"For the father, nothing!" Topic

"Roses are red, violets are blue, Dune is a trap and I wouldn't go there if I were you."
-The reverent mother Gaius Helen Mohiam to Duke Leto

Why did Duke Leto pull up stakes and move everything and everyone to Dune? Did he leave anyone behind on Caladan? Did he still own the planet or did some lesser house take over? Hopefully someone from a volcano planet who would really appreciate the change of scenery.

Couldn't he have just sent a contingent to Dune, led by his most capable and trusted servants? Why risk his family in what is an obvious trap?

I think the more important question is why was Dune ever up for grabs. How is it that the Space Guild didn't own Dune. It is most important to them and having a monopoly on space travel would give them the power and leverage to pretty much rule the universe. You could argue that that is what they are doing, using various houses to do the dirty work. But why. Why risk what is the most critical and priceless resource there is.

I have many other questions about this book. For instance, why bother with house atomics when any two bit Fremen terrorist could make an equivalent bomb from a cheap shield and lazgun. It would require zero technical knowledge, just one guy to run into a city shouting Muad'Dib Akbar and activate his shield then shoot himself.

The reason for a lot of the politics was to do with it being a feudal society and the emperor's word was law.

The spacing guild didn't own Dune because every time they began maneuvering to seize it their precognition went haywire and not being able to see the future scared them off.

Shields and lazguns are unreliable bombs, sometimes you get the massive explosion but often all it does is annihilate the shooter and shield wearer.

Robert

Politics in the Dune'verse are every bit as convoluted as Westeros. The Atreides were ordered by the Emperor to swap Calladan for Arrakis with the Harkonens.

On the face of it it looked like a big promotion for the Atreides, but it was clearly a trap. I don't think the order could be refused.

There were likely retainers and lesser nobles loyal to the Atreides left on Caladan. But too weak to menace the Harkonens.

The Atreides were one of the most influential Noble houses. Although risky, playing along was an opportunity to solidify power.

The Emperor was playing the Harkonens to weaken Atreides. The Harkonens were playing the Emperor for vengence against the Atreides. The Bene Gesseret thought they were playing everyone. The Guild was uneasy about everybody trying to make waves and steering events in a dangerous direction. The Mentats were too self involved to see much past their noses.

And in the desert, the Fremen were waiting.

No. Calladan was retained by the Atreides. The Harkonnen were merely overseers on Arrakis; they were swopped out with the Atriedes. Duke Leto was too popular and the Emperor was getting uneasy about [imagined] coup attempts. "Don't get more popular than the Boss", somebody said.

The reason lasgun shield explosions are not used in warfare is that they are considered atomics under the great convention. That's the thing to remember about Dune. It's about a very structured and ritualized society. There are even rules about how to properly go about poisoning your enemies.

It's why in Heretics and Chapterhouse, shields are out and lasguns are in when the old civilization has long since collapsed and dispersed.

The Atredies get Dune because the Harkonnen's give it up to maneuver them into a vulnerable position. The emperor actually likes Leto and regrets that his weak position forces him to use the Harkonnens to destroy the Atredies. It's all feint and counter feint because all the great houses have nukes and will unite against anyone who uses them.

Nobody knew how many Fremen there were or how dangerous they were because the Fremen were paying hefty bribes of spice to the spacing guild to cover up their settlements and slow terraforming project.

The other thing that lots of people seem to miss is that Arrakis was a water world before the sandworm ecosystem was introduced from who knows where. This is actually established in the first book in the chapter where the imperial planetologist Keynes is wandering in the desert. That's why attempts to transplant worms to Salsua Secondus fail, it's a desert world and their life cycle requires a lot of water. They encapsulate it in the larval sand trout stage. It poisons the adult worms because they break back down into sand trout.

Leto thought he could out-maneuver his enemies, knowing full well Arrakis was a trap. He was counting on winning over the Fremen and making them his ace in the hole. He could have refused the order, but that would've meant going renegade; sure, you save yourselves for the time being and give up everything to spend a life forever on the run until your house fades away.

The Emperor did like them, but had to wipe them out because Idaho and Hawat had succeeded in nearly equalling the Sardaukar; plug the Fremen into that mix, and you have a huge direct threat to your position.

It would have worked, too. For me, that's always been the big damned tragedy.

As for the Space Guild, Paul addressed that himself: They were playing it safe. If they had ever moved to secure Arrakis themselves, they would have revealed just how incredibly dependent up on spice they really were, and ultimately secured their own downfall. It would have taken a very long time, but they would have ended themselves, and these guys take the very, VERY long view of things.

Haven't read it in years, probably due, but iirc the Duke knew it was a trap. But they didn't have much choice and thought they could outfight and outthink the trappers. And it it weren't for Yueh, they might have pulled it off.

A million deaths are not enough for Yueh!

+1 PKinder

And personal shield technology wasn't the prevalent on Arrakis because IIRC it attracted worms!

Everything attracts worms.

Even tequila.

Nothing much to add, except to note that, as with anything, the level of explosion produced by a lasgun/shield combo is going to be in direct proportion to the power level of both objects. So I doubt a personal shield and lasgun combo is gonna be the equivalent of a suitcase nuke. Also, while the Fremen are clearly based on Islamic Bedouins (and in the back history, effectively descended from at least that faith), the Fremen aren't suicidal in quite the same manner. They'll attack and fight to the death, with limited concern about their personal fates, but in the end their religious goal is actually purely physical— the Terraforming of Arrakis— and their paradise is mixed in with that. Also, the Fremen are religiously obsessed with water. The water in a Fremen's body is assumed to belong to his tribe, to be immediately collected at his (or her) death. It is NOT to be wasted if at all possible. A "suicide belt" attack as suggested would be wasteful of that water. So such an attack would have to have a massive tactical or strategic purpose for a Fremen to willingly carry it out (though they wouldn't shirk from it if that proved to be the case). They don't have the same ridiculous attitude as the current crop of looneys that make up ISIS/Al Quaeda/Hamas/Hezbollah/Whomever, which in 1965 wasn't as yet as widely seen or known as today. Fremen don't think they're going to heaven if they blow themselves up to kill a bunch of school kids. (Besides, Herbert wanted to at least create a sympathetic "heroic revolutionary" group, not laud terrorism.)
And lastly, one thing they learned from Liet was "don't attract attention to the Fremen." Blowing yourself up attracts attention.

[EDIT: Okay, that turned out to be a lot of "nothing much." ]

The future version of "Islam" by Hebert isn't really analogous with todays Islamic extremism, nor the concept of jihad. Plus they establiah that the BG screwed the Fremen faith a fair bit in the centuries leading up to the book, putting in their own safety valves and purposes.

Time to read it again methinks!

One of my favorite books of all time! A re-read might not be out of order. I read many of the follow-on books, most not as good (Dune Messiah was pretty good, Children of Dune OK, God Emperior of dune weird the first time, but better the 2nd time around; I have Heretics of Dune but never read).

Damon.