Dosadi

The planet Dosadi is the hellish setting for Frank Herbert's science fiction novel "The Dosadi Experiment". Dosadi is enclosed by a barrier called the "God Wall" maintained by a Caleban. The planet is deliberately set up by a Gowachin conspiracy to be uninhabitable for both human and Gowachin species except in the city of Chu, where 89 million beings crowd into a space of only 800 square kilometers, leading to conditions of constant friction and violence. Food factories in Chu, controlled by warlords, create non-toxic food for the upper classes while the lower classes must content themselves with their garbage. Over 350 million of the "Rim rabble" continually test the defenses of the perimeter of the city trying to enter, for their life expectancy on the Rim is only about twenty years.

The Dosadi Experiment was created by the Gowachin, the so-called Frog People, one of the members of the galactic ConSentiency along with the human species. The objective of the Gowachin "High Command" responsible for setting up the secret and illegal experiment was to test the result of the interaction of their two species in extreme conditions, but the eugenic and social outcome proved to be so frightening that the Gowachin decided to destroy it before its subjects escape their prison. Their fears came to a head when a human female warlord Keila Jedrik sets in movement a chain of actions leading to a total war between the two species. The Gowachin High Command is forced to stop the experiment before their species is annihilated on Dosadi. The novel describes the extremely delicate judicial process by which the multi-species confederation of the ConSentiency adjudicates responsibility and punishes the guilty High Command.

References

* Herbert, Frank. "The Dosadi Experiment" (novel) Berkeley, 1977.