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)
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)