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Do Guild Navigators look as they do because of, for example, some kind of merging of sandworm DNA with their own?

Do they eventually resemble a known alien lifeform? (I understand that the very existence of alien species is controversial in the Dune universe, although seems like sandworms themselves are almost certainly aliens although perhaps by now this has been cleared up and maybe they are just genetically modified terrestrial creatures.)

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    Nowhere in the FH series is it implied Navigators interact with sandworms: only with the Spice. The books are also quite elliptic about their look; is it the Lynch film you have in mind? You should tag your question with dune-1984 then.
    – François Jurain
    Commented Jun 17 at 7:59
  • but the spice comes from the worms and it is plausible that this could transfer genetic information. transfer of genes happens between perhaps even species and certainly bacteria pass genes between themselves, call conjugation i think.
    – releseabe
    Commented Jun 17 at 9:53
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    Personally, I view it as a form of biological neoteny or a reverse aging Haeckel embryonic development (obsolete theory/pseudoscience). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory
    – lucasbachmann
    Commented Jun 18 at 3:05
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    @releseabe In my recollection, not even Leto II exchanged DNA with sandtrouts or a sandworm. His human body was mostly handled as an enkysted mass of water by an otherwise normal (non-mutant) sandworm, with modified (adapted, not mutated) sandtrouts ensuring the neural connections at the interface.
    – François Jurain
    Commented Jun 18 at 9:36
  • So, no exotic route for DNA transfer in the Dune novels, sorry. Only good old bedroom gymnastics and Tleilaxu pranks.
    – François Jurain
    Commented Jun 18 at 9:54

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No. Their appearance isn't related to sandworm DNA or any other lifeform.

Cited from 'Dune Messiah', in Wikipedia's entry on the Spacing Guild:

To enable their prescience, Guild Navigators not only consume large quantities of the spice, but are also continuously immersed in highly concentrated amounts of orange spice gas. This level of extreme and extended exposure causes their bodies to atrophy and mutate over time, their heads and extremities elongating, and causing them to become vaguely aquatic in appearance.

From the Dune wiki:

A Guild Navigator was a senior rank of artificially super-evolved humans within the Spacing Guild and for many Guildsmen the pinnacle of their ambitions. Mutated through the consumption of and exposure to massive amounts of the spice Melange,

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    The dune wiki is fan-written and isn't really indicative of anything other than the opinion of whoever wrote it.
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 16 at 23:42
  • If you were to find a supporting quote form the cannon or direct from Frank Herbert (or possibly his son if all else fails), then that would be better received.
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Commented Jun 16 at 23:50
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    Note that the Navigator Edric is (partially) described like this but there's nothing in the text that says his is the universal outcome, and it doesn't describe him as atrophied.
    – DavidW
    Commented Jun 17 at 0:00
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    @EtrimynCat - Great. Now scrub the wiki article/s entirely and just quote the author without adding someone else's interpretation
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 17 at 0:22
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    It's described somewhere in the earlier Bryan Herbert prequels, but I'm never reading those again. Looks like in Machine Crusade or Battle of Corrin from the summaries on Wikipedia, something to do with a the lady who invents the suspensor globes and shields etc.
    – bob1
    Commented Jun 17 at 2:43

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