“10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides, before the universe knew them as the Bene Gesserit…”

“The new Max Original Series Dune: Prophecy is streaming this fall on Max.”

Edited to fix an error in the submission title.

  • ringwraithfish@startrek.website
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    7 months ago

    The Dune timeline in the books covers something like 20,000 from the beginning of interstellar space travel up to and through the Atreides dynasty and all it kicks off.

    I believe Frank Herbert took the stance that once technology gets to that level, it remains static as there is little else to discover/develop.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I believe that Herbert intended it at some level, I just don’t think it was well-considered as world building.

      It is fine though, as a way to handwave anything that doesn’t make sense and to underline just how weird this setting and these people’s cultures are going to be. This is not to denigrate it. It’s just more a storyteller’s trope intended to tell the audience to settle in and leave your expectations behind. I guess this show will step in just after the end of the Butlerian Jihad maybe, but the ebbs and flows of human cultural change over 10,000 years means that it’s just one more thing he was intentionally not focusing on, and making a very specific prequel about an era that should be almost lost to the mists of time is inviting questions the “Duneiverse’s” nerd-infrastructure is poorly equipped to handle.

      I’m sort of just musing, though. I’ll absolutely watch it, and if they tell a compelling story I will smile and shrug and not let it affect my enjoyment.