Spacing Guild
The Spacing Guild is an organization in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe which possesses a monopoly on interstellar travel and banking. Guild Navigators (alternately Guildsmen or Steersmen) use the drug melange (also called "the spice") to achieve limited prescience, a form of precognition which allows them to successfully navigate "folded space" and safely guide enormous starships called heighliners across interstellar space instantaneously.
| Spacing Guild | |
|---|---|
| Dune franchise element | |
Mutated Guild Navigator suspended in a tank filled with spice gas, accompanied by Guild agents, as depicted in the David Lynch film Dune (1984). | |
| First appearance |
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| Created by | Frank Herbert |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| In-universe information | |
| Type | Organization |
| Function | Controls a monopoly on space travel and banking |
The power of the Guild is balanced against that of the Padishah Emperor as well as of the assembled noble Houses of the Landsraad. Essentially apolitical, the Guild is primarily concerned with the flow of commerce and preservation of the economy that supports them. Although their ability to dictate the terms of and fees for all transport gives them influence in the political arena, they do not pursue political goals beyond their economic ones.