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Anne Frank Funk posted:It is and no one mentions anything interesting about planets i-viii. Unless the empire has means to terraform planets without much difficulty it's even more realistic that livable planets would be sparse. Herbert describes different biomes, though. The first book describes them. @duneauther took the hyperbole regarding low rainfall seriously and said that there's no life on Dune, even though the first book mentions birds, lizards and mice. Also planet VIII was mentioned. They call it "Richese". 
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May 31, 2019 20:10
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phasmid posted:Herbert describes different biomes, though. The first book describes them. @duneauther took the hyperbole regarding low rainfall seriously and said that there's no life on Dune, even though the first book mentions birds, lizards and mice. quote:Also planet VIII was mentioned. They call it "Richese".
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May 31, 2019 20:38
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Anne Frank Funk posted:I don't know about @duneauthor but obviously Dune is not barren and had its ecosystem, with little muad dibs jumping around. Also polar regions were colder which by itself makes it two steps more believable than any star war planet Yeah, apparently that's where the Jihad started out, as an interplanetary war between the two.
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May 31, 2019 20:43
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Also saying that Giedi Prime had a biome is implying that the Baron Harkonnen somehow didn't complete his mission of bulldozing and paving everything
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May 31, 2019 20:51
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He paved paradise, and put up a, uh, slave arena and concubine pit.
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May 31, 2019 23:36
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Defiance Industries posted:Also saying that Giedi Prime had a biome is implying that the Baron Harkonnen somehow didn't complete his mission of bulldozing and paving everything I mean, we kind of see a lot of that planet in Heretics, since it's become a big trading hub for all the un-Scattered people. They say the ecosystem has bounced back somewhat in 2500 years, but that the soil still smells like oil, or something like that. Anyway I have this poster and it's rad: https://www.rocketpopinc.com/products/giedi-prime-13x19-poster 
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Jun 1, 2019 01:08
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phasmid posted:Herbert describes different biomes, though. The first book describes them. @duneauther took the hyperbole regarding low rainfall seriously and said that there's no life on Dune, even though the first book mentions birds, lizards and mice. Aren't most of the lifeforms on Dune imported from Earth, or elsewhere? Herbert frequently refers to them as terranic life and does mention many of them were introduced in an attempt to kickstart a more earth-like ecosystem, though I can't recall which ones aside from the worms are native
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Jun 1, 2019 01:12
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I don't know if any of the life on the planet is meant to be native to it. IIRC Leto says that even the sandworms were transplanted there from somewhere else. the sandtrout sucked up all the water and caused the original ecosystem to disappear.
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Jun 1, 2019 01:21
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I wonder if sandtrout were originally a wmd and the spice production was an unintended side effect
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Jun 1, 2019 01:43
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Anne Frank Funk posted:I don't know about @duneauthor but obviously Dune is not barren and had its ecosystem, with little muad dibs jumping around. Also polar regions were colder which by itself makes it two steps more believable than any star war planet I remember some old fact books that probably count as EU fluff saying that most of Tatooine's population live in the planet's equivalent of the polar regions or at least the cooler latitudes, since the rest of the planet is basically uninhabitable to creatures not specialised in that biome.
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Jun 1, 2019 02:04
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uber_stoat posted:I don't know if any of the life on the planet is meant to be native to it. IIRC Leto says that even the sandworms were transplanted there from somewhere else. the sandtrout sucked up all the water and caused the original ecosystem to disappear. I've always wondered if the planet as we see it in God-Emperor is essentially returning Dune to how it was before the sandworms came, or if it is a third ecosystem entirely different from what came before. Was the terraforming just releasing water back into the ecosystem and plant life responded, or did they have to really force it into the shape they wanted?
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Jun 1, 2019 02:09
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Defiance Industries posted:I've always wondered if the planet as we see it in God-Emperor is essentially returning Dune to how it was before the sandworms came, or if it is a third ecosystem entirely different from what came before. Was the terraforming just releasing water back into the ecosystem and plant life responded, or did they have to really force it into the shape they wanted? The appendix to Dune mentions that terran plants in Arrakis soil create a sort of death zone for native soil micro-organisms, but once nitrogen (? I think?) is added to the dead soil it becomes super fertile.
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Jun 1, 2019 02:14
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Defiance Industries posted:I've always wondered if the planet as we see it in God-Emperor is essentially returning Dune to how it was before the sandworms came, or if it is a third ecosystem entirely different from what came before. Was the terraforming just releasing water back into the ecosystem and plant life responded, or did they have to really force it into the shape they wanted? As much as Earth's biome recovering from major extinction events is returning it to how it was, I'm sure.
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Jun 1, 2019 02:14
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In the banquet scene Liet confirms that groundwater exists on arrakis, but the sandtrout encapsulated it almost immediately. So dig a well, you get water, but then the well dries up as the sandtrout cut it off. And the appendix notes that aside from the water issue, arrakis has ideal conditions for vegetation. The animals, bats, Hawks, mice are def imports but I feel like the worms must be native because desertification must have taken more than 20000 years, although Rakis emerges after less than 4000 so who knows. But who transplanted them? Lord Cybertrex?
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Jun 1, 2019 05:23
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It's not that hard to imagine that the sandworms were a freak of evolution that ended up changing the planet's biosphere completely, though them being engineered by some ancient and/or alien source isn't entirely unlikely, especially given the themes of the series. That said, I think the origin of the sandworms isn't meant to be too important, the important thing is that they exist. (and that Arrakis being extremely Earthlike if not for the sandworms is probably necessary for the whole premise of the book to work at all) Hard to say if Dune was ahead of its time as sci-fi goes, or more just that Dune was extremely influential on science fiction, even that which isn't consciously taking cues from it because of popcultural osmosis. Though it in turn was a reaction to Asimov's Foundation series and part of a trend of harder sci-fi in general, apparently.
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Jun 1, 2019 07:30
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Ghost Leviathan posted:That said, I think the origin of the sandworms isn't meant to be too important, the important thing is that they exist.
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Jun 1, 2019 08:27
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WarMECH posted:Yes, it was "Planet IX" meaning Planet 9 and over time they forgot that IX meant 9 and just called it Ix. I'm pretty sure inspired at least in part by the (unofficial?) exoplanet naming scheme of <name of star> A, B and such, but expanded a bit to make it sound better? (Pretty sure it's unofficial, as I couldn't find anything documenting it officially while looking, and haven't heard anything about it - I'm just an amateur astronomer, though)
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Jun 1, 2019 08:48
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D. Ebdrup posted:For what it's worth, Frank Herbert is not the first nor the last author to pull that stunt of lazily naming planets. Heinlein did it with Tellus Tertius in his later works and I'm sure I've seen other authors do it too. I think the whole point is that they're still using the names that ancient (to them) astronomers assigned to the planets probably ticking down a list of hundreds to thousands and with little thought, and the joke is that Leto II finds it hilarious that Ixians are so proud of their planet whose name is basically a street number written down by some bored NASA intern millennia ago.
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Jun 1, 2019 09:03
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It's not that hard to imagine that the sandworms were a freak of evolution that ended up changing the planet's biosphere completely Just like humans!
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Jun 1, 2019 10:41
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It's amazing what this thread is capable of discussing when we take a break from poop cakes. I love how the Dune universe is space terriformed by man with no aliens. It's pretty unique among sci-fi properties for that reason . It's like a sci-fi bottle episode. The best sci-fi bottle episode movie I thought was Enemy Mine but I didn't consider Dune until now
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Jun 1, 2019 11:36
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I remember some old fact books that probably count as EU fluff saying that most of Tatooine's population live in the planet's equivalent of the polar regions or at least the cooler latitudes, since the rest of the planet is basically uninhabitable to creatures not specialised in that biome.  Sun's more or less directly above so they're in the tropics. Admittedly, it's supposed to be a binary star so could be something odd going on. Also the shadow angle changes with every cut in that clip.
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Jun 1, 2019 12:28
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kiimo posted:It's amazing what this thread is capable of discussing when we take a break from poop cakes. The bulk of asimov's books are alien free.
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Jun 1, 2019 13:12
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Spazzle posted:The bulk of asimov's books are alien free. Yep! I think there is one single alien race in Foundation, and that's in a spinoff short story. Asimov had an awful lot of aliens in his short pulp stories, though. On that note, I found an anthology of 1940's sci-fi short stories recently, and it remarkable how every single one of them involved telepathy. In these stories all their computers run off valves and there's a tale about how grand life would be if electricity stopped working overnight, but dammit, these authors are dead certain that telepathy is just around the corner. I'm still not sure if it was the genre's flavour of the month, or a reaction to the incomprehensible horrors of ww2, or what... kiimo posted:It's amazing what this thread is capable of discussing when we take a break from poop cakes. Dune's humans are more alien than many other series' aliens. It's great.
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Jun 1, 2019 13:42
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Tree Bucket posted:
Honestly sometimes if there is one thing that pisses me off about Dune, it's that Herbert focuses on such minuscule micro-signals and minutitae of behaviour that APPARENTLY mean everything to the actors involved that it becomes a little exasperating. Like the conversation early on between the conspirators in Messiah - oh no u used a slightly different grammatical tone, forsooth I am undone uwu
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Jun 1, 2019 13:59
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I mean weren't like 3 of them BG? Using words to cock stuff up is their entire thing.
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Jun 1, 2019 14:01
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:I mean weren't like 3 of them BG? Using words to cock stuff up is their entire thing. I guess sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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Jun 1, 2019 14:04
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Vlex posted:I guess sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sure. I agree it gets annoying to read it sometimes, but at least it makes sense in the setting he established.
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Jun 1, 2019 14:06
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Vlex posted:Honestly sometimes if there is one thing that pisses me off about Dune, it's that Herbert focuses on such minuscule micro-signals and minutitae of behaviour that APPARENTLY mean everything to the actors involved that it becomes a little exasperating. Like the conversation early on between the conspirators in Messiah - oh no u used a slightly different grammatical tone, forsooth I am undone uwu Yeah, for sure, he gets a bit carried away sometimes. Or it comes across as ridiculous when the feats in question aren't actually amazing. Like in Dune when Jessica is amazed at Stilgar speaking to her in a way that carries meaning for people listening in to their conversation. I mean, people generally have the hang of that trick by the age of 10 or so...
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Jun 1, 2019 14:07
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That being said, I greatly appreciate Edric being constantly owned by his compatriots. You can bend space-time with your mind but you're still a gigantic dumbass.
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Jun 1, 2019 14:15
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Vlex posted:That being said, I greatly appreciate Edric being constantly owned by his compatriots. You can bend space-time with your mind but you're still a gigantic dumbass. Yeah he's basically a dumb incel who shouldn't be there but they needed SOMEONE
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Jun 1, 2019 14:21
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Hrrrrnnggh Scytale, I'm trying to sneak around but I'm dummy thicc and the wheeze from my gas chamber keeps alerting the Fedaykin
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Jun 1, 2019 14:29
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:Yeah he's basically a dumb incel who shouldn't be there but they needed SOMEONE Folded space all the way from Richese to bring this printer...
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Jun 1, 2019 17:44
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I guess prescience isn't directly linked to intelligence. If it were, 17-year-old Paul outflanking the Guild with his threat to destroy the spice should have been what they'd anticipate. But since they didn't "see" it, they ignored the possibility, maybe.
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Jun 1, 2019 21:00
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phasmid posted:I guess prescience isn't directly linked to intelligence. If it were, 17-year-old Paul outflanking the Guild with his threat to destroy the spice should have been what they'd anticipate. But since they didn't "see" it, they ignored the possibility, maybe. In that particular instance, I think the idea of someone doing that is so off the wall loving insane (oh cool, you'll doom the entire race) that they honestly never would have thought of it.
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Jun 1, 2019 21:10
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Vlex posted:Honestly sometimes if there is one thing that pisses me off about Dune, it's that Herbert focuses on such minuscule micro-signals and minutitae of behaviour that APPARENTLY mean everything to the actors involved that it becomes a little exasperating. Like the conversation early on between the conspirators in Messiah - oh no u used a slightly different grammatical tone, forsooth I am undone uwu 
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Jun 1, 2019 21:17
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Sandwich Anarchist posted:In that particular instance, I think the idea of someone doing that is so off the wall loving insane (oh cool, you'll doom the entire race) that they honestly never would have thought of it. Yeah, that too. You'd think a galactic monopoly would do a better job of protecting it's interests. Instead they sent Rabban. So accurate it was probably written by a fan.
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Jun 1, 2019 21:22
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This is half my conversations with my anxious friends (so, like, 90% of them) so it rings true to me, Max.
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Jun 1, 2019 21:49
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That's wonderful
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Jun 1, 2019 21:57
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I need to get me a paperback copy of National Lampoon's Doon
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Jun 2, 2019 02:39
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Spazzle posted:The bulk of asimov's books are alien free. Asimov actually came up with a reason for this by implying that an organization altered the past for his "main" universe (Robot/Foundation) where they somehow made it so that humanity was the only intelligent life in the Milky Way.
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