fremen industry...


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distrans
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fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

stillsuits and thumpers to say the least

i dont recall reading anything much more that fremens being hunter gatherers


did i miss anything?
georgiedenbro
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by georgiedenbro »

distrans wrote:stillsuits and thumpers to say the least

i dont recall reading anything much more that fremens being hunter gatherers
Where does it say that the Fremen are hunter-gatherers? They have all kinds of manufacturing, no doubt, although I don't recall Dune going into it very much. They would probably be making all of the things they need for survival, so not just stillsuits. I doubt they would accept to be reliant on outsiders to provide them with necessities.
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distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

guess im using 'hunter gatherers' coloquially

still suits and thumpers need advanced manufacturing ingredients none of the story mention


my best guess is that the fremen relied on advance material procurment offworld from their get go
which seem to mean they had monetary resources from their get go

they were non miners
nor technically robest enough to engineer work around in their enviroment

i simply state that in franks works

the fremen had access to material engineering prowess they could hardly have discovered in the enviroment

let allow have develoiped...
distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

let alone explainable...
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Cpt. Aramsham
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

We went over all this years ago when you questioned Fremen food production. The Fremen are not hunter-gatherers, they are not primitives—they have a well-developed and sophisticated industrial culture:
Paul lifted the seal on the pack, pulled out a tiny micromanual with glowtab and magnifier. Green and orange letters leaped up at him from the pages: "literjons, stilltent, energy caps, recaths, sandsnork, binoculars, stillsuit repkit, baradye pistol, sinkchart, filt-plugs, paracompass, maker hooks, thumpers, Fremkit, fire pillar … "
[…]
Paul lifted the paracompass from the pack, returned it, said: "Think of all these special-application Fremen machines. They show unrivaled sophistication. Admit it. The culture that made these things betrays depths no one suspected."
(We could also add the static compaction tool that features prominently in the movie.)
Superb accuracy in water measurement, Jessica thought. And she noted that the walls of the meter trough held no trace of moisture after the water's passage. The water flowed off those walls without binding tension. She saw a profound clue to Fremen technology in the simple fact: they were perfectionists.
"How rich the odors of your sietch, Stilgar. I see you do much working with the spice … you make paper … plastics … and isn't that chemical explosives?"
They passed an arched opening. Paul looked through it at men and women working with stand-mounted machinery in a large, bright chamber. There seemed an extra tempo of urgency to them.

"What're they doing in there?" Paul asked.

She glanced back as they passed beyond the arch, said: "They hurry to finish the quota in the plastics shop before we flee. We need many dew collectors for the planting."
[…]
"Each bush, each weed you see out there in the erg," she said, "how do you suppose it lives when we leave it? Each is planted most tenderly in its own little pit. The pits are filled with smooth ovals of chromoplastic. Light turns them white. You can see them glistening in the dawn if you look down from a high place. White reflects. But when Old Father Sun departs, the chromoplastic reverts to transparency in the dark. It cools with extreme rapidity. The surface condenses moisture out of the air. That moisture trickles down to keep our plants alive."
They passed another brightly lighted room visible through an arch on their left. "What's made there?" he asked.

"They repair the weaving machinery," she said. "But it must be dismantled by tonight." She gestured at a tunnel branching to their left. "Through there and beyond, that's food processing and stillsuit maintenance." She looked at Paul. "Your suit looks new. But if it needs work, I'm good with suits. I work in the factory in season."
"The sietch is a lonely place without our men. It's a place of work. We labor in the factories and the potting rooms. There are weapons to be made, poles to plant that we may forecast the weather, spice to collect for the bribes. There are dunes to be planted to make them grow and to anchor them. There are fabrics and rugs to make, fuel cells to charge. There are children to train that the tribe's strength may never be lost."
Exactly how Fremen spice harvesting is done is never (to my recollection) explained, but it must involve some machinery, as well as for the refining. (When the Fremen capture Gurney and his smuggler crew, they have a hiding place for their spice harvester at the ready, suggesting they use similar vehicles. And we see Fremen operating a "gridex plane" for spice refining in Kynes' research base.)

It may well be that they get some tools or components from off-world (they apparently didn't have cutterays until stealing them from Pardot Kynes' Ecological Testing Stations), but it's clear that the Fremen produce most of their own technology.
Last edited by Cpt. Aramsham on 24 Nov 2021 03:08, edited 2 times in total.
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Cpt. Aramsham
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

As for your claim that they are "non miners," what basis do you have for that? They live in underground complexes that they partly excavate from the rock, so they clearly have skill in mining. They use metal, and Liet-Kynes alludes (in his hallucinations of Pardot) to them extracting minerals from the environment. The obvious inference is that they do indeed practice mining for resources.

For other raw materials, they also have access to animal and vegetable products, and advanced chemical processing to produce whatever else they might need. In general, it appears that spice occupies a role similar to petroleum in our production chains (as raw material for plastics and all sorts of materials), with melange byproducts used to produce paper, textiles and many other things. Energy they can get from the wind, the sun, and from temperature gradients—they could even hook up a generator to a sandworm if they were so inclined.

There isn't a problem or missing explanation here. But you seem to have this fixed idea of Fremen as being ignorant, primitive and without any technological capability, when the books very clearly say otherwise.
distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

i stand some corrected\

but their warrens as described reflect little mining
theres a big difference between digging rock and processing it

it takes factories to turn rocks into ores
ie, how did it start


on this reflection it seems the fremen arrived on dune to attack spice harvesting
and had firm alliance with off world agents who supplied them what was needed to do so after immigrating

seems less productive to render products from spice rather than sell it to by what they needed
the accusation off the fremen being hunter gathers was poor

frank paints them primative aside from these glaring facts of industry
about the only thing he went on about were woven fabrics




id had it im my head the fremen took to spice production after theyd been established

not the case
distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

seems to beg the question who was mining spice before the fremen


and why did the fremen turn to an underground society rather than insert themselves legitimate into the imperium
as they seem clearly capable of should they have chosen
georgiedenbro
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by georgiedenbro »

distrans wrote: but their warrens as described reflect little mining
theres a big difference between digging rock and processing it
Dude you're just making stuff up here. If the books don't happen to mention it that doesn't mean it's not happening. Frank left much to our imagination, which is not a statement that anything he doesn't write about is something the Fremen can't do. That is not the case.
on this reflection it seems the fremen arrived on dune to attack spice harvesting
False, nothing like that is in the book. In fact it never says there was spice harvesting prior to the Fremen being there. I have my own idea about how spice was originally intended to be a recent discovery, which got written out of the book (except for a few traces of the original idea, which remain). But the Fremen seem to be the only ones with knowledge of it, and so there is clearly no one else in the universe who had access to it prior to them and knows its secrets.
and had firm alliance with off world agents who supplied them what was needed to do so after immigrating
I doubt they had any such alliance. The Fremen were wandering outcasts, escaping from planet after planet. Think of the gypsies or Jews in this context (both are alluded to).
seems less productive to render products from spice rather than sell it to by what they needed
Self-suffiency is priceless.
frank paints them primative aside from these glaring facts of industry
No, Frank shows that at first glance a fool might think they're primitive. The Baron certainly thought so. They took some pains to hide their sophistication. But to the reader that secret becomes clear soon enough.
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distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

i get that ive speculated heavily with those comments
this seemed reasonable as frank left the details in regard out of his written work



it would be a foolish planet choice for the wanders to pick if spice was unknown

and didnt they get there on guild ships?
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by georgiedenbro »

distrans wrote:i get that ive speculated heavily with those comments
this seemed reasonable as frank left the details in regard out of his written work
Speculation is ok, but the speculations should be based on clues from the book. The absence of a clue is not proof of some idea.
it would be a foolish planet choice for the wanders to pick if spice was unknown
Going into speculation mode, a planet that had no apparent value or resources would actually be a good choice, since it would mean they might be left alone due to lack of of an exploitation motive.
and didnt they get there on guild ships?
Yes?
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distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

isnt the guild a function of profound evolution possible by large spice intakes

there had to have been many years of spice mining to make such possible


the fremen were not the originators of this industry
they made use of it after wandering to arrakis and had to have been in conflict with an established group

wonder why they choose such a hostile place

both environmentally and politically it wasnt a haven
it was a step into a crucible
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by Serkanner »

distrans wrote: the fremen were not the originators of this industry
Quote it from the text please.
distrans wrote: they made use of it after wandering to arrakis and had to have been in conflict with an established group
You surely have a quote for this one too.
"... 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.”

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and wrote a Dune Novel."
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Cpt. Aramsham
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

distrans wrote: it takes factories to turn rocks into ores
ie, how did it start
People have mined ore and smelted it into metal since the Bronze Age, more than 5000 years ago. It was first done by people who were until then (by definition) living in the Stone Age. Why would you think this would be out of reach for the Fremen?
georgiedenbro wrote:
distrans wrote:i get that ive speculated heavily with those comments
and didnt they get there on guild ships?
Yes?
I assume this is the old question of how could they travel to Arrakis if spice is necessary for space travel in the first place. And the answer to that, of course, is that spice was not always necessary for space travel. It is even hinted in Dune that the Guild used other drugs before "specializing" on spice.

As for the rest, we know very little. We don't strictly know how long the Fremen have been on Arrakis, though it clearly must have been a long time. Was it before or after the Butlerian Jihad? Before or after the planet was His Imperial Majesty's Desert Botanical Testing Station? Before or after spice was discovered? And were there already people on the planet? Did the Fremen go there willingly, flee or escape there, or were they brought by force? If so, why? Are the other inhabitants (the people of the pan, graben and sink) from a separate immigration event, or do they share the Fremen origin?

We can reason and speculate, but we have no hard and fast answers to these questions.

In Frank Herbert's first complete draft of Book I, Paul and Dr. Yueh discuss the origins of the Fremen and the people of the pan and sink:
"The story goes," Yueh said, "that they are all descended from the Eight and Fifty."

"Who?" Paul leaned forward with elbows on the table.

"The Eight and Fifty refers to a very ancient people," Yueh said. "It is said that a Terranic people migrated in the old times to a rich planet where they prospered and became many. Then, a raid hit them during the pre-Imperium days. And, because they were grown soft with easy living, they fell before the raiders — they were reduced to eight men and fifty women who were to be enslaved but escaped to an unknown place. That unknown place, supposedly, was Arrakis, where they scratched out a barren existence until a Legion of Sardaukar landed there and subjugated them for the Imperium."
Clearly this conception of Fremen history (which Yueh is only presenting as a legend) changed somewhat as the story evolved, with the one slave raid turning into a series of forced migrations, but this is probably the best clue we can get to what Frank Herbert had in mind. (One thing he tweaked was that this didn't happen in pre-Imperial days, since in the final book he says that it was Imperial raiders who took the proto-Fremen of Poritrin as slaves.)
georgiedenbro wrote:I have my own idea about how spice was originally intended to be a recent discovery, which got written out of the book (except for a few traces of the original idea, which remain).
Yes, this is conclusively proven by earlier drafts. In one version of the scene where Paul and Jessica meet Kynes in his advance base, he tells them, "My father was Chief of Laboratories when Arrakis was still His Imperial Majesty's Desert Botanical Testing Station. My grandfather was in service here when the spice was found and isolated."
distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

i think that presense of metals in the fremen kit proves to offworld relations as fire is needed for the processing and on arrakis there wasnt anything of substance available to burn...

and i alluded to the pre spice space travel meaning dune was near in to humanities reach with conventional technology


appreciate the discussion
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by Serkanner »

distrans wrote:on arrakis there wasnt anything of substance available to burn...
Of course you can substantiate this claim from the text, right?
"... 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."
distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

its an inference

eons upon eons of desert leaves littler to smelt


no
your reaching at straws

the fremen were not grasping at straws

they colonized dune understanding they had strong off world alliances

such they could rely on to survive


survive in a harsh enviroment...
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by Serkanner »

distrans wrote:its an inference

eons upon eons of desert leaves littler to smelt


no
your reaching at straws

the fremen were not grasping at straws

they colonized dune understanding they had strong off world alliances

such they could rely on to survive


survive in a harsh enviroment...
Let me give you one last hint before I block you forever: read the fucking books before you spout your nonsense!!

From: Dune

""Why is there so little of it? There's volcanic rock here. There're a dozen power sources I could name. There's polar ice. They say you can't drill in the desert--storms and sandtides destroy equipment faster than it can be installed, if the worms don't get you first. They've never found water traces there, anyway. But the mystery, Wellington, the real mystery is the wells that've been drilled up here in the sinks and basins. Have you read about those?"

" He recognized in the group a stillsuit manufacturer down from Carthag, an electronics equipment importer, a water-shipper whose summer mansion was near his polar-cap factory

"As bad as that," the Emperor murmured, and his tone of derision did not escape the Baron. "Tell me, my dear Baron, have you investigated the southern polar regions of Arrakis?" The Baron stared up at the Emperor, shocked by the change of subject. "But . . . well, you know, Your Majesty, the entire region is uninhabitable, open to wind and worm. There's not even any spice in those latitudes."
"You've had no reports from spice lighters that patches of greenery appear there?"

"There've always been such reports. Some were investigated -- long ago. A few plants were seen. Many 'thopters were lost. Much too costly, Your Majesty. It's a place where men cannot survive for long."


They don't know what is at the Southern regions. It is prohibited to go there ( The Fremen bribed the Guild ). WE don't know what is or was there.

You are fucking tiresome with your bullshit. Time and again you come back here to post your drivel only to be shown you are wrong every single fucking time.
"... 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."
georgiedenbro
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by georgiedenbro »

Cpt. Aramsham wrote: I assume this is the old question of how could they travel to Arrakis if spice is necessary for space travel in the first place. And the answer to that, of course, is that spice was not always necessary for space travel. It is even hinted in Dune that the Guild used other drugs before "specializing" on spice.
Yes, this is the answer, why this thread makes no sense. Other drugs work, so no inference is needed about how the Fremen got there. The problem with the spice is it's better than the other drugs, and is addictive, so once you've used the spice you can't go back (the next generation could, presumably).

In fact it's entirely possible for people to travel using AI navigation, so pre-jihad lots of people could have gotten anywhere without the Guild navigators.
Yes, this is conclusively proven by earlier drafts. In one version of the scene where Paul and Jessica meet Kynes in his advance base, he tells them, "My father was Chief of Laboratories when Arrakis was still His Imperial Majesty's Desert Botanical Testing Station. My grandfather was in service here when the spice was found and isolated."
Cool, I did not know about this quote (I haven't read alternative drafts). So yeah, that pretty much cements my theory. Frank didn't completely get around to scrubbing all references to this, for instance the 100 year old spice harvester which Yueh shows Paul in an 'old vid', which is made to sound like it was part of the original fleet of harvesters.
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

distrans wrote:i think that presense of metals in the fremen kit proves to offworld relations as fire is needed for the processing and on arrakis there wasnt anything of substance available to burn...
No, heat is necessary for smelting. And heat can be generated in a number of different ways. Chemically, for example. Or by concentrating sunlight. Or electrically. Or using some futuristic principle, like the Holtzman effect, or lasguns, or the "organic batteries" that power glowglobes.

And anyway, there was stuff to burn on Arrakis: there was some small amount of vegetation (this is almost the first thing we learn about Dune). And the planet had been green in the past, so there could very well be coal deposits. There was residue from the spice refining that would likely be flammable. They had food production using yeast cultures, so they could produce alcohol and other flammable chemicals. And if it came down to it, they could burn dung.
georgiedenbro wrote: Yes, this is the answer, why this thread makes no sense. Other drugs work, so no inference is needed about how the Fremen got there. The problem with the spice is it's better than the other drugs, and is addictive, so once you've used the spice you can't go back (the next generation could, presumably).
Sometimes we are so entirely of one mind that I start to wonder if I wrote your posts and just forgot about it. :lol:
distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

all true

but

relying on leaps my questions do not...
distrans
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by distrans »

Serkanner wrote:
distrans wrote:its an inference
You are fucking tiresome with your bullshit. Time and again you come back here to post your drivel only to be shown you are wrong every single fucking time.
i see this as some vexing

what are you afraid of?

theres a grave different between rejecting brians horseshit and offering analylisis of the cannon...



whered you lose sight of the picture???
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xcalibur
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Re: fremen industry...

Post by xcalibur »

Personally, I approve of distrans. His blithering brings out knowledgeable posts that would not have been made otherwise. Also, he's named after one of my favorite concepts from the books.

Anyway, other posts covered this pretty well. There were earlier alternatives to the Spice, e.g. I seem to recall a poisonous plant on Rossak.
Fremen : Museum Fremen :: Frank : Brian & Kevin
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