Desert War: the fall of the Corrino Empire

The Desert War, sometimes called the Arrakis Affair, was a major conflict fought primarily on the desert planet of Arrakis. It is the war at the heart of Frank Herbert's Dune, and it marked the fall of the Corrino Empire and the rise of the Atreides Empire. The war was fought between House Atreides and the Fremen against House Harkonnen, which was supported by the Imperial House Corrino and, later, the other Great Houses of the Landsraad. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

Origins of the conflict#

The Desert War stemmed from the feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, a hostility that dated back to the Battle of Corrin. More directly, it grew from Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV's fear of the dangerous popularity that Duke Leto Atreides I had won in the Landsraad. Leto had trained a small force under Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, and Duncan Idaho capable of rivaling the Sardaukar, and the Emperor came to regard the Duke as a threat. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

The deeper foundations of the war had been laid decades earlier, when the ecologist Pardot Kynes was appointed Imperial Planetologist on Arrakis. Kynes won the trust of the Fremen and set them toward a centuries-long dream of turning the desert into a green world, a hidden movement that would later give Paul Atreides the loyal army he needed. Pardot's work was continued after his death by his son Liet-Kynes, who served both as Imperial Planetologist and as a leader of the Fremen. (Dune; Dune (appendix))

Shaddam's trap#

Despite his reluctance, Shaddam conspired with Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the long-time rival of the Atreides. Together they pressured Leto into surrendering the fief of his ancestral planet, Caladan, and taking over the spice mining operations of Arrakis, exactly as the Emperor had planned. A spy was placed within the Atreides household: Dr. Wellington Yueh, whose conditioning the Harkonnens had found a way to break. (Dune)

The Duke quickly recognized that he had entered an undeclared War of Assassins, though it had not yet reached full scale. He worked to win the Fremen, sending Duncan Idaho ahead as an ambassador, and through Duncan's skill as a warrior the Atreides earned their trust. Leto soon understood that the Fremen were a force he could ally with against his enemies. (Dune)

The War of Assassins#

To strike back at the Baron, Leto told Thufir Hawat to plan a raid on Giedi Prime, the Harkonnen homeworld, using some of Idaho's men and perhaps some Fremen. He saw tactical advantages in such a diversion. (Dune)

The Baron's answer came first. After a feigned assassination attempt on Leto's son Paul using a hunter-seeker, Dr. Yueh lowered the defensive house shields and drugged the Duke, leaving the Atreides leaderless under a sudden Harkonnen and Sardaukar onslaught during the Siege of Arrakeen. The Atreides army was crushed, though a few key figures escaped. Yueh, who despised the Baron, planted a poison-gas tooth in the captive Duke's mouth, hoping Leto would kill the Baron with it. Yueh himself was killed by the Baron's Mentat, Piter de Vries, and when Leto bit down on the tooth the gas killed Piter but missed the Baron. (Dune)

Paul and Jessica in the desert#

The Baron intended Paul and his mother Jessica to die in the deep desert so that he could truthfully deny direct responsibility for their deaths. Yueh's arrangements foiled the plan, and the two escaped, leaving the Harkonnens to believe a coriolis storm had killed them. After crossing the desert, Paul and Jessica fell in with a Fremen troop. They proved their worth in unarmed combat using Bene Gesserit prana-bindu training, and the leader Stilgar accepted them. Paul met Chani, daughter of Liet-Kynes, whom he had long seen in his visions. (Dune)

When the proud Fremen Jamis challenged Paul to a fight to the death, Paul triumphed and made his name in the tribe. Stilgar gave him the private name Usul, and Paul took the public Fremen name Paul Muad'Dib. Jessica, meanwhile, underwent the Fremen rite that made her their Reverend Mother, an act that also exposed her unborn daughter Alia to the full weight of ancestral memory while still in the womb. (Dune)

Hawat among the Harkonnens#

Thufir Hawat was taken captive and forced into Harkonnen service by means of a residual poison for which only the Harkonnens held the antidote. For two years the Mentat schemed within the enemy House, plotting revenge for his dead Duke and working to set the na-Baron Feyd-Rautha against the Baron. He came close to breaking House Harkonnen from within, arranging for Feyd to face a fully capable Atreides captive in the gladiator ring rather than a drugged slave. (Dune)

The rise of Muad'Dib#

In the years that followed, Paul became a religious leader among the Fremen, and Chani bore him a son named Leto. His Fedaykin won victory after victory against the Harkonnens, and his prestige grew. He learned to ride sandworms, becoming a full sandrider, and when a band of smugglers strayed too deep into the desert, the Fremen sprang a trap. Among them Paul recognized his old weapons master Gurney Halleck, who joyfully entered his service. Rather than challenge his friend Stilgar for leadership, Paul broke tradition and proclaimed himself the ruling Duke of Arrakis. (Dune)

Still frustrated by the limits of his prescience, Paul consumed a small quantity of the spice essence, the Water of Life, and attempted the transformation that no man had survived. He fell into a coma; only Chani's intervention with the converted essence drew him back. He woke as the Kwisatz Haderach, a generation ahead of the Bene Gesserit design, and declared the moment had come to destroy the Harkonnens. (Dune)

The Battle of Arrakeen#

Fremen attacks had nearly halted the flow of spice from Arrakis, forcing Shaddam to come in person with his Sardaukar and the levies of the Great Houses. A Sardaukar raid into the deep desert killed Paul's infant son and captured his sister Alia before being driven off. After the Emperor landed, Paul launched his final assault at the Battle of Arrakeen. Using the family atomics his men had recovered, he blew a gap in the Shield Wall that protected the capital, and the Fremen attacked under cover of a great storm, riding sandworms through the breach. The static charge of the storm shorted out the Sardaukar shields. (Dune)

Even the Sardaukar could not withstand the assault, and Shaddam was forced to surrender. During the chaos Alia escaped and killed the Baron Harkonnen. Discovering that he had unknowingly served against Paul, Thufir Hawat took his own life rather than turn the poison needle he carried against the son of his beloved Duke. Feyd-Rautha challenged Paul to single combat under the rights of kanly and was killed. The Emperor's Mentat-assassin, Count Fenring, refused an order to kill Paul, recognizing him as a fellow, if failed, Kwisatz Haderach. (Dune)

Fall of House Corrino#

Paul refused to submit to the Emperor. Instead he forced Shaddam from the throne by seizing power over the real rulers of the Empire, the Spacing Guild, threatening to destroy the spice forever if his demands were not met. The Guild, its limited prescience confirming that Paul was capable of it, complied. Paul claimed the Emperor's eldest daughter, Irulan, as the price of peace and took the throne, and Shaddam went into exile on Salusa Secundus. (Dune)

In the aftermath Paul rewarded his allies. By Dune Messiah, Stilgar is his Minister of State. The Desert War flowed directly into the religious war that followed, as Muad'Dib's Jihad spread across the Known Universe and the Atreides line was secured on the Golden Lion Throne. It also marks the point where the Dune timeline switches from Corrino to Atreides emperors. (Dune; Dune Messiah)