For a really excellent critique of the broader trope represented by the Fremen, I recommend the entertaining and informative post series The Fremen Mirage on the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry. The author describes the mirage as having a few components:
People in less settled or ‘civilized’ societies are made inherently ‘tougher’ by those hard conditions.
Consequently, people from these less settled societies are better fighters and more militarily capable than their settled or wealthier neighboring societies.
That, consequently the poorer, harder people will inevitably overrun and subjugate the richer, more prosperous communities around them.
That the consequence of the previous three things is that history supposedly could be understood as an inevitable cycle, where peoples in harder, poorer places conquer their richer neighbors, become rich and ‘decadent’ themselves, lose their fighting capacity and are conquered in their turn.
I think this is a common trope that’s sufficiently ahistorical as to be misleading, which seemed worth flagging on a list of fiction for people thinking about possible long-run futures.
For a really excellent critique of the broader trope represented by the Fremen, I recommend the entertaining and informative post series The Fremen Mirage on the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry. The author describes the mirage as having a few components:
People in less settled or ‘civilized’ societies are made inherently ‘tougher’ by those hard conditions.
Consequently, people from these less settled societies are better fighters and more militarily capable than their settled or wealthier neighboring societies.
That, consequently the poorer, harder people will inevitably overrun and subjugate the richer, more prosperous communities around them.
That the consequence of the previous three things is that history supposedly could be understood as an inevitable cycle, where peoples in harder, poorer places conquer their richer neighbors, become rich and ‘decadent’ themselves, lose their fighting capacity and are conquered in their turn.
I think this is a common trope that’s sufficiently ahistorical as to be misleading, which seemed worth flagging on a list of fiction for people thinking about possible long-run futures.
Fascinating, thanks for sharing!