The Artifact: Ornithopters of Dune

In this episode of STBYM’s The Artifact, Robert discusses the ornithopters of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and its cinematic adaptations… 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Robert Lammin. This is the Artifact,
a short form series from Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
focusing in on particular objects, ideas, and moments in time.
In this episode, we're going to dive once more into
the fictional world of Frank Herbert's Doom to discuss the ornithopter,

(00:32):
the predominant form of airborne travel in the far future
interstellar Imperium. In Herbert's original novel, the author notes that
thoptors are quote any aircraft capable of sustained wing beat
flight in the manner of birds, and the exact details
of this technology are then largely left to the reader's imagination,

(00:52):
as well as the imaginations of numerous illustrators and storyboard
artists throughout the book's sixty year history. These interpretations vary greatly,
exploring the thopters biomechanical aspects to varying degrees. As such,
we see depictions of ornithopters that range from elegant bird
like machines to vehicles with big flapping wings to things

(01:15):
that only slightly indulge the overall concept. For instance, the
ornithopters in the nineteen eighty four film adaptation of Dune
are boxy, bulky, and feature small fixed wings that seem
more decorative than functional. One gets the impression that these
are meant to fly more due to the Dune universe's
fictional anti gravity Holtzman effect rather than anything aerodynamic. Now,

(01:40):
as a side note, I do want to point out
that the harconin thopters in nineteen eighty four's Dune look
a good bit cooler than the Atreades ones. You can
still find some old revel scale model kits of the
harconin theopter, and I think these would paint up nicely
if you can get your hands on one. Anyway, the
Sci Fi Channel minute series essentially delivered much the same

(02:03):
the Ornithopter as a mere futuristic aircraft, only without the
baroque design of nineteen eighty four's Doom. Eventually, however, the
wings would flap because the acclaim twenty twenty one and
twenty twenty four film adaptations of Doune envisionedthopters as a
kind of fusion of dragonfly and apache assault helicopter, a

(02:24):
design that depends on multiple rapidly moving wing blades in
order to hover and soar above the sands of Aracus. Subjectively,
I think these hit just the right spot, at least
feeling both aeronautically realistic and sufficiently majestic and intimidating. The
dragonfly comparison is also sound, as Herbert himself compared the

(02:46):
flight of ornithopters to the flight of insects. In the novel,
we read that ornithopters come in varying forms, including drone
ornithopters and observation theopters, and the most recent film adaptations
explored different models as well, from royal ornithopters and observation
ornithopters to troop carriers and air to ground assault craft. Now,

(03:07):
while we don't have a ravel scale model of any
of these, we at least have the Lego doom A
Treadees royal ornithopters set with flapping swooping wings. Of course,
I have yet to get my hands on one of these.
Here in the real world, we of course don't have
commonplace airplanes with flapping wings, though not for lack of trying.

(03:29):
As discussed in Andersen and Bowden's Introduction to Flight, humanity's
oldest dreams of flying were inherently biommetic. We looked to
flying animals, usually birds, and concocted various schemes by which
artificial wings would provide both propulsion and lift. These doom
designs varied from wing attachments for human arms to more

(03:50):
advanced but still equally flawed concepts such as Leonardo da
Vinci's glider esque ornithopter sketch with wings that flapped both
downward and backward to provide lift and propulsion, just one
of several spectacular Renaissance flying machines that da Vinci dreamed up.
According to Anderson and Boden, it wasn't until seventeen ninety

(04:11):
nine and the work of English inventor George Kayley that
serious human flight engineers separated the principles of lift and propulsion. Quote.
He proposed and demonstrated that lift can be obtained from
a fixed straight wing inclined to the airstream, while propulsion
can be provided by some independent mechanisms such as paddles
or air strews. That's not to say ornithopter technology is

(04:34):
completely beyond this. Flat powered flight can and has been done,
at least for small flying machines and or limited distance
at an experimental level, a nineteen thirty seven French design,
the Rio ten two t Allarion, never flew, but is
sometimes held up as a possible inspiration for Herbert's thopters,

(04:55):
as is the work in the nineteen forties by Adelbert
Schmidt which resulted in the first successful crude ornithopter flights.
The technology has remained the domain of experimentation and RC hobbyists,
and its brightest applications maybe in the future of uncrude drones. Naturally,

(05:16):
Dune is far future science fiction, and we can either
ignore the technical questions or anithopters might raise, or assume
that humans in the far future, humans that are capable
of traveling between stars have mastered feats of biomimetic design
and engineering that elude us today. But I do want
to highlight one of the weirder explanations for how Herbert's

(05:37):
dooptors might work, found in the nineteen eighty four Dune Encyclopedia.
It's a book I grew up borrowing over and over
again from the local library, and I was lucky enough
to snag a used copy for myself several years ago now.
The book was originally advertised as a complete and authorized
companion to the doone novels, of which there were only
four at the time, with Frank Herbert's Heretics of Day

(06:00):
publishing later that same year. So while Herbert gave this
book his quote delighted approval, it is actually the work
of Willis E. McNelly and several contributing authors. It provides
various explanations and histories that are not found in preceding novels,
are not reflected in subsequent novels, and is generally not
considered cannon. It is, however, tremendous fun and has entries

(06:23):
on everything from spice cookie recipes to detailed histories of
various characters, creatures, and factions. The entry for ornithopters is
a doozy, however, attributing the vehicle's rapid flapping not to
a central mechanical innovation, but rather to a domesticated organism
known as a heart scallop, an alien land mollusk that

(06:44):
begins life, we are told as an airborne polyp, before
fixing itself to a tree or cliff face, where its
muscular contractions pump through air to filter out microbes for
food and so. According to the Dune Encyclopedia Human engineers
eventually domesticated this species and put it to work at

(07:04):
the heart of their flying machines, providing an organic power
source for artificial wings. So the next time you watch
the recent Dune movies with their terrifying and majestic sequences
of thopt or flight over the desert planet, please imagine
a pulsating mollusk at the heart of each vehicle. Again,
it may not be cannon, but it's delightfully weird and

(07:26):
perhaps not out of step with the power of terrestrial mollusks,
which do both strong muscles, they create resilient materials and
generate impressive grips. I must have read this Dune Encyclopedia
entry when I was in junior high, but had forgotten
about it until my friend Brian brought it to my
attention again, and initially I did not believe him till

(07:47):
I grabbed my copy and turned to page four sixteen Kolwahad.
I was profoundly stirred. Tune in for additional editions of
the artifact the Monster fact or Animalius du Pindium each
week as all ways. You can email us at contact
at stuff to Blow Your Mind dot.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
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