By the way, using profits from Arrakis to build bigger army was exactly what Atreides were doing, and why they accepted the fief change in the first place. But they had mere weeks at best before Harkonnens struck them.
If anything, Herbert at times expressed overinterest with finances, like in that scene where Paul and Jessica agree to distribute some water to needing Fremen in the Stilgar troop, in the middle of the desert after fight, and in response hear the ridiculously out of place bank talk.
Exactly. The Harkonnens had stockpiled decades of spice and gone into extreme debt on top of it in order to finance the re-invasion of Arrakis. And this is, of course, on top of the Imperial Saudakaur, who (against any but the fremen) were priceless and could fight with the strength of 10 men.
The Atreides were not a rich family - their power was in propaganda. And so their plan was to use this power to win over the Fremen, previously overlooked by the Harkonnens, to their side.
Without the Fremen, there was no amount of money that could have saved Leto Atreides and prevented the Harkonnen invasion. No amount of mercenaries could have thwarted the Saudarkar. The only thing that could have won the war for them was more time for the Atreides military leaders - Gurnie Halleck and Duncan Idaho - to train soldiers (and the building of an elite, loyal Atreides army was the reason the Harkonnens and the Emperor expedited the Atreides’ downfall in the first place - because they could have built an army to challenge the Emperor), or winning the loyalty of the Fremen sooner. Both are brought up in the books - what they needed was more time.
The one unanswered question is what happened between Atreides and Corrino before. Recent Caladan trilogy by Brian is happening exactly in that time but it completely flopped since it ends with Shaddam and Fenring end up those books being in very good relations to the Atreides, and also being hair width from ordering Sardaukar to exterminate the Harkonnen.
Wasn’t it just that Leto I and the Atreides were too popular? Approaching the point where they could conceivably challenge the emperor. I seem to remember Shaddam not being happy about killing the house but felt it necessary
That was part of it too, but (leaving aside Brian entirely), Shaddam was a man whose will was severly restrained by the Great Convention, particularly Landsraad was organisation which main or one of main purpose was even explicitly stated in the book by Thufir Hawat iirc - their greatest fear was that Emperor would use the Sardaukar to kill them off one by one, and it was stated to be the reason why the masquerade with Harkonnen uniforms was done. And it was HUGE risk for the emperor, he wouldn’t dare to do that for no reason, and certainly not when he had Fenring as advisor.
So there was much more of it between them. Also Leto himself was pretty keen to pursue this course so he wasn’t just a victim, by all probabilities he really was aiming at Shaddam. Possible most obvious course was 4 daughters and 0 sons of Shaddam, popular and politically savvy duke could easily push for marrying his son and heir to Irulan and became the all powerful force behind the throne. Shaddam would certainly fear that scenario, but i bet it was still not all. Well we will never know now, Brian version of the events are not even coherent with Brian version.
Doubt it’s that secret, everyone calls them witches, the most politically relevant ability of truthtrance is widely known, and every mentat worth his sapho would immediately notice some things, like the statistically improbable amount of daughters the BG have.
BG clearly have plot shield before Leto II, when he takes the role.
If it’s a secret they’re doing a shitty job keeping it since they keep fucking telling people.
Also if he’s the only guy in the universe who doesn’t know it means every single one of the emperors daughters is betraying him and his dynasty and his spies are shit.
Who do they tell? The reader gets it from Jessica, who tells:
The Reverend Mother, who knows it already;
Paul (I think), who is going through BG training himself, thus is privy to some of their secrets
Maybe (?) Leto (can’t really remember), who she loves so much she YOLO’d a multi-generation BG project to make happy, so sharing a BG secret wouldn’t be too large of leap from there.
Besides, huge secrets are kept routinely, or at least kept well enough to where no one could prove otherwise. The details of the Harkonnen attack, the Emperor’s involvement in it, and Paul and Jessica’s survival all come to mind.
But they had mere weeks at best before Harkonnens struck them.
Yeah there’s been lots of memes about Leto falling for the trap. But in book and film he clearly states he knows it’s a trap. Except he expected that the Harkonnens would sabotage the equipment they left behind, while leaving spies, saboteurs, assassins to impede him, then when spice profits fell to all time lows the Atreides name would be tarnished and the Harkonnen would strike (in the book he even anticipates some Sardoukar disguised as Harkonnens to bolster their chances).
His plan is basically to hit the ground running, get spice production up to standards as fast as possible while courting the Fremen as an auxillary force to surprise the inevitable attack, then he aims to call the Landsraad and display the Sardoukar as proof the Emperor was interfering.
What he doesn’t realise is that they are planning to attack him and his house almost immediately. With the entire forces of Sardoukar. Not the Emperor putting his finger subtly on the scale but flipping the table. That combined with the traitor Dr Yueh who he never expected take him by surprise.
Second thing that surprised them was the scale of the attack, not only Sardaukar but that the Harkonnens basically bankrupted themselves to send overwhelming force.
Yeah it was all out. All of the Harkonnen. Shitloads of Sardoukar. The Harkonnen even reinvented conventional artillery for the attack (something that gets nicely referenced in Dune Part 2)
By the way, using profits from Arrakis to build bigger army was exactly what Atreides were doing, and why they accepted the fief change in the first place. But they had mere weeks at best before Harkonnens struck them.
If anything, Herbert at times expressed overinterest with finances, like in that scene where Paul and Jessica agree to distribute some water to needing Fremen in the Stilgar troop, in the middle of the desert after fight, and in response hear the ridiculously out of place bank talk.
Exactly. The Harkonnens had stockpiled decades of spice and gone into extreme debt on top of it in order to finance the re-invasion of Arrakis. And this is, of course, on top of the Imperial Saudakaur, who (against any but the fremen) were priceless and could fight with the strength of 10 men.
The Atreides were not a rich family - their power was in propaganda. And so their plan was to use this power to win over the Fremen, previously overlooked by the Harkonnens, to their side.
Without the Fremen, there was no amount of money that could have saved Leto Atreides and prevented the Harkonnen invasion. No amount of mercenaries could have thwarted the Saudarkar. The only thing that could have won the war for them was more time for the Atreides military leaders - Gurnie Halleck and Duncan Idaho - to train soldiers (and the building of an elite, loyal Atreides army was the reason the Harkonnens and the Emperor expedited the Atreides’ downfall in the first place - because they could have built an army to challenge the Emperor), or winning the loyalty of the Fremen sooner. Both are brought up in the books - what they needed was more time.
The one unanswered question is what happened between Atreides and Corrino before. Recent Caladan trilogy by Brian is happening exactly in that time but it completely flopped since it ends with Shaddam and Fenring end up those books being in very good relations to the Atreides, and also being hair width from ordering Sardaukar to exterminate the Harkonnen.
Nothing by Brian is canon, you might as well tell me about something you dreamed
It is canon by definition, but the difference in content means there are three separate canons: Just Frank, Frank + Encyclopedia, Frank + Brian.
Wasn’t it just that Leto I and the Atreides were too popular? Approaching the point where they could conceivably challenge the emperor. I seem to remember Shaddam not being happy about killing the house but felt it necessary
That was part of it too, but (leaving aside Brian entirely), Shaddam was a man whose will was severly restrained by the Great Convention, particularly Landsraad was organisation which main or one of main purpose was even explicitly stated in the book by Thufir Hawat iirc - their greatest fear was that Emperor would use the Sardaukar to kill them off one by one, and it was stated to be the reason why the masquerade with Harkonnen uniforms was done. And it was HUGE risk for the emperor, he wouldn’t dare to do that for no reason, and certainly not when he had Fenring as advisor.
So there was much more of it between them. Also Leto himself was pretty keen to pursue this course so he wasn’t just a victim, by all probabilities he really was aiming at Shaddam. Possible most obvious course was 4 daughters and 0 sons of Shaddam, popular and politically savvy duke could easily push for marrying his son and heir to Irulan and became the all powerful force behind the throne. Shaddam would certainly fear that scenario, but i bet it was still not all. Well we will never know now, Brian version of the events are not even coherent with Brian version.
The real gaping plot question is why the emperor allowed the Bene Gesseret to deny him an heir
It’s not a plot hole. The Bene Geserit have mind control sex and his wife is Bene Geserit. The pussy is just too good
Isn’t the exact, ludicrous amount of control BGs have over their bodies a closely-guarded secret?
Doubt it’s that secret, everyone calls them witches, the most politically relevant ability of truthtrance is widely known, and every mentat worth his sapho would immediately notice some things, like the statistically improbable amount of daughters the BG have.
BG clearly have plot shield before Leto II, when he takes the role.
If it’s a secret they’re doing a shitty job keeping it since they keep fucking telling people. Also if he’s the only guy in the universe who doesn’t know it means every single one of the emperors daughters is betraying him and his dynasty and his spies are shit.
Who do they tell? The reader gets it from Jessica, who tells:
Besides, huge secrets are kept routinely, or at least kept well enough to where no one could prove otherwise. The details of the Harkonnen attack, the Emperor’s involvement in it, and Paul and Jessica’s survival all come to mind.
actually what they needed was more spice futures. sorry kid
Yeah there’s been lots of memes about Leto falling for the trap. But in book and film he clearly states he knows it’s a trap. Except he expected that the Harkonnens would sabotage the equipment they left behind, while leaving spies, saboteurs, assassins to impede him, then when spice profits fell to all time lows the Atreides name would be tarnished and the Harkonnen would strike (in the book he even anticipates some Sardoukar disguised as Harkonnens to bolster their chances).
His plan is basically to hit the ground running, get spice production up to standards as fast as possible while courting the Fremen as an auxillary force to surprise the inevitable attack, then he aims to call the Landsraad and display the Sardoukar as proof the Emperor was interfering.
What he doesn’t realise is that they are planning to attack him and his house almost immediately. With the entire forces of Sardoukar. Not the Emperor putting his finger subtly on the scale but flipping the table. That combined with the traitor Dr Yueh who he never expected take him by surprise.
Second thing that surprised them was the scale of the attack, not only Sardaukar but that the Harkonnens basically bankrupted themselves to send overwhelming force.
Yeah it was all out. All of the Harkonnen. Shitloads of Sardoukar. The Harkonnen even reinvented conventional artillery for the attack (something that gets nicely referenced in Dune Part 2)