By rereading the lengthy text of Dune, I realize that there is a wealth of detail that explains the book's success and that was inevitably left out of any of the three screen versions. Much of the detail is about personal loyalty in a feudal system. Anderson's Terran Empire is modern whereas Frank Herbert's interstellar Empire is medieval or even ancient. We appreciate the combination of messianism and space travel as in Anderson's The Day Of Their Return.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I only wish an accurate filmed adaptation of the Technic stories would be made!
A crucial event in the historical background of the DUNE timeline was the Butlerian Jihad, a war against the use of computers, so called "thinking machines." The banning of computers led to "Mentats," humans specially trained to do some functions of computers. A subset of the Mentats belonged to the Spacer Guild, using Mentat abilities assisted by the "spice" drug exported from Dune, for piloting FTL star ships.
I can see it being possible that, for religious reasons, there might be a reaction against the use of computers fierce enough to get them banned. But I don't see it as very likely that humans would be able to navigate FTL star ships without the use of computers. That is something of a strain that Herbert is asking of his readers.
Yes, compared to Anderson's Terran Empire, Herbert's Empire, ruled by House Corrino, does seem very feudal. But we have both seen how Lord Hauksberg commented in ENSIGN FLANDRY on how feudalism was growing within the Terran Empire. That was not necessarily a bad thing--because even incipient feudalism would give many planets something to fall back on once the Empire fell.
I think Anderson's use of how Messianism could be used for political purposes in THE DAY OF THEIR RETURN was more plausibly worked out in that story than in Herbert's DUNE. Mostly because the idea in DUNE of how there was an unconscious drive/urge/need among the human colonized planets for a mixing of genes doesn't make sense, when examined.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: agreed on the genes thing.
The thing is, people are 'set up' to favor those with the -same- genes as them. That's the effect, in a hunter-gather environment, of the intense clannishness characteristic of that setup.
Because the people in your immediate social reference group are going to be your close relatives.
That doesn't necessarily apply in modern (or for that matter, Roman) times, of course.
It's typical of the 'kludge' way evolution operates. It selects for certain things -in a given environment-.
The instinctual inclinations, however, can persist and be counterproductive in a -different- environment.
We spent over 300,000 years as hunter-gatherers in small closely-related bands. Only in the past 8-10,000 years have other arrangements become common.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, albeit I would add our agreements are sometimes because they converge along different lines of thought to meet at those agreements.
Ad astra! Sean
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