Spacing Guild

The Spacing Guild is an organization in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. With its monopoly on interstellar travel and banking, the Guild is a balance of power against the Padishah Emperor and the assembled noble Houses of the Landsraad. Mutated Guild Navigators use the spice drug melange to successfully navigate "folded space" and safely guide enormous heighliner starships from planet to planet instantaneously. Essentially apolitical, the Guild is primarily concerned with the flow of commerce and preservation of the economy that supports them; though their ability to dictate the terms of and fees for all transport gives them influence in the political arena, they do not pursue political goals beyond their economic ones. It is noted in Dune (1965) that Houses of the Imperium may contract with the Guild to be removed "to a place of safety outside the System;" in the past some Houses in danger of ruin or defeat have "become renegade Houses, taking family atomics and shields and fleeing beyond the Imperium." The Guild controls a "sanctuary planet" (or planets) known as Tupile intended for such "defeated Houses of the Imperium ... Location(s) known only to the Guild and maintained inviolate under the Guild Peace."