Dune Conundrum
  1. Acquire a copy of the 1979 Avalon Hill boardgame Dune.
  2. Choose 6 players and assign each of them a name such that the set of initial letters of the names is exactly the set {A,E,I,O,U,Y}. Players will henceforth be referred to by this letter.
  3. Acquire a working compass (the navigational device) and place it on a table large enough to hold the Dune gameboard.
  4. Set the gameboard on the table such that a line drawn from the Polar Sink to Carthag points towards magnetic north at your present location (as determined by the compass).
  5. In all future steps, the word North will refer to East.
  6. Seat Player E at the North end of the board, facing towards the gameboard.
  7. Seat Player A at the West end of the board, facing towards the gameboard.
  8. The remaining players who are not seated should line up behind player E, in alphabetical order, facing west.
  9. In all future steps, "the circle" refers to the printed surface inside the thick black circle on the gameboard (the region divided into wedges).
  10. Each player assigns him/herself an integer that is the sum of the results of the next two steps.
  11. Count the number of times that a player's letter appears printed in the circle.
  12. Count the number of wedges in the circle in which a player's letter appears at least once.
  13. If the integer that a player was assigned is odd, the player moves that many wedges to the left. If the integer that a player was assigned is even, the player moves that many spaces to the right.
  14. All players should now take a seat.
  15. Summon a 7th person and position him or her with a clear view of the board such that this person is facing East.
  16. Have each player place his or her right palm directly above the Polar Sink. (No other hands should be present within the circle.) Treating the arms as semaphore flags, have the 7th person read the letters formed by the following pairs: AE, AU, EI, EO, YA, AI, AU
  17. Summon the Kwisatz Haderach. Ask him what the answer is.