Arrakis

Arrakis, also known as Dune and in later ages as Rakis, was a harsh desert planet, the third planet of Canopus. For most of recorded Imperial history it was the original and sole source of the spice melange, the substance behind space travel, prolonged life, and prescient sight. Home to the Fremen and to the great sandworms, the planet was contested by the Great Houses and ultimately became the seat of power for the empire of Paul Atreides, called Muad'Dib, before its long transformation under the God Emperor and its final destruction in the age of the Scattering. (Dune; Dune (appendix); God Emperor of Dune; Heretics of Dune)

Location and environment#

Arrakis has two moons, and on the second the Fremen see the shape of the kangaroo mouse they call Muad'Dib, the name Paul takes for himself. The surface of the planet is almost all dry dune desert, which gave it the name Dune. Weathered mountain ranges and rock outcrops break up the open sand and shelter what little native life there is. (Dune)

Temperature on Arrakis varies enormously. Liet-Kynes tells Duke Leto that the surface of a dune can be a hundred degrees hotter than the sand a foot below it, that half a metre above the sand it can be twenty degrees cooler than the surface, and that black shade can cut the heat by as much as forty degrees. Despite the dryness, the atmosphere is breathable: the Ecology appendix gives it as 75.4 percent nitrogen and 23 percent oxygen with traces of other gases, and Pardot Kynes works out that the oxygen comes from the sandworm cycle rather than from plant life. Vast reserves of water lie locked away underground by the sandtrout, while the Fremen harvest the small amounts of vapour in the air with windtraps. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

The planet's people cluster in the north, where the Shield Wall, a mountain barrier of rock, protects the cities of the Imperial Basin from the worms and the great storms. That is why the capital, Arrakeen, sits where it does. (Dune)

Native life and the sandworms#

Little native life survives the heat and dry climate, and what endures is overshadowed by the sandworms that roam the deep desert. The worms are central to the making of spice and attack anything that makes rhythmic noise on the open sand. Closely bound to them are the sandtrout, the small early stage of the worm that walls off the planet's water. Among the smaller creatures is the kangaroo mouse, called Muad'Dib by the Fremen, alongside desert hawks, owls, bats and burrowing animals, and hardy plants such as creosote bush and poverty grass cling to the harshest ground. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

The Fremen#

The Fremen live in caves in the rock outcrops and mountain ranges that break the planet-wide desert. The constant fight for survival shapes their culture, demanding frugal use of water above all else, and a long history of persecution made them hardy warriors who use the desert itself against off-world enemies with far better technology. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

Each Fremen community lives in a sietch led by a naib, and together they call themselves the Ichwan Bedwine, the brotherhood. Beyond them the planet holds a population of townsfolk, traders and offworlders in the cities and villages. After the Harkonnen return, the Baron counts some five million people in the towns and villages, and is stunned to learn from Thufir Hawat that the Fremen number at least ten million more. (Dune)

Spice and the rise to importance#

Frank Herbert's glossary credits Yanshuph Ashkoko, royal chemist to Emperor Shakkad the Wise, with discovering the geriatric properties of melange. The spice later became the base of the whole Imperial order, because the Spacing Guild's navigators depend on it, and Arrakis was the only place it could be found. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

While the planet was a fief of House Harkonnen, the Emperor sent the planetologist Pardot Kynes to study it. Kynes concluded that Arrakis could be turned into a green world through careful planning over many generations. The Fremen, enchanted by his vision of open water and growing things, followed him with fervour. Kynes married a Fremen woman and became a leader among them, and kept the true scale of the plan hidden from the Empire. He died in a cave collapse at Plaster Basin, but his work passed to his son, Liet-Kynes. (Dune (appendix))

The Atreides, the revolt, and Muad'Dib#

In 10,191 AG, House Atreides came to Arrakis to take control of the planet and its spice production from House Harkonnen, on the orders of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. Atreides rule was cut short by betrayal, the product of a plot between the Harkonnens and the Emperor, who lent his Sardaukar. The surviving Atreides, Paul and his mother Jessica, went into hiding among the Fremen, where Paul rose to lead them. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

Later, Paul Atreides, known among the Fremen as Muad'Dib, used the Atreides family atomics to blast a gap in the Shield Wall that had long protected Arrakeen. Riding sandworms into the city behind a great storm, the Fremen broke the Harkonnen and Sardaukar forces, and Paul forced Shaddam to give up the throne. Arrakis became the seat of both the new empire and the religious jihad that Paul unleashed across the known universe. (Dune)

Transformation, decline, and destruction#

Paul's son, Leto Atreides II, the long-lived God Emperor, carried the planet's transformation through as part of his Golden Path. By the time of God Emperor of Dune the planet is a green and temperate world, the dream Pardot Kynes gave the Fremen, but the new ecology all but killed off the giant sandworms. Forests and rivers cover the land, and only Leto's desert reserve, the Sareer, shows that Arrakis had once been all sand. (God Emperor of Dune)

After some 3,500 years of rule, Leto II died when the bridge carrying him over the Idaho River gorge was cut and he fell into the water, which was poison to his worm body. His body broke apart into sandtrout, carrying pearls of his awareness, and the worms slowly returned. By Heretics of Dune, about 1,500 years later, the planet is desert again and goes by the shortened name Rakis, with Arrakeen now called Keen and a priesthood ruling in the God Emperor's name. When the Honored Matres came back from the Scattering, they burned the planet with a weapon from space and left it a charred ruin. Darwi Odrade and the girl Sheeana escaped with a single sandworm, which was carried to Chapterhouse, where its sandtrout began turning the Sisterhood's world into a new desert. (God Emperor of Dune; Heretics of Dune; Chapterhouse: Dune)