Rebels: uprisings against the Atreides Imperium

The Rebels were the diverse movements, uprisings and revolts that rose against the Imperium across the centuries of Atreides rule, ranging from armed revolution and terrorism to quiet subversion and sabotage. The name belonged to no single organization. It covered Great Houses of the Landsraad that refused to accept the succession of Paul Atreides, desert tribes that turned against his religion, conspiracies woven by the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax, and at the last the rebel cell of Siona Atreides, whose work ended the life of the God Emperor. In his own retrospective, Leto Atreides II considered even the Fremen and House Atreides to have been rebels, for they too had risen against the Corrino Empire during the Arrakis Revolt.

Rebellions under Paul Muad'Dib#

With the ascension of Paul Atreides to the Golden Lion Throne, not all of the Houses Major of the Landsraad were willing to accept either the succession or Muad'Dib's religion. The Great Houses deployed mercenary armies to counter the Fremen Jihad, and the wars that followed reached a scale without precedent in Imperial history. As Paul himself later recapitulated, sixty one billion people died in those campaigns, ninety planets were sterilized and forty religions were wiped out.

Victory abroad did not secure the peace at home. The continuing terraforming of Arrakis transformed the world the Fremen had mastered, and the original Fremen culture gave way to a Galacto Fremen culture as Fremen veterans settled on many worlds across the Imperium. Many of those veterans refused to return to Arrakis, while many former Fedaykin who remained could not reconcile themselves to the new situation. From the remaining desert tribes a second revolt arose, and some of these rebels appeared to have support from within the ranks of Muad'Dib's own confidants. Among the Fremen who joined the rebels against the Atreides Empire were the Naibs Bikouros and Cahueit.

The open conflicts were joined by conspiracy at the highest levels. The Spacing Guild, the Bene Tleilax, the Bene Gesserit and remnants of House Corrino proved able to form an alliance against the Imperium. It was apparently an attack by one of these rebel groups, made with a stone burner, that cost the Atreides Emperor his eyesight. After Muad'Dib withdrew into the deep desert, rule passed to his younger sister Alia Atreides, and the rebel elements continued their work against her regency.

The Maquis of the Inner Desert#

During Alia's reign the Fremen rebellion endured under new names, identifying itself as the Maquis of the Inner Desert, or Zarr Sadus, and the wildfire of rebellion spread out through the Empire. The desert tribes of Shuloch and the Gare Ruden region turned against Muad'Dib's religion and especially against its priesthood, the Qizarate, fueled by agitators such as The Preacher, whose harangues struck at the heart of the Imperial cult.

Alia answered dissent with oppression, and each reaction drove more of the old order into the arms of the rebellion. The former Imperial Minister Stilgar went over to the Rebels, and so did members of the royal family itself, among them Ghanima Atreides and Irulan Corrino. At the same time a separate rebel faction pursued the throne by assassination. Led by Wensicia Corrino and backed by remaining Sardaukar, it attempted to kill the children of Paul Atreides and failed. After Alia's death, Leto Atreides II took the throne of the Empire and united House Atreides with House Corrino through the union of his sister Ghanima with Farad'n Corrino.

The God Emperor's tame rebellion#

The long reign of the God Emperor Leto was marked by a deliberate politics of tolerance toward rebels. Rather than exterminate the rebellion, Leto used its ranks as a recruiting ground, drawing rebel leaders into his own service as personal attendants. Imperial bureaucrats of the first rank, among them Moneo Atreides, Siona Atreides and several gholas of Duncan Idaho, had each periodically been rebels against the Imperium before entering the God Emperor's household. Under Leto, rebellion became almost an apprenticeship, a fire through which he passed the servants he valued most.

Siona and the death of the God Emperor#

The rebellion that finally succeeded grew on Arrakis itself. Siona Atreides led a rebel cell there that maintained contacts with other potential rebel elements, in particular the Tleilaxu, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit and the Ixians of Ix. Her cell supplied these powers with information, above all the Stolen Journals taken from the God Emperor, which enabled the Ixians to analyze Leto's persona and detect his weaknesses. Rebels of her cell raided the citadel of Leto II in 13723 AG, and some of the raiders, such as the rebel Aline, were killed during the escape by pursuing D wolves in the Forbidden Forest.

Others struck more directly. A group called the Tleilaxu Contact Element, made up of Rakisian rebels and Tleilaxu Face Dancers, attempted to assassinate Hwi Noree, the God Emperor's prospective bride. Leto traced the attacks to their true author, identified the former Ixian ambassador Malky as the secret manipulator behind them, and had him executed. The reprieve was short. Before the marriage could take place, the rebel leader Siona Atreides achieved the Emperor's death through her manipulation of the Fish Speaker Nayla.

Collapse of the Imperium#

After the death of the God Emperor the Imperium passed into the hands of Siona Atreides and Duncan the Last, and to their descendants after them. What they inherited contracted around them. The remaining worlds of the Fish Speakers were a shrinking domain, and dangers greater than local uprisings pressed upon it. Former exiles returned from the uncharted regions of the universe, among them the Honored Matres, while Tleilaxu Face Dancers continued their infiltration of the Fish Speaker ranks.

In the universe that followed the Famine Times, the old monopoly of Imperial force was gone. Even the Bene Gesserit raised armies of their own, and the Sisterhood and the Fish Speaker remnant each claimed to be the rightful inheritors of the Atreides Empire. The rebels had outlasted the throne they fought. What began as scattered revolts against Muad'Dib ended with no Imperium left to rebel against.