SparrowsOfDune

Shields were all about the slowstab. The shield would help to make the slow blade unbreakable. the very simplest were a flat plane. most others had to be some sort of deformed bubble, sealing against the ground usually. a half-shield was folded back into itself instead of over the werer and the ground, like two domes inside each other. The relevant articles in the Dune encyclopedia are very good, and I don't think any texts contradict the physics they present (in OH or BH/KJA).

Sonic tanks were, if we take the Dune II RTS games as canon (and the Encyclopedia, obviously), in common usage about 2400 years before the first Book. They gave up that sort of industrial capacity in the interval for some reason. Remember, tanks would be more expensive in a computerless, neo-feudal Dune future than in the 20th Century: Design problems, only rudimentary automated production, costly transport footprint for any materials or parts that need to come from off-planet, poorly-educated labour pool. Maybe they had them on Caladan still, but couldn't take them with them either for cost or because it would leave Fenring (who took over whilst the Areides served their 50? 80? year term governing Arrakis) defenceless. When the term was over they'd get Caladan back. That's how it was on paper anyway, but that was of course never the real intention.

Also, Dune II (I think Dune 2000 and Battle For Dune too) take place much much earlier that the first book, so they could have changed a lot in 2400 years (easily accounting for the discrepance with the House Heralds: Ordos start with the "snake and book", but by the time of the Atreides takeover its the bones and Ivy, with the old one now belonging to House Wallach). Hell, if ordos were that money oriented they may even have just sold it. I liked the difference between the Mentats in Dune II. Cyril was yuor adviser (he worked for you, almost worshipping you like a hero). Radnor was unquestioningly your Boss. Ammon however was a messenger passing on your orders from "The Cartel". Later on he shows shome emotion, apparently relishing the quiet and distant fact that a powerful man's breakfast had been ruined. Was the Ordos in-game voice ("Consrtuction complete", "Ordos Unit Deployed") supposed to be his?

Yes, the Tlielaxu adopted Leto as a prophet sometime after his death, and between GEod and Heretics was 1500 years. 1500 BUSY years, much more social and economic change than during the 3500 years of Leto's reign or the 10,000 years of the Corrinos before that.

The atomics were there "just in case". Illegal against humans, and seldom (never?) used, their desructive power was such that they still had to be factored in any sort of military assessment. The legal wording of the great covention allowed for a stockpile for use against a "hostile non-human intelligence." This could mean aliens, but it could also allude to rediscovered/reactivated robots / AIs from before the Butlerian Jihad. I'm not saying I like the idea of Omnius from the Ledgends series, but I can still see the BJ involving smaller-scale "sky-net"-style intelligences from time to time, as well as just plain old fashioned Ludditism and classist uprisings largely unrelated to computers.

I think the Slavic Language FH was familiar with was Serbian. Maybe some of the first Zensunnis were Bosnians?

The ordos endings I remember are 1. The Dino thing eats him. 2. They parade the Emperor around in a cage.

I tend to like RTSs the most, so that's what I would want. Something that did justice to the wide array of infantry types would be nice. Lasguns! Decent close combat. Battles on other planets besides Dune, requiring different ways to fight, collect resources, and available technologies. Real account for Dune Physics - the lasgun / shield reaction Ordos saboteurs that didn't suck (make them like C&C commandos).

People do twist it about so. Apart from anything else there were good Muslim Americans who died in the WTC attack too. If the mosque-site were to incorporate some sort of memorial to the WTC victims of any or no religion, it'd go a long way to amielioriate many concerns people have.

In the Preludes, Kynes is astounded to find that there are around 10,000,000 Fremen (it think this is just deep desert Fremen). As for troop numbers, I think armies in these neo-feudal times were very small, with off planet force projection entirely dependant on favour with the Spacing Guild. Homeworld Police forces may well be a different matter. This would be different before the Guild and after the Dissolution of the Empire, the Heretics era, as before they had computers to run spacecraft and after they had the Ixian Navigation machines, so a huge mass of spice for the navigator was no loger a component of the Price. Someone did the astometry on Canopus, I think an Arrakian year is about 1800 years, based on where the Terrestrial Habitiable zone would lie for an enormous star like canopus. Not sure of the prescice lenth of Arrkis's day, except that it is about 40 or so minutes shorter than Caladan's. There may well be a seasonal cycle to the Worm's behavior, but with a "season" lasting 450 years (and on a planet with only a small incline, not 23 degrees like Earth), it would be far too subtle to notice in a normal Human lifetime. Don't know about the Fremen calendar, the Empire as a whole used one starting from the Foundation of the Spacing Guild, with a year that we assume is very close to a present day Earth Year. Presumably there are months and some sort of standard day too.

I've been working on making an Arrakis version of Risk. I've already posted them at the Dune Novels fourum, I'll do it here too soon. Anyone interested in a PBEM playtest?

Well in Dune the Butlerian Jihad banned computers, AIs, and thinking robots. So a lot of stuff like smart missiles are out of the question. But there's still no reason that a lot of WWII style technology would not be allowed. The main reason we don't see any tanks in the books is that they are very expensive for these neo-feudal economies to maintian, and also the defensive Shields. And on Arrakis itself, worms will eat them. Suspensor tanks would not be solution (potentially even worse), because suspensors are another manifestation of the Holtzmann Effect (same as the shields), and will irritate the worms to the point of frenzy. Tracked vehicles are merely food, and the worms may not always be hungry. I think the Fremen used bikes and jeeps to some extent, at least in the BH/KJA prequels. However, also because of the uslessness of shields on Dune itself (except for the Worm free areas around the poles and on the gravel/escarpent areas where you can place buildings) guns, rockets and lasers come back into play in a big way. I think a Dune game that was mostly about infantry formations would be fun. think of the weapon types that could be used: rifles, rockets, grenades, swords / daggers for close combat, C&C style commando placed C4 charges, maula pistols, wierding modules, BGs with Voice attacks, maybe even shotguns for some reason.

At the start of Dune it's be Fenring, Feyd, or maybe Ashram.

I think the DE (over various articles) suggests that SS was first designated as a prison planet early on in the Corrino Imperium. By this stage the Sardaukar already existed and were already formidable.

Is this the thing I need to be able to but UNITMAX and BUILDMAX up to 99 for each house?