The Sandworm Paradox - Dune

[Music] think of the largest animal you can done okay odds are you have thought of on two things a blue whale or a dinosaur which most certainly did not think of is a worm no surprise there compared to such gigantic animals what is a worm how is an eyess wriggling thing with no claws no wings no fins no carrus supposed to Inspire fear and reverence in us the answer is simple we make it bigger a thousand times bigger hell make it so large that it would not make sense only somehow it kind of [Applause] [Music] does something is making the wors go crazy just driving him right up out of the ground about the worm worm they [Applause] [Music] by colossal animals Inspire awe in us and quite often their sheer size transcends reality to become myth the body of the larger seop part is like a giant sack Che can fill with sea water and empty suddenly when he's Disturbed or alarmed the ocean vast and unknown as it is now was far more mysterious in the past the existence of ridiculously large animals like whales only reinforced the idea that there were enormous sea monsters lurking somewhere into depths likewise it is quite possible that the fossilized remains of dinosaurs buried under the Earth stimulated our imagination in the bone left behind by these creatures we saw dragons and other such monsters guarding those Treasures of the Earth how could we not imagine similar things hiding below the impossibly Deep eyes of Antarctica or under the vastness of the Sahara Desert larger than the United States of America yet in this vast Sahara only about 3 million people live worms and other giant worms are an interesting concept because unlike Krakens and dragons and other such Titanic Monsters of Legend they are not inspired on a particular mythology or religion nor are they based on a similarly large animal that existed at some point in history there are plenty of great serpents yes but worms particularly the iconic anelids with their segmented accordion like bodies have all but gone unmentioned in the human imaginary compared to other animals animals and if they are somehow described in myths it is certainly not as giant monsters to understand the giant worms we need to First Look at the most iconic example of them the sandworms of Dune a book considered by many to be the greatest work of Science Fiction ever written originally conceived by author Frank Herbert sandworms are the Supreme predator of Planet oracus also known as dune throughout the Galaxy as the planet is covered in its near entirety by a sea of sand worms attack all rhythmic vibrations life is difficult on Dune mainly due to the scarcity of water but this does not concern the sandworm in fact water is poisonous to it so the creature is most at home in the dry desert through which it Burrows and hunts mainly for other smaller sandworms their domination of the food chain is so absolute that most other species including humans must content themselves with living on Rocky outcroppings and only occasionally tread upon the Desert Sands that make up most of AR racus according to Herbert the sandworm was inspired by the dragons of folklore which in Old English were called worm a term that was interchangeable with dragon and was at the origin of his inspiration for the design of the creature the shahulud as they are called by the natives of arus fulfill a similar role to the worms of Legend they are guardians of treasure obstacles to be overcome by a hero only instead of gold they guard the spice milange a rare material essential to Interstellar travel that must be harvested from sporadic spice bursts that only occur in the deserts of oracus the name given to this creature by the fman natives has many different translations one of which is Old Man of the desert this is an app name as sandworms are believed to exist for Millennia at a time indifferent as they are to the deadly nature of oracus and of course with worms growing over 450 m in size at 10 times the size of a blue whale mind you with some specimens rumored to Siz in the thousands of meters how could the fman not rever the sandw worms as [Music] Gods yet despite these Godlike dimensions and Longevity somehow the sandworm seems at home it seems to be a natural fit for the great vastness of the desert and there's a reason for this as should be apparent by now while The Narrative of his intricately built Universe mainly focuses on themes like political Intrigue and religious fanaticism Frank Herbert was also a consumate world bu Builder endlessly expanding upon the many ideas and Concepts that he envisioned and tying them together to create a realistic physically plausible Planet most settings are content with omitting justification or chalking the way of things up to the effects of magic Spirits or some farfetched Quantum terminology this was not sufficient for Frank Herbert sandworms existed in arus a biologist living there should be able to unveil their biological Mysteries now to be clear this does not mean in any way that the sandworm is a viable organism in the real world in an article about the theoretical viability of the sandworm biologist cibil hesel goes through Great Lengths to explain the ways in which sandworms make or do not make sense their diet way of moving and even structural Integrity are brought into question and we will return to this last Point later for now we will put aside real world biology and physics and focus on how characters like the planetologist lead ke make sense of the sand within the context of Their Own World The Sands of araas are not just a worm's home they are a tool it uses to hunt the slightest vibrations upon it are felt a disturbance in the order of the grains which cannot go unpunished the idea makes sense how else could a blind being be able to hunt much less exist in a desert if it could not use the sand to its advantage or rather how could anything become the greatest burrowing predator in the desert without mastering the Sands now we just referred to the sandworm as a predator but it is hard to believe that such a colossal creature can survive off of attacking the occasional spice mining operation that humans set up after a spice blow this means that there must be a main source of sustenance for the sandor worm according to an index in the first book of Dune the presiding theories on the sand worm's life cycle could also explain its diet there's sand plankton a microscopic organism which feeds on spice amongst millions of minuscule sand Plankton some grow to become sand trout or water Steelers true to their name sand trout hoard water in Pockets underground and use it to cultivate the fun guide that provides it with nourishment its excretions then mix water to slowly gather into a pre-ice mass then the largest emids the sand trout pupate becoming small worms when the excretions of these small worms come into contact with the bre spice mass and the CO2 bubble that it produces a chemical reaction occurs causing an explosion this is the spice blow once the spice blow occurs and spice is scattered it feeds the sand Plankton add old sandworms then rush to the spice blow to eat the sand plankton in turn as they are sloppy eaters when they eventually leave they are covered in spice and scent plank which will be dropped off at another location to begin the cycle a new as the animal found both at the top and the bottom of the food chain the sandworm occupies a fundamental place in the ecosystem of oracus more than that the findings of parot kein father of leot kein indicate that worms are more than simple Regulators of the system they are producers the small sandworms are also called Little makers are described by him as being half plant half animal and the digestive system of shahulud makes it so that they produce oxygen each worm producing as much as 10 square km of green growing photosynthetic surface it is this which allows a desert Planet like AR racus to have an atmosphere without having any forests or oceans this in turn means that sandworms are what allows life to exist on the racus as the framan say shahulud is the maker of this world and it is he who keeps [Music] it while the sandworms of Dune are the original concept and to this day the most known example with his creation Herbert inadvertently brought into the world the monster concept that was infectiously easy to bring into other media of course these giant worms are never as deeply conceived or intrinsically tied to the worlds as the sand worms of Dune but they have nonetheless become a staple of many different settings science fiction for instance naturally gravitates towards unique reinterpretations of animals that already exist in our world but giant worms are also easily found in other mediums such as fantasy and while some variations are smaller like the grab boys of Tremors what is certain is that from the purple worms of Dungeons and Dragons to the near mandatory giant worm boss fight in video games one aspect of the sandworm seems to remain consist istent with Herbert's original Vision these giant worms are larger than live beings so colossal that their very presence shifts the environment but how does that make any sense okay let us return to our real world Giants for a moment dinosaurs grew to absurd sizes but never to the extent that 100t long giant worm would the reason for that is simple the larger an animal is the more it needs a skeleton capable of supporting its weight as Dr hashel explains in her article this is why insects and other invertebrate creatures never grow Beyond a certain size and why animals with skeletons can only grow so large at a certain point the sheo weight of their own body would make their life unsustainable due to the gravitational pull of the earth not to mention the absurd need for replenishing nutrients indeed it is commonly understood that the dinosaurs died out during a massive Extinction event and while there are many theories as to what was the original Vector of this Annihilation what is very clear is that the breaking of the food chain led to massive starvation and the subsequent extinction of the dinosaurs this would not be a problem for the sandworm of Dune as its food chain is composed of one single organism various metamorphic stages of itself however we can imagine other giant worms that are not so self-sufficient facing this difficulty like the dinosaurs they would either need to have a plentiful amount of plants available for consumption or need to hunt extensively to keep themselves fed after all what few animals survived on Earth after Extinction events like those few that survive on Dune did so for many reasons but a chief one among them is that the were smaller and therefore needed less food following this natural logic most species have tended to evolve in a way that prefers keeping their size within certain boundaries but there are exceptions pakicetus was a prehistoric animal a four-legged land dwelling creature that began a long evolutionary Trend towards the sea mostly because there was an abundance of food there over Millennia with The Disappearance of large aquatic Predators due to Extinction events like the ones that destroyed the dinosaurs Evolution allowed successive species descending from pacas to better take advantage of the oceans vast space and the Leaning physics of water to grow in size until one of them became one of the largest animals to ever exist the blue whale unlike land dwelling animals whales do not suffer the consequences of having a skeleton that cannot support their weight because the ocean water does most of the heavy lifting for them through buoyancy [Music] this is why Dr HTO believes giant worms would be far more fitting as aquatic creatures in an ocean planet or even as ethereal beings floating within gas giants like Jupiter as for sustenance Wales found themselves naturally becoming Regulators for Krill minuscule crustations so numerous that they constitute some of the largest biomasses in the world in this way whales are not too different from the sandworms of Dune who sift for sand Plankton curiously this is not the only parallel that sandworms have with whales Robin luckam the animation director for the recent movie adaptation of Dune explained that while working on animating the sand worm and simulating the movement of sand an interesting phenomenon occurred due to the immense size of the worm the individual sand particles exhibited Behavior reminiscent of water molecules as a result the visual effects turned down to possess a fluid quality leading the animators to opt for making the worm's movement similar to that of a whale gracefully weaving through desert Dunes like they were waves at sea start to move up and down through the Contours and had this like whale kind of feel okay in summary if there's an environment to grow in and food to sustain this growth and the laws of physics do not interfere with this growth too much an animal can become colossal but how does this work for worms the most evident difference between a common earthworm and the sandworm is not what you think yes one is larger than a plane and the other is smaller than a toy car but the biggest difference between them is to be found not in their size but in their names as its name suggests the earthworm lives off the Earth or more specifically the soil like many other small organisms that inhabit this layer of the ground their role is to digest decomposing plants and animals so they can more easily reintegrate the soil however deserts at least sand deserts have no soil in fact they are often the direct consequence of there being no soil the sandworm is therefore one of two things a worm that adapted to its hostile environment or not a worm at all and given what we discussed about skeletons physics seems to point towards the second option as I explained before an invert perbet worm could never grow to be the size of a building but what if we imagine a giant serpent with a great toothed Maul and impenetrable scales after thousands of years spent underground they have adapted to use their Tremor sense to hunt to the point where they no longer need ice suddenly a giant slimy analy seems less likely than a giant blindworm uh these are a thing by the way they're not actually worms but rather legless lizards uh humans are lazy at naming things to top it all off this design fits that limbless worm of Legend often depicted as a slithering Dragon the void of Limbs it seems that many settings have come to similar conclusions in the many worlds of the magic the Gathering Universe worms of all kinds exist to varying degrees of biological realism those that seem most consistent with our findings would be the draconic serpentine worms of dominaria other less reptilian but evidently vertebrated worms like the ones of ravnik seem to follow the same idea buried under a thick coat of rough scales and flesh is a sturdy likely Compact and flexible skeleton made from a material at least as strong as carbon fiber and while it is possible that some of the worms in these universes are gentle Giants the vast majority of them seem to be omnivorous forces of Destruction for all the other giant worms based on anelids nematodes or flat worms the adaptation that allowed for the gigantification of the creature would have to be owed to either magical means technological meddling or the invention of unique biology that functions differently from earthlike animals at that point calling them worms is more of a practical Choice than a scientific one in l out of this perhaps it's necessary for us to reframe our approach to the giant worm and look at things from a different perspective after all no matter how much we want to look at this from a scientific perspective giant worms are monsters and monsters do not need to follow the laws of reality or at least not of this reality let's all go to the movies at the [Music] [Applause] when we go to the movies to see stories with spaceships psychic Wizards and giant monster worms in order to better enjoy them we as an audience agree to suspend our disbelief this does not mean however that accuracy in physics or biology is not a necessity in the realm of fiction if rules are established beforehand accepted by the audience and followed throughout the story an author has free reign to do as they please but what determines how good their World building is is how consistent they are at keeping the rules they have set intact so far we have gone to Great Lengths to explain how the sandworms of Iraq is are a crucial part of the planet's ecosystem we have also tried to make sense of how giant burrowing worms could exist in fantasy worlds as naturally occurring beasts with some difficulty but what if giant worms are not meant to be a part of the system giant worms in fiction are almost invariably animalistic in Behavior but this does not mean that they are necessarily animals purple worms and Dungeons and Dragons dig tunnels that make up most of the passageways in the underd dark a cavernous realm fraught with dangers they are a common occurrence in this place and yet they are not classified as beasts but as monstrosities according to the DND monster manual monstrosities are monsters in the strictest sense frightening creatures that are not ordinary not truly natural and almost never benign some are the result of magical experimentation gone arai While others are the product of terrible curses they defy categorization and in some sense serve as a catchall category for creatures that don't fit into any other type this means that even in the Hostile world of the underd dark people have come to understand that a destructive force like the purple worm could never ever be natural and it is therefore unlikely that it can be a viable component of an ecosystem worms being disruptive creatures should not be surprising let us not forget that unlike the harmless analyes a good portion of the worms currently in existence are parasitic creatures that attach themselves to a host and drain it of resources without any concern for its well wellbe in a way the worms of our imaginary worlds could fulfill a similar function what if it is the nature of the worm to be a disrupting chaotic force that has no regard for the logic of the world that invades it is no surprise that the shape of the giant worm is commonly chosen for mechanical monstrosities in sci-fi and fantasy settings alike wormlike Abominations R into being via necromancy seem to Naturally Fit amidst the ranks of the undead just like worms seem to be naturally drawn towards burial grounds this is not to speak of the Endless possible alien life forms that could take this shape or of demonic entities that for reasons known only to them exist in the coiling shape of a worm what remains consistent throughout all of these monsters however is a combination of ideas twin Concepts that once married describe the worm perfectly the worm is Relentless and it is voracious the worm does not covet it simply consumes it is always territorial be it as a garden anchored to a forgotten treasure or as a cataclysmic Hunter and it pursues anything that crosses its path it does not have any concern for anything other than itself and it cannot be reasoned with it may not always be an animal but it religiously follows the most basic animal directives consume and grow in Essence a being as colossal as a sandworm cannot coexist with others in harmony unless it is the one controlling that Harmony that much is true even for the sandworms of Doom but if that is the case then it means that Frank Herbert's Vision was not followed yes sandworms are aggressive but all one needs to do is not encroach on their territory and the fmen of arakas have even learned how to do that with imputed going as far as to form a symbiotic connection with the sand worms not to mention they could not even live on arus if the worms did not provide the atmosphere in the first place if the first giant worms in fiction are makers revered as providers of Life why is it then that giant worms have become ubiquitously associated with the sense of all consuming veracity with this Relentless drive to exterminate other living things here is a quote from attributed to the planetologist part. kinds there's an internally recognized beauty of motion and balance on any manhealthy Planet you see in this beauty a dynamic stabilizing effect essential to all life its a is simple to maintain and produce coordinated patterns of greater and greater diversity life improves the closed systems capacity City to sustain life life all life is in the service of Life necessary nutrients are made available to Life by life in greater and greater richness as the diversity of Life increases the entire landscape Comes Alive filled with relationships and relationships within relationships Imagine A Beautiful World covered in glistening oceans and swarming with life until an invasive species appears how small they are barely noticeable grouping together Gathering water to burrow it underground to grow the fungus that will feed its young but it cannot grow past this it cannot leave the strata of the earth there is water above and water is death so it feeds it multiplies and it continues to consume it's only relationship is with itself endogamous and cannibalistic indifferent to all other life so it continues until the oceans are dry and life is all but extinguished and amidst The Silence of a Dying World where forests have weathered and clouds disappeared there is a rumbling in the sand the first maker Rises From Below a God of destruction and creation this world is his now his [Music] Dune

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Length: 26min 1sec (1561 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2023