Quite possible. I believe that one of the standards of the Dune universe is the feudal system being enforced and the safety guarantees that system has provided the commoner for 10,000 years. If you are a promising commoner, you probably get brought into one of the great schools, either by tithe or slavery or volunteering. Most commoners stay on their homeworld and live a safe life protected by the Great Convention (which probably has the Fraufreleuches written into its body), probably apprenticed to masters. However, I suspect that if you step into the world of the great schools to be a swordmaster, warmaster, master of assassin, or mentat, you become a legitimate target of house warfare.
However, how one house can have slaves and another be anti-slavery concerns me. How does a commoner become a slave? Raiding, failed wars, Houses that are disbanded and the population sold into slavery? How do the Harkonnen have the right to treat their commoners so badly if the Great Convention and Fraufrelueches is in place? I have always wondered this. There must be a stipulation to strip a human of all rights as a global punishment or something. Any clues?
My impression is that the Great Convention doesnât really apply at the level of individual citizens, but only at the House level.
The books certainly make it seem that as long as your House observes all the proper forms, doesnât disrupt supplies of vital materials, and pays the Emperor his cut of House profits, you can treat your citizens however you like. Fail to do those things (especially the last one) and you can expect a visit from a friendly Sardaukar legion to explain to you the error of your ways.
Yes. I think the system offers you a guaranteed place and work, just doesnât ensure itâs a good one. But then, given how many people lower than a noble might leave a planet, most may well think this is how the whole universe operates.
The Great Convention, and its organs, such as the Landsraad and the Rites of Kanly, is a constitution of sorts, with the primary goal of not harming non-combatants if at all possible. Mediation, dueling, Wars of Assassins, these are all regulated to limit non-combatants. The Great Convention, along with society in general and the Fraufreleuches (sic) protect the commoner.
I just dont understand at what point a commoner becomes a slave and thus forfeits his/her rights entirely. I suspect it has to do with backing the wrong side in a conflict, criminal activity, and so forth. The Harkonnen Slave Master was a very high position, but it gives no details on this person.
From my reading of Dune, commoners have guaranteed rights. Think of the dinner scene on Arrakis in Dune: the guests were a mix of local rich and politically adroit. They had opinions and they expressed them even when they were insulting. Leto did not kill them on the spot or fight ( of course, he is Leto the Just). Now these guests did not know what to expect from the Duke, but they did not have issues having opinions or even being hostile, with impunity. This alone tells me that commoners have rights and know how to exercise them. Now, the Baron would not have sat and let his guests insult him, but he is surrounded by slaves that he owns, not commoners.
To a large degree its mainly that how each House runs their own planet is up to them.
While slavery may be frowned upon or outright illegal, there are plenty of bound indentured workers who are slaves in everything but name. Like so many things, there are ways around the laws if you have enough power.
I think the Harkonnen are the worst example, and their ruthless response to any âmalcontentsâ is what stops most people complaining.
The guests at the dinner on Arrakis are more in the middle class of Arrakis, merchants and spice dealers (while there are smugglers, they are nice corporate ones 
) so these people have more social clout. They also know that Leto needs them and their expertise as heâs new. But Iâd offer they wouldnât have tried anything on if it had been the Baron at the end of the table instead of Leto.
The Harkonnens are brutal in Dune, with slaves and gladiator pits and sex slaves and mentions of general repression, but they are totally evil if not worse in the after-Frank Herbert stuff. I personally donât care for any of the Anderson, it entirely lacks the nuance and the world building of Dune.
So where do Slaves fit in the Fraufrelueches system? Obviously at the bottom, but are they the rock-bottom class, or are people like the Fremen, who are not counted on any imperial census and are an unknown quantity, the lowest? It would certainly give the Harkonnens the authority to attack the Fremen if they are willfully outside of the system causing problems. And since slaves in history tended to be at the mercy of their master, they would have few protections as well, beyond the economic damage caused by killing them on a whim.
My take on slaves in the Imperium is they are probably created when a House falls from power, even thousands of years back, and descendants remain slaves, trapped in the system until freed by another House.
Its a hard subject to discuss. It is grotesque.
I would say that the Fremen would be âbelowâ Slaves/Indentured servants. On the basis that the Slaves/Indentureds are at least recorded in the Fraufrelueche rules. Even if only that other Houses arenât supposed to directly attack them.
Fremen (and other hidden indigenous populations elsewhere) donât have anyone protecting them officially. Only whatever the House that control the Fief they are in decides to afford them. Which at best is probably just ignoring them and at worst treating them as hunting sport.
The Anderson/Herbert books a nice Sci-fi and some of the ideas are great. But I agree, the further you get from Dune the less I find them interesting. And as the Anderson/Herbert books are the furthest you can getâŚ
Under the Harkonnens, being treated as hunting sport was pretty much the best case scenario for the Fremen.
The worst case, as in the second half of the first novel, was flat-out genocide.