Obviously, a lot changes in those millennia. But not as much as you’d think, in part because of one of the most important events in the Dune universe: the Butlerian Jihad. From year 201 to 108 BG, humanity fights a war against thinking machines (what they call artificial intelligence in this universe). Among the many consequences of the war is the destruction of all advanced computers, including those used for complex calculations and for space travel.
The Butlerian Jihad leads to the development of several major factions within the world of Dune. Certain humans learn how to do advanced calculations in their minds, becoming human computers called “Mentats,” such as Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and Piter de Vries (David Dasmalchain) in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies. Navigators use the precognitive abilities granted by spice to chart paths in deep space, making Arrakis—the one planet that produces spice—the most important in the galaxy.
At the same time, Valya Harkonnen and her sister Tula develop a school for girls, which trains them in a religious order called the Bene Gesserit. This, of course, will be the focus of the show Dune: Prophecy, which takes place approximately 10,000 years before the first film.
Even though humans kill the machines, they are still human and wars still happen. They just happen in a different way. Personal shields become common among warriors, which protect the user from fast moving objects but can be pierced by slow moving objects. Personal shields render bullets useless, making swords and daggers the most common weapons in the Imperium. Lasguns are used rarely, as a blast against a personal shield results in a nuclear level blast.
And then there are the actual atomic weapons, the atomics and the stone burners. Atomics are sometimes used, as seen in Dune: Part Two, when Paul launched atomics against the shield wall protecting Baron Harkonnen. But stone burners are almost never used, because they offer more precision.
So unthinkable are stone burners that their first proper appearance, in the novel Dune Messiah (which Villeneuve will bring to theaters as Dune 3), marks the apparent end of a major character. Unlike the widespread destruction of general atomics, stone burners can be controlled and used to launch radioactive j-rays (a type of radiation that, among other things, blind its victims) against specific targets.
