Is Geidi Prime a "city planet"?

[TMA_1]

Well I am just wondering about this. Tell me if you guys can give me a quote from the books, but is Geidi Prime just one huge sprawl of buildings like Curiscant (spelling), or does it just have extremely large cities and industrial areas? I seem to actually side more with the prequels the more that I think about it. It seems to me from what I have read, and there is little on geidi prime specifically that mentions this, but that it has an eco system and that it isnt just one huge city. There are reasons for this, for example specific cities are named on the planet. Now of course this could just mean that a section of the planet is named for a certain city, or it just means that there is one city in many like you would normally think of.

what do you guys think? I hope this thread makes sense, hard to explain.

[Dunenewt]

It isn't one big city but large areas are industrial wasteland unihabitable to most people.  And it has water, heavily polluted tho

[Andrew]

Most of what I think of Geidi Prime is taken from Heretics and Chapterhouse Dune. (mostly Heretics.)

Like they have the forests and such, but the cities are large also.

[Dunenewt]

Forests only appeared after Harkonnen's were destroyed

[Mahdi]

Duncan used to escape the Harkonnens by running into the woods and climbing the mountains, according to GEOD I think.

[Timenn]

Beside that, Harkonnen weren't so stupid to destroy all oxygen suppliers. They probably had massive forests, with also alot of woodchoppers.

[Scott]

::) Phift, Starwars.

To me, Giedi Prime always had this industrialized tinge to it, while Caladan was more agricultural. Barony was described as a large, confining metropolis while some of the places on Caladan were described as wide and vastly open. Seems that in all areas, Atriedes and Harkonnen represented the others antithesis.

I don't really think any of the city's described in Dune sprawl an over an entire planet. I've always thought of them as very small and would appear somewhat old and ancient by our standards.

What about Ix? Was Ix totally consumed by industrialization?

[Dante]

If you follow the prequels, the surface of Ix was completely unspoiled, as they lived underground. Whether this is based on anything in the original books or not I cannot remember.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

of course the harkonnen planet is not one big city. there are several slavepits, mines and cities.

[AeonGrey]

If you follow the prequels, the surface of Ix was completely unspoiled, as they lived underground. Whether this is based on anything in the original books or not I cannot remember.

That is purely a Brian Herbert thing.  Ix being underground that is.  In the originals it is merely mentioned as extremely technological if memory serves.  As for Geidi Prime...I don't recall much mention of forests/etc in the originals.  In House Atreides though it's pretty clear that it has forests.  The whole thing with Duncan running from Rabban and his hunters in the wilderness.  Personally, I always envisioned Geidi Prime with large disgusting cities scattered throughout, but highly concentrated.  In Heretics you have to remember that it is ....what 5,000 years since the Baron has been dead?  It isn't even called Geidi Prime anymore.  It's called Gammu.  A lot could have changed by then.

[Scott]

"They were well into Ysai and he glimpsed the black bulk of the ancient Harkonnen seat of Barony through occasional gaps between the walls that enclosed the great private residences. The car turned onto a street of small commerical establishments: cheap buildings costructed for the most part of salvaged materials that displayed their origins in poor fits and mismatched colors. Gaudy signs advised that the wares inside were the finest, the repair services better than those elsewhere. It was not that Ysai had deteriorated or even gone to seed, Teg thought. Growth here had been diverted into something worse than ugly. Somone had chosen to make this place repulsive. That was the key to most of what he saw in the city. Time had not stoped here, it had retreated. This was no modern city full of bright transport pods and insulated usiform buildings, This was random jumbles, ancient structures joined to ancient structures, some built to individual tastes and some obviously designed with some long-gone necessity in mind. Everything about Ysai was joined in a proximity whose disarray just managed to avoid chaos. What saved it, Teg knew, was the old pattern of thoroughfares along which this hodgepodge had been assembled. Chaos was held at bay, although what patter there was in the streets conformed to no master plan. Streets met and crossed at odd angles, seldom squared. Seen from the air, the place was a crazy quilt with only the giant black rectangle of anicent Barony to speak of an organizing plan. The rest of it was in architectural rebellion."

[AeonGrey]

Thats a good description of what it was like during the time of Heretics.  The time of the Baron however could be a completely different story.

[Scott]

Thats a good description of what it was like during the time of Heretics. 

If you read the quote you'll find that it says time has regressed and many of the old buildings have remained, virtually no large-scale rebuilding has taking place. The situation in Ysai is a metaphor for the entire planet, that its somewhat unchanged from the time preceeding the Tyrant. It's not a completely different story, its the same story.