Sandworm Dune: Encyclopedia II - Sandworm Dune - Melange and sandworm exploitation by humans

Sandworm Dune - Melange and sandworm exploitation by humans

Following its discovery, the cinnamon-scented melange became a commodity of central importance to the universe due to its rarity and numerous remarkable properties. The most common of these properties is that it serves as a geriatric narcotic — a drug capable of extending human life well beyond its natural limits. This comes at the cost of great addiction and the denial of spice to an addict can only result in death. Spice addicts are easy to spot by their blue-in-blue eyes and are common among the aristocracy, Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild and Fremen.

A second, and more remarkable property of melange is that it allows for users to experience prescience: to be able to see the future before it happens. This capability was taken advantage of by the Spacing Guild who saturated their navigators in melange gas, allowing them to see safe flight paths for heighliners and safely fold space using the Holtzman effect. Not everyone has the ability to obtain this prescience, as it requires a very high tolerance for melange. Paul-Muad'Dib and his son Leto Atreides II took their special role in history partly because they had especially high melange tolerances which allowed them to see the future. This ability appears to have become one carried down dominantly in all their descendant Atreides.

A third property of melange pertains to the spice essence. Spice essence is a bile-like extract from a worm poisoned by water. This blue fluid is then ingested by Bene Gesserit acolytes as the last stage of their training. The fluid is highly poisonous and the object of the trial is to use the power of their minds over their metabolic systems to transmute the fluid into something non-toxic. This ritual is known as the Spice Agony and it awakens the genetic "Other Memory" of Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers. Independently of the Bene Gesserit, the Fremen practiced it, drowning captive 9 meter "dwarf" worms of the Minor Erg to produce the fluid. They then have their "wild" Reverend Mothers transmute a large quantity of the fluid to produce a liquor used to incite celebratory orgies in the Fremen sietch dwellings. Paul-Muad'Dib and Leto II are notable as the only men in history to undergo the spice agony, making them the male equals of Reverend Mothers, something the Bene Gesserit call the Kwisatz Haderach. Their experiences will be discussed below.

Due to these properties spice is, perhaps, the most valuable commodity in the entire universe, made especially so by the fact that it is produced on only one planet. Humans desperately seek it out across the planet to sell on the market. It is a very dangerous activity, as sandworms are territorial creatures and eagerly defend spice-blows. Harvesting is carried out by a gigantic machine called a Harvester. The Harvester is carried to and from a spice blow by an enlarged version of the ornithopter known as a Carry-All. The Harvester on the ground will have three scouting ornithopters patrolling around it watching for wormsign — the motions of sand indicating that a worm is headed towards the Harvester. The activity is made especially dangerous because sandworms are attracted to rhythmic vibrations on the ground — such as those generated by the Harvester as it extracts melange from the sand. The Fremen, who base their entire industry around the sale of spice and the manufacture of materials out of spice, have their own means for harvesting, as do smugglers. Both engage in these activities outside of the safe polar regions of Arrakis.

The Fremen managed to develop a unique relationship with the sandworms. For one, they learned to avoid most worm attacks by mimicking the motions of desert animals and moving with the natural sounds of the desert, rather than the rhythmic vibration patterns that attract worms. However, they also developed a device known as thumper with the express purpose of generating a rhythmic vibration to attract a sandworm. This can be used either as a diversion, or to summon a worm for the Fremen to ride.

The Fremen secretly mastered a way to ride sandworms for transportation across the open desert. First a worm is summoned with a thumper, the worm-rider then runs along side it and catches one of the ring-segments with a special maker-hook. The hook is used to pry up the front of the segment, exposing the soft inner-tissue to abrasive sand. To avoid irritation, the worm will rotate this to the top of its body, carrying the rider with it. The worm will then safely remain above the surface until the hook is released. Other Fremen may then plant additional hooks for steering, or act as "beaters", hitting the worm's tail to make it increase speed. A worm can be ridden for several hundred miles and for about half of a day, at which point it will become exhausted and sit on the open desert until the hooks are released, when they will burrow back down to rest. The worm-riding ritual is used as a coming-of-age ritual among the Fremen. Worm-riding was then used by Paul-Muad'Dib for troop transport into the city of Arrakeen after using atomic weapons to blow a hole in the shield wall during the Battle of Arrakeen.

After the reign of Leto II sandworms became unrideable, for reason elaborated on below. There was one remarkable exception, however, a young girl named Sheeana, an Atreides-descendent possessed a unique ability to control the worms and safely move around them.

The Fremen also harvest the teeth of sandworms to make crysknives. These knives come in both the fixed and unfixed varieties. Unfixed knives require the electromagnetic field of a living being to avoid dissipating and cannot leave the planet Arrakis, while fixed knives do not have this issue.

Due to the value of melange, attempts have been made to replicate it on countless planets, always meeting with failure. In many experiments an adult worm was transplanted (often smuggled with funds going to the Fremen), which prevented the complete cycle from existing; while in others sandtrout were transplanted into an existing desert, denying them the necessary water to begin the cycle. A solution to this was realized by Leto II, as it had perhaps been before by ecologists Liet-Kynes and Pardot Kynes. The large salt-flats of Arrakis indicate that it was not always a desert, but once had oceans that were dried up by the sandtrout (this may even stand as evidence that the sandtrout are not even native to Arrakis), thus, placing sandtrout on a water-rich planet will allow them to start the complete spice cycle at the cost of turning the planet into a desert, another Dune.

The Honored Matres destroyed Arrakis and the Tleilaxu (who held the secret to axlotl tank Spice production) in the hopes of eliminating the substance to damage the "Old Empire" but were thwarted when the Bene Gesserit escaped with a single sandworm. Using a process discovered by Leto II, they submerged the worm in Spice-rich water, causing it to separate into sandtrout, rather than simply die. With that they transformed their own Chapterhouse planet into another Dune and sent countless sandworms out into space.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Melange and sandworm exploitation by humans", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki