>Possible Spoilers
>*
>*
>*
>*
>*
>*
>*
>*
>>The story of how spice is formed completely blew me. I even replayed the
>>converstaion between Cheney and Paul, and I still didn't quite get it.
>>There were a few other places where this story was touched on, but I wasn't
>>about to search through the whole movie to find them. Is the spice worm
>>eggs, worm excrement, or worm carcass?
>
>I can't remember if it was touched on in the book, but spice IIRC is a
>by-product of a worm.
>
>>The ecology of the planet seemed s bit surprising. The effects never
>>showed any plant life to speak of, yet somehow these giant worms are able
>>to survive.
>
>IIRC the worms are not the same sort of creature as normal terrestrial
>animals. Worms have a sort of chemical factory in them that processes
>stuff. IIRC, their waste gas is oxygen rather than CO2.
The books in the Dune series discuss this in more detail, although in
the first book, things were still somewhat vague. I dug out a copy
of "The Dune Encyclopedia" (1983) to see what it had to say. This
book has a lot of information that wasn't actually in the novels, but
was approved by Frank Herbert. Excerpts below from the "Shai Hulud"
entry regarding the origin of spice and the worms' lifecycle:
======
... the male [worm] deposited the spice-fiber egg case into the sand
nest ... buried deeply below the surface of the sand. At this stage
... the zygotes underwent an asexual cell division producing a
spongiform merozygospore containing thousands of future larvae. The
merozygospore ruptured, releasing [some mature] sandtrout [leaving
behind the rest of the immature larvae]. The sandtrout were
efficient water scavengers. They traveled hundreds of kilometers
through the sand seeking out water, joining their bodies with one
another to transport the water back to the nest site. ... As the
sandtrout brought water to the nest site, it mixed with the
excretions of the [remaining] larvae to form the pre-spice mass. The
chemistry of the reactions has not been determined; however, it is
known that C02 was evolved and built tremendous pressures within the
mass. When the pressure built sufficiently, there was a powerful
spice blow. All of the products of the pre-spice mass were brought
to the surface of the sand, where action of sun and air rapidly
changed the pre-spice to melange [spice]. ... During the "blow",
many sandtrout in the immediate vicinity were killed. ... The
chemical reactions during the spice blow triggered changes in the
surviving larvae, stimulating them to join their bodies in a
premetamorphic stage. At this point, changes in metabolism began, so
that the combined larvae became similar to the adult worm. Water
gradually became toxic ...
======
So it looks the answer to John's question is that the main ingredient
of spice is larval worm excrement.
Regarding the "nutritional" needs of the adult worm, another excerpt
from the "Shai Hulud" entry of the encyclopedia:
======
The adult [worm] was a true autotroph, producing all of its
nutritional needs from inorganic compounds on the planet surface.
======
Sadly, the encyclopedia is out-of-print. Here's Amazon's entry with
some customer reviews (including demands for a reprint):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0425068137/
The encyclopedia is kind of interesting because it's an "in universe"
encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is written as if by scholars in the
Dune universe approximately 2500 years after the events in the 4th
Dune book (God Emperor of Dune). The encyclopedia is not definitive
because the fictional historians do not have perfect knowledge, just
like historians in our universe do not have perfect knowledge of past
events.
>>On the same note, despite setting up the whole thing with the huge water
>>reservoirs, they never seemed to do anything with it. How did the water
>>get there? More importantly, how successful will they be with releasing
>>it? At the end of the movie that thread was dropped like a rock.
>
>You'll have to either wait for the sequals, or read the rest of the books.
>Yes, they do do something with the water.
The book "Dune" also ended the same way -- the promise of a future
with water. As Damon says, you'll have to read the sequels (or watch
them if they make sequels).
Jeff
---
http://www.netjeff.com/
