Figures of the Dune Cycles

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The important figures of the Dune cycles listed below come from the desert planet novels. Figures from all 12 volumes published so far by Frank Herbert , Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are described.

Noble families

The house of Atreides

Falcons - coat of arms of the Atreides
Atreides banner

Representatives of the House of Atreides play leading roles in all volumes of the Dune series. Frank Herbert borrowed its name from Greek mythology; Vorian , the founder of the house, is said to have descended from the Greek hero Atreus .

Paul Atreides

Paul Orestes Atreides also Paul Muad'Dib and Usul , the first emperor from the house of Atreides, is the focus of the first trilogy . According to information in The Early Chronicles 3: The House of Corrino , he was born in 10176 at the court of Emperor Shaddam IV Corrino on Kaitain . His parents are the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica and Duke Leto I. Atreides .

Paul's father, Duke Leto Atreides, takes control of the desert planet Arrakis (also called Dune) in 10191. This move was more difficult for Paul than for his parents, as he had loved their previous residence - the water planet Caladan - very much. They are betrayed shortly after the Atreides arrive. Harkonnen forces, supported by camouflaged Imperial Sardaukar, take control of Arrakis. Paul and his mother manage to escape while his father dies.

During his escape on Arrakis , he met and fell in love with the Fremen girl Chani. Paul has a total of 3 children with her. Your first son is killed by a Sardaukar at the end of the first volume. The other children are the twins Leto II and Ghanima. Paul becomes the leader of the "native" Fremen, threatens the total annihilation of the Melange and thus forces the Emperor Shaddam IV to abdicate . In order to politically legitimize power as the new ruler of the Dune universe, Paul Irulan , the eldest daughter of the former emperor Shaddam, marries without consummating the marriage.

Alia Atreides

Alia Atreides (* 10191) is born in the first trilogy as the daughter of Leto I and Lady Jessica. She is Paul's sister. In the third volume: The children of the desert planet , she plays a major role. Alia was married to the first Duncan Idaho clone ( ghola ). After her nephew Leto gives her the choice of either submitting an obsession test by the Bene Gesserit or jumping off the balcony of the palace, she chooses suicide.

Ghanima Atreides

Ghanima Atreides is a main character in the novel The Children of the Desert Planet . She and her twin brother Leto II are the children of Paul Muad'dib and his Fremen concubine Chani. They both awoke to full consciousness before they were born and carry all the memories of their ancestors with them. Ghanima is nominally married to her (childbearing) brother Leto. The father of their children is Harq al-Ada alias Farad'n Corrino who becomes the progenitor of all later Atreides.

Leto II. Atreides

God Emperor Leto II. Atreides is the main character in two novels: The Children of the Desert Planet and The God Emperor of the Desert Planet . He is the second son of Paul Muad'dib and Chani, twin brother of Ghanima and designated heir to Paul. Concern for the future of mankind requires him to lead them on the golden path that his visions show. This path demands a tremendous personal sacrifice. It can only succeed in “the skin that is not mine”. This skin is created through metamorphosis with the sand trout and makes him a hybrid being, half human and half sandworm. In this form he exercises a tyrannical rule that lasted 3500 years. He is re-educating humanity. His death and the following years of hunger lead to the diaspora and to the salvation of humanity.

Paul Atreides

Paul was the father and predecessor of Duke Leto I. He is described as a proud, strong and righteous man who was idolized by his people. He gave Leto the best possible training and taught him to value all life. According to the Roman bread-and-games concept, however, he regularly organized bullfights in which he killed so-called bulls from Salusa Secundus. These are much larger and stronger than normal bulls on planet earth. In such a fight Paul was killed because the bull was influenced by stimulants and pain relievers. Paul's wife, Helena Atreides, born Richese, had arranged this assassination attempt to punish Paul for not listening to her. She had disapproved of his granting asylum to Dominic Vernius' children, Kailea and Rhombur.

Leto I. Atreides

Duke Leto Atreides I (10140-10191) is the main character in the early chronicles . Paul Muad'dib's father, Duke Leto I, is an in-law cousin of the Corrinos. Occasionally he was also called the Red Duke because he wore a red uniform that was supposed to be reminiscent of his father's matador suit. The House of Atreides ruled Caladan for twenty-six generations before he was forced to take over Arrakis as a new fiefdom . On Arrakis, Leto I is captured by Baron Wladimir Harkonnen and dies trying to kill him and himself with poison.

His remains rested in the skull tomb on Arrakis until the Honored Matres burned the entire planet to cinder. Leto was considered a kind and just duke throughout his life, who could always count on the loyalty of his subordinates. He was very popular on the Imperial Council of High Houses, the Landraad. With regard to the heraldic animal of the Atreides, Frank Herbert made small inconsistencies. While a red hawk adorns the signet ring and banner in the first trilogy, it is a red falcon in the following volumes. The colors of his banner are split green and black.

Siona Atreides

Siona Ibn Fuad Al-Seyfa Atreides is the daughter of Moneo, the majordomo and chief adjudant of the god -emperor . She is a distant descendant of the house of Atreides, at the end of the reign of God-Emperor Leto II. She initiates the conspiracy that leads to his death. Many of the Bene Gesserits in the second trilogy are descendants of Siona and the Duncan Idaho Ghola. She was the embodiment of the divine imperial "breeding program". No clairvoyant, neither Leto II nor the navigators of the space guild can locate Siona and her descendants in space-time.

Vorian Atreides

Vorian Atreides is the hero of the legends and winner of Corrin . Vorian was a son of the titan Agamemnon conceived in vitro and spent his youth as a confidante of the robot Seurat . He had initially looked up to his father, the cymek and ex-titan Agamemnon, and had become one of his closest confidants. Agamemnon's trust in Vorian went so far that Agamemnon only let Vorian clean and maintain his brain container. At first Vorian was very happy to be able to follow his father later and become a cymek himself. Vorian was one of the few people who could move relatively freely in the inner circles of Omnius' Synchronized Worlds and therefore also had access to forbidden knowledge. During the human uprising on Earth, he saved Serena Butler and Iblis Ginjo by stealing Seurat's ship, the Dream Voyager . After initial distrust of the rescued Serena, Vorian quickly gained a position of trust within the league.

Due to his knowledge, Vorian quickly became the supreme commander of the Army of the Jihad (later: Army of Humanity) and was the founder of the House of Atreides on Caladan . Raquella Berto-Anirul , the founder of Bene Gesserit, was a granddaughter of Vorian, who presumably had several children, but only officially recognized Raquella's mother (posthumously) and his children on Caladan, whom he had together with Leronica Targiet. His "Caladan sons" were called Estes and Kagin. Vorian was the friend and mentor of Abulurd Harkonnen the Elder , but with whom he broke after the Battle of Corrin, which started the eternal feud between the House of Atreides and the House of Harkonnen . In contrast to later descriptions, however, it was Atreides who took the part of "evil", while Harkonnen only tried to save the lives of millions of people.

Later Atreides

Most of the characters in the second trilogy are descendants of Siona Atreides. For example:

Officers of the Atreides

Gurney Halleck

Gurney is - along with Duncan Idaho - the Duke's most experienced officer. After his family was murdered by Harkonnen, he fled one of their slave pits. He then went into the service of the renegade Dominic Vernius and finally he swore loyalty to the house of Atreides. After the illegal attack by the Harkonnen and Sardaukar on Arrakis, he escaped and went into hiding with the smugglers. Detected there by Paul Atreides, he helps train young foreign warriors and is used as a scout.

After defeating the Empire and the Harkonnen, he begins a relationship with Lady Jessica and becomes Governor of Caladan at her side.

Duncan Idaho

The sword master of the House of Atreides comes from Giedi Primus , the homeworld of the Harkonnen. At the age of 8, he and his parents were captured by the Harkonnen and abused as human game. The Harkonnen prince Glossu Rabban kills his parents and takes him to a forest for one last hunt. There Duncan succeeds in killing some of his pursuers. He escapes into a clearing where a thopter is waiting for him. The woman, who had denounced his parents to the Harkonnen, helps him to escape to Caladan , where he enters the service of Duke Paulus . In the course of time he rises in the hierarchy of the Atreides, attends the school of sword masters on Ginaz and becomes one of the most capable officers of the Atreides who, for example, participated in the reconquest of IX. He accompanies Duke Leto to Arrakis and wins the Fremen's trust on his behalf. When the house of Atreides on Arrakis is destroyed, he supports Paul and Jessica in their escape in the desert and to the Fremen. He is eventually killed while covering Paul and Jessica's further escape route against Imperial Sardaukar. In the following years the Tleilaxu resurrected it as a ghola countless times. The first time as a gift from the Tleilaxu to the Emperor Paul Atreides. All these gholas could only remember the life of the first original Duncan. The final Idaho ghola, after all, has the memories of all of its ghola incarnations.

God Emperor Leto II and later the Bene Gesserit keep ordering new Duncan Idahos. Under Leto II, these Duncan Gholas provided the male commander of his otherwise female army, the so-called fish speakers. Breeding programs were also carried out with these on a voluntary basis. At the request of Bene Gesserit, his muscle and nervous system was genetically adapted to modern requirements in the 5th volume. This new Idaho ghola is also a Mentat. The examination by the Bene Gesserit did not reveal any abnormalities in the genetic code. At the end of Volume 5, the skills hidden by the Tleilaxu in Duncan burst out. They are in the field of sexual orientation.

With these skills he shapes Murbella, an honored matre who should actually make him sexually subservient. The imprint, however, works mutually. So both live, as a couple, trapped on the Ordensburg planet of the Bene Gesserit. They are hidden in a non-ship and kept under constant surveillance. At the end of the desert planet cycle, he and Sheeana flee into non-mapped space. Duncan erases the data describing the ship's course, so that the occupants of the ship no longer have the opportunity to find their way back into the known universe.

After over 20 years of fleeing, Duncan and his fellow travelers are finally captured by Omnius. But instead of killing them all, Omnius is destroyed by the Oracle of Time (Norma Cenva), while Duncan comes to an agreement with Erasmus that allows people and thinking machines to coexist peacefully. He then gives Erasmus the only human experience that Erasmus cannot simulate and "kills" the robot at his request. The ghola of Paul Atreides realizes that neither he nor his son Leto II, but Duncan is the true and ultimate Kwisatz Haderach , as he lived more life (really) than anyone else and therefore about real human life experiences and not just the memories of the deceased disposes. He then makes his labor and that of many (voluntary) machines available to the planets devastated by the Honored Matres and Bene Gesserit in their war for reconstruction, but denies the creation of a new empire, the people and machines should live freely and in peace.

Thufir Hawat

The Assassin Master and Warrior Mentat of the House of Atreides. He served the house of Atreides for three generations and trained the dukes Paulus and Leto as well as Paul . His combat skills are as masterful as those as a mentat. In the course of the fall of the Atreides, he was captured by the Harkonnen and "turned around". Believing that Paul was dead and the Emperor was responsible, he worked with the Harkonnen. Because of its accurate information about the Atreides, it is a powerful tool for the Harkonnen. Even the limited data input from his new employers hardly affects the high quality of his analyzes. From the emperor himself he received the order to kill Paul with a Gom Jabbar. Although Paul voluntarily offers him his life, he refuses and remains loyal. He died in Paul's arms. In the 7th volume he is resurrected by Sheeana as a ghola.

The Corrino / Butler House

Lion - coat of arms of the Corrino

The Corrino House (originally Butler) represents the emperors of the empire for 81 generations. After the Battle of Corrin , Faykan Butler, the real founder of the house, calls himself Faykan Corrino. Originally the House of Boro ruled over the empire and also provided the emperors. However, when the titans came to power, the family fell and the Butlers and Corrinos rose to the top. In "God Emperor of the Desert Planet" Leto II gives the order to completely extinguish the Corrinos, details are not reported.

Shaddam Corrino

Shaddam IV. Corrino is in The Desert Planet - The Early Chronicles and in the Desert Planet the 81st and last Paddishah emperor from the House of Corrino. Unlike his father Elrood IX. Shaddam has only one wife, Bene Gesserit Anirul , and five daughters. Shaddam allies himself with the House of Harkonnen against his great-nephew Leto I and therefore later has to abdicate in favor of his son-in-law Paul Atreides .

Shaddam's power is based on the Sardaukar . Shaddam spends his old age with Hasimir Fenring and their four younger daughters on Salusa Secundus , the ancestral planet of the Butler-Corrino family.

Shaddam was considered cunning from a young age. Among other things, he killed his own father Elrood IX to usurp the imperial throne. Shaddam had the reputation of a very bad strategist who neglected the training of the Sardaukar and thus greatly weakened it.

Irulan Corrino

Princess Irulan Corrino is the first-born daughter of Padishah-Emperor Corrino. (Her name is an anagram of her mother's name, Anirul ). She is the wife of Paul Muad'dib , but the marriage was never consummated. She is involved in the conspiracy against Paul in the Lord of the Desert Planet (Volume 2 of the first trilogy), but is then loyal to Paul's children Leto II and Ghanima .

In early Chronicles 3 , she witnesses her mother's murder. In the desert planet many chapters are preceded by quotations that come from books that Irulan writes about her husband.

Serena Butler

221-164 before the guild was founded. Daughter of Manion and Livia Butler (Volume 1 of the Legends ). Serena is in a relationship with the young officer Xavier Harkonnen when the machines attack Zimia, the capital of her home planet Salusa Secondus. Serena is later captured by the machines; The uprising of the people on earth is triggered by the fact that the robot Erasmus kills her and Xavier's son Manion. In the chaos of the fighting, Serena is able to flee the earth together with Vorian Atreides and Iblis Ginjo , a former slave foreman (trustee).

In the League of Nobles, Serena and her dead son are henceforth worshiped in a religious way and serve as the leading figures of the Jihad. ("In the name of Serena and Manion the Innocent!"). Serena becomes the official "High Priest of Jihad". Iblis Ginjo swings himself up to become the "Great Patriarch" of the Jihad and benefits from Serena's nimbus.

Almost 30 years later, the jihad shows hardly any success. Neither the people nor the machines have so far been able to achieve a decisive advantage. Serena looks for help from the so-called ivory tower cogitors , human brains placed in life support containers. Out of ignorance and misunderstanding the situation, they propose a truce with the machines. This proposal is enthusiastically accepted by the war-weary League planets. Iblis Ginjo then persuades Serena to provoke the computer " universal spirit" Omnius during the peace negotiations so that he kills her. This fails, but the leader of Serena's bodyguard (Seraphim) Niriem was instructed by Ginjo to kill Serena in the event of failure, which she then does.

Ginjo then distributes fake film footage showing how Omnius Serena is executed in a painful and cruel manner, which rekindles the jihad and makes the negotiations forgotten.

From then on, Serena is venerated as a saint and martyr, as the mother of Manion and patron saint of the Jihadis.

Manion Butler (the Elder)

At the beginning of the storyline of the Viceroy legends trilogy of the League of Nobles. Father of Serena, Octa and Fredo. Died of old age while inspecting his vineyards in 169 before the guild was founded. The title Viceroy is comparable to a chairman of parliament or prime minister. Manion was Viceroy of the League of Nobles when the thinking machines under the leadership of the Titan Agamemnon attacked Salusa Secundus and the capital Zimia and almost conquered it. Only through the quick reaction of the then Tercero Xavier Harkonnen could the city and thus the league parliament be saved and the attackers repulsed. Politically, Manion was more moderate. He did not have the charisma and charisma of his successors, but was still very popular and respected. After the death of his grandson Manion the Innocent by the robot Erasmus , he also officially proclaimed the Jihad on behalf of his daughter Serena and his grandson, which was led by his daughter.

Quentin Butler

Quentin Butler , actually Quentin Vigar, is married to Xavier Harkonnen's daughter Wandra, but has adopted the name Butler after Wandra's grandparents because of the “shame” that lay over the name Harkonnen because of the death of Iblis Ginjo , and the family motto “A Butler is nobody's servant! ”, whereby he was fully aware of the irony of the name butler (“ A butler used to be a servile servant, but today a butler is nobody's servant! ”). He is known as the Liberator of IX and Parmentier. Quentin has 3 sons: Faykan, Rikov and Abulurd. But since his wife suffered a stroke when Abulurd was born, he could never accept his son, and when he took the name Harkonnen, he broke with him for good and only addressed him by his rank.

After the great purge , Quentin goes on a humanitarian mission with Porce Bludd, Nico Bludd's heir , and in search of survivors. He is captured by the cymeks on Wallach IX and made into a (neo-) cymek himself. He tries several times to sabotage the cymeks, but fails. Ultimately, with the help of Vorian, he destroys the titans and rams Dante's ship in a kamikaze mission , as he tries to escape, and dies in the process. He could have shot Dante, but did not want to face his children and friends as a cymek .

Rikov Butler

He is the second eldest son of Quentin Butler (Vigars) and Wandra Butler and was born in 138 before the guild was founded. In addition to being a senior officer in the Butler's Jihad army, he was also the administrator of the planet Parmentier, one of the first League planets to be ravaged by the Omnius Scourge. He is the father of Rayna Butler, who started the "Great Purge".

Rayna Butler

Daughter of Rikov Butler, born in 119 before the guild was founded, founded the Serena cult , which aims to destroy all technology that is not directly necessary for survival. Her enlightenment was a feverish dream in which Serena appeared to her while Rayna suffered from the plague known as the Omnius hostage . As a result of the illness, she lost all body hair and remained as small as a 12-year-old child. The Serena cult grows rapidly and soon calls into question the authority of the Viceroy, who therefore allies himself with the cult and uses the cultists as volunteers for the army of mankind. Serena also wrote the manifesto, which is still valid up to the time of Paul Atreides and beyond, and which strictly prohibits the manufacture, use and possession of thinking machines with the death penalty (and sometimes torture).

Faykan Butler (Corrino)

Faykan Butler , a grandson of Xavier Harkonnen , made a name for himself in politics and was eventually elected viceroy of the League of Nobles. After the Battle of Corrin he combined this office with that of the Great Patriarch , changed his name in honor of the legendary battlefield and became Faykan Corrino , the first Paddischah-Emperor and founder of the House of Corrino.

Farad'n Corrino

Farad'n Corrino was the son of Princess Wensicia Corrino and Count Dalak Kenola and was born in 10200 in exile on Salusa Secundus as Farad'n Kenola. After the unexplained accidental death of his father, Farad'n's surname was changed to Corrino and he received a Sardaukar education. When Leto II ascended the throne , he handed the Sardaukar over to the Atreides and from then on called himself Harq al-Ada. He was the lover of Ghanima Atreides and the father of their children and thus the progenitor of all later Atreides.

Count Hasimir Fenring

Count Hasimir Fenring (10133-10255) was a cousin by marriage of the House of Corrino and childhood playmate of Shaddam IV. Count Fenring was an almost Kwisatz-Haderach, which made him a genetic eunuch and one of the most dangerous fighters in the empire. He was responsible for the murder of Shaddam's brother Fafnir and for the murder of Elrood IX, which paved Shaddam's way to the throne and made him his closest confidante. He later managed Siridar Caladan as deputy and followed Shaddam IV into exile in Salusa Secundus.

The Harkonnen house

Griffin coat of arms of the Harkonnen
Harkonnen banner

Xavier Harkonnen

223-164 before founding the guild, husband of Octa Butler, father of Roella, Omilia and Wandra (Butler)

Xavier Harkonnen's parents (Ulf and Katarina Harkonnen) and his older brother were killed in a cymek attack during the inspection of their family property on Hagal.

Xavier Harkonnen is the forefather of the Harkonnen family. Butler's jihad was triggered by the death of his son Manion the Innocent, who was thrown from the fourth floor of his mansion on old earth by Erasmus , the independent robot . In the course of the jihad, Xavier was promoted to the rank of primero , roughly comparable to a general , and distinguished himself in many battles against the thinking machines under the leadership of Omnius . During a visit to Tlulax, Xavier was made aware of inhumane crimes committed by the "Great Patriarch" Iblis Ginjo in the name of the Jihad and which were kept secret from the public. The former trustee had attacked several peaceful unrelated planets together with the Tlulaxa, abducted almost all of the native people to cannibalize them on Tlulax, as a living reserve store for organs and extremities. The league constantly needed new organs and other body parts to replace the jihadis. However, this scope of supply exceeded the capacities of the Tlulaxa organ farms , in which organs could be grown, whereupon this terrible crime was planned and carried out. As a result, Xavier decided to kill himself and Iblis Ginjo, who committed these crimes. Due to the fact that the crimes of the first "Great Patriarch" continued to be kept secret, Xavier has been considered a coward and traitor ever since. Shortly before his suicide, however, he was able to send his closest friend Vorian Atreides a message in which he described the gruesome crimes and hoped to make the reasons for his crime clear to his friend. Vorian recognized the connections, but for the time being refrained from washing the name of his friend in order not to stall the jihad and thus trigger the collapse of the "League of Nobles". Through the "betrayal" of Abulurd d. Ä. Vorian completely renounced the rehabilitation of Xavier, which created the reputation of the Harkonnen as traitors and "bad" family.

Abulurd Harkonnen (the Elder)

Abulurd Harkonnen (born Abulurd Butler 126 before the Raumgilde was founded) was the son of Wandra Butler-Harkonnen and Quentin Vigar (Butler). After Abulurd's mother fell into a vegetative state after he was born, his father, the war hero Quentin Butler, couldn't accept him. Abulurd was promoted to officer in the army of the Jihad only through the protection of Vorian Atreides . It was also Vorian who told him the truth about his grandfather Xavier and who encouraged him to come to terms with Xavier's name. At the Battle of Corrin, Abulurd shut down the weapon systems of the League starships in an attempt to save the lives of the people on the Hrethgir Bridge . Only Vorian's experience could save the situation. As a result, Abulurd was banished for cowardice and settled on Lankiveil , where he became the ancestor of the House of Harkonnen. Since it was Abulurd who behaved humanely, and Vorian Atreides is portrayed as inhuman and hardened, it is the Harkonnens who first feel they have been treated unfairly and then seek revenge on the Atreides.

His older brother Faykan took the name Corrino after the Battle of Corrin and became the ancestor of the Corrino. Both are therefore also ancestors of Paul Atreides .

Abulurd Harkonnen (d. J.)

Abulurd Harkonnen was the youngest son of Dimitri Harkonnen and his avowed favorite. Unlike the rest of his family, he was a gentle and kind and just person. Like his father, he was willing to put an end to the feud with the Atreides and did not take any action against them. After the death of his father, Abulurd was at his request by Elrood IX. appointed governor of Arrakis. Seven years later he was deposed because of his incompetence and exiled to Lankiveil. Years later he laid down his family name so that his youngest son, Feyd-Rautha Rabban, would not have the stigma of the Harkonnen name. His demi brother Wladimir then adopted the boy, who was called Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen from then on, and had him kidnapped by Glossu Rabban, Abulurd's eldest son. Abulurd then retired to a monastery as a broken man. In an effort to repair the damage that the Harkonnen had suffered to the residents of Lankiveil, he later plundered an illegal spice store and distributed the profit from the sale among the population. When his son Glossu Rabban found out about it, he was strangled by him.

Vladimir Harkonnen

Although Vladimir Harkonnen (10110-10193) was commonly known as Baron Harkonnen, his official title was Siridar Baron (which corresponds to the rank of planetary governor). He was the direct descendant of Bashar Abulurd (the Elder) Harkonnen, who went down in history as a coward after the Battle of Corrin. Although he was actually homosexual, the Bene-Gesserit forced him to father a daughter for their breeding program. Wladimir Harkonnen became the biological father of Lady Jessica and thus the grandfather of the Fremen leader Paul Atreides.

The baron created the order through the brutal rape of the venerable mother Gaius Helen Mohiam . However, she infected him with a genetic virus that disfigured his athletic-muscular body into grotesque obesity. Ultimately, he was only able to move normally with the help of a suspensor belt, which used force fields to reduce his body weight. Almost a gift, claims the baron in the novel The God Emperor of the Desert Planet that he was always aroused when he looked horrible and repulsive to other people. The Siridar baron died during the revolt on Arrakis, poisoned by his granddaughter Alia using a "Gom Jabar".

In the third volume, as her grandfather and thus part of her far-reaching memories, he influences the personality and behavior of Alia Atreide. In the end she therefore commits suicide and thus destroys him too. In the 7th volume it returns as a ghola. Ironically, this time Alia takes over his thoughts and drives him crazy.

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (born Feyd-Rautha Rabban) was the youngest son of Abulurd (d. J.) Harkonnen and was adopted by his uncle Wladimir Harkonnen. When his uncle was murdered in the revolt on Arrakis, his titles passed to him. He challenged Paul Muad'Dib to a knife duel, in the course of which he was killed.

Feyd was considered the prettiest of all the Harkonnen still alive. His good looks even got him an affair with Princess Irulan, daughter of Emperor Shaddam. Feyd's character was cowardly and deceitful, however. He never shrank from the thought of betraying his uncle or brother. The Siridar Baron knew about this and usually called Feyd a “splendid boy” or “splendid fellow”.

Feyd practiced hand-to-hand combat mostly with servants of the baron. He also enjoyed killing slaves in horrific ways in arena shows. This strengthened his reputation as a bad sadist, which was widespread in all social circles .

It was also a failed attempt at the Bene Gesserit's Kwisatz-Haderach breeding program.

Glossu Rabban - "The Beast of Lankiveil"

Glossu Rabban (10132-10193), Count of Lankiveil, was the eldest son of Abulurd (d. J.) Harkonnen and the nephew of Vladimir Harkonnen. He had his grandfather, the mayor of a small mountain village, thrown into an abyss because he asked for temporary tax exemption after an avalanche disaster. After his father had cleared out an illegal Harkonnen melange warehouse on Lankiveil and distributed the proceeds to the people, Glossu strangled him himself. Since then he has proudly called himself "The Beast of Lankiveil". As governor of Arrakis, he brutally suppressed the Fremen. In his uncle's overall plan, however, he was only a useful pawn. If Rabban had tyrannized the people long enough, the baron planned to exchange him for Feyd-Rautha. The enslaved people would have welcomed him as a liberator. Rabban "the beast" was killed and beheaded during the revolt on Arrakis of Sardaukar. The head was sent by the Emperor to Baron Vladimir Harkonnen with a warning not to fail again.

The house of Vernius

Double helix coat of arms of Vernius

In the Early Chronicles, the house of Vernius is the ruling house of the machine planet Ix .

Count Dominik Vernius

Count Dominik was the head of the House of Vernius. During the Ecazi revolt, he fought side by side with Duke Paulus Atreides for the Padishah emperor Elrood IX. and has since been celebrated as a war hero. However, he incurred the wrath of the Emperor when he married his favorite concubine Shando and brought her to his home planet Ix as Countess Vernius.

Many years later he felt the vengeance of Elrood. When he needed a suitable production facility for the production of a synthetic spice substitute, he supported Bene Tleilax in taking over Ix with his Sardaukar troops and Dominik Vernius became a renegade.

When Count Vernius learned that his beloved wife had been murdered by the Sardaukar, he swore eternal hostility to the Corrinos. Even after Elrood's death and Shaddam IV's accession to the throne, Dominik Vernius did not cease to ridicule the emperor through acts of sabotage and malicious pranks.

Eventually he was betrayed to Hasimir Fenring on Arrakis. When Dominik also found out that the Corrinos were not only to blame for the death of his wife, but also for the fall of his homeworld, he decided to launch a massive nuclear attack against the imperial capital Kaitain.

When he went to his hiding place on Arrakis to load his nuclear weapons arsenal, he and his men were surprised by the Sardaukar. Dominik Vernius committed suicide by detonating one of the nuclear explosives and thus tearing an entire legion of the imperial elite troops to their deaths.

Shando Vernius (née Balut)

Shando was once the concubine of Emperor Elrood IX. and bore him a son. After she was released from Elrood's service, she married her secret lover, Count Dominik Vernius. After the fall of Ix, Shando, Dominik and the children fled separately. Shando was tracked down and executed by the Sardaukar after a short time.

Rhombur Vernius

Prince Rhombur is the only son of Dominic and Shando Vernius and his designated successor. After losing Ix, he goes into exile with his sister Kailea in Caladan, where he is initially granted asylum by Paulus Atreides. In an assassination attempt by his sister Kailea, who had planned neither the presence of Rhombur nor Leto's son Victor, Rhombur's lower body was severed and his arms destroyed, but Leto paid for his restoration as a cyborg. Although Rhombur remained a human on the inside, he was almost entirely a machine on the outside. However, this did not violate the ban on thinking machines, as Rhombur's brain was and remained human. Rhombur is killed in an assassination attempt against another noblewoman when he is crushed by compressed sound waves used as a weapon. Although he was able to recapture the seat on Ix with Leto's help and the support of the Space Guild, he was gradually ousted by a consortium of industrial technocrats and was ultimately just a figurehead.

Kailea Vernius

Dominik and Shando's daughter grows up on Ix with her parents and Rhombur. After the Sardaukar and Bene Tleilax conquered Ix, she fled to Caladan with Rhombur. There she becomes the concubine of Leto Atreides and gives birth to his son Viktor. An attempt to become regent by assassinating Leto as the mother of the (at that time) only heir to the throne fails. Instead, their son Viktor dies. Annoyed, Kailea suicides herself by jumping out of the window of her Gamächer in Caladan Castle.

Zensunni / Zenschiiten / Fremen

Chani

Chani is the official concubine of Paul Atreides in The Desert Planet and The Lord of the Desert Planet . The daughter of the imperial planetologist Liet Kynes meets Paul while fleeing into the desert. She becomes the bearer of his water rings and gives birth to his first son, who dies in the attack of the Sardaukar. For political reasons Paul marries the Emperor's daughter, but makes Chani the mother of his children. Since Princess Irulan had mixed contraceptives into her food for a long time, she died of a hemorrhage at the end of Volume 2, giving birth to twins Leto II and Ghanima .

Selim Wurmreiter

Exiled member of a Zensunni tribe on Arrakis in the legends . The orphan Selim had to take the blame for a water theft through a horse trade and was sent to the desert for it. The real thief was the son of an influential tribe member who wanted to save his son from this punishment. However, he did not die, but found an abandoned research station with large supplies of water and food. Little by little he perfected life in the desert. When a worm attacked, he climbed on its back in a panic and thus, more accidentally, invented riding on sandworms. Over the years he rallied other people and established his own tribe of outcasts and refugees. Then he and his followers began to sabotage the spice harvest for the purpose of selling it to foreigners. As a result, he also drew the inexorable hostility of the old leader of his former tribe, whom he never forgave exile. He killed himself and this archenemy, Naib Dharta, by summoning a worm that ate both of them.

Hedley Tuek

Hedley Tuek plays an important role in Volume 5. Tuek is high priest of the religion of the divided God on the desert planet Rakis. Sheeana was discovered and promoted under his aegis . In the middle of the band it is replaced by a new generation shapeshifter. In him the hubris that arises from the attempts of the Tleilaxu to produce ever more perfect shapeshifters is shown for the first time. The pseudo-Tuek has come out so well that he takes over the personality of the replaced person perfectly and ultimately becomes completely uncontrollable for his former Tleilaxu masters. Tuek dies when the Honored Matres burn the desert planet to cinder.

Ishmael

Former Zensunni slave of Harmonthep, who was imprisoned on Proritin and who fled there with the first folding spaceship built by Norma Cenva and many other Zensunni during the second ally- caused uprising because the Zensunni did not want to shed blood. They forced Tuk Keedair , one of Venkee's partners , to fly the spacecraft. He landed on Arrakis, where he united his tribe with that of Selim and became its Naib. He decided that the Zensunni on Arrakis would call themselves Free Men in the future , which over the millennia would become Fremen (also in the legends ).

Stilgar

Stilgar Ben Fifrawi appears in the first three novels of the Dune cycle. He is the Naib (leader) of a Fremen tribe who live in Sietch Tabr on the planet Arrakis. His youth is illuminated in the early chronicles of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson . After his death, Stilgar returns as "Ghola" ( cloned human) in the novel Sandworms of Dune (2007). He took the name Stilgar only after a successful campaign against a Harkonnen village. Before he was called Sahkan or "The Desert Falcon ".

At a young age, Stilgar and two friends, Turok and Ommun, were ambushed by Harkonnen soldiers. He was saved seriously injured by Pardot Kynes , the imperial planetologist, with whom he was now in a "water debt ". With his friends, he secretly helped Kynes transform Arrakis into a new world. After Kynes' death, he became a paternal friend of his son Liet Kynes , with whom he carried on the planetary transformation mission.

In The Desert Planet , Lady Jessica and Paul Atreides (Muad'Dib) find refuge in Stilgar's Sietch. Like many others, he also believes that Paul is the long-awaited Messiah, Lisan al-Gaib. He left him in charge of his tribe, but became Naib again after Paul-Muad'Dib rose to become the leader of all Fremen. He and Gurney Halleck were Paul's most loyal followers and friends. After the successful revolt against the Harkonnen and the Emperor, Stilgar was installed by Paul as governor of Arrakis.

After Paul's disappearance in the second desert planet novel, The Lord of the Desert Planet , and in the third, The Children of the Desert Planet , he devotedly took care of Paul's children Leto II and Ghanima . On the orders of Paul's sister Alia , Stilgar killed the conspirators Gaius Helen Mohiam and the guild navigator Edric . In the volume The Children of the Desert Planet he finally supports Ghanima and Princess Irulan in their escape from the tyrannical Alia.

Bel Moulay

Zenschiite, probably from IV Anbus. He was the slave of Tio Holtzman on Poritrin and initiated an uprising in which he and his followers, both Zensunni and Zenschiites, were able to entrench themselves in parts of Starda, the capital of Poritrin, for several weeks and also took some aristocrats hostage. Unfortunately for them, it was precisely at this time that the Holtzman shields were ready for series production and so Lord Niko Bludd's Dragoons were able to set about putting down the rebellion without endangering themselves. Bel Moulay was cruelly tortured and executed, his teeth knocked in with a hammer, his tongue cut off, his hands chopped off, his eyes burned out and finally he was hanged from a wire noose. All slaves involved in the uprising had to attend the execution, but were "pardoned". With this inhuman punishment, Bludd wanted to ensure that the slaves would never revolt again. Only Aliid dared to rebel again after 20 years.

Aliid

Also Zenschiite from IV Anbus, was present at Bel Moulay's execution as a young boy. Since then he has fervently hated his oppressors. On the 27th anniversary of Moulay's execution, he initiated another, much more violent uprising by the slaves. Since he felt that he had been treated unfairly by Holtzman, he went to his home and fired a laser weapon at him. But since Holtzman was wearing a shield, a lasgun-shield interaction occurred that completely destroyed the city of Starda and cost several million lives alongside Holtzman, Aliid and Lord Bludd. Both Aliid and Moulay appear in the legends .

Bene Gesserit

The Bene Gesserit are a sisterhood founded by Raquella Berto-Anirul who, with the help of Spice, gain access to the further memories of their female ancestors. They can also transfer their own personality to a fellow sister, which amounts to a kind of mental immortality. The price of these skills is the dependence on the spice. It is less pronounced with the Bene Gesserit than with navigators, who have to consume considerably larger quantities over the long term.

In addition to comprehensive education in art, philosophy, literature, history and religion, Bene Gesserit's training also includes intensive physical training. The sisters learn to have total control of the body using methods usually referred to as prana bindu. After surviving the excruciating ritual of initiation - the spice agony - they are able to ignore pain and, in a hopeless situation, can ensure their own death through voluntary cardiac arrest. In addition, they have mastered sophisticated hand-to-hand combat techniques and highly effective sexual seduction skills. Training, a healthy lifestyle and the constant consumption of melange make Bene Gesserit sisters grow old.

The organization of the Bene Gesserit shows features of religious orders such as the Jesuits or the Sufis and is reminiscent of various real secret societies such as Freemasons or Illuminati . The order rejects private life and personal emotional ties. The sisters are free to enjoy themselves erotically and to maintain friendships. Passionate love relationships or bonds with one's own children and relatives are viewed as problematic and largely prevented. The secret society organization and its uncanny abilities often arouse envy and suspicion in the normal population. The sisters are therefore often insulted and feared as witches .

The organization of the sisterhood is democratic, but also strictly hierarchical. Led by an elected Mother Superior, a small leadership group leads the order. At the same time, the community also has strong communitarian traits. Every member, including the leaders, is absolutely committed to the goals of the sisterhood. An independent body, the procurators, can remove the leadership at any time if there are reasons to do so. It doesn't have to be a specific failure. The leadership can be removed if a majority of the sisters get the impression that the leading sisters may not be up to their duties. However, the Bene Gesserit reject a written constitution and formal democracy; they govern themselves by means of statutes. This distrust of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law is inherent in the entire Dune cycle. Both democracies and socialism or fascism are assumed to have an unstoppable tendency to form all-powerful bureaucracy. Frank Herbert uses a large number of examples to explain this fear.

Since their founding on Rossak , the Bene Gesserit have dedicated themselves to the analysis of genetic connections to the development of mankind. Over time, the Kwisatz Haderach project emerged from this: Through targeted selection, they work towards a kind of “ superman ”. This sisterhood-controlled male Bene Gesserit is said to also see the dark side of the continuing memories (the memory of the male ancestors); in addition, the Kwisatz Haderach would have real clairvoyant powers. According to mother Anirul's plan, Jessica and Leto Atreides were to become the grandparents of Kwisatz Haderach. The birth of Paul destroys these plans. Paul Atreides himself turns out to be the Kwisatz Haderach . He becomes the Mahdi of the Fremen and they cover the empire with the jihad in the name of his religion.

In the course of the following books, the Bene Gesserit counterbalance the supremacy of Paul Atreides and his descendants. They are becoming even more of a balancing political force working in the background. Towards the end of the classic 6 volumes, they have become the only remaining regulatory power in the empire. They actively oppose the threatening takeover of civilization by the fascist-barbaric Honored Matres.

In addition, the Bene Gesserit train fortune tellers (human lie detectors ) and the daughters of the noble houses and are silent partners of MAFEA .

Jessica

Lady Jessica (10154-10256) is the daughter of Bene Gesserit Gaius Helen Mohiam and Baron Wladimir Harkonnen . She becomes the concubine of Duke Leto Atreides and mother of Paul Atreides and his sister Alia Atreides . Jessica was to become the grandmother of Kwisatz Haderach according to the Bene Gesserit's plans. Her own mother, the powerful venerable mother Mohiam, took care of Jessica's education . At the age of twelve, Jessica witnessed Duke Leto's visit to her school on Wallach IX . Leto's friend Prince Rhomur Vernius wanted to choose a woman among the Bene Gesserit. When she was introduced to Caladan Castle at the age of 17 , her predestined partner, Kailea Vernius, already had a partner and a son (Viktor). After the tragic events that were triggered by Keilea herself and that led to the death of Viktor and the suicide of Kailea, it was Jessica who brought Leto back to his feet. Although she was only allowed to give birth to girls by the Bene Gesserit, she manipulated her body out of love for Leto and became pregnant with Paul. The consequences of this are related in The Early Chronicles 3, The House of Corrino . Jessica suspected early on that her son was special and taught him all the techniques of the Bene Gesserit. Before the family moved to Arrakis , Paul was tested by the Bene Gesserit for his "humanity" (ability to endure pain). On Arrakis she had a second child from Leto, her daughter Alia.

During the treacherous attack by the Harkonnen on the Atreides house, she managed to escape to the Fremen with Paul. She survived consuming the "water of life" (a Fremen ritual), which made her a venerable mother of the Fremen . After Paul's ascent to emperor, Jessica returned to Caladan and, with Paul's blessing, entered into a relationship with the faithful Atreides officer Gurney Halleck . 30 years later she visits Dune again to help her grandchildren. Her daughter Alia, who is possessed by Vladimir Harkonnen, then tries to murder her. Lady Jessica flees to Salusa Secundus , where she trains the future husband of her granddaughter Ghanima Farad'n Corrino alias Harq al-Ada in the Bene Gesserit style.

Lucilla

Lucilla plays an essential role in the 5th and 6th volumes. Lucilla is a "mint" of the Bene Gesserit. She trains the Duncan Idaho Ghola on Gammu and is supposed to shape him sexually, that is, to make him submissive to the influence of the sisterhood. Before she can do that, Miles Teg will restore the ghola's original personality. This then fends off the embossing.

In the following volume, Lucilla becomes head of the Bene Gesserit training planet Lampada. After the Honored Matres' devastating attack on Lampadas, she managed to escape with the memories of the "Millions of Lampadas". She stranded on Gammu and is now dependent on the help of the rabbi and his Jewish community. Since she can no longer leave the planet as a person, she transfers the millions of Lampadas to the consciousness of Rebecca, a “wild” venerable mother of the Jews. Lucilla dies in the hands of the Honored Matres, but Rebecca reaches the Order Castle planet with the Lampadas memories.

Raquella Berto-Anirul

The doctor Raquella Berto-Anirul is a granddaughter of Vorian Atreides . She and her partner Mohandas Suk dedicate themselves to fighting the deadly epidemic. When she fell ill with the epidemic herself on Rossak and was able to defeat the DNA virus by taking a medicinal water from Rossak, which enabled her to manipulate every single cell in her body, she became the first Venerable Mother who was able to manipulate one's own body. Together with some of Rossak's sorceresses, she founds the Bene Gesserit.

Schwangyu

Schwangyu plays a major role in Volume 5. Schwangyu is in command of the Bene Gesserit Fortress on Gammu. Under her care, the modified Duncan Idaho Ghola is raised. She represents the opposition within the sisterhood. Schwangyu does everything to weaken the ghola and finally allows himself to be corrupted by the Tleilaxu. She dies in a massive attack by the shapeshifter on her fortress.

Gaius Helen Mohiam

The venerable mother Gaius Helen Mohiam is the mother of Jessica and the imperial fortune teller in The Desert Planet Volume 1 . At the beginning of the first volume she tests Paul Atreides for his humanity. In The Lord of the Desert Planet , the venerable mother Mohiam is involved in the conspiracy against her grandson, the Emperor Paul Atreides. After the conspiracy is uncovered, Mohiam is executed.

Mohiam is also one of the central characters in the early chronicles . There she gets the Baron Harkonnen to sleep with her twice. The second time Baron Harkonnen brutally raped her, she infects him with the disease that causes his obesity. In addition, after a disturbing vision , she kills the baron's first daughter and then takes over the upbringing of Jessica. In spite of or because of these intimate entanglements, the Siridar Baron usually obscenely calls her “old shriveled witch”. In return, Mohiam never told him that Jessica was his own daughter.

Alma Mavis Taraza

Taraza is the Mother Superior in The Heretics of the Desert Planet and mentor to Odrade . Taraza dies in a Tleilaxu attack on Arrakis. She saves the lives of Sheeana and Odrade. Her original memories pass on to Odrade.

She is the first to deal with the Honored Matres threat . She develops the Duncan Sheeana Plan, which is viewed extremely critically by parts of the sisterhood due to its risks and creates an opposition within the Bene Gesserit.

Darwi Odrade

Odrade is the daughter of Miles Teg and a distant descendant of the Atreides in The Order Castle of the Desert Planet . After Taraza's death , by taking over her memories, she becomes Superior of the Bene Gesserit. She dies on the Way of the Cross in the Battle of Gammu while negotiating with the Honored Matres. She shares her memories with Murbella and Sheeana beforehand . Murbella is present at Odrades death. She takes over her most recent memories and in turn becomes the new Mother Superior.

Dortujla

Dortujla plays an important role in Volume 5. The venerable mother of the Bene Gesserit was transferred to the planet Buzzell as a punishment because of the "Jessica failure" (love for a partner). There they contact a group of Futar with their benders and bring an offer of cooperation to the sisters. After she has transmitted this message to the Ordensburg, Odrade sends her to the Supreme Honored Mater in the Way of the Cross. She brings the proposal for a meeting and the sisterhood's offer of surrender.

Sheeana

Sheeana plays a leading role in the 5th and 6th volume. Sheeana is a simple girl on Rakis, the desert planet. Her home village was destroyed by a sandworm, but she was spared. She rides the worm to Keen. There she is venerated by the priests of the dismembered god, apparently she can communicate with the worms and give them orders. Darwi Odrade trains her to be a venerable mother . Later she is responsible for the project of converting the order castle into a new desert planet. Sheeana gives Ghola Miles Teg back its original memories. At the end of Volume 6, she goes to the Diaspora with some other Venerable Mothers, Miles Tag, Duncan Idaho and all the knowledge of Mother Superior Odrade. There are also some sandworms on board their non-ship.

Murbella

Murbella is an Adept of the Hormu Order of the Honored Matres . She was caught trying to draw (sexually addicted) Duncan Idaho on Gammu and is drawn by him in the process. She is then held captive by the Bene Gesserit at the Ordensburg. After her consecration to the Bene Gesserit (survival of the agony) she plays the leading role in the battle for Gammu. After Odrade is killed, she takes over her memories and takes over the leadership of the sisterhood. Since she previously killed the Great Honored Mater in a duel, she is also the new leader of the Honored Matres. At the Ordensburg she then tries to establish a hybrid mixture of these two women's orders.

Bellonda

Bellonda is an (overweight) Bene Gesserit, mentor and archivist in the second trilogy . She strongly opposes Taraza and Odrade, but is loyal to the sisterhood.

Officers of the Bene Gesserit

The Bene Gesserit only have their own army from the fifth volume: The heretics of the desert planet .

Miles Teg

Miles Teg comes from the distant descendants of the Atreides family. He is the most important general in the service of the Bene Gesserit in The Heretics of the Desert Planet and The Order Castle of the Desert Planet . He has fought many battles for the Bene Gesserit, but sees himself more as a diplomat than a general. Herbert particularly emphasizes his leadership qualities and excellent knowledge of people. Teg's ideal is to avoid a battle and with it the loss of human life and resources. He always tries to save life, including the opposing troops. This strategy leads to legendary successes and almost awesome respect. He trains the Duncan Idaho Ghola in Volume 5 and brings back its original memories. In Volume 5, during an interrogation with a T-probe by lackeys of the Honored Matres , superhuman abilities are unleashed in him. He is able to perceive the invisible no-ships and can see into the future for a few minutes. He is also able to move extremely fast while his surroundings remain at normal speed. Using this skill leaves him starved and exhausted. These talents are similar to those Herbert attributed to the god-emperor Leto II, a good reason for Teg to keep them a secret. He fears to be liquidated by the Bene Gesserit, who would do anything to prevent a new tyrant. He dies at the end of Volume 5 when the Honored Matres destroy the desert planet and comes back as a ghola child in Volume 6. His own daughter Odrade trains him. At the end of volume 6, the Bene Gesserit awaken his original memories and reinstate him as their bashar. He leads the Battle of Gammu, the attack on the Honored Matres Central Fortress. At the end of the classic series, he belongs to the crew of the no-ship who, with Duncan Idaho, flees the Dune Empire into unmapped regions of space.

Patrin

Patrin is a character in the novel cycle about the desert planet, by Frank Herbert. He plays an essential role in Volume 5. Patrin is friend and personal adjutant of bashar Miles Teg. He was born on Gammu . It was there in his youth that he had discovered the Harkonnen non-sphere in which Miles Teg, the Idaho Ghola and Lucilla find refuge. Patrin sacrifices his life to cover their escape.

Burzmali

Burzmali plays a role in the 5th and 6th volumes. Burzmali is Supreme Bashar and the successor to Miles Teg in the Bene Gesserit armed forces. He was his favorite student and is very familiar with Miles Teg's line of thought. After escaping from the fortress on Gammu, he finally discovers the hidden non-sphere and organizes the further escape. In the 6th volume he commands the Bene Gesserit troops in the battle of Lampadas, in which he perishes.

Bene Tleilax

The Bene Tleilax or Tleilaxu are masters of manipulating the human genome. They supply human spare parts, organs and medicines of all kinds. Depending on their needs, they clone people with specific characteristics, from love slaves to Mentats to assassins. In the interests of their political goals, they create shapeshifters who can hardly be recognized by others. The thousandfold reproduced Duncan Idaho is your constant proof that you can create not just a ghola from the cells of a dead person, but a full-fledged human being with all his original memories. The Bene Tleilax use this knowledge to give their management team partial immortality. Like the Bene Gesserit, they have found a way to concentrate knowledge and experience of several human lives in one person.

They lead the lives of outcasts for genocidal crimes during Butler's Jihad (they massacred captive slaves and League citizens for organ deliveries). They have no seat in Landsraad and no titles of nobility.

They are organized in a hierarchical manner and are based on a division of labor. They are led by a small group of masters called “Masheikh” who reside in the Tleilaxu capital of Bandalong. Underneath is a working class called “Domel” and the group of “shapeshifters” (originally “Facedancer”) who were bred for functionality.

The Tleilaxu are strictly religious followers of a secret Zensunni teaching; a mixture of Zen Buddhism and Sunni Sufism. They believe that they and only they are God's chosen people and refer to their sphere of influence as Yaghist, the land of those who no one rules. The religious practice of the Tleilaxu is characterized by strict taboos and secret rites. They have a secret language called "Islamiyat" that is not allowed to be spoken in front of unbelievers and is reserved for masters only. After every contact with the “Powindah”, even the Tleilaxu masters have to undergo a cleansing ritual before they can again take part in the “Kehl”, the gatherings of the Masheikh.

The other peoples of the empire consider the Bene Tleilax to be amoral and depraved. With this call they camouflage their deep piety from the “Powindah” (“unbelievers”) who need to be converted or destroyed.

In addition to its religiosity, the Tleilaxu Society has two other secrets, that of its women (they do not exist in public) and that of the axolotl tanks, the biotechnological devices in which their advanced genetic engineering is produced. How the two are interrelated and how the women are transformed into these very tanks only becomes public in the last volumes of Dune.

The appearance of the Tleilaxu Masters is different from the majority of other people. They are small, have pointed teeth and an indefinable metallic-gray skin that shields them from any scanner technology.

Melange does not play a role with the Tleilaxu. However, they try to produce melange synthetically in order to break the arrakis monopoly on spices. After initially failing due to the complexity of the molecule, they manage to get between the fourth and fifth volume.

In the last of the classic volumes, all the Tleilaxu planets were destroyed by the Honored Matres. Only one Tleilaxu-Masheikh still lives in protective custody of the Bene Gesserit on the order castle planet. He carries the genetic codes of his entire people hidden in a non-capsule in the body.

Scytale

Scytale appears for the first time in the second volume. He is a shapeshifter and can take on any appearance you need. In order to hide his true motives and abilities, he often takes on the character of a good-natured fool. He is part of the conspiracy against Paul Atreides and gives him the first Duncan Idaho ghola. In the sixth volume he is the last surviving Bene Tleilax and prisoner of the Bene Gesserit. He tells the Bene Gesserit everything about the axolotl tanks that they need to produce artificial melange and to create gholas. Together with Duncan Idaho and Sheeana, he escapes in a no-ship into the unexplored space. Planted under his breastbone, he carries a capsule with genetic material from Paul Atreides and other main characters of the first trilogy.

Weapon

Tylwyth Waff is, in the 5th volume, master of the masters of the Bene Tleilax. He negotiates with the Honored Matres and the Bene Gesserit to play them off against each other. The Honored Matres discover the fraud and erase the Tleilaxu planets. All Bene Tleilax, except Scytale, will be destroyed.

Secret Israel

The Secret Israel appears in the last volume of Frank Herbert's classic Dune cycle. It is an ultra-secret Jewish community which, from the experience of ongoing pogroms, has drawn the conclusion that the identity of its faith is always kept secret. The exodus from earth has scattered them throughout the universe. Only the sisterhood knows about its existence, but keeps it secret even within its own ranks. Judaism is the only earthly religion that has remained intact in its original form up until the time of Paul Atreides and has not merged into the syncretistic connection to another religion.

The rabbi

The rabbi lives on Gammu as a retired Suk doctor. He is head of the Secret Israel and hides with the venerable mother of the Jews, Rebecca, in a non-room from the Honored Matres. During the Bene-Gesserit's diversionary attack on the planet, their troops discover the rabbi's group and bring them to safety. The rabbi's first and last name is never known. It is also not cleared up whether he is a real rabbi (scribe), or whether he simply awarded himself this title because he is the head of the secret Israel.

Rebecca

Rebecca, an untrained venerable mother of the Secret Israel, plays an important role in the 6th volume of Frank Herbert's classic Dune cycle. She takes over into her consciousness the “millions of lampadas” that are entrusted to her by the Bene Gesserit Lucilla. With this knowledge she herself becomes part of the sisterhood and has since then had constant differences with the rabbi.

Dear Matres

The Honored Matres play a role primarily in volumes five and six of the Dune cycle. You are an order of women returning from the diaspora to the old empire.

Their origins are uncertain; it is believed that they developed out of the bureaucratically degenerated fish talk democracy. Their social order is extremely hierarchical and violent. At the head are a Grand Mater with full powers and her adjutants. Her successor will be the one who succeeds in killing the Great Mater. Through targeted training, genetic changes and a drug that works on an adrenaline basis, the Honored Matres react even more directly to attacks than the Bene Gesserit with their Prana-Bindu training. That makes them deadly fighters.

The means to exercise domination is the sexual enslavement of men using special techniques. Their policies in the old empire are aggressive and expansive. What they cannot control, they destroy. Probably because of this attitude, the Honored Matres , despite their immense power, are refugees who are driven from the systems of the diaspora and persecuted.

The main representative of the Honored Matres is Murbella. She is caught by the Bene Gesserit on Giedi Primus and brought to the Ordensburg . There she went through the training to become a Bene Gesserit, survived the agony and became a sister. Murbella is the key figure in the daring survival plan of Odrade , the mother superior of the Bene Gesserit. She defeats the Great Honored Mater and thereby becomes her head herself. Because of Odrades death she is also Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit. From this position she works towards a merger of the two women's orders. Your goal is a hybrid sisterhood that will incorporate the strengths of both.

Dama

Chief of the Honored Matres in The Ordensburg . She leads a tyranny with the Honored Matres, with the aim of subjugating the old empire. She is poisoned by her adjutant Logno.

Logno

Successor Damas. Dies a short time later through Murbella, who takes over the management of the Honored Matres and the Bene Gesserit.

Murbella

See: Bene Gesserit

Space guild

Space guild banner

The guild has a monopoly on interstellar space travel. With the help of Melange, your navigators can see the future and thus recognize obstacles in the folding space. The guild uses so-called highliners, gigantic ships with a total length of 5 kilometers and longer that act as collective transporters. System ships, troop contingents and goods of all kinds are transported in this way. Guild navigators live in huge tanks fumigated with melange. Through this constant drug use they lose much of their original humanity.

D'murr Pilru

Navigator D'murr Pilru , son of the Ixian ambassador to Kaitain and a guild banker, plays an important role in the Early Chronicles with his twin brother C'Tair .

Edric

Edric appears in The Lord of the Desert Planet , in the Order Castle of the Desert Planet and in Hunter of the Desert Planet as an ambassador for the guild. As a third degree helmsman / navigator, he is protected from the clairvoyant abilities of Paul Atreides and Leto II . It can also shield others within a limited radius. Because of this, he becomes part of the plot to assassinate Emperor Paul Atreides.

Mentates

Mentats appear in all six original volumes of the Dune cycle. Mentats are "human computers". Complex training and great logical talent are required to become a Mentat. The student has to become affect-neutral, which means to renounce all lusts and desires. Then his brain develops the ability to comprehensively perceive and to calculate at an incredibly high level.

The quality of a mentate depends on the information that is available to him. The amount of data available limits its performance. He converts this database into probabilities for the analysis of (political) power relations. Mentats use the analysis of communication behavior to determine the true motives of negotiating partners and war opponents. Even without spice, Mentats can project future developments to a limited extent.

Some Mentats use a drug called Sapho to improve performance. Over time, the Mentat develops a dependence on Sapho, which is more of an addiction to the condition than a physical addiction. Long-term use stains teeth red and creates ruby-red stains on the lips.

People can also acquire the Mentat skills as an "additional qualification". For example, Paul Atreides, Miles Teg and some of the Idaho gholas are Mentats.

Thufir Hawat

See officers of the Atreides

Gilbertus Albans

Gilbertus Albans, who appears in the legends , is the very first Mentat. He is the independent robot Erasmus trained to use his brain optimally and receives from him the nickname Mentat (from Latin . Mens 'consciousness'). Similar to a computer, it is able to carry out several thought processes in parallel ( multitasking ) and extrapolate them, as well as perform enormous mathematical feats. He fled during the conquest of Corrin by mingling with the human slaves and had the (supposedly) last copy of Erasmus' memory with him.

Piter deVries

In The Desert Planet , Piter is a mentally deformed Mentat assasin in the service of Vladimir Harkonnen. The baron loves his perverse brilliance, but occasionally criticizes him because he consumes tons of melange and the baron considered addicts to be inferior in principle. As a reward for planning the Arrakis trap, Piter makes Lady Jessica a personal slave. He dies when Leto I tries to kill Vladimir Harkonnen with a poisonous tooth. The Duke bites the wrong tooth, exhales and lets a cloud of poison gas escape, which, however, hits Piter in the place of the Baron.

In the Early Chronicles, an earlier Piter deVries appears, who is an earlier incarnation of the Mentat who, like all versions according to the desert planet, is a "corrupted" Mentat ghola. While trying to kidnap the newborn Paul Atreides, he is caught and killed by the Bene Gesserit Gaius Helen Mohiam. The baron then orders a new version to be ordered from the Tleilaxu immediately. Although this is not explicitly discussed in the books, it can be concluded that there have been or must have existed some other incarnations of Piter deVries.

Duncan Idaho

Duncan's not a Mentat from the start. Only the gholas (in contrast to "normal" clones, not from living but from dead tissue reconstructed duplicates) are trained to become Mentats.

Titans

All of the titans that appear in the legends are cymeks: human brains in containers filled with electrafluid, a life-sustaining liquid. They once seized power in the old empire, but were later subjugated by Omnius themselves .

All titans have many different mechanical action bodies with which they each cope with upcoming tasks.

The Titans evolved thousands of years before Emperor Paul Atreides, at a time when humanity had become obese and decadent due to automation and abundance. Even for the simplest of tasks (brushing teeth or walking animals) people use machines. During this time, the titans, a group named after well-known people from ancient times, saw their chance to take over power in the old empire. This grouping, led by Tlaloc and Agamemnon, conquered the old empire and usurped power in the galaxy. So it came about that Agamemnon and the other " Titans " established an absolute dictatorship. However, the Titans faced a new problem: although the Empire's advanced medical technologies allowed them to reach an unnaturally long lifespan, their lifespan was limited, and when Tlaloc died in an accident, they realized their vulnerability. In addition, as they grew older, the Titans feared that they would perish and the end of their empire would approach. Through the cognitors and their practices, the Titans realized that disembodiment makes it possible to live almost forever. Agamemnon was the first to be transformed into a cymek. So it came about that gradually the other titans also allowed themselves to undergo this operation. As a result of this transformation, the titans lost the last remnant of their humanity and both internally and externally reminded them more of the thinking machines than of humans. Some titans had their brain containers attached to large, armored steel bodies and thus possessed an even greater physical power than their previous human appearances and were even better protected against attacks by rebels. These titans were so-called cymeks, brains in bodies of action. So the Titans continued to live and rule the galaxy, reveling in lavish luxury. Despite their lack of physical organs, they continued to have the ability to practice sexual activity through receptors among one another.

Agamemnon

Agamemnon , born Andrew Skouros , is the first of the titans and the mainspring of the rebellion against the ancient empire. He thinks he has superior strategic and tactical skills, but has not renewed or improved them in hundreds of years. Nevertheless, he is very ambitious and a merciless mass murderer. After the machines came to power, he became the supreme general of Omnius.

Agamemnon is the biological father of Vorian Atreides , who was conceived with frozen sperm, which Skouros had stored before it was transformed into a cymek. Thus he is also the progenitor of all Atreides. Agamemnon had more sons, but he killed all of them after they had disappointed him. He stopped Vorian's aging process with painful, life-extending treatment. He is killed on Hessra by Vorian Atreides and Quentin Butler, who was forcibly converted to a cymek, by Vorian throwing his brain canister out of a window.

Obviously, General Agamemnon seems to be ousted or forgotten by the Atreides thousands of years in the future. These trace their origins back to King Agamemnon of Mycenae from the House of Atreus, presumably the knowledge of Agememnon's true identity was lost or was deliberately falsified by his first descendants.

Juno

Even as a human, Juno was Agamemnon's lover. When Julianna Parhi , Junos's maiden name, decided to become a cymek second, the others followed her. Juno is still able to have sex with Agamemnon through certain receptors , although this only takes place on the chemical-cerebral level. Although Juno is occasionally kind and soulful, she is just as ruthless as Agamemnon when it comes to cruelty, and possibly even worse. Juno is also killed by Quentin Butler on Hessra, he cuts her brain into slices after removing it from the machine. He then puts himself in Juno's robot body to kill Agamemnon and Dante.

Ajax

Ajax is the most brutal of the Titans and kills countless people (there are billions) in the course of the suppression of rebellions on the Synchronized Worlds. He was killed on earth by insurgents led by Iblis Ginjo in revenge for the death of little Manion. His role with the Titans was that of military orders and executors. He had an irrepressible urge to conquer and loved senseless killing.

Hecate

Hecate is Ajax's former mistress. After the fall of the old empire, she turned away from the brutality of the titans and fled into open space. She later returned and allied herself with the League of Nobles under Iblis Ginjo , which the latter kept a secret. She was killed by a telepathic blow by Zufa Cenva in the high orbit of Ginaz while rescuing them from a cymek attack. Cenva knew nothing about the secret alliance between Hecate and Iblis Ginjo and therefore believed Hecate to be a member of the Titans. This could also be due to the fact that Hekate introduced herself as "the Titan Hecate". As a result, your spaceship asteroid fell uncontrollably into the global sea of ​​Ginaz, triggering a tsunami that destroyed large parts of the planet's island world and cost the lives of many sword masters , including Jool Noret .

Xerxes

Xerxes is the most incompetent of the titans. It is thanks to his laziness and his hedonism that Omnius was given the opportunity to gain control over the titans, because he gave the system more and more power so that he could spend his time with games, feasts, feasts, orgies and Could sell plays. He is also a coward and has no strategic talent. He was killed by a telepathic blow from Norma Cenva.

Barbarossa

Former programmer Vilhelm Jayther became the titan Barbarossa during the rebellion against the old empire. It was he who made it possible for the titans to take over control by giving robots and computers the will to conquer and the ability to make decisions. Barbarossa was a gifted hacker and programmer and creates the artificial intelligence of Omnius, which is supposed to support the titans in their plans of conquest (for example Barbarossa and Omnius hack the computer network of the old empire, which digitally connects the empire). Fortunately for the titans, Barbarossa has programmed Omnius with special algorithms so that he cannot injure or damage the titans when he later seizes power and rules over the titan empire. Barbarossa later captures Serena Butler (just before the start of jihad) and brings her to Earth. He is killed on Giedi Primus by a sorceress von Rossak with a telepathic blow.

Dante

The bureaucrat and organizer among the titans was responsible for all economic matters. He was the last titan to be killed by Quentin Butler when he rammed his ship. He was extremely cautious, which meant that he was spared many assassinations and attacks by rebels before and during jihad.

Beowulf

Beowulf is not actually a titan, he is the first so-called neo-cymek, that is, he was the first to become a cymek after the titans under Omnius' rule. Like Barbarossa, he is a brilliant programmer and hacker. Despite pretending to serve Omnius, he secretly allies himself with Barbarossa to aid the Titans. After Barbarossa's death, he takes his place with the titans as a programmer. In an attempt to capture Zufa Cenva and Aurelius Venport, who also kills Hecate, his spaceship and brain container are so badly damaged that he has been mentally disabled ever since. After a few years, Agamemnon therefore decides to kill him.

Tlaloc

Tlaloc, whose real name has been lost in history, was one of the leaders of the Titans and the mentor of Agamemnon. Originally Tlaloc grew up on a then insignificant, small colony (Tlulax) of the human empire on the edge of the galaxy. At a young age he traveled to Earth, the seat of the decadent old empire, where he hoped to bring about renewal and political change. On earth, however, he was dismissed as a fanatic and troublemaker and the majority ignored him. His words and sucking touched only a few disaffected youngsters, including the young Andrew Skouros, who took the name "Agamemnon" and followed Tlaloc as a disciple. Over time, a group called "Titans" formed under the leadership of Tlaloc and Agamemnon, which was to seize power in the old empire. For a short time, as the leader of the Titans, Tlaloc was imperator of the old realm and brought about many changes (e.g. a massive, military armament and a social metamorphosis, which led to the old realm becoming more and more totalitarian). When Tlaloc dies unexpectedly in an accident seven years later, it shows the Titans their own mortality and causes them to be transformed into cymeks. Tlaloc is the only one of the titans who was never a cymek. Agamemnon later speculates that Tlaloc would probably have been horrified if he had found out which path to dehumanize the and the other Titans in the end and had never followed them (Tlaloc seems to value technology extremely, but he rejects the mechanization of the human Body strictly). 

Robots / computers in the legends of the desert planet

Omnius

The artificial intelligence Omnius is the collective spirit that controls the thinking machines and is also called "universal spirit" because it has an almost absolute overview of its realm with its flying sensors, known as guardian eyes. Omnius is not a single entity ; each synchronized world is ruled by its own incarnation of Omnius, which is regularly brought up to a common level of knowledge with all other incarnations by update ships. The Omnius versions do not have a body like Erasmus for example. Instead, they are represented by silver spheres about the size of a tennis ball, which reside in the respective palace of the planet he ruled. He usually makes contact with other beings via the guard's eyes or stationary screens.

Omnius was originally created by the titan Barbarossa, who used artificial intelligence to assist the titans on their conquest campaigns and, among other things, to hack and sabotage the large computer network of the old empire. Later on, the forgiveness of the Titan Xerxes offered Omnius the opportunity to usurp more and more power in the Empire. Later, the thinking machines under Omnius take control of the Titan Empire. Although Omnius rules the titans too, he cannot cause them any harm, as Barbarossa has provided him with special programming that makes it impossible for him to injure or kill the titans.

Omnius is convinced of its own perfection, but at the same time is very eager to learn. He regularly starts test programs to better understand human behavior. He is fascinated by the unpredictability of the people he calls Hrethgir and, on the other hand, fears them. When Vorian is able to capture the Omnius incarnation there during the destruction of the earth, people learn a lot about his way of thinking. Thirty years later, Vorian infects this version with computer viruses and illogical subroutines and, following the principle of the Trojan horse , brings it back on board the update ship from which he stole it. Thereupon several incarnations of the universal spirit, which are provided with the contaminated update, collapse. Omnius becomes suspicious and no longer allows its updates to be integrated, which ultimately leads to three versions of the universal spirit competing for control on Corrin. After Omnius Primus, the Corrin incarnation, is eliminated, the other two, slightly faulty incarnations reign together.

At the Battle of Corrin, the human slaves living on Corrin are used by Omnius as a human shield against the human fleet. When the fleet crosses a certain line, the freight containers in which the slaves were penned explode. When the ward of the independent robot Erasmus also voluntarily embarks on one of the freight containers, which float in orbit as a bridge, to save his lover, a Serena clone, Erasmus switches off the explosives and delivers Corrin to the people. During the last battle on the ground, Omnius Primus regenerates and decides to flee into space as a modulated data stream. It does this by emitting itself into space as a glaring flash of light shortly before the central unit is destroyed.

After thousands of years on a planet far outside the empire, this “wave” meets primitive computers left behind by unknown space travelers and can build a new existence for itself over the millennia, together with Erasmus, whose copy he had taken with him. There he later meets Tleilaxu in the Diaspora and wrests the secret of the shapeshifters from them, improves them greatly and smuggles them back into humanity. However, his military attack is thwarted by a small group of people under the leadership of Duncan Idaho, he himself is thrown by Norma Cenva into another dimension from which he should never be able to return. Erasmus, on the other hand, asks Duncan for the "grace of death", which the latter also grants him after he has absorbed his memories. The other machines then voluntarily subordinate themselves to humanity, which is using computers and more complex machines again after 15,000 years.

Erasmus

Erasmus is an independent robot and apparently acts as a consultant to Omnius , but often has its own agenda . He once fell into a crevice on Corrin and was trapped there for two decades. During this time he developed his own consciousness, independent of Omnius. Erasmus is fascinated by the idiosyncrasies of people, such as art, religion and emotions. In contrast to Omnius, he tries to understand this and in the end even develops the ability to feel himself. In order to research people, he does many horrific experiments. These include so-called vivisections , where Erasmus dissects living people in order to analyze and understand the organs as vividly as possible. He also tries to create art with human body parts, but himself reacts rather disgustedly and therefore breaks off the experiment.

Erasmus lives in several large villas, which were designed according to ancient models (the Titans, for their part, lived in similar domiciles before their transformation into cymeks). Although Erasmus likes to compare himself to people and even pride himself on the fact that he shows vanity, he always likes to murder his servants when they make mistakes. He kills his chef when he accidentally drops a knife on his foot (the stuttering chef is usually very stressed when he has to interact with the robot lord). Omnius regards Erasmus as a curiosity because he is much freer than any other robot in his realm (most of the other robots are either more primitive or directly connected to Omnius).

Erasmus' first bet with Omnius is also the indirect trigger for Butler's jihad , as Erasmus claims that even the most loyal trustee is human and so capable of betrayal. That's why he sends Ginjo secret messages that incite him to rebellion. Ginjo then sets everything in motion. Because Serena is neglecting her duties in Erasmus' villa because of her baby and is becoming increasingly uninteresting for the autonomous robot, he throws Serena Butler's young son Manion from the balcony of his villa on Earth. So Serena raises her hand to a guard robot and pushes it from the balcony. An uprising then breaks out on Earth, in the course of which the Titan Ajax is killed and Serena, together with Vorian Atreides and Iblis Ginjo , manage to escape.

On Corrin, Erasmus then, in the course of the second bet with Omnius Gilbertus Albans, a person whom Omnius has chosen at random from a crowd, trains to be the (very first) Mentat. In the course of this training Erasmus developed real feelings of his own for the first time; he saw himself as the father of Gilbertus. During the Battle of Corrin, Erasmus deactivates himself in order to avoid deliberate destruction, his core memory is taken away by Gilbertus. In the end it is left open what happens to this version of Erasmus, because the whereabouts and the condition of the core memory of Gilbertus remains unclear even thousands of years later.

15,000 years later, Erasmus claims to have had real power over the machines and to have manipulated Omnius so that it acted on his behalf. However, he realizes the consequence of his actions when he killed Manion Butler and also admits the guilt of Butler's jihad. He voluntarily hands over control of all the machines to Duncan Idaho and then asks him to kill him . He uses this choice of words (instead of switching off or deactivating) because he is convinced that he has a soul. In death he retains Marty's human form.

Seurat

Seurat is a robot and the pilot of the update ship Dream Voyager . He became friends with Vorian Atreides , who served him as copilot before Vorian deactivated him and defected to the League of Nobles. Seurat is freer than most robots, but it is not completely independent of Omnius like z. B. Erasmus. At the Battle of Corrin, he tries to outsmart Vorian to kill the commander in chief by telling him to lower his shields for the sake of the old days. Then he opens fire, but cannot seriously damage Vorian's Javelin destroyer, but is destroyed himself.

Chirox

Chirox is a combat robot, called Kampfmek , who was reprogrammed to become a trainer (Sensei-Mek) by the sword masters of Ginaz . In almost 100 years he trained over 1000 sword masters in the fight against machines. In contrast to normal combat meks, Chirox learns with every fight and increases his abilities (and unnoticed develops a peace-loving character similar to the swordmasters, but always ready to learn) and so at the same time those of his students. Chirox only kills 2 people over the course of time, one of them, sword master Zon Noret , accidentally during a practice fight. After the jihad and the destruction of most of the machines, Chirox and sword master Istian Goss were lured by sword master Nar Trig under a pretext to Salusa Secundus , where Trig challenged Chirox to a life and death fight, since Chirox was a machine and therefore had to be destroyed. However, since Chirox was able to improve his skills again and again over the years, Trig cannot defeat him. After he doesn't stop attacking Chirox despite repeated requests from Chirox and Istian Goss, Chirox beheads Trig and ends the fight. When the crowd tries to attack Chirox, Goss stands by his side, but Chirox deactivates himself and prevents further bloodshed.

Cogitors

Kogitoren are followers of a philosophy school from the First German Empire who became immortal by separating the brain from the body. The cogitors had their brains transplanted into tanks filled with life-sustaining fluids, as this enabled them to better turn to philosophy (they were no longer exposed to "distractions" such as physical needs). These cogitors intervene in the machine crusade several times; they are mentioned in the legends . The Titans underwent the same treatment in an attempt to extend their rule. At the time of Paul Atreides, however, the cogitors in the galaxy are extinct and their practices are banned after the great and long war in the Empire. It remains open, however, whether the Ixians might not continue to use some of the old technologies and knowledge of the cogitors in secret, for it is suggested in The Battle of Corrin that the Ixians have some of the documents of the cogitors and titans.

Vidad

Vidad is the leader of the ivory tower cogitors who live on the ice planet Hessra. It is he who gives Serena Butler the advice to end the war with a truce and a Pax Galacticus , in which everyone keeps what he has looted and has. He is killed on Salusa Secundus by an angry mob led by Rayna Butler .

Eclo

Eklo was the only cogitor who was allowed to stay unmolested in the machine's sphere of influence, as he expressly declared his neutrality at the beginning of the war. He lived on earth in a tower until Juno killed him in the uprising of the slaves because he had advised Iblis Ginjo .

Kwyna

Kwyna was the first to consider and implement the separation of brain and body. She was the only cogitor who was interested in current events from the start (the other cogitors felt this disturbed their thinking). She often spoke to Parliament (through her second) and taught Serena Butler and was a good friend of hers. She killed herself because she felt burned out from misinterpreting her wisdom (by Iblis Ginjo).

Officers in Butler's Jihad

Butler's jihad is described in the legends , and all the characters mentioned in this section are mentioned in the corresponding novels.

Vorian Atreides , Xavier Harkonnen and Quentin Butler are the chief commanders of the army of the Jihad.

Sword master

Sword masters are mercenaries of Ginaz who act independently and independently. Your whole life is based solely on combat training. A sword master never gives up and wants to die fighting. Swordmasters believe that fallen swordmasters are reborn in young swordmasters. After completing their training, they draw names on mother-of-pearl disks from a bowl, which fallen sword masters they carry. Some also draw a blank disk, like Nar Trig . They are then considered the new sword masters . This tradition is no longer mentioned in the time of Duncan Idaho.

The later sword masters, such as Duncan Idaho , serve as officers in the individual noble houses and are also mentioned as such here. As the name suggests, swords, along with daggers and knives as well as more modern weapons, are among the swordmasters' preferred melee weapons.

Jool Noret

Jool Noret , the son of Zon Noret, is a hero of the machine crusade in the legends . Jool was instrumental in the liberation of IX by bringing a nuclear warhead to the Omnius Center. He blamed himself for his father's death all his life because he had set Chirox's combat program too high. He died on Ginaz when the battle asteroid of Hekate hit the sea after her death in orbit, triggering a tidal wave that almost completely depopulated Ginaz. Jool always refused to teach students and made Chirox a sensei . Jools sarcophagus on the main island of Ginaz is a place of pilgrimage for all later swordsman. The Swordsman School was established in memory of Jool's refusal to teach his unusual skills.

Istian Goss

Istian Goss is a Chirox trained sword master from the Battle of Corrin . He carries the soul of Jool Noret . It wasn't until the invasion of Corrin that he learned to give himself up in combat and thus to surpass himself.

Nar Trig

Nar Trig is a Chirox trained sword master from the Battle of Corrin . He does not have a previously known soul and is killed by Chirox on Salusa Secundus when he joined the Serena cult and wanted to destroy all machines, including Chirox.

Other figures

Tio Holtzman

Holtzman is an inventor from the planet Poritrin. He invents the Holtzman shield, a protective shield that can protect both humans and spaceships and consists of an energy field that is generated by a generator located in the ship or worn on a belt. However, his shield reacts to laser weapons with an enormous, pseudo-nuclear explosion. Holtzman also invents interference fields that the thinking machines cannot penetrate because their gel circuits would burn out. It also paves the way for Norma Cenva's folding spaceships , for which she reshapes the Holtzman effect .

Holtzman is killed in the second Poritriner slave revolt when Aliid fires at him with a lasgun while he is carrying a shield, causing one of the explosions described above, in which Starda, the capital of Poritrin, is completely destroyed.

Thousands of years later, during the reign of Emperor Shaddam IV, the Holtzman shield found military use in the empire. Gurney Halleck and Paul Atreides, among others, used such shields for protection during their combat training.

Norma Cenva

Norma Cenva from the planet Rossak, daughter of the sorceress Zufa Cenva, is a brilliant mathematician and, as Tio Holtzman's assistant, invents the suspensors, luminous globes and the generators for the space-folding ships. Norma marries her former stepfather Aurelius Venport and after an overdose of spice becomes the first navigator for space folding ships and thus the founder of the space guild. After her physical death, she lives on as an oracle in a glass ball on Junction, with which all navigators have to exchange ideas when they are on the planet. Finally, in Volume Seven, it returns as the mystical oracle of time.

Tuk Keedair

According to the legends, Tuk Keedair is a meat dealer from Tlulax , but as a free spirit he has problems with the strict religious rules on Tlulax. So he prefers to travel through space. In an attack on Harmonthep, he takes Ishmael prisoner among others . On another trip to catch slaves, he comes across melange / spice for the first time on Arrakis . Enthusiastic about the drug, he decides to give up the slave trade and to visit the most famous drug expert in the league, Aurelius Venport , on Rossak to offer him a trading partnership. After another visit to the dune and tasting of the spice, Venport agrees. This is the hour of birth of VenKee Enterprises .

Through the trade in melange and the development of folding space technology by Norma Cenva , the company becomes immeasurably rich in a few years. During the slave revolt, Ishmael wants to steal the first folding spaceship, recognizes Keedair as his kidnapper and forces him to flee with them. Since the ship only programmed the coordinates of Arrakis, they land there and the ship is destroyed on landing. When he gets into an argument with Ishmael's son-in-law on a scouting flight on a shuttle, the latter sends him into the desert to die. But unlike the rest of his squad, who are eaten by a worm, Keedair survives and is rescued by Selim's tribe and shows them the way to Ishmael's people. In return, Ishmael gives him his life and Keedair remains with the Free Men until his death.

Rekur Van

Also a slave trader from Tlulax. Covered by Iblis Ginjo, he raided the Unallied Planets to capture victims whose organs were implanted on soldiers injured in the war. Outwardly it was claimed that these organs were grown in the organ farms on Tlulax, and some destroyed robots were left at the raid sites to put the blame on Omnius, and all eyewitnesses were killed. After Xavier Harkonnen discovered these acts, he went over to Omnius. Erasmus then amputated his arms and legs in order to have him better under control. Together with him, he developed a plague that killed almost half of the people living in the League of Nobles. Rekur Van eventually dies in the Battle of Corrin.

Iblis Ginjo

earth

Iblis was a so-called trustee of the thinking machines on earth, which means he enjoyed their trust. As such, he was of high rank among the enslaved people, but still under Vorian Atreides. He had the ability to carry people away and motivate them through unconscious hypnosis techniques. Several factors at the same time made Ginjo reconsider his position: Through an encounter on the one hand with the brutal titan Ajax and the thoughtful and calm cogitor Eklo on the other, Ginjo's loyalty was shaken and he began to think about the possibility of a rebellion himself. Since at the same time there was a bet between Omnius and Erasmus that Erasmus could incite even the most loyal people against the machines, Ginjo was also contacted by him, because Erasmus correctly interpreted Ginjo's visits to Eklo. However, Ginjo believed to be connected to a secret 5th column . Advised by Eklo - who blamed himself for the reign of the Titans, which in turn made it possible for Omnius to seize power, and thus wanted to balance things out and restore his neutrality through another rebellion, so to speak - he founded small resistance cells, which in turn founded others, and hid weapon systems everywhere. So he was also the decisive factor in the uprising of the people on earth (because of the murder of Serena Butler's son by Erasmus ). Lured by the crowd in front of Erasmus 'villa, he tried to catch the child thrown from the balcony, which in itself would have been considered disobedient, and then immediately ordered the fight against Erasmus' guard robot after Serena had thrown one from the balcony in her anger . During the uprising, he killed the titan Ajax and then returned to the villa. There he met Vorian Atreides , who tried to save Serena. Together with Serena and Vorian, Iblis managed to escape from earth in Vorian's ship before Omnius began to suppress the uprising with the most brutal force. Not a single person on earth survived this.

Salusa Secundus - seizure of power

No sooner had I reached Salusa Secundus, the main league world, than Iblis immediately began to build up a position of power. In contrast to Vorian Atreides, who was viewed with suspicion as the son of Omnius' general Agamemnon, he immediately presented himself as a shining hero, savior of Serena and leader of the uprising on earth. Although the leaders of the league knew very well that they were Thanks to Vorian for the rescue of Serena, they let Ginjo do their job because they noticed that he could speak to people better. Within a short time, Ginjo claimed a position of power that was both politically and religiously motivated and appointed himself Supreme Patriarch of the Jihad , who had been proclaimed by Serena at the same time. After less than a year, this title became synonymous with that of Viceroy, which Serena took, but initially his power only related to things that directly affected the war. To change this, Ginjo called the "Jihad Council" into being, which consequently defined which political things concerned the Jihad. Accordingly, this was of course almost the entire political spectrum of the league and related to almost all areas of life of the league citizens and gave Ginjo almost absolute power. Ginjo also entered into a secret alliance with Hecate , which did not last long because Hecate was killed.

Total power and death

Ginjo and his deputy Thurr founded the Jihad police, known as Djipol, ostensibly to eliminate machine spies . However, this not only exposed spies, but was Ginjo's willing tool. Politicians who questioned the jurisdiction of the council suffered "accidents", or incriminating material was found on them that identified them as machine spies.

When the machines, advised by the cogitors, suddenly offered a peace treaty, Iblis saw his power endangered. A league without war would not need a patriarch and his title would be worthless. That's why Ginjo sent Serena on a suicide mission, which had two advantages for him: he would have better control of her successor than she and the war would continue. Serena really died on the mission and the peace treaty was forgotten. However, Ginjo had also ensured that the people's hatred of the machines did not subside by means of another plan, while at the same time meeting the enormous need for donor organs by war invalids. He had the Tlulaxa (later called Tleilaxu) attack sparsely populated peripheral worlds and cannibalize the inhabitants as organ donors. Each time they left behind some destroyed combat robots as the wrong track. The involuntary donors were brought to Tlulax and taken to facilities where they were cannibalized.

During the patriarch's visit to Tlulax, Xavier Harkonnen , who was accompanying him, was visited at night by a former officer colleague who had fled from such an institution. He showed him the facilities, but they were surprised by Ginjo and Thurr. Ginjo revealed the whole plan to him, apparently with the ulterior motive of killing the Harkonnen on the way home. This, however, was able to bring the ship under his control and steer it into the sun of the Thalim system, where Tlulax is located. All of this was kept secret by the League so as not to jeopardize the success of the Jihad. Instead, Xavier was accused of betraying the hero Iblis Ginjo.

Yorek Thurr

Thurr was supposedly Ginjo's deputy and commander of the Djipol (Jihad police). In reality, however, a triple agent and opportunist who served each of the three sides (Omnius, League, Titan) as it was useful to him. Both the plague, better known as the Omnius Scourge, which wiped out over 50% of the League's population, as well as the little eating machines, called metal horrors, that wreaked havoc on some League worlds, sprang from his ideas. By extending his life he was no longer physically aging. However, as he got older he became more and more insane. After Ginjo's death he faked his death and received a planet, Wallach IX, from Omnius as a fief. On this he ruled like a dictator and avoided the constant observation of this Omnius incarnation by skillfully reprogramming the Wallach-IX universal spirit, which is why he had unlimited power over the population of this planet. After the great purge, which also destroyed Wallach, he fled to Corrin in time, whereupon he was stuck there. However, he was able to flee from there and smuggle himself back into Salusa Secundus. Once there, he killed the reigning Great Patriarch Xander Boro-Ginjo, a nephew of Ginjo, and planned to take his place. However, he was recognized and hunted by Abulurd Harkonnen and finally placed in an experimental laboratory. There he activated some of the metal horrors to set them on Abulurd. Little did he know, however, that the League's scientists had developed a kind of camouflage field so that the machines couldn't recognize Abulurd as a human. That's why they rushed to Thurr and killed him in the most brutal way by eating him alive, similar to piranhas. When Abulurd was asked who the dead man was, all he said was "nobody of concern."

Aurelius Venport

Aurelius Venport, born on Rossak , is the co-founder of VenKee Enterprises, which trades in spices during the machine crusade and produces the first folding spaceship designed by Venport's wife Norma , which is used by the Zensunni, led by Ishmael, to escape Poritrin . Venport used to be the lover of Norma's mother, Zufa Cenva, and made a name for himself as a seller of Rossak drugs.

Venport and Zufa Cenva die when they are captured by the Titan Hecate and Zufa uses her sorceress powers to kill herself and everyone around her in a suicidal attack. The Raumgilde emerged from VenKee Entreprises long after Venport's death.

Lord Niko Bludd

Bludd was the ruler of Proritin and superior of Tio Holtzman . The extremely affectionate and greedy for money tried to get as much fame and money as possible from the inventions of Norma Cenva . When he went overboard and raided Norma's laboratory, he got his hands on some of her plans, but not the one he was after, namely those of the folding spacecraft. There were no records of this because no one other than Norma could have understood them. He was killed in the slave riot shortly after the attack.

The sandworm

See: Terms of the Dune Cycles

The Sardaukar

See: Terms of the Dune Cycles

Web links

Commons : Dune Universe  - Collection of images, videos and audio files