So I started reading Dune

[Samuel]

Hmmm............ You're referring to Speaker of the Dead?

No, that is the Hitler fantasy series. Maybird is refering to the Homecoming sage.

[Uraniun235]

Wasn't the cost due mostly to Guild transport?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure most of the enormous cost (sixty years' worth of spice production!!) of the military attack on Arrakis was in Guild fees, which if I remember right incurred special premiums on military transport.

[Thanas]

In the sequels, its noted that the one remainding legion had been trained back to a pre-Arakeen edge.

Yeah. And it is mentioned that this one legion would be strong enough to deal a crippling blow to the Atreides empire...kinda makes you wonder how much of a curbstomp it would have been had the emperor brought six fully-trained legions to it.

Looking back over Dune, the emperor committed mistakes across the board (like exposing himself needlessly, having the Sardaukar waste away in an ineffectual guerilla war etc)... Bush and him seem to be about on the same level.

[PainRack]

Yeah. And it is mentioned that this one legion would be strong enough to deal a crippling blow to the Atreides empire...kinda makes you wonder how much of a curbstomp it would have been had the emperor brought six fully-trained legions to it.

? I have to dig up the quote, but my recollection of the incident was that because many were once again having fond memories of Corrino rule, fighting against the Sardauker would flare up more violence and attract more enemies than it would resolve.......

Looking back over Dune, the emperor committed mistakes across the board (like exposing himself needlessly, having the Sardaukar waste away in an ineffectual guerilla war etc)... Bush and him seem to be about on the same level.

To be honest, the Emperor utterly miscalculated the situation. His exposure on Dune may have been motivated by his reading that the Harkonens and Atreides were actually working together. Furthermore, on Dune at least, the Sardaukar fought a short campaign and then left, leaving the mopping up to Harkonen forces. Their later reintroduction as spies and infiltrators was prompted by the Emperor mis-reading of the political situation.

[Bilbo]

Also, didn't he neglect the training of the Sardaukar somewhat? If I read Children of Dune right, the Sardaukar were being retrained at that time.

As the Jannisary comparison implies the Sardaukar had gone soft. They no longer lived brutal lives on their shitty homeworld which was supposed to be what made them so tough. Their sucess had bred arrogance among them, and caused them to move towards living more comfortable lives.

Question - How big was the empire? While the word Universe is thrown around everything in the first book really implies that the Empire could be nothing more than a couple dozen worlds, how else could a single planets worth of skilled troops under Atreides actually scare the Emperor.

[Bilbo]

The reasons the Emperor moved against the Duke were really two fold;

1. Political power, the Duke was very popular in the Landsraad and there was actually a threat of him swinging them behind him against the Emperor.

2. Training. The Duke had trained a small army to be as good as the Sardaukar -at least as good as the Sardaukar were reputed to be, they might have actually been better on the whole- and the Sardaukar had always strategically been the thing that kept the Emperor and his house on the throne.

So the idea was to strand the Atredies on Dune and let the Harkonnens deal with them, beefing up their force with Sardaukar to make sure the first blow was the only blow. Of course, the Duke and Thufir were fully aware of this maneuvering and laid their own plans, guessing -correctly- that the Freemen could be swayed to the side of the Atredies, and also -correctly- guessing that there was a gigantic Freeman culture that neither the Imperials nor Harkonnens ever guessed at, that could be equipped and trained.

The plan would have worked well too...if not for the Harkonnens dropping 10 legions of troops in on their heads early on, something that no-one saw coming.

Of course, then Paul got lose, carried on the plan of training and equipping them, and the rest was history.

The turned Doctor who was supposed to be unturnable was the real key to victory.

[Junghalli]

Question - How big was the empire? While the word Universe is thrown around everything in the first book really implies that the Empire could be nothing more than a couple dozen worlds, how else could a single planets worth of skilled troops under Atreides actually scare the Emperor.

I got the impression it was bigger than that, but I don't remember anything quantifiable.

[Bilbo]

Question - How big was the empire? While the word Universe is thrown around everything in the first book really implies that the Empire could be nothing more than a couple dozen worlds, how else could a single planets worth of skilled troops under Atreides actually scare the Emperor.

I got the impression it was bigger than that, but I don't remember anything quantifiable.

I get the impression that he wanted it to be bigger, but the way he writes it in Dune makes it "feel" a lot smaller than he intended.

[Samuel]

Is there anything about how fast Dune FTL is? It could be the whole universe and just the best worlds. Of course, the fact that noble houses can amass enough power to overthrow the Emperor indicates that it is a very small empire.

[Traveller]

The Dune Imperium is actually quite vast in scope and scale, at various points in the novels the Imperium is referred to as the Empire of a Million worlds (or something to that effect.) What we 'see' during the course of the novels are a relatively small group of people who sit at the apex of a very broad feudal pryamind that exisist on a galactic scale. Keep in mind organizations like the BG, Choam and so on exist on every world, there reach and scale are very large indeed. The very structure of the Imperium intentionally restricts the ability of most of the worlds in the imperium from even thinking of engageing in the kind of power-plays that the protaganists are involved in. The spaceing guild as mentioned aboved, charges military transport fees so high that alone severely constricts the actions of most Houses, most simply cant afford to even be *in* the game. Most of the high-level organizations, though they have there main 'obvious' task, Space-Guild for transport, CHOAM for banking and investments etc, there real interest is to maintain the status-quo in the Imperium. Thus the number of powers that compete for power and influence at the very top, tend to be relatively small. This helps explain why the empire is set up the way it is. Technology is restricted, and tightly controlled, the society itself is incredibly conservative and upward mobility is virtually non-existant. So no, the small # of Great Houses that battle it out in Dune, do not indicate the imperium itself is small at all.

One of the few passages that give some sort of indication is towards the end of the novel when its mentioned that the Spacing Guild drops Militarry transports fees to such a low level, Paul? or one of his advisors notes, 'even the poorest of the houses could afford to send there armies to Arrakkis'. There were reported to be 100's of the great Heighliners in orbit above the planet filled to the rafters with troops ready to grab whatever they could. Given that early on, its shown a single heighliner can easily move the entire Atriedies Household and they only form a 'small' part of the ships manifest, gives at least some idea how many planets there are in the imperium.

[bobnik]

Is there anything about how fast Dune FTL is? It could be the whole universe and just the best worlds. Of course, the fact that noble houses can amass enough power to overthrow the Emperor indicates that it is a very small empire.

Wikipedia article

It's apparently supposed to be instantaneous, yet containing some kind of quantum randomness that means only the prescience of Navigators can make it safe.

It's not the whole universe; there was "the Scattering" between the fourth and fifth books where whole chunks of humanity up and scarpered into the big black, apparently because Leto II had been clamping on humanity hard enough that many people wanted to escape something like that ever happening again. This actually seemed to be his purpose in doing what he did. Anyway, it wasn't until much later that some of them (the Honoured Matres) started coming back.

[xerex]

In the sequels, its noted that the one remainding legion had been trained back to a pre-Arakeen edge.

Yeah. And it is mentioned that this one legion would be strong enough to deal a crippling blow to the Atreides empire...kinda makes you wonder how much of a curbstomp it would have been had the emperor brought six fully-trained legions to it.

you sure about that ? From Children of Dune pg 229.-- Faradn's thoughts

His doubts began to fade away. He thought of his Sardaukar once more growing tough and resilient through the rigorous training and the denial of luxury which he commanded. His Sardaukar legions remained small, but once more they were a man-to-man match for the Fremen. That served little purpose as long as the limits imposed by the Treaty of Arrakeen governed the relative size of the forces. Fremen could overwhelm him by their numbers -- unless they were tied up and weakened by civil war.
It was too soon for a battle of Sardaukar against Fremen. He needed time. He needed new allies from among the discontented Houses Major and the newly powerful from the Houses Minor. He needed access to CHOAM financing. He needed the time for his Sardaukar to grow stronger and the Fremen to grow weaker.

seems to me the new Sardukar were only a threat if the Fremen could be kept distracted and divided. Then they might be used as the tip of a widescale revolt. A quick strike to decapitate House Atreides followed by Empirewide uprisings.

[Imperial Overlord]

In the appendix of Dune, it mentions that eighty million people died in riots relating to the formulation of the Orange Catholic Bible, which worked out to six thousand people per member world of the Landsraad at the time. That works out to ~13,000 member worlds, a number which probably increased slowly. There are, of course, worlds outside the Landsraad, as fleeing the Landsraad was an option that was considered by Duke Leto when he was offered the trap of Arrakis.

The problem with this is that a scary Fremen jihad from one of 13,000 worlds doesn't really make sense. Blackmailing the Houses Major in submitting to the hydraulic despotism of Spice Emperor Paul is one thing, but there's no way Arrakis houses enough Fremen to go jihad through a substantial fraction of 13,000 worlds.

[Lord Pounder]

In the appendix of Dune, it mentions that eighty million people died in riots relating to the formulation of the Orange Catholic Bible, which worked out to six thousand people per member world of the Landsraad at the time. That works out to ~13,000 member worlds, a number which probably increased slowly. There are, of course, worlds outside the Landsraad, as fleeing the Landsraad was an option that was considered by Duke Leto when he was offered the trap of Arrakis.

The problem with this is that a scary Fremen jihad from one of 13,000 worlds doesn't really make sense. Blackmailing the Houses Major in submitting to the hydraulic despotism of Spice Emperor Paul is one thing, but there's no way Arrakis houses enough Fremen to go jihad through a substantial fraction of 13,000 worlds.

Depends on how it was executed. Paul had threatened to use the water of life on a pre-spice mass thus destroying all spice and destroying the Guild who where reliant on Spice, they shit themselves and backed down at the end of Dune. Paul had I think 13 million Fremen IIRC. With the Guild in his pocket he could pick off the Lansraad home planets one at a time, it's not like they can counter attack if they can't get off planet.

[Samuel]

In the appendix of Dune, it mentions that eighty million people died in riots relating to the formulation of the Orange Catholic Bible, which worked out to six thousand people per member world of the Landsraad at the time. That works out to ~13,000 member worlds, a number which probably increased slowly. There are, of course, worlds outside the Landsraad, as fleeing the Landsraad was an option that was considered by Duke Leto when he was offered the trap of Arrakis.

The problem with this is that a scary Fremen jihad from one of 13,000 worlds doesn't really make sense. Blackmailing the Houses Major in submitting to the hydraulic despotism of Spice Emperor Paul is one thing, but there's no way Arrakis houses enough Fremen to go jihad through a substantial fraction of 13,000 worlds.

Depends on how it was executed. Paul had threatened to use the water of life on a pre-spice mass thus destroying all spice and destroying the Guild who where reliant on Spice, they shit themselves and backed down at the end of Dune. Paul had I think 13 million Fremen IIRC. With the Guild in his pocket he could pick off the Lansraad home planets one at a time, it's not like they can counter attack if they can't get off planet.

Simple attrition would prevent him from taking down any more than a handfull of worlds.

[Lord Pounder]

In the appendix of Dune, it mentions that eighty million people died in riots relating to the formulation of the Orange Catholic Bible, which worked out to six thousand people per member world of the Landsraad at the time. That works out to ~13,000 member worlds, a number which probably increased slowly. There are, of course, worlds outside the Landsraad, as fleeing the Landsraad was an option that was considered by Duke Leto when he was offered the trap of Arrakis.

The problem with this is that a scary Fremen jihad from one of 13,000 worlds doesn't really make sense. Blackmailing the Houses Major in submitting to the hydraulic despotism of Spice Emperor Paul is one thing, but there's no way Arrakis houses enough Fremen to go jihad through a substantial fraction of 13,000 worlds.

Depends on how it was executed. Paul had threatened to use the water of life on a pre-spice mass thus destroying all spice and destroying the Guild who where reliant on Spice, they shit themselves and backed down at the end of Dune. Paul had I think 13 million Fremen IIRC. With the Guild in his pocket he could pick off the Lansraad home planets one at a time, it's not like they can counter attack if they can't get off planet.

Simple attrition would prevent him from taking down any more than a handfull of worlds.

In Messiah I believe it stated that the Jihad took over 10 years to accomplish. More than enough time to stomp out the main threats and scare the others in to line.

The book states that the entire Landsraad combined was just about equal to the Sardukar, the Fremen decimated the Sardukar in one battle which crippled them for years.

And remember Paul controlled the Spice, all the important nobles where hopelessly reliant on Spice. A House give you shit cut them off and watch them die painfully with withdrawal symptoms. It does state in Messiah that many House Minor's had rose to power on their world, I always assumed this was because Paul had cut off the Houses Major and let them die if they refused to co-operate.

In controlling Arakis Paul had the ultimate bargaining chip, disagree and you die either swiftly with the Fremen Legions or slowly from Spice withdrawal. And you couldn't attack Paul on Arakis because the Guild would not jeopardise Spice production.

[Imperial Overlord]

In Messiah I believe it stated that the Jihad took over 10 years to accomplish. More than enough time to stomp out the main threats and scare the others in to line.

The book states that the entire Landsraad combined was just about equal to the Sardukar, the Fremen decimated the Sardukar in one battle which crippled them for years.

And doesn't that sound kind of tiny for a 13,000 member world Imperium?

And remember Paul controlled the Spice, all the important nobles where hopelessly reliant on Spice. A House give you shit cut them off and watch them die painfully with withdrawal symptoms. It does state in Messiah that many House Minor's had rose to power on their world, I always assumed this was because Paul had cut off the Houses Major and let them die if they refused to co-operate.

In controlling Arakis Paul had the ultimate bargaining chip, disagree and you die either swiftly with the Fremen Legions or slowly from Spice withdrawal. And you couldn't attack Paul on Arakis because the Guild would not jeopardise Spice production.

Did you read my post? I said that the Spice monopoly hydraulic despotism was believable. Neither the navigators nor the heads of major houses wants to go through spice withdrawl and die in agony. That part is good. What I found wanting was a huge bloody jihad, that evidently occurred, could happen if the Imperium was really 13,000 worlds and Paul only has a few million Fremen. That's enough to punish a disobedient world or two, it isn't enough to wage a bloody jihad across the empire. Fifty legions of Sardukar being one point of the balance of power (even backed by additional levies) also doesn't make sense in a 13,000 member world empire. The numbers are too damn small.

[Setzer]

Not to put to fine a point on it, but Frank Herbert would hardly be the first author to buy into a brain bug. He is primarily responsible for the "harsh environment=military badass" brainbug, though he did have the good sense to put in other deciding factors, like the religious fanaticism of the Fremen, their lives mirroring the discipline of a military unit, the decline of their enemies, and above all else, the hydraulic despotism of the Atreides Dynasty. He might have simply looked at some of the great butchers of the past, and underestimated the numbers required.

Another factor might simply have been fear. Even though they weren't what they once were, the Sardaukar were still considered nigh invincible. Baron Harkonnen was convinced they could butcher his own troops despite his (IIRC) 5 to 1 advantage in numbers. Thufir Hawat was amazed at fact that they could actually beat Sardaukar without the assistance that House Atreides could have provided. For the Sardaukar to have been defeated must have shocked the Landsraad Houses, and the thought of facing a Fremen army, fresh from their overwhelming victory on Arrakis, might easily have caused some levies to dissolve at the mere possibility of fighting Paul's army. From then on in it would simply be a matter of punishing the offending planet, and terrified civilians aren't much of a threat to professional troops. We do hear Paul remark with disgust that his Fremen have killed tens of millions, but I don't remember him saying they were all soldiers.

[Bilbo]

We do hear Paul remark with disgust that his Fremen have killed tens of millions, but I don't remember him saying they were all soldiers.

Tens of millions only really works if the Fremen made examples of only one or two worlds and the rest of the Empire immediatly crawled under their beds and cried like babies. The Landsraad has 13,000 members, if each one controlled a word (assumption on my part please correct if wrong) and each planet only had 1 billion people on it that would give it a total population of 130 trillion. If we take tens of millions to be 100 million (beyond the max but an easy number to work with) that means one tenth of the population of 1 planet was destroyed . In our terms that would mean forcing todays Earth into submission by killing 4,615 people. This is all assuming that my math is right.

[Setzer]

Well, there are two possible rationales for this.

A: Herbert didn't take the scale into account
B: Paul made a token show of force and the rest of the Landsraad rolled over. It was said in the first book that the Great Houses of the Landsraad had grown cautious and took few risks. Dune is a chronicle mainly of political intrigue, and a society used to assassinations and backroom deals might knuckle under very easily to a genuine military threat. Then they'll find some sneaky way to try and get even, like the scheming we see from the very second book.

[Traveller]

It helps to keep in mind, that this was a jihad as such and not a full-blown campaign to conquer every planet in the imperium. The Jihad fell primarily in places where there was resistance to Pauls Rule or remants of the old order. Also, although the 13k number is one of the few definitive places we can calculate the number of worlds of the imperium, that number is far in the past in the Dune chronology, thus, also, out of date. Most worlds would most likely not dispute Pauls rule, especially once they learn that Heighliner loads of fanatics are roaming around laying waste wherever they feel like, I thought I once read they also used stone-burners quite liberally? One must also consider just how these people conduct warfare, there methodology really doesnt translate well from we are used to. Most houses armies, probably never engage in open warfare against other houses, simply because its too expensive and logisically difficult. In fact, most house armies probably dont fight anyone *period*. Although all houses maintain armies on the theory they could be attacked at any time, in practice that would almost never happen. Thus most house armies would be in effect, planetary police forces, at most they might have a internal rebellion to put down once in a while, but the primary role of most armies in the imperium would be to maintain the rule of the house in charge. In short, most worlds would be hard pressed to offer much more than a token resistance to the fremen.

Some of you also seem to be of the notion that the jihads goal was to wage long WWI or WWII style mass operations. Again, this is projecting how we fought in the 20th century with the goals aims and style of warfare these people practice. Being such a regimeted society, the jihad is going to be targeting the House in question, anyone that openly oposeses Pauls rule etc. There going to smash whatever resistance they encounter, replace the house in question with there own people, and move on. Imperial society is very regimented, therefore used to obeying whoever is in charge. These people arent democrats, and the fremen know exactly where and how to hit the elites that govern the planets of the empire. There not going to run around chaseing 'rebels' in the hills for 10 years on some marginal world somewhere. Essentially, all the jihad has to do is cut off the heads so to speak, replace them with more compliant individuals, and the rest of the populace (in most cases, not all for sure) will fall into line. Thats how this society works, people respect power and strength and being that the fremen are far less restrained than even the brutal Sardaukar were, its not hard to see how most planets would fall into line readily enough. However if all he had was 13 million men(probably a mistake on writers part), well, thats not very many given the implied scale of the thing and the billions that die in it. Lack of conscise details, never helps much in instances like these. Few organizations in the Dune-Verse even posses the ability to wage war across space on anyting like a large scale, that was after all the basis of House Corrinos power for thousands of years. Most member worlds of the imperium simply dont posses that level of power, defending against someone that does, is for all intents impossible (the system is set up that way really). So its not really impossible. even if there #'s are relatively small, they could do damage all out of proportion to the size of there forces.

[Lord Relvenous]

We do hear Paul remark with disgust that his Fremen have killed tens of millions, but I don't remember him saying they were all soldiers.

Tens of millions only really works if the Fremen made examples of only one or two worlds and the rest of the Empire immediatly crawled under their beds and cried like babies. The Landsraad has 13,000 members, if each one controlled a word (assumption on my part please correct if wrong) and each planet only had 1 billion people on it that would give it a total population of 130 trillion. If we take tens of millions to be 100 million (beyond the max but an easy number to work with) that means one tenth of the population of 1 planet was destroyed . In our terms that would mean forcing todays Earth into submission by killing 4,615 people. This is all assuming that my math is right.

He got the number wrong. Paul does not remark that he killed tens of millions, he killed much more than that.

Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others.

That gives us a better scale of Paul's Jihad.Also, I think you overestimate the total population of the planets by assigning them 1 billion people each. Dune had no where near that number, IIRC, and although it is probably the lower boundary of planetary population, we don't get much indication that Caladan was much larger. Your guess could be right, however.

[Bilbo]

Statistics: at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others.

That gives us a better scale of Paul's Jihad.Also, I think you overestimate the total population of the planets by assigning them 1 billion people each. Dune had no where near that number, IIRC, and although it is probably the lower boundary of planetary population, we don't get much indication that Caladan was much larger. Your guess could be right, however.

Sounds like we can guess the average planet has a population between 500 and 700 million people going by the sterlizing 90 planets. The 500 demoralized may be nothing more than a single nuke dropped on the leading House capital to wipe them out then move on to another target. The planet wouldnt be hurt that much but would no longer have any leadership.

[Darth Hoth]

Well, there are two possible rationales for this.

A: Herbert didn't take the scale into account
B: Paul made a token show of force and the rest of the Landsraad rolled over. It was said in the first book that the Great Houses of the Landsraad had grown cautious and took few risks. Dune is a chronicle mainly of political intrigue, and a society used to assassinations and backroom deals might knuckle under very easily to a genuine military threat. Then they'll find some sneaky way to try and get even, like the scheming we see from the very second book.

A is the vastly most likely. Minimalism is widespread throughout science fiction; just look at Asimov with his uber Galactic Empire and its ecumenopolis capital planet that consumed the agricultural supply of twenty terrestrial worlds . . . and had a population of all of forty billion.

[Mayabird]

Well, there are two possible rationales for this.

A: Herbert didn't take the scale into account
B: Paul made a token show of force and the rest of the Landsraad rolled over. It was said in the first book that the Great Houses of the Landsraad had grown cautious and took few risks. Dune is a chronicle mainly of political intrigue, and a society used to assassinations and backroom deals might knuckle under very easily to a genuine military threat. Then they'll find some sneaky way to try and get even, like the scheming we see from the very second book.

A is the vastly most likely. Minimalism is widespread throughout science fiction; just look at Asimov with his uber Galactic Empire and its ecumenopolis capital planet that consumed the agricultural supply of twenty terrestrial worlds . . . and had a population of all of forty billion.

Nitpicks: Trantor wasn't really a ecumenopolis; the land area was covered in city but the oceans were still clear. The Galactic Empire's planets had a hard time getting above a billion on each world. It probably had something to do with a cultural memory of the overcrowded Caves of Steel back on Earth (which had a lower population than we do today) and the Settlers from Earth constantly spreading out. Because the telepathic robots wouldn't let the humans get themselves crowded again, or something. Yeah, okay, kinda stupid, but the point about Trantor holds.


As for the size, the original empire in Dune was only within the bounds of our one galaxy. During the Scattering ships went out to other galaxies (they were called 'universes' in the book, but this was during the time when 'island universe' meaning galaxy was still in use).