Dune Wiki:Encyclopedia

The Dune Encyclopedia's (DE) canon status has been debatable among the fans. Officially, Frank Herbert gave his "delighted approval" for its publication and there are rumors he contributed to it. However Herbert contradicted elements of the DE in his later works Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune; eventually it has been deemed non-canon by the Herbert Estate and considered as such by media such as Wikipedia.

On the other hand, purist fans assert that the DE is closer to Herbert's original spirit than the recent prequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and point out its endorsement by Herbert. Additionally, the DE has been around for a longer time than the recent novels and people had accepted it already, before the prequels contradicted it.

Dune Encyclopedia and Dune Wiki
Dune Wiki accepts the DE as a canonical (in its own continuity) universe with Original Dune at its core.

It belongs to an alternate universe to the expanded Dune established by the prequels and sequels, and mutually exclusive with them. For this reason, the Dune Wiki contains a sub-wiki with internally linked articles that draw information from the DE.

The sub-wiki aims to be as complete, coherent, autonomous and isolated from the Expanded Dune as possible.

Naming and linking
In order to avoid in-article contradictions, topics that refer to both the DE and the expanded Dune (for example, usually characters who appear in both the Prelude to Dune trilogy and the Dune novel) have separate versions; the article which is based on the DE has the /DE extension. Cf. House Harkonnen vs. House Harkonnen/DE.

Articles such as House Harkonnen/DE normally should contain the tag on the top, which means: "This is a Dune Encyclopedia article, providing link to the equivalent articles of Original Dune and Expanded Dune".

DE articles should contain links only to other DE-related articles, and normally Expanded and Original Dune articles should not link to them.

For example, the article Urania refers to the woman who participated in the Butlerian Jihad in the DE continuity and does not exist in the Legends of Dune continuity. Everything mentioned in that article should link only to DE articles. As a consequence there will be no link to the Butlerian Jihad but to the Butlerian Jihad/DE. Saudir I (an Emperor mentioned only in DE) will not link to the Spacing Guild but to the Spacing Guild/DE. Similarly, Spacing Guild/DE will link to Aurelius Venport/DE and not to Aurelius Venport.

Note also:
 * Purely original DE elements that are mentioned only in the DE, do not need the /DE extension. (eg. Urania, Demetrios Atreides, Staivan)
 * In noble nomenclature, the original and expanded Dune articles should be named as "Name House #" while the DE articles should be named as "Name # House". Leto Atreides I is the Original/Expanded Dune article, while Leto I Atreides is the Original/DE article.
 * The tag should be placed in articles even if their correspondent entities have a different name: for example Norma Cenva points to Norma Cevna; Serena Butler points to Jehanne Butler; and Paulus Atreides points to Minotauros Atreides. This is done with a #REDIRECT command.
 * It is OK for topics that are mentioned briefly and superficially by Original and Expanded Dune and are not contradicted by the DE, to have only one single article. For example the history and construction of the baliset (q.v.) has been explored in the DE, while the novels mention nothing extensive that would contradict it.
 * For visual reasons, it is suggested that a pipe | is used when linking to /DE articles, in the form of Paul Atreides . This will link to Paul Atreides/DE but will appear clean as Paul Atreides.

Corpus
The DE continuity disregards completely the prequel and sequel novels of Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson and accepts as canon all the Original Dune novels up to God Emperor of Dune. In other words the DE continuity includes:


 * Dune
 * The Road to Dune
 * Dune Messiah
 * Children of Dune
 * God Emperor of Dune
 * The Dune Encyclopedia

As mentioned earlier, Heretics and Chapterhouse were written by Frank Herbert disregarding the information written in the DE, so they are not considered part of its continuity.

Sourcing
Except the Appearances section, a DE-related article should contain a Sources section that mentions the DE entries it draws information from. For example the article on Leto I Atreides concludes as:

Appearances

 * Dune

A note on priority
This policy is not intended to mandate a single way of viewing the Dune works, and does not exist to promote any particular critical judgment on the "Expanded Dune"; it exists to permit an orderly cataloging of data into manageable categories with a minimum of conflict and a maximum amount of fidelity to the topics as shown. With that in mind, archivists should at all times be tolerant and respectful of other viewpoints, opinions, and conclusions.

It does not take account anything about priorities between canonicities and continuities nor suggests that the DE is non-canon or of a "lower" level than the prequel novels.

The function of the sub-wiki does not mean to consider the DE continuity outside or secondary to the "main" canon; the reader is left to choose his own version of main continuity to follow.