Something i just thought after watching a bit of dune

[Swarm lover]

If paradox ever does a full inner society rework with proper factions and such one thing i just thought of is if you have the aristocratic elite civic those factions are replaced by houses like in dune. Maybe they would be harder to manage but offer bigger rewards to those that could control them properly.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Theres plenty of room for more than just houses even with a nobility.

Ix, Tilaxu, Bene Gesrit, the Spacing guild, thats all still just from Dune.

 

[Swarm lover]

Theres plenty of room for more than just houses even with a nobility.

Ix, Tilaxu, Bene Gesrit, the Spacing guild, thats all still just from Dune.

We already have something like the bene gesrit with psionics (although it defintiely needs to be expanded alongside the other ascensions) and sadly the spacing guild will never happen because in stellaris faster than light travel is easy and there is no magical substance that absolutely is necessary for space travel. I do not know what the Ix and Tilaxu are though.

 

[DukeLeto42]

We already have something like the bene gesrit with psionics (although it defintiely needs to be expanded alongside the other ascensions) and sadly the spacing guild will never happen because in stellaris faster than light travel is easy and there is no magical substance that absolutely is necessary for space travel. I do not know what the Ix and Tilaxu are though.

The Bene Gesserit are kind of a mixed ascension path (using breeding to get to psionic power), but the key point is that their in-game equivalent would have to be a group advocating psionics as a development path (perhaps pulling from the Vicky 3 Interest Group idea), and in a much more active way than "we'll give you a bit of pop happiness and influence if you do it."

As you say, the Spacing Guild wouldn't exist as it does in Dune, though it's one of those cases where the constraints of the world would change their face, if not their existence. Some form of trade advocacy and control group would be very fitting for Stellaris.

The Tleilaxu, meanwhile, are Dune's cloners - think bio-ascension, the "selected lineages" policies, and lots and lots of clones (mostly of Duncan Idaho for some reason).

It's worth noting that the Dune universe has also long since adopted an anti-AI resolution. It's been outlawed and taboo in the Dune universe since humanity's near-extinction at the hand of a machine intelligence (a conflict known by the time period of the first book as Butlerian Jihad), which is why a lot of these interest groups are necessary (in the place of AI, various ways to improve the human capacity were necessary). Something to think about in terms of how interest groups should develop.

Edit: though I haven't seen the film (and so don't know if they let it fall by the wayside), Frank Herbert had a lot to say in the book about ecology through the Fremen's terraforming attempts. Were terraforming made a bit more interesting than an energy sink, pro-terraforming interest groups would also be viable.

 

[Blackadder23]

We already have something like the bene gesrit with psionics (although it defintiely needs to be expanded alongside the other ascensions) and sadly the spacing guild will never happen because in stellaris faster than light travel is easy and there is no magical substance that absolutely is necessary for space travel.

Strictly speaking, spice isn't necessary for FTL travel in the Dune universe either. Many worlds were settled before Arrakis was even discovered. But the religious lunatics in the Dune universe banned computers, so the only current way to navigate is with the spice. So it could work easily enough in Stellaris: you can just say that the other societies are still sane and are using computers like sensible people, but the Dunesque society is under the sway of religious maniacs and must use spice (or whatever) to replace the computers that were stupidly banned.

 

[Me_]

Did we read the same book? Bene Geserit did not "advocate" psionics, keeping all their skills and knowledge to themselves, and their breeding program was a secret.

Obviously a secretive societies in a game like Stellaris has little sense, but still.

 

[DukeLeto42]

But the religious lunatics in the Dune universe banned computers

Humanity was nearly wiped out by Omnius - one of Earth-Omnius' final acts was to order their extermination. It might be religiously coded, but preventing the development of another species-ending AI was not exactly an irrational move.

Did we read the same book? Bene Geserit did not "advocate" psionics, keeping all their skills and knowledge to themselves, and their breeding program was a secret.

Obviously a secretive societies in a game like Stellaris has little sense, but still.

"Well yes, but actually no."

Yes, you're absolutely right that the Bene Gesserit were highly secretive, but they also lobbied for government support, lent their insights into the future to said government in order to keep it stable, and were using royal houses as breeding stock. True, their psionic end goal was carefully hidden, but they did advocate for its furtherance in the government. As you say, Stellaris doesn't currently have the ability to model secret societies (and frankly that's a lower priority than societies in general), so the closest equivalent would be a group openly advocating for psionics.

 

[Me_]

"Well yes, but actually no."

Yes, you're absolutely right that the Bene Gesserit were highly secretive, but they also lobbied for government support, lent their insights into the future to said government in order to keep it stable, and were using royal houses as breeding stock. True, their psionic end goal was carefully hidden, but they did advocate for its furtherance in the government. As you say, Stellaris doesn't currently have the ability to model secret societies (and frankly that's a lower priority than societies in general), so the closest equivalent would be a group openly advocating for psionics.

Well, no, but actually no.

I strongly disagree. The goal of Bene Geserit was not to promote their skills and across of all of society nor to make their breeding program universal, which is what a group openly advocating for psionics would be.

To translate it into something abstract. Imagine society that says: we will use the careful manipulation of rich Europeans and Americans to increase the value of diamonds to further our dimond-based operations.

What you are saying is that the best way to translate such goals to the game would be a group asking for free diamonds for everyone. Preferably by making the government hand them out to everyone.

That's like almost exactly the opposite goal and methods.

 

[Eled the Worm Tamer]

Though it is hard to say what the Bene would have done if they had gotten the Kaswathaderach when they were ready, from the union of an Atredes daughter Jessica refused to bear, and a Harkonen son, and been prepared. Paul arrives early and sliped through their fingers before they reached to grasp him.

Leto's golden path, sharing the gift and the freedom from prophecy across all humanity had its roots in Bene Gesrit breeding programs that the worm-emperor took from them, and its possible that this path was in essence the one they were following.

But the truth is the arrival of such a being is a singularity event, once it happens it is impossible to know what will follow after.

Certainly the Golden Path would be in Stellaris terms, very much a Psionic advocacy. But its complicated became in stellaris terms the Bene are at best halfway into the ascension and flat-footed by an early 'chosen one' event triggered by low stability on a desert world caused by intreage opps by a civ that has put a claim on the world.

 

[Richard Dolder]

The Bene Gesserit are kind of a mixed ascension path (using breeding to get to psionic power), but the key point is that their in-game equivalent would have to be a group advocating psionics as a development path (perhaps pulling from the Vicky 3 Interest Group idea), and in a much more active way than "we'll give you a bit of pop happiness and influence if you do it."

As you say, the Spacing Guild wouldn't exist as it does in Dune, though it's one of those cases where the constraints of the world would change their face, if not their existence. Some form of trade advocacy and control group would be very fitting for Stellaris.

The Tleilaxu, meanwhile, are Dune's cloners - think bio-ascension, the "selected lineages" policies, and lots and lots of clones (mostly of Duncan Idaho for some reason).

All of dune is bio-ascension, Dune is what I wish bio ascension looked like.

Humanity was nearly wiped out by Omnius - one of Earth-Omnius' final acts was to order their extermination. It might be religiously coded, but preventing the development of another species-ending AI was not exactly an irrational move.

Yeh, it's also what set them on the path of biotech, as rejecting machines in the image of man demanded more of humanity and so humanity adapted themselves rather than their tools.
Also the computers fucked up about 5% of spacefolds, turns out teleportation is a bitch to get right and there are always unknowns. By fuck up i mean "slam you into another object killing everyone".

 

[Calvax]

Humanity was nearly wiped out by Omnius - one of Earth-Omnius' final acts was to order their extermination. It might be religiously coded, but preventing the development of another species-ending AI was not exactly an irrational move.

In the NuDune books yes this happened, but there’s a reason those books are very controversial among fans. To the point many (if not most) don’t consider them canon. There’s plenty in them that contradict Frank Herbert’s writings, like the incredibly hacky rewrite of the mysterious, godlike facedancers into robots from the prequels.

The Butlerian Jihad wasn’t even confirmed by Frank’s works to be a terminator-style war against killing machines. There are several passages that talk about it being a Jihad against man’s reliance on thinking machines. There’s some implication that human society ended up being very safe but very regimented, with computers regulating nearly everything. The Jihad sought to end this and very likely was a cultural conflict among humans over whether to smash the machines rather than a two way fight against them.

 

[Fulgrymm]

The Butlerian Jihad wasn’t even confirmed by Frank’s works to be a terminator-style war against killing machines. There are several passages that talk about it being a Jihad against man’s reliance on thinking machines. There’s some implication that human society ended up being very safe but very regimented, with computers regulating nearly everything. The Jihad sought to end this and very likely was a cultural conflict among humans over whether to smash the machines rather than a two way fight against them.

Interesting, so it was a case of biotrophies rebelling against their rogue servitors. Can that be adapted into an origin? Maybe lock you out of computer techs, but get special biotech stuff in its place.

 

[Calvax]

Interesting, so it was a case of biotrophies rebelling against their rogue servitors. Can that be adapted into an origin? Maybe lock you out of computer techs, but get special biotech stuff in its place.

What it was exactly is up for interpretation. In Frank’s writings it’s vague as to whether it’s a conflict between humans and machines, or humans against humans dependant on machines. There are various quotes that seem to imply the problem was human reliance on AI more than AI exterminating humans. The Dune Encyclopaedia, which was endorsed by Frank but was basically fan fiction, presented it in the former manner.

In stellaris terms a societal upheaval against AI might be the closest thing. Rather than a rebellion it would be more like a course correction to avoid becoming a society controlled by rogue servitors.