Chapterhouse: Dune

The Duncan Idaho in Chapterhouse: Dune is the latest in a long, millennia-spanning line of gholas. Gholas, akin to clones or revenants, are successive copies of the original swordmaster and military leader of House Atreides in the time of Leto Atreides I and Paul Atreides. He died in the original war with the Harkonnens but was cloned by the Bene Tleilax and gifted to Paul Atreides when he was Emperor. This ghola went by the name Hayt and was trained as a Mentat and a Zensunni Philosophe. He was part of a Tleilax plot to manipulate Paul that ultimately failed. Hayt married Paul’s sister, Alia, but was killed by Stillgar, who had become the leader of a Fremen Sietch.

He was resurrected once again by Leto II during his 3,500-year rule as God Emperor. During this period, he died and was revived many times as successive gholas. He served as swordmaster and the leader of Leto II’s spies, the Fish Speakers. These versions of Duncan all retained their memories and struggled with the tyrannical, sandworm-human hybrid that the head of the Atreides family had become. These gholas would frequently rebel and attempt to kill Leto II. Eventually, he was successful, destroying a bridge holding Leto II and causing him to drop into a river. Water was the only thing that could kill him.

After the fall of Leto II and the subsequent famine times and Scattering, the Bene Gesserit started to commission Idaho gholas. The final Duncan Idaho is trained by the Bashar Teg, who helps him reawaken the memories of his original. When the Bene Gesserit capture Murbella, she tries to sexually bond with Duncan. During this, he causes her to bond to him, too, and the process causes him to unlock all the memories of all of his previous incarnations. He keeps this a secret, fearing that the Bene Gesserit may see him as a potential Kwisatz Haderach.

He, along with Murbella, is imprisoned on a no-ship on Chapterhouse for many years. He has several children with Murbella, who the Sisterhood take and raise. When the ghola Miles Teg is born, Duncan is put in charge of training him and finding a way to awaken his memories. By this time, he has built an alliance with Sheeana, who helps awaken Miles Teg’s memory much in the way Murbella awoke Duncan’s. When Murbella becomes Mother Superior and the Great Honored Matre, he works with Sheeana to leave Chapterhouse. They take the no-ship he was imprisoned in and leave for uncharted space.

Murbella is a former Honored Matres who was captured by the Bene Gesserit and trained in their ways. During this time, she and Duncan Idaho are mutually bonded to each other. Murbella was inducted into the Honored Mates at an early age and displayed physical and mental abilities well above average. She possesses the ability to enhance pleasure experienced during sex, turning men into her slaves. She attempted to use this ability on Duncan, but he had skills the Tleilaxu had built into him. He could partially resist her and imprint himself onto her in turn. This led to the Bene Gesserit taking her prisoner. While imprisoned, she and Duncan have several children.

During her imprisonment, Odrade extracts information from her, then begins to train her in the ways of the Bene Gesserit, a long and difficult process. Over time, Murbella’s admiration to the Bene Gesserit grows, and she decides she wants to undergo the Spice Agony and become a Reverend Mother. After undergoing the ritual, she gains access to “other memory,” or the memories of all her female ancestors. The experience changes her feelings toward Duncan, something he expected due to his cynical attitude toward the Bene Gesserit.

When Odrade embarks on her plan with Miles Teg to strike at the Honored Matres on Junction, she shares her memory with Murbella and sets her up as her successor should she die. When Odrade and Miles Teg are captured after an Honored Matres counterattack, Murbella pretends to be an Honored Matres once more. She claims she escaped during the battle and is brought to Logno, the Great Honored Matre. Murbella challenges her to a duel and kills her; however, during the struggle, Odrade is killed. Murbella finds herself the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit and the Great Honored Matre.

Murbella becomes a living link not only between the Great Honored Matre and the Bene Gesserit’s teachings, but their societies too. She relinquishes her old bond with Duncan, who has escaped the Bene Gesserit with several key characters and his children, and Murbella even puts off finding her daughters so she can work on bringing the orders together. She recognizes that their joining will be much like her induction into the Bene Gesserit: a difficult struggle.

The Bashar Miles Teg was a Bene Gesserit military commander and Mentat. He was a descendent of the Atreides line. He held the rank of Supreme Bashar and had a renowned reputation as a fighter and general. The original Miles trained Duncan Idaho on the planet Gammu, and he helped restore the ghola’s memory of the original Duncan. Bashar Teg was captured in the book before Chapterhouse by the Honored Matres and tortured. This extreme pain awoke several mental and physical abilities in him, including prescience.

He traveled to Rakis, where he created a diversion that would allow Reverend Mother Lucilla and Duncan Idaho to escape. He died during this battle. Years later, Odrade gave the order to have the ghola Miles Teg created. The child Miles Teg is raised on Chapterhouse until he is entrusted to Duncan Idaho for training. The memories of his original self are awoken by Sheeana in the same way Duncan’s were awoken by Murbella: through sexual imprinting. This act of sexual assault is committed because they are awakening the personality of an adult, but the experience is highly distressing to the ghola before his memories are returned.

The awoken Miles Teg displays several of the abilities he had in his previous life, including the ability to see no-ships despite their cloaking. Following this, Miles Teg takes over command of the Bene Gesserit forces and assaults the Honored Matres base on Junction. He uses his command acumen and ability to see no-ships to quickly overcome the Honored Matres. However, he is still captured when the Honored Matres deploy a secret weapon after a feigned surrender. He is eventually freed when Murbella kills the Great Honored Matre Logno and takes command of the order.

Miles Teg epitomizes loyalty, even beyond the point of death. Originally, this loyalty was attached to the Bene Gesserit order, which he dies to save; however, this eventually transfers due to the influence of Duncan. As a child ghola, Miles Teg is curious and good natured. During his training under Duncan, he grows to admire the older ghola. After his awakening, due to Duncan’s influence, Miles Teg is much more wary of the Bene Gesserit, going as far as to hide his abilities from them. This isn’t helped when Odrade—the daughter of the original Miles Teg—dies in the attack on Junction. In the end of Chapterhouse, Miles Teg escapes with Duncan, his children, and Sheeana, demonstrating that his loyalties have officially changed.

Sheeana Brugh was a Fremen and member of the Rakian priesthood. She was sought out by Odrade of the Bene Gesserit due to her ability to control sandworms. She discovered this ability in childhood when her village was attacked by a worm. She approached the creature and found that not only did the worm spare her, but it also obeyed her. She travelled to Rakis and over time built a reputation that reached the ears of the Bene Gesserit. The Sisterhood analyzed Sheeana’s DNA and revealed that she is a descendant of Siona Atreides and Duncan Idaho. This is the theoretical reason for her abilities. When the Honored Matres attacked Dune, Sheeana used her abilities to lure a worm onto a no-ship and evacuate it from the sterilization of Rakis.

On Chapterhouse, Sheeana oversees the introduction of worms during the desertification process. The Missionaria seed religions centering on Sheeana across multiple populations. During this time, she makes contact with Duncan Idaho in his no-ship prison and forges an alliance with him. She helps train males to be resistant to Honored Matres sexual imprinting techniques. She also discovers that she can teach the ability to control worms to others. At the behest of Duncan and Murbella, she uses her imprinting abilities to awaken the original memories of the ghola Miles Teg.

She becomes increasingly skeptical of the Bene Gesserit and concocts a plan to escape Chapterhouse with Duncan and the no-ship. When she does, she flees into uncharted space with a Bene Gesserit splinter group including Miles Teg. Sheeana fleeing Chapterhouse scuppers the Bene Gesserit plans for her to become their new messiah. At the same time, she fulfills this role by bringing her faction on an exodus into the universe to establish a new society free of the baggage of the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres. This relates to motifs of destiny or fate that run through the Dune series, as numerous characters fulfil prophecies, though sometimes in unexpected ways.