@LaineyBug2020

2 months ago

My head canon was that they were silicon based life forms and that's why they worked so well breaking down and metabolizing the sand, minerals and metals at every stage of their lives. As sand plankton, they filter feed with a symbiotic colony of bacteria that they host. The bacteria feed on yeast that grows wild on the grains of sand and other substrates that the sand plankton consume. Since labs have been able to synthesize psilocybin from bacteria that feed on yeast, I theorize that a similar process is what gives the melange it's psychoactive properties. This digestive process also provides the O2 and other gasses that make up the planet's atmosphere. The sand plankton would reproduce asexually with budding polyps so there's always a growing and thriving population for the base of the food chain. Their imperative at this stage would just be to eat and reproduce. They would be able survive in dry and wet conditions. In God Emperor of Dune, when a sand worm falls into a river, it breaks down completely into sand plankton and is able to survive so a new cycle of worms can be started. When conditions are right, perhaps when the sand plankton have built up enough nutrients, they instinctively come together into sand trout. The sand trout can still break down and metabolize particulates from the sand or other substrates, and they feed on the plankton to maintain their stores of the bacteria and yeast and to absorb supplemental nutrients from them. While there is a certain level of moisture in the environment, sand trout is the highest form they will take. Their imperative is to eat and sequester water so they can band together and morph into their final forms. When enough water has been sequestered, the sand trout instinctively band together into the sand worms and form Little Makers that grow into Shai-Hulud. The sand worms are always churning away like any good detritivore, only instead of plant materials, they break down silicates, other minerals and metals. If they have any bone like structures besides their teeth, these are the what they are made of. This is why their teeth make such great Crysknives. They are described as being ivory like, as hard as steel and gleaming like a crystal almost lit from within. They also feed on the sand plankton and sand trout to supplement their nutrition and help produce their spice essences which would work similarly to plasma. The friction from their locomotion ignites the particulates which aids in their break down and fuels their internal furnace that in turn expells gasses like O2 and H20 back into the atmosphere. The sand retains most of the H20 which is further sequestered by the sand trout. Sand worms may reproduce with a combination of broadcast spawning and budding, which may be another way for them to spread the desert. They would leave a budding segment as close to the moisture as they can get. These buds can normally survive on their own and become another Little Makers then Shai-Hulud, but if the environment it too moist, they'd 'die' and break back down into sand plankton. Then the cycle would start all over and thus spread the desert. Alternatively, two or more sand worms could leave their buds in the same space so there would be a chance for sharing DNA when the sand plankton eventually reform into sand trout. Thank you for coming to my Dune Talk!

1.4K |