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In the movie Dune, we can see:

  • Paul trains himself fighting with a dagger
  • House of Atredies soldiers fighting with swords during a bombardment from outer-space
  • House of Atredies guards fighting with swords and spears on stairs

Given there are space ships, artillery and etc, why do people in Dune fight with cold weapons only?

Paulie_D
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Yu Zhang
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    https://winteriscoming.net/2020/09/11/why-people-dune-still-fight-swords/ – BCdotWEB Oct 21 '21 at 07:25
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    The effect of the shields (fast things can't penetrate them) is explained in the fight training scene (with Gurney Halleck, IIRC) in the early part of the movie. – DarkDust Oct 21 '21 at 13:03
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    Long answer short: Technology has rendered ballistic weaponry largely obsolete. – Omegacron Oct 23 '21 at 02:47
  • @DarkDust I thought what Gurney meant by that was that the old man was able to wear down Paul’s defenses over time. – bitmaker Oct 27 '21 at 20:10
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    @bitmaker: I just rewatched the scene. After switching on his shield, Paul "hits" his palm with the knife fast, which bounces off the shield. Then he moves it more slowly and it goes through. Gurney then manages to put his knife to Paul's neck and says, "The slow blade penetrates the shield". So it wasn't spelled out as explicitly as I thought it was, but it's there. – DarkDust Oct 28 '21 at 06:42
  • They don't. We see multiple instances of projectile weaponry in use. Ranging from Maula Pistols (Paul makes use of one, and we see Dr Yueh use one to kill the duke's unshielded guards). We also see self-propelled projectiles that hit the shield and force themselves through it slowly. The problem as demonstrated is that while it's stuck in the shield and forcing itself through, it's slow enough that the victim is able to continue fighting or even take measures to stop it! So outside of assassination efforts, it's not a useful battlefield weapon. hence: swords and melee, which work better. – Ruadhan2300 Nov 01 '21 at 10:47

2 Answers2

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This is covered in the novel (where guns DO exist) but I'll let the director explain his decision.

As it ends up, that has a technological explanation, too. “In this universe there’s an invention: The Holtzman Shield,” Villeneuve said. “It’s something that you can wear on your body, and will deflect something fast coming towards you. Only something slow can penetrate that shield. So, it made them use things like bullets less. Humanity went back to close combat, where you fight with knives and blades because it’s the only way you can kill someone through those shields. You can penetrate the shield slowly with the blade.”

That's not to say that guns don't exist in the Dune universe but they are of limited use.

Las­gun: con­tin­u­ous-wave laser pro­jec­tor. Its use as a weapon is lim­ited in a field-gen­er­a­tor-shield cul­ture be­cause of the ex­plo­sive py­rotech­nics (tech­ni­cally, sub­atomic fu­sion) cre­ated when its beam in­ter­sects a shield.

Shield, de­fen­sive: the pro­tec­tive field pro­duced by a Holtz­man gen­er­a­tor. This field de­rives from Phase One of the sus­pen­sor-nul­li­fi­ca­tion ef­fect. A shield will per­mit en­try only to ob­jects mov­ing at slow speeds (de­pend­ing on set­ting, this speed ranges from six to nine cen­time­ters per sec­ond) and can be shorted out only by a shire-sized elec­tric field. (See Las­gun.)

Dune - Frank Herbert

We see a "gun" in one character's hand when they kill some guards (it's hard to see as it's in the shadows). This seems to be more of an air-pistol shooting darts.

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Paul has one when confronted by the Fremen.

enter image description here

Paulie_D
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    And if you ask yourself why the shield isn't just completely impenetrable: The in-universe explanation here is that you still need certain things to pass through, like the air to breathe by the wearer. The only distinguishing factor by which a shield can decide which things to deflect and which to let pass is their speed. – ComicSansMS Oct 21 '21 at 13:26
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    This is one of those things that you shouldn't think about too much. A six-to-nine cm/sec limit still excludes a lot of things that are allowed in the narrative. Just think "it keeps out bullets, and destroys both the shooter and itself when lasers are used," and leave it at that. – EvilSnack Oct 21 '21 at 13:37
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    In the book there are several references to "slow pellet stunners" which are presumably gun-like devices that fire a projectile from range, slow enough to pass through a shield but with not enough energy to substantially damage the target, hence the need to stun instead. – Chris Petheram Oct 21 '21 at 13:46
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    Presumably visible light gets a special dispensation not allowed to other EM wavelengths and/or fast things. :-) I don't care though, loved the books and really looking forward to this! – Grimm The Opiner Oct 21 '21 at 13:53
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    @GrimmTheOpiner Clearly light is acting like a wave when it crosses the shield and not a particle ; ) – Logarr Oct 21 '21 at 16:23
  • Side note: IIRC the Fremen carried "maula pistols" which were spring-loaded dart guns i think. They were regular kit for them as they did not use shields. Haven't seen the movie yet, so not sure if that is what is shown in the scene mentioned above. – Yorik Oct 21 '21 at 17:41
  • What about lethally loud and concentrated sound? A Holtzman shield would presumably not protect against this. – Eiríkr Útlendi Oct 21 '21 at 21:24
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    I feel this argument would break down against a slug being fired from a shotgun. While it can't penetrate, it can definitely slow someone's advancement. From there, it'd just be scaling up the mass and velocity of the projectile to the point where the impact on the shield doesn't matter if it's penetrated. The sudden change in someone's velocity from the impact would be all that's needed to stop the threat. – Travis Oct 22 '21 at 21:13
  • What a wonderful plot device – Nacht Oct 23 '21 at 02:21
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    If anything, Arakis is one of the few planets where you might find a ballistic gun useful, due to the shield technology attracting worms. – Omegacron Oct 23 '21 at 02:51
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    Indeed the novel makes it clear that even blades must move slowly to penetrate shields; this impacts the entire style of fighting; e.g. “In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack,” Paul said. “Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The shield turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!” – Glen_b Oct 23 '21 at 07:10
  • I think there's even a scene where someone (Paul?) trained to shield-fighting gets in a duel without shields, and misses openings because they keep attacking too slowly. – Ben Oct 24 '21 at 11:09
  • Couldn't you use a gun like a knife? Slowly bring the muzzle into direct contact with someone's body/head, then pull the trigger? – Bohemian Oct 25 '21 at 02:37
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    @Bohemian Theoretically, I think so. The way I've always imagined it, the shield provides a buffer of a few centemetres (the distance of which can be adjusted by the wearer). So long as you could fit the entire gun in that space, then yes, in theory. If you cannot however, the barrel would be up against the wearer, but the bullet would still have to travel down the barrel, which may be partially in and partially out of the shield - which would cause the bullet to ricochet off the shield inside the barrel, leading to all sorts of fun! – user25730 Oct 26 '21 at 06:05
  • Where would the kinetic energy from such a deflection go to though? Seems such a shield can easily be "bypassed" by just making a bullet that explodes on contact and releases a lot of energy ("blowing away" the opponent leading to internal injuries). – paul23 Feb 28 '22 at 13:31
  • @ComicSansMS Of course, the average velocity of air molecules is within an order of magnitude of the speed of sound. – Acccumulation Mar 03 '22 at 03:01
  • @Travis The impulse a gun imparts on the target is the same as it imparts on the shooter. I.e. the kickback is as large, or larger, than what it would to the target. – Acccumulation Mar 03 '22 at 03:04
  • @Acccumulation with impulse equal to force x time, I agree impulse would roughly be the same, but kickback vs being hit would be much different. The time it takes for a projectile to stop after it hits a solid object is much closer to instantaneous (large force, small time) than it's acceleration down a barrel (smaller force, longer time, especially a shotgun slug). – Travis Mar 03 '22 at 17:34
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I've not seen the movie yet, so my reference is entirely from the novels (plus the Sci-Fi miniseries and 1984 Lynch movie).

First off, you need to consider three different technologies: lasguns, shields, and small arms such as maula pistols.

  • Maula pistols do exist in Dune, and fire a small shot - just like a standard pistol today. However...

  • Shields (either personal shields, or those used to protect ships/buildings) are basically forcefields. They will stop anything fast, but are vulnerable to slow objects. Hence, maula pistols are ineffective. In fact, a lot of sword/knife fighting is ineffective, unless the fighters slow their weapons down to penetrate the shield - otherwise it will bounce off.

  • Lasguns also exist. These are essentially big, bulky pew-pew lasers.

However, an interesting phenomenon is the Holtzmann effect. Should a lasgun hit a shield, the result causes an explosion that not only wipes out the shielded target (and the surrounding vicinity), but the feedback along the lasgun beam also wipes out the attacker. The explosion is also identical to those created by atomics - dreaded weapons that most Houses hold in reserve yet never dare to use, and their usage is forbidden under the Great Convention. A party utilising a lasgun/shield interaction risks the might of the Empire coming down on their House, so nobody dares risk it.

Thus, lasguns are seldom used because the result of an impact with a shield could result in:

1 - a huge explosion wiping out a large area, including an attacking force and unintended targets

2 - the attacker also being wiped out

3 - the explosion being mistaken for an atomic explosion, which is against the Great Convention and could result in a unified Landsraad coming down on the offending party (either militarily or in terms of sanctions etc)

I am unsure if it is in the movie, but in the novels,

Duncan Idaho sets up a shield and lasgun remotely in order to wipe out Harkonnen pursuers.

user25730
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