Sardaukar

The military force of the Padishah Emperor and the Great House of Corrino. The Sardaukar are the fanatical, cold-blooded military elite belonging directly to the Padishah Emperor. For centuries, they were the undisputed terror of the galaxy. They are the primary reason House Corrino held the imperial throne for 10,000 years – if any noble house stepped out of line, the Emperor simply sent the Sardaukar to completely exterminate them. Forged in Hell – Frank Herbert used the Sardaukar to show how a brutal environment can forge human weapons. They are raised from childhood on Salusa Secundus, the Emperor’s designated prison planet. Salusa Secundus is a radioactive, toxic, predator-filled hellhole where the survival rate for prisoners is less than 50%. The children who manage to survive are selected by the military. They are conditioned through religious fanaticism to view the Emperor as a literal God and are trained in lethal martial arts, swordplay, and psychological cruelty. Their training is so intense that by the time they are adults, a single Sardaukar soldier is physically worth ten regular soldiers from any other noble house. They are completely devoid of fear, remorse, or mercy.

The Ultimate Dynamic Shift – The brilliant twist in the story happens when the Sardaukar arrive on Arrakis to destroy House Atreides. They assume the local Fremen are primitive “desert rats”. However, Arrakis is an even harsher, deadlier environment than the Emperor’s prison planet. The Fremen have been forged by the desert into a force that is even leaner, meaner, and more unified. When the Sardaukar finally clash with the Fedaykin, the imperial terror-troops are completely shocked to find themselves easily outmatched, hunted down, and slaughtered. It proves Herbert’s ultimate lesson: cruelty and luxury eventually make a military soft, but the struggle for survival makes a culture invincible.