Dune and the reality : ecology

As I said in a previous article, ecology is one of the main aspects of Dune because it was a major interest in Frank Herbert's mind. The planet Arrakis is a big desert and water has to be spared : that's what threatens Earth, in Herbert's mind. So he depicts a world where water is a wealth more valuable than gold. The Fremen, the inhabitants of the desert, wear stillsuits that protect them from losing water. But all of the Arrakis inhabitants are water-obsessed. Their houses are protected against lost of water, and water waste is the best sign of wealth. In a previous post, I already noted that people of Arrakis haven't any word for "rain", "sea" or "ocean". When someone from the outer world speaks of drowning, he has to explain what it means, and an Arrakis inhabitant exclaims "What an interesting death!"

 

These elements are used to show us what it is to really need water. On one hand, it shows us that we want to avoid global warming and climate change, because it can lead to a hard life, where water is rare and precious. On the other hand, it shows us that little things are valuable, and that we lack judgment in our everyday lives, when we live to always have more and more. Or to explain it in another way, that what we want to have is not as important as what we risk losing trying to pursue it.

 

Factions in Dune

The political aspects of the intrigue of Dune are omnipresent. So it is important to identify the different rival factions.

 

The most obvious one is the Padishah Emperor, the sovereign master of the known universe. His power is shared with other entities, among them the Landsraad and with the Spacing Guild (see below). The Sardaukar legion ensure his power: they are fanatic soldiers, trained from birth to cruelty.

 

The Landsraad has been established to protect the Noble Houses against the powers of the Emperor. Only together can they hope to fight him. So the main role for the Landsraad is to avoid that the Emperor destroys them one by one. But the Landsraad is weakened by the rivalries between the Noble Houses themselves, and they can sometime ignore some imperial move against a House when it serves their interests.

 

The Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit is an organization only composed of females. They run a school where they train their students for mental and political abilities, such as the ability to foresee the future. Their watchword is that they exist "only to serve" the Sisterhood. They have an agreement with the Emperor and most of the Noble Houses such that they choose a wife among the Bene Gesserit, and the Emperor "Truthsayer" is one of them. The daughters of noble families all become Bene Gesserit. Their training and their network make them powerful, but their taste for secrecy and their unknown goals inspire fear among other people. That's why they are sometime called "witches". Among their hidden purposes is the breeding program : by preserving some bloodlines, they want to breed a male Bene Gesserit, the Kwisatz Haderach.

 

To go from one planet to the other, space travel is needed. The Spaceguild has a monopoly on space transportation, which is very important for commerce and war. So they are very rich and powerful. But to drive their spacecraft, they need to use the spice, which is only produced on Arrakis. This gives a high value to this resource.

 

Between House Atreides and House Harkonnens, their exists a hereditary hate (see the previous article). They are the two main factions of the book, but their fight involves the other factions. As Leto Atreides is popular among the Great Houses of the Landsraad, he becomes more and more dangerous for the Emperor, who decides to ally himself with the Harkonnens. But the Bene Gesserit want to spare both Atreides and Harkonnens bloodlines - they are key bloodlines for the breeding program (thus the Kwisatz Haderach can be seen as a mélange of the best bloodline and of the worst one). And the Spaceguild is very interested in what happens on Arrakis, because of the spice.

 

Dune : the intrigue

Dune is one of the most renown science fiction saga, and its first novel (which is also named Dune) is the world's best selling science fiction novel. It was written by Frank Herbert, who was also a journalist interested in ecology. This interest can be seen in Dune, as much as his defiance for charismatic leader.

The first Dune takes place in the Imperium, a huge empire of thousands of planets, ruled by the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV.  The Noble Houses are his representatives on the planets and their practical rulers. The novel tells the story of the family Atreides. Their new fief is planet Arrakis, as known as Dune. It is a very important place, because it is the sole source of spice, a very important ressource, which is needed by the Space Navigators. However, it is an almost entirely covered by a very inhospitable desert, in which there are giant worms. The entire planet is used to drasticaly spare water, and the inhabitants don't understand the meaning of words like "sea", "to rain" or "to drawn".

The Atreides mortal ennemies, the Harkonnens, are the former rulers of Arrakis, and they exchange their fief. So they go to Caladan. The hate between the two families is hereditary. Whereas family Atreides is a far cousin of the Emperor, their opponents have bought their title, and one of the Harkonnens ancestor has been condemned for cowardice a long time ago on the behalf of an Atreides.

The two families are described as totaly opposed : the Atreides rule by fairness, and loyalty of their people ; the Harkonnens are devious, cruel and want to be feared. The old Harkonnen baron is depicted as a homosexual and a pervert ; Leto Atreides loves his wife Jessica, and regrets that he can't marry her.

At the beginning, the exchange of fiefs, seen by the eyes of the child and hero Paul Atreides, seems a good one for House Atreides. But later it becomes very clear that it is a trap set up by both Harkonnens and the Emperor, who fears the growing influence of Leto Atreides upon the Noble Houses.

Rendezvous with Rama, society and question of origins

In Rendezvous with Rama, the society has evolved a lot for more freedom. The main character, the commander Norton, has two wifes - that know each other - on two different planets, whereas some woman crew is part of a trio, with two men. So, when the commander wants to send a message to his families, he begins by saying generic things, that can apply to both families (using "son" or "love" instead of first names). Then he adds a specific part for each family.

 Moreover, the space crews can't have children naturaly (for health reasons : space travel increases risks of mutations and so of genetic disease) so they have to use artificial insemination. But there is rules and they can't have children whenever they want : they need an authorisation. At the end of the book, Norton earns the right to have one children more, because of his services to the government.

But Rendezvous with Rama is a lot less a book about society than about how we feel in front of unknown, and about the question of origins. In front of Rama, humans show a lot of reactions. Most of them are amazed and curious. But these two reactions can have opposite consequences : discovering new things comes often at a price : they have to dissect the biots to understand them, but this isn't very respectful - they see themselves as guests on Rama.

There are also other reactions, those of fear and hope. Some of them see it as a divine sign, whereas the others think it is a dangerous object, that's why they want to destroy it. So during all the novel, the characters ask themsleves what is the purpose of Rama and its link with the solar system. But at the end, Rama just vanishes. This shows that Rama wasn't aimed at the solar system at all, and gives a humility lesson to human kind.

Rendezvous with Rama, science and politics.

Rendezvous with Rama takes place in a far future (actually, during the year 2130) where some parts of the solar system have been colonised, especially the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Ganymede, Titan and Triton. There representants and the Earth's one meet at United Planet Headquarters, at Luna, a colony on the Moon.

If Rendezvous with Rama would have been written today, this list would probably contain Europe, a satellite of Jupiter. Indeed, it is supposed to be the best place to harbour life in the solar system (Earth excluded). But at a first look, it seems not so viable, with its icy world-wide ocean. I assume that's why there is no colony on Europa in Clarke's book : at this time, it seemed not so hospitable.

There are also some political issues, because the Hermians, as the inhabitants of Mercury are called, want to destroy Rama. Their planet is hot and it is hard for them to leave it, then they are known to be rude. Moreover, they speak short and clearly : they mean exactly what they say. They don't lie : when their ambassador doesn't want to reveal their destruction plans, he doesn't come to the United Planets Headquarters. They are very rational too, and don't want to take any chance, whereas the heroes have more faith in the fate of Rama : finally, they are saved by a Cosmo-Christer.

In the geopolitical context of the cold war, it is easy to think that Hermians represent the Russians, or more exactly the american view of the Russians : excepted that they live in a very cold, and not warm, country, they are also supposed to be rude and very rational (communists wanted to rationaly organise society). Their power was bound to continent as the Hermians can hardly leave their planet. The United States had more maritim power, and so are they represented by the space crews, because space is easily identified with sea : we speak of spaceships, for example. And so, at the end, Rama, the wonderful alien creation, is saved from ruin by a Cosmo-Christer's faith, whereas religion is forbiden in Russia.

Rendezvous with Rama : the story

This science fiction novel has been written by Arthur C. Clarke (who worked with Stanley Kubrick for 2001: A Space Odyssey) in 1973.

One day, some unknown flying object – astronomers call it Rama - comes into the solar system. At the beginning, it seems to be a new comet, but its moves are surprising. Then it appears that this unknown object is not natural, because it is perfectly cylindrical. So solar survey vessel Endeavour, the nearest spaceship, is missionned to go to the comet and to explore it. But the commander Norton thinks that there can be no life anymore, because of the time Rama had to travel to come into sollar system : they should have exhausted all ressources they had at beginning : beeing big for a built object, Rama was still to small to harbor life for millions of years.

Then, the spaceship lands on the huge cylinder, and spacecrews begin to explore it – or more precisely, the inside of it, because it appears that it isn't full. At the beginning, they have to use light and try to explore some part of this small world, and they find nothing as a trace of life, as if Rama was not a dead world but had never been a living one. Than, when the orbit of Rama is nearer from the Sun, three lightning tubes enlight it. The crews are surprised, but it helps them to better understand Rama, because they can see it. Nevertheless, it seems also odd to them that there is no sky (they are inside a cylinder, and the rotation creates a fake gravitation). Moreover, the world seems triply replicated : each thing appears three times.

At the same time, there are some political issues happening. The solar system is partialy colonised, and the representants of inhabited planets are meeting together with scientists into an especially created committee, called Raman Committee, to understand what happens and decide what to do if they have to. When they understand it is from an alien world, they become less quiet and try to understand why it is coming into the sollar system. There is also some new version of the christianism, called the Fifth Church of Christ, which assumes that Jesus Christ was a visitor from space who came to explain that the redemption was coming from the sky. So some of them believe that Rama is some kind of Noah's arch coming to save those who deserve it.

Then, the spacecrews discover robots acting on Rama. They seem to be animals, but they are made from metal. Some looks like carbs with six feet, other like big spider with three feet. The crews doesn't understand what happens, but they see only the crabs, then only the spiders. Scientists of the Rama Committee understand that the robots were created just some time ago, and they think that Rama contains a factory building new creatures, first simple and previsible ones that take care of Rama, and then, later, to build new beeings like the creators of Rama themselves. After a while, they are unexplained electromagnetic phenomenons and Rama changes its orbit.

It makes the Hermians – the inhabitants of Mercury – fear that something happen near from their planet. So they decide to destroy Rama. They build a missile in secret, and then they let some time for the crews to leave the tiny world. But one of them is a Cosmo-Christer, so he doesn't want it to be destroyed : he goes on the missile, and desactivate it before the Hermians can even know it.

Then the crews have to leave Rama, because it is coming to close of the sun. During their return onto the inhabited moon, they see that the cylinder leaves the solar system, and they understand that it had nothing to do with human race.

Project presentation

I'm doing my project about the links between science fiction and reality. Because science fiction speaks about how science can change the world without caring about technical details, it can be inspiring for scientists. There are a lot of examples, like Jules Verne's ideas on travelling to the moon or under the sea.

But science fiction tells us a lot about the hopes and fears of the society of the author. At the end of the nineteenth century, writers began to become a lot more worried about scientific issues ; at this time appeared Dr Frankenstein and his well-known monster.

That's the kind of links I'll try to show during my project. I've began by reading Rendezvous with Rama, which is an Arthur C. Clarke book about an alien object coming into the solar system. It deals with the behavior of human beings faced with the unknown and danger, from wonder to fear and violence.