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This article refers to elements from The Dune Encyclopedia Pages for this subject as it appears in other canons:
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Holy Sister Quintinius Violet Chenoeh (13670-13728) was a woman who became the focal point of one of the most persistent religious cults of post-Imperium history.
Early Life[]
Quintinius Violet Chenoeh was born in 13670 on Wallach IX to Alexius Gayle Chenoeh, a Bene Gesserit proctor-aide, and Shimon Rasnic, a servitor of House Corrino, who had accompanied his master, Marik Corrino, on a tour of the Bene Gesserit school.
Marik Corrino (13628-13695) had been lured to Wallach IX by an invitation from the Bene Gesserit (B.G.) Sisterhood. Knowing of his search for a suitable wife, they offered him the chance to examine some prospects among their students. The Corrino found none of the women at the school to his liking, which did not trouble the B.G. in the least. There was no place in their program, limited as it was at this point by the God Emperor's rule, for Marik. He was already exhibiting the earliest symptoms of Yankovich's Syndrome, the degenerative nerve disease which would kill him at sixty-seven (extremely early for one with Marik's access to melange).
The Sisterhood was far more interested in obtaining a cross between one of their members and Shimon Rasnic, Marik's secretary and scribe. A careful study of Rasnic's ancestry revealed an unbroken line of exceptionally intelligent men, most of whom had served House Corrino either as scribes or as tutors. Many of them had exhibited Mentat capabilities, in spite of Leto II's injunction against the training of Mentats, and Rasnic appeared to be one of the most promising. His talents — or more accurately, the possible talents of his offspring — were far too valuable for the B.G. to ignore.
Sister A.G. Chenoeh was considered the best choice available to provide the other half of the genetic material. Her own lineage was recorded in the Wallach IX archives as far back as Margot Lady Fenring, and she was of a physical type especially appealing to Rasnic. Her seduction of the Corrino aide was accomplished as effortlessly as her hypnotic command that he immediately forget the encounter.
Bene Gesserit training[]
Although born in the school hospital, Quintinius Violet Chenoeh was not considered a Bene Gesserit until she officially entered her training in the Sisterhood at five. The young Sister, in addition to the usual course given to the B.G. pupils, was assigned special tutoring in the areas of mnemonics, history, and psychology. The earliest reports on file from her teachers indicate that she fulfilled and exceeded their expectations in every area. Her removal from the school dormitories to private service with Reverend Mother Tertius Marie Hargus in her tenth year is a good indicator of her progress; such an assignment was most often made three to five years later in a student's career.
In 13686, Sister Q.V. Chenoeh was taken on her first off-world journey, a trip to a Bene Gesserit conclave on Grumman. She served as personal aide to Reverend Mother Hargus, but her true function was that of apprentice recorder. (Another, more experienced sister was also part of the delegation and submitted her own report of events). Her report, reviewed by a committee of proctors upon the Wallach IX delegation's return, was considered satisfactory: while the 16-year-old had allowed an unfortunate amount of excitement to color her evaluations, her reportage of facts was nearly flawless. In those sections of the report in which Reverend Mother Hargus had demanded she record speeches or papers verbatim, no error could be found.
Only emotional reactions stood between the young sister and the level of expertise to which she might aspire. The Sisterhood was confident of their ability to remove those barriers, or force the girl over them. They had the knowledge of centuries of such manipulation, both in their files and in the memories of their Reverend Mothers.
In the same year as her daughter's trip to Grumman, Sister Alexius Gayle Chenoeh achieved the status of Reverend Mother. She was appointed B.G. representative to the Ixians and transferred to that distant planet, never to see her child again. Alexius's survival of the melange overdose was duly noted on Sister Q.V. Chenoeh's file; a candidate's chance of surviving the initiation as a Reverend Mother was always considered better if a near relative had previously emerged from it safely.
The young mnemonist was frequently sent off-world after her initial assignment. By 13696, a decade after her first trip to Grumman, she was serving as senior recorder on some of the Sisterhood's most sensitive missions, including a "diplomatic" visit to Giedi Prime to revive another Cult of Alia. (The Cult would come to Leto II's attention in 13718 as the B.G.'s latest attempt to locate spice hoards. For over twenty years, however, the Sisterhood's hand in the revival would remain unknown).
Sister Chenoeh's services to the B.G. did not stop at those of recorder. In 13694 and again in 13710, she bore daughters as part of their breeding program. The elder girl, Clarisse, proved far less talented than her mother and was eventually married to a minor official in the God Emperor's court. The second daughter (unnamed) was taken from her mother and killed by a delegation from the Fish Speakers garrison on Wallach IX only moments after her birth.
Since the Sisterhood could not be certain of the reasons for Leto II's objection to the second birth, it was decided not to risk needlessly so valuable a member of the community. Sister Chenoeh had no more children.
B.G. Delegation to Arrakis[]
In 13722, she was sent as one of a pair of recorders to observe the God Emperor and his court on Arrakis in preparation for the Bene Gesserit's decennial report. (This report served in part to brief those who would form the B.G. Embassy to Leto II). Along with her co-worker, Sister Tawsuoko, Sister Chenoeh confirmed the execution of the nine "false historians" the God Emperor had ordered in 12335; much of their case rested on a handwritten account of the incident penned by Ikonicre, the Lord Leto's majordomo in that year. Sister Tawsuoko, according to their report, was responsible for the document's discovery.
A chance for even more important discoveries was given Sister Chenoeh, however, when the God Emperor invited her on one of his infrequent peregrinations. At one point in their ramble along the Royal Road, the sister was invited to trot alongside the Royal Cart and converse personally with the God Emperor, which honor she immediately accepted.
It was during this brief walk that Sister Chenoeh was given the information which appears in the Welbeck Abridgment (Lib. Conf. Temporary Series 578) as well as that which was found among her papers after her death and assembled as the Chenoeh Report. The first, intended for immediate relay to her superiors, was a declaration of the God Emperor's knowledge and purposes: he used Sister Chenoeh to inform her Chapter House that he was aware of their attempts to suborn his Fish Speakers, that it was his intention to restore the "outward view" that humanity had lost, and that a parallel could be drawn between the Sisterhood's failed attempt to produce their Kwisatz Haderach and his own "achievement" of Siona Atreides.
The second, secret message was far murkier and more troubling to the Sister. The Lord Leto described briefly the sensation of having been pre-born, and the way in which he and his sister had learned to assert command over their "internal multitudes." He made one of the earliest known references to his secret journals, explaining their function as a record for his posterity, millennia later. He also accurately predicted both his own evolution from living god to dead tyrant to living myth, and Sister Chenoeh's death prior to her reaching Reverend Mother status.
In a final bit of irony, the God Emperor suggested to Sister Chenoeh that her failure to become a Reverend Mother should not trouble her, because her status as an "integral part" of his myth would be far greater. Despite the bitter message contained in those words, the Sister felt a peculiar sense of friendship between herself and the Lord Leto and was not frightened by the prophecy.
Nor, in obedience to his command, did she inform the Sisterhood of all that had passed between them. She carefully transcribed their dialogue and mixed the record of it in among her personal papers before returning to the Wallach IX school for debriefing, providing her superiors with only the "public" information. Her report was very well received.
Death and Legacy[]
Six years later she was recommended for initiation as a Reverend Mother. Even this news, which she could interpret only as a death sentence, could not provoke Sister Chenoeh to disobey. Following a day of meditation, and in the presence of all the Reverend Mothers of her Chapter House, Sister Chenoeh was given a drink containing a massive dose of melange. The initiation went poorly from the beginning: instead of achieving the sense of heightened awareness of self that the spice dose was intended to produce, Sister Chenoeh lost consciousness and slipped almost immediately into a deep coma. All efforts by her companions to revive her were useless. Her death, six hours after her ingestion of the drug, was attributed to "melange incompatibility," a reaction with which the Bene Gesserit were all too familiar.
Her private report was found when a group of her Sisters cleared her belongings from her quarters. Its contents were made known at once to the B.G. hierarchy.
Sister Chenoeh was forgotten, save by the Sisterhood, for almost nine hundred years. In 14715, however, with the establishment of the Church of the Divided God, the Lord Leto's prediction of her place in his myth was proven true. Holy Sister Quintinius Violet Chenoeh, as she was now known, was seen as an enlightened visionary, a confidante of God. Shrines and churches were erected in her honor. Prayers to the Blessed Sister were popular among the devout.
Among those familiar with antique religions, Sister Chenoeh was given another title. She was Auliya, God's handmaiden in the Zensunni Wanderers' liturgy. It was widely believed that she had special influence over the Divided God and could intercede with him on behalf of her petitioners.
Not even the Reformation some four centuries later, sweeping as it was, could entirely dissolve the Cult of Sister Chenoeh. Let the Church authorities lecture as they would concerning the Sister's mortal status; the faithful would listen, nod where necessary, and return to their devotions as if nothing had been said. Her churches were torn down or rededicated. The Bene Gesserit permitted Church elders access to their records to provide confirmation that this "Holy" member of their Order had worked no wonders, performed no miracles. (By this time, the Sisterhood was as worried by the attention their charismatic member had-drawn to herself, and them, as was the Church). Still the Cult persisted.
It can be argued that the discovery of the God Emperor's Journals has given a measure of justification for this tenacity. While Sister Chenoeh saw herself as no more than a simple oral recorder, however talented, and a loyal Bene Gesserit above all, mentions of her in the Journals indicate that the Lord Leto saw her as something more. A few lines from one of the last entries, believed to have been made only days before the God Emperor's death, conveys that vision:
This silence from the Bene Gesserit puzzles me. They must certainly have found Sister Chenoeh's records by this time, and yet they say nothing, ask nothing, demand nothing. I remember how quickly Luyseyal and Anteac came before me to claim their reward after informing my Fish Speakers of the Tleilaxu plot and marvel at the Sisterhood's present shyness. For that one Sister, I would be willing to confer greater treasures on them than they dare to dream. She has begun the work my journals will finish.
See also[]
Further references[]
- Isaak Seldon, Holy Sister Chenoeh: Her Place in History (Diana: Synonym).