The Navigators


Moderators: Omphalos, Freakzilla, ᴶᵛᵀᴬ

User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Post by Freakzilla »

Sole Man wrote:
Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:
People, the natural color of the things depends of the light's color that is being reflected by the thing. So, if you are over a light of a Giant Red Star, your skin color won't be the same. :wink:
Hey-I'd be an O'Bama voter!

Sliver and white are distinctly different colors, therfor, thier I forgot the point I was going to make.
Silver isn't a color at all.

Silver is the metallic shade resembling gray, closest to that of polished silver.

The visual sensation usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a simple solid color, because the shiny effect is due to the material's brightness varying with the surface angle to the light source.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Lisan Al-Gaib
Posts: 418
Joined: 11 Feb 2008 15:34
Location: In the Heart of My Religion.

Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

Freakzilla wrote:
Sole Man wrote:
Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:
People, the natural color of the things depends of the light's color that is being reflected by the thing. So, if you are over a light of a Giant Red Star, your skin color won't be the same. :wink:
Hey-I'd be an O'Bama voter!

Sliver and white are distinctly different colors, therfor, thier I forgot the point I was going to make.
Silver isn't a color at all.

Silver is the metallic shade resembling gray, closest to that of polished silver.

The visual sensation usually associated with the metal silver is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a simple solid color, because the shiny effect is due to the material's brightness varying with the surface angle to the light source.
Yes, you are right, freak. Silver is not a color at all.

Canopus is a A-type Star, Supergiant, and it bright is very white due to it temperature.

Ok, I didn't make a good example, but we have to place in our mind that colors a relative, and the planets in Duniverse are orbiting many different stars (What is wrong astrophisically, but ok :wink: ), so color is variable.

But we have to look at the Spice gas being orange: The planet where edric was is Wallach IX, am I right? So, Laoujin, the star, has a "small blue-white sun" [DM, page 17], therefore the spice gas is orange for that situation.(I think it wasn't a good example either....)
Sole Man wrote:

Hey-I'd be an O'Bama voter!

Silver and white are distinctly different colors, therfor, thier I forgot the point I was going to make.
Yes, I would be too!
The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty.

-- The Stolen Journals

User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Post by Freakzilla »

I couldn't imagine living under a sun that wasn't yellow-white and I think most people wouldn't like it.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Lisan Al-Gaib
Posts: 418
Joined: 11 Feb 2008 15:34
Location: In the Heart of My Religion.

Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

Freakzilla wrote:I couldn't imagine living under a sun that wasn't yellow-white and I think most people wouldn't like it.
Yes, but you have to realize that the problem is not only the color, but more important is the Star-type. Our sun is a G5 Star, dwarf in the main sequence, have a habitable zone, is not variable and have a life-time of about 10 billion yrs.

However, a A Supergiant Star like Canopus is extremely hot, massive, don't have a habitable zone mensurable, and a life-time of only some million yrs. With that life-time no life or even planet have time to be developed. And the flux of energy of this type of star is so huge compared with our sun that any material around the star would be dispersed.

Because of that, I like (and is more right) to think that Arrakis is very distant from Canopus, and probably is a captured planet.
The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty.

-- The Stolen Journals

User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Post by Freakzilla »

Is any life indiginous to Arrakis? I think it's all "terran", except the worms, which are alien even to Arrakis.
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Lisan Al-Gaib
Posts: 418
Joined: 11 Feb 2008 15:34
Location: In the Heart of My Religion.

Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

Freakzilla wrote:Is any life indiginous to Arrakis? I think it's all "terran", except the worms, which are alien even to Arrakis.
I think Leto II told us that even the worms are alien to Arrakis.

OK, the lifes in Arrakis weren't naturally from there. That isn't inconsistent with the astrophysical discoveries. Nice catch, freak.

I will try to calculate the habitable zone for Canopus. To see at what distance from star the water is condensible. (That is the definition of habitable zone.)

(A little Time later:)

Canopus have about 8 times the mass of Sun.

So, Arrakis should be about the same distance from Canopus as Jupiter is from Sun (5 UA).

Image
The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty.

-- The Stolen Journals

User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Post by Freakzilla »

I must say, it's nice to have an astrophysicist here with us. Sandchigger has done a lot of research on this subject, hopefully he'll chime in later.

But let me ask you this, did we know this much about Canopus forty years ago when Dune was written?
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Lisan Al-Gaib
Posts: 418
Joined: 11 Feb 2008 15:34
Location: In the Heart of My Religion.

Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

Ok, I will correct myself, Canopus is F0 Supergiant. So Arrakis would be at Mars position.
Wikipedia wrote: The spectral classification for Canopus is F0 Ia (Ia referring to "bright supergiant"), and such stars are rare and poorly understood; they are stars that can be either in the process of evolving to or away from red giant status.[3] This in turn made it difficult to know how intrinsically bright Canopus is, and therefore how far away it might be. Direct measurement was the only way to solve the problem. Canopus is too far away for Earth-based parallax observations to be made, so the star's distance was not known with certainty until the early 1990s.
Wikipedia wrote:
Class F
Class F stars have strengthening H and K lines of Ca II. Neutral metals (Fe I, Cr I) beginning to gain on ionized metal lines by late F. Their spectra are characterized by the weaker hydrogen lines and ionized metals. Their color is white. These represent about 1 in 33 of the main sequence stars in the solar neighborhood.[10]

Examples: Arrakis, Canopus, Procyon
The Canopus' distance wasn't well known until 1990's, But the science about Star evolution and internal process was better around the 20's.

So, as the Canopus is one of the brightest stars in our sky, its spectra was known in the past and I guess it spectral type was known too.
But I have to make a better search to known exactly what had been discovered about that star.
The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty.

-- The Stolen Journals

User avatar
SandChigger
KJASF Ground Zero
Posts: 14492
Joined: 08 Feb 2008 22:29
Location: A continuing state of irritation
Contact:

Post by SandChigger »

I remember reading (on WP; just checked) that some of the higher estimates for the distance to Canopus (Suhail/Alpha Carinae) (before it was fixed using measurements from the Hipparcos satellite) were up around 1,200 light years. (It's actually 310 plus/minus 20 LY.)

I don't believe it's clear, according to current theory, whether a star as large as Canopus can form a solar system with real planets, or whether it ends up with a cloud of asteroids, or clears pretty much everything out with radiation pressure. (I contacted an astrophysics researcher in the UK and Jim "Brons" Burrows, who wrote the StarGen program, about it and both basically said the same thing: who knows! I rewrote a few lines of the StarGen code to allow for a final star mass as large as that of Canopus and actually got system results with a few massive planets, and even a few terrestrial ones...like the pre-sandtrout Arrakis would have been. I'm not sure whether the validity of the other parts of the modeling algorithm holds, though, after my changes!)

But, anyway, with a lifetime of only a few hundred million years, it doesn't really matter: there is no way near enough time for native life to arise before the star goes nova. Any terrestial-size planet might have to be terraformed (that guy Grazier also pointed this out in his Science of Dune book), and any life would definitely come from elsewhere.

I find it interesting that this is one aspect of his universe FH got right. And it has implications for the backstory: humans probably would not have ventured anywhere near Canopus until they had spacefolding (remember, I assume NO FTL in the Duniverse ;) ), because it's impossible to know when it's going to go boom. And there wouldn't have been a lot of people who wanted to settle there until after the effects of the spice became known and made it seem worth the risk. ;)
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"
User avatar
Lisan Al-Gaib
Posts: 418
Joined: 11 Feb 2008 15:34
Location: In the Heart of My Religion.

Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

SandChigger wrote:I remember reading (on WP; just checked) that some of the higher estimates for the distance to Canopus (Suhail/Alpha Carinae) (before it was fixed using measurements from the Hipparcos satellite) were up around 1,200 light years. (It's actually 310 plus/minus 20 LY.)

I don't believe it's clear, according to current theory, whether a star as large as Canopus can form a solar system with real planets, or whether it ends up with a cloud of asteroids, or clears pretty much everything out with radiation pressure. (I contacted an astrophysics researcher in the UK and Jim "Brons" Burrows, who wrote the StarGen program, about it and both basically said the same thing: who knows! I rewrote a few lines of the StarGen code to allow for a final star mass as large as that of Canopus and actually got system results with a few massive planets, and even a few terrestrial ones...like the pre-sandtrout Arrakis would have been. I'm not sure whether the validity of the other parts of the modeling algorithm holds, though, after my changes!)

But, anyway, with a lifetime of only a few hundred million years, it doesn't really matter: there is no way near enough time for native life to arise before the star goes nova. Any terrestial-size planet might have to be terraformed (that guy Grazier also pointed this out in his Science of Dune book), and any life would definitely come from elsewhere.

I find it interesting that this is one aspect of his universe FH got right. And it has implications for the backstory: humans probably would not have ventured anywhere near Canopus until they had spacefolding (remember, I assume NO FTL in the Duniverse ;) ), because it's impossible to know when it's going to go boom. And there wouldn't have been a lot of people who wanted to settle there until after the effects of the spice became known and made it seem worth the risk. ;)
Very well explained, Chig!

As I said before, the radiation pressure of a Supergiant is too high, so the remnant gas would be vanished faster, and a star system would be very unlikely. That is the current theory as you already said.
Because of that, I believe in the possibility of Arrakis being captured by Canopus. Nowadays we know that vagrant planets are not so rare.
However, a star system was detected in a Pulsar (Supernova remnant) many years ago, isn't only a planet, but about four! The planetary formation theories can't explain this fact yet!
Maybe the formation of Arrakis couldn't be so improbable.

I liked your idea for why Arrakis (and spice) wasn't discovered before. It's this kind of ideas, coming from a good analysis from the series, and Scientific knowledge, I would like to see in the new books....
The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty.

-- The Stolen Journals

User avatar
SandChigger
KJASF Ground Zero
Posts: 14492
Joined: 08 Feb 2008 22:29
Location: A continuing state of irritation
Contact:

Post by SandChigger »

Continuing off topic... ;)

People wouldn't have gone initially, but they would have sent probes and "expendable" AIs...who would eventually have reported back: "Hey, there's something interesting here on the third planet...." :)
It's this kind of ideas, coming from a good analysis from the series, and Scientific knowledge, I would like to see in the new books....
Yeah...I know what you mean.

I assume you know that Hack Numero Uno has this on his MySpace page?
Kevin J Anderson's Schools

University Of Wisconsin-Madison 1980 to 1985
Madison, WI
Graduated: 1985
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major: Physics
Minor: Astronomy
Mr Science himself. :roll:

"Ooh, Mr Anders...I mean, Mr Wizard! Do another one!"
"OK, Tommy. Since you ask and you're so damned cute. But only one."
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"
User avatar
Freakzilla
Lead Singer and Driver of the Winnebego
Posts: 18449
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 01:27
Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Contact:

Post by Freakzilla »

Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:I liked your idea for why Arrakis (and spice) wasn't discovered before. It's this kind of ideas, coming from a good analysis from the series, and Scientific knowledge, I would like to see in the new books....
:lol: Good luck!
Image
Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
User avatar
Lisan Al-Gaib
Posts: 418
Joined: 11 Feb 2008 15:34
Location: In the Heart of My Religion.

Post by Lisan Al-Gaib »

Freakzilla wrote:
Lisan Al-Gaib wrote:I liked your idea for why Arrakis (and spice) wasn't discovered before. It's this kind of ideas, coming from a good analysis from the series, and Scientific knowledge, I would like to see in the new books....
:lol: Good luck!
Of course, new books not written by KJA.
Kevin J Anderson's Schools

University Of Wisconsin-Madison 1980 to 1985
Madison, WI
Graduated: 1985
Student status: Alumni
Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Major: Physics
Minor: Astronomy
He can have physics degree, but I don't believe he understood what the learned in the College...

FTL propulsors by gas? Sorry Mr. Anderson, not in my universe...(or the dune universe, that is a parallel future for our own, Did you read the books, Mr. Andy? Paul mentions Hitler in DM....)
The singular multiplicity of this universe draws my deepest attention. It is a thing of ultimate beauty.

-- The Stolen Journals

User avatar
A Thing of Eternity
Posts: 6090
Joined: 08 Apr 2008 15:35
Location: Calgary Alberta

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Fuck, I know more about physics and astronomy that that hack, and I don't even have post secondary yet. What a joke that guy is. If I ever meet him I'll have to come up with an alternative to spitting on him (for obvious reasons).
Image
Serkanner
Administrator
Posts: 2974
Joined: 17 Feb 2008 18:44
Location: Den Haag - The Netherlands

Post by Serkanner »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:Fuck, I know more about physics and astronomy that that hack, and I don't even have post secondary yet. What a joke that guy is. If I ever meet him I'll have to come up with an alternative to spitting on him (for obvious reasons).
I suggest a bitchslap
"... the mystery of life isn't a problem to solve but a reality to experience."

“There is no escape—we pay for the violence of our ancestors.”

Sandrider: "Keith went to Bobo's for a weekend of drinking, watched some DVDs,
and wrote a Dune Novel."
User avatar
Rakis
Posts: 1583
Joined: 16 Feb 2008 00:00

Post by Rakis »

Serkanner wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Fuck, I know more about physics and astronomy that that hack, and I don't even have post secondary yet. What a joke that guy is. If I ever meet him I'll have to come up with an alternative to spitting on him (for obvious reasons).
I suggest a bitchslap
I'd pay real money to see this... :twisted:
Image
User avatar
EsperandoAGodot
Posts: 186
Joined: 08 Nov 2008 21:03
Location: Brooklyn, NY and Lancaster, PA
Contact:

Post by EsperandoAGodot »

RE: Spice Color

It's likely that the spice-blow is only described as violet, rather than blue, because the blow results in a thin layer of spice over the sand - the two colors together probably alter the appearance, somewhat.
DUNE - Chronicles of the Imperium
A free-form, forum based RPG
http://boards.theforce.net/non_star_war ... 346/p1/?11
Launched and ready to fire.
loremaster
Posts: 220
Joined: 18 Feb 2008 04:24
Location: Leicester

Post by loremaster »

Blue has an interesting effect on the human psyche.

No currently found natural food is blue.

They had to make a natural dye from some obscure seaweed just to make blue smarties FS.

Blue foods have an interesting effect on the brain. put yellow food dye in a pint of milk. Red in another. Blue in a third.

Which one looks most appetising? Shut your eyes, try and pick the blue one out!
The HLP hasnt released Frank's notes yet, Brian hasn't got the handwriting quite right!
User avatar
SandChigger
KJASF Ground Zero
Posts: 14492
Joined: 08 Feb 2008 22:29
Location: A continuing state of irritation
Contact:

Post by SandChigger »

Isn't that a Carlin routine? ;)
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"
User avatar
SandRider
Watermaster
Posts: 6163
Joined: 05 Oct 2008 16:14
Location: In the back of your mind. Always.
Contact:

Post by SandRider »

Why is there no blue food? I can't find blue food - I can't find the flavor of blue! I mean, green is lime; yellow is lemon; orange is orange; red is cherry; what's blue? There's no blue! Oh, they say, "Blueberries!" Uh-uh; blue on the vine, purple on the plate. There's no blue food! Where is the blue food? We want the blue food! Probably ensures immortality! They're keeping it from us! ~ George Carlin, SNL, Season One, Episode One
................ I exist only to amuse myself ................
ImageImage

I personally feel that this message board, Jacurutu, is full of hateful folks who don't know
how to fully interact with people.
~ "Spice Grandson" (Bryon Merrit) 08 June 2008
User avatar
SandChigger
KJASF Ground Zero
Posts: 14492
Joined: 08 Feb 2008 22:29
Location: A continuing state of irritation
Contact:

Post by SandChigger »

:D

Man was a comedic genius.

(Blue cheese gets ruled out because...what's "natural" about eating rotten moldy milk curd, right? Yum! :) )
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"
User avatar
Omphalos
Inglorious Bastard
Posts: 6677
Joined: 05 Feb 2008 11:07
Location: The Mighty Central Valley of California
Contact:

Post by Omphalos »

SandRider wrote:
Why is there no blue food? I can't find blue food - I can't find the flavor of blue! I mean, green is lime; yellow is lemon; orange is orange; red is cherry; what's blue? There's no blue! Oh, they say, "Blueberries!" Uh-uh; blue on the vine, purple on the plate. There's no blue food! Where is the blue food? We want the blue food! Probably ensures immortality! They're keeping it from us! ~ George Carlin, SNL, Season One, Episode One
One night a year or so ago I could not sleep and turned on the TV and the pilot episode of SNL was running. It was the best damn episode I have ever seen. There was a guest, but there were tons and tons of otehr variety acts too. It was non-stop, with no breaks inbetween. I think it was filmed in the round too. I wish they had stuck with that format, but I can see how much work it would have been.
Image

The New & Improved Book Review Blog

Goodnight Golden Path!
User avatar
SandChigger
KJASF Ground Zero
Posts: 14492
Joined: 08 Feb 2008 22:29
Location: A continuing state of irritation
Contact:

Re: The Navigators

Post by SandChigger »

I hope Idahopotato doesn't mind my reposting this here from Dumb Novels, but I though it deserved more of a response than it got over there (TheByrainTrust: "Yup. Either one is plausible."):
IdahoPotato wrote:I have always thought that fold space technology used mathematicians akin to pre-mentat abilities to navigate the ships. They would obviously not be able to end up in nearly as accurate locations as the guild operators would be able to, thus shaving off months or even years of transport needed from the freight liners to the planets. I figure that this type of travel would have been available in the time of Dune, but since Dune revolved around noble houses, the only one that could afford the enormous price the spacing guild would have charged, it appears that it is the only means of interstellar travel. However, I don't recall (and I am sure someone here will correct me if I am wrong) anything saying that it wouldn't be possible for mentat navigators to still operate fold space technology with far less accuracy than the navigators do. That or perhaps the fact that the navigators could do it so much more efficiently, they created a monopoly that drove everyone else out of business. Either explanation is plausible, no?
Remember that there is absolutely nothing mystical or special about space-folding technology; anybody could operate it, even a machine. :)

Think back to this, in the first part of Dune:
[Mohiam] nodded. "We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function."
So one way of looking at Navigators (besides as funky deformed space druggies) is as Math-Mentats-with-Prescience. :D

The mathematical computations required to plot course/destination coordinates and all that could have been done by computer (if you accept space-folding before the Jihad & Guild), or by Mentats with some extra training (after the computers were gone). What the prescient Navigators made possible (and what sealed the Guild monopoly) was being able to plop a ship right into orbit around a planet with no chance of collision with some object already in the target star system (or something like a ship folding in from elsewhere). (The use of prescience also represented a built-in double-check of the destination coordinates, because if the Navigator made a mistake and set a course ending up inside a star or planet, he'd see that when he looked into the future.) The risk of collision with a non-prescient navigator, even a Mentat or computer/AI, would have necessitated folding into the target system at significant (=safe) distances from the destination planet. (And even then there was no 100% guarantee of safety.) Which would in turn mean having to move the ship after arrival, using some other propulsion method, to get close enough for shuttles to and from the surface. And that would be much more expensive in terms of fuel/resources & time.

So it was no doubt the combination of safe and quick travel provided by the Guild that drove any competitors out of business. (And if anyone got the bright idea of trying to set up and challenge them again in later millennia, maybe the Navigators detected the threat and the Guild was able to muscle other parties, like the Emperor, into squashing them.)

For all practical purposes at the time of Dune, the Guild is the only form of interstellar travel available. All the other, older methods were still possible, of course (again, I prefer to exclude FTL), but just too slow and expensive compared to the (instant?) transportation offered by the Guild. (Only the richest Houses would have been able to afford to build an alternate starship, and even with Mentats trained to fly it, why would they want to spend decades or centuries or millennia in space?)

:)
User avatar
dunaddict
Posts: 211
Joined: 24 Sep 2008 09:09
Location: The Netherlands

Re: The Navigators

Post by dunaddict »

Back OT.
What's up with the guild navigators in the final chapter of DUNE? They look and walk like ordinary men. Where are the fishtanks? Or is he lying when he says he's a Guild navigator?
he saw the faces of the two Guildsmen, spoke aside to Gurney. "Are those the Guild agents, Gurney, the two fat ones dressed in gray over there?"
"Yes, m'Lord."
The two men stepped out and the taller leveled an arm at Paul,
"Are you mad?" the tall Guildsman demanded. He fell back half a step.
"You grant that I have the power to do this thing, then?" Paul asked.
The Guildsman seemed to stare into space for a moment, then: "Yes, you could
do it, but you must not."
"Ah-h-h," Paul said and nodded to himself. "Guild navigators, both of you,
eh?"
"Yes!"
User avatar
SandChigger
KJASF Ground Zero
Posts: 14492
Joined: 08 Feb 2008 22:29
Location: A continuing state of irritation
Contact:

Re: The Navigators

Post by SandChigger »

Poor editing. :)

Seriously.

FH's conception of the Navigators evolved. There are lots of rationalizations floating about, but that's probably the real answer. The best thing to do is just assume there were different ranks of Guildsmen, that these two were potential Navigators in training, etc etc etc. Find whatever works best for you.

(FH wasn't a god, after all. :) )
Post Reply