ial expansion was accompanied by conquest the empire expanded until it con trolled all the habitable planets available to the current navigation abilities of the Guild The nature of the trade of these early centuries is not easy for us to grasp Living as we do in a universe from which so many of the commodities in which our ancestors dealt daily have vanished the normal com merce of this period seems the wildest extravagance Even millennia after the forma tion of CHOAM although long before the Atreides came to the planet the residence of the Imperial governor of Arrakis was built with heav> wooden beams many meters in length Tlit largest of these beams discovered by archaeological excavations to date is 15 5 meters m length and it is not complete It is not clear where these beams came from but it would have mv olved a very long journey given the isolation of Arrakis and the ecologi cal history of the nearest planets Such trade was supported with ease b> the expanding economy of the empire after the formation of CHOAM The rapacit) cf the exploitative economic practices of the time could be overlooked since the steady acquisi tion of new worlds not only replaced the losses but added to the available resources of the system But as trade began to penetrate to the limits of travel and the expansion of the economy began to slow the commercially CHOAM 164 CIBJUS HOOD weaker members of the empire began to suffer Naturally the first difficulties came m the financial aspects of their societies but in the end this spread to the political sphere as well Thus some seven centimes after the formation of CHOAM and two centuries after the economy s rate of expansion began tu slow we can discern the first substantial changes in the membership of the participat ing partners of CHOAM The planet Ecaz now appears m the records of the meetings of CHOAM as an independent voter as do the worlds of Harmonthep and Grumman At least one of these worlds, Hdrmonthep, does not last Jong as an independent, and when it disappears from the records of the meetings of CHOAM it vanishes from the historical record altogether But a far more important indication of internal unrest in the political systems of the members of CHOAM can be inferred from the percentages of the vote exercised by the emperor Having begun with only 20% of the votes of the corporation, within the proceeding five centuries the emperor had increased his share to 25%, and with the votes of those members whom he controlled, the emperor commanded in fact closer to 35% of the partners' votes White stiH short of an outright majority, die Great Houses could not fail to see the meaning of the trend Since the emperor could almost always persuade at least 15% more of the partners to his arguments, in almost all instances the partners affirmed the position of House Comno In general, though, what we have of the records of the meetings of CHOAM are a testimony to the stability of the worlds of the empire While it is true there is a steady growth m the power of the emperor in the meetings of the Directorate, the emperor and his supporters never controlled more man 60% of the vote, and the emperor himself never more than 40% In addition, while mere was a continuing turnover m the membership from century to century, the change was never more flan 10%, a rate of change which the political and economic balance of the empire could easily support Such a rate of change proved that some entrepreneurs had succeeded in raising the status of then- minor house to the exalted level of the Great Houses The certainty of the chance ot social mobility made the restrictions of the faufre luches (class system) tolerable Once established, only minor changes oc curred within the workings of CHOAM until the defeat of House Comno by House Atreides on Arrakis Even that event did not immedi ately affect the management of CHOAM other than to transfer to Duke Paul Muad Dib, now the emperor, the shares of CHOAM once controlled by House Comno Al the time of transfer these shares represented 38% of the votes of the Directorate The profound alteration in the affairs of CHOAM resulted from the crusade launched against those houses-and there were many- who went into revolt against the new govern ment The shares of all defeated houses were taken over by House Atreides, and alter the battles were over, the Imperial House for the first time was in outright control of CHOAM with 51% of its shares In addition, the priesthood of Muad Dib the power of which had waxed during the crusade, owned 5% of the shares This shift m the control of CHOAM accounts for much of the ensuing hatred of House Atreides Not only were the citizens of the empire exposed to an increasingly despotic rule they had lost much of their wealth FM Further references IMPER AL ADMINISTRATION LANDS RAAO TB Jones Series of articles in Journal of An ctent Economies (Lagash VII) Vols 29 33 T Eboyane The Faufreluches the Great Chain of Being and Natu ral Science (Ycrba Rose) QBUS HOOD.