for the record, like almost all big classic sci-fi, these books (dune) are remarkably bigoted and reductive. i still like space stories and political intrigue tho.
alt text: Trade Offer from Sand Worm Leto Atreides. You receive: 4000 years of planet bound subjugation. Spice, eventually. Famine. Sex ninjas from outer space. Golden Path... I recieve: Like 70 something Duncan Idahos. Gentle Hwi.
Yes, “teach them a lesson they’ll feel in their bones.” Although I thought the focus of being a despot, along with the Scattering, was to teach a humanity a lesson about avoiding the “Pharaonic Disease”; to reject authoritarians.
That was one of the points, yes. The lives of almost all humans in the galaxy were reduced to the same conditions, and put under ever increasing authoritarianism, that they would all break at once and forever have a shared hatred for despots.
You’re right. I can’t remember if was also to drive them away or if I just misremembered that. It’s been a bit since I last read them
Curiously this was an objective of the French Reign of Terror, to create consequences for an oppressive ruling class so dire it would make tyranny unthinkable. It didn't work in the short term (as demonstrated by the recurring piles of heads when the aristocracy forgot about the last batch.)
Of course, French history doesn't have oracles, but the Hellenists did, and still nobody listened to Cassandra.