Editing Dune (section)

===The Politics===

With a new movie series coming out, it's worth breaking down the politics of the first book.  Here are the major factions and their motivations:

* '''House Atreides:''' Duke Leto rules the planet Caladan and the Emperor has named him the next ruler of Arrakis. The Bene Gesserit had meanwhile foisted a concubine on him, Jessica, and ordered her to give him a daughter; but the couple ended up in love with each other so Jessica gave him a son - Paul - instead of a daughter whom the Bene Gesserit could have actual use for. Leto then legitimated his ''fitz'' as his heir thus pushing useful marriage alliances to that next generation. Leto has amassed a formidable council of advisors: Gurney Halleck, an escaped Harkonnen slave who rose through the ranks to become warmaster (played by Picard himself, Patrick Stewart); Thufir Hawat, Mentat and his master of assassins; Duncan Idaho, also an escaped slave and now a swordmaster of the Ginaz school and the Atreides House champion; and Wellington Yueh, a medical doctor of the Suk school conditioned to be unable to kill the people in his care. Paul is a prime candidate to marry the Emperor's daughter Irulan, but Leto's motivations are simply to keep his house safe. Or are they? In an opera all about grey morality, the Atreides are the heroes and good guys. And good guys they are: they struggle to govern fairly and treat people well and even save the whole human race. But scratch ''heavily'' under that - which is exactly what the books are trying to make you do: scratch and make the scratching difficult - and you start to question it. A lot - and I mean ''billions'' of people really hate the Atreides. And for good reason. Behind that "saviour complex" attitude, there's a frightening hunger for power.<s> That's why Shaddam IV - who was '''not''' a tyrant, in contrast to Paul, and was '''not''' an evil man, sided with the Harkonnens - whom he despised - to fuck up the Atreides.</s> Because he feared their rise to power.<s> Was he wrong?</s> I mean, after defeating him, Paul not only became Emperor, but he ruled with an iron fist and amassed a body count in the billions. Did he have good reasons to do that? Yeah... so ''he'' says. Being driven mad by God-Like omniscience would certainly make it more difficult for the other powers in the galaxy to see things his way. 
* '''House Harkonnen:''' For the last century, the Harkonnens have held fief over Arrakis, and their term is ending. The Harkonnens have had a family feud with the Atreides for millennia.  The Siridar Baron, Vladimir Harkonnen (one of the most evil men this side of the universe), has no children (as far as we know at the beginning), but rather two nephews, Rabban (the Beast) and Feyd-Rautha (the pretty one, played by Sting).  He and his advisor, a Twisted Mentat named Piter de Vries, want to settle all accounts: wipe out the Atreides, reclaim Arrakis, marry Feyd to Princess Irulan, and take control of the Empire.
* '''House Corrino:''' The house of the Padishah Emperor. Claims to rule all of space.  The incumbent Emperor, Shaddam Corrino IV, has several daughters but no sons through his Bene Gesserit wife. He sees the potential end of his line and what could happen to his house. He knows that Leto is immensely popular and has amassed a formidable army, trained almost to the level of his own elite Sardaukar, and that represents a threat to his power that he cannot ignore.  Shaddam conspires with the Harkonnens to lure Leto and his house into a trap on Arrakis and wipe them out.
* '''The Bene Gesserit:''' A religious order of battle nuns and courtesans with psychometabolic powers including dominating minds with their voice, psychic kung-fu, and limited prescience.  Basically pacifistic Sororitas (although if you cross them, they will not hesitate to hunt you to the ends of the universe if they have to) with a harder boner for scheming than Tzeentch and the Horned Rat combined. The sisterhood is nearing the culmination of thousands of years of selective breeding to produce a superman called the Kwisatz-Haderach, a being that can combine the powers of Bene Gesserit, Mentat and Navigator and gain complete precognition, but their plans were thrown into disorder when Jessica gave birth to a son instead of a daughter.  To salvage their project they need either Paul or Feyd to survive and have a child, preferably through Irulan (although losing either one will be a setback).
* '''[[Haemonculus|The Bene Tleilax]]:''' Also known as "Tleilaxu" (the first L is silent), this patriarchal, isolationist group contains the universe's premier genetic engineers. Creepy little bastards. Their clients view them as both useful and borderline [[Heresy|heretics]] for how closely they skirt the letter of the Butlerian taboos. We don't actually meet any Tleilaxu agents until the events of ''Dune Messiah''.
* '''Mentats''': Humans trained to replace computers after "thinking machines" were outlawed in the wake of the Butlerian Jihad. Their powers of memory and perception are honed to superhuman levels, making them capable of tremendously complex mathematical calculations. They can also collate and synthesize immense amounts of information, allowing them to divine hidden patterns and develop incredibly precise hypotheses and strategies (literal ''weaponized autism''); the very best Mentats can predict likely future outcomes, given sufficient data. Because of these abilities, most Great Houses have a Mentat advisor, and they are also used by the Bene Gesserit and other political or military organizations. They're required to operate within certain ethical frameworks, but some Houses want Mentats who can and will ignore any such constraints. These "Twisted Mentats" are produced by the Tleilaxu. 
* '''The Spacing Guild:''' An order of mutants who control all interstellar travel, as their Navigators are the only safe way to travel between stars without forbidden computers.  Their talent manifests as perfect short term prescience, thus allowing them to guide a vessel at FTL speeds basically by [[Farseer|finding the near future where they don't die flying right into a star]].  The Guild is the real power behind the Emperor: they want stability on Arrakis and will work with whoever can promise that... and against anyone who threatens their supply of spice.  The spice must flow.
* '''Ixians:''' technocratic society specializing in production of complex machinery. Give even less fucks about Butlerian taboos than Tleilaxu. They're mentioned in the first book but don't play an important role. Yet. ''(TBH the Ixians are thing in the original six books, but Brian and KJA do more with them than Frank did.)''
* '''The Fremen:''' The "natives" of Arrakis, the Fremen are the descendants of the Zensunni Wanderers (a fusion religion of Buddhism and Sunni Islam) who ended their pilgrimage on Arrakis.  The Fremen know the desert and how to survive it better than any off-worlder, so a Great House that rules the planet must deal with them in one fashion or another. The Harkonnen tried to kill them to no avail, but Duke Leto believes he can win their allegiance through cunning and diplomacy.  The Bene Gesserit - through the Missionaria Protectiva - have conditioned them to believe in a coming messiah; while the Emperor's rogue planetologist, Liet Kynes, has enthralled them with a vision of terraforming Arrakis into a paradise.  

Into all this, add partial precognition (among other psychic talents) on the part of the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild, both with self-acknowledged serious blind spots, and that Leto's son Paul is far more important than ''anybody'' realizes at the start of the first book, and you have yourself a recipe for a grade-A nuclear clusterfuck of politics.