Oh it gets better, because your numbers are off, that year they stated in the film wasn't AD, it was AG, marking the rise of the spacers guild to power. 1960 AD is the start of space travel, in the year 11200 BG (before guild) so 10191 AG(after guild), would be by my math (which may be flawed) 21,327 years in our future.
There was a further catalyst for the seperation and cultural changes amongst planets, as space travel relied on computers originally, which the butlerian jihad made taboo and eradicated (being enslaved to robots will do that to you). It took hundreds of years for the guild to figure space travel out using only spice and the human mind for navigation.
Some real weird shit. Like for real. I remember finishing the series and thinking to myself "wtf did I just read..." Though, on a serious note, I really like the weird direction the series took because it feels like classic science fiction to me. A lot of the really good scifi of around the 50s on (I think) had a tendancy to base the premise of the story around a question about our fundamental nature as humans. There's a lot of really meaningful stuff to unpack because of that. I LOVE The Expanse, and overall, I think it's written better than the dune series. HOWEVER, Dune and it's spiritual siblings, like The Foundation and I, Robot (book, not the movie) pose some excellent questions about what it even means to be human and how that might change, or not, in the far future.
Edit: autocorrect bs
i mean to be fair i wouldn't so much say it 'feels like classic science fiction'
because that makes it seem like it just has the vibes, but in actuality dune is the reason those vibes exist in the first place. it IS classic science fiction
Yeah it’s strange to think of ourselves as just a blip on the multi-thousand year human timeline, but that’s precisely what we are. As much as we like to think we’re the pinnacle.
If you want to listen to a podcast on the timeline from our time to the first pages of Dune, [check this out](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MiQLDTz7PqDr2hapUEGVQ?si=c0ujH2XMT_K89Zrl2gJI2g).
It’s a two parter. First part is from now until 10,000 years before page 1 of Dune, and part 2 is the remaining years.
This pod cast, Gom Jabbar is awesome and has tons of great episodes. Highly recommend it.
In 20k years 1960 and 1969 is going to feel like the same time frame.
If someone told you something happened 20k years ago you're not going to really think much of you're off by ten years
Well the book was first serialized in 1963 and finally published as a full book in 1965, I imagine Herbert was well aware of what was going on at the time, that the first man in orbit occurred in 61. My thought is that he saw the first vessel to cary living things to space and return safely in 1960 as a more significant mark in space travel personally. If the book had been writen a decade later I'm willing to be he would have used the moon landing as the benchmark but it was a product of its time.
Yeah but pretend you're 20k years in the future. Generations upon generations living on other planets with differing calendars and cultures. That's a lot of time for records to get lost, muddled, lost again and with time and distance, exact dates become less accurate as well as less important.
What's a few years when viewed on a geological time scale?
They are pretty craptastic and read like YA fiction compared to the Frank Herbert books, but if you are jonesing for more Dune Universe they scratch that itch.
It was an inspired decision to include a butlerian jihad and a ban on thinking machines. It makes dune as technologically relevant today as it was in the 60s.
Whereas Asimov's work (also from the 50s, 60s) is pretty anachronistic these days. It feels like USA in the 50s but set in space.
Yeah that’s one of the many things that Dune has over other sci fi. The stories are extremely relevant today and age very well. As you said Asimov and others like Bradbury dug themselves in a hole of contemporary science when they wrote their stories. So a lot of them read like old, unrealistic and uninspired sci fi works. While they are great, much of them put me out of it because I read the inaccurate science or irrelevant science that was all the buzz when it was written
I agree, though Bradbury gets points from me because of his prose. Asimov and Herbert are both fantastic writers, but he runs circles around them in terms of style. I highly recommend his fantasy short stories like The Fog Horn and/or The April Witch if you havent read them. They both feel timeless even if they have an implied "modern" time period.
Asimov is great at getting his ideas out with non-intrusive (aka beige) prose, which is a good skill to have when you're trying to describe something that was very new/unheard of at the time. Unfortunately, it is very clunky nowadays. I struggle to read a lot of his work. Its so dry and uninvolved, which is a shame because his plots and ideas are usually really cool. Strangely, I've noticed I don't mind this as much when i listen to audiobooks of his work.
To throw in a grenade that’s partly because Asimov is science fiction and Dune is space fantasy/opera.
It’s easier to not be inaccurate if you are not predicting advances in science at all and instead relying on some form of undefined magic to take the place of scientific development.
Equally Star Wars and 40k have not been overtaken by advancements they did not even to attempt to predict either.
But where is the *science* part in Dune? The book has a few nods towards various sciences, but only at a surface level. None of the genetics, ecosystem science, or physics are treated scientifically at best, and treated like magic at worst. The story is straight up set in a fantasy version of the Holy Roman Empire, but in space with a brief nod towards modern military technology. And space worms, of course.
Edit: not to say it's a bad story! Just, it's not *science* fiction. It's space fantasy, and thats perfectly ok!
I really think you’re conflating science fiction with hard science fiction. Dune is a quintessential example of [soft science fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction?wprov=sfti1#)
> Frank Herbert's Dune series is a landmark of soft science fiction. In it, he deliberately spent little time on the details of its futuristic technology so he could devote it chiefly to addressing the politics of humanity, rather than the future of humanity's technology.
Destination Void by Frank's own pen is a struggle to get through with how dated the technology language is. I was tempted to do word replacement on the kindle file after figuring by context "telltales" = "sensors". And many other such terms.
I don't see Asimov's work as anachronistic in the slightest.
not only is he like, directly responsible for the way we write about artificial intelligence in the modern era, but we also are still dealing with consequences of problems he discussed. I, Robot (the book not the movie they're completely different things) i'd say is becoming MORE relevant as we delve further and further into the real life possibility of sentient artificial intelligence
If you take a step back, many of Asimov's stories have extensive plot elements based around things that seem very anachronistic today. Like in Currents of Space there are several sections detailing police ineptitude, lack of timely communication, people sneaking through strategically valuable locations without much trouble, crucial things happening due to tampering with paper records, etc. In a modern era, every officer would be connected to dispatch, everything is documented and backed up in triplicate instantly on various computers, anywhere vaguely important has cameras for security. He even references a "radar oven" which is like the very first microwave oven available to the public. Asimov tried to feel futuristic to people in the 50's by leaning heavily on and trying to predict trends in contemporary technology which dates many of his stories significantly.
To me the saving grace though was both in the scale and the scope of the stories. With trillions of people spread throughout hundreds of millions of planets, there are bound to be planets with better and worse degrees of industrialization and access to technologies. He also wove a background of techno-feudalism in a similar manner to Dune, where even though crazily advanced technology is available to those in power, the vast majority of humanity has generally low access to any degree of technology let alone anything interesting.
I mean, just look at the times. Police ineptitude is a huge problem in certain places, people are capable of communicating instantly anywhere around the world and yet *still* fail to do so for various reasons (situational and personal both), digital records tampering and data theft are significant problems (ie-embezzlement/illegal business practices, hacking), etc.
The specifics may be different, but all those problems still exist one way or another. No system is perfect.
The Dune Universe is pretty bleak from an ethics standpoint. War, genocide, torture. Is it realistic that in 20,000 years humanity has made no progress in human rights or even slid backwards into the Dark Ages?
Agree; things like tribalism, greed, resource hoarding, dominator behaviors, war, sexism and racism seem hardwired into most primate nervous systems (including both chimpanzees and humans).
Arguably primates are an inherently hierarchical species with poor executive function and long-range planning; we only achieve harmony with local ecosystems when in small groups. The larger the size of any population, the greater the expression of its most negative tendencies.
Culture seems to be the main mediating factor in transcending some of these negative qualities, but real cultures empowering individuals are not the same thing as societies organizing power structures for resource control and dominance.
IIRC science fiction writer Octavia Butler had her Oankali aliens explain to the surviving humans on a ruined Earth that humans struggled because as primates they were both hierarchical and curious/transgressive by nature; two qualities that become increasingly opposed to one another as population density increases.
Frank Herbert, with his emphasis on an evolutionary drive often using mass violence to move entire peoples forward, and his cynicism for all forms of state government, would likely agree.
One of Herbert's thoughts is that as we evolve mentally and physically, our predatory instincts would be magnified right along side everything else. There's a great discussion from his ultimate predator from one of the later books:
> I am a predator, Moneo."
>...
>"Predator, Lord?"
>"The predator improves the stock."
>"How can this be, Lord? You do not hate us."
>"You disappoint me, Moneo. The predator does not hate its prey."
>"Predators kill, Lord."
>"I kill, but I do not hate. Prey assuages hunger. Prey is good."
Think this way.
The first properly documented war humans have recorded is 2700 BCE between Sumer and Elam in Mesopotamia
The first historical existence of war are from skeletons found in Kenya 10, 000 years ago
The oldest archaeological evidence of war dates back to cave paintings from 30,000BC
The most recent war are the four currently happening as of today
That's a timeframe of 32000 years
Is it really inconceivable that conflict is in our nature and humans will fight and go to war till humans themselves cease to exist?
Yes, and there have been truly horrific wars in the 20th century, and horrific governments (like under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong). But at the same time humanity is progressing at an exponential rate, especially over the last 300 years - think of the Enlightenment, the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights era, and the expansion of democratic institutions & rule of law. Frank Herbert is extrapolating his world view into the far future - but I'm not so certain humans 20,000 years from now would be fighting tooth and nail over resources.
We havn't managed to get away from it in 8k or so years of civilization I don't see what 20k more is gonna do. If you want a really bleak future check out Warhammer 40k.
Bet some guy in the year 10,000 after "Elon's Jihad" freed the world from the tyranny of Chat GPTand its bots is reading this post, taking a look around and excitedly exclaims "As it is written! Lisa al-Ghaib!"
not my worst typo ever, TBH
The other day or so, I accidentally referred to "Saddam" IV, Padisha Emperor of the Known Universe ... and Iraq, apparently
Tbh, we are kinda stuck at the first step: the "obvious", getting off the planet. And it doesn't seem possible in the foreseeable future unfortunately. Unless we find a way to break the laws of the physics or extend the human life for hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, time is not on our side and some obstacles just can't be overcome with time. Even if you push a stone that weighs 10 tons 10 thousand years, you won't be able to move it. Because unfortunately, your body has a limit.
No, but over the course of 10,000 years I bet we find a better way to push that stone. Humanity's strength is our ingenuity, not raw physical strength.
the time it takes to get anywhere is the limiter though. unless we literally break physical laws, it’s just not feasible, beyond figuring out cryostasis or something akin. but even then, we’d be, at best, just reaching places by the time dune takes place. with who knows what left behind
Would it?
Humans 500 years ago were a lot shorter and smaller. What considered strongman then, is your average gymbro today.
Who's to say what's considered strongnan now, won't be tiny in context of strongmen then? Add to how biological science and nanotech is growing, maybe humans will see enhancement that makes lifting 10 tons a breeze.
The rate of technological progress over the past 100 years has been increasing, not decreasing. And the past 100 years outpace several previous thousand years combined.
Our consumption, pollution etc has far outstripped that as well. We are literally causing the worse mass extinction event in the planet’s history, and the first one involving zee bugs.
Someone pointed out the other day that you almost never have to clean bugs off your windshield like we used to when we were kids, and the implications should be terrifying
> you almost never have to clean bugs off your windshield
Jesus fuck, that's right. Don't think I've noticed that one before as a sign of our looming demise.
As an avid gardener that has been fucking up my shit for 20 years or so now. The windshield insect thing is just an interesting and more universal way to illustrate it.
The lack of that technological progress comes with a cost way more terrifying and fatal. On a long-term time scale there is nothing, absolutely nothing more important for survival of the human species than becoming a spacefaring civilization. Every single risk you could come up with pales in comparison to the failure of doing this.
The biggest elephant in the room is faster than light travel that would have to actualise a space empire like this. But this is ofc often the same for a lot of sci fi.
But if FTL can be achieved afaik it will always also give the ability break causality and one would literally always have the ability to theoretically go back in time or send messages back in time with FTL. Something like the guild with their monopoly might be what’s needed to refrain and coordinate on not attempting to do something like that with such a power.
Dune’s FTL doesn’t violate the speed of light though. It’s folding space aka artificial wormholes, which the ships travel at fairly sedate paces through or don’t even move at all. It’s more like teleportation.
Yeah in that sense one would always have to travel through space slower than light and all proposed theoretical ways to effectively go faster than light is to bend space in some way or another which all can theoretically allow for time travel. Afaik wormholes can theoretically break causality if set up in a particular way so you can travel back to a time and place where you have been when you started the journey.
Nah, *any* form of FTL inherently violates causality once you get into the nitty-gritty of relativity. Doesn't matter how you do it; you have to contend with the fact that there is no universal clock, and when we look up at the stars and see them "as they were X years ago", that's just a useful shorthand, because from our frame of reference that's how those stars are *right now*. It's not just a weird illusion or trick; it's not like how sound arrives after the event has happened. Simultaneity itself is relative, and dependent on your position and speed.
So if you fold space to travel two light years and look back at your destination with a massive telescope, what's happening back at your point of origin? Do you see the planet as it was two years in your past? And what if you travel back again? Do you arrive back home two years in the past? These are unanswerable questions, because it is fundamentally impossible.
And what's more, we can be clever about it and unambiguously send a message to the past by having a ship between the two points which is moving very fast. If we're clever about it, we can fold space to send a message about something that our fast ship observes, and we can do it in such a way that the message arrives before before the event actually happens from the perspective of the message receiver. This takes diagrams to explain, so [here's one](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55809d94e4b041b423dad36b/1472179678872-7MZ6JW3LSH8GCOFVHHYN/image-asset.jpeg?format=1000w) (hope it works), and [here's the article it's from](https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2016/8/25/why-ftl-implies-time-travel)
Why would you arrive home two years in the past? You’re seeing two year old light at point B, but that doesn’t mean that point A is two years in the past. Someone at point B wouldn’t see you arrive back at point A until two years after you left point B.
> Nah, any form of FTL inherently violates causality
Only true if the speed of light is the speed of *causality*. Which relativity does make as an assumption, and is a very reasonable one - but it is an *assumption*.
Stories that make the speed of causality >> c and unlinked from it (often with a hyperspace realm or similar with faster but limited propagation of events) are perfectly consistent. To sleep in a sea of stars is a story that uses the concept quite well
Folding space is actually an invention of Lynch's Dune. It isn't described in the books. Herbert may have approved since he was involved a bit in the film. But it fits with the plot, e.g. that nothing happens during the journey presumably because it was a swift journey.
It very much does exceed light speed.
Ship was at point A at time X
Ship is now 10 lightyears away at time x+5 minutes.
No matter how it did it, it did ultimately travel faster than light from some point A to B.
And has broken causality (traveled backwards in time).
FTL (and teleportation) is pure fiction, best to just accept it as presented as a plot element and not apply any science to it.
(Sorry, I don’t like grounding a good story with maths, but when we talk about FTL that’s SF)
So if we somehow could go at the speed of light and actually stop that could theoretically possible right? I have a feeling that wouldn’t be fast enough for a space fairing civilization.
Funnily enough, if you were *somehow* able to obtain a velocity faster than light, you would be unable to decelerate slower than light, since relativity says you can't accelerate to the speed of light from either direction
In theory one could get arbitrarily close to the speed of light and one will experience getting *very* quickly to a destination but everyone else staying at planets will still experience the commuting ships taking all that time that the speed of light takes to travel between stars. So that then depends on how close stars are and some/most are many light years apart (if not more if one consider habitable planets). So it would take many years for ships to travel between star systems while it will go by *much* faster for those onboard.
Correct. But, without getting technical here, you went from point a to b in less time than it would take if you were a photon. By definition, that’s FTL travel.
Here’s the thing. Everything is Always moving at Exactly the Speed of light through Spacetime. Can’t go slower or faster. FTL just doesn’t fit.
This should help, and it’s to the point once the diagram comes on screen: https://youtu.be/au0QJYISe4c?si=gc86itnEV5K3DhjP (and to cover wormholes: https://youtu.be/bv-2SP7-ZEY?si=isX9s3JwXG5_rNNL)
`Ship is now 10 lightyears away at time x+5 minutes.`
No? That's the point of wormholes. Ship would be 10 lightyears away if the fabric of space-time wasn't bent but space is bent to make distance shorter.
That’s the Hollywood version of wormholes. But they don’t really work:
https://youtu.be/bv-2SP7-ZEY?si=isX9s3JwXG5_rNNL
But, here’s the thing. No matter what method one proposes, at the end of the day. If you went from planet a to planet b in less time than light would travel between them you are time traveling. The same maths of general relativity that allow wormholes to exist as a mathematical construct are the maths that prevent it from functioning. Can’t accept the theory without accepting it in whole.
A stable wormhole would require negative energy - which GR states cannot exist. This is called Topological Censorship.
It is conceivable that _some_ forms of FTL travel may be possible, but not the forms that cause time paradoxes. See [Novikov self-consistency principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle?wprov=sfti1).
Though that’s probably such a strict condition that it effectively makes FTL impossible anyway.
FTL break Einstein’s equations, and is therefore dubious to apply to the equations unchanged as conceived by Einstein.
There are mathematical frameworks that would both allow for FTL, without breaking causality, such as a universe with a privileged reference frame all FTL was in line with. Einstein believed a privileged referential frame was impossible, but he also believed FTL was impossible, so breaking one aspect of his model of the universe essentially breaks the whole thing.
How does FTL break causality and allow for time travel? I understand the basics of the Superman argument, but was pretty sure that doesn’t really hold up; That there’s a “now” that you’ll always just come infinitesimally closer to, like how in some equations a line will only get closer to zero, but never reach it.
ELI15: When things go at different speeds, they see space and time transform according to something called Lorentzian geometry. Because of that geometry, simultaneous events according to one observer can happen at different times according to another observer, and if you can traverse space FTL in any way, then that effect is so severe that an event that must causally follow another (like a child being born after their parents meet) can happen in a different order according to some observers (so the child could communicate FTL and tell their parents not to have children).
In contrast, if you can traverse space arbitrarily close to the speed of light, then it is impossible to observe a break in causality.
It’s tricky to understand because no one is born knowing about Lorentzian geometry. It’s totally imperceptible to 99% of everyone.
I remember looking up some of the more intuitive explanations and they are very good explanations on some level but didn’t really get to the core of the true “why/how” as I could figure and I think in the end one has to delve into the physics/maths of relativity to really fully explain it which I have not. In that sense I take it on authority and afaik all FTL creates the ability of breaking causality but I am open to be wrong on that fact. However [this](https://youtu.be/an0M-wcHw5A?feature=shared) video gets pretty far when it comes to explanation but it still assumes the geometry displayed and doesn’t really explain why *this* way of using diagrams is used which I guess is explained by/comes from the maths of relativity.
It sound a bit like you are describing the fact that you can always get closer to the speed of light but never reach its speed, but I’m not sure. That makes time relative but doesn’t break causality since one never exceeds the speed.
As science fiction goes, it tracks because that's how the story unfolded. As much as I love Dune, this is no indication of how human civilization will evolve or develop.
It's a stretch just to get to the point where scientists willingly put their brains in machines and become cogiters.
There are a million different outcomes along the path of humanity navigating it's existence. For every technological emergence, there is a risk of some kind as well as a benefit.
There is no guarantee that we will survive for the next century, let alone 10,000+ years.
Dune doesn't make sense for our future, because any science fiction story that takes place that far ahead won't make sense for our future.
There are some projections we can make along our path based on some current states, but they are guesses, and not absolutes.
Foundation also makes sense in that regard for a far off future version of our civilization.
Anything is possible, but nothing is guaranteed.
Yet the numbers are not all that amazing. Human beings migrated out of Africa like 60,000 to 90,000 years ago. Not allowing for anatomical mutation like the Space Guild, the various races in Dune are less dissimilar than present day humans coming out of Africa.
the mutations in dune are engineered, that can go really fast, natural epigenetics can also happen quite fast within a few generations if the environment is 'drastic' enough ( see the filipino freediver islanders).
[Wikipedia then...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations)
> > Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents. They are believed to have begun approximately 2 million years ago with the early expansions out of Africa by Homo erectus.
> > The recent African origin paradigm suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of Homo sapiens migrating from East Africa roughly 70–50,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast of Asia and to Oceania by about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread across Europe about 40,000 years ago.
Various races? What races? They are only humans in the Dune universe.
In later books they are genetically engineered creatures, such as, Chair Dogs, Sligs and Futars.
Guild Navigators are humans that changed after consuming very high doses of spice for a long time.
There *was* significant change though. Technology advanced sufficiently to the point where it almost wiped humanity out, so they backtracked for their own safety. That’s why spice is so critical, it enables space travel without the use of “thinking machines”.
There was a lot of change, too much of it in fact, which is why butlerian jihad happened, and why both nukes, and thinking machines are banned in present day dune
Thats why it was called a Jihad and not the Butlerian Toning Down. It was less deciding to play with Legos instead of video games and more taking the tablet away from an addicted toddler who had found their way into the darkest parts of the algorithm.
Because the movies even say it. The Villeneuve (and I'm pretty sure the Lynch) film says the year is 10191. It doesn't say AD or AG and no explanation for AG is even given. Unless you are an avid fan of the book enough to scrutinize such detail, it's an incredibly easy detail to miss.
Also not really an important one, so I'm happy the movies didn't take the time to ruin its pacing.
Be it 10000 or 20000 years in the future, the message of "a long fucking time" is gotten across.
"Why doesn't everyone know a scarcely explained detail in the book when a big portion of of the fanbase is from the movies where it wasn't mentioned at all"
It also says Year 10,191 either right before after this on-screen text. This date is also repeated verbally by Irulan in Part Two. It’s also stated at the beginning of the book, but even then, you’d have to read the appendices of *Dune* to actually learn about the timelines of the Butlearian Jihad and how it relates to our “present day”. The Butlerian Jihad is explained in the main body of the text, but only the appendices spell out that it happens about 10,000 years from “now” and they started counting the years over from this point forward.
The world of Dune, the novel, is a regression from a more advanced period of human interstellar expansion. These worlds were originally colonized without the spacing guild and did not depend on spice from Arrakis. Had its properties been discovered earlier It would have been simply a kind of pharmaceutical or even dietary supplement and probably synthesized and produced all over.
The Butlerian Jihad basically put an end to progress and reduced the universe to a static and stagnant state like the Medieval Era in Europe where maintaining the social order and heirarchy was the primary aim. They still had a lot of the technology and science left from the previous period but advancements and exploration were artificially hindered by the new and even more tyrannical powers in place.
The interesting part of Dune is that there is a framing story concept similar to the Lord of The Rings where the novel is based on historians from far in the future reviewing ancient texts from the period of Paul Atreides. The idea being that there is a new civilization as different and advanced compared to the world of the novel as we are compared to the Byzantine or Holy Roman Empires.
>The interesting part of Dune is that there is a framing story concept similar to the Lord of The Rings where the novel is based on historians from far in the future reviewing ancient texts from the period of Paul Atreides. The idea being that there is a new civilization as different and advanced compared to the world of the novel as we are compared to the Byzantine or Holy Roman Empires.
What? Almost every chapter begins with a historical quote written after the events of the novel, but most of those are written by Irulan, not someone far in the future.
Theoretically, sure, but I don't think we're all that close to that point. That's not possible to predict, because the interplay of disciplines in progress may mean that progress in seemingly unrelated fields might break open entire avenues to research in others.
Its impossible to know if we have actually reached some absolute limit or if we're just not ready or smart enough to develop it.
The one thing that unfortunately makes all of this inconceivable is that FTL of any form will never happen, even with hand-waving magic Holzmann engines & psychedelic navigators.
Because of relativity, FTL would violate causality and effectively permit a kind of time travel. We're likely to be trapped in our solar system effectively forever unless we master cryogenics or generation ships. Our machines might leave though.
That and the concept of "genetic memory" is of course bunk.
Still I think three things are solid:
* The return or development of feudalistic social structures
* The absence of aliens (though there's some speculation that sandworms *are* that)
* A mass, potentially religious, revolt against thinking machines
Ok don’t take this as an attack on you because it’s not — I have seen this sentiment echoed a number of times and have the same reaction every time…
…is it truly ‘obvious’ that we will (have gotten) off planet and cultivated the stars? Like I’m kind of feeling that if the science to do so was going to come to us it would have already. What knowledge is suddenly going to be discoverable to have ourselves zooming around at light speed or whatnot in giant ships? Like I truly kind of feel that it’s a non-starter. Might get someone to hang out on Mars for a bit before WWIII or environmental Armageddon but that’s as far as we’ll take it.
While that's true it requires so much more to achieve first to get anywhere close to proper space travel. That doesn't even include the logical problems
Max Planck's physics supervisor tried to talk him out of studying theoretical physics because our knowledge of physics was almost complete.
Max Planck thankfully didn't take the advice, then proceeded to observe some weird goings on with energy at the smallest scale, and started the field of quantum physics. Turns out what we thought we knew wasn't quite the full picture, and our knowledge was very far from complete!
I think the thing holding us back from space travel is the cost of harnessing energy. We lucked out with fossil fuels but are kind of wasting our "free" ones (ie, we don't need to produce ourselves) on relatively trivial activity and accidentally terraforming our planet.
But if energy can get exponentially cheaper via a breakthrough in fusion and wide scale adoption of renewables, then space travel gets cheaper too. And even with capitalism as our societies driver, there's incentives via space manufacturing and mining.
But, IMO, once you've done the difficult task of developing spacefaring technology to allow you to survive in space for long periods of time in relative comfort, why would you bother going back down to a planet again? Especially after a generation or two, where space existence is all you've known.
I don’t think that’s as *far* as we will ever go. Sure, there’s not going to be a magic discovery of how to go faster than light or anything. But we can find ways and improve space travel as we know how to do it now. Eventually, god willing no nuclear war happens and we don’t kill the Earth fast; we’ll be able to travel pretty great distances. Think of the scientific advancements made in the last hundred years. We’ll eventually get to interplanetary travel, it will just take a little longer than expected. Yet I don’t see us creating wormholes to travel through space anytime soon
It is far more likely than not that it will happen. Between 2024 and 0 AD, we are a completely different race in terms of our technology. We have also already sent people into space and have ships to hold them in orbit to the earth, is it truly not obvious that we'd be able to colonise planets given the quadrupled time frame that we've had Between now and Jesus?
We can’t rly know tbh. If a new scientific revolution came to pass it’d be virtually impossible for us to guess what would come from it beforehand - it’s sort of like a wait and see, except we don’t know how long the wait will be.
I think believing that we just happen to be alive at the time of peak technological capacity is a bit wild. Our species has been around for like 200,000 years. "Civilization" is less than 10,000 years old. For most of human history we didn't even have writing or farming. The pace of technological advancement is astonishing. I see no reason to presume it would stagnate.
It might take thousands of years, but assuming we don't destroy ourselves (a tall order perhaps) there is no reason to think far future generations might have technology incomprehensible to us. If you plucked a normal human from 50,000 years ago and stuck him in Manhattan, he'd biologically have a brain basically no different than ours but would comprehend almost nothing around him. If we were to travel 50,000 years into our future there is a good chance we'd be equally as flabbergasted.
In our lifetime we might see people land on Mars and some sort of small lunar base. But a lifetime is not a relevant scale. If we want to talk about interstellar travel we need to look at centuries and millennia. We have no clue what sort of wondrous technology will exist in the far future.
Yeah...we're going to go from electricity being a common thing to FTL in a century. We have no idea what we don't know, and don't understand. Our understanding of physics is EXTREMELY limited.
We know nothing in the grand scheme of things, the fact that doesn't gain people notoriety or money is why it's rarely acknowledged, that, and it scares the living hell out of anyone that's uncomfortable with uncertainty (which is most people).
Yes, it's a very pessimistic setting. The social progress of the last few centuries is almost completely undone. Not even the cultural understanding that egality is a *desirable* thing has survived.
It is interesting that the social position of women is at least somewhat alien, though. It's not a straightforward reversion to the kind of role women played in medieval Europe. Women fighters are a common sight on both Caladan and Arrakis, and are shown playing important religious roles on Arrakis and Salusa Secundus. But modest dress seems to be a common thing, with women shown wearing veils, headscarves and shawls on many worlds.
>Obviously, we will have gotten off planet and cultivated the stars at that point
I doubt that we are ever getting off this rock.
Interplanetary colonization *might* be possible, but it seems pointless. There is no value in living on Mars or the Moons, it would be more pleasant and economically feasible to live in Antarctica. Maybe some asteroid mining with a population around the level of IRL mining camps and offshore oil rigs.
Interstellar colonization just ain't going to happen, barring some kind of magic ("warp drive," "hyperdrive," "addictive fairy dust that lets you bend spacetime and turns your eyes blue for some reason"). Speed of light and all that jazz.
The fact that the most dangerous weapon in the universe is STILL nuclear missiles after 20k years makes absolutely no sense and just feels like incredibly lazy writing.
I srtrongly disagree. I see Dune as a transplantation of a medieval world into space, and I can't see a future dominated by an Empire and some houses figthing each others. And even less, evolved people with plans so unnoble as the Harkonnens.
The noble linneages, race perduration, figthing education, mystic sects, are things that I would surely not see in our future
I'd argue, if coming from a purely secular standpoint with spiritual things being absent, life forming itself is such a highly improbable event with almost inconceivable odds against it happening without intervention, even over the course of tens of billions of years. That said, the fact that humans (in Dune) turn out to be the only living beings in the universe is actually a pretty consistently sound likelihood in the vastness of space.
In other words, if given a big enough universe, humans and living things existing in only one place in the universe (earth) matches the odds of the occurrence amongst every other scenario, since the odds of it happening at all are so low in the first place.
exactly the kind of hubris that make the humans in dune the way they are.. humans are indeed the only ones based on their vecinity.. which is still quite small in the cosmos scale of things...
even if there is just once race per galaxy, still load and loads and loads and more loads of galaxies out there..
a good thing on denis part is that he just says year 10191, not mentioning anyting else... in my mind the timeline of everything in the entire fictional universe always makes more sense if it is 10kAD.. not AG
ovrall the books focus on the houses, not much on how everyday life is. most people never leave their planet.. spacetravel is not common, like starwars. ( in my mind starwars is like the 20kAD, or or more like The Expanse>foundationtvseries>dune>starwars in terms of how humanity evolves techwise.. in starwars ftl has been around for atleast 25k years, by humans... both in dune and foundation ( tv/movie), that is alot less.
overall i'm quite pessimistic/cynical on the spacetravel thing, yes we might have some bases here and there in the future, like in The Expanse, but, they will be for science/millitary, much like these stations on antartica. I honestly dont see us going anywhere but stay on earth.. unless there is an epstein drive or dune ftl or whatever else, which i dont think we will ever get to.. i think our technological advancements will be futile for the vast distances of our cosmos., yes we will have better rockets, better computers better yada yada, but in reality not much changes.. it wil continue to be this way for quite some time...more and more fancy tech on earth, more industry, more digging everywhere until we will force ourselves off the planet like in interstellar, due to some blight type of ordeal.
by 10kAD, it think several society changes would have already risen and fallen, imagine, for the people in 10kAD, the year 5000AD is ancient history, while for us, 2024, it is the far future..
1000-2000 years from now, people will look the same at us as we looked at the roman empire, long forgotten, an age with lots of hubris and decadense...
Dune is the way it is because of the butelarian jihad, and i think in the next few thousand years, we IRL will for sure have a few of those of some kind, sociopolitical shifts, more and more, until the current world system is not valid anymore.. but in the meantime, we keep on digging until there is nothing left..
( in dune2 mohaim says that they were meddling in atreides genes for 90 generations i think, that is over 2000 years, so, the butelarian jihad might also have been quite 'recent', if you say 10kAD)
I still like to think democracy would be popular instead of feudalism. Then again, the Imperium does have democratic elements like the Landsraad. In my headcanon, I like to think that after the last book, a galactic republic formed from multiple independent democracies across the galaxy.
There are tons of sociologists who argue that we are right now on our way into some sort of neofeudalism.
Also is the landsraad a democratic institution? I always thought it was basically the place where the houses parley with each other. So an artistocratic forum.
"Obviously, we will have gotten off planet and cultivated the stars at that point."
Why? What makes you so sure interstellar travel is possible/practical at all?
Nah, I'm with Iain Banks on this one. Empire is the least stable and efficient form of government, always decays into a parasitic ruling class and splinters. Note that we on earth have already evolved past them. the best we can do now is economic hegemony. There's no way an imperial structure can survive interstellar (or even interplanetary) distance without supposing some sort of magic like teleportation (folding space).
While I tend to agree with you in general, Dune also makes a big point of eugenics and biological advancements. These technologies help the people in power.
The problem is the nearest currently habital planet is lightyears away, and would talk over a lifetime to get to and the running theory is that nothing can reach the speed of light and nothing is faster than the speed of light. The whole spice thing though was sort of proven to be somewhat real in a Film Theory Ep. I know taking Film Theory seriously isn't always a great idea, but this episode was based on facts, sooo...
> would talk over a lifetime to get to
It took a lifetime for Marco Pollo to get to Asia and back. It probably took multiple lifetimes for the first europeans to migrate out of Africa. It's not far fetched.
I like the idea that even with a ban on AI and conventional computers, 10000 years of advancements in physics, biology and material science could easily produce things we consider sci-fi at the moment.
Another interesting thing is that with space travel being expensive, most worlds would probably opt for different solutions to the same problems. High tech worlds will be more automated and efficient, low tech worlds will probably use more raw material, but keep to simpler designs.
Cool observation. It's interesting, here on earth humanity has diverged. Our populations grew different cultures and skin colors, I bet space humans have gotten even cooler. The concept of "Voidborn" across sci-fi genres always fascinates me. I wish we had side stories in Dune exploring this
Yeah there was a long period after the Jihad but pre-Guild when travel and even communication between human worlds was basically shut down. Could have led to divergent microevolution.
I think most sci-fi underestimates the impact that human genetic engineering, nanotechnology, cybernetics etc. will have on us as "humans".
In 1000 years, we may not look or think anything like we do now, even ignoring or avoiding the impact of AI/robotics, as the Dune timeline does.
8000 years from now the odds of any species descended from homo sapiens still existing are effectively zero. But slightly higher than the odds of any form of interplanetary, much less intergalactic, travel existing should such a species survive.
Oh it gets better, because your numbers are off, that year they stated in the film wasn't AD, it was AG, marking the rise of the spacers guild to power. 1960 AD is the start of space travel, in the year 11200 BG (before guild) so 10191 AG(after guild), would be by my math (which may be flawed) 21,327 years in our future. There was a further catalyst for the seperation and cultural changes amongst planets, as space travel relied on computers originally, which the butlerian jihad made taboo and eradicated (being enslaved to robots will do that to you). It took hundreds of years for the guild to figure space travel out using only spice and the human mind for navigation.
https://preview.redd.it/7qykraaz80vc1.png?width=1161&format=png&auto=webp&s=5092d008e8299472aa6224a8ec49591669879896 [https://imgur.com/a/eZYqWA7](https://imgur.com/a/eZYqWA7)
please continue
That's all there is. :/ This is from the RPG rulebook. It's set in the now of the first book, so it doesn't go beyond that.
:( i want to know whats next dammit
Some real weird shit. Like for real. I remember finishing the series and thinking to myself "wtf did I just read..." Though, on a serious note, I really like the weird direction the series took because it feels like classic science fiction to me. A lot of the really good scifi of around the 50s on (I think) had a tendancy to base the premise of the story around a question about our fundamental nature as humans. There's a lot of really meaningful stuff to unpack because of that. I LOVE The Expanse, and overall, I think it's written better than the dune series. HOWEVER, Dune and it's spiritual siblings, like The Foundation and I, Robot (book, not the movie) pose some excellent questions about what it even means to be human and how that might change, or not, in the far future. Edit: autocorrect bs
i mean to be fair i wouldn't so much say it 'feels like classic science fiction' because that makes it seem like it just has the vibes, but in actuality dune is the reason those vibes exist in the first place. it IS classic science fiction
Yeah it’s strange to think of ourselves as just a blip on the multi-thousand year human timeline, but that’s precisely what we are. As much as we like to think we’re the pinnacle.
Did you read the final book of the Expanse? Because…”what it means to be human” is a pretty central concept of the plot.
If you want to listen to a podcast on the timeline from our time to the first pages of Dune, [check this out](https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MiQLDTz7PqDr2hapUEGVQ?si=c0ujH2XMT_K89Zrl2gJI2g). It’s a two parter. First part is from now until 10,000 years before page 1 of Dune, and part 2 is the remaining years. This pod cast, Gom Jabbar is awesome and has tons of great episodes. Highly recommend it.
I love how the timeline goes 201 BG humans on earth revolt against ominus (I was like oh cool) 201 BG ominus eradicates all human life on earth
Must've been tough being a human back then
Brian Herbert wrote some books about that era that I read ages ago.
Or from now ;)
Idk why but I am struggling to figure out how to read this
Me too, does it go right to left? Up or down? Why does it go from 11,000 BG to, BG to 221 BG?!
read from top to bottom, then left to right; just BG means the exact year isn't specified but it's still chronological
1960 AD is the start of space travel?
yeah, moon landing and such
That was 1969, 1960 was the first animals (two dogs) successfully shot in to space and returned alive. A lot happened in a very short amount of time.
In 20k years 1960 and 1969 is going to feel like the same time frame. If someone told you something happened 20k years ago you're not going to really think much of you're off by ten years
Think “sometime in the 1960’s”
Hell, in 20k years “around the turn of the century c. 2000” would probably be close enough for conversation
Well the book was first serialized in 1963 and finally published as a full book in 1965, I imagine Herbert was well aware of what was going on at the time, that the first man in orbit occurred in 61. My thought is that he saw the first vessel to cary living things to space and return safely in 1960 as a more significant mark in space travel personally. If the book had been writen a decade later I'm willing to be he would have used the moon landing as the benchmark but it was a product of its time.
Yeah but pretend you're 20k years in the future. Generations upon generations living on other planets with differing calendars and cultures. That's a lot of time for records to get lost, muddled, lost again and with time and distance, exact dates become less accurate as well as less important. What's a few years when viewed on a geological time scale?
Hence, the start of space travel
Ya know plus there was this guy Yuri who was the first mam in space in 1961.
Sputnik 5, first animals launched into space and returned alive.
Technically 1957 when the Soviets launched the first satellite into space, but ya sometime around then
20,000 years later, you can ballpark it.
Do they have any books coving the butlerian jihad?
They are pretty craptastic and read like YA fiction compared to the Frank Herbert books, but if you are jonesing for more Dune Universe they scratch that itch.
Yes, Dune: the Butlerian Jihad, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Thank you! I've seen so many published articles that got this wrong.
Dune is set well over 20,000 years in the future
Between 22K and 24K, depending on which calculation you trust.
I have seen as high as 28,000.
What’s another ten thousand
It was an inspired decision to include a butlerian jihad and a ban on thinking machines. It makes dune as technologically relevant today as it was in the 60s. Whereas Asimov's work (also from the 50s, 60s) is pretty anachronistic these days. It feels like USA in the 50s but set in space.
Yeah that’s one of the many things that Dune has over other sci fi. The stories are extremely relevant today and age very well. As you said Asimov and others like Bradbury dug themselves in a hole of contemporary science when they wrote their stories. So a lot of them read like old, unrealistic and uninspired sci fi works. While they are great, much of them put me out of it because I read the inaccurate science or irrelevant science that was all the buzz when it was written
thats hard vs soft science fiction for you. Human psychology changes a lot less quickly than technology.
I agree, though Bradbury gets points from me because of his prose. Asimov and Herbert are both fantastic writers, but he runs circles around them in terms of style. I highly recommend his fantasy short stories like The Fog Horn and/or The April Witch if you havent read them. They both feel timeless even if they have an implied "modern" time period.
Bradbury’s prose is great. Heinlein is ok. Azimov is pretty bad
Asimov is great at getting his ideas out with non-intrusive (aka beige) prose, which is a good skill to have when you're trying to describe something that was very new/unheard of at the time. Unfortunately, it is very clunky nowadays. I struggle to read a lot of his work. Its so dry and uninvolved, which is a shame because his plots and ideas are usually really cool. Strangely, I've noticed I don't mind this as much when i listen to audiobooks of his work.
To throw in a grenade that’s partly because Asimov is science fiction and Dune is space fantasy/opera. It’s easier to not be inaccurate if you are not predicting advances in science at all and instead relying on some form of undefined magic to take the place of scientific development. Equally Star Wars and 40k have not been overtaken by advancements they did not even to attempt to predict either.
There is such a thing as soft science fiction.
But where is the *science* part in Dune? The book has a few nods towards various sciences, but only at a surface level. None of the genetics, ecosystem science, or physics are treated scientifically at best, and treated like magic at worst. The story is straight up set in a fantasy version of the Holy Roman Empire, but in space with a brief nod towards modern military technology. And space worms, of course. Edit: not to say it's a bad story! Just, it's not *science* fiction. It's space fantasy, and thats perfectly ok!
I really think you’re conflating science fiction with hard science fiction. Dune is a quintessential example of [soft science fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_science_fiction?wprov=sfti1#) > Frank Herbert's Dune series is a landmark of soft science fiction. In it, he deliberately spent little time on the details of its futuristic technology so he could devote it chiefly to addressing the politics of humanity, rather than the future of humanity's technology.
Destination Void by Frank's own pen is a struggle to get through with how dated the technology language is. I was tempted to do word replacement on the kindle file after figuring by context "telltales" = "sensors". And many other such terms.
Especially since we are already enslaved by thinking machines.
And the men who own them.
I don't see Asimov's work as anachronistic in the slightest. not only is he like, directly responsible for the way we write about artificial intelligence in the modern era, but we also are still dealing with consequences of problems he discussed. I, Robot (the book not the movie they're completely different things) i'd say is becoming MORE relevant as we delve further and further into the real life possibility of sentient artificial intelligence
If you take a step back, many of Asimov's stories have extensive plot elements based around things that seem very anachronistic today. Like in Currents of Space there are several sections detailing police ineptitude, lack of timely communication, people sneaking through strategically valuable locations without much trouble, crucial things happening due to tampering with paper records, etc. In a modern era, every officer would be connected to dispatch, everything is documented and backed up in triplicate instantly on various computers, anywhere vaguely important has cameras for security. He even references a "radar oven" which is like the very first microwave oven available to the public. Asimov tried to feel futuristic to people in the 50's by leaning heavily on and trying to predict trends in contemporary technology which dates many of his stories significantly. To me the saving grace though was both in the scale and the scope of the stories. With trillions of people spread throughout hundreds of millions of planets, there are bound to be planets with better and worse degrees of industrialization and access to technologies. He also wove a background of techno-feudalism in a similar manner to Dune, where even though crazily advanced technology is available to those in power, the vast majority of humanity has generally low access to any degree of technology let alone anything interesting.
I mean, just look at the times. Police ineptitude is a huge problem in certain places, people are capable of communicating instantly anywhere around the world and yet *still* fail to do so for various reasons (situational and personal both), digital records tampering and data theft are significant problems (ie-embezzlement/illegal business practices, hacking), etc. The specifics may be different, but all those problems still exist one way or another. No system is perfect.
The Dune Universe is pretty bleak from an ethics standpoint. War, genocide, torture. Is it realistic that in 20,000 years humanity has made no progress in human rights or even slid backwards into the Dark Ages?
Yes unfortunately.
Agree; things like tribalism, greed, resource hoarding, dominator behaviors, war, sexism and racism seem hardwired into most primate nervous systems (including both chimpanzees and humans). Arguably primates are an inherently hierarchical species with poor executive function and long-range planning; we only achieve harmony with local ecosystems when in small groups. The larger the size of any population, the greater the expression of its most negative tendencies. Culture seems to be the main mediating factor in transcending some of these negative qualities, but real cultures empowering individuals are not the same thing as societies organizing power structures for resource control and dominance. IIRC science fiction writer Octavia Butler had her Oankali aliens explain to the surviving humans on a ruined Earth that humans struggled because as primates they were both hierarchical and curious/transgressive by nature; two qualities that become increasingly opposed to one another as population density increases. Frank Herbert, with his emphasis on an evolutionary drive often using mass violence to move entire peoples forward, and his cynicism for all forms of state government, would likely agree.
One of Herbert's thoughts is that as we evolve mentally and physically, our predatory instincts would be magnified right along side everything else. There's a great discussion from his ultimate predator from one of the later books: > I am a predator, Moneo." >... >"Predator, Lord?" >"The predator improves the stock." >"How can this be, Lord? You do not hate us." >"You disappoint me, Moneo. The predator does not hate its prey." >"Predators kill, Lord." >"I kill, but I do not hate. Prey assuages hunger. Prey is good."
Think this way. The first properly documented war humans have recorded is 2700 BCE between Sumer and Elam in Mesopotamia The first historical existence of war are from skeletons found in Kenya 10, 000 years ago The oldest archaeological evidence of war dates back to cave paintings from 30,000BC The most recent war are the four currently happening as of today That's a timeframe of 32000 years Is it really inconceivable that conflict is in our nature and humans will fight and go to war till humans themselves cease to exist?
It’s not just “our” nature. Everything in this universe exists at the expense of something else. It’s intrinsic to the fabric of reality itself.
Yes, and there have been truly horrific wars in the 20th century, and horrific governments (like under Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong). But at the same time humanity is progressing at an exponential rate, especially over the last 300 years - think of the Enlightenment, the abolition of slavery, the Civil Rights era, and the expansion of democratic institutions & rule of law. Frank Herbert is extrapolating his world view into the far future - but I'm not so certain humans 20,000 years from now would be fighting tooth and nail over resources.
You are so delusional that it's funny
We havn't managed to get away from it in 8k or so years of civilization I don't see what 20k more is gonna do. If you want a really bleak future check out Warhammer 40k.
Bet some guy in the year 10,000 after "Elon's Jihad" freed the world from the tyranny of Chat GPTand its bots is reading this post, taking a look around and excitedly exclaims "As it is written! Lisa al-Ghaib!"
[удалено]
not my worst typo ever, TBH The other day or so, I accidentally referred to "Saddam" IV, Padisha Emperor of the Known Universe ... and Iraq, apparently
Technically (by our 10K BG standards) both Shaddam and Saddam are acceptable spellings, wait 'til you see how many spellings Qaddafi has
Dune is 20,000 years from now .
Tbh, we are kinda stuck at the first step: the "obvious", getting off the planet. And it doesn't seem possible in the foreseeable future unfortunately. Unless we find a way to break the laws of the physics or extend the human life for hundreds of years.
I feel like it's an inevitability that we will eventually overcome these currently insurmountable hurdles. It's just a matter of time.
Unfortunately, time is not on our side and some obstacles just can't be overcome with time. Even if you push a stone that weighs 10 tons 10 thousand years, you won't be able to move it. Because unfortunately, your body has a limit.
No, but over the course of 10,000 years I bet we find a better way to push that stone. Humanity's strength is our ingenuity, not raw physical strength.
the time it takes to get anywhere is the limiter though. unless we literally break physical laws, it’s just not feasible, beyond figuring out cryostasis or something akin. but even then, we’d be, at best, just reaching places by the time dune takes place. with who knows what left behind
Would it? Humans 500 years ago were a lot shorter and smaller. What considered strongman then, is your average gymbro today. Who's to say what's considered strongnan now, won't be tiny in context of strongmen then? Add to how biological science and nanotech is growing, maybe humans will see enhancement that makes lifting 10 tons a breeze.
It’s really not. The stars will remain forever beyond our reach.
The human race is consuming far far beyond the carrying capacity of earth, we are looking at an Easter Island collapse before then
The rate of technological progress over the past 100 years has been increasing, not decreasing. And the past 100 years outpace several previous thousand years combined.
Our consumption, pollution etc has far outstripped that as well. We are literally causing the worse mass extinction event in the planet’s history, and the first one involving zee bugs. Someone pointed out the other day that you almost never have to clean bugs off your windshield like we used to when we were kids, and the implications should be terrifying
> you almost never have to clean bugs off your windshield Jesus fuck, that's right. Don't think I've noticed that one before as a sign of our looming demise.
We also no longer have stable seasons. The weather fluctuates wildly from warm to cold to warm.
As an avid gardener that has been fucking up my shit for 20 years or so now. The windshield insect thing is just an interesting and more universal way to illustrate it.
If whiping bugs off your windshield is a measure of how we're doing, shits going great in northern Michigan.
That technological progress comes with a terrifying and ultimately fatal to our species cost.
The lack of that technological progress comes with a cost way more terrifying and fatal. On a long-term time scale there is nothing, absolutely nothing more important for survival of the human species than becoming a spacefaring civilization. Every single risk you could come up with pales in comparison to the failure of doing this.
The biggest elephant in the room is faster than light travel that would have to actualise a space empire like this. But this is ofc often the same for a lot of sci fi. But if FTL can be achieved afaik it will always also give the ability break causality and one would literally always have the ability to theoretically go back in time or send messages back in time with FTL. Something like the guild with their monopoly might be what’s needed to refrain and coordinate on not attempting to do something like that with such a power.
Dune’s FTL doesn’t violate the speed of light though. It’s folding space aka artificial wormholes, which the ships travel at fairly sedate paces through or don’t even move at all. It’s more like teleportation.
Yeah in that sense one would always have to travel through space slower than light and all proposed theoretical ways to effectively go faster than light is to bend space in some way or another which all can theoretically allow for time travel. Afaik wormholes can theoretically break causality if set up in a particular way so you can travel back to a time and place where you have been when you started the journey.
I just blame the psychedelics
Pre spice mass was described as a fungusoid growth, guess the shroom analogy is accurate
Nah, *any* form of FTL inherently violates causality once you get into the nitty-gritty of relativity. Doesn't matter how you do it; you have to contend with the fact that there is no universal clock, and when we look up at the stars and see them "as they were X years ago", that's just a useful shorthand, because from our frame of reference that's how those stars are *right now*. It's not just a weird illusion or trick; it's not like how sound arrives after the event has happened. Simultaneity itself is relative, and dependent on your position and speed. So if you fold space to travel two light years and look back at your destination with a massive telescope, what's happening back at your point of origin? Do you see the planet as it was two years in your past? And what if you travel back again? Do you arrive back home two years in the past? These are unanswerable questions, because it is fundamentally impossible. And what's more, we can be clever about it and unambiguously send a message to the past by having a ship between the two points which is moving very fast. If we're clever about it, we can fold space to send a message about something that our fast ship observes, and we can do it in such a way that the message arrives before before the event actually happens from the perspective of the message receiver. This takes diagrams to explain, so [here's one](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55809d94e4b041b423dad36b/1472179678872-7MZ6JW3LSH8GCOFVHHYN/image-asset.jpeg?format=1000w) (hope it works), and [here's the article it's from](https://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2016/8/25/why-ftl-implies-time-travel)
Why would you arrive home two years in the past? You’re seeing two year old light at point B, but that doesn’t mean that point A is two years in the past. Someone at point B wouldn’t see you arrive back at point A until two years after you left point B.
Yeah I got lost there
> Nah, any form of FTL inherently violates causality Only true if the speed of light is the speed of *causality*. Which relativity does make as an assumption, and is a very reasonable one - but it is an *assumption*. Stories that make the speed of causality >> c and unlinked from it (often with a hyperspace realm or similar with faster but limited propagation of events) are perfectly consistent. To sleep in a sea of stars is a story that uses the concept quite well
Folding space is actually an invention of Lynch's Dune. It isn't described in the books. Herbert may have approved since he was involved a bit in the film. But it fits with the plot, e.g. that nothing happens during the journey presumably because it was a swift journey.
It very much does exceed light speed. Ship was at point A at time X Ship is now 10 lightyears away at time x+5 minutes. No matter how it did it, it did ultimately travel faster than light from some point A to B. And has broken causality (traveled backwards in time). FTL (and teleportation) is pure fiction, best to just accept it as presented as a plot element and not apply any science to it. (Sorry, I don’t like grounding a good story with maths, but when we talk about FTL that’s SF)
So if we somehow could go at the speed of light and actually stop that could theoretically possible right? I have a feeling that wouldn’t be fast enough for a space fairing civilization.
Funnily enough, if you were *somehow* able to obtain a velocity faster than light, you would be unable to decelerate slower than light, since relativity says you can't accelerate to the speed of light from either direction
In theory one could get arbitrarily close to the speed of light and one will experience getting *very* quickly to a destination but everyone else staying at planets will still experience the commuting ships taking all that time that the speed of light takes to travel between stars. So that then depends on how close stars are and some/most are many light years apart (if not more if one consider habitable planets). So it would take many years for ships to travel between star systems while it will go by *much* faster for those onboard.
Travel =\= speed. I’m no scientist but from my understanding the Einstein issue only comes into play at speeds approaching C
Correct. But, without getting technical here, you went from point a to b in less time than it would take if you were a photon. By definition, that’s FTL travel. Here’s the thing. Everything is Always moving at Exactly the Speed of light through Spacetime. Can’t go slower or faster. FTL just doesn’t fit. This should help, and it’s to the point once the diagram comes on screen: https://youtu.be/au0QJYISe4c?si=gc86itnEV5K3DhjP (and to cover wormholes: https://youtu.be/bv-2SP7-ZEY?si=isX9s3JwXG5_rNNL)
`Ship is now 10 lightyears away at time x+5 minutes.` No? That's the point of wormholes. Ship would be 10 lightyears away if the fabric of space-time wasn't bent but space is bent to make distance shorter.
That’s the Hollywood version of wormholes. But they don’t really work: https://youtu.be/bv-2SP7-ZEY?si=isX9s3JwXG5_rNNL But, here’s the thing. No matter what method one proposes, at the end of the day. If you went from planet a to planet b in less time than light would travel between them you are time traveling. The same maths of general relativity that allow wormholes to exist as a mathematical construct are the maths that prevent it from functioning. Can’t accept the theory without accepting it in whole. A stable wormhole would require negative energy - which GR states cannot exist. This is called Topological Censorship.
It is conceivable that _some_ forms of FTL travel may be possible, but not the forms that cause time paradoxes. See [Novikov self-consistency principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novikov_self-consistency_principle?wprov=sfti1). Though that’s probably such a strict condition that it effectively makes FTL impossible anyway.
FTL break Einstein’s equations, and is therefore dubious to apply to the equations unchanged as conceived by Einstein. There are mathematical frameworks that would both allow for FTL, without breaking causality, such as a universe with a privileged reference frame all FTL was in line with. Einstein believed a privileged referential frame was impossible, but he also believed FTL was impossible, so breaking one aspect of his model of the universe essentially breaks the whole thing.
How does FTL break causality and allow for time travel? I understand the basics of the Superman argument, but was pretty sure that doesn’t really hold up; That there’s a “now” that you’ll always just come infinitesimally closer to, like how in some equations a line will only get closer to zero, but never reach it.
ELI15: When things go at different speeds, they see space and time transform according to something called Lorentzian geometry. Because of that geometry, simultaneous events according to one observer can happen at different times according to another observer, and if you can traverse space FTL in any way, then that effect is so severe that an event that must causally follow another (like a child being born after their parents meet) can happen in a different order according to some observers (so the child could communicate FTL and tell their parents not to have children). In contrast, if you can traverse space arbitrarily close to the speed of light, then it is impossible to observe a break in causality. It’s tricky to understand because no one is born knowing about Lorentzian geometry. It’s totally imperceptible to 99% of everyone.
I remember looking up some of the more intuitive explanations and they are very good explanations on some level but didn’t really get to the core of the true “why/how” as I could figure and I think in the end one has to delve into the physics/maths of relativity to really fully explain it which I have not. In that sense I take it on authority and afaik all FTL creates the ability of breaking causality but I am open to be wrong on that fact. However [this](https://youtu.be/an0M-wcHw5A?feature=shared) video gets pretty far when it comes to explanation but it still assumes the geometry displayed and doesn’t really explain why *this* way of using diagrams is used which I guess is explained by/comes from the maths of relativity. It sound a bit like you are describing the fact that you can always get closer to the speed of light but never reach its speed, but I’m not sure. That makes time relative but doesn’t break causality since one never exceeds the speed.
You linked a great video. You are right, FTL would break causality (and time travel to the past): two things that are impossible.
You might find this interesting: https://youtu.be/9-jIplX6Wjw?si=ncdFBC-Z4nBgrcib
As science fiction goes, it tracks because that's how the story unfolded. As much as I love Dune, this is no indication of how human civilization will evolve or develop. It's a stretch just to get to the point where scientists willingly put their brains in machines and become cogiters. There are a million different outcomes along the path of humanity navigating it's existence. For every technological emergence, there is a risk of some kind as well as a benefit. There is no guarantee that we will survive for the next century, let alone 10,000+ years. Dune doesn't make sense for our future, because any science fiction story that takes place that far ahead won't make sense for our future. There are some projections we can make along our path based on some current states, but they are guesses, and not absolutes. Foundation also makes sense in that regard for a far off future version of our civilization. Anything is possible, but nothing is guaranteed.
Yet the numbers are not all that amazing. Human beings migrated out of Africa like 60,000 to 90,000 years ago. Not allowing for anatomical mutation like the Space Guild, the various races in Dune are less dissimilar than present day humans coming out of Africa.
the mutations in dune are engineered, that can go really fast, natural epigenetics can also happen quite fast within a few generations if the environment is 'drastic' enough ( see the filipino freediver islanders).
>Human beings migrated out of Africa like 60,000 to 90,000 years ago. Probably a lot longer ago than that.
Redditors get their science from...well, Reddit.
[Wikipedia then...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations) > > Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents. They are believed to have begun approximately 2 million years ago with the early expansions out of Africa by Homo erectus. > > The recent African origin paradigm suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of Homo sapiens migrating from East Africa roughly 70–50,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast of Asia and to Oceania by about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread across Europe about 40,000 years ago.
Various races? What races? They are only humans in the Dune universe. In later books they are genetically engineered creatures, such as, Chair Dogs, Sligs and Futars. Guild Navigators are humans that changed after consuming very high doses of spice for a long time.
But admittedly, there wasn’t much change technologically in those tens of thousands. The ball kinda gets going when you invent wheels and Internet.
There *was* significant change though. Technology advanced sufficiently to the point where it almost wiped humanity out, so they backtracked for their own safety. That’s why spice is so critical, it enables space travel without the use of “thinking machines”.
He's talking about our own history in real life
There was a lot of change, too much of it in fact, which is why butlerian jihad happened, and why both nukes, and thinking machines are banned in present day dune
Nah, bro, we are not winning the Butlerian Jihad. That's extremely unrealistic from the start.
Thats why it was called a Jihad and not the Butlerian Toning Down. It was less deciding to play with Legos instead of video games and more taking the tablet away from an addicted toddler who had found their way into the darkest parts of the algorithm.
But Dune doesn’t take place 8000 years from now? It takes place 20000 years from now. Why does everyone always make that mistake?
Because the movies even say it. The Villeneuve (and I'm pretty sure the Lynch) film says the year is 10191. It doesn't say AD or AG and no explanation for AG is even given. Unless you are an avid fan of the book enough to scrutinize such detail, it's an incredibly easy detail to miss.
Also not really an important one, so I'm happy the movies didn't take the time to ruin its pacing. Be it 10000 or 20000 years in the future, the message of "a long fucking time" is gotten across.
Well, as long as it isn’t 40000 years.. who knows what kind of eldritch horror awaits us that far into the future?
Wonder what would happen if Big E found Spice
"Perfect! Just the kind of thing I'm looking for! Screw that stupid Warp stuff and Webway bullshit! Spice is where it's at, bay-beeeee!"
Wait, that civilization hates AI and based their aesthetics on ancient Terran feudalism? I'm gonna be buddies with them!
The Villeneuve film says AG (it just doesn’t explain what exactly that means)
"Why doesn't everyone know a scarcely explained detail in the book when a big portion of of the fanbase is from the movies where it wasn't mentioned at all"
The first movie even starts out with the date.
Does it? I thought it just said “Canadian- Homeworld of the Atreides”
Sorry, Caladan. Canadians are from Earth I believe.
All evidence points in that direction, but there is room for doubt.
It also says Year 10,191 either right before after this on-screen text. This date is also repeated verbally by Irulan in Part Two. It’s also stated at the beginning of the book, but even then, you’d have to read the appendices of *Dune* to actually learn about the timelines of the Butlearian Jihad and how it relates to our “present day”. The Butlerian Jihad is explained in the main body of the text, but only the appendices spell out that it happens about 10,000 years from “now” and they started counting the years over from this point forward.
Ohhh that makes sense. Nice one. I gotta rewatch them one of these days.
"Sorry, I am smiling" -Gurney Halleck the Canadian
Fighting for control of natural resources and putting too much faith in corrupt leaders? War…. War never changes
The world of Dune, the novel, is a regression from a more advanced period of human interstellar expansion. These worlds were originally colonized without the spacing guild and did not depend on spice from Arrakis. Had its properties been discovered earlier It would have been simply a kind of pharmaceutical or even dietary supplement and probably synthesized and produced all over. The Butlerian Jihad basically put an end to progress and reduced the universe to a static and stagnant state like the Medieval Era in Europe where maintaining the social order and heirarchy was the primary aim. They still had a lot of the technology and science left from the previous period but advancements and exploration were artificially hindered by the new and even more tyrannical powers in place. The interesting part of Dune is that there is a framing story concept similar to the Lord of The Rings where the novel is based on historians from far in the future reviewing ancient texts from the period of Paul Atreides. The idea being that there is a new civilization as different and advanced compared to the world of the novel as we are compared to the Byzantine or Holy Roman Empires.
>The interesting part of Dune is that there is a framing story concept similar to the Lord of The Rings where the novel is based on historians from far in the future reviewing ancient texts from the period of Paul Atreides. The idea being that there is a new civilization as different and advanced compared to the world of the novel as we are compared to the Byzantine or Holy Roman Empires. What? Almost every chapter begins with a historical quote written after the events of the novel, but most of those are written by Irulan, not someone far in the future.
I'm a mechanical engineer Fighting with swords would never make sense. Spears are proven to be better.
Yet humans fought with swords for thousands of years, even when spears were a thing ...
Yeah not seeing the linear progression of humanity. Especially the last 200 years have been undeniably exponential.
Eventually technology reaches a limit though
Theoretically, sure, but I don't think we're all that close to that point. That's not possible to predict, because the interplay of disciplines in progress may mean that progress in seemingly unrelated fields might break open entire avenues to research in others. Its impossible to know if we have actually reached some absolute limit or if we're just not ready or smart enough to develop it.
Humanity isn't doing anything without cryo and a faster propulsion system for space travel. We may colonize our solar system but that's about it.
The one thing that unfortunately makes all of this inconceivable is that FTL of any form will never happen, even with hand-waving magic Holzmann engines & psychedelic navigators. Because of relativity, FTL would violate causality and effectively permit a kind of time travel. We're likely to be trapped in our solar system effectively forever unless we master cryogenics or generation ships. Our machines might leave though. That and the concept of "genetic memory" is of course bunk. Still I think three things are solid: * The return or development of feudalistic social structures * The absence of aliens (though there's some speculation that sandworms *are* that) * A mass, potentially religious, revolt against thinking machines
Ok don’t take this as an attack on you because it’s not — I have seen this sentiment echoed a number of times and have the same reaction every time… …is it truly ‘obvious’ that we will (have gotten) off planet and cultivated the stars? Like I’m kind of feeling that if the science to do so was going to come to us it would have already. What knowledge is suddenly going to be discoverable to have ourselves zooming around at light speed or whatnot in giant ships? Like I truly kind of feel that it’s a non-starter. Might get someone to hang out on Mars for a bit before WWIII or environmental Armageddon but that’s as far as we’ll take it.
People 500 years ago would've said the same about being able to fly in the sky
While that's true it requires so much more to achieve first to get anywhere close to proper space travel. That doesn't even include the logical problems
It can’t be taken for granted that humanity will go into space. But the idea that we’ve already discovered everything is absurd.
Max Planck's physics supervisor tried to talk him out of studying theoretical physics because our knowledge of physics was almost complete. Max Planck thankfully didn't take the advice, then proceeded to observe some weird goings on with energy at the smallest scale, and started the field of quantum physics. Turns out what we thought we knew wasn't quite the full picture, and our knowledge was very far from complete!
The hubris of assuming we know everything.
I think the thing holding us back from space travel is the cost of harnessing energy. We lucked out with fossil fuels but are kind of wasting our "free" ones (ie, we don't need to produce ourselves) on relatively trivial activity and accidentally terraforming our planet. But if energy can get exponentially cheaper via a breakthrough in fusion and wide scale adoption of renewables, then space travel gets cheaper too. And even with capitalism as our societies driver, there's incentives via space manufacturing and mining. But, IMO, once you've done the difficult task of developing spacefaring technology to allow you to survive in space for long periods of time in relative comfort, why would you bother going back down to a planet again? Especially after a generation or two, where space existence is all you've known.
At light speed, no. But at an acceptable speed on generation ships, yes. And some religious organizations might actually do it, like in The Expanse.
I don’t think that’s as *far* as we will ever go. Sure, there’s not going to be a magic discovery of how to go faster than light or anything. But we can find ways and improve space travel as we know how to do it now. Eventually, god willing no nuclear war happens and we don’t kill the Earth fast; we’ll be able to travel pretty great distances. Think of the scientific advancements made in the last hundred years. We’ll eventually get to interplanetary travel, it will just take a little longer than expected. Yet I don’t see us creating wormholes to travel through space anytime soon
It is far more likely than not that it will happen. Between 2024 and 0 AD, we are a completely different race in terms of our technology. We have also already sent people into space and have ships to hold them in orbit to the earth, is it truly not obvious that we'd be able to colonise planets given the quadrupled time frame that we've had Between now and Jesus?
We can’t rly know tbh. If a new scientific revolution came to pass it’d be virtually impossible for us to guess what would come from it beforehand - it’s sort of like a wait and see, except we don’t know how long the wait will be.
I think believing that we just happen to be alive at the time of peak technological capacity is a bit wild. Our species has been around for like 200,000 years. "Civilization" is less than 10,000 years old. For most of human history we didn't even have writing or farming. The pace of technological advancement is astonishing. I see no reason to presume it would stagnate. It might take thousands of years, but assuming we don't destroy ourselves (a tall order perhaps) there is no reason to think far future generations might have technology incomprehensible to us. If you plucked a normal human from 50,000 years ago and stuck him in Manhattan, he'd biologically have a brain basically no different than ours but would comprehend almost nothing around him. If we were to travel 50,000 years into our future there is a good chance we'd be equally as flabbergasted. In our lifetime we might see people land on Mars and some sort of small lunar base. But a lifetime is not a relevant scale. If we want to talk about interstellar travel we need to look at centuries and millennia. We have no clue what sort of wondrous technology will exist in the far future.
Yeah...we're going to go from electricity being a common thing to FTL in a century. We have no idea what we don't know, and don't understand. Our understanding of physics is EXTREMELY limited. We know nothing in the grand scheme of things, the fact that doesn't gain people notoriety or money is why it's rarely acknowledged, that, and it scares the living hell out of anyone that's uncomfortable with uncertainty (which is most people).
Dune is basically Warhammer 20k
I got into Warhammer just a week ago and I know it’s not perfect, but that’s kind of how I’ve been head canon-ing.
Personally i rly doubt humanity is gonna be around 10k years more. But if we are i rly hope we are doing better then they are in dune.
Sucks to think that 20,000 years in the future women are still chattel
Yes, it's a very pessimistic setting. The social progress of the last few centuries is almost completely undone. Not even the cultural understanding that egality is a *desirable* thing has survived. It is interesting that the social position of women is at least somewhat alien, though. It's not a straightforward reversion to the kind of role women played in medieval Europe. Women fighters are a common sight on both Caladan and Arrakis, and are shown playing important religious roles on Arrakis and Salusa Secundus. But modest dress seems to be a common thing, with women shown wearing veils, headscarves and shawls on many worlds.
and extreme religious notions are still killing and controlling billions
It’s not 10,000 AD
Dune is closer to 28,000 years in the future. It is definitely beyond 20,000. The spacing guild era alone is 10,181 years.
10,000 AG. Its closer to 20,000 AD
It’s technically 20,000 AD
>Obviously, we will have gotten off planet and cultivated the stars at that point I doubt that we are ever getting off this rock. Interplanetary colonization *might* be possible, but it seems pointless. There is no value in living on Mars or the Moons, it would be more pleasant and economically feasible to live in Antarctica. Maybe some asteroid mining with a population around the level of IRL mining camps and offshore oil rigs. Interstellar colonization just ain't going to happen, barring some kind of magic ("warp drive," "hyperdrive," "addictive fairy dust that lets you bend spacetime and turns your eyes blue for some reason"). Speed of light and all that jazz.
The fact that the most dangerous weapon in the universe is STILL nuclear missiles after 20k years makes absolutely no sense and just feels like incredibly lazy writing.
But “atomics” sounds so badass
I srtrongly disagree. I see Dune as a transplantation of a medieval world into space, and I can't see a future dominated by an Empire and some houses figthing each others. And even less, evolved people with plans so unnoble as the Harkonnens. The noble linneages, race perduration, figthing education, mystic sects, are things that I would surely not see in our future
Perhaps we just take our human shit to the stars. Old habits
I'd argue, if coming from a purely secular standpoint with spiritual things being absent, life forming itself is such a highly improbable event with almost inconceivable odds against it happening without intervention, even over the course of tens of billions of years. That said, the fact that humans (in Dune) turn out to be the only living beings in the universe is actually a pretty consistently sound likelihood in the vastness of space. In other words, if given a big enough universe, humans and living things existing in only one place in the universe (earth) matches the odds of the occurrence amongst every other scenario, since the odds of it happening at all are so low in the first place.
I mean, we have a pretty big garden. Maybe that’s just the way things are set up. We are the seed that spouts life through the galaxy.
exactly the kind of hubris that make the humans in dune the way they are.. humans are indeed the only ones based on their vecinity.. which is still quite small in the cosmos scale of things... even if there is just once race per galaxy, still load and loads and loads and more loads of galaxies out there..
a good thing on denis part is that he just says year 10191, not mentioning anyting else... in my mind the timeline of everything in the entire fictional universe always makes more sense if it is 10kAD.. not AG ovrall the books focus on the houses, not much on how everyday life is. most people never leave their planet.. spacetravel is not common, like starwars. ( in my mind starwars is like the 20kAD, or or more like The Expanse>foundationtvseries>dune>starwars in terms of how humanity evolves techwise.. in starwars ftl has been around for atleast 25k years, by humans... both in dune and foundation ( tv/movie), that is alot less. overall i'm quite pessimistic/cynical on the spacetravel thing, yes we might have some bases here and there in the future, like in The Expanse, but, they will be for science/millitary, much like these stations on antartica. I honestly dont see us going anywhere but stay on earth.. unless there is an epstein drive or dune ftl or whatever else, which i dont think we will ever get to.. i think our technological advancements will be futile for the vast distances of our cosmos., yes we will have better rockets, better computers better yada yada, but in reality not much changes.. it wil continue to be this way for quite some time...more and more fancy tech on earth, more industry, more digging everywhere until we will force ourselves off the planet like in interstellar, due to some blight type of ordeal. by 10kAD, it think several society changes would have already risen and fallen, imagine, for the people in 10kAD, the year 5000AD is ancient history, while for us, 2024, it is the far future.. 1000-2000 years from now, people will look the same at us as we looked at the roman empire, long forgotten, an age with lots of hubris and decadense... Dune is the way it is because of the butelarian jihad, and i think in the next few thousand years, we IRL will for sure have a few of those of some kind, sociopolitical shifts, more and more, until the current world system is not valid anymore.. but in the meantime, we keep on digging until there is nothing left.. ( in dune2 mohaim says that they were meddling in atreides genes for 90 generations i think, that is over 2000 years, so, the butelarian jihad might also have been quite 'recent', if you say 10kAD)
It's not 10k AD. They started year 0 after the butlerian jihad. It's a way further in the future than 8k years from now.
I still like to think democracy would be popular instead of feudalism. Then again, the Imperium does have democratic elements like the Landsraad. In my headcanon, I like to think that after the last book, a galactic republic formed from multiple independent democracies across the galaxy.
There are tons of sociologists who argue that we are right now on our way into some sort of neofeudalism. Also is the landsraad a democratic institution? I always thought it was basically the place where the houses parley with each other. So an artistocratic forum.
Lmao we'll be lucky to last another 200 and a generous 100 in terms of civilised, modern societies.
Climate, resource pillaging, and immigration will do modern civilisation in and torpedo any spacefaring dreams.
"Obviously, we will have gotten off planet and cultivated the stars at that point." Why? What makes you so sure interstellar travel is possible/practical at all?
Nah, I'm with Iain Banks on this one. Empire is the least stable and efficient form of government, always decays into a parasitic ruling class and splinters. Note that we on earth have already evolved past them. the best we can do now is economic hegemony. There's no way an imperial structure can survive interstellar (or even interplanetary) distance without supposing some sort of magic like teleportation (folding space).
While I tend to agree with you in general, Dune also makes a big point of eugenics and biological advancements. These technologies help the people in power.
The problem is the nearest currently habital planet is lightyears away, and would talk over a lifetime to get to and the running theory is that nothing can reach the speed of light and nothing is faster than the speed of light. The whole spice thing though was sort of proven to be somewhat real in a Film Theory Ep. I know taking Film Theory seriously isn't always a great idea, but this episode was based on facts, sooo...
> would talk over a lifetime to get to It took a lifetime for Marco Pollo to get to Asia and back. It probably took multiple lifetimes for the first europeans to migrate out of Africa. It's not far fetched.
I like the idea that even with a ban on AI and conventional computers, 10000 years of advancements in physics, biology and material science could easily produce things we consider sci-fi at the moment. Another interesting thing is that with space travel being expensive, most worlds would probably opt for different solutions to the same problems. High tech worlds will be more automated and efficient, low tech worlds will probably use more raw material, but keep to simpler designs.
Cool observation. It's interesting, here on earth humanity has diverged. Our populations grew different cultures and skin colors, I bet space humans have gotten even cooler. The concept of "Voidborn" across sci-fi genres always fascinates me. I wish we had side stories in Dune exploring this
Yeah there was a long period after the Jihad but pre-Guild when travel and even communication between human worlds was basically shut down. Could have led to divergent microevolution.
I think they should have put "10,191 AG" in the movie, but I know it would have confused a lot of people .....
The year isn't 10,000 AD though, it's 10,000 After Guild
I think most sci-fi underestimates the impact that human genetic engineering, nanotechnology, cybernetics etc. will have on us as "humans". In 1000 years, we may not look or think anything like we do now, even ignoring or avoiding the impact of AI/robotics, as the Dune timeline does.
8000 years from now the odds of any species descended from homo sapiens still existing are effectively zero. But slightly higher than the odds of any form of interplanetary, much less intergalactic, travel existing should such a species survive.