Yes. Finally Someone Gets It. This Is One Of The Reasons Why I Fell In Awe (not Love) With Dune, Reading

Yes. Finally someone gets it. This is one of the reasons why I fell in awe (not love) with Dune, reading it over twenty years ago while studying environmental sciences at university.

what dune is about: a rant

so

dune

that weird giant in the background of modern sci-fi that everyone knows about and nobody seems to get, not really

what is dune?

is it about the epynomous planet, dune, arrakis?

no

it is an epic story about paul atreides' ascent to power through the combined power of a monopoly on the supply of navigator space-cocaine and the boundless light of islam?

also no

dune is not a space opera, dune is not an epic fantasy story set in space

fundamentally dune is about ecology

and the main character of dune is not paul. nor is it leto ii. nor is it sheeana, or odrade, or miles teg, all names that mean nothing to people who only know the setting through adaptations. the main character is not even duncan idaho

it's the bene gesserit

what is the bene gesserit?

well, it's complicated. everyone knows about their "breeding program" but few people actually think about what the implications of it are

the great houses are not in charge, really. they're gene lines. they're in a very real sense different strains of *domesticated human* selected for different traits. they're not "special" for any reason of faith or exceptionalism

they're "special" in the same way a racehorse is special. because it was bred to be fast. the mythologies are all artificial additions, memetic scaffolding to surround the actual project

and then, what traits?

well, the bene gesserit sought a broad prescience. a "leader" like guidedog is a leader, leading a blind humanity through a future without hitting any metaphorical walls

they misunderstood their own mission, and they learn as much, before the end of their relevance

because paul was an ephemeral storm,

and leto is a wolf, a predator in the ecological sense, a selective pressure on the memetics of humanity, driving them out of the forest, driving them out of their spot at the top of the food chain. no longer their own worst enemy

dune is about the prelude and memetic extinction events before the scattering

it's about a domesticated humanity breaking free, becoming feral, becoming everything else

dune is about the endless struggle for humanity to find its niche before it drives itself extinct, and in doing so finding an infinite amount of niches, for an infinite amount of different humanities

it's about ecosystems and predation and diversification and extinction events both biological and memetical, and how it is ruthless, cruel, and most things go extinct without descendants, but as long as something survives it keeps going

about humanity breaking through its last great filter: itself

such is the golden path