Spacing Guild Heighliners Explained | Dune Lore

A discussion of the lore and history of the Spacing Guild's Heighliner ships as well as the role these massive vessels play in the Dune saga. This lore video combines elements from Frank Herbert's Dune, the Dune Encylopedia and Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson's Expanded Dune Universe.

Related DUNE LORE videos:
Spacing Guild:
#Dune #Lore #Dune2021

Twitter: @Nerd_Cookies

Artist: MARION
Title: Moments

Intro Track Name: "Watching The Clouds"
License for commercial use: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported "Share Alike" (CC BY-SA 3.0) License.

Art Credits
Heighliner by Alex Jay Brady
Dune Foldspace Heighliner by Euderion
Dune by Frank Herbert by Marc Simonetti
Guild Heighliner v2 by Julian-Faylona
Spacing Guild Foldspace Heighliner by Euderion
guild navigator ship by SimonDubuc
Heighliner interior by Alex Jay Brady
Dune Atreides by Angel Alonso
Heighliners by Julian Faylona
Exodus by Baris Gursel and Alex Jay Brady
Scifi duneish thing By Scharborescus
Dune Tribute by Milyan Yelic
HARVESTER DUNE by Clément Martinet

Information sources: Frank Herbert’s Dune Series

All the videos, songs, images, and graphics used in the video belong to their respective owners and I or this channel does not claim any right over them.

*Fair Use*
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
Use of any copyrighted material in this video qualifies as fair use.

[alexjaybrady]

Thankyou so much for featuring my work in your great videos! I really appreciate it!

[jimkenealy]

When I see a new Nerd Cookie Dune video I drop a teaspoon of cinnamon in my coffee and pretend I am drinking melange while viewing. You are an enriching part of the Known Universe.

[Tranxhead]

I like the cylindrical designs as there is something about symmetry with the sandworms that seems meaningful.

[robertsosna]

Love the concept of the heighliners so much, in the book I am writing now I use a similar craft for intergalactic travel. As the distance between galaxies is so vast.

[sorokahdeen]

Love that video. It's definitely something wildly thought-provoking from an engineering standpoint—the sort of thing that provokes in one a desire to try and wrap one's head around the idea and see what happens—to see if the thing works. The results of even a cursory examination are, well, just...awesome.

As a first-novel snob who first read the book as a teenager, the highliner was just a device that allowed the plot to go forward by allowing house Atreides to move all its resources to Arakis in what we assume was all in one go, and you ask yourself, "is that possible—does it make sense?" and the answer is, "Oh yes, " because, with a length of 20Km, depending on its diameter, a cylindrical guild highliner suspended above a few hundred feet above the Island of Manhattan at noon would cause a localized eclipse of the entire Island with its shadow.

That would be just the beginning of the things that made your jaw drop.

If the ship was built as it is often depicted, as a latticework of plates surrounding an inner core of drive machinery, its inner surface area would be more than three times that of the island of Manhattan which, at weekday peak times, supports a population of over four million people. Essentially, if you could pressurize that space, you could transport three times the current population of all of New York City—8.5 million people—with ample room to spare.

You almost wonder if they were evenly distributed across that vast a surface if they would be within shouting distance of one another.

When you consider the feudal structure of a planetary government in Dune, a house would not be the population of a planet—essentially a peasantry—but only the part of the population which was attached to its military/police forces and their equipment and its administrative personnel, including the head of a household and his staff. To understand the scale of that, you need only look to a 2017 piece in the New York Times that examines the question of whether or not the U.S. military is large enough. The figures show that the U.S. Military consisted of 1.3 million active-duty personnel with a reserve of 865, 00 to fulfill an ambitious global military mission that stations troops 170 different countries. Assuming that few if any planets in the human empire have anything like the population of the earth, one would expect the whole of House Atreide's actual personnel to be much smaller than that, making Leto's comment about fitting his entire house and all its ships into a tiny part of a single highliner seem absolutely plausible.

Thanks for the video with all its food for thought.

[jacktribble]

I tend toward the cylinder concept myself, you don't want any more complications than absolutely necessary on something that astronomical in size. As long as they don't go for a cube...

[davidmeyer]

Amidst the slog of Saturday overtime comes a new dune lore video. Thanks!

[peternordgren]

I always liked the spherical heighliner of the Encyclopedia. I don't think it would work on film at all, but in a book I really liked the idea of this utterly boring, drab, utilitarian globe being what kept the rich, flamboyant Empire going.

[alvinmwangi]

dune 2021 nailed the design of these things

[HigherMammal]

Much like the spice, I'm addicted to this content.

[andymachala]

The bigger one with the large throat seems to be the most logical. Thank you for these. Very nice.

[toddgale]

Another wonderful video. Still loving your Dune content. As far as the design…. While any shape will do, this is one of those things I imagine the production crew using the tried and true cylinder. Mainly because that is what has been previously used both on screen and in artwork, and fans have started to view it as canon, whether it is or not.

[kineticstar]

So, it is an O'Neil cylinder. I'm sure it will have a living area or a small city on board to meet the needs of the guild members.

[charlescrawford]

I used to live in San Francisco, and that's where I read all the Dune books. I've never seen the entire movie or the mini series. I so far am impressed with the development of the new movie. Your show is interesting, as are you. I'm glad I've subscribed💙

[jaquigreenlees]

A cylinder, station keeping thrusters all over it to adjust it's attitude and hold it steady, engines to help it maintain orbital velocity. I would say it has a crew area near the end opposite the engines, from the first book, Paul gets a short glimpse of this as well as the interior hold on the trip from Caladan to Arrakis. ( that is from a sentence or two only and is my thoughts from them )

[michaelhearson]

Hi there, the highliners that were featured on the Sci Fi channel two part mini series were very unique and cool in design. The ship was comprised of multiple elongated habits that were in continuous rotation, like a spin section, held together by an advanced gravity field. Certainly was different from other interpret designs. Thanks for sharing, content is always awesome. Have a very geek ish day.😁👽👽🤓🤓👍👍

[alexandruoprea]

When I read the first book, I pictured them as a sphere. The drawings you showed looked really nice.

[Darhhaall]

Video itself is great, but your very pleasant voice is making it much better.

[alexhulea]

Norma was also the creator of the body control techniques of the Bene Geserit. One of her sons was the first ever guild navigator, and she was (in theory) the first Bene Gerserit EVER.

[alt]

I think a 8km wide by 20km long ship makes the most design sense. Loading by having the ends left open would be more efficient than ports in the side. The ship would not be just a plain cylinder though it would be likely covered in advancement solar panels turning to track the sun. As it spends most of it's time in high orbit, and nothing beats free energy to a transport guild.