HTML Dune – Breeding a Dynasty [v0.2.1] [lmno]

[Arnav Dasari]

Characters would still carry their blades of choice around - but that'd be more of a cultural thing. ... Then, I'd introduce Duel Codex, according to which nobles must solve their differences with cold steel.

Now this is based.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

That's all cool and all, but can someone tell me why Jessica couldn't give birth to a girl first and later give birth to the Leto's male heir? What, the dude couldn't wait a year or two?

The only explanation I can come up with would be Jessica got to know that her daughter would be married to Feyd-Rautha and said "fuck your millennia of plans and genetic manipulations, there's no way I'd be a mother-in-law of that flaming fairy."

 

[reynold.biplane]

That's all cool and all, but can someone tell me why Jessica couldn't give birth to a girl first and later give birth to the Leto's male heir? What, the dude couldn't wait a year or two?

The only explanation I can come up with would be Jessica got to know that her daughter would be married to Feyd-Rautha and said "fuck your millennia of plans and genetic manipulations, there's no way I'd be a mother-in-law of that flaming fairy."

I've been wondering the same thing. With her fertility control she could have produced a dozen sons for him. But that can be explained away as a character quirk. (And I have already come up with my own headcanon, at least for the purpose of this game.) What's troubling me is the other side. Why did this cross the Bene Gesserits' plan? I understand them being angry at her because of her insubordination, but why didn't they immediately order her to have a daughter next? There are a few possible reasons, I just wish it would have been stated outright. Like, was it for political reasons? An Atreides son might in some way throw their planned web of marriages into disarray. But even then it wouldn't have hurt to let Jessica have a daughter next, just in case. Maybe it's for genetic reasons that I don't understand, like maybe it matters from which egg the mother of the KH is born. Maybe the upbringing is important too, like maybe she has to be the first child. First, second etc. children tend to have typical personality differences. Or maybe they were just on a very tight schedule. Get the Atreides and Harkonnen offspring married as soon as possible before war can break out. This may well end up being an important detail for the story of this game, unless of course I just decide to gloss over it and hope nobody notices.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

An Atreides son might in some way throw their planned web of marriages into disarray.

After giving it some thought, I came to some semblance of a possible explanation. What if the BG have been planning to exterminate House Atreides for good? Using their way, not the war/assassinations way of the great houses. No male heir whatsoever, the only daughter married to Harkonnens - that's it, the Atreides are no more. So Jessica's choice would be not just "make a gift for her beloved" but to save an entire great house.

 

[billyjoebobmartin]

Nope, dead wrong. That's more of a video game trope. Historically speaking, polearms were relegated more to anti-cavalry use only after firearms became the main weapon for infantry. Even a spearman with relatively little training can fend off a trained swordsman in most cases, provided they have space to manoeuver. Getting inside the guard of a spearman is not as easy as you think.

You must be registered to see the links

And that's without taking formations into account, where you can have staggered rows of points that are almost impenetrable.
Again, spears in one form or another were the main weapon of almost every pre-modern army. Not just peasants and levies used them, but also professional soldiers. Knights on foot didn't use swords that much either. The Romans are the only ones I can think off that used the sword as their main weapon. And even that was the case for only part of their history.

hmm, honestly a lot of the issues in that video seems more like a HEMA over specialized training problem. can't quite claim the sowrdsmen are "well trained" if they only know dueling against same weapons. and fuck their trashy point system. some of the spear stabs were clean hits AND potentially had enough power to kill/disable though. i will give the video that much. but the rest... sorry but any armor at all even shit low quality leather would EASILY deflect/absorb those. FUCK TRASHY TAP TO WIN POINT SYSTEMS.

i also would have liked to see them do best out of ten, AFTER doing practice runs just due to how unbarely sloppy a lot of the early ones were. to get some better and likely more accurate measurements for both sides. there also wasn't a whole lot of attempting to flank or fake out flanking going on in the duels. that spoke a lot about how bad their training is. forcing the spearmen to adjust horizontally as well as vertically makes a HUGE difference. the foot work is terrible too... but at least that was for both sides i guess...

i wonder how different they would be is they had real-ish, even if unsharp weapons. even the guy in your video notes that breaking the spear would make a difference in options available to the swordsmen. and i would think the weight of the swords (before the great swords big predictable swings folly... what was he even trying to do there anyways?) would better help with parry and deflecting. the force of the parry fucking matter a lot!!! i also would've like to see a two swords style mixed in there as well to see how they fare. though i think they'd have even more issues in group battle than sword and shield would. mainly because of lack of protection against more than a single spear strike, or two if the swordsmen is actually good enough to use both swords to parry one spear each. and being stabbed from the sides/back compared to sword shield combo which would require less movement to block. they also should've tested french duelist versus spearmen in a duel for kicks. if they got put into group battles i would laugh my ass off at how bad they'd do and would be some top teir comedy.

sorry for the rant, that video pissed me off.

but hmm, alright you've convinced me enough that they could be used on dune. especially since energy shielding and armor are going to be a thing they won't 'need' a hand held shield. so two handing would be done.

Sure, that existed, and they even trained that technique, but it was far from an ideal measure. Hitting the weak spot of a moving and resisting target isn't so easy. Knights of that era preferred to fight each other with pollaxes, war hammers, maces, etc.

it doesn't 'need' to hit a weak spot, when using two hands both blade grabbing in order to bash with the pommel. i would think it would bring a level of power above what a one handed mace could do. a two handed warhammer or a halberld like pole arm obviously will do more, i'll give you that one easy. could be an idea to have some smugglers use halfswording and/or two hand blade grabbing pommel bashing though. if i remember right the technique was born from mercs and sellswords developing it.

Nah, the shields in Dune are too cool and unique from every other sci-fi worlds I know. I think it would be better to nerf the shields somehow, rather than getting rid of them entirely.

hmm.... i'll think on this one and see if i can shit out a few possible ideas.

 

[reynold.biplane]

A little addendum to my post about weapons. I totally forgot to talk about poisons. I only mentioned them in the context of poison darts. But poisons are very widely used in Dune in many forms, including in combat. Knives are frequently poisoned, which means that they don't have to penetrate deeply to kill or incapacitate. As long as they can pierce through armor a little bit, enough to break the skin, that's enough. Though that still requires a certain degree of force. And then there is poison gas. The same stuff that Yueh put in the tooth could be used in large battles as well, WWI style.

And then I forgot to talk about the necessity of recoil. Unless a weapon striking a shield recoils from it, the shield is far less useful. Imagine this: I thrust my sword at the shield, not just a light jab - I'm pushing the blade rather than "throwing" it. Being too fast, the blade is stopped, but it doesn't recoil. I'm still pushing. Therefore the blade immediately accelerates forward again upon being stopped. And because the tip of my sword is now resting directly against the shield, it doesn't matter how hard I push. At the beginning of the push the tip is still slow enough to pass the shield. It would be like thrusting against a concrete wall that turns into jelly when I touch it. So all that the shield ultimately did was to delay my thrust by a split second and rob it of most of it's momentum. Not enough to save the wearer unless they were also wearing good enough armor.
So we have to assume that fast objects hitting a shield bounce back. Otherwise the shields don't work as described against knives and other thrusting weapons. Against bullets they still work perfectly fine. Actually I prefer the non-bouncy shields. They make knife and sword fights much more intuitive and natural.

hmm, honestly a lot of the issues in that video seems more like a HEMA over specialized training problem. can't quite claim the sowrdsmen are "well trained" if they only know dueling against same weapons. and fuck their trashy point system. some of the spear stabs were clean hits AND potentially had enough power to kill/disable though. i will give the video that much. but the rest... sorry but any armor at all even shit low quality leather would EASILY deflect/absorb those. FUCK TRASHY TAP TO WIN POINT SYSTEMS.

I think the issue here is that spears are more dangerous to train in HEMA. If you make them out of nylon like the swords, then the spears become too floppy (as seen with the greatswords). If you make them out of a stiffer material, like the ones in the video, then the potential for injury is greater. I think that the guys in the video were only jabbing lightly on purpose. The little foam tips do little to cushion the blows. Even with protective gear a full power thrust could lead to nasty injuries.

even the guy in your video notes that breaking the spear would make a difference in options available to the swordsmen.

Breaking a spear is another thing that's not as easy as it seems. Most swords aren't good at chopping wood (not front-heavy enough) and unless the spear is couched under the arm or otherwise held extremely tightly, or the cut occurs close to the grip, the shaft will be knocked away and take little damage. And that's assuming a wooden shaft. With plasteel or whatever futuristic material they might be using in Dune, I would rather assume that trying to break the shaft is not worth the effort.

but hmm, alright you've convinced me enough that they could be used on dune. especially since energy shielding and armor are going to be a thing they won't 'need' a hand held shield. so two handing would be done.

Actually I think traditional hand held shields would be almost completely useless in Dune when force shields are used. I'd rather have a two-handed weapon, dual wield, or just have a one-handed weapon and a free hand. Your whole body is shielded, including your arms. You can block with those already. I'd rather have a free hand for grappling then a useless shield.

it doesn't 'need' to hit a weak spot, when using two hands both blade grabbing in order to bash with the pommel. i would think it would bring a level of power above what a one handed mace could do. a two handed warhammer or a halberld like pole arm obviously will do more, i'll give you that one easy. could be an idea to have some smugglers use halfswording and/or two hand blade grabbing pommel bashing though. if i remember right the technique was born from mercs and sellswords developing it.

Maybe in medieval combat that's true, although I'd still rather trust a mace. But obviously any sort of blunt strike is utterly useless against a Dune-style shield, unless it's so powerful that it can knock the opponent off his feet (if shields even work that way). And you will never be able to do that with a sword.

After giving it some thought, I came to some semblance of a possible explanation. What if the BG have been planning to exterminate House Atreides for good? Using their way, not the war/assassinations way of the great houses. No male heir whatsoever, the only daughter married to Harkonnens - that's it, the Atreides are no more. So Jessica's choice would be not just "make a gift for her beloved" but to save an entire great house.

Ok, that would make sense. It is never mentioned that the Duke has any relatives that could take over the House if he dies without a male heir. But then why doesn't Jessica say that? She says she did it out of love for her husband, which is still technically true, but a very weak justification for such a serious matter.
But that leads me to another question. How then did the BG ever hope to get Leto to marry off his daughter to the Harkonnens? Obviously there's the enmity. But if on top of that it also means that this marriage would end his line... I think he would be far more likely to agree to such a union if he had a successor. Because without a son and no male relative, the daughter could become Duchess. A precedent for this possibility already exists. Irulan is designated to take over her father's throne. So why would Leto agree? I guess the BG could find a way. Maybe assassination?

 

[billyjoebobmartin]

A little addendum to my post about weapons. I totally forgot to talk about poisons. I only mentioned them in the context of poison darts. But poisons are very widely used in Dune in many forms, including in combat. Knives are frequently poisoned, which means that they don't have to penetrate deeply to kill or incapacitate. As long as they can pierce through armor a little bit, enough to break the skin, that's enough. Though that still requires a certain degree of force. And then there is poison gas. The same stuff that Yueh put in the tooth could be used in large battles as well, WWI style.

good point on poisons. that would make two handed spears even more viable.

also wasn't there something about the smugglers gasing planets in one of the older movies? could've sworn that was the big justification for pual to not ally with them. which still strikes me as odd why smugglers would do something like that, you would think black market trade deals would be WAY more lucrative than most anything they could be hired/bribed with. and even more odd how it wasn't treated as fearmongering propaganda. like 'just because they could, doesn't mean they will' type thing. same arguments could be made about the use of atomics after all.

now if the argument was made about the smugglers betraying and selling paul out to his enemies being likely. THAT would make a lot of sense.

And then I forgot to talk about the necessity of recoil. Unless a weapon striking a shield recoils from it, the shield is far less useful. Imagine this: I thrust my sword at the shield, not just a light jab - I'm pushing the blade rather than "throwing" it. Being too fast, the blade is stopped, but it doesn't recoil. I'm still pushing. Therefore the blade immediately accelerates forward again upon being stopped. And because the tip of my sword is now resting directly against the shield, it doesn't matter how hard I push. At the beginning of the push the tip is still slow enough to pass the shield. It would be like thrusting against a concrete wall that turns into jelly when I touch it. So all that the shield ultimately did was to delay my thrust by a split second and rob it of most of it's momentum. Not enough to save the wearer unless they were also wearing good enough armor.
So we have to assume that fast objects hitting a shield bounce back. Otherwise the shields don't work as described against knives and other thrusting weapons. Against bullets they still work perfectly fine. Actually I prefer the non-bouncy shields. They make knife and sword fights much more intuitive and natural.

hmmm, was there anything mentioned about shield colliding. potentially the shields could 'merge' or otherwise interfere with each other in close proximity. that could be used as a round about method why melee work and firearms nerfed.

I think the issue here is that spears are more dangerous to train in HEMA. If you make them out of nylon like the swords, then the spears become too floppy (as seen with the greatswords). If you make them out of a stiffer material, like the ones in the video, then the potential for injury is greater. I think that the guys in the video were only jabbing lightly on purpose. The little foam tips do little to cushion the blows. Even with protective gear a full power thrust could lead to nasty injuries.

MMA fights are dangerous. weight lifting at the gym can be dangerous. training at a gun range is dangerous. hunting for sport or food is dangerous. skydiving is dangerous. hell driving a car is dangerous. HEMA needs to stop wrapping things in bubble wrap like idiots, and actually teach people how to fight AND how to hold back. otherwise it's just nerds playing pretend. don't like injuries? don't join training!

like seriously though. can you imagine if medieval sparing and/or group battle became an olympic sport and how amazing that would be? can't ever get there if things are toned down to damn far that their 'training' becomes utterly useless.

Breaking a spear is another thing that's not as easy as it seems. Most swords aren't good at chopping wood (not front-heavy enough) and unless the spear is couched under the arm or otherwise held extremely tightly, or the cut occurs close to the grip, the shaft will be knocked away and take little damage. And that's assuming a wooden shaft. With plasteel or whatever futuristic material they might be using in Dune, I would rather assume that trying to break the shaft is not worth the effort.

100%. never said it was easy, just another option.

as for dune and plasteel. probably right. only way i could see otherwise would be if the weaponry was more advanced than the alloys. like molecular or vibration blades for example.

Actually I think traditional hand held shields would be almost completely useless in Dune when force shields are used. I'd rather have a two-handed weapon, dual wield, or just have a one-handed weapon and a free hand. Your whole body is shielded, including your arms. You can block with those already. I'd rather have a free hand for grappling then a useless shield.

once more 100%.

 

[reynold.biplane]

also wasn't there something about the smugglers gasing planets in one of the older movies? could've sworn that was the big justification for pual to not ally with them.

I have genuinely zero idea what you are talking about. Maybe that happened in the mini-series?

hmmm, was there anything mentioned about shield colliding. potentially the shields could 'merge' or otherwise interfere with each other in close proximity. that could be used as a round about method why melee work and firearms nerfed.

I don't think it was ever mentioned how shields interact with each other and I'm pretty certain that they don't merge, but that's a really good idea! It wouldn't just explain the use of melee weapons but also the use of short weapons specifically.

MMA fights are dangerous. weight lifting at the gym can be dangerous. training at a gun range is dangerous. hunting for sport or food is dangerous. skydiving is dangerous. hell driving a car is dangerous. HEMA needs to stop wrapping things in bubble wrap like idiots, and actually teach people how to fight AND how to hold back. otherwise it's just nerds playing pretend. don't like injuries? don't join training!

like seriously though. can you imagine if medieval sparing and/or group battle became an olympic sport and how amazing that would be? can't ever get there if things are toned down to damn far that their 'training' becomes utterly useless.

If you say so, tough guy.

like molecular or vibration blades

THIS
If anything like that was ever mentioned it would completely explain the lack of armor. But alas, no. All the blades are just normal blades, as far as we know.

 

[Morgan12451]

Yo guys better write code then answers️️️

 

[BOBtheboober1995]

8.5/10 soo far, need more H scene but looks like game is in early stage. Hope the next update is soon and i am hoping more H scene progress with the Queen then it would be 9+ game.

is there NTR/Sharing planned ?

 

[Finuee]

Yo guys better write code then answers️️️

Reynold does not code, lmno and I do.

 

[reynold.biplane]

8.5/10 soo far, need more H scene but looks like game is in early stage. Hope the next update is soon and i am hoping more H scene progress with the Queen then it would be 9+ game.

is there NTR/Sharing planned ?

Hard no to full-on NTR. But sharing? Oof. In some form yes. We are aware that it's controversial, so we will try our best to make sharing completely optional. And in gameovers anything goes. That's already the case. I think anyone but the most fragile minds should be able to get over a bad ending, since that's not what's actually happening, but rather a possible consequence of bad choices.
On a side-note: I don't think all sharing is made equal. Technically Paul has to share his mother with his father at this point in the story. We never show Jessica and Leto having sex, but they are husband and wife and they love each other. Nobody seems to have a problem with that so far.
Also I think there's a difference between passing around your love interest in an orgy vs. allowing your love interest to have an affair with one of her relatives in this incest-focused game. Am I right in this assumption?

Reynold does not code, lmno and I do.

Yet I'm the one who works the slowest, so in that sense he's correct. Nonetheless, I will not stop doing what's fun for me.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

Am I right in this assumption?

As long as the relative in question is female as well.

 

[reynold.biplane]

As long as the relative in question is female as well.

I'm guessing sharing someone with another woman (incest or not) is generally not looked down upon if this also opens up the possibility of a threesome (Jessica and Chani for example)?

 

[Arnav Dasari]

I'm guessing sharing someone with another woman (incest or not) is generally not looked down upon if this also opens up the possibility of a threesome (Jessica and Chani for example)?

I don't mind sharing a woman with another woman even if MC doesn't participate. Sharing a woman with another man, relative or not, is not something enjoyable for me or, I believe, majority of users.

 

[Finuee]

I don't mind sharing a woman with another woman even if MC doesn't participate. Sharing a woman with another man, relative or not, is not something enjoyable for me or, I believe, majority of users.

What are your thoughts on the Jessica situation, being a love interest of the MC (her son Paul), while at the same time being married (to Duke Leto, father of the MC)? Honest question.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

What are your thoughts on the Jessica situation, being a love interest of the MC (her son Paul), while at the same time being married (to Duke Leto, father of the MC)? Honest question.

Well, you know, feels less than ideal. I won't call it the c-word, but if it was up to me I'd wait with Paul's moves on her until she becomes a widow.

 

[reynold.biplane]

Well, you know, feels less than ideal. I won't call it the c-word, but if it was up to me I'd wait with Paul's moves on her until she becomes a widow.

Interesting. I will think about it. But no promises.

 

[name]

well i'm personally looking forward to the spice orgy, not many works of fiction (that i've read) go through with something like that so it's something i've always associated with Dune, and it helps that i'm not exactly opposed to group stuff. i do think it's the right idea to keep the sharing optional. that's probably a lot of work both narratively and mechanically but it's for the best to please all sides in regards to this, plus it's a big event and deserves special treatment. it could probably take an entire chapter all to itself

 

[Finuee]

Well, you know, feels less than ideal. I won't call it the c-word, but if it was up to me I'd wait with Paul's moves on her until she becomes a widow.

Thanks a lot for the feedback.