List of technology in the Dune universe

The Butlerian Jihad, an event in the back-story of Herbert's universe, leads to the outlawing of certain technologies, primarily "thinking machines", a collective term for computers and artificial intelligence of any kind.

In the initial Dune novels, the Great Houses of the Landsraad own "family atomics" as heirlooms, keeping a secure, hidden cache as weapons of last resort in their wars.

[7]In Dune, Paul uses an atomic device on the surface of Arrakis to blast a pass through the Shield Wall, a desert mountain range protecting the planet's capital.

[8] In the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (1999–2001) it is revealed that a renegade House of the Landsraad had devastated the capital of the Corrino Padishah Empire, Salusa Secundus, with atomics and rendered the planet essentially uninhabitable.

Part of Shaddam's plan to ensure his own spice monopoly, the explosion causes a quarter of the planet Richese's population to go blind from the resulting light produced by the destruction of the Richesian mirrors stored on Korona.

[11] Later in the series, the Tleilaxu scientists also use the axlotl tanks to replicate the spice melange, previously only available on the desert planet Arrakis where it is created naturally as part of the life cycle of giant sandworms.

The hands rotated him and, in the unfocused blurs of the newborn, he saw a great mound of female flesh—monstrous in her almost immobile grossness…a maze of dark tubes linked her body to giant metal containers.

Over 11,000 years before the events of Frank Herbert's Dune (1965), a group of 20 ambitious humans see the stagnation of the Old Empire and realize that their small band can take control of it with the aid of thinking machines.

Calling themselves the Titans, they rule humanity for a hundred years and rename themselves after famous historical and mythological figures, most notably Agamemnon, Ajax, Barbarossa, Dante, Hecate, Juno, Tlaloc and Xerxes.

Juno is inspired by the cogitors, ancient philosophers whose brains had been installed in fluid-filled canisters so that they might analyze the universe indefinitely; they are living and retain awareness and consciousness, and the ability to communicate should they choose.

Almost chinless round faces, pug noses, tiny mouths, black button eyes, and short-cropped white hair that stood up from their heads like the bristles on a brush.

In Heretics of Dune, Master Waff attempts to control his Face Dancer duplicate of Hedley Tuek: "Humming sounds like the noises of angry insects came from his mouth, a modulated thing that clearly was some kind of language.

"[11] In Dune Messiah (1969), Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale enters into a conspiracy with the Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild and House Corrino to remove Paul Atreides from the Imperial throne.

"[12] In Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's 2006 continuation of the original series, Hunters of Dune, the leaders of the Lost Tleilaxu have been killed and replaced by their own advanced Face Dancers, who cannot be detected by even the Bene Gesserit.

Khrone's Face Dancers have secretly gained control of many power bases across the Empire, and Daniel and Marty are revealed to be new incarnations of mankind's ancient enemies, thinking machine leader Omnius and his second-in-command Erasmus, introduced in the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Anderson.

Secretly in control of Ix and its technology production, Khrone manipulates the Spacing Guild and New Sisterhood, setting them up for disastrous failure in their final battle against the thinking machine forces of Omnius.

[5]Heighliner operation requires a Guild Navigator, who uses a limited form of prescience (made possible by their use of the drug melange), to safely guide the ship across space at "translight" speeds.

[9] During the events described in the 2001 prequel Dune: House Corrino, a heighliner is expertly spacefolded into a cavern under the surface of Ix, incapacitating an occupying army during the Atreides-led liberation of the planet.

However, the chaotic and seemingly non-deterministic quantum nature of "foldspace" requires at least limited prescience on the part of the human navigator; otherwise the absurdly complex mathematics involved in producing reliable physical projections of such events would only be possible with advanced computers, which are strictly prohibited because of mankind's crusade against thinking machines, the Butlerian Jihad.

[28] Hovering devices called suspensors utilize the "secondary (low-drain) phase of a Holtzman field generator" to nullify gravity "within certain limits prescribed by relative mass and energy consumption.

[33] Using lasguns in a shielded environment can result in military and environmental catastrophe, though at one point in Dune Duncan Idaho deliberately allows shield–lasgun contact as a discouragement to his enemies.

[8] In Heretics of Dune (1984), Miles Teg, the Bene Gesserit Lucilla and the Duncan Idaho ghola hide in a no-globe on Gammu, created by the Harkonnens millennia before when the planet had been called Giedi Prime.

[11] Teg steals a massive no-ship from the fierce Honored Matres on Gammu in Heretics of Dune, and its Great Hold alone is noted to be one kilometer in length, large enough to transport an adult sandworm.

With the help of genetic material possessed by Scytale, the passengers of the Ithaca begin growing gholas of historical heroes such as Paul Atreides and Lady Jessica to assist them in the final battle they know is coming against the Unknown Enemy.

In the 2021 film adaptation, ornithopters are depicted with four or eight foldable, flapping wings on either side, resembling those of a dragonfly,[37] a design that director Denis Villeneuve had conceived when he read the novel at a young age.

[40] As described in the 1965 novel Dune, a stillsuit is a "body-enclosing garment" of Fremen design which performs the "functions of heat dissipation and filtering bodily wastes" to reclaim moisture.

[12] A Weirding Module is a fictional sonic weapon introduced in and specific to Dune, the 1984 David Lynch film adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel of the same name.

He experiences first coldness, tingling, then itching, followed by "the faintest burning" which soon intensifies to the point that "he could feel skin curling black on that agonized hand, the flesh crisping and dropping away until only charred bones remained".

[46] In God Emperor of Dune (1981), Moneo Atreides uses a memocorder, a tiny handheld device described as "a dull black Ixian artifact whose existence crowded the proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad".

[8]In Heretics of Dune, Reverend Mother Lucilla recognizes a device called a hypnobong in use on the street, witnessing a passerby lean into a concave basin and then lift his face "with a shudder ... staggering slightly, his eyes glazed".