Sandworm (Dune)
Encyclopedia
The sandworm is a fictional form of desert
-dwelling creature from the Dune universe
created by Frank Herbert
. They first appear in the 1965 novel Dune
, considered to be among the classics in the science fiction
genre, and are iconic of the Dune series.
In the series, the sandworms called Shai-Hulud (ˈʃaɪ hʉˈluːd) among the Fremen
of the desert planet
Arrakis
(Dune) are worshiped as manifestations of "the earth deity of Fremen hearth superstitions." The Fremen believe that the actions of the sandworms are the direct actions of God, and so the worms have been given numerous titles such as the "Great Maker", "The Maker", and the "Worm who is God."(God Emperor of Dune). Virtually indestructible and with indefinite lifespan
s of potentially thousands of years, the giant sandworms are also referred to as the "Old Man of the Desert", "Old Father Eternity" and "Grandfather of the Desert". The worms may also be referred to by Fremen as Shaitan, post God-Emperor.
In the essay "The Biology of the Sandworm" in The Science of Dune (2008), Sibylle Hechtel analyzes and deconstructs the concept from a real world scientific perspective.
s similar in appearance to colossal terrestrial annelids and in other ways to the lamprey
. They are cylindrical creatures with no significant appendages, equipped with a fearsome array of crystalline teeth, used primarily for rasping rocks and sand, and more than capable of eating anything imaginable. During his first close encounter with a sandworm in Dune, Paul Atreides
notes, "Its mouth was some eighty meters in diameter ... crystal teeth with the curved shape of crysknives
glinting around the rim ... the bellows breath of cinnamon
, subtle aldehyde
s ... acid
s ..."
Sandworms grow to hundreds of meters in length, with specimens observed over 400 meters(1,312 ft) long and 40 meters(131 ft) in diameter, although Paul becomes a sandrider by summoning a worm that "appeared to be" around half a league
(2,778 meters) or more in length. These gigantic worms burrow deep in the ground and travel swiftly; "most of the sand on Arrakis is credited to sandworm action."
Sandworms are described as "incredibly tough" by Liet-Kynes
, who further notes that "high voltage electrical shock applied separately to each ring segment" is the only known way to kill and preserve them; atomics are the only explosive powerful enough to kill an entire worm, with conventional explosives being unfeasible as "each ring segment has a life of its own." Water is poisonous to the worms, but is in too short supply on Arrakis to be of use against any but the smallest of them.
The quasi-canonical
Dune Encyclopedia invents a scientific name for the sandworm: Geonemotodium arraknis (also Shaihuludata gigantica).
Their leathery remains previously having "been ascribed to a fictional "sandtrout" in Fremen folk stories," Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes
had discovered the Little Makers during his ecological investigations of the planet, deducing their existence before he actually found one. Kynes determines that these "sandtrout" block off water "into fertile pockets within the porous lower strata below the 280° (absolute
) line," and Alia Atreides
notes in Children of Dune
that the "sandtrout, when linked edge to edge against the planet's bedrock, formed living cisterns." The Fremen themselves protect their water supplies with "predator fish" who attack invading sandtrout. Sandtrout can be lured by small traces of water, and Fremen children catch and play with them; smoothing one over the hand forms a "living glove" until the creature is repelled by something in the "blood's water" and falls off.
The sandtrout are described as "flat and leathery" in Children of Dune, with Leto Atreides II
noting that they are "roughly diamond-shaped" with "no head, no extremities, no eyes" and "coarse interlacings of extruded cilia
." They can find water unerringly, and squeezing the sandtrout yields a "sweet green syrup." When water is flooded into the sandtrout's excretions, a pre-spice mass is formed; at this "stage of fungusoid wild growth," gasses are produced which result in "a characteristic 'blow,' exchanging the material from deep underground for the matter on the surface above it." After exposure to sun and air, this mass becomes melange.
Kynes' "water stealers" die "by the millions in each spice blow," and may be killed by even a "five-degree change in temperature." He notes that "the few survivors entered a semidormant cyst-hibernation to emerge in six years as small (about three meters long) sandworms." A small number of these then emerge into maturity as giant sandworms, to whom water is poisonous. A "stunted worm" is a "primitive form ... that reaches a length of only about nine meters." Their drowning by the Fremen makes them expel the awareness-spectrum narcotic known as the Water of Life
.
While sandworms are capable of eating humans, the latter do contain a level of water beyond the preferred tolerances of the worms. They routinely devour melange-harvesting equipment — mistaking the mechanical rhythm for prey — but they only seem to derive actual nutrition from sand plankton and smaller sandworms. Sandworms will not attack sandtrout.
's prescient visions illuminate his Golden Path, his plan for the continued survival of mankind and the sandworms. After consuming massive amounts of spice, he allows many sandtrout to cover his body, the concentration of spice in his blood fooling the creatures:
This layer gives Leto tremendous strength, speed and protection from mature sandworms, who mistake his sandtrout-covered body for a lethal mass of water. He calls it a "living, self-repairing stillsuit of a sandtrout membrane," and soon notes that he is "no longer human."
Gradually over the next 3,500 years, Leto not only survives but is transformed into a hybrid of human and giant sandworm, By the time of God Emperor of Dune
he has exterminated all other sandworms, and his own transformation has modified his component sandtrout with all the strengths and sensitivities of the species. When he allows himself to be assassinated, the sandtrout release themselves to begin the sandworm life cycle anew; subsequent offspring are tougher and more adaptable than their predecessors, allowing them to ultimately be more easily settled on other worlds and thus ensuring the survival of the sandworm species.
, greater vitality, and heightened awareness
; it can also unlock prescience in some subjects, depending upon the dosage
and the consumer's physiology
. This prescience-enhancing property makes interstellar travel ("folding space") possible. Melange comes with a steep price however: it is highly addictive, and withdrawal is a fatal process.
A by-product
of the sandworm life cycle, sandtrout excretions exposed to water become a pre-spice mass, which is then brought to the surface by a buildup of gases and develops into melange through exposure to sun and air. Liet-Kynes describes such a "spice blow" in Dune:
worms, which are capable of swallowing even the largest mining equipment whole. Harvesting is carried out by a gigantic machine called a Harvester, which is carried to and from a spice blow by a larger craft called a Carryall. The Harvester on the ground has four scouting ornithopters patrolling around it watching for wormsign — the motions of sand indicating that a worm is coming. Melange is collected from the open sand until a worm is close, at which time the Carryall lifts the Harvester to safety. The Fremen, who base their entire industry around the sale of spice and the manufacture of materials out of spice, have learned to co-exist with the sandworms in the desert and harvest the spice manually for their own use and for smuggling
off-planet.
Later in the series, an artificial method of producing the spice is discovered by the Bene Tleilax
, who develop in secret the technology to produce melange in axlotl tanks. Still, the technology is not fully successful in pushing natural melange out of the marketplace.
of Arrakis indicate that it was not always a desert, but once had oceans. As spice production relies on the existence of a complete sandworm cycle, transplanting adult worms prevents the spice cycle from beginning anew with sandtrout, and transplanting sandtrout alone into existing desert denies them the necessary water to begin the cycle. Thus, placing sandtrout on a water-rich planet would allow them to start the complete spice cycle, at the cost of turning the planet into a desert, another Dune.
In Heretics of Dune
, the Honored Matres
destroy Arrakis and the Tleilaxu, in part to eliminate spice production and thus irrevocably damage the Old Empire
. However, they are thwarted by the Bene Gesserit
, who escape with a single sandworm. Mimicking the devolvement of the God Emperor Leto II, they submerge the worm in spice-rich water, causing it to fission into its component sandtrout. The Bene Gesserit soon use the sandtrout to terraform
their own planet Chapterhouse into another Dune, and send countless others out into space to colonize other planets.
Due to their size and territorial nature, sandworms can be extremely dangerous even to Fremen. The worms are attracted to — and maddened by — the presence of Holtzman force fields used as personal defense shields, and as a result these force fields are of little use on Arrakis. In Children of Dune it is noted that a weapon has been developed on Arrakis called a "pseudo-shield." This device will attract and enrage any nearby sandworm, which will destroy anything in its vicinity.
The Fremen manage to develop a unique relationship with the sandworms. They learn to avoid most worm attacks by mimic
king the motions of desert animals and moving with the natural sounds of the desert, rather than the rhythmic vibration patterns that attract worms. However, they also develop a device known as a thumper with the express purpose of generating a rhythmic vibration
to attract a sandworm. This can be used either as a diversion, or to summon a worm for the Fremen to ride.
The Fremen secretly master a way to ride sandworms for transportation across the open desert. First a worm is summoned with a thumper, the worm-rider then runs alongside it and catches one of the ring-segments with special maker hooks. The hooks are used to pry up the front of the segment, exposing the soft inner-tissue to abrasive sand. To avoid irritation, the worm will rotate this to the top of its body, carrying the rider with it. The worm will then safely remain above the surface until the hooks are released. Other Fremen may then plant additional hooks for steering, or act as "beaters
", hitting the worm's tail to make it increase speed. A worm can be ridden for several hundred miles and for about half of a day, at which point it will become exhausted and sit on the open desert until the hooks are released, when they will burrow back down to rest. The worm-riding ritual is used as a coming-of-age ritual
among the Fremen. Worm-riding is used by Paul-Muad'Dib during the Battle of Arrakeen for troop transport into the city after using atomic weapons to blow a hole in the Shield Wall.
After the reign of Leto II sandworms become un-rideable, for reasons elaborated below. The one remarkable exception is a young girl named Sheeana, an Atreides-descendant who possesses a unique ability to control the worms and safely move around them.
. Approximately 20 centimeters long, these hand-to-hand weapons are either "fixed" or "unfixed." An unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body's electrical field to prevent disintegration, while fixed knives are treated for storage.
Fremen tradition dictates that once a crysknife is drawn, it must not be sheathed until it has drawn blood.
. As part of a plot set in motion by Jessica, Leto is eventually kidnapped and forced to consume large amounts of the spice; this "supersaturation" allows him to merge with sandtrout and ultimately become a human-sandworm hybrid.
Over 3,500 years the bulk of Leto's body is gradually transformed into that of a worm, and he is elevated to the role of the pharaonic
God Emperor of the universe. In God Emperor of Dune he allows himself to be assassinated by Atreides descendant Siona Atreides and a ghola of Duncan Idaho
. Cast into the Idaho River, his worm body separates into its component sandtrout, which immediately begin to undo the terraforming of Arrakis. Each one, according to Leto, carries in it a tiny pearl of his consciousness, trapped forever in an unending prescient dream. With the increased amount of neural ganglia and human-like adaptiveness the worms become too irritable to ride, but are also finally able to be transplanted to a variety of worlds across the universe. Over the next 1500 years Arrakis, now called Rakis, is returned to a desert and the worms thrive once more.
Bene Gesserit Mother Superior Taraza becomes aware in Heretics of Dune that humanity is being limited by the prescient dream of Leto, and controlled by him through his worm remnants. She engineers the destruction of Rakis by the Honored Matres to free humanity, leaving one remaining worm to start the cycle anew. Taraza is killed; her successor Darwi Odrade takes the worm to Chapterhouse. She submerges it in a spice bath to generate sandtrout, with the goal of populating Chapterhouse, and later other planets, with new worms and infinite potential for gathering spice.
In the Prelude to Dune
prequel
trilogy
by Brian Herbert
and Kevin J. Anderson
(1999–2004), the Tleilaxu initiate Project Amal, an early attempt to create synthetic melange in order to eliminate dependence upon Arrakis. They are fundamentally unaware, however, that melange production is part of the sandworm life cycle, and the project is an abysmal failure.
In Sandworms of Dune
, Brian Herbert and Anderson's 2007 conclusion to the original series, the Spacing Guild
is manipulated into replacing its Navigators
with Ixian
navigation devices and cutting off the Navigators' supply of melange. Sure to die should they be without the spice, a group of Navigators commission Waff
, an imperfectly-awakened Tleilaxu ghola, to create "advanced" sandworms able to produce the melange they so desperately require. He accomplishes this by altering the DNA
of the sandtrout stage and creating an aquatic form of the worms, which are then released into the oceans of Buzzell. Adapting to their new environment, these seaworms quickly flourish, eventually producing a highly-concentrated form of spice, dubbed "ultraspice."
Towards the end of the real-time strategy
game Emperor: Battle for Dune
, it is revealed that both the Tleilaxu and the Spacing Guild have been secretly experimenting with the sandworms of Arrakis in a remote research facility in the desert as the three great Houses of the Landsraad, the Atreides, Ordos and Harkonnen, are busy waging the War of Assassins amongst each other. It appears that the Tleilaxu have discovered the link between the Spice Melange and the sandworms as mentioned above. They plot to seize the Golden Lion Throne by breeding a man-worm, known as the Emperor Worm, and then fusing it with the Water of Life, mercilessly taken from the Lady Elara — who was held prisoner by the Reverend Mother (in truth a Tleilaxu Face Dancer
) since the beginning of the game — giving the Worm almost god-like powers.
All three Houses fight against the Guild in a race against time to destroy the Emperor Worm before it awakens, with a different ending for each House depicting their units destroying the Worm. One such ending reveals that, from the wreckage of the Emperor Worm's scaffold, red eyes are glowing in the dark, which perhaps suggests that the Worm survives. Should the player fail to defeat the Emperor Worm, then it becomes crowned as the new leader of the Empire of Man.
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
-dwelling creature from the Dune universe
Dune universe
Dune is a science fiction franchise which originated with the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert. Considered by many to be the greatest science fiction novel of all time, Dune is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history...
created by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
. They first appear in the 1965 novel Dune
Dune (novel)
Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel...
, considered to be among the classics in the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
genre, and are iconic of the Dune series.
In the series, the sandworms called Shai-Hulud (ˈʃaɪ hʉˈluːd) among the Fremen
Fremen
The Fremen are a group of people in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. First appearing in the 1965 novel Dune, the Fremen inhabit the desert planet Arrakis and are based on the desert-dwelling Bedouin and Kalahari Bushmen. In Herbert's novels, Arrakis is the sole known source...
of the desert planet
Desert planet
A desert planet is a single-biome planet on which the climate is mostly desert, with little or no natural precipitation. Desert planets are known to exist; Mars is often considered a prime example. Indeed, many terrestrial planets would be considered desert planets by this definition...
Arrakis
Arrakis
Arrakis — informally known as Dune and later called Rakis — is a fictional desert planet featured in the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert. Herbert's first novel in the series, 1965's Dune, is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, and it is...
(Dune) are worshiped as manifestations of "the earth deity of Fremen hearth superstitions." The Fremen believe that the actions of the sandworms are the direct actions of God, and so the worms have been given numerous titles such as the "Great Maker", "The Maker", and the "Worm who is God."(God Emperor of Dune). Virtually indestructible and with indefinite lifespan
Indefinite lifespan
Indefinite lifespan or, indefinite life extension, is a term used in the life extension movement to refer to the longevity of humans, and other life-forms, under conditions in which aging can be effectively and completely prevented and treated. Such individuals would still be susceptible to...
s of potentially thousands of years, the giant sandworms are also referred to as the "Old Man of the Desert", "Old Father Eternity" and "Grandfather of the Desert". The worms may also be referred to by Fremen as Shaitan, post God-Emperor.
In the essay "The Biology of the Sandworm" in The Science of Dune (2008), Sibylle Hechtel analyzes and deconstructs the concept from a real world scientific perspective.
Sandworm physiology
Sandworms are animalAnimal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s similar in appearance to colossal terrestrial annelids and in other ways to the lamprey
Lamprey
Lampreys are a family of jawless fish, whose adults are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like sucking mouth. Translated from an admixture of Latin and Greek, lamprey means stone lickers...
. They are cylindrical creatures with no significant appendages, equipped with a fearsome array of crystalline teeth, used primarily for rasping rocks and sand, and more than capable of eating anything imaginable. During his first close encounter with a sandworm in Dune, Paul Atreides
Paul Atreides
Paul Atreides is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Paul is a prominent character in the first two novels in the series, Dune and Dune Messiah , and returns in Children of Dune . The character is brought back as two different gholas in the Brian Herbert/Kevin J...
notes, "Its mouth was some eighty meters in diameter ... crystal teeth with the curved shape of crysknives
Crysknife
A crysknife is a fictional weapon in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. According to the 1965 novel Dune, it is made from the crystal tooth of Shai'Hulud, the giant sandworms that live below the sands of the desert planet Arrakis....
glinting around the rim ... the bellows breath of cinnamon
Cinnamon
Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several trees from the genus Cinnamomum that is used in both sweet and savoury foods...
, subtle aldehyde
Aldehyde
An aldehyde is an organic compound containing a formyl group. This functional group, with the structure R-CHO, consists of a carbonyl center bonded to hydrogen and an R group....
s ... acid
Acid
An acid is a substance which reacts with a base. Commonly, acids can be identified as tasting sour, reacting with metals such as calcium, and bases like sodium carbonate. Aqueous acids have a pH of less than 7, where an acid of lower pH is typically stronger, and turn blue litmus paper red...
s ..."
Sandworms grow to hundreds of meters in length, with specimens observed over 400 meters(1,312 ft) long and 40 meters(131 ft) in diameter, although Paul becomes a sandrider by summoning a worm that "appeared to be" around half a league
League (unit)
A league is a unit of length . It was long common in Europe and Latin America, but it is no longer an official unit in any nation. The league originally referred to the distance a person or a horse could walk in an hour...
(2,778 meters) or more in length. These gigantic worms burrow deep in the ground and travel swiftly; "most of the sand on Arrakis is credited to sandworm action."
Sandworms are described as "incredibly tough" by Liet-Kynes
Liet-Kynes
Liet-Kynes is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He is primarily featured in the 1965 novel Dune, but also appears in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson...
, who further notes that "high voltage electrical shock applied separately to each ring segment" is the only known way to kill and preserve them; atomics are the only explosive powerful enough to kill an entire worm, with conventional explosives being unfeasible as "each ring segment has a life of its own." Water is poisonous to the worms, but is in too short supply on Arrakis to be of use against any but the smallest of them.
The quasi-canonical
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
Dune Encyclopedia invents a scientific name for the sandworm: Geonemotodium arraknis (also Shaihuludata gigantica).
Sandworm life cycle
Herbert notes in Dune that microscopic creatures called sand plankton feed upon traces of melange scattered by sandworms on the Arrakeen sands. The sand plankton are food for the giant sandworms, but also grow and burrow to become what the Fremen call Little Makers, "the half-plant-half-animal deep-sand vector of the Arrakis sandworm."Their leathery remains previously having "been ascribed to a fictional "sandtrout" in Fremen folk stories," Imperial Planetologist Pardot Kynes
Pardot Kynes
Pardot Kynes is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He was the Imperial Planetologist of Arrakis prior to the start of the novel Dune, and was featured in the Prelude to Dune series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.Pardot Kynes was first introduced in the...
had discovered the Little Makers during his ecological investigations of the planet, deducing their existence before he actually found one. Kynes determines that these "sandtrout" block off water "into fertile pockets within the porous lower strata below the 280° (absolute
Thermodynamic temperature
Thermodynamic temperature is the absolute measure of temperature and is one of the principal parameters of thermodynamics. Thermodynamic temperature is an "absolute" scale because it is the measure of the fundamental property underlying temperature: its null or zero point, absolute zero, is the...
) line," and Alia Atreides
Alia Atreides
Alia Atreides is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Introduced in the first novel of the series, 1965's Dune, the character was originally killed in Herbert's first version of the manuscript. At the suggestion of Analog magazine editor John Campbell, Herbert kept...
notes in Children of Dune
Children of Dune
Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, third in a series of six novels set in his Dune universe. Initially selling over 75,000 copies, it became the first hardcover best-seller ever in the science fiction field...
that the "sandtrout, when linked edge to edge against the planet's bedrock, formed living cisterns." The Fremen themselves protect their water supplies with "predator fish" who attack invading sandtrout. Sandtrout can be lured by small traces of water, and Fremen children catch and play with them; smoothing one over the hand forms a "living glove" until the creature is repelled by something in the "blood's water" and falls off.
The sandtrout ... 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. — Leto Atreides IILeto Atreides IILeto Atreides II is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Born at the end of Dune Messiah , Leto is a central character in Children of Dune and is the title character of God Emperor of Dune . The character is brought back as a ghola in the Brian Herbert/Kevin J...
, Children of DuneChildren of DuneChildren of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, third in a series of six novels set in his Dune universe. Initially selling over 75,000 copies, it became the first hardcover best-seller ever in the science fiction field...
The sandtrout are described as "flat and leathery" in Children of Dune, with Leto Atreides II
Leto Atreides II
Leto Atreides II is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Born at the end of Dune Messiah , Leto is a central character in Children of Dune and is the title character of God Emperor of Dune . The character is brought back as a ghola in the Brian Herbert/Kevin J...
noting that they are "roughly diamond-shaped" with "no head, no extremities, no eyes" and "coarse interlacings of extruded cilia
Cilium
A cilium is an organelle found in eukaryotic cells. Cilia are slender protuberances that project from the much larger cell body....
." They can find water unerringly, and squeezing the sandtrout yields a "sweet green syrup." When water is flooded into the sandtrout's excretions, a pre-spice mass is formed; at this "stage of fungusoid wild growth," gasses are produced which result in "a characteristic 'blow,' exchanging the material from deep underground for the matter on the surface above it." After exposure to sun and air, this mass becomes melange.
Kynes' "water stealers" die "by the millions in each spice blow," and may be killed by even a "five-degree change in temperature." He notes that "the few survivors entered a semidormant cyst-hibernation to emerge in six years as small (about three meters long) sandworms." A small number of these then emerge into maturity as giant sandworms, to whom water is poisonous. A "stunted worm" is a "primitive form ... that reaches a length of only about nine meters." Their drowning by the Fremen makes them expel the awareness-spectrum narcotic known as the Water of Life
Water of Life (Dune)
The Water of Life is a fictional drug from Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe.In Terminology of the Imperium, the glossary of the 1965 novel Dune, Herbert provided the following definition:...
.
While sandworms are capable of eating humans, the latter do contain a level of water beyond the preferred tolerances of the worms. They routinely devour melange-harvesting equipment — mistaking the mechanical rhythm for prey — but they only seem to derive actual nutrition from sand plankton and smaller sandworms. Sandworms will not attack sandtrout.
Leto II's transformation
In Children of Dune, Leto IILeto Atreides II
Leto Atreides II is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Born at the end of Dune Messiah , Leto is a central character in Children of Dune and is the title character of God Emperor of Dune . The character is brought back as a ghola in the Brian Herbert/Kevin J...
's prescient visions illuminate his Golden Path, his plan for the continued survival of mankind and the sandworms. After consuming massive amounts of spice, he allows many sandtrout to cover his body, the concentration of spice in his blood fooling the creatures:
The sandtrout squirmed on his hand, elongating, stretching ... becoming thin, covering more and more of his hand. No sandtrout had ever before encountered a hand such as this one, every cell supersaturated with spice ... Delicately Leto adjusted his enzyme balance ... The knowledge from those uncounted lifetimes which blended themselves within him provided the certainty through which he chose the precise adjustments, staving off the death from an overdose which would engulf him if he relaxed his watchfulness for only a heartbeat. And at the same time he blended himself with the sandtrout, feeding on it, feeding it, learning it ... He located another, placed it over the first one ... Their cilia locked and they became a single membrane which enclosed him to the elbow ... This was no longer sandtrout; it was tougher, stronger. And it would grow stronger and stronger ... With a terrible singleness of concentration he achieved the union of his new skin with his body, preventing rejection ... They were all over his body now. He could feel the pulse of his blood against the living membrane ... My skin is not my own. — Children of Dune
This layer gives Leto tremendous strength, speed and protection from mature sandworms, who mistake his sandtrout-covered body for a lethal mass of water. He calls it a "living, self-repairing stillsuit of a sandtrout membrane," and soon notes that he is "no longer human."
Gradually over the next 3,500 years, Leto not only survives but is transformed into a hybrid of human and giant sandworm, By the time of God Emperor of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
God Emperor of Dune is a science fiction novel by Frank Herbert published in 1981, the fourth in the Dune series. It was ranked as the #11 hardcover fiction best seller of 1981 by Publishers Weekly.-Plot introduction:...
he has exterminated all other sandworms, and his own transformation has modified his component sandtrout with all the strengths and sensitivities of the species. When he allows himself to be assassinated, the sandtrout release themselves to begin the sandworm life cycle anew; subsequent offspring are tougher and more adaptable than their predecessors, allowing them to ultimately be more easily settled on other worlds and thus ensuring the survival of the sandworm species.
Sandworms and the spice
In Dune, the desert of Arrakis is the only known source of the spice melange, the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe. Melange is a geriatric drug that gives the user a longer life spanLife expectancy
Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...
, greater vitality, and heightened awareness
Awareness
Awareness is the state or ability to perceive, to feel, or to be conscious of events, objects or sensory patterns. In this level of consciousness, sense data can be confirmed by an observer without necessarily implying understanding. More broadly, it is the state or quality of being aware of...
; it can also unlock prescience in some subjects, depending upon the dosage
Effective dose
Effective dose may refer to:*Effective dose the dose of pharmacologic agent which will have a therapeutic effect in some fraction of the population receiving the drug...
and the consumer's physiology
Physiology
Physiology is the science of the function of living systems. This includes how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells, and bio-molecules carry out the chemical or physical functions that exist in a living system. The highest honor awarded in physiology is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or...
. This prescience-enhancing property makes interstellar travel ("folding space") possible. Melange comes with a steep price however: it is highly addictive, and withdrawal is a fatal process.
A by-product
By-product
A by-product is a secondary product derived from a manufacturing process or chemical reaction. It is not the primary product or service being produced.A by-product can be useful and marketable or it can be considered waste....
of the sandworm life cycle, sandtrout excretions exposed to water become a pre-spice mass, which is then brought to the surface by a buildup of gases and develops into melange through exposure to sun and air. Liet-Kynes describes such a "spice blow" in Dune:
Then he heard the sand rumbling. Every Fremen knew the sound, could distinguish it immediately from the noises of worms or other desert life. Somewhere beneath him, the pre-spice mass had accumulated enough water and organic matter from the little makers, had reached the critical stage of wild growth. A gigantic bubble of carbon dioxideCarbon dioxideCarbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
was forming deep in the sand, heaving upward in an enormous "blow" with a dust whirlpool at its center. It would exchange what had been formed deep in the sand for whatever lay on the surface.
Spice mining
Collecting the melange is hazardous in the extreme, since rhythmic activity on the desert surface of Arrakis attracts the territorialTerritory (animal)
In ethology the term territory refers to any sociographical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics...
worms, which are capable of swallowing even the largest mining equipment whole. Harvesting is carried out by a gigantic machine called a Harvester, which is carried to and from a spice blow by a larger craft called a Carryall. The Harvester on the ground has four scouting ornithopters patrolling around it watching for wormsign — the motions of sand indicating that a worm is coming. Melange is collected from the open sand until a worm is close, at which time the Carryall lifts the Harvester to safety. The Fremen, who base their entire industry around the sale of spice and the manufacture of materials out of spice, have learned to co-exist with the sandworms in the desert and harvest the spice manually for their own use and for smuggling
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
off-planet.
Later in the series, an artificial method of producing the spice is discovered by the Bene Tleilax
Bene Tleilax
The Bene Tleilax or Tleilaxu are an extremely xenophobic and isolationist society in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. Genetic manipulators who traffic in biological products such as artificial eyes, gholas, and "twisted" Mentats, the Tleilaxu are a major power in the Imperium...
, who develop in secret the technology to produce melange in axlotl tanks. Still, the technology is not fully successful in pushing natural melange out of the marketplace.
Spice cycle
Due to the value of melange, attempts have been made to transplant production onto other planets. However, placing either adult sandworms (often smuggled with funds going to the Fremen) or sandtrout into existing deserts always met with failure. The large salt flatsSalt pan (geology)
Natural salt pans are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the sun. They are found in deserts, and should not be confused with salt evaporation ponds.A salt pan is formed where water pools...
of Arrakis indicate that it was not always a desert, but once had oceans. As spice production relies on the existence of a complete sandworm cycle, transplanting adult worms prevents the spice cycle from beginning anew with sandtrout, and transplanting sandtrout alone into existing desert denies them the necessary water to begin the cycle. Thus, placing sandtrout on a water-rich planet would allow them to start the complete spice cycle, at the cost of turning the planet into a desert, another Dune.
In Heretics of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Heretics of Dune is a 1984 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, fifth in a series of six novels. It was ranked as the #13 hardcover fiction best seller of 1984 by The New York Times.-Plot introduction:...
, the Honored Matres
Honored Matres
The Honored Matres are a fictional matriarchal organization in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. They are described as an aggressive cult obsessed with power, violence and sexual domination...
destroy Arrakis and the Tleilaxu, in part to eliminate spice production and thus irrevocably damage the Old Empire
Old Empire (Dune)
The Old Empire is a fictional galactic empire in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. The term has been applied to two distinct eras in the fictional history of the Dune series.-The Padishah Empire:...
. However, they are thwarted by the Bene Gesserit
Bene Gesserit
The Bene Gesserit are a key social, religious, and political force in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. The group is described as an exclusive sisterhood whose members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman powers and...
, who escape with a single sandworm. Mimicking the devolvement of the God Emperor Leto II, they submerge the worm in spice-rich water, causing it to fission into its component sandtrout. The Bene Gesserit soon use the sandtrout to terraform
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
their own planet Chapterhouse into another Dune, and send countless others out into space to colonize other planets.
Fremen and the worms
The Fremen manage to develop a unique relationship with the sandworms. They learn to avoid most worm attacks by mimic
Mimic
In evolutionary biology, mimicry is the similarity of one species to another which protects one or both. This similarity can be in appearance, behaviour, sound, scent and even location, with the mimics found in similar places to their models....
king the motions of desert animals and moving with the natural sounds of the desert, rather than the rhythmic vibration patterns that attract worms. However, they also develop a device known as a thumper with the express purpose of generating a rhythmic vibration
Oscillation
Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. Familiar examples include a swinging pendulum and AC power. The term vibration is sometimes used more narrowly to mean a mechanical oscillation but sometimes...
to attract a sandworm. This can be used either as a diversion, or to summon a worm for the Fremen to ride.
Riding the worm
Whip
A whip is a tool traditionally used by humans to exert control over animals or other people, through pain compliance or fear of pain, although in some activities whips can be used without use of pain, such as an additional pressure aid in dressage...
", hitting the worm's tail to make it increase speed. A worm can be ridden for several hundred miles and for about half of a day, at which point it will become exhausted and sit on the open desert until the hooks are released, when they will burrow back down to rest. The worm-riding ritual is used as a coming-of-age ritual
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
among the Fremen. Worm-riding is used by Paul-Muad'Dib during the Battle of Arrakeen for troop transport into the city after using atomic weapons to blow a hole in the Shield Wall.
After the reign of Leto II sandworms become un-rideable, for reasons elaborated below. The one remarkable exception is a young girl named Sheeana, an Atreides-descendant who possesses a unique ability to control the worms and safely move around them.
Sandworm teeth
Fremen use the sharp teeth of dead sandworms to produce the sacred knives they call crysknivesCrysknife
A crysknife is a fictional weapon in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. According to the 1965 novel Dune, it is made from the crystal tooth of Shai'Hulud, the giant sandworms that live below the sands of the desert planet Arrakis....
. Approximately 20 centimeters long, these hand-to-hand weapons are either "fixed" or "unfixed." An unfixed knife requires proximity to a human body's electrical field to prevent disintegration, while fixed knives are treated for storage.
Fremen tradition dictates that once a crysknife is drawn, it must not be sheathed until it has drawn blood.
Leto II and the sandworms
In Children of Dune, Leto II initially avoids the high concentrations of melange which had given his father Paul complete prescience, and had precipitated his aunt Alia's descent into AbominationAbomination (Dune)
Abomination, in the context of the Dune series written by Frank Herbert, refers to one who acquires full consciousness as a fetus as a result of being exposed to the ritual spice agony, gaining all their ancestral memories before birth .The spice agony ritual involves a Bene Gesserit acolyte drinking...
. As part of a plot set in motion by Jessica, Leto is eventually kidnapped and forced to consume large amounts of the spice; this "supersaturation" allows him to merge with sandtrout and ultimately become a human-sandworm hybrid.
Over 3,500 years the bulk of Leto's body is gradually transformed into that of a worm, and he is elevated to the role of the pharaonic
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
God Emperor of the universe. In God Emperor of Dune he allows himself to be assassinated by Atreides descendant Siona Atreides and a ghola of Duncan Idaho
Duncan Idaho
Duncan Idaho is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Introduced in the first novel of the series, 1965's Dune, the character became a breakout character as the readers liked him and was revived by Herbert in 1969's Dune Messiah...
. Cast into the Idaho River, his worm body separates into its component sandtrout, which immediately begin to undo the terraforming of Arrakis. Each one, according to Leto, carries in it a tiny pearl of his consciousness, trapped forever in an unending prescient dream. With the increased amount of neural ganglia and human-like adaptiveness the worms become too irritable to ride, but are also finally able to be transplanted to a variety of worlds across the universe. Over the next 1500 years Arrakis, now called Rakis, is returned to a desert and the worms thrive once more.
Bene Gesserit Mother Superior Taraza becomes aware in Heretics of Dune that humanity is being limited by the prescient dream of Leto, and controlled by him through his worm remnants. She engineers the destruction of Rakis by the Honored Matres to free humanity, leaving one remaining worm to start the cycle anew. Taraza is killed; her successor Darwi Odrade takes the worm to Chapterhouse. She submerges it in a spice bath to generate sandtrout, with the goal of populating Chapterhouse, and later other planets, with new worms and infinite potential for gathering spice.
Prequels and sequels
In the Prelude to Dune
Prelude to Dune
Prelude to Dune is a prequel trilogy of novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe....
prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
trilogy
Trilogy
A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...
by Brian Herbert
Brian Herbert
Brian Patrick Herbert is an American author who lives in Washington state. He is the elder son of science fiction author Frank Herbert....
and Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin J. Anderson is an American science fiction author with over forty bestsellers. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and with Brian Herbert is the co-author of the Dune prequels...
(1999–2004), the Tleilaxu initiate Project Amal, an early attempt to create synthetic melange in order to eliminate dependence upon Arrakis. They are fundamentally unaware, however, that melange production is part of the sandworm life cycle, and the project is an abysmal failure.
In Sandworms of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Sandworms of Dune is the second of two novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to conclude Frank Herbert's original Dune series of novels. They have stated that it is based on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series...
, Brian Herbert and Anderson's 2007 conclusion to the original series, the Spacing Guild
Spacing Guild
The Spacing Guild is an organization in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. With its monopoly on interstellar travel and banking, the Guild is a balance of power against the Padishah Emperor and the assembled noble Houses of the Landsraad...
is manipulated into replacing its Navigators
Guild Navigator
A Guild Navigator is a fictional humanoid in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Humans mutated through the consumption of and exposure to massive amounts of the spice melange, they are able to use a limited form of prescience to safely navigate interstellar space in a starship called a...
with Ixian
Ix (Dune)
Ix is a fictional planet featured in the Dune series of science fiction novels written by Frank Herbert, and derivative works. In Dune it is noted that Ix is classed with the planet Richese as "supreme in machine culture," and that Ixian solido projectors "are commonly considered the best." In...
navigation devices and cutting off the Navigators' supply of melange. Sure to die should they be without the spice, a group of Navigators commission Waff
Waff (Dune)
Tylwyth Waff is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He is a Mahai, the leader of the Bene Tleilax, and is a major character in Heretics of Dune.In Heretics of Dune, Herbert provides this description of Waff:...
, an imperfectly-awakened Tleilaxu ghola, to create "advanced" sandworms able to produce the melange they so desperately require. He accomplishes this by altering the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
of the sandtrout stage and creating an aquatic form of the worms, which are then released into the oceans of Buzzell. Adapting to their new environment, these seaworms quickly flourish, eventually producing a highly-concentrated form of spice, dubbed "ultraspice."
In derivative works
Besides film and television adaptations, the Dune franchise has been adapted into a series of computer and video games in which sandworms play a part.Emperor: Battle for Dune
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
game Emperor: Battle for Dune
Emperor: Battle for Dune
Emperor: Battle for Dune is a Dune video game, released by Westwood Studios on June 12, 2001. It is based in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe....
, it is revealed that both the Tleilaxu and the Spacing Guild have been secretly experimenting with the sandworms of Arrakis in a remote research facility in the desert as the three great Houses of the Landsraad, the Atreides, Ordos and Harkonnen, are busy waging the War of Assassins amongst each other. It appears that the Tleilaxu have discovered the link between the Spice Melange and the sandworms as mentioned above. They plot to seize the Golden Lion Throne by breeding a man-worm, known as the Emperor Worm, and then fusing it with the Water of Life, mercilessly taken from the Lady Elara — who was held prisoner by the Reverend Mother (in truth a Tleilaxu Face Dancer
Face dancers
A Face Dancer is a type of human in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. A servant caste of the Bene Tleilax, Face Dancers are shapeshifters, and their name is derived from their ability to change their physical appearance at will.-Background:...
) since the beginning of the game — giving the Worm almost god-like powers.
All three Houses fight against the Guild in a race against time to destroy the Emperor Worm before it awakens, with a different ending for each House depicting their units destroying the Worm. One such ending reveals that, from the wreckage of the Emperor Worm's scaffold, red eyes are glowing in the dark, which perhaps suggests that the Worm survives. Should the player fail to defeat the Emperor Worm, then it becomes crowned as the new leader of the Empire of Man.