Zaxx, on 03 March 2019 - 03:43 PM, said:
I agree but my argument was a comparison between the Dune setting and C&C so how does this refer to that?
I meant to say that the setting of
Dune II, which inspired
C&C, from the start bore only a superficial similarity to the
Dune books.
I feel I did not specifically address some of the points that you made earlier so here you go:
Zaxx, on 25 February 2019 - 06:57 PM, said:
- Melange and tiberium are pretty similar: both are important resources for the whole of humanity and both of them are basically alien substances that affect people in more than one ways.
Similar as in-game resources, yes, and similar as both are a type of unobtanium. But the "powers" given by each substance are very different.
It would probably be silly to argue that Tiberium was not in any way inspired by spice, but in the books, spice has completely different functions so to speak. I think that for FH, it symbolised humanity's ultimate dependency on a resource (in the context of his ecological ideas) because without the spice there'd be no space travel and the Imperium would fall apart. This is closely tied to and mirrored by the fact that spice affects human users like a drug and causes literal addiction.
Tiberium isn't even remotely that, it's an alien thing that basically makes Earth inhospitable in preparation for an alien invasion. One
could see it as a metaphor for petroleum and the ecological hazards of non-renewable energy, but I'm not sure this is what the developers intended to say. Even if the petroleum metaphor was inserted intentionally, is certainly not the main focus of the original game. Westwood did the good job of slowly revealing the properties of Tiberium to the player via all the cutscenes though (I love that Nod one where EVA says that Tiberium "appears to be spreading by means of conveyance, unknown", and Kane quips, "unknown to
them, perhaps"). I think one could find a parallel between this and how the properties of spice and its origins are slowly revealed. In fact, there are hints in the conversation between Jessica and Yueh that the Harkonnens possibly knew more about the spice than they revealed, yes, that could be compared to the Brotherhood's Tiberium monopoly (but for different reasons though).
Zaxx, on 25 February 2019 - 06:57 PM, said:
- Just like how the sandworms and the melange they produce change Arrakis into a desert planet tiberium is changing the Earth too.
Interestingly much of the
Dune books are about how the planet was transformed back into a more hospitable place. Again, FH had his ideas about climate and ecosystem changes behind this concept of the desert planet. The process of desert erosion is very Earth-like while Tiberium infestation isn't.
Zaxx, on 25 February 2019 - 06:57 PM, said:
- Two great factions are fighting for the same resource just like in the first Dune book.
Now this is the point I disagree the most with. The Atreides-Harkonnen feud is not a war for the spice, not even for control of Arrakis. Arrakis was just a trap set up for the Duke by the Baron. They had an ancestral score to settle and the Emperor allowed this to happen because he feared the power of the Atreides troops. It is heavily implied that the Harkonnens did not stand a chance against Atreides elite fighters on their own, without support by the Imperial Sardaukar.
This is not even remotely similar to how a military wing of the UN fights a quasi-terrorist militia in a twenty-minutes-into-the-future, past-Gulf War scenario.
Zaxx, on 25 February 2019 - 06:57 PM, said:
- Kane is pretty similar to the messianic figures in the Dune saga, especially in the later games.
I cannot judge how much the
Dune books could have influenced the character of Kane, I believe that he owes a lot to Joe Kucans's imagination and charisma than anything else. In the original game, Kane is clearly a villain (even if charismatic and mysterious), whereas none of the
Dune books portray Paul or Leto II as villains, even in
God Emperor where the reader is basically supposed to identify with Duncan and Duncan hates Leto II. No matter what the small people of the Imperium would think of that, or the Bene Gesserit who appear to have a king of a love-hate relationship with the Tyrant.
Zaxx, on 03 March 2019 - 03:43 PM, said:
Sure, it doesn't matter and you never implied that they are canon specifically but you did say that the Encyclopedia is an "authorized companion" without explaining what that means while that's pretty important. What that means is that Herbert approved the book by writing the foreword that said this:
Basically "this is great stuff but it's not canon."
This is my personal opinion and it does not have any bearing on the present discussion, but I've always had a problem with the whole "canon" argument in relation to the
Dune books. For me, discussing "canonicity" of this and that in
Dune is rather inappropriate because I have always valued Frank Herbert's ideas that are expressed in the hexalogy way more than merely the plot and characters. Canon and questions like do Ordos "exist" matter only on the plot level, not on the idea level.
Also from the "canonicity" standpoint,
Dune Encyclopaedia is not canon and Brian & Kevin's books are, yet in truth the former was written by highly educated people who meticulously studied the source material and tried to reflect upon it, while it is an established fact that the latter are full of inconsistencies that probably arose from insufficient research of the source material, and generally fail to even remotely approach the same depth as the original books by FH.