The Pain Box
A small black cube that convinces the mind a hand is burning away, with no real damage done.
The pain box works alongside the gom jabbar in the Bene Gesserit test of humanity. It floods the nervous system with a conviction that fire is consuming the subject's hand. All of it is illusion. None of it is real injury. The test asks a single question. Can a mind override the animal urge to flee agony at any cost, using will and reason alone? The gom jabbar waits the whole time to kill the instant the hand pulls free. Paul Atreides faced Reverend Mother Mohiam's Voice layered on top of the pain itself. That combined pressure drove him near the limit of what he could endure, and still he held still. The device looks almost crude for what it does. Yet the Bene Gesserit trusted nothing else so completely for telling a true human apart from a creature ruled by pure instinct.
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