House Richese - Prelude To Dune

Prelude To Dune

Though Richese was a Synchronized World under thinking machine control during the Butlerian Jihad, 10,000 years later it had become home to the wealthy House Richese.

Prior to the events of the Prelude to Dune series, House Richese had taken over the valuable melange production operations of the planet Arrakis, the only known source of the all-important spice. However, the vast expenses required for the harvesting of the spice — combined with an economic war with the more advanced House Vernius of Ix — had bankrupted House Richese. After being ousted from the planetary governorship of Arrakis (and replaced by the Harkonnens), House Richese had salvaged some of its respectability through arranged marital alliances with other Houses (Helena's marriage to Paulus Atreides among them).

Though still an important manufacturer of complex technological goods, Richese had fallen behind their competitors, the Ixians, and were forced to produce only cheap, low-quality versions of designs from Ix or the rest of the Imperium. According to Paulus Atreides in Dune: House Atreides, "The Ixians are masters of industrial sabotage and patent appropriation. Nowadays Richesians are only good for making cheap copies, without any innovations."

However, in Dune: House Corrino it was revealed that Richese still had one important asset: "Richesian mirrors, nearly as valuable as spice." The artificial laboratory moon of Korona was built, and for decades "had concealed the proprietary technology for manufacturing mysterious and valuable Richesian mirrors. No other House had been able to duplicate the science of the mirrors, despite numerous attempts at industrial espionage." The "tiny chips of Richesian mirrors could power large scanning devices ... the hoard of reflective units would be sufficient to power a small sun."

Baron Vladimir Harkonnen offered House Richese a substantial sum for the confidential use of their Suk doctor, Wellington Yueh, to diagnose the mysterious condition which had made the Baron obese. When Dr. Yueh was unable to cure him, the unscrupulous Baron refused to pay the rest of the arranged fee. Harkonnen's twisted Mentat Piter De Vries secretly alerted Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV to an illegal stockpile of melange kept on Korona.

In 10,175 A.G. Shaddam had started the "Great Spice War" with the secret aim of emptying the spice hoards of the Imperium and eventually destroying Arrakis, thereby ensuring his monopoly based on the synthetic spice of Project Amal. Under the guise of punishing House Richese for their hoard, Shaddam mercilessly destroyed Korona with atomics. A quarter of Richese's population went blind from the resulting light produced by the destruction of the Richesian mirrors stored there. Fortunately for the Richesians, the Tleilaxu were able to provide them with artificial eyes. Shaddam's attack also led to the death of the scientist Haloa Rund (Count Ilban's nephew) and the destruction of Rund's prototype no-field technology.