Novel: Sisterhood of Dune

Background and Setting
Sisterhood of Dune is set roughly eighty years after the end of the Butlerian Jihad, a galaxy-spanning war that shattered human civilization and drove a deep cultural rejection of thinking machines. The story takes place during the fragile rebuilding that follows that conflict, when survivors, technologists, and religious movements compete to shape the future. Old loyalties and new ambitions collide as different factions attempt to define what human society and knowledge will become without reliance on forbidden machines.
The novel situates the reader amid the rise of the Great Schools, institutions created to preserve and expand human capabilities in directions that replace the banned technologies. Political power is diffuse and volatile: noble houses, Ixian technocrats, and religious leaders maneuver for advantage while life across the Imperium remains haunted by the memory of the Jihad and the fear of repeating past mistakes.

Plot Overview
Sisterhood of Dune traces the origins of the Bene Gesserit, following key figures who seek to institutionalize training in body, mind, and political influence. The emerging Sisterhood gathers women who pursue heightened physical and mental disciplines to steer human evolution and stabilize the fractious postwar order. Their efforts take shape amid intrigue, rivalry, and the persistent technological legacy left by the Jihad.
Parallel threads follow innovators on Ix who wrestle with the ethical and practical limits of resurrecting advanced technology, and thinkers who develop new methods of computation and human cognition as alternatives to machines. The novel interweaves personal rivalries, ideological conflicts, and dramatic confrontations that set the stage for the long-term evolution of the Dune universe's power structures.

Principal Characters
Raquella Berto-Anirul stands at the story's core as a central architect of the Sisterhood, driven by both compassion and a desire for order. Norma Cenva, a brilliant Ixian technologist, represents the tension between technological ingenuity and moral restraint; her inventions and ambitions complicate efforts to enforce an absolute ban on thinking machines. Valya Harkonnen and Gilbertus Albans are among the other pivotal figures whose family loyalties, philosophical commitments, and personal choices influence the founding institutions.
These characters are portrayed with competing motives: some seek control and security, others pursue knowledge and progress, and many are motivated by trauma from the Jihad. Their interactions illuminate how institutions are born from both necessity and the imperfect impulses of those who lead them.

Themes and Motifs
The novel explores the nature of power, the ethics of knowledge, and the costs of ideological purity. It probes what societies give up when they outlaw an entire class of tools, and what new hierarchies emerge to fill the vacuum. Questions about human enhancement, control of information, and the manipulation of breeding and politics recur, anticipating the long arc of Dune's later institutions.
Trust and memory are central motifs: collective trauma from the Butlerian Jihad shapes law and custom, while personal memories and secrets drive political maneuvering. The tension between technological creativity and moral caution provides an undercurrent that forces characters to choose between pragmatic solutions and doctrinal adherence.

Legacy and Significance
Sisterhood of Dune serves as an origin story that clarifies how the Bene Gesserit and other Great Schools assumed their roles in the larger Dune saga. The novel connects the violence and upheaval of the Jihad-era past with the stability and intrigue of the later Imperium, showing how institutions can be both protective and coercive. It frames the ideological foundations and personal histories that will shape centuries of conflict and strategy within the Dune universe.