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The Dune Encyclopedia is written in the form of an encyclopedia within the fictional Dune universe, often citing non-existent fictional written works. No reference is made to which information is taken directly from the works of Frank Herbert himself, and which has been invented.
The Encyclopedia presents extensive, alternate biographies for key characters not developed in Frank Herbert's original series, including Princess Irulan, Count Hasimir, and Lady Margot Fenring, Lady Anirul, and Reverend Mother Mohiam. In the case of Mohiam, the Encyclopedia makes the controversial claim that she is secretly the mother of Lady Jessica. This was later rendered canon in the Prelude to Dune series; according to authors Brian Herbert and Anderson, this fact was pulled directly from Frank Herbert's working notes for the original Dune series.
In the Encyclopedia, the Butlerian Jihad is attributed to Jehanne Butler, a Bene Gesserit whose developing fetus is therapeutically aborted due to apparent birth defects. She soon discovers that her child had in fact been healthy, but that the hospital director, the first self-programming computer on the planet, had been secretly carrying out a policy of unjustified abortions. This triggers further investigation into the extent to which such machines had been controlling society and altering the emotional and intellectual characteristics of planetary populations over a course of centuries. A religious backlash incites a formal jihad. In the Legends of Dune prequel series (2002-2004), the Jihad is ignited by the murder of Manion Butler, the young son of public figure Serena Butler, by the independent robot Erasmus.
Similarly, the Encyclopedia credits the discovery of the Holtzman effect to Ibrahim Vaughn Holtzman, a genius whose brain had been transplanted into a machine; Legends of Dune chronicles the development of the effect's applications after its discovery by Tio Holtzman. Included in the Encyclopedia is an invented list of Great Houses supposedly in existence at the beginning of Paul Atreides' reign as Emperor; the list includes House Ordos, a House which does not appear in any canon Dune work but was later used by Westwood Studios for their Dune video games. The Encyclopedia also invents a list of all Emperors of the Known Universe back to the creation of the Empire.
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