(Spoilers) I should clarify that the key change between the BH Dune books VS the Originals, is that the originals position a "Human" uprising against oppression(face dancers vs masters) as a major core. The BH books take facedancer agency away and make them servants of machines. They walk back Daniel and Marty's actual nature even though its rather explicitly stated in Chapterhouse Dune.
@JTheTeach Oh no? Because the final chapter in Chapterhouse makes it rather clear. I cover this in detail in my "Ultimate Guide to Chapterhouse Dune" There are also hints in Heretics of Dune.
Agrred. I prefer the idea that The One's of Many Faces are face dancers that freed themselves from the tleilaxu control and biologically evolved themselves and created advanced technologically to the point of being an universal treath more than the AI thing. This is because the six books written by Frank were pretty heavy on the themes of authority and control, not just of people but of humanity at a Macro level and the genetic lineage of said humanity at the micro level. So a group of Face Fancers that have control of their bodies and highly advanced tech freeing themselves from their rulers only to become the biggest danger in the univers fits Herbert's themes more than the random appearance of a stereotypical Ai/Borg/skynet intelligence that came out of f-all nowhere.
Dude, I've gotta say again... you've produced the best Dune related videos on TH-cam, in my opinion. Not "some of the best", *the* best. ...but don't get cocky 🤨 😏
I think in the prequels (butlarian jihad) earth was nuked when the rest of humanity came in. Letos ancestors were raised by Erasmus (I think) but letos ancestors betrayed them when they nuked earth.
There is poetic beauty in the original ending. Idaho escapes the net, and Marty accuses Daniel of letting them go, "again!". In my opinion, Daniel and Marty were clearly meant as projections of the author himself and his wife, who helped him write the series. In the end, the books' characters managed to escape from the author, they escaped from a predestined future, they were finally free from a written story. At the end, humanity is free to choose its own future, and not even the author can know what it will be. We, the readers, will never know either. We will never "see" the characters continuing their lives, because Leto freed humanity from the book. Dune's humanity now exists somewhere outside the books, outside the author's imagination. Their story is now their own, it can't be written anymore.
I like this take. I just hate that at the end of the first 6 books, I still had so many questions. And I hate that the only way I could have those questions answered was from reading the fan fictions from Brian and Kevin. And what I hate even more was that those were enough to answer the questions I had.
The "Great Enemy" being some form of advanced prescient hunter-seeker makes sense when you realize that the two main purposes of the Golden Path were to encourage humans to spread as far and wide as possible and to breed them to be invisible to prescience.
I always consider the future darkness to be humanity itself. Since the core premise of the book is about warnings of ever concentrating power in one charismatic leader. To ultimately spread wide and far and untraceable by prescience will make sure no one autocrat (or whatever they may encounter) could ever reach or rule it all again.
It's strongly implied that the face dancers not only free themselves from Tleilaxu control but are also able to absorb the memories of those they come in contact with. Marty and Daniel at the end appear to be a pair of these advanced face dancers and they may have been able to absorb so many memories that they each become, in effect, a kwisach haderach like Paul and Leto. This would explain why Leto spent so many generations breeding Atreides so that they couldn't be seen through prescient vision.
Funny enough, such Face Damcers were even present among the Tleilaxu themselves. The Master called Waff in Heretics of Dune died, and one of his Face Dancers took his 'self' before Waff died and kept the Tleilaxu remnants allied to the Bene Geserit in the last Frank Herbert book
For myself, the only books I consider canonical are the books that Frank Herbert actually wrote. I have read a couple of the later books and they aren't even close to the quality of the original books. You are absolutely correct in saying the Dune books are dense. In the first four or five pages of Dune all of the main characters are introduced, the hint of the conflict to come is introduced and the rising tension of the move from watery Caladan to dry Arrakis is highlighted. Water gives life but the desert takes life. This idea is a recurring theme throughout the novel and we see it in these first pages. In these pages there is also the idea of a clock ticking, of time moving inevitably toward an event that is implied to be a major milestone, the Kwisatz Haderach. At this point we don't know what that means, but it is obviously important and something that has been ongoing. This ticking clock is another subtle theme throughout the novel as well. So many plot threads are start in these few pages and I have only mentioned a few. It really is a masterclass on how to begin a saga.
Good afternoon. The mystery of Earth is very similar to "Foundation" saga by Isaac Asimov. Sometimes is called "Old Earth" too (other times "Gaia" and "Terra"). Almost all people in galaxy do not remember it. Sometimes, it is mentioned like a origin myth of the Galactic Empire. All these, and much more, show "Foundation" series as clear antecedent of "Dune" saga. Good work. Best regards and good luck.
Not exactly -- it's a bit more complicated than that. The original Foundation trilogy (published 1942-50 as short stories & novellas, reprinted 1951-53 as three novels) makes no mention of Earth, Terra, Gaia, or humanity's home world. Asimov reused the concept of the Galactic Empire (and Trantor) in Pebble in the Sky (1950) and The Currents of Space (1952). I haven't read them, but based on Wikipedia, The Currents of Space is set at a time when Trantor is still an expansionist power, ruling about half of the galaxy. The main character is amnesiac, but eventually learns he was born on Earth, which is now radioactive. He speculates that Earth is humanity's homeworld. Pebble in the Sky takes place on Earth, which is still an inhabited part of the Empire, albeit a radioactive backwater planet. Asimov later established that the book is set sometime after The Currents of Space, though the timeline is fuzzy. I don't know if any characters discuss humanity's origins. Asimov would later group The Stars, Like Dust (1951) as a "Galactic Empire" novel, though it would be set long before the other two books. Trantor and its Empire aren't mentioned at all. Earth is one of only 50 or so planets ruled by a regional power called the Tyranni, who come from the planet Tyrann. The three "Galactic Empire" books are otherwise unrelated. It wasn't until the 1980s that Asimov wrote additional Foundation novels (and two more sequels to The Caves of Steel) that tied everything together into one big chronology. Those books retcon a few things like the cause of Earth's radioactivity, and they're where he really fleshed out the idea of Earth being almost completely forgotten, let alone remembered as humanity's homeworld. Needless to say, that was long after Frank Herbert wrote Dune (late 50s to early 60s), though he may well have been inspired by Asimov's earlier works. Or by other science fiction authors -- I have no idea if a forgotten Earth was a common sci-fi trope at the time.
I was hoping he'd mention examples, like Firefly. "Earth That Was" is how they refer to it in the series. It has a poetic quality that lets you know that Earth is now viewed as a foundational myth rather than an actual place.
@@wereoctopus it's been way too long since I read foundation, and perhaps I'm conflating the later books, but I thought there was discussion of the planet of origin, or something similar to that, in the earlier books. I thought it was connected to the mule, but again, it's been a decade since I read them.
I always thought it was an alien intelligence from another universe. The scattering was to make sure humans were so spread out that the aliens couldn't get us all.
you mentioned Frank’s depiction of machine intelligence (AI) “not having a grudge against humanity” but rather it was (simply) “operating off of the ultimate extrapolations of the commands it was given”.. have you made a video explaining those “commands”? thank you for the vid!
I really wish KJA and BH would just publish the notes that were left behind. Then we could know the extent of what was written and what had to be made up out of whole cloth.
Yeah, there's a part where...it's been a while since I read it so my memory is fuzzy...there's a violent attack on some compound where Sister Odrade becomes the Mother Superior or whatever, and a face dancer takes over the memories of some priest(?). You get his internal monolog and learn that face dancers have been evolving the ability to integrate ancestral/genetic memories of the people they mimic, much like Bene Gesserit and Leto II did. It's setting them up as a powerful enemy, an entire race with powers like Leto II had.
You know I was just thinking the idea of facedancers isn’t really that crazy. I think one of the details given is they have extra facial muscles that help change their look. Domestic dogs have an extra facial muscle compared to wolves. It’s the muscle for moving their eyebrows which makes them look expressive.
@@pcarter1989they dont really learn the memories but achieve a sort of simpatico, so much so the face dancers can become lost in the personality believing they are that person. The priest you're talking about is Tuek I believe who was copied and the face dancer later thought he was tuek. I think it's like how the bene gesserit register ppl and can manipulate them easier once they have, these face dancers can "mimic" better once they've registered someone
I always took the idea of staving off humanities enemy was that it was entirely self inflicted and not an external threat. Kind of like when you see a toddler carrying a fork and aiming for an electrical socket. If you stop the toddler and redirect them then you have some time before their next calamity. However if you did nothing then it would be over faster. Leto II had to get humanity to evolve so that their actions could not be 100% controlled, even by him. There wasn’t an external problem - it was all an internal one.
The super advanced Hunter-seeker that you mentionned reminds me of an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 1 episode 21, "The arsenal of Freedom". In it, the Enterprise arrives in orbit of a planet where the civilisation living on it as gone extinct long ago. Where arriving on the surface, they find these strange probes that are able to replicate themselves, hunt down and destroy or immobolise targets. But their most terrifying ability, is that they scan a person's mind and then create a hologram of someone they knew to trick the target into revealing information, such as the defensives and offensive capacities of a starship...
Been years since I read the original books but I remember the distinct feeling that face dancers with prescience was shaping up to be the big bad. Possibly with gholas of Paul and leto, along with facefancers absorbing / imprinted on said gholas. It would make sense with letos plan of breeding prescient invisible genes. And the golden path delaying the evolution of the face dancers to give him time. it also fits in with the repeating theme of creating something and losing control of it, like humans losing control of machines, bene gesserit losing control of the kwisatz haderach, bene theilaxu losing control of face dancers etc.
Yes, there is quite a jarring discrepancy between the end of 'Chapter House Dune' and the later two books. From the way Marty and Daniel talk, you get the very strong idea that they are advanced Face Dancers: one of them even remarks how shocked Scytale is when they don't respond to the whistling language commands. It would have been interesting to see how Frank Herbert would have ended his saga. This isn't to detract from Brian and Kevin, for the books they produced are highly readable. What is quite clear , however, is that the resolution of the story arc could have been significantly different, even if elements of it remained the same!
I just can’t buy that they went in the same direction Frank would have. It’s just too abrupt and different, and the three or four instances of Deus ex Machina at the conclusion of their final book just seems too lazy and amateurish to be Frank’s true ending. That’s just my opinion of course, but the Brian Herbert / Kevin J. Anderson texts are just…not elegant in the way that Frank was known for.
@@stevescruby1343 I didn't say that BH and KJA went in the same direction as FH was going to do, only that elements of it might have been the same. We will never know if this was/is so, because FH did not finish his work. FH was certainly unique in his writing. He may even have been a synaesthete, one of those unique people whose senses can blend together so that they see sound or hear smells. He certainly knew about it, that's for sure. When Jessica and Paul are chased by the sandworm, and take shelter on a rock outcrop, one line stands out: "Cinnamon yelled in their nostrils". And no, BH and KJA aren't as smooth and polished as FH was, but that may simply boil down to writing style. Each writer has their own way of writing, and yes, if another writer takes over another author's line of work, the change can be off-putting. It's happened to me with another novel series by a completely different author. In fact, before the change became oficial, it was obvious that the original author of the series had handed the greater part of writing to the new one. Later, when the new writer took over the series, I found the changes so jarring I've stopped reading the later novels.
@@bramscheDave yeah, that can happen, especially if the new writer only has rough notes to guide them. JRR Tolkein didn't just leave notes, he left multiple drafts of almost everything he wrote, so his son and grandson simply had to bring them together and organise them. As I said, I found BH's books highly readable, but I can accept not everyone is going to think and feel the same way about them, especially if the departure from writing tone, and jumps in continuity and cannon are significant. I did read one of BH's works that threw some startling light onto how the very first book of the series could have been, however. Whilst the plot had some similarities to the final version, it was not as polished, and contained some very startling ideas that, ultimately, didn't make it. Even something as basic as character names got changed about as FH worked on it, and it evolved. I think that's what we tend to forget: that rather than being a tale repeated word for word through the years, it actually grows, evolves and changes from the initial idea into something that may be completely different.
I know I’m late on this video. You posted it 10 months ago, but I love your content Quin you go in-depth into the world of Dune, which which is very complicated to understand and I really appreciate the time you take to make these videos.
Perfect Saturday morning start!!!! Ty Quin! Love your reading recommendations- I never saw sci-fi as a topic I could digest but I really dove in after coming across your channel!
Thanks for the video Quin ❤ The reveal of these secrets are why I haven't read the Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson books that come after Chapterhouse: Dune. I don't see a way they could really "complete" Frank's vision (if you would). I kinda see what they are going for with the whole "return of a long forgotten ancient enemeny" trope. But that doesn't feel like the Dune universe for lack of a better descriptor. Now, I have read some of the books that delve into the history of the Dune Universe. They may not be super amazing or feel super in keeping with the universe. But they are fun and thought provoking in their own way. At least the Buttlerian Jihad trilogy 👍
I read the first couple of Brain Herbert Dune books and then stopped as they were just poor fan fiction. I love mysteries created by great writers. Whenever those mysteries are revealed, especially when done by another (usually inferior) author, the results are always, always, disappointing.
@@simonphelon7221 It's kindof like Christopher Tolkien writing new books after JRR Tolkien died, it just feels like ad hoc, let's explain x or y in way we beleive - if you follow the analogy - someone who is dead would, and hence IMHO non canonical to Frank Herberts works.
Are you having a go at Mentats, because up with that I will not put. all joking aside, the sheer dread and fear of creating machines to think for humans does lead to the Mentat order. And I think I like the idea of human computers. After all there are parallels in real life, like with people who are autistic, or Aspergers, who simply have amazing mental abilities in maths and memory, but are so far outside the norm as be labelled non neuroypical. Suffice to say the human mind is fascinating.
Quinn, please cover the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's an amazing sci-fi series and is way too obscure for how good it is. It is mind-bending.
Bringing up the origins of the Worms and what happened to Earth back to back got me thinking, what if the Worms actually came from Earth? Like they were created here and they caused the destruction of Earth and were later transferred to Arrakis? There are no hints for this in any of the books as far as I'm aware, but I feel like it works nice as head cannon.
@Shmegeddy Doodah There's evidence the worms are not native to Arakis, though. At least, Leto II believed they were brought there from somewhere else.
I feel like this would be a bit lazy writing. The worst (and the most cliché) possible ending would have been Herbert pulling a Planet of the Apes on us and the Liberty Statue (or Eiffel Tower etc.) being discovered on Arrakis. The second worst would be the "worms came from Earth" scenario. Not everything has to come from Earth all the time. The universe is big, include something alien in the story, something the humans with peak knowledge and peak technology would still struggle to understand. We can also learn more about humans themselves through the reactions of human characters and factions to something so nonhuman.
@@manwiththeredface7821 isn't Dune set apart from most big sci-fi stories by having no alien life what so ever? It's either implied that the Sandworms are the only alien life other than humans, in the universe, or it's implied that they came from somewhere. Basically it is possible that before using the spice, humans used thinking machines to get across space, and used sandworms to colonize a water planet. The result was Arrakis. Maybe the knowledge about the worms got lost in the jihad, and the existence of Spice made it possible to replace thinking machines?
I think the Facedancer idea is a better one than an A.I. intelligence IMO,. I think it would have been interesting to know what the Great Emeny really was from Frank.
I seem to remember a passage in children of dune when Leto is having his spice visions in which he sees Duncan Idaho as a leader while people are being hunted by machines. It really does lend itself more to the hunter-seeker narrative, but also leaves room for the retcon that is Ominous.
I’ve had a theory over the years. Dune is a book like the Bible that a lot of people have pretended to have read, but actually haven’t. It’s a complex work and I’m attempting that along with other things now.
That is a valid opinion but you should also remember the historical value of Butlerian Jihad in the series. Humanity was always scared of an intelligence that can rival it's own, and have purged it with a jihad in the long past. However, the hubris and ambitions of the humanity persists and history have long been forgetten once more to lead some parts of us to make the same mistake again. This is why ai can be the ultimate enemy, not just because of the danger they posses but by the sheer fact that we the humans will be the ones to create our own tools of destruction.
The production, presentation and narration on this channel is amazing. Really all your videos makes great companion pieces for reading sci-fi books and understanding the world's. So damn good ❤
My own fan-fiction version is that Dune takes place tens of thousands of years after the events of Matrix. I love the idea of these two universes being actually connected. Herbert himself would love the first Matrix movie, especially in the way it was originally conceived (Matrix using humans to create collective brain, serving as the very processing unit of the AI, not just a "power station"). My second fan-fiction idea is that sandworms are in fact avatars of interdimensional beings, which would explain the effects of spice and their aggressive responses to Holtzman field, which disrupts the space-time continuum. In this alternative version of mine, Leto II somehow understood this and through his transformation, he was able to tap to the collective mind of the worms. Before I finished the last book, I was thinking that the beings, later named Daniel and Marthy are in fact the worms, who had been influencing the universe the entire time. And while all of this is completely wrong per canon, it shows, how the Dune books can inspire readers' imagination.
Amazing video. I think the ultimate mystery of the Dune universe was Duncan himself. Even ignoring Bryan's books it was revealed in CHD that the last Duncan had memories of all his clones,even the ones whose dna did not survive. Does souls exist in the Dune universe?Not other memory/ egos,but real souls? What appears to be Frank's original idea for the HM enemies is short a parallel to the thinking machines: both thinking machines and face dancers are artificial beings who envolved. Maybe the Butlerian Jihad and the golden path only posyponed the inevitable.
Thanks for video! Honestly as someone who read way way too much Star Wars novels back in the day Kevin J. Anderson as a writer makes me worry of stuff he might have brought to the table - I mean it's a dude who created Sun Crusher and bunch of other Imperial superweapons being lost everywhere over the galaxy.
Man, Brian's idea of the thinking machines comes off as nothing short of lazy. How many times can you go for the "genocidal AI" trope before it gets stale?
I really tried to give them a chance, since I wanted an ending to the saga. But after reading the Butlerian Jihad books and then the two sequels I felt pretty apathetic about the whole thing. All the subtlety and philosophy had been discarded for something that was just so generic.
Brian & Kevin ended it with a poor man's version of The Matrix. It was so poorly constructed that they had to retcon the lore with contradictory prequel slop to make it fit, albeit very loosely.
I don't consider Brian Herbert's books cannon. Dune was Frank Herbert's universe, cliffhanger or no the books should have ended with hm. I would say the same thing for most book series when their anther dies. Plus it invalidates my favorite theory, there was no Butlerian Jihad. Humanity moved away from the thinking machines through natural cultural evolution, the people who embraced computer technology became more isolated and had fewer children, those who partially or fully became ludites had more children. Eventually a balanced was found and people learned how to do the things they relied on computers to do (which is where Mentats come from). This period of time became mythologized and the Bene Gesserit took that mythology and created the story of the Bulerian Jihad.
I'm more about non-machine theories, regarding various factors of dune. Because Franck Herbert was already two leagues beyond nowadays "trend" of IA uprising/singularity right from the start : he foresaw/understood the Singularity appeal in scifi, aknowledged it, wrote "and then there was the butlerian jihad", and built a universe that's still (to the day where the first book start) uuuultra cautious about anything "IA"/machine and errands of that sort. And then proceed to explore countless other interesting stuff, from then on. It really really doesnt sound like a guy that wanted a twist like "but in fact, IAs totally return and kill everyone, dude, because that's so cool, lol !" It feels diminishing and a big step back. (... Yeah, I'm not a fan of Brian's work,.admittedly. xD it feels so manichean and easy-cheesy. 😂)
I prefer the idea that The One's of Many Faces are face dancers that freed themselves from the thleilaxu control and biologically evolved themselves and created advanced technologically to the point of being an universal treath more than the AI thing. This is because the six books written by Frank were pretty heavy on the themes of authority and control, not just of people but of humanity at a Macro level and the genetic lineage of said humanity at the micro level. So a group of Face Fancers that have control of their bodies and highly advanced tech freeing themselves from their rulers only to become the biggest danger in the univers fits Herbert's themes more than the random appearance of a stereotypical Ai/Borg/skynet intelligence that came out of nowhere f-all nowhere.
Yea I think the great threat is strongly implied to be something that causes the human race to stagnate rather than something that kills it. Which given the themes of the book would be something immortal and with the ability to see the future ending the ability of humans to evolve.
The Skynet Intelligence didn't come out of nowhere. They had survived after humanity destroyed the synchronised empire, because of the Giedi Prime Omnius' actions, which led to a secret synchronised empire being created.
I understood the hunter seeker always as symbolical for the threat humans pose for each other, especially sentient humans like Paul and Leto II. Which is why Leto II freed humanity from being detectable by ones like him. Never thought of it as actual technology... and btw, great video as always!
I think its a bit silly to be so shut off to other authors in a series. Like its his own son writing the book as long as its following his father's wishes im sure its fine
@Quinn, your ideas, and your explanations will inspire thousands to read in general and specifically about Dune and form their own ideas. I salute you.
Great video. Brian and Kevin sort of address the last two mysteries, but as you said it is vague and contradictory enough that it remains unanswered (in a way). The first one has always puzzled me, since I read the original books, many, many years ago. Where did the worms come from? Why were they brought to Arrakis? What happened to the world they came from? Also, HOW were they brought to Arrakis? The Guild would have had a record of such a trip, but Arrakis was already a desert when the Guild was founded. Pre-Guild travel was risky and treacherous. Therefore, you could assume that the trip was worth the risk. Maybe the planet was going to be destroyed and some group fled with some worms, or at least some sand trout and fled to Arrakis. Sadly, we will never know.
My personal theory is that the planet or moon they were originally from experienced some cataclysm and a sizeable chunk of it carried enough sandtrout (in some form) to the pre-desert Arrakis via asteroid impact. They are resilient to extreme heat. I don’t think entry into atmosphere would be enough to kill them all off.
Thank you for another dive into Frank Herbert's universe! I think the original take on the kind of AI swarm that annihilates humanity is actually the more realistic take on the whole "humanity being annihilated by thinking machines" as opposed to what Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson got up to. The new books make thinking machines more human-like with emotions and flaws that strike me more as a common trope than the kind of surprisingly down-to-earth approach taken by Frank to many things. I'm not hating on the new books here definitely, I enjoyed reading the ones I got my hands on but there is certainly a distinction.
Nobody, not even his son, could unravel the complex web that is Frank Herbert's universe. He took his secrets with him. They shouldn't have tried to step in the shoes of a great man.
Great summary! Thank you for pointing out the differences between Frank and Brian - I had always wondered why I could not really get into the Prequels.
I'd always gotten the impression that Leto's biggest concern was the stagnation caused by the Old Empire. Nobody moved, nothing changed. So the moves he made were intended to cause the Scattering, an event that would spread mankind across the universe that couldn't be undone. The Atreides bloodline, which hid the scattered people from prescience. The development of No-Room and No-Ships, so no sensor could track their movements. Navigation machines, to break the Guild monopoly. The only trick he seems to have missed was the artificial Spice, which humanity worked out all on it's own. Once Scattered humanity couldn't be Un-Scattered. No matter how bad a disaster might happen in the future, there would always be somebody left.
Nice... I have always loved DUNE but as you state in this videos and other videos on the subject of DUNE it is very hard to read/comprehend. But all is not lost. Because of your channel I got to enjoy The Hyperion Saga and it was amazing I understand Bradely Cooper's production company currently owns the rights and I would love to see a short format adult TV show, it would be awesome if it is done right. Also, once I finish Harry Turtledove's World War Series, which is fantasic but has some dull character moments that if this was to be formatted for film/TV probably would not be in it but other than that, is amazing. So is Guns of the South. Highly recommend that one -one off book about Time Travel and the Civil War. This Channel also introduced Remembrance of Earth's Past - Cixin Liu, and that is next on my list before I go back to Evan Currie's Odyssey One Series, another fantastic series about Earth developing FTL and meeting aliens for the first time along with invasion. The main character is much like a younger Captain Kirk, strong... the only thing left I wanna leave here is the B.V. Larson and David Vandyke Star Force Series, probably the best AI wants to kill humans character based story I have ever seen. It gives a really deep anaylist of alien AI trying to enslave the human race. Highly recommend this. This is as good as Hyperion in AI like how they dive into Religion and AI. Just as solid. Great Character moments.
This nicely illustrates why I find the Brian Herbert/Anderson books so underwhelming, and forego any deeper philosophy and sociopolitical thoughts and ideas. They use standard scifi tropes, likely because Anderson is a writer whose bread and butter is non-challenging adventure fiction. Frank Herbert (and his wife, Liro) brought up very original thoughts, challenged his readers in ways rare in literature, and in the process generated about a third of common sci-fi tropes. It's simply a shame Brian Herbert/Anderson fell so far short of Frank Herbert's vision (and shoehorned in the most bland, boring killbots instead).
One of the biggest mysterys for me is: what happened to Lady Margots daughter after the original Dune novel? The Brian Herbert books give an answer to that question in Paul of Dune, but as far as I remember, in the original 6 novels there is no answer to there destiny..
Yep, BH and KJA totally changed Frank Herbert's storyline to make sure it all came back to their own prequel work (which was awful!) It completely contradicted Frank's narrative about Daniel and Marty and how (by their own words!) were Face Dancers who had become their own masters.
Quinn, I’ve been watching your vids for years, always quality content. I consider you to be the Dune scholar and expert, I’ve read all the books and you always manage to give us new insights into the Dune Universe
If you'd be interested, Doc Sloan's Science Fiction Station channel has the Docs PhD thesis written about Frank's books in episodic form. Check out the Deep Dive playlist. Doc's content is the least exposed and most underrated Dune content on TH-cam. Give it a go!
@@elimoran7345 No problem. Glad you enjoyed. I dig sharing things I luv with others. Doc is out right now with health issues but hopefully he'll return soon with some new content.
@@elimoran7345 Thanks for that. New Dune content is always on my radar. I also periodically find the rest of the audiobooks and add them to the list but they often get removed for copyright not long before they get added so right now that list is rather sparse. Doc puts notices out to keep us updated on his happenings so he will let us know when he's able to return Feel free to leave comments on his vids as he's great at interacting with his subscribers. His bookcluds are fantastic as he reads and answers al comments made during his streams. Though he often gets off topic and some folks find it rather frustrating. If you don't mind the suggestions, I've two bits of work for you to check out. Samuel Butler's Erewhon which is available as an audiobook here on TH-cam. It was a great inspiration for Frank for some of the ideas he incorporated into Dune. It is Samuel for whom the Butlerian jihad was named. Listen to Erewhon and you'll learn why. Frank's short story Operation Haystack. The first paragraph introduces you to a proto Axolotal tank and the baddies are a group of ladies who are suspiciously familiar.
The thing about Brian Herbert's contribution to further work on the original series is that he said he was based on handwritten notes that his father allegedly left. Part of what was in these notebooks was the continuation of the story + explanatory annotations + certain note explaining and leaving clues about everything that had happened for humanity before volume 1 of Dune. And it would be from these resources that Brian H and Anderson would have taken over the work more obviously all their personal contribution. To my knowledge no one apart from the authors has ever seen this material.
I remember reading, years ago, that Brian & KJA were having Q & A session while promoting Butlerian Jihad books , and someone from the audience asked what happened to the ( is it OMNI ? )the evil A.I. . like is it possible that some of his probes in deep space survived Butlerian Jihad ? And is it possible that the enemy that has routed Honoured Maitres in the Scattering is actually restored A.I. ? And, upon hearing that questions, two of them looked at each other and were so inspired by that idea that they just had to do it this way....so lame...
If we think what we know the origin of the middle earth, by JRR Tolkien, there were several version, ideas that did change, ideas that ws discarded, remade etc. so it is quite possible that Frank Herbet notes are somewhat similar. Contradicting what he did write later and some parts that he did save. All in all it is mixed bag of knowledge.
@@haukikannelWho knows what exactly was written on that floppy disk by old Herbert, and how much KJA & Brian decided to make their own changes.... I still think it was better with evolved facedancers being the real menace...In a way, humanity has repeated the same mistake as it did with the machines before...This time it was bioengineering tech that was the seed of future evil.... Those facedancers that can absorb all the talents & memories ( even Kvizatz Haderach talent ) from regular humans , are already like the all powerful A.I. in biological bodies... no need to involve Omnius etc..
@@holydissolution85 One can assume everything about it. Once again as long as these "famous note" are not public, nothing will happen. But it should be noted all the same that Brian Herbert is not just anyone, he is still his son, and all the more so since even from memory Frank had several children, Brian had the opportunity to worked with his father as a co-writer on the novel "Man of Two Worlds" published in 1986. So also as a son with the same interest in writing as his father, I can imagine at some point he must have asked him questions questions like "And in fact, do you think what to do with the story of your next Dune novel?". It still seems plausible, after that Brian followed his father's idea closely or he completely took another very different path, that for the moment no information allows to know it to date.
I absolutely love your content and your take on dune. I was wondering if you've ever thought about a series comparing dune to other works of sifi, and how dune has inspired the different sifi series? Thanks for all you do
I only ever got through the first three Dune books (and a few of BH & KJA's potboiler fanfics) but I really appreciate your videos breaking down some of Frank Herbert's themes.
Thank you for brightening my day with videos about such amazing stories. I have yet to rekindle my passion for reading, but thanks to you get to enjoy these great works of fiction.
My understanding was the Face Dancers were adapted by Erasmus into their current state, a perfect hybrid of organic and machine, living bio machines, and that technology inspired Erasmus to remake himself and Omnius with flowmetal as the basis, so they are like more whole machine versions of Face Dancers but so much more.
@@JTheTeach yes indeed , face dancers have always been Erasmus idea. It was he who wanted a biological body a machine could use undetected to "study " humans, the tleilaxu just adopted his technology
As an original 80s reader when the the first movie came out this is a complete surprise to me . Yes upon reading Frank Herbert's series the final book implicated Face Dancers as an evolved race that the Thilaxiu lost control of and were the Great Enemy the MHs were fleeing from . Then Brian Herbert messed that up . Ohhhh welll
I think *The Great Enemy* is a hostile Kwisatz Haderach from the nearby galaxy. And he is the who The Honored Matres were running from. That's why Leto II was trying to create the human who is invisible to the prescience. Only this human (and his descendants) would be able to resist and confront an enemy KH.
Since Leto II spend the thousand of years as god emperor specifically breeding Atreides so that they cannot be seen through prescience, we could assume that the great enemy is something like that seeker. To counter the greatest seeker, Leto II built the greatest hiders, so to speak.
I distinctly remember talk in God-Emperor of Dune about the Ixians trying to create a machine intelligence. Despite Leto commenting in that book that they wouldn't succeed, I still expected that to come up again at some point, but it never did.
Commenting cause i love and appreciate your content! I hope your channel grows, and that more people get infected by your ever so pure and passionate love for sci-fi. Keep it going man!
Talk about dune being dense. As a teenager it took me 3 attempts over 18 months to read the 1st book in one sitting. And I was a very ardent sci-fi & fantasy fan, I got 5+ books/week loaned from the local library, and bought a couple of books from 2nd hand bookshops. After finally finished dune, I went thru the whole series from dune messiah to chapterhouse dune in less than a week.
I always consider the future darkness to be humanity itself. Since the core premise of the book is about warnings of ever concentrating power in one charismatic leader. To ultimately spread wide and far and untraceable by prescience will make sure no one autocrat (or whatever they may encounter) could ever reach or rule it all again.
The Final Dune books (new books) came from a manuscript found in a Swiss Bank on a computer disk called just "dune 7" it included notes as well, Brian and Kevin finished off the manuscript based on Frank Herbert's notes. Hard to say what was and wasn't changed.
Happy to see you picked up on the face dancer issue. I thought the later works by NOT Frank Herbert were quite unclear and I was not satisfied with their "interpretation".
...yo Quinn!!!...your channel iz solid...the 'Dune' content iz the bezt but man that '3rd body Problem' content iz what got me into sci fi bookz beyond 'Dune'. Also wanted to say that IMO the later 'Dune' bookz are a subtle foreshadowing of the events we are going through as a society right now. A fragmented cast of humanz trying to find the hidden talentz of our past yet leaving destruction in our wake. sry if my wordz arent elegant but i hope you get what im trying ii say. Anywayz, your one of my favorite channelz on youtube. Great work Quinn!!!
I have to say while dune is dense, I find it very enjoyable. It’s hard to read less-dense science fiction because it’s not nearly as engaging. I like The Bone Shard series due to the richness of it and The Southern Reach trilogy for how dense that is as well.
Can’t wait for part 2 the movie! I hope but highly doubt they’ll run the entire saga, but I would be down, for a Netflix series after movie 2 or 3 going thru the entire series, would be amazing
The Brian Herbert / Kevin Anderson books are no more than poorly written fan-fiction. It’s a damn shame we never got Frank Herbert’s final volume. I wish we would one day get to see his real notes for that book but I doubt it’ll ever happen.
And thank you for pointing out how a "grudge" is hardly robot-like. This was another painfully cliched element of the BH/KJA books, which was that the robots were basically "Evil the Cat." They delighted in murdering and enslaving humans for no reason. The Cymeks were the same, ridiculously-named villains who murdered millions or billions for no reason other than they were evil. Their entire interpretation of the Butlerian Jihad and Frank's universe is crass, childish, and incredibly greedy. The only reason that I can see for them writing these fan fiction books is to cash in, and they didn't mind lying by pretending their sequels were based on Frank's notes. Maybe to a point, but they wrote the ending based on their own prequels!
I'd always assumed that the sandtrout/worms had been genetically engineered by human beings at some point. Melange is so incredibly useful it seems possible to me that the worms were intentionally created to produce it, rather than having simply evolved naturally.
Another science fiction series in which Earth has been forgotten is Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. In the original books, Earth isn't even mentioned and in later books, one of the plotlines is a quest to find old Earth.
There are some of these questions answered in the books. Like the honoured matres were chased out by the thinking machines in Brian's books. But I see what you mean about which you take as cannon. I enjoyed this video a lot though!
I always thought Leto implied the worms were brought to Arrakis by another race, not humans. Also, Leto notes toward the end of GED that with Siona, the 'great enemy' is no longer a threat. As far as the grand scheme of things by Chapterhouse, I suppose the implication is that humans will always seek genocide (esp in the Scattering), but it's up to groups like the Bene Gesserit and their inheritors to stay ahead of the curve...change/evolve or die. Once the BG and HM formed their hybrid sisterhood, no doubt the HM great enemy would be stepping up next.
The only line i draw is that bh and kja's work is largely based on notes. My dad left me q manuscript that was unfinushed and said this is your story now. Theres a difference. If Frank said to Brian to use his notes and finish the story, I'd be hugely invested. But I consider bh snd kja's additions flavoring but never canon.
Brian Hebert is just a name attached to Kevin J Anderson's writing. BH is like a Japanese Emperor, just attached to give the new writings a tangential legacy. You have been illuminated.
As far as I recall, honored mathres did not return because of wishing to acquire bene geserit skills, but to group up again and strengthen against their enemies in the scattering.
I feel like Frank never precluded AI from his great enemy. In fact, it seems likely that he was saying the Ixians would create a prescient AI (possibly as part of their spacing guild project) and this would be Arafel. It's never explicitly stated that it was AI, and it could have been simply self-replicating hunter seekers or even a biological threat (face dancers, aliens, etc.). In fact, I believe Frank specifically wanted to leave it undefined because Paul noted all the different horrifying possibilites with only 1 golden path. I think that the great enemy was all of the above options at various times, with Leto having avoided earlier ones through his direct action and later ones through providing humanity an immunity to prescience.
(Spoilers) I should clarify that the key change between the BH Dune books VS the Originals, is that the originals position a "Human" uprising against oppression(face dancers vs masters) as a major core. The BH books take facedancer agency away and make them servants of machines. They walk back Daniel and Marty's actual nature even though its rather explicitly stated in Chapterhouse Dune.
I don't recall that in Chapterhouse. either the explicit Face Dancer uprising or Daniel and Marty's nature..
@JTheTeach Oh no? Because the final chapter in Chapterhouse makes it rather clear. I cover this in detail in my "Ultimate Guide to Chapterhouse Dune" There are also hints in Heretics of Dune.
Agrred. I prefer the idea that The One's of Many Faces are face dancers that freed themselves from the tleilaxu control and biologically evolved themselves and created advanced technologically to the point of being an universal treath more than the AI thing. This is because the six books written by Frank were pretty heavy on the themes of authority and control, not just of people but of humanity at a Macro level and the genetic lineage of said humanity at the micro level. So a group of Face Fancers that have control of their bodies and highly advanced tech freeing themselves from their rulers only to become the biggest danger in the univers fits Herbert's themes more than the random appearance of a stereotypical Ai/Borg/skynet intelligence that came out of f-all nowhere.
Dude, I've gotta say again... you've produced the best Dune related videos on TH-cam, in my opinion. Not "some of the best", *the* best.
...but don't get cocky 🤨 😏
I think in the prequels (butlarian jihad) earth was nuked when the rest of humanity came in. Letos ancestors were raised by Erasmus (I think) but letos ancestors betrayed them when they nuked earth.
There is poetic beauty in the original ending. Idaho escapes the net, and Marty accuses Daniel of letting them go, "again!". In my opinion, Daniel and Marty were clearly meant as projections of the author himself and his wife, who helped him write the series. In the end, the books' characters managed to escape from the author, they escaped from a predestined future, they were finally free from a written story. At the end, humanity is free to choose its own future, and not even the author can know what it will be. We, the readers, will never know either. We will never "see" the characters continuing their lives, because Leto freed humanity from the book. Dune's humanity now exists somewhere outside the books, outside the author's imagination. Their story is now their own, it can't be written anymore.
The most logical explanation yet. Emperor Leto succeeded.
Nailed it, read all six books and this was a beautiful interpretation. Unless you want to go the Hunters Of Dune, Sandworms of Dune route!
Interesting
I like this take. I just hate that at the end of the first 6 books, I still had so many questions. And I hate that the only way I could have those questions answered was from reading the fan fictions from Brian and Kevin. And what I hate even more was that those were enough to answer the questions I had.
Wait a minute: at the end of the last book written by Herbert, Duncan and cie have in reality breached the fourth wall?
The "Great Enemy" being some form of advanced prescient hunter-seeker makes sense when you realize that the two main purposes of the Golden Path were to encourage humans to spread as far and wide as possible and to breed them to be invisible to prescience.
I always consider the future darkness to be humanity itself. Since the core premise of the book is about warnings of ever concentrating power in one charismatic leader. To ultimately spread wide and far and untraceable by prescience will make sure no one autocrat (or whatever they may encounter) could ever reach or rule it all again.
It sounds just like the solid state entity that john c lily wrote about. I'm certain herbert knew of lillie
It's strongly implied that the face dancers not only free themselves from Tleilaxu control but are also able to absorb the memories of those they come in contact with. Marty and Daniel at the end appear to be a pair of these advanced face dancers and they may have been able to absorb so many memories that they each become, in effect, a kwisach haderach like Paul and Leto. This would explain why Leto spent so many generations breeding Atreides so that they couldn't be seen through prescient vision.
Funny enough, such Face Damcers were even present among the Tleilaxu themselves. The Master called Waff in Heretics of Dune died, and one of his Face Dancers took his 'self' before Waff died and kept the Tleilaxu remnants allied to the Bene Geserit in the last Frank Herbert book
For myself, the only books I consider canonical are the books that Frank Herbert actually wrote. I have read a couple of the later books and they aren't even close to the quality of the original books. You are absolutely correct in saying the Dune books are dense. In the first four or five pages of Dune all of the main characters are introduced, the hint of the conflict to come is introduced and the rising tension of the move from watery Caladan to dry Arrakis is highlighted. Water gives life but the desert takes life. This idea is a recurring theme throughout the novel and we see it in these first pages. In these pages there is also the idea of a clock ticking, of time moving inevitably toward an event that is implied to be a major milestone, the Kwisatz Haderach. At this point we don't know what that means, but it is obviously important and something that has been ongoing. This ticking clock is another subtle theme throughout the novel as well. So many plot threads are start in these few pages and I have only mentioned a few. It really is a masterclass on how to begin a saga.
Well... It is a very delicate time.
Considering that is the definition of the word canon, "The works known to be created by a specific person" you are definitivly correct.
"May thy knife chip and shatter."
Woah woah woah, I just asked if I can have the last muffin!
😂😂😂
@@ericcalm9924"I'd like some milk too please" Us: "LONG LIVE THE FIGHTERS."
Chills
May your thighpads rip and splatter
Good afternoon. The mystery of Earth is very similar to "Foundation" saga by Isaac Asimov. Sometimes is called "Old Earth" too (other times "Gaia" and "Terra"). Almost all people in galaxy do not remember it. Sometimes, it is mentioned like a origin myth of the Galactic Empire. All these, and much more, show "Foundation" series as clear antecedent of "Dune" saga. Good work. Best regards and good luck.
Thanks for bringing that up, I was thinking the same exaxt thing!
Not exactly -- it's a bit more complicated than that.
The original Foundation trilogy (published 1942-50 as short stories & novellas, reprinted 1951-53 as three novels) makes no mention of Earth, Terra, Gaia, or humanity's home world.
Asimov reused the concept of the Galactic Empire (and Trantor) in Pebble in the Sky (1950) and The Currents of Space (1952). I haven't read them, but based on Wikipedia, The Currents of Space is set at a time when Trantor is still an expansionist power, ruling about half of the galaxy. The main character is amnesiac, but eventually learns he was born on Earth, which is now radioactive. He speculates that Earth is humanity's homeworld.
Pebble in the Sky takes place on Earth, which is still an inhabited part of the Empire, albeit a radioactive backwater planet. Asimov later established that the book is set sometime after The Currents of Space, though the timeline is fuzzy. I don't know if any characters discuss humanity's origins.
Asimov would later group The Stars, Like Dust (1951) as a "Galactic Empire" novel, though it would be set long before the other two books. Trantor and its Empire aren't mentioned at all. Earth is one of only 50 or so planets ruled by a regional power called the Tyranni, who come from the planet Tyrann. The three "Galactic Empire" books are otherwise unrelated.
It wasn't until the 1980s that Asimov wrote additional Foundation novels (and two more sequels to The Caves of Steel) that tied everything together into one big chronology. Those books retcon a few things like the cause of Earth's radioactivity, and they're where he really fleshed out the idea of Earth being almost completely forgotten, let alone remembered as humanity's homeworld.
Needless to say, that was long after Frank Herbert wrote Dune (late 50s to early 60s), though he may well have been inspired by Asimov's earlier works. Or by other science fiction authors -- I have no idea if a forgotten Earth was a common sci-fi trope at the time.
Frank Herbert was a big fan of Asimov
I was hoping he'd mention examples, like Firefly. "Earth That Was" is how they refer to it in the series. It has a poetic quality that lets you know that Earth is now viewed as a foundational myth rather than an actual place.
@@wereoctopus it's been way too long since I read foundation, and perhaps I'm conflating the later books, but I thought there was discussion of the planet of origin, or something similar to that, in the earlier books. I thought it was connected to the mule, but again, it's been a decade since I read them.
I always thought it was an alien intelligence from another universe. The scattering was to make sure humans were so spread out that the aliens couldn't get us all.
I’m pretty sure it’s about ai and there use as weapons eventually leading to the extinction of humanity.
you mentioned Frank’s depiction of machine intelligence (AI) “not having a grudge against humanity” but rather it was (simply) “operating off of the ultimate extrapolations of the commands it was given”.. have you made a video explaining those “commands”? thank you for the vid!
I really wish KJA and BH would just publish the notes that were left behind. Then we could know the extent of what was written and what had to be made up out of whole cloth.
They won't do this and I kinda understand them lol
Have you considered that “notes” were a tool for marketing and may not exist at all?
It was a single yellow post-it note that read, "I'm pretty sure there's some more money in this, Kev."
I seem to remember the face dancers being a huge part of the last two books, so much so that they even try to rebel against the machines.
Yeah, there's a part where...it's been a while since I read it so my memory is fuzzy...there's a violent attack on some compound where Sister Odrade becomes the Mother Superior or whatever, and a face dancer takes over the memories of some priest(?). You get his internal monolog and learn that face dancers have been evolving the ability to integrate ancestral/genetic memories of the people they mimic, much like Bene Gesserit and Leto II did. It's setting them up as a powerful enemy, an entire race with powers like Leto II had.
You know I was just thinking the idea of facedancers isn’t really that crazy. I think one of the details given is they have extra facial muscles that help change their look. Domestic dogs have an extra facial muscle compared to wolves. It’s the muscle for moving their eyebrows which makes them look expressive.
@@Grunttamer It allows them to be, doesn't force them to be, more expressive.
@@pcarter1989they dont really learn the memories but achieve a sort of simpatico, so much so the face dancers can become lost in the personality believing they are that person. The priest you're talking about is Tuek I believe who was copied and the face dancer later thought he was tuek. I think it's like how the bene gesserit register ppl and can manipulate them easier once they have, these face dancers can "mimic" better once they've registered someone
@@oroboros88 he's talking about the evolved face dancers from the shattering, not the advanced face dancers by the tleilaxu
I always took the idea of staving off humanities enemy was that it was entirely self inflicted and not an external threat. Kind of like when you see a toddler carrying a fork and aiming for an electrical socket. If you stop the toddler and redirect them then you have some time before their next calamity. However if you did nothing then it would be over faster.
Leto II had to get humanity to evolve so that their actions could not be 100% controlled, even by him. There wasn’t an external problem - it was all an internal one.
The super advanced Hunter-seeker that you mentionned reminds me of an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, season 1 episode 21, "The arsenal of Freedom".
In it, the Enterprise arrives in orbit of a planet where the civilisation living on it as gone extinct long ago. Where arriving on the surface, they find these strange probes that are able to replicate themselves, hunt down and destroy or immobolise targets. But their most terrifying ability, is that they scan a person's mind and then create a hologram of someone they knew to trick the target into revealing information, such as the defensives and offensive capacities of a starship...
What a wonderful weapon , definitely to be built
Been years since I read the original books but I remember the distinct feeling that face dancers with prescience was shaping up to be the big bad. Possibly with gholas of Paul and leto, along with facefancers absorbing / imprinted on said gholas. It would make sense with letos plan of breeding prescient invisible genes. And the golden path delaying the evolution of the face dancers to give him time. it also fits in with the repeating theme of creating something and losing control of it, like humans losing control of machines, bene gesserit losing control of the kwisatz haderach, bene theilaxu losing control of face dancers etc.
Yes, there is quite a jarring discrepancy between the end of 'Chapter House Dune' and the later two books. From the way Marty and Daniel talk, you get the very strong idea that they are advanced Face Dancers: one of them even remarks how shocked Scytale is when they don't respond to the whistling language commands.
It would have been interesting to see how Frank Herbert would have ended his saga. This isn't to detract from Brian and Kevin, for the books they produced are highly readable. What is quite clear , however, is that the resolution of the story arc could have been significantly different, even if elements of it remained the same!
I just can’t buy that they went in the same direction Frank would have. It’s just too abrupt and different, and the three or four instances of Deus ex Machina at the conclusion of their final book just seems too lazy and amateurish to be Frank’s true ending. That’s just my opinion of course, but the Brian Herbert / Kevin J. Anderson texts are just…not elegant in the way that Frank was known for.
I remember the BH books were ridiculed, when they were first released and considered almost heresy.
@@stevescruby1343 I didn't say that BH and KJA went in the same direction as FH was going to do, only that elements of it might have been the same. We will never know if this was/is so, because FH did not finish his work.
FH was certainly unique in his writing. He may even have been a synaesthete, one of those unique people whose senses can blend together so that they see sound or hear smells. He certainly knew about it, that's for sure. When Jessica and Paul are chased by the sandworm, and take shelter on a rock outcrop, one line stands out: "Cinnamon yelled in their nostrils". And no, BH and KJA aren't as smooth and polished as FH was, but that may simply boil down to writing style. Each writer has their own way of writing, and yes, if another writer takes over another author's line of work, the change can be off-putting. It's happened to me with another novel series by a completely different author. In fact, before the change became oficial, it was obvious that the original author of the series had handed the greater part of writing to the new one. Later, when the new writer took over the series, I found the changes so jarring I've stopped reading the later novels.
@@bramscheDave yeah, that can happen, especially if the new writer only has rough notes to guide them. JRR Tolkein didn't just leave notes, he left multiple drafts of almost everything he wrote, so his son and grandson simply had to bring them together and organise them. As I said, I found BH's books highly readable, but I can accept not everyone is going to think and feel the same way about them, especially if the departure from writing tone, and jumps in continuity and cannon are significant.
I did read one of BH's works that threw some startling light onto how the very first book of the series could have been, however. Whilst the plot had some similarities to the final version, it was not as polished, and contained some very startling ideas that, ultimately, didn't make it. Even something as basic as character names got changed about as FH worked on it, and it evolved. I think that's what we tend to forget: that rather than being a tale repeated word for word through the years, it actually grows, evolves and changes from the initial idea into something that may be completely different.
@@carolynallisee2463 I wasn’t saying that you said that either. I was just sharing my view on those works, that’s all.
When I learned that the great enemy was a sort of grey goo scenario with the hunter seekers, I thought “it’s only a matter of time.”
Yeah it’s about the use of ai and weapons leading to our extinction.
I know I’m late on this video. You posted it 10 months ago, but I love your content Quin you go in-depth into the world of Dune, which which is very complicated to understand and I really appreciate the time you take to make these videos.
Perfect Saturday morning start!!!! Ty Quin! Love your reading recommendations- I never saw sci-fi as a topic I could digest but I really dove in after coming across your channel!
Same! Quinn got me back into sci fi. He’s really inspired me.
Thanks for the video Quin ❤
The reveal of these secrets are why I haven't read the Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson books that come after Chapterhouse: Dune. I don't see a way they could really "complete" Frank's vision (if you would). I kinda see what they are going for with the whole "return of a long forgotten ancient enemeny" trope. But that doesn't feel like the Dune universe for lack of a better descriptor.
Now, I have read some of the books that delve into the history of the Dune Universe. They may not be super amazing or feel super in keeping with the universe. But they are fun and thought provoking in their own way. At least the Buttlerian Jihad trilogy 👍
I read the first couple of Brain Herbert Dune books and then stopped as they were just poor fan fiction. I love mysteries created by great writers. Whenever those mysteries are revealed, especially when done by another (usually inferior) author, the results are always, always, disappointing.
@@simonphelon7221 It's kindof like Christopher Tolkien writing new books after JRR Tolkien died, it just feels like ad hoc, let's explain x or y in way we beleive - if you follow the analogy - someone who is dead would, and hence IMHO non canonical to Frank Herberts works.
The new Dune books are a cash grab. Nothing more.
interesting and good point at the end. A machine need not 'sentience' to become a "paperclip maximizer", hmm.
Are you having a go at Mentats, because up with that I will not put. all joking aside, the sheer dread and fear of creating machines to think for humans does lead to the Mentat order. And I think I like the idea of human computers. After all there are parallels in real life, like with people who are autistic, or Aspergers, who simply have amazing mental abilities in maths and memory, but are so far outside the norm as be labelled non neuroypical. Suffice to say the human mind is fascinating.
Quinn, please cover the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. It's an amazing sci-fi series and is way too obscure for how good it is. It is mind-bending.
Yes.
Not to sound elitist, but I think Frank Herbert's canon takes precedence over anything Brian writes. Brian's books are kinda decent fanfic at best.
Bringing up the origins of the Worms and what happened to Earth back to back got me thinking, what if the Worms actually came from Earth? Like they were created here and they caused the destruction of Earth and were later transferred to Arrakis? There are no hints for this in any of the books as far as I'm aware, but I feel like it works nice as head cannon.
yeah its well established the worms are native to Arrakis, a true alien species.
@Shmegeddy Doodah There's evidence the worms are not native to Arakis, though. At least, Leto II believed they were brought there from somewhere else.
I feel like this would be a bit lazy writing. The worst (and the most cliché) possible ending would have been Herbert pulling a Planet of the Apes on us and the Liberty Statue (or Eiffel Tower etc.) being discovered on Arrakis.
The second worst would be the "worms came from Earth" scenario. Not everything has to come from Earth all the time. The universe is big, include something alien in the story, something the humans with peak knowledge and peak technology would still struggle to understand. We can also learn more about humans themselves through the reactions of human characters and factions to something so nonhuman.
@@JTheTeach Lol, did you even watch the video?
@@manwiththeredface7821 isn't Dune set apart from most big sci-fi stories by having no alien life what so ever? It's either implied that the Sandworms are the only alien life other than humans, in the universe, or it's implied that they came from somewhere. Basically it is possible that before using the spice, humans used thinking machines to get across space, and used sandworms to colonize a water planet. The result was Arrakis. Maybe the knowledge about the worms got lost in the jihad, and the existence of Spice made it possible to replace thinking machines?
I think the Facedancer idea is a better one than an A.I. intelligence IMO,. I think it would have been interesting to know what the Great Emeny really was from Frank.
I seem to remember a passage in children of dune when Leto is having his spice visions in which he sees Duncan Idaho as a leader while people are being hunted by machines. It really does lend itself more to the hunter-seeker narrative, but also leaves room for the retcon that is Ominous.
I’ve had a theory over the years. Dune is a book like the Bible that a lot of people have pretended to have read, but actually haven’t. It’s a complex work and I’m attempting that along with other things now.
W comment ngl
How I feel about everyone on TikTok assessing the character of Paul in the most overly simple ways based off having only seen the movies.
I can’t consider Brian Herbert cannon. The idea of the enemy being AI just doesn’t fit the rest of the very human-centered series
That is a valid opinion but you should also remember the historical value of Butlerian Jihad in the series. Humanity was always scared of an intelligence that can rival it's own, and have purged it with a jihad in the long past. However, the hubris and ambitions of the humanity persists and history have long been forgetten once more to lead some parts of us to make the same mistake again. This is why ai can be the ultimate enemy, not just because of the danger they posses but by the sheer fact that we the humans will be the ones to create our own tools of destruction.
The production, presentation and narration on this channel is amazing. Really all your videos makes great companion pieces for reading sci-fi books and understanding the world's. So damn good ❤
My own fan-fiction version is that Dune takes place tens of thousands of years after the events of Matrix. I love the idea of these two universes being actually connected. Herbert himself would love the first Matrix movie, especially in the way it was originally conceived (Matrix using humans to create collective brain, serving as the very processing unit of the AI, not just a "power station").
My second fan-fiction idea is that sandworms are in fact avatars of interdimensional beings, which would explain the effects of spice and their aggressive responses to Holtzman field, which disrupts the space-time continuum. In this alternative version of mine, Leto II somehow understood this and through his transformation, he was able to tap to the collective mind of the worms. Before I finished the last book, I was thinking that the beings, later named Daniel and Marthy are in fact the worms, who had been influencing the universe the entire time.
And while all of this is completely wrong per canon, it shows, how the Dune books can inspire readers' imagination.
You should use that imagination to put something original down on paper. Doesn't matter if it's good, but you should do it. Something that is *yours*
nice ideas!
Sound fun
Quinn's ideas is the best channel ever, it gets me very interesting in sci-fi novels, thank you so much, keep the awesome work!
Amazing video.
I think the ultimate mystery of the Dune universe was Duncan himself.
Even ignoring Bryan's books it was revealed in CHD that the last Duncan had memories of all his clones,even the ones whose dna did not survive.
Does souls exist in the Dune universe?Not other memory/ egos,but real souls?
What appears to be Frank's original idea for the HM enemies is short a parallel to the thinking machines: both thinking machines and face dancers are artificial beings who envolved.
Maybe the Butlerian Jihad and the golden path only posyponed the inevitable.
Thanks for video!
Honestly as someone who read way way too much Star Wars novels back in the day Kevin J. Anderson as a writer makes me worry of stuff he might have brought to the table - I mean it's a dude who created Sun Crusher and bunch of other Imperial superweapons being lost everywhere over the galaxy.
Man, Brian's idea of the thinking machines comes off as nothing short of lazy. How many times can you go for the "genocidal AI" trope before it gets stale?
I really tried to give them a chance, since I wanted an ending to the saga. But after reading the Butlerian Jihad books and then the two sequels I felt pretty apathetic about the whole thing. All the subtlety and philosophy had been discarded for something that was just so generic.
@@Paul_McSeol speaking of Lazy: and then ending all on a Deus Ex Machina because they couldn't write a way out
Yeah, I agree. It was an ending, but it was sloppy. I skipped all the prequel work they did. Just not the same.
Brian & Kevin ended it with a poor man's version of The Matrix. It was so poorly constructed that they had to retcon the lore with contradictory prequel slop to make it fit, albeit very loosely.
I don't consider Brian Herbert's books cannon. Dune was Frank Herbert's universe, cliffhanger or no the books should have ended with hm. I would say the same thing for most book series when their anther dies.
Plus it invalidates my favorite theory, there was no Butlerian Jihad. Humanity moved away from the thinking machines through natural cultural evolution, the people who embraced computer technology became more isolated and had fewer children, those who partially or fully became ludites had more children. Eventually a balanced was found and people learned how to do the things they relied on computers to do (which is where Mentats come from). This period of time became mythologized and the Bene Gesserit took that mythology and created the story of the Bulerian Jihad.
I'm more about non-machine theories, regarding various factors of dune.
Because Franck Herbert was already two leagues beyond nowadays "trend" of IA uprising/singularity right from the start : he foresaw/understood the Singularity appeal in scifi, aknowledged it, wrote "and then there was the butlerian jihad", and built a universe that's still (to the day where the first book start) uuuultra cautious about anything "IA"/machine and errands of that sort.
And then proceed to explore countless other interesting stuff, from then on.
It really really doesnt sound like a guy that wanted a twist like "but in fact, IAs totally return and kill everyone, dude, because that's so cool, lol !"
It feels diminishing and a big step back.
(... Yeah, I'm not a fan of Brian's work,.admittedly. xD it feels so manichean and easy-cheesy. 😂)
Awesome video, as always. Thanks for all your efforts, Quinn.
The Great Enemy was mentioned in the last two Frank Herbert books, but sparingly.
I prefer the idea that The One's of Many Faces are face dancers that freed themselves from the thleilaxu control and biologically evolved themselves and created advanced technologically to the point of being an universal treath more than the AI thing. This is because the six books written by Frank were pretty heavy on the themes of authority and control, not just of people but of humanity at a Macro level and the genetic lineage of said humanity at the micro level. So a group of Face Fancers that have control of their bodies and highly advanced tech freeing themselves from their rulers only to become the biggest danger in the univers fits Herbert's themes more than the random appearance of a stereotypical Ai/Borg/skynet intelligence that came out of nowhere f-all nowhere.
Yea I think the great threat is strongly implied to be something that causes the human race to stagnate rather than something that kills it. Which given the themes of the book would be something immortal and with the ability to see the future ending the ability of humans to evolve.
The Skynet Intelligence didn't come out of nowhere. They had survived after humanity destroyed the synchronised empire, because of the Giedi Prime Omnius' actions, which led to a secret synchronised empire being created.
I was just thinking this morning why in the 1000 Lives of Duncan why did he never question the existence of a soul?
I understood the hunter seeker always as symbolical for the threat humans pose for each other, especially sentient humans like Paul and Leto II. Which is why Leto II freed humanity from being detectable by ones like him. Never thought of it as actual technology... and btw, great video as always!
Been killing it with these uploads bro
no canon other than Frank Herbert's. period.
That's too limitin'
Small minded
I like the books his son has put out
I mean, no. His boy loved him that's a disservice to the author.
I think its a bit silly to be so shut off to other authors in a series. Like its his own son writing the book as long as its following his father's wishes im sure its fine
@Quinn, your ideas, and your explanations will inspire thousands to read in general and specifically about Dune and form their own ideas. I salute you.
Great video. Brian and Kevin sort of address the last two mysteries, but as you said it is vague and contradictory enough that it remains unanswered (in a way).
The first one has always puzzled me, since I read the original books, many, many years ago. Where did the worms come from? Why were they brought to Arrakis? What happened to the world they came from? Also, HOW were they brought to Arrakis? The Guild would have had a record of such a trip, but Arrakis was already a desert when the Guild was founded. Pre-Guild travel was risky and treacherous. Therefore, you could assume that the trip was worth the risk. Maybe the planet was going to be destroyed and some group fled with some worms, or at least some sand trout and fled to Arrakis.
Sadly, we will never know.
My personal theory is that the planet or moon they were originally from experienced some cataclysm and a sizeable chunk of it carried enough sandtrout (in some form) to the pre-desert Arrakis via asteroid impact. They are resilient to extreme heat. I don’t think entry into atmosphere would be enough to kill them all off.
Thank you for another dive into Frank Herbert's universe! I think the original take on the kind of AI swarm that annihilates humanity is actually the more realistic take on the whole "humanity being annihilated by thinking machines" as opposed to what Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson got up to. The new books make thinking machines more human-like with emotions and flaws that strike me more as a common trope than the kind of surprisingly down-to-earth approach taken by Frank to many things. I'm not hating on the new books here definitely, I enjoyed reading the ones I got my hands on but there is certainly a distinction.
I read all the dune books some years ago. You really brought back some of the deeper aspects of the Dune back to me. Thanks
Nobody, not even his son, could unravel the complex web that is Frank Herbert's universe.
He took his secrets with him.
They shouldn't have tried to step in the shoes of a great man.
Great summary! Thank you for pointing out the differences between Frank and Brian - I had always wondered why I could not really get into the Prequels.
I'd always gotten the impression that Leto's biggest concern was the stagnation caused by the Old Empire. Nobody moved, nothing changed. So the moves he made were intended to cause the Scattering, an event that would spread mankind across the universe that couldn't be undone. The Atreides bloodline, which hid the scattered people from prescience. The development of No-Room and No-Ships, so no sensor could track their movements. Navigation machines, to break the Guild monopoly. The only trick he seems to have missed was the artificial Spice, which humanity worked out all on it's own. Once Scattered humanity couldn't be Un-Scattered. No matter how bad a disaster might happen in the future, there would always be somebody left.
I realy wish Brian Herbert never wrote a singel book!
Nice... I have always loved DUNE but as you state in this videos and other videos on the subject of DUNE it is very hard to read/comprehend. But all is not lost. Because of your channel I got to enjoy The Hyperion Saga and it was amazing I understand Bradely Cooper's production company currently owns the rights and I would love to see a short format adult TV show, it would be awesome if it is done right.
Also, once I finish Harry Turtledove's World War Series, which is fantasic but has some dull character moments that if this was to be formatted for film/TV probably would not be in it but other than that, is amazing. So is Guns of the South. Highly recommend that one -one off book about Time Travel and the Civil War.
This Channel also introduced Remembrance of Earth's Past - Cixin Liu, and that is next on my list before I go back to Evan Currie's Odyssey One Series, another fantastic series about Earth developing FTL and meeting aliens for the first time along with invasion. The main character is much like a younger Captain Kirk, strong...
the only thing left I wanna leave here is the B.V. Larson and David Vandyke Star Force Series, probably the best AI wants to kill humans character based story I have ever seen. It gives a really deep anaylist of alien AI trying to enslave the human race. Highly recommend this. This is as good as Hyperion in AI like how they dive into Religion and AI. Just as solid. Great Character moments.
This nicely illustrates why I find the Brian Herbert/Anderson books so underwhelming, and forego any deeper philosophy and sociopolitical thoughts and ideas. They use standard scifi tropes, likely because Anderson is a writer whose bread and butter is non-challenging adventure fiction. Frank Herbert (and his wife, Liro) brought up very original thoughts, challenged his readers in ways rare in literature, and in the process generated about a third of common sci-fi tropes. It's simply a shame Brian Herbert/Anderson fell so far short of Frank Herbert's vision (and shoehorned in the most bland, boring killbots instead).
One of the biggest mysterys for me is: what happened to Lady Margots daughter after the original Dune novel? The Brian Herbert books give an answer to that question in Paul of Dune, but as far as I remember, in the original 6 novels there is no answer to there destiny..
Yep, BH and KJA totally changed Frank Herbert's storyline to make sure it all came back to their own prequel work (which was awful!) It completely contradicted Frank's narrative about Daniel and Marty and how (by their own words!) were Face Dancers who had become their own masters.
Quinn, I’ve been watching your vids for years, always quality content. I consider you to be the Dune scholar and expert, I’ve read all the books and you always manage to give us new insights into the Dune Universe
If you'd be interested, Doc Sloan's Science Fiction Station channel has the Docs PhD thesis written about Frank's books in episodic form.
Check out the Deep Dive playlist.
Doc's content is the least exposed and most underrated Dune content on TH-cam.
Give it a go!
@@teleiosdawyz4044 Thanks so much! Just subbed the channel!
@@elimoran7345
No problem. Glad you enjoyed. I dig sharing things I luv with others.
Doc is out right now with health issues but hopefully he'll return soon with some new content.
@@elimoran7345
Thanks for that.
New Dune content is always on my radar. I also periodically find the rest of the audiobooks and add them to the list but they often get removed for copyright not long before they get added so right now that list is rather sparse.
Doc puts notices out to keep us updated on his happenings so he will let us know when he's able to return
Feel free to leave comments on his vids as he's great at interacting with his subscribers.
His bookcluds are fantastic as he reads and answers al comments made during his streams. Though he often gets off topic and some folks find it rather frustrating.
If you don't mind the suggestions, I've two bits of work for you to check out.
Samuel Butler's Erewhon which is available as an audiobook here on TH-cam. It was a great inspiration for Frank for some of the ideas he incorporated into Dune. It is Samuel for whom the Butlerian jihad was named. Listen to Erewhon and you'll learn why.
Frank's short story Operation Haystack.
The first paragraph introduces you to a proto Axolotal tank and the baddies are a group of ladies who are suspiciously familiar.
It's quite all right. I'll see you at The Dog House.
I always took Leto II hunter seeker threat as an AI threat, but hey Dune is a masterpiece of a book series with plenty of room for interpretations.
The thing about Brian Herbert's contribution to further work on the original series is that he said he was based on handwritten notes that his father allegedly left. Part of what was in these notebooks was the continuation of the story + explanatory annotations + certain note explaining and leaving clues about everything that had happened for humanity before volume 1 of Dune. And it would be from these resources that Brian H and Anderson would have taken over the work more obviously all their personal contribution. To my knowledge no one apart from the authors has ever seen this material.
I remember reading, years ago, that Brian & KJA were having Q & A session while promoting Butlerian Jihad books , and someone from the audience asked what happened to the ( is it OMNI ? )the evil A.I. . like is it possible that some of his probes in deep space survived Butlerian Jihad ? And is it possible that the enemy that has routed Honoured Maitres in the Scattering is actually restored A.I. ?
And, upon hearing that questions, two of them looked at each other and were so inspired by that idea that they just had to do it this way....so lame...
@@holydissolution85 yeah Omnius and Erasmus
If we think what we know the origin of the middle earth, by JRR Tolkien, there were several version, ideas that did change, ideas that ws discarded, remade etc. so it is quite possible that Frank Herbet notes are somewhat similar. Contradicting what he did write later and some parts that he did save.
All in all it is mixed bag of knowledge.
@@haukikannelWho knows what exactly was written on that floppy disk by old Herbert, and how much KJA & Brian decided to make their own changes....
I still think it was better with evolved facedancers being the real menace...In a way, humanity has repeated the same mistake as it did with the machines before...This time it was bioengineering tech that was the seed of future evil....
Those facedancers that can absorb all the talents & memories ( even Kvizatz Haderach talent ) from regular humans , are already like the all powerful A.I. in biological bodies... no need to involve Omnius etc..
@@holydissolution85 One can assume everything about it. Once again as long as these "famous note" are not public, nothing will happen. But it should be noted all the same that Brian Herbert is not just anyone, he is still his son, and all the more so since even from memory Frank had several children, Brian had the opportunity to worked with his father as a co-writer on the novel "Man of Two Worlds" published in 1986. So also as a son with the same interest in writing as his father, I can imagine at some point he must have asked him questions questions like "And in fact, do you think what to do with the story of your next Dune novel?". It still seems plausible, after that Brian followed his father's idea closely or he completely took another very different path, that for the moment no information allows to know it to date.
I absolutely love your content and your take on dune. I was wondering if you've ever thought about a series comparing dune to other works of sifi, and how dune has inspired the different sifi series?
Thanks for all you do
I really admire your videos. They're always so beautifully thought-through.
I only ever got through the first three Dune books (and a few of BH & KJA's potboiler fanfics) but I really appreciate your videos breaking down some of Frank Herbert's themes.
Thank you for brightening my day with videos about such amazing stories. I have yet to rekindle my passion for reading, but thanks to you get to enjoy these great works of fiction.
The Frank Dune books refer to the Honored Matres fleeing "the ancient enemy" the face dancers are an enemy, but not an ancient one.
The machines no matter how people hate the execution it was the machines
You give the best voiceover analysis, music, and aesthetics in your videos. Quinn's videos are always top-notch.
So...Much...Content...This......Week...!!!
Thank you ,Kind Sir.
The face dancers were bumped into by Erasmus and the other machines, altered into organic flometal cyborgs, thus Marty and his companion.
My understanding was the Face Dancers were adapted by Erasmus into their current state, a perfect hybrid of organic and machine, living bio machines, and that technology inspired Erasmus to remake himself and Omnius with flowmetal as the basis, so they are like more whole machine versions of Face Dancers but so much more.
@@JTheTeach yes indeed , face dancers have always been Erasmus idea.
It was he who wanted a biological body a machine could use undetected to "study " humans, the tleilaxu just adopted his technology
I don't necessarily hate the Brian Herbert/KJA stories categorically but I do think it's best to treat them as a separate, subordinate continuity.
Daniel and Marty left so many questions.
As an original 80s reader when the the first movie came out this is a complete surprise to me . Yes upon reading Frank Herbert's series the final book implicated Face Dancers as an evolved race that the Thilaxiu lost control of and were the Great Enemy the MHs were fleeing from . Then Brian Herbert messed that up . Ohhhh welll
I think *The Great Enemy* is a hostile Kwisatz Haderach from the nearby galaxy. And he is the who The Honored Matres were running from. That's why Leto II was trying to create the human who is invisible to the prescience. Only this human (and his descendants) would be able to resist and confront an enemy KH.
Since Leto II spend the thousand of years as god emperor specifically breeding Atreides so that they cannot be seen through prescience, we could assume that the great enemy is something like that seeker. To counter the greatest seeker, Leto II built the greatest hiders, so to speak.
I distinctly remember talk in God-Emperor of Dune about the Ixians trying to create a machine intelligence. Despite Leto commenting in that book that they wouldn't succeed, I still expected that to come up again at some point, but it never did.
Commenting cause i love and appreciate your content! I hope your channel grows, and that more people get infected by your ever so pure and passionate love for sci-fi. Keep it going man!
so many new videos recently... I LOVE it!
Talk about dune being dense. As a teenager it took me 3 attempts over 18 months to read the 1st book in one sitting. And I was a very ardent sci-fi & fantasy fan, I got 5+ books/week loaned from the local library, and bought a couple of books from 2nd hand bookshops. After finally finished dune, I went thru the whole series from dune messiah to chapterhouse dune in less than a week.
I always consider the future darkness to be humanity itself. Since the core premise of the book is about warnings of ever concentrating power in one charismatic leader. To ultimately spread wide and far and untraceable by prescience will make sure no one autocrat (or whatever they may encounter) could ever reach or rule it all again.
The Final Dune books (new books) came from a manuscript found in a Swiss Bank on a computer disk called just "dune 7" it included notes as well, Brian and Kevin finished off the manuscript based on Frank Herbert's notes. Hard to say what was and wasn't changed.
Happy to see you picked up on the face dancer issue. I thought the later works by NOT Frank Herbert were quite unclear and I was not satisfied with their "interpretation".
Frank Herbert, first and foremost it's my route to the Dune universe. It's the creator of that work, of course he takes preference here. IMHO
...yo Quinn!!!...your channel iz solid...the 'Dune' content iz the bezt but man that '3rd body Problem' content iz what got me into sci fi bookz beyond 'Dune'. Also wanted to say that IMO the later 'Dune' bookz are a subtle foreshadowing of the events we are going through as a society right now. A fragmented cast of humanz trying to find the hidden talentz of our past yet leaving destruction in our wake. sry if my wordz arent elegant but i hope you get what im trying ii say. Anywayz, your one of my favorite channelz on youtube. Great work Quinn!!!
You’re on the grind for real, we see you killin it.
Seeing Dune this evening. Can't wait! Love your channel, you have a great voice to listen to. Thanks from over here in London.
I have to say while dune is dense, I find it very enjoyable. It’s hard to read less-dense science fiction because it’s not nearly as engaging. I like The Bone Shard series due to the richness of it and The Southern Reach trilogy for how dense that is as well.
One of the most interesting minds on TH-cam. I appreciate your hard work!
Can’t wait for part 2 the movie! I hope but highly doubt they’ll run the entire saga, but I would be down, for a Netflix series after movie 2 or 3 going thru the entire series, would be amazing
The Brian Herbert / Kevin Anderson books are no more than poorly written fan-fiction. It’s a damn shame we never got Frank Herbert’s final volume. I wish we would one day get to see his real notes for that book but I doubt it’ll ever happen.
And thank you for pointing out how a "grudge" is hardly robot-like. This was another painfully cliched element of the BH/KJA books, which was that the robots were basically "Evil the Cat." They delighted in murdering and enslaving humans for no reason. The Cymeks were the same, ridiculously-named villains who murdered millions or billions for no reason other than they were evil.
Their entire interpretation of the Butlerian Jihad and Frank's universe is crass, childish, and incredibly greedy. The only reason that I can see for them writing these fan fiction books is to cash in, and they didn't mind lying by pretending their sequels were based on Frank's notes. Maybe to a point, but they wrote the ending based on their own prequels!
I love you so much Quinn fr you post exactly when I need some sifi Quinn I appreciate you big dawg✊🏾
There are six Dune books. The others are fanfics.
More Dune plz, I've been reading these books for decades now off and on. They are just so good.
I'd always assumed that the sandtrout/worms had been genetically engineered by human beings at some point. Melange is so incredibly useful it seems possible to me that the worms were intentionally created to produce it, rather than having simply evolved naturally.
Great video Quinn, didn't know about the Hunter Seeker paperclip maximizer scenario
Another science fiction series in which Earth has been forgotten is Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. In the original books, Earth isn't even mentioned and in later books, one of the plotlines is a quest to find old Earth.
There are some of these questions answered in the books. Like the honoured matres were chased out by the thinking machines in Brian's books. But I see what you mean about which you take as cannon.
I enjoyed this video a lot though!
I always thought Leto implied the worms were brought to Arrakis by another race, not humans. Also, Leto notes toward the end of GED that with Siona, the 'great enemy' is no longer a threat. As far as the grand scheme of things by Chapterhouse, I suppose the implication is that humans will always seek genocide (esp in the Scattering), but it's up to groups like the Bene Gesserit and their inheritors to stay ahead of the curve...change/evolve or die. Once the BG and HM formed their hybrid sisterhood, no doubt the HM great enemy would be stepping up next.
To me, the big deal about the Golden Path is that as the wavefront of the Scattering expands, *any* catastrophe simply becomes a local problem.
Great video.
Your description of Frank Herbert's great enemy reminds me of the Faro Swarm in Horizon Zero Dawn.
Holy crap, the Brian Herbert retcon regarding the Honored Matres is so hackneyed it's ridiculous.
The only line i draw is that bh and kja's work is largely based on notes. My dad left me q manuscript that was unfinushed and said this is your story now. Theres a difference. If Frank said to Brian to use his notes and finish the story, I'd be hugely invested. But I consider bh snd kja's additions flavoring but never canon.
Brian Hebert is just a name attached to Kevin J Anderson's writing. BH is like a Japanese Emperor, just attached to give the new writings a tangential legacy. You have been illuminated.
I always thought Hebert was refering to human stagnation as the great menace.
As far as I recall, honored mathres did not return because of wishing to acquire bene geserit skills, but to group up again and strengthen against their enemies in the scattering.
I feel like Frank never precluded AI from his great enemy. In fact, it seems likely that he was saying the Ixians would create a prescient AI (possibly as part of their spacing guild project) and this would be Arafel. It's never explicitly stated that it was AI, and it could have been simply self-replicating hunter seekers or even a biological threat (face dancers, aliens, etc.).
In fact, I believe Frank specifically wanted to leave it undefined because Paul noted all the different horrifying possibilites with only 1 golden path. I think that the great enemy was all of the above options at various times, with Leto having avoided earlier ones through his direct action and later ones through providing humanity an immunity to prescience.