Talk:Spacing Guild

Possible difference in appearance in original Dune novel?
Here is something I've always wondered about - it's clear that Frank Herbert imagined the Navigators as crazy looking mutants at least as early as Dune Messiah, but in the first book it seems they look like normal humans - this is only alluded to one time, very quickly, during Paul's negotiation with the Emperor's retinue just before the fight with Feyd-Rautha.

To wit:

(Page 475) "Are those the Guild agents, Gurney, the two fat ones dressed in gray over there?" (Page 476, confirmation they are Navigators) "If I hear any more nonsense from either of you," Paul said, "I'll give the order that'll destroy all spice production on Arrakis...forever." "Are you mad?" the tall Guildsman demanded. He fell back half a step. "You grant that I have the power to do this thing, then?" Paul asked. The Guildsman seemed to stare into space for a moment, then: "Yes, you could do it, but you must not." "Ah-h-h," Paul said and nodded to himself. "Guild navigators, both of you, eh?" "Yes!" The shorter of the pair said: "You would blind yourself too, and condemn us all to slow death. Have you any idea what it means to be deprived of the spice liquor once you're addicted?"

These same two Guildsmen are mentioned earlier with the Imperial retinue.

(Page 465) They wore the Guild gray, unadorned, and it seemed to fit the calm they maintained despite the high emotions around them. The taller of the two, though, held a hand to his left eye. As the Emperor watched, someone jostled the Guildsman's arm, the hand moved, and the eye was revealed. The man had lost one of his masking contact lenses, and the eye stared out of a total blue so dark as to be almost black. The smaller of the pair elbowed his way a step nearer the Emperor, said: "We cannot know how it will go." And the taller companion, hand restored to eye, added in a cold voice: "But this Muad'Dib cannot know, either."

So it seems (at least to me) that in their original imagining Guild navigators were no more than highly spice-addicted humans with prescient ability, induced by spice liquor instead of gas, and certainly not the fish-mutants they are established to be later. Not a huge deal, but probably worthy of mention in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Finitetoast (talk • contribs) 01:20, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The people described in your quotes are Guild agents not Navigators. The Navigators are never described in the first book, but Paul speculates that they might not look human.  According to the first book, not even the agents have seen a Navigator. --Leivick (talk) 01:30, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Except Paul says, to them, on page 476, "Guild Navigators, both of you, eh?" and they say "Yes!" after demonstrating what appears to be prescience. Yes, Leto tells Paul that even Guild agents haven't seen a Navigator, but these are the Emperor's own advisors from the Guild, assuredly higher-status than anyone Leto Atreides had come into contact with. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Finitetoast (talk • contribs) 03:03, September 14, 2010

Hmm, you are right. --Leivick (talk) 23:16, 14 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps this is all a matter of how (and when) a Guild Navigator becomes a Guild Navigator. The two men in question could, conceivably, be some sort of neophyte Navigators, men recognized for their prescient abilities but not yet mutated and otherwise altered by the spice. This is, of course, just speculation, as I don't recall any such information from canonical (as debated as that term has become with regards to Dune) sources. In reality, I tend to think that this discrepancy is more the result of Herbert simply changing his mind regarding what he wanted Guild Navigators to be (perhaps with a mind towards creating a bit of "alienness" in a universe devoid of true non-human aliens). Regardless, the seeming inconsistency should certainly be noted in the article.172.190.32.154 (talk) 03:46, 17 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sort of like how Klingons became more alien in the Next Generation, whereas they just looked like swarthy humans in the original series. Would be good to mention this Navigator inconsistency and offer possible explanations, but how to do it by quoting a published source, respecting Wiki's original research restrictions? --Pekoebrew (talk) 17:54, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
 * In should be mentioned, somewhat counter to the notion that there is an inconsistency within the first Dune novel, that early on Paul asks his father if they might see a Navigator during their trip to Arrakis, mentioning that he understood that they were, indeed, mutated by the spice gas. This would imply that a belief in Navigators being mutants was widespread and that, for all the Guild's secretiveness, the cat had, somewhere along the line, been let out of the bag. So, while Dune Messiah provides readers with confirmation of their nature, Dune itself establishes the idea of Navigators as not-quite-human.--172.190.229.228 (talk) 07:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

But only *somewhat* counter to the notion. Because clearly, as cited above, near the end of the first novel, two Guild Navigators are named as such and presented as outwardly human, albeit with blue eyes of Ibad. This certainly should be noted in the article.Krabapple (talk) 03:14, 21 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I added a bit about the Guildsmen in Dune, but as editors we can't bluntly point any discrepancies between books without a source. All we can do is present the differing descriptions and let them speak for themselves.&mdash; TAnthonyTalk 01:00, 26 June 2013 (UTC)