Really Gets Around: Arguably subverted by the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres, whom really do have many sex partners, but only because the Bene Gesserit are engaged in a subtle breeding program and the Honored Matres use their sexuality as a form of conditioning. Both only do it professionally. Split-Personality Takeover: Advanced Face Dancers at the time of Heretics of Dune make a memory-print of their victim's mind and therefore mimic them perfectly. Too perfectly, as it turns out. Leave one in the job long enough and he forgets he's a Face Dancer. A Father to His Men: Miles Teg, who notably greatly resembles the original Duke Leto, also inherits this trait from him. Multiple organizations of the Dune universe dominate the political, religious, and social arena of the setting of Frank Herbert's Dune series of science fiction novels, and derivative works. Set tens of thousands of years in the future, the saga chronicles a civilization which has banned computers but has also developed advanced technology and mental and physical abilities through physical training, eugenics and the use of the drug melange. Specialized groups of individuals have aligned themselves in organizations focusing on specific abilities, technology and goals. Herbert's concepts of human evolution and technology have been analyzed and deconstructed in at least one book, The Science of Dune (2008). [1] [2] [3] His originating 1965 novel Dune is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, [4] and is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history. [4] [5] Dune and its five sequels by Herbert explore the complex and multilayered interactions of politics, religion, ecology and technology, among other themes. On Rakis, a girl called Sheeana has been discovered who can control the giant worms. The Bene Gesserit intends to use a Tleilaxu-provided Duncan Idaho ghola to gain control of this sandrider, and the religious forces of humanity who they know will ultimately worship her. The Tleilaxu have altered the ghola to bring its physical reflexes up to modern standards. The Bene Gesserit leader, Mother Superior Taraza, brings Miles Teg to guard the new Idaho. Taraza also sends Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade to take command of the Bene Gesserit keep on Rakis. Odrade is a loose cannon; she does not obey normal Bene Gesserit prohibitions about love, and is also Teg's biological daughter. Bene Gesserit Imprinter Lucilla is also sent by Taraza to bind Idaho's loyalty to the Sisterhood with her sexual talents. However, Lucilla must deal with Reverend Mother Schwangyu, head of the ghola project but also the leader of a faction within the Bene Gesserit who feel the gholas are a danger.

The word Landsraad is a compound word meaning "council of the land" (the 's' indicates possessive case). The word exists in several Germanic languages. It was still written as landsraad in Danish until the spelling reform of 1948 saw it changed to landsråd. Herbert borrowed the word from a Scandinavian language. When asked, he defined the Landsraad thus: As Dune begins, the 81st Padishah Emperor is Shaddam IV, but by the end of the novel he is deposed by Duke Paul Atreides in 10,193 A.G. (After Guild) [35] after Paul seizes control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the all-important spice melange. [6] Though Paul subsequently rules as Emperor, the term "Padishah" is dropped, and the Imperium as it has previously been known essentially ceases to exist since absolute control of the spice gives Paul unprecedented power over the Landsraad, Spacing Guild and all other factions. As detailed in Dune Messiah (1969), Paul's apparent death 13 years later puts his sister Alia in place as Imperial Regent for his children, Leto II and Ghanima. [8] Young Leto ascends the throne in 1976's Children of Dune, becoming a human- sandworm hybrid to achieve superhuman physical abilities and longevity. [9] Leto rules as God Emperor for over 3,500 years; his assassination in God Emperor of Dune (1981) effectively abolishes the Imperial throne. [10] Prequels [ edit ] Ruder and Cruder: This book features far more profanity than the rest of the series - the Honored Matres are regularly referred to as "whores", and most jarringly, Waff makes a comment about "slig shit". Space Jews— Literally. As much as the other major religions have shifted in 20,000 years, there are still people who observe Passover, speak ritual Hebrew, and have a conception of a nation of Israel. They managed to survive by first going into hiding, then pretending to be revivalists.Arrakis is the only natural source of the all-important spice melange, and by leading the Fremen to seize control of the planet in Dune, Paul Atreides is able to depose Shaddam and become ruler of the known universe. [6] With a bloody jihad subsequently unleashed across the universe in Paul's name but out of his control, the Bene Gesserit, Tleilaxu, Spacing Guild and House Corrino plot to dethrone him in Dune Messiah (1969). [8] Seeing the eventual extinction of mankind through prescient vision, in Children of Dune (1976) Paul's son Leto II devises a plan to save humanity but becomes a symbiote with the sandworm of Arrakis to gain the extended lifespan needed to see this plan to its end. [9] Numbered Homeworld: The planet Ix (pronounced as spelled) developed from millennia of language-development to the point that the original prefix was lost, and Ix came to be pronounced as a word rather than as "IX", or 9 in Roman numerals. Extreme Libido: Both Murbella and Duncan develop this for each other after they duel to imprint each other sexually. Duncan later describes their sexual encounters as high speed collisions. Chronicling the Butlerian Jihad, the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy (2002–2004) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson establishes that the thinking machines are a host of destructive robots led by Omnius, a sentient computer network. A thousand years before the Jihad, a group of twenty dissident humans had used thinking machines to enslave the rest of mankind, and then converted themselves into weaponized human-machine hybrids called cymeks. Essentially immortal and unstoppable, they had become known as the Titans, but after a century had been overthrown themselves by Omnius and made his servants. Much of mankind suffers under thinking machine oppression for another 900 years, before the murder of young Manion Butler at the hands of the independent robot Erasmus incites the Butlerian Jihad. The last remaining free humans fight for a century before finally defeating the machines in the Battle of Corrin. [18] Sequels [ edit ]

He knew this experience, but could not change the smallest part of it. No ancestral presences would remain in her consciousness, but she would carry with her forever afterward the clear sights and sounds and smells. The seeking machines would be there, the smell of blood and entrails, the cowering humans in their burrows aware only that they could not escape . . . while all the time the mechanical movement approached, nearer and nearer and nearer ...louder...louder! Everywhere she searched, it would be the same. No escape anywhere. [10] The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines," Leto said. "Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed." [10] Grazier, Kevin R., ed. (2008). The Science of Dune: An unauthorized exploration into the real science behind Frank Herbert's fictional universe. Psychology of Popular Culture. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books. ISBN 978-1-933771-28-1.

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Emotions vs. Stoicism: The Bene Gesserit stress emotional control at all times as both proof of humanity and a basic survival tool with the Litany Against Fear. Unlike Vulcans, they're more than happy to use emotion as a tool to manipulate others — their emphasis is control, not denial. And it later turns out to be a weakness that Odrade (and Murbella) must reverse.

Trilogy Creep: An interesting example. Dune was actually conceived as one long book, with the sequels Dune Messiah and Children of Dune fitting directly after the first. Messiah was fleshed out while writing Dune and eventually became its own novel, which due to its expansion then warranted Children to be expanded as well and also became its own book. God Emperor and the last two in the series, Heretics and Chapterhouse, are genuine examples of a trilogy creep, though the fact that Chapterhouse ends some 5,000 years after the originals makes it fair to regard these three as a trilogy of their own. a b c d Herbert, Frank (1965). Dune. We've a three-point civilization: the Imperial Household balanced against the Federated Great Houses of the Landsraad, and between them, the Guild with its damnable monopoly on interstellar transport. Artificial Human: Any Tleilaxu-creation, including the Face Dancers, Gholas, clones, some Mentats, and human-animal hybrids.MacDonald, Gary (2022). "Review of Kara Kennedy's Women's Agency in the Dune Universe". Femspec. 22 (2): 212–246. ProQuest 2739477367. In Hunters of Dune (2006), Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's first of a two-part finale to Frank Herbert's original series, the antagonists Daniel and Marty (introduced in Frank Herbert's 1985 Chapterhouse: Dune) are revealed to be incarnations of Omnius and Erasmus. In the third Legends novel Dune: The Battle of Corrin (2004), Omnius had sent out a last burst of information before being destroyed in the Battle of Corrin; it is explained in Hunters that this signal had eventually connected with one of the probes disseminated from Giedi Prime several decades earlier, uploading versions of Erasmus and Omnius. [15] Titans [ edit ] My opinions on this book are mixed. The story itself is interesting, but slow. The prose is great but the story feels disjointed in places.