Ix
the machine world of the Imperium
Ix was the ninth planet of its star system and the great center of machine manufacture in the Known Universe. Its workshops produced the Imperium's most advanced technology, often skirting the proscriptions left by the Butlerian Jihad.
Ix was a planet that took its name from its place as the ninth world of its star system, and it stood as the foremost center of machine culture in the Known Universe. The Ixian economy rested on the manufacture of complex machinery, work that sometimes flouted the moral and juridical proscriptions left by the Butlerian Jihad. Its people were known collectively as the Ixians.
Origins and machine culture#
The name Ix arose from a misinterpretation of the Roman numeral IX, marking it as the ninth planet of its system, and it was implied that the Ixians' own origin lay in some Asian culture of Old Earth, likely Chinese. Along with Richese, Ix escaped the more severe effects of the Butlerian Jihad, which left it classed as supreme in machine culture. Its economy depended on the manufacture of complex machinery, some of it skirting the moral and juridical proscriptions the Jihad had set against thinking machines.
Submission to the Atreides#
When Paul Atreides took the Golden Lion Throne and became Emperor of the Known Universe in 10196 AG, Ix had formed itself into an Ixian Confederacy. In 10208 AG the Confederacy offered its submission to House Atreides in exchange for a legal limit on Paul's Imperial tax, asking for a constitution with the Landsraad or CHOAM set to govern the Emperor. Paul forbade any constitution, holding that it would harm his people. The matter became an Order in Council, and Paul decreed that if the Spacing Guild wished his signature on the Tupile Treaty, it was to halt all trade from Ix until the Confederacy accepted the tax. Deprived of the Guild's transport, the Ixians at last submitted.
The God Emperor and the Ixian inventions#
Early in the reign of the God Emperor Leto Atreides II, the Ixians spread their machine-based civilization and built an economic and technological federation centered on the Ixian Core. In time they began to disregard the strictures of the Butlerian Jihad and resumed the manufacture of genuine computers. In the last centuries of the God Emperor's reign they invented the no-field, which allowed them to grow Hwi Noree, bred in a no-room to work upon Leto's emotions and disrupt his Golden Path. At the same time, working with the Spacing Guild, they sought a mechanical substitute for the predictive talents of the Guild Navigators. The project succeeded a few decades after the God Emperor's death, producing the first generation of Ixian Navigation Machines and breaking the Spacing Guild's monopoly over spaceflight.
The Famine Times and decline#
During the Famine Times the Ixians rose to become a major power in the Known Universe. They were the first to invent and manufacture no-ships, vessels that, guided by the new Navigation Machines, proved far cheaper than traditional spacecraft, and it was this cheaper form of space travel that fueled the Scattering. By the time the Honored Matres arrived in the Old Imperium, Ixian power stood at its apex, supported by an alliance with the Fish Speakers. Yet the analysts of the Bene Gesserit judged them a failing power, for Ixian society had hardened into a bureaucracy that had produced no great invention in centuries. When the Honored Matres conquered the Old Empire, the Ixians were reduced to a barely tolerated technological combine.
Frequently asked questions
- What was Ix in Dune?
- Ix was a planet named for its place as the ninth world of its star system, and it stood as the foremost center of machine culture in the Known Universe. Its economy rested on the manufacture of complex machinery, work that sometimes flouted the proscriptions left by the Butlerian Jihad.
- Where does the name Ix come from?
- The name Ix arose from a misinterpretation of the Roman numeral IX, marking it as the ninth planet of its system. It was implied that the Ixians' own origin lay in some Asian culture of Old Earth, likely Chinese.
- How did Ix come under House Atreides?
- The Ixian Confederacy offered submission to House Atreides in exchange for a legal limit on Paul's Imperial tax and a constitution, but Paul forbade any constitution. He decreed that the Spacing Guild halt all trade from Ix until the Confederacy accepted the tax, and, deprived of transport, the Ixians at last submitted.
- What did the Ixians invent under the God Emperor?
- In the last centuries of the God Emperor's reign the Ixians invented the no-field, which allowed them to grow Hwi Noree, bred to work upon Leto's emotions and disrupt his Golden Path. Working with the Spacing Guild, they also produced the first Ixian Navigation Machines, breaking the Guild's monopoly over spaceflight.
- What happened to Ix during the Famine Times?
- The Ixians rose to become a major power, being the first to invent and manufacture no-ships, whose cheaper space travel fueled the Scattering. By the time the Honored Matres arrived their power stood at its apex, but after the Honored Matres conquered the Old Empire the Ixians were reduced to a barely tolerated technological combine.
Sources
- WikiIx — Dune Wiki entry
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Related entries
Hwi Noree
Hwi Noree was the final Ixian Ambassador to Arrakis and the fiancee of the God Emperor Leto Atreides II. Genetically engineered by the Ixians to appeal to the remnants of Leto's humanity, she came to love him in truth, and her death on the way to their wedding hastened the end of his reign.
Old Earth
Old Earth, also called Terra, was the planet of the al-Lat system on which the human species first arose. After the Butlerian Jihad it dwindled to a memory, preserved in ancestral recollection and in the scattered Terran flora and fauna seeded across the worlds of the Imperium.
Tupile
Tupile was the sanctuary region of the known universe, a group of worlds whose location was kept secret by the Spacing Guild. Under House Corrino it sheltered defeated and renegade Great Houses sent into exile.
Bene Gesserit
The Bene Gesserit were an ancient order of women who wielded power from the shadows of the Imperium through a millennia-long breeding program, mastery of body and mind, and the religious engineering of the Missionaria Protectiva. Their goal was the Kwisatz Haderach, and through him the guidance of humanity.
Butlerian Jihad
The Butlerian Jihad was the century long crusade waged by free humanity against the computers, thinking machines and conscious robots of the Synchronized Empire. Beginning with the slave rebellion on Earth in 201 BG and ending with the imprisonment of Omnius on Corrin, it reshaped human civilization and produced the commandment that no machine may be made in the likeness of a human mind.
CHOAM
CHOAM, the Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, was the vast commercial monopoly that governed nearly all trade across the Imperium. Its directorships were the true measure of political power, and its profits, many of them tied to the spice melange, sustained the Great Houses.
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Bolig Avati
Bolig Avati was the Lead Administrator of the Ixian Technocrat Council, who conspired with his fellow technocrats to seize Ix from the House of Vernius. He repeatedly schemed against Earl Rhombur Vernius and was executed after the Qizarate found the Council complicit in heresy.
Butlerian Jihad
The Butlerian Jihad was the century long crusade waged by free humanity against the computers, thinking machines and conscious robots of the Synchronized Empire. Beginning with the slave rebellion on Earth in 201 BG and ending with the imprisonment of Omnius on Corrin, it reshaped human civilization and produced the commandment that no machine may be made in the likeness of a human mind.
Cristane
Cristane was a Bene Gesserit sister and commando of the Turbulent Era. Sent to Ix to uncover the secret of Project Amal, she penetrated the Tleilaxu laboratories before being captured, converted into an axlotl tank, and destroyed.
D'murr Pilru: the Ixian Guild Navigator
D'murr Pilru was a skilled Spacing Guild Navigator of Ixian heritage, twin brother of the resistance fighter C'tair Pilru. He gave up family and human concerns for the heightliner's tank, and was instrumental in restoring House Vernius to the rule of Ix.
Dominic Vernius
Dominic Vernius was the penultimate true Earl of House Vernius and ruler of Ix. A decorated military ally of the Emperor turned bitter renegade after marrying the imperial concubine Shando Balut, he lost his House to a Tleilaxu invasion and died detonating a stone burner against Sardaukar on Arrakis.
Edrik: the Steersman of Kralizec
Edrik was a Spacing Guild Navigator, one of the line called the Edrics, who rose to lead his fellow Steersmen as the prophesied time of Kralizec approached. His efforts to secure spice and a synthetic source of melange ended when he was killed by the Enhanced Face Dancer Khrone.
Enhanced Face Dancer
Enhanced Face Dancers were a refined breed of Tleilaxu shape changer first released into deep space by Hidar Fen Ajidica and later improved by the Thinking Machines. Undetectable even by the Bene Gesserit, they served Omnius and Erasmus while secretly pursuing their own ascendancy, until Erasmus destroyed them all with a hidden kill switch.
House Richese
House Richese ruled the machine world of Richese, a Great House classed with Ix as supreme in machine culture. Its ruinous trade war with House Vernius of Ix broke its fortunes and left it making copies of Ixian invention.
Ilban Richese
Count Ilban Richese was the head of House Richese, husband of Edwina Corrino, father of Helena Richese, and grandfather of Duke Leto Atreides. His neglect of the family business hastened the decline of a once great industrial House.
Janess Idaho
Janess Idaho was a daughter of the final Duncan Idaho ghola and the Honored Matres leader Murbella, raised within the Sisterhood on Chapterhouse. She rose to command the Valkyries and then to Supreme Bashar of all the New Sisterhood's forces during the war against the Thinking Machines.
Jool Noret
Jool Noret was a mercenary of Ginaz and the first true Swordmaster, a legendary warrior of the Butlerian Jihad whose reckless fighting style and posthumous shrine founded the Jool-Noret School of swordmasters.
Kailea Vernius
Kailea Vernius was a daughter of House Vernius of Ix who became the first concubine of Duke Leto Atreides I and mother of his first son, Victor. Driven by ambition for her child and manipulated by a Harkonnen spy, she plotted to kill Leto, and the scheme instead killed her own son.
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