Where's Earth in Dune
We're on the right timeline, as far as the lore is concerned.
By the time of Paul Muad’Dib, Earth (or as it’s more commonly known, Old Terra) barely existed. It was a faded memory, the stuff of legends and myths - a planet most people didn’t even know existed.
The original six books don’t talk about what exactly happened to Earth - whether it was destroyed or abandoned, the only thing that’s clear is that it’s no longer relevant.
The imperial seat is on the planet Kaitain, and the most precious substance can be found only on Arrakis.
SPOILER WARNING: CONTENT FROM ALL DUNE BOOKS
Yet, Frank Herbert scattered plenty of references to our pale blue dot, providing us with a good understanding of how its influence continues into the far future.
Its languages form the basis of Imperial speech, its religious traditions merge into the Orange Catholic Bible, and its plants and animals spread across the known universe.
Names flitted through Paul’s mind, each with its picture imprinted by the book’s mnemonic pulse: saguaro, burro bush, date palm, sand verbena, evening primrose, barrel cactus, incense bush, smoke tree, creosote bush … kit fox, desert hawk, kangaroo mouse….
Names and pictures, names and pictures from man’s terranic past—and many to be found now nowhere else in the universe except here on Arrakis.
— Dune [1965]
But the planet itself is rarely discussed, with regular characters showing almost no knowledge about humanity’s origins.
One of the most prominent exceptions to this is when Paul uses Earth history to put his own Jihad in perspective.
"How much history do you know?" Paul mused aloud, studying the shadowy figure beside him.
"M'Lord, I can name every world our people touched in their migrations. I know the reaches of Imperial . . ."
"The Golden Age of Earth, have you ever studied that?"
"Earth? Golden Age?" Stilgar was irritated and puzzled. Why would Paul wish to discuss myths from the dawn of time?
[…]
"There's another emperor I want you to note in passing -- a Hitler. He killed more than six million. Pretty good for those days.
[…]
at a conservative estimate, I've killed sixty-one billion, sterilized ninety planets, completely demoralized five hundred others. I've wiped out the followers of forty religions.
— Dune: Messiah [1969]
If, at this point in the story, you still haven’t figured out that Paul isn’t the hero, Herbert tells you point-blank that Muad’Dib is literally 10,000 times worse than Hitler, who is universally known as the worst person in human history.
And while Leto II’s Other Memory provides us with glimpses of Earth’s music, philosophy, and history, with references to Mozart, Bach, and Torquemada, we never actually learn how Earth became irrelevant.
That’s where both the Dune Encyclopedia and the Expanded Universe of Brian Herbert’s books fill in the gaps in a big way.
🔒 In the full article:
Did we destroy Earth? Or was it a random asteroid?
How the Fremen can trace their ancestry back to the Sahara
French as the most secret of all languages
The Bene Gesserit’s obsession with herbs
The conch that survived thousands of years
The reason Earth is great world-building
Refer two friends and get a month of Dune Navigator for free:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Dune Navigator to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.