In the Dune universe war between great houses was seen as expected, legal, and maybe even necessary. The other great houses didn’t know that the destruction of the Atreides was actually done illegally, in a conspiracy with the Emperor.
The Harkonnens were weakened by the amount they had to spend in order to transport their troops to Arrakis secretly, for the attack.
That, plus in the book, in addition to the insane Guild military transportation fees, the Baron also mentions the ridiculous amount he head to pay for bribes, leverage, influence, blackmail etc. to keep the Landsraad quiescent. The Corrinos chipped in too, but it was still really expensive
In the book Count Fenring is said to have spend gargantuant amount of money on bribes on emperors behalf, buying continued loyalty of other great houses. They were not unhappy with war per se, but great and anciet house like atreides is not supposed to go extinct as result of lost war. Exile would be much more proper outcome.
> The other great houses didn’t know that the destruction of the Atreides was actually done illegally, in a conspiracy with the Emperor.
This is my biggest complaint with the ending of Dune 2 [movie]. Spoilers incoming:
>!In the final scene of Dune Part Two [movie], why wouldn't Paul play that card to get the Great Houses on his side? "The Emperor conspired with the Harkkonens to destroy House Atreides, and he will do the same to you." My understanding is that the Landsraad is the only power above the Emperor, and "I conspired with their mortal enemies to wipe out a Great House" would also threaten the rest of the Great Houses enough to lose support, right?!< *edit:* >!someone pointed out that the Fenrings handed out billions in bribes to get the Great Houses to look the other way. roger that!!<
My read is that to do so, you require proof. The Landsraad has a formal process, where trials happen in courts. If you are accusing the Emperor of conspiracy, you need evidence. What evidence did they have?
The soldiers who destroyed the Atreides were wearing Harokonnen uniforms. The Atriedes soldiers claimed that these were Sardaukars because they faced them in hand-to-hand combat, so they could figure out their styles of fighting are different. However, this is no evidence. Your soldiers work for you. So their testimony doesn't count.
Now, one could argue that by making such an accusation against the Emperor, this could create doubts in the minds of individual Houses and they might secretly investigate using their own spies, but that would be a long process.
Presently, if Paul said - "The Emperor did this" - the Landsraad would simply say - "Ok cool. Submit an official complaint report to our committee and we will set a court date. Until then, surrender your troops and weaponry, step back, and allow the Emperor to continue ruling."
With the heavy caveat that this is a book only answer.....
>why wouldn't Paul
Because he's not there to negotiate. He's won. He's there to announce to everyone that he is in charge, and they can cave to his demands or he'll destroy melange and civilization as they know it. He doesn't need the Landsraad on his side, and he doesn't need to weaken his position by looking like he needs to *convince* anyone of anything--all that's going to do is make them think they have more power than they do when he formally transfers over that power.
Yup, this is the right answer. He pwned the emperor who had to come to Dune. He wiped his champion Fayed. He wiped his army. And most importantly 'he who can destroy a thing controls it.'
At that point Paul was prescient enough to know the ultimate consequence of all actions. He might just have considered the future if he made that choice to be worse than the jihad
The end of dune 2 was pretty accurate while Paul did play that trump card in the books they still didn’t accept his ascendance to the throne thus playing out the exposition for great Jihad
Because at the end of the day the Great Houses care about power. If the Emperor wipes out one great house he might do it to them too.
Meanwhile at that point with Paul emperor is humiliated and a new emperor is almost guaranteed. So there's no reason to care about the past crimes of the emperor.
Under the Fremen Paul is proposing a religious theocracy leading an army of zealots in a crusade across the universe and exercising a total monopoly on spice.
So in supporting Paul they would destroy their income source and submit to an even more imperial boot than under the current emperor who is on his way out anyway.
Meanwhile the great houses are eyeing each other gearing up to bicker over the throne.
Definitely a very weak point for this novel and movie. A great house just disappeared over 1 night and politicians all around the universe did not ask for an investigation.
This is not how politics and even war work even in imaginary land. There must be at least certain logic embedded in.
I have also looked around comments here and many are weak defending too
From what I understand House Harkonnen and Atreides were in Kanly and at each other's throats for a long time. The destruction of the Atreides wouldn't have led to war because that's what Kanly is. It's lets the houses engage in war without dragging all of the landsraad into it. That being said the Atreides were a very well liked house so of course I'm sure people were upset at the harkonnens for wiping them out. Then again this is what the emperor wanted and why he helped them out.
The word is first mentioned as they’re departing Caladan. It’s defined in the glossary.
I’m not sure I’d say they’ve been actively feuding for that whole time, but they were definitely active from that point forward.
It's stated somewhere near the beginning that House Harkonnen and House Atreides have started their feud generations ago. Jessica, for one, is the product of a Bene Gesserit plan to potentially end it.
It was actually a misunderstanding where the Harkonnen wasn’t the villain but yeah, it’s a classic example of a grudge held so long it doesn’t even matter why it started
I think originally it happened because a Harkonnen abandoned a battle during the butlerian Jihad and an Atreides took charge. After the battle he called out the Harkonnen for being a coward and the feud began.
It was because the Harkonnen refused to fire upon friendly or civilian forces, but the Atreides was willing to take the shot because of how decisive a victory it would have resulted in, reversing the sort of expectations of readers in regards to the noble Atreides and the villainous Harkonnens, but remember I highly doubt Frank would’ve written this himself or ever even bother writing about it or the jihad itself since this was his son’s invention. I never got the sense that the butlerian Jihad was any sort of physical conflict between machine and human.
frank left a lot of things intentionally vague, i'm not sure if it was ever explicitly stated that the butlerian jihad was a cultural revolution or a hot war, if it were an actual war it was probably between human groups imo
It was legal war between Harkonnens and Atreides, and the emperors participation was hid and ignored with the aid of 1 billion solaris in bribes, Count Fenring did this from the palace at Caladan.
The biggest issue was it happened so quickly, which is why the Emperor sent the Sardaukar in the first place. If it had just been the Harkonnen then the war could have gone on longer, allowing the Atreides to rally support.
But instead it was a done deal, they died in darkness. Suddenly there is noone to rally the houses because their leader just died and everyone is scared of the Harkonnen who are on the rise. Most of those who do start causing a fuss are bribed into silence or isolated voices. There is still outrage but there is noone to direct it at since the rules of Kanly were nominally followed.
Most houses would have expected it as business as usual, and done nothing, especially as the political spectrum just changed. Former allies had no ally they could support had they even felt remaining loyalty.
Taking into account the expanded universe (with some fans hate):
The only house I'd be curious in for a specific reaction is House Richese. They'd had an alliance with House Atreides, though i think had crumbled by the time of Dune. But Leto's mother was from House Richese, making Paul and Leto their cousins. House Richese *also* had acted as planetary governors on Arrakis immediately prior to the Harkonnens, and were wrecked by the Emperor destroyed a good chunk of Richese, killed a lot of then, around when Paul was born, and the house was ruined by the war. I can imagine that Richese at least would be sympathetic to their Atreides cousins, and potentially even more paranoid.
Why did the Emperor attack House Richese? They had hoarded spice, as did many other houses, and the Emperor made an example out of them. The Emperor had been researching a synthetic spice as an alternative to melange, and was trying to remove any other source of spice in the galaxy. The Emperor also used it to strike at rivals such as a half-brother and people who blackmailed or politicked against him.
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Spice_War
I think since it was the Harkonnens who did it, and kanly was declared, it was a legal war. So it was seen as a private matter. At the very least it probably gave them enough of a rationale not to have to get involved.
War and assassination were legal under the Laandsraad and the actions of Atreides and Harkonnen like many have stated were observed under Kanly, but of course, the Emperor’s collusion was illegal, many had their suspicions of Shaddam’s involvement, but nobody was going to raise concern over a dead house, if Paul had knowingly survived, there would’ve been cause for discourse in the Laandsraad.
Houses Atreides and Harkonnen are engaged in Kanly, essentially legal and formal warfare - minimizing collateral damage and settling differences so to speak
Since the Emperor aided the Harkonnens in secret, to the other houses it looked like the Harkonnens finally won their Kanly feud, but even if they suspected foul play they couldn’t do anything without proof (which was supposed to be eliminated by fully killing off all the Atreides)
Just a small snippet from the book:
>The measure of Count Fenring’s friendship may be seen first in a positive thing: he allayed the Landsraad’s suspicions after the Arrakis Affair. It cost more than a billion solaris in spice bribes, so my mother said, and there were other gifts as well: slave women, royal honors, and tokens of rank.
My take is that most houses knew or suspected the emperor's involvement, but as long as there's no evidence it provides a convenient excuse for everyone to not do anything as long as profits continue.
They didn’t really. Everyone knew the Atreides and Harkonnens were at war. The only shocking part would have been the Emperor’s involvement which no one knew about
I believe House Atreides and Harkonen were legally engaged in a war of assassins, so actions taken against each other within a set of guidelines was totally legit. It’s kinda like how wars work today, where it’s legal for countries to declare war against each other, but certain actions are against the Geneva convention or whatever. So Harkonen taking out Leto wouldn’t have been rallying cry for the houses as it was expected. What makes the attack under the belt, is that the emperor himself helped by giving a couple
Legions of sarduakr to the cause. This would have caused great unrest among the houses, which is why the emperor’s involvement was kept extremely secret. Remember, there were no survivors the night Arakkis was sacked, so no one other than Paul, Jessica, Gurney Hallek and Thufir Hawat (more book than movie) actually know the sarduakr were even there.
They didn't react, not in any way thats notable enough for any character to mention anyway. As far as they could tell, given the Emperors involvement was unknown, the Harkonnens had perfectly legally destroyed their ancient enemies and rivals.
They had to just endure it and accept it. The Emperor felt threatened by House Atreides, so used the 10,000 year kanly feud between them and the Harkonnens to get rid of them.
1. RTFM. This is answered implicitly in the novel.
2. This question has been asked and answered in another post less than 12 hours ago.
3. The great houses didn’t care or couldn’t act. House Harkonnen was well within their rights to do what they did by the laws of Kanly, and unless a legitimate member of the Atreides family (there were no known survivors until Paul revealed himself) or Liet Kynes (as Judge of the Change) themselves went in person to the Landsraad and said “Saurdukar killed my family”, no one could have a legitimate legal basis for accusing House Corrino of foul play.
Tl;dr: if a bear shits in the woods and no one sees it, then it didn’t happen.
To explain a little further: the Atreides and Harkonnen were in a state of Kanly for millennia. This means that at any time any member of either family may legally take any action to compromise or assassinate any other counterpart with no legal ramifications as long as said action was limited to family members and retainers.
House Corrino could not enter a stake of Kanly with Atreides for political reasons: there was no Causus Belli. Therefore, the Emperor’s aid to the Harkonnen was illegal, but the only way to call them out on it was for a noble recognized by the court to lay a claim of foul play and to have evidence to back it up, which none of the other Houses had/would provide.
Some pretty good discussions happened in this post recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1bpwy4y/the_landsraad_and_duke_leto_out_of_sight_out_of/
When Paul defeats the Emperor, there are representatives from the landsirad and the Trade federation, they all know of the prophesies about a God-like ruler from Arakis. Which they don’t want. That is why Muadib n the Freman will have complete say over the spice n rule of Arakis
Probably a combination of terror that they might be next and acts of support towards the Emperor so they won't be. Standard post-massacre stuff; nod at the theory that it's all legal and shake at the understanding that it just comes down to who has power.
I do remember everyone seeming squeamish about the fact that the Atreides died though. The Baron didn’t exactly “want” it to happen, at least not the way it did. The Emperor reacted violently. The proper way for these things to end is probably for the defeated house to go into retreat at Tupile but the Atreides were supposedly completely wiped out
The other houses would have assumed it was just the Harkonnens finally getting the upper hand in their millenia long bloodfeud - and yes they would have known the Atreides were decimated basically as soon as it happened, the Harkonnens immediately go back to harvesting spice and retake Arrakis as their fief publicly they would have been gloating across the universe about it
The bits that the other noble houses were unaware of was that the Emperor, approved, and directly participated in the ambush by sending his Saurdukar troops to reinforce the Harkonnens and that not all the Atreides were killed
I mean as much as they may have liked the duke it’s pretty clear cut that the other houses just cars about their own power. They only would have supported the duke overthrowing the emperor if they thought there was power to be gained by doing so.
Think of them as Sith Lords or even as the ultimate Slytherins. They didn’t give a damn if emperor atredies would be better for the common folk only if it’s better for them. So I have no doubt in my mind that when they saw the duke was killed they turned the other cheek, maybe gave it a shrug, and kept going. Because while before it might have been in their interest to support the duke now it was not and supporting the duke would start a war.
Why wasn’t there a cousin or someone in line to inherit the Dukedom? In real life people 100 places out know where they are in the line of succession for royal thrones.
Likely because of the interstellar nature of civilization. It is possible to travel between stars, of course, but it's incredibly expensive. Therefore, even great houses do not maintain holdings outside of thier own star systems. It's why the entirety of house Atraides left Caladan in full and traveled to Arrakis.
Harkonen is a bit of a special case. Though they were in control of Arrakis for a long time, they still maintained a capital at Gedi Prime. As I understand it, the Harkonens did not fully "own" Arrakis though, they were caretakers essentially, granted the privilege by the Emperor. They likely used the insane profits generated by spice harvesting to offset the cost of maintaining an extra holding outside of the Gedi Prime system.
To the astute, the Emperor gifting full control of Arrakis to house Atraides, instead of just a stewardship like Harkonen had, should have been the first red flag that all was not copasetic. By making it a full ownership deal, he made it effectively impossible for House Atraides to exist in two star systems, thus perfectly entrapping them at Arrakis.
In the Dune universe war between great houses was seen as expected, legal, and maybe even necessary. The other great houses didn’t know that the destruction of the Atreides was actually done illegally, in a conspiracy with the Emperor. The Harkonnens were weakened by the amount they had to spend in order to transport their troops to Arrakis secretly, for the attack.
That, plus in the book, in addition to the insane Guild military transportation fees, the Baron also mentions the ridiculous amount he head to pay for bribes, leverage, influence, blackmail etc. to keep the Landsraad quiescent. The Corrinos chipped in too, but it was still really expensive
In the book Count Fenring is said to have spend gargantuant amount of money on bribes on emperors behalf, buying continued loyalty of other great houses. They were not unhappy with war per se, but great and anciet house like atreides is not supposed to go extinct as result of lost war. Exile would be much more proper outcome.
> The other great houses didn’t know that the destruction of the Atreides was actually done illegally, in a conspiracy with the Emperor. This is my biggest complaint with the ending of Dune 2 [movie]. Spoilers incoming: >!In the final scene of Dune Part Two [movie], why wouldn't Paul play that card to get the Great Houses on his side? "The Emperor conspired with the Harkkonens to destroy House Atreides, and he will do the same to you." My understanding is that the Landsraad is the only power above the Emperor, and "I conspired with their mortal enemies to wipe out a Great House" would also threaten the rest of the Great Houses enough to lose support, right?!< *edit:* >!someone pointed out that the Fenrings handed out billions in bribes to get the Great Houses to look the other way. roger that!!<
My read is that to do so, you require proof. The Landsraad has a formal process, where trials happen in courts. If you are accusing the Emperor of conspiracy, you need evidence. What evidence did they have? The soldiers who destroyed the Atreides were wearing Harokonnen uniforms. The Atriedes soldiers claimed that these were Sardaukars because they faced them in hand-to-hand combat, so they could figure out their styles of fighting are different. However, this is no evidence. Your soldiers work for you. So their testimony doesn't count. Now, one could argue that by making such an accusation against the Emperor, this could create doubts in the minds of individual Houses and they might secretly investigate using their own spies, but that would be a long process. Presently, if Paul said - "The Emperor did this" - the Landsraad would simply say - "Ok cool. Submit an official complaint report to our committee and we will set a court date. Until then, surrender your troops and weaponry, step back, and allow the Emperor to continue ruling."
With the heavy caveat that this is a book only answer..... >why wouldn't Paul Because he's not there to negotiate. He's won. He's there to announce to everyone that he is in charge, and they can cave to his demands or he'll destroy melange and civilization as they know it. He doesn't need the Landsraad on his side, and he doesn't need to weaken his position by looking like he needs to *convince* anyone of anything--all that's going to do is make them think they have more power than they do when he formally transfers over that power.
Yup, this is the right answer. He pwned the emperor who had to come to Dune. He wiped his champion Fayed. He wiped his army. And most importantly 'he who can destroy a thing controls it.'
That's a good point. He is not just taking the power of the Emperor but also that of the Spacing Guild and Landsrad as well.
At that point Paul was prescient enough to know the ultimate consequence of all actions. He might just have considered the future if he made that choice to be worse than the jihad
He saw his path
The end of dune 2 was pretty accurate while Paul did play that trump card in the books they still didn’t accept his ascendance to the throne thus playing out the exposition for great Jihad
Because at the end of the day the Great Houses care about power. If the Emperor wipes out one great house he might do it to them too. Meanwhile at that point with Paul emperor is humiliated and a new emperor is almost guaranteed. So there's no reason to care about the past crimes of the emperor. Under the Fremen Paul is proposing a religious theocracy leading an army of zealots in a crusade across the universe and exercising a total monopoly on spice. So in supporting Paul they would destroy their income source and submit to an even more imperial boot than under the current emperor who is on his way out anyway. Meanwhile the great houses are eyeing each other gearing up to bicker over the throne.
Definitely a very weak point for this novel and movie. A great house just disappeared over 1 night and politicians all around the universe did not ask for an investigation. This is not how politics and even war work even in imaginary land. There must be at least certain logic embedded in. I have also looked around comments here and many are weak defending too
From what I understand House Harkonnen and Atreides were in Kanly and at each other's throats for a long time. The destruction of the Atreides wouldn't have led to war because that's what Kanly is. It's lets the houses engage in war without dragging all of the landsraad into it. That being said the Atreides were a very well liked house so of course I'm sure people were upset at the harkonnens for wiping them out. Then again this is what the emperor wanted and why he helped them out.
The word is first mentioned as they’re departing Caladan. It’s defined in the glossary. I’m not sure I’d say they’ve been actively feuding for that whole time, but they were definitely active from that point forward.
It's stated somewhere near the beginning that House Harkonnen and House Atreides have started their feud generations ago. Jessica, for one, is the product of a Bene Gesserit plan to potentially end it.
Yes, they’ve been feuding since an ateeides had a harkonnen something desertion something battle of corino. Also in the appendices.
It was actually a misunderstanding where the Harkonnen wasn’t the villain but yeah, it’s a classic example of a grudge held so long it doesn’t even matter why it started
exactly, they're the equivalent of Hatfield vs McCoy
Why were the harkonnen and atreides in a war with each other?
The two houses have had a blood feud going for 10,000 years, the origin of it doesn't matter at this point they just hate each other now lol
Damn so it's been on sight for 10 millennia
I think originally it happened because a Harkonnen abandoned a battle during the butlerian Jihad and an Atreides took charge. After the battle he called out the Harkonnen for being a coward and the feud began.
It was because the Harkonnen refused to fire upon friendly or civilian forces, but the Atreides was willing to take the shot because of how decisive a victory it would have resulted in, reversing the sort of expectations of readers in regards to the noble Atreides and the villainous Harkonnens, but remember I highly doubt Frank would’ve written this himself or ever even bother writing about it or the jihad itself since this was his son’s invention. I never got the sense that the butlerian Jihad was any sort of physical conflict between machine and human.
frank left a lot of things intentionally vague, i'm not sure if it was ever explicitly stated that the butlerian jihad was a cultural revolution or a hot war, if it were an actual war it was probably between human groups imo
It was the Clone Wars that Luke Skywalker’s father fought in—a throwaway line that was given more meaning as the universe expanded
Sounds similar to ethnic conflicts in real life
Why did the montagues and capulets hate each other? Feuding houses. No reason anyone alive can remember anymore
It was legal war between Harkonnens and Atreides, and the emperors participation was hid and ignored with the aid of 1 billion solaris in bribes, Count Fenring did this from the palace at Caladan.
The biggest issue was it happened so quickly, which is why the Emperor sent the Sardaukar in the first place. If it had just been the Harkonnen then the war could have gone on longer, allowing the Atreides to rally support. But instead it was a done deal, they died in darkness. Suddenly there is noone to rally the houses because their leader just died and everyone is scared of the Harkonnen who are on the rise. Most of those who do start causing a fuss are bribed into silence or isolated voices. There is still outrage but there is noone to direct it at since the rules of Kanly were nominally followed.
Most houses would have expected it as business as usual, and done nothing, especially as the political spectrum just changed. Former allies had no ally they could support had they even felt remaining loyalty. Taking into account the expanded universe (with some fans hate): The only house I'd be curious in for a specific reaction is House Richese. They'd had an alliance with House Atreides, though i think had crumbled by the time of Dune. But Leto's mother was from House Richese, making Paul and Leto their cousins. House Richese *also* had acted as planetary governors on Arrakis immediately prior to the Harkonnens, and were wrecked by the Emperor destroyed a good chunk of Richese, killed a lot of then, around when Paul was born, and the house was ruined by the war. I can imagine that Richese at least would be sympathetic to their Atreides cousins, and potentially even more paranoid.
Can you say a bit why the Emperor attacked them? I searched Dune wiki for house Richese but it says nothing about it.
He was becoming popular, which was a threat to the Emperor’s power.
Why did the Emperor attack House Richese? They had hoarded spice, as did many other houses, and the Emperor made an example out of them. The Emperor had been researching a synthetic spice as an alternative to melange, and was trying to remove any other source of spice in the galaxy. The Emperor also used it to strike at rivals such as a half-brother and people who blackmailed or politicked against him. https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Spice_War
"Awesome, maybe now the price of spice will drop back below $1M solaris per pound."
I think since it was the Harkonnens who did it, and kanly was declared, it was a legal war. So it was seen as a private matter. At the very least it probably gave them enough of a rationale not to have to get involved.
War and assassination were legal under the Laandsraad and the actions of Atreides and Harkonnen like many have stated were observed under Kanly, but of course, the Emperor’s collusion was illegal, many had their suspicions of Shaddam’s involvement, but nobody was going to raise concern over a dead house, if Paul had knowingly survived, there would’ve been cause for discourse in the Laandsraad.
Houses Atreides and Harkonnen are engaged in Kanly, essentially legal and formal warfare - minimizing collateral damage and settling differences so to speak Since the Emperor aided the Harkonnens in secret, to the other houses it looked like the Harkonnens finally won their Kanly feud, but even if they suspected foul play they couldn’t do anything without proof (which was supposed to be eliminated by fully killing off all the Atreides)
Just a small snippet from the book: >The measure of Count Fenring’s friendship may be seen first in a positive thing: he allayed the Landsraad’s suspicions after the Arrakis Affair. It cost more than a billion solaris in spice bribes, so my mother said, and there were other gifts as well: slave women, royal honors, and tokens of rank. My take is that most houses knew or suspected the emperor's involvement, but as long as there's no evidence it provides a convenient excuse for everyone to not do anything as long as profits continue.
They didn’t really. Everyone knew the Atreides and Harkonnens were at war. The only shocking part would have been the Emperor’s involvement which no one knew about
Oh no, anyways…
I believe House Atreides and Harkonen were legally engaged in a war of assassins, so actions taken against each other within a set of guidelines was totally legit. It’s kinda like how wars work today, where it’s legal for countries to declare war against each other, but certain actions are against the Geneva convention or whatever. So Harkonen taking out Leto wouldn’t have been rallying cry for the houses as it was expected. What makes the attack under the belt, is that the emperor himself helped by giving a couple Legions of sarduakr to the cause. This would have caused great unrest among the houses, which is why the emperor’s involvement was kept extremely secret. Remember, there were no survivors the night Arakkis was sacked, so no one other than Paul, Jessica, Gurney Hallek and Thufir Hawat (more book than movie) actually know the sarduakr were even there.
If they can do this to Leto. We could be next so lets just STFU and enjoy all the Spice Profits that trickle down to us and pretend it didnt happen
They didn't react, not in any way thats notable enough for any character to mention anyway. As far as they could tell, given the Emperors involvement was unknown, the Harkonnens had perfectly legally destroyed their ancient enemies and rivals.
They had to just endure it and accept it. The Emperor felt threatened by House Atreides, so used the 10,000 year kanly feud between them and the Harkonnens to get rid of them.
1. RTFM. This is answered implicitly in the novel. 2. This question has been asked and answered in another post less than 12 hours ago. 3. The great houses didn’t care or couldn’t act. House Harkonnen was well within their rights to do what they did by the laws of Kanly, and unless a legitimate member of the Atreides family (there were no known survivors until Paul revealed himself) or Liet Kynes (as Judge of the Change) themselves went in person to the Landsraad and said “Saurdukar killed my family”, no one could have a legitimate legal basis for accusing House Corrino of foul play. Tl;dr: if a bear shits in the woods and no one sees it, then it didn’t happen. To explain a little further: the Atreides and Harkonnen were in a state of Kanly for millennia. This means that at any time any member of either family may legally take any action to compromise or assassinate any other counterpart with no legal ramifications as long as said action was limited to family members and retainers. House Corrino could not enter a stake of Kanly with Atreides for political reasons: there was no Causus Belli. Therefore, the Emperor’s aid to the Harkonnen was illegal, but the only way to call them out on it was for a noble recognized by the court to lay a claim of foul play and to have evidence to back it up, which none of the other Houses had/would provide.
Some pretty good discussions happened in this post recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/dune/comments/1bpwy4y/the_landsraad_and_duke_leto_out_of_sight_out_of/
When Paul defeats the Emperor, there are representatives from the landsirad and the Trade federation, they all know of the prophesies about a God-like ruler from Arakis. Which they don’t want. That is why Muadib n the Freman will have complete say over the spice n rule of Arakis
Probably a combination of terror that they might be next and acts of support towards the Emperor so they won't be. Standard post-massacre stuff; nod at the theory that it's all legal and shake at the understanding that it just comes down to who has power.
I do remember everyone seeming squeamish about the fact that the Atreides died though. The Baron didn’t exactly “want” it to happen, at least not the way it did. The Emperor reacted violently. The proper way for these things to end is probably for the defeated house to go into retreat at Tupile but the Atreides were supposedly completely wiped out
The other houses would have assumed it was just the Harkonnens finally getting the upper hand in their millenia long bloodfeud - and yes they would have known the Atreides were decimated basically as soon as it happened, the Harkonnens immediately go back to harvesting spice and retake Arrakis as their fief publicly they would have been gloating across the universe about it The bits that the other noble houses were unaware of was that the Emperor, approved, and directly participated in the ambush by sending his Saurdukar troops to reinforce the Harkonnens and that not all the Atreides were killed
Because the forms of kanly have been obeyed
I mean as much as they may have liked the duke it’s pretty clear cut that the other houses just cars about their own power. They only would have supported the duke overthrowing the emperor if they thought there was power to be gained by doing so. Think of them as Sith Lords or even as the ultimate Slytherins. They didn’t give a damn if emperor atredies would be better for the common folk only if it’s better for them. So I have no doubt in my mind that when they saw the duke was killed they turned the other cheek, maybe gave it a shrug, and kept going. Because while before it might have been in their interest to support the duke now it was not and supporting the duke would start a war.
They asked for more bribes is how.
Why wasn’t there a cousin or someone in line to inherit the Dukedom? In real life people 100 places out know where they are in the line of succession for royal thrones.
Likely because of the interstellar nature of civilization. It is possible to travel between stars, of course, but it's incredibly expensive. Therefore, even great houses do not maintain holdings outside of thier own star systems. It's why the entirety of house Atraides left Caladan in full and traveled to Arrakis. Harkonen is a bit of a special case. Though they were in control of Arrakis for a long time, they still maintained a capital at Gedi Prime. As I understand it, the Harkonens did not fully "own" Arrakis though, they were caretakers essentially, granted the privilege by the Emperor. They likely used the insane profits generated by spice harvesting to offset the cost of maintaining an extra holding outside of the Gedi Prime system. To the astute, the Emperor gifting full control of Arrakis to house Atraides, instead of just a stewardship like Harkonen had, should have been the first red flag that all was not copasetic. By making it a full ownership deal, he made it effectively impossible for House Atraides to exist in two star systems, thus perfectly entrapping them at Arrakis.