Editing Dune (section)

== Simplified themes ==
Being amongst the most popular science fiction books ever, the Dune saga has been massively influential in future works. But Frank Herbert work is notoriously complex, deep, full of philosophical themes that are explored in full. Multiple readings are required to start to grasp some of the most interesting ideas. The average science fiction writer would or could not go that far into complexity. This means that often some of the themes in Dune, are then simplified and "dumbed down" in other works. Some of these other works being extremely popular themselves, they codified these tropes in a way that makes sometimes difficult to appreciate how well thought were the original.

The Butlerian Jihad, which is the revolt against the machines that make that there are no computers in the Dune universe, is the forefather of all Terminator/BSG/40k revolts of the AIs. But in the Jihad, apparently, the AIs didn't revolt against the humans. Instead, it was the humans that decided that the thinking machines, and the way that they were used, was bad for humanity. Details are not explored, but it's strongly hinted that machines were used by humans to oppress other humans and also hindered the development of human potential by taking away the necessity - and therefore the ability - of human beings to learn how to do things and do them better.

What's clear is that the Butlerian Jihad is not a catastrophe that falls upon humanity and takes away technology and progress from them, it's instead a powerful revolution that frees humanity from shackles they themselves built and enables them to move into the next stage of their evolution. Isn't that more interesting than "Evil robo toasters kill humans because bad"?.............Except than latter books clearly did show the thinking machines as a direct threat to humanity with many of them achieving full sentience and opposition with humanity, making that interpretation somewhat blurred. Though given what happened in the latter books it is unknown if that was ever the intent or just canon-shifts thanks to new writers.

Similarly, the apparent lack of technical progress in Dune, which clearly inspired 40k, is definitely not stagnation of progress. Dune's people simply stopped identifying "progress" with the act of creating a better machine and started to focus on how to make and be a better human. As the Butlerian Jihad destroyed computers, they created Mentats. Human beings trained to think in a way that would be able to substitute computers for data analysis and, ultimately, much more powerful than any thinking machine ever existed. Not only that but it's stated by a Mentat in the first book, that even a "normal" human would be able at that point to out-think the AIs of old, hinting that human evolution and mental training has surpassed anything technological. This is again, very clever if you stop thinking about it. Nowadays there are almost 8 billion human brains on Earth, each one of that hundred times more powerful than the more powerful supercomputer, yet we invest enormous resources to research and build these advanced computers. Wouldn't be more sensible to learn how to use our own brains to do these tasks? What if we could "simply" learn to run advanced simulations and protein folding in our brain?

The genius of this is also that humans are basically tool-makers and tool-users, so making tools (AI, robots, computers) that would do the work without us would go contrary to our very nature. Building space ships and spice harvesters is fine since machines that do that are more efficient and durable at their task (and/or a better alternative that would render them obsolete hasn't been developed yet), but computers would merely be a lazy solution to something we could do ourselves following that logic. (And IRL it is a proven fact that certain people can do high-mathematics in their head alone, so Mentats are a viable concept with a bit of genetic engineering and additional help - think Sapho juice that helps them focus on analysis and calculation. We know of some autistic people being able to do computer like mathematics, but autism is not a radical departure in how the brain works, it just affect how people ''focus''. It stands to reason that people might actually be trained to think this way.). 

This idea however is somewhat muddled in the course of the story to an extent. While obviously the idea of humans being able to essentially replace the capacity of a computer themselves is  desirable, it is not truly achieved by humanity alone at the beginning of the story. In order for humanity in the Dune universe to achieve these advanced abilities of the mind and body they are almost hopelessly dependent on the Spice. Without it, there would be no Navigators, Mentats, etc. Spice is essential in order to unlock and develop all these advanced cognitive and mystical abilities humanity has come to rely on. It had become so ingrained in humanities ability to function by that point in the story that merely controlling its supply gave someone near complete subjugation over all of the universe (which does happen by the way). Not unlike the previous idea of machines having to great a control over humanity as a whole before the Jihad. In this regard humanity truly didn't free itself completely as a self-sufficient entity. You could more say it merely became dependent on something else entirely (instead of AI and machines its now The Spice). While before you could say humanity is doomed without its machines, well the Dune universe is doomed without the spice. As basically everything of high importance depends on it, and in fact many can't survive anymore without it. Now whether this was intentional on the part of the author or just a oversight it is an interesting thought how much of these human-derived advancements are truly what is capable of the species, or just an aftereffect of a mystical McGuffin-drug.

As for innovation and science in the Dunce universe, well, it differs somewhat to how we would view it today as there doesn't appear to be much in this universe. But reading more carefully shows this is clearly not the case. Science is clearly present in the universe and used to understand and learn. In one of the books, we have an example of a physicist describing Paul's prescience from the point of view of quantum mechanics. Also the whole story of the Dune planet is arguably set in motion before the events of the first book, first by the "Imperial Planetologist" Pardot Kynes, a scientist sent to understand the ecology of Arrakis and the mystery of Spice. His original mission was to determine a way to produce Spice elsewhere than Arrakis, but he (and his son Liet Kynes after him) would ultimately turn the nomadic Fremen into a tribe of top-notch biologists instead, who would run a planet-wide network of research laboratories and start a huge process of terraforming on Arrakis.

A big part of the narrative of the story is deconstructing the idea of a Messianic Leader. At fist glance, Paul Atreides' story in the first book follows a familiar tale of a scion of a noble dynasty who escapes the downfall of his house only to rise back up and reclaim his rightful throne, topple his family's ancient foes and ascend to greatness as foretold in prophecy. In truth, he gets where he is because of the actions of others (the Bene Gesserit's breeding programs and schemes, his parent's training, the Terraforming vision Kynes has cultivated among the Fremen, the cult of personality his father had among his followers, etc) and while he does rally the Fremen to his cause by word and deed, causing them to see him as a divine figure, it turns out that releasing a horde of crazed religious fanatics hellbent on spreading the word of their messiah across the galaxy at the blade of a crys-knife is a bad thing.

These examples demonstrate that science and research are still very relevant in the Dune universe-- with the difference being that progress would not mean to create a new generation of better machines, but instead to improve the human being itself. And improve them they did. The most prominent examples are the Bene Gesserit, who through controlled evolution and training, would develop literal superpowers like the ability to detect lies, foresee the future, access ancestral memories, and control their internal chemistry to the point of being able to stop ageing and neutralize poisons. At one point a Bene Gesserit is described while neutralizing a poison to use her senses of smell and taste as a chemical lab to identify the substance that was poisoning her. As you can see, this is still very much science, just very different science.

===Influence on Warhammer 40k===
Being a highly successful series with an unique and interesting universe it is obvious that [[Games Workshop]] <s>stole</s> took inspiration from Dune like a [[Blood Ravens|Blood Raven]] in an unlocked reliquary. While this topic is up for [[Skub|debate]] the following were most likely borrowed from the Dune universe:

* '''Close combat / Melee''': The Dune universe is close-combat-heavy because the Holtzman effect changed the face of warfare. This effect can be utilized to generate a man-sized field that can deflect matter that travels beyond a certain speed. This means that bullets are useless against people equipped with shields; this also means that air molecules can't easily pass through the shield, so you'd better get your fighting over with before you collapse from heatstroke and/or suffocate on your own CO2. "But there's [[Lasgun|lasguns]] in Dune!" Yes, Timmy, there are, but when a laser beam hits a shield, the shooter, the target, and the surrounding landscape '''might''' be deleted in a nuclear explosion, so nobody tries it (the effect is also too unpredictable to be used deliberately - the explosion will either be too small or indistinguishable from an atomic weapon, and the use of atomics against humans is a ''big'' no-no in-universe). If your thinking that seems like a completely stupid idea to use a technology that even remotely has the potential to destroy everything in a nukes blast range just for a personal defense device, honestly your not wrong. Meta-wise its obviously an attempt to justify why no one attempts large scale ranged weapons but the concept is screaming for you not to apply to much logic to implementation. Anyways, swordsmanship has come back into style due to the high risk of using laser weapons, resulting in a reliance on melee combat, and projectile weapons are mostly represented by rather ineffective slow-pellet tranquilizer guns. This story element was due to author appeal, as Herbert wanted close combat in the story. 
:: Interestingly, this aspect is rather downplayed in the actual book, since it mostly takes place on Arrakis and using shields in the Arrakis desert will attract very angry sandworms straight to your location. Fremen were as adept with projectile weapons as they were at melee combat, and they were most interested in learning Weirding Way (magic super kung-fu developed by the Bene Gesserit, which was replaced by sonic weapons in Lynch movie) because it allowed them to operate in Arrakis cities without their signature crys-knives. Ultimately the Atreides used the same tactics as the Soviets in Vietnam and Americans in Afghanistan - give anti-aircraft missiles to the natives and enjoy the fireworks.
:::On top of all this the technology completely vanishes from the story post GEOM after Leto outlawed them due to (shockingly) how dangerous they are to people around them. Potentially maybe even Herbert himself realizing how dumb it actually is to use a technology in universe that could accidently destroy a city just for personal defense.
* '''[[Navigator|Navigators]]''': The Dune universe has [[Navigator|Navigators]] which are ''slightly'' similar to their 40k counterparts. Only source of ship travel? Check. Highly mutated? Check. Mutation worsens over time? Check. Some sort of magical powers, but somehow different from everyone else's? Check. Living outside of all political powers? Check. Having their own political agendas? Check. Secretive? Double fucking check. Basically they are the exact same thing with the small exceptions that they need spice to live. Also, Herbert may have cribbed them from the 1950 Cordwainer Smith story [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanners_Live_in_Vain "Scanners Live in Vain"].
* '''No AI allowed''': On the surface, it is the same story: AI goes bad, tries to conquer humanity, gets its virtual arse kicked, and is subsequently forbidden. However, Dune is a little bit more restrictive when it comes to [[Cogitator|Cogitators]] or [[Servitor|Servitors]] and uses humans hyper-trained from birth (and fucked up on drugs) known as "Mentats" as supercomputers instead. In the end though the backstory and the outcome is very much not the same. It's not clear what really happened during the Butlerian Jihad, but it's strongly hinted that humans "revolted" against the machines because of what the usage of machines meant for society and not because the evil machines turned against humanity. This is way more interesting than the common "evil terminator uprising" trope. The outcome is also very different in that the Butlerian Jihad unchains the true development of the human mind and body, ultimately far surpassing any AI capability. The ultimate message being that instead of relying on building better computers to do certain tasks, [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|build a better human to do them instead, and render computers and AI obsolete when compared to the computational power of a trained human.]] All the while, the accelerated evolution of Humanity to fulfill this goal [[Grimdark|twists and contorts what it means to be human, to the absolutely horrifying breaking point.]]
** Out of universe, this probably has to do with the fact that Dune is a Human Story. Intelligent Aliens are also absent.
* '''[[Death World|Death Worlds]]:''' Dune has two of them, Arrakis and the Emperor's nuked-out hellhole Salusa Secundus. Like in 40K, death worlds are places where virtually everything, from the life to the landscape, is out to kill you, and anyone who manages to grow up there is operating on an entirely different level from the rest of humanity and are ''also'' generally out to kill you.  The Emperor uses Salusa to train his elite army and his advisor Count Fenring fears that someone will make a similar army out of the Fremen.
* '''[[God-Emperor of Mankind| The mother-fucking God-Emprah]]''': While the idea of a galactic Emperor is nothing new, Dune was [[Skub|debatably]] the first setting which implemented a ''de facto'' immortal god-emperor. Decades of worshiping the 40k [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Empra]] is likely to make those fans think Dune's Leto II is some pathetic false-Emperor (just look how they treat [[Star Wars|Palpatine]]) but make no mistake: while he might not be able to crush tanks with his brain, God-Emperor Leto II earned his worship after turning himself into an immortal giant worm with precognitive powers. And this is not wishy-washy Jedi-style vision precog, no, this is full on Doctor Strange [[Farseer|''sees all possible futures'']] precognition. And unlike Palpatine's narcissist attitude, Leto is secretly altruistic to his subjects like his 40k counterpart despite some... questionable ethical choices regarding tyranny, free will, and bloodshed.
:: The two of them are actually quite similar: Leto II is a god-like being leading humanity on his "Secher Nbiw/Golden Path" in order to make them reach their full potential and avoid the troubles he can see in mankind's future, even though his rule is really harsh. Big E is a god-like figure leading humanity toward psychic apotheosis in order to deal with the ticking doomsday clocks that are [[Chaos]], the [[Necrons]] awakening in full, and the [[Orks]] getting back to Krork levels of [[awesome]], even if he pretty much rules by the sword. The only real difference is that Leto II doesn't have four other god-like beings throwing all of the spanners into his work.
* '''Feudalism IN SPACE!:''' Under the "faufreluche" system, the Houses were de facto autonomous states, with the [[High Lords of Terra|Landsraad]] functioning as a space UN for the Houses to conduct business and address grievances with each other. The rules of the Great Convention prevented the Padishah Emperor from taking sides in any case of House-to-House warfare and defined the rules of "Kanly," how two Houses may go to war with each other without endangering innocent bystanders. The [[Imperium of Man|Imperium of Man's]] organization is similar to this system, where a central authority figure is distant and difficult to contact, which means that the various jurisdictions that ostensibly answer to it are generally left to fend for themselves unless a major threat appears.
*'''Super-soldiers:''' Before the [[Space Marines]], there were the Sardaukar. Taken to a death world at a tender age and subjected to absurdly-harsh training that kills roughly half of the initiates, the Sardaukar were superior to the forces that the Great Houses could raise against them. The only other warriors in the Imperium said to be on the same level are the top-level Ginaz Swordmasters, but the Ginaz are duelists and bodyguards, not grunt soldiers. And then there are Fremen Fedaykin Death Commandos that absolutely wiped the floor with anyone else.
*'''A E S T H E T I C S:''' More specific to the 1984 Lynch version. Warhammer 40K's "gothic futurism" draws a lot from the art direction of Lynch's film, especially with the movie's set and costume design.
*'''[[Lasgun]]''': As explained above, the term "Lasgun" came from ''Dune''. Although a notable difference is that they're not your usual flashlights. They can rip a person in half, and if the beams enters into contact with a personal shield using the Holtzman Effect it ''may cause an explosion with the potential yield of a nuke''.
*'''Ornithopter/[[Archaeopter]]''': In ''Dune'', the most common form of flying vehicles inside planetary atmospheres are Ornithopters (commonly called "thopters"), which are vehicles that move by rapidly moving their wings like a Dragonfly. In 40K, the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] got their hands on their own Ornithopters in the form of the [[Archaeopter]].
*'''[[Inquisition]]''' - after Paul Muad'Dib became a Fremen prophet and unleashed his army of fanatics on the galaxy, [[Monty Python|boys in red were bound to appear without expectation]], and so we have the Qizarate - a religious bureaucracy that ran the galaxy, spread the word of Muad'Dib and, of course, weeded out the [[HERESY]]. The second book starts with a transcribed dialogue between a Qizarate official and an Ixian historian in a death-row cell whose crime is rampant use of--may Shai-Hulud forgive me for uttering this word--''logic'' in his historical treatise about rise of Muad'Dib. It's not clear whether the Inquisition in 40K is directly inspired by the Qizarate, as they look and act more like stereotypical Catholic Inquisitors and Protestant Witchfinders, while the Qizarate has more of an Islamic flavor, but it is still worth mentioning.
* '''[[Adepta Sororitas]]''': After reviewing his ancestral memories, Leto II decided that [[Horus Heresy|male-dominated militaries were essentially predatory and would ultimately turn on the civilians they were sworn to protect in the absence of an external enemy]]. Thus he founded the Fish Speakers, an all-female military and bureaucratic organization that he used to dominate his empire. They were fanatically loyal to Leto II and zealously worshipped him as the God Emperor, to the point where Duncan Idaho saw a bunch of new Fish Speaker mothers holding up their babies to Leto and realized that they wouldn't hesitate to kill their offspring if he ordered it. This bears more than a passing resemblance to the Sisters of Battle, as they are an all-female military organization who are fanatically dedicated to the worship of the God-Emperor of Mankind. Leto even holds a special ceremony/ritual orgy called the Siaynoq in which he refers to the assembled Speakers as his brides, evoking the origin of the Sisters as Goge Vandire's "Brides of the Emperor." Moreover, Fish Speakers who fail in their duties are made into [[Sisters Repentia|Death Commandos, berserkers who expiate their sins by dying gloriously for their Emperor]].  
*'''[[Daemonculaba|Tleilaxu Axlotl Tanks]]''': ''SPOILERS FOR DUNE AHEAD!'' One of the factions in Dune's universe, [[Dark Mechanicus|the Tleilaxu (who are masters of biotechnology)]], are very, very secretive when it comes to their women. In fact, throughout almost three books we have only met their men, and heard vague stories about all their women being kept on their home planet. At the same time it is widely known that the Tleilaxu can breed [[Undead|Gholas]] (living men made out of dead flesh) in their axlotl tanks. What makes Gholas a key part of the Dune universe is it enables major characters to be [[Reincarnation|revived]] via awakening their gene-woven memories. However, such a process requires harvesting cells of of the dead body to clone them, a lot of melange to fuel the cloning, a crap-ton of psychological conditioning, and then subjecting them to extreme trauma. Said trauma comes in flavors of being forced to witness loved ones die, intense physical torture, or in extreme cases (like gholas created by the Honored Matres or Bene Gesserit) literal sexual assault. And many gholas themselves aren’t happy of being dragged from death’s sweet release once their memories are awakened. Three books in some Bene Gesserit Witch adds two and two together, asks the right person all the wrong (from his POV) questions and confirms that [[Rape|the tanks are actually what's left of the Tleilaxu females]]. Basically, once a Tleilaxu female reaches the age of puberty they [[grimdark|destroy her brain]], cyber her up, and use her to pump out Gholas and [[Profit|whatever else they need.]]
*'''[[Exterminatus]]''' - last, but not least. Stone burners are nasty weapons designed to circumvent the atomic weapon regulations - their yield varies from power source, but even at low power they release J-rays that ''dissolve eye tissue'', and if powered by a nuke they can crack open an entire planet. Paul Muad'Dib sterilized ''at least ninety planets'' during his Jihad - no wonder he considers Genghis Khan and Hitler small-time.