Timeline

The thinking-machine empire of the evermind Omnius, built atop the earlier Titan cymek tyrants (Agamemnon, Juno, and their flowmetal-bodied kin), enslaves human worlds. Humanity launches the Butlerian Jihad, a holy crusade to destroy all machine intelligence, ignited by the martyrdom of Serena Butler and preached by Rayna Butler's fanatical cult.

Vorian Atreides, the son of the Titan Agamemnon, defects to the human cause and becomes a hero of the Jihad; the ancestral blood feud between Atreides and Harkonnen begins when a Harkonnen forefather holds Vorian responsible for a betrayal during the war.

The Battle of Corrin ends the Jihad. The human fleet shatters Omnius's defenses; the evermind is believed destroyed (in truth his probe escapes into the deep unknown). House Corrino takes its name from the victory and founds the Padishah Imperium that will rule for ten thousand years.

The institutions that will shape the Imperium crystallize: the Sisterhood of Rossak (proto-Bene Gesserit) under Raquella keeps a forbidden genetic database hidden on Rossak; Gilbertus Albans founds the Mentat School on Lampadas while secretly preserving the robot Erasmus's memory core; the Suk Medical School takes shape; the Swordmaster School on Ginaz trains elite warriors; and Josef Venport's VenHold fleet, built on Norma Cenva's Holtzman physics and her mutated, spice-saturated Navigators, becomes the prototype of the Spacing Guild.

The Butlerian fanatic Manford Torondo wages an antitechnology crusade with his own army and "Book of Martyrs." After Dorotea betrays the Sisterhood's hidden computers to Emperor Salvador Corrino, Imperial troops massacre the Sisters on Rossak; the Sisterhood is formally disbanded, though Raquella's line survives to rebuild on Wallach IX.

Gilbertus Albans is beheaded by a Butlerian Swordmaster outside his own school rather than abandon Erasmus's gelsphere. The robot Erasmus — smuggled to the poisoned research world Denali — feels grief and hatred for the first time, the emotional seed of the far-future machine threat.

When the treatable "red plague" ravages the devoutly anti-technology planet Walgis, Manford Torondo refuses a VenHold medical ship's vaccine, calling acceptance a surrender to "the demon Venport," and has his battleships destroy the unarmed vessel along with its Suk doctors.

Emperor Roderick Corrino charters the Spacing Guild after Norma Cenva bargains to protect her Navigators; cymek walkers tear Manford Torondo apart on Lampadas before the mob overruns them; Erasmus dies in Denali's acid mists trying to save Anna Corrino, the woman he loved; Vorian Atreides fakes his death on the irradiated ruins of Corrin to end the 80-year Atreides-Harkonnen vendetta.

The founding of the Spacing Guild establishes the AG calendar. Foldspace travel under Navigator guidance binds the Imperium together and makes melange indispensable to interstellar commerce and war.

Emperor Elrood IX sends the planetologist Pardot Kynes to Arrakis. Kynes goes native among the Fremen, marries Frieth, fathers Liet-Kynes, and preaches the dream of a green Arrakis; he dies in a cave-in and his son inherits the ecological mission.

Crown Prince Shaddam and his agent Count Fenring slowly poison Elrood IX; Shaddam ascends as Emperor Shaddam IV. In parallel he secretly backs the Tleilaxu Project Amal — a synthetic spice grown in axlotl tanks — and conspires with the Harkonnens to overthrow House Vernius on Ix.

Eight-year-old Duncan Idaho escapes the Harkonnens' sadistic slave hunts on Giedi Prime and is taken in by Duke Paulus Atreides on Caladan, beginning the swordmaster tradition that will serve three generations of Atreides.

Duke Paulus Atreides is killed by a drugged Salusan bull in a Harkonnen-abetted plot; his son Leto becomes Duke and survives the Landsraad Trial by Forfeiture, defended by Thufir Hawat.

Lady Jessica arrives from the Bene Gesserit and becomes Leto's concubine. Ordered by the Sisterhood to bear a daughter, she conceives a son, Paul, out of love, defying the breeding program that was meant to produce the Kwisatz Haderach.

The Tleilaxu and Harkonnens enslave Suk Doctor Wellington Yueh by kidnapping his wife Wanna, planting the seed of the betrayal that will doom Leto.

Shaddam's "Great Spice War" and Project Amal collapse when the Guild strands his fleet above Arrakis; Fenring incinerates the axlotl tanks and all evidence of amal. The Landsraad imposes decade-long sanctions on Shaddam, the Fremen unify under Liet-Kynes, and the Baron is maneuvered toward surrendering the Arrakis fief to the Atreides — the handoff that triggers Dune.

Duke Leto weds Lady Ilesa Ecaz on Caladan to bind House Atreides to Ecaz against Viscount Moritani of Grumman; Moritani's flying executioner disks kill Ilesa and Swordmaster Rivvy Dinari, hardening twelve-year-old Paul in his first taste of dynastic violence.

Paul and Bronso of Ix run away and join a Jongleur troupe, learning mass-persuasion and uncovering Tleilaxu Face Dancer assassins in their midst. At the Theater of Shards on Balut, a Face Dancer conspiracy kills Rhombur Vernius, breaking the Atreides-Vernius alliance and Bronso's friendship with Paul.

Reverend Mother Mohiam tests Paul with the gom jabbar on Caladan; the Atreides relocate to Arrakis. The Harkonnen-Sardaukar trap springs: Yueh lowers the shields and betrays Leto, whose poison-gas tooth kills himself and the Mentat Piter de Vries; the Baron survives.

Paul and Jessica flee into the deep desert and reach Sietch Tabr; Paul kills Jamis in ritual combat, is named "Usul," and bonds with Chani. Jessica's Water of Life ordeal makes her a Fremen Reverend Mother and awakens the unborn Alia to ancestral memory.

Two years of Fremen guerrilla war cripple Harkonnen spice production. Paul drinks the transformed Water of Life and awakens to full prescience, seeing the "terrible purpose" — a Fremen jihad that will rage across the universe in his name and kill billions — and realizing he cannot stop it, only ride it.

Paul breaches the Shield Wall with family atomics; a sandworm-mounted Fremen army smashes the Sardaukar. Alia kills the Baron; Paul intimidates the Spacing Guild into withdrawing its armada by threatening to destroy the spice forever, kills Feyd-Rautha in kanly, and compels Shaddam IV to abdicate to Salusa Secundus. Paul ascends as Emperor Muad'Dib, taking Princess Irulan as nominal wife and Chani as true concubine.

Emperor Paul-Muad'Dib commissions a shrine to Duke Leto at Harg Pass, igniting the pilgrimage economy; the Qizarate under Korba hardens into a fanatical bureaucracy. At the Great Surrender ceremony, Whitmore Bludd is unmasked as the sole plotter behind a hunter-seeker and throne-bomb assassination attempt and is torn apart by a mob.

Paul fights incognito on Ehknot; lasgun-on-shield suicide tactics spread across the Jihad, breaking the Great Convention's prohibition on those weapons, while the Tleilaxu secretly sample the Jihad's dead for their breeding programs.

Count Fenring's banquet attempt on Paul's life in the old Arrakeen Residency: Marie Fenring, bred from Feyd-Rautha's genes and trained as an assassin, attacks Paul and is killed by Alia, who becomes "St. Alia of the Knife." Fenring nonetheless stabs Paul; Chani saves him with the Water of Life, and Paul exiles the Fenrings to Salusa with Shaddam, where they help raise Farad'n and seed Corrino restoration.

The Jihad spreads across the Imperium, slaughtering sixty-one billion and subjugating ninety planets; the Qizarate deifies Muad'Dib and pilgrims flock to Dune.

The pilgrim crisis overwhelms Caladan; the Qizarate renames it "Chisra Sala Muad'Dib." Summoned to Wallach IX, Jessica refuses the Mother Superior's seat and the order to kill Paul, learns that his atrocities are a deliberate "terrible purpose" to teach humanity the danger of charismatic messiahs, and poisons ten ringleaders of Caladan's revolt to spare the planet from Fedaykin reprisal. Bronso of Ix publishes his first manifesto against the Muad'Dib myth and vanishes.

Dune Messiah opens. The Tleilaxu gift the ghola Hayt; a conspiracy of Mohiam, Guild Steersman Edric, Face Dancer Scytale, and Irulan forms. Korba's stone burner blinds Paul; Chani bears twins Leto II and Ghanima and dies. Paul refuses the Tleilaxu bargain to restore Chani as a ghola, kills Scytale through his newborn son's sight, and walks alone into the desert, blind, leaving Alia as Regent.

Children of Dune. Jessica returns to Arrakis; the Corrino heir Farad'n's mother Wensicia sends trained tigers to assassinate the twins. Leto survives spice agony at Jacurutu, glimpses the Golden Path, and bonds living sandtrout to his skin, beginning his transformation into a human-sandworm hybrid. Alia's possession by the dead Baron Harkonnen is exposed, and she kills herself; Leto II ascends as God-Emperor and betrothes Ghanima to Farad'n, whom Jessica secretly trains in prana-bindu.

A rogue sandworm, lured through a sabotaged qanat by Ixian-looking thumpers, attacks Arrakeen before Stilgar rides it back into the desert. Alia executes Mohiam, Korba, and the Steersman and prepares to marry the ghola Duncan Idaho; warned by Bronso, Jessica has Gurney garrote the priests plotting Alia's assassination. Shaddam and Fenring receive Tleilaxu ghola soldiers on Salusa.

Leto II accepts the sandtrout symbiosis and begins his metamorphosis into the pre-worm body, the first physical step of the Golden Path.

Leto II reigns as God-Emperor. He greens Arrakis until only the Sareer desert remains, hoards the spice to make the Imperium dependent on his reserves, founds the all-female Fish Speakers as his army-priesthood, and imposes "Leto's Peace" — a deliberate stagnation designed to breed restlessness and force a Scattering.

Siona is born and Moneo serves as majordomo. Leto can no longer see Siona or her descendants in his prescient visions — the Siona gene's oracular invisibility is the key that will let humanity escape any future tyrant's sight.

Ghanima dies, recorded in the Stolen Journals.

Ixian Ambassador Hwi Noree, bred from Malky's cells to compromise Leto, wins his love and he announces marriage. At the wedding at Tuono Village, the Fish Speaker Nayla fires a lasgun into the bridge's suspensors; Hwi and Moneo die; Leto's cart tumbles into the Idaho River and the water agonizes his sandtrout skin, which peels away to seed new worm colonies. Leto drags himself to a cave near ruined Sietch Tabr, dissolves into blue melange vapor, and names Siona heir to the Atreides.

The Famine Times and the Scattering begin as humanity erupts outward from the Old Empire. The Church of the Divided God arises around the "pearls of awareness" Leto left in each sandworm.

A young girl named Sheeana is found riding a wild worm on Rakis and is taken into the priestly sanctuary of the Church of the Divided God. The Bene Gesserit under Mother Superior Taraza prepare for the return of the Honoured Matres, a predatory female order come back from the Scattering with weaponized sexual imprinting and superior technology.

The 12th Duncan Idaho ghola is decanted at the Gammu Keep (formerly Harkonnen Giedi Prime). Bashar Miles Teg, captured and tortured with an Ixian probe, unlocks the ability to sense no-ships; the ghola Duncan defeats and sexually imprints the Honoured Matre Murbella.

Odrade rides a worm on Rakis with Sheeana and the Tleilaxu Master Waff, deducing his secret Zensunni faith and binding the Tleilaxu to the Sisterhood. The Honoured Matres attack and sterilize Rakis; Taraza dies; Odrade becomes Mother Superior and escapes with one captured worm to begin a new Dune on Chapter House.

The last giant sandworm of Rakis dies on Chapterhouse and spawns sandtrout that begin desertifying the planet, restarting the sandworm-melange cycle. Odrade creates the Teg ghola; Scytale, the last Tleilaxu Master, is given sanctuary, carrying a nullentropy tube of ghola cells from Atreides, Tleilaxu, and original Idaho lines.

Idaho, Sheeana, the ghola Teg, Scytale, the Rabbi's Jewish refugees, and captive Futars escape aboard a no-ship as the independent Face Dancers Daniel and Marty try to net them in foldspace; Idaho wipes the navigation and star-memory circuits, making the ship untraceable even to themselves.

Odrade meets the Great Honoured Matre Dama on Junction; Dama's aide Logno poisons her and seizes power. Bashar Teg launches his surprise attack with the no-ship's weaponry; Odrade is killed in the chaos; Murbella Shares her final memories and is proclaimed both Mother Superior and Great Honoured Matre — the first "Mother Commander," fusing the Sisterhood and the Honoured Matres.

The Honoured Matres destroy Rakis; Sheeana's faction rescues the last sandworm to Chapterhouse.

The Battle of Junction; Murbella begins unifying the New Sisterhood with her Valkyrie armies; the Ithaca (the escapees' no-ship) flees Chapterhouse, beginning its long hunt.

Face Dancer Khrone awakens the Baron Harkonnen ghola and raises a "Paolo" ghola of Paul on Caladan and Tleilax, intending to deliver a controllable Kwisatz Haderach; the Oracle of Time (revealed as Norma Cenva, the pre-Guild genius now ascended) frees the Ithaca from an alternate universe.

The Paul Atreides ghola is born aboard the Ithaca; scouts confirm the Outside Enemy has annihilated Honoured Matre fleets without losing a ship.

Murbella conquers Gammu and Tleilax, destroying Matre Superior Hellica; the Leto II ghola is born aboard the Ithaca. Through Sharing and Other Memory, Murbella learns that the Outside Enemy is Omnius — the evermind believed destroyed at Corrin 15,000 years ago, rebuilt in the deep Scattering — and that the Enemy fleet is launching as Kralizec, the prophesied end-of-universe war, begins.

The "old man and old woman" pursuing the Ithaca are unmasked (to the reader) as Erasmus and Omnius, who survived Corrin and have rebuilt a Synchronized Empire of flowmetal in the deep Scattering, casting a tachyon net across space to hunt the ship.

Face Dancer infiltrators seize the bridge and fold the Ithaca to Synchrony; the Enemy is revealed. Teg dies freeing the ship; Paul duels the Paolo ghola and survives by healing his own heart wound through Reverend-Mother cell control; the young Leto II ghola and Sheeana release the Ithaca's sandworms into the streets of Synchrony, smashing flowmetal buildings.

Duncan Idaho is revealed as the final Kwisatz Haderach, perfected not by breeding but through serial ghola resurrection across many lifetimes. The Oracle of Time arrives with a thousand Guild Heighliners and exiles Omnius forever into a non-physical universe; Erasmus springs his hidden fail-safe, killing every enhanced Face Dancer across the universe at once — the "silent jihad." Rather than destroy Erasmus, Duncan accepts a "meeting of the minds," and Kralizec ends in a truce between humans and machines.

The ghola Waff departs for Rakis with hardened sandtrout to restore Shai-Hulud, and on Buzzell bioengineers water-tolerant "seaworms" yielding "ultraspice," freeing the Guild from the melange monopoly. The Rabbi's Jews seek a planetary "Israel" on Qelso; Jessica returns to Caladan with the young Leto ghola; Liet-Kynes and Stilgar remain on Qelso. Leto II's "pearl of awareness" persists inside the worms — a kind of immortality for the God Emperor — and scattered, diverse humanity endures as the true endpoint of the Golden Path.