Dune: How Space Travel Works & Why Spice Is Important

The world of Arrakis, also called Dune, is the only source of the spice melange, the key to interstellar travel and the only currency that matters.

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Why is the spice important to Dune, and the key to its space travel? Dune is a science fiction story about warring noble houses in space; their wars, betrayals, and political maneuvering, both a grand space opera and a seminal science fiction story. Central to all conflict in Dune is the spice called “melange”, which everyone desires. With the hype centering around Denis Villeneuve’s Dune, those unfamiliar with the story may feel like they have to do a lot of homework about the Dune universe to understand it. The relationship between spice and space travel is actually pretty simple, however, although it has big implications. In understanding the spice, one understands Dune.

Dune began as a much-loved 1965 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the first book to win both the Hugo and the Nebula awards. Its success led to a series of novels that enriched and expanded the universe. The book has struggled to be adapted to screen, with many believing the Dune book can’t be faithfully adapted due to the sprawling world and dense story. Since Dune is a large book—its first edition was just over 400 pages—adaptation has certainly proved challenging, and what has appeared on screen has been truncated or drastically altered. Through several failed productions, Dune has made it to film only twice: once in 1984 under the direction of David Lynch, and once in 2021 under Denis Villeneuve, and once in miniseries format in a 2000 SyFy production. Central to all versions of the story is the spice.

The spice is the great McGuffin within the narrative of the Dune universe. Every character wants spice, to control the spice, or to ingest the spice. “The spice must flow” as they say repeatedly in the books, in voice-over whispers in David Lynch’s Dune, and it even manages to work its way as a mantra into Denis Villeneuve’s film. Dune has a large cast of characters, but every one of their personal journeys are at least tangentially related to the spice. The key aspect of the spice is that ingesting it grants “prescience,” the ability to briefly see into the future, or rather to experience time outside the restrictions of a past-present-future framework. This is so tremendously useful to the people of the Dune universe that it influences all of the most important aspects of its setting: religion, politics, and space travel.

What Exactly Is Spice?

The spice called “melange,” or more often simply referred to as “the spice” is a dusty red substance created by monstrously large and incredibly dangerous sandworms as they burrow through the sands of their home planet of Arrakis, known colloquially as Dune. Sandworms do not live on any other planet than the desert planet Arrakis. The sandworms of Dune have animal-like intelligence, varying only slightly in appearance between adaptations, and are so tremendously large that they can rise from the ground and eat whole buildings.

Despite the danger, spice is still sought out as it’s so valuable–the most important commodity in the universe due to its ability to grant longevity, vastly increase mental powers, and enable faster-than-light travel known as space folding. Therefore, the noble family House that controls Arrakis singularly controls the harvesting of spice. Likewise, Dune is the key location of the universe, with spice getting shipped across the universe from the central point of Arrakis. Beyond just its political power as a commodity, however, the spice also has practical applications within the narrative of Dune.

What is the Spacing Guild?

Notably, all space travel is controlled by the Spacing Guild, an organization granted a monopoly on all space travel by the Padishah Emperor who rules over the noble Houses, and therefore controls the distribution of spice melange. With the prescience granted by ingesting the spice melange, the guild’s skilled and highly trained Navigators are able to fold space, essentially creating wormholes to pilot their gigantic starships instantly across the galaxy. Unfortunately, the Navigators on those spacefolder ships take so much spice to achieve their navigational powers that their bodies mutate horribly into a sort of fish-like creature. It’s a high price that some are nonetheless willing to pay. Without the spice, space journeys would be undergone by atomic rockets and take hundreds of years to move from planet to planet. The vast scope of the Dune film runs the risk of alienating audiences with so many details about the implications of spice, but, luckily, the Spacing Guild does not factor much into the story of Dune and its direct events. Mostly readers are told of its influence as a way of leveraging the importance of the spice.

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Who Are The Bene Gesserit?

It is easy to get lost in Dune’s overwhelming glossary and unique terminology, but one term to know is “Bene Gesserit,” an organization of what are effectively space witches and oracles. Part religious organization and part spy and assassin guild, the women-only Bene Gesserit are martial artists, philosophers, scientists and advisors, and probably the group with the greatest influence on the narrative of Dune. The machinations of the Bene Gesserit are complex, but in simplest terms, they ingest spice to gain prescience, as well as other supernatural abilities, and use them for political maneuvering. To become Reverend Mothers, the Bene Gesserit also undertake a ceremony where they ingest a modified, highly toxic version of spice known as the Water of Life. Many die, but those who survive the ordeal are granted the memories of all of their female ancestors. Without the spice, they effectively lose their powers. Without their powers, the Bene Gesserit lose their advantage in the fierce political arena of the Dune universe.

It is a testament to Frank Herbert’s craft that Dune can focus so intensely on one planet and one object and still feel like such a large, imposing universe. The story of Dune has had a drastic influence on other science fiction properties, with its magical monastic order, its noble Houses, its desert planet, and generally the complexity of its world-building. Spice is at the very center of the story and its events. Without it, spaceships do not run, magical sorceresses lose their powers, and the plot of Dune—where, as the story begins, many of these established facts are flipped on their head—does not happen. While Denis Villeneuve’s Dune promises to indoctrinate new fans, it all comes down to the spice melange: The spice must flow.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/dune-space-travel-spice-important-reason/