ATREIDES-CORRINO. PRINCESS IRULAN
(10165-10248). Eldest daughter of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV and Anuril Corrino; wife of Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Atreides; author and editor of numerous historical works; object of veneration as St. Irulan the Virgin. As daughter to the emperor, Irulan was trained in the nuances and the obligations of command. As a Bene Gesserit she received additional training in techniques of observation, memory and self-control. However, suffering from peer pressures and her own intellectual inadequacies, she never excelled in either her courtly or Bene Gesserit studies.
Little is known of Irulan's childhood, but one tendency emerged early in life: her obsession with writing. Beginning at the age of five, she kept a journal and later confided her thoughts to a diary. As she entered Bene Gesserit training, she continued both the diary and the journal; the diary enabled her to develop her analytic capacities, especially in regard to human character, and the journal prepared the way for her growth as an historian. Her journalistic and her introspective tendencies were enhanced by the Bene Gesserit training with its emphasis on observation and analysis.
The Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers came to regard Irulan as one of the weakest links in their power structure; Irulan remained an independent thinker, and what she thought about most was an exception to the qualities usually demonstrated by the people in cloister around her. In a setting which promoted the sacrifice of personality to the political structure and the sacrifice of family loyalty to power, she developed an admiration for and a faith in normal humanity and the old-fashioned virtues of love and devotion.
Irulan's writings include very little about Anuril and it is clear that her non-relationship with her own mother did nothing to counterbalance the attitudes toward motherhood to which she was exposed. Motherhood was not a virtue espoused by either the royal houses or the Bene Gesserit, since in either case it was merely a biological role made to serve other, larger purposes than love for and nurturing of a child. Her father, therefore, was the dominant figure in her life. She wrote much about the significance of fatherhood and clearly regarded her father (whose favorite child she was) as a source of instructive wisdom as well as affection.
The degradation of the mother role, a strong devotion to a male figure, the ability to find satisfaction in her writing, her training in royal command — all these laid the basis for Irulan's acceptance — with only small spurts of rebellion — of the position of virgin wife to Paul. In her position as Paul's virgin queen, she stood for the moral law of the community, a law which upheld order and status and continuity. But her passivity in the acceptance of her role indicates, also, a lowered sexual threshold, confirmed by her decision to remain single after the death of Paul. Further, these qualities explain her later assumption of the role of protectress of Paul's children. Surrounded by a prescience she did not share — that found in Alia, Leto, and Ghanima — her major role naturally became that of supporting, rather than leading, actress.
But since those "children," Leto and Ghanima, were never really children, that time Irulan devoted to their rearing marked a quiescent period for her. Standing beside Chani, and later beside Alia in the royal court, she contributed wherever and whenever she could to the royal judgments and directions for the good of House Atreides. Blonde, tall, and beautiful, she commanded by her appearance a certain awe from strangers, an awe which she, remote, refused to concede; she knew too well her role as royal pawn. Without seeking power for herself, she could gain little respect from others, but all the while she was carefully observing and analyzing.
As Leto II assumed command of the Bene Gesserit breeding program and the powers of the Bene Gesserit declined accordingly, they lost their reasons for secrecy, and a new age, of sorts, dawned in the empire — an age which historians centuries later called the Age of Enlightenment. Irulan was a motivating force for this age, for she began thinking of founding an imperial library. With the accession of Farad'n to the position of royal scribe, she found a powerful ally.
For many people the quality of Irulan's scholarship remained in dispute. When she was a child her father had given her access to certain rare volumes in the royal archives, but during her lifetime no one was sufficiently interested in her work to investigate the value of this background — even though she had certain important works copied for the new library. After the accession of Leto II, she continued her own writing and also edited the works of others, producing biographies, collections of others' sayings, dictionaries, histories, and the editions. Among these were the Fremen Stilgar's private papers, and her editing of them vastly improved his style. Over the years she became a skilled interviewer; the sympathy of her expression inspired confidence and no doubt explains the frankness of the intimations she elicited from her subjects. Thirty years after Leto's accession, she returned to Wallach IX, where she died in comparative obscurity.
Irulan never had a sense of being "drunk on too much time"; knowing only too well the crude jokes about the possible anagrams of her name, she sought refuge in quiet dignity and careful work. From her research, she knew that Irene was an ancient Greek word meaning "peace," and, never using any of her royal titles as pen names, she signed many of her works with the simple logo "IR."
During her last thirty years on Arrakis, rumors persisted of romances, first with Duncan Idaho-10235, and later with the son of Ghanima and Farad'n; but these were ill-founded. Irulan ever remained the Virgin Queen. A hundred years following her death, her works were "discovered," and some time after that a movement of veneration for St. Irulan the Virgin developed among the populace. That Irulan could counter tradition and remain virginal gave her special significance in the years after her death. Not merely her scholarship but also her independence of viewpoint and her transcendence of physical demands led to an idealization of her. Only through her did women come to realize that the Imperium standards were almost totally male chauvinistic; even the Lady Jessica, austere as she could be at most times, once descended to a remark about Alia's lovers and spoke of "horns" on Duncan Idaho. That unfounded rumors about Irulan's possible lovers were circulated during her lifetime only served to emphasize the necessity for alternative thinking, and for a union of women who refused to acquiesce to the subservience of the breeding body. The cult of the Virgin which developed with Irulan's inspiration and Irulan as model, a hundred years after her death, was an idea whose time should have come sooner, as later enthusiasts agreed. With the eventual decline of the Bene Gesserit, with the development of women militia — the Fish Speakers — under Leto II, a cult of the Virgin received much support from young women as an alternative to the traditional government-sanctioned roles. The new cult espoused scholarship, independence of viewpoint, the virtues of joy, equanimity, and compassion — and remained an anomaly in the Imperium.
IRULAN AS HISTORIAN. Now that the Rakis Finds have restored her body of work, we can appreciate Irulan's enormous literary output. All the works listed below have been identified, and are numbered in the Rakis Reference Catalog. Many have been published in the Library Confraternity's Temporary Series, and many others have been licensed to commercial presses. Since the number of these works in print increases almost from day to day, the interested readers should check the title of the desired book against the latest Confraternity Update, available at any member library system.
Analyses: The Dunebuk of Irulan, considered by some to be her most scholarly work, an appraisal of and prognosis for the planet; The Chakobsa Way, largely derived from conversations with Ghanima; The Irulan Report, containing the much-quoted chapter, "St. Alia of the Knife"; Analysis: The Arrakeen Crisis, a revision and updating of The Dunebuk; Private Reflections of Muad'Dib, mainly derived from Chani's reports; The Wisdom of Muad'Dib, from Irulan's profound respect for Paul; Muad'Dib: The Religious Issues, an investigation of the importance of religion for the populace and an attempt to appraise without condemnation the problems of the Messiah role; and Lecture to the Arrakeen War College, her latest work of analysis, a sp
eech prepared to respond to the college's recognition of her work in founding the national library.
Biography: These titles reveal Irulan's preferences because, with reservations only about Count Fenring and Alia, she generally admired her biographical subjects. The titles are self-explanatory: Chani, Daughter of Liet, A Child's History of Muad'Dib; Count Fenring: A Profile; The Humanity of Muad'Dib; In My Father's House (somewhat autobiographical); The Lion Throne (Leto, Paul, and Leto II); and Muad'Dib, the Man, which has a preface by Stilgar.
Collections: At times Irulan was forced to proceed somewhat as a folklorist, recording the knowledge of the people. Some of the maxims, paragraphs, and chapters in these collections she was able to attach names to; others are anonymous. Some are derived from court records and other inscriptions made by the official scribe of the Imperium: Book of Judgment, court proceedings made public only with special consent of the emperor; Collected Legends of Arrakis, folklore; Collected Sayings of Muad'Dib, some authenticated and some not; Conversations with Muad'Dib, derived from diaries and records of several persons; The Dunebuk, an annual encyclopedia; The Dune Gospels, compiled by religious leaders; Muad'Dib: Conversations, as recorded by fifteen amateur scribes; Muad'Dib to His Fedaykin, reliable official records; Palimbasha, actual lectures given by Paul Muad'Dib at Sietch Tabr; The Preacher at Arrakeen, written by the priests in the public square; Proverbs of Muad'Dib, folklore collection; Words of Muad'Dib, a collection of Paul's public utterances.
Edited Texts: The following titles are mainly self-explanatory; but many later scholars of Irulan's work held the opinion that her finest work was that of editor: Alia's Commentary; Ancient Fremen Sayings; The Emperor Paul Muad'Dib (compiled with a chapter by each of twelve other historians); The Hayt Chronicle; Muad'Dib: The Ninety-Nine Wonders of the Universe; The Stilgar Chronicle; The Stilgar Commentary; Stilgar's Report to the Landsraad; A Time of Reflection by Paul Muad'Dib; Words of the Mentat (Duncan Idaho-10208). Another work, The Commentaries, was in two parts, the first by Alia and the second by Farad'n, and edited by Irulan.
Fine Writing: Irulan's creative work includes Muad'Dib, an Island of Selfdom, an elegy for Paul and one of the finest elegies ever written in both Atreidean Galach and Fremen. Ornithopera, which Irulan intended to read Ornith-opera, a drama; and Shadows of Dune, a collection of Irulan's poetry.
History: Man's histories, as distinguished from her biographies, reveal her fine perceptions of causes and her ability to generalize with clarity from an extensive fund of details. The first of these works remained the most popular.
Arrakis Awakening, the development of Dune from before Liet-Kynes to the accession of Leto II; History of Muad'Dib, written so objectively a reader can overlook Irulan's close personal association with Paul. (Literary scholars agree that these works provided Harq al-Harba with much of his source material.)
Library Holdings: Irulan used her special access to and knowledge of the Salusa Secundus royal library to enhance the collections on Arrakis. She copied an index of the royal holdings and made the index available to Arrakeen scholars and arranged an inter-library request system. Also, she expanded the collection of voice tapes, including many from the Bene Gesserit archives on Wallach IX. She collected from several sources in the Imperium whatever reference works she considered valuable and contributed her own personal copies for the public good. The Library Holdings also include many small pamphlets and one-page manuscripts of important persons, as well as various folk materials of uncertain classification — popular culture, Fremen songs, journals, epitaphs, rituals, letters, etc., of which one valuable item is The Habbanya Lament. This poem was a favorite of the Lady Jessica because of its celebration of Caladan, where she lived with her beloved Duke.
G.W.E.
AXOLOTL TANK
The most essential Tleilaxu achievement, developed in rudimentary form long before Tleilax was discovered by the Guild, during the period when the Tleilaxu genetically manufactured lower forms — thralls, thirgoya, and tharaxu — to "staff" their elaborate social order. The axolotl tank was thus the result of a long history of prior genetic research and development, in which the lower social forms served as experimental subjects.
Axolotl technology was not confined to the "tank" itself, which was little better than an artificial womb. The tanks were actually vessels for the end products and hosted a wide spectrum of activities centered on DNA recombination. After the experiment emerged from the axolotl solution, these results could be tested. The nature of this solution and of the tank was determined by the product being manufactured. The entire technology became increasingly refined and sophisticated as the Tleilaxu curiosity and the demands of the Imperium increased.
In the beginning, such products as thralls and thirgoya had been difficult to obtain. Later, after the Guild made itself known, the Tleilaxu marshaled their expertise to discover and explore what has been called the DNA Touchstone Template (DTT), the key to the basic mechanism and functioning of the fundamental double-helix. Manipulation of the DTT naturally required the development of an advanced technology, the breakthrough pre-Butlerian societies had simultaneously dreamed of and feared. Thereafter, it was a simple matter for the Bene Tleilax to delve into the potential of double-helix recombination and manipulation.
Development of the three lower classes of the Tleilaxu — thrall, thirgoya, and tharaxu — might be considered child's play compared with what the Bene Tleilax later accomplished. After the discovery of the DTT, the Tleilaxu were challenged by the Guild: Could DTT manipulation produce a superior breed of steersmen and navigators with heightened spice-trance ability?
DNA recombination produced Guildsmen who were transferred directly from the axolotl tank to the prescience-chamber filled with a liquid enriched with oxygen and melange gas. These members of the Fraternity were produced with fish-like gills, in addition to lungs, to aid in respiration. The oxygen-melange mixture in the prescience-chambers was extremely heavy, and the Guildsmen were further equipped with webbed hands similar to those of a frog to maintain their equilibrium. The result was both effective and grotesque.
A technocratic society, the Bene Tleilax organized their genetic manipulations into product departments. One dealt with twisted mentats, one with the Guild, one with sexual surrogates, one with religious engineering, one with gholas, one with face dancers, and still another with Tleilaxu archetypes and their Kwisatz Haderach program. These several departments and more overlapped, sharing knowledge and techniques, each ultimately represented on the Bene Tleilax Commissaries, the supreme forum.
The axolotl tank itself is thus significant more in terms of symbol than technology. Artificial wombs had been created before. Humans had been nurtured in solution long ago. The tank was not a Tleilaxu invention, but no one has ever refined genetic engineering to the extent of the Tleilaxu. For better or worse, the DNA Touchstone Template appears to have been lost during the Scattering.
Further references: TLEILAXU; SPACING GUILD OPERATIONS; Itiina Grezharee, Tleilaxu Products and Plans in the Atreides Imperium (Chusuk: Salrejina); T. L. Hen, "Recombinant Research in the Tleilax Tradition," Journal of Humanistic Biology 17:812-831.
AZHAR BOOK
(also known as The Collection of the Great Secrets). A compilation by the Bene Gesserit of religious mythos and dogma, supposedly containing all the variants of theology practiced by known sentients in the history of the universe. The word "book" is somewhat misleading, although selections from the collection, in bound volumes, are available to scholars in the Bene Gesserit Library on Wallach IX, and four volumes have been published publicly. In its entirety, however, the Azhar Book is an open-ended collection which fills several rooms of the Bene Gesserit Archives and is indexed there in forty-two volumes. In the collection are tales of gods and goddesses of every description and inclination, tutelary figures from multiple environments, rituals performed in the dawn of Terran time and on the shores of the lost planet Lauvrant, a compendium of all the attempts to reconcile universal
chaos and a sentient love for order.
Though traditionally the collection was thought to have been assembled during the period of the Commission of Ecumenical Translators (in order to preserve the secrets of the ancient faiths and to serve as a source for the developing Orange Bible), evidence discovered at Dar-es-Balat and information recently received from the Bene Gesserit indicate that the collection began in the ancient, long-forgotten Terran libraries of what might be the distant ancestors of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood. Recent work also suggests that the Azhar Book has been kept up to date and includes all religions now openly practiced.
The actual use of such a collection is open to debate. Though Bene Gesserit authorities insist that the collection is maintained for academic reasons, to provide a compendium of theological works available for scholars, philosophers, and theologians, many recent investigations indicate a more self-serving purpose. The Azhar Book is probably the main source of material for the Sisterhood's "religious engineering" projects. From the oldest traditions, the Sisterhood has developed adaptive methods and legends to seed in raw cultures, a process which in turn has established new religions, all supportive of the Bene Gesserit cause. The Azhar Book is to a theological historian or a mythologist much as a thousand-meter chasm is to a geologist, a slice which shows the intricate layered accretion of material through time.
Though anthropologists and mythologians, as well as linguists of all varieties, particularly appreciate the academic value of the collection, the Bene Gesserit has another practical use for the Azhar Book. All the particularized traditions and rituals of the Sisterhood itself are contained therein. For example, the variations of the Bene Gesserit "Water of Life" ceremony as it changed through time and locale are recorded, as are the adjunct developments of this ceremony in seeded cultures such as the Fremen and the Mexo-Quechuan. The First volume gives regulations and prohibitions of service, with such entries as "Abomination," "Kwisatz Haderach," and "menstruation rites" carefully delineated. Because the major portion of the collection is unavailable to general scholarship, however, only the myths, legends, and rituals described in the bound volumes have been assessed. This small sample, however, indicates the vast riches waiting in the recesses of the Bene Gesserit Archives for scholars to explore.
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