To a certain extent, today’s semiconductors — essentially made from sand as well — are the spice melange in this millennium.
In the 1965 sci-fi novel Dune, civilisations across the entire universe fight for control over the spice melange trade. A line from the 1984 movie adaptation summarises its importance: “He who controls the spice, controls the universe.”
As explained in the novel, the spice, harvested painstakingly by filtering sand from the vast desert, enabled deep space travel so that trade could flourish and planets prosper.
