Welcome to Arrakis - Dune Lore Explained (History, Factions, Planetology)

arrakis dune wasteland of the empire and the most valuable planet in the universe because it is here and only here where spice is found without it there is no commerce in the empire there is no civilization he who controls it controls our destiny today it will be our goal to give context to this enigmatic statement by introducing you to the incredibly rich work of frank herbert which has had a profound impact on the sci-fi universes that suffuse our culture today we will explore the history of the imperium the galactic factions and the planet of dune so grab your wormhooks and strap in [Music] the world of dune is absolutely fascinating it's been a pleasure diving into the lore through various books videos and films however for me the best way to experience the universe has been to truly immerse myself in the action through dune the board game originally published in 1979 it's now making a triumphant comeback in two versions thanks to today's sponsor gale force 9. the first version is a reskin of the original featuring all the amazing complexities that made me fall in love with it however with complex rules a 6 player roster and a roughly 2 hour play time it can admittedly be a bit daunting to get started thankfully the team has been able to refine and evolve much of the gameplay with a brand new version called dune a game of conquest and diplomacy with 2-4 players and a 30 to 60 minute run time it packs all the same action of the original into an ever more tense pacing a typical turn will see a storm blow through spice blows card draws troop revival army movements battle and spice collection all factions have their asymmetries and player interactions are highly fluid which means that no two matches play alike as an avid fan of the original i can't recommend these games enough so check the link in the description below to order a copy for yourself and now back to guy michaels it is the 11th millennium ag or the 27th millennium a.d by the reckoning of the ancient calendar for those of you who might be from one of the backwater planets here is a quick recap of humanity's history it has been a long time since mankind first emerged from terror and began to colonize the stars in the 2100s a.d this trend would accelerate in the centuries that followed during an era that would become known as the little diaspora by the end of this roughly 500 year period the off-world population came to dwarf that of earth by a factor of 20 to 1. yet given its high population density and historical role as leader the cradle of humanity still maintained its position as the imperial seat of a burgeoning space empire however this would all change abruptly in 2798 a.d when our home world was devastated by a massive asteroid impact the event accelerated the inevitable transfer of power to earth's colonies and now surreys would be the one to take up the imperial seat under its reigns humanity would become an empire of ten worlds with colonies and outposts radiating dozens of light years beyond the sun by the year 5000 a.d ceres claimed to be the master of an empire of a thousand worlds yet the further we pushed into the unknown the more dispersed and isolated we became imperial power and communication was stretched incredibly thin at this time its authority could only be maintained through increasingly drastic measures it is perhaps because of this that a rebellion broke out which destroyed the imperial seat on suries shattering the stars into hundreds if not thousands of fragmentary empires these would be successfully united divided and reunited over the following millennia with the peaks of each intermittent golden age further expanding the boundaries of the known universe such that it is now stretched hundreds of light years beyond our first sun encompassing over ten thousand worlds traversing such vast distances was only possible by technological advances that allowed ships to approach and eventually surpass the speed of light however the ever increasing pace of development did not come without a cost the rise of incredibly sophisticated sentient ai in particular posed an unprecedented threat to the freedom of mankind and sparked a multi-generational galaxy-wide uprising at the start of the 17th millennium a.d by the end of the so-called butlerian jihad untold billions of lives had been lost but the last of the thinking machines was finally purged this pivotal moment had a dramatic impact on the trajectory of human history no longer would we rely on the treacherous crutches of such ai in fact the formation of a new religious text meant to guide humanity forward in this new age held as one of its primary commandments thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind yet while such proclamations surely protected mankind from the dangers of its near fatal downfall it also severely curved humanity's ability to regain the strength it once wielded during the golden ages but nature abhors a vacuum and the void left by the ai would soon be filled in the wake of the great revolt the biological potential of humanity was pushed to its limits in a bid by various groups to claim dominion over the new galactic order individuals known as mentats for instance emerged with unprecedented cognitive abilities to gather store and analyze data at a level that rivaled and at times exceeded that of the ai which had preceded them the female dominated benny jesuit meanwhile used genetic experimentation and training to hone incredible skills that would be put to use subtly guiding humanity through intelligence gathering diplomacy and societal engineering but perhaps most consequential would be the navigators who leveraged the effects of precious spice gas to enable prescient abilities this ability to peer into the near future allowed them to safely guide ships through the otherwise perilous process of space folding vast distances could now be traversed in the blink of an eye using ships equipped with both navigators and the pre-existing ftl holtzmann engines another important development in this new age of humanity would be the transition to a feudal-like galactic order this had arisen from a realm of anarchy which had seen all facets of its social structure completely collapse in these conditions it was only natural for military and economic entrepreneurs to rise to the fore with personal relationships serving as the new glue of civilization the imperium of man which now arose found its stability resting on three lakes the landsrad the imperial throne and the spacing guild the first of these the landsrat was in essence a galactic version of the united nations it had existed prior to the great revolt and was made up of representatives sent by various governments who together controlled over ten thousand planets the institution had a general council with many smaller assemblies meant to deal with issues of all shapes and sizes but its primary role was to adjudicate disputes between members following the butlerian jihad the inner workings of the landsrad would reorganize around the new feudal order of the galaxy this is best evidenced by its voting structure let us quickly review 400 of the 1 000 available votes were reserved for the great houses these were governments of vast wealth and power who often controlled one or more planetary systems they were admitted or removed from the body by a vote of its existing members with a number of great houses varying over time from a few dozen to over 100 generally each great house would have its own highly centralized form of government with an elected or hereditary leader depending on their status they would be granted between 1 and 10 votes minor houses also held a total of 400 votes however owing to their great numbers each wielded far less power in fact there were so many that they had to be grouped into circles of the empire in order to be given representation on paper this was a rather simple system but the reality underlying this structure was a massive complicated web of political interactions the 100 votes of the landsrad given to the imperial house now leads us to a discussion of the second leg of the galactic order the imperial throne this seat of power was occupied by house courino whose head was granted the ancient title of padishah emperor or more generally the emperor of the known universe yet while he technically ruled over all the imperial throne truly only had direct control over a small number of systems the rest of the galaxy was held in thief by the various major and minor houses we previously mentioned numerous duties and obligations tied the emperor to his lords the final 100 votes of the landsrad were given to the spacing guild this particular carve out occurred in the centuries shortly after the butlerian jihad when the members of the lands rod were forced to come to a power sharing agreement with the guild that ultimately marked year zero of the new calendar the strength of the spacing guild was owed to a monopoly on faster-than-light space travel which gave them a stranglehold over international transport trade and banking much of their organization remains opaque but it is clear that the heart of their operations lie with the guild navigators whom we previously mentioned were key to safe ftl space folding for ten thousand years these three legs of the empire would uphold the realm's stability however each would be in constant competition with the other their plans within plans ever threatening to overturn the current galactic order it is on the planet of a ruckus where we see these machinations converge at the start of our story let us now explore the stage on which the play shall be set aracus is the third of six planets orbiting the paired celestial bodies of cannabis and canopus b a giant white dwarf star and the white hole it feeds on this system lies approximately 313 light years from old earth falling far beyond the major population centers and trade routes of the imperium for this reason it long went ignored however exploration of the planet would ultimately reveal a secret that catapulted it from the fringes of imperial attention to centre stage to quote princess euralin arrakis dune wasteland of the empire and the most valuable planet in the universe because it is here and only here where spice is found without it there is no commerce in the empire there is no civilization he who controls it controls our destiny it will take a crash course in the planetology of iraqis to put this incredible statement in context initial long-range observations of the planet reveal it to be smaller than old earth with two satellite moons it orbits its sun in a roughly circular path with almost no axial tilt resulting in negligible seasonality it has around 0.9 g's with an atmospheric composition of mostly nitrogen and oxygen comparable to ancient terror however where it differs are in the anomalously high levels of ozone and low levels of water vapor these work together to produce the so-called wasteland of dune the low water levels are indicative of a planet that has almost entirely been desertified with high surface temperatures during the day and low temperatures at night the upper ozone rich atmosphere meanwhile maintains a high temperature resulting in the formation of dramatic convection currents at their mildest they form localized vortices that feed a steady stream of dust into the sky at their most violent however they become supercharged by larger flows circulating between the equator and poles forming massive lightning-ridden coriolis storms with wind speeds measured in the hundreds of kilometers per hour it is such weather phenomena rather than any flowing water which have shaped the surface of arachus [Music] while one to draw back the veil of dust clouds an incredible landscape would be revealed clustered around the poles are two small ice caps the planet's only source of readily accessible water meanwhile the majority of the surface consists of vast deserts and dunes these would dominate the planet where it not for the high levels of geological activity on auracus which have seen the rapid formation of mountain ranges and deep valleys owing to the tectonics of the planet many of these tend to run roughly north south or east west looking down from the pole this has resulted in the formation of a sort of ring known as the shield wall which serves as a buffer against the worst of the coriolis storms raging across the equatorial regions it should be no surprise then that life on dune can be exceedingly harsh this is even more true when one considers the traumatic history of the planet which has seen most species die off from a variety of environmental catastrophes out of this evolutionary gauntlet only a few highly adapted organisms managed to survive planetologists have identified many species of hardy flora and fauna but none are more prolific than the famous sand worms these are fascinating yet poorly understood creatures research suggests that they begin life as small larvae birthed from eggs in a deep desert nesting site these sand trouts have small flexible bodies some 10 to 20 centimetres in length thousands are born at a time and quickly scavenge both water and nutrients from around the nest they have even been reported to act together efficiently isolating and herding liters of water back through the sand for kilometers at a time over several years the accumulated excretions of the larvae in the nest site begins to change the chemistry of the area forming a pre-spice mix eventually co2 buildup reaches a critical pressure erupting in a powerful explosion known as a spice blow here the biochemical contents of the nest are brought to the surface and exposed to both sun and air the mixture quickly undergoes a process turning it into spice melange its use for human consumption shall be explored shortly for now the presence of the chemical reaction triggers the surviving larvae to join together now they will begin to metamorphose into segments of what will become a juvenile sand worm in this stage in its life the superorganism will be able to range far across the sands of dune deriving all of its nutritional needs from inorganic compounds and sand plankton for hundreds of years they will travel in search of an ecological niche to fill in some cases this might mean maintaining their current size of several meters while other times unfavorable conditions may trigger a reversion of the juvenile back into its larval swarm form out in the deep desert however worms of a ruckus have been known to grow seemingly without bound some of the largest specimens are believed to be over a thousand years old measuring over 400 meters in length and close to 100 meters at their widest section mature adults will finally have entered their sexual stage here the female will typically create a nest by thumping out the sand which in turn attracts a male the newcomer then proceeds to consume the female their internal sex organs merging in the process and producing an egg sac which will be excreted in the nest site unleashing the next generation of worms this cycle seems perfectly suited for arrakis and has been nearly impossible to replicate on other planets where worms have been imported the end result is that it is here on dune that the worms exclusively live but while they may be a product of their unique environment they also play a key part in its development after all their accumulated biomass represents one of the greatest reserves of water on the planet their metabolism serves as a primary source of oxygen production and their maturation cycle is the only known way to generate the prized resource that is the spice melanche but just what is it spice melange is a narcotic of natural origins whose most prominent effects when consumed include the following improved overall health extended life expectancy by as much as three times expanded sensory perception awakened mental abilities including prescience for some users yet these benefits do not come without a cost users will easily find themselves addicted to the narcotic habitual use will cause one's eyes to turn blue while heavy users will see even more severe physical abnormalities in extreme cases humans can even cease to appear humanoid as occurs with the highest order of guild navigators who literally swim in tanks of melange its effects were first and best understood by the earliest human inhabitants of dune these were the zen sunni nomads a far travelling people long in search of a home over thousands of years they too would be molded by the harsh environment of arakas ultimately emerging as the distinct group known today as the fremen they are a hardy folk whose close-knit tribal groups scratch a living out of the various sieges tucked into the rocky outcroppings of the planet they live and die by the conservation of water adopting extreme measures to preserve every precious drop for instance one's very breath and perspiration is recycled using advanced still suits while the bodies of the deceased are rendered down into fluid for later use as the fremen nightly chant goes now do we consume that which will one day be returned for the flesh of a man is his own but his water belongs to the tribe ever a resourceful people they have learned to live off the harsh lands just like the worms of june whom they revere as the sacred yet feared shahlud harvesting spice plays a large part in their society not just for its narcotic properties but as a resource for the production of textiles and other goods at some point however word of this exotic material escaped beyond the secretive freman communities soon the various factions of the empire would descend like vultures upon arakas prospecting missions were sent out to scour the desert for existing deposits while keeping a vigilant eye out for new spice blows despite the hazards of the job the rewards were well worth the risk now small extraction and processing operations quickly scaled up to the huge industrial levels necessary to feed the needs of an increasingly addicted empire currently it is house harkinan which has been granted fiefdom over arrakis by the imperial throne their duty is to ensure that the spice flows for this privilege they pay a tribute to the emperor and keep the rest for themselves such an arrangement has been hugely enriching for the house harkonnen which has a reputation for maximizing profits of their holdings this is done by slashing expenses and raising income no matter the ethical implications all who protest are met with a brutal policy of fear and terror under this imperial regime the fremen have suffered greatly yet among the litany of hated influences from the off-welders there is one gift which they truly hold dear the seed of hope planted by an imperial planetologist that one day their harsh planet can be transformed into a verdant utopia it is towards this dream that they now strive with united purpose and religious zeal in the year 10 191 a.g imperial politics led to the revoking of house harkins fiefdom over arrakis in their place would be sent house our trades while the color of the hand which cracked the whip usually meant little to the fremen rumors that the approaching lord brought with him an heir born of a benny jesuit mother soon bred whispers in every siege could this be the prophesized mahdi who would lead them to freedom whether or not such myths planted long ago truly held any relevance in this age it is sure that the winds of change were blowing across dune but to what end only time will tell i have to give a huge thanks to our team of artists and animators for bringing the world of dune to life they poured a tremendous amount of passion into this project and we couldn't be happier with the results if you'd like to support them and the channel please consider contributing to our patreon or buying some of the awesome designs available on our store in the meantime be sure to like and subscribe for more content and check out these other related videos see you in the next one you

Channel: Invicta

Views: 1,049,653

Keywords: invicta, invicta history, dune, dune explained, dune explained in 5 minutes, dune explained 2021, arrakis, dune spice, dune worm scene, dune worm riding scene, dune scene, dune lore explained, dune lore, paul atreides, dune 2021, dune board game, dune fremen, fremen, dune lore fremen, dune movie, dune review, denis villeneuve, dune trailer, dune clip, dune worm scene 2021, dune movie review, dune movie explained, dune movie reaction, dune angry joe

Id: EaDxLCKFvlE

Length: 25min 1sec (1501 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 23 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/GRVrush2112]

I love a series with some deep lore…. Really enjoyed the film and looking to dive into the books….. just as soon as “The Expanse” series concludes (final novel next month, final novella next spring)

[u/[deleted]]

It doesnt get really get to Arrakis until 11:50.

https://youtu.be/EaDxLCKFvlE?t=710

[u/bxmg]

I don't understand how FTL would work after the butlerian jihad. They had the engines from before, but presumably you also need some heavy tech to navigate at FTL which would be destroyed/outlawed. And you can't have Space Guild Navigators without melange. So how did FTL and specifically the discovery of Arrakis happen?

[u/microbular]

I've always wanted Total War: Dune someone send this video to a person in power at Creative Assembly so they can have a clear outline of how much a Total War game in the Dune universe would rock.

[u/pagit]

Beware: Down into the dune Universe you shall go.

Get the Dune encyclopedia and check out some awesome podcasts, it gets crazy detailed.

[u/R1618]

Still waiting on Alt-Shift-X to do a Dune series

[u/pingmurder]

This is one of those times when reading the books would be a good idea. The story is much more complex and rich vs what a movie or even a tv series (God forbid) can cover.

[u/chef_simpson]

Just watched the movie last night and gotta say, as someone going in blind, it wasn't confusing. I think it did a great job explaining things but then again, I don't know what was left out

[u/moosebearbeer]

Does it contain spoilers?