Ix/XD

Ix was the ninth planet in the star system Alkalurops, and the home of House Vernius and the technology-savvy Ixians. Ixian economy depended on manufacturing complex machinery, which sometimes flouted the moral-juridical proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad.

During the Butlerian Jihad
The star system which Ix is located originally went by the title Rodale, with Ix being named Rodale IX due to its status as the star's ninth planet. Shortly before the Time of Titans the son of the planet's ruling family, better known as Xerxes, killed his family and took control of the world in the name of Tlaloc. It was at this time that the planet's name was shortened to Ix and the numeric relevance lost.

As with other planets in the Titan empire, Ix later became one of Omnius synchronized worlds. The Thinking Machines used the planet as a major manufacturing base, due in no small part to its natural resources. Ix was ultimately liberated by the Butlerian Jihad in 175 BG after a rebellion. However, it continued to produce machines which made the rest of the League uneasy.

Thinking machines unsuccessfully tried to reconquer Ix in 123 BG but were repelled by forces commanded by Quentin Butler.

During the Omnius Scourge, Ix was a planet with a population much larger than the League of Nobles could ever preserve. Cuarto Abulurd Harkonnen was sent to Ix to present quarantine instructions and begin preparations for survival. Supreme Sorceress Ticia Cenva followed him in order to preserve key bloodlines from the survivors. The genetic stock of the native Ixians had not yet been heavily assimilated into the general League population.

The following years almost two-thirds of the human population was dead; the planet became a strong center of the Martyrists. Ixian crews had used heavy digging equipment to deposit bodies in empty cave shafts, until fanatics objected to even the powerful excavating apparatus. Uncontrolled riots and storms caused destruction; homes, fields and storehouses of food had burned leaving the already weakened survivors with no shelter. Cholera had gotten into the water supply. Many of those who had recovered could barely walk, if they could walk at all, due to ruptured tendons brought on by the plague of Omnius.

During the Corrino Empire
After the Jihad, Ix retained its role as a major producer of technology, under House Vernius. Its capital was the underground city Vernii. Most of its structure and industry was underground because of the Ixians' secrecy. This made members of the Landsraad skeptical about the Ixians; the Landsraad accused them of violating the restrictions of the Jihad. Ixians went as far as spreading out scary and sinister stories about the planet so as to drive away the curious.

Ix and House Richese competed with one another in a technological war for Guild contracts; gradually Ix won around the same time when Richese lost stewardship of Arrakis

During the latter years of the reign of Elrood Corrino IX, the Emperor entered into a secret agreement with the Bene Tleilax, to take Ix away from House Vernius, and give it to the Tleilaxu invaders. After secretly placed Tleilaxu Face Dancers caused an uproar among the Ixian Suboid lower-caste workers; the Tleilaxu, with the help of Imperial Sardaukar, conquered the world. House Vernius went renegade, and the Vernius family scattered over the Imperium. The Battle of Ix ended with the Tleilaxu brutally in control of the planet, which they renamed Xuttah.

Behind the Scenes
In the glossary at the end of Dune, entitled Terminology of the Imperium, the entry for Ix says only, "See Richese." This may have been a joking reference to the paranoid secrecy of Ixian society, in order to demonstrate how little is known about them by the rest of the Imperium. While the reader learns much about Ixian plots and their history during the original novels, Richese plays almost no role in the story, being only mentioned once as a place that also makes machines, but not as well as Ix does.