Talk to me some Dune

Cafe Society
1

With the new movie out and the sequel/second half due out in March, I have waded back in to the Duniverse to reassess everything.

Note: I have not engaged any of the Brian Herbert works. I am constraining myself to the Frank Herbert originals and the various movie takes.

This really started from the request to prepare a library program on Dune to tie in with the second movie release. I have managed to read Dune at least twice, plus follow on with Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.

I have a also rewatched the Lynch film, and even got my hands on the SyFy “Frank Herbert’s Dune”.

I made a play for the Alan Smithee version, but didn’t get it.

Anyway, I did my first round presentation giving history on Frank Herbert, his influences and desire for three story, and the nature of the book.

I then did comparison/contrast against the existing film versions and what I could dig up on the Jodolorowski attempt.

I’m now getting prepped for a round 2 to coincide the newest movie release. My topic this time will be on the technology of Dune.

Naturally, any starting place must be the Butlerian Jihad and subsequent limitation on thinking machines.

I then plan to hit stillsuits, ornithopters, and try to wrap up with shield tech. Obviously the last is the most fictional of the technologies presented.

Anyway, anyone wish to discuss any of this? Ponder Herbert’s fascination with mental exceptionalism? Debate the believability of the Imperial aristocracy in the extreme future?

Wonder about what we know and what we have to postulate on stillsuits?

I’m game.

2

Ornithopters are perhapsthe least realistic element in Dune. The aerodynamics and mechanism are really difficult when scaled up to carry something as heavy as people, and fixed-wing flight is so much simpler.

Then again, maybe the atmosphere on Dune is such that 'thopters become more practicable. And maybe they’re powered by spice. And maybe the sand there doesn’t get into the mechanism and jam everything up because… giant worms fart on it or something.

I wonder if ornithopters are any more or less plausible than a stillsuit that works as well as Herbert depicted in the books.

3

As I understand it, the ornithopters are slightly less impossible than the stillsuits.

Herbert claimed that the stillsuit would cool the wearer by the evaporation of perspiration, then recapture the water. But if you recapture the water, you also recapture the heat.

I can’t remember the details, but stillsuits had a couple of other issues that violated the laws of thermodynamics.

4

Ornithopters, prescience-enabling ‘spice’, ‘Face Dancers’, the ecology of the sandworms/sandtrout, the abilities of the Bene Gesserit/Honored Matres, and all of the varied technologies utilizing the Holtzmann Effect are all scientifically nonsensical, although presented in a context in which they are taken as viable in the Dune narrative universe via literary conceit. Stillsuits are something that seem at least in principle plausible although a bodysuit capable of cooling the user and filtering all but ‘a thimbleful of water’ per day by employing only the user’s walking motion would certainly require some advanced nanotechnology. The general idea of precognition via access to a shared genetic memory and perception of a future multiverse and the Atreides and Harkonnens being bred into a carefully structured bloodline to produce a Kwisatz Haderach which would lead humanity to the “Golden Path” of survival (after an unavoidable cleansing jihad of celestial proportion) smacks of eugenics, but then Herbert uses that as a metaphor for why we should not trust charismatic leaders claiming to be a uniquely “Chosen” (although that theme is somewhat muddled in the later novels).

Of course, Dune and its sequels are set in a feudal-like space empire controlled by what are essentially a chartered company in the “____ East India” vein, with interstellar commerce and travel mediated and controlled by the Navigators Guild, so it is really applying an pre-industrial “Age of Sail” paradigm upon a vast space empire genre. Herbert creates a convincing universe through the use of parenthetically described institutions, events, and technologies with a rich and somewhat contradictory history but I think if you actually sat down and tried to work out the economics or the viability of single planets holding a monopoly on some particular technology it really wouldn’t make much sense. Herbert was ultimately more interested in exploring the metaphysical philosophy of such a world, and why vast institutions with generational scope become corrupted or turned to purposes other than their originators intended; hence, the intentional merging of Catholicism, Protestantism, Sufism, Hinduism, et cetera into a single syncretic religion which the Bene Gesserit would use as a kind of spice pantry to create mythologies built into local religions on isolated worlds.

What I find most peculiar and difficult to really accept is that while the Freeman of Dune live a relatively primitive lifestyle, riding sandworms into the deep desert to travel between sitches, they are capable of manufacturing complex weapons and tools that should require an extensive industrial base. It is an interesting study in integrating spartan living within the bounds of a seemingly barren environment with high technology, but it is never really explained other than the basis for most things is somehow the spice melange produced from the wastes of sandtrout. That this ‘spice’ should be so useful in so many ways is a big conceit but since it is the key factor in so much of the novels and the substance that all groups are fighting to control and/or figure out how to produce/synthesize outside of Arrakis, it is something that the reader just has to accept without a real physical or chemical basis.

Stranger

5

The series is set, what, 10,000 years in the future? We have no conceptual framework for even imagining what technology they might have - what tools, what materials, what production methods. Maybe a stillsuit is indeed something that can be manufactured using simple household tools - for a given definition of “simple household tools.” It’s like how we are now capable of performing amazing feats of mathematics, unimaginable a century ago, using a common smartphone. Maybe the Fremen are performing what you and I would consider amazing feats of technological manufacturing, using the household tool equivalent of a refurbished iPhone 7.

6

I don’t think there is necessarily anything about stillsuits that fundamentally violates thermodynamics; the stillsuit could allow internal cooling by evaporation, then use some kind of nanotechnology to capture the heated water vapor and run it through a refrigeration cycle driven by the user’s movements which rejects heat to the outside in the form of superheated steam (of that ‘thimbleful of water’ it is allowed to lose). The major trick would be to somehow drive all of that heat into the ‘cooling loop’ or radiating system that is hotter than the external environment; it couldn’t be done by radiation alone because the heating from energy lost to work would generate more waste heat than could be rejected, but using some kind of super-efficient heat pump cycle to concentrate the heat into a high temperature reservoir is at least conceptually plausible, although I suspect completely unworkable in practice without some kind of handwavium.

If pressed, I’m guessing Herbert would say something along the lines of, “Spice did it”.

And of course we see almost nothing of any kind of manufacturing technology other than some vague descriptions of biological engineering. But all of the industrial technology we know of today requires both a vast array of materials that are processed through largely ad hoc processing chains and manufacturing processes, and enormous quantities of both electrical power and fresh water, which are things that the Fremen certainly don’t possess. You could just pass it all off as some kind of self-assembling nanotech that essentially structures into what ever complex forms you need, although this would seemingly violate the thinking machine prohibitions of the Butlerian Jihad. Really, it’s just best not to think about it too much because, like the elaborate swords and armor that fantasy characters often buy for a few silver pieces even though they live in a Bronze Age culture where handcrafting a sword would be many months of work by a master weaponsmith, it just exists in that world.

Stranger

7

20,000 or so, I believe. The first book is set in the year 10,191 after the establishment of the Spacing Guild, which is implied to happen sometime around 10000-12000 AD.

8

The Fremen sell spice on the black market via the Guild of Navigators (I think) which affords them a certain level of wealth. As part of the deal, the Navigators prevent satellites from orbiting Arakis thus allowing the Freman to keep themselves hidden from the houses and the emperor. In the first book, Paul notes that the Freman are more numerous and possess more water than anyone knew.

9

Sure, but that still doesn’t explain the ability to manufacture complex and high quality devices. It is noted that while it is possible to purchase stillsuits that are manufactured in Arrakeen and Carthag or from off-world suppliers they were substantially of lower quality and not suitable for deep desert travel. Again, I don’t think it really bears a lot of analysis; the conceit is just that the fremen do have this ability and are far more sophisticated than a jaundiced Harkonnen eye would recognize without delving into how a nomad-ish desert society could actually maintain such a base.

Stranger

10

Is there anything in the novel that implies the Fremen lack that industrial base? On the contrary, I always assumed they had who-knows-what going on in hidden underground bases, and let us not forget that the entire south polar region is their turf, partially terraformed and probably includes all sorts of factories (including, of course, stillsuit factories), among other facilities.

11

They’re not nomads, at least in a way we typically understand it. The Freman had sietches scattered throughout Arrakis carved into the rocks. These sietches had to big big enough for the hundreds of thousands of Freman that lived in them and I’m guessing that’s where the engines of their economy were located. They appeared to be primitive nomads to many outsiders, but they worked to make sure their secrets remained hidden. (The deal with the Navigators.)

12

Fair enough, but the books (at least Frank’s novels…I’ve never read the ‘extended’ books and have zero interest) don’t explicitly present any of this, and the general lifestyle and cultural practices of the Fremen seem kind of unworkable in an industrialized society, even one hidden in the deep desert.

It’s kind of like a “Who builds all the spaceships?” problem in Star Trek; somebody is mining all of this transparent aluminum and durasteel ore and beating and brazing it into big saucer shaped targets, but since nobody gets paid to perform boring labor and there is little-to-no automation, there is either a hidden subclass of worker drones doing all this boring assembly work, or its basically magic.

Stranger

13

Canonically (Dune Encyclopedia is canon, I’ll die on this hill!) they’re powered by giant clams*.

I am not kidding.

'thopters are used throughout the Duniverse, not just on Arrakis.

/* OK, giant scallops.

14

It doesn’t have to mean that they have superior tech.

If I buy a pair of hand-stitched Italian leather shoes made by some 5th-gen craftsman, they are going to be superior to some machine-made Crocs in almost every way. But they would be much lower tech. Maybe for stillsuits it’s the hand-finishing that gives the quality.

15

One thing that always puzzled me. Given the Butlerian Jihad and the consequent creation of ‘mentats’ as human thinking machines, I can’t really recall much in the way of seeing exceptional mentat powers in action?
Been a while since I read the books though…

16

I think it is fair to say that Dune is really a fantasy book/series, rather than science fiction.

There is a lot of stuff in the books that is just not physically possible according to known and well-verified science.

For example, how can the worms move easily through sand? Didn’t Herbert have any understanding of viscosity? Or how does the planet have an oxygen atmosphere when there seem to be no photosynthetic plants?

I suppose one can invoke some sort of superscience nanotechnology which could be deployed by a type II kardashev culture to create a replication of a desert planet, but that doesn’t seem to be canonical?

17

I can understand the resistance to the idea of bird-wing flapping vehicles. What I liked about the newest films is the use of insects instead of birds as the design motif. The vehicles in the new dune bear a strong resemblance to helicopters, on purpose. They seem much more reasonable than something with rigid wing segments and maybe a couple of joint along the length.

At least this version attempted something cool with ornithopters. Lynch’s version didn’t even do them, just had floating vehicles with some stubby fixed winglets. Least convincing vehicles ever - especially the interior shots.

The syfy version had wings with fans and a pivot, something like a cross between a hovercraft and airplane, or a concept similar to an Osprey. Not really ornithopters, but at least some wing motion.

But the new ones look impressively like something real that could get off the ground.

18

Actually, is uses a wicking layer to absorb the sweat, which works similarly to evaporation for cooling effect.

Yes, it would require new materials we currently don’t have to absorb and remove the sweat and capture it in tubes to circulate around the body.

However, another alternative exists. Current space suit technology uses water in a cooling loop circulating to remove heat and reject it via the EMU. Water being such a scarcity, it doesn’t seem that reasonable to execute with excess water tied up in the suit system, but there are existing applications that could be a footprint for future tech.

What’s more curious to me is the waste removal processes that are described. There would have to be some sort of tubes/attachments to capture feces. I can’t think a diaper would be something for any long term desert wear. Plus, feces are supposed to be reclaimed, so again they need some capture device.

The SyFy show discussed reclaiming the wastes in Sietch, which sees more plausible than fully processing in the suit itself. But again, we’re not shown how.

19

While the technology is interesting, it’s just the window dressing. The book is about the interactions among extremely different human cultures and polities. There’s the Imperial House, the Great Houses (Atriedes and Harkonnen in particular), the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, the Fremen, the Mentats, the Suk doctors. Probably forgetting some. Each of those are worthy of in-depth discussion by themselves, and then in relation to the others.

20

RE Heat And Stillsuits

You’re all fogetting the jubba cloaks. I cannot find my copy of Dune right now (things are still packed up from an unplanned move). But, it wasn’t the stillsuit that violated heat laws. It was the cloak. Jubba cloaks could be worn to admit or keep in heat. They could also be fashioned into tents.