Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Yeh! Vagueness is good. And I'm saying Frank probably went TOO far describing it, cos he got it wrong. Sometimes you have to neglect to explain things like that at all. The problem was that a stillsuit probably seemed the most feasible thing in Dune world so he saw no harm in having a crack at it. Don't think he mentions how suspensors or Holtzman engines or shield belts work, just that they do.

So anyway... conclusion: stillsuits can't work, and if they can in the future, their key features wouldn't be super filters. Kynes should have said "you wouldn't understand."

(He mentions that suspensors, shields etc all fall out of Holtzmann's unified field theory, not that that's an actual explanation...)

I kinda just want one. Is that wrong?

Even if it tastes like ass and dirt.

I remember reading in Dune that Sietch Tabr stank, but don't recall ever reading that the Fremen stank while in the desert. Are we sure the books ever mention the outside of the suits smells bad? I think it's a combination of what happens when the suits are removed, with the fact that the Fremen probably didn't have air-sealed pipes for indoor plumbing.

As for the technology...Leto, a savvy man living 20,000 years in the future, was amazed at the advanced design of stillsuits. Are we sure we're prepared to assess the technology as 'unworkable'? Recall that this is in an age of 'Holtzmann fields'. In terms of the energy needed versus work done...consider pulleys. Before pulleys were invented you'd have thought it was witchcraft to be able to lift a really heavy thing with a fraction of the effort.

"Have you ever seen the Fremen?"
The lad's mind is darting all over today, Hawat thought.
"Like as not I have seen them," he said. "There's little to tell them from
the folk of the graben and sink. They all wear those great flowing robes. And
they stink to heaven in any closed space. It's from those suits they wear --
call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water."
~Dune

I imagine they didn't stink in the open desert because of the constant wind. If they stink in any enclosed space they're obviously not airtight.

Yeah. My guess, then, is that the design would have to incorporate a way to eliminate gasses through some membranous filter that doesn't permit transmission of gaseous H2O. This would be good design anyhow since when passing wind, for example, there'd be no reason for the suit to retain the gaseous sulfuric compounds which stink to heaven, and which if not released over several days would literally puff up the suit's ass like a balloon. Also it would be advantageous to allow air in and out so that the skin can breath, so long as moisture didn't escape. I think it would be safe to assume the suits were maybe not airtight, but rather just 'moisture tight'.

georgiedenbro wrote:I think it would be safe to assume the suits were maybe not airtight, but rather just 'moisture tight'.

That in itself would be pretty high-tech, huh?