Arrakis' Three Body Problem

Astrum explores the scientific truth behind Dune. Go to betterhelp.com/astrum for 10% off your first month of therapy with BetterHelp and get matched with a therapist who will listen and help (ad)
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Credits:
Writer: Julia Masselos
Editor: Nick Shishkin
Narration: Alex McColgan
#astum #space #dune #spacetravel #film

[@esnevip]

The spice doesn't make the faster than light travel possible, it makes it navigable.

[@erikjessup4495]

And even then, the spice isn't strictly necessary. It doesn't show THE future, it shows multiple possible futures. The navigators then take the action needed that results in a safe arrival. Computer simulation could do the same thing (if perhaps with less certainty). But, for sociopolitical and religious reasons, no computers are in use.

[@esnevip]

@@erikjessup4495 or you could just fire the drive up and cross your fingers that you don't hit anything.

[@nathanielacton3768]

@@esnevip That had a 90% success rate apparently. So much of a battlefleet never made it there and less made it back.

[@PlebstersPictionary]

11:20 - 11:35

[@h3lblad3]

@@erikjessup4495, no computers are in use for historical reasons. Thinking machines were banned after an AI uprising.

[@brendanjones3235]

I disagree. Eating a Magic Mushroom on a spaceship can lead to lightspeed travel... for the user.

[@ZEROmg13]

.....I concur.

[@mrraamsridhar]

Time is relative after all. And since speed depends on time, speed must be relative too. So indeed the user could be experiencing lightspeed.

[@monad_tcp]

well, if the spice gives you youth or accelerates time for your brain so it can predict the future better by having more processing power, that's literally light-speed travel in a very indirect way. brains don't need to see the future, they're literally there to predict it, the more awareness you have, aka, the more data you have, the more you will be able to actually predict the future. so it doesn't matter much if time passes slowly for you when you're basically biologically immortal and can be kept in stasis

[@gammaraygem]

there is a school of thought that assumes that the alien spacecraft in US posession are indeed partially powered or steered by the mind. And that for humans to be able to control them, they need a further step in evolution, implying what yogis have shown for millennia: mind over matter. This is in line with the teaching of Sri Aurobindo, who suggests that humans1.0 are not the final product of evolution. The work of Michael Levin has shown that a force of as yet unknown source powers evolution. Not just randomness. Not DNA. There are layers of determinism. Causality as suggested by Alex is the primitive current human state of consciousness. Time is an illusion. Thus is space. Everything is possible.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

It is possible to predict the future. It took me a very long time to stop this. And no, it's not like seeing the newspaper in advance so you know the races or lottery. You cannot decide yourself when and what future is seen, but it is scary when it then happens in real.

[@stcredzero]

A point you missed from the books, is how the Sandworm lifecycle also acts to sequester water away from the ecosystem. The Sandworms effectively de-terraform planets, instead Arraki-forming them. By causing an environmental shift, you reduce the population of Sandworms and their other forms, thereby reducing the proportion of sequestered water, which further increases water in the environment, further reducing the population of Sandworms. Eventually, you get an exponential S-curve transition back to an ocean-covered terrestrial world.

[@pirojfmifhghek566]

I think that's a detail easily missed because you don't learn about it until after Children of Dune. Most people stop reading the series after that part because it gets... _real weird._

[@brothergrimaldus3836]

That's putting it mildly ​@@pirojfmifhghek566

[@iRossco]

​@@pirojfmifhghek566 "really weird" would be an understatement. Not sure if I got through God Emperor

[@thureintun1687]

stupid stuff 😂 So stupid. No wonder it is a science " *FICTION* " , not scientific peer reviewed research paper😅

[@stcredzero]

@@thureintun1687 The "stupid" to look out for in fiction is cringey bad story telling. The Dune books by Frank Herbert are mostly good storytelling. Also cringey: Applying scientific paper standards to works of fiction. But that's only cringey if you don't realize it's all supposed to be for tongue in cheek fun.

[@itzhexen0]

The problem with it's science is that it's science fiction.

[@CalmSnow_]

I agree with you, but I would not be surprised to know there are some neck bearded mfs in Reddit arguing that it's true and possibly.

[@eerohughes]

No

[@eerohughes]

Only if you're incompetent

[@landsman420]

The best kind of science fiction is one or two fictional elements, that interact with real science. If everything is fictional, nothing is.

[@navret1707]

@@landsman420👍

[@HCG]

The lore is very clear about why the shield allows slow moving things through. It’s so air can pass and so you can interact with objects

[@lu-uf8zj]

so it's by intelligent design rather than an inherent property of the field?

[@HCG]

@@lu-uf8zj Exactly

[@brisingr12]

​@@lu-uf8zjthe feild has been tuned by intelligent design

[@Jaded_AF]

If that was the case, why not strap on an oxygen tank, crank up the shield, and make yourself invincible.

[@sjc4]

But the lore is not scientifically infallible, which is only what Alex is trying to point out. Our current understanding of the universe will not align with a sci fi work that uses magic dust for space travel.

[@andyelliott3198]

Denis Villeneuve's Dune changes how FTL is depicted, he visualises the Heighliners as gateways whereas in the books and David Lynch's Dune, a Heighliner is a giant vessel housing thousands of passenger vessels. The Spice is used to evolve Guild navigators into mutated humans with the ability to see across space and time using prescience, which allows them to plot a safe route before the Heighliner folds space. The Spice does not create folded space, that is all done by the Holtzman Interstellar Engines which use an unknown energy source most likely Nuclear Fusion but the Spice does allow humans to use the Holtzman effect for Interstellar travel or "Travelling without moving".

[@autopartsmonkey7992]

thanks.,,,you saved me a bunch of typing. lol. so this is all correct. its sad that they did such a poor research job. i understand its a big universe, lots of lore. but come on, he gets so much basic stuff just wrong.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Very good. You just revealed why this video made me feel so strange. And reminded me why I always prefer reading the book over watching a film. 🚀🏴‍☠️🎸

[@russelljazzbeck]

Nice, this makes sense

[@sysbofh]

And, strictly speaking, You don't need spice to travel. It's just incredibly risky, due to collisions. You could roll the dice, You could use advanced computers (the Butlerian Jihad closed this avenue) or... You could use Spice. And as we all know, the Spice must flow. :D

[@BroadwayJosh]

That"s the problem with sci-fi tales of galactic civilizations: one has to ignore Einstein's theory of relativity for any of this fiction to make any sense. The exteme time effects of relatavistic velocities would blow up any possibility of a connected civilization. Don't even get me started on "faster than light."

[@MrQuantumInc]

Dune is definitely more concerned with sociology/anthropology than physics. The physics of the shields and faster than light travel or prescience are ignored in favor of long discussions of how they affect society and how people think. There is also some discussion of biology on Arrakis. It is a plot point that some people smuggle a sandworm to another desert planet only for it to immediately starve. It is possible to transport and replicate the entire ecosystem, but not fast enough to counter the spice monopoly.

[@alexsdarkclubband]

I really enjoyed the focus on social/political/religious topics. It adds so much complexity to the story Interestingly, climate change is a huge problem in the later books. The fremen dream of turning arrakis into a green paradise, but the sandworms would go extinct and society would collapse without the spice.

[@patrickday4206]

Exactly I always said Herbert at heart was an anthropologist

[@BenoHourglass]

@@alexsdarkclubband 20 thousand years in the future there would probably be a way to synthesize the substance.

[@fishdude666ify]

The Benne Gesserit realize later on in the timeline that to start the sandworm cycle on a planet you need the sandtrout first. Only when the desert reaches a certain size can the sandworm vector emerge. Oh, and the terra forming that Leto II does is with weather satellites btw.

[@Felhek]

You don't travel faster than light. Only space can do that

[@MrCovi2955]

The way the visions of the future are explained in the book is less "Oh I predicted the exact events that will happen" but as a sea of probabilities, with hills that block your view in some places because there are variables you don't know. Its less about prophetic visions and more about opening your mind to fully calculate everything you know to be able to see what could happen, what probably will happen, and what might happen. You aren't "seeing the future" when you lift your arms to catch a frisbee in flight, you're simply expecting that it will be in front of you in a moment. But if a dog jumps out from your blind spot and catches it instead, your prediction was wrong. Thus is the prescience that the Spice imparts in Dune. So this actually doesn't conflict with causality or information conservation.

[@weirdkitty07]

When Herbert wrote Dune, he didn't know the orbits of exoplanets. It was the 1960s. He picked Canopus, Alpha Giedi, Menkar and other bright stars because they were bright, not because any of them made sense for planets. Earth Star Trek at the time also did this. But the 'black sun' was added for the film, as the real Alpha Giedi would indeed be blindingly bright, not black. It means none of them can go outside, or have their eyeballs melted and go blind. It is also possible he was thinking of Sirius, which would be much closer, so he picked A Giedi.

[@reidflemingworldstoughestm1394]

Eyes melt; skin explodes; everybody dead!

[@heyheytaytay]

Also, it's science "FICTION" for a reason...

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

Exoplanets in the 1960s was pure science fiction.

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

Either way, the thermal camera technique they used for Dune: Part 2 was incredible.

[@platylobiumobtuseangulum1607]

@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx Not quite pure SF sicne astronomers were looking for them and there were claimed discoveries eg around Barnard's star that later turned out to be false detections but still.

[@kento7899]

The Sand Worms have a larval form called a Sand Trout. They abhor water and use their bodies to sequester it. I think the idea is that besides the Fremen's underground water stores, the Sand Trouts themselves may have sequestered an ocean's worth of water deep underground. They could have released this water to transform Arrakis back into a more watery world. That would destroy spice production so no one wanted to do it.

[@johannageisel5390]

If I were them, I would use the sand and the solar energy to make lots of glass and build large greenhouses. There they could have their lush greenery and also keep the water in them from simply evaporating. Outside of the greenhouses the sandworms could to their thing. The greenhouses could be build on the rocky outcrops, or even partly into them. The sieches already have underground dwellings, so either you build the greenhouses simply over the sieches or you make similar underground dwellings under the newly erected greenhouses.

[@kento7899]

​@@johannageisel5390 I agree. It would be super easy with their technology. I think keeping the poor masses poor and miserable fits with the feudalistic theme of the Dune universe. Plus, the Harkonnens were evil slave masters so you know they wouldn't have improved the lives of the poor masses. A former Bene Gesserit with the Harkonnens had a small tropical greenhouse built for her in the royal house. They had to keep it secret I think because an audacious use of water like that would offend the desert dwelling natives.

[@kento7899]

@johannageisel5390 I agree. It would be super easy with their technology. I think keeping the poor masses poor and miserable fits with the feudalistic theme of the Dune universe. Plus, the Harkonnens were evil slave masters so you know they wouldn't have improved the lives of the poor masses. A former Bene Gesserit with the Harkonnens had a small tropical greenhouse built for her in the royal house. They had to keep it secret I think because an audacious use of water like that would offend the desert dwelling natives.

[@kennethferland5579]

The amount of water could never be an 'oceans' worth of water, unluess folks want to claim that their are Sandtrout bodies 3 miles thick under the sand.

[@hlalakar4156]

Yup. Over time the waste from the sand trout mixes with the water and forms the spice and a large amount of CO2. Yes, spice is worm poo. Anyway, once the CO2 builds up enough it causes the mass of sand trout encapsulating the water to explode, spraying spice and water all over the place. The water quickly evaporates leaving behind dry spice and a few surviving sand trout that then go on to grow into sandworms. The fremen have built special devices that can condense this water out of the air, which they add to their underground cisterns.

[@PhilRounds]

Guild Navigators are navigators. They don't fold space, they allow for the guidance of the ship so it goes where they want it to. I believe Heighliners are built by Ix, a planet that is responsible for most of the advanced technology in the Dune universe.

[@theeutecticpoint]

many machines on Ix, new machines, better than those on Richese

[@theeffete3396]

The Guild built the original Heighliners. In later novels, however, Ix works with the Guild to retrofit them with navigation machines, as well as constructing their own No-ships.

[@Muritaipet]

You've missed the point of the shields, which are one of the most critical parts of the Dune universe. 1) Shields eliminate the use of all technological weapons - guns, lasguns, nukes etc etc. *You have to use knives.* 2) This creates a universe where *wars require medieval level combatants.* Their wars are fought with knives 3) This allows a feudal society to exist. "Kingdoms" with *the toughest knife fighters, from the nastiest planets, rule the universe.*

[@Orion-CSAT]

Which, coincidentally, makes it much much cooler.

[@Muritaipet]

@@Orion-CSAT I've always thought the coolest thing was the Arabic influence. Until Dune, I only had science fiction with an Anglophone perspective. So Dune finally gave me a valid future universe, that wasn't a dressed up version of the UK and US in the 1950's - 1970's.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Except lasers and projectile weapons are still used, alongside swords and knives. Fighters in Dune are not medieval level, they are by necessity more versatile than any soldiers in history. And nukes also exist. There are just strict rules about their usage. Using melee weapons exclusively does not imply a feudal society. Medieval Europe used ranged weapons in combat also. And in Dune it is not warrior kings who rule. The nobility is expected to be able to defend itself from anarchists and assassins, but the best warriors are subjects of the noble houses.

[@Muritaipet]

@@davidwuhrer6704 Yes, but the lasgun is neutralised by the shield, because it produces a sub atomic explosion at both ends. Even artillery is available, the Harkonnens "reinvent"it for their attack. But it's ineffective against a shielded guy attacking with a knife. It's a critical component of the universe. You're correct in that a feudal society is not a consequence of weapon technology. It is a weakness of the Dune universe, that they are a feudal society. So the military of the empire e.g. the Sardaukar, is part of implicit justification of that.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

@@Muritaipet Weapons technology is always a rock-paper-scissors kind of deal. Tanks don't neutralise infantry, air support does not neutralise artillery, etc. Shields and lasers can't be used together, and either may be unsuitable because of terrain anyway. But melee weapons always work. The Sardaukar are not the imperial military. They are the emperor's military. They are loyal to House Corrino, which happens to be the house on the Lion Throne, but each house has its own military. Unlike in feudalism, the emperor does not call on his vassals to go to war. There are no foreign empires to go to war against, nothing left to conquer. The wars in Dune are among the noble houses, and between the nobility and uppity peasants. And between the occasional secret societies. I don't know how you see the politics in Dune as a weakness when the authoritarian politics is the fundamental premise of Dune. The essential idea is that Fascism has won at long last, everything else logically follows, and tens of thousands of years later, long after nations as such have stopped being a thing several times over, the world is still at war, and everyone with a birthright wants to be top dog. Fanaticism breeds fanaticism. And the moral of the story is that charismatic leaders may be dangerous to your health. What did you think it was about? It's not military fiction.

[@legendaryrat]

The way prescience is explained in the books and hinted at in the film, is less pure precognition and more glimpsing quantum uncertainty. Paul describes the experience in the book like gazing at a branching river or a tree, with each branch representing a possible outcome. I think what Herbert was going for was akin to being able to see how time unfolds in the events that Schrodinger's Cat was both alive or dead. Almost like the math used to calculate quantum physics made manifest.

[@Hoganply]

Makes as much sense as a naturally occurring stable wormhole, but sure.

[@Unmannedair]

Yes, exactly this. This is also how the mentats achieved their functionality of human computers.

[@legendaryrat]

@@Hoganply it takes place 20,000 years in the future, so that's enough time to just handwaved and say "They figured it out."

[@osasunaitor]

​@@Hoganply stuff like internet or vaccines also made zero sense to people barely 200 years ago. Yet here we are. Dune is set thousands of years into the future. You can only enjoy it if you suspend your disbelief for a moment and try to imagine all the possibilities that technology and knowledge will open in such a vast timelapse. If you want to stick to the things that we know for sure at the present time, these are not the novels/films for you, I suggest you move on.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Nothing quantum about it. All probability matrices.

[@dbuck5350]

As I remember it from reading all the Dune books in the 70's to 80's (my years of reading them), all water on Arrakis is sequestered by the sand worms to be used in their reproduction cycles and spice is the by-product. I think is comes in later books when Paul Atriedes and his son are the rulers.

[@ecbrown6151]

Water is toxic to the sandworms, they might actually be a silicate based life-form.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

The baby worms live in water, I believe to remember. The protective skin Leto put together, becoming a symbiont if wearing it too long. But it was found out only later, that these were the babies of the worms.

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

And for the science fiction books written in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s (more if you include Brian), it's very poignant and topical today with its environmental themes. Apparently, Herbert was supposed to write a piece about the Oregon Sand Dunes, which is what inspired him to write Dune. Today those dunes are degrading due to the Forest Service effort to suppress the sand dunes in the 1960s by planting European Grass. Also, the Sand Worms might or might not be a metaphor for ATVs (Oregon has a video about it on KZbin, but I'm not brave enough to post the url)(The Terrible Purpose of social media;)

[@stephanieparker1250]

Spoilers!

[@TestUser-cf4wj]

Spice Is the byproduct of the adult worm's digestion. Spice Is literally worm poo.

[@OZtwo]

Before Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, people believed that breaking the sound barrier would destroy an aircraft. Some researchers even thought that it was physically impossible for an object like a car or airplane to go supersonic.

[@GothBoyUK]

People thought the first steam trains were so violently fast (at 50mph) that women should never ride them in case their uteruses were ripped out. 😮

[@britishrocklovingyank3491]

That isn't true at all. If people believed that they wouldn't have tried to do it. People who didn't understand flight thought that.

[@philsmith2444]

@@britishrocklovingyank3491Some of the Manhattan Project scientists were concerned an atomic bomb detonation might ignite the atmosphere. That wasn’t because they didn’t understand the fission process.

[@britishrocklovingyank3491]

@@philsmith2444 The difference between a bomb and a plane is vast. Some would say not even comparable.

[@philsmith2444]

@@britishrocklovingyank3491 The point is, understanding how nuclear fission works doesn’t mean you know all the possible effects, and knowing how an airplane flies doesn’t mean you know how it’ll act at supersonic speeds. Especially when all your testing had to be done in wind tunnels, and there were no supersonic wind tunnels at the time. Do you know why many thought an airplane would be destroyed breaking the sound barrier?

[@TSBoncompte]

magic mushrooms won't accelerate you to lightspeed, but the in-universe logic is that the hard part is not acceleration, but navigating without crashing into a star or into whatever obstacles exist in the folded warpspace or whatever medium they move through iirc.

[@MichaelWinter-ss6lx]

There also exists the possibility that FTL twists your mind: warped space, hyperspace or whatever. This is used in some SciFi. Passengers get doped or otherwise go to deep sleep. The pilot or navigator must be awake and gets special dope. Some times the aliens drop out in FTL and need time to recover. One day we will discover that ganja only grows so we can stay sane in FTL.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

It's less about crashing into anything and more about not getting lost in space and time. Space is big. Really, really big. You just won't believe how mind-boggingly big space is.

[@mryellow6918]

​@@davidwuhrer6704considering how temperamental wormholes are. You don't want to be crashing into warped space and exploding so....

[@davidwuhrer6704]

@@mryellow6918 Oh yes, I hate crashing into open space, and explosive gravity. All because wormholes never learned to take no for an answer and always fire all of their guns at once. Was any of that supposed to mean anything?

[@savage5757]

7:45 even a knife cannot enter this field too quickly. Hand-to-hand combat in Dune involves slowing down the hand before striking the blade

[@MolotDET]

yes this was poorly represented by Deni

[@gabe_0x]

It baffles me that KZbinrs STILL take betterhelp sponsorships...

[@yaldabaoth2]

A channel this size gets 6 figure deals for a few reads. There really is only one reason why you would take that sponsorship.

[@supersleepygrumpybear]

You might say, they need better help ()

[@fritz46]

Pecunia non olet.

[@1112viggo]

I think people are smart enough not to buy a product or service simply because a KZbinr they like are payed to endorse it. I mean iv seen celebrities doing commercials for Coke AND Pepsi. As Dave Chappell said; Honestly, i can't even taste the difference, all i know is, Pepsi paid me most recently, so, tastes better. You have to be Forest Gump to believe endorsements in this day and age.

[@DrachenGothik666]

@@1112viggo Considering some of the people folks keep voting for or cheering on & buying their merch, plastering it all over their trucks, houses & persons, there are a LOT of Forrest Gumps. A lot of people fall for scams, too. Guaranteed, some of them will go for those endorsements, sadly. I was hoping Astrum was smarter than this.

[@chadevans4922]

There is one other source of water on Arrakis: the north polar icecap. There are no worms there and no spice. Why don't the fremen mine ice for water there? The books hint that it is very cold there and ice mining is extremely hazardous.. And since the main draw of Arrakis is the spice, the vast majority of people simply don't go to the north pole.

[@FrikInCasualMode]

In the first book ice mining was indeed mentioned. But it was done by city people - those living in areas naturally protected from Sand Worms. In those "civilized" areas Fremen are not welcomed kindly.

[@johncogan8689]

10:30 Isnt spice red and not blue?

[@Zond3r]

It's blue in the books, hence the color of the Fremen's eyes

[@WrenPhoenix]

@@Zond3r No.

[@hlalakar4156]

@@Zond3r No, it's a brown or orange color in the books.

[@deadon4847]

Spice is worm poop.

[@melissaharris3389]

It's both. Concentrated spice essence is blue. Hense the blue within blue Eyes of Ibad of Fremen and spice addicts. The mature spice becomes redish after it erupts from deep beneath the sand; it's then oxidized and dessicated by Arakkis's intense sunlight and dry atmosphere. It's at that stage it's granular, redish, and smells vaguely of cinnamon.

[@StEvEn-dp1ri]

One thing, Alex, you didn't even touch on, is where does the planet get all of its oxygen from in the first place? Zero greenery to speak of, no oceans for plankton, and absolutely nothing for photosynthesis. What on that planet produces oxygen? Never mind an atmosphere very Earth-like. That's always been my biggest question.

[@vileluca]

there's tons of plankton in the sand. Its what the worms eat.

[@StEvEn-dp1ri]

@@vileluca yeah, I know about that plankton. Of course I take issue with that as well. Plankton require water to survive too and on the surface in the sand where they live is dry as well. At any rate, thanks for the reply.

[@disconnected22]

The sand worms exhale Oxygen. It’s a byproduct of their chemical cycle

[@missedpenguin]

the worms and all it's stages create oxygen

[@MolotDET]

Dune was once a lush jungle planet and the remains of the desiccating plants buried under the sand produce gasses which are processed by the sand plankton and produce o2.

[@timmo971]

I’d just like to point out that “the spacing guild” uses spice for navigation not folding space directly. Apparently folding space is dangerous due to collisions and spice gives the navigators a level of prescience that in turn gives them a chance to “turn the steering wheel” before it’s too late kind of thing.

[@MolotDET]

Navigators do not in any way possess any form of prescience

[@Radzood]

@@MolotDET They do

[@MolotDET]

@@Radzood unfortunately they do not. 3rd Stage Navigators (aka Steersman) possess extended awareness allowing them to know the present conditions of space in the entire universe all at once and they possess the ancestral knowledge of how all things in space interact with each other which allows them to predict how any cosmic event will cause interactions with anything along their path allowing them to manually steer a safe course across the universe. it is a fine line between prediction and prescience but there is a line. Previous to Heretics of Dune only Paul, Leto II, and Count Fenring actually possessed any type of actual prescience, and Fenring barely had any at all.

[@colormedubious4747]

@@MolotDET You're stuck on the 1984 movie. Lynch changed the book explanation into easy-to-digest nonsense. The ships' drives fold space, the 'gators just foresee the safest course.

[@MolotDET]

@@colormedubious4747 the ship drive doesn't enable wormhole travel, the Holtzman engine is an FTL engine nothing more

[@innercityprepper]

Don't forget that the shield technology also has another plot device: Interaction with lasers causes nuclear explosions.

[@patrickm.4469]

Randomly too, which is always nice lol

[@stazeII]

Which was changed in movies to use actual atomics, which in books was brought up as not possible since it would incur retaliation from other houses (if I recall). Shields also drove worms into frenzy.

[@marksnow7569]

@@stazeII I think you're misremembering the book. Atomics as a weapon were banned, but using them for civil engineering was OK, so Paul did a very rapid and large-scale bit of landscape redesign to create a passage for sandworms.

[@the_exegete]

@@stazeII Atomics are used in the attack on Arrakeen in the book as well. And of course in both the houses weren't too happy about it.

[@stazeII]

@@marksnow7569thought they had a shield generator on the wall and hit it with laser (which gave atomic like blast)

[@BroadwayJosh]

What's all this about the variable rotational speed of Arrakis? I don't recall anything about that in the Frank Herbert Dune books, except in one of them, he wrote that the planet's rotational axis was almost perfectly perpendicular, effectively not tilted at all. Maybe all this nonsense is in the Brian Herbert/Kevin J.Anderson "heresies" (😆) of prequels, sequels, pre-prequels, post-sequels, and seemingly non-stop attempts to wring as much money as possible out of Frank Herbert's sci-fi masterpiece.

[@DrachenGothik666]

Brian Herbert can't write to save his life. I read _one_ of his books over 30 years ago, & it was abominable. Can't even recall the title, but it was contrived, the names of things in the book were silly (something about a mud planet where the mud was called "galoo". Really, Brian? C'mon), & plot points were predictable. And I caught this as a 19 year old naïve kid who knew jack squat about the world.

[@BroadwayJosh]

@@DrachenGothik666 I just googled Brian Herbert's books - was it called "The Race For God?" I picked up one his books at the library one time, printed in green ink, set in the not too distant future, about a "green dictator" who will be middle-aged in the 2050s - I cannot remember the title - it was awful and I couldn't finish it. His collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson on writing the Dune prequels proved more fruitful. I remember being in Sam's Club 20 years ago, walking by "Dune: House Atreides," my eyes about popping out of my head - I glommed onto it without a 2nd thought. I will never forget its opening scene of a fit and lean Baron Harkonnen being flown around in an ornithopter watching a worm devour a spice factory.

[@Suiseisexy]

Nah, he doesn't touch the lore too much, mostly just confirms some suspected stuff like that the Bene Gesserit were always capable of military conflict and goes with the Butlerian Jihad stuff as the ending big bad, who seems to be an inversion of the Baron. What he misses is the big alien bioprocess that makes people capable of FTL probably is doing that on purpose to spread through the universe, we didn't figure out FTL, we hitched a ride on another species in a way. I think we were supposed to get to that after we were done with The Political Effects of Time-Vision: Immortal Dictator Finally Emerges, it's just that the final book is written almost deliberately to suggest Duncan is going on an adventure, so that's what Brian wrote, Duncan's Excellent Adventures.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

​@@BroadwayJoshColonel Philipp Green? From Star Trek? The Savage Curtain? 1969? Brian ripped that off?

[@OOTurok]

To clarify the association of Spice with FTL travel in the Dune Universe..... it has zero effect on the ship & its ability to move faster than light. The Spice is not used to run the FTL engines at all. The ship's FTL engines do all the work of folding space, & function completely independent of the Spice. The Spice only gives the Navigators the ability to see different possible futures... so they can predict the safest path of where to fold space & how much space to fold between jumps. Prescience is required for this, otherwise the ship might jump into an asteroid, rogue planet, or other celestial object that would destroy the ship. By consuming Spice... Navigators are able to see all these obstacles before hand, where they will be & when they will be... thus are able to navigate around those obstacles. The Spice essentially gives Navigators a mental map, by which to navigate the ship. Before the discovery of Spice... highly intelligent computers would control the ship's FTL engines to warp space & navigate starships. But there is reason why people stopped using such computers.

[@rhenmerchant5715]

FYI, if you read the books you will understand that fold space is possible without spice. The spice allows the guild stearsman to plot a safe path in fold space.

[@sailorgeer]

Regarding the force fields that block fast moving objects but allow slow ones through, I always imagined it similar to the properties of rheopectic fluids, a non-Newtonian fluid that increases in viscosity when shear stress is applied (ie the opposite of thixotropic fluids where viscosity decreases under stress. An example from grade school science is a mixture of cornstarch and water, often called “Oobleck” where you can form it into a ball in your hands but when you stop applying stress it magically oozes away through your fingers.

[@Emanon...]

Have you even read the books and the appendixed material? There are some pretty clear explanations given in the lore to all your points, from the effects of spice to shields to the Holtzmann engine on heighliner ships. Even the ecology cycle of worms, oxygen and water is very well described.

[@xenocide1307]

They clearly didn't.

[@jeffreyrobinson3555]

Dune wasn’t always a desert, the importation of sand worms made it so, as their life cycle encapsulates water. Where ever they came from they went wild on Arakis free of what ever their natural predator was. Environmental concerns were very much a theme of Herbert.

[@melissaharris3389]

Herbert begins to imply in his last books that they may be bioenginered creatures.

[@vaakdemandante8772]

A whole series on Sci-Fi realism linked with current astronomic discoveries could be nice. I'd gladly watch a dissection of Star-Trek universe in relation to the actual reality of cosmos as we know it.

[@SirHeinzbond]

The setting of The Expanse is mostly rooted to known science, Protogene and Fusion Power beside...

[@eldritchbeauty]

First thing that comes to mind is that Warp speed would be impossible. Our current understanding of physics says that any attempts at light speed or faster than light speed travel would break causality, including any sort of warp drives or even worm holes.

[@cheetored20]

Dune shields don't work against slow moving objects because people were suffocating during tests. Its a programing feature, not a laws of physics one.

[@rhenmerchant5715]

The Dune universe does NOT have faster than light travel. It has "fold space". No Guild ship travels faster than light.

[@williamzame3708]

The Guild navigators do not fold space; the Holtzmann effect does that. The Guild navigators only see the path.

[@weirdkitty07]

Paul Atredes and his going native does not lead to him becoming a Luke Skywalker type, as you might think, but rather, he becomes like Annakin, and then his son becomes the worm man Leto II in the sequels.

[@tabularasa0606]

The whole premise of the story is: "Don't worship hero's". They're only human and they have faults.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Dune is older than Star Wars. Dune was published in 1965. Star Wars was released in 1977. Star Wars copied a lot of ideas from Dune. So it would be more correct to say that Anakin becomes like Paul, except they are nothing alike. Sure, both are "chosen ones" from a young age, like Harry Potter, and both suffer from occasional future visions, but that's where the similarities end. Anakin is more like Luke: Constantly complaining, impatient, and bloody-mindedly chasing a noblewoman.

[@NeonCicada]

8:00 Force Fields = the reason those personal shields in Dune don't make scientific sense is because the author was using them as a narrative device (foreshadowing) _"slow blade penetrates the shield"_ is actually a metaphor for the subtle treachery associated with the nobility

[@matteste]

From my understanding from reading the second book, the future sight offered by spice follows more of a quantum model. In that you see several possible futures and can tell which ones are the most likley to occur. Basically it is about probability but not set in stone. It is difficult to change what you see as it is more unlikley to happen, but not impossible.

[@weirdkitty07]

The new Dune movies are a fair and awesome adaptation of the first Dune novel.

[@jumpingman8160]

No

[@davidwuhrer6704]

Yes. I think the second part made some odd choices, but the first was just awesome. For example, Margo Fenring. I assumed that she would just pretend to be one of Feyd's groupies, not how they depicted it in the film. Or the surface of Giedi, I would have assumed life on that industrial planet to be basically all underground. And why they didn't use that effect for the nuclear explosion instead. But the interaction between Feyd and the Beast was great. The emperor came across as borderline senile though. His Sardaukar are religious fanatics, he is their living god, he is supposed to be terrifying, in a Christopher Walken kind of way. Anyway, the end was a great payoff, even though it deviated from the book.

[@deepashtray5605]

The one scientific necessity ignored or not realized in the creation of harsh desert planets such as Arrakas or Tatooine is the basic biological principle of an oxygen cycle. Oxygen is extremely reactive and must have a mechanism such as photosynthesis found in plant life to make it available to breathe or it will quickly react to most all but a small handful of the other elements.

[@MolotDET]

Not sure about Tatooine, but on Dune oxygen is created by the sand plankton's interaction with the desiccating remains of the ancient jungles which existed on Arrakis before the sand trout were introduced. Plant biomass buried under the sand releases gases which are processed by the sand plankton and turned into oxygen.

[@deepashtray5605]

@@MolotDET Thanks for taking the time to explain that, but it still seems like a stretch. Of course giant worms that can move at 80 miles an hour through sand are also a bit of a stretch... :)

[@Kevinjimtheone]

There are a few missing points in the video, but I’ll focus on a couple: - The shield: in the books, they described as inventions that allow slow moving particles in to allow breathing. It is not explicitly noted if that a side effect or an design choice - Planetary rotation: it was the 60s. We barely managed to put humans on the moon with the computational power of a Casio watch. I would forgive Herbert for not nailing that part, which is not really the focus of the book to begin with - Guild Navigators & Spice: Guild navigator were genetically modified humans that overused spice to be able to navigate space travel. FTL space travel was perfectly possible to achieve using machines, but “thinking” machines were explicitly forbidden after the butlerian jihad. The mechanics of spice were never explained, but I thought of it similarly to a super state of what one might thing as “in the zone”, but with numerous more data and sensory input Others have already explained the water thing. It would be fun to go over how the sand worms move, though. The most logical answer is that they “inhale” sand and “extract” it with force, like a sand jet ski.

[@manslaughterinc.9135]

There's a lot more water on Arrakis than is made apparent in the books or movies. You need to read Children of Dune and look for the sand trout. They are a larval phase of the sandworms, and they lock up water. They go into this further in the 6th book, where they use sandworms to terraform another planet into a desert planet by introducing the sandworms. The water isn't going away, it's being locked up by the trout.

[@ClifftopTragedy]

I loved the movies but I don't think they managed to get across the harshness of Arakis. They seemed fairly comfortable wandering around.

[@nach4642]

During the day and never wearing masks, just accessorizing them like a necklace

[@GudieveNing]

As a soon to be designer of electric aircraft, and only 1:35 into the video, looking forward to your analysis of the 'ornithopters', although they are not in fact bird like, but giant dragonflies. In reality, on Earth anyway, these flying machines would explode into pieces of mechanical parts on power up if such huge wings flapped that fast against the soup of terrestrial Terran air.

[@alexejfrohlich5869]

i wonder if the shields would come in handy here...? like the craft itself is protected by the shield and the strong forces just make sure that no energy is passed onto the frame? of course, when we see how they operate, the crafts should glow highly blue when they are active then, i guess.

[@makeshift_battlefield_music]

Dragonflyesque indeed. However it also reminds me of a hummingbird's flight technique. Large proportional wings, like you said, would be absurd. But perhaps you could think about a vehicle with tens of thousands of tiny mechanical hummingbird wings. Would that work?

[@rdizzy1]

Not exactly, look up the youtube video "I built a simulated ornithopter and the results surprised me", it would be more viable than people think, even on earth. (And the gravity on arrakis is lower than earths, regardless of what some of the wiki information says, the planet is quite a bit smaller than earth due to the time it takes for characters to travel across the surface, based on speed)

[@patrickm.4469]

​@@alexejfrohlich5869only some of the ornithopters have the shields apparently I'm reading the first book currently

[@DolgorsurenDagvadorj]

By precognition I always assumed that it's a future prediction by extrapolating the current state of the universe, not some baked-in future, so it can change for sure. Paul and other future kwisatz Haderach has to actively act to shape the future. No paradoxes. Anyways, I like the Dune universe a lot, though most elements of it are there just to get the plot going. It's not a bad thing because it's pretty well worked out, but it definitely places Dune much more into the fiction/fantasy category for me.

[@LeviGarcia]

The book also mentions that if shields are hit with a laser then it results in a nuclear explosion. This may be why in the beginning of Part 2 the Harkonnen captain yells, "No Shields!" I don't recall the shield problem being mentioned anywhere else in either movie.

[@SireDutchball]

Imagine a video like this but for the celestial objects and events of Warhammer 40k.

[@adamjenson9369]

It's only a problem if the story presents it as a "rule" and is then inconsistent with it. That's how good writing works, it doesn't matter if the rules of a fictional universe are different then the real universe, what matters is if the story follows it's own rules. That's why LOTR is a well written story despite having magic, it's very internally consistent.

[@mleko23]

You don't need spice to fold space. You just need it to do it succesfully. 12:30' magic mushroms where never acceleration device 😊

[@josephstaton4820]

I was hoping to see the lasgun/body shield interaction in the first movie, as mentioned in the book. It'll be interesting to see how they render the stone burner explosion in Dune Messiah. I have an old paperback copy of the Dune Encyclopedia, which was considered cannon until the prequel books came out.

[@sayyay6230]

Spice isn't blue, the cisterns aren't wells but the collected water of generations and the terraforming of Arakis is done by billions of people from across the galaxy making pilgrimages to Arakis to pay homage and leaving behind water vapor from breathing and all the other ways people lose water.

[@sebastian6845]

spice is blue in the books

[@melissaharris3389]

It's both. Normal spice harvested from the sand is redish orange due to oxidation and drying under Arakkis's sun. _Very_ concentrated spice essence like the Water of Life or Sapho, used by Mentants, was blue.

[@sayyay6230]

@@melissaharris3389 The water of life was bile from new born sand worms I kinda thought it was its own thing yes similar but diffrent and I dont think sapho was spice or derived from spice at all but i could be wrong

[@_Feyd-Rautha]

Spice isn't blue. The shields allow things generally moving slower than 6 cm per second to pass through so that air can pass through so the user can breathe also so that they can handle objects like their swords

[@MrCovi2955]

On the topic of needing to use pumps to keep the nano-porous membranes clean. It is explained in the books that the suits harness body movements to power various pumps around the suit. While the book only says this is used to move water from where its collected from the body to where it gets filtered and stored, it also does say that fremen suits are extremely superior to the common suits everyone else uses, and I would not be surprised if their suits doubled down on the pump pressure (making movement more difficult but they're not "soft people") to continually scrub their filters as well.

[@jeffreyrobinson3555]

One point. The guild mastered faster then light travel, but anyone can do it. It’s dangerous. The spice gives some humans the ability to see the safe path. The spice does nothing to make it possible only possible to see the safe path.

[@geared2cre8]

The larva state of the sandworm actually seeks out water and stores it, And actually the planet aracquest was terreformed by the sandworm larva because it was Found that the larva did not originate on dune. there's an encyclopedia

[@BLD426]

Remind me not to go to a movie with you.😁

[@ZEROmg13]

.........i went to see "Titanic" with a history buff.............worst movie EVER!!!........lol

[@BLD426]

@@ZEROmg13 Yup..😁

[@richlisola1]

The personal shields can theoretically be adjusted to block slow moving objects-However, if it was calibrated to block all moving objects then the wearer would be smothered. Death by affixation.

[@uknowbass]

Holtzman engines fold space. Navigators use spice to find safe passages through space

[@karabenomar]

Considering how it's impossible to pull yourself out when you're half-buried in sand, I'd like to see a serious calculation of how much power a sandworm needs to propel itself through the sand at speed a couple of hundred meters deep. And how many calories they'd need to get that much energy.

[@johngaughan9399]

Eh, it is a solved problem. Specifically, by Tremors back in 1990. They work like a combination of snake and fish, with little fins that act like sand-oars.

[@jareds8729]

i still find it hard to believe there would be no satellites orbiting such an important planet with the most valuable resource ever

[@philsmith2444]

Read the book and you’ll see there are artificial satellites orbiting Arrakis. The Fremen bribe the Spacing Guild with spice to avoid certain areas where they’re doing things they don’t want seen by the Harkonnens or Empire.

[@FrikInCasualMode]

In the first book it was mentioned that Fremen pay exorbitant bribe in Spice to Trading Guild to specifically NOT notice any curious things happening in the desert.

[@MolotDET]

there are actually weather control satellites which keep it from raining at all to protect the spice cycle

[@davidwuhrer6704]

The first book also states that the Atreides had weather satellites from IX in orbit around Arrakis.

[@GamerplayerWT]

The shields use/issue is twofold: first, slow moving objects (like oxygen and CO2 exchange would have to take place so that the wearer didn’t suffocate). Second, the slow moving objects getting through were designed to show the limitations of technology.

[@esmannr]

There are four Holtzman Effects. Point source, One Dimensional (waves), Two Dimensional or Planar (shields), Three Dimensional (levitation and space travel).

[@wlot28]

Dune is barely sci fi, it’s odd to me how everyone classifies it like that when it has much more in common with fantasy

[@nateroberto6239]

It's called Sci-Fanstasy or soft sci-fi. Star wars could be considered Sci-fantasy, Dune as soft-scfi and Foundation as hard sci-fi (being that it is based on mathematical sociology). Like fantasy, there are many sub genres within sci-fi. Dune is sci-fi, just not hard, though harder than star wars. Star Trek is all of the above depending on the episode. Though there are many distinctions between these sub-genres, remember that politics and international relations are sciences. The points between certain fantasy books and soft sci-fi can become blurred if both discuss socio-political issues that relate to our conceptions of said subject. Usually one chooses the theme of magic where as the other chooses technology. Furthermore, one chooses a fictional past, the other a future. Though, again, this isn't always the case.

[@GoldenMinotaur]

I'm guessing you're one of those, if it ain't essentially a physics paper it's not sci-fi, folks? No judgement, just curious

[@user-bh4ge1pm2t]

I agree with the original comment. Even by soft sci-fi standards, it comes up short. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastically rich tale, with many fascinating concepts and intriguing thoughts on the human condition. But even Herbert himself said the science is only tangential to the plot.

[@wlot28]

@@GoldenMinotaur Not really, but I do think science fiction as a genre is based on the exploration of scientific concepts. Dune doesn’t go in depth into anything scientific, what it does go into is only in service of its themes and narrative. Why I think it’s more closely related to fantasy though is because it hits on almost every traditional epic fantasy trope, except it deconstructs and criticizes them.

[@GoldenMinotaur]

@@wlot28 I respect that. To me science fiction has always been a vessel to convey controversial or sensitive concepts to a reader that might disconnect from an ego response if they feel too connected to the antagonistic aspects. But that's the beauty of books, we each own our own experience, not even the author supercedes our interpretations

[@charleshamilton9274]

My main quibble with the science of ‘Dune’ is the ludicrous use of ornithopters on a planet mostly comprised of sand. 🤷‍♂️

[@reignman30]

I would think any sort of machinery in a sand environment has to be a nightmare for the people who have to maintain the equipment. Good for the filter business I suppose though.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

They need flying machines to get anywhere quickly, and it sort of makes sense that future flying machines resemble naturally evolved designs. The indigenous people know better than to use flying machines, but the off-worlders would be used to them (and labour is cheap anyway), and can't be expected to learn how to ride on the local fauna.

[@myrddrral]

The main cause for many of the events and parameters of the Dune universe is the Butlerian Jihad, after which all "thinking machines" (in a VERY broad definition, including computers) are banned. The space-folding tech existed for millenia before the events in the book, and initially humanity used AI to navigate the stars. The need for spice came as a result of the banishment of AI after the Machine Wars, which almost wiped out humanity. In fact, several of the main elements in that universe (mentats, Bene Gesserit, Navigators, Ginaz Swordmasters) exist precisely because AI was banished, making the quest for expanding human capabilities an absolute necessity since the species could no longer depend on smart machines. Understanding this element of the story will clarify a lot of what we see.

[@NewGoldStandard]

This is the first video on Dune 2 that was even slightly critical of it. I really enjoyed it, as I do all of your work. Thanks you!

[@kyoku1982]

We need to practice hand to hand combat incase the enemy is wearing a shield that can only be penetrated by epic, sexy, well choreographed knife attacks.

[@philsmith2444]

Yeah, the scene in part 1 where the Power Ranger danced his way through all those opponents was laughable 😂

[@willem1642]

If sand worms eat sand plankton, what does the sand plankton eat? There seems little or no plant life on Arrakis, so the ecology can't work.

[@Iflie]

Yeah nothing makes sense when it comes to food, there are millions of Fremen living in the deep desert and there is nothing to eat. You can't grow or hunt enough food to sustain such a huge population with the storms. Unlesss you have massive giant underground hydroponics but that would take a ton of water and they keep losing water in various ways when they go out. The water is very expensive so they also can't go to the villages and buy it. So many survival stories lack the food aspect, that we can't survive on a few tomatoes in asoup, we need 2000 calories a day at the very least if you are doing any sort of physical labour. Knife fighting in the heat? 3000. Galons of water. Frank Herbert describes how the Fremen have dry bodies, skinny from lack of water in their tissues, blood barely drops. If a human lived like that he'd be dead.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

The books describe parts of the ecology. Herbert was particularly interested in that aspect. The Fremen use wind traps to extract water and energy from the air. There are also mice and bats living in the desert. And sand trouts are also a source of water.

[@victoriaeads6126]

The melange ESSENCE is a blue LIQUID. Spice powder is never described as blue. It is described as "glowing blue," in God Emperor of Dune, and the gaseous form is orange. "Glowing blue" could indicate a phosphorescent glow, and not necessarily refer to the base color of the material. I am currently rereading the Frank Herbert Dune novels. I am on Heretics of Dune, and so far that's about all of the descriptors used. The textiles made from "spice fiber" are described as red, and taken all together, I imagined the spice to be deep reddish brown with a blue phosphorescence. I know some are adamant that the spice is blue, but Frank Herbert consulted on the original movie, and it was cinnamon colored there. If he considered the melange to be blue, especially considering how rare blue tends to be in nature AND how often he used other color descriptions for other aspects of spice and spice products, I think it would have been blue in the original movie.

[@electrifiedspam]

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice is sapho that thoughts aquire speed. Thoughts aquire speed and lips aquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

[@cursive6412]

Okay, Neil Tyson

[@dbqpr-ot3px]

love it astrum! ignore the haters this kind of content is amazing

[@xenocide1307]

Dude didn't even read the books and it's painfully obvious. You can be critical and not be a hater.

[@actuallytoon533]

@@xenocide1307This!!

[@LabRatJason]

In the books, the holtzman field is created by a holtzman generator... which frequently overheats when heavily taxed by incoming projectiles. Presumably the impacts against the shield are feeding back into the generator. Another interesting detail from the books is that the shields react explosively when hit with lasers... a fact that was not known until the shields were already heavily deployed among military personnel (turns out, lasers were an ancient weapon that wasn't very effective due to energy requirements) Someone ends up firing an old museum relic at Theo Holzman himself (the named inventor, but not the actual inventor), who was wearing a shield, and it destroys an entire city. The physics of that reaction are also not covered in the books (where does the energy come from for an explosion the size of a nuke, when the interaction was caused by a battery powered laser and a battery powered shield generator?) About the water on Dune: the water was always on the planet, but it was tied up by creatures called "Sand Trout". These creatures aggressively find water and absorb/trap it under ground. The sand trout are the larval stage of the sand worm. Once the water is trapped, some sand trout become Shaitan (Later called Shai Hulud). Sand worms cannot live in the presence of water. The terraformers eventually realized that destroying the sand trout would release the waters, which would destroy the worms, allowing water to flow on Arrakis... though even after this was done, there wasn't enough water to have full-blown oceans on the planet... but rivers on the surface did exist.

[@dd5219]

I’ve been wondering about this since I saw it, thanks for making this!

[@albinoviper2876]

Its a story ppl calm down

[@blueboozle774]

Grow up man, this a informative video

[@dashdotdot]

Dune is a made up fictional story. Come on Astrum. Do better.

[@carlhannah1884]

We'll get through this together. One step at a time. One day at a time. We shall rebuild.

[@eattoast6378]

This video is entertainment. He's not critiquing it seriously, you dork. It's just a device for pop Sci entertainment. Were you just born? 😂

[@kadourimdou43]

It’s a bit of fun. This is still allowed.

[@Fatusbeergutus]

He could always address how massive your mum is that she is slowing down our day by 1hr a week. But everyone knows that

[@CalmSnow_]

You'll be surprised how many mentally challenged people think that could be possible.

[@theeffete3396]

Foldspace (interstellar travel) can be roughly explained using actual physics. First, the thing to keep in mind is that the Holtzman effect isn't very well explained, so it requires a leap of logic to assume it "just works." Second, the Navigators use their narrow prescience to visualize the "translight pathway" the Heighliner transverses. It is mentioned that without a Navigator, the foldspace engine works unpredictably. With that said, let's now explore how foldspace might work. Herbert was well aware of the Uncertainty Principle (one of his other books was even called The Eyes of Heisenberg), so we can safely surmise that he had that mind in when visualizing foldspace. When a Heighliner slips into a "translight" pocket, let's assume it attains a near-infinite wave function. (Again, we need to assume this "just works" without nitpicking particulars.) Just like with the double-slit experiment, OBSERVING the location of the ship would collapse the wave, placing the ship at the desired location. Without an observer (i.e., Guild Navigator), the ship would instead appear anywhere in the universe at random. As for avoiding time paradoxes, Einstein's own theories on time travel (public knowledge at the time DUNE was authored) suggested that it was possible, but the traveller could not go any earlier than the moment the machine was activated. In other words, you could, at best, only travel to your own present. It worth noting that physics has come a long way since the mid-sixties, and our understanding of such things has evolved, but that is the context Frank was working with at the time.

[@mattiafogliazza3495]

About the properties of the shields, its vulnerability towards slow moving objects may actually serve a practical purpose, in the sense that if the hield were to repulse any kind of object, then its user wouldn't be able to interact with anything (like and object he might want to grab) and would be stuck in a King Mida's kind of situation.

[@WildFungus]

being science fiction the personal shields evoke a sense of reason that makes them believable and it justifies a world full of interpersonal sword fighting which despite our technological advancements hold human attention much better than impersonal war by distance. Also there can't be negative time at 'speed of light' because the time slowing down to functionally stopping, or 0 is a function of infinite mass. In later books it is explained the Sandworms have a hidden origin, they aren't human made they may be the only mention of aliens, and there's no mention of how the sandtrout were obtained but they are an alien creature probably genetically engineered brought to arrakis when it was a lush habitable world, The sandworms made it a desert and are a hybridized plant / animal / fungus

[@TheDirtyShaman]

16:20 "Crawford's gray shrew" or commonly known as "Desert Shrews" are known to sustain themselves entirely from prey, being able to survive without any additional water.

[@apples-fj8eu]

Spice doesnt make things go the speed of light. It allows the space navigators make the necessary calculations to safely travel through space. Its needed because thinking computers are banned in dune

[@tortenschachtel9498]

Aren't the worms the source of the spice and wouldn't terraforming Arrakis kill them, thus leaving you with no life extending drugs for the people to see the final result of the terraforming?

[@ab-hx8qe]

The reason the shields only effect fast moving things is as a result of them being designed to counter firearms. That’s why blades are preferred over swords. They could program them to block anything irrespective of speed but then you would suffocate as even air would be rejected.

[@redscoot8634]

another problem that you forgot to mention is the size of Arrakis , Arrakis is said to be a little smaller than our moon , Arrakis is 3474 km in diameter ...making it too small to even hold on to an atmosphere or earth like gravity .

[@Epoch11]

I always thought of the shields as sort of a non-Newtonian fluid in terms of something you could compare it to. When you hit a non-Newtonian fluid it's firm but when you move slowly you can basically stick your hand right through it.

[@melissaharris3389]

That's probably the best way to explain/think about it. Oxygen needs to permeate (and CO2 dissipate) a boby shield or the wearer will asphyxiate. What's actually more interesting is that an interaction with a Holtzman field (the sci-fi tech that creates the shield) and a Lazer cannon/rifle creates an explosion similar to a nuclear blast!

[@Live_Not_By_Lies]

The space guild doesn’t necessarily see into the future as much as they use the spice to make the calculations. There are no computers because of the past war. The navigators of the space guild are basically human supercomputers. They also are not the same as normal humans.

[@bg1052]

When it comes to terraforming Arrakis, I'm pretty sure it was already said at the end of the first movie that Arrakis already has enough water to be terraformed, it's just underground. Infact, the structure that Paul goes to hide in at the end of the first movie was made to bring this water up to the surface. The only reason they didn't was because the Spice's properties and uses were discovered by the rest of the empire, therefor the Fremen were comquered and any plans to terraform the planet were ignored

[@Mistmantle88]

It is theoretically impossible to ACCELERATE an object past light speed, but it is NOT impossible for an object to travel faster than light relative to another object. Space itself is expanding and if two objects have enough expanding space between them those objects are completely unaware of each other and can indeed travel away from one another at speeds faster than light. This is why we have a boundary between the “observable universe” and the vast majority of the entire universe. If you learn how to compress or expand space itself (which is NOT limited by the speed of light) you could indeed travel faster than light by compressing the space (between two galaxies for example) to near zero.

[@akshayv3198]

The lore of dune does explain why the shields woke the way the do. The reson slow thing can pass though is to let air and such through. They can make sheild that block slow moving items but then no one can breathe 😂

[@Fl4ppers]

The shields could have some form of antigravity effect, but the science doesnt seem to back up that antigravity exists. It could be a non-newtonian liquid effect but with particles. That would explain why the slow blade penetrates the shield.

[@ianyboo]

It's so funny how the obsession remains terraforming planets and all the challenges that presents when the way more likely future is trillions of rotating habitats and the disassembly of planets for their raw materials.

[@Fearia6]

Infinities in calculations are an artifact showing the physics model used is incomplete. An infinity in itself is not evidence of the possibility of something.

[@vongregor1]

A lot of these things touch on things that we don't know yet. We can't confidently say what is, or isn't possible in the future.

[@ewill3435]

Dune is likely the hardest soft-sci fi setting around, but that's what needs to be kept in mind. It technobabbles as much as star trek, but with less pretention, so it's frustrating for myself, someone who studied physics, to hear people say that Dune's technology is all based in hard science. Just because it isn't all based in real physics doesn't make it bad.

[@dontyouhaveacomrade1585]

The spice doesn’t make light speed possible. It enables humans to navigate with out using computers.

[@JonRista]

I think you've missed a key point about space travel from the books. Its been a little bit since I read them myself, but the concept was "Traveling, WITHOUT moving..." The notion of space folding is not that you are traveling faster than light, not in any "conventional" sense as put forth by most Sci-Fi. You aren't necessarily even "traveling through" a wormhole (although wormholes may be involved.) The idea was that you "folded" space (which was done by the highliner itself, and its Holtzman drive, not by the navigators), in effect bringing two points in the universe together "through foldspace (which is where the navigators prescience is required, to find a safe path through this "foldspace"...and as I understand it, for the SPACE BEING FOLDED...not so much the highliner itself!!) at the SAME PLACE (the highliner). You then simply ARE at the other location...there is no speed involved, not actual movement, no conventional FTL. You simply "fold" yourself through "spacetime" and are then somewhere else. Its an odd concept, but one that is theoretically supported by Einstein's relativity (i.e. Einstein-Rosen bridge, wormholes). The Navigators, saturated with melange, are capable of a limited (compared to Kwisatz Haderach anyway) form of prescience that allows them to avoid potential collisions in the foldspace, which is what made this form of space travel safe and effective and allowed travel throughout the known universe. I don't believe that the modern depiction of this space folding in the new miniseries by HBO, is actually all that accurate. The way they show the highliners is more like they are "portals", where if you look or travel through them, you arrive somewhere else. That isn't what I remember from the book...the way the book read, you had to be within the space of the highliner when space was folded in order to "travel" and if you were not within that space, then you didn't travel. The Dune miniseries from 2000 seemed to depict this more accurately, and I guess so did the original Dune from 1984...I've been disappointed in the relatively cheap effects and approach to this form of space travel that the newer movies have taken. It seems like a copout, to avoid even trying to depict how this form of travel might look like. -\_o.o_/-

[@melissaharris3389]

You are right about how the folding space works. I think Villenuve made a mistake depicting the Highliner as he chose to. But it is a far out concept to visually depict. As those inside see nothing and the ship just dissappears and reappears. Even Herbert doesn't 'show' it. He just info dumps it on the reader as Paul's inner monologue. I think the idea was to show the ship existing at both points in spacetime at once, but it doesn’t come across unless you're already familiar with how it's meant to work from the books. Strangely enough, Star Wars (Dune's bastard child) depicts FTL via wormhole pretty well.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

That's what a wormhole looks like: You enter at one end where it's invisible, and exit at the other end, where you see the entrance. Entrance and exit are the same volume in spacetime, but traversal is unidirectional. The heighliners create that wormhole by folding space. They have to be at both ends for that, naturally. In the book, Paul never sees a heighliner. He enters a shuttle, and an unsolicited time later he exits a shuttle. Maybe the same shuttle. Compartments aboard the heighliner are mentioned, but not what they are.

[@mntbighker]

Not only is the sandworm unlikely to evolve in such an environment. The energy required to fluidize sand in such quantities to make movment under the sand possible would be insane.

[@Meadras]

7:42 Uhh, what? The shield generators themselves are specifically designed to alter the fields in order to let slow-moving objects pass. It's not just a quirk of the Holtzman Effect - it's an intentional design built in to the shield generators. The book says that, without the phase of the field being altered, not even breathable air could pass through. So the slow blades passing through are just a consequence of design.

[@arynnightshade7164]

I have to say, this one got me thinking about terraforming as a whole. I understand that in order to do so, or rather, if we had the ability to do so, why not fix Earth, which could also be done in the process. I really think that our solar system contains the elements needed for everything mankind dreams of. I feel like our focus should be towards how to achieve collecting these elements and, of course, ease of travel within the oort cloud. Not just how to get off our own planet, but how to sustain presence and travel between planets.

[@atmartins16]

Can't wait until your video pops-up on my recommended with a different title

[@furycat28]

1:27 Dune's planets 6:36 Holtzman effect shield's and Space folding 10:27 Spice 12:40 Water and Stillsuits 15:02 Sandworms

[@peanuts2105]

As an aircraft engineer, Those quadcopter things are ridiculous. You think helicopters are bad in terms of beating the air into submission but these things are on another level. Added mechanical complexity for a problem that doesn't exist. The vibrations would be huge, the bearings would have to be huge too to take the loads (and heavy) and the ground clearance and reciprocal nature of these blades is very inefficient with a high energy consumption. Just look at those beautiful hummingbirds - amazing to look at but very energy intensive