Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

...anyone else get the feeling the original Dune series is really not as much fiction as a re-worked description of the actual power factions and goals of our present world? I.e, a thinly-veiled large-scale 'disclosure'? Along the lines of Gesserit=Jesuit, but with many more correspondences than just that (I believe that one has been pointed out here at least a few times)

I've enjoyed reading various material on this site over the years, especially since the Reddit Dune subs seem rather intolerant of speculative questions...

well....anywayz....

Hi! Please feel free to introduce yourself in the introductions thread so you can be greeted to the sietch.

About your question, Frank was fairly clear about Dune being an exercise in prediction, not veiled reference to current day events. And the year he set for Dune is pretty telling about just how far away we are from these events (i.e. ~20,000 years). So no, I don't think Gesserit is code for Jesuit, although clearly his Jesuit upbringing would play into his naming and ideas for them. There's another thread about this exact issue (the naming of the BG) so go check it out; there are a few contenders for what the name might imply.

Other factions are pretty explicitly meant to be future combinations of previous cultures and languages, e.g. Fremen/Zensunni, etc.

To the extent that FH was describing reality as he sees it, extrapolated into the future, obviously it would say something about today since reality is reality. Since quite a big chunk of Dune is dedicated to the dangers of following a charismatic leader, that would be as applicable today as it was yesterday and will be tomorrow.

yes, i see by the fascinating (and unending) in-universe questions, such as 'did character X really mean Y when he said...' and the technical aspects of shields and lasguns ,that reddit-ism has already infiltrated here, their usual Missionaria Protectiva move...

oh well, was hoping to get down to the knife-edge and have an adult discussion of how our present-day landscape is a result of many of the factions herbert thinly-veiled in the 'Dune' series. apparently verboten, though. perhaps i'll just chew my lip and do a bit of out-loud wool-gathering in this thread and let the correspondences fall where they may...

Really nothing is verboten here to discus. Perhaps people here just don't like your topic of discussion and ignore it. But even then there is always George who posts thoughts about a topic. I don't really see why you come here, posts a random question without any introduction of who you are and then immediately start to sulk when few seem interested to converse with you. If anything this forum is a library of discussions about the Dune chronicles. It is part of the older generation of discussion forums which are used less and less. Nothing is lost here like it is on platform like credit or discord. So your comparison of this forum to reddit is a blatantly insulting to the quality of the post and posters of this forum.

Of course, just about all of it was inspired by or an allegory for our real world.

I agree. In many cases, the original Dune series is generally similar to our present world.