Melange
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Melange is also a Viennese coffee specialty, similar to Cappuccino.
Melange is the name of the fictional spice drug that is central to the Dune series of science fiction novels by Frank Herbert.
The word already existed in English. It means a mixture, used to refer to spices or similar but also to various mixed cotton or wool fabrics. It is derived from the identical French mélange from mêler (mix).
The flavor of melange is strongly reminiscent of cinnamon. However, each subsequent taste is different.
In Dune, there is only one source of natural melange, the planet Arrakis (colloquially known as Dune). Melange is a geriatric drug that gives the user longer life, greater vitality, heightened awareness, and can unlock prescience in some subjects, depending upon the dosage and the consumer's biological makeup.
Although it is called "spice" and can be mixed with food, melange is truly a drug: it is physically addictive , it has psychotropic effects, and stopping its consumption causes death after a painful period of withdrawal (although taking spice daily extends one's life by hundreds of years). Due to its rarity, the group controlling spice production on Dune controls the fate of the universe.
The steersmen of the Spacing Guild depend upon melange for the heightened awareness and the prescient ability to see safe paths through space-time, allowing them to navigate the gigantic Guild Heighliners between planets. They exist literally within a cloud of melange in a tank, and the extended exposure to it warps their bodies.
The Bene Gesserit use spice essence, the poisonous substance that can be converted to melange, for the ritual known as the Spice Agony, an ordeal in which an acolyte takes a massive overdose and confronts her inner self and the selves of all her female ancestors. If she masters the confrontation, she emerges as a Reverend Mother, a Bene Gesserit of terrifying abilities, fully in command of her Other Memories, the collective egos of her female ancestors.
The spice is the product of sandworms. Collecting it is hazardous in the extreme, since any activity on the desert surface of Arrakis(Dune) attracts the worms, which are extremely large and dangerous. Thus, the mining operation is essentially vacuuming it off the surface with a harvester machine until a worm comes, when a carry-all will lift the mining vehicle to safety. The Fremen, who have learned to co-exist with the sandworms in the desert, harvest the spice manually for their own use and for smuggling off-planet.
Spice is in general use all over the universe, and is a sign of wealth. To ingest it is the ultimate show of conspicuous consumption. The planet Arrakis is central to the inhabited worlds of the galaxy because it is the sole source of spice.
Later, an artificial method of producing the spice is discovered by the Bene Tleilaxu, who develop in secret the technology to produce melange from axlotl tanks later in the series.de:Melange