Hunters of Dune

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Even the all-female Bene Geserit sisterhood doesn't fully escape this trope. Granted, Reverend Mothers wield a great deal of power, and the sisterhood provides women with elite training and avenues for getting ahead. However, the sisterhood also exerts rigid control over initiates' sexual and reproductive lives for the sake of its selective breeding program, deciding who they will marry, who they will have sex with, and when and if they will bear children. The idea that initiates might have other plans is never considered. In the out of print Encyclopedia of Dune the Natives of Caladan are sentient: morons by human standards and around Stone Age level of technology, but sentient all the same. They are mentioned maybe once in the series proper though. Mind you, the Encyclopedia is not fully Canon. Never Speak Ill of the Dead: When Paul kills Jamis in a duel, the other Fremen refrain from speaking ill of Jamis, even though he had a history of violence and unethical actions (i.e., killing Harah's first husband so that he could marry her). On the other hand each of the members of the band has at least one good memory of Jamis and Harah praises him as a good provider and a good father to both her sons, including the one by her first husband, and wants to know if Paul means to do as well by them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/wqb31/how_the_hell_do_i_read_the_dune_series/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=comments_view_all Human Resources: Fremen reclaim water from human waste through their stillsuits, and from the dead by draining them in "death stills". The Tleilaxu really top them, though, by using all their females as artificial wombs for their genetic products. Supernatural Martial Arts: "The weirding way of fighting" (as the Fremen refer to it) is a Bene Gesserit martial art that allows its users to perform feats of superhuman strength and speed.For almost 20 years I’ve been so curious about what happened after Chapter House and the events of the Butlerian Jihad. I’m excited to dive into those books, even if it’s through a different voice and vision. Clingy Costume: As a matter of survival. The climate of Arrakis is such that the Fremen must wear their stillsuits at all times outside sietches, and sometimes even inside, as they have a deeply ingrained cultural taboo against wasting water. Subverted later, when Stilgar notes in disgust how many Fremen who have achieved high positions within Muad'Dib's Empire never wear stillsuits anymore when they go into the desert, as they can afford to waste water. Anyone who has smelt an old wetsuit might work out why they were keen to stop, and it is outright stated that Fremen stink in closed spaces. Paul becomes the Kwisatz Haderach, a term the Bene Gesserit describe as meaning "Shortening of the Way". This is in fact derived from the Hebrew "k'fitzat haderech", which translates literally to "shortcut". He is also the Mahdi for the Fremen, which is the same word Muslims give their awaited messiah. They also inhale carbon dioxide and breathe out fresh oxygen, working as a substitute for the nearly non-existent plant life on Arrakis. This also justifies why such a Single-Biome Planet can have a breathable atmosphere. The byproducts of the worms are suspiciously Terran-friendly indeed. Various characters lampshade this occasionally, even suggesting the idea that sandworms may be in fact Lost Organic Technology for terraforming planets ( created a long time ago by humans, presumably).

Mentats. In the books, the Bene Gesserit are also explicitly said to be incapable of outright lying, due to their training and method of consciousness expansion. Because of this, they have become masters of evasion and misdirection. "A Bene Gesserit will always tell the truth, but rarely the whole truth." (paraphrased) The Dune Encyclopedia (1984), edited and largely written by Dr. Willis E. McNelly and approved by Frank Herbert Demoted to Extra: Happens quite a fair bit over the course of the series, with Jessica, Gurney, Stilgar, Harah, and Irulan as a few examples (although some of them, like Jessica, are only temporarily demoted). Misapplied Phlebotinum: Since suspensor fields work inside shields (the Baron uses both), it would be reasonable to have Humongous Mecha (human-piloted) or flying tanks in the setting (though walkers do turn up in some of the spinoffs).It says at one point during the first novel and again in the appendix that assassination is actually the preferred method of war, as it involves only a few people and therefore spares the lives of millions of possible conscripts. Blue-and-Orange Morality: Particularly in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. The Bene Gesserit, the supposed heroes, deliberately suppress love and regard it as a weakness. They have no problem giving up their children at birth, or taking someone else's, and, as Duncan Idaho is painfully aware, are willing to kill at will anyone who even appears to be developing the wrong powers, no matter how innocent the person might be. Miles Teg remarks that Bene Gesserit aren't really human anymore - and he likes them.

Idaho was surprised, as was all aboard, as the Ithaca came out of fold-space above the fruitful, but dying planet of Qelso, and he began to wonder if he had prescience in the choosing of fold-space timing and direction. Qelso was a seed world that Mother Superior Darwi Odrade had sent sisters to decades earlier, and they had seeded the world with sand-trout to begin a spice cycle. The inhabitants were openly hostile to the Bene Gesserit for this reason, and held some of the crew that went down to the world, as hostages. Duncan, who stayed invisible to the Enemy as long as he was on the ship, decided to lead a rescue team of the group. None of the characters bat an eyelash at practices such as slavery, concubinage, gladiatorial fights, and institutionalized child abuse (specifically, the Bene Geserit gom jabbar test used on would-be initiates). Compelling Voice: The Bene Gesserit have the Voice. Jessica uses this to facilitate the escape of her and Paul, by making the guards kill each other. The fear of this prompts various defenses, including stationing deaf-mutes as guards for important people and, later, conditioning people to reflexively kill at the first sign of Voice being used.After his transformation under the T-probe in Heretics, Miles Teg gains this, to the point where he can see the positions of the normally undetectable no-ships.

In the prequels, Omnius was actually doing what he was programmed to do (the conquest and enslavement of humanity), he just decided to work for himself, and not his Titan masters. Environmental Symbolism: Arrakis, Caladan, and Giedi Prime seem to be designed with this in mind. Caladan is a green, soft world to reflect the humanity of the Atreides family; Giedi Prime is portrayed as a mechanical, desolate place to reflect the inhumanity of the Harkonnens. Dune, of course, is a planet-sized Holy Land. It is a theme that planet of origin effects the mindset of the groups that live there, or vise versa. Every planet is a reflection of the ruling house (including the Fremen with Dune).The Clan: Feuding Houses of noble families play a large part in the first book, though the Atreides name carries down through the millennia. Emotions vs. Stoicism: The Bene Gesserit stress emotional control at all times as both proof of humanity and a basic survival tool with the Litany Against Fear. Unlike Vulcans, they're more than happy to use emotion as a tool to manipulate others — their emphasis is control, not denial. And it later turns out to be a weakness that Odrade (and Murbella) must reverse. I've read through a couple of Reddit threads and the overall consensus for the original Dune series seems to be that the first book is a masterpiece, the next two are good, and the final three books go in a different direction that isn't for everybody. I tried getting through the House trilogy about 15 years ago and lost interest even though there’s a lot of interesting world building there. The cymek titans from the prequels, who were philosopher kings and scientists, particularly ones that dealt with robotics, cybernetics, and artificial intelligence.