Franchise · Tertiary · since 1965
Dune
Ecology, religion and empire in one desert. The six powers holding the Imperium in balance, the planet all of them need, and sixty years of trying to film it.
The sleeper must awaken.
Duke Leto Atreides
Ecology, empire and inheritance in one desert. The trick Herbert pulls is that the worms are not a monster; they are the industry. They make the spice, the spice makes interstellar travel possible, and travel is what holds the Imperium together. Everything anybody in the story wants runs through an animal nobody can control.
And walking on the sand summons them, so the Fremen learned to walk without rhythm. A civilisation shaped entirely by the need not to be noticed by the thing that makes it valuable.
Water discipline
The suit is a sandwich of filters. Body heat drives the pumps, sweat and waste are reclaimed, breath is caught at the nose, and what comes back is drinkable through a tube at the neck.
Stilgar checks the fit before he checks the man. A badly fitted suit is not a comfort problem on Arrakis, it is a countdown, and the Fremen read it as a statement about whether you belong there.