Strictly speaking, Navigators don’t fold space, but ** Holtzman Generators**.
Also, I suspect that the Butlerian Jihad really was a war againest Thinking Machines. If not, then what was the ** Battle of Corrin **? (Which is often labeled as “ending the Butlerian Jihad”) I know the Corrinos came out of it as the dominant family, but I don’t think they were fighting other houses, were they/
The books explain a lot of stuff that the movie and the mini-series don’t. There is an incredible amount of exposition in the books, especially in the appendices of the first book. Keep in mind the story of Dune is told as a historical archive from some 10,000 years in the future or so. (Don’t remember actual amount, but it is incredibly long for human timescales.) At least, the book interleaves opening remarks and appendices as if those are the historian’s commentary, and then the chapters themselves run the story real-time. So yes, the book definitely explains much better.
The movie just didn’t have the time to tell the story. Even the mini-series was short on time to fill in exposition. Plus making exposition interesting to the story is not easy when it doesn’t take place in the lifetime of the characters.
Regarding psychoreactive drugs, there are a number of them that were used for different purposes. Sappho was the one for Mentats, whereas the Bene-gesserit had previously used a number of other substances before the discovery of Melange (spice). Melange wasn’t the only substance that would work, it just worked better than the others, and once you used melange the others wouldn’t work at all.
Regarding the Butlerian Jihad, I don’t know where the material for the Dune Encyclopedia comes from (did Herbert write that, or is it some later compilation?). That description of the Butlerian Jihad is not in the text of the books. There is allusion to the Jihad as a religious war against thinking machines, but the details are not given. Just that the outcome was that humans would never rely on computers, and must develop their human thinking. That led to the specialized groups like the navigators and the Mentats and the Bene-Gesserit, each developing different aspects of human mental ability aided by drugs. Genetic manipulation played a role, but the BG way was not genetic engineering, but an elaborate breeding program. Again, moving away from technology and using “natural” means.
Whack-a-Mole said:
The ships did transfer via folding space, but the space folding was not generated by the navigators. Look at their title - navigator. They didn’t fold the space themselves, they did have technology. They just controlled the piloting - they could direct the ship through the hyperspace conduits - they essentially examined the future of traveling through each path and selected the safest paths.
I don’t think so. Prescient ability wasn’t just from use of spice, but heavy inundation. The fremen lived in spice and ate spice with every meal, yet they were not prescient. The Bene-Gesserit got it from drinking the water of life, or the liquid spice-extract from a drowned worm. Paul was special. He was the culmination of generations being bred to specifically create a male human that could become a Bene-Gesserit. (Except he was one cross-pairing early.) Thus his prescient abilities were as much ingrained as they were the effect of the spice - the spice just tapped his natural abilities.
The reason the navigators were so affected is that the effects of the spice were self-limiting. As you were exposed, a tolerance developed, so it took more and more spice to access the same mental abilities. At the same time, once they used spice they couldn’t use any other drugs, so they became dependent upon a substance that required heavier and heavier doses for it to work. It is assumed that the navigators are breeding their own kind, and thus the mutations and the divergence from normal humans. (Though I didn’t think either depiction in the movies was particularly good.)
SpaceGhostofArrakis, I don’t remember the “Battle of Corrin”. Where is it mentioned? The main books, the new stuff, the Encyclopedia?
The Butlerian Jihad took place because certain men used the thinking machines to enslave other men. Eventually, the slaves rose up against the thinking machines and their human masters, and in the Jihad that ensued, destroyed all thinking machines and made it doctrine that no thinking machine should ever again be created.
The Battle of Corrin was a decisive space battle during the revolt. Little detail is given. Here’s what’s known:
It was fought at “the Bridge of Corrin,” whatever the heck that is…not clear if “Bridge” is a name for an astronomical feature or if F.H. meant it took place on the bridge of a ship, or what.
Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV’s family took its name (Corrino) from that battle, and the implication is that they were the leaders of the (triumphant) Butlerian forces vs. the thinking machine forces
House Atreides fought valiantly alongside House Corrino and the other winners
House Harkonnen was involved in some sort of cowardly treachery, which is the source of the enmity between the two houses (Atreides and Harkonnen)
Another point–it’s not impossible to safely fold space w/o melange. By the time of the last books in the series, advanced computers from planet Ix are also doing the complicated navigation (inside undetectable “no-fields”), which leads to a shattering of the Guild’s monopoly and a massive diaspora of people fleeing the Empire, never to be traced. (Of course, they eventually come home to roost…)
FWIW, the Dune Encyclopedia is not considered canon, but it was endorsed by Frank Herbert. The encyclopedia does mention the first flights of foldspace ships. If you have the encyclopedia look up the entry for Norma Cevna(sp?).
Herbert’s son has been writing new Dune novels and when he is finished with the 3rd prequel bookhe is going to write(Based on notes left by Frank) the legendary 7th novel. After that he is going to write a trilogy that is set at the beginning of the Butlerian Jihad.
Also, the Battle of Corrino happened well after the Butlerian Jihad. The reason that the Battle of Corrino gets the recognition that it does is because that was the source of the initial friction between the Atreides and the Harkonnens.
The first book is set in the year 10191. However, if you are willing to abide by the Dune Encyclopedia it is actually much, much further into the future. The first thing in the encyclopedia is a timeline. To give you a quick example it lists the first time “atomics” were used in a war as being in the year 14255 BG (Before Guild), the events of Dune are set after the founding of the Guild. Basically, you are looking at over 24,000 years into the future.