Dune category

Organizations

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

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.
Bene TleilaxThe Bene Tleilax, more commonly called the Tleilaxu, were a secretive race of genetically altered humans whose mastery of the axolotl tanks gave them gholas, Face Dancers, and Twisted Mentats. Reviled across the Imperium, their genetic skill made them a necessary evil that no power could do without.
CHOAMCHOAM, the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, was the vast commercial monopoly that governed nearly all trade across the Imperium. Its directorships were the true measure of political power, and its profits, many of them tied to the spice melange, sustained the Great Houses.
FedaykinThe Fedaykin were Fremen fighters of Arrakis, first the guerrillas of the Arrakis Revolt and then the personal death commandos of Paul Muad'Dib. By the time of his children they had become the elite of the Jihad army, before Alia Atreides dissolved them and the word returned to its old meaning.
First Battle of ZimiaThe First Battle of Zimia was an assault by Agamemnon's robotic forces in 203 BG against Salusa Secundus, the capital of the League of Nobles. It was the first concentrated machine aggression after a century of cold war, and the defense of the city's shield generators made the reputation of Xavier Harkonnen.
First EmpireThe First Empire was the dominant form of ancient human society on Terra and its interstellar vicinity, lasting some 6395 years from 16500 to 11105 BG. Its expansion into space outran its own ability to govern, and the failure of swift communication eventually brought it down.
Fish SpeakersThe Fish Speakers were the all-female army and bureaucracy created by God Emperor Leto Atreides II to enforce his rule and protect the Golden Path. Trained as fanatical soldiers, priestesses, and administrators, they outlasted every prior military force before falling under Tleilaxu control after his death.
Honored MatresThe Honored Matres were a violent faction of women who emerged from uncharted space some fifteen centuries after the death of the God Emperor, returning to the Old Empire as dark mirrors and rivals of the Bene Gesserit. They conquered through sexual enslavement and the destruction of worlds.
House RicheseHouse Richese ruled the machine world of Richese, a Great House classed with Ix as supreme in machine culture. Its ruinous trade war with House Vernius of Ix broke its fortunes and left it making copies of Ixian invention.
Iblis GinjoIblis Ginjo was a former thinking machine trustee who rose to become the first Grand Patriarch of the Holy Jihad, founding the Jihad Police and the Jihad Council before his corruption led Xavier Harkonnen to kill him.
Istian GossIstian Goss was a Ginaz swordmaster of the Jool-Noret School, believed to carry the reincarnated spirit of Jool Noret. He fought through the Butlerian Jihad and reached the secret final level of Noret's fighting style at the Battle of Corrin.
Jool NoretJool Noret was a mercenary of Ginaz and the first true Swordmaster, a legendary warrior of the Butlerian Jihad whose reckless fighting style and posthumous shrine founded the Jool-Noret School of swordmasters.
Juno: the Titan lieutenant of AgamemnonJuno, born Julianna Parhi on Old Earth, was one of the original Titans and the lover and lieutenant of their leader Agamemnon. Cold, analytical, and lethal in battle, she ruled as a cymek for centuries before falling to Quentin Butler on Hessra.
LandsraadThe Landsraad was the governing body that represented all the Great Houses of the Imperium. Overseen by the Padishah Emperor and ruled by its High Council, it provided a forum for trade, alliance, and the formal feud of kanly, and stood as a counterweight to the power of the Imperial House.
MentatThe Mentat was a discipline developed after the Butlerian Jihad to replace the outlawed thinking machines, training the human mind into a living computer capable of supralogical analysis. Mentats served the Great Houses, the Bene Gesserit, and the Imperium as advisors, strategists, and, when twisted, killers.
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.
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.
SardaukarThe Sardaukar were the elite military force of the Padishah Emperor, raised on the prison planet Salusa Secundus and feared across the Known Universe for their zeal and skill at arms. Their defeat at the hands of the Fremen on Arrakis opened the way for Paul Atreides to take the Golden Lion Throne.
SmugglerA smuggler was anyone who sold or transported contraband or controlled substances within the Imperium. Smugglers were common on Arrakis, where they dealt chiefly in the spice melange, and Duke Leto Atreides sought an accommodation with them after taking the fief.
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.
Spacing GuildThe Spacing Guild was the interstellar shipping and banking conglomerate whose monopoly on space travel formed one leg of the political tripod that upheld the Great Convention. Its Navigators, dependent on the spice melange, folded space through prescience aboard the vast Heighliners.
Suk SchoolThe Suk Medical School trained the most trusted physicians of the Imperium. Its Imperial Conditioning was believed to make a Suk doctor incapable of taking a human life, marked by a diamond tattoo and a silver hair ring.
Swordmasters of GinazThe Swordmasters of Ginaz were warriors who earned the title by attaining a high level of skill at the Ginaz School. Regarded as superior to Sardaukar, they served the Great Houses as commanders, teachers, and personal guards.
TitansThe Titans were twenty human revolutionaries who seized the Old Empire and ruled it as brutal overlords, then preserved themselves as cymeks by transplanting their brains into mechanical bodies. Their reach gave rise to Omnius, who reduced them to powerless celebrities before the last of them fell during the Butlerian Jihad.
Tleilaxu MasterTleilaxu Masters were the elite caste of the Bene Tleilax, served by gholas and Face Dancers and immune to the Bene Gesserit Voice. The ten Masheikhs of the Ruling Council stood at the summit of their order.
Yorek ThurrYorek Thurr was a Salusan politician and the long-standing head of the Jipol secret police during the Butlerian Jihad. Secretly serving both the thinking machines and the Titans, he engineered the Omnius Scourge and other plagues that killed billions across the League of Nobles.