Imperial Opal Palace

The Imperial Opal Palace was the residence of the Padishah Emperors of House Corrino, standing in Corrinth City, the capital of the planet Kaitain. It sat along the Imperial Boulevard, a broad garden avenue lined with statues of the Corrino Emperors who had come before. Above the entrance to its Great Hall was carved the legend, "Law is the ultimate science."

The Imperial residence#

The Imperial Opal Palace housed not only the Padishah Emperor but the whole apparatus of his court. Within its walls dwelt House Corrino and its servants, bodyguards, and slaves, the Emperor's slave-harem and its adjacent nursery, and quarters for the string of aristocratic visitors who came bearing suits, petitions, and diplomatic errands. Beggars waited beside the doors while first-class outsiders awaited their summons, all of them craving leave to enter the Imperial Selamlik, to pass the plasteel and marble doors beneath the sculptured arches and the Imperial legend, past the captive banners of defeated Houses Major, and to stand at last in the presence of the Power itself.

The audience hall and the throne#

The great audience hall held the Golden Lion Throne, the seat of Imperial authority. It would be crowded with the Emperor's bodyguards, courtiers, noukkers, concubines, eunuchs, pages, slaves, and the Bene Gesserit, and yet held only a fraction of those who clamoured to enter. The Padishah Emperor would hear the petitioners, who stated name and case in the ancient and almost identical formulae prescribed by usage, each invoking his word of bond under the Convention. The Emperor himself appeared in a dark grey Sardaukar uniform bearing only the golden Imperial lion crest upon the helm to mark his rank.

House Corrino and the palace#

The Imperial Opal Palace was the childhood home and birthplace of Shaddam IV, who would rule the Known Universe from its halls. There he wed his Empress Consort, the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Anirul, and there were raised his daughters, among them Irulan. With few exceptions, the members of the Imperial family kept apart from the many social functions that gave the Court its reputation for glittering splendour.

After the fall#

When the rule of House Corrino was broken on Arrakis by Paul Atreides and his Fremen allies, raiders ransacked Kaitain and plundered its cities. The Imperial Opal Palace alone they could not take, for it was guarded by a force field they failed to penetrate. The palace and the Golden Lion Throne ultimately passed to Irulan as her family inheritance.