The Butlerian Jihad - what's in the original Dune books

Frank Herbert wasn't writing about a war against AI overlords - he was warning us about something much closer to home.

Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind.

This has to be the most famous line from the Orange Catholic Bible — a commandment that remained fundamental long after the Butler Jihad.

But what actually happened during the Great Revolt?

---

Do you know anyone who likes to nerd out about Dune?

---

If you’ve read Brian Herbert’s prequels (or watched Battlestar Galactica, the Matrix, or the Terminator movies), you know the story of humanity rising up against evil robots in a drawn-out battle for survival.

The “Machine Wars” in HBO’s Dune: Prophecy

If you’re interested in a version of events that was still not written by Frank Herbert but was at least read by him, you might turn to the Dune Encyclopedia.

The guys over at The Dune Minute Podcast released an excellent episode just a few weeks ago:

Frank Herbert’s original version, subtly implied across his six books, is much more nuanced and, surprisingly, more relevant to our present-day than any narrative of AI overlords.

As the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam explains to a young Paul Atreides:

Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

Sound familiar?

Algorithms determine what we watch, decide what we can find, and even influence how we think - the kind of control system Herbert wrote about is all around us.

---

🔒 In the full article:

• The Victorian-era origins of the Butlerian Jihad - the real-life Mr. Butler

• How the Great Revolt is responsible for Dune’s feudal society

• The God Emperor’s secret dependence on Ixian technology

• Whether or not cyborgs are ok when thinking machines aren’t

---