Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Do the empire of Shadam IV and then the one of Leto II encompass the galaxy only?

Read what I came across today:

God Emperor of Dune.
pocketbook edition page 13

Leto II:
"This planet of Arrakis from which i direct my multigalactic empire is no longer what it was"

cmsahe wrote:Leto II:
"This planet of Arrakis from which i direct my multigalactic empire is no longer what it was"

Come on now, everyone knows Frank Herbert is only a character invented by KJA, and nothing he wrote is canon. Wait for 'Leto II of Dune' to get all the answers served up pre-chewed and simple...

Gods, I wish the contrast between our sarcasm and the actual claims from the two failures were sharper!

SandRider wrote:Try posting your sarcasm in bold red.

Nah... I'm a pseudo-tag man myself: <example> like this. </example>

...Or should that have been:
<meta><example> like this. </example></meta>
???


Anyways, they are the ones with a literature deficiency disorder, they should be placing warning labels on their drivel

I noticed that how quickly the Known universe became a Galaxy. It was in house series books. Known universe was mentioned a few times and it quickly became a galactic empire. In my mind and yes after reading God Emperor, the Imperium wasn't contained in one Galaxy. But we all know that KJA would just say that in the time of Paul the Imperium was in one galaxy. Which is crap because you wouldn't Emperor of the known UNIVERSE if it was only in one galaxy

cmsahe, Shaddam's empire was probably confined to the Milky Way galaxy (and most likely only a portion thereof...the named stars of the "Old Empire" section cover a fairly small volume of space).

Leto states that his empire is "multigalactic"; for that to be true it would only have to extend to one more galaxy. He doesn't name names, so it's anyone's guess, but his empire could include the Magellanic Clouds, Andromeda or any of a number of other nearby galaxies.

This does not necessarily mean that any of the galaxies have been completely settled or even explored, only that the empire has laid claim to some part thereof: not enough time has passed for human populations to grow sufficiently to occupy all the supposed systems.

I feel the beginnings of a headache because several memories are all mixed up in my brain, I mean, I've read about the galactic empires in the Star Wars novels (yep!:shock: ), The Foundation novels, the Houses trilogy and of course Dune. Today I began to re read GEoD and discovered this reference to the multigalactic empire.

I think you are right SandChigger.

Carlos

SandChigger wrote:cmsahe, Shaddam's empire was probably confined to the Milky Way galaxy (and most likely only a portion thereof...the named stars of the "Old Empire" section cover a fairly small volume of space).

Leto states that his empire is "multigalactic"; for that to be true it would only have to extend to one more galaxy. He doesn't name names, so it's anyone's guess, but his empire could include the Magellanic Clouds, Andromeda or any of a number of other nearby galaxies.

This does not necessarily mean that any of the galaxies have been completely settled or even explored, only that the empire has laid claim to some part thereof: not enough time has passed for human populations to grow sufficiently to occupy all the supposed systems.

this is actually the first real question I've run across in all this Dune discussion. I say that only because it's the first question I didn't know the answer to or have an opinion on right off the top of my head, and if fact, had never considered. But I'll go with multigalactic, based on the words of the God-Emperor and the "Known Universe". This may actually cause me to pick up the books again. hmmmmm.

Multigalactic could also refer to those dwarf galaxies orbiting around the Milky way...

I thought Shaddam's and Leto's empire was multi-galactic but the empire was condensed into one galaxy in the House books to avoid the problem of why the humans hadn't bumped into Omnius and Erasmus's robot empire, or some shit like that.

Rakis wrote:Multigalactic could also refer to those dwarf galaxies orbiting around the Milky way...

Also known as the Magellanic Clouds.

...two diffuse luminous patches in the southern sky, now known to be small irregular galaxies that are the closest to our own. The Large Magellanic Cloud is about 169,000 light years away, and the Small Magellanic Cloud is about 210,000 light years away.

There's no clear statement that I know of about the extent of the Imperium under Shaddam. Leto, well into his reign, goes to the trouble of describing his empire as being "multigalactic", even if only in passing. Why would he bother if the earlier Imperium had also been so?

Meant to touch on "Known Universe" this morning as well but forgot to. To me, all "Known Universe" means is "that part of the Universe we have been to and therefore know firsthand, that we have settled and made our own."

The people of the Imperium know (just as even we do) that the Universe extends for billions of light years and consists of billions of galaxies. They know well only a very small part of it, though. Calling the Emperor of only one (or part of one?) galaxy the "Emperor of the Known Universe" is grandiose, but it's not really an error, depending on how you look at it.

That said, KJA and the idiots who love him and his works use "universe" far too often and easily.

chanilover wrote:I thought Shaddam's and Leto's empire was multi-galactic but the empire was condensed into one galaxy in the House books to avoid the problem of why the humans hadn't bumped into Omnius and Erasmus's robot empire, or some shit like that.

I thought of that as well. But as SandChigger has said, the Known universe is what has been explored. However going off what Leto II says, they could have explored into other galaxies. I mean why not? When you can fold space I am sure you could easily jump into other Galaxies. Lets not forget that the Imperium was only 1 million worlds, but how many millions of worlds had they explored looking for another source of the Spice? I am sure they would have tried other Galaxies as well in their exploration, perhaps these explored territories automatically fell under the Emperors rule when they found no one there already.

...and with the Scattering, the known universe becomes even bigger, although we have few info on it, so it stays...er...unknown...

Damn, i thought i was going somewhere with this...lack of sleep,maybe...

SandChigger wrote:cmsahe, Shaddam's empire was probably confined to the Milky Way galaxy (and most likely only a portion thereof...the named stars of the "Old Empire" section cover a fairly small volume of space).

Leto states that his empire is "multigalactic"; for that to be true it would only have to extend to one more galaxy. He doesn't name names, so it's anyone's guess, but his empire could include the Magellanic Clouds, Andromeda or any of a number of other nearby galaxies.

This does not necessarily mean that any of the galaxies have been completely settled or even explored, only that the empire has laid claim to some part thereof: not enough time has passed for human populations to grow sufficiently to occupy all the supposed systems.

Why just clouds and nearby galaxies? We're talking about foldspace here. Distance is irrelevant. If the earth-like planet resides in a galaxy thats thousands of times the distance to Andromeda, then so be it.

I think when Frank says "Known universe" he quite literally means it. The planets of the imperium are scattered throughout the great expanse of what universe they had known about at that time, which is more than what we know about, but less than what the scattering knew about.

Drunken Idaho wrote: I think when Frank says "Known universe" he quite literally means it. The planets of the imperium are scattered throughout the great expanse of what universe they had known about at that time, which is more than what we know about, but less than what the scattering knew about.

This has been my interpretation of the Imperium from Dune since I first read the books. Unlike a lot of early science fiction (and sadly even some to this day) it appears Frank knew what he was talking about when he used terms like universe and galaxy. The "known universe" doesn't inherently discount an empire settled within one single galaxy, but a multi-galactic empire could literally mean galaxies on opposite ends of the universe or spread widely throughout. With instantaneous fold travel, space exploration/colonization could be achieved based upon a system of "most promising prospects" rather than limiting themselves to what was nearest to the Milky Way Galaxy.

With fold travel, anywhere in the universe is next door.

Indeed. Imagine how much the Imperium must know of the universal geography, now thousands of thousands of years beyond our own current exploration and primitive technology. Granted Frank's descriptions indicate that much of the universe is still unknown even in Dune, but since the universe is so huge, even if they've observed, mapped or explored only 1% of it, that's a massive catalog of stars and galaxies.

I agree with Drunken Idaho.

Foldspace would make distance irrevelant, they can go wherever the Hell they want. I think both empires would be multigalatic, or Saddam's would be less than total galatic, otherwise they would have called it, "The emperor of the Galatic empire." If your only going to say "The known universe" There's clearly no single set of boundries for you to exist in.

But that's just my weak-minded opinion.

GamePlayer wrote:With fold travel, anywhere in the universe is next door.

In principle yes - but wouldn't it also be safe to assume that it would take more energy to fold half the universe (to get to a distant galaxy) compared to the energy required to fold a small corner (for an in-galaxy service - eg Caladan to Arrakis)?

The power required to reach more distant galaxies could be prohibitively huge, and limit potential for commercially viable heighliner services beyond a certain point.

cmsahe wrote:Do the empire of Shadam IV and then the one of Leto II encompass the galaxy only?

Read what I came across today:

God Emperor of Dune.
pocketbook edition page 13

Leto II:
"This planet of Arrakis from which i direct my multigalactic empire is no longer what it was"

Ha! Depends who you ask.

Like others have said here, according to Frank Herbert we know for sure that by the time of GEoD that the Empire is multigalactic, I myself had allways assumed that this was true right from the beginning of Dune. Of course, once the Scattering took place it is fairly clear in the books that humans are damned near everywhere in this universe and probably in many others as well (tough to say about that multiple universe business, could have been hyperbole).

According to KJA and BH the empire is one galaxy, end of story. Not only is the old empire within the milky way, but the "farthest reaches of the scattering" are also within the milky way. Total bullshit and one of the worst mistakes those two have made to date in their parody of Dune.

Well...

I just had an appropriately withering reply written, went to preview it and discovered I'd been logged out while writing. Poof.

So I'll just recap the highlights:

KJA-fan-level thinking now?

Heighliners aren't Heechee ships from Gateway: you don't just get in, push a button and GO! Navigators calculate their destinations and input them into the ship guidance mechanisms in some fashion (FH never tells us this stuff; or about what fuel they use or how much is required per fold); it's a purely physical process, nothing mystical about it. They don't "see" a suitable "promising" planet and then zap there; if the "prospect" isn't based on real, observational data, they've no way to calculate how to get there.

Don't underestimate what exploring just our one galaxy would entail. Let's say that out of the 200 to 400 billion stars thought to compose this galaxy, only 100 billion are worth looking at for habitable planets.

With a foldship and instrumentation that required you to spend only one hour in a system to determine whether there were habitable planets or not, it would take you just a mere 11,415,525 years to explore those 100 billion stars.

Of course, the Guild could build one million exploration ships and do the whole thing in just a little over a decade. They had that kind of resources to play with, right? And the personnel to crew them. THEN they could fly off to the Clouds and Andromeda and all those lovely galaxies on the other side of the Universe.

DuneFishUK wrote:

GamePlayer wrote:With fold travel, anywhere in the universe is next door.

In principle yes - but wouldn't it also be safe to assume that it would take more energy to fold half the universe (to get to a distant galaxy) compared to the energy required to fold a small corner (for an in-galaxy service - eg Caladan to Arrakis)?

The power required to reach more distant galaxies could be prohibitively huge, and limit potential for commercially viable heighliner services beyond a certain point.

Depends. I would tend to agree with you because a) it makes more sense that there is more to space travel in Dune than just navigating somewhere and b) it's Frank Herbert were talking about so I would expect there's practical limitations even to a technology as powerful as fold travel.

However, Herbert has shown that the Guild can significantly raise or significantly reduce transport fees based upon it's own political desires or motives. Thus it's extremely difficult to determine if the Guild's ability to fold space is really mitigated by cost to any kind of significant degree. All we know for certain is that the Guild as a group consumes an enormous amount of spice, which is not really all that unusual since they are the ones doing all the interstellar transport throughout the Imperium.

Oh, pooh, I forgot about that:

Could they really have one million ships devoted just to exploration with spice being such a limited commodity? No surely not....

The prospecting part would take place from already-inhabited planets or starships. They use telescopes and/or infrared to detect potential systems, and that's how the recon was likely done in those frontier days.

Using such sophisticated tools, they can venture a pretty good guess as to a rough place to jump to, via foldspace. The potential systems get visited, the others do not. With this method, it would be downright foolish to limit one's resources to Andromeda or Space Clouds.

But of course. Why limit yourself (or let your resources limit you) to the thorough exploration of one, two or even three measly local galaxies when you can rush off and explore the Universe?

Heighliners aren't Heechee ships from Gateway: you don't just get in, push a button and GO! Navigators calculate their destinations and input them into the ship guidance mechanisms in some fashion (FH never tells us this stuff; or about what fuel they use or how much is required per fold); it's a purely physical process, nothing mystical about it. They don't "see" a suitable "promising" planet and then zap there; if the "prospect" isn't based on real, observational data, they've no way to calculate how to get there.

Chig, I think prospecting/exploration ships would be more like Heechee ships then you think. Consider this: If spice is limited, and navigators are limited, but any old ass can jump a ship as long as he has the correct engine, then why not recruit someone to go in a small fold-space ship to a random system and accumulate data on risks? If he dies, so what? If he tries to steal the ship, he probably wont last long. But if he does his job, then once the Guild has an idea of what is going on in any one system, then CHOAM can just fold-space in a bunch of ships to start building infrastructure. Guild piloted ships would not be needed until passengers started booking passage, or valuable cargo was sent, because the Guild's safety record would not have to be protected then.[/quote]