In God Emperor it was suggested by Leto that the sandworms were not indigenous to Arakis, but were brought there by humans millenia ago, much like the remnants of ancient structures thought to be of alien origin but were remnants of earlier interstellar human. Sorry I am an old nerd born in a time when reading was the only escat from the humdrum of life and I was introduced to Science Fiction via the Dune novel.
Weren't the ruins they found determined to be the first no ship made by Leto II in secret being backed up by how Miles Teg, a Duncan ghola and the others to hide there immune to prescience Since the Spacing Guild had no record or knowledge of taking him there or even of the planet it was found on I always felt it was alluding to Leto being able to either manipulate his ancestors' actions in the past or somehow travel either through space or time independently. Just a thought.
Oh. Another thing about the worms, Leto II knew the worms weren't indigenous to Arakis but didn't seem to know who brought them there, where they originated or when it happened even. So again, just my own assumption, but I took it to be implying that the pre jihad thinking machines must've done it to avoid melange being discovered by humans which wouldve eliminated their dependence on the machines and thus a reason to keep them around. Just a thought. Would love to hear your input on it. By the by, if you haven't seen Quinns Ideas' channel Dune series, you should. He really goes deep into the concepts and lore behind the story. Great stuff.
@@tomfoolery5680 the machines would have just wiped out the worms... Not bothered to transport them on presumably pre-ftl ships to a random planet The Worms are why Arrakis has almost no water, they desertify the planet Ancient terraforming? Is it all because of those old people in the Garden? Did they send the worms there?
@@phoboskittym8500 not if the machines' actions were contingent upon any combo of human input, approval, or coding. It could be that a human agent or whole agency, either ignorant to or not fully understanding the scope of the value and utility of melange
Spice is not worm poop or sandtrout poop. Willis McNelly, author of The Dune Encyclopedia, confirmed that when he was writing the book Frank Herbert tested him by asking him if he had figured out what spice was? McNelly said that he had surmised it was sperm to fertilize the nests. Frank Herbert smiled and said Yes. Thus, spice is worn sperm.
@@dominiclapinta8537no it’s because of all the elements on earth. SALT MAKES UP ALMOST 5% OF THE EARTH TOTAL. That’s one of the largest single percentages of any element. Iron is highest at 35% and aluminum is 8%. Salt is next.
@@dominiclapinta8537 whale sperm isn’t salty. Human sperm is salty because of our genetic composition, THAT HAS ALOT OF SALT. Whale PISS, IS SALTY, because they have special liver that allows them to drink salt water while expelling all the salt from it in their urine. Their sperm HAS NO SALT. If you had said whale piss, I’d only slightly agree with you. Because no matter what, no creature on the planet is effecting the taste of the ocean more than 5% of the total earth being made of salt. If you take a glass of water and fill 5% of the glass with salt, I promise it wasn’t sea creatures making your cup salty. It was the 5% composition that existed long before any creatures that made that taste
🧐According to Dune encyclopedia spice melange has a chemical structure with some similarity to chlorophyll the green pigment of plants or heme the red pigment of blood. The interesting difference between the 3 compounds is the bound metal ion in their molecular center. While magnesium is bound in green chlorophyll, it is iron in red heme. In the spice melange, on the other hand, it is copper. Copper compounds, again, are often characterized by an intense blue coloration. Well-known examples of this are copper sulphate or copper nitrate. Although the spice itself is not blue, it may be possible that the substance is metabolized in the human body into a bluish copper compound, which then accumulates as a blue dye in the eyes.
Copper turns blue/green because it is oxidized, I would imagine that you could change it's color based on what element is bonding with the copper, or I would imagine you'd be able to anodize copper to different colors. Anodizing traps the color in evenly through the metal compound though where oxidization would actually change the element into a colored compound. Anodizing is how we have so many different colored aluminum things that never scratch showing a different color or fading/chipping. The statue of liberty is oxidization. There are different gasses that can combine with metals but it's not that common on earth because the two main gasses in our air is nitrogen (a pretty stable gas and that likes to bond with itself and doesn't like breaking bonds already made) and oxygen (extremely unstable and loves bonding with whatever it can find). I would imagine some really cool compounds could be found on a planet with metals and an environment that contains high amounts of Sulfur, Selenium, Fluoride, Chlorine, Bromine, or Iodine.
The books actually implied that the Worms are _not_ native to Arrakis, but were placed there some time in the past. They were the reason Arrakis is a desert, because their embryonic form, Sand Trout, capture and surround water in the process of growing into Worms. Interestingly, Sand Worms seem to be gestalt creatures made up of a large number of sand trout that have interwoven themselves together. Part of what made Leto II into the God Emperor is that he was able to coax sand trout into interweaving themselves into a skin around him, but that also meant interweaving into his own body, digging filaments into him. As a group of trout grow into a worm, Leto's sand trout grew into his worm body, until he was dumped into a river that caused his worm body to fall apart into it's component trout, leaving him bleeding out from where their filaments withdrew. He survived to give his descendant Siona a last message.
its confirmed by an ancient ship found under Arrakeen thats been there for thousands of years, a long time before the fremen founded Arrakeen before the Harrkonans took the city from them
AFAIK Siona isn't his descendant, but a descendant of his sister, Ghanima Atreides. Provided Leto II was indeed husband to Ghanima from the moment he ascended to the throne until she died, they never had intimate relationships, both because they saw no point in producing a heir (they were pre-born, thus deeply intimate without needing to be any physical and also why the fuck would they be so eager to commit inbreeding) and because Leto II himself was physically unable to even have sex. Ghanima took Farad'n Corrino (Irulan's nephew, Shaddam's grand-nephew) as her concubine and it's their children who continue the Atreides, Harkonnen and Corrino lineages. Worth nothing that it was sort of Leto's decision for Farad'n to be his sister's concubine.
@@TRak598 everything Leto II did was the pursuit of the golden path, including Siona and everything in her life though most likely she was a luxury to him, a distraction
I am glad this video highlights that Navigators use Spice for Prescience. They navigate by Future-Vision. The actual engines that move ships is just machines, but dodging obstacles is the Navigator job. I likened it to a line in Star Wars, where Han Solo tells Luke that they need to wait for the navicomputer to calculate a course or they will fly through a black hole or bounce too close to a supernova and that will end your trip real quick. Dune Navicomputers are people who take Spice to see a little bit of the future.
not exactly right, in Dune FTL is done through the act of folding space the prescience of the Navigators is more to pinpoint the specific location they're traveling to ensure that when they fold space their ships don't transition into planets when it moves between 2 points in space. folding space in the books is described as being both the destination and origin point being in the same point and then it flexes back with the ship in the destination point, there is a risk of doing this blindly and transitioning into a planet, asteroids, moons and stars since its impossible to know what lies at the destination and navigators can use their prescience to basically run numbers of possible outcomes to ensure their safety
The junkies are mainly fighting over who is to control space travel. No space travel - no trade - no politics - no Empire. That´s the main thing. The psychedelic effects are only used by religious sects like the Fremen and the Bene Gesserit. The Navigator´s Guild use its mental effects only to fold space, and the induced clairvoyance to navigate safe paths through causality, avoiding calamities for the Heighliners. Getting totally plastered and super addicted is merely a tolerated side effect for them. For the bene gesserit, it is the main deal.
When I got older, my scleras stayed blue (it's the sign of all the connectiviti tissue problems- I have hEDS) and since my dad is a big Dune fan, he always told me that I was adopted from Arrakis XD
I appreciate that ALL the versions onscreen of DUNE were used on this video, and finally the Spice Melange was explained perfectly, aside two things. One: The Mentats used of Spice is minimal, because they mix it with another drug Juice from the fruit of Saphoo. The Juice of Saphoo is what gives the Mentats their telltale signs of Stained Lips, since the Saphoo Fruit stains them and the mark becomes permanent. Two: Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides was the result of the Bene Gesserit Special Breeding Program that they control, and based on this breeding program that made his birth possible because his Mother disobeyed the Sisterhood. Also with both training as Mentat and Bene Gesserit bestowed on him by the Mentat Thufir Hawatt, and his mom Jessica, plus the Spice unlocked, Paul's Prescience powers and his Children were basically Altered at the womb by their mom Chani consuming large amounts of Spice. And Three: The Bene Thlailax weren't able to recreate Spice artificially for a long time, and when they did, it was called Super Spice because the effects were exaggerated and would put anyone that consumed it into an eternal Prescience Coma till they died. So essentially the artificial Spice was useless. Aside these three points, this vid had the best explanation of Spice and most of its details, and again, so awesome to see all Three Versions of onscreen DUNE productions and the sequel to 2000s DUNE, Children of DUNE with James McAvoy as Leto II (III).
Also sand worms and sand trout are not indigenous but they were introduced to dune eons ago. Dune used to be a wet planet before the (edit: worms) were introduced.
@@mishikookropiridze In the novels, specifically when Paolo used it and put him in an unbreakable Prescient trance where he would die. That was the issue with the Super Spice, the fact that it was too powerful that it was useless.
There was FSL (faster than light) travel but it was a lot slower than folding space by the Holtzman engines. BUT, navigators found safe passages and thus lowered the risk of fold space.
The guild did not travel faster than light, they utilized holtzman engines to fold space, the navigator did the mental calculations that were needed to take both points and bring them together and the highlighter moved a few thousand feet into the next sector
spice is mentioned to enhance any and all dishes, the fremen for one taking it in each and every meal and drink because spice, like sand, was in everything. because it can enhance any dish i would argue it's taste is closer to umami, if not tasteless by itself. simply enhancing pleasant flavours present by improving the brains receptiveness to those stimuli. just my 2 cents on that particular matter.
@@hal90001close enough i guess, though it's implied some human(s) made the worms to trap humanity in some larger scheme. it used to be a living planet and paul remarks the spice is perfectly tailored to human consumption to be an accident, there's also no other planets the worms live on. too boot; if they evolved naturally it could be expected there was more then 1 planet with the worms, either through convergent evolution or some kind of panspermia.
You'd be right if Jessica herself didn't say that it had similar taste to cinnamon. Unlike some of the stuff that gets said in the later Dune books, this isn't really a topic up for debate since Frank Herbert is the one that wrote Jessica saying it.
@@dalektrekkiein it's pure form you'd be right. but compounds change when mixed and cooked, meaning it's taste can change as well. ask any (bio) chemist.
Lmao I wouldn't mind that. Pumpkin Spice,when used correctly(by which I mean: not in spam,ramen,pasta or anything savoury) is delicious, even if some products take it too far
For most the Spice opens the mind to others of the community, it doesn't grant predictive ability. Even in the case of Guildsmen, it merely opens their ability to mentally commune. This extended sense is what seems to allow them to predict safe paths, though that has more to do with their mathematical and simulation abilities, making it possible for them to visualize conditions along their route. Paul is only able to predict since his training facilitates his computation of data inherent in his genetic memory. This is much the same facility that the Second Foundation has with the advent of Psychohistory.
Spice Melange Dune snacks.. they have it at Costco. 20 bucks for a huge bag, individually wrapped to guaranteed freshness. Comes in Flaming Hot version.
I love the implication that aside from making the nobility live longer, all the important functions of this mystical substance that this entire universe is obsessed with could be replaced by a TI-84 calculator.
Which version of the TI84 do I need to turn people into sentient lie detectors, unlock genetic memory, prompt massive orgys, and get Duncan Idaho absolutely hammered?
Like, a couple hundred people actually USE those abilities. For the purposes of everyone in the universe who isn’t a major character, the main practical use of this stuff is space travel and computation, both of which can be done with a calculator and a bit of effort.
The Butlerian Jihad explicitly forbade computers in its command "Thou shaltst not make a machine in the image of the human mind", hence no navigation computers, no calculators, therefor the need for mentats and navigators, ergo: the spice must flow.@@jamesgreep9344
The sandworms and the Fremen aren't native to Arrakis...it's stated many times in the books that the worms were brought there, though it is unknown by whom.
I could be totally wrong as my knowledge of the Dune universe is limited so feel free to correct me if I am at all wrong. Given the distinct lack of sapient beings of non-human origin, I would bet that the worms were brought there by previous spacefaring humans.
@@Blasted2Oblivion Or simply the information was lost over thousands and thousands of years. Or never existed in the first place. It would not be the first time humans did something, didn't record it and later generations were left puzzled. Worms are indeed not native. Leto II knows that because he can see/sense that. But the truth behind it is fuzzy for him, because the worm tissue holds no memory of before Dune. Like a newborn not remembering time in the womb, and its early years are fuzzy, but he can later tell if he belongs somewhere or not. Maybe worms were a genetic experiment of some human group (there were many, doing all sort of stuff) and Dune was just chosen as a testing ground. Worms delivered there from the original facility and left to see what would happen. Secret development. And the information simply being forgotten/lost. We also know that Earth is almost completely forgotten in Dune universe. Very few even know of it, and no one knows where it is/was and what happened to it. And it is a cradle of humanity. So some secret cabal of geneticists similar to Tleilax, creating worms in some lab, shipping them around until they were dropped on Dune... why not? They could be much older than humanity. There could have been precursor civilization involved, aliens etc. But it does not have to. We simply do not know, and Dune leaves enough room for it to actually be humans who made them, or at least dropped them on Dune. Maybe during the expansion, finding them somewhere, exterminated them to make living space, and dropped the last surviving ones on a backwater planet no one wanted or cared about, as a form of natural reservation. No one knows.
@@l.acosta4739 no they’re not, vegetarians will use some animal byproducts like milk and eggs they don’t eat the flesh or meats of animals meanwhile vegans don’t consume any animal byproducts that includes egg and dairy products their substitutes are things like almond milk, soy milk, tofu and meat substitutes, they don’t have the same dietary restrictions of what they can and cannot consume, like the person above me said words have a meaning!
One might think that, if there is just one planet with a finite but super vital resource, the society that feeds on it would be making massive efforts to replicate it or replace it with something renewable.
Apparently it works best if you eat it. Snorting it…you know what, that’s got me curious. What would happen if you snorted Melange? I imagine you end up getting perfect prescience like that Paul Clone in the last book; just completely comatose and stuck in the future
@@turdferguson2982 only women have done it and lived. it’d prophecized that one day a man will freebase it in a lightbulb and survive and he shall be the kwisatz haderach
Because the smell and flavor is described as being like cinnamon, yet none of the 4D theaters I saw the new Dune in didn't smell like cinnamon while on Arakkis
The setting of the Spice Melange is ingenious. It reflected the growing concern about the human uplift against the health degradation with civilization. However, the drug’s organic origin & scarcity retrogressed human society to feudalism. It also tells us the need for technology policies, economic & social policies, administrative management for wealth creation & distribution, or human abilities’ utilization like democracy.
I know it's picking at the lore, but it always amazes me, no matter how big Arrakis is, how many worms there are, or how successful collection expeditions become, that there is, somehow, enough Spice to maintain the Imperium. It seems like a big place, with many people, and even just the Guild would need to use up so much, but they can somehow collect enough for them, for greedy nobles, and even a few other industries. Surprised there is that much of it, at a time, and that more of it gets made at a rate commensurate with maintaining the Imperium, and yet so much of this process "just happens"; it isn't synthesized in labs, found elsewhere, or strictly regimented by the government.
is there a reason that these people can fold spacetime and have extremely powerful personal shield technology but they can' t make a spice harvesting device that does not attract sand worms?
Yes. It is called fantasy writing - rarely if ever can a writer create the world where everything makes sense. Usually they write things a certain way because they NEED them to be true in their world, but don't actually bother to explain how that completely illogical thing makes sense in their world. If no one picks up on it, they leave it as is. If there is enough of an uproar they tend to offer some half-assed explanation later that usually makes things even worse logic-wise and only rarely explains the actual plot hole. Dune universe is full of such nonsense... it is a terrible example of worldbuilding. But that is not the point of the Dune saga, which is why people don't pay that much attention to it. You are not to focus on the world, you are to focus on more philosophical topics that the work poses. The problem is, in a good sci-fi, those philosophical points and moral questions are usually connected and/or a result of the worldbuilding. And for a universe as Frank Herbert described in his books, you'd think that there would be hundreds of planets where worms were spread artificially by humans. After all, we are talking about essential substance for the existence of the said empire, yet that crucial resource is found on one planet, and one planet only, in the entire galaxy. Not only does it not make any sense, but it would have HUGE ramifications to the setting that Dune does not even scratch against let alone acknowledge them.
Cinemasins actually raised an interesting point around that with Dune Part 1. It is stated that the harvesters aren't shielded because the shields attract the worms and send them into a frenzy. So why not just use a shield to draw them away from the harvester site? Surely replacing a shield generator is a lot cheaper than replacing an entire harvester.
@@Blasted2OblivionI was hoping there was an actual reason not an even bigger plot hole, lol. Oh well I guess this franchise is not for me, my brain asks too many annoying questions.
@@bobotheclown88 I have been there. The trick is to just force yourself to endure and you will eventually be able to turn that part of your brain off during movies. That or have a psychotic break and try to make your own movie with zero plot holes. Either way, win win.
I find it hard to believe a space faring empire cannot engineer a way to collect those "spice" without attracting the worms. This world building is full of inconsistencies or maybe I'm missing important info as to why things are like that in dune.
Honestly, you're asking for evidence, but it's Science Fiction afterall! In the David Lynch 1984 movie all the characters possessed Brown eyes and their eyes became blue due to saturation of the blood because of the Spice Melange. In the 2000, SciFi Channel movie, the characters mostly possessed hazel eyes making the transition to blue seem easier to manipulate. Honestly, Frank Herbert never actually stated some of the facts that make Dune a fascination to SciFi readers. Like, the fact that space vessels can fold space because of the use of the Holtzman Engines creating propulsion. He states it but never applies quantum mechanics to solve the issue.
The economics of Arrakis don't add up. Human populations have always been limited by food production. Food production has often been limited by the amount of water available. The author never explained how food is produced on Arrakis. No magical machines that produce unlimited energy and transform it into material goods like Star Trek. The usual growing of plants isn't possible on Arrakis. They could trade because spice is very valuable, but that would be extremely difficult to hide food shipping from any government because food is bulky. Bulky food imports would result in an increase in sewage production.
@BLOODKINGbro underground oasis don't produce food. Growing plants does, but plants perspire lots of water. It's like Loch Ness. There's not enough plankton to support the numbers of fish that would be needed to feed a Loch Ness Monster, never mind a breeding population.
The spice is worm piss that crystallizes as it dries out on exposure to sunlight and air. Or it may not be urine, but possibly semen. Which is just more fun.
The worms are not indigenous to Arrakis. In the later books they realize Arrakis used to be a green/water planet before the worms were brought there and turned the whole planet to a desert. Its big mystery as to what planet the worms actually come from.
Considering we know that they are capable of creating what is essentially spores, it would make sense that the sandworms seeded themself on the planet. I'd say the whole process of creating spice is a process of converting a planet until a specific level of spice is developed and some other stage occurs, and human consumption of the spice is obviously hindering that. It may be that the worms are actually intelligent, it's just that they have soo much prescience that they are like navigators, their consciousness is among the stars as their bodies roam as worms. It would be foolish to think the worms make spice without having any of the effects from it. Of course one might think why wouldn't the worms be everywhere if they're seeding planets, but it may not be that simple. Their seeding methods may have a low turn over rate, so they might be only 1 in 1000 worlds.
IT IS BY WILL ALONE I SET MY MIND IN MOTION. IT IS BY THE JUICE OF SAPHU THAT THE LIPS ACQUIRE SPEED. THE LIPS ACQUIRE STAINS; THE STAINS BECOME A WARNING. IT IS BY WILL ALONE I SET MY MIND IN MOTION.
why don’t the Spice Harvesters have the Carryall functionality built in? especially in the Villeneuve adaptation with the balloons, it would make much more sense… and they could just have one of the balloons fail, and the scene goes on as normal 🤷🏻♂️
It’s a good thought, if I had to put a logical reason ( and mind you I had to think on this one a bit) I would says it’s because they don’t want to put pressurized gas containers filled with potentially explosive gas on a “factory machine. That and the more complicated you make a crawler the harder it is to repair.
@@TheReaver1234 - that make sense… but you’d still think they’d still have a carryall paired with each harvester, so they’re ready to escape a worm when they need to. also, at the beginning and end of the day, some harvesters would be stuck at home base not collecting any spice, and the carryalls already deployed would be farther away from the harvesters in case of emergency 🤔 oh well.
@@Sam_T2000 all good points, but you have to remember that leto asked about why they dont have extra carry alls and the reason is they just dont have enough equipment at this point. The harkonens have stacked the deck against them so hard at this point that victory was impossible once they arrived.
@@TheReaver1234 - that makes sense as well… do you have any thoughts on why (in the Villeneuve movies) the Harkonnen harvesters are so enormous compared to the Atreides harvesters? just extra spice storage, or what?
Jepp. That´s why the sandtrout encapsulate it, to make a dry habitat for Shai-Hulud. To get the water of life, a" little maker" (subadult worm between the stages of sand trout and full-grown worm) is Poisoned/drowned in water, and the reaction between water and its metabolic products forms the water of life that is fatal for everyone except Reverend Mothers and the Kvisatz Haderach.
