Ghola

A ghola was an artificially created human, replicated from a dead individual and grown in the axlotl tanks of the Bene Tleilax. A ghola could be reconstructed from as little as a single cell taken from the original being. The Tleilaxu produced gholas almost exclusively, though at least one, based on Miles Teg, was grown by the Bene Gesserit during their war with the Honored Matres. Gholas grew steadily more important to the affairs of the known universe from the reign of Emperor Paul Atreides onward, above all through the endless succession of Duncan Idaho gholas that the Tleilaxu produced over thousands of years. (Dune Messiah; God Emperor of Dune; Chapterhouse: Dune)

Creation and nature#

A ghola was grown in the axlotl tanks from the cells of a person who had already died, and it could be reconstructed from as little as one surviving cell. A true ghola was distinguished from a clone by the timing of the cell collection: ghola cells were taken after the original human was dead, while clone cells were taken while the original still lived. Because of this, a clone did not possess a "death memory" when its original memories were restored, whereas a ghola did. Cells taken from a living subject could still be used in the same process, as happened with Miles Teg, who was therefore technically a clone rather than a true ghola. (Dune Messiah; Chapterhouse: Dune)

A ghola possessed most, and perhaps all, of the memories of the human it was copied from, recovered through a combination of conditioning and a variant on genetic memory. Early gholas were marked by artificial metallic eyes, a side effect of the original production method. That flaw was later corrected, and later gholas possessed natural eyes. (Dune Messiah; Heretics of Dune)

Reawakening of original memories#

Until the time of Muad'Dib, gholas were created chiefly to ease the grief of those who had lost someone close to them. That comfort was limited, because a ghola remembered nothing of its original life. The Tleilaxu had long theorized that a ghola's original memories could be reawakened, reasoning from the concept of genetic memory and from evidence that gholas experienced "echoes" of their past lives, feelings stirred by particular sounds or smells. (Dune Messiah)

To test the theory the Tleilaxu presented Muad'Dib with a ghola of Duncan Idaho, given the name Hayt and bearing none of Idaho's memories. Hayt had been conditioned to assassinate Muad'Dib, but Idaho's innate love for the Atreides could not be reconciled with that conditioning. The psychological trauma born of this contradiction forced Idaho's memories to surface, proving the theory correct. (Dune Messiah)

Thereafter a ghola's pre-ghola memories were routinely awakened by subjecting it to some form of psychological trauma. This remained the method until Miles Teg's pre-ghola memories were instead awakened by Sheeana through sexual imprinting techniques, an approach suggested by Duncan Idaho, who disliked the older method of forced trauma. (Heretics of Dune; Chapterhouse: Dune)

Recurrence across the centuries#

Duncan Idaho was replicated as a ghola countless times over the course of several thousand years, each one produced by the Bene Tleilax and each carrying deep-seated conditioning meant to serve Tleilaxu political and cultural aims. That conditioning frequently failed or produced unforeseen consequences. The Idaho ghola raised for the Bene Gesserit on Gammu carried the memories of the original Idaho together with the memories of all the gholas that had preceded him, by means that were never explained. (God Emperor of Dune; Heretics of Dune)

Miles Teg was replicated once by the Bene Gesserit after his death on Rakis, conditioned, like Idaho, to serve his sponsors, again with only limited success. The Tleilaxu Masters prolonged their own lives through serial gholas, and in the expanded books Tylwyth Waff and Scytale were recreated this way, continuing the practice within the ranks of the Bene Tleilax themselves. (Chapterhouse: Dune; Heretics of Dune; Hunters of Dune)