A beginning is the time for taking the most delicate care that the balances are correct.
One of the first science fiction novels to develop a complex future world built on advanced technologies was Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965). It was also extremely influential on me in my formative years. I started playing the PC game Dune 2000 at what was probably far too young an age. I played all the campaigns with the various houses; I drew all of the in-game units and made my own board games with them; I quoted the dialogue (and still do); I dreamed about imagined scenarios of sandworms and spice and political intrigue.
It instilled in me philosophies and ideologies that I had no conscious knowledge of yet. Some of them would prove toxic—after all, the only gay man in Herbert’s sprawling universe is also a maniacal pedophile, and his bloodthirsty “twisted Mentat” (342) is constantly described as “effeminate,” (44, 364) but that’s another topic. And, I won’t even get started on all the implicit (and explicit) racism and sexism.
I held on most tightly to Herbert’s ideas about ecology, political power, and the long game of how planets’ environs can be manipulated by humanity. In many ways, Dune—Arrakis—the desert planet served as a warning for what Earth could become—hot, hostile, and altogether inhospitable.
Some Quick Vocab
Weather Satellites
Within the first part of the first novel of the Dune series, it is made clear to the reader that the technology to change the desert planet Arrakis into a flourishing temperate paradise exists and is being withheld only for political and philosophical reasons—“He was merely making it plain—one Mentat to another—that the price was out of our reach and would remain so… Our task is to find out why” (190). If the price remains out of reach for the great Duke Leto, an intergalactic ruler who controls two entire planets, then it would seem a functional impossibility. These circumstances are exacerbated by the delicate balance of power in the Dune universe.
Power within the world of Dune is somewhat precariously balanced between three primary factions: the Emperor, the Landsraad, and the Spacing Guild. In addition to these main players, there are others vying for control in less direct ways, including CHOAM (a megacorporation) and the Sisters of the Bene Gesserit.
Family Atomics
The power structures of Dune are backdropped by the knowledge that all of the great houses have “family atomics” (54, 390, 448), a quaint phrase for nuclear arsenals that ensure mutual destruction if any of the houses move too far outside of the norms of the Landsraad. Since Herbert was writing this book during the height of the Cold War, it makes sense on a human level that a nuclear-filled paranoia would permeate this far-flung, feudal future that he created. However, because his world assumes a future where nuclear proliferation has become so ubiquitous as to become background, it allows readers a break from the constant barrage of nuclear threats.
The Butlerian Jihad & The Mind as Computer
Within the Dune universe, complex computers have been eschewed in favor of highly trained “human computers” called mentats. It is heavily implied that there was some sort of AI-related catastrophe in the distant past that lead to this: “Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them” (39). This is in some ways used to rationalize that there isn’t more advanced technology within the Dune universe.
Religion as Social Technology
These philosophies are also mixed up in religion—“Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind” (39), Paul quotes from the Orange Catholic Bible.
The Bene Gesserit manipulate religion, seeding legends and prophesies throughout the universe. In fact, one of the primary reasons that Paul is able to gain such a footing with the Fremen is because a Bene Gesserit sister planted a savior legend generations ago.