Dune - the first trilogy

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Dune - the first trilogy consists of the first three books from the Dune cycle by Frank Herbert .

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Overview

The central figure of the first novel (1965, German partly 1967, fully 1978) is Paul Atreides , only fifteen years old , the son of Duke Leto Atreides and his concubine Jessica, a Bene Gesserit . He is prepared for his role as future duke and experiences how the Padischah-Imperator ( pers. پادشاه : Shah) and the House of Harkonnen murder his father through treason and drive him and his mother into exile.

The two flee into the desert and meet the Fremen , the people of the desert. With the help of the Fremen, Paul organized the resistance against the ruling Harkonnen. He comes into contact with a dangerous drug, the "water of life". It awakens and strengthens his clairvoyant abilities. Paul becomes the leader of the Fremen and leads them as "Messiah" (Mahdi, arab. مهدي ) Paul Muad'dib (arab. مؤدٌب mu'addib , "educator") in the war against the Harkonnen and the Padischah emperor.

The second novel (1969, German 1971) has resigned features and shows the realization of the most terrible visions of Paul Muad'Dib, who was crowned emperor. He could not prevent the jihad he foresaw. Billions of people die in this global war that is being waged in his name. The central theme of the novel is the impossibility of even an “omniscient” prophetic ruler to put a stop to a fanatical theocracy . A conspiracy to overthrow Paul leaves him an eyeless blind man. He abdicates and puts the business of government in the hands of his sister Alia . She becomes regent until his twin children, Leto and Ghanima , are of legal age. According to Fremenite traditions, when the blind man became useless, he went into the open desert - a ritual sacrifice for Shai'Hulud , the sandworm.

The third novel (1976, German 1978) continues the theme of the future vision. Paul's children, also endowed with his visionary skills, come into his inheritance. Large parts of the novel are about Leto recognizing his father's mistakes and trying to correct the resulting consequences. This novel is also embedded in a plot of conspiracy. Various power groups, including the old ruling house Corrino, try to overthrow the regent Alia, who in turn is intriguing herself against the twins. Ultimately, to save humanity, Leto must take the step that his father Paul had avoided. The symbiosis with the sand trout, a preform of the sandworm, makes it almost invulnerable and immortal, but robs it of its humanity.

Volume 1: The Desert Planet ( Dune )

prehistory

In the distant future, humanity will have colonized parts of the universe. The people live in a feudal society, at the head of which are the Padishah Emperor and the Great Houses that are united in Landsraad . For eons, more precisely, since Butler's jihad (the crusade against artificial intelligences), computers that do the thinking for people have been frowned upon. This has led to an enormous intellectual development in individual social groups. Representative here are the Mentats, the Guild and the Bene Gesserit . They represent socially significant spiritual and economic power factors, but at the same time always represent a specific group interest. The Bene Gesserit, a female religious order, try, for example, to produce the superman Kwisatz Haderach ("shortcut of the path"; probably in Hebrew קפיצת הדרך) through a genetic selection program , while the guild leaves no stone unturned to protect its monopoly on interstellar space travel.

Against this background, the conflict over the inhospitable desert planet Arrakis takes place. The protagonists are the house of Atreides and the thoroughly depraved House of Harkonnen, which is secretly supported by the Emperor . The indispensable spice melange is harvested on Arrakis , a mind-expanding and life-prolonging drug that is of immense importance both for interstellar space travel and for the Venerable Mothers of the Bene Gesserit. The empire would not exist without Melange.

Duke Leto Atreides is given feudal rule over Arrakis by Emperor Shaddam IV . His concubine, Lady Jessica, a renegade Bene Gesserit, gave birth to a son (Paul) instead of the ordered daughter 15 years ago, thus disrupting the sisterhood's breeding plan.

The venerable Bene Gesserit mother Gaius Helen Mohiam tests Paul for his humanity and whether he has the potential to become Kwisatz Haderach.

Action characters and groups

  • Duke Leto I , head of the house of Atreides, the new liege lord of the desert planet, father of Paul and Alia.
  • Paul Atreides , son of Leto I and Jessica, as Paul Muad'Dib leader of the Fremen uprising against the Harkonnen.
  • Alia Atreides , sister of Paul, kills the Baron Harkonnen with a Gom Jabbar.
  • Lady Jessica , a Bene Geserrit, official concubine of the Duke, mother of Paul and Alia.
  • Shaddam IV. Corrino , emperor and secret supporter of the Harkonnen.
  • Irulan , daughter of the emperor, later nominal wife of Paul Muad'Dib.
  • Baron Wladimir Harkonnen , the mortal enemy of the Atreides. Current ruler of the desert planet.
  • Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen , nephew of the baron, dies in the final knife duel with Paul Muad'Dib.
  • Piter deVries , corrupted Harkonnen assassin mentat.
  • Gurney Halleck , singer, poet and Baliset virtuoso, experienced officer of the Atreides.
  • Duncan Idaho , sword master and officer of the Atreides, teacher and instructor of Paul.
  • Thufir Hawat , warrior Mentat and security chief of the Atreides
  • Stilgar , Naib des Sietch Tabr.
  • Chani , daughter of planetologist Liet Kynes, official concubine of Paul Muad'Dib and mother of his children
  • Bene Gesserit , an order of sisters
  • The space guild and its navigators organize the interstellar flight.
  • MAFEA , Interstellar Trade Organization.
  • Landsraad , political organization of the Great Houses.
  • Sardaukar , the Emperor's elite troops.
  • Fremen , the inhabitants of the Arrakis deserts.

Arrival on Arrakis

Immediately after arriving on Arrakis, the Atreides discover that an attack on the planet is imminent. Encrypted messages from Arrakeen to the surrounding mountains, a secret message from a Bene Gesserit to Jessica, an intercepted delivery of Lasguns, the attack on Paul's life, information from the Fremen about a traitor in their own ranks, speak for themselves. The crude attempt of the Harkonnen to brand Lady Jessica as the traitor and the destruction of a spice factory do the rest. To stabilize the situation, the Atreides initiate political relations with the Fremen. After a conversation between the Fremen leader Stilgar and Leto Atreides, Duncan Idaho is sent as ambassador to the Fremen. The imperial planetologist Kynes is fascinated by the openly presented idea of ​​the Atreides to turn Arrakis into a fertile planet. He is a native Freme and has been secretly collecting water with his people for generations to make the planet fertile again. Gurney Halleck contacted the smugglers who illegally collect and sell spices . Leto offers to tolerate them if they pay a marginal tax. He has more important problems than dealing with some smugglers.

Attack on Arrakis

The line of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen has been enemies with that of the Atreides for generations. The Baron and his Mentat develop the Arrakis trap for the ultimate destruction of the Atreides. In doing so, they can count on the discreet support of the emperor, who sees Leto, who is extremely popular with the Landsraat and the people, as a dangerous competitor. Imperial Sardaukar in Harkonnen uniform are at the forefront of the retaking of Arrakis. But the attack against the Atreides is mainly based on treason. The Harkonnen manage to extort the imperial conditioning of the Suk family doctor, Dr. Yueh, to corrupt. This deactivates the defense shield of Arrakeen and incapacitates Duke Leto with a paralyzer. With an artificial poison gas tooth, however, the traitor gives him the opportunity to take revenge on the baron. The attempt fails, but kills the Mentat Piter deVries . Now the Harkonnen attack the planet with lasguns and artillery. The baron's plan is largely working. The Duke is dead, but with the help of the traitorous Dr. Yueh manages Lady Jessica and her son Paul to escape into the desert.

Escape to the Fremen

They reach an outpost of the Atreides via detours, but are discovered by the Sardaukar. Imperial planetologist Liet Kynes helps Paul and Jessica escape. Duncan Idaho sacrifices himself to stop the pursuers. When the Harkonnen discover the dual role of Kynes, they leave him in the desert without a still suit. Paul and Jessica fly into a sandstorm with their ornithopter and are found dead. Plagued by heat and sandworms, they are finally intercepted by a Fremen scouting party. After a dangerous admission ritual, they take the two to the Sietch Tabr, which is run by Naib Stilgar .

Life with the Fremen

Paul gets to know and love Chani , a Freme and daughter of Liet Kynes. In the Sietch he experiences the life and culture of the Fremen. He meets well-trained fighters with tremendous fighting strength and courage. What they lack are unarmed combat techniques, modern tactics and strategy. He teaches that to the Fremen and they teach him how to survive in the desert. Jessica is ordained Venerable Mother of the Fremen and gives birth to Paul's supernaturally gifted sister, Alia. 3 years pass. Paul increases his clairvoyant abilities with the help of the spice. He reluctantly allows himself to be declared Mahdi of the Fremen ( Lisan al-Gaib , "voice of the outside world", Arabic لسان الغيب). For their help in the fight against the Harkonnen, he promises the ecological upheaval to a green planet. With his Fremen army he becomes a serious opponent of the Harkonnen and the Emperor. Baron Harkonnen reacts with brutal violence and tries to exterminate the Fremen. During a foray into the desert, Paul meets Gurney Halleck again, who was hiding with the smugglers. Chani gives birth to Paul's first son, but the Sardaukar kill this child in an attack and kidnap Alia.

Reclaiming the planet

Finally, the Emperor, the Baron and the other great houses on Arrakis gather to get the spice production going again. At that moment, Paul, now known as Paul Muad'Dib, blows the attack. The protective shield wall of the capital Arakeen is destroyed with nuclear weapons . Then he attacks the imperial troops with dozens of sandworms. The captured Alia kills the Baron Harkonnen with a Gom-Jabbar.

Paul arrests Shaddam IV. He threatens the destruction of the entire melange by the so-called "water of death" and claims the throne of the empire. In a final knife duel, he kills Feyd, the baron's nephew. He then agrees to marry Shaddam's daughter, Princess Irulan, and becomes the new emperor. He remains loyal to his true love, concubine Chani. She, his mother predicts, would one day call the story his wife. He cannot stop the foreseen jihad of the fanatical Fremen armies. You set out to storm the universe.

Implications

Under the surface of this rather simple story are a multitude of different levels of reflection, which Herbert layers on top of each other in order to illuminate the central problem of the Dune cycle from a multiple perspective: the relationship between stagnation and progress in the history of the human species. Closely linked to philosophical and political-theoretical considerations, he works here on the figure of Paul Atreides. As an unforeseen product of the Bene Gesserit breeding program, it has the gift of far-reaching prophecy. The question that needs to be answered is what influence this gift has on his ability to act and how every decision made restricts the scope of future developments.

Volume 2: The Lord of the Desert Planet ( Dune Messiah )

prehistory

Years have passed since Paul Muad'Dib came to the throne and his Fremen armies set out to devastate the universe . Billions of people have been killed in the war. Although he never wanted this jihad, it inspired it and can no longer stop it. From the desert planet Arrakis, Paul rules as emperor over all worlds in the sky. The control of the spice production ensures that other big houses do not become too powerful. A newly emerged religion that praises him as the Messiah covers, in the wake of the Jihad, the universe with countless missionaries and priests. Paul's concubine, Chani, has been trying to get pregnant again for years, but Paul's wife, Princess Irulan, sabotages it with the secret gift of contraceptives.

Action characters and groups

  • Paul Atreides , as Paul Muad'Dib new emperor.
  • Alia Atreides , sister of Paul, high priestess of the new religion around Muad'Dib.
  • Irulan , a Bene Gesserit, nominal wife of the Emperor, supports the plot against him.
  • Duncan Idaho Ghola, a gift from the Tleilaxu to the Emperor under the name Hayt.
  • Stilgar , Naib des Sietch Tabr, commander of the Jihad.
  • Chani , official concubine of Paul Muad'Dib and mother of Leto II and Ghanima.
  • Scytale , a Tleilaxu shapeshifter, part of the conspiracy against Muad'Dib.
  • Edric , a guild navigator, protects the conspiracy against the Emperor.
  • Bene Gesserit , an order of sisters
  • The space guild and its navigators organize the interstellar flight.
  • Tleilaxu , community specializing in genetic engineering, maker of the Duncan Idaho gholas

Desire for children

In order to finally secure Paul's descendants and thus the succession to the throne, Chani begins a strict Fremen diet. Irulan can no longer add contraceptives to this diet, and Chani's pregnancy is inevitable. Paul knows all the plans of his enemies. He negotiates with Venerable Mother Mohiam about the future of mother and child. He offers the sisterhood a child of Irulan and thus further access to the Atreidian bloodline. However, its condition is that the Bene Gesserit accept the conception by artificial insemination. A commitment would deeply shake the ethical foundations of the Bene Gesserit. Mohiam asks for time to consider.

The intrigue

The spacemen's guild sends a new ambassador to Arrakis. This is the first step in the plot to assassinate the Emperor, forged with the help of Princess Irulan. The Tleilaxu created a ghola, a genetic replica, of Paul's closest friend Duncan Idaho on behalf of the guild. The new ambassador gives this being to the emperor on his inaugural visit. A secret code word that Paul will pronounce himself is said to induce this ghola to kill the emperor.

Chani learns that over the years Princess Irulan has poisoned her using contraceptives and that she has a high-risk pregnancy that could lead to her death.

The attack on Paul, Chani and his children

An old Fedaykin , a member of Muad'Dib's former death squads, receives a visit from the Tleilaxu shapeshifter Scytale. This kills the Fedaykin and his daughter and takes their form. As a young woman, he asks Muad'Dib and Chani to meet their father. Information about a Free Fremen conspiracy is to be passed on in the family home. Paul sees through the charade, but still goes alone. At the agreed location he meets the dwarf Bijaz, who is said to be a living distrans and can reproduce the names of the conspirators. While retreating, Paul is blinded by a Steinbrenner, a nuclear weapon. However, his comprehensive visions replace his eyesight so that he can act like a sighted person.

Chani's pregnancy is problematic; she and Paul withdraw to Sietch Tabr. Chani gives birth to twins, but dies of a hemorrhage in childbirth. "She is no longer", with this sentence Paul comments on the death of Chani and thus activates Duncan Idaho's ghola program. His instructions state that he now has to kill Paul. His love and loyalty to the Atreides make the murder impossible for him. Instead, memories of his previous life return. He becomes who he always was. Scytale, still in the form of a woman, threatens to kill the children. He offers a pact with the Tleilaxu and promises Paul a ghola of his Chani. Paul kills the shapeshifter. Now the dwarf steps in and renews this offer. Before he goes weak, Paul asks the Duncan Idaho ghola to kill Bijaz.

Finale

As the old laws demand of a blind Fremen, Paul goes out alone into the desert. The jihad has stopped. The twins are named Leto II and Ghanima. They are raised by Stilgar's wife and Irulan. Alia rules on her behalf.

Implications

Moral considerations on genetic experiments such as the gholas, considerations on freedom of action, and questions of domination and legislative procedures are the focus of this book.

“What are laws? Trying to socialize man's predatory nature? The effort of power groups to legalize their usurped rule? Means to enforce and cement minority interests? You mustn't look too closely at the laws. If you do, you will be disappointed and indignant, and the calm in the country, which until now had seemed to you to be a serene calm, will take on the odor of corpses. "Paul Muad`dib.

With these resigned bitter considerations, the mood of this volume can actually be summed up aptly.

Volume 3: The Children of the Desert Planet ( Children of Dune )

prehistory

About nine years have passed since Muad'Dib's disappearance; the Imperial Regent Alia, now married to Duncan Idaho, rules the empire on behalf of her brother's children, Leto II and Ghanima. The harshness with which she goes to work causes ever greater unrest in the territory. The house of Corrino under Wensicia and her spy, the priest Javid, stirs up this discontent. Lady Jessica chooses this critical moment to visit her grandchildren on the desert planet. In Arrakeen (the capital of Arrakis) a blind preacher emerges from the desert and preaches against Alia and the abuses in the empire.

Action characters and groups

  • Leto II. Atreides , enters into a symbiosis with the sand trout, falls his aunt Alia, becomes the new emperor.
  • Ghanima Atreides , sister and later official wife of Leto II, continues the line of Atreides with Farad'n Corrino.
  • Farad'n Corrino , descendant of ex-emperor Shaddam IV, later calls himself Harq al-Ada.
  • The preacher, Paul Atreides , now blind, preaches against the rule of his sister Alia.
  • Alia Atreides , regent of the Empire until the Atreides twins came of age.
  • Lady Jessica , a Bene Geserrit, mother of Paul and Alia, returns to Arrakis to support her grandchildren.
  • Irulan , widow of the missing Paul Muad'Dib, brings up the twins
  • Baron Wladimir Harkonnen , the mortal enemy of the Atreides, rules the possessed regent Alia.
  • Duncan Idaho Ghola, Alia's husband, sacrifices himself to shake Stilgar's neutrality.
  • Stilgar , Naib the Fremen, protector of Leto II and Ghanima.
  • Bene Gesserit , an order of sisters

The grievances are getting worse

The children Leto and Ghanima, raised by Irulan, know exactly about the power games of their aunt Alia, who is slowly drifting into madness. They look forward to seeing their grandmother, Lady Jessica, but think to use this event for their own plans. Melting with self-pity, Alia blames her mother Jessica for her massive mental problems. Due to a lack of education, the overwhelming presence of the memories of their ancestors threatens to overwhelm them. Her grandfather, Baron Wladimir Harkonnen, offers himself as her Mohalata leader to keep ancestral terror within bounds. In return, he initially demands occasional contact with Alias ​​senses and ultimately exercises complete dominance over their consciousness. The reign of terror over the empire arises from his initiative. More destructive in the sense of maintaining power is the ignorance that he instills in Alia about the ecological upheavals of the desert planet. Without massive intervention, Arrakis will become a green planet. Without the desert, the worms and with them the source of the spice would be destroyed. The spice is the lever with which the Atreides exercise power. Without this lever, the rule of the Atreides ends, that would be the ultimate victory of the Harkonnen.

In this mental state, Alia organizes two assassinations on her mother, both of which fail.

The children flee

Leto and Ghanima see the future and Alias ​​obsession with it. They are preparing to escape. When the children leave Sietch Tabr, the Corrino conspirators set two “Laza tigers” on them. The animals were conditioned by Wensicia Corrino and guided via neuroimplants. The twins escape into a crevice and then kill both tigers. Ghanima remains seriously injured while Leto disappears into the desert. Ghanima returns to the Sietch and swears that Leto has been killed.

Lady Jessica is voluntarily kidnapped by Duncan Idaho to Salusa Secundus, the exiled planet of the House of Corrino. She should and will teach Wensicia's son, Prince Farad'n, the techniques of Bene Gesserit.

The metamorphosis

Leto is captured by Gurney Halleck and subjected to various tests to make sure he isn't obsessed like his aunt Alia. He escapes the test by allowing a symbiosis of the sand trout with his human skin. This connection totally changes his metabolism. He now has superhuman strength, can move extremely quickly and is immune to weapons and poison of all kinds. As a result, Leto wages a one-person guerrilla war against Alia and systematically destroys the irrigation systems on Arrakis. In the desert he meets his father, the blind preacher. They recognize one another and struggle for supremacy over the vision for the future of humanity. Leto prevails because he pays a higher price with the loss of his humanity. Herbert describes this “vision” as a powerful concept that is realized through the person of the ruler. It is a mixture of rational planning and quasimystical prophecy, which, however, can also be interpreted as the result of very complex natural considerations.

Baron Harkonnen takes power

The influence of Baron Harkonnen on Alias ​​spirit is now so strong that he orders her to kill Duncan Idaho. He escapes the attack, but brings Stilgar to kill him through extreme provocation in order to corrupt his neutral stance. After killing Alias ​​husband, Stilgar flees to an abandoned Sietch in the desert. Civil war breaks out between the Fremen. In a commando operation, Alias ​​troops succeed in kidnapping Ghanima.

The blind preacher comes back to the capital and preaches against Alia. He causes a commotion and is murdered by a fanatic.

At the same time, the marriage of Farad'n and Ghanima is being prepared in the Regent's Palace . Leto step in. His metamorphosis has begun, he has become even stronger and faces his obsessed aunt Alia. Faced with the choice of taking a Fremenite obsession test or killing herself, she finds the strength to withstand the baron's pernicious influence. Alia chooses suicide and is finally redeemed.

Finale

Leto is sterile because of his metamorphosis, but marries his sister for political reasons. In order to keep the line of the Atreides alive, however, he approves the partnership between Ghanima and Farad'n Corrino. Ghanima foresees Leto's long ordeal as god-emperor of the desert planet. She pities him for his lost human condition and the resulting infinite loneliness. Leto will live and reign for several thousand years, and even at its end, breaking up into millions of sand trout, a small part of its consciousness will be trapped in each of them. The desert planet becomes a fertile, habitable planet, but due to its new abundance of water it is uninhabitable for the sandworm. Leto secures his base of rule, the spice, through strict rationing of the remaining supplies. In the next 3500 years, those who obey him will be rewarded and those who resist will be punished with withdrawal. The vision known as the “Golden Path” to ensure the survival of mankind begins.

Implications

The children of the desert planet are primarily concerned with the problem of memory. What impact can genealogical memory have when encountering an unstable consciousness? Under what conditions is a balance to be maintained between the power of the past and the demands of the now?

In addition, Herbert also deals intensively with the problems that are provoked by heavily bureaucratized systems of government and religion. In this way he examines religious fundamentalism, an elementary problem of the present, for its possible mechanisms of origin and his answers often sound cynical, but are accurate. In the figure of Leto II, Herbert also illuminates the question of how a person develops who comes to power against resistance.

“When I travel through the memories of my ancestors, I experience many things. The patterns, ahh, the patterns. The liberal hypocrites are the ones who give me the most distress. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you will find someone who prefers the past to the future. Scratch a liberal and you'll find an aristocrat in disguise. It is true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucrats are abusing the real intentions of the people who installed them. The little people who let governments come to power, who have promised to distribute the social burdens evenly, suddenly find themselves in the hands of bureaucratic aristocrats. ”(Die Lost Journals, Leto II.)

Background stories

This chapter deals with topics from the first trilogy, which can be found in the following volumes and which have a cross-border effect, so to speak.

The Bene Gesserit breeding plan, how it gets out of hand and what becomes of it

Every Bene Gesserit has to go through the so-called agony in order to become one. The contact with the “water of life”, a poisonous catalyst, brings them into contact with the genealogical memories of their ancestors from the female line. If she succeeds in neutralizing the catalyst and surviving the violence of what is remembered, she is initiated and part of the order. Men fail to get through the agony.

The Bene Gesserit breeding plan has existed for thousands of years with the goal of producing a male Bene Gesserit. This so-called Kwisatz Haderach (“Abbreviation of the Way”) should be able to remember both the female and the male genealogy. In addition, he should embody an absolutely reliable oracle. The basis of the breeding plan of the Bene Gesserit is the so-called Stammrolle, a comprehensive archive of the characteristics of different bloodlines that have been crossed with one another in the course of history.

Since the role of the Bene Gesserit as political mediators brings her to almost every high house, her representatives are often married to the respective rulers. This means that the control of the breeding results is not difficult.

Over the past few generations the breeding plan seemed to be nearing completion. Everything came to a head in the two bloodlines of the Atreides and Harkonnen. Lady Jessica, daughter of Baron Harkonnen, was to father a daughter with Leto Atreides, who in turn would father Kwisatz Haderach with a son of Harkonnen. That’s the theory.

In practice, Jessica becomes a fallen sister. She falls in love with her duke and gives birth to the longed-for heir to the throne. She acts against the interests of the sisterhood and allows deeper feelings, thereby committing a double mortal sin.

The unplanned Paul Atreides has all the characteristics of Kwisatz Haderach, but refuses to ultimately accept this role. His sister Alia suffers an attack of agony in the womb. She is inundated by the spirits of her ancestors and ultimately taken over by Baron Harkonnen. As “abomination” it is of course no longer an option for the Bene Gesserit as a breeding object. After Paul and Feyd Harkonnen kill the last male crossing point of the Bene Gesserit breeding program, the big plan is over. Everything that happens after that is no longer their control.

The twins Leto II and Ghanima are both potential Kwisatz Haderach. That Leto finally slips into this role is due to chance. In his new hybrid nature as human / worm, he confronts the Bene Gesserit and the rest of humanity with the brutal reality of the Kwisatz-Haderach idea. Absolute visionary skills lead to absolute control. Absolute control leads to total stagnation, be it in peace and security. Herbert lets Leto II live and rule for 3500 years. His prophetic vision, known as the “Golden Path of the God Emperor”, consists of rational planning and a foresight that goes beyond simple rationality and can also be interpreted as actively promoted and thus self-fulfilling prediction. During this time he initiates his own breeding program. He looks for people who evade visionary control and in the end he is successful.

Ecological changes in the desert planet and their consequences

Long before the Atreides came to Arrakis, the Fremen worked to make the planet more humane. Inspired by the vision of the imperial planetologist Pardot Kynes, they built wind traps to capture water through condensation, grew plants and tried to manipulate the planet's water balance.

His son Liet, a born Freme, continues his father's work. He promises that in a few dozen generations it will be possible to make the planet fertile. Only 15% of the surface would have to be transformed by human action, then the ecological upheaval would take on a life of its own. The children's children of his Fremen should experience what rain is.

The Atreides takeover accelerated this process immensely. They had promised their allies that they would use money and materials to push ahead with the transformation.

In the third volume, ecological change is in full swing and with it social change. The changing ecology leads to a change in the Fremenite way of life. Without the imperative of water discipline, the other compulsive traditions that made Fremen society what it was are also eroding. From the point of view of traditionalists this is described as decadent, from a human perspective you can find freedom, beauty and lightness in it.

Ultimately, Leto II realizes that the ecological upheaval has devastating consequences. The changed water balance of the planet threatens the survival of the worms, the only producers of the irreplaceable melange. Without spice there is no interstellar space travel, no life extension and no means of power to keep the competing houses in check.

Leto II, already in his hybrid form, destroys the qanats of all modern settlements within a few months and throws the ecological program back by generations. The desert planet is becoming desolate again, but it is already too late to stop the sandworms from dying.

3500 years later, Arrakis is a green planet. Thanks to weather control satellites, Leto II only preserves a small desert, the sareer. When he dies, sand trout are created that trap the water. After that, the sareer spreads across the planet and allows the sandworms to return.

The water discipline - water and water cult of the Fremen

In the first volume, the Fremen use the word water synonymously with the word life . All water is life. All life is traded and used like water. In humans (alive or dead), only the water in his body and his ability to find, collect or capture water count. Captives or foreigners are killed, their water is taken from the stills and added to the tribal supply. After a duel, the winner is awarded the opponent's distilled water as personal property. So-called water rings, a kind of informal currency between the tribes, symbolize ownership of water.

Every drop of water is precious and is defended and protected by all means. The Fremen wear still suits and submit to strict water discipline in order to maintain and increase their water reserves. The correct donning of the still suit is a central part of the water discipline, which Paul and Jessica became flesh and blood with during their lives with the Fremen. Each sietch is as hermetically protected as possible against evaporation. There are no windows, and wind traps in the ventilation slots remove the condensation. The doors are sealed and remain closed during the day. In order to keep water losses as low as possible, life in the Fremen takes place mainly at night.

If a man asks a woman whether she would like to be the guardian of his water, i.e. wear his water rings, this is considered a marriage proposal. When a Freme hates someone, they sprinkle salt on the path they took - salt is hygroscopic and soaks up water. People who are out and about in the desert without a still suit are killed immediately to prevent further unnecessary waste of water.

The Atreides learn early on, shortly after their arrival on Arrakis, the mentality of the Fremen that grew out of the water discipline. Stilgar spits on Duke Leto's polished desk in front of Duke Leto as thanks for the return of a stolen Crysnife. For him the sign of the deepest respect, it seems like a gross insult to the officers Leto present. Only the rapid intervention of Duncan Idaho prevents a violent clash of cultures with the words "We thank you for the gift of your body and take it in the spirit in which it was given".

Words that symbolize an excess of water, such as drowning, sea, ship or rain , are unknown on Arrakis or are ridiculed as children's fairy tales. In the second volume a housewife rebukes her husband, who left a small window open, with the words: “You think the water would fall from the sky?” Only in the third volume, when the first clouds form in the sky due to the ecological transformation When rain falls and a careless caravan perishes in a flooded wadi, the Fremen begin to take such terms seriously.

Systems of rule - loyalties of the Atreides versus brutalities of the Harkonnen

In all of the volumes of the Dune cycle, Frank Herbert deals with the question of how rulers and ruled dealt with one another. He never questions the rule itself, but polarizes the extremes of possible rule behavior using the example of the two high houses Atreides and Harkonnen.

While some treat their subordinates in partnership, others rule their subjects with a maximum of repression. Making people submissive is the Harkonnen style, convincing people of the advantages of being ruled through exemplary behavior, the Atreides style.

An Atreides, if necessary, risks his life for his followers, just as they give theirs to protect their ruler. Before a Harkonnen puts himself in danger, an Imperial order must tell him to do so.

Material assets and possessions are of secondary importance to the Atreides when it comes to saving human life. It is no coincidence that the Atreides house is not particularly rich. Oppression, deceit, violence and deceit are the everyday means with which the subjects of the Harkonnen are squeezed out. Personal enrichment is the maxim that directs the last profit into the baron's pockets. Therefore the Harkonnen are a rich house.

In order to increase the reader's antipathy against the Harconnian style of rule, Frank Herbert characterizes the baron as a grotesquely overweight, aging lecher who sexually humiliates and abuses young male slaves and even his own nephew Feyd-Rautha . Atreides, on the other hand, have always grown nobly and have ascetic facial features like birds of prey.

Herbert makes it easy for the reader, especially in the first volume, to identify with the Atreides, possibly too easy. Baron Harkonnen is also portrayed as a ruler who is aware of his responsibility for his house and who sees his brutality as a means to this end. But this factual side is heavily overlaid by the repulsive properties of the Harkonnen as a whole. Paul Muad'Dib, the House of Atreides, is responsible for billions of deaths left by the Jihad inspired by him. The baron's atrocities affected far fewer people because he was more striving for wealth and security within existing conditions than for total upheaval and world domination. Nevertheless, the reader sympathizes with Paul. After all, he is the good one and is also appropriately grieving whether these facts, unfortunately without alternatives. In a scene in the second volume, Paul compares himself with Genghis Chan and Adolf Hitler , which his Chief of Staff Stilgar finds completely incomprehensible. The scene remains strangely inconclusive, Stilgar has never heard of the two historical mass murderers and Paul ponders aloud about his relationship to human history instead of thinking specifically about moral consequences.

In the end, regardless of the extreme exaggeration of his protagonists, Herbert succeeds in depicting his moral position convincingly: every mental attitude that begins to treat people as things is fundamentally corrupt.

The momentum of belief systems and the impotence of a ruler

In all volumes of the Dune cycle, the term missionary protective appears. The Missionaria Protektiva is a special department of the Bene Gesserit that mainly sows a kind of pre-religious seed on new, as yet undeveloped planets. Myths, legends and prophecies are spread and prepare the collective unconscious for the coming of a Messiah, the Golden Age or even the end of the world. A religious primordial mud that forms the basis on which future Bene Gesserit can build their influence. Critics of the sisterhood accuse her of creating religions artificially, which they do not deny, but rather affirm with pride.

Jessica and Paul also resort to active elements of the Missionaria Protektiva when they flee into the desert. The Fremen are full of expectations that these two fulfill perfectly. Jessica is the announced Venerable Mother from Beyond Heaven, Paul the long-awaited Mahdi, i.e. Messiah, who will lead the people out of their misery to the stars. In doing so, they save their lives, but set a religious dynamic in motion that can hardly be stopped or influenced. Already on the first day Paul saw with the Fremen that everything would amount to a jihad. The rest of the book tells of his desperate attempts to prevent it, or, if it is not possible, to find the least cruel way.

The mixture of extreme superstition and fanaticism embodied in the Fremen cannot be mastered. When, at the end of the first volume, Feyd Harkonnen insists on a duel with Paul, the mere challenge triggers the jihad. The outcome of this struggle is completely irrelevant. Alive or dead, in his name the devastation will rage through the Empire.

In the second volume, Paul Muad'Dib resigns itself to the dynamism of the religion that he has inadvertently created. While everyone is of the opinion that Paul only needs to give the order to withdraw from the jihad and everything is over, the Tleilaxu master Scytale sees the dilemma Paul is facing. The same religion that drives jihad is Paul's means of control over the people. They believe in him as the deliverer. As soon as the liberator opposes the liberated, he becomes a traitor and overthrows. Another “liberator” would take his place. This new leader would have less character and less scruples, something that Paul’s family in particular would feel.

There would only be an actual end to the Jihad in a state under the total control of Paul's visions. But the Atreides were never totalitarian rulers, so that this way out leads to a dead end. Only after the assassination attempt, when he went blind into the desert, a demonstrative sacrifice for Shai-Hulud (the old man of the desert, the sandworm; in Arabic شيئ thing and خلود eternity), does the jihad end.

In the third volume, Alia, as regent and high priestess of the state church, has no problem using religion in the interests of maintaining power. Obsessed with Baron Harkonnen, her thinking and style of governance is becoming more and more like his. Their problem is that their belief in obsession, nurtured by Bene Gesserit for millennia, leads to obsession. She has learned that there are no means against it, lives with fear for years and fights to finally, in a moment of weakness, fall victim to precisely these fears and then to the baron. Ghanima and Leto II prove that there are definitely ways to rescue. But, by then, it is already too late and Alia escapes, by suicide, from the clutches of her occupier.

Leto II, the god emperor, ultimately solves the problematic relationship between faith and rule, albeit at the price of his humanity. By becoming god and emperor in one figure, he puts an end to all superstitions. You have to believe in him, because his actual omniscience makes him omnipotent and omnipresent.

In addition to his superhuman abilities, he has the perfect reward and punishment at his disposal with the spice control. For 3,500 years he shaped society according to his will and ideas. There is peace, tranquility and prosperity in his kingdom as long as what he commands is happening. The compliance of his devout subjects finally goes so far that he even has to stage the opposition to his rule himself.

At the end of his term of office he has one thing permanently inscribed in the collective consciousness : Faith, as a longing for Almighty God, turns out to be a nightmare.

Being determines consciousness - societies under strong ecological selection pressure

In the first volume the environmental conditions in which the Fremen live are extremely harsh, and produce a correspondingly tough and unyielding breed of people. Culture in the narrower sense is expressed in dances, occasional orgies at the Sietch meeting and strong superstition. The Fremen live in a closed society . There are a manageable number of laws, traditions, rules and customs. The ownership and friend-foe relationships are clearly regulated. Daily survival requires strict self-control which finds its highest expression in water discipline. Their equipment, their dwellings, yes, their entire lives are designed for perfection, strength and durability.

They are driven by Liet Kynes' dream of changing the entire ecology and adapting it to human needs. If they could do that, they could then live in peace, tranquility and freedom, that is, in paradise.

The dream will come true sooner than expected. Your opponents are defeated and the inhospitable nature is on the retreat. With the victory, however, they have moved to the center of the empire and are now thinking of being able to put their stamp on it too. The jihad begins.

In the course of this, the Fremen come into contact with other cultures and values. When they return, they find it difficult to adjust to traditional life again. Especially since there is no longer an imperative for this way of life. The ecological upheaval makes survival easier. There is no longer a need for high quality still suits so they are no longer made. Water discipline decreases as the comfort of everyday life increases. But it was precisely the water discipline that was the deeper cause of the Fremen's military strength. It seems that the "softening" cannot be stopped after the ecological upheaval of the planet.

All of the characters who were featured in the first three volumes (e.g. Stilgar, Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho) take a romantic, transfiguring standpoint with regard to this development. They long for the good old days when a man was a man, a woman was a woman and a word was another word. The only exception is Leto II. He points out to Stilgar how beautiful the girls on Arrakis are. The women no longer have to wear the still suit completely and can finally show their face.

In any case, Frank Herbert constantly forces the reader to make a choice between the emotionally favored heroic type and the question of whether he himself wanted or could live among such people.

The god-emperor, Leto II, ultimately solves this dilemma: He completes the ecological transformation of the desert planet and leaves only a tiny piece of desert, his sareer. Only one worm still lives here, and that is himself. There are also Fremen, albeit in museums, where they reproduce past customs and traditions and thus demonstrate where this lifestyle now belongs.

Spice production

At the beginning of the first volume, the spice production was in the hands of the Harkonnen. They weren't very effective at this. Much of their resources went into suppressing smugglers, Fremen, and the common people. The indispensable specialists were badly paid. The maintenance of the necessary equipment was neglected. In the end, a good part of the spice harvest ended up in the baron's secret storerooms. Good reasons for the emperor to reassign the fief; - if not the real ones.

Knowing full well that they were falling into a trap, the Atreides, on imperial orders, took over the planet and the melange production. Your starting position is very bad. Most of the spice harvesters were unusable and should have been replaced. Ultimately, knowing they wouldn't have much time to gather spice, they made the best of the situation. Three defective ones were screwed together to make a working harvester, and off we went.

In fact, the Harkonnen attack took place only a little later, secretly supported by Imperial Sardaukar. They killed the duke, swept away the Atreides troops, and reclaimed the planet. Apparently everything was back to normal.

The spice production hardly got going. Trained and led by Paul and Jessica, the Fremen waged a far more effective guerrilla war against the baron's vassals, and the Sardaukar died like flies.

The Emperor was upset and worried and decided to put things in order himself. The battle for Arrakeen followed, which Paul ended by threatening to destroy the entire melange with the water of death (pre-seasoning mixed with the water of life). For the first, but not the last time, the spice was used as a lever for hydraulic despotism , which Leto II later perfected.

At the end of the third volume, it is clear to Leto II that the ecological upheaval on the planet will bring spice production to a standstill sooner or later. He begins to centralize the spice stocks and to allocate the sales. Until the end of his rule, 3500 years later, the god emperor held the monopoly on the spice and thus the empire in his stranglehold.

He tolerates Ixian research for a technical solution to interstellar space travel. He knows the attempts of the Tleilaxu to artificially produce melange. He takes it calmly, which he also knows that these efforts will only be successful after his death.

Power and impotence of the space guild

At the beginning of the first novel, the space guild is represented as overpowering. Her monopoly on interstellar transport enables her to influence all political decisions. Troop movements, communications, banking, trade and passenger transport can only be implemented with their support. The guild's claim to control extends, at this point in time, into planetary space. Whether or not weather and observation satellites are in orbit depends on who pays the highest fee, i.e. bribes, to the guild.

So much power also makes decadent. Indeed, to a large extent dependent on the spice production on Arrakis, she never thinks of actually securing this livelihood physically, or even of operating the spice mining itself. Such dull everyday business is not their thing. The guild can secure and mine. It doesn't matter which house does the dirty work for you, the main thing is that the yield is right.

Towards the end of the first volume, Paul discovers the making of the water of death. Pre-seasoning mixed with the water of life would, if applied anywhere on the planet, lead to a chain reaction and destroy all "little bringers". A link in the chain from worm to spice would be destroyed and Arrakis would become a real desert. He immediately realizes that this is a perfect means of controlling the guild in his hands. And whoever controls the guild controls the empire. The guild navigators, who, like Paul, see the possible futures, recognize the reality of his threat and submit.

From this point on, the guild has no more political influence. She intrigues, especially in the second volume, and supports a conspiracy against the Atreides, but ultimately remains unsuccessful. It then limited itself to its original task of enabling interstellar space flight. After Ixian research finally made spaceflight possible through technology, the guild was finally sidelined.

The power structure between the Emperor and the Great Houses

Above all military considerations of that time stands the dictum of the Great Convention: No use of nuclear weapons against human targets. An agreement that all power blocs involved adhere to without exception.

Regardless of this, there is a de facto balance of power between Landsraad and Imperator in the first volume of the Dune cycle. The emperor, supported by the Sardaukar on the one hand, and the Landsraad on the other , who represent the interests of the high houses and can fall back on their armed forces, largely neutralize each other. A direct attack by the Emperor on a High House would immediately lead to a counterattack by all Houses against the Emperor. Even the imperial Sardaukar would not be able to cope with the concentrated power of the house armies. So there was a stalemate.

Open arguments are therefore taboo, but intrigues are not. Feuds between high houses, such as those of the Harkonnen and Atreides, are not only tolerated, but even discreetly supported by the Emperor. Divide and rule, the old motto still applies. The more divided and divided the opposition, the better.

The emperor's intriguing intervention in the Harkonnen-Atreides conflict, where he and his Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnen decide the dispute, is not noticed by the Landsraad. The military confrontation is decided too quickly for anyone to inform Landsraad of this breach of convention.

The return of Paul Atreides to lead the Fremen puts an end to this balance of power. With his victory in the Battle of Arakeen he gains control over the guild through the spice monopoly, with the guild control over the interstellar space travel and thus over any military action.

However, nothing and no one can stop the Fremen jihad that now follows ; not even the Atreides emperor.

The Golden Path - Notes on Time and Genus Consciousness in the Dune Cycle

The human time awareness and the question of a genre awareness are problems that Frank Herbert addresses and problematizes in every volume of the Dune cycle.

Without the firm will to actually survive as a species, humanity will at best make a footnote in the history of planet earth. In order to develop this will, it is necessary to transcend the individual understanding of time, which currently comprises at most one and a half generations. The human lifetime limits our perception of time . Nobody can really imagine 30,000 years, let alone 1 million. The connection between duration and being is only insufficiently anchored in human existence.

If one looks at the overall temporal conception of the novels, they can be read as a lesson in matters of time awareness and instruction in matters of genre awareness. The first three novels cover a period of about 30 years, i.e. one generation. The fourth volume tells the story of the 3,500 year long tyranny of the god emperor from a distance of 10,000 years. The unfinished second trilogy, on the other hand, can be accommodated in an age.

This near-far-near rhythm stimulates the reader's identification with the characters and the storylines. He is seduced to really perceive large periods of time and to develop a feeling for what it means to be able to look back on twenty, thirty, forty thousand years of history.

The human race at Herbert, just like the real world, has no real sense of time and duration. Your relationship to it is backward-looking and limited to history. But history is being reinvented from epoch to epoch. It is always the history of the survivors and rulers and therefore to be viewed with the greatest suspicion. It is not for nothing that Herbert the Gottkaiser burns nine historians on their own writings.

The golden path always speaks of wanting to ensure the survival of humanity. The inconceivably long tyranny of the God Emperor creates in people the need for something new, for new beginnings, for the unknown. The forced concentration provokes a saving absent-mindedness in space and time.

Herbert is telling today's readers: Be aware of the limited space in which you live. Realize how small and vulnerable the planet earth is. Look for new, unknown worlds. As long as all the eggs are in one basket, a single catastrophe, be it natural or man-made, can end the chapter of humanity suddenly.

Recurring quotes

  • “You shouldn't make a machine in your spiritual image.” The slogan of the Great Revolt
  • “A man's flesh is his property; its water belongs to the tribe. ” A Fremen (burial) rule
  • “I mustn't be afraid. Fear kills consciousness. Fear leads to utter destruction. I'll look her in the face. It should penetrate me completely. And when she's gone, nothing will be left behind. Nothing but me. ” From the Bene Gesserit litany against fear

expenditure

literature

  • Hans-Ulrich Seeber: Frank Herbert: Dune Trilogy. In: Hartmut Heuermann (Ed.): The science fiction novel in Anglo-American literature. Interpretations. Bagel, Düsseldorf 1986, pp. 253-274. ISBN 3-590-07454-X

Web links

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