Spacing Guild

This article refers to elements from Original Dune
Pages for this subject as it appears in other canons:

Spacing Guild article for Expanded Dune

Spacing Guild article for The Dune Encyclopedia

The Spacing Guild, also called the Guild of Navigators on rare occasions, was an interstellar shipping and trade conglomerate during the ten-thousand-year Corrino Empire and 3,500-year Atreides Empire, serving as one leg of the political tripod maintaining the Great Convention.

After the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, the Guild was the second mental-physical training school established after the Butlerian Jihad, and its monopoly on space travel and international banking marked the starting point of the Imperial Calendar (1 AG).

History[]

Post-Butlerian Jihad[]

Shortly after the Jihad, the Spacing Guild had already begun its monopoly over all interstellar travel when the Orange Catholic Bible was compiled following the leaders of religions meeting to exchange views - a move encouraged by both the Guild and Bene Gesserit.^[1] Details of their emergence were contentious, although it was believed they started as a serious political and economic force around the time of the Great Convention in the 1st century AG.

Under the Corrino Empire[]

While the exact evolution of the Guild's monopoly on faster-than-light space travel is not given, they did nonetheless wield this formidable power throughout the entire Corrino Empire - a time known as the Guild Peace.

The Arrakis Affair[]

When the Desert War reached its apex during the year 10193 AG, the Guild made overtures to the Bene Gesserit, hinting that its Navigators were "bothered about the future" and saw "problems on the horizon."

As such, the Guild lowered its transport fees so that every Great House army headed to Arrakis with Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV to end the repeated sabotage of spice production by armies of Fremen insurgents united under Duke Paul-Muad'Dib Atreides. However, Paul threatened to poison every spice field and its underground sandtrout if the Guild did not withdraw their troops and send them back home. Because their limited powers of prophecy showed that Paul was fully capable of this action, they yielded to his demands and allowed the Atreides heir to ascend the Golden Lion Throne and exile the Corrino monarch.

Paul Atreides was the first Emperor to moderate the Guild's power through control of their spice supply, although they remained a significant political power for years to come.

Under the God Emperor[]

New problems for the Spacing Guild were created by the ascendancy of Leto Atreides II as God Emperor of the Known Universe. His extremely long lifespan, coupled with his fanatical devotion to his Golden Path strategy for humanity's survival, saw him hoard the spice melange with no concern for short-term problems.

Thus, over the many centuries of his rule, the Guild was bent to his will and its unique powerbase of old was significantly diminished.

After the God Emperor[]

While the Spacing Guild remained a powerful body even after the death of Leto II, their influence gradually eroded. By the return of the Honored Matres, the success of humanity's Scattering into the cosmos had created new and largely unknown threats to their hegemony. Ixian no-ships were in common use at this time, and their advanced navigation computers fully replaced the need for Guild Navigators. As such, the Guild had lost its monopoly on space travel.

Structure[]

Hierarchy[]

The Spacing Guild was by its very nature a secretive organization that took up functions previously covered by the Thinking Machines, just as Mentats and the Bene Gesserit did. Their very existence rested on the proprietary knowledge they had clung to for millennia.

The inner structure of the Guild during and after the time of Paul Atreides was never fully revealed. However, it is known that the role of Guild Navigator was most prestigious, despite their numerous physical side effects.

Other known roles included administrators, attendants, ambassadors and technical support. Members of the Guild commonly wore gray uniforms.

Dependency[]

Navigators were utterly dependent on the spice melange to safely fold space via prescience and their Heighliner's Holtzman Drive. Even a partial restriction on their spice requirements rendered them powerless and reduced long distance trade and transport to a snail's pace.

Prior to the discovery of spice-induced prescience after the Jihad's ban on supercomputers, the use of a Spacefolder was extremely dangerous and destroyed roughly one in every eight starships due to the lack of viable methods for charting safe paths through gravitational hazards.

Gallery[]

This section is for Guild ships, aesthetics and personnel. Click here for its Navigators.

Videos[]

Filmbook-style featurettes[]

Dune - Filmbooks- The Spice Melange - Warner Bros. Entertainment

Video essays[]

The Politics of Dune Explained In FIVE Minutes

What Is The Spacing Guild - Dune Lore

The Rise and Fall of the Spacing Guild - Dune Lore

References[]

↑ Dune, Appendix II

[1] Dune, Appendix II

[1]