Well, we do see water discipline becoming slack in the homes of the jihad veterans on Arrakis! Off-world I imagine it would take some time but I'm sure eventually discipline would slip, but probably not as much as at home.
Freakzilla wrote: Well, we do see water discipline becoming slack in the homes of the jihad veterans on Arrakis! Off-world I imagine it would take some time but I'm sure eventually discipline would slip, but probably not as much as at home.
I can only speculate but I tend to focus on FH's statements about resource shortages and how they shape life. He mentions how water on Arrakis is an analogy for spice, oil, gold, or any other high-demand resource whose limited supply shapes one's existence. An example we see in the series of a limited supply exploding is space travel. The Guild monopoly was largely responsible for the stagnant conditions in the Empire, and the moment the supply of navigation tools become essentially infinite with the advent of the INM the entire universe exploded and changed shape. All of the old systems and balances become irrelevant.
In Dune we see an entire culture built around water-deprivation and deterioration due to sand and storms. I would guess that when going off-planet for the first time some Fremen might have started hoarding water, stowing it in any vessel they could find and hiding it with the thought of taking it back to Arrakis and being rich. I imagine that eventually it would occur to them (and for others maybe the realization was immediate) that filling your suitcase with water on a water-rich planet is ridiculous. It's like filling your bags with dirt or rocks, which are everywhere. I would guess that most off-world Fremen would have discarded water discipline almost completely with the self-deceptive thought that it was only temporary and things would return to normal once back home on Arrakis. Perhaps the most fanatical Fremen would keep the appearance of water discipline even though in practice there can be no such thing in a water rich world. Without the fundamental water shortage the entire Fremen way of life is irrelevant, and I think this leads nicely into FH's general theme of thinking you want to attain a goal but upon attaining it you are changed in such a way that the goal ceases to have meaning. This is both a philosophical and an ecological point, since Arrakis, the Fremen, Paul, and even the BG all got what they wanted in spades and paid the price for it. To go from unlimited water on far-away worlds and then return to Arrakis would make water discipline seem strange and ritualistic rather than a necessary fact of life. It would undermine one's identity and even maybe the sense of the point of living. We see this clearly in DM, and even though FH never connects the dots for us explicitly it's very clear that the Fremen aren't merely having trouble re-adapting to life on Arrakis, but they have really ceased to be Fremen in any meaningful sense. They are one step on the way to becoming true Museum Fremen, where the old ways are an historical footnote rather than a way to survive.
georgiedenbro wrote: To go from unlimited water on far-away worlds and then return to Arrakis would make water discipline seem strange and ritualistic rather than a necessary fact of life.
I'm betting they don't start to lose it until mud bricks become a thing. All through the jihad it would
they kill anyone in the open without a stillsuit. When they get back, I think it'd be more like a return
to the familiar, I don't think the strange and ritualistic part hits until the next generation with all
There's a chapter in 'pole of dude' where Stilgar is on a Guildship and he goes to a drinking fountain or
something only to realize that he's only getting a drink because it's there and wonders when he started
This is a question of mass psychology. Looking at individual cases isn't that helpful. The drift from water discipline would be very slow, and would likely be slowed futher by the fact that the those who traveled off world to fight were soldiers with some pretty strict military discipline, all of whom were also very tangled up in the Fremen mystical outlook on life, and who were also just realizing that their way of life was actually superior to others and gave them a competitive advantage. I'd wager that the mass of Fremen would continue to adhere to it, and likely continued to do so until they were transformed into Museum Fremen, or at least until the mass of them came to the conclusion that the change they were preparing for in the early novels was going to become a reality.
I'm sure at the time the Fremen Jihadi didn't even realise they were being altered by the presence of so much water when off-world. It probably happened in small ways at first. Suit seals not as tight. No rubbing of creosote juice on the hands to impair perspiration. Things like that adding up over time.
I can see that. Especially in times of conflict on foreign soil, anything homelike would be fiercely defended.
I guess it would have been the following generation, as Arrakis is greening, that would look at the old ways and feel they were less needed.
Fremen did come down wulith "water sickness" or something like that after seeing oceans. And as freak mentioned water discipline was becoming lady
Being away from the desert implies that they are near much greater amounts of water. It's the proximity to so much water that is making them sick. And it doesn't necessarily mean it's a psychological sickness. Foreign water can do bloody awful things to you if it's not treated correctly.
One form of Harkonnen oppression leaves Fremen feeling like there's no where to go. (Necessary to keep your slaves from escaping.)
Then comes Paul and the jihad, Fremen realize their freedom isn't limited to the planet- I should think there'd be an adventurous type
of Fremen willing to find his fortune off planet. -Work the rest of your life mining spice and turning Dune into a fit place or retire to a
palace on a planet that already is fit. Perhaps the water sickness is propaganda designed to keep Fremen on Arrakis.
What would a Fremen retirement community be like? Old Fremen shuffling about bitching about water discipline, complaining about it being too cold, wondering why their grandchildren never visit, riding a sandworm with the left indicator flashing the entire time?
D Pope wrote: One form of Harkonnen oppression leaves Fremen feeling like there's no where to go. (Necessary to keep your slaves from escaping.)
If i remember correctly, there was some quote in the first novel that stated that fremen that left Arrakis got actually hunt down by other fremen. (My memory is pretty blurry tho)
Well I think in the Corrino-Empire, the spice addiction would work as a leash on all Fremen. Melange war quite expensive everywhere else and being addicted that heavily to it, they would surely die from withdrawal.