I don’t get why Irulan couldn’t be the heir to the throne. I kind of get the impression that she has been getting a bit of training to be better than her father.
And does the most powerful nation on Earth control the oil fields of the Middle East directly, or through regimes it sort-of-but-not-entirely controls? Remember what Dune is “about.”
Agree spoilers shouldn’t be in the title. That the Emperor and Harkoneen are working togeather is revealed in the first couple pages of the book though, more or less at the same time the existence of either faction is discussed. So I’m not really sure its a spoiler.
The calender in the Duniverse relates to the formation of the Spacing Guild. The Guild really only came into being after the properties of Spice were known and really, fully utilized.
The fact that the Emperor only had daughters and no sons was directly the result of the Bene Gesserit. Of course, the BGs also planned for the kwisatz haderach to be born of a union from an Atreides daughter and Feyd. The BGs never forgave Jessica for her heresy, which was falling in love. Of course they see the problem wasn’t Paul’s Jihad, but the Tyrant Leto.
Because the other two major parts of the Dune universe, the Guild and the Landsraad, would never have allowed it. The Emperor had nominal rulership over the imperium but that was all, he was supposed to be the first amongst equals with the heads of the other houses, not a divine-right ruler of all. If he had directly controlled Arrakis that would have given him a bargaining chip that would have undermined the Guild, which they would never have permitted.
The three prequels to the main books by Herbert Jnr and Anderson show Shadam trying to assert more direct control over Arrakis and as soon as the Guild realise what he’s doing they simply leave his forces stranded over Arrakis knowing that he has no way of getting back. Obviously those books were written after the original and are even arguably not canon but I think it demonstrates the point quite nicely.
The book s gives another reason why the Emperor wanted to destroy the Atriedes. It was revealed that Leto had trained a small number of troops to be almost as good as the Sardaukar,and many of them were better. The Emperor knew of that.
Since the Emperor’s position (and life) depended entirely upon the threat from the Sardaukar, he could not allow anyone to have comparable troops. An even worse threat was that the Atreides training techniques would become standard, and that everybody would be able to field Sardaukar standard troops. Even if they weren’t quite as good as the Sardaukar, if every house had troops of that calibre then the difference in numbers would render the Sardaukar useless and render the Emperor poweless.
IIRC technically she was the heiress presumptive, but nobody really expected her to actually rule in her own name. I was just assumed that once her husband became Emperor Jure uxoris (in right of his wife) she’d delegate all power to him and focus her attentions on her children. Which is basically what happened after all, except she didn’t get to give birth to the imperial children herself.
Sorry, but citing those Abominations only hurts your point (which is otherwise correct).
Wasn’t that something Thufir told the Baron while he was in his service? I always assumed it was a bit of disinformation Thufir was using to push the Baron into doing something stupid on Arrakis, to get the Emperor further pissed off at him. Remember that Thufir always had his own plots against the Baron even when he was working for him. I could be wrong though.
I think it’s the equivalent of “Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker’s father.”
I remember reading an appendix on “Bene Gesserit Motives and Purposes,” but, AFAICR, it shed little light on Bene Gesserit motives or purposes. What did they mean to do with the kwisatz haderach? They were obviously concerned with guiding the general course of human history, but in what directions or to what ends?
From the Wikipedia page;
In Dune (1965), Duke Leto Atreides leaves Caladan for the desert planet Arrakis to assume temporary control over the melange-mining operations there. Leto’s son Paul Atreides ultimately rises to lead the entire native Fremen population of Arrakis, using his subsequent control of the planet and its supply of the valuable spice melange to depose the Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe, Shaddam Corrino IV.
In 1969’s Dune Messiah, Paul rules the universe from Arrakis, and it is noted that Jessica has been granted control of Caladan. After Paul’s death, Jessica returns to Arrakis in Children of Dune (1976) to assess the state of Paul’s empire, which is being ruled by Leto and Jessica’s daughter Alia until Paul’s twin children come of age.
Five thousand years later during the events of Heretics of Dune (1984), the planet is simply known as Dan.
It’s possible I guess, but there is no reason to believe that.
The Emporer really did get concerned when the Baron started decimating the population and then said he was planning on turning Arrakis into a prison planet. In fat the Emperor expressly forbade it. So it seems like he really was worried about someone producing Sardaukar analogues.
Leto really did have a small number of troops that could stand off Sardaukar. The Baron accepts that news without blinking, so it seems like it was common knowledge, or commonly suspected. It seems unlikely that the Emperor was unaware of it.
Hawat didn’t really need that lie to lead the Baron on WRT Arrakis. Indeed his plan was to make it *appear *that the Baron was trying to produce Sardaukar analogues on Arrakis to make him appear a threat to the emperor. He had already done that before he told the Baron that piece of information.
When you combine those facts with what Hawat said, and which we have no reason to doubt, then it seems more plausible that it was true than otherwise.
The Kwisatz Haderach would be able to unlock both male and female genetic memory, thereby having the knowlege and experiences of the entire human race. He’d be able to predict the future with complete accuracy, and be able to bend space and time. As emperor, he’d lead mankind into a golden age with the help of the Sisterhood.
It’s a bit off topic, but just how did Baron Harkonnen subvert Dr. Yueh’s Imperial Conditioning? As far as I can remember, the Baron just said I Have Your Wife, but it had to be more than that. That was the one big thing the Baron had to keep secret from the Emperor, because anyone who could subvert a doctor’s Imperial Conditioning would have a perfect assassin to strike at the Emperor himself. But how, exactly, did the Baron do it?
He didn’t just have her, he was actively torturing her. Dr Yueh “couldn’t bear to see her groveling in Piter’s pain amplifiers.”
As to the OP, the Baron Harkonnen was a master manipulator, as was Piter de Vries, and they’d been feeding subtle misinformation to the emporer about Leto for years.
ETA, IIRC, the move to Arrakis was an imperial command
Yes, Leto was commanded to take up the Arrakis fief. That’s pretty much what tipped him off to the fact that the Emperor was gunning for him…the trap was obvious.
The balance of power in the Imperium at the time that “Dune” occurs is very delicate. The Imperium rested on three legs: the Imperial House, the Landsraad (and CHOAM), and the Spacing Guild. Any one of those three legs could tip the balance against the others, but all of them knew that would be disaster if it was done openly. That’s why the Emperor had to conspire with the Harkonnens and disguise his Sardaukar in Harkonnen livery. If the Houses of the Landsraad knew that the Emperor had acted against another Great House directly, they could overwhelm him.
The Corrinos were originally a barbarian tribe who developed on Salusa Secundus. The harsh environment made them into incredible warriors. The Battle of Corrin mentioned above was the decisive event that created the Imperium as Paul Atreides knew it, and elevated the Corrinos to the throne. Their major hold over the Imperium consisted of the threat of the Sardaukar and the Corrinos’ wealth. There were quite a few very old Houses who still considered the Corrinos upstarts, even after 10,000 years.
Yeah, but seriously — if that was all it took, then the Imperial Conditioning was utterly worthless. Or was that the real secret — that Imperial Conditioning was all a big con job to begin with?
Yeah, but Wanna and Wellington had True Love, the stuff that dreams are made of, the kind that launches a thousand ships, that changes history and makes a great plot device.