In my class on the Culture of Formal Work Organizations, we have a team assignment to apply organizational structure models to our case study: Dune, or more specifically, the futuristic planet Arrakis. My team has decided to use the backcasting model to speculate how the genetically-engineered Mentats could come to be. A Mentat in the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune is a human computer — not technologically enhanced like a robot, but an actual human who has been bred to perform at a very high-level intellectual capacity.

The point is to demonstrate mastery of the forecasting technique (looking from a future point backward to present day, in this case), not necessarily whether we believe it’s truly possible to achieve the end result.

We are going to chart a critical path using historical and scientific information about nanotechnology, gene mapping, etc. within political environs that would encourage the pursuit of human computers. It should be interesting!