Our first goal on Arrakis is grassland provinces. We will start with these mutated poverty grasses. When we have moisture locked in grasslands, we'll move on to start upland forests, then a few open bodies of water — small at first — and situated along lines of prevailing winds with windtrap moisture precipitators spaced in the lines to recapture what the wind steals. We must create a true sirocco — a moist wind — but we will never get away from the necessity for windtraps.
This ecological transformation of Arrakis relies upon us controlling three percent of the energy surface — only three percent — to start a self-sustaining system.
Learn this lesson well, our transformation begins in the plantations of the south and proceeds in simple steps.
This is a project of generations. You will not live to see a green Arrakis. Nor will your children. Or their children. But one day, Arrakis will bloom.

1.07.10199
The experiment worked!
Dried feces + sand + water = nutrient dense soil.
The primrose plants seemed to thrive when planted in this mixture. But this is not a self-replicating cycle, because although the primrose plants gather excess water through the dew cycle, I alone cannot produce the amount of feces required.

3.07.10199
Some scavengers came by today, heavily armed. They made some vague threats – particularly about stealing my groundcar. I offered them some water, which they took greedily, and I explained how we could benefit one another.
Now we have a self-replicating cycle, dried bandit feces in exchange for water. More soil, more flowers, more water. This is what Kynes meant when he spoke about the human elements of any ecological system.

In the fanciful past, men foolishly believed that technology could solve all of their problems. They pursued it relentlessly, dreaming of machines that could transform worlds and make them habitable.
We know how that ended.
And so we turned our gaze inward. To our own sciences of ecology, biology, and genetic manipulation of plants and animals. And we saw that we already had all of the tools we needed to bend worlds to our will.
To be a planetologist is to be the first. To be the first to make planetfall where no human has walked before. To see how the patterns of weather could be altered, or the chemicals in the atmosphere tweaked, to enable habitation.
I have walked strange worlds, frost-covered planetoids, volcanic moons and lonely meteorites. I have catalogued them, explored them and, like a great conductor, orchestrated their environment into a harmonious symphony.
And you will too, my students. You will too.