Spacetravel before the Spice???

[UsulSK]

And another question:

How did they travel through space b4 they discovered the spice?  In the first book, it says that Kynes was on Dune, b4 the spice was discovered.  But the guild NEEDS the spice for traveling!!!  So how can that be???  And if there was space traveling b4 the spice, then there is the question why the guild is so addicted to spice, even over thousands of years during the god Empereor.

[UsulSK]

I just had the idea, that they maybe used computers before they where banned by the butlerian jihad.  Would that be historical correct?

[Mahdi]

Kynes was not on Dune before the spice was discovered, the Fremen were.

And they did have some rudimentary navigation device, but it obviously didn't work very swell since they switched tot he spice.

[gryphon]

To your point about the Guild Navigators beeing addicted to spice; they need the spice to "see the future", it had the same effect on Paul Atreides. His visions where partially caused by the spice. In the times of The God Emperor there was still space travel, both with navigators and machines as the first ones officially came into production and also where used ( or was that in Heretics ? ). You can see that in Chapterhouse some of the ships navigate on computers alone.

It is not so that the Guild navigators excually fly in as a direct cause of spice. It is the ship ( build by Ix ) that makes the jumps trough folded space. The navigators plots the corse and is able to see into the future what path he should take and when to make the "jumps" to have a save journey.

So before the Guild, you could simply fly over to another planet only this would take a while. And second you could jump to folded space only without the safety of knowing if the jump didn't place you in a, well let's say dangerous situation.

The rest of the answer and speculation I leave to the rest ..  . .    ;)

[gryphon]

Kynes wasn't there before the Guild was founded, but didn't the Fremen come from another planet ? ( that was a speculation somewhere I thought. )

[lost_child]

yea it says the fremen wondered for centuries before they got to dune so how did they get there

[Mahdi]

They came in ships with rudimentary navigation devices, which were not very safe or accurate, which is why the guild used spice.  

[BaronMoritani]

Regarding space travel before spice...

I always assumed they did have it since it is impossible to go from planet to planet in rudimentary crafts. It would take centuries. The vessels would have to be tremendously advanced crafts with 'warpdrives' andthe like operated by computers with tremendous accuracy. After the Butlerian Jihad's religious laws against computers, these 'warp drives' became useless without computers to operate them. One of the by products of the lack of computers was men learning to use the strengths of their own minds. Navigators eventually evolved ....

That was always my interpretation ...

Hope it makes some sense.

[Mahdi]

Seeing as the Ixians were able to develope ships that could navigate through space withuot the use of navigators shows that it is possible without using computers which violate the Butlerian Jihad.  These would just have been extremely rudimentary forms of them.  Also, before the spice, there were several spice like drugs which expanded the mind in a similiar, just not as effective, of ways.  The Bene Gessereit used them until after Dune when they realized that spice was better than them (Jessica says that the water of life is similiar to the the drug used by reverend mothers, but does not say that it is the same.)  That is arguable though, as it could be said that Jessica simply didn't know that the bene gesserit used the water of life for there process of creating reverend mothers.

Interestingly enough, if you read the timeline of Dune it has the first melange guided space flight take place hundreds of years before the Zensunni arrive on Dune.

[UsulSK]

Where can I find the timeline of Dune?

And how did the Spice became such a powerfull instrument of pressure, if it isn't necessary (but quite usefull) ?

[gryphon]

You can find some things data related in the appendix of Dune. For the details you just have to read the books I think.

[Mahdi]

The chronology of Dune (which I referred to) from the DE is all over the web.

[Timsvs]

remember Ix are still around in present dune so that "old" technology may still exist

[Digital Guerrilla]

So who first discovered that the spice aided in seeing the future the Bene Gesserit or Spacing Guild? The Fremen who were as so known as the Zensunni Wanders did they first experiment with the spice and discovered the spice could give the power of prescience? And another question just how long had the Fremen been on Arrakis? Who were they slaves to before anyway? Why the hell can we not have the Dune Ecy. published (Star Wars has one damn it) so we do not have all of this guess work.

[Mahdi]

"So who first discovered that the spice aided in seeing the future the Bene Gesserit or Spacing Guild?"

The first person to discover it was niether the guild nor the bene gesserit, but the guild was the first to use it.

"who were they slaves to before anyway?"

Pretty much everyone.

"Why the hell can we not have the Dune Ecy. published (Star Wars has one damn it) so we do not have all of this guess work."

It was published, but didn't do to well, so only one edition ever made it out.  But, there are many, many inconsistancies between it and the books.

[quoudam72]

If the Guild, Bene Gesserit and whomever can see beyond this physical do the worms see anything? I mean they are the spice and the spice is them. And in order to control the spice you have to control the worm.

[nemafakei]

Shai Hulud is a god. So he knows quite a lot. He doesn't need prescience from spice.

[quoudam72]

Ok but Nema what I'm saying is look at the relationship a little deeper.

[Vanguard3000]

According to the Dune Encyclopedia (which is the only "official" explanation until Brian and Kevin J write their next trilogy), they used their big honkin' computers to go through lightspeed or hyperspace or whatever.  After the Jihad, there was a 120 year period where there was no interstellar travel until the Mystic Mariners (later known as the Spacing Guild) discovered they could use the spice to fold space.

[Mahdi]

Mystic Mariners?

Hehehehehe

As for them being Gods, the Fremen jsut think they're gods, that doesn't mean that they are.  Personally, I think they are jsut animals, and seeing as Leto says that they live on instinct alone and have no intellegence, I'd say taht they arn't presceint.  Plus, you ahve to remember that people generate a tolerance for the spice, so the worms are probably uneffected by it.

[nemafakei]

Back to spacetravel, I've found a reference to the first type of spacetravel machine, the Ampoliros. It's in the back of Dune. It doesn't give much detail.

Incidentally the name is greek, AMBI + FO/EIN, meaning 'to fly around', or 'by means of flying' .

[Vanguard3000]

Yes, the Ampoliros is mentioned by Jessica as well, although no info is given except in the Terminology (The "Flying Dutchman" of space).  There's a whole story about it in the Encyclopedia, but I won't get into it.  In any event, it was a ship that has moved at near-lightspeed for millenia, which prevents the mad and paranoid crew from aging.

[Duke_Alex_Atreides]

i think it was like star trek with a warp core

[jacobdouds]

Would there have been a time when they just used simple slow crafts and took centerius to get places. Or did humans just entirely miss that section out. And what happened to Earth?

[quoudam72]

Yes Jacob there once was a time when it took spacecraft a long time to get to their destination. Once the spice was discovered space travel changed (forming of the Spacing Guild, one of the great schools of thought). Earth or "Old Terra" as it is referred to sometimes (Leto II talks about planet Earth in God Emperor of Dune) in the Duniverse was turned into a zoo park not much difference than what it is now.