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"As the rate of technological development speeds up, the gap between science fiction and what we’re living now is getting narrower all the time."
- Richard Morgan
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| Fanmetal | ||
| High tensile strength material; used in collapsible structures opened by "fanning" them out. |
The Imperium is a quasi-monarchy that rules hundreds of planets. As you might guess, the architecture for the imperial household tends toward the grandiose.
Just as new technologies and building theories allowed people in Europe to build larger cathedrals, the technologies in the world of Dune supports the elaborate structures they need.
| Will you look at that thing!" Stilgar whispered.
The tall eastern face of the ship glistened in the flat light of the sun, but the shadow side still showed yellow portholes from glowglobes of the night... It wasn't the lighter that excited Stilgar's awe, Paul knew, but the construction for which the lighter was only the centerpost. A single metal hutment, many stories tall, reached out in a thousand-meter circle from the base of the lighter -- a tent composed of interlocking metal leaves -- the temporary lodging place for five legions of Sardaukar and His Imperial Majesty, the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV...
 (Fanmetal selamlik from Dune (2024) movie) And the Baron waited [within], glancing left and right at the metal walls of the selamlik, thinking of the monstrous fanmetal tent around him. Such unlimited wealth it represented that even the Baron was awed. He brings pages, the Baron thought, and useless court lackeys, his women and their companions -- hair-dressers, designers, everything . . . all the fringe parasites of the Court. All here -- fawning, slyly plotting, "roughing it" with the Emperor . . . here to watch him put an end to this affair, to make epigrams over the battles and idolize the wounded. |
| Technovelgy from Dune,
by Frank Herbert. Published by Putnam in 1965 Additional resources -
|
Herbert notes further that:
What more do you need, engineers?
Research in this area was already being done in the early 1960's that would have been available to Herbert: TiB₂ whiskers or platelets grown in molten aluminum yielded a much stiffer material (add Ti + B → tiny, ultra-hard ceramic whiskers crystallize directly in the liquid aluminum). By the early 1970's, Al–Al₃Ti and Al–TiB₂ metal-matrix composites were some of the strongest, stiffest aluminum alloys ever made by that time.
All this interior space, and no flying buttresses needed.
A "selamlik" is a term associated with traditional Turkish architecture. It is a place for the men of the household to receive and entertain male friends (while women were restricted to another area of the house - the harem). Read more about the konak (a palatial Ottoman Turkish house).
If you are interested in very large structures, see nanotech buildings, from Idoru, by William Gibson.
FANMETAL: metal formed by the growing of jasmium crystals in duraluminum; noted for extreme tensile strength in relationship to weight. Name derives from its common use in collapsible structures that are opened by “fanning” them out.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Dune
More Ideas
and Technology by Frank Herbert
Tech news articles related to Dune
Tech news articles related to works by Frank Herbert
Fanmetal-related
news articles:
- Growing Metal In The Shape You Want
- Superstrong Multilayer Metal-Graphene Composite Material
| 'Mooncrete' Lunar Regolith Concrete (LRC) |
| Harvard Metamaterials Change Structure Instantly |
| Nano-Chainmail 2D Mechanically Interlocked Polymer |
| Goldene - A Two-Dimensional Sheet Of Gold One Atom Thick |
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'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
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'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
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'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
