What happened to the thinking machines in the dune universe

This entry contains spoilers For Frank Herbert's Dune series of novels.

The rise and fall of Paul Atreides might be the beating heart of the Dune saga, but Frank Herbert's meticulously rich, dynamic world-building overshadows its characters. Change is constant in the “Dune” universe, where events span distant planets and galaxies; where emperors, messiahs, tyrants and shadowy forces take turns shaping an uncertain future. About 10,000 years before the events of “Dune”, a war was waged against the technocrat class and their “thinking machines”, which completely destroyed (and erased) their heritage and rebuilt society from scratch. This campaign of destruction, which banned computers and artificial intelligence from the known universe forever, became known as The Butlerian Jihad, or Great Rebellion, as seen in HBO's Dune: Prophecy.

It is very important to distinguish the forbidden machines “Dune” from our general understanding of the term. The term “thinking machine” has been used to describe any form of artificial intelligence with sentience and autonomy, whether in the form of supercomputers or sentient robots. The rise of these thinking machines was inevitable the level of technological advancement that flourished throughout the Known Universebut machine intelligence soon took on oppressive forms that harmed humanity itself. Humanity's response to this all-encompassing technocracy was religious fanaticism (hence the term “jihad”), as spiritual faith was seen as opposed to the cold logic of the machine. While the Butlerian Jihad was only mentioned in passing in Frank Herbert's original series of novels, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson explored it in depth in Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, which is considered part of the series' expanded universe.

First, let's take a look at Frank Herbert's exploration of The Great Rebellion, and then move on to what the Expanded Universe has to say about this historical event set in the world of Dune.

“Once upon a time, men turned to machines in the hope that it would liberate them. But it only allowed other men with machines to enslave them.”

This quote from “Dune” sums up the catalyst for the Great Rebellion, which insisted that humanity set its own guidelines for remaking the world (which machines are thought incapable of, despite their intelligence). What began as justified frustration quickly escalated into a religiously fueled hysteria that fostered an indiscriminate hatred of all things mechanical in nature. By completely uprooting technology, human civilization underwent an upheaval, creating a void that had to be filled by something entirely dependent on human intelligence.

By 108 BG (Before the Guild), the Mentat Order was created to address this void. “Mentat” was a discipline specifically designed to replace the intelligence of machines, and humans who had the cognitive ability to think on the same level as computers were given that name. For example, Thufir Hawat, who loyally served the Atreides centuries laterproved indispensable for his mental powers, which were on par with those of a supercomputer. Along with the mentees, the all-female Bene Gesserit and Navigators Guild were established to prevent civilization from regressing to its primitive state. But were these organizations enough to fill the gaps left by the machines?

This question was partly answered by the emergence of a new political system, with The Padishah Emperor of House Corino acts as Executor a feudal galactic order supported by the Great House and major organizations (including the Bene Gesserit). This system lasted for thousands of years until Paulus Atreides crowned himself emperor in 10196 and started another violent holy war.

In the Dune Expanded Universe, along with parts of the Dune Encyclopedia (which includes a foreword by Frank Herbert himself), the etymology of “Butlerians” is linked to Manion Butler the Innocent, whose death was the catalyst for the Great Rebellion. Long story short, an independent robot named Erasmus killed the newborn Manion to get the attention of his mother Serena by throwing the child from the top of a tower. Serena, in her rage-filled desperation, destroyed a sentient machine sentinel in revenge, and the cruelty of this infanticide sparked a rebellion that eventually led to a holy war against the machines. Soon after, Mannion was considered a spiritual martyr, and a religious cult arose around Serena, further fueling the newfound obsession with faith and religion.

Serena's anger became the face of the rebellion, gaining the support of people who had been subjugated until now by robots like Erasmus. In revenge, the thinking machines led by Omnius Prime—a title held by the most powerful AI unit among the Omnius—unleashed a plague that wiped out billions of people. These events took place on a rapidly decaying Earthwhich was barely habitable as the war continued to rage. When the Earth became completely irradiated due to atomic war and natural disasters, the Battle of Korin (fought on the planet Korin) became the turning point that helped erase the thinking machines forever.

While Frank Herbert used brief mentions of the Great Rebellion to underline themes of cyclical oppression, the expanded universe helps fill in the gaps to draw deeper parallels between the war of the machines and the holy war Paul began centuries later. While few Dune adaptations touch on machine warfare directly, it's a narrative direction worth revisiting time and time again.