Desmond Hart: the Emperor's bashar

Desmond Hart was a Bashar of the Imperium and a charismatic soldier with an enigmatic past, who rose to the side of Emperor Javicco Corrino and turned the power of the throne against the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. Returned from the belly of a sandworm that had swallowed him on Arrakis, he claimed Shai-Hulud had granted him a terrible gift, and he wielded the power to burn his enemies to death from within. He was, in secret, the hidden son of Orry Atreides and the Sister Tula Harkonnen. He was created for the HBO series Dune: Prophecy and doesn't appear in the novels. (Dune: Prophecy)

Origins#

Desmond was born on Wallach IX to Tula Harkonnen, a Sister of the Bene Gesserit, who had been impregnated by Orry Atreides the night before she killed him. Recognizing that her child held tremendous potential and unwilling to see him exploited for it by Valya Harkonnen, Tula pretended that he had died, swapping the infant with a stillborn child with the help of the Sister Francesca. Sent away, he was left to live among scavengers, fighting for scraps to survive, a childhood that bred in him a deep and abiding hatred of the Sisterhood that had cast him out. (The High-Handed Enemy; In Blood, Truth)

Little was recorded of his life thereafter. Before he came to prominence he completed twelve tours of duty on Arrakis, where most soldiers barely survived their first, and for his service he received multiple commendations. He comes to Salusa Secundus as the survivor of an attack on Arrakis that he blames on offworld insurgents stealing spice, says it should have killed him, and credits his survival to a new faith in the gods. (The Hidden Hand)

Under interrogation he told Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen that he was from Balut. (Two Wolves)

The gift of Shai-Hulud#

On Arrakis a sandworm swallowed Desmond, and he survived. Under interrogation by Valya on Salusa Secundus, he readily admitted killing Pruwet Richese and Kasha Jinjo, said he had done it with a gift from the sandworm that swallowed him, and swore he was loyal to the Imperium. He told her Shai-Hulud had taken his eye and given him the gift to see what even she could not, including the blood trailing her every step. (Two Wolves)

The gift was lethal. Desmond could kill from a distance, causing his victims' skin to burn and smoke while blue veins rose prominently across their faces. He killed the boy Pruwet Richese in the palace in this manner, and at the same time the Truthsayer Kasha Jinjo burned and died. (The Hidden Hand)

On Wallach IX the Sisters judged that Kasha had suffered an acute imbalance in her meridian network. Javicco and Natalya later had Desmond use the power on Pruwet's father, Duke Ferdinand Richese, to make him honour their deal. (Two Wolves)

Using the power cost Desmond dearly. He told Javicco it hurt every time, which was why his back was covered in scars, and once he stumbled out of the High Council chamber bleeding, leaving a trail of blood behind him. (Twice Born)

Servant of the throne#

Desmond sought and won the trust of Emperor Javicco Corrino, and the Emperor found him a post at the palace. (The Hidden Hand)

He remained at Javicco's side as the Emperor's instrument against the Bene Gesserit. When he was found destroying Kasha Jinjo's Sisterhood book, he counselled Javicco that the Sisterhood used whisper campaigns to achieve their own ends and urged that the Great Houses be made to remove their Truthsayers, though the Emperor declined for fear of losing the support of the Great Houses. (Twice Born)

He found a willing ally in Empress Natalya, who shared his conviction that the throne had been too lenient. She gave him surveillance files, and he set the guards on everyone involved in the covert trade in thinking machines. Before the High Council he confessed to killing Pruwet Richese, but called it an execution for the boy's crime of harbouring a thinking machine, for the keeping of such machines was the highest law broken. He exposed a plot in which criminals had planned to kill the Emperor with a drone, destroyed the device before the assembled nobles, and publicly executed the conspirators along with Lord Hagal. (Twice Born)

Exposure and the virus#

Javicco then gave Desmond command of a new unit for hunting down insurgents, and the pursuit led him to a marketplace held by the Sister Mikaela, where he uncovered a great store of spice and unmasked her as a member of the order. The market was destroyed in an explosion set off by Keiran, and Desmond survived only by raising his shield at the last instant. Afterward he told Natalya that he should have died, and recounted how the woman who bore him had been a Sister who abandoned him to survive on scraps. (In Blood, Truth)

When Valya Harkonnen confronted him and asked to be shown her own end, the vision turned against his makers. Upon waking she said she had seen what had been done to Desmond: that those who had remade him, whom she could not name, had placed a thinking machine within him, and that he was spreading a virus. She wished to kill him, but Tula Harkonnen stopped her, revealing that Desmond was her son. Valya gave Tula a knife and left the choice to her. Tula moved to hold him and he slapped her hands away. After a moment he let her embrace him, but as she pulled away he ordered the guards to arrest her. (The High-Handed Enemy)

Where that arrest leads is picked apart in our Dune: Prophecy explainer.