of All Time. This poll has been going since 1952, and has become the most recognised poll of its kind in the world. In 2012, Cyrus Frisch was one of the four directors who voted for "Dancer in the Dark". Frisch commented: "A superbly imaginative film that leaves conformity in shambles." Director Oliver Schmitz also lauded the work as "relentless, claustrophobic, the best movie about capital punishment as far as I'm concerned".


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit () refers to a key social, religious, and political force in Frank Herbert's fictional "Dune" universe. The group is an exclusive sisterhood whose members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman powers and abilities that seem magical to outsiders. Members who have acquired the breadth of Bene Gesserit abilities are called Reverend Mothers.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit are focused on acquiring more power and influence to direct humanity on an enlightened path. Sometimes called "witches" due to their secretive nature and misunderstood powers, the Bene Gesserit are loyal only to themselves and their collective goals. However, to attain their goals and avoid outside interference, they often screen themselves with the illusion of being loyal to other groups or individuals. Their every move is calculated toward a result. As the skills of a Bene Gesserit are as desirable as an alliance with the Sisterhood itself, they are able to charge a fee to school the women from Great Houses, and install some of their initiates as wives and concubines to their advantage.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In Frank Herbert's 1965 novel "Dune", the Bene Gesserit are a secretive matriarchal order who have achieved superhuman abilities through physical and mental conditioning and the use of the drug melange. Under the guise of humbly "serving" the Empire, the Sisterhood is in fact a major power in the universe, using its many areas of influence to subtly guide humanity along the path of its own plan for humanity's future. Herbert notes that over 10,000 years before the events of "Dune", in the chaotic time after the Butlerian Jihad and before the unveiling of the Orange Catholic Bible, the Bene Gesserit "consolidated their hold upon the sorceresses, explored the subtle narcotics, developed "prana-bindu" training and conceived the Missionaria Protectiva, that black arm of superstition. But it is also the period that saw the composing of the litany against fear and the assembly of the Azhar Book, that bibliographic marvel that preserves the great secrets of the most ancient faiths."


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Millennia later in "Dune", the Bene Gesserit base of power is the Mother School on the planet Wallach IX, whose graduates are fit mates for Emperors, and whose specially trained Truthsayers can detect falsehood. But beyond the outer virtues of poise, self-control, and diplomacy, Bene Gesserit training includes superior combat skills and precise physiological control that grants them total control over their bodies, including direct control over conception and embryotic sex determination, ageing, and even the ability to render poisons harmless within their bodies. The Bene Gesserit power of Voice allows them to control others by merely modulating their vocal tones. Sisters who survive a ritualized poisoning known as the spice agony achieve increased awareness and abilities through access to Other Memory, and are subsequently known as Reverend Mothers. Every member of the Bene Gesserit is conditioned into singular loyalty to the order and its goals with allegiances to even family being secondary, and no goal is more paramount than the Sisterhood's large-scale breeding program. It aims to create a superbeing that can tap into abilities even the Bene Gesserit cannot, a being whom they can use in order to gain more direct control over the universe. To this end, the Bene Gesserit have subtly manipulated bloodlines for generations, using breeding sisters to "collect" the genes they require.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit super-being – whom they call the Kwisatz Haderach – arrives a generation earlier than expected in the form of Paul Atreides, who is free from their direct control though his mother is the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica. In "Dune", Paul seizes control of the harsh desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the all-important spice melange; by threatening to destroy all spice production, he maneuvers himself into the Imperial throne. With Paul holding a tight monopoly on melange, a decade later the Bene Gesserit participate in a conspiracy to topple his rule in "Dune Messiah" (1969). Even after a blinded Paul walks into the desert to die, his sister Alia rules his empire and keeps the Bene Gesserit at bay until Paul's young son Leto II takes control himself in "Children of Dune" (1976). Over 3,500 years later, Leto–now a hybrid of human and sandworm–still dominates the universe as the tyrant God Emperor in "God Emperor of Dune" (1981). Through prescience, he has foreseen humanity's possible destruction, and has forced humanity into what he calls the Golden Path, a plan which he believes will assure their survival. Having halted all spice production and thus making his own stockpile the only source of melange left in the universe, Leto is able to maintain firm control over the various factions and effects a "forced tranquility". He has taken the Bene Gesserit breeding program from them and uses it for his own mysterious purposes, and their limited spice supply is subject to their obedience to Leto, and his prescient vision. Recognizing that his work is finally done, Leto allows himself to be assassinated.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Fifteen hundred years later in "Heretics of Dune" (1984), the Bene Gesserit have regained their power and relocated to a hidden homeworld they call Chapterhouse, and the spice cycle has been renewed on Arrakis, now called Rakis. New opposition arrives in the form of a violent matriarchal order calling themselves the Honored Matres, a ruthless and brutal force who seek domination over the Old Empire and who do not use or rely on melange for their powers. As the Matres all but exterminate the Tleilaxu race and next target the Sisterhood, Bene Gesserit Mother Superior Taraza implements a bold plan to release humanity from the oracular hold of Leto II by goading the Honored Matres into destroying Rakis. Meanwhile, the Bene Gesserit have terraformed Chapterhouse into a desert planet like Rakis and bring a single sandworm there to begin a new spice cycle. In "" (1985), the Honored Matres begin to destroy all of the Bene Gesserit-controlled planets and enslave the populaces of the other planets they conquer. The Matres themselves are being hunted by a far more powerful force from out in the Scattering. The new Mother Superior Darwi Odrade recognizes that the threat of this unknown enemy is greater than that of the Honored Matres, and forms another bold plan. The captive Honored Matre Murbella, who has been assimilated into the Bene Gesserit and gained the full powers of a Reverend Mother, defeats the leader of the Honored Matres in combat and thus becomes Great Honored Matre. She immediately succeeds Odrade as Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit, joining the two forces under a single leader in an uneasy truce that is hoped will be able to defeat the unknown enemy.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Hunters of Dune", the 2006 continuation of the series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Murbella adopts the new title of Mother Commander and struggles to bring the opposing factions of her New Sisterhood together. Among the Bene Gesserit, some are willing to accept the merger with the Honored Matres, while others oppose allying with their enemies; a group of dissenters led by Reverend Mother Sheeana had previously fled Chapterhouse aboard a no-ship upon Murbella's ascension to leadership. Within the Honored Matres, many admire Murbella's strength and abilities and desire Bene Gesserit training, but resist assimilation. Additionally, a number of Honored Matres refuse to acknowledge Murbella as their leader; the largest such rebel group is led by Matre Superior Hellica on Tleilax. As Murbella amasses weaponry for the coming battle with the unknown enemy, she trains an elite force of commando troops with the combined battle talents of Bene Gesserit, Honored Matres, and even the Swordmasters of Ginaz. These "Valkyries" are able to effect Hellica's defeat, galvanizing many dissenters into finally joining Murbella's cause against the unknown enemy, now revealed to be the resurrected thinking machines thought destroyed 15,000 years before. In the 2007 sequel, "Sandworms of Dune", the thinking machines have unleashed decimating viruses on planet after planet, while Face Dancers infiltrate human civilization in their own insidious plot to take over the universe. The New Sisterhood's fleet of warships succumbs to Face Dancer sabotage, but is saved from thinking machine attack by a host of Guild Navigators in heighliners, brought together by the Oracle of Time, Norma Cenva. Thinking machine leader Omnius is wiped out of existence by the Oracle, and the Face Dancer threat eliminated. As Murbella joins Duncan Idaho in his plan to rule a universe in which humanity and thinking machines co-exist, Sheeana introduces sandworms to the former thinking machine planet Synchrony, where she will found an orthodox Sisterhood.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In the "Legends of Dune" prequel trilogy (2002–2004) by Brian Herbert and Anderson it is revealed that the Sorceresses of Rossak, who possess destructive telekinetic powers existing only in women and have a breeding plan to create more powerful telepaths, had been the predecessors of the Bene Gesserit. As a Sorceress is always killed when she unleashes her full power, they sacrifice themselves to destroy some of the Titans and Neo-Cymeks during the Butlerian Jihad, over 10,000 years before the events in "Dune". Later, they expand their genetic program to preserve human bloodlines when humanity is endangered by a widespread plague called the "Demon Scourge", genetically engineered and unleashed by the thinking machines. Raquella Berto-Anirul becomes their leader after surviving a poisoning attempt by being the first to internally render the toxin harmless. The ordeal also makes Raquella the first to access Other Memory and use the power of Voice; she later establishes the Bene Gesserit, instituting a similar ritualized poisoning to unlock the same abilities in others.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Sisterhood of Dune" (2012), 80 years have passed since the end of the Butlerian Jihad, and an aging Raquella remains the only Sister to have survived the Agony. Ambitious young Valya Harkonnen has hopes of using her Bene Gesserit training to complete her family's vendetta against Vorian Atreides and his entire bloodline. Valya is one of the Sisters trusted with the records of Raquella's breeding program, which are maintained by a secret cache of forbidden computers, concealed in a cave outside the Sisterhood School on Rossak. Raquella's granddaughter Dorotea undergoes the Agony and becomes a Reverend Mother, discovering the truth about her parentage and the existence of computers. As a devout anti-technology Butlerian, she assists Emperor Salvador Corrino in his raid on the Rossak school. Salvador has several dozen Sisters executed and disbands the Sisterhood, except for Dorotea's Orthodox followers, who return to the Imperial capital on Salusa Secundus to serve as court Truthsayers.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Raquella has reestablished her school on Wallach IX in "Mentats of Dune" (2014), thanks to the help of industrialist Josef Venport. Valya, now a Reverend Mother, retrieves the hidden computers from Rossak and hopes to succeed the declining Raquella as Mother Superior. Raquella believes that the only hope for the Sisterhood to survive is for the Wallach IX sisters to reconcile with Dorotea's faction on Salusa Secundus; her health failing, she summons Dorotea to the School and forces Dorotea and Valya to put their differences aside and agree to work together for the good of the Sisterhood. Naming them co-leaders, Raquella dies; Valya however, still bitter about Dorotea's betrayal, uses her newly discovered power of Voice to force Dorotea to commit suicide. Valya declares herself to be the sole Mother Superior, and ingratiates herself to the new Emperor, Roderick Corrino.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The ultimate goal of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, up to the end of the novel "Dune", is the creation of a male Bene Gesserit they call the Kwisatz Haderach (). They intend to achieve this superbeing through a massive human breeding program, which they have conducted for countless generations; using careful manipulations of relationships and breeding sisters to "collect" key genes, the Bene Gesserit have controlled and finessed bloodlines through the ages. Also called "the one who can be two places simultaneously" or "the one who can be many places at once", the Kwisatz Haderach (defined by Herbert as "The Shortening of the Way"), with mental powers that would bridge space and time and access to both male and female lines in Other Memory, will be an overt figure in the Bene Gesserit's manipulations, thrust upon the universe as a messiah.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Dune", the Bene Gesserit breeding scheme is, in theory, to have come to full fruition from the union of an Atreides daughter (planned to be born of the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica and the Duke Leto Atreides) and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, nephew of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (himself secretly the natural father of the Lady Jessica). This plan is disrupted when Jessica chooses to conceive an Atreides son rather than the daughter she had been ordered to produce. This son, Paul Atreides, later proves to be the Kwisatz Haderach, born a generation early. Political intrigue results in Paul's rise to power as Emperor of the Known Universe, secured by his stranglehold on the melange supply. A decade later, in "Dune Messiah", the Bene Gesserit are frustrated to be at the mercy of their own creation, but a conspiracy to remove Paul from power fails. He realizes, however, that while prescience grants knowledge, absolute control of outcomes is not possible due to interference patterns caused by their own actions. Despising the religion that has risen up around him and seeing where it will lead, Paul walks into the desert seeking death in hopes that he can change the course of the future. Paul's son Leto II is also a Kwisatz Haderach; seeing the same future, Leto decides to do what his father could not. He takes control of both the empire and the Bene Gesserit breeding program in "Children of Dune", and begins his own transformation into a human-sandworm hybrid to give himself the time he needs for his Golden Path to be fully realized. Thirty-five hundred years later, his breeding plan produces Siona Atreides, the first in a line of humans who are able to disappear from prescient sight, and Leto allows himself to be assassinated. After 1,500 more years (as chronicled in "Heretics of Dune" and "Chapterhouse Dune"), the Bene Gesserit have restored their breeding program. However, they are too terrified of the consequences of producing another Kwisatz Haderach, so instead breed for special individuals of great talent and usefulness in order to amplify certain human characteristics and preserve them. Now aware of Leto's Golden Path, the Bene Gesserit widen their goals of advancing humanity and saving it from extinction.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The behind-the-scenes intrigues of the breeding program are illuminated in the "Prelude to Dune" prequel trilogy (1999–2001) as the program nears fruition in the time immediately prior to the novel "Dune". The origins of the program are explored in the "Legends of Dune" prequel series. Over 10,000 years before the events of "Dune", the Sorceresses of Rossak had started keeping detailed breeding records circa 400 B.G., trying to improve the potency and prevalence of their telekinetic powers. In 108 B.G., the Sorceresses begin collecting genetic samples of various human bloodlines, which were in jeopardy from a catastrophic virus genetically engineered and unleashed by the thinking machines.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Sandworms of Dune" (2007), written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, Duncan Idaho is revealed to be the final Kwisatz Haderach destined to bring together humans and thinking machines. While he is not a product of a breeding program, his multiple rebirths and deaths as a ghola throughout the series had given him the opportunity to gain experience and develop himself as no other human could.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit choose to use indirect methodologies to further their goals, rather than wield overt power themselves. They have noted the Taoist principle that whatever rises must fall; and so rather than taking direct control of the human race, they instead manipulate the social and political order with subtlety and insinuation, often using extraordinarily long-term stratagems spanning generations. The Bene Gesserit avoid appearing too rich or powerful, or revealing the extent of their powers, to prevent being seen as overtly responsible for the rise and fall of governments and empires, and to avoid any organized backlash. To this end, the Bene Gesserit provide some of their trained initiates as wives and concubines, and will train the daughters of noble families for a fee.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Dune", Padishah Emperor of the known universe Shaddam IV keeps the wise but calculating Bene Gesserit Truthsayer Mohiam by his side at all times. The Emperor's deceased wife, Anirul, had been a "Bene Gesserit of Hidden Rank", and Herbert notes that every one of their five daughters is Bene Gesserit-trained. In fact, Shaddam is kept without a male heir on specific orders from the Sisterhood, and is bound by an agreement that only a daughter will ascend his throne. The Bene Gesserit had also placed their acolyte Jessica (herself the product of a secret Bene Gesserit liaison with the Baron Harkonnen) as the concubine to Duke Leto Atreides, and married the Bene Gesserit Margot to Shaddam's close friend and minion Count Fenring. After Shaddam's eldest daughter Princess Irulan is forced into marriage to Paul to secure his claim to the Imperial throne, in "Children of Dune" Irulan's loyalty to the Sisterhood gives them false hope that she can help them topple Paul, or at least control his offspring. Later in "God Emperor of Dune", Herbert establishes that despite Leto's many restrictions on them, the Bene Gesserit still train young noblewomen for a price. In fact, when Leto meets Hwi Noree, the Ixian ambassador obviously bred and trained to charm him, he realizes "that part of her education had been conducted by the Bene Gesserit. She had their way of controlling her responses, of sensing the undertones in a conversation. He could see, however, that the Bene Gesserit overlay had been a delicate thing, never penetrating the basic sweetness of her nature."


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit practice "religious engineering" through the Missionaria Protectiva, which spreads "infectious superstitions on primitive worlds, thus opening those regions to exploitation by the Bene Gesserit". Collectively known as Panoplia Prophetica, these myths, prophecies, and superstitions provide the opportunity for a Bene Gesserit to later cast herself as a guide, protector, or some other figure in fulfillment of a prophecy in order to manipulate the religious subjects for protection or other purposes. These myths also exploit religion as a powerful force in human society; by controlling the particulars of religion, the Bene Gesserit have a manipulative lever on society in general. The Bene Gesserit also employ the Missionaria Protectiva to prepare the Empire for its Kwisatz Haderach.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Dune", Jessica and Paul take refuge among the Fremen after the attack on House Atreides. With his mother's guidance, Paul is able to make use of the planted myths by claiming to be the "mahdi", a messianic figure from legendary material planted among the Fremen by the Missionaria Protectiva. That the mahdi legend has been planted on Dune indicates to Jessica that conditions on Dune are truly awful, since this legend is reserved for only the harshest environments where a Bene Gesserit would need the maximum advantage over surrounding influences. Paul's meteoric rise to power is greatly facilitated by his association with the mahdi legend. Later, in "Heretics of Dune", the Bene Gesserit plan to use Reverend Mother Sheeana's ability to control the great sandworms to build her into a religious figure around whom they can fashion a mass devoted following, uniting many factions in the universe under the Bene Gesserit and against the forces of the Scattering.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The spice agony is an ordeal in which an acolyte of the Bene Gesserit takes a poisonous "awareness spectrum" narcotic and, by internally changing the substance and neutralizing its toxicity, gains access to Other Memory, the combined ego and memories of all her female ancestors. In "Dune", Lady Jessica notes that the ritual originated with the "discovery of the poison drug on Rossak". On Arrakis, the Fremen Reverend Mothers use a poison called Water of Life, which is the exhalation of a drowning "little maker" (small sandworm) in water. In the Fremen version of the rite, after the ordeal the Reverend Mother also provides the changed poison for the sietch orgy.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: An acolyte unable to effect this change dies. Only women have ever survived the agony, but through their breeding program the Bene Gesserit seek the male Kwisatz Haderach who will be able to change an illuminating poison. The Bene Gesserit try over many generations through selective breeding to produce such a being. A Kwisatz Haderach is given abilities different from those of a Reverend Mother. During the spice agony, there are two areas of the soul that the acolyte may visit — the part that gives, and the part that takes; a Reverend Mother cannot access the memories of her male ancestors, and is terrified by the psychic space within her that the masculine memories inhabit. Until Paul Atreides, all men who had attempted the spice agony had died.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Dune", Jessica endures the agony while pregnant with her daughter, Alia. This has a profound effect on the unborn Alia, who is consequently born a full Reverend Mother with the complete Other Memory of both her female and male ancestors. The Bene Gesserit refer to children born this way as "Abominations". Without the benefit of a fully formed adult ego of her own, Alia is susceptible to the influence of her ancestral memories. This ultimately leads to her downfall, as she is eventually possessed by the persona of her evil grandfather Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, whom she herself had murdered as a child in the events of "Dune".


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The origin of the ritual is explained in the prequel novel "" (2004) when Raquella Berto-Anirul is poisoned by Rossak Sorceress Ticia Cenva with the Rossak Drug. Raquella manages to internally convert the poison into a harmless substance and is thus the first to experience the awakening of Other Memory. Raquella later establishes the Bene Gesserit, presumably perfecting the technique and training others to survive the ordeal.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: One of the 'powers' of a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother is her Other Memory: the combined ego and memories of all her female ancestors, passed on through genetic memory, and thus, up to the point where each following ancestor was born and the physical contact with the mother broken. The ego/memory combination remains a distinct identity within the Reverend Mother's mind, and is able to inject itself into her awareness at appropriate or emotional moments, though the Reverend Mother's ego is always dominant. The prequel novel "Dune: The Battle of Corrin" by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson establishes that the first Bene Gesserit to access Other Memory had been Raquella Berto-Anirul, the founder of the order.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: A Reverend Mother has access only to her female lineage in Other Memory; her male line is unavailable to her, present as a dark void that terrifies her. Until the time of "God Emperor of Dune", the purpose of the Bene Gesserit breeding scheme is to breed a Kwisatz Haderach, a male with Other Memory who can see both lines, male and female. Male memory will be complete until moment of conception, when physical contact with the father is lost.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Reverend Mothers may also pass their own ego/memory combination to other Reverend Mothers at will, merely by touching foreheads. When a Reverend Mother dies in the presence of another Reverend Mother, the second will accept the ego/memory of the first to prevent the loss of the dying Reverend Mother's experience and ancestral memories. Especially when the Mother Superior perishes, it is important to take her ego/memory so that her plans and strategies may continue uninterrupted. This is first explored in "Dune", when Jessica accepts the life experience of the dying Fremen Reverend Mother Ramallo. In "Chapterhouse Dune", Darwi Odrade is Mother Superior, a contentious choice ratified by the fact that she was present at the previous Mother Superior's death, and has her in Other Memory; she represents the most continuous line of leadership. Under extreme conditions, a large community of Bene Gesserit will practice "Extremis Progressiva", a mass sharing of ego/memories with each other to spread all the ego/memories amongst everyone; thus, if one survives, they all survive. In "Chapterhouse Dune", the Bene Gesserit school on Lampadas, under attack by the Honored Matres, undertakes "Extremis Progressiva"; Lucilla escapes with the "Lampadas Horde", hoping to return to the Bene Gesserit with them.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's son and biographer, explains that the concept of Other Memory is "largely based upon the writings and teachings of Carl Gustav Jung, who spoke of a 'collective unconscious', that supposedly inborn set of 'contents and modes of behavior' possessed by all human beings". Frank Herbert was introduced to Jung's work by two Jungian psychologists, Ralph and Irene Slattery, and Jung's teachings ultimately had "a profound and continuing influence on [Herbert's] work".


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Bene Gesserit are trained in what they call "the Voice" a means "to control others merely by selected tone shadings of the voice". By modulating the subtleties of her voice, a Bene Gesserit can issue commands on a subconscious level, compelling obedience in others that they cannot resist, whether they are consciously aware of the attempt or not. This control can be as subtle as influencing thoughts and motivations, or as strong as forcing physical actions and even temporary paralysis in the subject. To affect this, the Bene Gesserit must "register" the intended target by analyzing his or her personality and vocal patterns through observation or seemingly innocuous direct questions. Training in the Voice is independent of the Reverend Mother ritual, so individuals outside the order may even be instructed in its use. Prior to "Dune", Jessica has begun teaching it to Paul; after the Reverend Mother Mohiam tests him in the novel, she urges Jessica to "ignore the regular order of training. His own safety requires the Voice. He already has a good start in it, but we both know how much more he needs ... and that desperately." Jessica herself later notes of Paul's novice attempt: "The tone, the timbre excellent – imperative, very sharp. A slightly lower pitch would have been better, but it could still fall within this man's spectrum." The Voice may also be subtly employed in any manner of conversation, public speaking, or debate to help soothe, convince, persuade, influence, or otherwise enhance the effect of the words being spoken.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Voice is useless against targets who cannot hear the speaker; both Baron Harkonnen in "Dune" and House Corrino in "Children of Dune" employ deaf people to guard Jessica, knowing that she cannot control them via the Voice. Being a manipulation of the target's subconscious mind, the Voice is of limited utility against an extremely disciplined mind, such as a Reverend Mother or a strong Mentat; if the target understands what the Voice is and how it works, and is aware that it is being used, he may resist it. One trained in the use of the Voice may easily detect its use by others, even subtly. In "Dune Messiah", Paul trains some guards to resist the Voice so that he may imprison Bene Gesserit. By the time of "Children of Dune", Gurney Halleck has also been trained by Jessica to resist the Voice completely.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Heretics of Dune", Reverend Mother Odrade explains to Sheeana that planetary populations exposed to long term Voice control learn ways to adapt to it, and can no longer be manipulated. This is why the Honored Matres have been driven back into the Old Empire; over-controlling, they have built up both resistance and rebellion, and are now on the run from their former subjects.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The prequel "Dune: The Battle of Corrin" establishes that the first Bene Gesserit to use the Voice is Raquella Berto-Anirul, the founder of the order.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Bene Gesserit are trained in "the minutiae of observation", noticing details that the common person would miss in the people and environment around them. When combined with their analytical abilities, this "hyperawareness" makes the Bene Gesserit capable of divining secrets and arriving at conclusions that are invisible to everyone else. Slight differences in air currents or the design of a room might allow a Bene Gesserit to detect hidden portals and spyholes; minute variations in a person's vocal inflection and body language allow a Bene Gesserit to deeply understand a person's emotional state, and manipulate it. Knowing that any schooling impresses a particular pattern in its students, they are able to use these clues to predict and anticipate actions. Despite efforts of concealment, the Bene Gesserit can easily determine a subject's origins and root language by analyzing their speech patterns, cadence, and pacing, as Jessica does when she realizes that a visiting Spacing Guild banker is a Harkonnen agent.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Bene Gesserit specifically trained as Truthsayers are able to determine whether someone is lying by analyzing their speech, body language, and physical signs like pulse and heart rate. In principle all humans have such perception, but extensive training is required to develop this latent talent to the point of great usefulness. Truthsayers are used widely in politics and trade; the Padishah Emperors are never without one. Combined with the Voice, Truthsay is also useful for interrogation and torture.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Bene Gesserit also have the ability to practice "simulflow", literally the simultaneous flow of several threads of consciousness at any given time; mental multitasking, as it were. The combination of simulflow with their analytical abilities and Other Memory are responsible for the frightening intelligence of the average Bene Gesserit, though this ability is less powerful than the analytical abilities of a Mentat. This simulflow can also be held with Other Memory; Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade practiced both forms in "Heretics of Dune".


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit develop their physical abilities as well as their mental abilities. A trained Sister has full control over each muscle in her body through training known as prana-bindu. This allows her to bend the last joint in her little toe while remaining otherwise motionless, bend and contort her body in ways that most would consider impossible, or put a remarkable amount of force behind a physical blow. The mental part of "prana-bindu", or "prana-nervature" ("prana" stands for breath, "bindu" stands for musculature) is the precise control of the totality of nerves in the human body. In "Dune", Reverend Mother Mohiam tests Paul with a nerve induction device ("the box") that causes the sensation of intense pain. Paul learns that he is not the only one to have tried it, but is perhaps specially resistant; this conversation points to a widespread use of it as a tool among the Bene Gesserit to measure self control, nerve control, and as Mohiam puts it, crisis and observation.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Unarmed attacks are part of a specialized Bene Gesserit martial art which incorporates the "prana-bindu" methods of optimized muscle control. These enable one to deliver powerful blows and to move with extreme precision and speed. The basic principle behind it is that, as Farad'n of House Corrino says, "My mind affects my reality." A practitioner of the art has to know that the action he or she "wants" to perform has already been performed. For example, to imagine oneself behind an opponent at the current moment in time; when trained well, this knowledge will place you at the spot desired. To anyone witnessing, it almost appears as though the combatant has teleported.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Fremen refer to this fighting ability as the "weirding way". In "Dune", the Fremen use the word "weirding" instead of "Bene Gesserit", calling Jessica a "weirding woman" and noting "he has the weirding voice" when Paul wields this power.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Just as the "prana-bindu" allows the Bene Gesserit to precisely control each muscle and nerve, they also have complete conscious control over the functions of their internal organs and body chemistry. A Sister can completely control her breathing and heart rate to the degree that she can appear dead to most tests even after intense physical exertion. They can control their need for food and water to the extremes of hunger and thirst, and even commit suicide at will by simply stopping their hearts or shutting down their brains. The Bene Gesserit are therefore immune to poisons, as they can simply change the chemical makeup of any harmful substance in their body and render it harmless. It is hinted that should a Bene Gesserit wish to, she could slow her aging process dramatically, controlling every aspect of her metabolism. It is suggested that a Sister would never attempt this, as it might call attention to the Sisterhood and reveal too much of their abilities. In "Children of Dune", Jessica realizes that her daughter Alia has done this, which is her first sign that her daughter is sinking into Abomination.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: One of the most significant biological abilities of the Bene Gesserit is their control of their own menstrual cycles, and their ability to control (at conception) their child's sex. Jessica was ordered to bear only daughters to the Atreides, but defied her Bene Gesserit sisters (out of her love for the Duke) and had a son, Paul Atreides. The Bene Gesserit conspired against the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV's desire to have a male heir and instructed his Bene Gesserit wife to give him only daughters, such as Princess Irulan.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit are notable for their extensive skill in seduction, sex and sexual imprinting. The most talented and most highly trained are known as Imprinters. Men in a position of power or future power, or those with specific qualities that the order wishes to incorporate into their breeding program, are typical targets of a Bene Gesserit imprinter. Men seduced by an imprinter are permanently affected (imprinted) by the intense sexual experience and are thereafter consciously or subconsciously favorable to the Sisterhood. An imprinter can be successfully resisted if the subject has been psychologically pre-conditioned to do so, and the subject's automatic defensive response may even be entirely subconscious.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Dune", Lady Fenring is instructed by the Bene Gesserit to seduce Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen in order to "preserve the bloodline" by retrieving his genetic material through conception. She also intends to "plant deep in his deepest self the necessary prana-bindu phrases to bend him", which she later refers to as the "Hypno-ligation of that Feyd-Rautha's psyche". When Paul later fights Feyd to the death, Jessica advises her son to temporarily stun him using the word-sound "Uroshnor", typically implanted in a dangerous person who has been prepared by the Bene Gesserit. Paul, however, refuses to use this advantage.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Heretics of Dune", Reverend Mother and Imprinter Lucilla is charged with the seduction-imprinting of the Duncan Idaho ghola so that the Sisterhood may assert some control over him; he ultimately avoids her. Lucilla also mentions the hundreds of sexual positions and variations she knows. In "Heretics", the Honored Matres have themselves refined this ability to such an intense level that the targeted male becomes completely enslaved. The captured Honored Matre Murbella attempts this on Duncan; his own imprinting ability, secretly conditioned into him by his Tleilaxu creators, suddenly manifests itself. Murbella and Duncan basically imprint each other, neither having complete control over the other. In "Chapterhouse Dune" the order has learned the Honored Matre method from Murbella and use it for their own purposes, specifically to awaken the memories within the Miles Teg ghola.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Reverend Mothers are dependent on melange to give them their abilities. Any person who consumes melange regularly becomes addicted to it and requires it for survival; however, one who has gone through the agony has a far greater need. Though the effects of melange are highly favorable, including vastly increased lifespan and mental powers, withdrawal results in death. Melange is expensive and thus is a continual drain on the Sisterhood's wealth; the most significant threat to the Bene Gesserit is the potential loss of their supply. Paul Atreides and then his son Leto II assert control over the Bene Gesserit and keep them in check by grasping control of the planet Arrakis and the spice supply in a show of hydraulic despotism.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: A Bene Gesserit who survives the ritual spice agony gains access to Other Memory, the combined ego and memories of all her female ancestors. An adult Reverend Mother can manage the presence of these subordinate inner voices because she has a full personality of her own and a solid sense of self. However, if a Bene Gesserit undergoes the agony while pregnant, the fetus will also experience it, acquiring full consciousness and access to Other Memory. Since the child has not yet developed a sufficiently strong ego before being exposed to her tide of ancestors, she is more susceptible to their influence, and there is a danger that she will ultimately be overcome and possessed by a strong ancestral ego. The Bene Gesserit call this "Abomination", and such children are killed immediately. They are also referred to as "pre-born" in "Children of Dune".


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Dune", Lady Jessica is pregnant when she undergoes the spice agony while among the Fremen; her resulting daughter, Alia, is born a full Reverend Mother, the mind of an adult in a child's body. She pretends to be a child, but others notice that she is different. The Bene Gesserit are eventually outraged and horrified by Alia's existence, but she is out of their control. Mohiam says, "I've said too much, but the fact remains that this child who is not a child must be destroyed. Long were we warned against such a one and how to prevent such a birth, but one of our own has betrayed us." In "Children of Dune", an adult Alia eventually succumbs to the ancestral ego of her grandfather, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who wants nothing more than the destruction of the Atreides, and is given another opportunity, from the inside, to realize it.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Paul Atreides and Chani's twins, Leto II and Ghanima, are also pre-born, but before they become possessed, they stumble across solutions: Leto, forced to undergo a radical spice agony, constructs an executive of benevolent ancestral egos (such as Paul and Paul's father Leto I) who protect him; Ghanima, as part of their plan to fake Leto's death, consciously blocks the memory of Leto and their plan, inadvertently developing a mental discipline capable of protecting her undeveloped ego. She also uses the ego of her mother, Chani, as a "door guard" of her other alter egos, only "peeking behind the door" when she needs advice from Other Memory.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The litany against fear is an incantation used by the Bene Gesserit throughout the series to focus their minds and calm themselves in times of peril. The litany is as follows:


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Lady Jessica teaches it to her son Paul, who uses it in "Dune" when faced with Mohiam's test of his ability to withstand excruciating pain. The litany is shortened in David Lynch's 1984 film.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's son and biographer, said of his father's creation of the Bene Gesserit:


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Mycelium Running", mycologist Paul Stamets argues that Herbert was influenced by tales of María Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico in creating the Bene Gesserit.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: In "Dreamer of Dune", Brian Herbert's 2003 biography of his father, the younger Herbert speculates that the name "Gesserit" is supposed to suggest to the reader the word "Jesuit" and thus evoke undertones of a religious order.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The clause "quamdiu se bene gesserint", which means "as long as she shall behave herself well," is found in grants of judicial and other offices in the United Kingdom. It has been interpreted as meaning that the office holder cannot be removed from their post, even by the sovereign, unless they are guilty of abusing their office.


title: Bene Gesserit

text: The Bene Gesserit appear in all of the "Dune" adaptations to date, including David Lynch's film "Dune" (1984), the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel TV miniseries "Frank Herbert's Dune", its 2003 sequel, "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune", and Denis Villeneuve's film "Dune" (2021). A prequel series called "", centered on the Bene Gesserit, is in development for HBO Max.


title: The Gift of the Magi

text: "The Gift of the Magi" is a short story by O. Henry first published in 1905. The story tells of a young husband and wife and how they deal with the challenge of buying secret Christmas gifts for each other with very little money. As a sentimental story with a moral lesson about gift-giving, it has been popular for adaptation, especially for presentation at Christmas time. The plot and its twist ending are well known; the ending is generally considered an example of comic irony. The story was allegedly written at Pete's Tavern on Irving Place in New York City.


title: The Gift of the Magi

text: The story was initially published in "The New York Sunday World" under the title "Gifts of the Magi" on December 10, 1905. It was first published in book form in the O. Henry anthology "The Four Million" in April 1906.


title: The Gift of the Magi

text: On Christmas Eve, Della Young discovers that she has only $1.87 (equivalent to about $62 in 2022) to buy a present for her husband Jim. She visits the nearby shop of a hairdresser, Madame Sofronie, who buys Della's long hair for $20 (about $ in ). Della then uses the money to buy a platinum pocket watch chain for Jim. When Jim comes home from work that evening, Della admits to him that she sold her hair to buy him the chain. Jim gives Della her present – a set of ornamental combs, which she will be unable to use until her hair grows back out. Della gives Jim the watch chain, and he tells her that he sold the watch to buy the combs. While the gifts that Jim and Della gave each other cannot be used, they know how far they went to show each other their love and how invaluable their love truly is. The story ends with the narrator comparing these sacrificial gifts of love with those of the biblical Magi.


title: Retta

text: Marietta Sirleaf, known professionally as Retta, is an American stand-up comedian and actress. She is best known for her roles of Donna Meagle on NBC's "Parks and Recreation" and Ruby Hill on NBC's "Good Girls". She has appeared in several films and television shows, and has performed stand-up on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend".


title: Retta

text: Retta was born in Newark, New Jersey. She is of Liberian descent. She grew up around New Jersey, specifically in Edison and Cliffwood Beach.


title: Retta

text: In 1988, Retta graduated from Matawan Regional High School in Aberdeen Township, New Jersey. In 1992, Retta graduated from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she was pre-med and graduated with a degree in sociology.


title: Retta

text: Retta was raised as a member of the New Apostolic Church. In the youth group of her church, her ability to make others laugh was a major talent. When Retta competed in her first TV comedy contest, members from all over the world from the New Apostolic Church voted for her. This contributed to her winning the contest and helped to further her career. In that contest she mentioned her faith and spiritual upbringing.


title: Retta

text: After graduating from Duke, Retta worked as a chemist. In her spare time, she did stand-up at Charlie Goodnights Comedy Club in Raleigh, North Carolina. Eventually, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in comedy. Retta said on "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" that when she started performing stand-up comedy, she decided to call herself Retta rather than explain her name. She started doing standup in 1996, although she said she did not start "earning money" until 1998, when she began touring on the college circuit. Retta said she used to get "really nauseated" before a performance, but that the feeling passed with experience. Retta has said her stand-up material tends to be slightly embellished stories from her regular everyday life, family, and friends.


title: Retta

text: Retta has served as the opening act for such comedians as Shirley Hemphill and Bobby Collins. She has made television appearances on Bravo's "Welcome to the Parker", E! Entertainment Television's "The Soup", "Freddie", "Moesha", "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", the "Comedy Divas Showcase" segment of "The Jenny Jones Show", Retta has performed on "Premium Blend", a Comedy Central show featuring up-and-coming comedians.


title: Retta

text: In 2009, Retta started making regular guest appearances on the NBC comedy series "Parks and Recreation" as Donna Meagle, an employee in the Parks Department of the fictional town, Pawnee, Indiana. During a stand-up performance at the University of Illinois at Springfield, Retta said the acting job on the show was stressful because it was unclear how long the show would stay on the air, due to the poor reviews it received during the first season. Alan Sepinwall, a television columnist with "The Star-Ledger", said season 2 episodes of "Parks and Recreation" afforded more personality and funnier jokes to Donna and other minor characters. She was upgraded to a full-time regular cast member in the third season.


title: Retta

text: Retta also hosted the 3rd Critics' Choice Television Awards in 2013. In 2014, she appeared on "Hollywood Game Night" as a contestant along with the other celebrities Paget Brewster, Michael Chiklis, Mario Lopez, Thomas Lennon, and Alyssa Milano.


title: Retta

text: In 2015, Retta was one of the audiobook narrators for "Welcome to Night Vale", a novel tie-in to the eponymous podcast series in which she is the voice of Old Woman Josie. The same year she appeared in season 2 of Bravo's "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce".


title: Retta

text: In 2018, Retta co-starred in the NBC series, "Good Girls", opposite Christina Hendricks and Mae Whitman.


title: Retta

text: In 2018, Retta published a series of essays in a book called "So Close to Being the Sh*t, Y'all Don't Even Know." Where she talks about her journey with weight loss with "bestie" and the joys and adventures of being in the "Hollywood Scene!"


title: Retta

text: On "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!", she said she dated a man from Georgia who nicknamed her Retta because that was what the name Marietta sounded like where he came from.


title: Retta

text: Retta is a fan of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team, and presented awards at the NHL award ceremonies in Las Vegas, in 2014 and 2015.


title: Opiliones

text: The Opiliones (formerly Phalangida) are an order of arachnids colloquially known as harvestmen, harvesters, harvest spiders, or daddy longlegs. , over 6,650 species of harvestmen have been discovered worldwide, although the total number of extant species may exceed 10,000. The order Opiliones includes five suborders: Cyphophthalmi, Eupnoi, Dyspnoi, Laniatores, and Tetrophthalmi, which were named in 2014.


title: Opiliones

text: Well-preserved fossils have been found in the 400-million-year-old Rhynie cherts of Scotland, and 305-million-year-old rocks in France. These fossils look surprisingly modern, indicating that their basic body shape developed very early on, and, at least in some taxa, has changed little since that time.


title: Opiliones

text: Their phylogenetic position within the Arachnida is disputed; their closest relatives may be the mites (Acari) or the Novogenuata (the Scorpiones, Pseudoscorpiones, and Solifugae). Although superficially similar to and often misidentified as spiders (order Araneae), the Opiliones are a distinct order that is not closely related to spiders. They can be easily distinguished from long-legged spiders by their fused body regions and single pair of eyes in the middle of the cephalothorax. Spiders have a distinct abdomen that is separated from the cephalothorax by a constriction, and they have three to four pairs of eyes, usually around the margins of the cephalothorax.


title: Opiliones

text: English speakers may colloquially refer to species of Opiliones as "daddy longlegs" or "granddaddy longlegs", but this name is also used for two other distantly related groups of arthropods, the crane flies of the family Tipulidae, and the cellar spiders of the family Pholcidae, most likely because of their similar appearance. Harvestmen are also referred to as "shepherd spiders" in reference to how their unusually long legs reminded observers of the ways that some European shepherds used stilts to better observe their wandering flocks from a distance.


title: Opiliones

text: The Opiliones are known for having exceptionally long legs relative to their body size; however, some species are short-legged. As in all Arachnida, the body in the Opiliones has two tagmata, the anterior cephalothorax or prosoma, and the posterior 10-segmented abdomen or opisthosoma. The most easily discernible difference between harvestmen and spiders is that in harvestmen, the connection between the cephalothorax and abdomen is broad, so that the body appears to be a single oval structure. Other differences include the fact that Opiliones have no venom glands in their chelicerae, so pose no danger to humans.


title: Opiliones

text: They also have no silk glands and therefore do not build webs. In some highly derived species, the first five abdominal segments are fused into a dorsal shield called the scutum, which in most such species is fused with the carapace. Some such Opiliones only have this shield in the males. In some species, the two posterior abdominal segments are reduced. Some of them are divided medially on the surface to form two plates beside each other. The second pair of legs is longer than the others and function as antennae or feelers. In short-legged species, this may not be obvious.


title: Opiliones

text: The feeding apparatus (stomotheca) differs from most arachnids in that Opiliones can swallow chunks of solid food, not only liquids. The stomotheca is formed by extensions of the coxae of the pedipalps and the first pair of legs.


title: Opiliones

text: Most Opiliones, except for Cyphophthalmi, have a single pair of eyes in the middle of the head, oriented sideways. Eyes in Cyphophthalmi, when present, are located laterally, near the ozopores. A 305-million-year-old fossilized harvestman with two pairs of eyes was reported in 2014. This find indicates that the eyes in Cyphophthalmi are not homologous to the eyes of other harvestmen. However, some species are eyeless, such as the Brazilian "Caecobunus termitarum" (Grassatores) from termite nests, "Giupponia chagasi" (Gonyleptidae) from caves, most species of Cyphophthalmi, and all species of the Guasiniidae.


title: Opiliones

text: Harvestmen have a pair of prosomatic defensive scent glands (ozopores) that secrete a peculiar-smelling fluid when disturbed. In some species, the fluid contains noxious quinones. They do not have book lungs, and breathe through tracheae. A pair of spiracles is located between the base of the fourth pair of legs and the abdomen, with one opening on each side. In more active species, spiracles are also found upon the tibia of the legs. They have a gonopore on the ventral cephalothorax, and the copulation is direct as male Opiliones have a penis, unlike other arachnids. All species lay eggs.


title: Opiliones

text: Typical body length does not exceed , and some species are smaller than 1 mm, although the largest known species, "Trogulus torosus" (Trogulidae), grows as long as . The leg span of many species is much greater than the body length and sometimes exceeds and to in Southeast Asia. Most species live for a year.


title: Opiliones

text: Many species are omnivorous, eating primarily small insects and all kinds of plant material and fungi. Some are scavengers, feeding upon dead organisms, bird dung, and other fecal material. Such a broad range is unusual in arachnids, which are typically pure predators. Most hunting harvestmen ambush their prey, although active hunting is also found. Because their eyes cannot form images, they use their second pair of legs as antennae to explore their environment. Unlike most other arachnids, harvestmen do not have a sucking stomach or a filtering mechanism. Rather, they ingest small particles of their food, thus making them vulnerable to internal parasites such as gregarines.


title: Opiliones

text: Although parthenogenetic species do occur, most harvestmen reproduce sexually. Mating involves direct copulation, rather than the deposition of a spermatophore. The males of some species offer a secretion (nuptial gift) from their chelicerae to the female before copulation. Sometimes, the male guards the female after copulation, and in many species, the males defend territories. In some species, males also exhibit post-copulatory behavior in which the male specifically seeks out and shakes the female's sensory leg. This is believed to entice the female into mating a second time.


title: Opiliones

text: The females lay eggs from an ovipositor shortly after mating to several months later. Some species build nests for this purpose. A unique feature of harvestmen is that some species practice parental care, in which the male is solely responsible for guarding the eggs resulting from multiple partners, often against egg-eating females, and cleaning the eggs regularly. Depending on circumstances such as temperature, the eggs may hatch at any time after the first 20 days, up to about half a year after being laid. Harvestmen variously pass through four to eight nymphal instars to reach maturity, with most known species having six instars.


title: Opiliones

text: Most species are nocturnal and colored in hues of brown, although a number of diurnal species are known, some of which have vivid patterns in yellow, green, and black with varied reddish and blackish mottling and reticulation.


title: Opiliones

text: Many species of harvestmen easily tolerate members of their own species, with aggregations of many individuals often found at protected sites near water. These aggregations may number 200 individuals in the Laniatores, and more than 70,000 in certain Eupnoi. behavior is likely a strategy against climatic odds, but also against predators, combining the effect of scent secretions, and reducing the probability of any particular individual being eaten.


title: Opiliones

text: Predators of harvestmen include a variety of animals, including some mammals, amphibians, and other arachnids like spiders and scorpions. Opiliones display a variety of primary and secondary defenses against predation, ranging from morphological traits such as body armor to behavioral responses to chemical secretions. Some of these defenses have been attributed and restricted to specific groups of harvestmen.


title: Opiliones

text: Primary defenses help the harvestmen avoid encountering a potential predator, and include crypsis, aposematism, and mimicry.


title: Opiliones

text: Particular patterns or color markings on harvestmen's bodies can reduce detection by disrupting the animals' outlines or providing camouflage. Markings on legs can cause an interruption of the leg outline and loss of leg proportion recognition. Darker colorations and patterns function as camouflage when they remain motionless. Within the genus "Leiobunum" are multiple species with cryptic coloration that changes over ontogeny to match the microhabitat used at each life stage. Many species have also been able to camouflage their bodies by covering with secretions and debris from the leaf litter found in their environments. Some hard-bodied harvestmen have epizoic cyanobacteria and liverworts growing on their bodies that suggest potential benefits for camouflage against large backgrounds to avoid detection by diurnal predators.


title: Opiliones

text: Some harvestmen have elaborate and brightly colored patterns or appendages which contrast with the body coloration, potentially serving as an aposematic warning to potential predators. This mechanism is thought to be commonly used during daylight, when they could be easily seen by any predators.


title: Opiliones

text: Other harvestmen may exhibit mimicry to resemble other species’ appearances. Some Gonyleptidae individuals that produce translucid secretions have orange markings on their carapaces. This may have an aposematic role by mimicking the coloration of glandular emissions of two other quinone-producing species. Mimicry (Müllerian mimicry) occurring between Brazilian harvestmen that resemble others could be explained by convergent evolution.


title: Opiliones

text: Secondary defenses allow for harvestmen to escape and survive from a predator after direct or indirect contact, including thanatosis, freezing, bobbing, autotomy, fleeing, stridulation, retaliation, and chemical secretions.


title: Opiliones

text: Some animals respond to attacks by simulating an apparent death to avoid either detection or further attacks. Arachnids such as spiders practice this mechanism when threatened or even to avoid being eaten by female spiders after mating. Thanatosis is used as a second line of defense when detected by a potential predator and is commonly observed within the Dyspnoi and Laniatores suborders, with individuals becoming rigid with legs either retracted or stretched.


title: Opiliones

text: Freezing – or the complete halt of movement – has been documented in the family Sclerosomatidae. While this can mean an increased likelihood of immediate survival, it also leads to reduced food and water intake.


title: Opiliones

text: To deflect attacks and enhance escape, long-legged species – commonly known as daddy long-legs – from the Eupnoi suborder, use two mechanisms. One is bobbing, for which these particular individuals bounce their bodies. It potentially serves to confuse and deflect any identification of the exact location of their bodies. This can be a deceiving mechanism to avoid predation when they are in a large aggregation of individuals, which are all trembling at the same time. Cellar spiders (Pholcidae) that are commonly mistaken for daddy long-legs (Opiliones) also exhibit this behavior when their webs are disturbed or even during courtship.


title: Opiliones

text: Autotomy is the voluntary amputation of an appendage, and is employed to escape when restrained by a predator. Eupnoi individuals, more specifically sclerosomatid harvestmen, commonly use this strategy in response to being captured. This strategy can be costly because harvestmen do not regenerate their legs, and leg loss reduces locomotion, speed, climbing ability, sensory perception, food detection, and territoriality.


title: Opiliones

text: Autotomized legs provide a further defense from predators because they can twitch for 60 seconds to an hour after detachment. This can also potentially serve as deflection from an attack and deceive a predator from attacking the animal. It has been shown to be successful against ants and spiders.


title: Opiliones

text: The legs continue to twitch after they are detached because 'pacemakers' are located in the ends of the first long segment (femur) of their legs. These pacemakers send signals via the nerves to the muscles to extend the leg and then the leg relaxes between signals. While some harvestman's legs twitch for a minute, others have been recorded to twitch up to an hour. The twitching has been hypothesized to function as an evolutionary advantage by keeping the attention of a predator while the harvestman escapes.


title: Opiliones

text: Individuals that are able to detect potential threats can flee rapidly from attack. This is seen with multiple long-legged species in the Leiobunum clade that either drop and run, or drop and remain motionless. This is also seen when disturbing an aggregation of multiple individuals, where they all scatter.


title: Opiliones

text: Multiple species within the Laniatores and Dyspnoi possess stridulating organs, which are used as intraspecific communication and have also been shown to be used as a second line of defense when restrained by a predator.


title: Opiliones

text: Armored harvestmen in Laniatores can often use their modified morphology as weapons. Many have spines on their pedipalps, back legs, or bodies. By pinching with their chelicerae and pedipalps, they can cause harm to a potential predator. Also this has been proven to increase survival against recluse spiders by causing injury, allowing the harvestman to escape from predation.


title: Opiliones

text: Harvestmen are well known for being chemically protected. They exude strongly odored secretions from their scent glands, called ozopores, that act as a shield against predators; this is the most effective defense they use which creates a strong and unpleasant taste. In "Cyphophthalmi" the scent glands release naphthoquinones, chloro-naphthoquinones and aliphatic methyl ketones, "Insidiatores" use nitrogen-containing substances, terpenes, aliphatic ketones, and phenolics, while "Grassatores" use alkylated phenolics and benzoquinones, and "Palpatores" use substances like naphthoquinones, methyl- and ethyl-ketones, and naphthoquinones. These secretions have successfully protected the harvestmen against wandering spiders (Ctenidae), wolf spiders (Lycosidae) and "Formica exsectoides" ants. However, these chemical irritants are not able to prevent four species of harvestmen being preyed upon by the black scorpion "Bothriurus bonariensis" (Bothriuridae). These secretions contain multiple volatile compounds that vary among individuals and clades.


title: Opiliones

text: All troglobitic species (of all animal taxa) are considered to be at least threatened in Brazil. Four species of Opiliones are on the Brazilian national list of endangered species, all of them cave-dwelling: "Giupponia chagasi", "Iandumoema uai", "Pachylospeleus strinatii" and "Spaeleoleptes spaeleus".


title: Opiliones

text: Several Opiliones in Argentina appear to be vulnerable, if not endangered. These include "Pachyloidellus fulvigranulatus", which is found only on top of Cerro Uritorco, the highest peak in the Sierras Chicas chain (provincia de Cordoba) and "Pachyloides borellii" is in rainforest patches in northwest Argentina which are in an area being dramatically destroyed by humans. The cave-living "Picunchenops spelaeus" is apparently endangered through human action. So far, no harvestman has been included in any kind of a Red List in Argentina, so they receive no protection.


title: Opiliones

text: "Maiorerus randoi" has only been found in one cave in the Canary Islands. It is included in the Catálogo Nacional de especies amenazadas (National catalog of threatened species) from the Spanish government.


title: Opiliones

text: "Texella reddelli" and "Texella reyesi" are listed as endangered species in the United States. Both are from caves in central Texas. "Texella cokendolpheri" from a cave in central Texas and "Calicina minor", "Microcina edgewoodensis", "Microcina homi", "Microcina jungi", "Microcina leei", "Microcina lumi", and "Microcina tiburona" from around springs and other restricted habitats of central California are being considered for listing as endangered species, but as yet receive no protection.


title: Opiliones

text: An urban legend claims that the harvestman is the most venomous animal in the world but possesses fangs too short or a mouth too round and small to bite a human, rendering it harmless (the same myth applies to "Pholcus phalangioides" and the cranefly, which are both also called a "daddy longlegs"). This is untrue on several counts. None of the known species of harvestmen have venom glands; their chelicerae are not hollowed fangs but grasping claws that are typically very small and not strong enough to break human skin.


title: Opiliones

text: Harvestmen are a scientifically neglected group. Description of new taxa has always been dependent on the activity of a few dedicated taxonomists. Carl Friedrich Roewer described about a third (2,260) of today's known species from the 1910s to the 1950s, and published the landmark systematic work (Harvestmen of the World) in 1923, with descriptions of all species known to that time. Other important taxonomists in this field include:


title: Opiliones

text: Since the 1990s, study of the biology and ecology of harvestmen has intensified, especially in South America.


title: Opiliones

text: Harvestmen are ancient arachnids. Fossils from the Devonian Rhynie chert, 410 million years ago, already show characteristics like tracheae and sexual organs, indicating that the group has lived on land since that time. Despite being similar in appearance to, and often confused with, spiders, they are probably closely related to the scorpions, pseudoscorpions, and solifuges; these four orders form the clade Dromopoda. The Opiliones have remained almost unchanged morphologically over a long period. Indeed, one species discovered in China, "Mesobunus martensi", fossilized by fine-grained volcanic ash around 165 million years ago, is hardly discernible from modern-day harvestmen and has been placed in the extant family Sclerosomatidae.


title: Opiliones

text: The Swedish naturalist and arachnologist Carl Jakob Sundevall (1801–1875) honored the naturalist Martin Lister (1638–1712) by adopting Lister's term Opiliones for this order, known in Lister's days as "harvest spiders" or "shepherd spiders", from Latin "opilio", "shepherd"; Lister characterized three species from England (although not formally describing them, being a pre-Linnaean work).


title: Opiliones

text: In England, the Opiliones are called harvestmen, not because they appear at that season, but from a superstitious belief that if one be killed there will be a bad harvest that year.


title: Opiliones

text: The interfamilial relationships within Opiliones are not yet fully resolved, although significant strides have been made in recent years to determine these relationships. The following list is a compilation of interfamilial relationships recovered from several recent phylogenetic studies, although the placement and even monophyly of several taxa are still in question.


title: Opiliones

text: The family Stygophalangiidae (one species, "Stygophalangium karamani") from underground waters in North Macedonia is sometimes misplaced in the Phalangioidea. It is not a harvestman.


title: Opiliones

text: Despite their long history, few harvestman fossils are known. This is mainly due to their delicate body structure and terrestrial habitat, making them unlikely to be found in sediments. As a consequence, most known fossils have been preserved within amber.


title: Opiliones

text: The oldest known harvestman, from the 410-million-year-old Devonian Rhynie chert, displayed almost all the characteristics of modern species, placing the origin of harvestmen in the Silurian, or even earlier. A recent molecular study of Opiliones, however, dated the origin of the order at about 473 million years ago (Mya), during the Ordovician.


title: Opiliones

text: No fossils of the Cyphophthalmi or Laniatores much older than 50 million years are known, despite the former presenting a basal clade, and the latter having probably diverged from the Dyspnoi more than 300 Mya.


title: Opiliones

text: Naturally, most finds are from comparatively recent times. More than 20 fossil species are known from the Cenozoic, three from the Mesozoic, and at least seven from the Paleozoic.


title: Opiliones

text: The 410-million-year-old "Eophalangium sheari" is known from two specimens, one a female, the other a male. The female bears an ovipositor and is about long, whilst the male had a discernable penis. Whether both specimens belong to the same species is not definitely known. They have long legs, tracheae, and no median eyes. Together with the 305-million-year-old "Hastocularis argus", it forms the suborder Tetrophthalmi.


title: Opiliones

text: "Brigantibunum listoni" from East Kirkton near Edinburgh in Scotland is almost 340 million years old. Its placement is rather uncertain, apart from it being a harvestman.


title: Opiliones

text: From about 300 Mya, several finds are from the Coal Measures of North America and Europe. While the two described "Nemastomoides" species are currently grouped as Dyspnoi, they look more like Eupnoi.


title: Opiliones

text: "Kustarachne tenuipes" was shown in 2004 to be a harvestman, after residing for almost one hundred years in its own arachnid order, the "Kustarachnida".


title: Opiliones

text: Currently, no fossil harvestmen are known from the Triassic. So far, they are also absent from the Lower Cretaceous Crato Formation of Brazil, a Lagerstätte that has yielded many other terrestrial arachnids. An unnamed long-legged harvestman was reported from the Early Cretaceous of Koonwarra, Victoria, Australia, which may be a Eupnoi.


title: Opiliones

text: A fossil of "Halitherses grimaldii", a long-legged Dyspnoi with large eyes, was found in Burmese amber dating from approximately 100 Mya. It has been suggested that this may be related to the Ortholasmatinae (Nemastomatidae).


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup was the 20th edition of the AFC Women's Asian Cup, the quadrennial international women's football tournament in Asia competed by the national teams in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: India was selected as the host nation by the AFC Women's Football Committee in June 2020. It was the first time that the country hosted the competition since 1979. On 28 January 2021, the AFC confirmed that the tournament would take place between 20 January and 6 February 2022, instead of the original scheduled dates of late October and early November.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: For the first time in the competition, the final tournament was expanded from eight teams to twelve. It served as the final stage of Asian qualification for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand (Regulations Article 4.6), in which Australia already qualifying automatically as co-hosts. Five teams qualified directly for the World Cup via the knockout stage and two more advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: Japan were the two-time defending champions, but were eliminated in the semi-finals by China PR on penalties. The Chinese went on to win the ninth title in their history by defeating South Korea 3–2 in the final.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The following three football associations submitted their interest to host the tournament by the 31 May 2019 deadline.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: India had previously hosted the 1980 AFC Women's Championship, originally scheduled for 1979, while Chinese Taipei hosted the 1977 and 2001 editions of the tournament.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: India was recommended for hosting the tournament by the AFC Women's Football Committee on 19 February 2020. On 5 June 2020, the country was awarded the hosting rights.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup was held amidst the COVID-19 pandemic which affected the organization of the tournament. As a response, the tournament was held under a bio-secure bubble setup. All participating teams were granted exemption from institutional quarantine when foreigners are normally required to undergo home quarantine for seven days from 11 January 2022. Members of the participating team are to undergo initial test for COVID-19 upon arrival. They are required to stay put on their hotels while they await their test results. Following negative test results, movement of players and officials are to be restricted to the hotel, the training and match venues.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: Several teams reported positive COVID-19 cases during the duration of the tournament namely China, India, Japan, South Korea, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Host India were the most affected, with as much as 12 of their players testing positive for COVID-19 which rendered them unable to name 13 players required for their match against Chinese Taipei. India was forced to withdraw form the tournament due to tournament regulations.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The host country India and the top three teams of the previous tournament in 2018 qualified automatically, while the other eight teams were decided by qualification matches played in September and October 2021.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: On 6 January 2022, the AFC announced the list of 16 referees, 16 assistant referees, two stand-by referees, two stand-by assistant referees and six video match officials for the tournament. Video assistant referees (VAR) would be used from the quarter-finals onwards.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: Originally, Law Bik Chi (Hong Kong) was selected for the tournament. However, she was unable to travel to India due to travel restriction. She was replaced by Wang Chieh (Chinese Taipei).


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The venues for the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup were located across three cities in India. Originally, the host cities were Ahmedabad, Bhubaneswar and Navi Mumbai, and the AFC confirmed the three host cities of the event in June 2021. However, on 6 July 2021, AFC announced Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune in Maharashtra would host the tournament. All matches are played behind closed doors as a precaution due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The final draw was held on 28 October 2021, 15:00 MYT (), at the AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The twelve teams were drawn into three groups of four teams. The seedings were based on their performance in 2018 AFC Women's Asian Cup final tournament and qualification, with the hosts India automatically seeded and assigned to Position A1 in the draw.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: Each team has to register a squad of a minimum of 18 players and maximum of 23 players, at least three of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Article 26.3).


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The top two teams of each group and the two best third-placed teams qualified for the quarter finals.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 7.3):


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: Results against the fourth-placed teams of each group were not counted in determining the ranking of the third-placed teams.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The losers of the quarter-final matches entered play-offs, the format of which depended on Australia's results in the tournament.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The winners qualified for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup. The losers, with the exception of Australia, entered the play-offs.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The format of the play-offs round depended on the performance of Australia, who qualified automatically for the World Cup as hosts. Since Australia was eliminated in the quarter finals, the play-offs format was for the remaining three quarter-final losers to play a single round-robin play-off. The best team after three matches advanced to the World Cup, and the remaining two teams entered the inter-confederation play-offs.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: Five teams from the AFC qualified for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup, apart from co-hosts Australia which qualified automatically, while two teams advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The official logo for the tournament was unveiled by the AFC and the local organising committee on 20 July 2021. The logo features the AFC Women's Asian Cup trophy at the centre, with a "swirl" surrounding the trophy "inspired by the national flags and colours of playing kits in Asia, and the iconic stadiums in which the AFC Women’s Asian Cup is played in and celebrates cultural diversity and the unwavering support and enthusiasm of fans for their national teams". The logo also contains elements inspired by the tournament host country. The maroon colour of the logo is inspired by the art of the Warli people, a tribe native to the northern Western Ghats in the tournament's host state of Maharashtra. Red and maroon colours are often used as the base of Warli paintings. The use of silver in the logo is inspired by the "importance of silver jewellery in Indian households and the beauty and elegance of the precious metal".


title: 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup

text: The official global partners of the tournament were Continental AG, Credit Saison, Neom, and Yili Group, while Kelme and Konami are official global supporters.


title: All rights reserved

text: "All rights reserved" is a copyright formality indicating that the copyright holder "reserves", or holds for its own use, all the rights provided by copyright law. Originating in the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910, it is unclear if it has any legal effect in any jurisdiction. However, it is still used by many copyright holders.


title: All rights reserved

text: The phrase originated as a result of the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910. Article 3 of the Convention granted copyright in all signatory countries to a work registered in any signatory country, as long as a statement "that indicates the "reservation" of the property "right"" (emphasis added) appeared in the work. The phrase "all rights reserved" was not specified in the text, but met this requirement.