/lit/ - Literature

>"Stilgar" Paul said, "You urgently need a sense of balance which can come only from an understanding of long-term effects. What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with Genghis Khan."
>"Genghis...Khan? Was he one of the Sardaukar, m'lord?"
>"Oh, long before that. he killed... perhaps four million."
>"He must've had formidable weaponry to kill that many, Sire. Lasbeams, perhaps, or..."
>He didn't kill them himself, Stil. He killed the way I kill, by sending out his legions. There's another emperor I want you to notein passing--a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days."
>"Killed... by his legions?" Stilgar asked.
>"Yes"
>"Not very impressive statistics, m'Lord."
>"Very good, Stil." Paul glanced at the reels in Korba's hands. Korba stood with them as though he wished he could drop them and flee. "Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions which had existed since--"
>"Unbelievers!" Korba protested. "Unbelievers all!"
>"No," Paul said. "Believers."
>"My Liege makes a joke," Korba said, voice trembling. "The jihad has brought ten thousand worlds into the shining light of--"
>"into the darkness," Paul said. "We'll be a hundred generations recovering from Muad'dib's Jihad. I find it hard to imagine that anyone will ever surpass this." A barking laugh erupted from his throat.
>'What amuses Muad'dib?" Stilgar asked
>"I am not amused. I merely had a sudden vision of the Emperor Hitler saying something similar. No doubt he did."
I came