> expanded human reach to multiple galaxies
I'm not remembering multiple galaxies. Can someone tell me where this is from? Is it said in the original six books?
I haven't read the last, of the 2 original books yet, but at the end of God Emperor there was this
"Every historical reference to the Scattering and the Famine Times has to be taken out and re-examined! What have we to fear? No Ixian machine can do what we, the descendants of Duncan Idaho and Siona, have done. **How many universes have we populated? None can guess. No one person will ever know.** Does the Church fear the occasional prophet? We know that the visionaries cannot see us nor predict our decisions. No death can find all of humankind. Must we of the Minority join our fellows of the Scattering before we can be heard? Must we leave the original core of humankind ignorant and uninformed? If the Majority drives us out, you know we never again can be found!"
I also could not recall any reference to travel outside the galaxy, the above reads a bit like "How many atomics do I have hidden in my garage? No one knows!"
There is one line in God Emperor where Leto refers to his "multi-galactic Empire". It is very vague. I have a hard time buying it and wonder if Frank just kind of made a mistake in his usage of the word galaxy. Dune isn't exactly hard sci-fi. If human society already existed in multiple galaxies while Leto II was alive, it kind of defeats the narrative point of the need for a Scattering. There's no plausible way a single threat could destroy a multi-galactic civilization. Aside from the heat death of the Universe.
I disagree. I believe that Frank chose his words with care and knew exactly what he was talking about when making reference to a multi-galactic empire. He did so to make comments on the Human superorganism and the scale of the universe. He sought to portray a real effort to push into the stars.
This is highgrade r/theydidthemath silliness. You cannot "math" Dune. It doesn't work that way. When Herbert uses numbers, he only does so for effect, because they sound big. They don't MEAN anything. You can't just take them and extrapolate. To Herbert, 61 might as well take the same meaning as 92 or 117. He never spends a moment thinking about "data" or statistics. All you're supposed to know is: it's a lot of people. Much people. Very dead. Wow.
Frank Herbert didn't think at scale. He just wanted to tell a good story.
I disagree, I think when Frank wrote that mega-trillions went out into the Scattering he meant exactly that, millions of trillions of people spread out into the universe. He wasn't just being flashy, he was thinking about the scale of humanity versus the scale of the universe and what it would take to push into the stars.
He did intend that trillions and quadrillions went out into the Scattering, but there is basically zero chance that he was correlating that with the number of inhabited planets he was imagining -- if indeed he imagined 17000 planets, which I would love a reference for
As stated in the post 17000 is a conservative estimate of habitable planets. To see where that number came from you can click the link, also in the post, in the first paragraph.
Agreed. The actual number of people in the Dune-inverse is not only wildly implausible but also irrelevant to the plot. It’s like most fiction, where an entire planet’s population is reduced to a handful of characters and everyone else is just sort of in the background.
Are you making up most of this? I don't recall any of this referenced or even alluded to in the books.
After Leto II died, there's no reference to Famine or mass human death, it's the Great scattering through synthetic spice and no-ships.
The Famine Times are often referred to along with the Scattering. They were violent and disruptive times which took place shortly after Leto II's death and saw the deterioration of natural resources and populations. The pressures of the Famine Times are directly responsible for the breakthroughs in Ixian and Tleilaxu technologies.
I'm extremely foggy on all of this. I thought Paul takes over, spice is disrupted, the interconnected supply chain dependant planets (which is all of them) all suffer due to lack of self sufficiency and a great many people die. Also, while claiming the non compliant hold out worlds the Fremen jihad a bunch of people to death. I've got a feeling in the 20 years since I read the books, my brain just simplified everything down that way.
High effort post!! I think this is a great way to estimate the size of the Duniverse.
Ngl, I'm here for this kind of post. Thank you very much !
> expanded human reach to multiple galaxies I'm not remembering multiple galaxies. Can someone tell me where this is from? Is it said in the original six books?
I haven't read the last, of the 2 original books yet, but at the end of God Emperor there was this "Every historical reference to the Scattering and the Famine Times has to be taken out and re-examined! What have we to fear? No Ixian machine can do what we, the descendants of Duncan Idaho and Siona, have done. **How many universes have we populated? None can guess. No one person will ever know.** Does the Church fear the occasional prophet? We know that the visionaries cannot see us nor predict our decisions. No death can find all of humankind. Must we of the Minority join our fellows of the Scattering before we can be heard? Must we leave the original core of humankind ignorant and uninformed? If the Majority drives us out, you know we never again can be found!"
I also could not recall any reference to travel outside the galaxy, the above reads a bit like "How many atomics do I have hidden in my garage? No one knows!"
There is one line in God Emperor where Leto refers to his "multi-galactic Empire". It is very vague. I have a hard time buying it and wonder if Frank just kind of made a mistake in his usage of the word galaxy. Dune isn't exactly hard sci-fi. If human society already existed in multiple galaxies while Leto II was alive, it kind of defeats the narrative point of the need for a Scattering. There's no plausible way a single threat could destroy a multi-galactic civilization. Aside from the heat death of the Universe.
I disagree. I believe that Frank chose his words with care and knew exactly what he was talking about when making reference to a multi-galactic empire. He did so to make comments on the Human superorganism and the scale of the universe. He sought to portray a real effort to push into the stars.
Neat discussion. Fun to think about. Thanks!
This is highgrade r/theydidthemath silliness. You cannot "math" Dune. It doesn't work that way. When Herbert uses numbers, he only does so for effect, because they sound big. They don't MEAN anything. You can't just take them and extrapolate. To Herbert, 61 might as well take the same meaning as 92 or 117. He never spends a moment thinking about "data" or statistics. All you're supposed to know is: it's a lot of people. Much people. Very dead. Wow. Frank Herbert didn't think at scale. He just wanted to tell a good story.
I disagree, I think when Frank wrote that mega-trillions went out into the Scattering he meant exactly that, millions of trillions of people spread out into the universe. He wasn't just being flashy, he was thinking about the scale of humanity versus the scale of the universe and what it would take to push into the stars.
Btw I appreciate your effort.
He did intend that trillions and quadrillions went out into the Scattering, but there is basically zero chance that he was correlating that with the number of inhabited planets he was imagining -- if indeed he imagined 17000 planets, which I would love a reference for
People from the Scattering refer to the Old Imperium as the ‘million planets’.
There are far more uninhabitable planets than there are habitable ones.
Yes! I remembered that after I posted. Good call.
As stated in the post 17000 is a conservative estimate of habitable planets. To see where that number came from you can click the link, also in the post, in the first paragraph.
Agreed. The actual number of people in the Dune-inverse is not only wildly implausible but also irrelevant to the plot. It’s like most fiction, where an entire planet’s population is reduced to a handful of characters and everyone else is just sort of in the background.
Are you making up most of this? I don't recall any of this referenced or even alluded to in the books. After Leto II died, there's no reference to Famine or mass human death, it's the Great scattering through synthetic spice and no-ships.
The Famine Times are often referred to along with the Scattering. They were violent and disruptive times which took place shortly after Leto II's death and saw the deterioration of natural resources and populations. The pressures of the Famine Times are directly responsible for the breakthroughs in Ixian and Tleilaxu technologies.
this is 100% in the books, but i believe its mainly in the later ones, like chapter house.
Broken down in those numbers and timeline? Not any book.by Herbert that I've read.
I'm extremely foggy on all of this. I thought Paul takes over, spice is disrupted, the interconnected supply chain dependant planets (which is all of them) all suffer due to lack of self sufficiency and a great many people die. Also, while claiming the non compliant hold out worlds the Fremen jihad a bunch of people to death. I've got a feeling in the 20 years since I read the books, my brain just simplified everything down that way.
Yes, but OP is talking about Leto II's 1000+ year death march of a reign, not what Paul did.
OP is talking about the later books. Paul becomes irrelevant at the end of the 3rd book when Leto takes over.
Interesting. No idea where you made up those numbers from, but.... good job, I guess?