Harkonnen Operators | Machine Hybrids Explained | Dune Lore 

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My first thoughts of the monitoring room: very aesthetically pleasing, minimalistic and almost like if people were in prayer, in a spiritual trance. My thoughts of the ornithopter front gunner were that he had some kind of "augmented perception", then I thought "oh it's just like zoomed detection whatever", like a chunky, almost sphinx like head piece... Ngl the more this movie marinates with me the more I like it 😂it has so much soul, like its own identity. Thank you for the video.

I believe the operator in the aircraft was just wearing a helmet that was connected to onbord sensors/ turrets like the helmet of a AH-64 Apache Gunner/ pilot. The sensors he was monitoring seemed to be only tracking "life" as he makes the call, "life, Delta Delta" while looking down and to the right.

I thought it was kind of weird how the hologram of Arrakis they were looking at what kind of blink like it wasnt working right. I guess it's bc Raban keeps slamming people's heads into the console 😂

The problem I had with those hybrids is that in Dune canon it will be at least another 5000 years before we see the first one in Chapterhouse: Dune , Clairby. It doesn't mean it wasn't done before but House Harkonnen would never have risked the ire of the Landsraad. It looked cool but it made no sense. Also humanity was now more efficient than machines. And the Guild did not allow any satellites in the Northern Hemisphere...

Limited cybernetics (machine eyes), automated systems (poison snoopers) data storage devices (Paul's holobooks) are all seen in the first two books. It's not a stretch to have this kind of tech in the movie.

This was my favorite scene from the movie, second of all reading comments it boils my blood at "HUR dur this isn't faithful to the books"... bro it's a fkin 1960s book, Herbert himself woulda been loving this if he saw it, in fact when Leto was talking about sandworm Approaching, there was a line in a book saying "& Leto slams the microphone when shouting at the men" slamming a microphone, ITS FKIN 1960s!!!!

I think that the operators are Ixian in origin and not lower level Mentats. I could be wrong, but I can explain my line of thinking. In the Dune Encyclopedia (which is admittedly self contradictory on many things) they discuss Mentats and how they tend to train in combat skills in order to protect themselves from assassination by various ideological groups who think that Mentats are a violation of the prohibition on thinking machines. It goes into some detail of lower level Mentats and how they function, from top level Simulationist Mentats like Thufir Hawat to Mentats whose only ability is vast amounts of memorization. The alternative to naturally trained Mentats is twisted Mentats, which are a Tleilaxu product. This suggests that there is a wide range of interpretation of the Orange Catholic Bible and how it applies in practice. At the same time there are various schools with superhuman abilities similar to the Mentats and the Bene Gesserit detailed. The Suk school of medicine, according to the Dune Encyclopedia, trained its adherents to be able to sniff unknown plants and determine what their medicinal use might be, if any. Effectively Suk doctors are human bloodhounds in addition to their conditioning to do no harm. So there are multiple schools that push the boundaries of natural human ability in the way that the Mentats and Bene Gesserit did. Ixians are the center of technological development in the Imperium. So it seems logical that they would have a school dedicated to training candidates to use their brains as a substitute for thinking machines while interfacing with Ixian technology. It also makes sense that they would be considered to be potentially violating the taboo on thinking machines by a broader swath of people than the Mentats are given the visible interface with machines compared to the Mentats only doing their simulations and calculations in their own minds. That's why I think that they're Ixian in origin, but frankly your guess is as good as mine and I'm just glad that I"m not the only person who tilted their head and went "huh" when I saw them onscreen.

That's really observant. I didn't even catch that in the movie. But a good observation on the deeper lore in the Dune universe.

this is so well written i love every bit of it!

Could you make a video about the Harkonnen military or a video about the Attraides military.

@NerdCookies You mentioned satellites over the northern hemisphere. I was left with the impression from the books that the Fremen had a deal with the Guild not to allow satellites over Arrakis in exchange of spice. Or is it only for the South?

They made me think of Clive Barkers' Cenobytes.

Dune Prophecy trailer released today. Hope you'll make a video on it.🙌

I saw elements like this a way to show Tleilaxu elements without adding another main player of the Imperium

Why did the Bene Gesseritt allow the Harkonnens to violate the jihad?

TLDR ; machines are bad, Harkonnens are bad

Another one of Villlenueve's unfaithful "creative licences". He's worse than Brian. They could have just been lower ranking mentats.

Ripoff of Chronicles of Riddick.

It is by will alone I set my Abacus in motion . . .

I'm a Anime fan. There's one called Orguss 02. The tech level is the same of DUNE. During the first episode the main characters are in a flying transport. On the flight deck,there is a table with markings that look like a radar screen. Hovering over the table is a small ball. There is a bald man near the table with his arms hovering over the table. He was the radar system.

Initially, I had the impression that the operators were basically wearing an advanced version of a VR headset. Though, upon closer inspection, it does look like the hardware might be more integrated/invasive than that.

Reminds me of the operators in General Kala's control room from Flash Gordon.

Thank you, Nerd Cookies. Rumor has it, if you play the chanting backwards you’ll hear a hidden message of Villeneuve apologizing.

We do know that Piter had a connection to the Tleilaxu, and the (admittedly non-canonical) Dune Encyclopedia even posits the unanswered question that he may have been one of their Ghola agents, quietly overseeing Tleilaxu affairs during the events of the first book. The Tleilaxu are known for their metal eyes and other nigh-taboo bio-mechanical enhancements. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that they augmented the brains of a cadre of Harkonnen Mentats to maximize the surveillance of Spice Production on a planetary scale. Just a theory.

The "bribes to keep satellites from overflying the southern hemisphere" thing never made sense. You can't have satellites *not* overfly just one hemisphere. In context, you can tell that Herbert thought they worked like spy planes, rather than devices out in space traveling in an ellipse around the planet.

I am reminded of the Borg from Star Trek, only this makes more sense. The Harkonens skirt both Imperial decree and religious law, without strictly violating either.

Im so glad someone made a video about this. I was so curious about this scene

Nice interpretation, and deepens the lore/headcanon behind these operator guys. However I'm sure this is reading into Villeneuve's intentions a bit much. Based on the way talked about his take on the Harkonnens in general, I think he only cared about showing them as more technologically advanced than the Fremen (likely the Atreides too), and when it came to the operators he had a specific homage/reference to a french bande dessinee art who's name escapes me

The real question is, can the group of Harkonnen Operators run DOOM?

I know I left a reply but did you see the HBO Max Dune Prophecy Trailer it dropped 10 hrs ago did know any why to send messages

These guys in particular always sort of weirdly reminded me a bit of the old Dune RTS's that Westwood made, they have the same sort of vibe.

Thank you for covering this. I was fascinated with the all too brief scene with the hivemind operators since it revealed a bit more of the Harkonnen aesthetic and contrasting methodology. I hope in vain for a show delving more into the world of the Harkonnen.

I run a Track channel and don't know how this came into my timeline but I'm loving all your Dune videos

These things have absolutely no basis in the books.

Oh. Interesting. Usually 40K steals from Dune. Now Dune steals from 40K. The 40K Universe tends to use a types of Networked Servitors, who are Slaved and Lobotomized, to perform Specific Tasks. The advanced Warriors of the Adeptus Mechanicus are Skitarii, and heavily Augmented. They also use a particular type of Mutant called Psykers, and force them to undergo Exposure to the Light of the Emperor. It burns out thier Eyes, but makes them capable of connecting to others. They are called Astropaths. Astropaths can send Messages with their thoughts, Faster Than Light. They can send across the Galaxy or close by. But they can also set up a form of Communion with each other called a Choir to amplify the Signal. This is a bit like a mix of Servitor and Specialized Telepathic Choir for Comms.

There's a more direct influence than Drulliet. And that's Jean Giraud (Moebius) and specifically his storyboards for Jodorowsky's Dune adaption. There is even a sequence illustrated where one of the guys has his goggles pulled off revealing that they are actually wired into his eye sockets, which was copied by Dino DeLaurentis for Flash Gordon.

Like Edric O from Dune 2000.

The audio in this keeps triggering Siri.

No satellites orbited Arrakis, none. That was made clear, both in the books and in the movies. And Dune, the book, was clear as to why-The Fremen bribed the Spacing Guild to not allow satellites over Arrakis. There wouldn’t have been satellites over any hemisphere.

These operators do not fit the brutal conditions of Harkonnen society. Thanks Elaine.

The Harkonnen operators sounded like the Nazis when they were chanting and in a trance during the surveillance of Arrakis.

I've only seen the movies once and am anticipating the delivery of my copy to rewatch for such details. That being said, as you point out this tech is probably coming from the Ixians or Tleilax. Both of these skirt the OCB, but they have been doing it for a long time with the tacit approval of the Emperor and the great houses (I assume). We perceive that the Atreides are honorable and do not use technology from these two sources, but what about the other houses? (As far as I can remember) We do not see the other houses at all, so we don't see where they fall in a spectrum for the Atreides to the Harkonnens. I think most houses use the tech in one form or another with a nod and a wink at its supposed illegality and/or immorality.

The Harkonnen use of these human computers is bad but, the Bene Tleilax Axlotl tanks are just the worst. However, I'm surprised that no one considered using Vietnam level technology to do an Operation Center. No computers, just maps, protrators, radios, lots of pencils and paper. Heck, even a typewriter to do formal memorandums.

You've probably put a lot more thought into this and how it gels with the books than DV did. We know from Dune Messiah that things like Tleilaxu eyes and Ixian shrouds are considered suspicious by most and outright abominations by others, and the problem is both philosophical and practical (using machines to replace/enhance organs of perception raises the question of how can you properly perceive the world without being corrupted by technological filth - are you even human anymore without human senses?) Other mechanical implants appear in later books, and the narration indicates the tenets of the Jihad still prejudice people, even though it's been like 13,000 years at that point. The Baron's conversation with Piter in the first book shows the Harkonnens are not above such prejudices and have the same disdain for AI as everyone else. Personally, I doubt Villeneuve put much thought into it. He wanted scifi stuff, and the Harkonnens are scifi bad guys, so of course they have black outfits, chalk white skin, bald heads, cannibal concubines (or whatever), human spiders, cyborgs, etc. He needed Rabban to have a temper tantrum to show he's bad, and kicking in a tv screen wouldn't do it, so why not kill a borg drone? Villeneuve's entire concept for the Harkonnens is the laziest, most 2-dimensional thing he could have done. I'm half shocked we didn't get a scene of Rabban relaxing in a steam room and strangling puppies, just to hammer it home that "grr, Harkonnens bad."

My guess is the filmmakers have decided to combine the Harkonnens (spelling?) and the Bene Tleilax. Just a guess.

I just finished Part 2, and I didn't care for it. I didn't like the pacing, Alia was never born, too many changes. It's been a long time since I read the book, but i'm pretty sure Paul didn't go to war with the other Great Houses; he got them to comply by threatening the Spacing Guild and spice production.

They reminded me of the imperial agents in the Flash Gordon movie. I think the pilot is just wearing a HUD. I don't think the Harkhonnen would be allowed to mechanically network mentats. Once again I think these are devices for relaying information mini speakers small projection devices where the wearer makes the computations.

Golden content as usual! As a Dunist, I am always so happy and excited when you post! 😊

As a wise ghoast face once said "Flesh is weeeeeeeak"

Ahhhhhhhh warm , fresh and delicious Nerd Cookies 🍪🍪🎉🎉😊😊!!!!!!!!

It’s an interesting adaptation, IX definitely come to mind. Nice reference to the Golden Path my friend…

Spiderhuman pet - moral degradation. Becomin a human worm - absolution.

If it's not in the book, is it really lore?

I thought there were no satellites over Arrakis?

I had always assimed the chanting harkonnens were mentats

The problem for me are satellites on Arrakis. The Spacing Guild doesn't allow it. So how does the holo map console work?

These guys reminded me of servitors for warhammer 40k

Can they run Crisis?

Those are two things that Villeneuve added in his adaptation that are kind of betrayals of the original work by Frank Herbert. 1) Following to the Butlerian Jihad and the legal and religious banning of any kind of technology replicating the human mind in any way or shape (not just full IA), enhancing technology like the one proposed here would be considered so forbidden that any house, even the Harkonnens, would not take this kind of risks. These guys would be low to mid-level Mentats instead. Not all Mentats are as highly trained and efficient as both the Atreides Mentat, Thufir Hawat, and the HArkonne Mentat, Piter de Vries, are. These two are among the very best of the best in the Dune universe. But unfortunately, Villeneuve took the decision not to develop the lore about Mentats that are a deeply ingrained feature of the original Dune universe. Let it be clear: the Dune universe doesn't do IA, doesn't do independantly operating robots, doesn't even do very advanced computers and doesn't do cybernetics especially when it's directly connecting to the human mind; the Dune universe do various and very advanced forms of human development through differents schools (Mentats, Guild Navigators, Suk doctors, Bene Gesserit, etc...). Bottom line: you just don't emulate or enhance the human mind with technology, that's a huge no-no and it is not just "playing on the fringe of the law"; you train humans to their full potential and more and in the process you both respect humanity as it should be and hopefully push humans to always get better as a whole without relying on machines which was the downfall of the old empire. 2) Repeat after me: there are no satellite orbiting Arrakis. Absolutely none. Zero. The Spacing Guild, which is basically controlling everything that has to do with space, not just space travel and highliners, is putting a price tag so absurdly high on any single satellite there that no house, including the imperial one, has ever paid for it.

Well the thing with the films is they had to fill in some gaps in the world building. The books as detailed as they were didn't really go into a lot of detail into the non-house related aspects of the imperium's operations. Such as how the military functions, how automatic systems (like the holo-display) would function etc. So the film had to fill these in as it is a visual medium. What they did was create concepts on how these would function using techniques and technologies present in the books. Cybernetic integration was well established in the books so it stands to reason interfaces could be installed in operators to work advanced equipment. In this regard the individuals seem to be connected directly to the display and using their minds like the CPU.

Looks like more Villaneuve-style visual blah, just more wowie-zowie, look at this stuff that replaces the character-driven scenes and plotlines that made the book interesting.

Second place!!!✌️

Not canon

Mom, can we get a Borg? No, we've got Borg at home. The Borg at home...

Gotta admit I laughed out loud in the cinema when I saw these silly Harkonnen Borg and the realisation set in that this is what Villeneuve was trying to do with the Mentat concept in this context. Interestingly (and in my view, encouragingly), I wasn't the only one in the theatre that day who let out a bemused groan.

How exactly do you have satellites, holographic displays, and brain interfaces without having the AIs that make them work here in the real world? I understand what Frank Herbert was trying to do, but he was too technologically illiterate to understand how ridiculous what he was proposing was.

I'd love to see a video about the Butlerian Jihad itself and how AI fought humanity. As seen in this video humanity has that flaw of repeating its mistakes over generations, so for it to uphold its distaste of AI for thousands of years, something horrific must have occurred.

When I saw the movie I thought the Harkonnen Operators were an inferior replacement for Piter de Vries, who was now dead. Whatever their purpose, I thought they were very interesting and I loved their synchronous chanting. The Harkonnen language was awesome all round tbh.

They are just mentaxs human computers that's all they are plain & simple if you've read the book you know

kinda reminds me of the guild handlers from lynch dune. the head gear resembling a vr headset is probably just a telepresence display. probably tied directly into the thopter's sensor pod. that need not be a computing device per se, but a dumb display. the neural interface on the other hand would definitely be a violation of the strictures of the jihad, though it might be a legal loophole the harkonnens explot. both are simple cases of wanting to add tech fluff to make the setting seem more futuristic for general audiences, but the movies also give cues of repressed technology (eg the mechanical gauges in the thopters or irulan's recording device). i think its a good contrast. one thing lynch dune does that i found really clever was when paul is training on the fighting mek, they make sure to clear and lock the room before hand, because they know what they do could be seen as wrong by the others not in the inner circle. the bene gesserit are also known to secretly use actual computers for their genetic programs. because that kind of work would be impossible otherwise. it is not indicated by the books but the tleilaxu may also be doing the same, as they are also big on genetic manipulation.

Harkonnen :"We are brutal, and the Machine is no match for us !"

Thanks Elaine, nice thumbnail

Right on the edge is close to crossing to the machine

Servitors.

They remind me of the 1987 masters of the Universe Movie comtech technicians used by skeletor

This function could have been covered by Hawat alone! Having a mentat in this role would had made way more sense.

I see the operators as a necessity : they help to gather all the inputs from satellites, drones, etc in a single synthetic visualization. The machine part on them would allow them to update the visualization, the chanting is a way to stay in synchronized trance. Chanting is a simple way to have several people sharing a common pace.

🖖🏽

No I just see it as an enhancement like a built in calculator or Teslas head chip thing.

Pretty cool tbh, DUNE IS MY FAV SERIES TBH

Thy reminded me of the Borg

Harkonnens were slowly but surely turning into the first Borgs!

in the books the spacing guild didnt allow satellites

Good video

I was surprised by how many references to later books were in this movie. *"Cyborg him!"* Mentioning reverend mothers from multiple cultures was another reference. So was the scene in the garden when Lady Fenring was talking Gaius Helen Mohiam. The premiss and structure of that scene is straight out of "Heretics of Dune" but with different character.

I don't think it is remarkable that the Harkonnens use operators like these and think they would be almost universal. The mentats are basically these. If you need big computing power, you can choose either biological or mechanical and mechanical is banned in the Imperium.

The Harkonnen operators are as much a departure from the proscripts of the Bulterlian Jihad as Villeneuve's Dune is a departure from the source material.

In the Dune of David Lynch there was an episode with Thufir Hawat who is looking into some golden device with glimmering light. It looks like some kind of interface to provide the data to the brain of a mentat. And these Harkonnen operators look even like a reference to Lynch's Havat and his device. Maybe it is low level mentats who control the logistics and troops maneuvering. And a small remark about the beginning of the video. There can't be any satellite above Arrakis's surface. It was so in the book and it was confirmed by the Baron himself in the first part ("Atrides will die in the dark"). The Guild does not allow surveillance of the planet

**glares Bene Gesseritly**

The Harkonnens were the only thing that actually looked interesting, visually speaking, in Villeneuve's otherwise blant movies.

but i thought there were no satellites over arrakis

I’m first, what do I win?

Seeing a Druillet picture in this video makes me happy.

As a purist... There are no machine hybrids mentioned in Frank Herberts' original works. These "machine hybrids" are a manifestation of corporate Hollywood, and are destroying a literary masterpiece, standard behaviour for the breed. If only there was a Hollywood director or film producer who was respectful of Authors and their hard work. Edit: the Harkonnen penchant for cruelty was already embellished upon by Frank Herberts' descriptions of their predilections for various forms of control and their enjoyment of torture.

harKOnnen not HArkonnen

Your channel is awesome

Was the Butlerian Jihad even in the movie? DV cut out so many essential elements.

It would be nice if the older film was covered just as much as the ‘new’ one

There are some reasonable artistic additions in the movie, but imo they ruined the experience of an otherwise visually perfect story that closely follows the book. The woke recasting of Liet and addition of black people in the fremen was too much for me. I'm glad i didn't pay to see this. They just have to do this crap for woke points. No opportunity to shoe horn modern race nonsense in a movie can be passed up by clowns in Hollywood.