New Sisterhood



The New Sisterhood was created by Murbella after the death of Darwi Odrade. Murbella succeeded Odrade as Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit. However, Murbella was a former Honored Matre and there was resistance to her assuming the role of leader of the Bene Gesserit. In response, Murbella merged the two factions into the New Sisterhood.

Functioning of the Sisterhood


The Matres were more athletic, emotional, and had greater sexual prowess. The Gesserit were more conservative, careful of keeping exact records, and had access to Other Memory. Murbella attempted to bring the two together into a powerful combination.

Although the moves towards unity continued unabated, there was naturally resistance within the organization. To combat these differences, as a type of symbolism, Doria, Murbella's assistant from the Matre side; and her aide from the Gesserit side, Bellonda, the mentat always tending towards conservatism, were made co-executives of the desertification of Chapterhouse, reporting on the starting of the spice cycle and the establishment of the worms on the planet. Their ability to work together was a living testament to all Sisters that unity was possible.

Nowhere was the union of the two organizations more pronounced that in the creation of the Valkyries military unit. This para-military strike force combined the best of both former groups. The strategic quickness of the Gesserit, combined with the athletic blood-thirstiness of the Matres. This resulting group proved to be an elite fighting force for the Sisterhood.

To complete the union amongst the willing sisters, Murbella eventually made all of the women wear simple black clothing, replacing the skin-tight leotard of the Matres, and the flowing aba robe of the Gesserit. It was this final symbolism, and the placing of her own daughter, Janess Idaho as Bashar of the human-kind starship forces that caused the New Sisterhood to emerge as a strong, united organization.

Against Honored Matre Rebels
Some Honored Matre strongholds openly refused to unite with Murbella's New Sisterhood. The most prominent of these was the stronghold led by Hellica on Bandalong, the Tlulaxa homeworld. Hellica had launched a pre-emptive strike against united humanity's starships being built above Richese, going so far as rendering the planet uninhabitable. Murbella dispatched the Valkyries to take Bandalong from the Matres, ending their rebellion. To Murbella's dismay, Hellica was instantly revealed to be an Enhanced Face Dancer.

Preparing for War
Finally, the New Sisterhood emerged as the uniter of humanity under Murbella's leadership, and led the war effort against the great Enemy, finally identified as Omnius and the reborn Thinking Machine Empire. Murbella understood the desire for the various power brokers of the Empire to be paid for their cooperation against the Enemy by being paid in melange. She also encouraged the continued harvesting of Soostones on Buzzell, as they were a prized commodity for their intricacy, as well as their ability to be made into jewlery. Murbella continued to encourage the craftsmen of Ix and Richese to produce as many starships with Obliterator technology to fight the Invasion of human space that she knew would come. Another call to war aspect of the organization was that the New Sisterhood was instrumental into getting the Guild and CHOAM to understand that the Machines had no desire for barter or diplomacy as the oncoming battles approached.

Kralizec
When Omnius first launched the Machine invasion, he unleashed the Omnius Scourge, a horrible killing and fast acting plague against a planetary system. After the human population was devastated on a particular planet, the machines would attack the remnants to genocide. Murbella and the Sisterhood dispatched look-a-likes of Sheeana to planets in the invasion path to raise the morale of the local population to fight the machines to their death. This bought humanity precious time and enabled the Sisterhood to raise their starship fleet into at least a last ditch defensive organization above Chapterhouse.

As the Sisterhood's rag tag fleet fired their Obliterator weapons against the machines, almost every Obliterator device on each vessel failed. The Sisterhood failed to realize that their own fleet, as well as the production yards where the ships had been built, had been infiltrated by Enhanced Face Dancers loyal to Omnius, and that the starships had been sabotaged.

As the situation for the Sisterhood, and therefore humanity looked grim, great change came as the Oracle of Time showed up with a fleet of Navigator heighliners, which destroyed the first wave of attacking machine ships. The Oracle then fold spaced to the Machine capital, and banished Omnius to another dimension at the Cathedral on Synchrony. This caused the Machine ships to drift aimlessly, as they had lost the Evermind to guide them. Events changed even more for the better as it was realized that Bashar Idaho's father, the lover of Murbella, a ghola of Duncan Idaho was the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach,and that man and machine would live in co-existence.

Pivotal Role
The New Sisterhood fulfilled Leto II's desire for the leaders of the Bene Gesserit to take the mantle upon themselves to help human-kind deal with the Outside Enemy. Although Leto desired for human-kind to scatter throughout the galaxies so that the Enemy could never detect all men and women, it was the New Sisterhood that tried to unite all peoples of the old imperium and some in the scattering to fight the Thinking Machines.

Thus, under the leadership of the New Sisterhood, mankind's hope was kept alive, and genocide was staved off long enough for Kralizec to occur, and the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach to appear.