Producer's Commentary: Revisiting Planet Ecaz

Summary

Gom Jabbar: Producer's Commentary — Revisiting Planet Ecaz

Podcast: Gom Jabbar: A Dune Podcast
Hosts: Abu & Leo
Date: February 27, 2026
Episode Theme:
A deep-dive revisitation and producer’s commentary on the fan-favorite episode exploring the lore of Planet Ecaz (from the Dune Encyclopedia and appendices), focusing on its outsized impact on the Dune universe, memorable plants, and their cultural ripples throughout the books and adaptations. Abu and Leo pause, reflect, and provide behind-the-scenes insights on an episode recorded during the early pandemic, highlighting both the Dune lore and their own podcast journey.

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Episode Overview

This special commentary episode revisits the original "Planet Ecaz" episode, which explored the wild and pivotal role of the obscure Dune world Ecaz. Abu and Leo listen back to their own work, offering insights, clarifications, and fresh humor. Together, they reflect on how Ecaz—though almost never directly mentioned in Frank Herbert's novels—underpins much of the universe's biological and technological wonders, as fleshed out in the Dune Encyclopedia and appendices.

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Commentary Highlights & Key Discussion Points

Revisiting the Past, Podcasting Evolution

• Meta Structure: Abu and Leo explain the concept—this is a director-style commentary, with frequent pauses for context, self-roasting, and behind-the-scenes anecdotes.
• Reflective tone: They openly joke about their own early podcasting quirks, repetition, and storytelling improvements.
• [08:43, Abu]: "A bit repetitious, but that’s something we noted…something we've hopefully gotten a little bit better on over the years."
• [09:09, Leo]: "Plenty of times we'll make the same joke two or three times and cut out the third version…"

Why Ecaz? — The Greenhouse/Botanical Bonanza Planet

• Main Arguments: Ecaz’s importance as the origin of many technologies and substances seen frequently but never explained in Dune proper.
  • [10:29, Abu]: "...one name that planet Ecaz gets is the greenhouse planet. Another name...is Botanical Bonanza, baby."
• Humidity & Research Mecca: High humidity, temperate climates created a planet of wild biodiversity; it became a center for Imperial scientific research.
  • [11:32, Abu]: "House Plana does exactly that. They start funding tons...of research. Laboratories...flood the planet."
• Mass Destruction — The Slagging of Ecaz:
  • Nuclear warfare turned Ecaz into a radioactive wasteland, amplifying the dangers but also resulting in even stranger evolutionary pressures on surviving flora.
  • [15:39, Abu]: "The slagging of Ecaz is a horrific moment in its history...This planet becomes just a nuclear wasteland...an absolute husk of its former self."
  • Ecaz remained uninhabitable for millennia—later, humanity’s post-Butlerian Jihad need for biological solutions led them back.

The Post-Butlerian Rediscovery

• Humanity Returns: After anti-computer sentiments sweep the galaxy, explorers risk life and limb to harvest Ecaz plants to replace lost "thinking machine" functionality.
• Dangerous Quarantines: Harvesting is difficult; teams can only survive on Ecaz for about a week, requiring month-long quarantines after each expedition.
  • [21:52, Leo]: "So explorers would go to the planet for one week periods…Then they have to quarantine themselves for a month..."

Botany of Ecaz — Wild, Weird, and Wonderful

Abu and Leo introduce the plant-life section ("Welcome to the botany section of the episode" — [24:47, Abu]) with self-aware humor: “Everyone comes to science fiction to learn about plants." ([24:52, Leo])

Sappho (Mentat Juice)

• What is Sappho? A juice from roots growing on the bomb-cratered surface—used by Mentats to "amplify" cognition; leaves deep ruby stains.
  • [27:04, Leo]: "Sappho is a juice...harvested from the roots surrounding some of the craters that were bombed by nuclear bombs on Ecaz…"
  • [28:30, Abu]: "Mentats often have this sort of ruby red stains on their lips and mouth."
• Lore Nuance: Does Sappho Really Work?
  • The term "claim" in the source text opens up debate—is Sappho a true enhancer or a placebo?
  • [30:31, Abu]: "Mentats who claim it amplifies mental powers. Does that mean it does not?"
  • Leo: "It does seem possible that maybe Sappho is just delicious…maybe it's like, yeah, like weed."
• Fandom Note: The hosts are endlessly surprised by how many Sappho-obsessives write in with corrections and questions.
  • [25:21, Abu]: "Stop emailing us…No, please keep emailing us…Who are you people?"

Microorganisms (For Glowglobes)

• Science & World-Building: The light in most Dune spaces (glowglobes) is generated by bioluminescent microorganisms from Ecaz.
  • [37:24, Leo]: "In the trailer...you have already seen Ecazian life…The microorganisms that are the light source within the glowglobes."
  • [38:16, Abu]: "Glowglobes are everywhere...Let's show some respect to these microorganisms, baby."
• Movie Connections: Hosts urge listeners to spot this invisible Ecaz fingerprint in the background.

Verite (Truth Serum)

• Classic Sci-Fi Trope: Serum that renders one incapable of lying, but quickly deemed socially destructive beyond policing and interrogation.
  • [38:54, Abu]: "...verite is used to produce a truth serum...mostly just used for interrogations..."
  • [43:24, Leo]: "One of the Ecaz will-destroying narcotics. It renders a person incapable of falsehood."
• Philosophical Reflection: Hosts discuss the potentially society-shattering consequences if such a thing were truly effective, and how both Dune and real society (polygraphs) dance around the complexities of "enforced truth."
  • [41:15, Abu]: "...the reality of some things that fantasy and sci-fi books come up with would actually be society shattering stuff."

Elaka Wood (Two Drugs: Ilakadrug & Samuta)

• What is Elaka Wood? The "blood-grained" wood yields two powerful, opposite drugs:
  • Ilakadrug: Removes the user's will to self-preservation. Used to drive gladiators into dangerous combat states.
    • [46:22, Abu]: "Ilakadrug is a narcotic formed by burning blood-grained Elaka wood of Ecaz…removes...the will to self-preservation...used for slave gladiators."
  • Samuta: Induces "timeless sustained ecstasy," only triggered by certain atonal music—much referenced in the books as the root of deep addiction and dullness.
    • [50:31, Leo, reading description]: "The effect described as timeless sustained ecstasy is elicited by certain atonal vibrations referred to as samuta music..."
    • [51:14, Abu]: "If a character looks like their ecstasy has been sustained...Were those atonal vibrations coming from your room, Jeffrey?"

Fogwood (Mind-Sculpted Art)

• Unique Trait: Can be shaped by the focused thoughts of nearby humans; sculptures evoke the precise emotion the artist intended in all viewers.
  • [55:47, Leo]: "...capable of being shaped in situ solely by the power of human thought."
  • [61:01, Abu]: "...the whole point of Fogwood is that it sculpts itself with the human mind into a shape that evokes the same emotion or...idea of the original artist..."
• Dark Example: The most famous fogwood sculpture, "Fear," resulted from a shuttle crash—the death and terror of the crew shaped the tree into a universally fear-inducing object.
  • [62:13, Abu]: "So again...Fogwood...sculpture that can only elicit one same thing from everyone who sees it...everyone who sees this thing instantly feels fear...it’s the embodiment of fear."
• Hosts' Reflection: Both hosts riff with imagined adaptations and discuss the philosophical implications for art and empathy.

Crimskull Fiber (The Self-Tightening Rope)

• Utility: Rope woven from the huffuff vine that tightens to preset limits when pulled, used for restraining prisoners—or (jokingly) in more adult scenarios.
  • [68:34, Abu]: "Knots tied in this crimskull fiber will get tighter and tighter if they're pulled on...used when people need to be tied up…"
  • [69:50, Abu, joking]: "This would be, like, really kinky for people who are into that..."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [10:29, Abu]: "Another name...is Botanical Bonanza, baby."
• [17:58, Leo]: "Let's experiment…thousands of years…United ingredients: crazy plant life, deadly chemicals and radiation...natural selection happens...planet alive with these plants, and I cannot stress how batshit crazy some of these plants are."
• [28:30, Abu]: "Mentats often have this sort of ruby red stains on their lips and mouth."
• [30:31, Abu]: "Mentats, who claim it amplifies mental powers. Does that mean it does not?"
• [43:24, Leo]: "One of the Ecaz will-destroying narcotics. It renders a person incapable of falsehood."
• [45:06, Abu & Leo]: "I solidified my cocaine and it's the chair I sit in now. Like, what the fuck?"
• [46:24, Abu]: "A lack of drug is like a really, really hard case of the Mondays…"
• [51:26, Leo]: "Were those atonal vibrations coming from your room, Jeffrey?"
• [57:45, Abu]: "If we haven't reinforced this enough, it's dangerous there. Super radiation, guys. Unknown chemicals."
• [61:01, Abu]: "The whole point of Fogwood is that it sculpts itself with the human mind into a shape that evokes the same emotion or the same idea of the original artist to every single person that sees it from there forward."
• [62:13, Abu]: "'Fear.' ...That sculpture could mean nothing else but fear."
• [77:18, Leo]: "What about, like, a gun bush? It's just a bush full of guns. And they're like, no, there's no way that's a...and then it just starts shooting."
• [77:55, Abu]: "...a bit of a slow start…But then once we get into the plants, once we get into that really interesting sappho juice discussion. Some of the comedy in this episode, I think, really hit."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:17] — Introduction to Ecaz and "sculpting with our minds" setup
• [10:29] — The "Botanical Bonanza" and Ecaz’s early history
• [14:44] — The Slagging of Ecaz: nuclear devastation and aftermath
• [17:37] — Dune's biological technological renaissance: return to Ecaz
• [24:47] — Botany Section: Sappho and fan mail
• [30:31] — Sappho debate: Placebo or true amplifier?
• [37:24] — Microorganisms and glowglobes—Ecazian everyday life
• [38:54] — Verite (truth serum) and its social-philosophical implications
• [46:22] — Elaka wood, Ilakadrug & Samuta: narcotics and worldbuilding
• [55:47] — Fogwood: psychic art and the universality of emotion
• [62:13] — The "Fear" sculpture: art, empathy, and dark Dune lore
• [68:34] — Crimskull fiber: sci-fi rope and its many uses (or misuses)
• [72:07] — Fogwood hypothetical: What would you sculpt?
• [76:03] — Imaginary dangerous Ecaz plants: "Gunbush"
• [77:55] — Hosts reflect on the episode and the journey so far

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Reflections & Podcast Evolution

• Self-Awareness: Abu and Leo offer frequent meta-commentary, both poking fun at their early podcasting selves and praising the richness of Dune's worldbuilding.
  • [78:40, Abu]: "...fun revisiting this because frankly, again, it has been five and a half years since either of us probably heard this episode last…"
  • [79:04, Leo]: "Oh, no. We have seven jokes we've been using…we just recycled the same seven jokes and…put a different hat on the joke every time."
• Community Appreciation: They thank audience members for episode requests and engagement, demonstrating the show's commitment to fan-driven guidance and feedback.

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For Dune Nerds and Curious Newcomers

This commentary is a vivid, humor-laden, but detail-rich exploration of Ecaz’s echo throughout the Dune universe—a planet that underlies Mentats’ Sappho, glowglobes’ light, truth serums, mind-sculpted fogwood, and the universe’s biological turn. Abu and Leo’s banter, asides, and deep knowledge make this an essential listen (or summary) for readers and viewers wanting to see the hidden connections under Dune's surface.

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End of Episode Summary

Transcript

[Abu]

Today on the show, we're diving into our other memory to bring you an

episode from the distant past.

[Leo]

Yes, we are.

[Abu]

So be careful of Abomination. Dear listener, you don't want to be

[Leo]

taken over by you. Listening to this podcast five years ago be terrible.

[Abu]

Truly, probably the worst version of you, let's be honest.

[Leo]

Welcome to Gom Jabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe, from Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and tv. My name is Leo.

[Abu]

And my name's Abu.

[Leo]

Oh, and today on the show, we are going back indeed, because of our secret project that we're talking about on our Patreon for Fremen names and higher, we are doing these sort of, like, director commentary episodes, looking at the popular episodes from the past. We're going to get into it as quickly as possible. So let's take care of just the briefest housekeeping. Today's episode is Planet Ekaz, and there is no adjustment to be made for this spoiler warning. Everything on this episode was about the Dune Encyclopedia prior to the pages of Dune, so you're safe to listen.

[Abu]

That's right. This is a fan favorite that we're going to be revisiting today.

[Leo]

One of my favorites, too, before we

[Abu]

hit play on that episode from the Vault.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

Quick shout out to our Kwisatz Haderach level patrons. Up top here, Daniel Dion, Seth Red and Greer. Brad Hutchins, Kevin Mahann. Roger. Roger Rong.

Thank you all so much for your support.

If we ever do end up building a real deal time machine, y' all are the first in line to hop in it with us and go back and listen to these old episodes as

they came out live.

[Leo]

Yeah. Debut, 4:00am Eastern Standard Time, the way we intend you to listen to Gom Jabbar.

[Abu]

Indeed.

[Leo]

Okay. With housekeeping out of the way, we chose this episode because after our first commentary episode. And thank you for the feedback on that episode, everyone. Yeah, this was one of the other requested episodes, so we decided to get this out of the way. It's one of our favorite episodes that we did. It is super fun. I don't really remember the episode very well, but I remember, like, microorganisms. I think I got really hyped about microorganisms.

[Abu]

Right.

[Leo]

Excited to rediscover microorganisms and why I got so goddamn excited.

[Abu]

Yes.

[Leo]

Six years ago or five years ago, whenever we did this episode. This is episode 11. And this is like 280 episodes ago. 290 episodes ago.

[Abu]

Wow.

[Leo]

So we are going to listen to the episode together. We're going to hop in with our commentary, if we have any corrections, that sort of thing. And then we'll wrap up the episode by debriefing and again, just sharing our thoughts and do we stand by it? Is this a great episode? Does this go in the hall of fame or not? We'll figure it out. We'll decide at the end.

[Abu]

That's right. Okay, so we're going to hit play on the episode in just a minute. Stick around, folks. After the break, we're listening to Planet Ecast.

Okay, welcome back.

All right, Leo, are you ready?

[Leo]

Yeah. Ready.

[Abu]

Let's hit play on this episode. Here we go.

[Leo]

I'm nervous. Okay.

[Abu]

Today on the show, we're sculpting with our minds. We've taken a dose of truth serum and we're finally tasting the juice of Sappho. That's right. It's our vacation to E. CAS.

[Leo]

Welcome to Gomjabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe, from Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and tv. My name is Leo.

[Abu]

And my name's Abu.

[Leo]

And you know what? We're finally. No. Wow. Great start. No. I'm tired, man. I had a day.

[Abu]

That truth serum is really kicking in, isn't it?

[Leo]

I can't lie. I can't lie.

[Abu]

You went full on honesty right there.

[Leo]

I can't lie. I can't.

[Abu]

I'm tired. I don't want to do this podcast. You're holding me hostage. Well, in reality, today we are going to be talking about a planet, and in particular, we're going to be talking about a lot of the plants on that planet.

[Leo]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Abu]

And by this point, the two listeners who have heard that pitch and are interested and are still here, we promise this is going to be a good episode. Planet Ekaz is incredible. And honestly, Leo, you made me a believer. I was also skeptical when you told me about this idea for today's episode. My instant reaction was, why are we talking about just a single planet? And is there even enough to talk about in a full episode? And turns out there is.

[Leo]

Yeah. You know, when we were looking at things to talk about, Planet Ekaz, of course, to me seemed like a natural choice because nary a page of Dune goes by without something from the planet being present, which is a really interesting truth. This one planet is the origin of so much of the kind of interesting world building elements of Dune. And it is worth mentioning right now at the top. This is a spoiler free episode. No spoilers. So if you're getting ready to go on that journey, that Denis Villeneuve journey and got the pronunciation better, you're going to see, ooh, Oscar Isaac's beard. The beard. And you're going to see the tall glass of water that is Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho. And you're going to see so many great things. One of the things that I want you to take away from this, to promo that movie, little Glimmer of Satisfaction. Because as you sit in that big movie theater chair or as you sit in your couch at home, because who knows what's happening this year?

[Abu]

Who knows?

[Leo]

You'll see things happening on screen and some part of your brain will go, I think that lamp has microorganisms in

[Abu]

it from the planet E cast. Like you're going to connect those dots and it's going to be, you know what? I will add to that. Actually, I feel like a broken record. I say this almost every episode. But once again, in classic Frank Herbert fashion, so much of Dune is connected to Planet Ecas and we're going to get into it in today's episode and we're going to make those connections for you. But, but Ekaz is almost never mentioned and definitely never explained in any of Frank's novels.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

So if we, if you need reinforcement that nothing we talk about today is going to be a movie spoiler or even a book spoiler, rest assured, none of this exists in the novels. Well, let me rephrase that. It does exist. It's definitely all there. But it was established later in the Dune Encyclopedia and in later expanded lore. There's going to be some really interesting tidbits of information today.

[Leo]

I'll actually amend that a little bit as well, because what I was blown away by as we were writing the script for this episode, a lot of this information that we're going to be talking about is actually in the Dune book, but it's in the, like, technology of the Imperium or the terminology of the Imperium.

[Abu]

Yeah, like the appendix at the end or whatever.

[Leo]

Exactly. Yeah. Which I thought was interesting because again, this is stuff that Frank wrote as he was writing Dune because he figured people might have questions about Elaka Wood. It's like, okay, Frank, I mean, yeah, I guess we're doing an episode on it. So you win.

[Abu]

Right? You Win you love to see it. World building like that is what makes Dune so great and why we love it.

[Leo]

Totally.

[Abu]

But let's get into it. You know, we've been hyping up Planet Ecas this entire time, but I think it's time to dive into it and we.

I'm gonna pause there just to say bit of a long sales pitch, but

[Leo]

a really good sales pitch.

[Abu]

I'm invested. I want to hear this episode.

[Leo]

I also, I do like tying it to the direct experience of watching the movie.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

Because I do think that some of the best lore and world building is you can go back and watch a movie again and go, oh, I understand that little reference now. Or I understand what's on his desk. Or I understand whatever. So I do think that is a compelling thing and a compelling reason to look at either. But you're right. I was looking at the time like it's been three and a half minutes. It feels like it's been eight minutes. What's happening? Come on, guys.

[Abu]

A bit repetitious, but that's something we noted in our first producer's commentary, is something we've hopefully gotten a little bit better on over the years. Early on, we tended to repeat ourselves quite a bit and sort of. Yes. And each other over and over and over again and not quite know when to stop and move on.

[Leo]

Or when to edit that out better.

[Abu]

Or when to write. Exactly.

[Leo]

Plenty of times we'll make the same joke two or three times and cut out the third version of that joke from an edit.

[Abu]

Exactly.

[Leo]

Also, the long history of Leo going, I think this is going to be a good episode. And you going, I don't know. And then us like really hammering it out. And for sure, there have been episodes that I've suggested that are not good and we did not do. But a couple of them, I think they worked out pretty good. This and the Dune Tarot, I feel like, are my. My crowning achievements.

[Abu]

Yeah. Okay, let's keep listening.

And we should start as we always do, Leo at the very beginning.

[Leo]

Absolutely. Yeah. So, Ekaz to talk about ECAS's history. And again, the timeline of Dune episodes that we released are spoiler free as well. So if you want to get an idea of when Dune happens and the years that I'm about to be saying will make more sense if you've listened to those episodes. But Ekaz was discovered in 8112 BG, which is to say before Guild, and immediately becomes the fief of House Plana or Plana House Plana. Which is great. And you know, immediately it gets a reputation. And I see this in the script and I could say it, I mean, I could say what it says in the script. But Abu, you know, I want to hear you say it.

[Abu]

Look, one name that planet Ecas gets is the greenhouse planet.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

Another name and the name that I prefer for Planet Ecas sure. Is Botanical Bonanza, baby.

[Leo]

Oh, delightful. I'm not tired anymore. Look at that. Just immediately all of my fatigue is gone.

[Abu]

The point here being that this botanical bonanza of a planet, baby, this greenhouse, this green house planet, is full of plant life. The climate of planet Ecas, when it's first discovered and it's the fief of House Plana, is very high humidity. And that leads like not, Not a lot of rainfall, but very high humidity and very temperate climates means that there's a lot of plant life and there's a lot of plants to study. So House Plana does exactly that. They start funding tons and tons of research.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

And research laboratories and scientists flood the planet and it, it becomes like a big. In my mind at least I imagine it becomes like a huge scientific endeavor for the galactic community. Like, we found this planet. There's crazy plant life on here. Let's do some research. And that's what House Planet does.

[Leo]

Yeah. I imagine this is something that people are hearing about in the news as much as news can happen in this sort of spread out universe. You know, what are the recent discoveries on Ecas? Right. These again. New medicines, maybe new weird bits of technology. And you might be thinking now what could plants do? But it's so much.

[Abu]

And oh, trust us.

[Leo]

Yeah. And I think about. I like to imagine what this natural ecaz is like before humans come and mess it all up with.

[Abu]

Oh, no.

[Leo]

Well, nuclear explosions. So what happens is the imperium is not super loving.

[Abu]

So I'm going to pause there. This, I know, is something we've gotten way better at sticking to a sequence, right. There was a lot of like hinting and joking about stuff that the listener

is not clued in on yet.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

Like what is a nuke joke to a listener who hasn't yet learned that Ecas was nuked to oblivion, et cetera, et cetera.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

And I think that's something we used to. I remember this very distinctly in our scripts. We used to always do that a lot. And we've gotten better at being like, wait, don't make a joke about this or don't comment about this until we've explained it yet. We got to Follow the sequence so that the listener can be in on the joke as well.

[Leo]

Right? Yeah.

[Abu]

And it's interesting that it's happening here. I remember this was an issue that we. Not an issue, but, like, this was a skill that we had to build over time.

[Leo]

Yeah. I think the challenge was always balancing on that knife's edge of we want people to be interested in what we're going to talk about later. So it does make sense to be like, and later we'll talk about this. So if someone is interested in that, they'll stick around for it. But you're right that if we're making jokes that exclude the listener because they haven't read the script or they don't know what we're about to talk about, that's bad scripting. That's not a good thing to do. So, for sure, I've also been very guilty of writing in the script later we're going to be talking about this. And that's why I want to say this now. And you've gone in and gone, no, don't do that.

[Abu]

Right. Or it's as simple as take the thing and say it later. Just move it down. Yeah, right. Like, say it at the appropriate time once the listener can follow along with the idea. We've definitely gotten much better at that.

[Leo]

But I like saying things at the inappropriate times.

[Abu]

Well, you know, you love to say inappropriate things at inappropriate times or inappropriate

[Leo]

things at appropriate times. And on that note, we can go back to listening. A couple of rebellions and word on the street is Icaz is a place where some of these rebellions have headquarters is my of it. And one solution to people not agreeing with you is just dropping thousands of nuclear warheads on them.

[Abu]

Classic.

[Leo]

Classic. Yeah. It's a subtle approach. Diplomacy, I think is the word. But the unintended side effect of this brutish approach to quelling disagreements is that all of these labs, these experimental facilities where they are gathering plants and running experiments and stuff, are full of chemicals and are full of, like, sciencey shit. So blowing those things up, you are basically coating the planet in these incredibly unpredictable chemicals, and then also tons and tons of radiation. And this is known as the slagging of ECAs. And this is the moment that what was already like 8 out of 10, a crazy planet gets. You know, the knob is now glowing and it's like 14 out of 10. And everyone's scared and screaming and crying.

[Abu]

Yeah, the knob is glowing because it's radiated. Don't touch it. Yeah. This is a wild turn for ECAs. Of course. The slagging of Ekaz is a horrific moment in its history. You failed to mention a small little detail. The people all die.

[Leo]

Oh, right. Oops. Yeah, I forgot that little did.

[Abu]

Leo, I know we're focusing on the plants in this episode, but people matter. Yeah. I don't know how many times I have to tell you this.

[Leo]

I shouldn't joke. It is actually sad.

[Abu]

It is actually sad, right? Like everyone. Everyone on the planet dies. All these researchers. House plan, I assume, loses some sort of war or status within the Empire. And this planet becomes just a nuclear wasteland. Irradiated, chemically infused, uninhabited. Just absolute husk of its former self.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

For thousands of years. It's actually so dangerous to go there. The planet remains uninhabitable for the next couple thousand years. Which is crazy to think, right?

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

That is until a little something something called the Butlerian Jihad that you can learn much more about. In our timeline episode.

[Leo]

We keep talking about that.

[Abu]

Yeah. Like this tiny event that happened that just changed the face of everything.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

After the Butlerian Jihad and after thinking machines have been wiped out of the galaxy through this genocide, humanity was desperate to find biological replacements for a lot of their technological advancements. And we talked about this in our Tech of Dune episode about how much of Dune has a biological base. Because there is this fear about technology from the Butlerian Jihad. So what humanity does here at this point is, okay, we need to start exploring planets. We need to branch out. We need to figure out if we can find substitutes for the things that the thinking machines did for us. Because we trust biology more than we trust technology.

[Leo]

Right. So they remembered, Right. In the history textbooks of thousands of years ago, people maybe remembered this little gem of a planet called Ecas that was all the rage back in the day for some wacky and crazy plants. You know, crazy insane greenhouse. What was the word? Botanical bonanza.

[Abu]

Botanical bonanza, baby.

[Leo]

That'll never. That'll never get old for me. Here we are six years later. It's not old for me yet. They remembered some crazy botanical bonanza, baby. Planet throwaway babies. Let's maybe go see what's happened. And. Man. Thousands. So here's the petri dish of Ikaz. Thousands of years. This is the ingredients. Thousands of years already. Crazy plant life, deadly chemicals and radiation. And then you give it time to sort out the craziest stuff. And natural selection happens over thousands of years. And all of the animals have died out, basically. Right? Almost all of the animals have died out. There are some insects, but Mostly the planet is alive with these plants and I cannot stress how batshit crazy some of these plants are. To be clear, we are gonna be talking about the useful ones. But from a couple of sentences here and there in the encyclopedia and in Dune and in some of the follow up books, you get the impression that going to ECAs in this era is like, you know, a Salvador Dali painting of plant life where you might just be eaten by the coconut tree and oops, you're bad for being close to it because it has tentacles like, it's a crazy, crazy planet.

[Abu]

Yeah. In my mind it was an Alice in Wonderland planet.

[Leo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Abu]

If you fell down that rabbit hole into ECAs, watch out, there's going to be talking cat plants and there's going to be, you know, tea parties like it. To me it was a wacky world of just incredibly dangerous and also incredibly useful, which we'll talk about in a bit. Plant life covering every inch of it. And it must have been incredibly awe inspiring for the explorers who do rediscover ECAs after all of these thousands of years of chemicals and radiation and natural selection. And it's actually so unbelievably weird that when these explorers took some samples from ECAs and tried to show their fellow scientists, like, hey, look what we found, they got laughed at. They were like, nah, like, that's not a scary. What kind of practical joke are you playing on us?

[Leo]

This is explorers showing other, like seasoned explorers and other seasoned explorers going, that's not a possible place. And of course they have to say, well, it's right over there. You know the glowing orb that we've been ignoring for 8,000 years? Yeah, that's the one where we got all this stuff. So, yeah, they rediscover, they send explorers there and when they start seeing that these plants may have some really incredible uses, they think, cool, let's experiment with them again. Let's find a solution, let's see what they can be made to do and let's see what can be made out of them. But there's this problem because the planet is still very irradiated and the planet is still covered in crazy chemicals that the plants may have adopted. And you have new bacterias and new diseases and viruses that are all over the place. So explorers would go to the planet for one week periods to harvest just anything that doesn't bite or kill them. And they drag the weird assortment of things onto their ship and they fly as fast as they can away from the strip. Terrible, magical, wonderful planet. And then they have to quarantine themselves for a month, which.

[Abu]

Yeah, man, you didn't have to say anything else. Just. Just. You just had to trail that sentence off. We all know, you know, right. This therapy.

Okay. So I was interested in this.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

When we picked which episode we wanted to comment on today.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

I was thinking this must have been recorded, like, either right at the start of the pandemic or in the thick of it.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

And I was very curious what sort of pandemic commentary we'd be making throughout. So it's kind of weird hearing that back, honestly, six years later.

[Leo]

Yeah. I mean, we try to make our episodes evergreen, but it's true that, like, the immediate exhaustion and at the time, like, four or five years later, I'm happy to say, although Covid is still a thing, quarantining the way we were in 2020 is a distant memory, at least here in New York. Thank goodness for vaccines after all. But, man, it is interesting how we're like, oh, yeah, you don't need to say anymore. And someone listening a few years from now would be like, what? What are you talking? And they would have to check when the episode came out to connect the dots.

[Abu]

Yeah, that's true. It's interesting.

[Leo]

Thank goodness.

[Abu]

Okay, back to it.

[Leo]

Yeah, back to it.

[Abu]

Recession has been nice. We'll get back.

[Leo]

Thanks for listening, everyone.

[Abu]

Yeah, but you're totally right, though. The planet is still extremely hostile and still uninhabitable, even now. And regardless of how useful the plant life may be, and regardless of how interested these scientists and explorers might be in getting back to ECAs, they cannot resettle it. All resettlement attempts have failed.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

And at this point, House Zeton is the owner of the planet, and it's their job to basically just keep this rotation of scientists and explorers and artists going to and from the planet in the most safe way possible. You know, hazmat suits, take some guards with you, take some weapons, take multiple tools of every type, because, like, the tools would just, like, break and degrade so fast.

[Leo]

Like, oh, my shovel's melting. Cool.

[Abu]

Exactly. Exactly. You're just, like, digging in the dirt and suddenly your shovel's melting and the handles on fire. So you better have a backup shovel and then a backup backup shovel. So.

[Leo]

And my boots are sentient. Fuck.

[Abu]

Exactly. So it's. It's, again, very much still a extremely hostile, uninhabitable, I would say almost even dead planet, except for the fact that there's just this incredible array of plant life on it that turns out to be incredibly Useful for humanity. So, yeah, yeah, Leo, what you and I did for sort of the latter half of our episode here today is we went through some of the plant life that you can find on ECAs. We cherry picked some of the most interesting ones to talk about.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

And welcome to the botany section of the episode.

[Leo]

You know, everyone comes to science fiction to learn about plants. That's just a part of the part and parcel for the now. Well, we have to start because of the uncomfortable number of messages we've received.

[Abu]

I don't know how to feel about this.

[Leo]

It's wild. Okay. Sappho. Okay. Oh, right. Oh, my God. Why. Why are y' all so passionate about this?

[Abu]

Stop emailing us.

[Leo]

I mean. No, keep emailing us.

[Abu]

No, no, please keep emailing us.

[Leo]

He's kidding, but we love hearing from you.

[Abu]

I'm just lashing out because I was telling this to you earlier, right? I was like, how are there so many Sappho Stans in the dune community? Who are you people? What is it about Sappho that attracts you so much? And why are we getting all of these emails and messages and DMS on social media? About. About our Mentat episode a couple weeks ago and how we didn't mention Sappho and y' all are really mad about that.

[Leo]

We. The nature of podcasts is inevitably Abu and I. What we're asking is rhetorical because, you know this. That's the nature of the medium. But I'm genuinely curious. If you want to throw us a message, let us know why you or your friends and family are so passionate about Sappho juice. It's cool. No, I mean, no doubt it's cool.

[Abu]

No doubt. No doubt.

[Leo]

But, you know, that cool. That cool. You know, if you're like, the best movie that was ever made was like, cars, too. Again, I just have questions.

[Abu]

Right, right. You do. You, you know, but just. I just have questions.

[Leo]

Yeah, I'm not going to rain on your Sappho parade, but.

[Abu]

Well, let's get the non Sappho stans caught up and maybe make some new Sappho stands here today on this episode.

[Leo]

Prepare yourselves.

[Abu]

Let's try to explain Sappho juice to our listeners and to the people who are going to be going into the upcoming film, or maybe check out the David lynch film from 1984. And this is something that may actually make an appearance in the upcoming film and definitely did make an appearance in David Lynch's 1984 doomed film.

[Leo]

So Sappho is a juice that is harvested from the roots surrounding Some of the craters that were bombed by nuclear bombs on the planet of ecas. So if you picture this sort of nuclear bombed surface, there are these barriers, roots that grow around these craters. And if you harvest the roots and you juice them, you can get this juice of Sappho. Now what you may see in the Dune movie is we talk about how this is a post technology universe where people are not really relying on technology. And one of the things that people have done, and this is sort of my spoiler free explanation of Mintats, is people have trained themselves from a young age often to think like a machine, to actually like incredible success. Like to the point of being able to calculate future possibilities with certainty. So Mentats are a big thing in Dune and in the David lynch film, which I don't necessarily recommend watching if you're getting ready for this new Denis Neuf movie, but if you have seen it, you know what I'm talking about. And eventually it can be fun to watch with friends. You'll see that Mentats often have this sort of ruby red stains on their lips and mouth.

[Abu]

Yeah, like a really bad case of chapped lips.

[Leo]

Just soup or they're like they love, love, love those like strawberry chapsticks. They just are mashing it onto their face. It's mmm, it's delicious. So Sappho, and this is actually from the appendix of Dune says Sappho is high energy liquid extracted from barrier roots of ECAs, commonly used by Mentats who claim it amplifies mental powers. Users develop deep ruby stains on mouth and lips. So super Mentat juice that like boosts Mentats abilities. Right.

[Abu]

That's cool, right? It makes these human computers process stuff faster.

[Leo]

Yeah, it's like Norton Antivirus.

[Abu]

It's the opposite of Norton Antivirus. You know how Norton makes your computer run slower? Sappho is the opposite anti Norton.

[Leo]

That's so dumb. It's like overclocking.

[Abu]

You're over just pausing to say six years later, I stand by that.

Fuck Norton.

Nobody needs Norton Antivirus or whatever.

[Leo]

Yeah, true.

[Abu]

I'm sure they have others useful services, probably for enterprise. But you don't need Norton on your personal PC.

[Leo]

No. And the number of people I saw coming into Apple stores whose all of their problems were being caused by the VPNs they installed on their personal devices knowing almost nothing because they bought the fucking sales pitch of these various. It's like you just don't. Unless you are doing very specific things. Clocking your Mint ads.

[Abu]

Yeah, that's a Good. If you're a PC nerd, it's like overclocking your processor. And I do want to point out, though, Leo, this is an exact quote from the Dune novel. And Frank is not someone who would waste words. Right. I think we can agree on that. A certain word here in this exact quote that you've pulled sticks out to me. Mentats, who claim it amplifies mental powers.

[Leo]

Oh, I'm so glad we talk about this.

[Abu]

Does that mean it does not?

[Leo]

You know, we were talking about this offline. I will claim that I bowl better when I'm drunk. I don't think that this settles. Alcohol as a bowling amplifier. It's an interesting word claim, because the encyclopedia continues experiments with untrained subjects, which is to say, people who are not mentats and have not gone through these years of conditioning reveal no corresponding amplification of mentat like abilities. So there are some possibilities here, and I don't mean to, like, again, rain on the Sappho parade. That's clearly been happening for the last 40 years.

[Abu]

But, yeah, we don't need that kind of rage in our inboxes.

[Leo]

We don't. We do not. But the. It does seem possible that maybe Sappho is just delicious or, like, is. Is a. I don't know, maybe it's like, yeah, like weed. I don't know.

[Abu]

It's. You know, again, it could just be because the world of Dune is just not. Doesn't have consistent lore.

And it's.

[Leo]

That's also possible. Yeah.

[Abu]

It is a futile task to try and catalog it. So we should maybe just stop recording.

[Leo]

Okay, well, thanks for listening for the second time this episode. Bye.

[Abu]

But in actuality, I think this may just be the word claim may not have translated its way into the encyclopedia or vice versa. But I think what we could extract from this idea is that perhaps it helps mentats who have been trained and have spent years and decades of their lives training to be these human computers who can do incredible calculations and leaps of logic.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

Maybe it does help you if you've done that training, but if you haven't and you're just like. Like an average Joe Schmo, like, Sappho juice is just. It's just gonna be like cranberry juice. It's not gonna make you super smart. It's not gonna turn you into a human computer. So I think that could be one possibility. Like, it helps mentats. It doesn't help normal people who haven't already trained that part of their minds.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

Another possibility, like you're saying, could be it just tastes really good and the Mentats want more of it, so they. They came up with an excuse to have more of it.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

Possibility number three, of course, is that it could legitimately just be a placebo.

[Leo]

Right? Yeah.

[Abu]

Like, if you're a Mentat and other Mentats told you growing up that this juice would make you smarter, like, maybe you just start taking the juice because you think it's making you smarter, and maybe the placebo does, like, help you power your way through some tougher logic puzzles. So it's. There's a couple of different ways that that word claim could be interpreted.

[Leo]

Right. Right.

[Abu]

At the end of the day, we have spent quite a bit of time on Sappho, and I hope you Sappho Stans are happy.

[Leo]

Also, fun fact, we actually recorded about Sappho juice for the Mentat episode and then cut it because it was like, way off topic. So there we have rectified our sins. We have. And by now, moving on from Juice of Sappho, we can talk about my favorite thing.

[Abu]

Yes.

[Leo]

Ooh, microorganisms. Okay, before we talk about microorganisms, I am very glad that we touched on the claims because six years later, I am still lightweight convinced that Juse of Sappho doesn't do anything.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

And I think that's the best version of Lore is that collectively Mentats are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's super helpful.

[Abu]

Right.

[Leo]

And then it's just tequila. They're just really into drinking Zappo juice. They love it. It's so good.

[Abu]

Yeah. I thought that was the most interesting part of the episode. So was our little digression into Sappho juice and the inconsistencies and or question marks of the Lore itself, because I agree. I think Lore is juiciest and most interesting when there's just enough doubt. Yeah, right. Too much doubt can make the lore, like, sort of boring and inconsistent and broken. But just enough doubt can really add a layer of intrigue to world building.

[Leo]

I also think that it's a more developed world, that there are factions of people and substances and drugs and all sorts of things, and then there are claims that those factions are making, whether or not it's established. Because we could just say, oh, yeah, amid all of these other things that exist in the Dune universe, this has this effect. And that's fine. That's very simple. You know, it's a power up. It's like any video game.

[Abu]

Right.

[Leo]

But it is funnier. To have an item in your inventory that you use and it doesn't have any noticeable effect, and you go, I guess my character is moving faster. That's great. And needs to be done more often.

[Abu]

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think Frank is particularly good and perhaps particularly bad at this level of mystery in world building. Like Suk Doctors. That's a debate we've had many times on the show. Right. Is Suk conditioning actually unbreakable? Is it just really good? Good PR and marketing from the Souk Company. And there's enough doubt and intrigue and evidence on both sides of that debate for that to be actually really fun and interesting. World building and something that makes the universe feel more whole.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

But I think at the same time, there are instances where Frank loves to just, like, hand wave a thing away and not answer any questions about it and thus open up possibilities for plot holes or inconsistencies or roundabout ways of world building where you just kind of have to either accept the logic or accept the fallacy of the logic.

[Leo]

Right. What are Alia's powers again? Just checking. Just checking.

[Abu]

Right, exactly. Like TBD

[Leo]

Book 7. I'll talk about it in Book 7. It's in the notes. All right, back to the episode. Love them. Because, see, microorganisms. You might be like, that's not interesting. Yeah. Well, I spent 40 minutes talking about GlowGlobes4,040 in our dune the Technology of Dune episode, which, again, spoiler free. It's a lot of fun. We talk a lot about the technology that you're gonna see in the movie. It's cool. We talk about glowglobes. I talk about it too much, frankly.

[Abu]

And we love you for it.

[Leo]

Oh, thank you. But in this upcoming movie, and actually in the trailer already, you can see it. In the trailer, you can see, you know, we've got Gurney Halleck and Paul Atreides sparring. And in the background, in the background, I saw some glow globes. And inside of those glow globes are microorganisms from Planet Ekaz.

[Abu]

From Planet Ekaz.

[Leo]

To our point, if you have seen the Dune trailer for Denis Villeneuve's movie, you have already seen Ekazian life.

[Abu]

Exactly.

[Leo]

Ugh. It's exciting. It's fun.

[Abu]

Ecaz has already played a part in the Dune trailer because of these microorganisms that are the light source within the glow globes. Again, a lot of technology in Dune is biological in nature, and ECAS is clearly the source for quite a bit of that biology. And one of the things it does is it Provides light. These microorganisms glow. So they are incorporated into these glow globes, which are little floating china ball looking things.

[Leo]

IKEA lamps.

[Abu]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's. That is what provides light for all of. In all of the books, basically.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

Like, glow globes are everywhere.

[Leo]

Every.

[Abu]

In the David lynch movie. They're in like every goddamn scene in the book. They're mentioned all the time. Like, glow globes are everywhere. Let's. Let's show some respect to these microorganisms, baby. They're from ecas.

[Leo]

They're from ecas. They came a long way and, you know, they're tired, but they're doing a good job and we love them.

[Abu]

So moving on from microorganisms, another interesting plant from the planet Ecas is something called verite, I believe is the pronunciation. And as the name might suggest, and as we actually sort of joked about at the start of this episode, verite is used to produce a truth serum.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

And this is sort of like a very classic sci fi and fantasy trope, I would say. Like, there's a truth serum in Harry Potter. There's a truth serum in like every sci fi book you ever read. And you know, again, of course, our planet Ecas, our homeboy planet Ecas is where this comes from. Like, the truth serum is made from one of the. This verite plant from Ecas. And an interesting anecdote about this serum is it's actually not used that much. It's mostly just used for interrogations at this point because as the encyclopedia points out, truth serum, when it was first discovered on planet Ecas was like a hot thing with the nobility. You know, like, all the kids were like, yeah, I got some truth serum. You want to take some? And they thought it would be fun and funny.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

If people were unable to lie.

[Leo]

Right. Truth or dare? Ultimate truth or dare.

[Abu]

Yeah, ultimate truth or dare. Yeah. And I imagine the kids, like, back in my day, it was Beyblades was the cool thing that we got in trouble here in the Dune universe, the teenagers got in trouble for truth serum and ultimately realized like, oh, shit, people being blatantly truthfully honest to my face is all the time is not fun. So they stopped doing that.

[Leo]

Yeah. That's a damaging middle school experience is blatant honesty. That is a quick way of losing friends.

[Abu]

Exactly, exactly. So truth serum actually doesn't play. It is mentioned in the books, I do recall, actually.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

But it doesn't play a major role in the larger universe, and we probably won't see it in the movie.

[Leo]

Probably not.

[Abu]

Unless we see an interrogation scene, because that is primarily what it's used for at this point. Espionage and interrogations.

[Leo]

I do like that. The def.

[Abu]

I'm gonna pause right there.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

I think we're maybe simplifying how big a truth serum is in like a fantasy or sci fi world. Like you would imagine something that literally gets to the truth, which, like, on a philosophical level is an idea that maybe humans have been chasing for all of existence would be like universe shattering stuff. Right. They wouldn't wave it off as like, actually we should not use this. It's kind of like annoying and useless. This is like a big problem in Harry Potter or like any fantasy story that has some sort of like truth serum, truth magic, truth, whatever.

[Leo]

Right, right, right.

[Abu]

You actually, when you sit and think about it, it's like teleporters. Right. You read a sci fi book and you're like, oh, they teleported from one place to another. The realities of the economic and social nuclear bomb that would be on society is actually enormous.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

The whole judicial system of truth would have to be like upended if truth

serums existed, you know?

[Leo]

Yeah. And Dune doesn't get away from that necessarily because we have truthsayers. But even the truthsayers, there's this idea that they explored more in the prophecy TV series of like, but what is truth like, if you believe the words that you're saying, that's all that a truth sayer can deduce. But if belief has been manipulated, if your mind, you know, that's a key moment at the beginning of World of Nol. A is a character says, this is a fact. And the truth detector machine goes, unable to verify because he has no opposing fact in his mind. And I'm like, cool, That's a cool system.

[Abu]

I watched this really great explanation by the YouTube channel Howtown, which I love. They just recently released an episode about polygraphs. And all of the nuances of polygraphs,

[Leo]

they don't work well.

[Abu]

And that's the thing, there's nuance there because they do work more than the average human's own ability to tell truth and lie, but they don't work well enough to actually use them in a legal system. And so they live in this really awkward gray area where actually just the perception of a polygraph, the idea that we can get you to tell the truth and we can tell when you are lying, is more powerful than the results of the polygraph itself.

[Leo]

Just like a placebo, you have to believe the polygraph.

[Abu]

You have to believe the thing will catch you. And I don't know, I think there's a lot of nuance there and I like that we're talking about it here in this ECZ episode, but this is something I always think about where I'm like, damn, the reality of some things that fantasy and sci fi books come up with would actually be like society shattering stuff.

[Leo]

Yeah, yeah.

[Abu]

Okay, back to the verite and the

[Leo]

truth serum definition, which is from the. Again, the appendix of Dune says, quote, one of the ECAs will destroying narcotics. It renders a person incapable of falsehood. But talk about having a number of will destroying narcotics.

[Abu]

Will destroying.

[Leo]

They destroy your will. That, and there's multiple of them. What a planet. What a planet. That's why we're doing this episode.

[Abu]

What a planet. We told you this would be interesting.

[Leo]

Next up, we're going to be talking about Elaka wood. Now, Elaka wood is described as a blood grained wood. What does that mean? I don't know. But it can be burned to produce two different narcotics, which are actually very different narcotics. First and foremost is the alaka drug, which kind of makes sense. You burn the alaka wood.

[Abu]

Alaka wood, Alaka drug. Got it? Yeah, it makes sense.

[Leo]

One to one, it's reasonable so far. And then secondarily, you have Samuda is, I think, how you say it. Would you say Samuda?

[Abu]

I'd say so. That's how I've been saying it forever.

[Leo]

So we have Ilakadrug and we have Samuda. Now, I will point out that we see in the trailer, we see Goopy Baron Harkonnen, who's a character in the the movie. Apparently he has a desk made of Elaka wood, which is, to my knowledge, the only, like, prominent instance of it being explicitly used for furniture. That's also like a crazy flex, right?

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

I don't know, I try to imagine some drug being in solid form and building furniture out of it. Like, what a flex.

[Abu]

I mean, that's like a real drug kingpin flex.

[Leo]

Oh, yeah.

[Abu]

I solidified my cocaine and it's the chair I sit in now. Like, what the fuck?

[Leo]

Wow. That is both. Okay, I guess there's a weird. It just looks like you sat in baby powder anyway.

[Abu]

No, it's cocaine, God damn it.

[Leo]

It's cocaine. Take me seriously. So these two drugs, Elaka drug and Simuda, you burn Elaka wood and then you use the resin to create these two narcotics. Now, starting with Ilakadrug, Illakidrug is a narcotic formed by Burning blood grained Elaka wood of Ikaz. Its effect is to remove most of the will to self preservation. Drugged skin shows a characteristic carrot color commonly used to prepare slave gladiators for the ring. So kind of like a berserker slash mind numbing agent that makes you not so much care about your own safety and makes you probably pretty fun to watch in like a blood sport like gladiating. Gladiat.

[Abu]

Gladiating. Gladiating.

[Leo]

Good job, Leo.

[Abu]

Fighting. I think the word you're looking for is fighting.

[Leo]

Wow. True gladiators fight, but in this case

[Abu]

not fighting for their lives. Because if you're on a lack of drug, you don't care that self preservation part of your brain is just turned off. Yeah, you just like simply stop caring. And the anecdote in the encyclopedia about this and how a lack of drug was discovered was I thought was so funny, but it's actually kind of dark. The scientists who discovered a lack of drug would chop down some alaka wood, started burning it for a campfire, fell asleep and like woke up the next day and for the next couple of days just couldn't get themselves to care about their safety. Even though they were on the dangerous, well established dangerous planet of ecas, they just stopped caring about their own safety. And by the time the drug wore off and they kind of came out of this anti self preservation haze, two of the, I think two or three of them had died. One of them had like a beetle in their like that bore through their skin like, but nobody cared. They just like let it happen because the drug was affecting them so much.

[Leo]

Man, I just call that Mondays. You know, the Beatles starts boring and you're like, yeah, but I mean I

[Abu]

got a meeting at 10, I don't have time for this.

[Leo]

I mean is it really a big deal? I don't know. Yeah, a lack of drug.

[Abu]

Yeah, a lack of drug is like a really, really hard case of the

[Leo]

Mondays that you smoke and leaves you carrot colored. So that's what a fun side of the. Are we gonna make the Garfield connection? So this might be something that we see, you know. Okay, please pause again. We've talked about being carrot colored, like orange colored and hating Mondays or like being bored on Mondays. The Monday effect. I'm like, that's a low hanging Garfield reference. No. Are we just gonna look, I think

[Abu]

we're ready to move on here. We're transitioning to the next topic.

[Leo]

We're leaving that Garfield joke untold. My God, I'm glad we've evolved as comedians.

[Abu]

Six years later We've told it now in meta format.

[Leo]

Those listeners who were screaming into their headphones. It's a Garfield reference. Justice for you. Justice for you. Okay. Wow. Okay, I guess I'll hit play again. We are avoiding spoilers, but the kind of carrot colored gladiators would be an example of Alaka, if that ever shows up.

[Abu]

Yeah.

And if it happens in the movie. Now you know.

[Leo]

Now you know.

[Abu]

Another planet. Ecas connection.

[Leo]

Boom, boom, boom. Now, okay, it also did not happen in the movie. They did not do the carrot color, although they might have. And we just wouldn't have noticed because of the Harkonnen homeworld being shot in infrared. So we didn't really have that light.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

So it's possible.

[Abu]

There was certainly a shot of drugging. Right.

[Leo]

There was a shot of dragons. Remember the two muscular guys? Yeah. Fun to listen back again. This was before any of the movies had come out, so we were really speculating like, oh, my gosh, what's going to happen? What are they going to do? Now we know what they've done, but not yet. For part three.

[Abu]

Yeah. It is fun to see how close and how far our predictions and interpretations were before the movies came out.

[Leo]

Yeah, very much so. Look at. Okay, back to it.

[Abu]

Now, the other narcotic that comes out of the Alaka wood is a little more fun, I would say.

[Leo]

Oh, totally. Yeah.

[Abu]

Less like self preservation death and more 1970s Berkeley.

[Leo]

This is like the free love drug.

[Abu]

Yeah, no 1,000%. And Samuta is actually mentioned a lot in the books. It plays a pretty significant role in the novels. A lot of characters take this. And the Baron Harkonnen we mentioned earlier actually uses this as a bargaining chip against people who are addicted to Sumuta. So it plays a pretty significant role. And I would put money down that we are going to definitely see Samuta in the movie.

[Leo]

You think so?

[Abu]

If someone looks high and if someone is listening to music.

[Leo]

Oh, I bet so.

[Abu]

Oh, they're probably on Samuta.

[Leo]

That would be. Okay. So, yeah, keep your eyes out because there are a few scenes in the book and none of these are like super pivotal moments, but there are scenes in the book where it'll be like people hanging out listening to music on this drug. And the thing is, this is the description from the back of the book. The second narcotic derivative by crystal extraction from burned residue of a lacquerwood. The effect described as timeless sustained ecstasy, is elicited by certain atonal vibrations referred to as samuta music. What a trip.

[Abu]

Hey, baby, you got some of them atonal vibrations.

[Leo]

I've gotten to karaoke, and I've heard some atonal vibrations, definitely.

[Abu]

But have they elicited timeless sustained ecstasy?

[Leo]

They haven't, so I should probably take some samuda.

[Abu]

Yeah. What a way to describe that. Timeless sustained ecstasy Sounds great.

[Leo]

I mean, sign me up. Is there a dispensary around here? A Samuta dispensary?

[Abu]

No, it's not legal. It's not legal in New York.

[Leo]

Oh, damn. Okay. Well. So dumb. So it's interesting because this sumuta music, it's called music and it's referred to as music, but it's this sort of, like, droning tone that is a certain vibration and doesn't really have a tone, or it's not centered around a tone and elicits this crazy feeling when you're on the drug. And in the book, exactly like Abu was saying, you might see people, like, hanging out listening to kind of weird music. That would be an example of samutta usage. But also another possibility is if a character seems a little bit out of it and, like, a little bit. There's a lot of talk of simuta dullness in people's eyes.

[Abu]

Right, right. If a character looks like their ecstasy has been sustained,

[Leo]

timeless amounts. Timeless amounts, yeah. Were those atonal vibrations coming from your room, Jeffrey? And he's like, no, I was just having ecstasy of the sustained variety for timeless amount. That is weirdly specific, Jeffrey.

[Abu]

Oh, man. Poor Jeffrey. Dude, Sabuta hits hard. I will say one thing, one last thing I'll say about the music that I thought was interesting. The encyclopedia did point out that the samuta music, I suppose the genre or type and style of music that Samuta listeners like to listen to that sort of enhance this ecstasy, the encyclopedia made sure to point out that it is anywhere from bad to unbearable for a sober person.

[Leo]

Again, I can think of a few nights at karaoke where that is the case. I really think I've heard some samuta music in New York karaoke bars.

[Abu]

I'm sure you have. I'm sure this would be the place. So moving on from sumuta and alaka wood. Alaka wood is great. And we get two great narcotics out of one piece of wood, and it's incredible.

[Leo]

Boom.

[Abu]

But just to pause there for a second, that makes me wonder what genre of music was Frank thinking of when he came up with that idea? The unbearable music. That's only bearable when you are deep in sustained ecstasy.

[Leo]

Jazz. He's just, like, hated jazz. He's like, oh, God, what is that? An upright terrible. Yeah. No, there's like.

[Abu]

I mean, there's stoner music. Stoner music?

[Leo]

Yeah. And I don't know the names of any of those, like, niche genres from the 70s and 80s, but like, there were, you know, I listened to a lot of like, Siguras and Mogwai, and those are described as post rock. And we'll have sometimes like, or like Explosions in the sky, which have these kind of much longer. Not really beat driven always. And kind of less rhythmic. And I don't think atonal is the way to describe them, especially some of their recent albums. But, like, I could see that if you're not into it.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

Or it's just like pop. He's like, the Beatles. I fucking hate the Beatles. It's like, Jesus, Frank.

[Abu]

Frank Herbert's greatest hot take. Okay, back to the episode.

I would actually propose that this next wood that we're gonna talk about might take the cake for coolest wood on planet. Ecas. I love fogwood.

[Leo]

Fogwood. I love how much hype we're giving wood. What an episode. What an episode this is, guys. Fucking buckle up. We got wood.

[Abu]

Get ready, baby.

[Leo]

We got wood, folks.

[Abu]

We're talking about plants.

[Leo]

Plants. Fogwood is dope. I love this. This is some real alien wood type stuff. And could also make an appearance in the movie, which I think would be a great flair if the were like adding this in in the background.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

So fogwood is a plant growth and it's capable of being shaped institute solely by the power of human thought.

[Abu]

Wow.

[Leo]

And of course you think, okay, so humans can think and use their mind to sculpt this wood. Naturally, artists love this stuff. It's used in sculptures. And Ekazian fogwood sculptures are actually mentioned a few times.

[Abu]

They are.

[Leo]

So this is something that I think, for me personally, was a first indication that fog wood was a cool thing to look into. And I'm so glad I did because again, this wood that as it's growing, you can sit in front of it and shape it with your mind and create a sort of living sculpture of your thoughts and feelings and emotions. It's really cool. Really cool.

[Abu]

Have you, Leo, ever seen that like. Like, black stuff that reacts to music and vibrations and like.

[Leo]

Oh, ferrofluid. Ferrofluid.

[Abu]

I'm not sure what it's called, but that sounds right.

[Leo]

I think it's ferrofluid. Yeah. It's like iron particles in like, a liquid form that react to kinetics.

[Abu]

Yeah, yeah. And you can it do like, shapes or it responds to vibrations. And it does these like crazy shapes on its own.

[Leo]

Yeah, that's cool.

[Abu]

In my mind, that's kind of how I imagine fog would obviously a little more natural and obviously a little more like woody tree, like wood, like. Right, right, right. But that is essentially what I imagine. Like an artist can go up to this fog wood tree or this fog wood branch piece of lumber and start to shape it with their mind. And the encyclopedia actually goes to great lengths to explain the process because it's not like you can just. You can just order some fog wood off Amazon and get it in two day prime shipping and then get to work on your sculpture. Artists have to travel to planet ecas.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

And if we haven't reinforced this enough, it's dangerous there. Yeah, it's super radiation, guys. Unknown chemicals.

[Leo]

Super dangerous.

[Abu]

Exactly. So dangerous you need backup shovels for your backup shovels. And these artists are like, no, fog wood is so worth the risk. They're risking life and limb to travel to e. CAS Find some fog wood in nature, and then just sit there and think really, really hard at it. To shape it into something beautiful and majestic and sculpture like, man. If this doesn't prove art is pain, Leo, I don't know what does.

[Leo]

Fun fact. I got my degree in art, so this hits close to home, man. Art is pain. No doubt. Of course, Naturally you think, oh, oh. So was this the first time I mentioned that on mic?

[Abu]

I don't know what number. This is like episode 11 that we ever released.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

Huh. I wonder when the first mention of our degree was.

[Leo]

Well, because that's the joke, but you didn't make it, so I'm wondering.

[Abu]

Yeah, I didn't rib you for it, so.

[Leo]

Yeah, it's great. So such a refreshing moment to mention my art degree and to not get shit for it. Wow. Oh, gosh. Fun to discover. We had spacing guild member John on our last commentary. We have Jeffrey. Didn't really catch on the way I think I was hoping it would. Jeffrey, are you listening to some muda music in there? It did not catch on. But microorganisms.

[Abu]

Microorganisms. Sustained ecstasy.

[Leo]

Sustained timeless variety. Ecstasy and art. Degree mention, but no ribbon. So we'll keep an ear out.

[Abu]

We'll have to keep an ear out.

Yeah.

As we revisit old episodes.

Yeah.

[Leo]

You think like, okay, modern art wood sculptures, Fogwood sculptures. This is beautiful. World building again. I love this stuff.

[Abu]

It's really cool.

[Leo]

Fogwood sculptures are released without titles because they are supposed to evoke the one thing the artist Wanted. Right. So the skill of the artist, the Fogwood sculptor, is evoking the one feeling. So all viewers viewing that thing should call it by the same name or the same thing. Now a title becomes popular by the audience, Right. Like people go to it and they all go, what do you call it?

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

Oh, I call it Honey Nut Cheerios are better than plain Cheerios. That's what I was going to call it.

[Abu]

Right. I don't even believe that. I love playing Cheerios. But like this sculpture is just speaking to me.

[Leo]

That's what the sculpture is. I can't deny that's. And we all agree. And that's suddenly what the sculpture is called.

[Abu]

Yeah. This is a really cool piece of world building. I was just totally entranced reading this part of the encyclopedia because at first I was like, okay, cool. It's like a sculpture thing, whatever. And then I kept reading. And the whole point of Fogwood is that it sculpts itself with the human mind into a shape that evokes the same emotion or the same idea of the original artist to every single person that sees it from there forward.

[Leo]

Right.

[Abu]

That's. That's all it can do. It can evoke one thing. And if an artist is good enough, they can shape it into that one thing that universally every human will think when they see it, which is kind of like counter to art. You know, there's always this idea that art speaks to everyone in different ways. And like, you interpret art in the way it speaks to you, right?

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

Fogwood is almost the antithesis of that. There's only one way you can interpret that Honey Nut Cheerio sculpture. And that is the way the artist intended. And I thought that was very cool and like a really fun tidbit of world building, this idea that this sculpture can only elicit one thing.

[Leo]

So I gave sort of a light hearted, fun example of a Fogwood sculpture. Right. The Honey Nut Cheerios sculpture that elicits the. The feeling and the clear imagery of Honey Nut Cheerios.

[Abu]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Leo]

There is an example given of probably the polar opposite of probably the worst sounding sculpture, like the darkest. This is tough. This is a heavy, small paragraph. I mean, walk me through this. So it's a famous sculpture and it's called Fear.

[Abu]

It's called Feet. So again, think of how we just explained. Fogwood is a sculpture that can only elicit one same thing from everyone who sees it. So everyone who sees this thing instantly feels fear, instantly thinks that is fear. That is the embodiment of fear. That sculpture could mean nothing. Else but fear.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

That thought alone is horrific. But let's back up. How was this sculpture made? Like, what twisted, crazy artist was like, I'm gonna create fear?

[Leo]

Who made it?

[Abu]

Turns out nobody happened. Was this sculpture was naturally and accidentally created when a fatal shuttle crash landed next to a fogwood tree or in, like, a fogwood tree clearing. And the tree just naturally captured the nearby horror and fear of the crew that was dying from this shuttle crash and became this natural sculpture that everyone can now look at and immediately feel fear. Feel the same fear that this crew of this horrific shuttle crash felt in their dying moments.

[Leo]

Oh, my God, that's so dark. That is so unnecessarily dark. I'm also imagining the enterprising.

[Abu]

I'm gonna pause right there. This is why the Dune Encyclopedia is so good. That, to me, is a beautiful Star wars vision style animated short. Right?

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

The creation of that fear Fogwood statue. And then sort of like, maybe it starts with someone seeing it in a museum or an art gallery. And then, like, flashbacks to the crash. The horror, maybe the survivors and how the fog would almost from, like, the Fogwoods pov, like, watching it and reshaping itself into what we see as the final sculpture in the art gallery.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

This is what makes the Dune Encyclopedia so amazing. There's all these, like, little stories that could be adapted into such beautiful pieces of work.

[Leo]

Yeah. Or even, you know, that happens. The tree in that space is now that shape. Someone else discovers it and the remnants of the crash puts two and two together, but then makes the decision to bring that off of the planet and to put it in a museum.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

So like, opening sequence, people reacting to it in the museum. But then we get the person discovering it and deciding what is the value for humanity to have access to this embodiment of this terrible thing to bring out more compassion, to, like, what is the intention of the person sharing it? And that could be really, really cool.

[Abu]

Yeah, Good point. Just shouts to the encyclopedia, how awesome is that?

[Leo]

So good. Love it.

[Abu]

Okay, we're almost done with this episode.

[Leo]

Yep. Person who finds the crashed shuttle and then glances, you know, eastward and sees this horrifying Fogwood sculpture.

[Abu]

Oh, my God.

[Leo]

And goes, let's put that in a gallery. Oh, there you go. Talking about millions of make money off of this embodiment of the fear, these victims of it.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

Oh, it's terrible.

[Abu]

Terrible. Totally wild. That's why Fogwood gets my vote as the coolest wood on Planet Ecast.

[Leo]

Listen, I think that's a strong point. I Don't know if I'm 100% sold, but valid I will say.

[Abu]

Look, I get it. I get it, Leo. You're a sumita boy.

[Leo]

Listen, I'm super into that.

[Abu]

You need some of that atonal vibration.

[Leo]

Timeless ecstasy, bro. Into it. So thinking back onto our theme, this episode in the movie and in any future kind of IPs, whether it's graphic novels or the TV series that's eventually coming out, if you see funky looking sculptures in the background, maybe hanging out in the entryway for a big house, I don't know. Again, not sure how it's going to be incorporated, if it's going to be incorporated. But if any of us see a funky looking wood sculpture thing, we can be pretty sure that that's fogwood and that's rad. Again, super cool. Akasian wood sculpted with the mind. And. And I hereby give you permission, dear listener, to whisper these tidbits to the person next to you in the theater to just utterly ruin their movie going experience. I guess you'll have to yell at the 6 foot distance Samuta comes from

[Abu]

burning a lack of wood.

[Leo]

Hey, did you know that the lamps have microorganisms? Kind of a weird edit there, dude. Who invited him? He came alone.

[Abu]

No, Jimmy, we support you.

[Leo]

We do.

[Abu]

We support you, Jimmy. Tell them they need to know.

[Leo]

Jimmy clearly listens to Gom Jabbar.

[Abu]

Clearly.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

So the last thing we want to touch on that you may or may not see in the movies and upcoming pieces of media.

[Leo]

I think so.

[Abu]

You think so? You think we'll see this?

[Leo]

Yeah, I think we will.

[Abu]

Yeah, I think so too.

I think you're right.

[Leo]

The final thing we're going to talk about is the Crimskill fiber, which is also referred to as Crimskill rope. And this is a woven rope made from strands of the huffuff vine, which is my favorite word to say huffuff. It sounds like when little dogs are a little bit angry, but they haven't really. They kind of huff huff, you know? Anyway, so the huffuff vine, which is an Ekasian vine pieces, strands of this are woven together into Crimskill fiber, or claw fiber is another kind of phrase. And knots tied in this crimskull fiber will get tighter and tighter and tighter if they're pulled on two. And this is kind of cool preset limits, so they won't tighten indefinitely, but they will get tighter and tighter. So this is often used. And we see this across all of Dune. We see this often in when People need to be, like, tied up. Like, if you have a prisoner of war or if you. Yeah. Again, if you are just trying to make sure someone doesn't go somewhere, this is a really useful material because, you know, you tie their wrists with this stuff, and if they pull on it to get out, it will tighten.

[Abu]

It'll automatically get tighter.

[Leo]

Yeah, exactly. But it won't then cut off their hands or anything. Too bad, because you can set these limits. And this is compared to something else that we won't really get into today, but I think is kind of fun, called she gut wire. And she ga wire is actually from Salusa Secundus, which is also kind of cool. But when people are bound in she ga wire, it's described as, like, they. They wrestle and it cuts into their skin, and it's this kind of scary, brutal thing.

[Abu]

Right.

[Leo]

Crimskull fiber, I feel like, is the. We've kidnapped someone, but we're, like, not committed to killing them. You know, like.

[Abu]

Yeah, like, we might be some rogues with hearts of gold. Like, you don't know.

[Leo]

It's also Tuesday. It's a lot to think about. The kidnapping and then also the murder.

[Abu]

Yeah. I'm on some samuta right now. I can't be bothered with this.

[Leo]

Got some timeless ecstasy in the afternoon. We're all gonna drop truth serum. It's gonna be fun. And if they try to get away from our brutal truths, it'll tighten, but to preset limits, which is great.

[Abu]

Exactly. Exactly. And I will admit, the truth serum we took at the start of the episode hasn't exactly worn out for me yet. So my first. First thought.

[Leo]

Sure.

[Abu]

As you were explaining the crimscale rope.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

Was this would be, like, really kinky for people who are into that, like, Lord Abu.

[Leo]

This is a good, polite podcast. Almost said Christian, use bad words. And look. No, I. 100%, dude. I. I'm right there with some part of my brain is right there.

[Abu]

Look, it gets tight to a certain point and not any further.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

I'm just saying.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

For the people that are into that, Grim Skull rope is for you. And, like, you know, don't tell me it's just used for prisoners. Okay. People in Dune are definitely using this for sex, guaranteed.

[Leo]

We're gonna have to wait a few more years to see that adaptation.

[Abu]

Yeah. That adaptation is actually directly coming to pornhub. It won't be in theaters.

[Leo]

I will say the reason I think that we're gonna see this in the movie and the reason I think we'll See, this across all of the Dune franchises is because, like, think about that trope of, like, movies of someone's gonna get tied up at some point, right? Like, the heroes gotta get tied up a thousand percent. Or, like, they're gonna tie up the villain and talk to him for too long. Whatever. And again, this is not specific to Dune, but if you see any person being tied up, this is going to probably be Krimskull fiber. So that's kind of neat. I don't know. Again, this is this Ekazian vine, the Huff Huff vine that is making an appearance.

[Abu]

Right. And Jimmy, as soon as you see that rope, that's your cue, dude. That's your cue. Let everyone know.

[Leo]

Hey, guys, have you heard of the Hufflepuff? You say it. Say it. Huffa. Huffa.

[Abu]

It's fun, you know, when a dog gets kind of mad at you.

[Leo]

So. Little dog. Not a little dog. Jimmy.

[Abu]

Jimmy. Where we Stan? We Stan. Jimmy. So to wrap up today's episode. Yeah, Leo. We've talked about Planet Ecas. We've clearly made all of these connections that we might actually see in the upcoming films and we have seen in previous adaptations, and they play a huge role in the books themselves. We love ECAs. We've talked about the plants. I wanted to end on a bit of a lighter note.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

And I actually wanted us to share what we would build with a piece of fog wood. If we braved the dangers of ECAs, went down to the planet.

[Leo]

Good question.

[Abu]

Found ourselves in a fog wood clearing. What would you make out of it?

[Leo]

You know, I won't put on any airs. You asked a couple of days ago. And I thought about it and. And the more I thought about it, you know, my degree in art gets in the way often of having fun with things like this. So I think I settled on My fogwood sculpture would be called Wood. And when people saw it, everyone would see it and they'd go, wow, that's wood. Yeah, that's definitely wood. Look at that. That is the most. But this is. And this is the skill. This is the really. This is the artistry. Right. Wow. It would look like birch or it would look like Aspen. Like, it would look like a different kind of wood that's much less exotic.

[Abu]

Yeah. But the real skill, Leo, is that it wouldn't exactly look like any kind of wood.

[Leo]

Yeah, right.

[Abu]

It would just look like general wood. You know, like, nobody could look at it and be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like. That's definitely a birch tree.

[Leo]

And I feel like, that would be impressive on some level. It would, you know, which isn't the point of art, but, like, people would go, wow. He really managed to avoid this being called Aspen, this being called birch. It's just called wood.

[Abu]

It's kind of oak, but it's not. Jimmy, like, what is it like?

[Leo]

Jimmy, please. You know, everything. Okay. So that's. That's my kind of dumb self. Referential meta.

[Abu]

I love it. I love it.

[Leo]

What about you, Abu? What would you do?

[Abu]

So you clearly gave this much more thought than I did. I wrote the question down and then immediately wrote my answer, like, 30 seconds.

[Leo]

I remember your answer. It's great.

[Abu]

I didn't give that much thought to it, but I don't. I think the sculpture that I create.

[Leo]

Okay. I'm gonna say it now and see how good my memory is.

[Abu]

Okay.

[Leo]

I'm pretty sure you talked about. You call it, like, triple take or something like that, where it forces people to, like, look at it multiple times.

[Abu]

Okay, this is coming back to me.

[Leo]

I'm pretty sure that's what you. That's what you talk about. We'll see.

[Abu]

Okay. Let's see if you're right.

[Leo]

We'll see if I'm right.

[Abu]

Obviously, it would be unknown. Right. I wouldn't give it a name. Just put it out in the world, and inevitably, the popular name for it, I think, would be Double Take.

[Leo]

Intrigue.

[Abu]

And the reason is because when I was sitting in front of that tree.

[Leo]

Yeah.

[Abu]

All I wanted more than anything else in the world is for people to look at my stat sheet more than they looked at other people's. And so now when people look at my statue, my beautiful fogwood statue, they're just gonna double take. And that's what it will be known as. It is my clever and cheap ploy to get people to look at it twice rather than once.

[Leo]

I love that your goal ends at two times. You're not like, I'm gonna keep them there all night. No, no, no. I want them to look at it twice.

[Abu]

Yeah.

[Leo]

And then leave. This is not. Don't hang out. I mean, the third time. No, that's too much. Don't.

[Abu]

Too much. Too much. Too much. Honestly, it just made me laugh, the thought of people walking in a museum and then being like, what? What? At a piece of sculpture, and then the person behind him walking next to him and be like, wait, what?

[Leo]

What?

[Abu]

Just all of these people in the museum doing the same fucking double take at the same piece of art is just such a. A funny, dumb image in my Mind.

[Leo]

Yeah. And then they turn. I'm picturing it. This is like a Scorsese film for me now. They turn and they walk away, and then they look down and they put their hand on their chin and they go, huh? And that's seen. And it goes dark and directed by Abu Zafar. And it's great.

[Abu]

Special thanks to Ekaz and that fogwood.

[Leo]

Okay, well, here's a question, Abu. In the moment off the top of your dome.

[Abu]

Oh, man.

[Leo]

What do you think is, like, what's an example of a dangerous plant that is on ecas? Like, if you had to come up with a plant that you think would be on ecas that's crazy enough to be on ecas and is super dangerous, what would you make?

[Abu]

Right, Right. Yeah. Honestly, E cast in my mind while I was researching this episode was very much a mix of, like I said, Alice in Wonderland. And is it felucia that planted in Star wars that we see in episode three for, like, half a second?

[Leo]

I have no idea.

[Abu]

That big plant, Star wars nerds hit me up. I think it's felucia.

[Leo]

Okay.

[Abu]

But it's a mix of where it's just like a planet with, like, really big trees and really big mushrooms and whatever. And it was a mix of that. If I had to come up with, like, a really dangerous plant off the top of my head, that's toughly, I think I would say. Yeah. I mean. I mean, a talking plant would be horrific for sure.

[Leo]

Oh, yeah. You know, Recites Seinfeld jokes but, like, poorly.

[Abu]

Jesus.

[Leo]

What about, like, a gun bush? It's just a bush full of guns. And they're like, no, there's no way that's a. And then it just starts shooting. That's pretty great.

[Abu]

Great.

[Leo]

Good job, me. Wow. Yeah. Oh, what a gun. Funny note to end on. Yeah.

[Abu]

Oh, my goodness. Well, friends, there is no way.

And then the outro. We've all heard that.

[Leo]

Wow. I'm disproportionately proud of Gunbush.

[Abu]

Gun bush is amazing. I feel like we have not appreciated gun bush enough over the years.

[Leo]

No, that's pretty. Yeah. And the idea of people going, there is no fucking way. That's what I. Oh, shit, man.

[Abu]

Okay.

[Leo]

That's great.

[Abu]

That's the ecast episode. I get why folks enjoyed listening to that one. I enjoyed listening back to that one.

[Leo]

Yeah. Super fun.

[Abu]

I think a bit of a slow start. You know, the first.

[Leo]

Sure.

[Abu]

Like 15 minutes, kind of meander. But then once we get into the plants, once we get into that really interesting sappho juice discussion. Some of the comedy in this episode, I think, really hit. We were really on our ball there.

[Leo]

Yeah, this was fun, especially because this is so long ago and, like, we were relatively inexperienced. There's that feeling of, like, really relaxing and getting into that groove of just we're vibing, we're following the script, but we're making jokes and whatever. And I think this one, I really heard, like, chunks of this episode could be today for sure. And that's good to hear that it's not all going to be that first. The timeline episode was a little uncomfortable from top to bottom, but this one was pretty good.

[Abu]

Yeah, this was a great episode. Really fun revisiting this because frankly, again, it has been five and a half years since either of us probably heard this episode last. So really interesting to go back and hear one how many of the same jokes we make. I mean, I am kind of like, wow, our humor really has not changed in six years.

[Leo]

Oh, no. We have seven jokes we've been using.

[Abu]

Right? We just recycled the same seven jokes and, like, we put a different hat on the joke every time, but it's practically the same joke. But clearly, I suppose that humor and our personalities have been working for people for six years now. So it's funny to see how few things have changed, how consistent we've been, and then also to just recognize, really, some of the more technical and storytelling skills that we've really refined over the years and gotten so much better at.

[Leo]

Yeah, that's true. True. That's a good point. Yeah. Well, thank you everyone for recommending this episode. As always, we are doing this just to continue to explain. We are doing this to buy ourselves some extra production time for Project Reanalog. So if you're interested in hearing about that, make sure you've joined our Patreon at the Fremen nave level or higher. We have a Discord channel and we'll be sending out regular updates to them.

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