Summary
There are plenty of planets in Frank Herbert’s original Dune Chronicles novels and in Denis Villeneuve’s 2021 film adaptation,Dune. We spend most of our time in the desert world of Arrakis, but we do get a brief look at other planets.
Notably absent from the filmand books is the one planet most of us are familiar with, Earth. Both the film and novels barely hint at the fate of the planet, but given the world and timeframe that Dune is set in, it makes sense that the world humanity was born on has been lost to time. Let’s take a look through humanity’s ancient history and see what happened to the pale blue planet by the time Paul Atredies came into his own as the Kwisatz Haderach.
Going Back To The Source
For a little context, the original Dune novels, collectively known as the Dune Chronicles, span six books and many different characters, on a mind-bogglingly huge plot that unfolds after thousands of years. These books are 1986’s Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and finally the 1985 Chapterhouse: Dune, which was published one year before Herbert’s death.
After Herbert’s death, his son Brian Herbert worked with other authors to continue the Dune series, spanning more than 20 novels and related works like essays and additional articles that help build the universe. Some of these are a little controversial, with not all fans accepting all the content of these supporting texts, so keep that in mind when you go exploring the wider Dune universe.
The series sets up a civilization broken by conflict but united by a need for the exceptionally rare spice melange that can only be found on the plant Arrakis. With the arrival of Paul Atredies on the desert planet, the course of human expansion changed in a dramatic way. Paul takes control of Arrakis, and then the imperial throne, becoming the leader of all of humanity, before eventually passing the crown to his twins.
Those twins would push humanity to achieve a greater purpose to avoid the inevitable extinction of the species, though the plans would take thousands of years to come to fruition. While the plan works, sending civilizations to new worlds in an event called the Scattering, they are forced to retreat when facing an ancient enemy, thinking machines, or artificial intelligence, which was a source of immense conflict in the thousands of years before the Dune novels started.
So Where Is Earth In All This?
Technically speaking, Earth is still right where you’d expect to find it in the Dune universe. It can still be found in the Milky Way galaxy, orbiting the sun, but it looks like a very different place by the time Paul takes the throne.
In the near future to us, but more than 24,000 years before Dune, humanity expanded to inhabit the solar system. This era saw the birth of a faction known as the Bene Gesserrette, which wouldeventually be known as the Bene Gesserit, to help guide and govern humanity. More humans would live off Earth than on it, upsetting the balance of civilization in a time that would be known as the Little Diaspora.
Unfortunately, life on Earth will be devastated by an impact from an asteroid or another similar celestial body in the year 2798, rendering the Earth unable to support life as we know it. While much of humanity was off-world at the time, it was still a devastating blow to mankind. Around 40 years later, Earth will be rehabilitated, the planet capable of supporting both plant and animal life, and transformed into something like a reserve, a place to be protected and kept pristine. Humans would still live on Earth, though it became a barony ruled by one of the most influential families at the time, House Corrino.
The people of Dune would come to call the first planet mankind grew from Old Earth, or sometimes Terra, or even Old Terra. Past this, however, not much is mentioned about Earth in the original Dune books, outside of a few references to events, people, or things from Earth.
Dune’s Expanded Universe And Earth
In the Expanded Dune Universe, which generally encompasses the novels by Frank Herbert’s son, Brian, it reveals a more detailed look into Earth’s history, though not everyone finds these events to be canon.
Eventually, the Earth would fall under the control of a group of revolutionaries turned tyrants called the Titans, a group of 20 influential people who wanted to bring about a new era for humanity. They did in a way, though it was by leaving an artificial intelligence to become the new controller of mankind. This thinking machine, called Omnius, would gain control of all the known universe, ruling from its primary body on Earth.
Omnius and its reign would end in a massive war called the Butlerian Jihad, though early attacks caused the planet to be bombarded with atomic warheads, rendering it utterly devastated once again. Once the war concluded, a new religious text would circulate through the human empire, the Orange Catholic Bible. One of the new commandments in this book is “Thou shalt not make amachine in the likeness of a human mind.”
House Atreides would find a foothold during this time, with Vorian Atreides, a distant ancestor of Paul, establishing himself as a powerful military leader and revolutionary working to free mankind from tyrannical robotic rule.
What About When Paul Atreidies Comes To Power?
Once the events of the original books come about, Earth has been reduced to something akin to a fairytale or forgotten empire.At one point in the series, Paul’s twin children, Leto Atreides II and Ghanima talk to each other in a dead language which is revealed to be French during a private time together. Later in the series, Leto II claims that Earth no longer exists, but still uses his prescience ability, a skill to see and experience events from the past and future, to witness historical events and peoples from the distant Roman Empire, and to recall classical musicians like Bach.
The secret sect of the Bene Gesserit is revealed to have maintained a collection of ancient Earth relics, including an unknown painting by Vincent van Gogh. They also consider the Earth to simply be “gone” during the Chapterhouse: Dune books, though whether they mean that it has been destroyed yet again and the empire has decided not to repopulate the planet, or that its influence and status as a center of power in the universe has ended.
