APPLICATION TO HAVE SEITCH RECOGNISED AS AN INTERNATIONALLY IMPORTANT SITE I am writing to the scholars of the Cultural Exchange Treaty Organisation in order to request them to recognise the city of Seitch as an internationally significant site.
The city sits on the edge of the desert of Kaitaine in the far west of the nation. It is significant for four main reasons.
1. It is thought to be the only still inhabited city in the world which features high rise constructions made out of mud bricks.
2. It is home to the Palace of the Corrino family a ritual centre for the Bene Gesserit faith.
3. It is the only place in the world where the spice Melange, vital to the Bene Gesserit faith rituals, is produced.
4. It is considered the birth place of the Bene Gesserit faith.
In order to convince the respected scholars of this organisation please allow me to outline each reason in turn.
Built in the early 3rd Century AD the city is made out of a mixture of mud bricks and a limited amount of sandstone. While the vast majority of the buildings today date from the 16th Century they still use a largely traditional construction method. The city is contained within a 3 meter high wall which is made in the same manner of the buildings. It is believed that the city may feature some of the first "skyscrapers" as some of the largest buidlings have 12-15 floors, each floor contains four appartments. Not only does the construction method make the city rather unique the windows are often decorated with religious scripts from the Bene Gesserit faith. A large number of the appartments also contain balconies. Each block also contains a garden roof something that was thought important as the city sat on the edge of the desert agricultural land was at a minimum. Most of the blocks also contain significant underground constrcutions which in many cases have today become further living accomodation, shops or recreational facilities.
The city features a trademark narrow street, something that has prevented cars from entering the city and most commerce still relies on using porters to move goods through the city or convoys of donkeys. A handful of motorbike and mopeds do make their way through the streets though however these are not a common daily occurance. The city also see's an annual season where buildings are recovered in new layers of mud to ensure they stay in good condition throughout the year ahead. This has lead to the Festival of Mud whene the community take pride in coating the buildings while celebrating the cities existance.
Overlooking the city of Seitch from a rocky outcrop is the Corrino Palace, sometimes called the Palace of the Sands. It is the ancestoral home of the Corrino family who were made the guardians of the city of Seitch in the 12th Century. The family were considered to be among the most holy families by the Bene Gesserit faith and as such given dominion of the desert which features significantly in the faith's folklore. Additionally it gave them a unique status in the faith as the Palace is the place where the new harvest of the ritual spice Melange is blessed, not a single shipment of the spice may leave Seitch without passing through the Palace. The Palace itself is also a fort and was built to provide an additionally refuge for the people of Seitch in times of crisis. The Palace is today the official residence of Duke Niklaus Corrino.
The city of Seitch is also home to hundreds of what are called Spice Farms. These are large recessed stone tanks filled with sand and home to in same case hundreds of Kaitaine Sandworms, a unique species of sand dwelling worm. Every year the worms grow and shed their skin which is collected and ground up to make the red spice Melange which is a central part of the Bene Gesserit faith. Bene Gesserit folklore talks of how at one time their ancestors harvest the spice directly from the desert when the worms would grow up to 40 meters in circumfrance and some 400 meters long. Today however the worms grow no more than 30 centremeters long. Every year the tanks are emptied and the shed skins collected and ground up. Many small tradesman still use traditional methods where the work is done by hand, first by shovelling the sand out and sieving the sands to find the living worms, remove the deceased ones and most importantly find the shed skins. The Spice farm is the refilled with sand and the living worms replaced. In recent times however more modern Spice Farms have been built with devices built in allowing sand to drain out through a kind of filter which captures the worms and shed skins. It is believed that over two tons of spice is farmed in an average year. No spice is permitted to be used until blessed by the Sisterhood.
One of the key aspects of the Bene Gesserit folklore is that all four Holy Houses descend from an individual called Selim Wormrider. It is he who is thought to have established the first rules of the Bene Gesserit faith and was the first to discover the spiritual power of the spice Melange. Stories tell how Selim was outcast from his tribe and made to walk into the desert where the giant sandworms would consume him. He was gone for several years and naturally presumed dead until one day he returned for vengence against those who had sent him to the desert to die. Stories tell of how he had summound the largest of Sandworms known as Shai Halud, the creature thought to carry the dead to what lies beyond. The worm consumed those that had exiled him and left him alone on a rocky outcrop at the edge of the desert. It was here other tribes having seen the tracks of the giant sandworm found him meditating and where he established the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit faith. As such the city is today seen as the most holy place for the Bene Gesserit and therefore makes the city not just important to the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, its followers but also to the world as the Bene Gesserit faith today has crept into every corner of Mundus.
It is our hope therefore that this application will be accepted by the members of the Cultural Exchange Treaty Organisation and that Seitch may be entered onto the register of protected sites.