Melange: Dehydrated Exploded Sandtrout, or Worm Waste?

[Crysknife]

Well, Kynes said the sand plankton became "little makers", which I take to mean "sandtrout". The term sandtrout is never actually used in Dune(except at the end). Herbert used the term "little maker" instead. A little maker is not a little worm.

So it goes sand plankton to sandtrout(little maker), sandtrout to prespice mass, spice blow where surviving sandtrout become cysts that emerge in 6 years as three meter sandworms, which then turn to sandtrout......which then have spice plankton babies?

It's the plankton that fucks everything up....and they are only mentioned in the first book. Perhaps they were an afterthought to Frank's idea and they didn't deserve to live on in the later books. But the worms were only successfully transplanted after they were brought along "on thier bed of rakian sand"....maybe that was part of the key, the sand had to contain sand plankton for the cycle to flourish. They just weren't ever mentioned again but inferred.

[SandChigger]

One mention in Messiah:

Stilgar looked from brother to sister. Out of ecological thinking that had been ground into him by sietch life, he grasped their meaning. A captive worm couldn't live except within a bit of Arrakis—sand plankton, Little Makers and all. The Guild's problem was large, but not impossible. His own growing uncertainty lay in a different area.

[Crysknife]

One mention in Messiah:

Stilgar looked from brother to sister. Out of ecological thinking that had been ground into him by sietch life, he grasped their meaning. A captive worm couldn't live except within a bit of Arrakis—sand plankton, Little Makers and all. The Guild's problem was large, but not impossible. His own growing uncertainty lay in a different area.

Ah, thanks .....as my second favorite book, I should know that. Kinda fills in a bit about the transplant problem too.

[gurensan]

Well, Kynes said the sand plankton became "little makers", which I take to mean "sandtrout". The term sandtrout is never actually used in Dune(except at the end). Herbert used the term "little maker" instead. A little maker is not a little worm.

So it goes sand plankton to sandtrout(little maker), sandtrout to prespice mass, spice blow where surviving sandtrout become cysts that emerge in 6 years as three meter sandworms, which then turn to sandtrout......which then have spice plankton babies?

It's the plankton that fucks everything up....and they are only mentioned in the first book. Perhaps they were an afterthought to Frank's idea and they didn't deserve to live on in the later books. But the worms were only successfully transplanted after they were brought along "on thier bed of rakian sand"....maybe that was part of the key, the sand had to contain sand plankton for the cycle to flourish. They just weren't ever mentioned again but inferred.

I'm re-reading it right now but I don't remember Kynes saying anything about sand plankton->little makers on my first 40 reads (or in this one). Where's that at?

Sometime I'll try to find where I got it from that the worms eat sand plankton.

[Crysknife]

Well, Kynes said the sand plankton became "little makers", which I take to mean "sandtrout". The term sandtrout is never actually used in Dune(except at the end). Herbert used the term "little maker" instead. A little maker is not a little worm.

So it goes sand plankton to sandtrout(little maker), sandtrout to prespice mass, spice blow where surviving sandtrout become cysts that emerge in 6 years as three meter sandworms, which then turn to sandtrout......which then have spice plankton babies?

It's the plankton that fucks everything up....and they are only mentioned in the first book. Perhaps they were an afterthought to Frank's idea and they didn't deserve to live on in the later books. But the worms were only successfully transplanted after they were brought along "on thier bed of rakian sand"....maybe that was part of the key, the sand had to contain sand plankton for the cycle to flourish. They just weren't ever mentioned again but inferred.

I'm re-reading it right now but I don't remember Kynes saying anything about sand plankton->little makers on my first 40 reads (or in this one). Where's that at?

Sometime I'll try to find where I got it from that the worms eat sand plankton.

It's in the appendix at the end of the book. "The sand plankton, food for shai-hulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers.". That statement answers both.

[gurensan]

It's in the appendix at the end of the book. "The sand plankton, food for shai-hulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers.". That statement answers both.

Ugh. Which version - my DM doesn't have an appendix ('69 paperback). It ends with the Ghola's Hymn, and it's not in the appendix of my Dune (25th Ace).

[Crysknife]

It's in the appendix at the end of the book. "The sand plankton, food for shai-hulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers.". That statement answers both.

Ugh. Which version - my DM doesn't have an appendix ('69 paperback). It ends with the Ghola's Hymn, and it's not in the appendix of my Dune (25th Ace).

DM doesn't have one but all first Dune books should have it. You do have the definitions in the back, right? The part right before that where Kynes is describing the ecology of Dune. Can't really help you other than that.

[gurensan]

It's in the appendix at the end of the book. "The sand plankton, food for shai-hulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers.". That statement answers both.

Ugh. Which version - my DM doesn't have an appendix ('69 paperback). It ends with the Ghola's Hymn, and it's not in the appendix of my Dune (25th Ace).

DM doesn't have one but all first Dune books should have it. You do have the definitions in the back, right? The part right before that where Kynes is describing the ecology of Dune. Can't really help you other than that.

I had written this before I found it:

Here's the order of entries in my copy where that should be:
Salusa Secondus
Sandcrawler
Sandmaster
Sandrider
Sandsnork
Sandtide
Sandwalker
Sandworm
Sapho

No sand plankton in there at all. That's why I was asking which version you have.

But AHHA. Page 497 in this version. It's NOT in the glossary like I thought you meant - it's Appendix I:

"Now they had a circular relationship: little maker to pre-spice mass; little maker to shai-hulud; shai-hulud to scatter spice on which fed microscopic creatures called sand plankton; the sand plankton, food for shai-hulud, growing, burrowing, becoming little makers."

I still think this sound like krill being whale-babies. It would make more sense if shai-hulud degenerated into plankton after death rather than little makers. Seems like the sand plankton has no place to come from. I found where you got it from, though.

[Jodorowsky's Acolyte]

There is another means for sandplankton to reproduce besides dead sandworms: assexual reproduction. They would reproduce either by fission or budding, so therefore the plankton are mostly responsible for creating themselves. There must be more than quadrillion sandplankton in the sands to keep the Arrakian ecosystem thriving. I think that once in a while, a few scattered clusters of sandplankton decide to metamorphose into sandtrout, and therefore undergo the pre-spice mass and then metamorphose into little worms. That's my hypothesis about the sandplanktons. I think I'd need to grab the most advanced biology textbooks I can find, and try to figure out a thoroughly scientific explanation for sandplankton/sandworm eco-biology just to give more verisimilitude to science of DUNE. I just think it makes sense for the worms to be the result of the sandplankton biology than more the sandplankton to be mainly the offspring of the worms. I think I may be confusing others with my thoughts, but I like thinking that the Arrakian ecosystem is more complex than we realize.

[gurensan]

Of course it is. I'm cool with budding. I thought of that but forgot that I thought of it. It's good to be reminded