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The Spacing Guild is an organization in the fictional Dune universe developed by science fiction author Frank Herbert in a series of novels starting in Dune and ending with Chapterhouse Dune.
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Overview
The Spacing Guild has a monopoly on imperial banking and interstellar travel: with the use of melange, the geriatric spice, Guild Navigators are the only beings capable of piloting the massive Guild heighliners safely through space. The heightened awareness and prescience of the spice allows the Navigator to plot a safe course between the stars. Contrary to popular belief, the navigators do not themselves 'fold' space, allowing a nearly instantaneous trip. The space-folding is accomplished by Holtzman engines activated from the navigator's chamber.
The Guild is apolitical (with exceptions, noted below), since their monopoly allows them to dictate terms to all parties that preserve the economy that supports them. As the only party able to transport goods in an interstellar economy, the Guild's highest concern is that commerce continue; for commerce to continue, the Guild must continue; for the Guild to continue, melange must be available. Ultimately, the Guild's only concern is that melange continue to be mined on Arrakis. Because spice is a requirement for long distance space transport, their motto resonates throughout the empire: "the spice must flow."
With their power over interstellar transport, the Guild holds the ability to peacefully end wars and to shape much of the political world. This is not to say that the Guild takes the position of categorically preventing any military action. To the contrary, there have been numerous cases of Guild support of war, and in each of them the Guild was paid high rates to transport troops and materiel.
It is noted in Dune (1965) that Houses of the Imperium may contract with the Guild to be removed "to a place of safety outside the System;" in the past some Houses in danger of ruin or defeat have "become renegade Houses, taking family atomics and shields and fleeing beyond the Imperium."[1] The Guild controls a "sanctuary planet" (or planets) known as Tupile intended for such "defeated Houses of the Imperium ... Location(s) known only to the Guild and maintained inviolate under the Guild Peace."[2]
In the original novels by Frank Herbert, the Navigators are humans who have adapted to life in zero-gravity. They have slim builds, with large webbed hands and prehensile feet. They must spend their time in an artificial zero-gravity chamber when visiting a planetary surface, as exposure to full earth gravity would be (at best) highly uncomfortable, and potentially lethal. Whether this adaptation is the result of artificial engineering or many millennia of selective breeding is not stated in the books. The David Lynch film of Dune introduced the idea of the Navigators being "mutated" by exposure to the spice, and shows three "stages" of this mutation. The final, most advanced stage is a huge, sluglike creature. Herbert is known to have liked this design,[citation needed] and allusions in the final Dune books may indicate that he adopted the concept for his own works.
History
Dune
In Dune, Paul Atreides defeats Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV in a battle on Arrakis. He demands first the Emperor's daughter for a wife, which would make Paul heir to the throne, and second that the Emperor immediately step down. The demands are coupled with a threat to destroy the spice. Since that would end all interstellar transit, the Guild sides with Paul, threatening to strand the Emperor and his troops on Arrakis if he does not accede.[1]
In 'Appendix A' of Dune, Herbert wrote that the Guild, along with the Bene Gesserit order, had been responsible for the standardization of religion in the Dune universe; they promoted the adoption of the Orange Catholic Bible and offered protection to the dissenting theologians who created this book. Nonetheless, in the same appendix, Herbert held that the Guild members themselves were atheists, and only promoted this move to promote a stable societal order from which they could profit.[1]
Dune Messiah
Navigators are made prescient by the spice (a requirement of being a pilot), and are sometimes utilized as such: In 1969's Dune Messiah, a Navigator named Edric takes part in a plot to assassinate the Emperor, Paul Atreides. The presence of a prescient hides the activities of that person, and those around him, from other prescients; Edric's involvement is solely to protect the conspirators from Paul's prescient sight.[3]
God Emperor of Dune
In God Emperor of Dune (1981), the God Emperor Leto II notes:
Who has ever heard of Norma Cenva? ... You think a man designed the first Guild ship? Your history books told you it was Aurelius Venport? They lied. It was his mistress, Norma. She gave him the design, along with five children. He thought his ego would take no less. In the end, the knowledge that he had not really fulfilled his own image, that was what destroyed him.[4]
Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune
In the fifth and sixth novels of the series, Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapterhouse Dune (1985), 5000 years after the reign of Paul Atreides (a period that includes 3500 years of Leto II's reign and 1500 years following his death), the technocrats of Ix develop technology that the Ixians and the Administrative faction of the Spacing Guild refer to as 'compilers'. These compilers perform calculations very similar to computers, nearly violating the prohibitions against "thinking machines" that were imposed following the Butlerian Jihad several millennia before. These compilers eliminate the need for the Navigators, and the strategic disadvantage that this aspect of melange dependency has become, because the Navigators' abilities are slowly being compromised by the severe reductions in the availability of spice resulting from the destruction of Dune, the sandworms on that planet, and the strict control by the Bene Gesserit, who maintain a monopoly over the largest stockpiles of melange. The prescient rule of Leto II that lasted 3500 years has shown the universe the perils of prescience, namely that the entire universe can be locked into the vision of a single entity, giving that entity absolute power. The Guild, facing obsolescence and suspicion, couples itself with Ix in decline; Navigators continue to exist, but their importance in the universe is severely diminished.[5][6]
As Paul Atreides notes in Dune, it was the Spacing Guild's obsession with the 'safe path' that led them 'ever into stagnation,' and brought on their eventual obsolescence.[1]
Prequels
In the Dune: House Corrino (2001), the third novel in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (1999-2001), it is reiterated that Aurelius Venport is believed to have founded the Guild. In the Brian Herbert/Kevin J. Anderson Legends of Dune prequel series (2002-2004), however, it is confirmed that his lover Norma Cenva, a mathematical genius with great psychic power, had in fact invented the space-folding ships which would eventually be called heighliners. Ever uncaring about her own fame, Norma credits the invention to Aurelius as a gift to him in Dune: The Battle of Corrin (2004). Norma discovers that an excessive dose of melange allows her to safely navigate the ships using prescience; she allows herself to mutate to perfect the process, becoming the first Navigator. Aurelius and Norma's son Adrien Venport establishes the Foldspace Shipping Company and finds the ten volunteers to become the initial group of Navigators; this company eventually evolves into the powerful Spacing Guild.
The Dune games
In Emperor: Battle for Dune (2001), the Spacing Guild plays the role of a subhouse.
References
- ^ a b c d Herbert, Frank (1965). Dune.
- ^ Herbert, Frank (1965). "Terminology of the Imperium: TUPILE". Dune.
- ^ Herbert, Frank (1969). Dune Messiah.
- ^ Herbert, Frank (1981). God Emperor of Dune.
- ^ Herbert, Frank (1984). Heretics of Dune.
- ^ Herbert, Frank (1985). Chapterhouse Dune.
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