dune men question

[JP]

The Dune men who operate the spice-crawler/harvester in Arrakis, what are they? they're not Fremen, so I don't know where they're from.

[C.E.]

I'd imagine there are people native to Dune who aren't Fremen - Arrakis city folk. Or they could be offworlders brought to the planet who have the skills for operating those machines.

[retroj]

To just elaborate a bit on what C.e. said, these are people who live in the various cities inside the Shield Wall. (See map) The labor force stayed behind when the Harkonnens left, so that shows that they are locals, not tied to the governing House.

[JP]

okay thank you for the guidance. I wasn't clear about the other natives/inhabitants in Dune. I thought the locals are all Fremen.

[Russell]

John Paul wrote: "okay thank you for the guidance. I wasn't clear about the other natives/inhabitants in Dune. I thought the locals are all Fremen."

They are all fremen, but there are desert fremen and city fremen. The two groups are quite different - the city fremen are weaker and have less water discipline than the desert fremen.

[Holden]

@Russel: I thought the book made pretty clear that not all of the people living within the shield wall were Freeman, that in fact Freeman were a specific subset of the population of Dune.

[Russell]

@Holden: The term "city Fremen" is used in Children of Dune. eg, "Only the one soft-featured city Fremen protested, squalling as the youth grabbed his hair."

[retroj]

Russell wrote: "@Holden: The term "city Fremen" is used in Children of Dune. eg, "Only the one soft-featured city Fremen protested, squalling as the youth grabbed his hair.""

I take that as describing just one segment of the population. There was likely a Fremen demographic in the cities already, but also by the time of Children of Dune, many Fremen had migrated into the cities from the sietches.

[Russell]

You may be right. It's a long time since I read the original six books, but my memory is of the city dwellers being referred to as city Fremen.

[retroj]

It is probably not spelled out explicitly — the reader has room for interpretation. I would guess though, that as the sole source of spice in the universe, the Arrakis economy would have attracted a certain amount of immigration, both from the home planets of various governing houses and from elsewhere, people chasing the prospect of work.

[Jason]

For what it's worth, I've just finished reading Dune & Dune Messiah, and it isn't until after the first book that the Fremen started living in the cities. The fremen only lived in the sietches in the original book, while other native people and offworlders lived in the cities and villages After the first book though, they start making a distinction between the Fremen that live in the city and those that live in the desert sietches.

As for the Dune Men, I think I remember the book mentioning that some were city natives and some were offworlders. I remember one part of the book in which Gurney Halleck is given the task of convincing a large group of experienced spice harvesters to stay on Dune instead of leaving with the Harkkonnens.