Dune Encyclopedia

By

Dr. Willis E. McNelly

Introduction:

Snippets of poetry from the imperium; a sample folk tale from the Oral History; brief biographies of over a dozen Duncan Idahos; two differing approaches to Paul Muad'Dib himself and to his son, Leto II; Fremen recipes; Fremen history; secrets of the Bene Gesserit; the songs of Gumey Halleck-these are just some of the treasures found when an earthmover fell into the God Emperor's no-room at Dar-es-Balat, and are now included in The Dune Encyclopedia.

Dozens of scholars have rushed into print with their translations of one or more of the ridulian crystals, and the popular press on many planets has been filled with hypothesis, conjecture, and outright fabrication. In the meantime literally hundreds of scholars, ranging from anthropolinguists and cultural historians to professors of every facet of science, have been laboring quietly and patiently with the incredible amount of material left hidden by Leto II nearly eighteen hundred years ago.

The labors of the Library Confraternity have finally brought some order to the chaotic randomness of the no-room artifacts. While only a very small percentage of the extant material has been either unearthed or translated, and little has received any kind of scholarly evaluation, nonetheless enough progress has been accomplished to present this initial volume of The Dune Encyclopedia. This book has been the work of literally dozens of scholars who have contributed their efforts so that readers on worlds from one end of the galaxy to another may finally have a clear, coherent picture of the legendary days of Paul Muad'Dib and his son Leto Atreides, known during his 3,500-year lifetime as the "God Emperor."

Readers of The Dune Encyclopedia should understand its limitations: it is not designed as a definitive study of the entire eras encompassed by the Atreides Imperium. Yet the thousands of descendants of Duncan Idaho and Siona Atreides can now, after the recovery from the deleterious effects of the Starvation and the Scattering, learn something of their ancestors and the conditions that produced the God Emperor. They may also become aware of the undercurrents that resulted in his Fall. However, if readers of this volume are searching for the formulae which cover the electronic intricacies of the Spacing Guild trans-light Ixian Navigational systems, they will be disappointed. This type of material already exists elsewhere and need not be duplicated on these pages. Rather it has been I the aim of the editors and the Library Confraternity to present in this volume a broad spectrum of material concerning those events and people which shaped our present worlds.

In addition, we must also consider something of the eccentricities of Lord Leto, who was solely responsible for accumulating, assembling, and secreting what is now known as the Rakis Hoard. If Leto was interested in some topic, the material was saved. If he was not, its absence in the Rakis digs is obvious. Furthermore, if he was amused by some scrap of information, he preserved it, even though many

contemporary scholars feel the information may well have been false or misleading in the first place.

We have made no attempt to separate Leto?s truths from his foibles or to indicate which is which. Such judgments are best left to scholars or to the general reading public at whom this book is aimed. In addition, Leto assembled much material from the centuries post-dating the Butlerian Jihad, and we present some of it in this book, including newly discovered information about the hitherto legendary Jehanne Butler who gave her name to the jihad she so nobly led.

Thus some of the entries in The Dune Encyclopedia were written by people who actually lived at the time of Muad'Dib; others were prepared by contemporary scholars based upon older materials, and still other entries represent preliminary papers prepared by the many investigators at Dar-es-Balat.

Selection of the final material was most arduous, but the entire governing aim is to present as well-rounded a picture of the early days of the Atreides Imperium as possible.

I would like to acknowledge the specific contributions made to The Dune Encyclopedia by Gweleder Miiarz and Kriteen Gwuutan, whose labors were singularly devoted. Professors Gwilit Mignail and Zhauzaf Kluursh contributed many hours to the book. Poet Rebeth Vreeb and her husband Rebeth Famark were instrumental in helping sort out some of the voluminous material found in the Hoard and both gave unstintingly of their time and advice. In addition my husband Zhenaweev Benotto was both patient and long-suffering. I owe him more than words can say. All of these people caught many errors that would otherwise have crept into the pages of The Dune Encyclopedia, but final responsibility for the text must ultimately be my own.


HADI BENOTFO, Editor

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Dr. Willis E. McNelly: Dune Encyclopedia & Beyond