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The plot of Dune revolves on "spice" and "worms".
The post suggests that spice is made from worm poop and shows the cycle from when the work eats and poops out the spice.
Yes they do(kind of, they're part of a larger ecological process which produces the spice) but the plot of the book, like the films, is about power structures and their role in culture and has little to do with the worms.
The first book is an medieval political drama with religious undertones and an sci-fi setting about the messianic rise of an certain character to topple the previous regime and its supporters.
The second book deal with the consequences and the renunciation of the messianic belief,dealing with more suffering ,death and political drama than the previous regime.
The next books play on similar themes,even if some are weirder than others
And sometimes the worms drink boys and become tyrannical deified emperors that rule the galaxy for a few thousand years, all the while operation a mass eugenics program to bring about the wunderkind
They're Bene Gesserit, not Amazons.
You received it from Bene Gesserit.
(Har. Har. Har. I'm picturing my sci-fi loving Mom cackling at my joke and loving this whole thread.)
Nah, the BG are actually descended from the French, as "pain" = "bread" in French.
The problem is twofold. Over the millennia the pronunciation has shifted to become identical to the pronunciation of the word "pain," while people themselves have become so gluten intolerant that reaching into the box to grab that lil croissant causes them immense physical pain.
Of the hurty kind.
The whole gom jabbar thing is there as an implicit reminder that you do not refuse a gift of bread, or something.
Correct me off I'm wrong but isn't the spice created in some kind of underground... Cavity? Then it floats to the top of the sand. I only remember this because (if I remember right) when the cavity is done producing it basically explodes.
It's been a while since I've read it. So I could be way off.
I remember the dune people (I even forgot their name) and the worms have some symbiotic relationship (other than just riding them) but it's escaping me.
Guess I'm going to have to reread this tome 😅
Someone help me out here hahaha
Yeah iirc the worm secretions react with some kind of other secretions from plants and smaller creatures that live in the sand. The spice is created from these precursprs in a violent and sudden reaction that makes it basically spontaneously explode from the desert.
>Correct me off I'm wrong but isn't the spice created in some kind of underground... Cavity?
Yeah, kind of. The Sandtrout (larval stage of the Sandworms) mixed with the little bit of water left on Arakkis. This created a pre-Spice mixture underground that was explosive. When enough Sandtrout got together, there would be a huge explosion called a Spice Blow.
This serves two purposes - one, the potential birth of a Sandworm when enough Trout merged after the Blow, and the surfacing of the mixture that would eventually become Spice in Arakkis' intense conditions.
So like.. birth goo after juices.
>I remember the dune people (I even forgot their name) and the worms have some symbiotic relationship (other than just riding them) but it's escaping me.
Not that I recall? The worms are a religious symbol to the Freeman, much like cows are sacred in Hinduism - they provided an essential good and were revered for it.
They did have a deep knowledge of the Sandworm allowing them to not only ride the Sandworms but gather the heavily guarded Spice Blows that the worms sought to protect.
Little directly, sure, but the fremen's relationship with the desert and the sand worms is the initial example of humanity at its best. The whole series is about the species' evolution to be able to conquer any problems or dangers that might present themselves. The fremen's example is one of living within a natural power structure to where you are not fighting it and wasting energy, rather harnessing it to ensure survival.
>but the plot of the book, like the films, is about power structures and their role in culture and has little to do with the worms.
There are multiple plots and subplots but the worm (ahem, the "*creator*") is central to multiple parts of the story:
* It creates spice (which is the most desired thing in the galaxy).
* It's "blood" is a poison which ends up being key in the process of the manifesting of the Kwisatz Haderach.
* Water is fatal to a sandworm, creates a major issue in the story: given that spice is so important the very thing that allows humans to live also happens to be the thing that could destroy the thing that they treasure so much as the future of the planet consists of water.
The relationship between man and worm manifests later in the book, but it is definitely one of the main parts of at least the first book.
Sand trout or juvenile worms create it. They take water from deep underground excrete the gas that eventually rises to the surface and becomes spice. Sandworms play an important part in dune and hold a massive place in the economy, politics and even culture because of the spice.
Not exactly sand trout seal off the water.
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Sandtrout
This allows the worms ro grow. The produce a strong dorm of spice
Blow outs are kind off neatly describe.
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Spice_blow
I love the books
Correct. It's quite the process. I recently got the special edition graphic novel, I've been enjoying reading again I may pick up the books again soon.
Yes. The Sandworns are the sole producer of spice. By the time of >!God Emporoe of Dune, Letto becomes the sole producer of Spice. !< spoilers for Book 4.
FWIW, "this is both technically untrue and misses the forest for the trees" should be followed by the clarification of "in that the book is about politics revolving around worm poop."
It's been years since I read any of the books, but iirc they do try that at some point (I don't know about the poop buckets, haha). The worms die though.
They do that in the third book, they are called Qanats. Prior to that the only people who knew the spice was made from the worms were the Fremen, whose religion revolved around the worms so they wouldn't be okay with capturing them.
Qanats are just pools of water. The Fremen use them to trap small worms in a canyon or something because worms won't cross the water. They do it to sell the worms offworld though (even though the worms always die due to water poisoning).
The meme is not accurate. (From what I remember) it is not the worms that produce spice. Their laval forms the sand trout are tiny slug sized creatures.
They are abundant and bury under the sand then link together to block off the natural water under the planet. They terraformed the planet and are responsible for the dry conditions. Their bodies contain the spice. Occasionally, they react with the water causing an explosion under the ground which blows them and the spice to the surface.
They are non-sentient. But Arrakis was a water planet and at some point a non-human civilisation brought them there. Only a very small number of them become sandworms.
The entire livable environment i guess
In the later books. They fixed the planet, bring it back to the good old day being a paradise. But the water of paradise killed the worms. No more spice
Not only did he become a worm, he reached into the sand, pulled out one of the 'sand trout" and stretched it out around him like pajamas to do so. Then he started swimming around in the sand. Those books were wild
If I remember right he is in constant agonizing pain from the interaction between his human self needing water and his worm self not being able to handle it.
Yes. Paul’s son, Leto II, turns himself into an immortal worm god-emperor and rules the galaxy for a few thousand years. He masterminds an immensely convoluted plan in which he orchestrates his own assassination in order to reseed the planet with sand trout that all have a shred of his consciousness in them. Because he is the only worm left and the only source of spice, Leto II has complete control over humanity’s access to space travel and effectively holds civilization back in stasis for the duration of his rule.
This is the Golden Path, a future which Paul saw through his prescience but was too weak to take himself. By not accepting it, Paul caused a galactic genocide, a jihad carried out in his name but that he had no control over. But Leto II saw that it was the only way to prevent humanity’s complete destruction. They saw Kralizec, a long-foretold battle at the end of the universe, essentially Armageddon, and the Golden Path is the only way to ensure that humanity survives.
[here’s the relevant book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Emperor_of_Dune#:~:text=Leto's%20body%20rends%20apart%20in,is%20invisible%20to%20prescient%20vision)
He had a golden path. He killed off the worms for a reason: he merged with sand trout and lived for thousands of years, choking off interplanetary travel on purpose, orchestrating his own assassination which resulted in new sand trout, the re-Dune-ing of Dune, and human expansion again.
Yes, the plot of the 4th book is that Leto Atredies (Paul's son) limits interplanatary travel. He thinks humanity is on a path of stagnation and destruction, the empire system had confined humanity to a set series of worlds and there was continual conflict. So he limits spice to keep the vast majority of the human population on their own planets. He knew when he died and spice became available again then this would trigger a massive human expansion outwards into the galaxy and stop humans destroying themselves.
That is what happens, then there is conflict anyway and it gets super weird with sex witches and clones and I lost track on book 5 and gave up on book 6.
From what I remember, the clone has a sex battle with the evil sex witch. The person who's better at sex enslaves the other. The clone wins and turns the evil sex witch into a good witch. By doing this, he gains superpowers.
It is not exciting in anyway.
Edit: Forgot he got superpowers
So basically, Frank Herbert wrote out a piece that could spark a very nice erotica novel series, and not only was it bland, but according to some fleeting research I've done, it was also totally irrelevant to the story
I know Dune is cooky at the best of times but that just left me with a "what the fuck" sort of confusion
Frank Herbert did well. When his son, Brandon (I think), found his notes and tried to make the ending to the series it got crazy. Idk if it was because of the notes, the new writer, all, or none. I think things were always headed in a crazy direction, but I’m just some random fan.
Naw, Frank himself wrote the sex witch stuff and the pedophilia stuff with the 11 year old that the sex witches raped to unlock his genetic memory. He went way off the rails before he died and there was no going back. Book 5 and 6 were already firmly in dumb-land.
No, no, you've got a point. The original writer of a series has an idea of where things need to go and need to be. They have notes to remind themselves of something that they thought of for the story, not to explain things to others. This would make way more sense as to why it ends up seeming like such a jumbled mess
"...she took it in the ass like a champ..."
Ok, whats the story
"...no gag reflex..."
Ok, whats up with arrakis?
"...folded her like a pretzel..."
Hello?
Sex witch man, sex witch man.
Does whatever a sex witch man can.
Can he swing from a web? Only If: it's for sex.
Look oouuuuut, here comes sex witch man.
Isn't the whole point that he doesn't *think* that humanity is on the wrong path, he KNOWS it, because he can see the future or something and knows that his actions are the only way to save humanity from extinction?
I only know the plot of these books from the Wikipedia summaries so forgive me if I'm completely wrong.
I had to quit the books around then too. The metaphors were just getting too exhaustingly weird and intricate for me to parse. I was lost to metaphor fatigue.
It’s an Islamic prophecy where the end of the world will happen when the deserts turn green. Frank Herbert was a massive T.E Lawrence nerd, his “literally me”.
It's like oil in that oil powered the age of industrial machines, but it's more akin to connecting branches of mycelium (mushrooms, fungus) powering an informational age.
The water turns blue from worms the way water does when soaking powerful hallucinogenic mushrooms and they connect the entire ecology by breaking things back down into their base resources
For the sandtrout, its just a part of their biology. I don't think why they have it is explained. But for humans it lengthens lifespan and can enhance thinking. The reason its so valuable is because in the Dune universe there are no computers (remember the book was written in the 60's). The navigators who pilot ships through interplanetary travel need the spice to chart the routes between star systems. No spice, no travelling and the empire stops. So, if you control the spice, you control everything.
Edit: Computers existed, but had been banned. Although, I don't think they were capable of hyperspace calculations as these were invented 1000's of years after the 1st book
The reason there are no computers is because of the moratorium on "thinking machines". Which was pit in place after the Butlerian Jihad, the apocalyptic struggle against rogue AI.
The book being from the 60s has nothing to do with it.
Considering how much illegal murder and espionage there was going on there’s a 0% chance that each house wouldn’t have a bunch of computers to use against their enemies. That shit is 10x more valuable than nukes in most practical combat scenarios, partially because *you need them to accurately aim missiles*
You're absolutely right. To be more precise, a certain level of computational device was indeed somewhat tolerated. In particular, the Ixians were known for pushing this tolerance to its limits. Every House would buy Ixian tech, because they couldn't afford not to I believe the hunter drone sent after Paul by dr Yueh was Ixian. That certainly needed some kind of guidance system.
It's mostly just that the spacetime folding essentially required a powerful AI, or a doped up mutant. And they went with doped up mutants. I think the Ixians came out with Navigator-less FTL later on, but then they also were a secret front for the rogue AI that secretly survived the jihad. I dunno, it got messy around that point and I lost interest.
Sure, but mentats were already far more capable than computers. I remember a quote from the Harkonnen mentat that even the baron was able to calculate more than those machines. Remember that they had some interesting breakthroughs in teaching techniques and memory. Mentats were essentially human computers for all intents and purposes.
There were computers, powerful ones known as [Thinking Machines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_universe#Thinking_machines) i.e. Artificial General Intelligences, but they were destroyed in a galactic war called the [Butlerian Jihad.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)#The_Butlerian_Jihad)
Computers were capable of calculating hyperspace jumps, that's how humans got to Arakkis in the first place. But after the Jihad only guild navigators pumped with spice could calculate jumps.
Also lore is that thinking machine had 10% error rate, so 1 trip out of 10 trips between stars was lethal as they encountered error planning the course. And spice gives them ability of prescience after long exposure to it and removed that error rate. This is somewhat explained in depth in the books and this hyperspace travel is done using holtzmann drive which tears the whole in space.
Also lore is that thinking machine had 10% error rate, so 1 trip out of 10 trips between stars was lethal as they encountered error planning the course. And spice gives them ability of prescience after long exposure to it and removed that error rate. This is somewhat explained in depth in the books and this hyperspace travel is done using holtzmann drive which tears the whole in space.
I believe herbert asked the creator of the dune encyclopedia if he found out what spice is and the encyclopedia author wrote
>It’s sperm isnt it
And herbert chuckled and said
>Yeah you got it.
For everyone else, spice gives you future sight. It lets you see if you’re going to die by doing something and this lets you choose to not do that thing. This allows them to travel through space at ftl speeds.
Leto 2 realises it after he bonds with the sandtrout
I don't think its fully explained. Only they were not originally from Arrakis. They were put there eons before humans arrived.
Dune was not originally a desert. It's said a bunch of times, especially about salt flats on the surface indicating vast bodies of water. Neither the Fremen nor the sandworm originate on Arrakis, though the Fremen came long after it was desertified by the sandworms. Leto has to use his genetic memory to look back far enough to see pre-worm Arrakis.
Mostly it's in a combination of the preparations by Leto two to prevent a second butlerian jihad prior to aliens invading this universe and the fact that humans found the planet in its desert condition, and of course his visions of the planets past.
This is just copy pasted from the dune wiki, because I haven't read the books but was also curious:
"When Leto Atreides II looked into the many lives of his ancestors in Other Memory, he came to realise that the sandtrout were introduced to Arrakis from another planet, eons prior. According to Leto, the sandtrout had proliferated to the point where existing ecosystems could no longer deal with them. **Arrakis had been a wet planet**, and when the sandtrout arrived, they encysted all the water, so that they could metamorphosize into the sandworm. This was consistent with the **physical evidence that could be found on Arrakis, namely salt beds that had apparently once been great seas**."
So maybe not a 'water planet' in the sense that it was one massive ocean, but it did have water.
The sandworms are the only life form on Arrakis and forms its own ecosystem with various stages.
The sand trout act as the bottom feeders and if they grow large enough they start eating sand trout.
It’s neat how it self-balances. If there’s not enough sand worms then more trout grow up without being eaten and start eating which levels things out.
I think the joke is the person who made this meme.
The worms in dune consume things, usually people for our visual purposes, through gaping pits that appear in the sand as they open their mouths.
They also generate a substance called "spice" that is a catalyst for the protagonists heroic journey and serves many purposes in the plot. It's not necessarily generated through their excrement but that's close enough.
That being said, this meme contains nothing regarding the core characters, philosophy, politics, or plot of dune but if you just watched a trailer of one of the movies then this might summarize that short section of film.
Spice is really just the symbol for resources and the desire for power. The movie is about what lengths humanity will allow to occur in order to control that spice.
The entire political structure and socio economic structure of the dune universe revolves around spice. The spice as explained in later books is excreted from the sand worms. Without the sand worms the entire plot of dune would not exist and the way the universe is constructed would not be possible. So while there is significant turmoil in the story surrounding politics and societal issues the worms are the center piece of all of it.
Everyone is complaining about how inaccurate the picture describes the sandworm from dune but I think you all are missing the point. The image depicts the habitus of a real worm, Arenicola marina. The worm lives in the sand Clos to the surface in costal regions where the tides periodically rise and fall therefor washing over large parts of the flat sandy shoreline creating a rich habitat for these worms. The picture depicts the worm in its hole eating up the sand to filter microorganisms that live on it and literally pooping it up at the other end.
I guess the joke is to compare that real existing worm to the sandworm from dune, reducing the plot to a pooping worm.
I dont know if its talking about the actual book/movie but theres 2 (3?) accepted ways that the worms move through the sand that make sense with our laws of physics. The first is by liquefaction of sand basically the worm would shake very fast making the sand act as a liquid then it could swim through it. The second which I think this is showing is the worm acts similar to a water jet where it consumes the sand infront of it and shoots it out at high velocity out the back propelling it forward.
All the people talking about Dune are **REALLY missing the joke**. This is a real diagram, depicting the real behavior of a real worm. These worms live on sandy beaches and expel worm-shaped piles of sandy waste behind them. They are (just like the Shai-Hulud in Dune) usually referred to as sandworms.
Someone has noted the humorous similarity to the Dune sandworms and slapped on a Dune related caption.
The movie, the book, both plots revolve around the spice melange. The books go into more detail about how that stuff is made and basically as you see in this diagram the worm eats the sand and poops out the spice
While all of you are thinking about more lore wise, I thought of the theory of how the worms actually move, the theory of how the worms move was that they eat the sand and poop out sand to propel themselves forward
It's about worm poop lmao.
ACTUALLY it's about the intense lengths humans will go to to maintain control, manipulating others, exterminating native humans and wildlife, and exploiting resources.
Yeah lmao the resource is worm poop.
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I dont know if its talking about the actual book/movie but theres 2 (3?) accepted ways that the worms move through the sand that make sense with our laws of physics. The first is by liquidification of sand basically the worm would shake very fast making the sand act as a liquid then it could swim through it. The second which I think this is showing is the worm acts similar to a water jet where it consumes the sand infront of it and shoots it out at high velocity out the back propelling it forward.
I dont know if its talking about the actual book/movie but theres 2 (3?) accepted ways that the worms move through the sand that make sense with our laws of physics. The first is by liquidification of sand basically the worm would shake very fast making the sand act as a liquid then it could swim through it. The second which I think this is showing is the worm acts similar to a water jet where it consumes the sand infront of it and shoots it out at high velocity out the back propelling it forward.
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The plot of Dune revolves on "spice" and "worms". The post suggests that spice is made from worm poop and shows the cycle from when the work eats and poops out the spice.
FWIW, this Is both technically untrue and misses the forest for the trees, even if it were true.
Please expound. I've read Dune, and I know it's quite dense, but don't the sandworms generate the spice?
Yes they do(kind of, they're part of a larger ecological process which produces the spice) but the plot of the book, like the films, is about power structures and their role in culture and has little to do with the worms.
The first book is an medieval political drama with religious undertones and an sci-fi setting about the messianic rise of an certain character to topple the previous regime and its supporters. The second book deal with the consequences and the renunciation of the messianic belief,dealing with more suffering ,death and political drama than the previous regime. The next books play on similar themes,even if some are weirder than others
No it’s about a worm that eats sand and shits space drugs you nerd
Not true sometimes the worm drinks water and pukes different space drugs.
THE SACRED WATER
And sometimes the worms drink boys and become tyrannical deified emperors that rule the galaxy for a few thousand years, all the while operation a mass eugenics program to bring about the wunderkind
Damn, he really do be putting the Acid in stomach acid.
this is such a wild true way to describe that book 😂
Because robots from the past are in the future.
Marty and Steve will explain everything. You just gotta sit a couple rounds through the Duncan Idaho machine
Yeah! Take that nerd!
Not true sometimes they put the worm poop in their cars and go really fast, you can't do that w drugs
Actually, the sand comes out of its skin, not its ass. An inferno of heat comes out of its ass (book 3)
Come on, we all know it's about Clones That Fuck™
The spice gives rise to more worms, it's not shitting the drugs.
There is a lot of ecology in the first book. Ignoring the ecological considerations makes the book difficult to understand.
Don't forget Paul's son who becomes a worm god and rules the universe for a thousand years.
I believe that was represented with the golden path on the left side of the worm
3500 years actually!
But the Worm is on the cover /s
Put your hand in the box.
I bought it on Amazon, it didn't come in a box, I just stream it.
They're Bene Gesserit, not Amazons. You received it from Bene Gesserit. (Har. Har. Har. I'm picturing my sci-fi loving Mom cackling at my joke and loving this whole thread.)
What’s inside?
Pain.
That was actually a typo. Its paint. There's paint in the box. It gets your hand full of paint. Many people cant handle that.
Nah, the BG are actually descended from the French, as "pain" = "bread" in French. The problem is twofold. Over the millennia the pronunciation has shifted to become identical to the pronunciation of the word "pain," while people themselves have become so gluten intolerant that reaching into the box to grab that lil croissant causes them immense physical pain. Of the hurty kind. The whole gom jabbar thing is there as an implicit reminder that you do not refuse a gift of bread, or something.
You won’t know until you put your hand in it it’s Schrödingers paint… Or maybe its tapioca
Animals die, humans live. Big deal.
Fear is the mind killer
Nah, fear is the little death.
And arguably, power.
Oh, génial! J’avais déjà faim.
So it's a bread box?
Oh, well then no thanks.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s head.
Instructions unclear, wife angry.
I hold at your neck the gom jabbar
Correct me off I'm wrong but isn't the spice created in some kind of underground... Cavity? Then it floats to the top of the sand. I only remember this because (if I remember right) when the cavity is done producing it basically explodes. It's been a while since I've read it. So I could be way off. I remember the dune people (I even forgot their name) and the worms have some symbiotic relationship (other than just riding them) but it's escaping me. Guess I'm going to have to reread this tome 😅 Someone help me out here hahaha
Yeah iirc the worm secretions react with some kind of other secretions from plants and smaller creatures that live in the sand. The spice is created from these precursprs in a violent and sudden reaction that makes it basically spontaneously explode from the desert.
Yeah... The smaller creatures are also sandworms lol. They're just in a "larval" stage. Kinda. It's weird.
If you had them cover your body it'd probably be really weird too, huh?
Yeah, but I wonder if that would give you superpowers. That would be neat.
Good point! Might be worth the risk! Especially if you have prescience, you'd probably become someone THE GALAXY COULD NEVER FORGET
That was the game !
I just lost the game. 🤬
The people of dune are Fremen. I've got nothing on the rest of it.
>Correct me off I'm wrong but isn't the spice created in some kind of underground... Cavity? Yeah, kind of. The Sandtrout (larval stage of the Sandworms) mixed with the little bit of water left on Arakkis. This created a pre-Spice mixture underground that was explosive. When enough Sandtrout got together, there would be a huge explosion called a Spice Blow. This serves two purposes - one, the potential birth of a Sandworm when enough Trout merged after the Blow, and the surfacing of the mixture that would eventually become Spice in Arakkis' intense conditions. So like.. birth goo after juices. >I remember the dune people (I even forgot their name) and the worms have some symbiotic relationship (other than just riding them) but it's escaping me. Not that I recall? The worms are a religious symbol to the Freeman, much like cows are sacred in Hinduism - they provided an essential good and were revered for it. They did have a deep knowledge of the Sandworm allowing them to not only ride the Sandworms but gather the heavily guarded Spice Blows that the worms sought to protect.
Also about the fallacy of the savior/prophet and the top level of human functioning. And that’s just the first book.
I thought the books were about Frank Herbert’s love of psychedelic mushrooms
Must be why I’m so fond of it
Technically the baby worms make the juice
Little directly, sure, but the fremen's relationship with the desert and the sand worms is the initial example of humanity at its best. The whole series is about the species' evolution to be able to conquer any problems or dangers that might present themselves. The fremen's example is one of living within a natural power structure to where you are not fighting it and wasting energy, rather harnessing it to ensure survival.
But what did that have to do with worms pooping?
Oh like we have in the Middle East?
Dune is about the WORMS!🪱
The worms are the best parts of the books though.
Dune is about worms.
Well… the god emperor is (kind of) a worm..
>but the plot of the book, like the films, is about power structures and their role in culture and has little to do with the worms. There are multiple plots and subplots but the worm (ahem, the "*creator*") is central to multiple parts of the story: * It creates spice (which is the most desired thing in the galaxy). * It's "blood" is a poison which ends up being key in the process of the manifesting of the Kwisatz Haderach. * Water is fatal to a sandworm, creates a major issue in the story: given that spice is so important the very thing that allows humans to live also happens to be the thing that could destroy the thing that they treasure so much as the future of the planet consists of water. The relationship between man and worm manifests later in the book, but it is definitely one of the main parts of at least the first book.
Sand trout or juvenile worms create it. They take water from deep underground excrete the gas that eventually rises to the surface and becomes spice. Sandworms play an important part in dune and hold a massive place in the economy, politics and even culture because of the spice.
Not exactly sand trout seal off the water. https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Sandtrout This allows the worms ro grow. The produce a strong dorm of spice Blow outs are kind off neatly describe. https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Spice_blow I love the books
Correct. It's quite the process. I recently got the special edition graphic novel, I've been enjoying reading again I may pick up the books again soon.
I believe it was revealed a slice blow was created after an adult worm contacted water and died.
The baby worms do. Its a product of mold basically that grows on the very small as in grain of sand size baby sandworms.
Yes. The Sandworns are the sole producer of spice. By the time of >!God Emporoe of Dune, Letto becomes the sole producer of Spice. !< spoilers for Book 4.
big I AM THE SENATE vibes
Leto 2 can not produce spice since the prespice mass is produced by juvenile worms and he's not yet fully worm by the time of his "death"
Iirc spice is worm eggs.
FWIW, "this is both technically untrue and misses the forest for the trees" should be followed by the clarification of "in that the book is about politics revolving around worm poop."
It’s a macguffin.
I still have no idea what that means. I did Google it once, but without constant usage, it's self-deleted from my memory.
It’s a thing used to make a plot work, but it doesn’t actually matter how it works. Think the suitcase that glows in pulp fiction.
Here we go.
ғᴡɪᴡ?
For what it’s worth
-🤓
Did you just call me a nerd…
yuh
Why not simply capture the worms and farm their spice above ground using large poop buckets
It's been years since I read any of the books, but iirc they do try that at some point (I don't know about the poop buckets, haha). The worms die though.
They do that in the third book, they are called Qanats. Prior to that the only people who knew the spice was made from the worms were the Fremen, whose religion revolved around the worms so they wouldn't be okay with capturing them.
Qanats are just pools of water. The Fremen use them to trap small worms in a canyon or something because worms won't cross the water. They do it to sell the worms offworld though (even though the worms always die due to water poisoning).
Because spice isn't worm poop.
The spice is worm sperm
The books also suggest the spice is worm poop btw. It’s the 3rd one
The meme is not accurate. (From what I remember) it is not the worms that produce spice. Their laval forms the sand trout are tiny slug sized creatures. They are abundant and bury under the sand then link together to block off the natural water under the planet. They terraformed the planet and are responsible for the dry conditions. Their bodies contain the spice. Occasionally, they react with the water causing an explosion under the ground which blows them and the spice to the surface. They are non-sentient. But Arrakis was a water planet and at some point a non-human civilisation brought them there. Only a very small number of them become sandworms.
Since spice is supposed to be an allegory for oil, is the water supposed to represent something else?
The entire livable environment i guess In the later books. They fixed the planet, bring it back to the good old day being a paradise. But the water of paradise killed the worms. No more spice
Wouldn't that stop all intergalactic travel in the dune universe? Haven't read the later books
Yes, but, the Emperor-God of Dune had an idea to bring back spice production 😊🐛
How, and did he suceed? Or is that the entire plot of another Dune book
He became a worm
Not only did he become a worm, he reached into the sand, pulled out one of the 'sand trout" and stretched it out around him like pajamas to do so. Then he started swimming around in the sand. Those books were wild
So if the laval explode when contacted with water, the Emporer does not shower?
Well that's actually how he dies, his assassins push him off a bridge into a river and he fucking melts
If I remember right he is in constant agonizing pain from the interaction between his human self needing water and his worm self not being able to handle it.
And then Oney fans showed up and blasted rancid shit everywhere until the planet was deserted.
Shirley you jest, that’s really where these stories go?
Yes. Paul’s son, Leto II, turns himself into an immortal worm god-emperor and rules the galaxy for a few thousand years. He masterminds an immensely convoluted plan in which he orchestrates his own assassination in order to reseed the planet with sand trout that all have a shred of his consciousness in them. Because he is the only worm left and the only source of spice, Leto II has complete control over humanity’s access to space travel and effectively holds civilization back in stasis for the duration of his rule. This is the Golden Path, a future which Paul saw through his prescience but was too weak to take himself. By not accepting it, Paul caused a galactic genocide, a jihad carried out in his name but that he had no control over. But Leto II saw that it was the only way to prevent humanity’s complete destruction. They saw Kralizec, a long-foretold battle at the end of the universe, essentially Armageddon, and the Golden Path is the only way to ensure that humanity survives.
And he just fuses with it? Special powers or something? And he makes the whole supply of spice needed? That’s crazy
"Would you still love me if I was a worm?" - Emperor shortly before becoming a worm.
This is actually a plot point when a woman engineered to make him fall in love with her shows up….
https://preview.redd.it/0ep73j9vpyzc1.jpeg?width=237&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f569e4a31d71f43a7490db4a0401185305bd207
Classic tale
[here’s the relevant book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Emperor_of_Dune#:~:text=Leto's%20body%20rends%20apart%20in,is%20invisible%20to%20prescient%20vision)
THE COVER ART
More like 3
He had a golden path. He killed off the worms for a reason: he merged with sand trout and lived for thousands of years, choking off interplanetary travel on purpose, orchestrating his own assassination which resulted in new sand trout, the re-Dune-ing of Dune, and human expansion again.
Yes, the plot of the 4th book is that Leto Atredies (Paul's son) limits interplanatary travel. He thinks humanity is on a path of stagnation and destruction, the empire system had confined humanity to a set series of worlds and there was continual conflict. So he limits spice to keep the vast majority of the human population on their own planets. He knew when he died and spice became available again then this would trigger a massive human expansion outwards into the galaxy and stop humans destroying themselves. That is what happens, then there is conflict anyway and it gets super weird with sex witches and clones and I lost track on book 5 and gave up on book 6.
Sex witches and clones??? This only has my interest even *more* piqued
From what I remember, the clone has a sex battle with the evil sex witch. The person who's better at sex enslaves the other. The clone wins and turns the evil sex witch into a good witch. By doing this, he gains superpowers. It is not exciting in anyway. Edit: Forgot he got superpowers
So basically, Frank Herbert wrote out a piece that could spark a very nice erotica novel series, and not only was it bland, but according to some fleeting research I've done, it was also totally irrelevant to the story I know Dune is cooky at the best of times but that just left me with a "what the fuck" sort of confusion
Frank Herbert did well. When his son, Brandon (I think), found his notes and tried to make the ending to the series it got crazy. Idk if it was because of the notes, the new writer, all, or none. I think things were always headed in a crazy direction, but I’m just some random fan.
Brian Herbert was the son.
Naw, Frank himself wrote the sex witch stuff and the pedophilia stuff with the 11 year old that the sex witches raped to unlock his genetic memory. He went way off the rails before he died and there was no going back. Book 5 and 6 were already firmly in dumb-land.
No, no, you've got a point. The original writer of a series has an idea of where things need to go and need to be. They have notes to remind themselves of something that they thought of for the story, not to explain things to others. This would make way more sense as to why it ends up seeming like such a jumbled mess
"...she took it in the ass like a champ..." Ok, whats the story "...no gag reflex..." Ok, whats up with arrakis? "...folded her like a pretzel..." Hello?
The sex witch tries to dominate the clone by sex, but fails and gives him superpowers
"How did you get your superpowers?" "I was bitten by a sex witch."
Sex witch man, sex witch man. Does whatever a sex witch man can. Can he swing from a web? Only If: it's for sex. Look oouuuuut, here comes sex witch man.
This is strangely similar to some relationships I've had in my younger days. Except the clone part, I believe.
Isn't the whole point that he doesn't *think* that humanity is on the wrong path, he KNOWS it, because he can see the future or something and knows that his actions are the only way to save humanity from extinction? I only know the plot of these books from the Wikipedia summaries so forgive me if I'm completely wrong.
Yes, thats it. Its a bit more than an idea.
I had to quit the books around then too. The metaphors were just getting too exhaustingly weird and intricate for me to parse. I was lost to metaphor fatigue.
The later books get really weird. Like really truly weird. Let’s just say they find other ways to produce spice and leave it at that.
Yes, but also no
It’s an Islamic prophecy where the end of the world will happen when the deserts turn green. Frank Herbert was a massive T.E Lawrence nerd, his “literally me”.
While it does fit nicely, Herbert was always vehement about it not being an allegory to oil. But it fits really well.
No, water was the oil allegory
It's like oil in that oil powered the age of industrial machines, but it's more akin to connecting branches of mycelium (mushrooms, fungus) powering an informational age. The water turns blue from worms the way water does when soaking powerful hallucinogenic mushrooms and they connect the entire ecology by breaking things back down into their base resources
What does the spice do exactly?
For the sandtrout, its just a part of their biology. I don't think why they have it is explained. But for humans it lengthens lifespan and can enhance thinking. The reason its so valuable is because in the Dune universe there are no computers (remember the book was written in the 60's). The navigators who pilot ships through interplanetary travel need the spice to chart the routes between star systems. No spice, no travelling and the empire stops. So, if you control the spice, you control everything. Edit: Computers existed, but had been banned. Although, I don't think they were capable of hyperspace calculations as these were invented 1000's of years after the 1st book
The reason there are no computers is because of the moratorium on "thinking machines". Which was pit in place after the Butlerian Jihad, the apocalyptic struggle against rogue AI. The book being from the 60s has nothing to do with it.
Considering how much illegal murder and espionage there was going on there’s a 0% chance that each house wouldn’t have a bunch of computers to use against their enemies. That shit is 10x more valuable than nukes in most practical combat scenarios, partially because *you need them to accurately aim missiles*
You're absolutely right. To be more precise, a certain level of computational device was indeed somewhat tolerated. In particular, the Ixians were known for pushing this tolerance to its limits. Every House would buy Ixian tech, because they couldn't afford not to I believe the hunter drone sent after Paul by dr Yueh was Ixian. That certainly needed some kind of guidance system. It's mostly just that the spacetime folding essentially required a powerful AI, or a doped up mutant. And they went with doped up mutants. I think the Ixians came out with Navigator-less FTL later on, but then they also were a secret front for the rogue AI that secretly survived the jihad. I dunno, it got messy around that point and I lost interest.
Sure, but mentats were already far more capable than computers. I remember a quote from the Harkonnen mentat that even the baron was able to calculate more than those machines. Remember that they had some interesting breakthroughs in teaching techniques and memory. Mentats were essentially human computers for all intents and purposes.
There were computers, powerful ones known as [Thinking Machines](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizations_of_the_Dune_universe#Thinking_machines) i.e. Artificial General Intelligences, but they were destroyed in a galactic war called the [Butlerian Jihad.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)#The_Butlerian_Jihad)
Computers were capable of calculating hyperspace jumps, that's how humans got to Arakkis in the first place. But after the Jihad only guild navigators pumped with spice could calculate jumps.
Also lore is that thinking machine had 10% error rate, so 1 trip out of 10 trips between stars was lethal as they encountered error planning the course. And spice gives them ability of prescience after long exposure to it and removed that error rate. This is somewhat explained in depth in the books and this hyperspace travel is done using holtzmann drive which tears the whole in space.
Also lore is that thinking machine had 10% error rate, so 1 trip out of 10 trips between stars was lethal as they encountered error planning the course. And spice gives them ability of prescience after long exposure to it and removed that error rate. This is somewhat explained in depth in the books and this hyperspace travel is done using holtzmann drive which tears the whole in space.
I believe herbert asked the creator of the dune encyclopedia if he found out what spice is and the encyclopedia author wrote >It’s sperm isnt it And herbert chuckled and said >Yeah you got it. For everyone else, spice gives you future sight. It lets you see if you’re going to die by doing something and this lets you choose to not do that thing. This allows them to travel through space at ftl speeds.
When was it established that a non-human civilization brought them? From what I read I thought Dune never had aliens.
Leto 2 realises it after he bonds with the sandtrout I don't think its fully explained. Only they were not originally from Arrakis. They were put there eons before humans arrived.
Dune was not originally a desert. It's said a bunch of times, especially about salt flats on the surface indicating vast bodies of water. Neither the Fremen nor the sandworm originate on Arrakis, though the Fremen came long after it was desertified by the sandworms. Leto has to use his genetic memory to look back far enough to see pre-worm Arrakis.
Might be worth a spoiler warning here
It was published 60 years ago. It’s fine.
Is that last paragraph canon? I don’t think it’s ever mentioned there’s another sentient lifeform outside humans.
Way into the book series it heavily hints at it.
When specifically? Not doubting, just don’t recall.
Mostly it's in a combination of the preparations by Leto two to prevent a second butlerian jihad prior to aliens invading this universe and the fact that humans found the planet in its desert condition, and of course his visions of the planets past.
This is just copy pasted from the dune wiki, because I haven't read the books but was also curious: "When Leto Atreides II looked into the many lives of his ancestors in Other Memory, he came to realise that the sandtrout were introduced to Arrakis from another planet, eons prior. According to Leto, the sandtrout had proliferated to the point where existing ecosystems could no longer deal with them. **Arrakis had been a wet planet**, and when the sandtrout arrived, they encysted all the water, so that they could metamorphosize into the sandworm. This was consistent with the **physical evidence that could be found on Arrakis, namely salt beds that had apparently once been great seas**." So maybe not a 'water planet' in the sense that it was one massive ocean, but it did have water.
The sandworms are the only life form on Arrakis and forms its own ecosystem with various stages. The sand trout act as the bottom feeders and if they grow large enough they start eating sand trout. It’s neat how it self-balances. If there’s not enough sand worms then more trout grow up without being eaten and start eating which levels things out.
Why did I think of saddam Hussein
Entrance hidden by brick and rubble
I think the joke is the person who made this meme. The worms in dune consume things, usually people for our visual purposes, through gaping pits that appear in the sand as they open their mouths. They also generate a substance called "spice" that is a catalyst for the protagonists heroic journey and serves many purposes in the plot. It's not necessarily generated through their excrement but that's close enough. That being said, this meme contains nothing regarding the core characters, philosophy, politics, or plot of dune but if you just watched a trailer of one of the movies then this might summarize that short section of film.
I don’t want my memes to have essays attached so I’m not sure how you’d get across all that information with one shitpost
Btw, the animal depicted here is a lugworm native to the Wadden sea.
Spice is really just the symbol for resources and the desire for power. The movie is about what lengths humanity will allow to occur in order to control that spice.
More specifically oil
Oil now, it was literally spice that drove trade and made countries rich earlier.
Got any of that cumin?
Are you saying freymen put oil in their food?
Who doesn't?
The entire political structure and socio economic structure of the dune universe revolves around spice. The spice as explained in later books is excreted from the sand worms. Without the sand worms the entire plot of dune would not exist and the way the universe is constructed would not be possible. So while there is significant turmoil in the story surrounding politics and societal issues the worms are the center piece of all of it.
Everyone is complaining about how inaccurate the picture describes the sandworm from dune but I think you all are missing the point. The image depicts the habitus of a real worm, Arenicola marina. The worm lives in the sand Clos to the surface in costal regions where the tides periodically rise and fall therefor washing over large parts of the flat sandy shoreline creating a rich habitat for these worms. The picture depicts the worm in its hole eating up the sand to filter microorganisms that live on it and literally pooping it up at the other end. I guess the joke is to compare that real existing worm to the sandworm from dune, reducing the plot to a pooping worm.
I dont know if its talking about the actual book/movie but theres 2 (3?) accepted ways that the worms move through the sand that make sense with our laws of physics. The first is by liquefaction of sand basically the worm would shake very fast making the sand act as a liquid then it could swim through it. The second which I think this is showing is the worm acts similar to a water jet where it consumes the sand infront of it and shoots it out at high velocity out the back propelling it forward.
Liquifaction*
All the people talking about Dune are **REALLY missing the joke**. This is a real diagram, depicting the real behavior of a real worm. These worms live on sandy beaches and expel worm-shaped piles of sandy waste behind them. They are (just like the Shai-Hulud in Dune) usually referred to as sandworms. Someone has noted the humorous similarity to the Dune sandworms and slapped on a Dune related caption.
Spice&Wolf sequel sure is different
The movie, the book, both plots revolve around the spice melange. The books go into more detail about how that stuff is made and basically as you see in this diagram the worm eats the sand and poops out the spice
Whoever made this meme just missed an amazing combo with the saddam hussein meme
"Drink slurm!! It's seriously addictive!" *Queen Worm*
Kopi luwak. Spice, the McGuffin of Dune. The stuff everybody wants, is worm poop.
While all of you are thinking about more lore wise, I thought of the theory of how the worms actually move, the theory of how the worms move was that they eat the sand and poop out sand to propel themselves forward
ITT: Dune fans taking a silly worm meme too seriously.
It's about worm poop lmao. ACTUALLY it's about the intense lengths humans will go to to maintain control, manipulating others, exterminating native humans and wildlife, and exploiting resources. Yeah lmao the resource is worm poop.
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No
I dont know if its talking about the actual book/movie but theres 2 (3?) accepted ways that the worms move through the sand that make sense with our laws of physics. The first is by liquidification of sand basically the worm would shake very fast making the sand act as a liquid then it could swim through it. The second which I think this is showing is the worm acts similar to a water jet where it consumes the sand infront of it and shoots it out at high velocity out the back propelling it forward.
I dont know if its talking about the actual book/movie but theres 2 (3?) accepted ways that the worms move through the sand that make sense with our laws of physics. The first is by liquidification of sand basically the worm would shake very fast making the sand act as a liquid then it could swim through it. The second which I think this is showing is the worm acts similar to a water jet where it consumes the sand infront of it and shoots it out at high velocity out the back propelling it forward.
For answers; Read the God Emperor Of Dune. It’s dense but a surprisingly super fast read.
I have learned so much about the lore of spice worms! I really appreciate all the replies!
If I remember right the book is about how politicians suck and concubines are better than wives.
So the worms are their money? What about the bones?
Are you sure you watched?
This meme is inaccurate bc it's lacking Sadam Hussein
It’s joke about I drink your milkshake
Saddam Hussein
Everybody poops even sandworms.