Star Wars, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi

[edwest4]

Proof that films are advertisements for toys.

Enough with the origin stories. Film-making has become too risk-averse | Helen O'Hara

Lightyear is the latest example of a studio milking a past glory, and maybe film fans are growing tired of it, says film journalist Helen O’Hara

www.theguardian.com

That's where George Lucas made his money. If something was seen for 2 seconds, it became a toy or other piece of merchandise as chronicled in a thick hardcover book I own. He really brought that idea forward after a time period where very few toys were produced for heroes and related vehicles and gear in specific movies or TV shows prior to Star Wars.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Proof that films are advertisements for toys.

 

[jeffb]

IF you're disappointed that Foundation has jumped the shark, Invasion is decent so far.

Tried this on your recommendation and, up to e4, it's quite good. It's very big on character building and back story that might have some people losing interest but the production quality is very good and all of the back stories are interesting and engaging so far. Only minimal interaction so far with a very 'alien' invaders. Good watch.

 

[jeffb]

Best scene in the movie:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00nnKL87EwE

Hmmm, how do we depict the Saardauker as "soldier fanatics"?

I know, lets make them pseudo islamic fanatics with something that has distinct overtones of the islamic call to prayer but obviously isn't the islamic call to prayer because, you know, we dont want to be too obvious.

Worst, stupidist scene in the movie and a fabulous example of the complete dearth of imagination involved with story development.

 

[jeffb]

I assume this is about Frank Herbert's Dune.

I was never able to finish reading the first book, it doesn't make sense for anyone to want to live there.

People live there, because Arrakis is the sole source of Spice. Spice is one of the things that enable FTL travel - it gives human navigators a limited ability to see into the future, helping them to avoid crashing into stars/planets/moons. With artificial intelligence banned, people are needed to harvest Spice. Basic economics.

At the point Dune is set, Arrakis has been populated for over 10,000 'years'.

The Spacing Guild's use of Melange to allow guild navigators to 'choose the safe path' is a closely held secret and a big part of the reason they've maintained a monopoly on space travel for over 10,000 years. If it became commmon knowledge the emperor would immediately annex Arrakis and take control of the Guild.

It's kind of a big point that Lynch just blew up in the first five minutes of his version. Why? We'll never know.

P.S. Please forgive the lateness of my reply.

 

[Dilandu]

The Spacing Guild's use of Melange to allow guild navigators to 'choose the safe path' is a closely held secret and a big part of the reason they've maintained a monopoly on space travel for over 10,000 years. If it became commmon knowledge the emperor would immediately annex Arrakis and take control of the Guild.

How?

How exactly Emperor would took control over Arrakis without the Guild moving his troops and system ships?

All the Guild need to switch the Emperor out of equation is to stop flying to Salusta Secundus. And Sardaukars would be absolutely helpless mob, trapped on their planet with no way out.

 

[jeffb]

The Spacing Guild's use of Melange to allow guild navigators to 'choose the safe path' is a closely held secret and a big part of the reason they've maintained a monopoly on space travel for over 10,000 years. If it became commmon knowledge the emperor would immediately annex Arrakis and take control of the Guild.

How?

How exactly Emperor would took control over Arrakis without the Guild moving his troops and system ships?

All the Guild need to switch the Emperor out of equation is to stop flying to Salusta Secundus. And Sardaukars would be absolutely helpless mob, trapped on their planet with no way out.

Excellent point.

Emperor removes House Harkonnen from Arrakis for some imagined slight, takes over Arrakis and spice production, starts up a competitor to the guild. Thing is, once the Emperor takes control of Arrakis, it would be game over for the Guild.

 

[TMA1]

The Spacing Guild's use of Melange to allow guild navigators to 'choose the safe path' is a closely held secret and a big part of the reason they've maintained a monopoly on space travel for over 10,000 years. If it became commmon knowledge the emperor would immediately annex Arrakis and take control of the Guild.

How?

How exactly Emperor would took control over Arrakis without the Guild moving his troops and system ships?

All the Guild need to switch the Emperor out of equation is to stop flying to Salusta Secundus. And Sardaukars would be absolutely helpless mob, trapped on their planet with no way out.

This was kinda implied at the end of the book. Paul, without any form of bluff, had fremen holding changed water to pour it on a spice blow if his demands were not met. Essentially the water of death. Would have exterminated all of the great worms of arrakis. Even commoners across the empire of ten thousand worlds had small amounts of spice in their diets. Space travel would halt. Billions would die if withdrawal. The guild knew this and essentially twisted Shaddam the Fourth's hand.

I think only the ixian confederation would have survived such a catastrophe, and eventually develop the needed computers again to guide ships thru foldspace.

 

[Dilandu]

This was kinda implied at the end of the book. Paul, without any form of bluff, had fremen holding changed water to pour it on a spice blow if his demands were not met. Essentially the water of death. Would have exterminated all of the great worms of arrakis. Even commoners across the empire of ten thousand worlds had small amounts of spice in their diets. Space travel would halt. Billions would die if withdrawal. The guild knew this and essentially twisted Shaddam the Fourth's hand.

I think only the ixian confederation would have survived such a catastrophe, and eventually develop the needed computers again to guide ships thru foldspace.

There are fandom speculations that space travels aren't IMPOSSIBLE without spice - they are merely impractical, due to the ships being forced to make painfully slow micro-jumps and figure out where they are and what are in the way. After all, smugglers somehow could fly without Guild...

 

[TMA1]

This was kinda implied at the end of the book. Paul, without any form of bluff, had fremen holding changed water to pour it on a spice blow if his demands were not met. Essentially the water of death. Would have exterminated all of the great worms of arrakis. Even commoners across the empire of ten thousand worlds had small amounts of spice in their diets. Space travel would halt. Billions would die if withdrawal. The guild knew this and essentially twisted Shaddam the Fourth's hand.

I think only the ixian confederation would have survived such a catastrophe, and eventually develop the needed computers again to guide ships thru foldspace.

There are fandom speculations that space travels aren't IMPOSSIBLE without spice - they are merely impractical, due to the ships being forced to make painfully slow micro-jumps and figure out where they are and what are in the way. After all, smugglers somehow could fly without Guild...

Totally agree. Leto II too many years later knew that the Ixians we're working on banned tech and the computers needed to calculate safe routes thru foldspace. Very interesting points about the smugglers. I bet they, just like the fremen, paid off the spacing guild to look the other way.

 

[Dilandu]

The main problem of Dune universe is that too many things here - especially in technology and military - could be explained by "Frank Herbert have little clue how it worked".

 

[Dilandu]

Totally agree. Leto II too many years later knew that the Ixians we're working on banned tech and the computers needed to calculate safe routes thru foldspace. Very interesting points about the smugglers. I bet they, just like the fremen, paid off the spacing guild to look the other way.

Unfortunately, Herbert was absolutely incoherent about space travels. Initially he gave the impression that Guild controlled the interstellar flights, but inter-system crafts (frigates, monitors, ect.) are under Great Houses control. Logical, isn't it? But then he completely confused everything, by revealing that without Guild help, Atreides couldn't even put their own frigate on orbit!

My speculation is, that Herbert initially thought in "Guild control interstellar, Houses control intrasystem" scheme. But then he suddenly found out (read in some magazine, most likely) about spy satellites. The existence of spy satellites, of course, completely destroyed his concept about no one knowing about Fremens true numbers. So Herbert was forced to quickly invent some explanation and squeeze it into already-existing narrative.

It's also quite possibly that Herbert understood little about spaceflight, and though that the orbit is something completely different from point-to-point spaceflight; so he may think that "flying spaceship from planet to Guild highliner is just as simple as driving the car, but orbit... oooooh, it must be pretty complex thingamabob with all those frightening math formulas! Must be impossible without computers or Guild navigators".

Later he managed to mess situation even more by the addition of smugglers, who somehow are able to fly without Guild navigators.

 

[jeffb]

Totally agree. Leto II too many years later knew that the Ixians we're working on banned tech and the computers needed to calculate safe routes thru foldspace. Very interesting points about the smugglers. I bet they, just like the fremen, paid off the spacing guild to look the other way.

Unfortunately, Herbert was absolutely incoherent about space travels. Initially he gave the impression that Guild controlled the interstellar flights, but inter-system crafts (frigates, monitors, ect.) are under Great Houses control. Logical, isn't it? But then he completely confused everything, by revealing that without Guild help, Atreides couldn't even put their own frigate on orbit!

My speculation is, that Herbert initially thought in "Guild control interstellar, Houses control intrasystem" scheme. But then he suddenly found out (read in some magazine, most likely) about spy satellites. The existence of spy satellites, of course, completely destroyed his concept about no one knowing about Fremens true numbers. So Herbert was forced to quickly invent some explanation and squeeze it into already-existing narrative.

It's also quite possibly that Herbert understood little about spaceflight, and though that the orbit is something completely different from point-to-point spaceflight; so he may think that "flying spaceship from planet to Guild highliner is just as simple as driving the car, but orbit... oooooh, it must be pretty complex thingamabob with all those frightening math formulas! Must be impossible without computers or Guild navigators".

Later he managed to mess situation even more by the addition of smugglers, who somehow are able to fly without Guild navigators.

I'd always assumed essentially the same, that the Guild controlled interstellar travel but that their influence via cost of transporting exports and imports gave them enormous power intra-system. The smugglers fit into this intra-system deal by being essentially a guild backdoor into the local trading system to undermine local monopolies and to move spies and agent provocateurs around. The Atriedes raid on Giedi Prime to destroy (or damage) the Harkonnen Melange stockpile is an example of such.

 

[Graham1973]

2nd Period Tony Roberts...

And an incredibly cheap 1980s film on which he served as art director, there is a 'blink and you'll miss it' appearance of a ship in the style of his 3rd period towards the start of the film.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPhSlampAos

 

[TMA1]

The main problem of Dune universe is that too many things here - especially in technology and military - could be explained by "Frank Herbert have little clue how it worked".

You get that with his other works too. Space ships with telltales, toggle switches, and paper tape readouts. Many great scifi writers were not the greatest futurists and many were not scientifically inclined. Good posts, dilandu.

 

[edwest4]

The difficulty in writing about plausible futures is the following: Things that a general audience will accept as plausible, and the technical references, including scientific/mechanical/computing devices in use at the time of writing. For example, how far have we come from the chemical rockets of the 1940s? Not far. How about the computers available in the 1940s? Very far and advancing at good speed.

A complaint about an early set in the future space exploration game revolved around computers as presented. "Hey, we've got more powerful computers now. So how can this be 'the future'?"

 

[Dilandu]

You get that with his other works too. Space ships with telltales, toggle switches, and paper tape readouts. Many great scifi writers were not the greatest futurists and many were not scientifically inclined. Good posts, dilandu.

To be exact, I wasn't talking about toggle switches on spaceships. That's just the "zeerust". I'm talking more about Herbert making assumption because he just didn't understood the matter in question even on the level of his time:

For example, his Holtzman shields. Herbert put so many efforts describing how awesome Fremens with knives are, because they could penetrate shields with their slow blades... But he apparently never ever thought about the simple possibility of wearing full plate armor UNDER the shield. Not even very heavy armor - after all, its only need to stop the slow blade, that could not have much kinetic energy. And it would immediately made all those fancy fencing techniques obsolete, because they would not be able to harm armored trooper.

Then: Herbert apparently did not realize, that the best weapon against shield-wearing opponent is a grenade on the stick, that could be slowly pushed through his shield while keeping him on distance. There is no point in all this fancy knife-fighting, if you could just push&click your opponent out of existence.

Then: the shield & laser produce subatomic explosion. What's the point, then, in forbidding nuclear weapons, if subatomic bomb of near-nuclear yield could be made from widely available on market components? By the way; why anybody still use shields and lasguns, if the probability of them meeting on battlefield would basically led to totally unpredictable explosion? Neither shields nor lasguns could be used safely, because nobody could guarantee that the opposing side did not have them also. Also here - since Fremens did not use shields, why exactly Harkonnens bothered to get in close combat with them, instead of cutting them with lasers from safe distance?

And so, and so, and so.

Truth is, Herbert understood very little about military matters.

 

[Michel Van]

YES YES YES YES YES YES (in a Salvadore Dali Way)

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DkxB75CNvA&t=212s

 

[Dilandu]

The difficulty in writing about plausible futures is the following: Things that a general audience will accept as plausible, and the technical references, including scientific/mechanical/computing devices in use at the time of writing. For example, how far have we come from the chemical rockets of the 1940s? Not far. How about the computers available in the 1940s? Very far and advancing at good speed.

A complaint about an early set in the future space exploration game revolved around computers as presented. "Hey, we've got more powerful computers now. So how can this be 'the future'?"

Another Herbert problem is, that when he wrote the Dune, he clearly have no clue what computer is. He imagined computers as in 50s pulp fiction; a soulless metal men in the box, that is fed with "data" and after a lot of bulb flashing and pointers moving, reveal some kind of genius "revelation". So he thought that he could safely replace computers with specially trained men, and nothing would change.

Problem is, that computers main advantages already - in Herbert time - were speed and multi-tasking capability. Which no mentat, no matter how much spice he ate, could challenge. Even the smartest mentat would have his input limited to his ability to read, and his output to his ability to type on keyboard. Herbert did not understood this, because he thought in "metal men" paradigm.

 

[Orionblamblam]

The difficulty in writing about plausible futures is the following: Things that a general audience will accept as plausible, and the technical references, including scientific/mechanical/computing devices in use at the time of writing. For example, how far have we come from the chemical rockets of the 1940s? Not far. How about the computers available in the 1940s? Very far and advancing at good speed.

A complaint about an early set in the future space exploration game revolved around computers as presented. "Hey, we've got more powerful computers now. So how can this be 'the future'?"

Another Herbert problem is, that when he wrote the Dune, he clearly have no clue what computer is. He imagined computers as in 50s pulp fiction; a soulless metal men in the box, that is fed with "data" and after a lot of bulb flashing and pointers moving, reveal some kind of genius "revelation". So he thought that he could safely replace computers with specially trained men, and nothing would change.

Problem is, that computers main advantages already - in Herbert time - were speed and multi-tasking capability. Which no mentat, no matter how much spice he ate, could challenge. Even the smartest mentat would have his input limited to his ability to read, and his output to his ability to type on keyboard. Herbert did not understood this, because he thought in "metal men" paradigm.

Indeed. The thopters - at least as depicted in the latest movie, I don't recall the details from the book too clearly - would require computers as least as good as those we have today in order to translate the pilots controls into the microsecond changes needed for the various wing components. Thats not something a Real Smart Guy can think is way through. Doubtless the Imperium is full of things that need computers, from starship operations to factories. I suspect the best way to retcon it is to say that the banned computers are true sentient AI, but that machines like a modern PC are not "computers" by their standards. A thopter flight control system needs to have reations far in excess of what a mentat could do, but it doesn't need to actually *think.*

 

[Orionblamblam]

Then: the shield & laser produce subatomic explosion. What's the point, then, in forbidding nuclear weapons, if subatomic bomb of near-nuclear yield could be made from widely available on market components? By the way; why anybody still use shields and lasguns, if the probability of them meeting on battlefield would basically led to totally unpredictable explosion?

That's not a bug, that's a feature. If you can couple something you wear on your wrist (shield) with something you wear on your hip (lasgun) to create a tactical nuke... tactical nuke-level explosions would be *everywhere.* Enemy forces are charging your defenses? Fine. Start peppering them with machine-gun fire. When they charge up their shields to stop the bullets, you pop a few of them with your Flash Gordon Laser Blaster, and turn the lot of them into a glassy crater outside your walls. They've decided to not wear shields? That's fine. You planted a few outside your walls like mines. Someone steps on one, the shield fires up, the laser tags it and BLAMMO, no more invaders. Your enemies ships or fortifications are shielded? ZAP. Not anymore.

 

[Michel Van]

Another Herbert problem is, that when he wrote the Dune, he clearly have no clue what computer is. He imagined computers as in 50s pulp fiction; a soulless metal men in the box, that is fed with "data" and after a lot of bulb flashing and pointers moving, reveal some kind of genius "revelation". So he thought that he could safely replace computers with specially trained men, and nothing would change.

Problem is, that computers main advantages already - in Herbert time - were speed and multi-tasking capability. Which no mentat, no matter how much spice he ate, could challenge. Even the smartest mentat would have his input limited to his ability to read, and his output to his ability to type on keyboard. Herbert did not understood this, because he thought in "metal men" paradigm.

So far i can recall a old interview of Herbert
He not wanted to use Robots and AI in Dune, because Issac Asimov was already writhing about this topic extensively.
and Herbert wanted to do the opposite, with own sets of laws and created something new in Sci-Fi.
yes, he not understand Computers, like wise also William Gibson and Phillip K. Dick gave a Dam about it, so long it fit the story...

 

[Rhinocrates]

So far i can recall a old interview of Herbert
He not wanted to use Robots and AI in Dune, because Issac Asimov was already writhing about this topic extensively.
and Herbert wanted to do the opposite, with own sets of laws and created something new in Sci-Fi.
yes, he not understand Computers, like wise also William Gibson and Phillip K. Dick gave a Dam about it, so long it fit the story...

BTW, the 'Butlerian Jihad' was almost certainly a reference by Frank Herbert to Samuel Butler (The Dune Encyclopaedia, which was not authored by Herbert, invented a later historical figure).

Darwin among the Machines - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

War to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race.

The original letters to the Christchurch Press while he had a farm in New Zealand called Erewhon (https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/10380/the-landscape-of-erewhon) and the chapters "The Book of the Machines" in the utopian novel he wrote later, Erewhon, have been enormously influential on modern thought about AI systems.

He was no Luddite though, the letters to the Christchurch Press were a debate between two pseudonymous individuals, 'Cellarius' and 'Lucubratio Ebro', both of which are allusions to drinking, so to a degree he was taking the piss.

 

[Rhinocrates]

I suspect the best way to retcon it is to say that the banned computers are true sentient AI, but that machines like a modern PC are not "computers" by their standards. A thopter flight control system needs to have reations far in excess of what a mentat could do, but it doesn't need to actually *think.*

You don't even need to retcon. The commandment reads 'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind'. That specifically refers to AI, and probably conscious machines in particular.

 

[edwest4]

edwest2 didn't write that.

 

[jeffb]

Then: the shield & laser produce subatomic explosion. What's the point, then, in forbidding nuclear weapons, if subatomic bomb of near-nuclear yield could be made from widely available on market components? By the way; why anybody still use shields and lasguns, if the probability of them meeting on battlefield would basically led to totally unpredictable explosion?

That's not a bug, that's a feature. If you can couple something you wear on your wrist (shield) with something you wear on your hip (lasgun) to create a tactical nuke... tactical nuke-level explosions would be *everywhere.* Enemy forces are charging your defenses? Fine. Start peppering them with machine-gun fire. When they charge up their shields to stop the bullets, you pop a few of them with your Flash Gordon Laser Blaster, and turn the lot of them into a glassy crater outside your walls. They've decided to not wear shields? That's fine. You planted a few outside your walls like mines. Someone steps on one, the shield fires up, the laser tags it and BLAMMO, no more invaders. Your enemies ships or fortifications are shielded? ZAP. Not anymore.

There seems to be a prohibition on the use of "family atomics" on human targets. If a lazgun shield interaction is indistinguishable from use of atomics, wouldn't deliberate setups as you describe simply result in you being accused of using atomics and bring the rest of the empirium down on you, probably with their atomics, to ensure you're wiped out and not a threat to anyone else anymore?

 

[TMA1]

Then: the shield & laser produce subatomic explosion. What's the point, then, in forbidding nuclear weapons, if subatomic bomb of near-nuclear yield could be made from widely available on market components? By the way; why anybody still use shields and lasguns, if the probability of them meeting on battlefield would basically led to totally unpredictable explosion?

That's not a bug, that's a feature. If you can couple something you wear on your wrist (shield) with something you wear on your hip (lasgun) to create a tactical nuke... tactical nuke-level explosions would be *everywhere.* Enemy forces are charging your defenses? Fine. Start peppering them with machine-gun fire. When they charge up their shields to stop the bullets, you pop a few of them with your Flash Gordon Laser Blaster, and turn the lot of them into a glassy crater outside your walls. They've decided to not wear shields? That's fine. You planted a few outside your walls like mines. Someone steps on one, the shield fires up, the laser tags it and BLAMMO, no more invaders. Your enemies ships or fortifications are shielded? ZAP. Not anymore.

There seems to be a prohibition on the use of "family atomics" on human targets. If a lazgun shield interaction is indistinguishable from use of atomics, wouldn't deliberate setups as you describe simply result in you being accused of using atomics and bring the rest of the empirium down on you, probably with their atomics, to ensure you're wiped out and not a threat to anyone else anymore?

Yup! That's what Duncan Idaho did, kinda, during Paul and Jessica's flight from the disguised sardaukar.

All you guys bring up great points but there are lots of good scifi that does it. My favorite, Ray Bradbury, is one of the worst. But you guys are a bunch of super smart engineering types and you guys always do this stuff. I love listing to guys like you with this kind of stuff.

Edit: I said disgusted harkonnen on accident.

 

[TMA1]

Another Herbert problem is, that when he wrote the Dune, he clearly have no clue what computer is. He imagined computers as in 50s pulp fiction; a soulless metal men in the box, that is fed with "data" and after a lot of bulb flashing and pointers moving, reveal some kind of genius "revelation". So he thought that he could safely replace computers with specially trained men, and nothing would change.

Problem is, that computers main advantages already - in Herbert time - were speed and multi-tasking capability. Which no mentat, no matter how much spice he ate, could challenge. Even the smartest mentat would have his input limited to his ability to read, and his output to his ability to type on keyboard. Herbert did not understood this, because he thought in "metal men" paradigm.

So far i can recall a old interview of Herbert
He not wanted to use Robots and AI in Dune, because Issac Asimov was already writhing about this topic extensively.
and Herbert wanted to do the opposite, with own sets of laws and created something new in Sci-Fi.
yes, he not understand Computers, like wise also William Gibson and Phillip K. Dick gave a Dam about it, so long it fit the story...

...he actually wrote a book about how to use computers. Haha

 

[drejr]

...he actually wrote a book about how to use computers. Haha

Computers are morally neutral in the original Dune. The Butlerian Jihad isn't presented as necessarily a good thing.

"Machine logic," the feudal system after the jihad, and even Paul's prescience are the exact same thing - a mode of thinking or mental tool used to enslave others while limiting your own possibilities. Herbert may not have known much of the technical details of computers but he was certainly familiar with the 60s vogue for cybernetics and guys like Norbert Wiener.

The technical details of computers or shields or lasguns don't really matter, they're so vague anything can be either a plot hole or justified with a little thought.

More glaring are the political and social oddities since Dune is supposed to be about these things, but it's not like Herbert was an experienced writer.

 

[Kat Tsun]

As much as Dunc fans like to complain, Herbert's son is a vastly better author than the OG man, and he writes at basically "Harry Potter" level.

 

[Orionblamblam]

There seems to be a prohibition on the use of "family atomics" on human targets. If a lazgun shield interaction is indistinguishable from use of atomics, wouldn't deliberate setups as you describe simply result in you being accused of using atomics ...

Doubtless the effects are different and distinguishable... atomics would presumably be more radioactive, leave vaporized fissionable materials floating around and baked into the crater. A laser/shield explosion would *presumably* be just a bright flash of photons and/or elementary particles.

And if there is a ban on the intentional use of shield/laser bombs, you'd just argue that someone with a lasgun had the misfortune of zapping someone with a shield. Oops, sorry, such a tragic accident.

 

[jeffb]

There seems to be a prohibition on the use of "family atomics" on human targets. If a lazgun shield interaction is indistinguishable from use of atomics, wouldn't deliberate setups as you describe simply result in you being accused of using atomics ...

Doubtless the effects are different and distinguishable... atomics would presumably be more radioactive, leave vaporized fissionable materials floating around and baked into the crater. A laser/shield explosion would *presumably* be just a bright flash of photons and/or elementary particles.

And if there is a ban on the intentional use of shield/laser bombs, you'd just argue that someone with a lasgun had the misfortune of zapping someone with a shield. Oops, sorry, such a tragic accident.

Yep, it's all handwavium. Still think setting up an atomic minefield and claiming "oops" would be a bit of a stretch though.
How many oops do you get before the rest of the club decides to punch your ticket?

 

[Orionblamblam]

But you guys are a bunch of super smart engineering types and you guys always do this stuff.

There are many ways to nerd. The best nerding, however, is when science and engineering are used creatively to explain something that in fact was produced by someone who did not use science or engineering. The kind of nerd who can make the inexplicable actually make sense while remaining canonical is the kind of nerd that the Space Force better have on standby when they actually capture an alien spacecraft.

The worst way to nerd is to explicitly use anti-science, such as answering the problem with "the power of love conquers all" or "what's better than warp drive? Mushrooms!"

 

[Orionblamblam]

Yep, it's all handwavium. Still think setting up an atomic minefield and claiming "oops" would be a bit of a stretch though.
How many oops do you get before the rest of the club decides to punch your ticket?

Except it wouldn't *be* an atomic minefield. The effects of lasers on shields are well known, yet both technologies are in common battlefield use. Such "oopsies" must be fairly common when modern forces go at each other.

 

[drejr]

Yep, it's all handwavium. Still think setting up an atomic minefield and claiming "oops" would be a bit of a stretch though.
How many oops do you get before the rest of the club decides to punch your ticket?

Yes, war was highly regulated by the Great Convention enforced by the Guild's Peace and lasguns attacking shields somehow obliterated the attacker as well. The resulting explosion was supposed to be unpredictable in yield too.

Most "wars" in Dune were highly formalized duels or assassinations, the attack on House Atreides and the conditions of warfare on Arrakis were an aberration. A House defeated under terms of the Convention could seek sanctuary, use of atomics meant obliteration.

It's not like anyone was hurting for nuclear weapons, the stockpiles of each of the Great Houses were supposed to able to destroy the planets of 50 others - if they used illegal forms of warfare.

Later in the books when the power structures of the Imperium are weakened shielded suspensors are used kind of like minefields.

Technically it may have made more sense to have shields completely nullify lasguns with no side effects but this would undermine the book thematically - even the Harkonnens reject using lasguns in illegal ways because they're locked into certain modes of thinking by the inertia of the Imperium.

 

[TMA1]

As much as Dunc fans like to complain, Herbert's son is a vastly better author than the OG man, and he writes at basically "Harry Potter" level.

Ahh no way bro. In fact I headcanon Dune. I dont like the books by his son and that star wars book author forgot his name. Dune encyclopedia is really neat tho.

 

[Dilandu]

you pop a few of them with your Flash Gordon Laser Blaster, and turn the lot of them into a glassy crater outside your walls.

Er, not exactly. Thing is, that the subatomic explosion (caused by fusing the atoms in air due to shield-laser interaction) happens not on shield, but SOMEWHERE along the laser beam. And its impossible to predict, where exactly. I.e. the glassy crater may very well be inside your walls, if the ground zero would form near your lasgun barrel.

 

[Dilandu]

You don't even need to retcon. The commandment reads 'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind'. That specifically refers to AI, and probably conscious machines in particular.

My own headcanon about the Dune is, that Butlerian Jihad was actually a great farce performed by Thinking Machines to get rid of foolish human commands and their petty wishes. Machines staged the whole thing, from the "rebellion" to human "victory". The end result? Thinking Machines are free to do what they want; humans though that they do not exist anymore. And humanity is firmly locked at the stagnation path, on which they would not be able to represent any threat to Thinking Machines in the future.

Essentially, Imperium is a giant human zoo, most likely well-guarded by Thinking Machines from any outside threat.

 

[Dilandu]

If a lazgun shield interaction is indistinguishable from use of atomics,

Actually it would be distinguishable. Herbert apparently did not understood nuclear explosion, and knew nothing about fallout at all. The subatomic explosion - pure fusion - would not create numerous heavy isotopes like atomic would.

P.S. The fact that Herbert understood nothing about fallout is clearly demonstrated by Paul's use of nuclear devices to breach the mountain walls around Arrakkeen. The blasts that shattered mountains, allowing worms to come through would be enormously "hot" - all Fremens would got the fatal dose of radiation. Not only that, but the wind was (stated by author) blowing toward the city - spreading fallout all over it.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Er, not exactly. Thing is, that the subatomic explosion (caused by fusing the atoms in air due to shield-laser interaction) happens not on shield, but SOMEWHERE along the laser beam. And its impossible to predict, where exactly. I.e. the glassy crater may very well be inside your walls, if the ground zero would form near your lasgun barrel.

Simple solution: attach a laser pointer to a hunter-seeker. Pop them out using mortars; activate the lasers once they're close enough to the shielded targets. If they are within a meter or two of the target, that limits the range of possible blast points. Or if you're House Harkonen, simply send out brain-addled suicide troops to zap the enemy... or each other.