Spice harvester

This article or section refers to elements from Original Dune

Analog-DuneWorld-SchoenherrHarvester — House Atreides examine a hologram of a Spice harvester - Analog magazine artwork by John Schoenherr

A spice harvester (also called a “crawler”) was a large, heavy, mobile factory designed to harvest melange. It was dropped by carrier ships (known as carryalls) onto spice fields. These machines would then harvest and process the spice from the sand of the desert floor. Harvesters were typically operated by a crew of about 20 spice drivers.

This immense farming mechanism was used solely on Arrakis, as it was the only known source of spice before the Tleilaxu developed a substitute.

Because of the rhythmic sound they made, they were regularly attacked by sandworms. Accompanying the crawler were two to three ornithopters (called spotters) that hovered in the sky above, watching for wormsign (an obvious sign that a sandworm was approaching). Upon detecting wormsign, the harvester would be picked up and taken to a safer location. Sandworms could be large enough to swallow a harvester. With timing and the actual load size of spice being key factors in harvesting, harvester crews would often work on a spice field until the last possible minute before being picked up by a carryall.

When Paul Atreides asked Liet-Kynes if they would see a sandworm while viewing the spice harvesting, Kynes replied that they always came when they hear a spice harvester.

A good example of this process was seen when Duke Leto Atreides travelled into the desert to inspect a harvesting operation and its equipment. The operation ended in disaster when a carryall could not be located to lift off the vehicle before a worm arrived and swallowed it whole. Leto ordered the fleet of spotter ships to land and pick up the crew.