7 ms·

The gun example is a bad one—that's not why they don't use guns. They don't use lasguns because they cause a nuclear explosion when fired against shields.

by kevinh 5y ago

MayeulC 5y ago
Oh, and since you are the only one mentioning it on this page, one of my pet peeve with the movie is: why so freaking many lasers? Two is two more than we should have seen, I think. (the other pet peeve is that they don't draw blood every time we see a crysknife).
spywaregorilla 5y ago
Why don't they just use the shields as nuclear weapons then?
- m12k 5y ago
  Spoiler alert for Part 2!
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  Convention, just like why nukes haven't been used as weapons in over 70 years in the real world. If your enemy does it to you, you'll do it to them.
  - euroderf 5y ago
    But also, isn't there an agreement that any house that uses nukes against human targets gets obliterated by the entire Landsraad ? Which might make a bit problematic the Fremens' use of nuke(s) in the Lynch-version assault on the emperor.
    - Jtsummers 5y ago
      I think you're correct. It's been a while since I read the books and I deliberately didn't reread them before the movie to avoid the kind of frustrations that occur when you see an adaptation and are too-familiar with the books so a few of these details are escaping me at present. The Fremen in Lynch's adaptation did what they did in the book. They won the war any way they could as they were the underdogs, without taking Arakeen they couldn't win it.
  - spywaregorilla 5y ago
    I'm not an expert on the world of dune or anything, but I guess I would have assumed that nukes on a relatively barren sand planet would be pretty ok.
    - Jtsummers 5y ago
      Except that others will use it against you. Also, because this movie didn't convey it well, Spice is literally the thing that keeps the Empire and the economy going. Without it, there is no interstellar travel (thanks to a religious opposition to thinking machines). So maybe on an arbitrary barren sand planet you could try and get away with it, but this is not the one you want to test that on. It would be tantamount, at the time of the book's writing, to nuking the OPEC nations on Earth, you know, the places where (at the time) an incredibly large percentage of oil was being pulled out of the ground and keeping the global economy going.
      - spywaregorilla 5y ago
        I should probably just stop here and not expect to grok the geopolitics of this universe over a conversation like this but... * Why is there so much conflict if there's an empire? * Why doesn't one faction simply control the planet? * These are just regular nukes right? Like on the scale of the atomic weapons we have now? I guess on the scale of intergalactic conflict those don't sound very important to me? Very different from the scale of a nuke on an OPEC state city.
        Jtsummers 5y ago
        Why is there conflict in any nation with an existing government? Because people have desires which conflict with the status quo. They want more power, more resources, better resources. In a galactic empire, do you want a planet or the best planet? Do you want the planet that makes you the most wealth or the planet that's just a bunch of rocks? The Emperor, ostensibly, controls all the planets. The political system is based on fiefdoms in the book. He hands the administration of Arrakis to a particular noble based on his own political objectives and trust. They are essentially nukes, yes. But melange (the spice) is only available from Arrakis (in the books it's discussed that they try and find ways to make it elsewhere, but without spoilers I can't so much more than that it doesn't work). If the OPEC nations were your only or principal source of oil in this world, and you nuked them, what immediate impact would you expect from that? A global economic shutdown, and almost certainly being ostracized (if not worse) from the international community. Setting off nukes and making it practically impossible to export melange from Arrakis would be similarly effective at collapsing the galactic empire and economy.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  At that point you might as well just nuke them
marcellus23 5y ago
I didn't mention lasguns, just guns.

The gun example is a bad one—that's not why they don't use guns. They don't use lasguns because they cause a nuclear explosion when fired against shields.

by kevinh 5y ago

The gun example is a bad one—that's not why they don't use guns. They don't use lasguns because they cause a nuclear explosion when fired against shields.

MayeulC 5y ago

Oh, and since you are the only one mentioning it on this page, one of my pet peeve with the movie is: why so freaking many lasers? Two is two more than we should have seen, I think. (the other pet peeve is that they don't draw blood every time we see a crysknife).

spywaregorilla 5y ago

Why don't they just use the shields as nuclear weapons then?

m12k 5y ago
Spoiler alert for Part 2!
Jtsummers 5y ago
Convention, just like why nukes haven't been used as weapons in over 70 years in the real world. If your enemy does it to you, you'll do it to them.
- euroderf 5y ago
  But also, isn't there an agreement that any house that uses nukes against human targets gets obliterated by the entire Landsraad ? Which might make a bit problematic the Fremens' use of nuke(s) in the Lynch-version assault on the emperor.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    I think you're correct. It's been a while since I read the books and I deliberately didn't reread them before the movie to avoid the kind of frustrations that occur when you see an adaptation and are too-familiar with the books so a few of these details are escaping me at present. The Fremen in Lynch's adaptation did what they did in the book. They won the war any way they could as they were the underdogs, without taking Arakeen they couldn't win it.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  I'm not an expert on the world of dune or anything, but I guess I would have assumed that nukes on a relatively barren sand planet would be pretty ok.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    Except that others will use it against you. Also, because this movie didn't convey it well, Spice is literally the thing that keeps the Empire and the economy going. Without it, there is no interstellar travel (thanks to a religious opposition to thinking machines). So maybe on an arbitrary barren sand planet you could try and get away with it, but this is not the one you want to test that on. It would be tantamount, at the time of the book's writing, to nuking the OPEC nations on Earth, you know, the places where (at the time) an incredibly large percentage of oil was being pulled out of the ground and keeping the global economy going.
    - spywaregorilla 5y ago
      I should probably just stop here and not expect to grok the geopolitics of this universe over a conversation like this but... * Why is there so much conflict if there's an empire? * Why doesn't one faction simply control the planet? * These are just regular nukes right? Like on the scale of the atomic weapons we have now? I guess on the scale of intergalactic conflict those don't sound very important to me? Very different from the scale of a nuke on an OPEC state city.
      - Jtsummers 5y ago
        Why is there conflict in any nation with an existing government? Because people have desires which conflict with the status quo. They want more power, more resources, better resources. In a galactic empire, do you want a planet or the best planet? Do you want the planet that makes you the most wealth or the planet that's just a bunch of rocks? The Emperor, ostensibly, controls all the planets. The political system is based on fiefdoms in the book. He hands the administration of Arrakis to a particular noble based on his own political objectives and trust. They are essentially nukes, yes. But melange (the spice) is only available from Arrakis (in the books it's discussed that they try and find ways to make it elsewhere, but without spoilers I can't so much more than that it doesn't work). If the OPEC nations were your only or principal source of oil in this world, and you nuked them, what immediate impact would you expect from that? A global economic shutdown, and almost certainly being ostracized (if not worse) from the international community. Setting off nukes and making it practically impossible to export melange from Arrakis would be similarly effective at collapsing the galactic empire and economy.
s1artibartfast 5y ago
At that point you might as well just nuke them

marcellus23 5y ago

I didn't mention lasguns, just guns.