Thorough Testing
Juan Holtzman leaned back in the worn leather chair of Chilton Automotive's cluttered office, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his lips. The shop was a far cry from the bucolic countryside of the sprawling estate (and his gilded cage) where he now spent most of his days.
Here, the air was thick with the scent of oil, metal, and the faint tang of ozone from the welding equipment. It was a place where things were built by hand, where the hum of machinery and the occasional curse of a frustrated mechanic were the soundtrack of progress. It felt real in a way that his new life often didn't.
The owner of Chilton Automotive, a grizzled man named Elias Chilton, sat across from him, his hands stained with grease and his face lit with a grin that spoke of both pride and disbelief. Elias had been the first person to believe in Juan's work in Dune.
It was here, in this very shop, that Juan had dropped off the first manuscript of Dune years ago, back when he was just another struggling inventor with a head full of ideas and a heart full of doubt. Elias took a gamble with the manuscript and published it wholesale, and the rest, as they say, was history.
He had all the reasons to reject the manuscript, given his was a company that specialised in publish auto repair manuals and tire catalogues, not fiction publishing. Or the fact that this was another author who had dozens of rejections cloud him and found hismelf on the wrong printer house.
Still Elias took his time reading through Dune, and took the gamble to go where his shop had not gone before.
Juan was also in a reflective mood.
As Juan watched the owner cradle the manuscript of Dune Messiah like a man who had just been handed the keys to a lost treasure vault, he allowed himself a moment of satisfaction.
It had been years since he'd first walked into this unassuming repair shop and changed its fate with a single manuscript. Now, seeing how the shop had flourished in his absence, he couldn't help but be pleased.
The operation and scope of Chilton had expanded.
Though outwardly still a vehicle service center, the subtle modifications were there for those who knew what to look for. The extra storage rooms. The reinforced doors leading to what had to be printing and distribution facilities. The faint scent of ink and fresh paper that mingled with the ever-present tang of motor oil.
"You've done well for yourself," Juan said, leaning against a well-worn workbench as he glanced back towards Elias.
The older man chuckled, still flipping through the handwritten pages with the reverence of a priest examining holy scripture. "You have no idea, Holtzman. When we put Dune out, I figured we'd get a few collectors, maybe some history buffs. But the demand…" He whistled low. "We had to run dozens of multiple printings in the first year alone. People couldn't get enough of it."
Juan's brow furrowed in thought. "Any… unusual interest? People asking too many questions?"
The shop owner's grin faded slightly. "A few. Some academic types, a couple of military officers who thought it was 'an insightful study in leadership' which is a hell of a way to describe it. And then there were the ones who didn't say much at all but bought in bulk."
Juan's eyes narrowed. 'MIIO? DMI? Maybe even ComStar?'
That was worth looking into later.
Still, he nodded, satisfied with the answer. "That's the power of great literature. It must not entertain by shutting the minds of the people for an hour or so. It must move them provoke a feeling of want and desire and to make them think."
Elias grinned, but his expression grew more serious as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. "Speaking of which, what's with the entourage, kid? Last time I saw you, you were just a plucky dreamer with a manuscript and a head full of big ideas. Now you've got government types following you around like you're part of House Davion. What's going on?"
Juan hesitated, his smile faltering for a moment. He couldn't tell Elias about the shield belt, about the assassination attempt, or about the fact that his work had drawn the attention of some of the most powerful people in the Inner Sphere. Elias didn't need to be dragged into that mess. So he shrugged, downplaying it as best he could.
"It's nothing, really," Juan said, his tone light but careful. "Just some overzealous security. You know how it is. Once you get a little famous, everyone wants a piece of you. The Davions are just... making sure I don't get into trouble."
Elias raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced. "Uh-huh. And I'm the First Prince of the Federated Suns. Come on, Juan. I've known you long enough to know when you're dodging the truth. What aren't you telling me?"
Juan sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Look, Elias, it's... complicated. Let's just say I've gotten myself into a situation where a lot of people are paying attention to me. Some of them aren't exactly friendly. The bodyguards are just a precaution."
Elias studied him for a long moment, his sharp eyes narrowing as if trying to piece together the puzzle. Finally, he leaned back in his chair, his expression a mix of concern and frustration. "Alright, kid. I won't push. But you know where to find me if you need help. This place isn't going anywhere. And neither am I."
Juan smiled, gratitude shining in his eyes. "Thanks, Elias. That means a lot."
As he stood to leave, Elias reached into a drawer and pulled out a small, wrapped package. "Almost forgot. Got something for you."
Juan raised an eyebrow as he took the package, unwrapping it to reveal a small, intricately crafted model of a sandworm. The detail was astonishing, from the segmented body to the gaping maw lined with razor-sharp teeth. It was a work of art, and Juan couldn't help but laugh.
"Where did you even get this?" he asked, turning the model over in his hands.
Elias shrugged, a mischievous glint in his eye. "Let's just say I've got connections. Thought you might like a reminder of where it all started. Plus, it's a hell of a conversation piece."
Juan shook his head, still grinning. "You're something else, you know that?"
"So I've been told," Elias replied, leaning back in his chair with a satisfied smirk.
Before the conversation could continue, one of the MIIO agents cleared his throat meaningfully. "Holtzman, we're burning daylight. You got what you came for."
Juan sighed. He turned back to the shop owner. "I'll be in touch. Same arrangement as before?"
The man grinned, shaking his hand. "You just keep bringing me gold like this, and I'll make sure it gets to the right hands."
The return trip to his gilded cage was uneventful, though Juan could feel the weight of his escort's stares on him the entire way back. He knew what they were thinking.
This?
This was where Dune had come from? Not some grand publishing house or prestigious university, but a damn repair shop in the industrial district of New Avalon? The agents were still struggling to reconcile that fact, their expressions ranging from bemusement to outright disbelief.
Juan, for his part, ignored them. His mind was already shifting gears.
The shield belt.
It was time to move past theoretical work and into practical refinement. What he had now was adequate, a proof of concept that worked in the field. But adequate was not sufficient. The First Prince had been willing to extend him this rare trust, to give him resources and, more importantly, time.
Juan was not about to squander it.
Once back at the manor, he wasted no time in getting to work. His personal workshop had been assembled to his exact specifications: precision tools, diagnostic equipment, and an array of materials that made even his old university lab seem quaint by comparison. He was alone, save for the ever-watchful eyes of his MIIO handlers lurking at the edges of the estate, but that suited him just fine.
He began by reviewing his initial prototype, making careful notes on power consumption, efficiency, and the delicate interplay of the shielding field with the human body. The fundamental principles were sound, but there was room for improvement. The power drain needed to be mitigated. The activation needed to be smoother, more intuitive. And, most of all, it needed to be reliable.
A shield that failed at the wrong moment was worse than no shield at all.
He lost himself in the work. Hours passed, then days. Meals were brought and often left untouched as he sketched, tested, recalibrated, and refined. The whine of energy capacitors and the hum of diagnostic scans became his constant companions.
And in the rare moments when his mind needed respite, he turned to Dune Messiah.
Herbert had done something remarkable with the sequel—where Dune had been a grand ascent, Dune Messiah was the inversion, the slow unraveling of a legend.
Juan saw the parallels, whether he wanted to or not.
Paul had built something vast, something magnificent, only to find himself consumed by it.
Juan had no desire to be a ruler. But he was building something new, something unprecedented.
He would make damn sure he didn't suffer the same fate.
===
Upon returning to the estate (and he had to ask for the proper name or make one the next time) he wasted no time starting to work on the second reiteration of his shield belt.
Juan Holtzman had always understood the value of information. Knowledge, after all, was power especially in a universe where the very concept of technological advancement had been rendered an afterthought by centuries of war, incompetence, and the sheer stubborn refusal of humanity to learn from its past.
Which was precisely why he took no chances.
The second iteration of his shield belt was a systematic, methodical deconstruction and reconstruction of every component, every theoretical assumption, every practical limitation. And unlike the half-mad tinkering of so many desperate Inner Sphere engineers scrabbling to keep a dwindling technological base from collapsing, Juan took copious notes.
Every blueprint was meticulously drawn out by hand and then transcribed onto digital files using the clunky, infuriatingly primitive computing systems available to him. Every revision, every step of the process was documented, recorded, and stored in multiple formats—paper, video, magnetic storage, anything he could get his hands on.
The result was his current desk being cluttered.
Spread out before him on a long, marble-topped table were the finished blueprints, notebooks, and data pads, each filled with copious notes, diagrams, and calculations. Every detail of the shield belt's second iteration was documented in painstaking detail where he put in a clear and relatively simple manner the step-by-step processes, revision histories, and even speculative theories on potential improvements.
He had left nothing to chance.
And, then he put it in triplicate.
Just to make sure nothing was lost. Or more accurately, "lost."
He understood all too well how easily knowledge could vanish in this universe. The very concept of LosTech, of technology that had once been widespread, only to be erased from human reach through ignorance, war, and sheer bloody-minded refusal to preserve it was something that made his skin crawl.
Juan was no deep lore nerd of the universe he was now living in. One of the few things that stuck to him was the common place of blackboxing and tech exclusivity that permeated the Inner Sphere resulting in LosTech. A doctrine perpetrated by the Star League as a means of control and tech advantage gap between them and the rest of the Inner Sphere where they got the advanced tech and the rest got crumbs.
They even made the Houses thank them for it too, or so he remembered from the distant forum posts of another life.
Juan had read too many stories both fiction and real in his youth of brilliant inventors who hoarded their discoveries, clutching them close out of greed, paranoia, or sheer arrogance… only for their knowledge to die with them.
He would not make that mistake.
The First Prince had taken a risk on him, had given him resources and more importantly had given him time. And while Juan could have leveraged his exclusiveknowledge to squeeze out more concessions, to make himself indispensable, that kind of arrogance was an excellent way to end up dead in an alleyway, face down in a gutter with a ComStar-blessed dagger between his ribs.
Hubris was a very deadly thing in this universe.
He wasn't the main character of this story, and he wasn't about to act like it.
It would be a different kettle of fish of he had gotten something like say, the Celestial Forge with its vast array of multiversal equipment and followers, or one of those CYOA things where he somehow was the heir to a cache of Lostech mechs and jumpships with their attendant dropships.
This was a setting where casual assassinations were a fact of life, where intelligence agencies played a game of knives in the dark, and where the so-called Holy Shroud viewed technology not as a tool of progress, but as a divine secret to be controlled.
And while he didn't have a full grasp of the political landscape, he understood enough to know that if he kept his work too close to his chest, some overly zealous fool within House Davion would decide he was a liability rather than an asset.
No, he was going to make damn sure that House Davion and not just him and his isolated lab, but House Davion itself had the full, unabridged knowledge of the shield belt.
If something happened to him, if he vanished into an unmarked grave, the project would continue.
Because even if he tried to keep it secret, somehow, someway, ComStar and their mystical bushido-hands pulled out of their asses would leak the technology anyway.
And if the Inner Sphere was going to get its hands on the shield belt, Juan Holtzman would make damn sure it was the Federated Suns leading the charge.
As he worked, he couldn't help but think of Elias Chilton and the sandworm model sitting on his desk. It was a reminder of where he'd come from, of the dreams that had driven him to this point. But it was also a reminder of the stakes he was now playing at.
Ideas were fine and good. The shield belt neede hard numbers and inviolate proof that it did what was proposed on paper.
Juan knew better than to trust theory alone. Engineering was a practical science and one that only proved its worth when the numbers and formulas held up under real-world conditions. The difference between a brilliant idea and a field-ready piece of technology was simple: testing.
Rigorous, methodical, and utterly merciless testing.
So when the first prototype of his refined shield belt was ready, he wasted no time in putting it through its paces.
The testing facility MIIO had built for him stood out against the otherwise idyllic countryside estate like a fortification from a different era. The bunker was an ugly, brutalist slab of reinforced concrete and proof that whoever had signed off on its construction valued function over aesthetics which suited Juan just fine. He wasn't here to admire architecture.
Inside, the testing chamber was little more than a reinforced shooting range with hardened walls, multiple camera setups, and remote monitoring stations. MIIO and DMI agents had gathered to observe, some of them still treating him with wary detachment, while others (especially those with a technical background) watched with undisguised curiosity.
Juan moved to the observation area, a reinforced booth equipped with holographic displays and recording equipment. He took his place beside a pair of agents who were already busy setting up cameras and data feeds. Everything would be documented in excruciating detail in video, audio, and raw data.
If something went wrong, they'd have a record of it.
If something went right, they'd have proof.
At the center of it all stood the test dummy.
The training dummy had been fitted with the shield belt, power supply properly calibrated, and internal monitoring equipment running. Juan checked his notes one last time before giving the order to begin.
"Alright," Juan said, stepping back and raising his voice to be heard over the faint hum of the shield belt. "We're going to run this in phases. Start with the ballistic pistols, then work your way up to the heavy stuff. I want every shot recorded: hit locations, energy dispersion, shield integrity, the works. If this thing fails, I need to know why."
The MIIO and DMI agents exchanged glances. Then, with the professional enthusiasm of men who rarely got to shoot at something with impunity, they opened fire.
"Phase one," Juan said, his voice calm but firm. "Handguns. Begin."
The first agent stepped forward, raising a standard-issue Federated Suns handgun and taking careful aim. The crack of gunfire echoed across the testing area, the sound sharp and percussive. The shield belt flared as the bullet struck, a shimmering barrier of energy dispersing the impact. The dummy remained unharmed.
"Hit registered," one of the agents called out, his eyes fixed on the data feed. "Shield integrity at 99%. Energy dispersion within expected parameters."
Juan nodded, his expression focused. "Next."
The agents took turns, each one firing a controlled burst at the dummy with their handguns. The shield belt held, its energy barrier flaring with each impact but never faltering.
The agents, however, were just getting started.
"Phase two," he said after the last handgun had been fired. "Submachine guns and assault rifles. Let's see how it handles rapid fire."
The agents switched to compact submachine guns, their shots coming in rapid succession. The shield belt's barrier flared brighter with each impact, but it held. Juan's heart pounded in his chest, a mix of excitement and anxiety. This was the moment of truth.
The first volley crackled through as bursts of fire poured in. The results were immediate.
The shield held.
Bullets stopped dead in the air, ripples of golden energy flaring outward like concentric rings in water before the spent projectiles dropped harmlessly to the ground. Every impact sent feedback data to Juan's monitoring systems, measuring stress loads, energy draw, and overall resilience.
He smiled. This was promising.
Another agent stepped forward, raising his ballistic rifle and taking careful aim. The crack of gunfire echoed across the testing area, the sound sharp and percussive. The shield belt flared as the bullet struck, a shimmering barrier of energy dispersing the impact. The dummy remained unharmed.
"Hit registered," one of the agents called out, his eyes fixed on the data feed. "Shield integrity at 98%. Energy dispersion within expected parameters."
Juan nodded, his expression focused. "Next."
The agents took turns, each one firing a controlled burst at the dummy. The shield belt held, its energy barrier flaring with each impact but never faltering. The data feeds filled with information: hit locations, energy readings, shield stability. Juan watched it all with a critical eye, his mind already working through potential improvements.
"Phase three," he said after the last ballistic rifle had been fired. "Heavier weapons. Let's see what this thing can really take."
Then, someone produced an anti-materiel rifle from somewhere and Juan wasn't entirely sure if it had been standard issue for the estate's security forces or if one of the agents had simply brought it along in case things got interesting.
Either way, he wasn't about to say no to good data.
The agent wielding it took his time, adjusting his stance and sighting carefully. The first shot was deafening, the recoil visibly shaking the man's frame. The shield belt's barrier flared violently, the energy discharge bright enough to leave afterimages. But it held.
"Hit registered," the agent monitoring the data feed called out, his voice tense. "Shield integrity at 72%. Energy dispersion spiking, but within tolerances."
Juan clenched his fists, his eyes fixed on the dummy. "Again."
The agent fired again, and again, each shot hammering the shield belt's barrier. The energy readings spiked with each impact, the shield's integrity dropping steadily. By the time the magazine was empty, the shield was flickering, its barrier barely holding.
"Shield integrity at 12%," the agent reported, his voice tight. "One more hit in the same location, and it's gone."
Juan exhaled slowly, his mind racing. The shield belt had held, but just barely.
"Alright," he said, his voice calm but firm. "Shut it down. Let's get the data analyzed and start working on the next iteration."
As the agents moved to secure and sanitise the area, Juan allowed himself a small smile.
Juan exhaled slowly, feeling something suspiciously like satisfaction settle in his chest. He'd passed the first phase of testing. Now came the real work of refinement, optimization, and preparing for the next stage.
Because if there was one thing he knew for certain, it was this: A real battlefield wouldn't be as forgiving as a controlled test.
For now, though, he had work to do. The data wouldn't analyze itself.
And there was the issue of the possibility of laser weapons turning it into an atomic explosion.
Dear God, he hoped not.
The Draconis Combine and the Capellan Confederation would take one look at it and turn the weakness into a strength where they could just kill many Davion troops and the collateral damage was just a fucking bonus.
Another thing to give a heads up to his handlers.
Two days later, he presented the shield belt and its accompanying documentation (including the current ballistic wepaon data refined and edited to be presentable) to his MIIO handlers. They were impressed, though their expressions betrayed a hint of unease at the sheer volume of information he had provided. One of them, a sharp-eyed woman who introduced herself as Agent Voss, raised an eyebrow as she flipped through the stack of blueprints.
"This is... thorough," she said, her tone carefully neutral. "Almost too thorough. You're not worried about someone stealing your work?"
Juan shook his head. "It's not about ownership. It's about making sure this technology doesn't get lost. If something happens to me, I want this to survive. I want it to be used and be out there that says, 'There is more to do than pine for lostech and the past.'"
Voss studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Understood. We'll make sure it's archived properly."
As he left the room, Juan felt a strange sense of relief.
For the first time in a long while, Juan felt like he was making a difference. And as he walked back to his quarters, the sandworm model sitting on his desk seemed to smile at him, as if to say, Well done.
===
Juan, bless his heart was ignorant of the great bombshell that Dune had on the rest of the Inner Sphere.
He was busy these days and well, for a man who grew up with the information of the 21st century world a simple search away, with great interconnected streams of information and entertainment at the fingertips of his smartphone and computer, the Inner Sphere was fucking slow and primitive.
It was basically courier ships in space or transmit information across planets with ruinous rates by a monopoly that was Comstar.
Juan had basic assumptions formed by his faulty knowledge and the socio-cultural biases of the Federated Suns also play a factor.
After all, it was more likely that the Combine and the Capellans would ban the book so thoroughly on pain of death since it was not a propaganda book sucking their dick and loudly proclaiming how great they were.
Hell, would the Taurians even read a book that came from Davion space?
Given that the Outback was also part of the interstellar nation, he also thought that people would not have the time, money and will to buy yet another book when survival and wealth was needed above all.
Man plans, and God laughs.
The novel had begun as an oddity as one of those small, obscure pieces of literature that filtered through the borders of the Great Houses without much notice. But then, someone of influence and means (perhaps an intelligence analyst with a taste for the arts, perhaps a noble patron of the literati) had read it.
And word had spread.
===
To the Federated Suns, Dune was a hero's story. Paul Atreides, the noble heir thrust into the crucible of war and betrayal, had captured the imaginations of readers across Davion space. His story, of duty and sacrifice, resonated deeply with the Suns' cultural ethos in a genuine belief in nobility not just by birth but by action.
That the book's protagonist led a rebellion against tyranny while simultaneously navigating the treacherous world of politics was all too familiar to Davion sensibilities. Generals and officers in the AFFS debated the merits of House Atreides' strategies, while the military academies incorporated Dune into their courses on leadership and asymmetric warfare.
Of course, some more perceptive readers pointed out that Paul's rise was not merely heroic—that he embraced the role of a messianic warlord, unleashing religious fanaticism and galactic war. But the average Davion reader, especially among the military, saw a noble leader fighting impossible odds.
Even Hanse Davion himself, after a long night of reading, set the book down and mused, 'If only we had a few Fremen legions of our own…'
===
For the Lyran elite, Dune was a story of commerce and realpolitik. Spice was simply another form of a rare, hyper-valuable commodity, much like germanium or LosTech, and House Steiner understood economic monopolies better than most.
The struggle for control of Arrakis fascinated the Commonwealth's merchant-princes. House Harkonnen's bureaucratic misrule, its corruption and excesses, were all too familiar to anyone who had dealt with the worst of Lyran nepotism. But the Atreides' attempts to establish an effective governance model, only to be crushed by superior political maneuvering, struck a chord as well.
Among the nobility and business elite, the novel was dissected with a focus on trade, influence, and power. The cultural importance of water to the Fremen was compared to the Lyran perception of industrial wealth, of the notion that those who controlled the means of production and economic flows ultimately dictated history.
Katrina Steiner herself read it with keen interest, appreciating its lessons on statecraft. Yet she also saw the darker warning in Paul's rise, of how a leader's idealism could birth a storm they could not control.
===
To the Combine, Dune was not a cautionary tale, nor a work of philosophy. It was a blueprint for conquest.
The story of Paul Muad'Dib, who turned an oppressed people into an unstoppable warrior force, appealed to the Combine's martial sensibilities. The Fremen's discipline and survivalist ethos found ready admiration among the Dragon's samurai caste, who saw echoes of their own Bushido traditions in the desert warriors' unshakable commitment to their cause.
But it was the Bene Gesserit and their secretive manipulation of faith and prophecy that most intrigued the ISF and the O5P. That an entire galaxy could be maneuvered into worshiping a figure of myth carefully cultivated by shadowy forces for the cause resonated strongly with the Combine's cultural management of its own myths, such as the divine right of the Coordinator.
Takashi Kurita read Dune with careful consideration, taking note of its implications for social control. It was a book that reinforced his worldview: power was an illusion woven through faith, tradition, and the iron will of its wielder.
Among the lower castes, the book's appeal was simpler: the story of an exiled prince who took his revenge, reforging himself through suffering and battle. That, the warriors of the Combine understood well.
===
For the fractured Free Worlds League, Dune was a tragedy.
Here was a story of noble intentions, of political maneuvering, of alliances both honored and betrayed. The League, forever a realm of divided loyalties and internal conflicts, saw too much of itself in the fate of House Atreides.
Janos Marik read it with a sense of grim recognition. The balance of power between the Landsraad, the Emperor, and the Guild was all too familiar to anyone navigating the Byzantine politics of the League Parliament. The constant infighting, the maneuvering of economic interests against military necessity, the weight of inherited obligations truly was not fiction.
It was a story House Marik lived every day.
More than that, the book's themes of religious and political movements spiraling beyond the control of those who started them struck a deep nerve. Paul Atreides had intended one future, only to birth something beyond his reckoning.
That, more than anything, was a warning Janos took to heart, ironically having the same conclusion with Katrina Steiner.
===
To the Capellans, Dune was revolutionary scripture.
The story of an aristocracy overthrown by an exiled heir who aligned himself with the common people and the one who molded them into an unbreakable, ideologically driven force resonated deeply with Capellan philosophy.
The Warrior Houses of House Liao found much to admire in the Fremen: their utter devotion to their cause, their strict communal order, their willingness to sacrifice all for the survival of their people. The way Paul Atreides transformed them into a disciplined, nearly fanatical army spoke to Capellan ideals of unity and service.
Maximilian Liao, ever a man who saw grand omens in fiction, found himself fascinated by the religious fervor that propelled Paul's ascension. If faith could shape empires, then perhaps the Confederation needed a new doctrine, one beyond mere state control, of one that could ignite devotion.
And so, in some of the more fanatical corners of the Maskirovka, discussions began. Could such belief be cultivated within the Capellan people? Could Duneitself become a tool of inspiration, its messages of loyalty and sacrifice reforged into something… useful?
===
Across the Inner Sphere, Dune took root in unexpected ways.
It was studied in war colleges and debated in universities. It was censored in some regions and required reading in others. Nobles saw in it lessons of power and downfall. Intelligence agencies saw in it guides to subterfuge and manipulation. Military commanders saw it as a treatise on insurgency and leadership.
The masses saw it as one of the best work of entertaining literature that crossed borders and stars without the "taint" of propaganda. A large, informal fanbase that was slowly organising themselves in the inner Sphere called themselves "Duneheads".
The Great Houses, each in their own way, found something of themselves in Dune.
And they would not forget it.
And then Dune Messiah was published