Spicy thoughts

[gfish]

I've been thinking about Dune technology recently. Why didn't they just make Spice Harvesters that didn't involve rhythmic vibrations? Obviously industrial processes will always create vibrations, but do they have to be rhythmic? Stochastic Mechanical Engineering could be a major field of study at Arrakeen University.

Comments

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

*laugh* You still have stillsuits on the brain, don't you?

[porysski.livejournal.com]

Would it be possible to do with only Butlerian Jihad-allowed mechanization, though? It's hard for me to imagine a way to do arrhythmic industrial processing without computers (otoh, I was raised an EE; it's often hard for me to imagine how to do anything without computers).

[anansi133.livejournal.com]

What about biological systems? If you had critters that ate spice, and then other critters that ate those, and concentrated the spice. Repeat as necessary, you could eventually end up with critters that pooped processed spice, kinda like civets.

Maybe the first level spice finders are plants, so not to arouse the worm's attention, and then the second-level processors are like hummingbirds, that don't alight on the sand. Then the third level critters eat the eggs and young of the birds, which only do that stuff on rock, by which time you're safe.

[stolen-tea.livejournal.com]

I suspect any sort of terrestrial locomotion (treads, wheels, etc.) would involve enough sound, though; worms can pick up individual people, after all.