Dune category

Bene Gesserit

42 entries tagged Bene Gesserit. Every entry is sourced from Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, the later companion titles, or the official reference material.

Tula Harkonnen: the Harkonnen who wed and slew an AtreidesTula Harkonnen was an early member of House Harkonnen and a sister of the Bene Gesserit. On the orders of her elder sister, Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen, she married Orry Atreides and murdered him on their wedding night to avenge their slain brother.
Alma Mavis TarazaAlma Mavis Taraza was the Bene Gesserit Mother Superior who confronted the threat of the Honored Matres and the discovery that the girl Sheeana could command the sandworms. She drove the Duncan Idaho ghola project and the Tleilaxu alliance, and died on Rakis, her memories preserved in her successor Darwi Odrade.
Battle of JunctionThe Battle of Junction was the final battle of the War of the Sisterhoods, fought between the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres. A seeming Bene Gesserit victory turned to disaster, and it was salvaged only by Murbella's desperate gamble to seize control of the Honored Matres.
Battle of RakisThe Battle of Rakis was an engagement of 15229 AG in the war between the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres. The Honored Matres used the Weapon to kill Mother Superior Alma Mavis Taraza, and ultimately destroyed the planet and its sandworms, sparing only the single worm the Bene Gesserit carried away.
The Bene Gesserit CodaThe Bene Gesserit Coda was a document that set out the values and ideology of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. It served chiefly as a teaching text for Sisters in early training and was little relied upon by those of greater experience.
Bene GesseritThe Bene Gesserit were an ancient order of women who wielded power from the shadows of the Imperium through a millennia-long breeding program, mastery of body and mind, and the religious engineering of the Missionaria Protectiva. Their goal was the Kwisatz Haderach, and through him the guidance of humanity.
ChapterhouseChapterhouse was the Bene Gesserit term for the planet that served as the Sisterhood's home base. In its final form it was a hidden, deliberately unsettled world shielded from prescient eyes and, in the end, remade into desert to shelter the last sandworm.
CorystaCorysta was a Bene Gesserit sister exiled to the water-world of Buzzell, where she defied her order by trying to keep her child and later raised an abandoned Phibian boy she named Sea Child.
CristaneCristane was a Bene Gesserit sister and commando of the Turbulent Era. Sent to Ix to uncover the secret of Project Amal, she penetrated the Tleilaxu laboratories before being captured, converted into an axlotl tank, and destroyed.
Darwi OdradeDarwi Odrade was a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother of secret Atreides descent who rose to become the penultimate Mother Superior during the War of the Sisterhoods. She recruited Sheeana Brugh on Rakis, allied the Sisterhood with the Bene Tleilax, and died on Junction in the final assault against the Honored Matres.
Gaius Helen MohiamGaius Helen Mohiam was a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother who trained Lady Jessica, served as Truthsayer to Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV, and tested the young Paul Atreides with the gom jabbar. She later joined the conspiracy against the Atreides Empire and was executed for it.
Gom JabbarThe gom jabbar was a handheld needle tipped with meta-cyanide poison that brought almost instant death. The Bene Gesserit used it to enforce their test of humanity, holding it to a subject's neck to measure whether awareness could master instinct in the face of pain.
HarishkaHarishka was Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit through the Turbulent Era, guiding the Sisterhood across the last years of Elrood IX and the reigns of Shaddam IV and Paul Atreides. She watched over the final steps of the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program.
Janess IdahoJaness Idaho was a daughter of the final Duncan Idaho ghola and the Honored Matres leader Murbella, raised within the Sisterhood on Chapterhouse. She rose to command the Valkyries and then to Supreme Bashar of all the New Sisterhood's forces during the war against the Thinking Machines.
Kwisatz HaderachThe Kwisatz Haderach was the prophesied culmination of the Bene Gesserit breeding program, a male able to access the genetic memory of both his male and female ancestors and to bridge space and time through prescience. Paul Atreides and his son Leto II became the beings the Sisterhood had sought.
Lady JessicaLady Jessica was the Bene Gesserit concubine of Duke Leto Atreides and the mother of Paul Atreides. By disobeying her order to bear a daughter she reshaped the Sisterhood's breeding program, and she became a Reverend Mother of both the Fremen and the Bene Gesserit.
Lady Margot FenringLady Margot Fenring was the Bene Gesserit wife of Count Hasimir Fenring. Though she moved within the court of House Corrino, her true loyalty lay with the Sisterhood, in whose service she left a coded warning for Lady Jessica on Arrakis and was tasked with preserving the Harkonnen bloodline.
Litany Against FearThe Litany Against Fear was a mantra spoken in moments of peril to focus the mind. Believed to have originated with the Bene Gesserit, it was used by Paul Atreides to endure the agony of the gom jabbar test of humanity.
LucillaLucilla was a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and Imprinter assigned to imprint the final Duncan Idaho ghola on Gammu. She later served as Vice-Chancellor of Lampadas and absorbed the memories of millions of sisters before dying in Honored Matre captivity.
Marcus Claire LuyseyalMarcus Claire Luyseyal was a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother and Truthsayer, reckoned the best of her order during the final years of the God Emperor Leto Atreides II. She joined Tertius Eileen Anteac in a failed attempt to alter the Sisterhood's spice allotment.
Margot FenringLady Margot Fenring was a powerful Bene Gesserit and the wife of the Mentat Count Hasimir Fenring. Outwardly tied to House Corrino, she served the Sisterhood in secret, leaving the warning that reached Lady Jessica on Arrakis.
Miles TegMiles Teg was a Bene Gesserit Mentat and military commander, the Supreme Bashar of the Sisterhood's forces, bred down the Atreides line and so close in likeness to Leto Atreides I that he was used to reawaken a Duncan Idaho ghola. Tortured into prescience, he died in battle on Rakis and was later revived as a ghola.
Missionaria ProtectivaThe Missionaria Protectiva was the Bene Gesserit program for seeding protective myths and prophecies among primitive cultures, so that a Sister in danger could later cast herself as a foretold figure and turn local belief to the Sisterhood's advantage.
MurbellaMurbella was an Honored Matre captured by the Bene Gesserit, sexually bonded to a Duncan Idaho ghola, and trained until she survived the Spice Agony to become a Reverend Mother. After the war between the two orders she rose to be both Mother Superior and Great Honored Matre, uniting the rival sisterhoods.
New SisterhoodThe New Sisterhood was the order created when Murbella merged the Bene Gesserit with the Honored Matres after the death of Darwi Odrade. Forged to unite a fractured humanity, it raised fleets and the Valkyrie strike force to face the returning Thinking Machines in the war that ended at Kralizec.
Orange Catholic BibleThe Orange Catholic Bible, the Accumulated Book, was one of the most important religious texts of the known universe. Produced by the Commission of Ecumenical Translators in the wake of the Butlerian Jihad, it sought to fuse all significant religious thought of human history under one supreme commandment.
Ori ZhomaDoctor Ori Zhoma was a Suk physician who rose to lead the flagship Suk school on Salusa Secundus after murdering its corrupt head. Recruited by the Sisterhood to sterilize Emperor Salvador Corrino, she was killed before her role could be exposed.
Other MemoryOther Memory was the Bene Gesserit term for the well of genetic memory that a Reverend Mother possessed after the Spice Agony, an inheritance of the lived experience of her ancestors that could be passed from Sister to Sister and carried across thousands of years.
Quintinius Violet ChenoehQuintinius Violet Chenoeh was a Bene Gesserit sister and trained oral recorder who accompanied the God Emperor Leto Atreides II on a private peregrination and learned things he forbade her to publish. She died in the Spice Agony as he foretold, and became a household deity within the Sisterhood.
Raquella Berto-AnirulRaquella Berto-Anirul was the first Reverend Mother and the founder and first Mother Superior of the order that became the Bene Gesserit. A physician of the Jihad era, she survived a transformative poisoning that unlocked the powers of the Reverend Mothers and reshaped the Sisterhood of Rossak into a new force.
Rossak EpidemicThe Rossak Epidemic was a mutated strain of the Omnius Scourge that evolved in the jungles of Rossak, far deadlier than the original plague. It resisted melange and conventional treatment until Raquella Berto-Anirul synthesized an antidote within her own body and destroyed the mutation.
Sheeana BrughSheeana Brugh was a Fremen girl of Rakis whose ability to command the sandworms drew the attention of the Rakian Priesthood, the Bene Gesserit, and the Bene Tleilax. Of Atreides and Idaho descent, she became a Reverend Mother and fled the Old Empire aboard a no-ship as the Sisterhood scattered.
Sorceresses of Rossak: the telekinetic orderThe Sorceresses of Rossak were an order of telekinetic women native to the toxic jungle world of Rossak. Staunch enemies of the thinking machines, they eventually evolved into the Sisterhood that became the Bene Gesserit.
Tertius Eileen AnteacTertius Eileen Anteac was a Bene Gesserit Mentat Reverend Mother and Truthsayer who served the plans of the God Emperor Leto Atreides II in his final years. A secret Mentat descended from Gaius Helen Mohiam, she led the Fish Speaker invasion of Ix and died in its accomplishment.
Tessia VerniusTessia Vernius, born Tessia Yasco al-Reill, was a Bene Gesserit Sister who became the beloved concubine and later wife of Earl Rhombur Vernius. She was a source of strength through the fall and restoration of House Vernius before the Sisterhood forced her into a comatose trance and carried her away.
Ticia CenvaTicia Cenva was the daughter of Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo and Supreme Sorceress Zufa Cenva, raised to lead the Sorceresses of Rossak. Cold and driven, she guided the order through the Omnius Scourge before succumbing to the Rossak Epidemic.
TruthsayerA Truthsayer was a person able to detect truth as it was spoken, the talent itself called truthsense. The skill was cultivated chiefly by the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, and Truthsayers were often retained by the Padishah Emperor to sit in judgment over the testimony of others.
Valya HarkonnenValya Harkonnen of Lankiveil rose from a promising student of Raquella Berto-Anirul to become the second Reverend Mother Superior of the order she renamed the Bene Gesserit. Consumed by a vendetta against House Atreides, she developed the technique of Voice and used it to seize sole leadership.
VoiceVoice was an audio-neuro control technique perfected by the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, which let a trained adept seize control of a listener by altering the tonal qualities of speech. It was used to compel obedience and extract truth, and a few rare individuals learned to resist or even wield it untrained.
Wallach IXWallach IX was the ninth planet of the Laoujin system and the seat of the Mother School of the Bene Gesserit. From it the Sisterhood trained its acolytes, convened its councils, and plotted against the House of Atreides.
Water of LifeThe Water of Life was a poisonous blue liquid drawn from a drowning sandworm, lethal to the untrained but converted by the Bene Gesserit into the substance that made a Reverend Mother. Its conversion by a man marked the coming of the Kwisatz Haderach.
Zufa CenvaZufa Cenva was the long-standing Supreme Sorceress of the Sorceresses of Rossak, a formidable telekinetic and zealous enemy of the thinking machines. She was the mother of both Norma Cenva and Ticia Cenva.