Siona Atreides

Siona Ibn Fuad al-Seyefa Atreides was a distant descendant of Ghanima Atreides and Farad'n Corrino, the daughter of Moneo Atreides, and the first carrier of genes that cloaked her from prescient vision. She led the dissidents who sought to end the rule of the God Emperor Leto Atreides II, and with a Duncan Idaho ghola she helped engineer his death, unknowingly fulfilling the very purpose for which Leto had bred her.

Early life and rebellion#

Siona was born the daughter of Moneo Atreides, the trusted attendant and advisor of Leto Atreides II during his last years. Like her father she harbored a strong rebellious streak, and by her teenage years she had become violently opposed to Leto's domineering rule of his Empire. Her rough charisma and intelligence helped her emerge as the leader of a group of like-minded dissidents determined to end the God Emperor's rule by any means. During one incident she barely escaped alive after stealing some of Leto's personal journals and plans, losing ten of her companions to Leto's D-wolves. Her defiance continued even after Leto forced her to join his Fish Speakers, and his expectation that she be bred with the Duncan Idaho ghola of that time only fueled her anger, so that the two did not get along at first.

The test in the desert#

Leto persisted in trying to connect with Siona, in no small part because of her formidable potential, which he tested in what remained of the deep desert of Arrakis. Unfamiliar with the Fremen economy of water, Siona neglected to seal the mouth-flap of her stillsuit for the first few days, hastening the loss of her reserves. Leto offered her a hammock-like fold of his rings to rest in, which she accepted, and when she was near death from thirst he offered her liquefied melange secreted from the tendrils flanking his face. She accepted the blue essence and fell into a spice trance, during which she experienced prescient visions showing the need for the Golden Path. The ordeal did not bring her closer to Leto, and her determination to destroy him continued.

The death of Leto#

Siona's intentions found substance when she met the Duncan Idaho ghola again and the two recognised their common ground. Knowing Leto's vulnerability to water, owing to his sandworm-hybrid nature, the pair planned to drown the God Emperor in the Idaho River as he traveled to marry Hwi Noree. The plan succeeded in no small part through Nayla, one of Leto's most fanatical Fish Speakers and a close associate of Siona, who had been ordered by Leto to obey any command Siona gave. Nayla severely damaged the main bridge over the river with a lasgun, and Leto fell into the water, where he began to devolve back into sandtrout. The dying Leto directed Siona and Idaho to the last reserves of melange. Seeing his own death and devolution as a necessary step on the Golden Path, Leto had used Siona, Nayla, and Idaho to fulfill his own fate, and his final gift to the pair was the stewardship of his Empire.

The hidden gene#

Siona was the culmination of Leto's breeding program because she possessed a no-gene that made her invisible to prescient vision. The existence and propagation of humans whose fates and futures could not be read by the prescient was, in Leto's design, necessary to free humankind from the possibility of control by those with such powers, the fruition of the Golden Path he had pursued across more than three thousand years.

Later life#

After Leto's death his plan for Siona and the Duncan Idaho ghola was realised. The pair married and reproduced, and were immortalised millennia later by the sayings of the nine daughters of Siona and the thousand sons of Idaho. It is unclear whether these phrases were meant literally. The nine daughters may have been exactly nine, while the thousand sons may refer more broadly to all of Idaho's descendants down the generations, or to the repeated use of Duncan gholas in Leto's breeding program, rather than to a thousand children born of Siona herself. Whether Siona bore any sons is not recorded.