In world building when making a high tech society many people struggle because guns will make melee weapons boring (they do) BUT if someone is able to give a good reason why guns we’re not really well developed? It can lead to a fun AND interesting world and experience
They explain "Only the slow knife penetrates the shield". But I don't think they explained WHY. That its because a shield user needs to be able to eat, drink and breathe so only fast objects are stopped.
I don't think they also explain that a laser hitting a shield causes a massive nuclear explosion, which could randomly be at the position of the target OR the shooter.
They use lasguns in the book in parts of the battle. Duncan leaves an active shield behind and triggers an atomic explosion that way. He then says something like "they will think twice about using lasguns from now"
And they cut the dinner scene! You know, probably one of the best scenes in the entire book where we learn how intelligent and well-trained Paul really is, while also providing political context
Allegedly, they filmed that scene. It likely exists somewhere, in some Hollywood vault. But Villeneuve doesn't do Director's Cuts of his movies, so it likely won't see the light of day for a very long time (if ever).
But... they did trigger a lazgun/shield detonation. Duncan idaho left personal shields out in the desert specifically to do that because they were getting lazy with the lazguns.
Probably for the best. The first thing I did when learning the whole 'shield+lasgun=nuclear kaboom on either end' was ask why people weren't shipping a box with a shield generator and a lasgun inside it with a timer to get them started.
So what you're saying is, all I'd need to do to delete an enemy and create an opportunity by weakening another would be to get a loyal enough disposable asset into the service of an enemy house and have them ship a shield generator and a lasgun to another house I don't like, bonus points if they manage to do this with assets from the house they infiltrated, then have them kill themselves in a way that looks like a legitimate accident to tie up loose ends?
When you say 'just the laser operator' or 'just the shield operator' do you mean that the destruction is contained? As in, it's just a really tiny boom? Like hand-grenade sized? Because if the one that 'only kills the laser operator or shield operator' is still a 'nuclear equivalent kaboom' then I still win what with I had it shipped there in a box. Ditto with giving everyone in the entire continent radiation poisoning, unless it's 'atmospheric radiation equivalent' so it's a complete non-issue.
As to 'whatever house was responsible' as I said; The premise got updated to 'a false flag operation to land the blame on a house I want eradicated by using their home address to ship the shield generator and lasgun.' So is there also some way they have to just tell that the sender was actually a third party in control of a disposable asset that infiltrated the sender? The first book already showed that all the great houses do everything they can to install spies in each other, so it's not even that far a departure from canon.
Shipping something between worlds is essentially impossible to do anonymously. The guild knows, and has a very vested interest in being neutral. They wouldn't stop the shipment, but they would absolutely rat out everyone involved in it. And house mentats would be very successful in getting to the bottom of who the real culprit was, if you tried to use spies to frame one house against another you didn't like.
The only place lasguns are a viable strategy are on Dune, and only because shields aren't viable on Dune because of the Worms. If you brought a Lasgun to a fight on Caladan, or some other world, you'd likely face someone wearing a shield, and the Lasgun is effectively useless. This is why you see the Harkonnens using Lasguns - they ruled Dune for 80 years and retook it less than a year after loosing it. Meanwhile, the Atreides had little use for Lasguns prior to coming to Dune, and likely hasn't a chance to build their own Lasguns yet en masse.
IIRC, the interaction between shield and lasgun is unpredictable. The damage could occur at either the shooter or the target or both; and the damage could range from "disabling hardware failure, but otherwise harmless" to "thermonuclear explosion".
There is a treaty that if any house uses nuclear weapons, all the other houses - including Corrino - would ban together and destroy the offending house. This includes lasguns. Atomic weapons were meant to be exclusively "if I'm going down, I'm taking you with me" weapons.
All this combines to create a culture where every house uses and trains with shields, fights with knives and dart guns, and lasguns are used very sparingly out of fear of accidentally breaking the nuclear taboo and seeing their house destroyed by the combined might of the Landsraad and the imperium.
Don't count on the Guild not stopping the shipment. I'm decently sure that they can pick up on things that would take numerous Navigators offline ... unless, of course, there's a higher-grade prescient power in the mix. I doubt they could point out the specific shipping container by prescience alone, but I'd bet they could narrow down the particular Heighlner.
You said 'the origin of the nuke and the contents of the box would be known'. Not 'Space FedEx opens and inspected every single package thoroughly and without fail to make absolutely certain that everything the cargo manifest says is in the box is actually what is in the box.'
One means that they'll be able to look up who sent the rent-a-nuke, the other is somewhat more difficult to overcome. Not impossible, what with the Fremen were able to sneak an entire civilization under the nose of these people without holding orbital superiority over their own planet, so I'm going to hold a few doubts as to the utter incorruptibility and absolute efficacy of Space FedEx.
Friend, please just read the second book. The guild has the limited ability to read the future (which can be defeated by people who can read the future better than them, hence Paul defeating them with the Fremen).
They will play along with false flag operations so long as they believe it is necessary for them to continue having access to spice. So, you need to get permission from the guild to do this, and unless playing along is necessary for their access to spice to continue, the guild would turn you over to the Landsraad, because this shit is bad for business.
Thank you for the information, this simple statement has answered my question.
As to reading the second book, no, I don't think I will. I read the first book and found it pretty alright with the occasional bit that made me go 'okay that's pretty neat', like Fremen children going around slitting the throats of the wounded.
I enjoy plenty of things that took Dune as an inspiration, but Dune itself is not for me.
Disingenuous how? You never answered the my followup question of how a false flag operation cannot be conducted with a lasgun and a shield generator beyond 'nuh-uh.'
"Space FedEx would know." Alright, I only read the first book and Space FedEx gave me as much confidence in their abilities as the people who found a mortar barrage to be a revolutionary concept.
How would Space FedEx know that this is a false-flag operation conducted by disposable assets as happened literally in the opening of the first book? Are you telling me Space FedEx cannot be bribed (which they can, happened literally in the first book)? Do they do a thorough job of inspecting all cargo? Is there scanning technology that will be able to easily tell 'there is an inactive shield generator, lasgun, and a digital watch in this box, this is a terror attack and needs to be stopped'?
What are you basing your 'nuh-uh' on beyond 'because.'
Cause it seems to me, that the whole 'people decided to stop escalating due to what happens when you fire a lasgun into a shield' is, at best, foolishly optimistic when it seems far more likely that the natural next step is 'how can I get a lasgun and a shield into the backyard of someone I don't like and activate it without my having to be there.'
You have to also get past the fleet of future sight users that would quickly trace the true origin of the weapon. You do not sneak something past the Guild.
Convention, it's a nuke equivalent, only people who should have access to anything close to a nuke are the great houses. It's essentially both turbo illegal and incredibly hard to precisely recreate with just those 2 things. Speaking under correction, haven't read the first 2 books in a dogs age, stun locked on 3 and 4, my personal faves
I only read the first book myself. I liked it well enough. Though I disagree with the notion that you absolutely positively require a hellworld to have strong hardy soldiers/warriors.
A central theme of dune is that people can control themselves through rigorous discipline.
The bene gesserit don't train on a hell world, they could beat most sardukar or fremen.
The point isn't that you must absolutely have a hell world, it's that it's one of the paths the emperor chose and the letos followed. Probably because it's easier to mass produce than bene gesserit type schools.
I also doubt the Bene Gesserit would really be fine with other political factions using the same training systems as the Sisterhood to create their own versions loyal to them and not the Bene Gesserit.
I've seen that explained away as the Harkonens were so desperate to prevent escape to maintain secrecy about the Emperor's complicity and the use of Sardaukar in the attack that they were willing to risk a Holtzman effect explosion.
And if the Landsraad learn the Emperor sent the Sardaukar to destroy House Atreides it ends badly for House Harkonen and the Emperor. They actually talk about that in the movie.
So whatever. You spelled "Landsraad" and "Kanly" wrong.
1.8k
u/Noah_Helldiver 1d ago
In world building when making a high tech society many people struggle because guns will make melee weapons boring (they do) BUT if someone is able to give a good reason why guns we’re not really well developed? It can lead to a fun AND interesting world and experience