VISIONS OF DUNE (new guy)

[freeman]

I know that sardaukar were supposed to look like the grey-uniformed officers aboard the Star Wars Death Star but I find these designs to  be much more visually appealing. Supposedly the sharpness of the blades of that era made body armor all but useless. However I always thought that partial body armor crafted from the same material used to make blades could be viable (assuming that a blade could be blocked by another blade in the Dune universe).

http://thedune.ru/gallery/mobius/sardaukar2.jpg

http://thedune.ru/gallery/mobius/sardaukar3.jpg

http://dunefr.free.fr/imgs/id_05.jpg

Also I always thought that shields as a defensive measure were somewhat impractical given their weakness: las beams.

Wouldn't using a shield be guaranteeing the destruction of the "protected" object at the hands of a determined suicidal attacker or a hunter seeker armed with a lasgun?

And does the Holtzman effect result in explosions on both ends of a shield/las-beam interaction or simply in an explosion occuring at the target? If the latter were the case then would it be possible to construct a long-range lasgun that could be fired from outside the blast radius (or even a mobile delivery platform capable of outrunning the explosion, of course it would have to have enough firing range for it to have a decent headstart)?

Wow...I'm a geek :)

[MrFlibble]

I don't think the original book provides any detailed description of Sardaukar uniforms (and any other uniforms, such as Atreides and Harkonnen, as well). The Dune Encyclopaedia's view is just one of numerous possibilities.

Yes, I do like Jean 'Moebius' Giraud's concept art too.

It is definitely stated in Dune that the interaction of a lasbeam and a shiled would result in two explosions of both the shield and the lasgun. However, you must keep in mind that killing a shiled-protected target this way would be quite expensive (lasguns aren't cheap, you know ;)), not to mention the unpredictable devastation that the explosions could inflict. Also, shields are mostly a non-issue on Dune itself, because of the worms.

[freeman]

Hey there thanks for the reply fellow Dune fan!

Another thing is that in the Dune series, entire cities are sometimes protected with shields and I'm sure that an invading force would not want to destroy the city outright with a las beam. The invaders would probably want to capture the city in order to utilize its resources. I think Herbert described the tactic of dropping extremely massive objects from orbit to crush a city's defensive shields however this would probably result in huge damage to the city (although it would be nothing compared to the complete obliteration caused by a shield/las-beam interaction).

[freeman]

Oh yeah, here's an awesome article on warfare in dune on this very site

http://dune2k.com/?page=community-articles&show=warfare

and here are some pics of the Fremen :)

i can't seem to find to many pics of the Fremen so if you could share some that would be great.

http://www.thedune.ru/emperor/fremen/fremen_warrior.jpg

http://campagnes-sc.chez-alice.fr/dune/images/fremenicon2.jpg (wish I could find a bigger version of this pic!)

I really didn't like the Fremen in Lynch's movie with their exposed heads and rubber still suits (at least throw on a few desert robes!) http://www.thedune.ru/lynch/gallery/97_fremen.jpg

[drahgoon]

i used to have a fairly extensive collection of fan art as well as actual concept art on my computer, before the masss system failure that i had a few years ago... for some reason, my mobo, cpu, ram, hdd, videocard, and power supply blew at the same time... coincedence, i think not... havnt found out who did it, but its still an open case...

[freeman]

damn, any idea where you found them online?  :'(

[freeman]

wow, found an awesome picture of Shai-Hulud  :O

http://web.inf.tu-dresden.de/~oj853436/pics/dune-sandwurm.jpg

[drahgoon]

years of googling... thats all i can say... i just wished that i had backed up all that stuff...