Arrakis
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- Arrakis is also an alternative name for the star Mu Draconis.
Arrakis, (presumably derived from the Arabic name الراقص ar-rāqiṣ, "the dancer") later Rakis (known colloquially as Dune) is a fictional desert planet featured in the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert; it is the home of the Fremen (Zensunni wanderers) and later, the Imperial Capital under the Atreides Empire. Arrakis is the third planet orbiting the star Canopus, and it in turn is orbited by two moons, one of which has the image of the desert kangaroo-rat, Muad'Dib, on it; the other possesses the image of a human hand.
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[edit] Environment
"Arrakis, DUNE, desert planet . . ." [1]
It is a desert planet with no natural precipitation, and is the only known source of the spice melange which makes interstellar travel possible. The planet has no surface water bodies and thus has proportionally three times the land area of the Earth. Giant sandworms (Shai-Hulud, later Shaitan) and their immature forms of sandtrout and sandplankton were among the few fauna on the planet when it was discovered. As indicated by large salt flats, Arrakis once had oceans; the depletion of the oceans, the primary result of which was desertification, was probably caused by the impact or near miss of a comet or other quasi-planetary body. This event caused the loss of much of the Arakeen atmosphere, allowing most of the oxygen and water to escape into space. This is thought to have occurred approximately 50 million years before the Imperium's creation. This catastrophic loss of oxygen led to the extinction of nearly all native fauna and then therefore the flora.
One of the few forms to survive were tiny worms of the phylum protochordata. One of these forms was shaihuludata, an anaerobic burrowing worm that was the basal species from which the sandworm evolved. Rather than sandworm creating desert, it was desert that created sandworm. The mass extinction of all of shaihuludata's predators and competitors for food allowed the animal, in a manner somewhat analogous to the evolution of unique faunal forms on isolated Terran islands, to take the evolutionary path that would not only re-oxygenate the Arakeen atmosphere, but also create the spice melange with all of its immense consequences for humanity.
Early in the history of Arrakis, the Imperium made several attempts to terraform the planet, which resulted in an abundance of Terran desert life on the planet, but met with little success, as the local sandtrout "encyst" any open water on the planet.
[edit] Inhabitants
The Zensunni wanderers, driven from planet to planet, eventually found their way to Arrakis where they became the Fremen. They settled in artificial cave-like settlements known as sietches across the Arrakeen deserts. They also developed stillsuit technology, allowing them to survive in the open desert. By harvesting the melange of Arrakis, they were able to bribe the Spacing Guild for privacy from observation and weather control in order to hide their true population and plans from the Imperium. The Fremen commenced their own terraforming program under the guidance of Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes and his son Liet-Kynes. The core of the plan was gradual water-collection from the Arrakeen atmosphere to form large reservoirs that would, eventually, become lakes and oceans. Much of this activity took place in the unexplored southern latitudes of Arrakis. The best-known of the sietches is Sietch Tabr, home of Stilgar and Muad'Dib's center of operations prior to the Battle of Arrakeen.
[edit] Cities and features
Arrakis' capital and largest city historically is Arrakeen (later called Onn under Leto II and then Keen following the death of Leto II). Arrakeen housed an attractive palace where the Emperor's right-hand man, Count Fenring and his wife Margot lived, while the Harkonnen rulers of the planet resided in their own palace, elsewhere. Arrakeen would go through multiple transformations in its history, turned into an Imperial Capital of staggering proportions under Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, then into a festival city (Onn) explicitly for the worship of Leto II and, finally, into a modern, though still impressive, city to house the Priesthood of Rakis (Keen).
The Atreides home-base was a colossal megastructure in Arrakeen, designed to intimidate, known as the Keep. In Dune Messiah, the fortress is described as being large enough to enclose entire cities.
[edit] Grand Palace of Arrakeen
In his 1985 short work The Road to Dune (published in the short story collection Eye[2]), Frank Herbert described the Grand Palace of Arrakeen (and other sites) during the reign of Paul Atreides:
Your walking tour of Arrakis must include this approach across the dunes to the Grand Palace at Arrakeen. From a distance, the dimensions of this construction are deceptive ... The largest man-made structure ever built, the Grand Palace could cover more than ten of the Imperium's most populous cities under one roof, a fact that becomes more apparent when you learn Atreides attendants and their families, housed spaciously in the Palace Annex, number some thirty-five million souls ... When you walk into the Grand Reception Hall of the Palace at Arrakeen, be prepared to feel dwarfed before an immensity never before conceived. A statue of St. Alia Atreides, shown as "The Soother of Pains," stands twenty-two meters tall but is one of the smallest adornments in the hall. Two hundred such statues could be stacked one atop the other against the entrance pillars and still fall short of the doorway's capitol arch, which itself is almost a thousand meters below the first beams upholding the lower roof.
[edit] Temple of Alia
Alia's Fane (or Alia's Temple) is the two-kilometer wide temple Paul-Muad'Dib built for his sister Alia Atreides between the events of Dune and Dune Messiah. Herbert described it in The Road to Dune:
If you are numbered among "the heartfelt pilgrims," you will cross the last thousand meters of this approach to the Temple of Alia on your knees. Those thousand meters fall well within the sweeping curves leading your eyes up to the transcendant symbols dedicating this Temple to St. Alia of the Knife. The famed "Sun-Sweep Window" incorporates every solar calendar known to human history in the one translucent display whose brilliant colors, driven by the sun of Dune, thread through the interior on prismatic pathways.
The Keep was taken apart after the death of Leto II in search of his alleged hoard of melange.
There are other cities scattered in the northern regions of the planet (especially near the ice cap, where water is harvested), as well as the sietches scattered throughout the desert where the Fremen reside. All Imperial cities on Arrakis are in the far-northern latitudes of the planet and protected from the violent weather of Arrakis by a natural formation known as the Shield Wall. During the years under Harkonnen rule, the true seat of planetary government was the Harkonnen-built "megalopolis" of Carthag; Arrakeen was merely the titular capital until the arrival of the Atreides and Muad'Dib.
Other notable sites on Arrakis throughout its history are: Observatory Mountain, Mount Idaho, the Sareer, Dar-es-balat, the Idaho River and many others.
[edit] Fate of Arrakis
According to the Legends of Dune prequels series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, a group of Zensunni wanderers (escaping slavery on the planet Poritrin) originally crashed on Dune in a prototype interstellar spacecraft several years prior to the creation of the Spacing Guild. Over time, these people became the Fremen of Arrakis.
During the events of the novel Dune in the year 10,191 A.G. (After Guild), the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV granted Leto Atreides I control of the lucrative spice harvesting operations of Arrakis in place of the Atreides enemies, the Harkonnens. The Atreides took up residence in the Arrakeen Palace, but their rule was cut short by a murderous conspiracy by the Harkonnens and Emperor Shaddam.
However, in 10,193 A.G., under the leadership of Leto's son Paul (known by the Fremen as Muad'Dib) and using the Atreides' family atomic explosives, the Fremen created a gap in the Shield Wall near Arrakeen and rode into the city on sandworms. In the ensuing battle, the Harkonnen were wiped out and Shaddam IV was deposed in place of Paul Atreides. The planet then became the govermental and religious center of the Imperium.
later, Paul's son Leto II became the God Emperor and completed the terraforming of Arrakis at the expense of killing all sandworms and sandtrout — save for himself, who had merged with the creatures. After some 3,500 years of rule, Leto II was killed and his worm-body was transformed back into sandtrout who, within only a few centuries, returned Arrakis, thence called 'Rakis', to a desert.
Ultimately, all life on Arrakis was destroyed by the Honored Matres in an attempt to kill a ghola of Duncan Idaho. They failed, and the Bene Gesserit escaped with a single sandworm.
[edit] Trivia
- A planet named Arrakis is referenced in the TV show Futurama.
- A task in the University Physics coursebook by Young and Freedman concerns Arrakis (#16.38): On the planet Arrakis a male ornithoid is flying towards his mate at 25 m/s while singing at a frequency of 1200 Hz. If the stationary female hears a tone of 1240 Hz, what is the speed of sound in the atmosphere of Arrakis?
- The drum and bass DJ/producer collective Black Sun Empire produced a track called Arrakis in 2004.
- Youngblood Brass Band refers to Arrakis in their song "is an elegy" on their center. level. roar album.
- Arrakis Records, a Philadelphia-based independent hip-hop record label was formed in 1998 and was around until about 2004, releasing over eight 12" singles, an experiemental drum and bass 7" and two full-length albums, including "Arrakis Records Presents : The Spice"
[edit] References
- ^ Some terminology derived from the non-canon Dune Encyclopedia.
- ^ Herbert, F. Eye, 1985, ISBN 0-425-08398-5 (US 1st edition) / ISBN 0-7434-3479-X (2001 US reprint)
