the encyclopedic entry of Fremen

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Fremen

The Fremen are a group of free people in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert, who based them on the Bedouin and the Kalahari Bushmen.

The Fremen inhabit Arrakis, also known as Dune, the desert planet that is the sole source of the spice melange in the known universe. The Fremen came to Dune thousands of years earlier as the Zensunni Wanderers, a religious sect in retreat. Over time, surviving the incredibly harsh conditions of Dune bred them into the ultimate example of humans in extremis: a people bred purely to survive. They took to calling themselves the Free Men of Dune, which was later shortened to Fremen; in an early, alternate Dune outline Frank Herbert called Spice Planet, the Fremen were literally the "Free Men" — convicts who had been transported to "Duneworld" to work for the spice operation of the "Hoskanners" in exchange for a reduction in their sentence.

Customs

Culture

The Fremen are organized into communities called sietches. Each sietch has a naib leader who decides what the people in the sietch will do (sending patrols, collecting spice, moving to a new place, etc.) and leads the sietch men into battle. A naib can be challenged by another fremen for leadership, and every new naib makes a ceremony in which he swears he will never fall alive into the enemy's hands. The Fremen practice polygamy, apparently as a means of pinpointing male infertility. Because their diet is rich with the spice melange, adult Fremen have blue-in-blue eyes.

Each sietch has a Sayyadina, a wise woman trained in the spiritual traditions of her people who frequently functions as an acolyte to a Fremen Reverend Mother, comparable to a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother. A Sayyadina can also function as a spiritual leader in her own right. There are hints in the novels that the Sayyadina rite preceded the adoption of the role and title of the Bene Gesserit equivalent.

Justice

The Fremen system of justice relies ultimately on trial by combat. The naib of the tribe is the person who killed the previous naib in single combat. Any Fremen may challenge another to a duel to the death over matters of etiquette, law, or honour; the winner of the duel is responsible for the wife, children, and certain possessions of the loser, as well as the right of the circumstances leading to the duel. Because a duel is fought without the water-retaining stillsuit, the victor is entitled to the deathstill-reclaimed water to make up for the moisture sacrificed in the fight.

Combat

Fremen are some of the best hand to hand combatants in the universe. Their difficult upbringing and spartan existence ensure that only the strongest survive.

In Dune, Herbert writes that "Paul recalled the stories of the Fremen — that their children fought as ferociously as the adults." Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV later notes, "I only sent in five troop carriers with a light attack force to pick up prisoners for questioning. We barely got away with three prisoners and one carrier. Mind you, Baron, my Sardaukar were almost overwhelmed by a force composed mostly of women, children, and old men."

Due to the invention of the personal body shield, hand to hand combat has re-entered human conflict; all forms of projectile weapons have been made semi-obsolete. Energy weapons — lasguns — react violently with a shield, creating an explosion comparable to sub-atomic fusion, killing operator and shield wearer. Body shielding may be compromised, but only by moving an edged weapon at a speed slow enough to penetrate the tuning of a shield. Additionally, shields are known to drive the fiercely territorial sandworms of Arrakis into a killing frenzy. For this reason, shields are not used on Arrakis's open regions with any frequency. Consequently, Fremen have an edge in hand to hand combat because they do not slow their weapons when attacking, unlike those used to attacking a shielded enemy. Fremen use different archaic weapons to great effect (firearms, crossbows), but the most deadly and prized possession of a Fremen warrior is the crysknife — a personally tuned blade ground from the tooth of a sandworm. An untreated crysknife will disintegrate soon upon the death of its owner unless it is close to human flesh. Fremen tradition also demands that a drawn crysknife must not be sheathed until it draws blood. In Dune, Paul Atreides (in his role as Muad'Dib) personally trains a force of Fremen "death commandos" (known as Fedaykin) in the use of the Weirding Way.

Water conservation

The most notable custom of the Fremen is their water conservation. Living in the desert with no natural sources of water has spurred the Fremen to build their society around the collection, storage, and conservative use of water. The Fremen think about moisture conservation, not simply water conservation. Dune (Arrakis) is a desert planet parched to such a degree that no natural open water exists on the entire planet. Thus water conservation is of utmost importance for survival. The Fremen have also evolved an extended large intestine for greater absorption of water .

Collection

Water is collected from the atmosphere in windtraps that condense the humidity and add it to the underground water store. Water can also be collected from dead animals and people (especially outside wanderers) and processed in a deathstill which removes the water from the carcass for addition to the sietch water store. The Fremen who caused or discovered the death of the animal or person is then given a set of waterrings whose markings denote a volume of water equal to the amount of water collected.

These rings are used as a form of currency, and are backed by fixed volumes of water (analogous to the historical gold standard). Water rings have a profound significance in matters of birth, death, and courtship ritual.

Storage

Each sietch has its own water store underground. This store can hold millions of decaliters of water and is accounted for literally to the last drop. This store is used as a bank for all the water owned by members of the sietch through water rings, as well as for the sietch's own store of water for the eventual transformation of their planet into something other than desert.

Conservation

The Fremen spend all time out of their sietch in a stillsuit, a special body-enclosing suit designed to collect and recycle all the moisture the body releases, from urine, feces and sweat, to the exhalation of water vapor in the breath.

The special fabric is a micro-sandwich designed to dissipate heat and filter wastes while reclaiming moisture. The water is then held in catchpockets and made available to drink through a tube.

A Fremen in a well-kept suit can survive weeks in the desert without any other source of water.

Because of their culture's focus on water conservation, it is generally considered a great sign of respect (though often interpreted otherwise) for a Fremen to spit before a person.

Fremen, because of their conservation routine, also put a great cultural reverence on crying and tears. Tears shed for someone who has died are referred to as "Giving Water for The Dead."

Language

The Fremen language is not actually given in the books, although Chakobsa, the so-called magnetic language, is used by them for ritual purposes. The samples of this language given in the book are, in fact, a Roma dialect. There are numerous items in the books which derive from Arabic, a fact which leads people to suppose that Chakobsa is Arabic based. It has no similarity, either in phonetics, vocabulary or grammar. The Arabic terms in the books are not part of the Chakobsa language adopted by the Fremen, but derive from the even more ancient origins of the Fremen. This Arabic aspect is most likely derived from their origins as Zensunni (a fictional syncretic religious belief combining principles of Zen Buddhism and Sunni Islam).

Mythology

A significant part of the Fremen mythology was created by the Bene Gesserit Missionaria Protectiva, through the manifestation of a Messiah legend. Diverse fail-safes and Bene Gesserit beliefs were inserted into the Fremen culture, to allow a Bene Gesserit-trained adept to exploit them to her advantage.

Population

In Dune: House Atreides, Pardot Kynes, the Imperial Planetologist to Arrakis conducted the first Fremen census, to determine the total population of Fremen there are on the planet. Until that time, Imperial and Harkonnen estimates totalled the number of Fremen on Dune to be in the thousands, up to possibly a million. When news reached Kynes' ears (who was regarded as an "Umma", or Fremen Prophet by then) by a young Fremen Sandrider, however, there were well over 500 sietches on Arrakis, and 10 million Fremen inhabiting those sietches. Adding that to Kynes and Frieth's (his wife and Stilgar's sister) newborn son, Liet-Kynes, the Fremen now "number ten million and one".

Notable Fremen

There are several individual Fremen who play a significant role in the saga of Dune. For a comprehensive roster, see List of Dune Fremen.

Fremen in the Dune games

The Fremen have ofttimes been mentioned in the Dune series of games, playing a vital role in the plots of nearly all of them. The first Dune game and Frank Herbert's Dune are tied closely to the original book by Frank Herbert, retelling Paul Muad'Dib's rise to becoming the Fremen's Messiah, and leading them against the Harkonnens and the Padishah Emperor under the Atreides banner.

In Dune II, the Fremen were special Atreides units, native elite guerillas invoked from the Palace, uncontrollable by the player. The same goes for Dune 2000, though with the minor exception that the Fremen warriors are player-controllable units. There was also a scene where the Fremen naib (which is uncommon, considering the naib was a woman) apparently held the Atreides Mentat at knife-point, supposedly as a threat.

During the War of Assassins in Emperor: Battle for Dune, the Fremen-Atreides alliances forged in ages past has sundered, and the Duke Achillus desperately wants to reestablish it in order for the Atreides supremacy over Dune to succeed. Mentat Kolinnar Koltrass requires the player to help do so by doing the Fremen favours in various parts on Arrakis.

The refusal of the Fremen alliance with the Atreides was featured in the second Atreides campaign cutscene, in which the two Fremen in the screenshot argued over the importance of said alliance. The naib was unwilling to discuss an alliance with the House because "our fathers spilt their water for them" for nothing. Even so, the Harkonnen will overrun the Fremen, while the latter will "stand as Fremen, and fall as Fremen".

Later, shortly after the Sardaukar assassination attempt, the Fremen troop mentioned in the previous cutscene were ambushed by a Harkonnen armor battalion. All hope seemed lost for the troop, when a fleet of ornithopthers flew out of the sky, assaulting the battalion, allowing the Fremen to charge in and mop up the remaining tanks. A while later, the Naib barged into the camp where the Mentat was talking to the player about the said deed, demanding the bodies of his fallen men since "that water belongs my tribe" and he shall have it back, lest he wants the Mentat to "taste my blade". A later explanation later revealed that the bodies of the fallen men were wrapped in microfoil to "preserve their water, they can be returned to you whenever you like". The Naib spat on the floor as a sign of respect to the Atreides commander.

Moments later, a Fremen-Atreides alliance conference was to be held on Caladan, much to the Naib's dismay. A Bene Tleilax assault force of Face Dancers besieged the party, with the Fremen representatives and the Duke later rescued by the player. In return of the player's aid to the Fremen, the massive water-debt owed by the Naib's tribe states that they'll send as many warriors into battle, along with their warrior elite, the Fedaykin.

Being a neutral faction, the Fremen can also choose to be allied with the House Ordos or be destroyed. An alliance with House Harkonnen — though it can be done in skirmishes — in the campaign though, is nearly impossible. In an opening cutscene, a Harkonnen soldier was seen slitting a Fremen warrior's throat, then proceeding to send the corpse rolling down the dunes. At some point in the game though, the Fremen will ally with the Harkonnen if the player plays for that House.

Aside from the typical Fremen warrior, the Fremen Fedaykin Warrior is a relatively new addition to the pantheon of units in the Dune series of games. Utilizing a Weirding Module as their main weapon, their attack is the infantry equivalent of the Atreides Sonic Tank. The Fedaykin are also accomplished Sandriders, luring sandworms using thumpers then proceeding to ride them for a limited amount of time.