Guild Navigator

A Guild Navigator - also known as a Steersman - was a senior rank of pharmaceutically-enhanced humans within the Spacing Guild and the pinnacle of Guild ambition. Physically transformed through the consumption of massive amounts of spice melange in a microgravity habitat, Navigators utilized a highly conditioned form of prescience to safely cross interstellar and intergalactic space in colossal starships called Heighliners.

Description

As with all spice addicts, the first sign of melange-induced biochemistry was visible in the eyes, tinting the sclera and iris a dark shade of blue known a "blue-in-blue" or the "Eyes of Ibad" - "a total blue so dark as to be almost black."

To maintain their prescience, Navigators not only consumed large quantities of melange but lived in rectangular antigravity tanks filled with high concentrations of orange spice gas. This level of extreme and extended exposure - coupled with years of microgravity - caused their bodies to atrophy, mutate and elongate over time.

Book series

In the 1965 novel, Duke Leto Atreides noted that the Guild was "as jealous of its privacy as it is of its monopoly," and that not even their own agents ever saw Navigators. As such, Leto's son Paul wondered if they were mutated to the point of no longer appearing human. After Paul's bloody uprising on Arrakis and his victory in the Desert War and Battle of Arrakeen, two Guildsmen were brought before him who turned out to be early-stage Navigators - disguised with the use of contact lenses, gray uniforms and possibly other measures.

A late-stage Navigator named Edric is revealed in the first chapter of Dune Messiah, representing the Spacing Guild in an allied conspiracy against Emperor Muad'Dib's rule. Here, Edric is called a "humanoid fish" and described in his tank of spice gas as "an elongated figure, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned membranous hands — a fish in a strange sea." That same chapter mentions his expressive "fish mouth" and "tiny rodent eyes." Later, he's said to wear "his usual dark leotard bulging at the belt with various containers."

"Elongated and repositioned limbs and organs" were noted by Miles Teg in Heretics of Dune, along with their mating habits: "a young navigator in estrus and before entering the tank could breed with a norm."

In Chapterhouse: Dune, Lucilla noted the following after smelling spice on her Rabbi companion:

"Navigators were forever bathed in the orange gas of melange, their features often fogged by the vapors. Lucilla could visualize the Navigator's tiny v of a mouth and the ugly flap of nose. Mouth and nose appeared small on a Navigator's gigantic face with its pulsing temples. She knew how threatened the Rabbi must have felt listening to the singsong ululations of the Navigator's voice with its simultaneous mechtranslation into impersonal Galach."

In an unused chapter from Dune Messiah featured in The Road to Dune, Edric is shown surviving without spice gas after his tank was breached, though his prescient abilities were practically useless in this state. He was also described as having an orange face in a deleted ending, but whether this was his natural skin tone or simply a layer of melange powder is unknown.

Screen depictions

In David Lynch's 1984 film, a Spacing Guild entourage arrives on Kaitain to visit the Emperor's palace, including a third-stage Navigator suspended in a huge tank of spice gas. Nude and resembling a bloated manatee with a massive and brain-like head, V-shaped mouth and vestigial limbs, he is not shown to have the blue-in-blue eyes of a spice addict or the book's elongated limbs ending in oversized webbed digits. However, Frank Herbert reportedly liked the idea of different Navigator stages and incorporated it into his later books - along with their bloated faces, V-mouths and need for translation devices.

In the 2000 miniseries and subsequent Children of Dune miniseries, Navigators adhere somewhat closer to their book descriptions, having both blue eyes and webbed extremities.

In the 2021 film, Guild representatives appear humanoid, but their physical features are obscured by ornate robes and domed helmets clouded by orange gas. Unlikely to be Navigators, they outnumbered Thufir Hawat's mention of "three Guild Navigators" involved in the expensive round-trip to Caladan.

Purpose

Navigators were responsible for guiding spacefolders through minefields of celestial hazards. They accomplished this feat through clairvoyance bestowed by excessive exposure to melange - both orally and in gas form - allowing them to peer across vast distances of space and into the near future. Although Holtzman spacefolding previously destroyed one in every ten starships, a Navigator's keen and time-defying senses could plot safe courses and avoid dangerous routes before the fold even started.

Guild Navigators effectively replaced the need for navigational supercomputers, which were banned and destroyed during the Butlerian Jihad's crusade against all "thinking machines" in honor of its commandment "Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind." As such, humanity relied on these peculiar individuals and their unique foresight to safely travel the cosmos until the fall of the God Emperor and the Butlerian-defying advent of Ixian no-ships.

Abilities

Because of their limited divination, Guild Navigators were capable of seeing aspects of Paul Atreides' grand designs. As such, they perceived him as a threat to their power and indeed the stability of the Known Universe. This was present in the Guild's frenetic level of activity, panic buying of spice reserves, and low-cost military transit to Arrakis.

Two early-stage Navigators were present in Emperor Shaddam's entourage after his army was defeated by Paul-Muad'Dib's Fremen forces. Failing to gain the upper hand by threatening Paul's shipping privileges, they were soon cowed by his threat to permanently poison all spice creation across the planet, and their prescience saw this to be a legitimate outcome.

Edric

A prominent character in Dune Messiah, Edric took part in a plot against Emperor Muad'Dib some twelve years after his ascendance - his fellow conspirators being the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale, Princess Irulan of House Corrino, and a number of Fremen defectors. Edric's involvement was solely to shield their conspiracy from the Emperor's prescient foresight - since oracles had difficulty seeing each other in the timescape - and to deliver a resurrected and lethally conditioned Mentat-ghola of Atreides swordmaster Duncan Idaho to the young monarch. After the plot failed following Scytale's death, Edric and Mohiam were executed in 10210 AG by Fremen Naib Stilgar on orders from Paul's sister, Alia Atreides.

In Chapterhouse: Dune, a "very powerful" Navigator was described as "one of the Edrics," suggesting a possible breeding plan or Edric-based ghola copies.

Trivia

• Rather than their starship's Holtzman engines, the 1984 film seemingly depicts Navigators folding space themselves with the use of a laser-like mouth beam. However, this could simply be a holographic interface for navigation purposes.
• Guild Navigators may have been the inspiration for several creatures and characters in science fiction. These include the Navigators of Warhammer 40k, Combine Advisors in Half-Life 2, Aurora Units in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Melfina in Outlaw Star, the Cylon hybrids in Battlestar Galactica, the Tardigrade in Star Trek: Discovery, and many others.

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Appearances

• Dune (first-stage)
• Dune Messiah (third-stage)
• Children of Dune (mentioned only)
• God Emperor of Dune (mentioned only)
• Heretics of Dune (mentioned only)
• Chapterhouse: Dune (mentioned only)