Abulurd Harkonnen

Bashar Abulurd Harkonnen was a decorated commander of the Butlerian Jihad and the grandson of Xavier Harkonnen. Born Abulurd Butler, he became a close friend of his mentor Vorian Atreides and rose through the ranks of the Army of the Jihad and the Army of Humanity. His refusal to cross the Bridge of Hrethgir at the Battle of Corrin saw him branded a coward and exiled to the world of Lankiveil, where his descendants built House Harkonnen and carried on the bitter feud with House Atreides for ten millennia.

Early life and the name Harkonnen#

Abulurd was the youngest son of Quentin Butler and Wandra Butler, born in 126 BG and the grandson of the Jihad commander Xavier Harkonnen. His mother suffered a severe stroke giving birth to him, leaving her catatonic, and Abulurd never met her, which led his father to love him less and to blame him for her condition. While his father and brothers earned prestige and decorations, Abulurd dedicated himself to the Jihad with the help of Supreme Commander Vorian Atreides, the old friend and colleague of his grandfather. At eighteen he met Vorian on Caladan, who told him the truth that his grandfather had died a hero rather than a traitor. From then on Abulurd defiantly insisted on being called Harkonnen.

Service in the Jihad#

During the Omnius Scourge crisis, Abulurd led an expedition to Ix to rescue some of the populace and supply them with the melange now found to combat the virus, clashing with the Supreme Sorceress Ticia Cenva over her preference for saving bloodlines rather than people. Ordered to Parmentier to determine whether the plague had run its course, he was promoted to Tercero by Vorian, buried his dead brother and sister-in-law, and brought his niece Rayna, founder of the Cult of Serena, to Salusa Secundus. During the Great Purge he and his brother Faykan Butler administered the evacuation of the planet.

After the Jihad, Abulurd was decorated and served on many worlds doing reconstruction and security work, sheltered from the major battles by Vorian. When Omnius sent the piranha mites against Salusa Secundus, Abulurd was the first to recognize that the machines relied on optical targeting and consumed only metals, and he and Vorian devised a plan to approach the mite factories disguised as organic lumps and destroy them with caustic chemicals. Vorian promoted him to the full rank of Bashar and left him the evidence needed to clear his grandfather's name. Abulurd also recognized the returned Jipol leader Yorek Thurr from that same evidence, and later used a field distorter to turn the piranha mites against Thurr.

The Battle of Corrin#

At the Battle of Corrin in 88 BG, Abulurd disagreed with Vorian and refused to advance through the Bridge of Hrethgir, the orbital barrier of two million human slaves that the robot Erasmus threatened to detonate. Relieved of his duties and confined, Abulurd violated his confinement and disabled the weapons of the entire League fleet rather than be party to the slaves' deaths. The hostages were never killed, defused by Erasmus over his own ward, so the sabotage only made the victory bloodier without preventing it.

Exile and the feud#

For his act, Abulurd was initially sentenced to death, but Vorian proposed instead that he be named a coward and banished, a fate Vorian considered worse, and Faykan Butler agreed. Faykan further decreed that Abulurd would forever keep the shameful name of Harkonnen, and Vorian swore that the Atreides and their descendants would spit upon it. Abulurd was exiled to the backwater world of Lankiveil, where he raised a family and had a daughter, Dirdos, and two sons before he and his wife died of fever. His children grew up on tales of the Jihad and came to hate the name of Atreides, and so his downfall began the feud between House Harkonnen and House Atreides that would endure for ten thousand years.