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[Tio_Holtzmann]

the zabulon conquest was paul's jihad taking over a planet.

and i hate to be fussy, but isnt the house listed as house moritani actually called house grumman? and moritani is the ruling family? im fairly sure that in the dune appendix, under ginaz, it says defeated by house grumman. altho i dunno if the prequels call them house moritani or house grumman.

[Vanguard3000]

Grumman was the homeworld of House Moritani.

[Tio_Holtzmann]

but doesnt it say "house ginaz, defeated by house grumman" in the glossary at the end of dune? im just making sure cos i dont have the book to hand anymore. hmmm.....

[lowzeewee]

One big question.Why is spice valuable? ::)

[Muad dib]

Thats because it is the only substance in the universe and everyone wanted it. ;)

[lowzeewee]

I spoke to Vanguard3000 through MSN messenger and it came to a point where I asked him why couldn't the guild harvest the spice by themselves and he said it was easier to just buy but shouldn't they just harvest it themselves so it would be free?

[Khan]

The cost of Mining alone makes it far from free, plus there is all the equipment which would need to be constantly replaced.

[lowzeewee]

Then for Atr and Harkonnen,wouldn't it be the same?

[Khan]

But remember the guild had to appear neutral, if they mined spice they would be for from neutral.

[TMA_1]

The guild cannot interfere because if they did the houses would become very angry. It reminds me of water deep underneath the earth. When vulcanic activity occures down there, water cannot turn into vapor, so that water slides over the magma in an uneasy truce.

the Guild is probably the single most powerful entity before and during the reign of Paul atreides. That does not give them the power that leto the tyrant had. If they overextend their power then the houses of the landsraad could easily join together in a common goal (which rarely happens, but in this case it probably would occure.) to break down the guild monopoly. The guild knows that the human race will only be pushed so far, so that if they appear to be too powerful, the humans will find other ways to travel through space, even if that means breaking some extremely important rules...

The Guild is composed of extremely, extremely intelligent folks. They know how much power is enough power. As long as they have a strangle hold of spice, why not let other people harvest it for them, they can easily afford buying it at actually a reasonable price compared to waht the emperor or other people would have to pay.

Since they are intelligent, they know not to enforce their power to overtly. The Spice Must Flow, and it must flow in a calm and civil fashion.

There simply isnt any reason to mine for themselves, they already get kickbacks, they already have the monopoly of space travel, what more do they need? History always shows that those who try to procure too much power usually end up dying in the quest of taking it.

[Dunenewt]

In addition to what TMA said,

Also once humans had found another way to warp space (with the Ixian machines) the Guild still had a role to play as they 'supervised' the space folding therefore together with Ix, keeping their monopoly.

[NHJ BV]

http://community.the-underdogs.org/smiley/deo/houses.htm

This is a list of all of the Great Houses mentioned in the original Dune books, prequels, and the DEO. Of course, there's no list of EVERY House in the Imperium, since it's a fictional universe. Anyway, it also has whatever information I could gether on these Houses. Enjoy.

[edit] Oh, and Nobody, the Guild, Tleilaxu, and other factions are not Great Houses.

Do you also list/plan to list the Minor Houses? For most Houses mentioned once in the entire Dune series it isn't clear whether they are a Major or a Minor House anyway.

[Lord J]

Another thing mentioned in the books relating to the Guild's control of Arrakis, the Guild Navigators are prescient, and could not predict any futures that would come about if they controlled Arrakis. I'm not sure that makes much sense.

Refer to the potential spoiler: [hide]When Paul was in control of Arrakis, the Navigators could not see the planet as clearly, nor the planet's future, as they could with non-prescient planet rulers. Which led to one of the many attempted assassinations.[/hide]

As to why the Spice melange is so valuable:

Why is cocaine, marijuana, and ecstacy so valuable? They are mind-altering drugs. However, while cocaine, ecstacy, and (arguably) marijuana have destructive properties, eventually leading to death of thier users, melange is an awareness drug. Melange is the source of prescience, which is how Navigators keep from crashing into spatial bodies, it is the source of the introspective drug used by the Bene Gesserit, for genetic memories, and melange adds to the health of those who use it, naturally cancels out many poisons, and adds potentially hundreds of years to a person's life.

[Vanguard3000]

NHJ BV: Well, the thing is that the books very seldom specify whether a given House is major or minor. I would assume House Halleck would be a minor House.

[Mahdi]

A minor hosue is one that is planet bound and owes loyalty to the house major that controls there world.

House Halleck has multiple Fiefs (worlds) under its control, such as Caladan, Gedi Prime, and likley other Harkonnen worlds, therefore it is a house major. His title is just not mentioned.

[Vanguard3000]

Ah yes, I forgot about his "Danian crusades". Sorry about that.

[NHJ BV]

I wasn't referring to any House specifically, but take for example House Dyvetz, mentioned in the list. I don't think we know anything else of it except it's name. The Minor Houses would make a nice addition to the list imo, expecially when there are a lot of Houses with an unknown status on the list.

[Vanguard3000]

Again, all of the Houses I know of ever to be listed are on my list. It just doesn't mention which Houses are Major or Minor. House Dyvetz, for all we know, could be a House Minor.

[Mahdi]

Thre was a link posted here a logn time ago by someone who had went through all the novels (including the prequels) in search of all mention of planets and houses. I'm not sure where it is anymroe, though.

It also stated and explained every continuity error in the books.

[nemafakei]

"Another thing mentioned in the books relating to the Guild's control of Arrakis, the Guild Navigators are prescient, and could not predict any futures that would come about if they controlled Arrakis. I'm not sure that makes much sense"

Yes, this is a preoblem with the guild's spice-given mathematical prescience: any futures in which the guild directly intervenes in matters concerning the spice itself results in insoluble paradox (known to the guild as nexus (pl. nexuses)). The problem seems to come from the fact that the spice can be used to predict the behaviour of external entities, but not the guild itself, since it is using the spice to make the predicitons, and if the guild used prescience on itself, the predictons would run into the problem of the predictions affecting the events themselves, and possibly then invalidating themselves. A Kwisatz Haderach who had consumed the water of life would also interfere, since each prediction power has the problem that its predictions may cause paradox with those of the guild.

[Andrew]

Yet another Dune Course.

http://www.tomandmaria.com/st197/herbert.htm

Interesting Dune webpage:

http://members.tripod.com/larry.may/

Interesting Dune game:

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/samosa/samogames/Untitled-2.htm

[Andrew]

Found an interesting link. Frank herbert is near the bottom. Has a lot of info that I find hard to take all in.(not well organized?)

http://www.locusmag.com/index/s341.html

I find it interesting the amount of Journals with information about Frank Herbert and Dune. Take for instance:

TI: Obituary

AU: McNelly,-Willis-E

JN: Extrapolation;

SO: Extrapolation v 27 Winter 1986. p. 352-5.

PY: 1986

LA: English

DE: Herbert,-Frank,-1920-1986

DT: Obituary

TI: The traditionalism of women's roles in Frank Herbert's Dune

AU: Hand,-Jack

JN: Extrapolation;

SO: Extrapolation v 26 Spring 1985. p. 24-8.

PY: 1985

LA: English

DE: Herbert,-Frank,-1920-1986-Works-Dune

Is McNelly's obituary of Frank Herbert online anywheres?

(I do know that Science Fiction Studies has several items relating to Dune/Frank Herbert

EDIT - Found the obituary.

Frank Herbert's Obituary by Willis E. McNelly

[lowzeewee]

Thanks for telling me about the spice,thanks!

How could hi-tech weapons suddenly go down to just knives?

[Khan]

By 'hi-tech' I assume you mean things like lasers?

They went down to knives because of the Holtzman shield, which cause an unstable nuclear explosian if hi by a laser. Projectiles were stopped by the shield so knives/swords, are the last viable weapon left, as they can go slowly enough to pierce the shield.

[NHJ BV]

In Heretics and Chapterhouse, it is said that shields are no longer used. Does anyone know why?