How did someone travel to Dune and discover the spice if one has to use it for space travel?
It’s been a long time since I read the book.
I think that timely space travel wasn’t possible, but perhaps extremely long voyages on colony ships or something was possible. The kind of journey that took many lifetimes…
That was a skirt.
SO, who would win if they got in a fight, Captain Kirk or a guy in a diaper? or a skirt?
See? We need a pointy-eared smilie!
to carnivorousplant and OpalCat:
Space travel is possible without spice, but involves psychic powers on the part of the navigators. They use various mind-altering substances to enhance their powers. Spice works the best; so much so, that once you get used to spice, the other drugs no longer work.
Ditto for the Reverend Mothers’ abilities.
Oh, and by the way, if you stop taking spice, you die…
Here’s an astrophysical question: At one point, muad’dib is looking at the - one is a (presumably) waning crescent while the other is more than 3/4 full (my 6yr old daughters’ Moon book is at her mom’s right now so I’m blanking on the correct terminology).
They seem to be either the same distance/size or a convenient combo of dist/size to make them look to be the same size.
wouldn’t they both show the same phase? Or does an approx. 15 degree difference make that big of a difference?
I hope that made sense because the scene bothered me for that reason.
Cool.
I thought it was pretty good and gave a good backgound history (i.e. prequel) of Dune… Not as good as the one wrote by his father but I still thought it was pretty good (hehe, and I like the explanation why Vladimir Harkonnen got so fat!).
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I thought it was pretty good and gave a good backgound history (i.e. prequel) of Dune… Not as good as the one wrote by his father but I still thought it was pretty good (hehe, and I like the explanation why Vladimir Harkonnen got so fat!).
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Surry if my vopu-lary jist sacks - it’s late and I’m feeling tired…
How did he get fat? Inquiring minds want to know!
I am begging for some help here.
I need a copy of the first part of the Dune miniseries. I set my VCR to record it and for some reason it didn’t. If you have a copy of the first part, I would be willing to pay for the tape and the mailing cost.
Most of my friends don’t have cable and the ones who do have it didn’t record or watch the movie. Let me know if you can help.
Well, now my wife has seen the whole thing, and she STIKLL doesn’t understand it. But now she wants to read the book – something the Lynch movie couldn’t inspire her to do.
They could have explained more. The whole role of the mentats was toned way down. They never explained about the Butlerian jihad. (When I told Mrs. Cal she said: so THAT’S why they don’t have any computers!) The biggest thing that upset my wife was that the people lived in dirt and biblical conditions when they had space travel.
Mike G said:;
Here’s an astrophysical question: At one point, muad’dib is looking at the - one is a (presumably) waning crescent while the other is more than 3/4 full (my 6yr old daughters’ Moon book is at her mom’s right now so I’m blanking on the correct terminology).
They seem to be either the same distance/size or a convenient combo of dist/size to make them look to be the same size.
wouldn’t they both show the same phase? Or does an approx. 15 degree difference make that big of a difference?
I hope that made sense because the scene bothered me for that reason.
I agree. The moons SHOULD have been in the same phase. (Lucas got this one right in the original Star Wars) Maybe the Bad Astronomer will take note of this at http://www.badastronomy.com
In the prequel, House Artreidies, when the Baron was forced to conceive with that Bene gesserit witch a second time, he zapped her with a stungun and raped her in front of his troops. But while she was paralyzed, she was still able to change her body chemistry and inflicted the Baron with a debilitating disease; he didn’t even know it. And so over the years, his muscular body degenerates and became extremely fat and sat on the suspensor in the original Dune.
Cheers,
jov
Carnivorousplant, it goes back to the history of galactic expansion. In the deep history, humanity had spread to the stars through various means, including using computers. Then the Butlerian Jihad came - a gigantic religious war that left the final result of the prohibition against thinking machines - computers. Thus humanity was forced to rely upon human mental abilities. Enter the mental enhancement drugs. There is a type of juice the Mentats use, there are other, less potent drugs. But the spice melange is more potent, and has better effects, so the spacing guild and the Bene Gesserit both developed a strong reliance on it. And once using it, the others are no longer effective. And it takes a stronger and stronger dose to work as your body becomes acclimated. Thus Paul has his visions when first stuck in the desert, and then later has to use more and more spice and is worried he still can’t see, and thus takes the water of life for the enhanced spice dosing.
So by the time the other methods of spacefairing were eliminated, the spice was in use.
OpalCat, I thought it was a skirt at first, but then in the fight it appeared to be pants. Or maybe pants with a skirt over it. Whatever, it looked silly.
What always bugged me was Paul had the ability to adjust his body chemistry, same as the BG (he had to to survive the water of life), so how come he’s worried about the poison on Feyd’s needle? Maybe it’s just that the time to react would be just enough delay to allow Feyd the advantage to stab him?
MikeG, I hope the Bad Astronomer replies. I’m curious too.
CalMeacham said:
And that relies heavily upon the political structure, and especially the fact that the fremen were outside the traditional structure of the system. The regular political structure was a feudal society, with all the accoutraments. But the fremen were Free Men, they didn’t participate, or only loosely interacted, with the feudal system. Thus their hiding in the desert and nobody knowing their actual numbers. That explains why they lived so sparsely.
Though in the book they weren’t quite so non-technological. They had factories and worked plastics and such in the seitches. The best stillsuits were fremen built. Fremen were perfectionists.
Jovius, the Baron had 2 children? Who was the other one, besides Jessica? Rabban and Feyd were his nephews.
No computers?
They’ll have my Gateway when they pry it from my cold, dead hand.
Forgive me, but the question comes to mind, is this an allegory of the triumph of the 60’s drug culture over technology?
I rewound the tape to watch it again… it’s a wrap-around skirt, so it has a slit in it, which is what made it look like pants to you.
carnivorousplant:
Yes. “Dune” was published in 1965. The counterculture was anti-authority, skeptical of technology, and infatuated with drugs. In some ways, you can read “Dune” as a warning that revolutions do not always lead to utopia. Herbert created a society in which mind-altering substances are crucial to the functioning of the society, but people are still SOBs.