Aside from its literal use, the term "gom jabbar" was sometimes applied to a certain kind of individual, as well: a person who, either for personal reasons or because of adroit manipulation, became an analogue of the poisoned needle, used against an enemy. Perhaps the best example of the phenomenon was Alia Atreides, who as a child slew her maternal grandfather, Siridar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Her final words to him, on this occasion, are reputed to have been, "I'm sorry, Grandfather. You've met the Atreides gom jabbar" — a pretty piece of irony, because a poisoned needle was the weapon used.
Further references: BENE GESSERIT; ASSASSIN'S HANDBOOK.
GREAT CONVENTION
The universal legal code framed during the Great Synod held between 330 and 340 on Urbanus II. The Convention provided codification and a source of final authority for tenets which had been accepted (to a greater or lesser degree) for several centuries.
THE TREATY OF CORRIN. The history of House Corrino's ascendancy is well known: the discovery of the Salusa Secundus by the unfortunate Megarians; the Sardaukar's victory over their would-be employers and their subsequent entry into space; the three years of constant defeat for the Landsraad forces culminating in the Battle of Corrin in 88 B.G.; the signing of the treaty, named for that battle, granting Imperial powers to House Corrino.
The Treaty served as the highest law in the new Imperium for 355 years. For most of that period it worked well, and much of the credit must be given the first Corrino Emperor, Sheuset I (88 B.G. — 70 B.G.). He presided over the Treaty negotiations, and his foresight for the needs of future Emperors made the document as successful as it was.
CHOAM. Founded in 7 B.G., CHOAM (Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles) was a reaction to the newly revealed existence of the Spacing Guild and to the opportunities for increased and more efficient commerce the Guild's services would provide. It gave Emperor, Landsraad, Guild and the Bene Gesserit a means of controlling and profiting from the new trade.
CHOAM also provided a badly needed second unifying force to the Imperium as a whole. The balance between the Imperial House and the Great House of the Landsraad had rested, since the Battle of Corrin, only on military strength. CHOAM bound the various groups and individuals to one another financially as well as militarily, thus providing increased stability.
The upsurge of prosperity which followed for most of the worlds in the Imperium served to pacify as well as unify. Fractious planetary governments or ambitious but frustrated individuals were placated by the rapidly expanding economy the founding of CHOAM had launched.
THE GREAT SYNOD. During the prosperous centuries, the social structure of the Imperium — particularly the faufreluches, the code which preserved the rigid social classes — had passed from custom into common law. More and more, the most powerful Houses (who had the most to gain from the status quo) sought to put those traditions into written law. The movement gained momentum over several years, but it was not until the aging emperor, Menemtahe II, threw in his own support that a decision was reached and delegates chosen for the Great Synod.
Each Great House sent a representative (not the family head, but generally a trusted relation) to the Synod. A substantially smaller group of delegates represented the Houses Minor. Menemtahe II presided over the Synod personally, showing the royal house's interest in the project. Jenarum Sen, head of the Guild, also attended.
The first three years the Synod studied in detail legal codes already in existence: the Treaty of Corrin, the laws of several hundred worlds, the terms of the Guild Peace. Next, the delegates' draft proposals for the Convention were recorded, and at the end of a year, more than 7,000 agenda items had been listed, with precious few duplicates. The debate was underway.
Seven years later a final draft of the Great Convention was ready. Its ratification was relatively simple — those whose approval was needed were already in attendance — and the remaining three years of the Synod were spent in bringing the codes of individual worlds into conformity with the new law of the Imperium.
All was not completely smooth, of course; that could not be expected from a group with such diverse interests. The Synod possessed an advantage unique among parliamentary bodies, however: it could expel recalcitrant delegates. Yet, during the ten years, only five individuals were dismissed from the Synod, and one of these dismissals had nothing to do with the negotiating skills of the person dismissed. (He was one of the House Minor delegates who was discovered to be fronting for the exiled Family Harkonnen.)
THE GREAT CONVENTION. The final document, 317 sections filling five volumes, was a masterwork of balance and careful wording. The Convention was intended to control, in most instances, and not to prohibit. Its emphasis on proper appearances — suggesting the primacy of form over substance — is pointed throughout by the words which begin every section: "The forms must be obeyed."
Nowhere is propriety more evident than in the Convention's most famous clause, which regulated the use of atomic weapons against human beings. The circumstances for employment of family atomics were so minutely detailed that they took up nearly half of one volume, Acceptable means for obtaining such weaponry, for storing them, for rigging them for automatic retaliation should one House be utterly destroyed by another, were drawn out in scrupulous detail. According to Synod records the assembled delegates took over four months to settle the issue. On its face, the rule appears humanitarian, insuring that even in time of war, humans would be protected from the horrors of slow death by radiation poisoning and worlds safeguarded from the desolation of lingering contamination.
If this were the Convention's true intent, it could have been achieved very simply: An absolute ban on all family atomics — backed by both Imperial and Great House force — could have rendered such items more dangerous to keep than their worth to the Houses justified. The atomics clause was so minutely detailed, however, because the delegates had no inclination toward nuclear disarmament; they simply wished to be certain that no less powerful House could overcome one of its betters by use of atomic power alone. The same attitude enabled the Great Houses to wink at the existence of stoneburners, weapons which clearly violated the spirit, if not the all-important letter, of the law.
The acceptable means of attaining victory in House-to-House combat were also carefully laid down. Open, declared warfare was severely discouraged as a means of settling differences. It was far too wasteful and destructive of the civilian workforce, shipping, and trade that were the lifeblood of every planetary economy. And of what use to the victor was a world made unprofitable?
No, the accepted methods were far more economical. A House could challenge its enemy to a War of Assassins, which involved sending an exact number (agreed upon in advance) of professional killers out to murder by stealth. The permitted weapons were listed in the Book of Assassins, a text appended to the Convention. Once declared, a War of Assassins could have only one of two conclusions: complete surrender, which left the defeated nobles alive but stripped of all holdings and titles, or the extermination of the House. The assassins were permitted to kill only the approved targets — no outsiders — and a Judge of the Change, appointed by the Landsraad High Council and the emperor, insured that the forms were indeed obeyed. (The penalties for not obeying them were quite severe. Offenders could be fined, imprisoned, exiled, or killed, depending on their rank and the seriousness of the offense; the House responsible for the offense could be officially declared the loser of the War.)
Wars of Assassins were generally declared by Houses wishing to expand their interests and not especially concerned about who they defeated to do so. For those with more personal reasons for fighting, the Convention devoted twenty-five pages to kanly, or vendetta; again, a Judge was appointed and rigid rules regarding procedures and choices of weaponry were given. But in kanly, the head of the House met another personally.
Such rules as those for Wars of Assassins and kanly affected only the nobility, but protected the rest of the population by keeping them uninvo
lved. Other sections protected the nobility from itself. There were clauses which forbade assassination of one family member by another (a time-honored means of gaining advancement) or of any noble by one of inferior rank not recognized as an assassin. While the penalties attached could not completely deter such killings, they were at least severe enough to minimize them.
The faufreluches, the class system, was very carefully preserved. Only under extraordinary circumstances could a House Minor achieve the status of a House Major, or an individual rise above the class into which he or she was born. The age-old route of marrying upward was always available, of course, but was rarely used; young women of noble birth were most often married to a nobleman of their family's choice, while noblemen were far more inclined to take an attractive commoner as concubine than as spouse. Upward mobility usually was possible only for those who could achieve exceptional success in business, war or politics. And in such cases, it was far from assured. The consent of the emperor was needed to elevate an individual, and that of both the emperor and the Landsraad to elevate a House. The framers of the Convention did not wish to spark discontent by making advancement impossible, but it was vital to their social system that the process be kept difficult.
Other sections formalized the prohibitions laid down by the Butlerian Jihad, less than 750 years past and still fresh in Galactic memory. The ban on "machines made in the likeness of a human mind" — computers — was rendered partially moot by the later development of Mentats, who functioned as organic computers. And it was known, even at this time, that the Ixians' scientific research was often into "forbidden" areas, and that the Bene Tleilax were actively engaged in the production of suspect machinery; however, no clauses directly curtailed or hindered the work of either group. No House wished to cut itself off from the only sources of advanced technology and Face Dancer assassins.
Many other areas were also carefully drawn out: regulations dealing with kidnapping and ransoms (scaled according to the ranks of the hostage and the kidnapper); permissible levels of import and export; the procedures followed when a fief was transferred from one House to another. No matter of consequence in the eyes of the delegates was neglected. There was even a clause, admittedly a brief one, which gave instructions for the proper ranking of concubines within a nobleman's house.
The Convention was by far the most comprehensive body of laws in a single document ever written.
LONGEVITY OF THE GREAT CONVENTION. With very minor changes, the Convention remained in effect for almost ten millennia, enforced and supported by the elements which maintained the balance of power in the Imperium: House Corrino, the Landsraad, the Guild, and CHOAM. A House which flouted the terms of the Convention openly (secret crime continued as it always had) ran the risk of being declared outlaw, stripped of its holdings, and unable to book passage on any but illegal spaceflights. "The forms must be obeyed" could as well preface the Convention as a whole as any of its individual parts.
The Great Convention outlasted the empire and many of the Houses responsible for its having been written; attrition from the Great House ranks, whether from warfare or disaster, saw to that. In 10219, however, Leto Atreides II delivered the Great Convention's death blow by becoming emperor. Few understood that at the time: it was generally supposed that the new ruler, while stronger and more prescient than any of his predecessors, would continue to preserve the social structure in use for ten thousand years and more.
The lesson took centuries to learn, but by the time Leto declared himself God Emperor and locked his Imperium firmly into the stasis known as Leto's Peace, no one could question that the Great Convention had finally been overthrown.
It is interesting to note that the God Emperor's reign lasted little more than a third as long as the rule of the Convention. Mortal, non-prescient humanity had no reason to be ashamed of its handiwork.
C.W.
Further references: CHOAM; HOUSE CORRINO; SPACING GUILD; V. Colivcoh'p, The Text of the Great Convention, after the Materials from Arrakis (Placentia: Santa Fe); Tovat Gwinsted, Chronicles of the Conquerors [to 9222] (Caladan: INS Books); P.A. Lauffer, A Text of the Treaty of Corrin, with Notes and Commentary (Fides: Malthan).
GREAT HOUSES, THE
Officially, the "Recognized Houses," those Houses accorded individual voting status in the Imperial Landsraad, the legislature of the empire. Although all of the noble houses technically belonged to the Landsraad, a practice developed at an early date in the history of the empire of according only certain of the more influential houses separate voting privileges; all other, lesser houses belonged to "Circles of the Empire," each Circle being accorded a certain number of votes representing each sector or system in the known universe. These circles elected representatives to sit at each session of the Landsraad, the representation being rotated on a regular basis. The different circles had differing methods of electing representatives.
Admission of houses to full voting status was by a vote of the assembled houses in session, a majority of the entire membership (not just those sitting or voting at any one session) being required for admission, voting in three successive sessions. Candidate houses must have demonstrated a minimum level of wealth (generally, siridar grants of one planet of moderate value, or several planets of poorer status), an understanding of political processes and power and a desire to participate in the governance of the empire, historical growth of their houses as evidenced by grants of land or titles, and a certain eclat which is difficult to define, but which nonetheless remained the hallmark of all the houses attaining this status. Candidate houses required sponsorship by at least three other Great Houses. Since the Houses Minor tended to vote for Great House status indiscriminately [see entry HOUSES MINOR], the outcome of such voting rested with the Imperial Bloc and the Spacing Guild, giving them an inordinate amount of power on this particular issue. Huge sums of money could exchange hands to enroll one new member of the Great Houses.
Expulsion from the Landsraad required a simple majority of the members actually sitting in any one session. In actual fact, movement in or out of the Landsraad was generally slow, and changed little over the centuries. While the political feuding between the Houses Major had always been great, all of the Houses seemed to recognize the necessity for the Landsraad as a civilizing element of galactic society, and as an outlet for the political frustrations which would otherwise doom the unity of the worlds. Few, therefore, were willing to carry their animosities to the point of expulsion.
The total number of votes accorded to all Landsraad members was 1,000, divided as follows: 100 to the Imperial House, 400 to the Great Houses, 400 to the Minor Houses, 100 to the Spacing Guild. The Imperial House sat both as representatives of the Imperium and as representatives of the ruling family's House, and received in addition to the Imperial Vote the votes accorded its clan. Many of the Houses Major obtained proxies for the votes of lesser houses, or even of circles of the Houses Minor; these alignments changed quickly and frequently, depending upon the issues at hand. In general, the Landsraad acted in most matters as a counterbalance to the Imperial power, providing a check upon the tendency toward autocratic centralization. The votes accorded each Major House depended upon its status in the galactic community, as determined by the Spacing Guild, which maintained its position as a (generally) neutral observer. The maximum number of votes given any one house was ten, the least was one. Voting allocations were published by the Guild prior to each session of the Landsraad and could be appealed only to the Landsraad itself. Houses might accrue more votes than the maximum allowed if they inherited the voting privileges of other houses, or if they obtained officially certified proxies from other houses or circles. Houses might avoid the responsibility of voting on certain issues of controversy by granting limited proxies affecting one vote only, or all votes on a particular issue.
There was no fixed number of Great Houses; they varied in history with political and economic fortunes, and depended to some degree on the strength of the emp
ire's basic institutions. At any one time, there might be one hundred Houses Major sitting in the Landsraad, although there were as few as 35, and as many as 157. The official representative of each House was the Head of the Household, generally a hereditary position, although some families elected their Heads from among the family membership at large, or from certain specific lines; other clans practiced variant forms of succession, such as the House al-Qair, in which the Head of the House was automatically the eldest surviving member of the family. Although many family heads attended sessions of the Landsraad regularly, others appointed official Representatives to act in their stead; under Landsraad law, these Representatives had the same legal status as their masters, and thus could act unilaterally in their behalf; for this reason, the practice was not widespread except in those Houses where the Head of the House was ill or suffered some other diminished capacity. Legally, the Head of the House was the House; under certain circumstances, the Head and his House could be tried by the Landsraad for treasonous acts against the Empire or the Landsraad, and the Head or his House or both exiled, deprived of their titles and lands, or exterminated. There were nine such trials in the history of the Imperium; only one, that of House Masudi, resulted in the execution of all family members (in the year 3536; the Protector, Shi-Lang, ordered the name of this House expunged from all Imperial histories and records, although he was not successful in obliterating its memory; curiously, however, no record remains, and no trace has been found in official archives, of the crime of House Masudi).
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