Are There Aliens in Dune?

[@mattwilson8298]

It's a common scifi trope to have an ancient civilization, extant or extinct, that the younger races learn from or suffer because of. In the Dune saga, it feels like WE are the ancients. As if life in the universe will grow from us and our actions. A nice departure.

[@DailyDoseofShortsVideos]

Thought the same were the first and we will be known as the fore runners from halo or the leviathans from Mass effect

[@kylerobison1425]

They had already survived, terminator type extinction level event, and were anti-machine at the point of the Dune series. There’s mentioned another enemy far away that’s also out of control. Machines of some type.

[@AltFromTheLimbo]

@@kylerobison1425 I believe in Frank' Dune it was due to "people behind that technology" rather than technology itself

[@Slaveternal]

Theoretically there probably are aliens in the Dune universe but the fact of the matter is space is big, really big, and we just aren’t likely to encounter another advanced life form because they’re in a galaxy 10 billion light years away. Needle in the hay

[@zzzzz45zzzzz79]

Well said

[@MetalSlugzMaster]

The Dune series needed no intelligent alien life. It was playing around with the idea that given enough time and isolation on various disparate worlds, WE would eventually develop into alien life.

[@orbismworldbuilding8428]

Agreed, and a beautiful concept that is

[@casbot71]

That's a concept developed somewhat in the *Traveller* RPG Universe, with some differences. First _there are other Alien species,_ but only a few, and only one that's a possibile threat (and they are hive like starfish that prefer to manipulate and alter, not fight), the rest are minor races. The other big big difference (and what makes this relevant) is that Humanity has been out amongst the stars for ages, having been seeded across the Galaxy by a long lost progenitor species… And during this time Humans have *evolved into a multitude of different sub races,* that are more different from each other than all the breeds of dogs that exist. "Human" civilization had settled into a classic stagnant Imperium, with nobility ect - similar to the Foundation series Galactic Empire before the fall. And then Earthlings appeared and blew everything apart because we had innovation and progress instead of relying on ancient tech. The game/universe is set thousands of years after this (various times, First Empire, Sol Empire ((after Earth overthrew the Empire and replaced it with a new Empire)), the collapse, Second Empire). It would be a interesting background for Quinn to examine, the only issue is it's not a linear story but a *lot* of game supplements and world books, along with a series of novels set in the Universe. But like Dune and the Foundation series, it's a classic that is _the inspiration_ for many that followed afterwards.

[@seraphina985]

Biologically of course they would remain hominids but only in the sense that lifeforms can never outgrow their ancestral phyla but rather diversify and divide into nested subgroups of their ancestral phyla. That is to say that modern humans are still apes and all their descendants will still be both apes and hominids too. Granted hominids are likely to complicate the process of tracing back lineages through genetic comparison as at least some subgroups and I would argue probably most will likely apply the science of genetics to manipulate their own genome to some degree. Different groups would likely have different ethical thresholds for what is "ethically justifiable manipulation" ranging from begrudgingly tolerating targeted interventions to cure genetic disease towards the low end through bioforming to expand the range of earth-likeness of environments that are habitable right up to wholesale redesign to make some idealized human 2.0 at the other extreme. There may even be some subgroups utterly opposed to any manipulation whatsoever even to cure diseases but I suspect those will be extremely rare maybe some colonies founded on extremely fundamentalist religious ideologies for example. We do have extremely fundamentalist religious sects that reject at least some aspects of modern medicine even where this is a guaranteed life of suffering ending in a death sentence but this is rather uncommon even among extremists.

[@orbismworldbuilding8428]

@@seraphina985 Until they expand into new taxonomic territory like mammals did when they evolved out from reptiles. Otherwise yeah pretty much so

[@Gunth0r]

It's already the case.

[@LordEverlost]

I like that even with all the power to travel the stars, humans so desperately want to find proof that we aren't alone. It's beautiful and sad.

[@samuelevander9823]

In a way, it makes human life even more precious and valuable. We are all that there is & have infinite potential to become something interesting or best versions of ourselves or even spread to the stars to create mighty civilizations and enrich the stars with humanity, for humans' sake, if nothing else. To form new cultures and develop into new ethnicities and species even. So long as people have the wisdom to appreciate what's already there and nurture it. Embrace it, the miracle of intelligent life. Human life!

[@TheGoodLuc]

Ha! And imagine, then they attracted Tyranids...

[@RockandStoneVForKarl]

@@samuelevander9823 Yeah except the chances of us being alone are so abysmally small, most people who wonder why we havent seen or heard from aliens simply have no real concept on how massive the universe really is, or hell even how massive the galaxy is.

[@miketrujillo3677]

I would volunteer for whatever got me to meet an alien, as long as i wasnt bait. But imagine the best case scenario

[@miketrujillo3677]

​@@RockandStoneVForKarlwe should put out a big strobe light

[@markduffy268]

I assumed by only allowing atomics to be used against 'none humans' that they were referring to thinking machines.

[@Matthew8Schero]

@The Tired Horizon There’s an audio interview on KZbin where Frank Herbert says that ambiguity was one of his most powerful tools. The most captivating stories are the ones we tell ourselves. I’d say definitely intentionally left out.

[@masterpython]

Or stuff like Paul did. Or give people a few minute to evacuate before nuking stuff like the Emperor did in one of the House books.

[@deeacosta2734]

Do they have a pleasure mode?

[@phantomhck]

@@Matthew8Schero i think it echoes nicely the theme of lost history post butlerian. The later works always seemed to me like reading an interpreted history book that is canon but pieced together in glimpses.

[@jdemuro1]

@@Matthew8Schero that sounds interesting got a link?

[@Arizona-ex5yt]

This is one of my favorite aspects of the series. 10,000s of years in the future and we are still our biggest challenge. We mutated/evolved ourselves, created the AIs which nearly destroyed us, and clash with each other over a highly addictive commodity.

[@christianealshut1123]

I love that statement, actually - and it always made me think that the "Enemy" that humankind would encounter wasn't the machines the way Brian Herbert simplistically ended it, but humans themselves - other humans perhaps. But in reality they enmcountered themselves becvause during the Scattering they came into contact with the limits inside themselves that held them back, and so in a way pushed them to grow beyond those limits - which is why they were to go into the Scattering in the first place, to diverify through the diverse conditions that they encountered.

[@mschell8022]

Wow you really understand the books. Thats the central message of the books imo.

[@michaellewis9867]

Humans just never got it. The few that are enlightened and are in another type of dimensional universe. Others are still pursuing the delusional desires of a crazed mind? 🤪

[@csxstalker1826]

I am no expert on the Dune books as it has been many years since i read them but i do recall reading that Herbert meant for the Spice to be an allegory for oil in our world. Don't know if that is true of course.

[@argonwheatbelly637]

20,000 years.

[@hailmammonmoments7568]

The idea that the worms evolved the spice to make us symbiotic/dependent is…eerily similar to how cat gut bacteria will make mice less afraid of cats.

[@rindhirad]

Toxoplasma

[@jacob2790]

Correct me if I am wrong but isnt it pointless for the mice to be "less afraid of cats" if they have to be eaten in the first place to be subjected to the cats gut biome lol

[@jorgepeterbarton]

@@jacob2790 i mean, yeh, the only way to get a disease is to be eaten by the previous host! (Wtf are you talking about?)

[@cormacdonnelly365]

@@jacob2790 They're subjected to the bacteria from faeces I believe, which then causes the behavioural changes. Same as humans

[@axiomshift4666]

@@jacob2790 it’s been 4 months but the mice eat cat poo.

[@TrabberShir]

The fact that Leto knew about the introduction of the sandworns to Arrakis tells us that humans did it. He could see the future possibilities, but the past he saw through genetic memory. So the "someone" who brought sand trout to Arrakis was human and an ancestor of Paul. This opens the strong possibility that the sand worms themselves were not truly alien, but a creation of humanity (or the thinking machines) before the butlarian jihad.

[@RWZiggy]

It could also be Leto just saw someone in the future learning the whole lifecycle of the worm and how it encapsulates the water of a world with sand trout.

[@allhopeabandon7831]

What do sandworms eat? The amount of food that a 300M creature would require to sustain life would be somewhere in the equivalency of several blue whales a day. I've oft wondered this...the odd Freman or Harkonan and the occasional spice harvester (poor source of nutrients btw) just would not suffice.

[@RWZiggy]

@@allhopeabandon7831 They are at least partly silicon not carbon based life. minerals in the sand are what they eat, besides freeing oxygen from the silicon dioxide with their red hot blast furnace like interiors. That's where the oxygen in atmosphere of dune comes from since little biosphere.

[@christopherpowers2099]

@@allhopeabandon7831 considering that the sand trout likely still have a reservoir of water deep in the planet to facilitate their life-cycle, could it not be “possible” that sand/water microorganisms could be what the worms eat a-la baleen whale? Like they’re one giant digestive track already- making up for low nutrient density by filtering large volumes of sand quickly.

[@bm4114]

The book says they feed on sand plankton, whatever that is. They specifically prefer not to eat humans because there’s too much water in humans and water is an irritant to them. They attack humans and ships because they are territorial, not hungry.

[@Emrod82]

In the Dune Universe, Humanity have no sentient aliens to be bother with. In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Humanity are working very hard to have no sentient aliens to be bother with.

[@jakespacepiratee3740]

and killing off the ones who would not bother them anyways.

[@Second247]

@@jakespacepiratee3740 Yes. Purge them now or let them be problem in future? I say yes. Just look at Tau, those blueberries should have stomped right away when first of them learned to pick a rock. 'Noooo, they posses no threat' they said. Idiots!

[@andrewcool4587]

Bothered *

[@NinjaSushi2]

Lolololololol

[@randomblacktemplar738]

@@jakespacepiratee3740 Except for watcher in the dark and jokaero

[@WhyDidntIInventYT]

I've delved into Dune lore, and it seems that the Imperium is largely confined to the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and the Scattering led to the colonization of other galaxies. That would explain why we don't meet non-human intelligent life -- maybe it's not in our cosmic neighborhood, and we have no idea what all they encountered in the Scattering. There is alien life in the books though, just not sentient aliens. I'm thinking of course of sandworms/sandtrout/sandplankton.

[@GeorgeEndress]

If I remember correctly, I believe Leto saw through genetic memory that one of Paul's ancestors brought sand trout to Arrakis on the first place. So those might not even be alien to begin with

[@patreekotime4578]

@@GeorgeEndress No, he just logically deduced that they arnt from Arrakis. We dont know who brought them or where they come from. An alien species may have intentionally left them there.

[@pofruin]

@@patreekotime4578 Aye. Though I personally choose to think that Worms themselves ARE the aliens. They have terraforming capability all in their own biological cycle. Make them sentient but I believe they are too advanced to be purely accidental. What does, I think, is Spice itself. They create it and, one can argue, are always under it's effect or at least somewhat similar. And about their sentience... One of the grand themes of Dune series was limitations and shortcomings of human mind itself. So how ironic it would be if something even more advanced and Alien was always there but limitation of human mind just prevented us from communicating.

[@Chiavica]

Wait I thought the sandworms were biologically created and put there to make the sand planets livable because they create air and atmosphere (no trees = no air)

[@TheRezro]

@@Chiavica They create spice and spice is needed for space travel. At least according to the tech known at the time. Though having worms, who did bring worms there, did have the spice. So who know? Trees come from fact that Arrakis has hidden wast quantities of water underground. And in fact there was extraction program there, until they find out that it may affect production of spice and caned it. Atmosphere thing was from Total Recall.

[@LackOfHarmony]

Not involving alien life meant that the entire focus was on humanity. It also shows that one of humanity’s biggest enemies doesn’t come from outside, but within. We are our own worst enemy.

[@arthurballs2754]

Malaria chuckles at you childish naivety

[@jasonshirrillmusic]

That is for sure

[@atlanteum]

LJ - "We are our own worst enemy" Incoming Asteroid - "Hold my ELE - "

[@zaniwoob]

You are clearly an american justifying your servitude to your military-industrial complex.

[@atlanteum]

@@zaniwoob And you are clearly French.

[@m0osefist]

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” ― Arthur C. Clarke

[@Nicitel94]

But if we are alone, ... come closer * whispers * it's free real estate! (ツ)

[@shawnli9775]

@@Nicitel94 not unless we blow up our own house.

[@cesarsain3731]

How is it terrifying? Fear haha not me

[@emilflognoid1532]

Virus and parasite prevent the cohabitation of any aliens even if we found some

[@adamplentl5588]

Fear is the mind killer.

[@anthonyburke5656]

Back in the mid 1980s, I was stuck in Singapore, not interested in the fleshpots and only able to eat so much in a day, with not having time to sightsee on weekdays, I found a Second Hand Bookshop that specialised in Science Fiction. I’d read Robert Heinlein previously, but having access to his work on a buy/read/exchange basis allowed me to consume and become a life time fan. This, naturally, led me to Frank Herbert and I discovered a whole new style of writing and subjects, to my joy.

[@user-jk5um1om8l]

Those buy/read/exchange bookstores were great. I think they still exist today, in places like Bras Basah Complex.

[@gresvig2507]

I think the lack of aliens specifically but little hints of past intelligence and non-intellegent life was very intentional by Herbert. It emphasizes the fragility of intellect because it can inherently destroy itself. It emphasizes the danger to humanity and the importance of the Golden Path. Also leaves open the great mystery of the Scattering and what they ran into.

[@firagabird]

Imagine if prescience is an inevitable evolution of any advanced civilization, and that the great enemy tracked and obliterated each one. Since prescience works as a prediction based on past events, maybe this is how Paul & Leto II deduced the great enemy's existence...

[@travisfoster1071]

Another Sagan believer.

[@ktx49]

@@firagabird I've often wondered if time travel/manipulation could be an answer to the Fermi paradox. Or being in a simulation that is ended once you reach certain criteria. Or the universe's scale/size is being vastly over estimated due to a strange topography.

[@richardkenan2891]

Intelligence is certainly fragile as you say. An intelligent species can develop past most threats, but the threat it poses to itself only grows greater as the species develops.

[@torfinnzempel6123]

@@ktx49 one solution for the fermi paradox I encountered is migration to more sutable universes in the multiverse. As in, when a species becomes advanced enough, travel to other universes becomes possible. And younger universes are vastly superior to exploitstion by advanced civilisations then an older and continually aging one that we are already in. So under this hypothesis, the reason we don't see advanced civilisations is because they all leave for greener pastures, and that we too, might do so some day in the future. Enough we don't Make ourselves extinct first that is.

[@The_Burning_Sensation]

The lack of alien life is one of the things I've always loved about the Dune series. Apart from adding a sense of loneliness, it makes the human cultures feel more distinct from one another and makes their collective fate feel more important.

[@zosasho8036]

@@Reiman33 bro its just a worm

[@nicholascooper1284]

@@Reiman33 alien life of human-like intelligence

[@RedLancerMoto]

@@Reiman33 True. The molecules on those planets are alien too.

[@LisaAnn777]

That's the only thing that really bothers me, it shows that the writer had no understanding how how vast the universe is, and since ftl travel exists distance isn't the problem. Humans in dune control tens of thousands of habitable planets yet not one EVER developed even simple non intelligent life? Even sand worms are hinted at being human made. It's so incredibly unlikely that it's hard to suspend believe that much. And we're talking about a world that has borderline magical technology. It's one of dunes biggest flaws.

[@irabarlor8755]

@@LisaAnn777 I'm curious how you find it difficult to suspend your disbelief, considering humans have never made contact with alien life? Like, your premise is based in the authors so-called lack of knowledge concerning the universe, as if you have some superior understanding of the vastness and (potential, not proven) biodiversity of the void. If you think that a lack of intelligent species outside of human species is ignorant, why? We all are aware of how terrifyingly massive space is, at this time. There is still absolutely no way to determine the existence of extraterrestrial beings.

[@monkeybusiness673]

I have never pondered that before, but I agree that it IS a terrifying "sidenote" that is cool to think about. The vaguery of it all is compelling. How COULD the Sandtrout just "end up" on Arrakis? Was it an accident? Was it a deliberate action by Humans long gone who discovered the Spice and its benefits long before the events of the Saga? Or where Aliens responsible? It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but it is an interesting itch to scratch. Thanks for this video, Quinn. Great stuff, as always!

[@rogerfurlong1535]

One of the many things I love about the Dune series was the lack of sentient aliens, if only to set it apart from the majority of popular SCIFI.

[@barbiquearea]

Something which it had in common with my favorite scifi franchise, Battlestar Galactica, which also involved mankind fighting a war against thinking machines.

[@rogerfurlong1535]

@@barbiquearea I never really gave the remake a fair shake, because I always kind of hated the original as a kid hahaha. I've literally never met a person who watched the remake who didn't like it so I will definately give it a watch in the future. I mean after finding out Ronald D Moore worked on DS9 that's enough for me to pique my interest.

[@vine01]

yes, Herbert (Frank..) and Asimov. Transhumanism. No aliens.

[@chemistryset1]

much like Red Dwarf! ;-)

[@fnordiumendures138]

Yeah, Frank Herbert had another universe, that of the Dosadi Experiment, filled with aliens. When he wanted to do something with alien species, he did it there.

[@KingOfMadCows]

The universe is unimaginably huge and unimaginably old. The Dune series take place over tens of thousands of years, which may seem like a long time to us but it's barely a blip compared to the age of the universe. It's possible that there were intelligent aliens a billion years before Dune or there will be intelligent aliens a billion years after Dune. Humans are also limited to the Milky Way galaxy. There are countless billions of other galaxies out there so even if there were no intelligent aliens in the Milky Way, there could be aliens in other galaxies.

[@aperson22222]

Humans are a multi-galactic civilization in _Dune._ It’s vague; maybe that means there’s one colony in one other galaxy, maybe it means a huge number of galaxies are fully populated. But it’s not just the Milky Way. What we know of space folding tech suggests that crossing intergalactic distances would pose no great difficulty to the Guild.

[@patreekotime4578]

@@aperson22222 That doesnt change anything about the scale of time. Stars may have existed with life that have already gone supernova. Stars that havnt even been born yet may birth hundreds of intelligent species.

[@aperson22222]

@@patreekotime4578 In the real universe, certainly. In the fictional Duniverse, what point speculating? If there was something that came and went a billion years before the story started and not a single character or plot element is in the slightest way affected by its most distant ripple, then it's not part of the story.

[@angelrivera2339]

@@aperson22222 The issue of galactic exploration for even the Guild is the sheer size of the universe, not the distance. The numbers of stars in our galaxy alone is in the hundreds of billions. with billions of other galaxy, the number of planets available could only be expressed in an equation. what I think iwould happen is that after a time since humans left Earth, exploration started concentrating on the systems that could be inhabited by humans. there could be hundreds of civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy and the Guild never know because bothered to explore those regions.

[@aperson22222]

@@angelrivera2339 An technologically advanced civilization (let’s crib from the Drake Equation and define that as one that’s developed the radio telescope, since this is the simplest invention we know of that could be used for interplanetary communication) contemporary with the human civilization of Dune is unlikely to have escaped everyone’s notice altogether. A much more primitive civilization that evolved on some planet that humans can’t inhabit, breathes its toxic atmosphere, and has never left it-that’s possible, sure, but again, what of it? No such civilization intrudes upon the story in the slightest or most indirect way possible, so we have no reason to assume it exists. It’s an interesting hypothesis for the real world, much less so for a fictional universe.

[@spaceman9599]

The divergent evolution of humans, especially with spice involved, makes some of these future versions of our own species utterly alien enough.

[@_martian101]

no matter how vast the physical differences they're still humans, their DNA cannot far from 95% match to normal human, alien in the other hand would have DNA vastly different, less than 5% to none of corelation to human DNA

[@nathanhearn356]

The duration of time from our present to the end of the original Dune series is about 40,000 years - a long time to be sure but a blink of an eye on a cosmic scale. "The know universe" isn't really defined but given the vastness (infinity?) of space, maybe they simply didn't go far enough. Leto's empire at its largest might simply have been too small and humanity's existence too short to find any alien life and the universe could STILL be teeming with alien civilizations, both far in the past and in the 'present.' Further, its not like humanity in Dune - as advanced as they are - is really looking all that hard for aliens or is even up to the challenge. They've intentionally stunted their technological growth through regulation and religion and spend a lot of time at war. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[@theeffete3396]

40,000 years? Not quite. There were "one hundred and ten centuries" of space travel prior to the Butlerian Jihad, then almost 10,200 years to beginning of DUNE. Leto's reign lasted for approximated 3600 years, and Heretics takes place 1200 years after his death. From about 1960 to the end of Chapterhouse, roughly 27,000 years pass.

[@KhoaLe-uc2ny]

@Rosario Manorang Manik a civilization who died because their homeworld exploded vs the imperium who's homeworld was lost and still expanded as usual. Idk chief.

[@sridevisudhahar309]

goddamn, i thought the Duniverse was about 34,000 years, but compared to the billions of years that is the universe, 34K is essentially nothing. + and we live for about 70 - 90yrs, imagine how small we are

[@philipfahy9658]

@@sridevisudhahar309 Well in Dune those who have access to spice are going to be living closer to 300 years. That being said, still essentially nothing on a cosmic time scale.

[@shanestevens5352]

Reminds me of how Assyrian Emperors would name themselves “King of the World” because in their eyes they ruled over most of the known world and any who didn’t submit or weren’t vassals were considered “in rebellion”

[@Shadamachaeon]

According to Asimov's, " Foundations Edge", the reason why there is no Aliens in his own Expanded Universe series of books is because the Robots eventually became so powerful that they actually became godlike, and so in order to completely follow the 1st law and Zeroth law of Robotics to it's ultimate conclusion, retroactively placed all of humanity into an iteration of the Milky Way Galaxy that did not have any competing native extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations.

[@totherarf]

Acording to Asimov at least one robot Was a god! ..... Multivac!

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

I thought it ended such that Galaxia had to be formed in order that the human race be incapable of being turned on itself.

[@nealjroberts4050]

That was one possibility. One of the others was that during the robot "civil war" and human expansion, tiller robots were sent out that xenocided planets to ready them for human inhabitation. (Minor typo edits)

[@nealjroberts4050]

@ aliens were mentioned in the sequels and, I think, in one of the prequels. Since the OP referred to one of the sequels I'm not sure ignoring them and only focusing only on the original trilogy rather than the full series proves aliens weren't mentioned.

[@Shadamachaeon]

@@Ensign_Cthulhu yes, that is true, but that was in the version of the Galaxy that the the Eternals (The Godlike evolved Robots ) "created" , that was hinted at in "Foundations Edge " ( Asimov first planted the seed of this human-centered Galaxy concept at the end of his other novel " The End of Eternity ", which he wrote after "Second Foundation ).

[@blablablaa14]

I don't think you get how amazing this youtube channel is. Like you have no idea how fun it is to listen to you explain books i've never read

[@leestark4370]

During our water outages in Texas, I was able to tell my girlfriend, "water is life."

[@kamuelalee]

"Get his water" was Fremen speak for killing someone. Hope all is well with you in Texas, btw.

[@NinjaSushi2]

Hahaha fack it was cold!!

[@miketaylor3559]

Water isn't life. phosphorus is life without it it's just water. With the amount of it in the solar system compared with water life is lucky to be around.

[@kamuelalee]

@@miketaylor3559 Oxygen is kind of important too.

[@miketaylor3559]

@@kamuelalee depends which type of life :)

[@homelessjesse9453]

Yeah, I've always appreciated how innovative Frank Herbert was with Dune. I've always looked at it as being something of the polar opposite of a Star Wars or Star Trek in the sense that it lacks any sentient alien creatures like the Romulans or Jawas as an example.

[@sephiroaone-of-nine101]

if you just like the human aspect sure but aliens are cooler to me

[@Gogglesofkrome]

@@sephiroaone-of-nine101 The aliens of star trek are silly and goofy, in that they all look like pretend-humans. The humans of Dune are more alien from one another than the aliens are to humans in Star Trek. Add in the naive ideals and you have a space fantasy setting that is basically just as overused, generic and milquetoast as tolkien's work has become in regards for classical medieval fantasy.

[@sectorgovernor]

@@Gogglesofkrome Then Star Wars is in the middle of them. There are more humanoid (and animal-inspired) aliens, but there are pretty different aliens too(like Kaminoans, Toydarians, Dugs, Gungans etc)

[@NeroVuk]

@@Gogglesofkrome have you even watched star trek? lol

[@skeligun]

I’m by no means defending Star Trek here, the diversity was definitely lacking a bit. However, iirc a tng episode directly addresses this when Picard comes across an ancient forerunning “human” avatar from a civilization who basically planet seeded ala panspermia. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the episode so the specifics escape me at the moment, but it was their way sort of explaining the divergent evolution of species across the galaxy.

[@mikekuhlman8009]

The Lovecraftian-ness of the sandworms is the most interesting part of the saga to me - even more so than the philosophical exploration of the "Golden Path", and certainly more than the political dramas. The conditions of WHY their symbiotic relationship with intelligent life was necessary would be fascinating. It feels like a big metaphor for the mind and the body.

[@breadtubediet1524]

I'm curious about the transition from pre-worm to post-worm human life. How did humanity travel through space without the spice melange? Navigating folded space requires it in the time of Arrakis. Without the ability to travel through foldspace safely, how far could humanity have traveled to locate or create the worm? Or were Ixian foldspace navigation machines invented prior to the Butlerian Jihad and then only re-invented after Leto II? Did the Frenmen or proto-Frenmen live among the worm on previous planets?

[@TheRezro]

@@breadtubediet1524 My personal theory is that they still have the Jedi. Star Wars was ripping other sources so hard. That Xim the Despot Era, could be basically the Dune (they even have events paralel to 40k).

[@jayb8934]

Realistically, the universe is so vast that there's almost certainly other intelligent life out there, but it's also so vast that it's also likely that we will never cross paths. In any case, I like the fact that the Dune series explores the idea of a purely human universe and explores human diversity and evolution.

[@robertlipka9541]

Your math is wrong. It is a continuously repeated mistake that because the universe is so vast (true), there must be alien life... but this is a nonsensical argument because we do not know what the probabilities are of life starting, evolving to a civilization and surviving. If the probability of a civilization is extremely small, it is entirely possible that we are the only civilization in the entire Universe (not just the Milky Way). This is simple to understand through math... say what do you get when you multiply say million trillion of POTENTIALLY habitable planets by probability of civilization evolving that is one in a trillion trillion? You get something close to zero... and our species is a statistical anomaly.

[@jayb8934]

@@robertlipka9541 Your "math" isn't any better or worse than mine; they're both speculative. All we know is that intelligent life CAN occur in the universe because we know that it has at least once. You're right, we don't know if it's a 1 in a million occurrence or 1 in a trillion trillion, but I suspect that it's closer to the former by at least a few orders of magnitude.

[@robertlipka9541]

@@jayb8934 "... but I suspect that it's closer to the former by at least a few orders of magnitude" there is NO evidence for this statement. We do not know... and just have to realize that it its entirely possible that we maybe the only intelligence around or even the only intelligence in the Universe. The argument that because the Universe is so big there must be other civilizations around is just wrong. Besides, if we spread in the Galaxy, within a few hundred million years (just one Galactic Year, one orbit around the centre) us and the animals we bring with us will evolve so much that they will be aliens.

[@jayb8934]

@@robertlipka9541 I no there's no evidence. I'm just saying it's what I believe. There's no evidence against it either.

[@milferdjones2573]

@@robertlipka9541 Yet there could easy be a trillion trillion trillion habitable planets when you consider the Universe outside what we can observe. And it becoming more and more clear chance of life good. Most of the places it would evolve though not good for a space going civilization. But chances of race capable of rebuilding if needed civilization surviving is quite high. Nuclear weapons killing off humans based on a pants on fire level of bad math requiring the Nuclear Winter concept that still stretched things hard and would not wipe out humans anyway. Global warming not going to do it again massive exaggerations by advocates who somehow don't think death of billions and massive economic damage is not a good enough reason to avoid global warming or Nuclear War. A race like humans is just to adaptable to wipe out. Still it a low chance but high enough sites like PBS Space Time have changed from are we alone to is civilizations to rare to be close enough to us to ever find out. And thus for practical reasons we might never have an answer to are we alone even if it clear there just to many stars out there for there not to be many civilizations.

[@MTd2]

Aren't the Sandworm aliens? They are sort of intelligent, in a very alien way.

[@ceryler.4096]

Presumably every human level habitable planet encountered that was not directly seeded by humanity from barren worlds, would also have some form of an "alien" functioning biosphere.

[@DeSpaceFairy]

The real question is, if there were sandworms on a other planet dune somewhere, who put them on Arrakis?

[@Brainfryde]

The sand trout have an unknown origin. This means they might have evolved on Arrakis, becoming the ultimate invasive species. They also may have been a forced evolution by the machines, which did want to extend the life of humans. They just didn't allow humans to be different from what was good for them. So even if brought to Arrakis, there is no evidence that there is another Dune like world.

[@DeSpaceFairy]

@@Brainfryde Maybe, I don't know Frank Herbert's view on evolution or AI, that we have more insight now on the latter than him, but the only two example of living (invasive?) organisms, that could have totally changed on their environment so drastically on the planetary scales, are cyanobacteria causing the Great Oxidation 2 billions and something years ago, and humans right now, this time not by need but by design for the stuff we call society. One was random accident, the other is a series of ongoing "mistakes", both have a common point, the lack of concurrency. For the machines, I don't see them to bother to keep around a sack of organic fluids, even if this is for the "good" of the said sack, it seems more effective and less hazardous, to just put them minds into a sim within a matriochka brain and call it a day, well unless it has been specified otherwise to reach that goal, cybernetics still the better solution, than to go picking up some random alien organisms and tossing them on other planet unchecked for only Shaitan knows, how long, in hope to see them one day start to pumping up some space DMT, sound excessively inefficient. Well, I don't know in fact and nobody knows anymore, also I do know the answer "because aliens do whatever aliens do" is the easiest and more open ended and I don't specially like either. Otherwise the only rational answer left, is the plot hole I guess?

[@masterpython]

Sandworms might be teraforming by aliens.

[@yellowrose0910]

There are so many excellent ideas in The Dune Encyclopedia, some of which were mangled in the Continuing Dune Saga books (or whatever they're called) recently spammed out. The way they met a human ship that hinted of alien presence, instead of an alien ship outright -- so good.

[@phillipyao4260]

There were a lot of ships lost due to spacefolding during the thinking machine wars. Any of those could have arrived intact to diff places and it’s ppl evolved differently.

[@Ubu987]

I think the implication was that the ships were destroyed by emerging in space that was not empty.

[@KlaxontheImpailr]

@@Ubu987 most likely, but you never know when one might survive here and there.

[@dorcaswinter8296]

With this much scattered and long reaching space travel, I always imagined the term “alien” kind of becomes abstract.

[@samuelperezgarcia]

Of Non-Homo Sapiens origin is a more apt term.

[@eirinigalati8182]

@@samuelperezgarcia wouldn't that make all animals "aliens" then?

[@mugwump7049]

Alien doesn't mean extraterrestrial anyway. It simply means foreign. Humans can be aliens.

[@mysteryman4013]

I love your dune videos. I’ve found my new love in dune. The new movie introduced this series to me, but I’ve been a fan of your Chanel for longer. Thank you for sharing, absolutely in love with this new universe.

[@skywriter9532]

Fun fact, because of how time works there could be literally millions of alien races and we might just all miss each other in the timeline.

[@David_Last_Name]

They would have to all die in that case. And I mean litery a 100% fatality rate. If just a few (or heck, even a single species) manages to survive then you'd start having overlap and there would certainly be alien species to interact with. Which in itself is a horrifying thought, what could be so deadly that not a single space faring species could survive it, not even once? I'd say that would have to be a pretty terrifying realization, if when humanity starts to venture out into the cosmos we discover alien ruins after alien ruins from all different species, and it dawns on us that for some unknown reason EVERY single space faring species went extinct. And now it's our turn. Lol, man that would be dark!

[@skywriter9532]

@@David_Last_Name I think we just made a story 😂. Even if it was as nihilistic as sentient beings just are not capable of living harmoniously forever it would still be terrifying. The effect that would have on people who keep finding evidence that mathematically peace is impossible would be super intriguing.

[@SteveFoerster]

@@David_Last_Name "Which in itself is a horrifying thought, what could be so deadly that not a single space faring species could survive it, not even once?" Ennui.

[@cesare_1302]

@@David_Last_Name In other words Great Filter theory

[@MugenHeadNinja]

@@David_Last_Name Well, considering the universe is infinitely expanding and travel outside of local clusters is impossible without FTL travel, it is 100% possible that there isnt just one, but several aliens species existing concurrently with us, they're all just too far away to ever interact with.

[@JosephKerr27]

Quinn, this is the type of Dune analysis that I crave. Not just reciting the book and and its characters, but truly seeking to understand their interplay and the meanings we can infer. Well done!

[@TheMkoose]

When I first saw Denis Villeneuve's Dune at the cinema, when Jessica and Paul are escaping Arrakeen and they run into the worm, oh it was like a religious experience. In that moment, after reading the book, after looking up lore, I understood that we were in the presence of an Alien.

[@EvolvementEras]

Warner Brothers should hire him for continuity on films to make sure that it stays true to both the lore and the movie 🐭

[@jesseberg3271]

There is currently one down vote. Now, I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was definitely aliens.

[@thegoodwin]

Now, 5 aliens.

[@ManDuderGuy]

You ain't sayin it was aliens or nothin, that's pretty clear; but you ain't NOT sayin it either!

[@superhereaux]

Up to 12 now, are they breeding?

[@neilmurphy966]

@@superhereaux they're a hive mind so is still only 1

[@mathewkelly9968]

21 xenos now , holy inquisition

[@dubdelay]

Top quality content, thanks indeed. Spent my early teenage years pouring over The Encyclopaedia so this is great viewing.

[@jamesmaples1255]

I always imagined the alien life existing long before humanity took to space. They failed to make their own "golden path" and went extinct.

[@DekkarJr]

Probably has happened like 100k times. A lot of researchers lately are putting forth the idea that simply developing the tech to get out of ones solar system is not just about technology and motivation to go to space - its about sheer time spent doing it, because it is filled with danger and all kinds of variables - you have no choice but to go relatively slowly. You can't have faster ships without some way of shielding them from a tremendous amount of kinetic force and the energy it would disperse. Imagine if just a loose screw from a space station was swinging around a planet, it doesn't matter how thick the windows are, the ship is going to suffer tremendously if that thing hits the outside of it especially if its coming RIGHT at it. So I'm currently of the midn that sure there are aliens out there - probably a fair number of them across a very wide range, no where near us but maybe a few light years away on Gliese, the nearest goldilocks zoned "habitable" planet. I think its like 6.5 light years or something lol XD. I mean it took like 50 years for voyager at like 24,000 mph to exit the solar system. Now imagine having to deal with all of the shit beyond the solar system. Plus the sheer lack of detectable life makes exploring a resource gathering effort only for the most part. Most planets are not hospitable and would take special gear to even survive in for a few minutes. But I could see us mining all these planets and exo planets and moons for resources for sure. Discovering fuel as we make the crawl out to the oort cloud - which will legit take thousands of years at this pace. Even if we do get there. How do we communicate long range? this is another challenge no one has figured out. We have to first propel our own communications tech to be faster than light cus at light speed more or less with laser transmissions it takes 20 seconds ish to communicate directly from earth to mars. Or at least thats how I understand it :3 Not to mention space is rapidly expanding which is increasing the literal measurements of fabric of space time so that there is more "measurable" space in between everything - so planets will all be farther away from each other by a tiny amount every moment in time that passes. There goes another 50k miles of universe ! lol XD Hopefully it doesn't expand so much that the space in between our molecules and atoms becomes too much and we all fall the fuck apart on an atomic level XD Anyway point of the idea is simple: taht it's too difficult, too dangerous, too expensive, and most likely the public interest in even a united species would be low because of these things. Even if you discover the coolest planet with perfect living conditions - you still gotta pack up the whole swaths of the species and get there somehow and even technologically advanced civilizations probably constantly lose people to space accidents because its just such a bizarre and unnatural environment to be in and so much can go wrong. I jsut don't see many species having the necessary circumstances on their planet being so bad for so long ( overpopulation will balance out on earth around 10-12 billion - as many cultures are actively choosing not to breed right now almost as a sociatal animal behavioral reaction. It's very sad and all as having a family is one of the few things that gives people a tremendous amount of good feelings. ( stressful certainly but it changes your life for the better if your a good parent with good kids ) You get to put your DNA into the future, while everyone who chooses to opt out well - your line ends with you. I couldn't do that but I admire it in a way, it's an attempt at sacrificing oneself for a greater good, altho I think quite miopic to think your individual life choices have that much more of an impact ( in other words no amount of this type of thinking ever contributes positively to a topic imo ). If ya'll would just let us mass produce nuclear reactors we could clean sustainable energy for everyone within a few years - instead we out there with solar panels that break during storms and last maybe 3 years and a pretty penny to produce and the birds like to fly into the motors of the turbines - SO - wow that was a tangent... aiight shut it down :D

[@Jenn-lq9yu]

I have a feeling aliens in Dune would've been introduced relatively similarly to how they were introduced in Elite Dangerous. Large, unknowable and unknown creatures beyond human understanding.

[@kaantax8666]

sadly we can fuck them up in elite dangerous now

[@slylataupe4272]

Quite right, if you read the last book of the serie you will see that the worm god emperor of Dune plan was to prepare humanity to face the incommensurable threat of the alien species that lies in the other galaxies.

[@MonolithMike]

Great as always Quinn! FWIW, I think since the “alien” structure looked so much like the God Emperor’s No-Room, he must’ve commissioned it built, perhaps as a refuge, place of possible exile, or hidden command center. I find it hard to believe that his prescience would have overlooked or ignored the existence of intelligent alien life in the greater Universe.

[@stevescruby1343]

Yeah. It definitely seems like a possibility that Leto II would have examined closely, given that he devoted his entire existence to the stewardship of the Golden Path.

[@LoDaFTA]

The God-Emperor made his structures to be similar to the ones discovered in Crompton to dissuade humans from searching for something they were not prepared to know. Leto II did know about basically everything possible to be known after his merger. My personal theory is that the same way that he could access Other-Memories from his human parents, after he became a Worm, he could also access the memories from the Worms. Maybe he knew about the possibility, and prepared for it.

[@MrFlippybob]

I'm convinced the samdworms of dune are actually alot more insidious Almost Lovecraftian

[@askani21]

After the death of God Emperor, I would agree! The sandworms literally possess the God Enperor's memories and prescience, thus making them some sort of omniscient, quasi-immortal alien monstrous beings... And they were revered by fanatical cults! Very lovecraftian indeed :)

[@StarboyXL9]

@@askani21 Maybe the worms are more advanced as a species than humanity, but they long ago figured out that technology and interstellar expansion is a zero-sum game (somehow)

I read it to the end and I don't think they ever covered where they came from the end was sort of lame sadly. Muh spoilers space old man and space old lady / super spoilers don't read this if you don't want to ruin the entire stories: muh robos from the prequels sigh I knew it. The book version of the hobbit movies.

[@chrisw6164]

If true, Leto II would have figured that out.

[@madeleinedacey8489]

When they talk about using atomics against non-humans, they're talking about using it against human-created artificial intelligence (in the Butlerian jihad.) There isn't necessarily an mplication of aliens.

[@rullmourn1142]

I often thought of the face dancers as aliens, even though they aren't.

[@Gadget-Walkmen]

no they just look werid.

[@michaelhart7569]

I always took them to be non-human because they seemed so weirdly different from humans. We know that the origins of the guild navigators is clearly discussed as part of human development but the Tleilaxu is not (or at least, not that I can recall). If anyone can direct me to a passage in any of the books where their human origins is discussed I would be grateful.

[@rullmourn1142]

@@michaelhart7569 ..ikr.

[@michaelhart7569]

​@ I guess I thought something similar, partly because of the use of the word Bene- (though I didn't know what the word actually meant). My main cause to think of them as not human was the (non-human?) ability to shape-shift. If they can appear as something else at will, then are they just some other creature appearing partially human only out of choice and convenience?

[@jollyyeholiver1578]

Makes me think as a natural engineering an alien race could have created the worms to manufacture spice. Placed them on planets throughout the universe, then harvested later, once the planets are desert.

[@DeSpaceFairy]

In that case a axlotl tanks like device is more efficient.

[@masterpython]

Or placed them on one planet made some spice and got the hell out of the galaxy.

[@FaceTubeU]

Time to an K3 alien race that lived for millions or billions of years is different than a K2 civilization of humans in DUNE. It makes perfect sense to use the worms how they are, taking decades if not hundreds of years to convert a planet by means of a natural process. No wasted energy engineering something nature made and no effort needed producing a high quality product to harvest later in what to them is a blink of an eye.

[@sarahsault6494]

I never really considered there were aliens, with the exception of the entire Worm cycle. Books 3-6 also make it clear WE are the aliens in the entire series whom the Worms depend on-as we are capable not just of changing the environment back to its water state, but through its spice help create a human being that can contain their species in 2 person so that it can be possible for the cycle in ecology from desert, to wet planet, and back continues.

[@manakin5]

I love how you crank out these really thoughtful, explorational topics. Just when I think I know all there is to know about the Dune Universe, I find yet another video you've made that teaches me new things. Thank you!

[@saturn6784]

I think Herbert would've been really good at alien design, but Dune's definitely not a traditional sci-fi series. Dune is a tale of human power, and non-human aliens wouldn't have added much, imo.

[@samuelperezgarcia]

To be fair, many characters in the novels are alien-like. So alien-like that I kind of thought of them as aliens. The Tleilaxu for one.

[@rowanlock3517]

There's nothing figurative about it - Frank Herbert wrote other books. They have aliens in. They are pretty good aliens.

[@romefox]

You are my go to source for Dune lore (supplementing the books). Your breakdowns and analyses are second to none. Thank you for the content.

[@Desttro73]

The Legendary Narrator of the DUNE Universe: The Almighty Quinn

[@kingarndt9194]

Come all without, come all within You'll not see nothing like the Mighty Quinn!

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

@@kingarndt9194 ha literally just about to paste those lyrics here from Google before I read your reply!

[@maggs131]

I think Quinn should had a part in the dune remake. Seriously who knows more about the dune universe than him?

[@PKAnon]

Oh hey I know that guy.

[@stevenjlovelace]

Seriously, they should hire him to do the audiobooks.

[@Bigandrewm]

Herbert definitely used alien intelligence in many of his other stories - but even there, he seems to have been interested in just how "alien" aliens could be. For example, the Calebans from Whipping Star were pretty much unfathomable by humans, by Herbert's design. It could be that in Dune, Herbert basically decided that if alien intelligence existed, humans simply wouldn't be able to recognize it as such.

[@phillipsharring]

"Intelligence is not the end all be all ov evolution. Survival is the only goal." -- this is heavy. Thank you

[@davebowman9000]

Astartes: A Universe with no Xenos? Sounds like the God-Emperor's will was done

[@Deridus]

No aliens and no Warp? Sign me up!

[@timothybrown585]

Dune takes place long time after events of Horus Heresy, just FYI for duh №°ßz an shit... Also far, far away... *Cue orchestral crescendo and fanfare!*

[@sephiroaone-of-nine101]

ehhh sounds boring

[@rogerlawrencewhite1475]

The warp will always be there to ensure astartes job security

[@evanharrison4054]

Their lack of presence creates a terrifying environment. I once read a short story about a group of spacemen who went to a planet where they discovered a civilization apparently made up of statues. Through months of research, they discovered that the creatures are so slow in relation to human speeds, that they seem to not be alive at all, but they are in fact, just very, very slow. After even more months, they discover that the communication barrier that the speed variation poses, would make it absolutely impossible for them to have any meaningful form of communication. In the end, though, what makes them promptly pack up and leave while desperately trying not to crap their pants, is the terrifying realization that it isn't outside of the realm of possibility that there are beings who are as fast compared to humans as humans are to the inhabitants of this world, and that...at least out of hopefulness, they decide to leave the creatures alone, hoping that a hypothetical "even faster" species would have the decency to do the same. Dune is a great interpretation of the saying "the two most horrifying notions in this world is that humanity might be alone, and that it might not be alone", but I think the more important part is that it was written as a symbolic story of our world, and as such, it needed characters who are, in a sense, imprisoned within what we call the human condition. There was nothing of an outside threat to be conquered, because the point of the story is largely the inability of humanity to play nice without some outside threat. This way, the reader is left to make a decision on certain, nuanced political situations. If there were an outside threat, the politics of the universe of Dune would be reduced to "heroes" and "the people who are ruining it for everyone else" As for me, I like the "no aliens" approach to science fiction(at least sometimes), because it forces the writers to come up with creative solutions. Mass Effect, as interesting as it was, eventually boiled down to a very contrived premise. Why is humanity in space fistbumping aliens? Because that's what the aliens who think the answer to the chaotic nature of the universe is providing races with interstellar travel and then preemptively genociding biological life back to the snails and frogs whenever they start using it, wanted to happen. Something like Rimworld is actually very refreshing. The entire premise is built around the concept of no aliens and no superluminal travel. The space cowboy motif is entirely supported by the internal laws and logistics of how the world itself works. Besides, the main theme is technological degradation, with really accomodates the "faux-alien races" of the story. The insectoids were genetically engineered from bugs to fight the mechanoids, who were an even more ancient creation of humanity. In terms of gameplay, those two races are immediately hostile and if you didn't pay attention to the lore, you'd think they are alien(from the framework of whatever ramshackle civilization you can build up, they are), but at the end of the day, there's no "outside threat" in both Dune and Rimworld, largely because of the synthesis part of Hegelian Dialectics. Aliens are either the terrifying outsiders that reduce all human disagreements and misunderstandings to "irrelevant" status, or they are more or less integrated into the society, which means that their differences are only about as skin deep as a white, an arab, a jew, a black and an asian walking into a bar. To bring up Mass Effect again, they pushed themselves to the limit to come up with compelling stories. Still, by far the best one they could come up with was the one with the krogans and the turians, and even that eventually boiled down to "it was probably the right thing to do to sterilize the krogans, but it was still really, really mean." Get it? No nuance at all.

[@DekkarJr]

Life is full of grey areas imo. Sometimes you have to make hard choices, especially in war.

[@oraccaro3714]

Do you remember the name of the short story?

[@evanharrison4054]

@@oraccaro3714 Eric Frank Russell's "The Waitabits"

[@kashutosh9132]

​@@evanharrison4054 The golden path and becoming tyrant to save humanity - this sounds stupid as well

[@nibiru27]

I ain readin all that😂😂😂

[@markusgorelli5278]

11:15 Not necessarily. I mean yes, the origin planet of the worms was probably not dissimilar to what Dune would get terraformed into. But it is also possible that the worm interacted with the unique chemical and biological components of Arrakis and the spice it produced might be totally different than what it produced on its home world. Not unlike the concept of "Terroir" in wine growing regions. It may even be the case that its home world had predators that would prevent it from attaining the enormous sizes that it had on Arrakis. It might be unrecognizable as the same species on its home world without genetic analysis.

[@kaptainkrampus2856]

Took me a long time to realize, that the Bene Tleilax were humans once, and not alien in the sense of having a different origin. So, this is Frank Herbert saying: "See what happens, when you put technology above everything else." oO What a visionary! Find his books today more relevant then ever, also - and especially - in regards of politics!

[@mbiker345]

It always seemed that herbert looked at there being no legitimate signs of aliens in our galaxy so didn't bother with them. plus the books were all studies of the human condition.

[@CartoonHero1986]

I would consider it actually reversed. The subspecies of Humans that emerge in the Dune timeline are pretty much the standard for what is considered "Humanity" due to all the selective breeding and training done both before and during the Dune Saga's 5000-ish year story. Humans of Earth in our era are probably actually more "alien" to the various subspecies then they are from each other... if not right from the beginning of the series; at least by the end of Leto II's control over the breeding program is ended and the scattering starts. Not to mention the simple fact that there have been tens of thousands of years of both natural, environment, and even artificial evolution between the 20/21st century and their time in the story (the fall of Rome is clocked on their calendar as something like 19000 years Before the Guild era and we start with Paul in somewhere around 10900 (i think) years After the Guild era... so that put's us around the year 17500 BG or more then 27000 years in Paul's past OR if you need a realistic comparison more than double the time between the agricultural revolution and today.)

[@childofthanos84]

I say we get a petition going to get Quinn to narrate the original dune trilogy and have it placed on audible

[@bothellkenmore]

I have a feeling his voice is partly the reason for the success of this channel.

[@barbarabaker1457]

I am loving this plan and I say that as one who liked the way it was narrated before.

[@rogerlawrencewhite1475]

Agreed!!!!

[@zooropa04]

I've always been fascinated by this shared detail of the Dune and Foundation universes. Great video, as always!

[@shaggygoatboy1125]

"Where are the aliens?" *stares at massive sandworms*

[@IlmarBeekman]

Quinn: Are there aliens in Dune? Sandworms: Am I a joke to you?

[@mavismoi1]

i havent visited this channel in quite a while. I now notice the music has changed. Used to be cool and misteryous. Now it is too fast and too electronic and too ... bleah.

[@mosalah8551]

Intelligent' alien

[@PaulSteere]

I like to think an alien civilsation placed them there long before humanity reached the stars - and perhaps other worlds across the universe yet discovered - for other species to find the spice and expand their consciousness, perhaps with the eventual goal of one or many of them being able to reach out and communicate with them (akin to the end of Chapterhouse w/Daniel and Marty), or if we're getting esoteric join some universal shared consciousness. As Leto II said, the sandtrout were not native to Arrakis, but the idea of them being introduced accidentally by humans in the early days of space travel does not seem to hold any weight, given they are not found on any of the worlds of the Imperium and no record exists in ancestral memory of the planet as being anything other than desert.

[@MatthewBaileyBeAfraid]

I am so happy that you understand what Evolution actually is. That is something that is so misunderstood. At some point, I need to pour some money into your patreon.

[@gasmonkey1000]

I figured that either the aliens were barely sentient, reached an ascension, or were wiped out by the machines. The last one because in Asimov's series the robots wiped out aliens. The robots likely would have had a restraining bolt from harming humanity.

[@vine01]

i don't recall any aliens in Asimov's books. Asimov and Herbert don't need them..

[@gasmonkey1000]

@@vine01 True. I also think it's like a thing in Battletech where aliens would distract from the conflict of intrigue and mankind.

[@chouseification]

@@vine01 is right - Asimov rarely included aliens in his works, although robots showed up in most. The only Asimov story I can think of that really involved a lot of aliens is The Gods Themselves.

[@MJAB123]

That’s my understanding. I’m on the 5th book now and the Honored Matres made the first reference to “The Enemy” after The Scattering. My theory, is that Leto II knew he had to sacrifice himself to ensure mankind’s infinite survival bc he was presciently aware of The Enemy. I think The Enemy are the retuned thinking machines from the Butlerian Jihad that encountered mankind, again, after The Scattering. During the preceding millenniums after the Butlerian Jihad, while the Corrino and Atreides Empires ruled, is when the thinking machines destroyed other alien sentient life. That’s why none were encountered during The Scattering and was part of Leto II’s greater plan to ensure mankind’s survival through preventing humans from further interstellar travel and spice hoarding until the time was right.

[@vine01]

@@MJAB123 the enemy is not thinking machines. That's BHKJA wannabe fantasy, dont @ me. The Enemy according to Frank was supposedly machines in the hands of other humans, no AI. And you got the Golden Path right, Leto II knew what he had to do to ensure longterm survival of human race, no matter the cost. The Legends of Dune trilogy is .. meh at best in my opinion, pardon me.. I don't believe for a second there's some hidden diskette that BH allegedly discovered decades later..

[@Danzer291]

Quinn, I absolutely love listening to your voice! It is smooth and deep and consistent. I aspire to become an audiobook narrator. I wish I had a fraction of your skill!

[@andreasplosky8516]

The Dune universe is so rich. I am forever grateful to Frank Herbert for his wonderful creation. His books helped me through my troubled youth.

[@zachcouch8654]

How did it help you?

[@andreasplosky8516]

@@zachcouch8654 By providing a world I could escape in.

[@sridevisudhahar309]

@@andreasplosky8516 Same here, so happy all us book reader can come here together. If you've seen the movie, how'd you like it! If you haven't, do you think you'll watch it? :D

[@rycolligan]

The star-searchers story sounds like something straight out of warhammer 40k

[@Wayzor_]

More like an episode of Trek.

[@wingflanagan]

Very cool. I have read every one of the Dune novels (including all the ones by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson), and I don't remember this story. Although I did find many of the Brian/Anderson books pretty forgettable - they seem to generally lack the sense of a deeper, richer universe behind them. Plus the quality of the writing itself is a bit cringy in places.

[@tanneraustin9071]

About the crompton ruins, i love that after god-emperor, the answer for anything mysterious is that “leto II did it”

[@geoDB.]

Since LETTO 2 is the first of the atreides empire to be named that he wouldn't be referred to as the second since the original wasn't emperor

[@kang4394]

I upvoted before I even watch it. I know this is exactly what I want.

[@BorkPlays]

When is "the ultimate guide to Chapter House" coming? I really liked the series and your narration.

[@TheHamsterMaster]

Considering how advanced humans became in the Dune universe, it would have been cool to have an alien species in the Dune lore that was way beyond humanity in intelligence and technology.

[@tristanbackup2536]

Xan already think of it. Aliens that would just look at you & you have a seizure.

[@NorybDrol82]

Love this exploration. On a related note I always wondered why did the early humans in the Duniverse make such dangerous thinking machines. Sure perhaps the machines made themselves dangerous. But I have enjoyed imagining that the thinking machines had been deliberately made as weapons to eradicate some other sentient alien race and that perhaps the machines went too far and started taking out other sentient alien races before eventually turning on the humans who perhaps no longer quite fulfilled some static criteria as to what was human. A definition that was concrete and static in contrast to the idealistic test of the bene geserat that was based on action and not biological criteria.

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

Thanks dude, this video arrived just at the moment I needed a good soothing lore monologue :)

[@mastercharlesdiltardino8058]

What does it say about us that we seek out the lore of fictional universes?

[@hhhieronymusbotch]

@@mastercharlesdiltardino8058 that it's important every once in a while to take a break from the one that is, and imagine ones that could be or can never be :)

[@mastercharlesdiltardino8058]

@@hhhieronymusbotch i reckon anything is possible. Look up cosmic strings.

[@mastercharlesdiltardino8058]

fictional universes are to humanity what humanity is to God.

[@jeremiah_dyess]

I just got around to watching the new Dune with the kids. I even walked out to have a smoke, because I knew it was gonna be the first three CHAPTERS, again. I'm so glad you are here Quinn to actually have a say on what the God Emperor would think. Thanks for these back?/forward? flashes! :P

[@evbbjones7]

I may be being pedantic here, but isn't there alien life all over the Dune universe? Native fauna, animals, insects, etc. I believe it's correct to say there isn't any other intelligent life, though.

[@NihilistAlien]

Quite possibly, but Herbert never expanded on that beyond sandworms

[@evbbjones7]

@@NihilistAlien He does actually! Just Take Arrakis alone: We've got exotic, otherworldly gardens at the palace compounds. We've got the Fremen growing exotic alien crops out in the deserts. And of course, who can forget Paul's inquisitive passage about the native desert mouse that travels the sands by moonlight: Mua'dib. Herbert's son expands on this even further, although I understand lots of people don't consider it canon. Leto I as a child battles with genetically modified bulls on Geidi Prime in chapterhouse Harkonnen. The Bene Gesserit actively compete against a virulent and deadly alien ecosystem on Wallach IX in the Butlerian Jihad trilogy.

[@NihilistAlien]

@@evbbjones7 that's possible but if I remember well, he talks about a falcon in d'une, maybe they are terraforming through not really exotic fauna and flaura. But sandworms are still technically alien life. I don't know anything about the post Frank Herbert era though

[@NihilistAlien]

I don't know if the mua'dib is an arrakis local species or introduced by Keynes and other biologists.

[@eleanor4839]

It could be that all life originated from earth

[@alpenjon]

The structure remind me of a specific planet in The Expanse series ;) Quinn your videos are seriously amazing, thank you.

[@hoi-polloi1863]

Y'know... I'm seeing a parallel between the sandtrout and Card's *descolada* virus as terraforming tools.

[@jeremiahblum7833]

Watching dune mythos on KZbin, I just realized how much of the literature and cinema that I like is full of unsolved mysteries. Dune, middle earth, twin peaks... I like stories that keep secrets from me

[@jeremiahblum7833]

Ps love your videos =)

[@michaelhall2709]

Asimov’s Foundation series also takes place on a galaxy-wide scale where no one even bothers to mention the fact that no aliens have ever been encountered. In both cases, I think you can just put it down to the authors having, at least in these works, other fish to fry.

[@gulleyfoyle6859]

holy shit what if there's no aleins in real life because god ran out of ideas

[@Asporez]

While the Empire spans the whole Galaxy, and even if the universe was teeming with life, it is very unlikely that two advanced civilizations would share the same galaxy at the same point in time.

[@neodonovandragoncareyblade257]

Why?

[@Asporez]

@@neodonovandragoncareyblade257 Because of distance and the duration it takes to travel between places that are very far away. The vast majority of the universe is out there and exists, we just cant see it because the photons emerging from it have not reached us yet. Everything we see now actually happened millions of years in the past.

[@Asporez]

@@neodonovandragoncareyblade257 Even if two sentient species existed at the same time... they will never share the ''present''.

[@neodonovandragoncareyblade257]

@@Asporez What if they lightspeed technology or Portal gates

[@Asporez]

@@neodonovandragoncareyblade257 Lightspeed is slow, it still takes millions of years to travel. Faster than light means creating a bubble of space around you, while you might not age, the universe around the bubble will. Portal gates is fiction inspired on the idea of a wormhole. But even if you were able to enter a singularity and emerge in another place and time, it would still be limited to where/when that singularity has been traveling during it's existence.

[@Jon0387]

While I like science fiction with Aliens such as Star Wars or Mass Effect, I really like science fiction with no aliens at all, it’s more interesting to me.

[@Swnaqui]

Read midnight at the well of souls

[@epiccollision]

Star Wars is fantasy in a space setting, almost none of the tech is based in science just magic.

[@thedoruk6324]

4:27 - Definetly sounding more and more like *Dead Space* to me definetly *SuS*

[@pronoydutta614]

Aliens would have upended the central theme of Dune as a commentary on power and the dangers of deifying one man or ideal as ultimately desirable. There were a bunch of weird beings in Dune. I suspect sentient alien involvement wouldn't have put an end to feuding, base desires and byzantine power games, which could be an inadvertent lesson.

[@SmellyBones]

Loving this series. I wanted to say, "But also Asimov...," but other humans beat me to it. I love you species!

[@alkhemi8175]

The lack of aliens never dawned on me. Yes, I love a sci-fi universe with little too no outer life. Very realistic.

[@theguiltypaytheprice.4899]

Every living being, be it bacteria, a plant or animal that developed on other planets without our meddling is a alien. The Arrakis worms, as well as other flora and fauna on EVERY PLANET is ALIEN.

[@owenshebbeare2999]

@@theguiltypaytheprice.4899 Actually the idea that pretty much all the plants and animals in the original books came from Earth is discussed. I suppose the distinction, made here, is not so much about alien life, but the abscence of intelligent alien life. This assumes that the sandworms are not intelligent, or at least not in a manner comprehensible to humans. Asimov also envisioned this idea of a vast empire with just humans, something that definitely influenced Herbet.

[@StarboyXL9]

Its more realistic to have there actually be life out there, but individual instances of intelligent life (civilizations) are so spread out across the universe that as far as each is concerned the universe might as well be empty.

[@Gadget-Walkmen]

Nah, Love aliens myself.

[@NihilistAlien]

We haven't go very far in space, maybe having a life empty universe is utterly unrealistic.

[@vivanesca]

thank you for giving credit to the artists!

[@jerichohill487]

When Quin gets here, everybody gonna jump for joy. Come all wirhout Come all within

[@Becka_Harper]

I always assumed that humanity filled the intelligent life slot for all of the habitable worlds within the sphere of human space.

[@pacotaco1246]

Yeah, the term for that is Grabby Aliens. Where in Dune, we are the Grabby Aliens

[@TheCsel]

I think Dune series is similar to Asimov's Foundation and larger series in this regard. I think the prevailing science position at the time was that due to the science of the universe(and the time involved), it would be very rare for two intelligent species to arise at the same time and meet each other. Especially when self-destruction was an ever present danger. So I think its interesting for "hard" science fiction to explore humans being first, and being the cause and solution to problems without adding aliens to the mix. And its always intriguing to dangle the future possibility of aliens and the unknown.

[@TheIslingtongirl]

I thought the Honored Matres ran into something that freaked them out in the later books? Maybe I am not remembering that right.

[@Slashco]

It's implied those were either the thinking machines returning, or a new race of evolved face dancers. I'm just going by the original series btw, the new books are little more than fanfiction imo.

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

Face Dancers. "Would you return to face the ones of many faces? Would you become vegetables?"

[@NGCAnderopolis]

They are facedancer descendants.

[@thursoberwick1948]

@@Slashco *sonfiction

[@zacakafroztee]

I think the Great Enemy was going to be an alien civilization, but we never got to see Frank's final vision.

[@Ubu987]

The prequels and sequels written after Frank Herbert's death were supposed to have been based on an outline that he had sketched out, but they are execrable, unreadable, pulp of the worst kind.

[@stopefinaround]

@@Ubu987 Brian Herbert's work is pure nonsense. Just some more generic evil AI crap

[@Ubu987]

@@stopefinaround As a reader of sci-fi, I can excuse bad writing but not bad ideas. There is one scene where the Tleilaxu face-dancers, one by one, deliberately deposit themselves in a bloody murder-machine intended to shred the Duke Leto, and it demonstrates vividly that they are not individuals, but a colony organism, but that scene was lifted from a short story by Franz Kafka.

[@BooDamnHoo]

No. The great enemy that threatened to take down the entire human empire was going to be woke humans. From Disney. They would have come in and declared up was down, men are women, women are men, children are consenting adults, that peedo is a "sexual orientation", that slavery is freedom, and victims are kings.

[@benegesserit9838]

@@stopefinaround true

[@gendygoblin8391]

Would be an interesting concept for the Sandworms to be descendants of some ancient species that Teraformed planets only to leave members behind to later evolve into the Worms, maybe through guided evolution or some genetic engineering. Perhaps they have a different type of intelligence we just don’t understand. In the film the worm chasing them seemed almost aware in some way.

[@TheRealMirCat]

With the worms being so intertwined with humans, it may be because they themselves are also a form of human. Considering the god emperor's transformation, this is, at least, possible. Maybe even atomics came into play for the first ones.

[@xxxxxxxx1080]

Arthur C. Clarke Quote: “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” People don't imagine how a far future would look if humans really were the only people in the universe.

[@lorkhel]

This channel is saving my thirst for knowledge after watching Dune part two

[@michaelkopala3659]

Thank you for another great video. “ we have seen the aliens and they are us”.

[@tkondor]

I kind of think that you should start reading The Expanse book series as well, I think you gonna like it :D

[@haukionkannel]

Definitely one of those intelligence scifi books but at very different way than Dune, so it is possible to like one and not other... But definitely a world of looking for (instead of SW space opera ;)

[@tkondor]

@@haukionkannel agree :) but you'll never know till you try :P

[@ConstanzaRigazio]

Me, a Star Wars fan who’s now reading Dune: “I find your lack of aliens disturbing.” (It’s a joke, I am loving Dune!)

[@SakhaGaming]

I really gotta read these, listening to your guides got me really into this story, way better than any scifi I've ever seen or heard. One thing though, if the humans inhabited other planets, did they also take animals to them? or did they have fauna life in them already? because that would be your aliens, just probably not too intelligent.