|
dafremen
|
Dune is coming out in October, an event that my son and I are looking forward to eagerly. As we've batted ideas and opinions back and forth, I began jogging my memory, (trying to recall more details of Dune's stunningly complex universe for future conversations), when it occurred to me that there is a GLARING paradox which becomes evident once you try to travel backward through Frank Herbert's timeline.
For those unfamiliar, a brief summary:
Frank Herbert's books revolve around a desert planet called Arrakis which is the only source of a spice called melange. Melange has many properties and affects various beings differently.
For instance, mentats take in all of the data available around them (including intelligence reports, etc.) and, while under the influence of spice, can see the BIG socio-political picture with incredible accuracy, allowing them to give council on diplomacy, warfare, etc.
Of particular interest are the Guild Navigators, artificially super-evolved humans who, through intense melange consumption, are able to navigate at light speed without incident by seeing through space time. Without these Navigators, no one goes anywhere..at least not very quickly.
So here enters the paradox..or perhaps its more of a hiccup:
The fremen of Arrakis are NOT a particularly technologically advanced society. In particular, space travel isn't something they've achieved or shown much interest in. How did anyone ever get to Arrakis to get the spice?
How did the first spice get to a Navigator? Why would they have even engineered a Navigator to give spice to, before they'd ever heard of melange?
And how did they know that super-evolving humans would give them the power to navigate at light speed?
It seems a giant leap that spice somehow left a planet with no space travel, then ended up in the bloodstream of a super-evolved human, who instantly recognized their ability to navigate at light speed.
These Navigators make all of the rest of Dune's universe possible. How did that happen? What are the ridiculous odds?
|
210924
|
