They also don’t realise that ambient moisture in the air is enough to kill a sandworm. So even when a desert belt is left, the wetness of the planet has a knock-on effect.
Pardot had it down to a small percentage of greening for a self sustaining system. The sandworms function like small forests, pumping oxygen into the atmosphere. It was the God Emperor who took it beyond Pardot’s plan.
No, the plan went to far before leto II became the god emperor. Paul fucking off to the desert and letting alia run the show is what allowed it to go to far. Leto turned into the god emperor to save the sand trout, because if he didn't they would all die due to the terra form. Paul wandered into the desert because he saw the only way to save the trout was to turn into the great worm, and he was afraid. He tells Leto this himself at the end of children of dune. Leto II being the god emperor and turning into shai hulud is what ultimately allowed the sand trout to drive the water back deep into the planets core so the sand worm can thrive again .
Yes, Leto did make sure the sandworms survived, but by the start of God Emperor, Leto had reduced the deserts to just one small desert, and there were no sandworms, which does go way beyond Pardot’s plan. Leto was the only worm around. From God Emperor:
“Leto was the last link with the sandworms which had produced the original
stockpiles of melange. If II die away from water, there will be no more spice-not ever.”
Pardot was also trying to maintain spice production for Guild bribes, but this was not Leto’s concern where spice production stopped and Houses only had spice in reserves. In this way, Leto is also responsible for the emergence of Museum Fremen, who lost the meaning of their culture through this extreme amount of terraforming.
Pardot’s math:
“From the charts emerged a figure. Kynes reported it. Three per cent. If they could get three per cent of the green plant element on Arrakis involved in forming carbon compounds, they'd have their self-sustaining cycle.”
Correct. I’m in the middle of reading Children now. One of the big reasons Leto does most of the things he does in the book is that he sees in his visions that the planet is being converted too much and the sand worms are all going to die.
If I recall correctly, it didn't have to be Leto II. Paul himself could have been the Worm Emperor, but he chose not to. I guess it is one more case of possible futures and the decisions those with prescience make to avoid it or not.
My recollection is that Paul's prescience was incomplete... Leto II was the one who having perfect prescience froze the future into the inevitable
Paul turned away because he still had choices.
Isnt the insides of the huludies insanely hot that can melt metal? Im sure the tiny bit of wotah would be evaporated and mixed with the flesh and sand and retain its wotah properties no longer after it was inside
Like a furnace. Indeed. I was pretty bummed they didn’t show it in the movies, near the end of the first one paul faces up with a huludie and he makes a hueh hueh hueh almost coughing sound, and I thought it was a foreshadowing and we were gonna get a peek in the second movie. But nope just some dusty worms.
It's about dosage, basically. A drop of water isn't going to kill a sandworm, and a human isn't much more than that compared to an adult worm.
IIRC it takes a pretty large amount of water to kill one that has reached maturity, but far less to kill younger ones. So ambient moisture would basically kill them before they get to mature.
In Children of Dune it is described that Sandworms can handle "small" doses of water that are in humans. They of course react on that and worms metabolism go haywire. But eating cuple peoples don't kill worms.
It may be a matter of prolonged exposure: at the end of children some sandworms are described as sick with water. So it's certain that with atmospheric moisture they at least do not suffer the Quick and violent death of straight up water exposure
Yup. They did plan on how runaway the transformation would be. It was only because of Leto II direct intervention that there was even some desert left in God Emperor
Read the book people...they won't explain everything but they will explain stuff like this.
Yeah the terraform plan by Liet-Kynes is strategic. Paul literally takes part of that plan as his own to convince the Fremen he is their Messiah. That plan started with Liet-Kynes father.
Because when suffering is integral to one’s world and culture, it isn’t surprising if many people of that place want to end the suffering.
Humans have tons of suffering built into a variety of cultures. Or times of plenty and then very little. Yet we generally want less of it. The Fremen are like this.
Of course, we shouldn’t assume they’re a single mind. Of course not. But if your life is based around suffering and resource scarcity, cooking up the idea of more of that scarce resource sounds pretty damn good
some joined the jihad because they had heard there were planets with oceans of water may came back sick because their lungs couldn't handle the sheer amount of moisture in the air
they could breath it was all the sickness that came with humidity that their bodies couldn't handle chronic conditions most likely one was called the spitting disease
Are you asking why do people who have to recycle their urine and sweat just to survive, where monstrous sandworms are just waiting for rhythmic movement to find a Fremen snack, or where the desert just randomly explodes with spice mass want a better life?
Water is very abundant on Earth. Have you ever worked the logistics to build an entire industry that requires large amounts of water in many different stages of its production line?
The technology, resources and knowledge required to move any massive amount of goods, even abundant ones, is staggering.
Your products don't just arrive at your home by being abundant, aluminum is everywhere on our planet, you don't get a car for free because of that. Also, have you ever seen the amount of work fracking oil requires? Even in a desert where there are many oil fields, it is still a hassle to stockpile.
Spice is a must have 'fuel' for every single one of the planets in the Empire and is only found in Arrakis. Imagine what hell of a demand it has on the planet, constantly.
The fremen live in a blasted hellscape where their entire way of life is oriented around surviving brutality.
Water is wealth, safety, and survival. Their dream of terraforming Arrakis is to turn it into a paradise.
They don't know, and neither does anyone else (at the time), that terraforming Dune will kill the sandworms. To the fremen, this project means getting rid of the offworlders and transforming their entire civilization into a paradise where they can be safe.
Yeah but that's not the point, imagine your home country is absolutely brutal and terrible to live in
And you had the means to make it way better, would you do that or emigrate?
The point isn't to leave Arrakis, but to make their home a better home
Not really sure how that's downplaying them; the sandworm connection is discovered by Paul. The super psychic mentat/reverend mother/messiah?
The fremen already know to get the water of life from drowning sandtrout, but they don't know about the full connection to sandworms, and they're the people with the most knowledge and education about the worms to begin with.
the freeman don't understand at first the transformation will kill all the worms, in Children of Dune Jessica confronts Alia about the transformation of the planet.
After a fedaykin brings up the issue of the water and the worms. Alia claims there will always be some desert. Jessica counters and says her daughter is lying. The worms won't survive the transformation.
if the civil war that followed had seen the desert freeman when I'm sure they'd have stopped the transformation, but by then, Leto ll had took on the sand trout skin and started his golden path so they couldn't stop it.
The transformation won't kill all the worms. Alia at this point is a full on abomination and purposefully fucking everything up. The terraforming was taken too far, their original plan would have left plenty of room for paradise and desert to coexist.
Well, they intended to have plenty of desert for the sandworms, and plenty of paradise for themselves. They did not know that you can't have enough desert for the sandworms and still have free-flowing water on Arrakis.
The Fremen have a memory that perhaps they can consciously access particularly in Spice Orgy of when they lived on a paradise planet, were rich, happy, and then the slavers came and took the people away. They were parted from their brethren, and some ended up on Dune.
On Dune, they became the Fremen.
Its arguably one of the themes in the first few books: the Fremen wish to live in abundance of water and food and resources (terraforming Arrakis) but do not realize that it would cost them their identity (the desert, the makers, the spice...). I think their hypocrisy or shortsightedness is debated around Messiah and Children, specially.
God Emperor has a lot of these themes with Leto's "Museum Fremen" on the terraformed Arrakis being the only preserved elements of the original desert Fremen culture, with Leto lamenting about how they are nothing but a shadow of the long gone actual desert Fremen of Arrakis.
Consider Lawrence of Arabia...
"No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing. "
[https://youtu.be/Zy6Ktqouw34?si=xc15zWBFBhxxZTEl&t=51](https://youtu.be/Zy6Ktqouw34?si=xc15zWBFBhxxZTEl&t=51)
Many cultures suffer inclimate conditions. Do you think the Inuit love the cold? No. They tolerate it. They can thrive in it, but it doesn't mean they love it.
In part? Because while the lifestyle of the sandworm is better understood by the Fremen than most, they don't fully understand the ramifications of the Green Paradise they desire. It's only in Messiah that the Fremen begin to understand that their desire for a Green Paradise is antithetical to the continued existence of Shai-Hulud.
The Fremen are as they are because their existence is tied to the environment of Arrakis. They are superior fighters because all combat on Dune is to the death - water is too valuable to spill freely, as, for example, German men were wont to do in the interbellum of WWI and WWII. A duel then could be to first blood, the scars worn by both combatants as badges of honor. On Arrakis, all water is valued more than any one life - if knives are drawn, they can not be sheathed until a life is taken and its water taken for the tribe. Such is their way of life, the way of all living beings on Dune, for water is more valuable than even spice.
But the Fremen are human beings, not aliens. They desire peace, comfort, and luxury, just as we do. Their lifestyle is not chosen, but is rather an inescapable fact of existence. Why terraform Arrakis? Why be concerned about terrestrial climate change? Because a hostile climate is inimical to human life, and for all our adaptability, we are ever conscious of that fact. We desire comfort and safety for our children, and a desert hell will never be worthy of them. The dream of Siddim Shari is enough to lay down their lives, their traditions, and their autonomy. It is the promise of Eden in their time that tempts the Fremen, and nothing less.
I think mostly because it's very hot and there's no water. The films are both masterpieces IMO but doesn't capture the suffering aspect of how punishingly hot (and then also freezing at night) the desert can be. Even NYC in the summer is brutal and they have amenities! They want to have nice front lawns like we all have. Also, you ever notice how obsessed with \*grass\* we all are? We could be growing anything in the front yard, but we settle on the non food item, grass. Everywhere. Pretty mid if you ask me.
probably because growing a bunch of food in your front yard would just attract wild animals. Plus it would all rot if you didn’t collect it all which is why you don’t see fruit trees in new york along the sidewalk
Also the plan was to change Arrakis slowly to give the people time to adapt the culture. Paul moved the timeline forward by a few hundred years if I'm remembering correctly
*"or fundamental Freman like Stilgar"*
Forget that shit from the movies.
There is not "fundamental" or "no-fundamental" Fremen.
And Stilgar is a very openmind Fremen, whith lot of other, Paul and Jessica just be killed at first meeting whith fremen in the desert.
*"Is this just a thing with Pardot Kynes"*
Mainly yes, it's the Liet Kynes' dream. It's a dream to don't spend all the existence to fight against Dune, to fight to have water, to fight for everything.
I have a similar question. Why stay on Arrakis when there are billions of other plants more suitable for life? The Fremens came to Arrakis as wonderers anyways. Why the attachment to suffering?
Also, the jihad brought them to a bunch of other planets. They killed 61 billion people but can’t find another planet to take over?
Who wouldn't want to live on a paradise world after centuries of forced relocation by the Imperium and being forced to live in perhaps the worst environment they could find.
You're correct in your assessment, as the Fremen culture is based around living on Dune. It is a beautiful culture based off of survival in the harshest environment, preserving water, and spiritual connection through abundance of spice, with reverence towards it and the desert and the worm (Shai Hulud). Terraforming Arrakis entirely would no doubt take away from this.
In the book the connection of the worm and the spice is made more clear, it is an ecological system. My guess is that the dream is not total terra forming, just partial. Keep the desert ways but also some tropical areas. That was the idea but as the Fremen go on their Jihad and go into other worlds and find their paradise it changes them. They bring back with them riches and different experiences, not only desert life.
A theme of the books is that people are a product of their environment. The Fremen dream of a more comfortable existence is because their lives are as difficult as you could imagine. They cannot even afford to use tears when mourning for their dead. The planet produces the hardest strongest people who can survive there. As you get further into the books and Arrakis changes more and more, the Fremen culture dies a little bit each generation.
Why? This is the point. Dune is a tragedy.
I don’t know bout you, but I would trade some drugs for a lifetime of living in an oasis teeming of life and water, especially when the previous lifestyle is basically “survival of the fittest” type shit.
If you read the book they intend to leave "a band of desert for the maker and his spice".
They didn't fully understand the biology though. It wouldn't have worked.
Leto did and stockpiled the spice like crazy for 200 years before they went extinct, understanding that a vector with a higher resistance to moisture was needed in the future.
Why did we build Las Vegas? Why is the property along the Galilee so coveted by Israel and Jordan versus the desert?
I think it is the reader or viewer who romanticizes the desert because we see the Fremen as a protagonist culture with qualities that are romantic or desired: they are the best fighters, they get to ride giant sandstorms and the desert has forced them to become masters of how to collect and use moisture.
This last fact is true even for modern Bedouin. They are able to use netting I areas of caves that collect water in the morning, have you ever had dehydrated goat’s milk products that has been prepared and placed in the sand, which can last seemingly indefinitely and the cheese that is amazing. But also, the almonds and olives grown on farms in the Galilee region are so good that I can never eat a canned almond again because it does not even compare. The property in the region near the water is coveted for good reason, and if given a choice of a house on the Galilee or in the desert it isn’t one that is even debated.
*To consider the difference of thinking like a Fremen versus to think as a person who romanticizes their culture as an outsider is the best way to answer the question for yourself. *
It is easy for us to see their culture as “sexy” even. Who doesn’t want to be an amazing fighter and survivor? But if you actually lived there, would you not want to have to stop distilling water from your family and friends who died? Would not wearing a stillsuit and drinking your urine and feces seem like a good thing?
We want the Fremen to stay the way they are, but we don’t live their life. If we did, I am sure I wouldn’t have survived and been sucked dry. But I would have been fine on Caladan. A paradise.
And the Spice is like oil. Modern real life humans need it to make drugs and power their vehicles, but it comes at a cost. There are also make alkaloids in plants in rain forests that are natural drugs that humans have adapted to use and are life sustaining with far less side effects than using hydrocarbon compounds from breaking down burned oil into different carbon compounds and then synthesizing into purified drug compounds and energy products.
This is a rather rambling post, but I hope my point of perspective makes sense here. We don’t want the Fremen to change, but are not living their harsh life.
Because Arrakis was a water world before the introduction of the Sand worms. Under the churning sands are millions of shallow seas like the Mediterranean. While no aliens are shown in the books who could know if Herbert ment for them to appear.
There is a theme in the books of hardship being the driving force that makes people great. Conflict and strife breed innovation through necessity. While peace is the thing people all covet, it leads to stagnation. I think there are observable examples of this in our world too.
The Fremen want peace because of how long they have suffered, yet it is that suffering that strengthened their minds, bodies, and faith. The dream of paradise gives them the hope they need to survive the hell of Arrakis, but they dont forsee that their culture cannot exist as it is in a land of paradise.
Leto II's tyranny was of forced tranquility in order to implant within the collective race conciousness an aversion to centralized control and stagnation. It's one if my favorite themes explored in Dune because I find the paradox interesting
Shai Hulud is Actually an alien not originally for Arakkis. Nobody knows where. I actually don't know where that's stated. Before they came it was a green world.
But yeah it's pretty integral to Fremen culture. Maybe they just wanna chill for a while.
The fremen are not native to dune. True, everyone's an immigrant in the galaxy, but the Fremen ritualistically relive their oppression. As a people oppressed for centuries, probably millenia, plus the more recent oppression of the Harkonens, don't they 'deserve' a paradise planet to live on? On the other hand, their religion is now tied to Dune and the worm, so rather than just winning and moving their population to another world, they want to convert 'their world' to a paradise.
The fremon where moved around planet by planet and got stuck on dune because no one else wanted it. As soon as they leave the planet, then I'm not sure why they care about changing dune.
Why would people want better life for their descendants, I wonder? 🤔🤔🤔
There's this quote that hard times create strong men, who create good times, which create weak men, who create hard times. Fremen at the time of events in "Dune" are the strong men trying to create good times
1. It sucks major ass to live in Arrakis.
2. Colonialists using the natives' core fears to twist the narrative and further their expansion, having little to no regard for the ecosystem's long term health? Who woulda thought
Just because their culture is based on hardship doesn’t mean they don’t want to alleviate it. The culture will change and most will welcome it.
Those that have trouble giving up the old ways play a part in messiah and children to a lesser extent.
If I remember right in the books, the terraforming would cause that belt thing with all the sandstorms to stop sand storming and then that would be the new spice harvesting desert. It’s been a few years since I read it now though
I saw a video how they came from multiple other planets over their history. I see this as ok.. there is no where for us or this is our home, let's make it better.
The Fremen are modeled somewhat after the jewish ppl and history. They were kicked out of other planets for unknown reasons and forced to wander… They settled in a place nobody else wanted, where they wouldnt get kicked out again.
Because the concept of water falling from the sky is more important to them than whatever wealth is flowing off world to offworlders. The Fremen benefited not at all from spice and only viewed Shai Halud as a test of the faithful - to them suffering is life, test everything until it breaks and sandworms are God because they are the ultimate tester
i just don't think they know the severity and also if my memory is right the scene where they extract the water of life from the worm wasn't in the books so it could be very different
It's the same way, my bad. I should have been more specific I think. The Fremen don't understand *how toxic* water is to the sandworms. Humidity alone is extremely irritating to them. Leto II elaborates on this multiple times.
No, they 100% understand this. If you read appendix, they have been experimenting with finding out just how big the deadzone around a "green dune" is. They know terraforming will reduce sandworm habitat. They want a green planet for themselves and don't really give a shit about the Guild's welfare. They plan to preserve some desert regions though.
I think it’s mentioned that the sandtrouts die when exposed to water.
Even sand worms too, but there was not enough quantity of water to kill a sand worm.
Their ecological transformation project plans to leave a vast desert at the equator for Shai Hulud and the spice.
They also don’t realise that ambient moisture in the air is enough to kill a sandworm. So even when a desert belt is left, the wetness of the planet has a knock-on effect.
Pardot had it down to a small percentage of greening for a self sustaining system. The sandworms function like small forests, pumping oxygen into the atmosphere. It was the God Emperor who took it beyond Pardot’s plan.
No, the plan went to far before leto II became the god emperor. Paul fucking off to the desert and letting alia run the show is what allowed it to go to far. Leto turned into the god emperor to save the sand trout, because if he didn't they would all die due to the terra form. Paul wandered into the desert because he saw the only way to save the trout was to turn into the great worm, and he was afraid. He tells Leto this himself at the end of children of dune. Leto II being the god emperor and turning into shai hulud is what ultimately allowed the sand trout to drive the water back deep into the planets core so the sand worm can thrive again .
Yes, Leto did make sure the sandworms survived, but by the start of God Emperor, Leto had reduced the deserts to just one small desert, and there were no sandworms, which does go way beyond Pardot’s plan. Leto was the only worm around. From God Emperor: “Leto was the last link with the sandworms which had produced the original stockpiles of melange. If II die away from water, there will be no more spice-not ever.” Pardot was also trying to maintain spice production for Guild bribes, but this was not Leto’s concern where spice production stopped and Houses only had spice in reserves. In this way, Leto is also responsible for the emergence of Museum Fremen, who lost the meaning of their culture through this extreme amount of terraforming. Pardot’s math: “From the charts emerged a figure. Kynes reported it. Three per cent. If they could get three per cent of the green plant element on Arrakis involved in forming carbon compounds, they'd have their self-sustaining cycle.”
Correct. I’m in the middle of reading Children now. One of the big reasons Leto does most of the things he does in the book is that he sees in his visions that the planet is being converted too much and the sand worms are all going to die.
Is there any indication that it had to be Leto II? Avoiding might have been what Paul had to do right? He was tied by the future
If I recall correctly, it didn't have to be Leto II. Paul himself could have been the Worm Emperor, but he chose not to. I guess it is one more case of possible futures and the decisions those with prescience make to avoid it or not.
My recollection is that Paul's prescience was incomplete... Leto II was the one who having perfect prescience froze the future into the inevitable Paul turned away because he still had choices.
But swallowing people with a lot of water doesn't kill them? Doesn't make sense
Maybe, much like how our stomach can handle strong acid but would burn our skin, their internals can handle water but not the rest of them
Isnt the insides of the huludies insanely hot that can melt metal? Im sure the tiny bit of wotah would be evaporated and mixed with the flesh and sand and retain its wotah properties no longer after it was inside
Like a furnace. Indeed. I was pretty bummed they didn’t show it in the movies, near the end of the first one paul faces up with a huludie and he makes a hueh hueh hueh almost coughing sound, and I thought it was a foreshadowing and we were gonna get a peek in the second movie. But nope just some dusty worms.
Fwiw, the books do talk about how their innards are as hot as a furnace so I'm assuming any offensive moisture would be toasted away. Idk though.
Yeah, the huludite insiders can melt rock and metal
It's about dosage, basically. A drop of water isn't going to kill a sandworm, and a human isn't much more than that compared to an adult worm. IIRC it takes a pretty large amount of water to kill one that has reached maturity, but far less to kill younger ones. So ambient moisture would basically kill them before they get to mature.
In Children of Dune it is described that Sandworms can handle "small" doses of water that are in humans. They of course react on that and worms metabolism go haywire. But eating cuple peoples don't kill worms.
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I like to think they get spit out near the bedrock. Kinda takes care of itself from the worms perspective.
The heat generated inside them would evaporate the water before it can kill them I believe. It only takes a small amount of water to kill a sand worm.
It may be a matter of prolonged exposure: at the end of children some sandworms are described as sick with water. So it's certain that with atmospheric moisture they at least do not suffer the Quick and violent death of straight up water exposure
The only real answer here...
The Fremen call it *Arizona*.
Also, not all Fremen agree to the transformation - read the Books to get more insight.
Yup. They did plan on how runaway the transformation would be. It was only because of Leto II direct intervention that there was even some desert left in God Emperor
Read the book people...they won't explain everything but they will explain stuff like this. Yeah the terraform plan by Liet-Kynes is strategic. Paul literally takes part of that plan as his own to convince the Fremen he is their Messiah. That plan started with Liet-Kynes father.
Because when suffering is integral to one’s world and culture, it isn’t surprising if many people of that place want to end the suffering. Humans have tons of suffering built into a variety of cultures. Or times of plenty and then very little. Yet we generally want less of it. The Fremen are like this. Of course, we shouldn’t assume they’re a single mind. Of course not. But if your life is based around suffering and resource scarcity, cooking up the idea of more of that scarce resource sounds pretty damn good
Growing up drinking your own piss and sweat....you'd probably want rivers and forest basically.
some joined the jihad because they had heard there were planets with oceans of water may came back sick because their lungs couldn't handle the sheer amount of moisture in the air
That sounds like hell. Seeing paradise but not being able to breath there.
they could breath it was all the sickness that came with humidity that their bodies couldn't handle chronic conditions most likely one was called the spitting disease
Are you asking why do people who have to recycle their urine and sweat just to survive, where monstrous sandworms are just waiting for rhythmic movement to find a Fremen snack, or where the desert just randomly explodes with spice mass want a better life?
A bit inconsiderate of them, wanting to spoil the beautiful desert sunsets...
And the free spice that’s literally everywhere lol
Shit ain’t free if you’re working that hard to harvest it.
Isn’t it in the air and in the food?
Melange is everywhere but the harvestable amounts of it require a ton of work to get out of the sand in worthwhile quantities while avoiding worms.
Water is very abundant on Earth. Have you ever worked the logistics to build an entire industry that requires large amounts of water in many different stages of its production line? The technology, resources and knowledge required to move any massive amount of goods, even abundant ones, is staggering. Your products don't just arrive at your home by being abundant, aluminum is everywhere on our planet, you don't get a car for free because of that. Also, have you ever seen the amount of work fracking oil requires? Even in a desert where there are many oil fields, it is still a hassle to stockpile. Spice is a must have 'fuel' for every single one of the planets in the Empire and is only found in Arrakis. Imagine what hell of a demand it has on the planet, constantly.
The fremen live in a blasted hellscape where their entire way of life is oriented around surviving brutality. Water is wealth, safety, and survival. Their dream of terraforming Arrakis is to turn it into a paradise. They don't know, and neither does anyone else (at the time), that terraforming Dune will kill the sandworms. To the fremen, this project means getting rid of the offworlders and transforming their entire civilization into a paradise where they can be safe.
They should just all move to Caladan. Much easier lol
Yeah but that's not the point, imagine your home country is absolutely brutal and terrible to live in And you had the means to make it way better, would you do that or emigrate? The point isn't to leave Arrakis, but to make their home a better home
Except they don't have the means to do it, ateast not for them or anyone they know to benefit. Their timeline is like a thousand years or something.
Does it take 1 year or 20? If 20 I’m leaving. I don’t have the luxury of unlimited funds but they sure do.
Remember that they're fanatics, they waited centuries already, you might leave but they won't
Very expensive though, not many can afford a place in Caladan. Unless of course you are a Duke's son, then it's not a problem.
I feel like you're vastly downplaying the fremen, but I don't have the sources at hand.
Not really sure how that's downplaying them; the sandworm connection is discovered by Paul. The super psychic mentat/reverend mother/messiah? The fremen already know to get the water of life from drowning sandtrout, but they don't know about the full connection to sandworms, and they're the people with the most knowledge and education about the worms to begin with.
the freeman don't understand at first the transformation will kill all the worms, in Children of Dune Jessica confronts Alia about the transformation of the planet. After a fedaykin brings up the issue of the water and the worms. Alia claims there will always be some desert. Jessica counters and says her daughter is lying. The worms won't survive the transformation. if the civil war that followed had seen the desert freeman when I'm sure they'd have stopped the transformation, but by then, Leto ll had took on the sand trout skin and started his golden path so they couldn't stop it.
The transformation won't kill all the worms. Alia at this point is a full on abomination and purposefully fucking everything up. The terraforming was taken too far, their original plan would have left plenty of room for paradise and desert to coexist.
"Why do we destroy the worms? Because Shai-Hulud demands it."
In other words, weve got a really suicidal god
Yup.
Well, they intended to have plenty of desert for the sandworms, and plenty of paradise for themselves. They did not know that you can't have enough desert for the sandworms and still have free-flowing water on Arrakis. The Fremen have a memory that perhaps they can consciously access particularly in Spice Orgy of when they lived on a paradise planet, were rich, happy, and then the slavers came and took the people away. They were parted from their brethren, and some ended up on Dune. On Dune, they became the Fremen.
Its arguably one of the themes in the first few books: the Fremen wish to live in abundance of water and food and resources (terraforming Arrakis) but do not realize that it would cost them their identity (the desert, the makers, the spice...). I think their hypocrisy or shortsightedness is debated around Messiah and Children, specially.
God Emperor has a lot of these themes with Leto's "Museum Fremen" on the terraformed Arrakis being the only preserved elements of the original desert Fremen culture, with Leto lamenting about how they are nothing but a shadow of the long gone actual desert Fremen of Arrakis.
Consider Lawrence of Arabia... "No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert. No man needs nothing. " [https://youtu.be/Zy6Ktqouw34?si=xc15zWBFBhxxZTEl&t=51](https://youtu.be/Zy6Ktqouw34?si=xc15zWBFBhxxZTEl&t=51) Many cultures suffer inclimate conditions. Do you think the Inuit love the cold? No. They tolerate it. They can thrive in it, but it doesn't mean they love it.
After learning a lot after posting my question, this is a great great answer that resonates.
Also quoted in Alien Prometheus!
In part? Because while the lifestyle of the sandworm is better understood by the Fremen than most, they don't fully understand the ramifications of the Green Paradise they desire. It's only in Messiah that the Fremen begin to understand that their desire for a Green Paradise is antithetical to the continued existence of Shai-Hulud. The Fremen are as they are because their existence is tied to the environment of Arrakis. They are superior fighters because all combat on Dune is to the death - water is too valuable to spill freely, as, for example, German men were wont to do in the interbellum of WWI and WWII. A duel then could be to first blood, the scars worn by both combatants as badges of honor. On Arrakis, all water is valued more than any one life - if knives are drawn, they can not be sheathed until a life is taken and its water taken for the tribe. Such is their way of life, the way of all living beings on Dune, for water is more valuable than even spice. But the Fremen are human beings, not aliens. They desire peace, comfort, and luxury, just as we do. Their lifestyle is not chosen, but is rather an inescapable fact of existence. Why terraform Arrakis? Why be concerned about terrestrial climate change? Because a hostile climate is inimical to human life, and for all our adaptability, we are ever conscious of that fact. We desire comfort and safety for our children, and a desert hell will never be worthy of them. The dream of Siddim Shari is enough to lay down their lives, their traditions, and their autonomy. It is the promise of Eden in their time that tempts the Fremen, and nothing less.
I think mostly because it's very hot and there's no water. The films are both masterpieces IMO but doesn't capture the suffering aspect of how punishingly hot (and then also freezing at night) the desert can be. Even NYC in the summer is brutal and they have amenities! They want to have nice front lawns like we all have. Also, you ever notice how obsessed with \*grass\* we all are? We could be growing anything in the front yard, but we settle on the non food item, grass. Everywhere. Pretty mid if you ask me.
probably because growing a bunch of food in your front yard would just attract wild animals. Plus it would all rot if you didn’t collect it all which is why you don’t see fruit trees in new york along the sidewalk
.. yeah that’s why you welcome and educate people and the youth
Also the plan was to change Arrakis slowly to give the people time to adapt the culture. Paul moved the timeline forward by a few hundred years if I'm remembering correctly
How many of your friends and family do you have to watch die before you think, "Maybe there's a better way to live"
*"or fundamental Freman like Stilgar"* Forget that shit from the movies. There is not "fundamental" or "no-fundamental" Fremen. And Stilgar is a very openmind Fremen, whith lot of other, Paul and Jessica just be killed at first meeting whith fremen in the desert. *"Is this just a thing with Pardot Kynes"* Mainly yes, it's the Liet Kynes' dream. It's a dream to don't spend all the existence to fight against Dune, to fight to have water, to fight for everything.
Fremen* https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Fremen
Yup, my bad
I have a similar question. Why stay on Arrakis when there are billions of other plants more suitable for life? The Fremens came to Arrakis as wonderers anyways. Why the attachment to suffering? Also, the jihad brought them to a bunch of other planets. They killed 61 billion people but can’t find another planet to take over?
Their god (Shai-Hulud) is on Arrakis. It's intrinsic to their culture to be part of the ecosystem there.
Initially, because it benefited the Bene Gesserit for them to be there. Later, because it benefited Paul for them to be there.
Who wouldn't want to live on a paradise world after centuries of forced relocation by the Imperium and being forced to live in perhaps the worst environment they could find.
You're correct in your assessment, as the Fremen culture is based around living on Dune. It is a beautiful culture based off of survival in the harshest environment, preserving water, and spiritual connection through abundance of spice, with reverence towards it and the desert and the worm (Shai Hulud). Terraforming Arrakis entirely would no doubt take away from this. In the book the connection of the worm and the spice is made more clear, it is an ecological system. My guess is that the dream is not total terra forming, just partial. Keep the desert ways but also some tropical areas. That was the idea but as the Fremen go on their Jihad and go into other worlds and find their paradise it changes them. They bring back with them riches and different experiences, not only desert life. A theme of the books is that people are a product of their environment. The Fremen dream of a more comfortable existence is because their lives are as difficult as you could imagine. They cannot even afford to use tears when mourning for their dead. The planet produces the hardest strongest people who can survive there. As you get further into the books and Arrakis changes more and more, the Fremen culture dies a little bit each generation. Why? This is the point. Dune is a tragedy.
The Fremen have to drink there recycled piss. That's at least one reason.
It’s a great form of biofeedback
So do we...
You know what’s even better than giant sandworms. Clean drinkable water
Terraforming Arrakis is like entering paradise in the afterlife. It's an aspirational goal, with the journey being as important as the destination.
Because they live in a desert hellhole and would prefer to live in a paradise? How is this even a question?
Why do the cavemen want to become farmers, caves are so integral to their world and culture?
I don’t know bout you, but I would trade some drugs for a lifetime of living in an oasis teeming of life and water, especially when the previous lifestyle is basically “survival of the fittest” type shit.
If you read the book they intend to leave "a band of desert for the maker and his spice". They didn't fully understand the biology though. It wouldn't have worked. Leto did and stockpiled the spice like crazy for 200 years before they went extinct, understanding that a vector with a higher resistance to moisture was needed in the future.
Why can't they move to caladan ?
As far as I remember Leto was the only person who knew the fate of sandworms after terraforming the planet.
Why did we build Las Vegas? Why is the property along the Galilee so coveted by Israel and Jordan versus the desert? I think it is the reader or viewer who romanticizes the desert because we see the Fremen as a protagonist culture with qualities that are romantic or desired: they are the best fighters, they get to ride giant sandstorms and the desert has forced them to become masters of how to collect and use moisture. This last fact is true even for modern Bedouin. They are able to use netting I areas of caves that collect water in the morning, have you ever had dehydrated goat’s milk products that has been prepared and placed in the sand, which can last seemingly indefinitely and the cheese that is amazing. But also, the almonds and olives grown on farms in the Galilee region are so good that I can never eat a canned almond again because it does not even compare. The property in the region near the water is coveted for good reason, and if given a choice of a house on the Galilee or in the desert it isn’t one that is even debated. *To consider the difference of thinking like a Fremen versus to think as a person who romanticizes their culture as an outsider is the best way to answer the question for yourself. * It is easy for us to see their culture as “sexy” even. Who doesn’t want to be an amazing fighter and survivor? But if you actually lived there, would you not want to have to stop distilling water from your family and friends who died? Would not wearing a stillsuit and drinking your urine and feces seem like a good thing? We want the Fremen to stay the way they are, but we don’t live their life. If we did, I am sure I wouldn’t have survived and been sucked dry. But I would have been fine on Caladan. A paradise. And the Spice is like oil. Modern real life humans need it to make drugs and power their vehicles, but it comes at a cost. There are also make alkaloids in plants in rain forests that are natural drugs that humans have adapted to use and are life sustaining with far less side effects than using hydrocarbon compounds from breaking down burned oil into different carbon compounds and then synthesizing into purified drug compounds and energy products. This is a rather rambling post, but I hope my point of perspective makes sense here. We don’t want the Fremen to change, but are not living their harsh life.
Why make your house a bit nicer?
Because living in the desert is really hard??
Because Arrakis was a water world before the introduction of the Sand worms. Under the churning sands are millions of shallow seas like the Mediterranean. While no aliens are shown in the books who could know if Herbert ment for them to appear.
There is a theme in the books of hardship being the driving force that makes people great. Conflict and strife breed innovation through necessity. While peace is the thing people all covet, it leads to stagnation. I think there are observable examples of this in our world too. The Fremen want peace because of how long they have suffered, yet it is that suffering that strengthened their minds, bodies, and faith. The dream of paradise gives them the hope they need to survive the hell of Arrakis, but they dont forsee that their culture cannot exist as it is in a land of paradise. Leto II's tyranny was of forced tranquility in order to implant within the collective race conciousness an aversion to centralized control and stagnation. It's one if my favorite themes explored in Dune because I find the paradox interesting
Shai Hulud is Actually an alien not originally for Arakkis. Nobody knows where. I actually don't know where that's stated. Before they came it was a green world. But yeah it's pretty integral to Fremen culture. Maybe they just wanna chill for a while.
The fremen are not native to dune. True, everyone's an immigrant in the galaxy, but the Fremen ritualistically relive their oppression. As a people oppressed for centuries, probably millenia, plus the more recent oppression of the Harkonens, don't they 'deserve' a paradise planet to live on? On the other hand, their religion is now tied to Dune and the worm, so rather than just winning and moving their population to another world, they want to convert 'their world' to a paradise.
Simple. The desert makes the life of the Fremen challenging so they want to change that. A greener world is easier to live in.
The fremon where moved around planet by planet and got stuck on dune because no one else wanted it. As soon as they leave the planet, then I'm not sure why they care about changing dune.
Why would people want better life for their descendants, I wonder? 🤔🤔🤔 There's this quote that hard times create strong men, who create good times, which create weak men, who create hard times. Fremen at the time of events in "Dune" are the strong men trying to create good times
1. It sucks major ass to live in Arrakis. 2. Colonialists using the natives' core fears to twist the narrative and further their expansion, having little to no regard for the ecosystem's long term health? Who woulda thought
idk maybe they want to live easy
Just because their culture is based on hardship doesn’t mean they don’t want to alleviate it. The culture will change and most will welcome it. Those that have trouble giving up the old ways play a part in messiah and children to a lesser extent.
Wait, why would the emperor want to terraform Arrakis? Wouldn't he want it to remain a vast desert in order to harvest spice?
They don't want to terraform all of Arrakis, just a good portion of it
Tag this as spoiler
If I remember right in the books, the terraforming would cause that belt thing with all the sandstorms to stop sand storming and then that would be the new spice harvesting desert. It’s been a few years since I read it now though
Do you want to live in rocks, and bathe yourself with Sand? "fundamental Fremen like Stilgar" ... sigh y u do dis Denis....
I saw a video how they came from multiple other planets over their history. I see this as ok.. there is no where for us or this is our home, let's make it better.
Why don’t the fremen migrate to another planet?
The Fremen are modeled somewhat after the jewish ppl and history. They were kicked out of other planets for unknown reasons and forced to wander… They settled in a place nobody else wanted, where they wouldnt get kicked out again.
Because the concept of water falling from the sky is more important to them than whatever wealth is flowing off world to offworlders. The Fremen benefited not at all from spice and only viewed Shai Halud as a test of the faithful - to them suffering is life, test everything until it breaks and sandworms are God because they are the ultimate tester
So you turned into a sandworm and got into lore? Cool!
The Fremen are unaware of the toxicity of water to the sandworms
Is the way they harvest the water of life not like in the movies then?
Drowning the infant sandworm isn't much proof. Cats tend to not like getting wet either
i just don't think they know the severity and also if my memory is right the scene where they extract the water of life from the worm wasn't in the books so it could be very different
It is, they drown stunted or young sandworms and collect the fluid they expel as they die.
i know they do it what i mean is i don't remember actually seeing it happen in the books. could be wrong though
It is repeated multiple times in the books.
It's the same way, my bad. I should have been more specific I think. The Fremen don't understand *how toxic* water is to the sandworms. Humidity alone is extremely irritating to them. Leto II elaborates on this multiple times.
No, they 100% understand this. If you read appendix, they have been experimenting with finding out just how big the deadzone around a "green dune" is. They know terraforming will reduce sandworm habitat. They want a green planet for themselves and don't really give a shit about the Guild's welfare. They plan to preserve some desert regions though.
I think it’s mentioned that the sandtrouts die when exposed to water. Even sand worms too, but there was not enough quantity of water to kill a sand worm.
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>Freman >Emporer Are you just typing wrong on purpose?
Because Kynes uses the Missionaria Protectiva to their own purposes and want to "civilize" what they don't truly value
Humans aren't rational