The Daily Omnivore

In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe ‘a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups.’ In some cases, an act will later be referred to as a supergroup when multiple members from said group end up securing individual fame later on.

Supergroups are often short-lived, lasting only for an album or two, although this is not always the case. They are sometimes formed as side projects that are not intended to be permanent, while other times can become the primary project of the band members’ careers.

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The Spacing Guild is an organization in Frank Herbert’s science fiction ‘Dune’ universe. With its monopoly on interstellar travel and banking, the Guild is a balance of power against the Padishah Emperor and the assembled noble Houses of the Landsraad. Mutated Guild Navigators use the spice drug melange to successfully navigate ‘folded space’ and safely guide enormous heighliner starships from planet to planet instantaneously. Essentially apolitical, the Guild is primarily concerned with the flow of commerce and preservation of the economy that supports them; though their ability to dictate the terms of and fees for all transport gives them influence in the political arena, they do not pursue political goals beyond their economic ones.

It is noted in ‘Dune’ (1965) that Houses of the Imperium may contract with the Guild to be removed ‘to a place of safety outside the System;’ in the past some Houses in danger of ruin or defeat have ‘become renegade Houses, taking family atomics and shields and fleeing beyond the Imperium.’ The Guild controls a ‘sanctuary planet’ (or planets) known as Tupile intended for such ‘defeated Houses of the Imperium … Location(s) known only to the Guild and maintained inviolate under the Guild Peace.’

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A Mentat is a profession or discipline in Frank Herbert’s fictional ‘Dune’ universe. Mentats are humans trained to mimic computers: human minds developed to staggering heights of cognitive and analytical ability. In Herbert’s fiction, following the defeat of the thinking machines by humanity in the Butlerian Jihad, it is forbidden to create sentient machines. The Mentat discipline is developed as a replacement for computerized calculation, just as the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild take on functions previously performed by thinking machines. For thousands of years, society considers Mentats the embodiment of logic and reason.

Unlike computers, however, Mentats are not simply calculators. Instead, the exceptional cognitive abilities of memory and perception are the foundations for supra-logical hypothesizing. Mentats are able to sift large volumes of data and devise concise analyses in a process that goes far beyond logical deduction: Mentats cultivate ‘the naïve mind,’ the mind without preconception or prejudice, so as to extract essential patterns or logic from data and deliver useful conclusions with varying degrees of certainty. They are not limited to formulating syllogisms; they are the supreme counselors of the Dune universe, filling roles as menial as archivist and clerk, or as grand as advisor to the Emperor.

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The political, scientific, and social fictional setting of Frank Herbert’s novels and derivative works is known as the Dune universe, or Duniverse. Set tens of thousands of years in the future, the saga chronicles a civilization which has banned computers but has also developed advanced technology and mental and physical abilities. Vital to this empire is the harsh desert planet Arrakis, only known source of the spice melange, the most valuable substance in the universe.

Creative works set in the Dune universe can be said to fall into five general time periods: The Butlerian Jihad; The Corrino-led Imperium; The ascension of the Atreides; The reign and fall of the God Emperor; and The return from the Scattering.

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