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This article refers to elements from Expanded Dune Pages for this subject as it appears in other canons:
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Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam [d. 10207 AG], born as Tanidia Nerus, was a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother, who was secretly the mother of Jessica Atreides, and the grandmother of Paul Atreides. Mohiam was completely loyal to the Sisterhood throughout her entire life, never wavering in her commitment through the end of the Corrino Empire, to the Ascension of House Atreides after the Desert War.
Biography[]
As a Breeding Mother[]
As Tanidia Nerus, the Bene Gesserit matched her with male trainers throughout her childbearing years, and she delivered eight daughters to the Bene Gesserit school, all of them raised apart from her on Wallach IX or other training planets.
In order to become a Reverend Mother, she was required to alter her own biochemistry by taking an awareness-spectrum poison. In transmuting the deadly drug within herself, she had passed inward through the long echoing bloodlines, enabling conversation with all of her female ancestors, the clamorous inner lives of Other Memory.
First Attempt[]
She played an important role in the breeding programs of the Sisterhood on Wallach IX. Armed with the financial records of House Harkonnen, stolen earlier by Margot Rashino-Zea, she visited Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Harko City.
She explained to the reluctant Baron that she was supposed to be impregnated by him for their breeding programs and conceive a daughter. The Baron, loathing women and having other sexual preferences, was also hostile to her and the Sisterhood. As a response she threatened him with a full-scale Guild bank audit of his activities and revocation of his temporary CHOAM directorship.
Later, however, the girl born in Birthing Room One, being the ninth child she had borne, was the hardest of her births. The baby was born sick with misshapen bones. The disparity between its bioresult status and the optimal numbers were striking; the baby was a mistake, and Mohiam killed the child herself.
Second Attempt[]
When she returned to the Harkonnen Keep, she was told by Burseg Kryubi that she should enter alone, without guards. The Baron, who already gave his consent to representative Margot Rashino-Zea, had prepared his revenge on her. As she met him, Piter de Vries shot her with a neural scrambler and she was paralyzed. Even with extreme prana-bindu muscular control, she couldn't move.
Mohiam conceived her daughter through a vicious rape by the Baron, who attacked Mohiam out of pure rage and disgust, in order to show the Sisterhood that he could not be used as a pawn in their schemes. But his satisfaction in overpowering was short-lived, for Mohiam, using her Bene Gesserit training, transferred a latent degenerative disease she had stored in her body chemistry, into the Baron, via intercourse. This disease would mutate his beautiful male form into a bloated, obese monstrosity.
The child born was named Jessica, and her parentage was kept secret from her. The breeding charts listed her mother with Mohiam's own birth name, Tanidia Nerus.
Training Jessica[]
Gaius Helen Mohiam, By Raúl Allén and Patricia Martin, House Atreides Graphic novel
Mohiam trained the Lady Jessica in the Bene Gesserit Chapterhouse on Wallach IX, eventually testing her with a gom jabbar when she was fourteen. The test was to discover whether she was "truly human" by trial of pain. The pain inflicted on Jessica was by nerve induction.
On Lankiveil[]
Five years after Jessica graduated, she travelled to Lankiveil, where Abulurd Harkonnen had been exiled, disguised as a Buddislamic monk. She gave a potency strengthening drug to Abulurd and his wife, Emmi Rabban, so that they could have another boy child – this boy was intended to become the father of the the Kwisatz Haderach with Jessica's daughter.
As the Emperor's Truthsayer[]
She became Truthsayer to Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV after the death of Lobia, two years after leaving Lankiveil. Shortly after, she protected Jessica's newborn son with Duke Leto Atreides, Paul Atreides, from the Baron Harkonnen's twisted mentat, Piter de Vries, who she killed. She and the other Sisters were furious that Jessica had a son instead of a daughter, against their orders.
She tested Paul the same way she had tested Jessica when he was 15, before the Atreides moved to Arrakis. He clearly drained an incredible amount of energy from the Reverend Mother, since no male child had ever withstood that much physical pain before.
Mohiam travelled to Arrakis with the Emperor Shaddam during the last year of the Desert War two years later, in which Paul was the religious leader "Muad'Dib" of the Fremen. After the Battle of Arrakeen, she was involved in the final confrontation. She recognized to Jessica that Paul was indeed the Kwisatz Haderach, but was both angry at him and terrified of him.
During Muad'Dib's Jihad[]
After Paul became Padishah Emperor and began Muad'Dib's Jihad, Mohiam returned to Wallach IX. During the early years of the Jihad, she turned over many secret documents of the Sisterhood to the Princess Irulan Corrino, Paul's wife and a fellow Bene Gesserit, in order that she might use them against him through her writings. Six years later, she was among the Sisters to try and convince Jessica to help them kill Paul and end the Jihad, after instigating a rebellion on Caladan which failed.
Conspiracy Against Paul[]
Mohiam joined the last conspiracy to topple Paul's rule towards the end of the Jihad. She, along with Scytale (a Tleilaxu Face Dancer), Edric (a Guild Navigator), and Irulan Corrino (embittered wife of Paul Atreides), plotted to insinuate, as the Emperor's Reverend Mother, the Tleilaxu ghola Hayt into the court to weaken Paul's confidence in his prescience and thereby ruin him. When the plot failed, she was executed in the retaliation initiated by Stilgar on the order of Alia Atreides after Paul walked into the desert after the death of Chani, ignoring Paul's instructions that Mohiam be spared.
Behind the Scenes[]
Irulan & Moehim Code Talk
Reverend Mother Mohiam and Irulan arguing on Chani's pregnancy in Children of Dune.
Reverend Mother Mohiam was played by Siân Phillips in David Lynch's 1984 movie, and by Zuzana Geislerová in the 2000 TV miniseries and in the 2003 TV miniseries. In the Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Dune the character was played by Charlotte Rampling.
Appearances[]
- Dune: House Atreides
- Dune: House Harkonnen
- Dune: House Corrino
- Dune: The Duke of Caladan
- Dune: The Lady of Caladan
- Paul of Dune
- The Winds of Dune
- Hunters of Dune (mentioned only)
| Preceded by Lobia |
Truthsayer to Emperor Shaddam IV 10175 AG - 10193 AG |
Succeeded by None |