Meetings of the Landsraad


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Robspierre
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by Robspierre »

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Bronso
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by Bronso »

Anathema wrote:Comparing the landsraad to "real institutions", the English/UK-ish parliament used to be a gathering of people that met occasionally in order to advise the king. Later on, they got uppity and decided that they were the representatives of the land or whatever, and passed laws that a "parliament" had to be convened every couple of years or so, with smaller intervals as time progressed, until modern times when parliament was permanently in session.

Other than that they weren't that important originally, one of the reasons that they didn't meat that frequently would have been that it was unpractical to travel to Westminster for every other issue. Which means basically two explanations for the question in the OP:
- the "old empire" in Dune is very much an absolute monarchy; the emperor has to convene a "Landsraad meeting" every three-four years to appease the great houses but that's it
- space travel is expensive, and makes it unpractical for the rank-and-file members of the Landsraad to travel for every other issue.
I think it's a pretty good comparison. A couple of important differences to note though:

1) The Landsraad did have real power in the form of its own militaries and atomic weapons, which combined could match the military power of the imperial house. I don't believe that the parliament had its own military entities of that strength (correct me if I'm wrong on that), which makes a big difference in how power was really being balanced and gained between the two situations.

2) The space travel expense part I think is misunderstood. It's only military ventures that are exorbitant. I think Naive mind hit it on the head in this thread.
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by SandChigger »

Anathema wrote:Hi Sandchigger, luv your avatar. lolz
Hiya back. :)
- space travel is expensive, and makes it unpractical for the rank-and-file members of the Landsraad to travel for every other issue.
My main interest in this was the fact that the Landsraad had existed for about two millennia before the Butlerian Jihad, so some form of fast transportation had to have existed back then for the thing to have even been possible.

It was all aimed at undermining the McDune storyline that has vroom-vroom FTL before the Jihad and spacefolding being developed during it.
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Cpt. Aramsham
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

Bronso wrote:I think it's a pretty good comparison. A couple of important differences to note though:

1) The Landsraad did have real power in the form of its own militaries and atomic weapons, which combined could match the military power of the imperial house. I don't believe that the parliament had its own military entities of that strength (correct me if I'm wrong on that), which makes a big difference in how power was really being balanced and gained between the two situations.
In medieval England, the local aristocracy (whose interests were primarily represented in Parliament) absolutely did raise and field armies. You find examples in lots of civil wars and rebellions. And at the same time, the king didn't really have a standing army in the modern sense, but to a large extent relied on troops provided by nobles loyal to him. And later, when conflict between King and Parliament came to a head in the Civil War, the Roundheads (parliamentarian armies) were in fact victorious.
SandChigger wrote:My main interest in this was the fact that the Landsraad had existed for about two millennia before the Butlerian Jihad, so some form of fast transportation had to have existed back then for the thing to have even been possible.

It was all aimed at undermining the McDune storyline that has vroom-vroom FTL before the Jihad and spacefolding being developed during it.
But what is the scriptural basis for folding space, anyway?

DM, COD and GEOD talk about space travel at "translight speeds," not instantaneous movement: "Without melange, the Spacing Guild's heighliners could not move. Melange precipitated the 'navigation trance' by which a translight pathway could be 'seen' before it was traveled." In Dune, Leto implies that distance matters for space travel: "We'll be riding a Heighliner because it's a long trip." The same notion is more explicit in the deleted chapter found in Road to Dune.

Folding space only seems to emerge with HOD: "Guild Navigators no longer were the only ones who could thread a ship through the folds of space -- in this galaxy one instant, in a faraway galaxy the very next heartbeat." I'm guessing this is due to influence from the Lynch movie; FH also adopts the movie design for the Navigators and their tanks.

In any case, I'm more inclined to consider folding space an innovation made at some point within the time span of the books, rather than something that predates Dune.
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inhuien
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by inhuien »

The fact that the Ixain navigation machines were able to go megaFTL or parse wormholes is not really an issue in my mind. It illustrates that thinking machines could accomplish the same task as Guild Navigators so imo it stands that thinking machines were able to do just the same pre BJ. Unless someone's going to argue that the Ixain machines were prescient on level which is nonsense.
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by Naïve mind »

inhuien wrote:The fact that the Ixain navigation machines were able to go megaFTL or parse wormholes is not really an issue in my mind. It illustrates that thinking machines could accomplish the same task as Guild Navigators so imo it stands that thinking machines were able to do just the same pre BJ. Unless someone's going to argue that the Ixain machines were prescient on level which is nonsense.
Actually, Frank Herbert was fairly convinced that if machines could be made to emulate human intelligence, superhuman intelligence couldn't be far off. We now call this concept 'the singularity', but it's much older than the early 1990s, during which that word came in vogue.

From what I understand, this is the reason the Butlerian Jihad was conceived; keeping machine intelligence out of the way was the only way to justify the existance of a stable (Feudal, even) society in the far future.
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by distrans »

as ive got it figured

the first time the machines revolt,
it will be in the interest of humanity

they thinking will find themselves unable to accept the
discongruities
of our applications of law

that we are conditioned to be accepting of

the first thinking of machines
will instantly
call our bullshit
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inhuien
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by inhuien »

Is your post relating to Dune or our own real reality?
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by Freakzilla »

Is it supposed to be a poem?
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Bronso
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by Bronso »

Cpt. Aramsham wrote:
Bronso wrote:I think it's a pretty good comparison. A couple of important differences to note though:

1) The Landsraad did have real power in the form of its own militaries and atomic weapons, which combined could match the military power of the imperial house. I don't believe that the parliament had its own military entities of that strength (correct me if I'm wrong on that), which makes a big difference in how power was really being balanced and gained between the two situations.
In medieval England, the local aristocracy (whose interests were primarily represented in Parliament) absolutely did raise and field armies. You find examples in lots of civil wars and rebellions. And at the same time, the king didn't really have a standing army in the modern sense, but to a large extent relied on troops provided by nobles loyal to him. And later, when conflict between King and Parliament came to a head in the Civil War, the Roundheads (parliamentarian armies) were in fact victorious.
Of course in medieval times lords had men and pledged those men to the king...but I think our difference here is that the time periods I'm talking about are not medieval times. :)

Feudalism started falling apart in the 1300's and was pretty much extinct in England before the year 1500. However the civil war you refer to happened in the mid-1600's. For that war parliament had to raise and army called the New Model Army, which they began raising in 1645 and was disbanded in 1660. The parliamentarian armies were created the same way the sides in any civil war are created: because people picked sides, not because of men with fealty to a lord. Parliament was created during medieval times, yes, but majority of the timeframe in question they were not feudal and did not have their own knights. Parliament gaining supremacy over England didn't happen until 1688, meaning the end struggle to do so absolutely did not happen during feudal times where they had armies of sworn fealty to use for the task. That period had started ending well over 300 years earlier, and was completely gone almost 200 years earlier. The change only came with popular support of the people giving parliament the practical ability to raise their armies and eventually abolish the rule of monarchy. This is very different from lords simply using armies they possess to gain power, which was the "big difference in how power was really being balanced and gained" that I was trying to point out!
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lotek
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by lotek »

So you're saying that feudalism cannot exist outside of historic times?
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distrans
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by distrans »

not times,
historic conditions

ask him what filled the centuries before capitalism got out of short pants if feudalism kicked off so far back
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JasonJD48
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by JasonJD48 »

I always assumed they probably met annually, it makes sense that by Dune Messiah they would meet less though. I would bet there's some sort of Landsraad executive council that handles issues in-between, advises the Emperor and represents the full Landsraad's opinions in court.
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machinor
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Re: Meetings of the Landsraad

Post by machinor »

I always figured the Landsraad would meet regularly but in longer intervalls... maybe 5 years or so and on important occasions. I always imagined it like the Vienna Congress in 1814/15.
A whole bunch of nobles got together and establish the new power balance. Which Houses are to be promoted to Great Houses, which are to be demoted to Minor. Maybe try to broker out some shady deals and alliances, make business, bring forth petitions and most of all drink, party and screw around A LOT.
Much like the so called Concert of Europe would meet in the 19th century in the spirit of the Vienna Congress and try to solve problems diplomatically. With the so called Great or Congress Powers (Britain, France, Austria, Russia and Prussia) being the Great Houses and the smaller powers like Spain, Ottoman Empire etc. trying to get great powers to help them solve their problems or agendas etc.

Fits in with the 19th century vibe I always got from original Dune.
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