Dune Spacing Guild Quotes

Good governance never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.

You know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard? Yes, I know about that story, too. A majordomo brought it to me one day to amuse me. The story says there is a hoard of melange, a gigantic hoard, big as a great mountain. The hoard is concealed in the depths of a distant planet. It is not Arrakis, that planet. It is not Dune. The spice was hidden there long ago, even before the First Empire and the Spacing Guild. The story says Paul-Muad’Dib went there and lives yet beside the hoard, kept alive by it, waiting. The majordomo did not understand why the story disturbed me.

I need not remind you that this was David Lynch's version of Dune, in which all of the characters were sexy and deformed at the same time. There was a character called the 3rd Stage Guild Navigator, which was a kind of giant floating fetus creature, that lived in a giant tank, with his orange mist of psychedelic spice swirling around him allowing him to bend space and time. He could never leave the tank or interact with the outside world. He had become, in his isolation, so deformed and so sexy that he had to talk through a kind of old-timey radio to the outside world and could never touch them.

We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function.

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. —Law and Governance The Spacing Guild Manual

Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. Note the relative motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, but still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. The Church hierarchy of Auquaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of Muad'Dib's heir. CHOAM wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his Sardaukar sought a return to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared the equation Arrakis=melange; without the spice they could not navigate. Jessica wished to repair what her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. Few thought to ask the twins what their plans might be, until it was too late. -The Book of Kreos

The Spacing Guild has worked for centuries to surround our elite Navigators with mystique. They are revered, from the lowest Pilot to the most talented Steersman. They live in tanks of spice gas, see all paths through space and time, guide ships to the far reaches of the Imperium. But no one knows the human cost of becoming a Navigator. We must keep this a secret, for if they really knew the truth, they would pity us.

Spacing Guild: one leg of the political tripod maintaining the Great Convention. The Guild was the second mental-physical training school (see Bene Gesserit) after the Butlerian Jihad. The Guild monopoly on space travel and transport and upon international banking is taken as the beginning point of the Imperial Calendar.

In response to the strict Butlerian taboo against machines that perform mental functions, a number of schools developed enhanced human beings to subsume most of the functions formerly performed by computers. Some of the key schools arising out of the Jihad include the Bene Gesserit with their intense mental and physical training, the Spacing Guild with the prescient ability to find a safe path through foldspace, and the Mentats, whose computerlike minds are capable of extraordinary acts of reasoning.

The Spacing Guild needed vast amounts of melange to fill the enclosed chambers of their mutated Navigators. He himself, and all the upper classes in the Empire, needed daily (and increasing) doses of melange to maintain their vitality and to extend their lives. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood needed it in their training to create more Reverend Mothers. Mentats needed it for mental focus.

The new Heighliner program is going to be the most profitable of all time for us. Large sums will be pouring into our accounts from this contract. House Vernius will get twenty-five percent of all the solaris we save the Spacing Guild during the first decade.

Once the wonders of space are opened up to a Guild Navigator’s mind, what other decorations are necessary? How can any ornamentation rival the wonders a Navigator sees on a single journey through foldspace? The universe, brother! The whole universe.” C’tair nodded, conceding the point. “All right,

We’re in a dark passage,” he said. “Without spice, the Empire falls apart. The Guild will not move. Planets will slowly lose their clear memories of each other. They’ll turn inward upon themselves. Space will become a boundary when the Guild navigators lose their mastery. We’ll cling to our dunetops and be ignorant of that which is above us and below us.

Though he was Emperor, his position of power rested in a careful and uneasy balance of alliances with numerous forces, including the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad, the Spacing Guild, and the all-encompassing commercial combines such as CHOAM. Other forces were even more difficult to deal with, forces that preferred to remain behind the scenes. I need to disrupt the balance, Elrood thought. This business of Arrakis has gone on too long.

Although the Spacing Guild had no military power of its own, it could—through withdrawal of transportation services—cripple any solar system. And with elaborate surveillance mechanisms, the Guild could trace and identify rogue attackers and send messages off to the Emperor, who in turn would dispatch Imperial Sardaukar according to mutual treaty.

Melange is the financial crux of CHOAM activities. Without this spice, Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers could not perform feats of observation and human control, Guild Navigators could not see safe pathways across space, and billions of Imperial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal. Any simpleton knows that such dependence upon a single commodity leads to abuse. We are all at risk.

Many elements of the Imperium believe they hold the ultimate power: the Spacing Guild with their monopoly on interstellar travel, CHOAM with its economic stranglehold, the Bene Gesserit with their secrets, the Mentats with their control of mental processes, House Corrino with their throne, the Great and Minor Houses of the Landsraad with their extensive holdings. Woe to us on the day that one of those factions decides to prove the point.

Contrary to popular belief, Navigators did not themselves fold space; the Holtzman engines did that. They used their limited prescience to choose safe paths to travel. A ship could move through the void without a Navigator’s guidance, but that perilous guessing game invariably led to disaster. A Guild Navigator did not guarantee a safe journey—but he vastly improved the odds. Problems still arose when unforeseen events occurred.

Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.” “‘Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind,’” Paul quoted. “Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible,” she said. “But what the O.C. Bible should’ve said is: ‘Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.’ Have you studied the Mentat in your service?” “I’ve studied with Thufir Hawat.” “The Great Revolt took away a crutch,” she said. “It forced human minds to develop. Schools were started to train human talents.” “Bene Gesserit schools?” She nodded. “We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function.” “Politics,” he said. “Kull wahad!” the old woman said. She sent a hard glance at Jessica. “I’ve not told him, Your Reverence,” Jessica said. The Reverend Mother returned her attention to Paul. “You did that on remarkably few clues,” she said. “Politics indeed. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there could be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock—for breeding purposes.

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. —LAW AND GOVERNANCE THE SPACING GUILD MANUAL