Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Wondering if the methods by which the Fremen reclaim the water from dead comrades has ever been described in detail, in Dune it seemed to be hinted at, but mostly left to the imagination, same for Messiah with Chani's death.

They definitely distill the water out. They don't detail it as far as I know, but I imagine it's fairly simple, you just burn the corpse at high heat (corpses are hard to burn man!), the water evaporates and you can then collect that. A lot of filtering and possibly further stages of distillation would be required though.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:They definitely distill the water out. They don't detail it as far as I know, but I imagine it's fairly simple, you just burn the corpse at high heat (corpses are hard to burn man!), the water evaporates and you can then collect that. A lot of filtering and possibly further stages of distillation would be required though.

No way, dude. The first book tells us that they leave the bodies intact. It was made pretty clear whenever Thufir Hawat and the fremen he was staying with just before Thufir was captured, discussed "water issues" with Thufir and told him that the dead would be left their bodies, but that their water belonged to the tribe.

lukecash12 wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:They definitely distill the water out. They don't detail it as far as I know, but I imagine it's fairly simple, you just burn the corpse at high heat (corpses are hard to burn man!), the water evaporates and you can then collect that. A lot of filtering and possibly further stages of distillation would be required though.

No way, dude. The first book tells us that they leave the bodies intact. It was made pretty clear whenever Thufir Hawat and the fremen he was staying with just before Thufir was captured, discussed "water issues" with Thufir and told him that the dead would be left their bodies, but that their water belonged to the tribe.

I'll have to re-read the passage in question, but I'm pretty much dead sure of the technique - FH didn't call the deathstills "stills" for nothing. I could be wrong, but I'm not thinking that I am on this one.

Recall at the end of Dune Messiah Paul had to make the decision whether or not to ressurect Chani before she was taken to the deathstills. I believe there is a reference somewhere to ashes being all that's left after the water is removed.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:They definitely distill the water out.

lukecash12 wrote:No way, dude. The first book tells us...

Tells us this:

Frank Herbert in Dune wrote:Jessica translated silently: "These are ashes! And these are roots!"

The funeral ceremony for Jamis was beginning.

He could not be certain what he would do, but of one thing he was positive: he did not want the water distilled out of Jamis' flesh.

Now suck that down, kus kalbat.

they reclaim water at the Lost and Found offices in Arrakeen

So whatever that quote is about the dead being left their bodies is either symbolic or they're referring to ash and bone. FH was all about effiency too and tried to make the Fremen water-tech as simple and realistic as possible - and burning the corpse is the only realistic low-tech way to reclaim all that water, nothing else would work really.

They could squish 'em in a big press, like grapes.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:burning the corpse is the only realistic low-tech way to reclaim all that water, nothing else would work really.

All things considered, weren't the Fremen pretty high-tech? I mean, as far as what they used. Their stillsuits were the best, and I remember one of the characters (maybe Jessica) being impressed by the water reclamation technology- something about it being so exact, no moisture being lost.

I'd rather say it was "advanced" than "high-tech".

That's the key really, they were extremely advanced at it - high tech doesn't necessarily mean best for the situation. Cutting rocks? Sure, higher tech the better. Stillsuits? Not really super high tech, just perfect for the job.

I can't think of any system of water reclaimation that would work more completely, nor faster, cheaper, etc than simply burning the bodies and distilling the water.

My concept of it was like...they drain the fluids from their bodies in some kind of reverse IV, something crazy like that. No idea why I thought that, thanks for the help.

No problem at all, that's the first thing I would think of too, just drain their body of fluids. Unfortunately, getting all the fluid out this way would be impossible, you'd get a good amount of the blood, but there's plenty more water in the body than that!

I don't see the fremen leaving behind a single drop of water.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:No problem at all, that's the first thing I would think of too, just drain their body of fluids. Unfortunately, getting all the fluid out this way would be impossible, you'd get a good amount of the blood, but there's plenty more water in the body than that!

I don't see the fremen leaving behind a single drop of water.

No, they'd kill you for it.

I concede on this one. I did some more reading, and came to the same conclusion as you guys. It was a fun pursuit, really, because you don't get a book until you read it topically.

Well if the "left their bodies" thing was the thing that had stuck out in my memory I probably would have come to a similar conclusion.

OOBE?