Are There Aliens In DUNE?

[@darkagerush3098]

U forgot one of the more interesting bits of pre Paul law, nuclear weapons were to be only used in a situation where humanity was threatened by alien invasion.

[@prophetzarquon]

"alien invasion", or "non-human threats"? 👀

[@Arjuna405]

AI machines they battled in the beginning

[@williamhosford2796]

The use of atomics on a human target is grounds for planetary obliteration.

[@fakeryan2192]

Nah, it's more like for other houses in certain scenarios. Like if the Landsrad felt threatened by Corrino, they can use nukes.

[@joddog]

​@@prophetzarquonthat's some deep nerd lore cut

[@SynthRockViking]

Atreides and Harkonnen have been too busy bickering for ten thousand years to notice any aliens

[@dickdickling9389]

Considering 10k years is cosmically too short to notice anything what so ever, it reinforces them not seeing anything at all.

[@Notmyrealnamenumbers]

They didn't even notice the worms on arakis? Or are the worms humans?

[@AndreTJones]

The worms are the aliens

[@jonathanfreestone7908]

Not just that but there was evidence that the sand trouts were placed on arrakis by "someone else"

[@flashovr24]

YES!! THANK YOU!!! LOL

[@120Stevo]

Who did it?

[@GarySpeight-cv5sw]

37

[@BVargas78]

The worms were probably engineered by advanced humans. Remember Dune is set in the year 10191 post spacing guild but humanity is much older than that

[@tarik158]

No aliens was the smartest choice Frank Herbert made. Humans are weird enough on their own.

[@bigguy7353]

He had the very strong suggestion of aliens but deliberately left them out.

[@Simon-Sjokvist1995]

Also with humans having spread so incredibly vast just humans would vary planet to planet. different culture, language dialect religion everything would be so different and yet human

[@Dhieen]

exactly, this shows how mature is Dune, you dont need fancy alien stuff to have interesting sci fi stories, humans are already so weird

[@sexobscura]

*zzzzz*

[@user-ce6iy2nw5o]

uhh did you hear about the worms??

[@Gunnar001]

DUNE takes what I think is the more realistic stance that advanced intelligent alien civilizations are ridiculously rare. This is different than many other Sci-Fis, like Star Trek or Star Wars, which have aliens existing all over the place. I think aliens do exist in the DUNE universe, they simply haven’t been encountered yet as far as we know. Maybe in the far future beyond the books it may happen. We are never told.

[@lykan2]

It's most like due the FERMI Paradox

[@StormPlayzYT]

You wouldn't know if it is "ridiculously rare" so you can't say this is more realistic or less realistic.

[@SeradjLarfi]

​@@StormPlayzYT Think about it this way, 4 billion species have existed on Earth, as far as we know only one left our planet, we may only have a sample size of 1 when it comes to life in the universe, but what we do have is a rough estimate of how likely a species is to be space faring, and that's 1 in 4 billion. You not only need intelligence but tons of other rare traits to build civilizations and go to outer space Keep in mind that life emerged almost certainly emerged once on Earth, in a planet that's pretty much perfect for life (goldilock zone, habitable for 4 billion years, liquid water, G type star that's not very active etc...), so not only is life probably extremely rare, but intelligent life is way way rarer.

[@bradleymay5350]

​@SeradjLarfisomething else to consider: time. Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old, but dinosaurs only appeared about 250 million years ago. The Cretaceous period ended only 66 million ago. Earliest hominids? About 4 million. Our particular species, 300,000 years. All of that to say, evolution is incredibly fast on a cosmic scale. If humanity ended right now, a dozen new space faring lifeforms might evolve, grow and perish within the next 250 million years. From birds. Or muskrats. Or anything. It'll take quite a lot of hard work to steralize all biological life on earth. And the Goldilocks zone? There's roughly 250 billion stars in our galaxy. Some studies suggest roughly 300 million in a habitable zone. That's very conservative. Now assume some of those planets had a head start and formed 6, 7, 8 billion years ago? And it similarly took them a few billion years to jump start life. That's still billions of years of evolution. On hundreds of millions of planets. Or not. It is a paradox for a reason, after all.

[@tmadlegionsoul3255]

My favorite take on alien life comes from The Lost Fleet: Beyond The Frontier. It talks about how different species in different environments would evolve to have completely different motivations and priorities than humans.

[@robwalsh9843]

While I like aliens in my sci fi, I've always appreciated how Dune, Firefly and to an extent the reboot of Battlestar Galactica eschewed aliens in favor of looking at the human condition in the context of galactic expansion. And in the case of Dune, there is the slight hint that humans could evolve on several different paths to the point where they could sire new species, which is similar to how a lot of other sci fi franchises have an "elder race" that gave rise to everyone else.

[@BaseDeltaZero1972]

James Edward Olmos told them if he ever saw an alien costume he would leave the show right there and then. 👍

[@rodrigobogado8756]

If you want to see humans evolving in different paths check "All Tomorrows"

[@chrisdiokno5600]

Plus, while aliens MAY exist in those universes, chances are they have other priorties than "See if other shit is out there."

[@Notmyrealnamenumbers]

The expanse show and book series almost does that. At its core the story is about humans and human politics and human wars Humans find some device from a long dead alien species and fight over it thinking it's a weapon But it was just some auto space road building tool

[@EdsonKu]

Obviously the orks are hidden themselves with the power of imagination

[@udasai]

Dune orks are all purple. Ever seen a purple ork? Of course you haven't.

[@Yphrum]

Points for random 40k reference.

[@Furzkampfbomber]

@@udasai Well, not all Orks. Some of them are red and simply too fast to see them.

[@ArmandoEnfectana-bp6jo]

​@@udasai, I think those Space Cockroaches are just sleepin in the Void while the Fizh Boyz are been turned into Sushi by those Angry Mushrooms.

[@sono_chi_no_sodium_chlorid7635]

The fact that sandworms are the only alien species already suggests there are more aliens. I mean... Every other animal on Arrakis is a variation of earth animal. They were placed there by humans. On top of that Sandworms had to evolve in an alien envirement.

[@shardulparanjape8600]

Arrakis animals are mostly just human interpretations of alien animals. Take for example, the sand trout.

[@strawberrylotlizard]

Worms aren't naturally occurring either. They were brought there

[@_martian101]

@@shardulparanjape8600 ants, muadib or mouse, spider, scorpion, vulture, it's all earth species and it's the majority of life in arrakis, the worm and their larvae is anomaly

[@sono_chi_no_sodium_chlorid7635]

@@strawberrylotlizard Isn't that what I just said?

[@sono_chi_no_sodium_chlorid7635]

@@shardulparanjape8600 As far as I'm aware all Dune animals were evolved and adapted descendants of Earth animals. But I may be wrong

[@mahatmarandy5977]

It’s a quibble, but there’s a difference between the word “sentient” and “sapient.” Sentience does not mean intelligence, it means the ability to have emotional responses to outside stimuli apart from those specifically required for survival (so, like, “fear” doesn’t count). Your dog is sentient. Dogs clearly have emotions and emotional responses. The same is true of pretty much most mammals, and some birds, to a greater or lesser degree. Zebras appear to have very low sentience. Horses have pretty high sentience. “sapience” refers to self-awareness and directed intelligence. Humans are definitely sapient. Elephants and dolphins and crows may possibly be sapient, but we don’t really know enough to say for sure. There is some correlation between intelligence and sapience on the old venn diagram, but it’s not the same thing

[@RocketRiley]

Thanks- I learned something cool today

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@ Hey, thank you for not getting angry at me for it! Seriously.

[@nneisler]

Watch out for Homo Sentients

[@ZakhadWOW]

sentient ties to the verb "sentire" meaning to feel.. So sentients FEEL things and have some form of intentional response aside from instinct. Sapient comes from "sapere" (sapientia) meaning "To know", as in active thought and intelligence.

[@dranzerjetli5126]

Elephants are definitely sapient.they hold a grudge and all that. They feel the same way humans feel too

[@magicmattyoung]

So they’re straight out of Crompton?

[@prophetzarquon]

Crazy -motha- _sista_ fu¢ka name Leto II, from a clan called Atreides with attitude...

[@gb1234ist]

humanity is a half a blink in the grand scheme of things. in the dune universe time scale wise.

[@MrEnjoivolcom1]

Or the actual universe, for that matter. Lol.

[@word90]

Technically the worms are aliens

[@aoki6332]

We dont really know for sure, for all we know it could have been made during the Old Empire before the great house and just forgotten about.

[@Ezi_pz]

Yes and no, probably when they found arakis indeed they where aliens or at less alien fauna becuase it was new, but i think that when we see dune the worms are local fauna

[@Highcaloriegrappling]

@aoki6332 There are other animals that are native to planets in the Landsraad, so it more likely than not.

[@Julian-ge3kl]

I like that aliens haven’t been introduced, it’s different to any other sci-fi media I’m familiar with. But I do like that idea or suggestion that life could exist or at least has existed at some point. Lots of potential story in that direction to highlight and add to the human aspect that Frank wanted :)

[@kmfdmman]

The Battle Tech universe also doesn't have any kind of aliens at all.

[@anshadedavana]

Dune isn't Sci-Fi. It's a science fantasy genre with more fantasy than science. Frank Herbert wrote the series with some philosophical aspects in mind. Mainly it's about freedom. The whole space saga is nothing but just a background stage. That's why he didn't care about Aliens etc.

[@stevoc9930]

There were no Aliens in Battlestar Galactia either.

[@Tee_Leaf]

There were famously no aliens in Red Dwarf

[@riccardozorn1822]

In Riddick there are also no aliens

[@monkmonk275]

There are no aliens in Dune because the Great Houses did a 40K in their galaxy

[@tengkualiff]

fr tho

[@thebanished87]

Suffer not a xeno to live

[@chijiokenjemanze8351]

​@@thebanished87 😂

[@XavierAncarno]

What is shai hulud if not an alien sentient life 😅

[@citizenVader]

Alien also means disturbingly different, so we could argue that Leto the second is Alien

[@fredriks5090]

Plot twist; Shai Hulud is an alien robot wearing the sandworms as armor against moisture, using spice as a biological motoroil that helps sync the machine to their mind. So spice would basically be a biological trojan horse, giving machines direct access. But because it is an ALIEN robot, humanity's own machines didn't know about it yet. Nor how it functioned.

[@DeathBYDesign666]

Only after Leto II were they sentient, but the original actually came from engineered biological organisms made to terraform planets. It's been hypothesized that there is unique phenomenon or element on the planet that mutated the worms and gave rise to their spice properties.

[@postmodernmining]

You don't see them much because they're really shai.

[@MrOnetedify]

@@fredriks5090 is this true?

[@mastercharlesdiltardino8058]

The worms were always "intelligent", they evolved prescient abilities and used them in their own simple worm way. The spice is like honey dew from aphids if aphids could use honey dew to expand ant consciousness and give them telepathy or something.

[@prophetzarquon]

Aaaand you just explained the primordial backstory to the entire Robotech universe (a'la the Sentinels comics)

[@christophernoneya4635]

Unless you believe the worms mastered their own evolution, this would be a result of their conditions more than intelligence. Sandworms evolved symbiotically with some sapient life (maybe humans were the first, maybe earlier humans, maybe ancient aliens) where they were able to produce conditions and incentivize the spread of their species (spice is addictive which is the incentive, ftl capable for the ability to spread them to new planets, and they are capable of automatically desertifying worlds).

[@zvorenergy]

Herbert is one of the few to explore "yes we are the only intelligent tool using life in the Universe"

[@markhill3858]

not really .. Foundation did it first, humans have a galaxy sized empire, no star unexplored (dune certainly DOES NOT have a galactic sized empire) .. not a little green man to be seen in Azimov land either

[@d3AdLyf3]

i like that not only are the worms the only aliens, but that they didnt originate on dune but were introduced to a tropical world that was changed over time thousands of years in the past and thousands of years after modern dune. so, twice lol, once before the humans found the planet and again after the sisterhood undid what leto ll did making dune more habitable for humans but unable to support worms to bring back spice production.

[@Hillykarma]

I think it shows the intelligence of Herbert to avoid the alien trap. Humans are more than interesting enough on our own

[@Notmyrealnamenumbers]

Sand worms are human?

[@badfoody]

In another galaxy, making MyTube video essays about why the book Hills doesn't have aliens

[@ktefccre]

😂

[@prophetzarquon]

Making a TheyTube spectracast about the lack of other viral strains, in the scripted RNA sequence entitled _Barchan_

[@Emanon...]

The Worms are really the only possible extraterrestrials, and that's not even for sure. Arrakis was lush and green before the Worms were transplanted to the planet...

[@mho...]

well, or they where a freak mutation, wouldnt be the first organism , that "terraformed" a world! see the "oxygen catastrope" , ice ages because of algae blooms & co in our own worlds history!

[@joetheperformer]

Like Villeneuve so beautifully puts: “Dune is a story of the triumph of the human mind.” Everything else serves that purpose. Aliens are outside of the point.

[@chazhoosier2478]

The pretty explicit answer in the novels is that there are none.

[@andrewmalcolm79]

Straight outta Crompton! A crazy mutha-guilder named Levas!

[@Highcaloriegrappling]

There's tons of alien life in Dune. Every single planet in the Landsraad has alien life on it. Salusan Bulls and Schlag are examples. We're talking about intelligent alien life and civilizations.

[@cumunist2120]

seems to me theres a mixture of alien life and invasive earth species like the vultures on dune but no intelligent life

[@tunnfisk]

Even in a sci-fi novel, thousands of years in the future, humans will see a blurry photo and go "OMG ALIENS!".

[@joaovitorcosta9975]

A truly human behavior

[@allamericanslacker2378]

This comment should have way more likes than it does.

[@hmmmmmmmmm3]

The STRONG implication is that the worms are *all that is left* of a previous sentient species.

[@prophetzarquon]

*all that is left of the pre-Guild colonial empires (aside from some ruins on Crompton) Remember that humans had already colonized the galaxy _before_ the spacing guilds took dominance in interstellar travel, & the book takes place over 10,000 years into the Guild calendar. Leto II came to believe the worms \ sand trout, were introduced to Arrakis \ Dune, mere _thousands_ of years before the contemporary settlement. That puts their introduction solidly in the period when humans had spread across the galaxy (albeit some into isolated groups). There's really nothing to indicate anything other than human intervention, introduced them...?

[@angelrivera2339]

@@prophetzarquon From what I remember from the God Emperor of Dune, the empire is a multi-galactic one. Also in the original Dune, when Paul threatened to kill all the worms, he said that humanity would be trapped in cluster of worlds. That left me with an impression that the planets that the Human planets are spread across the universe separated by vast distances. The truth is that 10 thousand years is not enough time to colonize the galaxy. It is very likely that when faster than light was invented, they would go to investigate far off sectors of space were earth like worlds were detected by telescopes and leave vast regions of space unexplored.

[@salivatingfarmhand5409]

Maybe aliens are the friends we made along the way

[@prophetzarquon]

*manufactured

[@jussiniemi9560]

Dune, wheres my car?

[@mho...]

in germany we have a saying: "da ist der wurm drin" (there is a worm inside), meaning its broken, gone ( like wood being infected by termites for example)

[@navypinkdesign]

Looks to me that humans BECAME the aliens

[@prophetzarquon]

I feel certain that, in first conception, Frank Herbert I intended a sort of Pern-style the-end-is-the-beginning scenario, a'la Sapphire & Steel, or BSG 2004 if you will. Once a hyperspace-navigating prescient worm-man is on the table, I feel like projecting plans for worm mods back in time, is not exactly a big step. I think probably the only reason he didn't write about that, is that it wasn't so relevant to the human story he was trying to tell.

[@thegrandbeef]

Maybe the sandworms were created from a terran origin creature by humanity or thinking machines a long time ago? I think it was in Sandworms of Dune, a Tleilaxu modified a sandworm into a waterworm, so the technology/knowledge to modify a creature like a sandworm is possible.

[@vanzilar]

In the books it is made clear the worms are aliens and the waterworms as well.

[@deeacosta2734]

Crunkron of the House of Lil Jon. Yeah!

[@CLCasual]

The sand trout didn't get there by themselves, but if an advanced alien civilisation existed, humanity may have missed it by millions of years

[@_martian101]

the sand trout only present in arrakis for few thousand years before humans get there so whoever put them there they're very close even maybe coexist with human already but no one notice yet

[@cristristam9054]

How do you know they didn't get there via natural panspermia ,like inside of a meteorite ?

[@spencerrichard4304]

@@_martian101from my understanding in Leto’s visions that he says the sand trout were brought there it seemed to me that it was mankind that did that, intentionally or not doesn’t matter I think. But it seemed like it was before the Butlerian jihad and before knowledge of spice. Maybe the sand trout didn’t fill evolve to sand worms that produce spice as we know it in their native habitat but when they were introduced to the water rich world Arrakis use to be they adapted to producing spice and their full form we are familiar with

[@MatthewTheWanderer]

@@cristristam9054 Because this is a fictional world where nothing like that has ever been hinted at.

[@mho...]

could also be a freak mutation!

[@lionelwhiskerknot]

I wonder if there is an evolution of the Sand Worm that can fold space which could account for Sand Trout arriving on other worlds and then decimating them.

[@misanthropicservitorofmars2116]

“You don’t wanna know” -Leto II probably

[@richardjanzing8149]

I grew up hanging out with Frank Herberts nephew Phil Herbert. We used to do a lot of Psychedelics together in the 1990s and he told me Frank left a huge room full of notes about the world building of the Dune universe. The context and setting that Dune takes place in has like 10 times the source material of Lord of the Rings. A ton of cannon source material has never been published and there are even maps and drawings of plants and animals.

[@antigonemcdermott4514]

The most heavily guarded secret in the universe: Humans exterminated advanced Alien civilizations and then covered it up.

[@mamasnightmare1]

The worms, but also nature on caladan.

[@foxdavion6865]

When they stated that the ruins are between 3 thousand and 5 thousand years old, keep in mind that at that point in time it is the 34th millennium and Humanity had at this point been a space faring race for 29 thousand years and had already gone through an apocalyptic collapse 15 thousand years before the current time period of the last 3 novels which themselves are set thousands of years after the events of the first three. The question went from who built them to why were they built and keep in mind these ruins were also built very early on in Leto II's reign, then were left abandoned shortly after.

[@jennabronson4704]

Reminder that only Frank Herbert’s writing is canon.

[@bbartky]

👏

[@jaredmiller822]

reminder that you don't have the right to make that claim

[@chriswakfer4473]

Wasn't the rest written by his son after Frank's passing?

[@joaovitorcosta9975]

@@jaredmiller822shut up Jared

[@uhhyeahokdude]

I'm kind of a Dune newbie, but after watching this video I have to ponder: maybe an alien race came to Arrakis and dropped off the worms knowing that they would transform the lush tropical planet into a barren desert full of spice, and they were only going to come back to check on it in a much later point in time (after the events of Dune) to harvest the spice? Humans just got to it first, realized its space-faring potential and also began using it as a drug in the process? I'm probably skipping over/missing a bunch of stuff.. like I said still new to all the lore and haven't yet read the books..

[@darthverminates9708]

It gets weirder when you consider the effects of spice on humans. Did the aliens tune the worms for humans and drop them off?

[@jongault7527]

The worms evolved from Sandtrout. The sandtrout were brought to Arrikis by human nomads before the rise of the machines. The original sandtrout planet is unknown...

[@Radbiker33357]

I suppose any interpretation is possible since it’s not answered. I think an extremely intelligent space faring alien species wouldn’t forget about their little pet project for thousands of years tbh. It’s probably more likely it was just some creature that might’ve fallen off a ship or a container whenever pre-Dune humans were exploring the galaxy or even placed there to come back to- but never got to because of the machines. And since Dune is a story about evolution, it’s also more likely the sandtrout just adapted the planet to itself rather than the other way around- like a parasite. I mean, people do these things today. They smuggle animals into different countries or biomes that they don’t belong to and sometimes they can totally destroy an ecosystem, like Carp, Rhinos, or Eels. Same probably happened in Dune.

[@tendoukiryu6989]

Dune is fascinating because it’s the trials of human feudalism in a space setting. I think the world of Dune is alien enough, with the Sandworms, mutants, guild navigators, and Villeneuve’s brilliant interpretation of Giedi Prime. I think it’s more grounded in reality we see these variants of humanity and fauna rather than a ton of different alien races for no reason.

[@day7053]

"Moneo take these coordinates and schematics. This will be my greatest prank ever!" - Leto 2nd probably.

[@ObserverDoel]

Well, if we ever find aliens, I hope they taste good.

[@Dhieen]

1:26 that was just The Line hahaha

[@SandreXen]

a funny thing : If sand worm is an invasive species, And produce very usefull compound for inteligent life, And is capable to terraform the planet it is on... And Spice is send everywhere in human territory as commodity 1) Is the production of spice an evolution strategy of sandworm move from planet to planet 2) how many human settlement has been contaminated by sandworm and are starting, slowly , to be terraformed (trade is one of the first source of invasive species introduction)

[@infinition]

I like to think that Frank Herbert's Pandora Sequence novels and Dune are connected. Both feature Axlotl tanks and chairdogs. The sandworms and the transcendant qualities of their spice byproduct share many similarities with the sentient kelp and the effects on humans. I like to believe that the sandtrout were deposited onto Arrakis by Ship.

[@phurian_6560]

I feel like there so many different human species in dune that it’d be hard to tell the aliens from the humans anyway

[@vasileioskontas1903]

In the Book House Attreides D’murr, a navigator, get's lost during a mission and discovers something he considers a very dangerous enemy. Unsure if it's alien lifeform or any robot that survived the Butlerian Jihad though

[@benegesserit9838]

just ignore all books written after Frank Herbert..

[@JS-mh9uu]

Considering how primitive and violent humans had become in the Dune universe it would be surprising if aliens didn't make a point of killing any human ship they laid eyes on. The machine jihad alone would have been reason enough to avoid humans pretty much forever.

[@prophetzarquon]

_"had become"_ ?!?

[@Spacecoke]

Let's not forget the muad'dib mouse :p

[@shadowhenge7118]

Frank didnt get to them but it feels like he was building up to it with Kralizek.

[@geektarded]

Straight outta Crompton! 😎

[@Myne1001]

If All Tomorrows has taught us one thing, meeting aliens isn't always a good thing

[@GlennElliottKeller]

They need to add the Ordos in to the movies more, even though they technically weren’t canon.

[@tengkualiff]

Makes me think about the book All Tomorrows

[@svenofthejungle]

What an outstanding book by an outstanding artist! CM Kosemen took his premise (humans disperse and evolve separately) and ran with it. He also handles actual aliens well in his treatment of Snaiad. I found his work around 2008, and my mind is still blown.

[@ByronC900]

Given enough time, humans spread across several planets would eventually mutate and bio-diversify. Humans look pretty different just living on different continents here on Earth. Imagine how different they could look on different planets, and with 10,000+ years of time.

[@viperatech]

The worms were "trout" brought to the planet by Humanity or "someone else". Arrakis was not always a barren scorching rock. The trout evolved, multiplied, messed up the climate and turned into the sandworms.

[@elitealice]

I Mean the worms are aliens. So you mean intelligent life

[@chrishensley5384]

Xenomorphs in Dune would be awesome.

[@noelsolo61]

To paraphrase Enrico Fermi, "where is everybody" in Dune. Excluding the most important "alien" of course. With so many prognosticators in Dune, couldn't they have seen aliens in the future. With the Universe being so vast, not including a other Universes, what are the chances and probability of NOT having a zoo full of aliens, intelligent and non-intelligent?

[@JeanMauriceSdH]

Those guild navigators def look like some for all mankind creatures

[@thanatosor]

Wait for Dune universe expansion and somewhere we have StarWars x Dune 😂

[@2bach-w2h]

Maybe the real aliens were the friends we made along way

[@Selfamused]

"Whether the sandworms were brought to Arrakis by accident or design remains a mystery, but one thing is for sure...the species is there to stay..." Yeah till the Honored Matres destroyed Arrakis with their planet-destroying Obliterators in the Heretics of Dune book.

[@ezequielmorales4221]

"We haven't seen any form of intelligent alien life" Dude, the giant worms are intelligent life.

[@prophetzarquon]

Canonically, the giant worms were hypothesized as introduced to the planet _after_ the beginning of the Guild calendar, which itself begins loooong _after_ humans first colonized the galaxy. The most evidence-backed interpretation is that they were introduced by a preceding (effectively lost / erased) human society.

[@rockzen8050]

WE OUT HERE IN THE CITY OF CROMTOM ! lol

[@lolmao500]

Whats crazy is that no one ever tried to send the worms to other planets to make other planets full of spice.... surely it would be possible.

[@martinharris5017]

It was referenced in the book quite extensively. The Imperium had attempted to relocate worms to create a secondary source of Spice and thus break the monopoly. Every attempt failed. There was something unique about Arrakis that allowed the worms to thrive there but it always remained a mystery.

[@adeus_sinister]

I think they did try that, but the worms kept dying.

[@odenat3701]

Then the sisterhood transferred the proto-worms to their capital planet in the fourth book and they survived. They understand that the mistake imperium did was to transfer the worms and artificially create the environment to make them survive. The proto-worms on the other hand can create their own environment and turn to worms.

[@the_curtains]

The bene tlielax and the navigators are closest thing to aliens you get in dune…

[@HeroesNights]

I also thought that the baron could float and was that big because they pumped him full of hydrogen or something. I was disappointed to find out he just eats a lot

[@joaovitorcosta9975]

@@HeroesNightsbro you are just dumb

[@phillipj1135]

Five highliners is over kill for what they do, but maybe they just wanted the combined mind abilities of five guild navigators.

[@gandalf6830]

The Honored Matres from the last Dune Book came from uncharted space and claimed to be running from a thretening entity. I am surprised it wasn't mentioned.

[@HermansyahSuwarno]

I think that the giant worms are not from earth

[@mahatmarandy5977]

Yeah, but they’re not intelligent

[@bigguy7353]

Nothing suggests they are.

[@omarbaba9892]

Wait, an single Heighliner has enough storage space to hold an entire House’s worth of ships And they brought 5 just for scientists? Damn how many people did they bring

[@darnelobrien]

There are aliens on all the other planets, like the creatures on rossak, and the elecrans on caladan

[@KCDavis-b1s]

Aliens comin straight outta Crompton, yo

[@cjh.1920]

Withdrawals from spice addiction are *always* fatal.

[@raulgalets]

So there is still a First Known Common Uncestor for all life in the Universe

[@Ki_Adi_Mundi]

Nope, not even the worms.

[@davidponseigo8811]

The world of Dune is absolutely ridiculous !

[@supplechap5429]

This whole time I thought the harkonens were aliens 😅

[@cald1421]

I think Crompton just proves some humans got away that far

[@Immortal_BP]

well there's trillions of galaxies in the universe and from what i have researched about Dune is they at most have traveled to a handful of galaxies. but thats not as important as how much of any one galaxy they have investigated. even the most traveled galaxy it seems they have explored very very little of.

[@piotrd.4850]

Same problem as in BSG reimagined: overall that's VALID and terrific creative choice. But insterstellar civilisation, established for thousands of years, not pondering fact of being seemingly alone in unvierse with Earth-like planets and not having it reflected in outlook, philosophy etc. is somewhat strange.

[@CrniWuk]

Dune Universe spans over so much time they made their own aliens ...

[@incasolja1]

Newsflash: earth has 3 million species of aliens including humans so yes arakis and dune are full of aliens in every scene least of which are the sandworms

[@aron6630]

H.R. Giger did help the design of both

[@wolvo5441]

Short answer, we ourselves are the aliens, as each group becomes isolated and begins to take different evolutionary paths

[@Snappybiscuits]

The humans are the aliens in this franchise.

[@nikkotan2840]

The Dune Universe is not really a Universe but rather a single galaxy that's our Milky Way Galaxy Mankind used to own a very small territory within the Orion Arm, until the scattering that brought mankind to explore 25% our our galaxy and is still expanding. Alien are real there just very far and the galaxy is just very wide for mankind to discover their existence in the first place. Remember Arrakis used to be a Tropical Planet with green lands and huge blue waters until the Worms where artificially brought onto that planet before Humans even discovered Arrakis.

[@Deltaii1]

In the god emperor book, I am sure they mentioned multi galactic empire. Even before leto, it must of been. Later on they even say that humans go so far away in the universe that it can no longer be observed unless you go to them. And the universe is infinitely big. They can never reach it's end.

[@TechBearSeattle]

As I recall, there was controversy over whether the Honored Matres were actually human, or had brought back alien technology.

[@cesarespinozaspain]

They were Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserit refugees who left in The Scattering eventually discovered what happened to the women of the Tleilaxu "Axolotl tanks" and got REALLY pissed with them, They also discovered "The ones with many faces" the Lost Tleilaxu Who kicked their buts back into known space.

[@realityisntachoice1483]

I cant imagine how much bigger the book would be by adding aliens.. Bring the machines back instead 😂🎉

[@mikebelcher7244]

Given the number of personnel you could transport a Highliner with and the amount of resources you could ship in it's hold...wtf is the point of sending 5 highliners? That many people would be constantly getting in each other's way or tripping over each other.

[@keithtorgersen9664]

I am not sure why other galaxies were not considered in this matter. The humanoids in the dune universe might not be able to travel outside the galaxy but there is nothing to say that an outside civilization could not travel to the Milky Way.

[@craigharris41]

The sandworms are the Aliens

[@baophan3515]

May be the author is saying there aren't any aliens and humans are the beginning?

[@spencers4121]

Herbert left out aliens, and advanced AI. Because he wanted to tell a story about people.

[@thegoodolddays9193]

​@@spencers4121 Advanced AI is mentioned though, we know humans understand this technology. They just stopped using it after the butlerian jihad.

[@I_am_Raziel]

You can say the same about "Foundation".

[@bbartky]

I really enjoyed watching this video but I’ve never understood why so many fans are so hung up about that there are no intelligent aliens in the _Dune_ universe. 🤷‍♂️ A human-only universe is very common and old trope in science fiction. The most famous science fiction series ever, Asimov’s _Foundation_ trilogy, has a human-only Milky Way galaxy. (Yes, I know about the later books he wrote to explain that but those books were written decades later as an afterthought to merge his formerly separate robot and galactic empire universes.) And as several others have mentioned, in Ron D. Moore’s _Battlestar Galactica_ reboot universe it’s only humans and Cylons, who were created by humans. In both _Dune_ and _BSG_ a humans-only universe works great dramatically. No need to introduce aliens at all. *EDIT* Forgot two words.

[@GrrrTurtle]

The worms are literally aliens.

[@pixpusha]

5:35 What did you say the sandworms did to Arakis?

[@AlfredoPuente8]

Sci Fi aliens end up as humans with skin conditions.