the premise of Dune: ProphecyThe latest sci-fi and fantasy juggernaut to hit the Max streaming service is that it's a show about the rise of the Bene Gesserit order. That is, the secret sect of psychic eugenicists, counselors, educators and lovers of all-female space noble houses, straight from the pages of Frank Herbert's book. Duneand the extensive saga of novels that emerged from it.
It's easy to forget that we're not seeing the Bene Gesserit as we know it: Valya and Tula Harkonnen (Emily Watson and Olivia Williams) seem to have this Brotherhood pretty well organized already! After seizing power from those who opposed them, they have been in power for 30 years. They have a prophecy to follow, agents in every prominent noble house, and a school for acolytes so well established that the emperor's daughter is struggling to attend. They are even using traditional Bene Gesserit titles, such as “Reverend Mother” and “Mother Superior.”
But despite all that, it is worth remembering how much of what we know about the Bene Gesserit had not yet been invented or put into practice by the time of Dune: Prophecy. Because in a series set 10 millennia before the events of DuneKnowing how the Brotherhood will change as it evolves into the Bene Gesserit order gives us some clues about where showrunner Alison Schapker plans to take us, and what hearty stew of classic sci-fi melodrama they have to serve.
And that list of distinctive Bene Gesserit characteristics begins with their signature superpower:
Photo: Attila Szvacsek/HBO
Although we see a young Valya (Jessica Barden) use a supernatural ability to command Dune: ProphecyIn the early scenes, it seems like a skill she has developed on her own, in secret. In the era of Paul Atreides, the Voice is a central part of Bene Gesserit training, and its ability to force compliance through verbal commands is so well known that Baron Harkonnen has deaf guards specifically to capture Jessica Atreides, a known Bene Gesserit adept.
His eugenic plan and his contempt for direct power
In this premiere episode of Dune: ProphecyValya and Tula agree on their overall plan for the Brotherhood: placing a figurehead on the imperial throne who controls their order. Any daughter of the ruling house, Corrino, would do, but Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) is their current candidate. She wants to attend Brotherhood school and learn the art of lie detection herself, while Valya and Tula aim to manipulate her into unwavering loyalty to the order.
And while the Bene Gesserit of DuneThe era pursues largely the same goal (a Bene Gesserit-controlled figurehead on the imperial throne), and its methods couldn't be more different. At some point between now and when the Brotherhood becomes the true Bene Gesserit order, the organization abandons the idea of direct power through a Bene Gesserit monarch and adopts a much longer-term plan.
For several thousand years, the Bene Gesserit will seek to become arbiters of all marriages, and therefore genetic lineages, in the noble houses of the galaxy, using that soft power to eugenically breed a psychic superbeing through which The Bene Gesserit can rule humanity in perpetuity.
The Panoply Propheticus and current prophecy
Valya and Tula are already grappling with the power of prophecy and what truth, if any, can be derived from it, and yet their current plan doesn't seem to have even an iota of religious manipulation in it. In time, this will become another vital tool in the Bene Gesserit arsenal.
In the thousands of years it takes for the Bene Gesserit eugenics plan to leak, the order uses a vast network of agents, the Missionaria Protectiva, to sow religious prophecy of the coming messiah among the downtrodden, poor and lowborn of the galaxy. Thanks to this secret command, the Panoply Propheticus, Bene Gesserit adepts can find refuge in any world, based on a fabricated cultural tradition of protection and respect for witch women. And when the Bene Gesserit messiah, the Kwisatz Haderach, appears, humanity will be prepared to follow him.
Of Dunewe know that the Bene Gesserit plan will eventually fail in its penultimate step: Paul Atreides, born a generation earlier, will take on the role of Kwisatz Haderach to exact revenge on House Harkonnen and answer the Fremen's pleas for freedom. But the women who founded the Bene Gesserit had every intention of keeping their messiah under the order's control.
What does all this mean for Dune: Prophecy?
If we will achieve all that in Dune: ProphecyThe first season, or whether Alison Schapker and the team plan to split it into later seasons, remains to be seen.