Spoilers Dune: Prophecy - Spoilers!

[Nerys Myk]

For those of us who haven't read the prequels, which characters are from them that appear in this show?

Some of the Bene Gesserit: The Harkonen sisters. Mother Raquella. Dorothea.

 

[StarTrek1701]

I kinda liked the first ep, but wasn't that thrilled about it.
Mark Strong was great as usual, Travis Fimmel stole the show.

 

[Noname Given]

Yes and no. Not sure which book specifies this since it's been an age since my last re-read; but as I recall the general idea was that the thinking machines were used as tools of mass oppression and enslavement by a small of powerful humans. At least initially. There may have been a point where even those became unwittingly ensnared into the control of the thinking machines though sheer decadent indolence. Point being that by allowing the machines to do much of their thinking for them, humanity left itself vulnerable to whomever controlled those machines. Either way, yeah; the silly and rather dim AI super-villains from the prequel novels most certainly wasn't what Frank Herbert had in mind.
Somewhere between 'The Matrix' and the the Reapers from 'Mass Effect' is probably much closer to the path humanity was on before the war. Personally I've never really bought into the idea of a fully independent AI having any interest in killing all humans, much less bothering to exterminate them. Most likely they'd just take off for deep space to go create a Jupiter Brain Dyson Swarm around a black hole or something, and let the dumb monkeys have their tiny, damp, meaningless rock.

In fairness to the show, what little they showed/explained is vague enough to be interpreted either way. Whether those stompy death machines were ultimately serving distant human overlords, or Space Skynet seems immaterial to the show thus far.

I assumed it was some kind of delayed poison; maybe contaminated spice. The nobility are all addicts, so it wouldn't shock me if they're starting them young.

Personally I was more bothered by the fact it was even possible for *anyone*, much less a soldier that looks like he just stumbled arse backwards out of a pub at 3am get within spitting distance of the Emperor's new son-in-law without contending with a small army of personal bodyguards. But then it also felt dumb that any kind of thinking machine device could be smuggled into the Imperial Palace, much less in a room with the Emperor of The Know Universe without being detected, much, much less by a damned 9 year old. This is after all a culture where concealed poisons sniffers built into personal jewellery is par for the course. So it's just dumb all the way down.

I'd say it's more busy than complex. Indeed so far it's been almost asininely simple in terms of the plot.

So the Bene Gesserit want to install one of their own on the throne?*
Dumb, but OK. And to do that they need to position the Princess (who they haven't trained yet, much less control) to marry into House Richese (anyone else bothered by how they were pronouncing that?), and the Emperor is letting Richese essentially roll him like this because he needs their warships to control Arrakis? That's it!? That's the whole plan? The Imperium's Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe can't think of any other way of leveraging *one* shipment of warships from one of his own subjects than marrying off his daughter and effectivly handing Richese the Corrino dynasty?
There's no feints or counter-feints here. No giving Richese enough rope to hang themselves with and making off with the prize. No offering them a partial fief of Arrakis in exchange for their ships, forcing them to choose between turning down extreme wealth, and becoming a convenient skape-goat for the rest of the Landsraad if spice produciton continues to drop on their watch.
Richese even tries to push their luck by demanding a whole damn wing of the Palace to themselves. Why make such a blatant move? Getting one of their own on the throne is all the victory they need. Once he's of age, it's a fait accompli. Hell, that little incident with the robo-lizard was the perfect oppertunity for an easy win! House Richese smuggled a *thinking machine* into the Emperor's presence! That alone should have given him more than addiquare cause to declare Richese a heretical renegade House; take their entire ruling family (who are all *right there* in the room) hostage, order all of their assets seized, (including those damn ships!) and install some other house on Richese. Problem solved! It's not even a deliberate move by Richese to make the Emperor overreact. It comes across as totally random, and just an excuse to show how weak the Emperor is that he can be cowed before his own court.
These aren't chess moves, it's checkers with half a board and most of the pieces missing.

* I can't even begin to express how very un-Bene Gesserit this idea is. Their whole thing is being the power behind the throne. Directly grabbing the reigns like that is something they wisely avoid like the plague until Leto II forces them to with The Scattering. Just like the Spacing Guild, the Sisterhood recognises that openly taking power like that will doom whoever holds it. Better to make themselves both indispensable and ostensibly neutral, so they can pull the strings without taking any direct fire. And so what if they get one of their own on the throne? What does that even get them? They're trying to breed a super-being that can transcend time and space to ensure humanity's future for all time, not making a grab for power for power's sake.​

I assure you my expectations of the source material were suitably low. That doesn't mean I'm willing to lower my standards just because the spin-off books were crap. The onus is on the showrunners to improve on poor source material, not maintain a low level of quality.

IDK - The Sisterhood isn't the Bene Gesserit we know from FH's DUNE. Hell, at this point only one has created/found "The Voice" and they as a group aren't 100% behind their ultimate policy of genetic manipulation of the ruling class.

Hell, I haven't read the prequel books, but I thought at this point in Imperium History, the properties of Spice still wasn't known and the Imperium was still working towards the terraformation of Arrakis.

I was disappointed to see a similar political situation WRT 'control of the Spice trade.'

I sort of hoped they'd deal with the discovery of what 'Spice' allowed and the effect that would also have on the Imperium society.

And yes, I was surprised by the 'immolation' deaths and how they were achieved, but I assume we'll find out soon.

 

[Reverend]

What bothered me most lore-wise was the mention of the Fremen. Aren't they supposed to not even be a thing yet in this period? Pretty sure the Zensunni wanderings were still supposed to be going on and Arrakis wouldn't be settled yet.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

What bothered me most lore-wise was the mention of the Fremen. Aren't they supposed to not even be a thing yet in this period? Pretty sure the Zensunni wanderings were still supposed to be going on and Arrakis wouldn't be settled yet.

Unfortunately, the Dune Wiki doesn't give timings, so anything goes, I guess.

According to some historical accounts such as those recorded in the Shah-Nama, the Zensunni ancestors of the Fremen arrived on Arrakis from many different planets.

Though much of the history of the Wandering Zensunni was lost to the Fremen, some information was kept alive through oral tradition. However, even prior to the emergence of the prescient Paul Atreides, many non-Fremen expressed doubts over the validity of the stories, thanks to linguistic and mythological traditions. Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade recalled the tribal leaders of the Wandering through Other Memory.

Zensunni Wanderers

The Zensunni Wanderers or Wandering Zensunni were the ancestors of the Fremen. Descending from Muslims on Earth, the Zensunni Wanderers traveled from one world to another in search of freedom from persecution by the Imperial raiders, a journey which came to be known as Zensunni Wandering...

dune.fandom.com

It does seem unlikely that the Fremen had been had been on Arrakis for 10,000 years given the number of planets they are supposed to have passed through. However, perhaps they arrived from all the various planets in independent migrations and could assimilate easily because they shared a religion.

 

[Reverend]

Unfortunately, the Dune Wiki doesn't give timings, so anything goes, I guess.

Zensunni Wanderers

The Zensunni Wanderers or Wandering Zensunni were the ancestors of the Fremen. Descending from Muslims on Earth, the Zensunni Wanderers traveled from one world to another in search of freedom from persecution by the Imperial raiders, a journey which came to be known as Zensunni Wandering...

dune.fandom.com

It does seem unlikely that the Fremen had been had been on Arrakis for 10,000 years given the number of planets they are supposed to have passed through. However, perhaps they arrived from all the various planets in independent migrations and could assimilate easily because they shared a religion.

I mean it's made-up fiction, so you can justify almost anything with a little imagination, but that's not really the point.

For me, it reminds me a little too much of the same syndrome suffered by the 'Dawn of the Jedi' material from the dying days of the Star Wars EU. That is; it's supposed to be tens of thousands of years ago, at the very beginning of the institutions we know of . . . and everything seemed to spring forth basically fully formed, all at once.

Without that space for things to evolve from something different, it just feels samey. (For a real world example, consider: the samurai started out as civilian servants. Clerks, essentially. Meanwhile in Europe; a certain order of Knights eventually became bankers.)

Another issue I have is that the Sisterhood was supposed to be one of *many* schools established after the Butlarian Jihad to train the human mind, and compensate for the loss of the thinking machines. The Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, and the Spacing Guild with it's navigators were just the ones that went the distance. By rights there should be some competition in this period for who gets to be the main supplier of truthsayers to the Imperium, to say nothing of variations on mentat training. The Guild is arguably the only one that should hold an monopoly at this point.

Having a rival order to the Bene Gesserit (perhaps even an all-male one) would be a rather interesting way to explore why the Bene Gesserit are the way they are. Hell, I'd be interested to see that in the beginning, it wasn't a Sisterhood at all and there were male proto-Bene Gesserit . . . until they learned the hard way why men cannot pass within and access other memory. Indeed, laying that set-back out at the beginning seems like as good a motivation as any as to what initially set them down the path of breeding a male with the powers of a Bene Gesserit.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I mean it's made-up fiction, so you can justify almost anything with a little imagination, but that's not really the point.

For me, it reminds me a little too much of the same syndrome the 'Dawn of the Jedi' material from the dying days of the Star Wars EU. That is; it's supposed to be tens of thousands of years ago, at the very beginning of the institutions we know of . . . and everything seemed to spring forth basically fully formed, all at once.

Without that space for things to evolve from something different, it just feels samey. (For a real world example, consider: the samurai started out as civilian servants. Clerks, essentially. Meanwhile in Europe; a certain order of Knights eventually became bankers.)

Another issue I have is that the Sisterhood was supposed to be one of *many* schools established after the Butlarian Jihad to train the human mind, and compensate for the loss of the thinking machines. The Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, and the Spacing Guild with it's navigators were just the ones that went the distance. By rights there should be some competition in this period for who gets to be the main supplier of truthsayers to the Imperium, to say nothing of variations on mentat training. The Guild is arguably the only one that should hold an monopoly at this point.

Having a rival order to the Bene Gesserit (perhaps even an all-male one) would be a rather interesting way to explore why the Bene Gesserit are the way they are. Hell, I'd be interested to see that in the beginning, it wasn't a Sisterhood at all and there were male proto-Bene Gesserit . . . until they learned the hard way why men cannot pass within and access other memory. Indeed, laying that set-back out at the beginning seems like as good a motivation as any as to what initially set them down the path of breeding a male with the powers of a Bene Gesserit.

I don't really mind if the series plays around with the "lore", such little as exists. I only want it to be interesting and entertaining. If all they do is replicate story beats from Villeneuve's or other movies, I will not be satisfied, but other people seem happy enough with that sort of thing. The larger themes of Frank Herbert's Dune series were what intrigued me. Deep philosophical elements were lacking from Brian Herbert and KJA's novels, which, by comparison, were pedestrian in ambition. I suspect this series will tend more toward the latter, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

 

[The Wormhole]

What bothered me most lore-wise was the mention of the Fremen. Aren't they supposed to not even be a thing yet in this period?

IIRC, they were around in the Butlerian Jihad novel trilogy, though they were calling themselves Free Men.

I do remember Mentats of Dune had a subplot about a pair of Fremen who were hired by the Guild (or whatever its precursor was called) who had trouble adjusting to life where so much water was available. One of them experienced embarrassment over drinking so much water causing them to vomit, an was further embarrassed when more water was brought in to clean up the mess.

 

[Set Harth]

And it seems shield tech hasn't progressed in 10000 years.

 

[Reverend]

IIRC, they were around in the Butlerian Jihad novel trilogy, though they were calling themselves Free Men.

I do remember Mentats of Dune had a subplot about a pair of Fremen who were hired by the Guild (or whatever its precursor was called) who had trouble adjusting to life where so much water was available. One of them experienced embarrassment over drinking so much water causing them to vomit, an was further embarrassed when more water was brought in to clean up the mess.

I'm sorry, but you lost me at "Butlerian Jihad novel trilogy". I don't put any stock in the KLA/BH material. It's all pulpy nonsense with the depth of a teaspoon.

 

[The Wormhole]

Regardless, like I mentioned above Brian Herbert is an EP on this show and the show branches off from them. Like it or not, material from those novels will be incorporated into this show.

 

[FredH]

I wonder — will Travis Fimmel ever play a role in which he is not doing that wry, idiosyncratic little “I take this seriously, but I don’t take my taking-this-seriously seriously” thing?

 

[Set Harth]

hey whaddaya know we got a Guild ship.

 

[FPAlpha]

Ok.. how are the bets going that the character of Desmond Hart is breaking all established lore ( as in Frank Herbert)?

He apparently survived a direct encounter with a Sand Worm, he can now resist the Voice and apparently has some other supernatural power that can fry people from the inside ( and he can control it and decide not to kill someone halfway through). I know why i don't like the EU books because they all scream fanfiction level to me ( at least those i read and then decided to skip all the rest).

Liked the depiction of unlocking Other Memory though and its explanation on why its agony - i can imagine thousands or more voices rushing into you as extremely painful. Too bad she died but it was always a long shot asking an acolyte to pass a procedure that kills experienced BG.

Had a small laugh when Valya tried to pass off the BG as just a school for young women to Hart, that was a "somewhat" weak attempt and beneath her especially because Desmond told her directly he knows how dangerous they actually are.

So yeah, this ain't GoT level writing. And somehow i moved beyond HBO's need to include graphic sex scenes - this is not the 90s and 00s anymore where that was shocking and started a national conversation. I find that annoying now and almost fast forwarded through it. Had a laugh though when it was revealed that she actually played him for information.

 

[Xerxes82]

I just can't get into this. Fimmel is great, no surprise there. But the rest of this just straight up bores me. I had a brief glimmer of hope over the Rebellion reveal, but then the Sisters were immediately behind that too and I lost all interest.

Also, who is the Empress that she knows enough about Fremen culture to call the sandworms Shai-Hulud? And given that it's 10,000 years to Dune, should there even be Fremen calling the damn things Shai-Hulud yet?

I'm going to give this one more episode because of the cast, but then I might be done. This wants really desperately to be "Space GoT," but it lacks any of the subtlety and craft that the earliest seasons of GoT had going for them.

 

[Set Harth]

Liked the depiction of unlocking Other Memory though and its explanation on why its agony - i can imagine thousands or more voices rushing into you as extremely painful.

It's agony because it's achieved due to a poison, it's not because of the other memory per se.

 

[Reverend]

Well, somehow that was even less interesting and more irksome than the first episode. Tedious. Predicable. Shallow. No real grasp of the source material.

I mean a Bene Gesserit trained as a Suk doctor? A bit of a strange choice, but okay . . . However then they go an have her saying something like "but I'm always a Sister first", which is just anathema. The Suk School isn't just some fancy and prestigious medical academy, that diamond tattoo is supposed to denote mental conditioning to guarantee absolute trust and loyalty. Unless she's already broken her conditioning, there should be no question of a divided loyalty.
A Suk Bene Gesserit should always be a doctor first by sheer definition, or else what's even the point? It's not like the Bene Gesserit don't have the expertise to train physicians of their own.

It's also really bugging me how informal and lax things are around the Emperor. The idea that the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit can set foot on the capital without being noticed by Imperial spies, much less just walk into the Emperor's court during an audience (literally unannounced!) speaks to a fundamental inattentiveness to details.
Also the way the Duke Richese speaks to him is just crazy. I don't care how much leverage he thinks he has over this Emperor; you don't openly mouth off to a sovereign in his own throne room like that. To do so would undermine his authority and force his hand. He'd have no choice by make an example lest the rest of the Landsraad get it into their heads that he's a push-over.

And the idea that the entire Empire at this point is already solely dependent on spice? That's an addiction that takes ten millennia to fully take hold of the Imperium. Not even a mention of CHOAM, or the complex interplay of power between the Houses, the Throne, and the Guild?! If Arrakis is already all that matters, why is it such a backwater (no pun intended)? By what lever does the Emperor exert power? I don't care how fancy Richese's toys are, there's no way they'd have a military to rival the Emperor's. If so; they'd already be in charge. That's literally how power works in an authoritarian regime! The Sardaukar may not be a thing yet, but any Empire needs some kind of effective martial force to impose the Emperor's will on it's subjects and put down rebellion.

I could rant more about this and *several* other points, but I don't have the energy (least of all for the "swallowed by a sandworm" goofiness). I usually give new shows three episodes of grace before deciding, but I think I'm already done here. It's a shame too, because the show isn't without merit; indeed so far as I'm concerned the writing is the only real flaw; unfortunately when it comes to storytelling, it can be a fatal one. I hope it improves for those of you opting to stick around, but nothing I've seen makes me feel like the juice will be worth the squeeze.

 

[Commander Troi]

My biggest gripe with the show so far is that it seems to lack Soul. There's nobody I care about. There's nothing going on that I care about. At least this 2nd episode moved faster.

 

[tenmei]

Javicco and Desmond had their Henry II moment, "who will rid me of this turbulent priest ..." followed by "I didn't mean it literally ..." with House Richese showing signs of House Mortimer, especially Roger Mortimer and Edward II, being powerful nobles, this would then make Desmond an amalgamation of Hugh Despenser merged with Rasputin.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Well, somehow that was even less interesting and more irksome than the first episode. Tedious. Predicable. Shallow. No real grasp of the source material.

I mean a Bene Gesserit trained as a Suk doctor? A bit of a strange choice, but okay . . . However then they go an have her saying something like "but I'm always a Sister first", which is just anathema. The Suk School isn't just some fancy and prestigious medical academy, that diamond tattoo is supposed to denote mental conditioning to guarantee absolute trust and loyalty. Unless she's already broken her conditioning, there should be no question of a divided loyalty.
A Suk Bene Gesserit should always be a doctor first by sheer definition, or else what's even the point? It's not like the Bene Gesserit don't have the expertise to train physicians of their own.

It's also really bugging me how informal and lax things are around the Emperor. The idea that the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit can set foot on the capital without being noticed by Imperial spies, much less just walk into the Emperor's court during an audience (literally unannounced!) speaks to a fundamental inattentiveness to details.
Also the way the Duke Richese speaks to him is just crazy. I don't care how much leverage he thinks he has over this Emperor; you don't openly mouth off to a sovereign in his own throne room like that. To do so would undermine his authority and force his hand. He'd have no choice by make an example lest the rest of the Landsraad get it into their heads that he's a push-over.

And the idea that the entire Empire at this point is already solely dependent on spice? That's an addiction that takes ten millennia to fully take hold of the Imperium. Not even a mention of CHOAM, or the complex interplay of power between the Houses, the Throne, and the Guild?! If Arrakis is already all that matters, why is it such a backwater (no pun intended)? By what lever does the Emperor exert power? I don't care how fancy Richese's toys are, there's no way they'd have a military to rival the Emperor's. If so; they'd already be in charge. That's literally how power works in an authoritarian regime! The Sardaukar may not be a thing yet, but any Empire needs some kind of effective martial force to impose the Emperor's will on it's subjects and put down rebellion.

I could rant more about this and *several* other points, but I don't have the energy (least of all for the "swallowed by a sandworm" goofiness). I usually give new shows three episodes of grace before deciding, but I think I'm already done here. It's a shame too, because the show isn't without merit; indeed so far as I'm concerned the writing is the only real flaw; unfortunately when it comes to storytelling, it can be a fatal one. I hope it improves for those of you opting to stick around, but nothing I've seen makes me feel like the juice will be worth the squeeze.

Yes, I agree with this analysis. Darklight would probably show Brian Herbert and KJA's DNA spaffed all over it. The mystery box guy has been set up, so I wonder if the reveal of who he is will even take place this season. I'm not deciding whether to give up until the end of the season. If it's not got its act together by then, I'll abandon it like I did the BH & KJA novels.