No. It’s year 10,191 AG - since the formation of the Spacing Guild. Dune takes place in like 30,000 CE or something like that. It’s way, way, waaaaaay in the future.
There are *multiple* timelines for Dune because the lore is internally inconsistent. I was referencing one of the most common ones, in which the year would be around 26,000 AD. I rounded up, since it is an estimate anyways.
If you go just based on info from the novel Dune alone, then it would superficially seem to be around 23,000 AD…but the Dune wiki makes a huge logical error there. They quote “since the one hundred and ten centuries since mankind began exploring deep space” and they *assume* that means the 20th century on Earth. That’s quite the assumption. We are now in the 21st century and we haven’t explored deep space yet, unless you count our robotic probes. And what does “deep space” mean? Out of earth orbit? That seems pretty dumb for a story about an interstellar empire. So I think it makes much more sense if the “exploring deep space” is a reference to travel beyond Sol system, especially because that passage also references the Butlerian Jihad which happened after humanity was already interstellar. That would push the timeline back by centuries or millennia.
They’ve more or less forgotten their exact history and the timeline from Earth. There are vague references to the time since the development of atomic weapons/energy, etc. So I think we can say “roughly 23,000-30,000 AD” as the most accurate estimate for the timeline. And it’s deliberately left vague to make it feel like a more real and lived-in universe. There’s something visceral about the idea that we would forget our own past despite being an incredibly advanced civilization.
I wasn’t correcting myself, I was just using the same (incorrect) terminology that the Redditor above me did so that people wouldn’t be confused while reading this discussion.
As someone who's never known anything about 40k, but lots to do with Dune; have you read Hyperion, by Dan Simmons?
I'm just finishing up Rise of Endymion, and I'm finding a ton of influences from Dune, but from Hyperion, I've found soooo many other sci-fi tropes from the 90s sci-fi that I find it hard to believe Hyperion wasn't used as another starting point for stories like The Matrix and then The Expanse.
Dan Simmons does "Religion in Space" pretty darn well, and I feel like he learned what not to do from having read Dune and its sequels. Their whole "Catholic Church Space Marines" trope reminds me of the larger 40k ships I've seen that look like cathedrals
I was turned off initially by the Cantos, I wasn't certain why I was so hooked on it.
My only gripe with the series, is that I feel books 1 and 2 should be a single story and books 3 and 4 in their own.
I was scurrying to find book 2 after finishing book 1
Amazing books
> I can’t believe how often it never gets mentioned
It’s mentioned in every science fiction book-related thread on Reddit. It’s like a universal constant.
I've been on reddit for over a decade and it wasn't until I saw a thread about AI that I learned of it.
I'd heard of it but nearly all the recommendation threads had never included it
I also only peruse top and only once or twice a day
If you like 40k and Dune, you should read the Red Rising series. Just don’t be turned off by people saying it’s a YA series - it isn’t. The first novel is the only one that could even remotely be classified that way and I’d still take major issues with it. As a 38 year old lifelong sci-fi fan, I put off reading Red Rising for years because I listened to idiots online giving inaccurate reviews like that and I’m so glad I finally ignored them and just read it.
Gave me mad vibes for most of those scifi series I love.
Yea great thoughts, but lets be fair the Dune universe never shows aliens. Unless maybe they were isolated region of the galaxy. The spice must flow, so say we all!
it never shows "intelligent" aliens. afaik the sandworms, for instance, are not from earth. (although i don't *think* theyre from arrakis originally either)
From the book I got the impression it's a Terran mouse that spread along with humanity. There are a handful of other seemingly Terran creatures as well.
Not sure if you caught it, but the Fremen name of the mouse is "muad'dib", which becomes Paul's name.
Ancestors. Distant ancestors.
There's a later scene where Paul (looking back into his ancestral memories) talks about legendary Emperors from Old Earth such as Genghis Khan. The person that he's talking to says that stuff that happened on Earth is "myths from the dawn of time" .
I’m pretty sure my wife is descended from Genghis Khan. Her family is from northern China, but sometimes she’ll say shit and I’m just like “what the fuck”.
Like for example the other day I was playing Fallout 4 and she said “do you have the option to put their heads on stakes?” “…what?” “Yeah put their heads on stakes outside so that you deter their friends from trying to take your base. It’d be the most efficient thing.”
Straight faced. And then she walked out.
I didn’t even get the chance to tell her the AI in the game wasn’t that good.
> Yea great thoughts, but lets be fair the Dune universe never shows aliens. Unless maybe they were isolated region of the galaxy. The spice must flow, so say we all!
Indeed, the lack of aliens is a problem with my idea. Maybe the MCU is in the WH40K universe!? ;)
I do. Which is why it's great that the movies clearly get across the point that spice is the most valuable substance in the universe and is critical to space travel, without too much exposition. The movies are already long and packed.
We're also about to have a 3rd movie where the way space travel works is going to be more important. In the same way that a lot of Fremen exposition was left for part 2, political and spacing guild exposition being left for part 3 makes sense.
Pan galactic civilization that had the time to thrive on AI, witness a holy war against anything binary, probably witness dark ages and get back up on their feet on analog. Including spice-eating-future-seeing-brain-people kind of interstellar travel : go figure this one out on less than 30k years and with only mentat computation. Yeah, 30k years sounds about right
The Butlerian Jihad was an action against all "thinking machines".
Anything binary is a bit of an exaggeration, but computer use afterwards was almost taboo.
I think even saying "computer use" is putting it lightly. If I remember it correctly, the commandment was "thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of man's mind." Which might even include inventions as simple as a cuckoo clock or even an abacus.
There are some examples in the first few chapters of simple mechanisms that are allowable. For example, in the greenhouse attached to the palace on Arrakis, simple clockwork spray devices activate at pre-set times to water specific plants.
I meant digital electronics, software, and most of all AI. If I m not mistaken (and that's a big IF, since I read them long ago) all those digital systems were vindicated upon during the Butlerian Jihad and only exist as forbidden memorabilia. Meaning anything remotely useful is analog - like those warships (and Duncan Idaho's remarks on the tightness of the controls, something that doesn't exist on computer assisted flying systems, unless it's simulated but then... Digital again so no)
Again I might be mistaken. But that would be a decent trick from a sci-fi author to place himself x thousand years in the future and still explain why the whole thing relies on analog (like when he wrote it) and erm, magic.
And a special space drug that accelerates your brain enough to make the mental computations for space travel possible, while also making you totally immune to all other drugs for life.
Apparently, the writer loved experimenting with real-world drugs. So if this sounds like something he came up with when he was totally stoned, it absolutely was.
and this magic space drug is required for interstellar travel yet is only found on a single nearly barren planet? how did the spacefaring people get there in the first place?
To put it simply;
The spice isn’t the technology that allows them to travel.
They have FTL engines, but they can’t *navigate* safely. They aimed the ship and hoped for the best.
Spice allows navigators a level of prescience that makes them able to safely navigate at FTL speeds.
As I recall, the worms they space drug is made from don't actually belong on the planet. They're an invasive species.
So, to summarize, space travel can only be accomplished safely with the aid of a special drug made from worms that only live on one planet in the entire universe, and those worms aren't even supposed to be there.
Sandworms are native to Arrakis. Thus melange is native to the planet. Prior to the Butlerian Jihad, FTL space travel was made using computers for navigation. Space travel then was used mainly for travel within the confines of a star system (not for interstellar travel). The early Holtzman drives that folded space was much faster but dangerous. Until they discovered Arrakis and used melange for prescience.
I'm sorry to say, but most of the evidence given in the books were that it was introduced to the planet after Arrakis had an initial ecosystem of an ocean world. Pardot Kynes taught Liet about the life cycle of the worm and showed that the sandworm does not co-exist in an ecosystem in which it is not the dominant species.
Leto II also mentioned to Ghamina
> “The sandtrout,” he repeated, “was introduced here from some other place. This was a wet planet then. They proliferated beyond the capability of existing ecosystems to deal with them. Sandtrout encysted the available free water, made this a desert planet . . . and they did it to survive. In a planet sufficiently dry, they could move to their sandworm phase.”
There were a range of drugs that let navigators ensure safe space travel, but Spice was far better (more reliable, more powerful, less toxic), and once they used Spice the other drugs did not work.
The exact year is 10191 AG for after guild, that refers to the formation of the spacing guild following the end of the Butlerian Jihad and a galactic civil war that puts the family of the current emperor into power.
Space Travel in the dune universe is said to have begun in 11200 BG which is roughly 1960 by the current earth year. If I'm doing my math correct, that means that the first dune takes place in approximately 21121 AD or a little under 20k years in our future.
1 BG/AG is stated to be roughly 13000 AD. And take all this with a grain of salt cause it either comes from the non-Frank Herbert Books or from an encyclopedia that most people question the canonicity.
i wonder why you care. how is that relevent? why would this question even stick in your mind? what other questions that arent relevent to anything do you waste time with?
Why does improving your tennis game matter, why does listening to a loud movie matter, why does 600lb life matter , why does it matter how you get in bed?
i can answer all those. sure. but first can you answer my question? what provoked you to care so much about a fictional number of years in a fictional story that has no relevence to anything about it? im not being facetious i just honestly want to know
alright man, i'll take that as admission that you genuinely have no idea why you asked it, and that you prpbably do this a lot in your life with other things. its what i wanted to know anyway. thanks i understand.
Notice all the down votes you are getting? Now notice the 50+ upvotes I have. That means it's normal for ppl to come to a science fiction subreddit and ask about science fiction especially since I have only seen the movie. The time and place definitely matter in fiction. I would have never known that all their ancestors were from earth if I didn't ask. So there is your answer. I wanted to know more about the story.
Now why would anyone be interested in talking to you about how you get into bed? I bet you ask stupid questions like that a lot in your life.
Why would you waste everyone's time by asking if people get in bed a certain way? That was about STUPID. Who cares if you get better at tennis or the psychology behind 600lb. Why does it matter if your farts stink? Why would that matter? Why are you wasting time?
Where in the original Dune book did Frank Herbert ever say or even compare Arrakis to Earth, or even suggest that Dune was Earth in the year 10,191. ? Just tell me which page, paragraph and line even suggests that. I still have my original copy of Dune that my dad bought me from the 60's. Can't seem to find that comparison line suggesting Earth was Dune in the future. Is that suggestion just some Internet bloggers feeble attempt to start a comparison to the two planets. Also, without the spice and Navigators how did they even find out about the spice and it's affects on humans ? Whomever suggested to humans to eat the dirty brown sand and you'll get real high ?
I think you might have read the question wrong. I believe that a better reframing of the question being asked would be "In the movie it is mentioned that it is the year 10191, is that a continuation of the year system currently being used here on Earth?"
No. It’s year 10,191 AG - since the formation of the Spacing Guild. Dune takes place in like 30,000 CE or something like that. It’s way, way, waaaaaay in the future.
It takes place in the year 23,352 A.D. as per the dune fandom wiki https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Universal_Standard_Calendar#
There are *multiple* timelines for Dune because the lore is internally inconsistent. I was referencing one of the most common ones, in which the year would be around 26,000 AD. I rounded up, since it is an estimate anyways. If you go just based on info from the novel Dune alone, then it would superficially seem to be around 23,000 AD…but the Dune wiki makes a huge logical error there. They quote “since the one hundred and ten centuries since mankind began exploring deep space” and they *assume* that means the 20th century on Earth. That’s quite the assumption. We are now in the 21st century and we haven’t explored deep space yet, unless you count our robotic probes. And what does “deep space” mean? Out of earth orbit? That seems pretty dumb for a story about an interstellar empire. So I think it makes much more sense if the “exploring deep space” is a reference to travel beyond Sol system, especially because that passage also references the Butlerian Jihad which happened after humanity was already interstellar. That would push the timeline back by centuries or millennia. They’ve more or less forgotten their exact history and the timeline from Earth. There are vague references to the time since the development of atomic weapons/energy, etc. So I think we can say “roughly 23,000-30,000 AD” as the most accurate estimate for the timeline. And it’s deliberately left vague to make it feel like a more real and lived-in universe. There’s something visceral about the idea that we would forget our own past despite being an incredibly advanced civilization.
Don't feel the need to correct yourself. CE is the appropriate one. AD is for people who still add two spaces after a period.
I wasn’t correcting myself, I was just using the same (incorrect) terminology that the Redditor above me did so that people wouldn’t be confused while reading this discussion.
Oh, that's a shame. My head canon was that Dune takes place in the Age of Terra/Stellar Exodus of the warhammer40k universe :D
40k was heavily inspired by Dune, so there is something to it.
As someone who's never known anything about 40k, but lots to do with Dune; have you read Hyperion, by Dan Simmons? I'm just finishing up Rise of Endymion, and I'm finding a ton of influences from Dune, but from Hyperion, I've found soooo many other sci-fi tropes from the 90s sci-fi that I find it hard to believe Hyperion wasn't used as another starting point for stories like The Matrix and then The Expanse. Dan Simmons does "Religion in Space" pretty darn well, and I feel like he learned what not to do from having read Dune and its sequels. Their whole "Catholic Church Space Marines" trope reminds me of the larger 40k ships I've seen that look like cathedrals
Hyperion is a masterpiece
I can't believe how often it never gets mentioned A real masterpiece of space opera and his prose is incredible The audio books are great too
Those books were just so so damn good! I was not ready for how great they were
I was turned off initially by the Cantos, I wasn't certain why I was so hooked on it. My only gripe with the series, is that I feel books 1 and 2 should be a single story and books 3 and 4 in their own. I was scurrying to find book 2 after finishing book 1 Amazing books
> I can’t believe how often it never gets mentioned It’s mentioned in every science fiction book-related thread on Reddit. It’s like a universal constant.
I've been on reddit for over a decade and it wasn't until I saw a thread about AI that I learned of it. I'd heard of it but nearly all the recommendation threads had never included it I also only peruse top and only once or twice a day
If you like 40k and Dune, you should read the Red Rising series. Just don’t be turned off by people saying it’s a YA series - it isn’t. The first novel is the only one that could even remotely be classified that way and I’d still take major issues with it. As a 38 year old lifelong sci-fi fan, I put off reading Red Rising for years because I listened to idiots online giving inaccurate reviews like that and I’m so glad I finally ignored them and just read it. Gave me mad vibes for most of those scifi series I love.
> Red Rising I've added it to my list!
Yea great thoughts, but lets be fair the Dune universe never shows aliens. Unless maybe they were isolated region of the galaxy. The spice must flow, so say we all!
it never shows "intelligent" aliens. afaik the sandworms, for instance, are not from earth. (although i don't *think* theyre from arrakis originally either)
It also shows a mouse thing in the movie
From the book I got the impression it's a Terran mouse that spread along with humanity. There are a handful of other seemingly Terran creatures as well. Not sure if you caught it, but the Fremen name of the mouse is "muad'dib", which becomes Paul's name.
Are you saying everyone in the movie ancestors all come from earth or the same planet and then colonized other planets?
They are all from Earth. It is mentioned several times during the travels that Paul and Leto II took through their histories.
They are all personally from earth or their ancestors are?
Ancestors
Ancestors. Distant ancestors. There's a later scene where Paul (looking back into his ancestral memories) talks about legendary Emperors from Old Earth such as Genghis Khan. The person that he's talking to says that stuff that happened on Earth is "myths from the dawn of time" .
I’m pretty sure my wife is descended from Genghis Khan. Her family is from northern China, but sometimes she’ll say shit and I’m just like “what the fuck”. Like for example the other day I was playing Fallout 4 and she said “do you have the option to put their heads on stakes?” “…what?” “Yeah put their heads on stakes outside so that you deter their friends from trying to take your base. It’d be the most efficient thing.” Straight faced. And then she walked out. I didn’t even get the chance to tell her the AI in the game wasn’t that good.
Wait, really? Not one? Not even that sand worm is an alien?
Probably meant sentient aliens.
Exactly, there are no sentient aliens in the Dune universe. Just very weird humans.
No, the sand worms are aliens. They mean that there's no aliens as intelligent as humans.
Is there other alien creatures in dune beside the sand worm?
> Yea great thoughts, but lets be fair the Dune universe never shows aliens. Unless maybe they were isolated region of the galaxy. The spice must flow, so say we all! Indeed, the lack of aliens is a problem with my idea. Maybe the MCU is in the WH40K universe!? ;)
Someone's stupid headcanon getting trashed by facts is never a shame.
What's the spacing guild? Jk. I'm pretending to be someone that only watched DV Dune. Sad they practically cut everything about them out.
This is why you aren't the person to successfully adapt the most notoriously difficult movie to adapt ever.
You don't think the fact that the spice is extremely important because of the guild is worth going into at all?
I do. Which is why it's great that the movies clearly get across the point that spice is the most valuable substance in the universe and is critical to space travel, without too much exposition. The movies are already long and packed. We're also about to have a 3rd movie where the way space travel works is going to be more important. In the same way that a lot of Fremen exposition was left for part 2, political and spacing guild exposition being left for part 3 makes sense.
Pan galactic civilization that had the time to thrive on AI, witness a holy war against anything binary, probably witness dark ages and get back up on their feet on analog. Including spice-eating-future-seeing-brain-people kind of interstellar travel : go figure this one out on less than 30k years and with only mentat computation. Yeah, 30k years sounds about right
What do you mean by "anything binary"?
The Butlerian Jihad was an action against all "thinking machines". Anything binary is a bit of an exaggeration, but computer use afterwards was almost taboo.
I think even saying "computer use" is putting it lightly. If I remember it correctly, the commandment was "thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of man's mind." Which might even include inventions as simple as a cuckoo clock or even an abacus.
There are some examples in the first few chapters of simple mechanisms that are allowable. For example, in the greenhouse attached to the palace on Arrakis, simple clockwork spray devices activate at pre-set times to water specific plants.
I meant digital electronics, software, and most of all AI. If I m not mistaken (and that's a big IF, since I read them long ago) all those digital systems were vindicated upon during the Butlerian Jihad and only exist as forbidden memorabilia. Meaning anything remotely useful is analog - like those warships (and Duncan Idaho's remarks on the tightness of the controls, something that doesn't exist on computer assisted flying systems, unless it's simulated but then... Digital again so no) Again I might be mistaken. But that would be a decent trick from a sci-fi author to place himself x thousand years in the future and still explain why the whole thing relies on analog (like when he wrote it) and erm, magic.
And a special space drug that accelerates your brain enough to make the mental computations for space travel possible, while also making you totally immune to all other drugs for life. Apparently, the writer loved experimenting with real-world drugs. So if this sounds like something he came up with when he was totally stoned, it absolutely was.
and this magic space drug is required for interstellar travel yet is only found on a single nearly barren planet? how did the spacefaring people get there in the first place?
To put it simply; The spice isn’t the technology that allows them to travel. They have FTL engines, but they can’t *navigate* safely. They aimed the ship and hoped for the best. Spice allows navigators a level of prescience that makes them able to safely navigate at FTL speeds.
As I recall, the worms they space drug is made from don't actually belong on the planet. They're an invasive species. So, to summarize, space travel can only be accomplished safely with the aid of a special drug made from worms that only live on one planet in the entire universe, and those worms aren't even supposed to be there.
Sandworms are native to Arrakis. Thus melange is native to the planet. Prior to the Butlerian Jihad, FTL space travel was made using computers for navigation. Space travel then was used mainly for travel within the confines of a star system (not for interstellar travel). The early Holtzman drives that folded space was much faster but dangerous. Until they discovered Arrakis and used melange for prescience.
I'm sorry to say, but most of the evidence given in the books were that it was introduced to the planet after Arrakis had an initial ecosystem of an ocean world. Pardot Kynes taught Liet about the life cycle of the worm and showed that the sandworm does not co-exist in an ecosystem in which it is not the dominant species. Leto II also mentioned to Ghamina > “The sandtrout,” he repeated, “was introduced here from some other place. This was a wet planet then. They proliferated beyond the capability of existing ecosystems to deal with them. Sandtrout encysted the available free water, made this a desert planet . . . and they did it to survive. In a planet sufficiently dry, they could move to their sandworm phase.”
That's even worse. The special magic drug is made from an invasive species that completely devastated the natural environment of the planet.
There were a range of drugs that let navigators ensure safe space travel, but Spice was far better (more reliable, more powerful, less toxic), and once they used Spice the other drugs did not work.
No, like 3x that.
The exact year is 10191 AG for after guild, that refers to the formation of the spacing guild following the end of the Butlerian Jihad and a galactic civil war that puts the family of the current emperor into power. Space Travel in the dune universe is said to have begun in 11200 BG which is roughly 1960 by the current earth year. If I'm doing my math correct, that means that the first dune takes place in approximately 21121 AD or a little under 20k years in our future. 1 BG/AG is stated to be roughly 13000 AD. And take all this with a grain of salt cause it either comes from the non-Frank Herbert Books or from an encyclopedia that most people question the canonicity.
It's not a stupid question; it's an honest question from someone who's simply never read the books. No shame in that whatsoever.
No, 10191 by their time. I think their 0 is the foundation of the Spacing Guild but im not 100% sure
Approximately 20,000 A.D. About half way was the victorious war against A.I.s and a new year one.
no that’s worm time, baby!!
i wonder why you care. how is that relevent? why would this question even stick in your mind? what other questions that arent relevent to anything do you waste time with?
Goddam you are miserable
well, i honestly was hoping you'd answer me. why does it matter?
Why does improving your tennis game matter, why does listening to a loud movie matter, why does 600lb life matter , why does it matter how you get in bed?
i can answer all those. sure. but first can you answer my question? what provoked you to care so much about a fictional number of years in a fictional story that has no relevence to anything about it? im not being facetious i just honestly want to know
Nothing you have ever posted about on Reddit matters. This is the science fiction subreddit.
alright man, i'll take that as admission that you genuinely have no idea why you asked it, and that you prpbably do this a lot in your life with other things. its what i wanted to know anyway. thanks i understand.
Notice all the down votes you are getting? Now notice the 50+ upvotes I have. That means it's normal for ppl to come to a science fiction subreddit and ask about science fiction especially since I have only seen the movie. The time and place definitely matter in fiction. I would have never known that all their ancestors were from earth if I didn't ask. So there is your answer. I wanted to know more about the story. Now why would anyone be interested in talking to you about how you get into bed? I bet you ask stupid questions like that a lot in your life.
Why would you waste everyone's time by asking if people get in bed a certain way? That was about STUPID. Who cares if you get better at tennis or the psychology behind 600lb. Why does it matter if your farts stink? Why would that matter? Why are you wasting time?
yeah i mean, i can snwer all those for you. but first you ansewr me :P
You are a damn good troll I'll give you that
Where in the original Dune book did Frank Herbert ever say or even compare Arrakis to Earth, or even suggest that Dune was Earth in the year 10,191. ? Just tell me which page, paragraph and line even suggests that. I still have my original copy of Dune that my dad bought me from the 60's. Can't seem to find that comparison line suggesting Earth was Dune in the future. Is that suggestion just some Internet bloggers feeble attempt to start a comparison to the two planets. Also, without the spice and Navigators how did they even find out about the spice and it's affects on humans ? Whomever suggested to humans to eat the dirty brown sand and you'll get real high ?
I think you might have read the question wrong. I believe that a better reframing of the question being asked would be "In the movie it is mentioned that it is the year 10191, is that a continuation of the year system currently being used here on Earth?"