DUNE versus STAR WARS

[Dahak]

The war opens with a Death Star attack on Arrakis. Eliminate the spice, and you eliminate the Navigators and the entire basis for galactic travel in the Dune galaxy.

But in order to do it, you need to know where Arrakis *is*.
And given the Guild's monopoly on space travel, that wouldn't be that easy.

[Captain tycho]

The war opens with a Death Star attack on Arrakis. Eliminate the spice, and you eliminate the Navigators and the entire basis for galactic travel in the Dune galaxy.

But in order to do it, you need to know where Arrakis *is*.
And given the Guild's monopoly on space travel, that wouldn't be that easy.

Jee, it wouldn't be that hard to send out probe droids and monitor traffic now, would it? It wouldn't be hard to hack into a database and find the coordinates now, would it?

[Marcus]

I cant see the Duniverse winning this, at any level.

Nonetheless, some useful quotes and ideas-

"The million worlds.. an interesting phrase. No doubt more than that, but it said something about how they viewed it"

-Mother Superior Darwi Odrade, Chapterhouse Dune. This is in reference to the Honoured Matres fleeing some unknown enemy in the scattering (the extent of the areas settled by humanity in the post-LetoII scattering is unknown, but considered so large as to dwarf the old Empire, which the Honoured Matres referred to as the 'Million Worlds' and fled to, to escape more terrible enemies)

BDZ-The Honoured Matres sterilize several planets, including Dune itself. No clue as to the numbers of ships necessary for such an operation. Extent of destruction not defined, save that in the case of Arrakis everything on the planet was destroyed (not always easy for some of the smaller life-cycles of an animal that travels in deep sand). It is in all cases in the novel treated as if any planet 'burned' by the Honoured Matres was extinguished completely, and uninhabitable.

Weaponry-Honoured Matres had and used a weapon, unknown characterisitcs and beyond their own ability to reproduce the 'Charge' for, which 'generated invisible death in a broad swath before them'. Method of action unknown. Result was soundless, symptomless death. No defense evident (and also no discussion of range, duration of effect, or anything of that nature. All it does is suggest at military capabilities beyond shields and lasguns.)

[Dahak]

The war opens with a Death Star attack on Arrakis. Eliminate the spice, and you eliminate the Navigators and the entire basis for galactic travel in the Dune galaxy.

But in order to do it, you need to know where Arrakis *is*.
And given the Guild's monopoly on space travel, that wouldn't be that easy.

Jee, it wouldn't be that hard to send out probe droids and monitor traffic now, would it? It wouldn't be hard to hack into a database and find the coordinates now, would it?

Guild ships just appear, and disappear, not much of traffic to observe.
And given the distrust in computers, the data will be most probable inside a navigators brain, and there alone.

[Keevan_Colton]

Wong mentioned the occasion when the empire removed an entire planets oceans in freighters....
*gives an evil grin*
Solution to Dune....steal the water from several worlds...Attraides home world would be a good place to start....and unleash a disaster of biblical proportions on a dry little planet full of worms.....

[Stormbringer]

1. Dependence on the spice. You describe an era in which this is irrelevant; when does this take place, and who are the Ixians? Not everyone has read any Dune book besides Dune itself.

This would be in one of the sequel novels. It's set several thousand years after Dune at the end of the reign of Leto II, Paul's son.

The Ixians are the dune-iverses answer to Kaut. They're the top mamnufacturing planet. They build the most advanced manufacturers and are will to skirt even violate the silly religious prohibitions to build more advanced technology. They also build all the Heighliners (which is an exclusive contract) in their facilities.

[Ender]

Yes Ender. It IS fanboyism. I would like to see two universes that I love duke it out in some person's wild flight of imagination. This was a "what if" section buddy, not a tally.

And it was not an argument.

This is a Versus board. This is a versus thread on a versus board. You are claiming that Dune will win. THat is an idea, AKA argument. Now you must back up why you think it would be so.

As for #'s, I would have no idea where to get #'s for the Dune universe. The best estimates from the books are given that there are about a million worlds in the Corrino Empire. Though it is given that there are far more outside that is the source of danger and sanctuary for renegade Houses.

Well you need to produce some if you want to claim they would win.

For estimation, the Guild is given to employ billions just to service their ships on Junction. The Ixians would also employ probably at least millions to build a Heighleiner.

Great. In Star Wars single planets have trillions of beings on them, and the small shipyard at Yaga Minor is described as being the size of a moon in Remnant.

These ships are given dimensions large enough to transport almost an entire House and have some room for more. In Dune, it seemed like House Atreides left in two groups. An advanced party and then the rest of the household. Though I would assume the advanced party was just a portion of their House troops to secure the area for the Ducal family.

Great. But not really relevent to combat. While size matters, so does firepower. Borg Cubes are huge, but they get shredded by ISDs. And single ISDs carry over 46 thousand people.

For at least Imperial battleships, five heighleiners were needed to transport a relatively small amount of ships to Arrakis. The Emperor's "tent" on Arrakis contained at least five legions of Sardaukar and their accompanying servants and women and the Imperial court.

The ability to carry alot of people doesn't mean a thing.

At least one artificial moon is mentioned, the Kronos Laboratories. If they built one for research, it is not unconceivable that they could build one for defense or offense purposes, or at least on that scale.

Great. The OR, GE, and NR all routinely build moon sized constructs in short periods of time (60% DS2 completed in 6 months)

The numbers in the book about population and military losses were actually quite small since they dealt with only Arrakis. However, you have to remember that Arrakis has a small population (10 million), and the Harkonnen and Sardaukar had plenty more worlds to control and probably only proportionaly deployed a small fraction of their numbers.

Great, but you are yet to present any hard numbers.

[Lord Pounder]

As i've said before, the Duneiverse is an imposible subject to debate on. Never in the literature does it say a Lasgun puts out X amount to energy etc. All we can do is say what the effects appear to be in the book. That compared to a relatively stable universe like Star Wars makes a very dodgy ground for debating.

I love the Duniverse but unforetunately it's not something you can compare to SW.

[Trytostaydead]

Thank you Darth Pounder. All I'm saying is it'll be cool though.

[Ted C]

The Dune empire is woefully unprepared to deal with an adversary like the Star Wars Empire.

Space combat is unknown in the Dune universe. Thanks to the Guild monopoly, no one has space warships. The Guild might have some ordnance for attacking surface targets, but they certainly have no need for ship-to-ship weaponry. This may change later in the timeline, when the Ixians start reintroducing computer technology, but I don't recall anything about warships (although it's been a long time since I read anything about them).

Surface combat in the Dune universe is almost completely ritualized. Shield technology has virtually eliminated ranged combat; about the only ranged weapons in use are slow-pellet stunners, and those probably wouldn't penetrate Stormtrooper armor; Maula pistols are restricted to the Fremen, and they're low power, too. Lasguns would probably be effective, but they're rare and they're all small-arms, with the consequent limitations on targeting (i.e., limited accuracy at range because they depend on human aiming). Combined-arms tactics are essentially non-existent. Again, the situation improves later in the timeline, but not by a great deal.

Most of the Dune civilization is techno-phobic. Only the Ixians work with computers and other sophisticated technologies, and they're ostracized to some degree for it. Computers are outright illegal until the late periods of the timeline, and even then they aren't widely used.

Arrakis is a target of astounding strategic value in the early timeline of Dune; so much so that control of it would result in instantaneous capitulation. I the latter period, the strategic value of Arrakis diminishes, but the Dune empire still depends on a handful of worlds. Destroying Bene Tleilax and Ix would have essentially the same effect on the late-period Dune empire as destroying Arrakis would have on the early-period empire.

The Galactic Empire would decimate this enemy in short order. It has many glaring weaknesses and an enormous technological disadvantage.

[Artanis]

Surface combat in the Dune universe is almost completely ritualized. Shield technology has virtually eliminated ranged combat

Agreed, shields always seemed to be the reason for the near-exclusive HtH combat in Dune, and not some silly rules of war.

"It's not that they don't use guns because they won't, but instead because they CAN'T" is pretty much what I'm saying, which makes me wonder about the points regarding "Stormies slaughter Dune guys because of no range." If Dune shields stop blasters (or even bigger weapons), it'd be a lot more even on the ground.

This isn't to say I think Dune'd win, just that "blasters > swords" seems like a silly point without knowing what shields do to particle bolt weapons.

Honest debating question: In this instance, which is assumed and which must be proven? That shields stop blasters or that they don't?

[Yellowman]

"It's not that they don't use guns because they won't, but instead because they CAN'T" is pretty much what I'm saying, which makes me wonder about the points regarding "Stormies slaughter Dune guys because of no range." If Dune shields stop blasters (or even bigger weapons), it'd be a lot more even on the ground.

There are some Conservation of Momentum issues here, as have been discussed all too frequently on this board. Against hand blasters they may be effective, but anything with more Kinetic energy would rip their guts out.

Either that or the Holtzmann effect is some uber-stupid send-the-momentum-through-foldspace kinda thing, which is just uber-stupid

[Ted C]

Honest debating question: In this instance, which is assumed and which must be proven? That shields stop blasters or that they don't?

I think it's reasonable to assume that Dune shields will reliably stop bullets and shrapnel. Presumably the shields handle momentum in such a way that the impact of a bullet won't simply drive the shield generator through the wearer, killing him anyway.

"House shield" are presumably strong enough to easily handle artillery shells and such; artillery pieces were useful to the Harkonnens during their invasion only because the Atreides had turned off most of their shields for fear of lasgun attacks.

A shield obviously doesn't handle a lasgun shot well, and the effort apparently causes the shield generator to release all of its energy at once in a catastrophic explosion. A large shield generator apparently has an energy reserve rivalling a nuclear weapon.

Blasters are apparently particle beam weapons instead of lasers, so there's no reason to assume they would catastrophically interact with shields. The particles appear to be moving quickly, so they won't penetrate the shield on the "slow blade" theory. On the other hand, a blaster bolt can carry a lot more energy than a bullet, so the burden of proof would be to show that a personal shield can handle that much energy. Similarly, you would need to show that "house shields" can handle the energy carried by a bolt from the blaster cannons typically carried by Imperial armored vehicles.

[HemlockGrey]

Does the late Dune empire rely on the Guild for travel? If so, the Empire will royally kick their asses, even if everything else is equal.

Hyperspace > folding space, because anyone can do it.

Plus, ground combat, as mentioned, would be a slaughter. Sword-wielding soldiers against legions of white-armored, jackbooted clones and recruits with powerful energy weapons and massive supporting armor?

[Ted C]

Does the late Dune empire rely on the Guild for travel? If so, the Empire will royally kick their asses, even if everything else is equal.

No. In the books, interstellar is actually accomplished by travelling through... hyperspace. The Guild monopoly is based on the precognitive abilities of the navigators. Ships in Dune hyperspace can collide with objects (much as they can in SW hyperspace), and human pilots obviously can't react to obstacles in time to avoid them. The navigators are able to foresee a clear path, however.

In the later period, the Ixians start to reintroduce computers to space travel. Ixian starships can calculate safe paths, so the Guild starts losing its monopoly. The Ixians still control only a small portion of interstellar travel by the time of last book, though (AFAIK).

Hyperspace > folding space, because anyone can do it.

"Folding space" only occurred in the movie, though.

Plus, ground combat, as mentioned, would be a slaughter. Sword-wielding soldiers against legions of white-armored, jackbooted clones and recruits with powerful energy weapons and massive supporting armor?

If the Dune troops actually got into close combat range, it would probably be a slaughter the other way around. Unfortunately, they don't have very good odds of doing that.

Lasgun technology is increasingly common in the later period, though, and those weapons can be very powerful. Shield use seems to be on the decline by that time, probably because of the expanded use of lasguns.