I first read Dune about 20 years ago. I re-read it (and by “re-read” I mean “listened to it on audiobook”) and just finished it last night. I’m left with some questions.
Why did the emperor displace the Haarkonens and replace them with the Atreides’ on Arrakis in the first place? There’s one passage where the Baron and another character talk this over, and they mentioned the emperor’s prison planet and the ferocity of the fremen. Was the emperor hoping to rope the fremen into being his own fighting force? What would have been the Atreides’ role in this?
Why the Padisha Emperor? Does the meaning of “Padisha” get revealed in a later book? Or is it like calling Charles III the Windsor King? (viz, a reference to his family line)
The book just kind of … ends. It ties up some loose ends but leaves others out there (like the fate of Aaliya, Paul’s sister). I know that there are sequels - was the abrupt ending Herbert’s way of leaving the door open for sequels? Or did Herbert intend Dune to be a one-off and the publisher pressured him to write sequels?
Great question if he intended sequels or not, but I think I remember the following about his sister.
Since she has all the past memories of the Bene Gesserit, this ends up expanding to include Baron Harkonnen, who she is actually related to(she is his grand-daughter).
Harkonnen, being purely evil and crafty, actually threatens to overcome her original personality and take over again. She commits suicide to prevent this, killing him again…this time along side herself.
Shaddam was of House Corrino. “Padishah” is a term from old Earth used at various times in Persian-family languages to mean a Ruler Above Other Rulers. So its use in the Duneverse is an example of borrowings from the ancient languages to refer to something in their current society, emphasizing that there are other sovereigns but he is on top.
1 - The Atreides were getting too powerful and popular among the Landstraad for the Emperor’s liking, so the Emperor conspired with their old enemies, the Harkonnens to eliminate this threat to his power. The Fremen had nothing to do with it. Everyone, but Duke Leto not only underestimated them, but considered them a minor nuisance.
3 - Dune and Dune Messiah were originally written as one book.
ETA: Dune’s original publisher main business was (IIRC) automotive repair manuals. Herbert’s manuscript was rejected by every other publisher he approached.
I’m currently re-reading Dune, and just read a part that addresses this.
A big part of it is, no one outside Arrakis really thinks the Fremen are a major force. Their population estimates are always in the low tens of thousands, not the millions that actually exist, so this isn’t a factor in the Emperor’s decision.
What did matter was that Duke Leto, on Caladan had trained a military force that (almost?) rivaled the Sardaukar in ability. The Emperor sent the Atreides to Arrakis on the theory that both the planet and the Harkonens would destroy the Atreides for him. It was only after Paul started training the Fremen that anyone else realized both the potential of the Fremen, and how badly they’d screwed up in handing them to Paul on a silver platter.
From what his son noted, some of the parts of the sequels where actually written before Dune was completed, so the continuations in some ways pre-date the final version of the book Dune itself.
This is correct; Herbert had written several serials about Dune, which were run by Analog Magazine in 1963-65, but he couldn’t find a publisher who was willing to publish the full book (which was an expanded and revised version of the serial stories).
An editor at Chilton Publishing (which, as you note, was best-known for its line of automotive repair manuals) convinced his company to take a chance on the book, but it didn’t sell well at first, and Chilton initially considered it to be a write-off failure.
Isn’t it Sardaukar in Harkonnen uniforms that carry out the attack? The Emperor can’t be seen to be openly waging war with a Major House, so he takes advantage of their ancient feud to carry out a false flag.
And the reason no one would publish it was its size. It was about 3 times the size of the typical SF book of the time. No one wanted to take a gamble on such a large book.
Yeah, but then why give them Dune? And sending Imperial troops made the attack clearly open to the council. Sure they were disguised a bit but that were still obvious.
Yeah, that seems weird to me- how come so many people on a planet with no water or food?
And how come they are better fighters than elite professional soldiers? The Arab tribesmen even under Lawrence- were great raiders and guerrillas but not particularly great soldiers.
There is more food and water on Arrakis than the Imperial government was aware of. The Fremen had been bribing the Space Guild to prevent anyone from placing satellites in the Arrakeen skies. Frank Herbert wrote the novel before satellite communication and surveillance became as ubiquitous and indIspensable as they are today.
Herbert partially bought into the “noble savage” trope. He attributed the Sardaukar’s ferocity to the harshness of conditions on Salusa Secondus, and he attributed similar ferocity to the Fremen, who lived in the harsh conditions on Arrakis.
In one of the appendices, Herbert mentions that in recent years, the Sardaukar’s budget for recruiting and training had been cut, so they were not as powerful as they had once been. Also he felt that living in the luxuries of the Empire had made them soft.
Moreover, under the tutelage of Liet-Kynes, Stilgar, and Paul, the Fremen became much more organized and disciplined than the Empire expected.
And there’s also the nature of combat in Dune. Because of shields, high power projectile weapons are rarely used, and the “lasguns” they sometimes use are very risky. So most combat is actually with swords and knives, and so relies far more on personal skill levels than in the group tactics we usually associate with military training. Fremen already had a culture of personal dueling with knives, and were pretty harsh in their training. They mostly just needed some refinements to their skills, and lessons on strategy, planning where and when to attack the Harkonen for maximum effect.
He wanted them off their home world, where they had established military units with generations of tradition behind them. Invading a new planet while they’re still establishing their control is far easier. But that new planet had to be rich enough to make Duke Leto take the risk, and that meant Dune.
And the Emperor wanted the Great Houses to know, without them being able to prove it. He wanted them thinking that they could be next. Several people make the observation that if the Great Houses were to work together, they could defeat the Emperor, but that such cooperation is almost impossible. The Emperor’s plan is all about keeping them fearful enough to obey him, but not so fearful that they overcome their mutual petty grievances.
One does not simply refuse a gift from an Emperor.
Leto knew he was walking into a trap and had no choice but to play along. What he didn’t know was that the Harkonnens had managed to compromise a Suk doctor and that the Emperor was willing to commit his own troops to join the inevitable attack.