Galactic civil war

The galactic civil war was a three way conflict that broke out in the first century of the Corrino Empire between the ruling but still unstable House Corrino, the vast commercial empire of Venport Holdings, and the vehemently anti technology Butlerian movement. What began as a two sided war, with the Corrinos allied to the Butlerians, fractured when Roderick Corrino turned against the movement after taking power. House Corrino emerged victorious, and the war ended with the near total annihilation of the Butlerians and the dissolution of Venport Holdings. Only the Navigator subsidiary, the Foldspace Shipping Company, was permitted to survive, becoming the independent Spacing Guild that would monopolize space commerce for the next fifteen thousand years.

Origins of the war#

The earliest roots of the conflict reached back to the long struggle between free humanity and the thinking machines. The Butlerian Jihad, the holy war against the machine empire of Omnius, raged across the Known Universe for a century and killed billions on both sides before culminating in the Battle of Corrin. The Jihad's martyr, Serena Butler, was venerated as one of the Three Martyrs, and the devotion paid to her gave rise to the Martyrists, fanatics devoted to destroying thinking machines at any cost.

The plague known as the Omnius Scourge, released in 108 BG, deepened that fanaticism. Among its survivors was Rayna Butler, who had watched her parents die of the disease. Working with the Martyrists, she founded the hyperfanatical Cult of Serena, which destroyed electronic and mechanical machines across the League Worlds and pressed for laws forbidding any device that resembled the gelcircuitry of the thinking machines. The Cult was the direct ancestor of the Butlerian movement.

Rise of the Butlerian movement#

Rayna Butler continued to preach against machine technology until she was assassinated in a bombing in 22 BG at the age of ninety seven. The same blast cost Manford Torondo both his legs, and Rayna died in his arms. Torondo took up leadership of the Cult and transformed it into the true Butlerian movement, leading Swordmaster Anari Idaho and millions across the Imperium in a campaign to cleanse humanity of its reliance on technology. This marked the approximate, though still undeclared, beginning of the war.

Where the old Cult had presented itself as a temporary necessity to rid humanity of dangerous machines, Torondo sought to make the movement a permanent power within the new Empire, claiming the authority to destroy any technology he deemed dangerous by any means, including atomics. With the machine empire already defeated, the movement turned against those who excused technology for its conveniences, and against figures who sought to repurpose the remnants of the machine empire, chief among them Directeur Josef Venport.

The first open act came in 20 BG with the Invasion of Tlulax, when the Butlerians declared the biological projects of the Tlulaxa to be against the laws of man and God, destroyed them, and imposed strict rules on Tlulaxa scientists.

Open war at Thonaris#

Open conflict between Venport Holdings and the Butlerians erupted over the Thonaris shipyards, an abandoned manufacturing and refueling facility from the era of the Synchronized Worlds. The mentats Draigo Roget and Gilbertus Albans had each deduced the facility's existence from old shipping records. Acting on Draigo's projection, Josef Venport sent an armed fleet to seize it, only to find the rival firm Consolidated Transport already operating there. Venport attacked and subdued the CT presence and killed its owner, Arjen Gates, furthering his consolidation of space commerce.

Gilbertus Albans, hoping to protect the Mentat School from Torondo, shared his knowledge of the shipyards with the Butlerian leader, who seized the chance to destroy another machine remnant. Torondo led a fleet of Jihad era warships to Thonaris and found Venport already in control. In the battle that followed, Draigo Roget and Gilbertus were pitted against one another. Negotiations between Venport and Torondo failed, and Torondo's missiles devastated the ground facilities. Outnumbered, Draigo feigned a pause to evacuate personnel, then flung abandoned craft into the Butlerian fleet and detonated them. As Venport and Draigo fled in an evacuation ship, Norma Cenva folded a Venport heighliner around their craft and carried them to safety.

Assassinations and the Corrino split#

As the conflict escalated, both leaders set a price on the other's head. Venport sent Taref, a young Fremen from Arrakis whom Draigo had recruited to sabotage rival spacecraft, to assassinate Torondo. Taref shot the Butlerian leader in the head with a Maula pistol, but, unknown to him, killed only a body double.

Torondo then pressured Emperor Salvador Corrino to imperialize all spice mining and strip Venport of his power. Salvador agreed and traveled personally to Arrakis to oversee the handover. Resolving to remove him, Venport lured the Emperor aboard a spice harvester and bribed the spotters to delay announcing wormsign until a sandworm swallowed the machine. Although a guard managed to transmit a warning before the harvester was lost, Salvador did not return, and his more reasonable brother Roderick ascended the throne. When the Imperial barge later found its way back to Salusa Secundus and reported Venport's treason, Roderick ordered his arrest, but Norma Cenva folded both Venport and herself back to Kolhar.

Roderick, who had no love for Torondo or his fanatics, ultimately turned the alliance on its head. After the Butlerian fleet helped break a Venport siege of Salusa Secundus and Admiral Umberto Harte's battlegroup escaped Venport's grasp, the Emperor positioned himself to destroy both his enemies in turn.

The Battle of Lampadas#

The penultimate engagement of the war was the Battle of Lampadas, fought after Venport agreed to destroy the Butlerians as the price of a rapprochement with Roderick. Venport personally commanded a fleet of spacefolders against the world where Torondo lived. Venport ships engaged the old Ballista class battleships of the Butlerians while one hundred cymeks, their canisters filled with the brains of failed Navigators and led by the scientist Ptolemy, were dropped onto the capital to cleanse the planet of all life.

On the surface, the cymeks slaughtered thousands of devout Butlerians, but the fanatics overwhelmed the walkers and smashed their brain canisters. Ptolemy tore Manford Torondo apart before the Butlerians killed him in turn. In orbit, the outnumbered Butlerians resorted to suicidal tactics, ramming and firing lasguns at shielded ships, and Venport ordered his own ships to lower their shields to avoid annihilation by the lasgun and shield interaction. As the battle ended, Admiral Harte, who had observed in secret, opened fire on both the surviving Venport and Butlerian ships. To buy time for his Navigators to charge their engines, Venport warned Harte that he held the Emperor's sister, Anna Corrino, hostage, and the surviving Venport ships escaped to the secret laboratory world of Denali.

The Battle of Denali#

The final battle of the war was the Battle of Denali, fought in 1 AG. Enraged by the loss of his sister to captivity, Roderick had Harte interrogate the captured Venport crews until the coordinates of Denali were found, then attacked the world in force. At Denali, the independent robot Erasmus, his gelcircuitry now housed in a cloned body of his late pupil Gilbertus Albans, had adapted machine technology and reprogrammed mothballed war mechs to defend the facility.

The mentally scarred Anna Corrino, believing Erasmus had only used her, walked unprotected into the toxic atmosphere of Denali and died. Erasmus, feeling unexpected remorse, went out to save her and perished as well, his gelcircuitry succumbing to the caustic air. When Roderick learned of his sister's death, he ordered a full assault. Norma Cenva transported herself onto the Imperial flagship and bargained for peace: she would withdraw every Venport ship and leave Denali undefended if Roderick promised to spare all current and future Navigators, create an independent Spacing Guild, and maintain the flow of spice. Roderick agreed, and Norma vanished as the Venport fleet jumped away, leaving the laboratory exposed.

Imperial troops overran the surviving cymeks and war mechs and stormed the facility. Knowing his life was forfeit, Venport sent Draigo Roget out to negotiate the preservation of as many lives and as much research as possible, then locked himself away to contemplate his end. Norma Cenva appeared one final time to reveal a loophole in her bargain: if Josef became a Navigator, Roderick could not harm him. Roderick reluctantly accepted this fate for his enemy.

Aftermath#

With Denali occupied, Venport Holdings ceased to exist and its assets were confiscated by the Imperium. Draigo Roget was sent to manage spice harvesting on Arrakis. Emperor Roderick declared victory in a grand speech on Salusa Secundus, where Norma Cenva announced the formation of the Spacing Guild to provide safe foldspace travel to the whole Imperium.

The war confirmed House Corrino as the dominant power in the galaxy. The Butlerian movement was broken, surviving in reduced form under Anari Idaho. Of the great commercial empire of Venport Holdings, only the Navigator branch endured, transformed into the Spacing Guild that would hold its monopoly over space travel, transport, and interplanetary banking for the next fifteen thousand years.