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Why did Atreides have to give up Caladan?


Emperor Harkonnen

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I might have missed something reading Dune, but did it answer why Atreides had to give away Caladan to get Arrakis?

The Harkonnens didn't give up Giedi Prime when they ruled the planet.

Could it have something to do with the size of the house? Atreides being a smaller house than Harkonnen, which would make it difficult to control more planets than one? (size of military)

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I might have missed something reading Dune, but did it answer why Atreides had to give away Caladan to get Arrakis?

The Harkonnens didn't give up Giedi Prime when they ruled the planet.

Could it have something to do with the size of the house? Atreides being a smaller house than Harkonnen, which would make it difficult to control more planets than one? (size of military)

Always bothered me. I think it was a plot point to get the whole family, staff, military, everybody, onto Arrakis. Although it was explained that the Emperor could do anything he wanted to Houses. Didn't seem to be very 'sharing of power' between the Corrinos and the Landsraad. More like the post-feudal society of Western Europe. If the King said do something, it had to be done.

I think Leto's viewpoint of the situation for power sharing was skewed to what he wanted to believe, or maybe the 'official line' of thinking.

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Maybe the entire family had to move because Leto I had to rule Dune himself, he didn't have a family member of age to act as a proxy. The Baron had two. Or one (the Beast) and then two (I think Feyd was going to be 18 by the time it was his turn to rule Dune).

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Nope that's not it, because House Harkonnen had several planets under their rule. Besides that sounds like a ridiculous rule; a house have to have at least one close family ruling each planet.

I think it is because of military strenght(which is needed to rule several planets, and since the emperor wouldn't want the atreides to forfeit their duties at Arrakis, and their(atreides's) army was only large enough to really control one planet) in combination with the Emperor of course wanting to get rid of the entire house. But Leto didn't know this, so to him the first reason was probably likely.

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If you read into it, the Duke had made a somewhat enemy of the Emperor. Leto was also very popular in the Landsraad and an heir to the throne due to being cousin to Shaddam, and there being no male heir from Shaddam himself.

In the House books they explain this all started, somewhat.

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As I understand it, the Emperor was empowered to distribute the fiefdoms among the Houses of the Landsraad. Leto was granted Arrakis in exchange for Caladan - not as an addition to it. House Harkonnen, on the other hand, has had Arrakis in quasi-fief, which was a scheme of sorts for the Emperor to have more control over spice production (as he would have never been allowed by the Guild to control Arrakis himself).

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As I understand it, the Emperor was empowered to distribute the fiefdoms among the Houses of the Landsraad. Leto was granted Arrakis in exchange for Caladan - not as an addition to it. House Harkonnen, on the other hand, has had Arrakis in quasi-fief, which was a scheme of sorts for the Emperor to have more control over spice production (as he would have never been allowed by the Guild to control Arrakis himself).

This whole granting of planets by the Emperor definitely tilted the power to House Corrino. I think by the time of Dune, the nobles of the Landsraad were semi-kidding themselves that they had any real, active say. The fact that Leto had to give up the back-water world of Caladan just to 'mine' Arrakis seems near-ludicrous on its' face value. Shaddam just wanted to make sure everyone involved with House Arrakis was on Dune when he killed them all.

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I tought that all Atreides transfered to Dune because they were too poor to allow another army.

At the end of the book Paul gives Caladan to Gurney, so I am curious who ruled Caladan in Atreides's absence.

How much of Caladan's population is composed by "Duke's men"?

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Yeah you would think that much of the population had loyalty to atreides since they (according to the Encyclopedia) had ruled Caladan since year 8000 something. I guess he brought the whole army with him to Arrakis, and that the rest of the population were civilians who didn't care that much for the Duke. Difficult to say since we know little about the life on Caladan.

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Some people stayed but almost all went with House Atreides to Arrakis. The Duke and his family lived in the Imperial Spice Minister Count Hasimir Fenring, when they left Caladan, Hasimir and his wife moved to Caladan to govern the planet in Atreides asbsense.

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