Butlerian Jihad/XD

Mixed Canonicity

This article or section refers to elements from both Original Dune and Expanded Dune.

From the prologue of Dune (1984 movie)

The Butlerian Jihad a.k.a. The Great Revolt was a pivotal historic event in human history. The event was a protracted and ferocious war, waged by free humans against the thinking machines. It resulted in a near-universal taboo on creating the machines in the image of a man's mind.

The conflict most often referred to a period of escalated conflict between the free humans, organized into the League of Nobles, and Omnius.==References and notes==

Lead-up to The Butlerian Jihad

The cause of the Jihad can be traced back to the decision by Omnius to push the centuries-old stand-off against the League of Nobles to a heightened level. Omnius concluded that the stand-off was inefficient, and that his resources and power made him capable of defeating the rogue humans and utilizing his endeavors in more useful ways. Thus he launched a series of assaults on important League worlds; notably Salusa Secundus and Giedi Prime.

During the conflict on Giedi Prime, Serena Butler, the pregnant daughter of the League of Nobles leader Manion Butler, was captured by Omnius and enslaved on Earth in the service of Erasmus. Meanwhile, Erasmus had put a sort of experimental bet with Omnius concerning the predictability of humans: Erasmus proposed Omnius to randomly select some loyal trustees, and himself would demonstrate that he could turn them against the thinking machines; this would prove whether reliable humans could be trusted.

Erasmus thenceforth, in order to prove his points and win the wager, and always with the consent of Omnius who watched the procedures of the experiment, started to spread rumors among the trustees on Earth about an instigation. Iblis Ginjo was a receiver of such messages and consulted Cogitor Eklo about its origins. Eklo told him that if someone would proceed to such a movement, the best way would be to unite the people under the concept of a "holy war".

Charismatic Ginjo reconsidered his role in the enslavement and embraced the concept, ignorant of the messages' origins. He started to spread seed of rebellion and secretly igniting boiling restlessness across the planet. When Serena Butler's child was killed by Erasmus, the simmering resentment of the human slaves boiled over and begun a planet-wide rebellion against the machine. During the conflict she escaped, along with Vorian Atreides and Iblis Ginjo.

Upon returning to Salusa Secundus, the capital world of the League of Nobles, Serena's plight enraged the League and triggered a major retaliatory offensive against the Synchronized Worlds of the thinking machines, thus beginning the Jihad, in 201 BG. However, Omnius, convinced that Erasmus was right that humans can't be trusted, responded. His retaliation resulted soon in the genocide of all slaves and trustees that lived on Earth and was ready to expand this policy to all the Synchronized Worlds. Meanwhile, the League was led to the decision of an atomic assault against Earth, which was now devoid of life.

The War

Omnius Prime was transferred to Corrin, while a copy of the Earth-Omnius (captured by Atreides during the battle of Earth) was held in Zimia and provided inside information to the Jihadi intelligence. Backed with the guidance of Vorian, who knew and understood how machines think, the Jihad selected their moves and tactics carefully, managing to 'fool' the machines with trickery.

The first organized attack of the Army of the Jihad was early on the war on a Synchronized World of Bela Tegeuse. The skirmish was inconclusive and their forces retreated. Later Omnius sent once more a heavy fleet to Salusa Secundus which was repelled

The next major event was the Honru Massacre of 195 BG when the Army of the Jihad attempted to liberate the Synchronized World Honru when the Jihad fleet witnessed suicide robot ships. Over 5000 humans were killed.

The machines responded with assaults against Ellram which they conquered (189 BG), and Peridot Colony (188 BG). In that battle the Army of the Jihad drove back the machines but the colony settlements are ultimately destroyed. Soon thereafter, Jihadi enthusiast soldiers proceeded on their own to an independent and fateful attack against Corrin.

About 184 BG, the machines started to adapt to human trickery and the captive Earth-Omnius became outdated. 5 Unallied Planets, including Tyndall and Bellos, were conquered by Omnius, to be used as bases of operations for their expansion.

On response, Vorian Atreides guessed how Omnius moved and comprehended his pattern. He proposed that the Army of the Jihad should defend the Unallied Planets as well as League Worlds and Tyndall was liberated the following years. The Army of the Jihad also moved to defend the Unallied Planet IV Anbus, inhabited by the reluctant pacifist Zensunnis. An assault against Poritrin was repelled while the rebellion of Ix ended when Jool Noret successfully destroyed the Omnius incarnation of the planet. The Titan Hecate returned and contacted Ginjo, and provided the Jihad with a valuable 'secret weapon'.

The contributions of Vorian Atreides were significant, since he used his programming skills to lure or fool the machines. He corrupted the Earth-Omnius copy and with it, managed to corrupt eight Synchronized Worlds before his plan was stopped by Erasmus. That way however, Bela Tegeuse was taken by the Titans and their neo-cymek followers who rebelled against Omnius, posing thence, a new flow in the war.

The war took an unexpected turn when the Ivory Tower Cogitors proposed to Omnius to mutually end the aggressions. Serena Butler however did not agree and went as an ambassador to Corrin. Serena demanded not only a truce, but also the liberation of all human slaves, to which Omnius did not agree, and voided his agreement. Serena was self-sacrificially killed during that mission creating thus a martyr of her. It was during that time when VenKee Enterprizes decided to donate the new spacefolding technology to the military of the Jihad.

The major event of the following years had been the Omnius Scourge that eradicated 1/3 of the human population. Omnius planned for a final strike against humanity and prepared an extermination fleet, gathering all his forces from the Synchronized World on Corrin to hit Salusa Secundus. However his plan was detected by the League and Vorian Atreides proposed a desperate measure, the Great Purge. While Omnius' planets were undefended and his forces en route to Salusa, the planet was evacuated; Purge fleet would visit each machine world and launch pulse-atomics, obliterating machines and human slaves alike.

All forces converged above Corrin. Being unable to do the final strike, the human forces blockaded the planet with the help of a scrambler network of satellites set around the planet. Omnius considered trapped and the Grand Patriarch Xander Boro-Ginjo declared the end of the Jihad.

The destruction of the thinking machines was at the Battle of Corrin, freeing mankind from the threat that they had originally created. Following this, the leader of the Jihad, Faykan Butler, then renamed his royal house, House Corrino, and crowned himself the first Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe. The Emperors of the Empire of a Million Worlds were all of House Corrino for the next 10,000 years, until the ascension of Paul Atreides to the Golden Lion Throne.

Politics

Viceroy Manion Butler retired from his office, Serena Butler was voted as interim Viceroy for the rest of the war. The leaders of the Jihad were the Grand Patriarch Ginjo and High Priestess Serena Butler.

Although the Jihad could not be supported by the Unallied Worlds, an important contribution was when the Jihad was joined by Ginaz mercenaries 192 BG.

Ginjo founded the Jipol, assigning his trustee, Yorek Thurr as leader. Eventually seven League representatives who were political rivals of Iblis Ginjo were captured by Jipol. Ginjo also founded the Seraphim order to protect the High Priestess who suffered several assassination attempts. In 187 BG Ginjo also proposed a Jihad Council as a governing body to runs the war to administer both Jipol and the Army of the Jihad affairs. Medical issues were concerns of the Humanities Medical Commission or HuMed.

VenKee Enterprises gained much profit from the war since a lot of the war materials and supplies were transported by their merchant ships. When Norma Cenva came up with the spacefolding technology, Serena Butler intimidated Aurelius Venport to don the technology to the Jihad. Although Venport realised the financial setbacks, he accepted, asking the technology to remain his property after the War.

Beliefs

The war was named a Jihad although it was not based on a particular religion. It was considered holy, as the struggle between Life/Humanity and the 'demonic' machines. The dead soldiers were considered martyrs and believed to enter some Heaven. Manion Butler the Innocent was the first martyr and sanctified, with altars and relics dedicated to him. Meanwhile Ginjo used to inspire the populace claiming that the War, as well as the ultimate victory of humanity, had been prophecized by ancient texts.

Omnius, demanded from Erasmus to try and understand the concept of religion on humans in order to understand the situation better but he didn't go much further to help.

During the final days of the Jihad, Serena was made a saint and one of the Three Martyrs. Religious individuals prayed to them and hoped they would send their angels to protect them. This led to the phenomenon of the Martyrists - fanatics devoted to the Three Martyrs, that wanted simply to destroy machinery at every cost. They proved valuable manning the ships for the Great Purge, since the spacefolding technology used posed serious dangers and was in a percentage suicidal. A portion of the Martyrists evolved into the Cult of Serena.

Aftermath

By 108 B.G., the Jihad itself had finished with the complete destruction of all intelligent machines that were originally built by humans throughout the worlds, but it proved to have many profound impacts on the socio-political and technological development of humanity throughout the new empires that emerged, including a large technological reversal of the entire human civilization.

The most dramatic result that lasted very longer was the ensuing commandment from the Orange Catholic Bible held sway to humans against the creation of machines which bore the human mind's exact image: Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind, after the destruction of the man-made intelligent machines throughout the human worlds. Even the simplest computers and calculators were banned, with the penalty for building or owning such a thinking machine technology being put to trial and sentenced to immediate death.

This lack of thinking technology had led a great reversal for humanity that no one could have foreseen, or believed was possible, and facilitated a need for humans to perform complex logical computations and calculations, which led to the creation of the mentat order, of which would be later outlawed by Leto Atreides in an attempt to realize the Golden Path strategy, the Bene Gesserit, and the Spacing Guild. But, it seems unlikely that humans to do without new technology they had created prior to the Jihad. As centuries passed, two fringe worlds, Ix and Tleilax, brought technological heights of the Ixians and the Bene Tleilax. Mechanical technology beyond the boundaries of using thinking machine technology were constructed by the Ixians; while biological technology, were provided by the Tleilax to replace the mechanical thinking technology used prior to the Jihad.

Aside from the long-lasting effects of the Jihad, the belief in the spiritual divinity of humankind was renewed from the technophobic situations to a new, but holy one. In addition, the feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen had originated from the ashes of the Jihad when Abulurd Harkonnen was a traitor of disobeying Vorian's order to destroy humans enslaved by the thinking machines.

The last major impact of the Jihad was the rise of a new feudal-arranged galactic order that lasted for several thousand more years, mostly under the rule of House Corrino before the ascension of House Atreides and the rise of God Emperor Leto Atreides II. This order, known as the Imperium, was comprised of several new and powerful groups, including the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, CHOAM, the Landsraad, and the Great Houses, most notably House Corrino, House Atreides and House Harkonnen, to name but a few.

Behind the Scenes

In his six original Dune novels Frank Herbert mentions few details of the Butlerian Jihad. At the fall of the Corrino Empire the Jihad is seen as being the event during which humans finally destroy their oppressors, but at a great cost in lives and resources. The lesson taken by the human descendents of this war is that mankind's laziness and ingenuity can be its downfall.

It is worth noting that in their earliest prequel books, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson denote this ban starting before the Jihad began, as a result of the rise of the Thinking Machines. The Jihad also provides a reason why we never see computers, calculators, and all forms of "thinking machine" in the original Dune novels by Frank Herbert, the movie or the miniseries.

In literature, the Butlerian Jihad is a useful plot device for Frank Herbert. By creating a universe which has rejected conscious machines and has reversed into a quasi-feudal organization, Herbert can focus on social and philosophical-related issues, rather than the technological-related issues. Consequently Herbert uses the Dune saga to comment about the human condition and makes direct and accurate parallels to current socio-political realities.

Although Herbert's back-story named it after its instigator, Jehanne Butler - renamed Serena Butler for the prequels — the name could very easily be a literary allusion to Samuel Butler, who’s 1872 novel Erewhon depicted a people who had destroyed machines for fear they would be out-evolved by them.

From Erewhon, Chapter 9,

"... about four hundred years previously, the state of mechanical knowledge was far beyond our own, and was advancing with prodigious rapidity, until one of the most learned professors of hypothetics wrote an extraordinary book (from which I propose to give extracts later on), proving that the machines were ultimately destined to supplant the race of man, and to become instinct with a vitality as different from, and superior to, that of animals, as animal to vegetable life. So convincing was his reasoning, or unreasoning, to this effect, that he carried the country with him and they made a clean sweep of all machinery that had not been in use for more than two hundred and seventy-one years (which period was arrived at after a series of compromises), and strictly forbade all further improvements and inventions"

Another, more subtle justification for the Butlerian Jihad is also found in Frank Herbert's original novels, specifically Heidegger's thesis that the use of technology trains humans to think like machines. The problem is that machines are deterministic; thus, training people to be machines is self-limiting. Herbert seemed to think that to be human is to be essentially 'open-ended', capable of undiscovered, indeterminate evolution.