Dune: The Scattering & Leto's 'Great Enemy'
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Leto Atreides the Second, known to the universe as The God Emperor, ruled over all of mankind from 10205 AG to 13724 AG. Throughout his 3,000 year rule, Leto had oppressed mankind. In his totalitarian regime, travel between planets was prohibited for the vast majority of the imperial inhabitants. Throughout the empire, the people lived in similar homes and lived similar lives. There was no progress and people were not free to seek out their own desires as they had once been. They had peace, or at least the sense of it, but no liberty.
When Leto II died so did his empire. Humanity was plunged into the famine times. For so long men had relied upon the God Emperor for all of their needs. In this time the natural resources of many planets were plundered, technologies dismantled and repurposed. The scarcity during these times lead to a lot of human suffering but for the first time in millennia, mankind was free to choose its own destiny. Mankind was also wary of another Emperor such as Leto II the tyrant. As a result of the famine times and the fear of another Tyrant. They looked to the stars, many chose to flee the old Empire into the far reaches of space.
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The weird thing about leaving thousands of years worth of journals is that no one person could ever read/watch them all. There is more knowledge in Leto than a person has lifespan to experience.
You'd need to set up hundreds of universities to study them, with redundancy, and still have hundreds of specialties and inter-disciplinary conferences to even try to get an overview.
Leto knew how the Bene Gesserit would consolidate the knowledge he left behind and that it would eventually be collected via the work of many scholars and the sharing of memories.
Mentets could?
A mentat could...
@@zakmehn
Wow I didn't see your post, but yes they could lol
oh, if only old frank had lived a bit longer, the places he may have taken us
The butlerian jihad wouldn't have been messed up!
Same can be said of Lovecraft and many others.
God made Frank and h can make even better.
@@shanechristie6696 how exactly is the Butlerian Jihad messed up? The books that followed are literally based on Herbert's sketches and notes.
@@egotakeovertaku5382 You don't observe a difference between Brian and Franks versions of the Butlerian Jihad?
I feel like the most overlooked effect of the God Worms rule is the fact he made them less reliant on a single source of spice for space travel, creation of a synthetic ultimately unties the bonds to dune and the Empire of old
It's amazing that as you read the dune novels you learn more about human behavior than any collage classes can teach you
@@jonathancox1231This just sounds like a cope
@@jonathancox1231 ummm
I’m still amazed at the balls Leto had he knew all of mankind would hate him but he made that sacrifice in order to save them it’s such a great idea.
@Jason Larsen I think certain facets of Trump's views and rhetoric are well-intentioned and even justified, but other moves that he or his close allies make seem incredibly myopic, like Trump lives in the now with little understanding of all the implications of the future.
Plus he's a climate change denier and spoke about vaccines causing autism, so that definitely doesn't help his case for me.
Leto's a fictional character. You're worshipping a corrupt rich dude who sacrificed so much that he's profiting from the Trump org while in power.
@@arielstulberg the strongest parallel between Trump and the God Emperor is how they show how vulnerable our system of governance is to exploitation. Trump does this unknowingly. Trump is also a black mirror to all the ugliness and self-serving corruption that has infected our government for decades but not as a renunciation of it as he campaigned: he is the fruition of it. What we do with this repulsive image in our "black mirror" going forward matters. There's little chance of Trump normalizing himself but if Trump normalizes the war crimes of other presidents we'll have failed to learn from the experience. If we let the elites who disenfranchised their own constituents so much that Trump was elected wholly blame a foreign government for his election we'll have failed to learn from the experience.
Andrew Church I think there’s a lot right about this. I’d add that Trump exposes issues with our society and values, not just our politics. That said I’m Russian born with Russian family, trained in international relations, specializing in rhetoric, tech and disinfo and all that. you’re right that russia can’t be a scapegoat for everything, but we shouldn’t play that connection down either. Trump represents an international oligarchy.
@@arielstulberg that's true. I don't believe corporatist oligarchs are primarily driven by patriotism either though, they don't care whose backs they make their bucks on and they'll exploit whoever they can to achieve their ends. If they can convince people that everything that's wrong is just Trump and not the corruption and disenfranchisement that led to his election they'll get their way.
The beginning of this sounds like they lived in the Imperium of Man, which makes sense since Dune inspired much of 40k.
Yes. 40k takes inspiration from many sources e.g. Chaos from Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels
Dune inspired a shit ton of stuff
@@TheTransitmtl we stand on the shoulders of giants. We take our inspiration from our heroes
The sad thing is that in 40k Humanity didn't follow the Emperor's plan.
Yeah, leto was called the God Emperor of Dune. God emperor of mankind. You can put the pieces together.
It’s really sad, Leto could relive the memories of any human before him. He could have placed himself as the greatest ruler humanity had ever seen, but had to make himself a tyrant to preserve humanity in the long run
Remember who has the button to take you with them 😂
The scattering is a goldmine for artists and designers, and even writers, it´s the Dune plotline with more mystery and possibilities. An awesome way to turn the screw on what was alreeady a masterfully tied universe.
The more I learn about Leto, the greater my respect grows for him.
Right , Herbert,s mind was amazing,I've learned more about human nature and behavior in reading the dune books than any collage classes could teach
“There are no innocents anymore.”
-Paul Muad'Dib Atreides
“I will be innocent again.”
-Leto II Atreides
Leto only needed to send some No Ship style Highligners as colony ships. It could cut off prescience tracking, allowing entire branches of humanity to never be found.
Was not the honored matres already " scattered" out of prescience reach?
I always thought Siona's visions of the 'hunter seekers' implied the Machines.
In the visions they are yes machines with precience
The enemy as I saw it was a self-aware Hunter-Seeker, the assumption being that if it attained prescience, no human could ever hide from it. If you ignore the Brian Herbert novels, The Honored Matres seem to have fled back into the Empire to escape Scattered Tleilaxu. "Would you return defenceless to face the Ones of Many Faces? Would you become vegetables?"
And it's implied the old man and woman are just that. The ultimate Face Dancers. So much so the crew fled into another universe. Makes one wonder what's out there.
The great enemy is so terrifying and powerful that the only thing they could do was to either flee or hide.
"The expanded Dune books by brian her...." I stopped here ^^ Great video anyways, I hope Villeneuve watch it ^^
There are six Dune Books and Frank is their Author.
I always thought the 'Great Enemy' that Leto was talking about was the 'predator' to our 'prey,' a constant pressure that encourages humanity to become faster, stronger, more versatile thru evolution. For instance, the Bene Gesserit control most of the Old Empire, but they were overthrown by the Honored Matres, who in turn were fleeing an even more powerful enemy. Each of them were prey to others, each were predator to others, and that required them to grow and change. When you look at the whole original series, in Dune there is all these different people but they only do one thing: Mentats, Face Dancers, Bene Gesserit, swordmasters etc. Like different breeds of dogs, bred for a purpose. But in Heretics you have Ixians, different Bene Gesserit, Bene Tleilax, all jockeying for position and being confronted by new rivals, much more like different packs of wild animals. God-Emperor always struck me as more meta, more about the ideas of evolution and strength thru growth thru adversity, that's why I never really considered the series to have a 'missing' book. The expanded books with the artificial intelligence just didn't seem to resonate with the scale of epic that the original did. Chapterhouse ended perfectly for me, some things got resolved, others didn't, but it was just a small window on a time after Leto, it was never meant to be a complete story just a chapter in an eternal one.
Interesting take. I haven't read the books but I get what you're saying.
@Justin Madsen: THAT!!! Thank you!
the AI great enemy seems like such a cop-out. i really hope that was not Herbert's original idea
"the Bene Gesserit control most of the Old Empire, but they were overthrown by the Honored Matres" Im pretty sure BG were never a major power since Leto II became the Emperor.
Successful predators don't hunt their prey to extinction. Leto had to do something unnatural himself to save humanity from something non human.
He played the long game and use human psychology to force them to migrate and evolve such genius
So it's basically that theory about Palpatine that says he was militarizing the galaxy to fight the Yuzhon Vong, except its not a theory here.
And it predates StarWars for about two decades :D I would bet, one George Lucas might also have read the Dune books.
@@robertnett9793 Maybe. Though the Yuuzhan Vong weren't his idea.
At first the Emperor was supposed to be unimportant. In the novellisation of the first movie, he's described as just a senator who ended up Emperor, but pretty much a puppet for the the real bad guys. Though Lucas changed his mind about it, and made him simply a figure of pure evil.
Lucas wasn't really interested in doing something more complex than a good old good vs evil story inspired by the Flash Gordon serials of his youth (among other things). At most he partly saw the Empire as taking its roots in Nixon's America and liked the trope of the plucky Vietcong defeating à vastly more powerful and technologically advanced opponent. With laser swords thrown in because they're just cool.
@@MrRemicas the Yuuzhan Vong actually was his idea. In the 90’s, during the launch of the New Jedi Order era of the Expanded Universe, they originally wanted to make a resurgent Sith species the enemy of the era, but Lucas vetoed it and was one of the people who created the Yuuzhan Vong as an alternative
Not at all. The Emperor was a tyrant in itself, a skilfull politician and a powerful sith lord who wanted to rule the galaxy throught terror and control. He wasn’t even aware of the threat of the Yuuzhan Vong. Thrawn, on the other hand knew about this threat and he joined the Empire in an attempt to use the Empire to fight this menace in order to protect his people, the Chiss and the rest of the galaxy.
God Emperor of Dune - my favorite book of the saga. I read it periodically.
Me too
I am finishing the Heretics and up to now, is my favorite
@@danieldesouzaesilva1420 Heretics and Chapterhouse are definitely my favorites - it's my favorite "era" in the saga for sure. It's where shit suddenly starts getting dialed to 11 and things suddenly feel very "real" - like the stakes are now raised to heretofore unprecedented levels, but exactly how and why that is the case still feels vague enough to make everything feel so mysterious! it's so awesome!
Then when I finished Chapterhouse and was introduced to Daniel and Marty, I couldn't help but feel that these two were extraordinarily dangerous bad news for the rest of the characters, whatever they were actually supposed to be. I found them both intriguing and terrifying because of how little I understood about them, yet the way they spoke what they spoke about with each other, though it was all frustratingly vague, still made them sound extremely threatening, and emphasized in my mind just how STUPID LUCKY the No Ship with our characters on board was to have escaped them, and that if they HAD been caught, they would've not only all died, but suffered hideously on their way out.
This is all solely MY OWN feelings on them and the impression they left on me from back when I first read the books. I was 14 at the time lol. But they've always kept the same impression on me each reread. Brian and Kevin's, ehm... "creative choices" (I used that term very charitably, too...) for Daniel and Marty were extremely disappointing to me and didn't feel at all genuine to what Frank himself had planned for them... NOT a fan AT ALL... they stripped Daniel and Marty of ALL their mystery and ambiguity and therefore their "creepiness" factor just evaporated and they didn't actually feel dangerous anymore. So I don't consider Hunters or Sandworms canon at all. There's NO WAY that what became of Daniel and Marty in those books was "based on his notes". I call bullshit lol. There was actually an atmosphere of dread and extreme but unknown danger all throughout Heretics and Chapterhouse that feels lessened but something being built towards in the first 4 books, but is all but TOTALLY absent in pretty much ALL of Brian and Kevin's prequels, sequels and interquels..
even in the Prelude trilogy, which features an INVASION of Ix by the Tleilaxu, is a scenario that I imagine Frank being VICIOUSLY graphic with, taking to borderline horror-level scales. Given what we know about the Tleilaxu and what they're CAPABLE of, I personally SHUDDER at the thought of what an having a group like the Tleilaxu actually OCCUPYING my home world That's the kind of reaction they're SUPPOSED to create in us! Brian and Kevin's take on the whole ordeal just feels.... deflated. There's no real tension or feeling of horrific dread in what sort of body-horror fate could await any character that ends up in their clutches, nor is nothing really new or interesting revealed about them... it's just... a sci-fi invasion/rebellion tale any starting sci-fi writer would LITERALLY shit out WHILE SITTING on the shitter....
I m still convinced, as I was then, that Daniel and Marty - and any others like them whom we may have never been made aware of, are indeed the "Great Enemy" Leto II
@@illuminocalypse5210 That does it! As someone who loved the original 6 (read in high school in the late 80s), and after having read several like- minded readers on YT and social media trash the BH/KJA books, I cement my decision to never read them.
It sounds like they'll just leave a bad taste in my mouth. There are too many other great reads out there to waste my time with these.
Thank you!
Can pumpkin spice allow me to achieve faster than light speed?
Ya need allspice for that
No, you need Old Spice Red Zone Body Wash.
You're all wrong. You need pumpkin super spice.
😆
maybe because of all the calories sure to accompany it.
or if an alcoholic beverage will be present.
i myself however would prefer "sage" to enhance the mind. can be false advertisement though.
The pumpkin must flow!!!
I just started Dune for the first time and credit this channel with making that happen. I'm already 7 hours into the audiobook and loving it. Can't wait to get into this Leto material later on!
To each their own, but I say that you should save all of these ASOIAF videos to a playlist and then not touch them until you are through the books. There is so much to discover in these books, and being primed on the big reveals through these videos may lessen their impact when you get there. My two cents is to blow through the books, and then return to these videos for awesome context and commentary that will flesh out your understanding and love of the series.
Glad to hear that you are enjoying it so far though! It really is a wonderful series.
Leto's Ghost: "All according to keikaku..."
The other scattered humans eventually became The Imperium of Mankind led by Leto's Ghola The Emperor Of Mankind in the Warhammer:40K universe ;)
and the great enemy is the great crusade seeking to destroy the old imperium
You speak great heresy. You’re end shall be well deserved.
@@vickyvvvv8182 There is a flaw in this. If the Emperor is Leto's Ghola, meaning that he wants to reshape the old one, why give the old ”empire” the ability to resist the new one?
This theory might work with the Parriah gene, although it is known that it was placed by the Deciever.
Leto II Atreides is, to me at least, an excellent metaphor of what it means to be a parent.
Dune is one of my favorite universes with the craziest lore of all time, I love these videos!
What an amazing beautiful horrifying world Herbert's mind was,
Chapterhouse demonstrates that Leto failed. The super Face Dancers who called themselves Daniel and Marty had prescience so powerful that they could not only see the last Duncan Idaho ghola, who was himself prescient and thus should have been invisible to prescience, but they could see him while he was sequestered *inside* a no-ship! By definition, Leto could not foresee what would happen in the Scattering. He could not see no-ships or people with the Siona gene. That meant that much of what happened in the Scattering was hidden from his prescient vision. Perhaps, in worrying so much about a machine threat, Leto neglected to consider the *biological* threat posed by the Bene Tleilaxu and their ongoing efforts to create more evolved Face Dancers? After all, in the course of evolution, species are frequently replaced by other species with superior adaptations. The Butlerian Jihad naively obsessed over the mechanical, and neglected the biological. Through genetic engineering, a species capable of replacing humanity could be created. The super Face Dancers were post-humans, capable of changing their forms, stealing the minds of others and ultimately developing prescience even greater than Leto's.
If anyone understood evolution it was Leto. Humans evolving into the Face Dancers at the end of Chapterhouse I believe would be a far superior option to Leto than being conquered and exterminated by machines. It is still humanity, just a new and different version of it.
@@kennethfharkin No, it is *different species* that would be *replacing* humanity. The only difference between a future of Face Dancers and thinking machines would be that the Face Dancers are biological rather than mechanical. But they are still *artificial* and *not* a product of evolution.
@@daniels7907 I do not know if I agree with you. Evolution is the propagation of beneficial traits to the survival of the species. That means something as simple as dog breeding for certain traits is evolution in action. Likewise Leto's own breeding plan was evolution, again controlled by a specific will just as dog breeders breed for certain traits. The Face Dancers have developed through biology other traits which they have reinforced through their own breeding programs because we cannot forget what those "tanks" actually are.
Face Dancers are still derived from humans and are biological beings. Machines absolutely are not.
Who knows, perhaps Face Dancers are the variation of humanity which will move forward as the others fade like Neanderthal did. Perhaps the presence of Face Dancers in their new forms will allow all of humanity to thrive thanks to the added diversity. Sadly we will never know because the series died with Frank Herbert and nothing written since is worth pissing on to put out if it were on fire.
@@kennethfharkin I know this is science fiction. But the amount of genetic difference required to support the various Face Dancer traits, most especially shapeshifting, is just too great to even call them a human sub-species. We have more in common with dogs than we would have with Face Dancers.
Remember, they were designed to be *tools* of their Tleilaxu masters, not an independent population. And they only look human in order to blend in. They could not even procreate and had to be grown in Axolotl Tanks. So the Tleilaxu had no motive to design them to be even close to humans genetically-speaking. Just consider that the closest thing in nature to their shapeshifting ability is found in cephalopods!
They themselves have no need to try to bring themselves closer to the human species. After all, they can mimic us at will, and even steal our minds. Humans did *not* "evolve" into Face Dancers. Humans *created* Face Dancers, who now seek to replace humanity.
@@kennethfharkin yea you don't understand evolution at all, the fact your even remotely suggesting neathrals are homosapien is laughable and down right stupid willful ignorance.
Before the kid's work, I assumed the great enemy were aliens of some kind.
Frank Herbert had a beautiful mind
Nope, he was just interested. Enough to learn, enough to think, enough to write. You do not need to be special to write, only the need.
@@walangchahangyelingden8252 So where is your Dune, "thinker"?
@@OkurkaBinLadin Still searching. How about you?
Awesome video that is always high quality and thought out. Keep Them Coming and once again, thank you for reawakening the need to read Dune !!
Where do you get the artwork?
I read the books over 20 years ago and am glad to get a refresher in your series.
Thank you.
Loved this video and your narration! You should do a segment on Face Dancers.
Hard agree!
he did they are called tileaux ua-cam.com/video/kS746z41Mw4/v-deo.html
I wonder if the Great Enemy isn't a specific 'entity' or 'bad guy' so to speak. It's more of a 'end to humanity' type concept. Be it an immortal-esque tyrant like Leto himself, but dictatorial, cruel and with not even a basic sense of empathy. Or it's a super AI with intent on exterminating all life, etc. etc. It's about preparing and changing humanity to the point of avoiding those types of ends, and also prepare them to resist that kind of enemy should the 'perfect end' not be reached.
Ding ding ding...we have a winner,the worm god saw the honored matres were coming to come, and on there heels,the machines
@@jonathancox1231 Im just nerding over the concept of 'not a specific Big Bad', so to speak. But more of a Maze-navigation with one wrong path taken leads to utter destruction for humanity.
Loved the first book. Read the next two. The story got labored. Now its just a mess of ideas from a bunch of different writers. Dune was always.a slow, thoughtful story with a lot of drama and a little action to top it off. It needs some compelling writing to take off again. I like the core concept of man vs machine.
The time after he died would make an awesome RPG.
Indeed it does! I actually made a homebrew campaign setting based in the Heretics/Chapterhouse era using GURPS - I ran it for my friends about a decade ago and the campaign lasted about 2 years. It was a REALLY fun setting :)
Let me know if you'd ever be interested in having a look at what I made! I'd be happy to share it with anyone who'd like to see it ^_^
@@illuminocalypse5210 I want to see it.
✝️✝️
honestly, i belive the "golden path" is actually what causes the great enemy as well.
As always, a great video. But there is an unknown factor in the last three books, that stands out of the general theory of the Golden Path. This is the constant recreation of Duncan Idaho as a ghola with awakened memories. I think that is pretty much the only thing that BH and KJA got right. Duncan had a purpose to become the ultimate real Kwizatz Haderach.
And on a side note. Am I the only one that see the similarities between the advanced Face Dancers of Dune, and the Faceless men in ASOIAF. For all we know, they could have replaced all significat people in the world, and nobody outside, except perhaps Aray (and the Night King?), would know it. Just a wild fan theory. :)
Duncan is the avatar of Free Will. He's a cosmic constant, a wild card, the inverted KH, that glimmer of chaos that keeps the universe free. He is free from fate, destiny, even death. A real god hiding in plain sight.
There is a lot of similarities between Dune and ASoIaF.
While I have never read that he has, I'm going to guess George R Martin was influenced by Dune.
I agree. There are too many similarities for it to be coincidental. And if you're a Fantasy/Scifi author, it is quite improbable to NOT having read at least the first book.
I am the one who has posted this fact in many places MANYTIMES AND how their concept parallel the Star Trek DS9 writers' concept of Changlings changing faces identities.
GRRM has said manytimes he is also a fan of scifi and probabaly beside Tolkien taken many theme ideas from DUNE Frank Herbert. Star Wars Prequels Lucas tried to quick introduce a mercenary changling creaturespy in the Prequels Attack of the Clones
Dune Revenant is a better than Brian Herbert fan novel published to continue Frank's Chronicles - download links to pdfs -
www.oocities.org/dune_revenant/ It posits that the Terror attacking the Honored Matres evolved from the Face Dancer Txlexiu who ended up merging themselves after dying into a one huge omni being from all of the individuals they aborbed mimicking. Like the StarTrek DS9 Greatlink going out enmass to attack absorb all solids.
Cool down. I didn't say I was first about anything. :) I didn't think about the changelings in ST DS9. That's a similar concept. However I would say that Star Trek and the Dominion is a much thinner idea with less background theory than the Tleilaxu, who are deep down religious fanatics (powindah!). They gained immortality through replicating themselves as gholas. They sent their face dancers into the scattering where they acheive independency of mind and come back to kick their butts (if you believe that they were the real enemy). Philosophically it is a way more complex concept, and conceived of much earlier than Star Trek or Star Wars.
Would love to see what happened during those years, of vast space travel! I want to see what happened to Vorian Atriedes, when did he die, if he died at all! Was he the last to survive, with the life extension process? He might be still traveling the cosmos!
I've only made it up to God Emperor of Dune so I don't know what the last 2 official Frank Herbert books entail on the subject. One thing that's puzzled me about the Dune universe is the apparent lack of biological machines that were bred (like the star wars legends yuuzhan vong or Species 8472 in Star Trek) and not built in light of the ideological pendulum swinging back against mechanical machines of the Butlerian Jihad and yet having the role of machines an empty void of sorts. The closest I could come would be the eagerness of the sand trout wanting to join with Leto II (which implies that they might have been bred for that purpose by some long extinct civilization).
Assuming that the great enemy that Leto II feared is a biological machine race it probably has some sort of genetic ancestor of humans in order to utilize prescience (barring the route that anything biological can be simulated by a mechanical machine and thus tap into prescience which does seem to be a Frank Herbert theme).
Just an idea I wanted to share as there is know way to ever know that is what Frank Herbert intended.
Bene Tleilaxu are experts on "biological machines". Face Dancers is a great example. Or that sligs they produce. Even the Tleilaxu masters themselves are continuous re-incarnations of themselves.
It seems like your characterisations of the Golden Path are usually no more than the survival of humankind. But surely Leto's plan was an even more noble plan of the Bene Geserit which was to refine human beings to the point where they no longer treated one another in a savage way?
I believe this was Leto's ultimate goal but of course humanity has to survive first.
However, during Leto's reight and afterwards I don't see any evidence of humanity improving in terms of their savagery.
And I don't buy into the idea that Leto could be so oppressive that people would forever resist tyrants. Perhaps for a time but the memory would fade and the cycle would continue.
If anything, the Honored Matres were far more savage than any of the houses of the old empire; even more so than the Harkonans.
NewsRedial
The series takes a rather pessimistic view of the human future.
But the implication of Chapterhouse is that the Honored Matres are not the evil force they appear to be. Barbarous though they are they offer the Bene Gesserit the possibility of rejuvenation.
No... that is not the case. He did not intend for them to become nobler, only better equipped to survive by any means necessary. This means making their ideologies, technologies, and genetics more diverse while also making humanity more adaptable as a whole. The Benne Gesserit's path is not consistent with this goal, because it operates on ideologies that limit those very things in order to bring them towards a defined preset common goal.
The Benne Gesserit Sisterhood's name belies their goals and ideologies. Benne Gesserit is literally Latin for "Well Governed," and they intended to ensure mankind was just that. Leto, on the other hand, wanted to make ANY such attempt to govern/control/rule humanity as a whole impossible in the future. In this way he intended to ensure that it was impossible for humanity to be wholly destroyed. Basically while he used their methods and commandeered their breeding program, his goals were diametrically opposed to those of the Benne Gesserit.
That said I agree on the latter part that it is impossible to create an instinctive fear of tyrants in humanity to the point where mankind would be instinctively resistant to allowing anyone to rule them. As you mentioned... such memories fade. Its folly to believe otherwise.
Leto the II told Duncan that he was teaching mankind's genes a lesson that they could never forget.
@@napoliansolo7865 I know... and its rather idiotic to think that it was possible to ingrain such an abstract lesson on a genetic level. Even if you take it as him meaning it in the sense of cultural genes (AKA memes) in other words a memetic sense such a message would only last so long before getting warped, twisted, obscured, and forgotten over time. Really the ONLY things he could do were to make sure that mankind scatters in such a way that their culture, technology, genetics, ideologies, habitats, and even locations become infinitely diverse... while also ensuring that they are not beholden to prescience.
He was likely aware of this, thus did just that, while also creating an instinctive fear of tyranny within mankind's culture as a whole that would last as long as possible. Thus ensuring the scattering and infinite diversification of mankind, before any such attempts were made. In this way he was able to ensure mankind's survival no matter what, by making it impossible to destroy as a whole.
I refuse to believe that what Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson wrote, was what Frank Herbert intended.
When I imagine Leto’s Great Enemy, I picture something like The Reapers. Y’know, the enormous, genocidal sentient ships from the Mass Effect games? I dunno, the way Frank describes this great enemy in God Emperor of Dune just sounds very similar to me. Makes me wonder if thats what Frank Herbert was originally going for….if so, then it really shows how hard Brian and Kevin screwed the pooch in Hunters and Sandworms.
Arguably the best ever Sci-fi series of books ever written. The knowledge and imagination of Herbert is awe inspiring. I selfishly wish he lived longer to write more books after Chapterhouse.
I absolutely LOVE this channel, your expositions are always enlightening...can you tell me please where in GEOD does Leto II refer to this machine god He fears is coming for humanity? Thanks.
i seriously appreciate all the work you put into this! ive been inspired to finish reading the original 6 books! i only got so far as to finish children of dune when i read them 15 years ago. i decided to re read the original trilogy and im so glad i did, what a different perspective i have reading it as an adult rather than a teenager. still impactful as ever. i was crying when the children of dune were born . thank you so much!
Right as you get older you can appreciate the world that Herbert created,
What if the great enemy is the fear itself that there would be one despite of probably not happening ever?
I know, old video here. But I've been thinking about this "Great Enemy" on my Dune Saga reread. I think this threat to all mankind and the universe is actually Daniel & Marty. Or rather Frank Herbert & his wife. He's basically the God who created the Dune universe. He can also destroy it. I also think The Ghola Duncan realized this when he finally saw them. This is similar to The Never Ending Story, where book characters realize they're part of a story that could just end at any moment.
Since IX had ships, why haven't it filled the power vacuum, created by Leto's demise by restoring communication between worlds, saving them from famine?
I just had an idea what the great enemy coul've been. How about a Ghola of Leto II, who came to a different conclusion about humanity? Such a being surely could create a machine empire and wage a terrible war of destruction.
all good but how would of The Bene Tleilax have gotten his DNA to create a ghola?
@@luketurner1386 the last Tleilax Master in exile on Wallach and hidden from the Honored Matres by the Bene Geserit had a no-capsule hidden in his chest containing vast amounts of cells, ranging from Muad'dib to Duncan and Stilgar and Chani and all the others. As how to get Leto II. cells? He was wounded by the lions and his cloak soaked in blood. The cloak was presented as proof of Leto's death, so there would be DNA on it from Leto II.
Leto was last year's model. Miles Teg (a descendant of Ghanima and Farad'n) would manifest prescience capable of detecting no-ships, something even Leto could not do. Likewise, the last Duncan Idaho ghola, as well as the super Face Dancers calling themselves Daniel and Marty, had prescience that could extend *inside* a no-ship! By the time of Chapterhouse Dune, setting out to recreate Paul or Leto would, if anything, have been setting the bar *way* too low!
@yeah, right In what way?
Love your vids man.
Especialy your Dune vids.
So glad my friend introduced me to your channel!
Crazy how much of Frank Herbert's work was directly plagiarised by game's workshop in creating warhammer 40k.
And now they're really out here telling people not to produce anything from "their" intellectual property.
The audacity is staggering.
game workshop have orcs, elves and demons too, so they copy lord of the rings, dune and starship troopers novel with the power armor stuff
I can feel that if Frank are setting up the Great Enemy that Leto's preparing for.. but unfortunately he passed away..
Fair and unbiased. I like this one. Keep it up.
They fled enhanced Face-Dancers according to Chapterhouse Dune.
I'm really glad that you make a distinction between the real Dune Chronicles and the drivel books that cash in on the Herbert name.
Leto the II knew of the Machines existence, that was the purpose of the "Golden Path" to scatter humanity so far and wide across the universe that it would be impossibly difficult for the Machines to wipe out humanity.
In the originals, my understanding was that the great threat were facedancers.
@@stephenandrzejewski6765 , the greater threat is whatever humanity has created whether as thinking machines or the face dancers (i.e. biological created machines in their own way).
Marty and Daniel were Face Dancers, not robots.
@Stephen Andrzejewski
the great enemy was revealed to be the machines in Siona's visions when she went out with leto into the desert to be tested. It was revealed in god emperor of dune.
@@TentaclePentacle it was Ixian Hunter Killers that they lost control of wasn't it?
I love Dune!
When Leto reveals the idea of the Ixians creating machines that would erase humanity he also says he prevented that from happening. He just uses it as an excuse to probe the place where Noree was born.
Leto ii sacrificed and took on the role of the biggest "troll" ( for 3k yrs) to ensure mankind tread the golden path after his death... tough love.
This all reminds me of Westworld S3. Which I'm sure I've heard you mention. Rehoboam is very Leto-esque in its function and methods. Keeping humanity on a set path, but leading it to stagnate from lack of freedom of creative thought. But it also is like the Great Enemy. Perhaps a machine could be prescient but it seems more likely that it would work like Rehoboam. Predicting the future based on human behavior. And purging those whose actions are too unpredictable to be useful to its calculations.
I wish I could go to a parallel universe where Frank Herbert was able to finish his tale.
But part of me likes that my mind can run wild with speculation.
While I didn't hate BH books as much as most, they didn't capture the feel of Frank Herbert saga.
Which is understandable as that would be a tough thing for anyone to do, including his own son.
BH's extended universe books are great little junk meals, imo, while the original books are the proper meat. One satiates a craving, the other a hunger. So while I can tsk and shake my head at some things in BH's books, I still can get some enjoyment from them :)
It’s an ending at least.
@@torturedparadox great description !
Their version of the ending was also a clear bait and switch. They claimed for years they were finishing the Dune saga based on Frank's notes, but it was based entirely on characters he had no hand in creating and storylines that BH and KJA admitted they created themselves. I actually talked to KJA about this once, and he tacitly admitted that the ending was entirely their creation. It wasn't just a poor ending, it was tantamount to fraud.
Tolkien also. A shame that such great epics were never finished.
leto's idea is basically to artificially spur geographic and genetic radiation so there's no bottleneck. shows Herbert understood ecology/biology (as was his interest).
Love your channel very informative as I'm a huge dune fan
These videos are amazing, but I’ve lost so much productivity!
One issue I've always had regarding Muad Dib's Jihad is exactly what the Fremen thought they were spreading and/or extinguishing? With Paul now being named Emperor of the Laandsrad (effectively the known universe) and the Fremen fully in control of Arrakis why did they feel a need to spread a jihad throughout the universe AND what were the tenets of this jihad? Why couldn't Paul stop this jihad since he was beyond a deity to the Fremen and could essentially stop or start any mass actions that the Fremen were involved in? According to Frank Herbert in Dune Messiah, Muad Dib's Jihad resulted in the death of BILLIONS. Paul couldn't see this end result in his prescience? Why didn't he calculate this mass genocidal occurrence in his plans (within plans) during his takeover of the Laandsrad? I know, lots of questions...
There is a Jihad video at this channel that discuss these questions. You must check it.
Pretty sure they answered that in the books. There is also a video on the channel answering that question.
daniel better because he saw how much more horrifying the alternatives were and realized the trap of prescience, albeit late to alter the choices.
He made one of two choices that didn’t involve Corrino or Harkonnen stamping out the Fremen. His son Leto II made the other choice, the ‘Golden Path’ to deliberately stagnate and strangle social mobility (and actual mobility) to spur a diaspora unlike any before known to humanity, ensuring a redistribution and diversity in development of biology, society, mentality. To drive the Human Race to reach a more secure capability of self across the species.
Paul realized that he had only delayed the inevitable by choosing the Messiah role but it was the least unpalatable in comparison to an accelerated decadence and inbred stagnation of the elite governing bodies (should Arrakis fall entirely to the Emperor or Baron) or becoming a multi-millennia-spanning Emperor trapped in a mutating body slowly losing his human-ness to the hybridization process.
Not to mention becoming the most hated tyrannical entity ever. Paul walked up to the Abyss, looked into it and could not bear what he saw. Leto II gritted his teeth and did what his father could not bring himself to do because he knew for Humanity’s sake it must needs be done.
The jihad itself served a purpose in dismantling the potential for armed organized war of rebellion and to establish both militarily and through ‘divine right’ the legitimacy of his sovereignty. Dismantling the Corrino Terror Legions was just one of many goals achieved through the jihad.
There was also the threat of the Fremen running more rampant and unchecked in their righteous retribution should he deny them outright after showing them how terrifyingly capable they were at obliterating Corrino’s Shock Troops.
To make the morality lesson of the story. Leadership is bad.
The Bene Gesserit created the stability and the conditions of stagnation then the created the Kwisatz Haderac, who created the scattering which was the destruction of that stability and stagnation. Ergo, they were pretty redundant and useless in the long run. Simply leaving humanity alone and letting them do the normal human thing might have gotten the same results.
I can't read the Brian Herbert books, they're just too bad.
I noticed that there are a lot of similarities in the historical paths between the Dune Universe and Asimov's Foundation. Both expand over several tenthousand years. In both the Earth as an origin world is almost forgotten and ended up as nuclear wasteland. Both Universes are ruled as Empires, after a long period of wars within smaller kingdoms. Both have banished artificial intelligence, in Dune Butlers Djihad defeated AI overlords, while in the Foundation Robots where bound by the Laws but got destroyed anyway. Both have a sort of "Dark Age" and both uses Religion as a Vehicle to rule. Finally, both share fear of destruction from non human intelligence, while none of them ever found any in the entire galaxy. Wonder how it would mix should Arrakis exist somewhere in the sector of Trantor.
The Golden path is just the ultimate ETF. Ultimate diversification.
I am enjoying the videos on Dune a lot. It’s been a fixture of my ever changing book collection since I was a teenager.
Wait... if the theroy is right the the IXions that participtet in the scattering essentially build the "Great Enemy", doesn't that mean that Let II Plan and Golden Patch essentially created this great enemy and in doing so doomed Humanity? Cause they wouldn't built if they didn't leave the old empire?
Maybe someone already pointed this out, but I’m pretty sure that it’s revealed in Chapterhouse that the Honored Matres were Tleilaxu women, who until that point, had never been seen by anyone outside of Tleilaxu. Apologies for spelling errors, I’m going off memory
No, they're a forced union of Fish Speakers and Reverend Mothers in extremis, i.e. who were dying and desperate for someone to pass their knowledge on to. So my guess is that basically they fast-tracked them through the Spice Agony so they could do the Shared Memory thing, but didn't have the time to develop the proper mental and organizational discipline to truly resurrect Bene Gesserit ways. The end effect was to create people with most of the powers but none of the discipline.
Sort of like Anakin Skywalker, if you can imagine Obi-Wan fleeing beyond the bounds of the Empire not knowing if Yoda is alive or not, trying to restart the Jedi order but making the same mistakes with all of his padawans and not caring about it because as far as he knows, the alternative is the complete extinction of the Jedi. Or if all he can create is thousands of trainees who got as far as Luke did before he met Yoda, but with none of the discipline or toughening up that Luke got on Dagobah.
6:03: that is Murbella! I'd know her anywhere.
Dude... I just wanna say Thanks for creating these videos. I've been A Fan of the Dune story since I was about 11 years old (1991). I haven't read the books yet but I'm going to now because of these videos you make. Keep Up the Awesome Work.
Would you consider doing a video on why the Brian Herbert books are generally not well regarded by many Dune fans?
The word " potboiler" explains all !
Well it feels like one is reading a book written by a child so…
Really like your Dune commentary. It occurs to me, as something to recommend, that the stories of R. P. Bird might be interesting for you to look into. His website is robird,com, and he is on DFacebook under R. P. Bird. His series of novels set in a universe called "The Realm Of The Gods" deals with many of the same issues as the Dune series. I believe most of the books are on Amazon as e-books. The basic idea is that some humans have literally given themselves godlike power, and rule the other humans. There is a small sub-set of humanity that lives outside of the Realm Of The Gods, and the stories revolve around their attempt to remain free, and even perhaps resist the godlike tyrants of the Realm. Since the tyrants are often at war with one another, some of the free humans serve as mercenaries, the best fighters in the known universe, eventually become vital to the system of tyranny set up by the godlike human tyrants. This also gives these free human mercenaries an ability to work against the Realm from inside. Of course it is also the case that they can also become so enmeshed in the system that they are co-opted into servings its' needs despite their ultimate goal of overthrowing it. It's a well thought out storyline. Hope you like it.
Head canon: The Tleilaxu face dancers have become as powerful as Mua’ Dib and were the ones who were going to bring about the arafel. Knowing how xenophobic the Tleilaxu are, and given their new powers, they believe that their OP prescience makes them a chosen people and they decide to “cleanse” man kind. Everyone except Duncan Idaho, who they believe is their Kwitsach Hadorac, since he was birthed through millennia of axlotl tanks. The Face Dancer Gods go on a crusade to kill everyone and Duncan and the Bene Gesserit/Honored Matre wage a war. This war ends the Duncan line, destroys the Face Dancers and brings and end to prescience on such a large scale, allowing human kind to exist and flourish without the worry of beings becoming so Godly powerful ever again.
Dude..... i love your channel and content but every time you call the honored matres "mah tres" i cringe. Its "may ters". Latin for mothers, honored mothers!
The official Dune audiobooks pronounce it "MAH-Tray" I will never change the way I say it.
Exactly. It is Latin. Therefore, it is "mah-tres."
Interesting story I wonder how much the films will adapt from the books
My understanding is that the film is going to be a duology adapting the original novel.
I would not get too excited. They may ditch or alter things to be simplified. Like the later Game of Thrones seasons.
Impossible to adopt even a fraction of the books. Herbert went about much of the world building through characters' internal thoughts and lengthy dialogue. Expressing all this through a visual medium would take scores of film installments. If an interesting visual design and good acting performances happen, that alone would be satisfactory to me.
@@MetalSlugzMasterWell you turned out to be wrong
Love all your content, especially the Duniverse stuff!!
Thank you for covering Dune. Its older so not as many people know about it. So hard find really good lore channels like yours. Maybe upcoming movie will change that. I had been hoping SCFY would made a third movie. I thought first 2 were decent.
This was....extremely well spoken. I knew everything said, but I enjoy hearing it summarised.
Great video
BH and KJA's "continuation" is an insulting mess - it shouldn't ever be considered at all.
You are so, so wrong. I enjoyed them tremendously.
Agree, there are passages within them that stack up as fairly decent writing and storytelling but overall they lack the intellectual heft, stunning imagination, and deep world building of Frank Herbert's novels. Pale imitations.
_insert Brain H. and Kevin J. bad comment here_
😂
Here's the thing, which you did not cover. Daniel and Marty, the representatives of the "enemy", are Face Dancers. Duncan recognized them as such and in the last chapter of the book, Daniel and Marty are talking and they establish this. They are unlike other Face Dancers because they are entirely free and their own masters. They are pursuing the Honored Matres back into the Old Imperium, and are clearly the threat Leto II identified.
I'm borrowing this next part from Jacarutu, but the argument seems very sound. Leto II said that "the Ixians can build the machines, but they can no longer create Arafel". He was saying that this future, where humanity would be exterminated by a runaway breed of Ixian hunter-seeker, was no longer a threat. But the free Face Dancers, they were beings that had found a way to evolve beyond their programming, and hence were the threat.
www.jacurutu.com/viewtopic.php?t=623
He stated that himself ? Oh, his son's just a freakin' dick, then.
@@saadamehdi2848 Yep, it's at the tail end of God Emperor of Dune. The part where it's established that Daniel and Marty are face dancers is established at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune. I wonder sometimes if BH and KJA even understood what they were working with. Trying to take on Frank Herbert's creation, they seem like a couple 10 watt bulbs in a 100 watt bulb box!
Clearly the thinking machines were NOT the great enemy. The kid's books are trash. They clearly didn't even read Frank's books--much less understand them.
Butlerian Jihad saved once the Humanity from the "Machines" (original lore). I wouldn't be surprised that FH had the idea of making the Ixians re-create this "Great Enemy", even without knowing what they were doing. Just like we, today, are destroying our planet in name of profit.
Leto II suggests the Great Enemy will be a product of Ix. Chapterhouse suggests liberated Face Dancers but if that was a misdirection and his notes indicate the final enemy were machines I would believe it.
Given the amount of times its referenced i feel the machines would return to the setting. Frank Herbert would had to be leading up to that
What would be Leto`s favourite band? The Spice Girls (i`m geting what Arrakis got from the Honored Matres for this joke.)
BTW no-ships were also invisible, cloaked. Invisible to all senses and radar, as well as prescience. But not invisible to Miles Teg wild gift ! He couldn't actually see them, but predict where they are, based on the "trail" of their passing.
As there have never been confirmed aliens in the Dune universe, you have to assume 'the enemy' was just that.
Hi I just want to say that i really love your videos and your voice is amazing to demonstrate the coldness of some lines from de dune books . Also I'm really happy to have founded your channel because in my country (Portugal) nobody knows dune , and by the way do you also se the relationship between Paul and Leto are a parallel to god and Jesus ?
Well, let us not forget that at the end of the book: Dune: the Battle of Corrin. The Omnius Evermind transmitted a digital representation or reproduction of itself into space before Corrin was obliterated by atomics. This emitted signal were speculatively recieved by a satellite created by a human or humanlike race. It simply replicated itself and rebuilt.
That’s not Dune that’s a fan fiction
More proof that Dune is the greatest science fiction universe of all time. Thanks again...🖖🏽
So...the great enemy of humanity isn't humanity?
I love all your uploads. Huge Dune fan. I do not understand the representations of the God Emperor tho.
The book is very clear. A fully formed work with a face where the mouth would normally be. Remnants of his kegs and arms protruding from the body like flippers. These that have half a human body jutting from the top are wholly inaccurate
Yeah all those illustrations might be pretty, but they're missing the point - I think they're more to demonstrate how good the artist is in drawing creatures. Leto II was not impressive, he was fucking BIZARRE and gross. Like you said basically a worm body with just his fucking face poking out. Even Moneo couldn't get used to that. If the depiction looks "cool", its not Leto II.
Quin homey u dropping the ball.
Enemy with many faces.
Futar.
No machine man. Bene tleilax.
It was never about machines. The golden path makes everything obsolete because mankind is scattered to eternity. So even a machine cant conquer all of space. Thats the golden path. The infinity of humankind makes it survival simple fact.
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I'm so stoked for the redux of Dune coming out next year. Love this channel, it's motivated me to go back and read the trilogy again!
Dune is such a horrifying universe.
Surprised by the amount of people in the comments who think the great enemy is more metaphorical than literal. I completely disagree.
I think that if Paul and Leto were capable of achieving prescience it is inevitable that someone else would at some point and unless human beings developed an immunity to prescience either through genetic or technological development (both of which Leto encouraged them to do) they would fall victim to it.
As Quinn has theorised, I think it’s likely to have been a prescient machine developed by the Ixians, as it is strongly implied that Leto has seen this happening in one or more likely potential future timelines.
The fascinating thing about Dune is that the series greatest antagonist is something which has not yet come into existence and something which never does, thanks to the actions of its protagonists.
Except everyone in the Dune universe sees the God Emperor and previously Paul as the major villains of their universe, because they only know what they can see. There’s some really deep ideas about the dangers of short-sighted and long-sighted thinking there. Paul and Leto create great suffering during their reigns only to save humanity in the long run, whether that is good or not, depends on whether you live during or after their reigns. Simple human beings cannot appreciate what they accomplished because their objectives are too large to comprehend.
That one picture makes Leto the 2nd look like a Graboid-human hybrid.
Im pretty sure the thread was a sort of self replicating, prescient hunter seeker. Maybe even in the form of face dancing Idahos lol
The reign of tyranny and scarcity forced mankind to become fiercely protective of it's independence and forced it to advance very rapidly so that it will never be enslaved by any other such god emperor.
Where did it specify in God Emperor of Dune Leto's thoughts on the great enemy, or was it in another piece of literature (or appendix)? I read a the book a couple of times and I only remember a vision that Siona saw where the machines were coming for humanity and humanity was trembling in fear and unable to move or escape.I never read heretic of dune/Chapterhouse, I plan on getting to it, is it in his journals?