“‘We must do a thing on Arrakis never before attempted for an entire planet,’
his father said.
‘We must use man as a constructive ecological force - inserting adapted terraform life:
a plant here, an animal there, a man in that place - to transform the water cycle, to build
a new kind of landscape.’”
~ Frank Herbert - Dune
Frank Herbert’s Dune Saga presents an intersection of multiple clandestine agendas from the sisterhood
of the Bene Gesserit to the warring Houses of Atreides and Harkonnen all the way to the
Imperial throne itself.
Everyone has their secrets.
Their own plans within plans, the Fremen of Arrakis are no exception.
Long before the events of Dune a secret plot was devised to reshape the face of Arrakis,
an action that would see the universe itself transformed.
In this video I’d like to discuss the secret mission of the Fremen and the mastermind who
set them on their path to become a great ecological force.
Spoiler warning if you are unfamiliar with Frank Herbert’s Dune.
A stranger to the desert world of Arrakis would no doubt be immediately struck by its
barren wilderness, the endless desert sea of nothing but Spice, Sandstorms and Giant
Sandworms.
The pressure of thirst is a constant companion, the moon is your friend and the sun your enemy.
But one stranger came to Arrakis and saw not a wasteland but a machine that could be calibrated
to suit man’s needs.
Pardot Kynes the first planetary ecologist of Arrakis sent by the Padishah Emperor to
study the world upon which their civilization depended.
In examining the mysteries of this seemingly humble planet Kynes discovered that a complete
ecological transformation was possible.
This was a barren wasteland where the local populace was forced to wear specialized suits
to recycle their bodies' own moisture to survive.
Kynes saw a means to transform this environment into a green lush world where no one would
want for water again.
Accomplishing such an extraordinary feat would require extraordinary people, spearheading
this ecological movement.
The local Fremen were the tool that would change the face of Arrakis.
Kynes was direct and single minded; his plan was to evade the oversight of House Harkonnen
who governed Arrakis and marry a Fremen woman who would bear him a son.
Beginning with his son and the other Fremen children he would teach them ecological literacy,
knowledge that would enable them to manipulate the entire landscape.
Convincing the Fremen to accept this mission would not be an easy task.
An opportunity came after Kynes had intervened to aid several Fremen youths that were being
hunted down by Harkonnen soldiers.
After this intervention, the young Fremen owed Kynes a mortal obligation and brought
him to their sietch where Pardot spoke of paradise, about an abundance of water, dunes
anchored by grass, about palmaries filled with date palms, about open qanats flowing
across the desert.
At first the Fremen thought him to be a madman who knew too much of their ways and their
closely guarded secrets.
He has seen their sacred crysknives and knew the location of a major sietch.
Because of this they decided to kill this outsider.
However as his executioner Uliet approached, Kynes simply said “Remove Yourself” and
continued on with his lecture.
No one could fathom what was going through the mind of his would-be executioner but upon
hearing Kynes words Uliet deliberately fell upon his own knife effectively removing himself
as Kynes had instructed.
His actions were taken as an omen, that Shai-hulud had moved him.
Thereafter the Fremen hailed Kynes as a prophet, a man that was just mad enough to be holy
and so they began their secret mission as directed by the planetologist to change their
world.
Kynes initially estimated 300-500 years for the terraforming of Arrakis to be complete.
This would not happen in their lifetime, the lifetime of their children or their grandchildren’s
children but it would come and somehow the disappointment of its delay made the prospect
of paradise even more real to the Fremen.
Though that day was farther off than they had anticipated they knew that eventually
their blessed day would come.
The Fremen had proven themselves to be an ecological and geological force of almost
unlimited potential.
Molded by the dangerous environment of Arrakis and hostile occupying regimes, they were forced
to become masters at survival, deception and stealth.
The Fremen maintain secrecy in many aspects of their society, from their customs, sacred
rituals and weaponry to their battle tactics and population size.
Even still, none of these other hidden plans threaten to have as big an impact on the Imperium
as their plan to terraform Arrakis.
No one could know of their mission.
While carrying out his imperial duties managing the Biological Testing stations, Kynes oversaw
the infiltration by Fremen personnel who began using station tools to dig underground catch
basins and to construct hidden wind traps to gather and store water.
In an effort to maintain secrecy and ensure no one in the Empire could spy on their activities,
the Fremen bribed the Spacing Guild with Spice to keep the skies of Arrakis free from satellites.
In order to terraform the planet Kynes and the Fremen needed to know everything about
the ecosystem they intended to change.
Much of their early efforts were spent collecting and analyzing copious amounts of data.
Moisture to sustain plant and animal life was a significant obstacle.
A persistent mystery on Arrakis was the seemingly unexplained disappearance of water.
Whenever a well would be dug in the sinks and basins they would initially produce trickles
of water that quickly vanished as if something plugged it up.
One day after his ornithopter had been blown off course by a storm Pardot made the remarkable
discovery of large salt flats indicating there were once lakes and oceans on Arrakis.
This planet had already been terraformed to suit another lifeform.
Not long after this discovery did Kynes and the Fremen find the water stealer.
Leathery and resembling a leech, the sandtrout were found to be the larval form of the Giant
sandworms.
The activity of the sandtrout is why they are called water stealers.
Water is poisonous to Sandworms so in their larval form the sandtrout pave the way for
their next phase of life by sequestering any moisture to the depths below.
The life cycle of the sandworm was also proven to be the origin for the most precious resource
in the universe, Spice.
As the Fremen continued their work to gather water they made sure their underground reservoirs
were walled and shielded from the sandtrout, stocking them with predator fish that would
attack any that managed to invade it.
Kynes oversaw the introduction of various animals, insects and plant life including
hundreds of different food plants.
Everything had been calculated with precision.
If they could get three percent of the green plant element on Arrakis involved in forming
carbon compounds, they'd have their self-sustaining cycle, their new ecosystem fit for human life.
A homeworld with grass and trees, lakes and oceans.
There would be no need for stillsuits to recycle and preserve one’s moisture.
No one would feel thirst ever again.
. Eventually Kynes married a Fremen woman who
bore him a son, Liet, to whom he passed on all his knowledge.
Pardot was killed in a cave-in when His son Liet a full Fremen was nineteen years old.
The rigid class structure saw to it that Liet received his father’s Imperial position.
By this time the Fremen had already been set upon their path building, planting, digging,
and training their children.
Liet-Kynes had only to watch, nudge and spy upon the Harkonnens.
However Kynes and the Fremen forgot that the highest function of ecology is the understanding
of consequences.
Prior to their efforts, the planet had been terraformed to suit the life of the great
sandworms.
The Fremen’s entire cultural identity had been based on their own survival, their reverence
for the Sandworms that they believed were the physical manifestation of god.
The Fremen thought they could have both open sources of water with abundant plant life
while also maintaining a deep desert region for the sandworms to inhabit as they continued
to make spice.
In the end, the Fremen turned out to be cogs in a machine, unable to comprehend the far
reaching effects of their hidden agenda.
Their efforts to bring about paradise would ultimately lead to a tremendous reduction
in the population of sandworms along with the spice they produced.
This of course would cause disastrous tidal waves of ripple effects throughout the Imperium
which had until then made itself entirely too reliant on the singular commodity of spice.
A core theme in Frank Herbert’s series is a warning against humanity’s tendency to
act before fully understanding the consequences.
The long term effects of the terraforming efforts of the Fremen would not be fully understood
until their secret agenda was passed on to the hands of Pardot Kynes’ great grandson
Leto Atreides II.
As the God Emperor, he would use his knowledge of the best kept secrets of the Fremen as
a tool to guide the Imperium along a terrible yet necessary golden path, to ultimately ensure
the survival of the human race.
But I’m curious to know what you think about Pardot Kynes and the Terraforming efforts
of the Fremen.
Are there any lessons to be learned from the manner in which they were set on their path?
Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.
I hope you enjoyed this video.
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Thank you all so much for your support and as always have a very nerdy day.