Spacing Guild Navigators Explained | Dune Lore 

*navigator does a line of spice* Dude what if we folded space?

I think it's ironic that Guildsman can navigate ships through space but need someone to push around their tank, they literally can't navigate their bodies.

There needs to be a parody of Dune where the navigators are just potheads hitting a blunt, pointing in an arbitrary direction, and babbling semi incoherent instructions to the crew.

Two aspects of the Guild Navigators seem to be often overlooked. The first is that they must, before even being considered as an acolyte who may train to one day reach the rank of Navigator, be superb Mathematicians. In fact, the senior-rank Bene Geserit Rev. Mother who 'tests' Paul at the beginning of Dune remarks that after humans were freed from the rule of the Machines, Humanity's first split was into two main roles - the Bene Geserit, whose role is stated as "Politics" and the Spacing Guild, whose Navigators focus entirely on the study of pure Mathematics. (The Mentats, the Bene Tlilax and other branches develop later, supposedly). This would make sense, given the description of Holtzman's original discovery in one of the Dune Prequels. Reference to the function of Guild Navigators as both Mathematicians and beings with a limited power of Prescience come up many times in the various novels. There is one instance where one brother of twin boys - Ixians - is accepted for training by the Guild because of his abilities of Prescience, some amount of telepathy, and extreme mathematical skills. As the Guild twin slowly mutates, telepathic contact becomes steadily more difficult for his un-mutated brother, now fighting a secret war of sabotage within Ix against the invading Bene Tlielax, It's mentioned specifically that the twins had good telepathic contact as boys. We might also consider that all Navigators may not develop identical physical mutations, or do so at the same pace. I don't recall this being stated as such anywhere, but it seems possible given that their transformation enhances some of their mental powers, but those of Prescience being narrowly limited to the tasks of a Navigator. Because the spice Melange greatly extends the human lifespan, it seems possible that different navigators will be at various stages of adaptation, depending on how long they have been a Navigator. No reference that I remember mentions what might happen if a Guild Navigator dies - especially in flight - but since they live very long lives, any changes tor atrophy is probably something that varies with the individual, and is slow. I say slow because if the Navigator were to mutate to the stage some suggest, Navigators would no longer have the body and basic human physiology support systems that keep them alive. The rest, of course, is conjecture.

The entrance of Lynch’s Navigator is one of cinema’s finest moments. “I did not say this. I am not here.”

I love Lynch's interpretation of the spacing guild as well as the navigators themselves. The entourages outfits with pipes going into their heads look so original and cool and the way they speak and use the translator modules blew me away when I first saw Dune in the 80s. "The Bene Gesserit witch must leave."

The David Lynch Dune is one of my guilty pleasures. I know that a lot of people hate that movie. I love the models, costumes and set design. When I reread the original Dune books I see David Lynch's Navigator in my head.

It would be fantastic if you and Quinn from Quinn's Ideas could do a collaboration project, assuming both sides were up for it. You both have insightful commentary and lovely vocal presence in your content, and you both obviously love the universe.

I had always imagined that each navigator would metamorphose slightly differently depending on the genes that they started with. There would, of course, be some commonalities due to the uniformity of the process, but humans come in so many variations of physical distinction. The "End product" would come in a lot of forms. Any unique traits might be exaggerated by the mutation.

I liked the Lynch navigator, although not having the Eyes of Ibad was a pretty big oversight. It's not super-convincing these days, but it also didn't have the benefit of the last forty years of special effects development. A scene I really, really liked was at the end of Lynch's Dune, you see that the navigator's spokesman has begun to mutate, with his skull becoming misshapen and breaking through the skin. Any adaptation should present navigators in the "Uncanny Valley", not human but not quite monster. They should be unsettling, arrogant and quite repulsive.

Guild navigator's abilities gave them tremendous positions of prestige within the Guild at the cost of their humanity. The messaging seems pretty clear here; even in the real world, we're willing to give up our humanity for power and clout. Herbert's fictional depiction of this literally had people turning into monsters for personal gain.

Everything in Dune is so scary and beautiful at the same time.

When I think of navigators, all I can think of is "Shut up Edrik!"

8:45 has to be my favorite depiction of the three Navigator stages, by Simon Dubuc. You can see they retain fishlike characteristics, but their heads and faces warp to the point where they aren't even recognizable as heads and faces any more - by the third stage, you have a straight-up Eldritch horror. Even the eyes aren't remotely human any more. ("Where we're going, we don't need eyes to see...") That actually fits well with the occult-like mystery of the Guild. Edric probably was a First-Stage Navigator in this model. Lynch's Navigators were pretty good for their day, but the depiction above is straight up Body Horror.

I remember seeing a guild member in the first Dune movie who apparently was in the early stages of mutation. He had what appeared to be fractures in his head and was wearing an apparatus that was feeding him a continuous supply of the spice melange. He was already using a translation device. It would appear their ability to speak normally is an early casualty of the mutation process.

I’ll bet Villeneuve’s navigators, if he decides to reveal them, might have some design echoes similar to the heptapods from Arrival.

I imagined them appearing as an early stage human embryo where gill slits are apparent. As most people know what that looks like, there would thus be recognition with the audience.

If your adaptation is so good to have some details "canonised" in the books themselves I think that's a win.

Dune is the best sci-fi story ever. It's so many things at once; a commentary on politics, religion, ecology,and technology simultaneously. It's a shame Herbert didn't get to finish his story.

Greetings from 10-2021, after Part 1 has been released! They didn't show what the Navigators look like but there is a big caveat. Representatives from the Spacing Guild do appear in the movie, but in full body "spacesuits" with the helmets completely fogged up in Spice gas. They are humandoid in form which does allude to the transformation taking place in stages.

When I was a kid a I had a book called BarLowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials. In the book Wayne Barlowe illustrated aliens from popular Sci-Fi series. One of the aliens was a “Guild Steersman” from Dune. He described them as having evolved into to fishlike beings due to living in the zero gravity of deep space. He painted the Steersman as a blue fish man with huge, paddle like hands with membranes between the fingers.Wayne Barlowe went on to design the alien creatures on Avatar as well.

I just want to walk up to a navigator's tank and start tapping while saying "fishy, fishy, fishy!"

Kind of fascinating to think that one of the results of the Golden Path _was_ machines that could be used to replace guild navigators. I was never quite sure, though, if the navigational ability was tied to being a no-ship or if they could be separate systems.

Really love your work on Dune. I have listened to the first 2 books with my Audible membership, and I can say the narration was brilliant. I used to spend all of my free time reading when I was a kid. As I got older, homework would have to be completed, and chores, but the rest of the time, I read everything. I even insisted on having a nightlight even though I was never scared of the dark. I wish I had that kind of time, still. Thankfully, There are really well done, talented narrators on Audible.. My now ex husband got it for me back in 2000 because during my walk home from the train station when I lived just outside of Boston, I would walk the mile to my home, while reading a book. The streetlights even made it possible to read and walk home after dark. Fortunately, during the first year of my marriage he was worried I'd get hit by a car, since Boston drivers can be a little aggressive. I've had the membership forever and have at least 700 books in my audio library. If anyone out there wants to read Dune, but you don't have the time, there are audio books that are brilliant and I strongly recommend them.

I think I prefer the fish man description. To me still having a human shape with deformed lims and blue eyes is how I have always imagined the navigators.

Thanks Nerd Cookies for including the best, most evocative concept art of the navigators avbl on the web! From the possibly ornate speaking mechanism, sometimes minimalist design of the tank itself, down to the disintegration of the human skeleton and overdevelopment of the brain and skull, these artists have attempted to depict the unfathomable evolution allowed in Dune's sprawling timeline.

The artwork at 7:30 is pretty close to how I think they should be depicted -- imposing and partially obscured.

Just include them all. I think Villeneuve should just incorporate all the designs, establishing that the mutation is slightly different in every Navigator.

This stuff is crazy hypnotic, it sucks me in every time. The artwork plus the voice, I’m engrossed. Please do this with other films. Great channel!!!

As I see it, all Navigators change, and mutate depending on their personality, as a reaction to the spice that is slowly changing them. Causing them to not have a set mutation, or a set way for them to mutate into a navigator. So the mutations can be very varied to each and every one.

I am looking forward to Denis's visual enturpetation of the Guild Navigator. Never liked Lynch's version, but in fairness. Limited CGI played a role there I am sure.

I’m looking forward to how Denis Villeneuve will visualize the Guild Navigator. I think Andy Serkis would be a truly iconic choice to portray it.

The development of a human from egg to baby has been described by some as "fast-forward evolution", with stages such as having lots of webbing between the fingers (which are later removed). The idea is debatable as biology, but for science fiction it may be a good model for designing the appearance of advanced navigators. They are effectively evolving into a future branch of humanity, but with spice they can do it in a single (extended) lifetime. Visually, they could therefore be depicted as less of a deformed adult human and more of an embryonic post-human. This also ties in to the idea that spice actually has just one ability: enhanced connection to possible futures. It easily explains the prescience abilities, and arguably explains the health benefits. Your body starts living longer because it's being connected more strongly to possible futures -- most of which have longer-lived humans. It doesn't quite fit the books, of course, but I've always liked the idea.

I don't need prescience to KNOW that my future would be very lonely if I were mutated by the Spice Melange. It's hard enough finding a date these days. 🤦‍♂️🤣

when u take one too many brownies and start thinking ur a humanoid fish that can travel through space and time

My favorite movie and book ever since I was young! I used to watch Dune (2000) and Children of Dune (2003) on Sci-fi channel. For me, I love the Fremen blue eyes because it represents “culture” which they consume daily. Outsiders (e.g., Honkonen) take advantage of their valuable sources and mistreat the people. People (outsiders) who use spice as cocaine are addict-make sense why they are being labeled as that-uless they cover their eye color with contact lenses.

Warhammer 40k's pilots that can navigate the warp must have origins in this

Spacing Guild Navigator: ~communing with the ghost of Madeline L'engle~ so like, "wrinkling" space and time, huh? Hmmmm lemme play with that concept

Frank Herbert influenced by a well-thought-out part of a less than perfect movie. I am cool with that. Much of scifi is a conversation of creators.

That final image in the video of the three stages of the Navigator, particularly the third stage is absolutely AWESOME!

I’ve listened to these Dune Videos every night for like weeks now haha I love them, thank you :)

if there's one thing about Guild Navigators with enough salt pepper and garlic and a little white wine they taste fantastic! A little spicy but still fantastic.

The space-folding thing is only in the movie. In the book it gives Navigators the ability to see the future and avoid any obstacles so they can travel at full speed

They ban computers because "Man may not be replaced." Those fish tank people sure as hell replaced their humanity with something. I'm gonna be on team Ix and House Ordos, because the alternative is pretty grim.

My favorite is the sci fi original series navigator. Eyes of I bad and larval nature and mutation laying the background for the concept of the God King Leto.

This is like, WAAAY safer than the warp.

Never quite understood this concept. The whole point of folding space is to avoid traveling the path between these two points. There shouldn't be a need for a safe "path", because there is no path. Maybe there's some hyperspace type of concept underneath it all, but then "folding" really isn't the right term.

I absolutely love the background music. Great choice for this Dune review.

The mutation is the scariest part of it. Same as for Leto 2 turning into a worm God. 😱

Life goals: Become Guild Navigator and swim around in my fish bowl.

I always thought David Lynch's Guild Navigators have an appearance of Lovecraftian Eldritch horror. Which I totally love. Frank Herbert always defied a lot of conventions and Guild Navigators are the best example of how Herbert varied from conventional science fiction in use space travel.

I love Lynch's interpretation of the spacing guild as well as the navigators themselves. The entourages outfits with pipes going into their heads look so original and cool and the way they speak and use the translato

There is a change Herbert made between the closing of book one, where Navigators are just guys walking around (in Arakeen castle), to book two, where Edric is tank bound and formed differently than humans. Not sure why. Everyone uses the second form because that is the future of the franchise (hope springs eternal).

In other words the navigators are evolving into spice worms slowly through prolonged exposure to worm feces.

The navigator in David Lynch s version was a fantastic visual presentation

So the Navigators were once human? Did the prolonged use of spice deform their bodies?

I think the idea that their changes are unique to that person and there is no uniform transformation but more of a rough outline of what is some what common.

Yay! New Nerd Cookie!

Just found the channel, you voice is very soothing and honestly a joy to listen for this lore

You do a great job distilling these complex topics in to easily parseable chunks.

It's like the Naviators are adapting to life on Arrakis where the spice comes from, not the desert, but instead a lush planet with oceans of water, hence the fish-like traits.

I saw the david lynch dune when i was a little kid and every time I read the books, I always saw the navigator like was originally shown in the movie or a variation of that. (i love the audio mix. great voice, great music. sounds great.)

after reading 12 different dune books, pouring over the dune encyclopedia, and of course watching the new movie i have been itching to furthet immerse myself in the lore and im so glad I found your channel!

Great choice of background music. 🤨👏 It makes me feel totally relaxed.. ✌

Like the Ixians, the Tleilaxu, and (to a noticeably lesser extent) the Bene Gesserit, The Spacing Guild continues to prompt the question: What is "Human..?" As w/all the other points the series makes note of, Frank doesn't ~exactly~ answer; But he does make us think. And that..? is why Dune is (and will doubtless remain!) THE Sci-Fi epic. Frank Herbert - The *REAL* God-emperor of Dune... As per usual, 100/100. Many thanks for posting this.

Paul and Leto II are a realization of the sisterhood, the powers of the guild, mentat, and sisterhood combined in one person...🖖🏽

Unlike the various movies and shows, itis refreshing to hear that Navigators do not "fold space" but simply guide the ships with the Holtzmann generators perform the work.

It always looked to me, that his Heptapods in Arrival were directly inspired by the Guild Navigator concept. The gaseous atmosphere in a contained area, the bending and use of time and travel, hence the craft just "evaporating" (folding space). It seems to me that his love of Dune as a youngster, gave us one of favourite slow burn, beautifully told sci-fi films... thank you.

I must admit that David Lynch's Dune has been my favourite screen incarnation of the book and my favourite scene is the arrival of the Spacing Guild. That's how I'll always see the Guild and their navigators.

Thanks for the new Dune video Elaine, keep up the great work!

As always, NC seldom fails to point out details of where the various versions got right, and what they got totally wrong. Like the 1984 film which most definitely gave viewers the totally incorrect idea that guild navigators (themselves) fold space and time. Of course, they do nothing of the sort.

I'm intrigued by the Lynch version of the Navigators. Because this was my first exposure to the Dune universe when I saw the movie in theaters back in 1984, it set my vision for many parts of the Dune universe. It is the way I see Navigators in my imagination each time I've read the Dune series. Interestingly I see Paul, Duke Leto and Lady Jessica as they are the Lynch version; I see Chani and Stilgar as they are in the SiFi version. My vision of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen has always been very similar to the picture shown of Denis Villeneuve's vision. Thanks for another great Dune Video.

Originally the guild navigators were not mutated at all. In the original book there are 2 guild navigators in the emperor’s entourage at the final battle. They're described as humans who hide their blue, almost black, eyes behind contact lenses.

Why would you even consider becoming a mutated monster?

I wonder what a navigators day to day life would be like. Do they ever get to leave their little container? Do they have free time? I must know

The Xindi-Aquatic from Star Trek Enterprise (TV show in USA around 1991-95) with Scott Bakula (I always want to say Count Dracula !) and the ever beautiful Jolen Blaylock. The Xindi-Aquatic look almost too much like a sea turtle but with some contemporary Dune artists .. who knows ? Might be the next look for the Spice Navigators ! Great video. Thanks for sharing.

I was highly confused when I read the first book after watching the movie. The only Guild Navigators that appeared in the book were a pair of them who were in the Emperor's pavilion after the battle, and they appeared to be normal human beings, except that one of them had a contact lens that fell off, revealing a blue eye that were a much darker blue than those of any Fremen. The weird, floating being that showed up at the beginning of the movie didn't appear until some point in the later books (can't remember exactly when) - the books got weirder and weirder with each one outdoing the previous one and relegating the reality of the previous one to a much smaller subset of what was being revealed.

Good video, only version I'd dislike is the one where the navigators themselves are the ones to fold space. It doesn't fir with the effects of spice, which is primarily prescience

... I just wish it would come out already... I saw the ‘84 version in the theater...

BTW, I think it's great to have a woman managing a channel on works like DUNE. It just seems that channels for certain genres of literature (looking at YOU Sci Fi and Fantasy) are havily dominated by men. You really do a great job of refreshing the information I read years ago.

Man Simon Dubuc's paintings are so amazing and so unsettling.

When you do so much drugs that you can see the future.

Wait just a second. This sound just like the “Spacers” in “Foundation”. Spacers are Humans genetically-engineered to operate space-folding ships. They have stretched bodies.

I see them as close to how they were portrayed in children of dune with varying degrees of mutation.

My Top 3 other film characters who like they've gone a bit heavy on the space and have navigator face: 1. Admiral Akbar (possibly would assist his space navigation too) 2. That "hey you guys" dude from The Goonies 3. The Elephant Man *feel free to suggest more

8:47 the very left is my personal favorite and the most unsettling imo. distinctly human yet so alien

Having read it as a child, I assumed that Herbert meant for the Navigators to be evolving into a human Maker hybrid from overdosing on melange.

I think the Spacing Guild Navigators are slowly mutating, transforming into Shai-Hulud. Only it's not the sand-worm version, but the 0-gravity version, as the Navigators spend most of their lives in space, in their Highliners.

My buddy Annie-May and I saw this in ‘84. We laughed so hard at that odd mouth, that I can never think of another representation. That is what they will always be, for me, no matter how innovative they become in any future presentation. Gad Zooks!

Seems like navigators go through a Sandworm evolution. Change in to the Sand Trout then the Sandworm.

I can already see the shot of dark orange gaseous in appearance water like fluid with long bent tentacle like limbs moving and the one moves by and has a fan on the end, being a fanned hand.

Here's the thing, as a mutagen, there's nothing to say that melange would cause the exact same physical mutations in all navigators. So long as they can navigate the jumps, the Guild wouldn't care.

Aside from the 3 stages i think if its mutation from the spice each Navigator could look vastly different from another due to the randomness of the effects each time. All of the depictions can be true depictions of navigators and we can see the beautiful and horrific variations brought about by every illustrator and directors vision.

Well Deni has said many times he is ignoring the 84 version going back to the book. Trying to see his imagination what he say as a teen reading the book. It will be VERY interesting how he portrays them. He shows 4 space helmet representatives of guild at beginning. Appear human with spice filled helmets. And with the Harrkonin "pet" in the movie being disturbing and not in the book Deni im sure will make it amazing. Glad he is getting to finish his part two. Tho he wants to do a 3rd movie on messiah but we shall see

The Spacing Guild Navigators ... are they driving under influence (DUI)?

“ The Spice Must Flow .. “

Very good , they put the blue in the eyes, in the remastered edition. Thank U 4 this cool videos

That music.....Did the artist flatout make a lofi remix of the song lelumenai from the 5th element? I swear i can hear the notes.

I love how spice is so valuable the imperium.

If I were to have written the explanation, I think I'd say the precognition permeated the user on a cellular level, and not just their minds. This way the body's mutations would ultimately reflect the changes that would most benefit that particular individual throughout their life, including events that they are not yet conscious will happen. The nuances of different flightpaths could therefore explain asymmetry of evolution. The more common evolutions, like the early fishman stages would be explained as the fins giving them better movement around in the gas of their containers, until the long term evolutions kicked in, like larger brains to help process the future and thicker skulls to better protect them from long term g-force exposure during flight.