The Scattering
The Scattering is an event that features in Dune.
Contents |
History
The Scattering was an event that affected the universe when the 3,500 year reign of God Emperor Leto II came to an end with his death leading to humanity being thrown into chaos. The breakdown of Leto's empire, severe famine on many worlds and the introduction of Ixian navigation machines causes billions of people to leave the settled worlds, striking off into unknown space. This resettlement is one of the goals of Leto's Golden Path, a plan for the survival of humanity. The exponential growth in human numbers and colonized planets, combined with the dissemination of Siona Atreides' genes which render their bearer invisible to prescience, ensures humanity's survival by making it impossible for any one force to track down every human in the universe — at least some would survive somewhere.
The entire purpose of "Leto's Golden Path" was to force the human race to abandon certainty, security, and safety as individual goals and to "scatter" not only geographically, but also to do so technologically, ideologically, and socio-politically.
As a result of this philosophy, during the reign of Leto II humanity was predominantly planet bound and ruled by an iron fist for more than 3500 years. This was in contrast to the relative freedom of expression and movement people enjoyed to a limited degree under the Faufreluches, the limits being predominantly the inherent control of feudal rule and the Spacing Guild monopoly on space travel. Indeed, Leto II exerted a level of control that was unprecedented in the Imperium, including power over the Guild and space travel, a feat that previous Emperors had been unable to accomplish. Upon Leto's death, the stalwart and long-established order of the Imperium disintegrated, as did control over freedoms and movement, and as a result, humanity rediscovered independence and nobilities on an unprecedented scale. This paved the way for humanity to "scatter" across the universe into the unknown and further evolution of the human race.
As the initial waves of human emigrants expanded deep into the unknown universe, the historical framework of the Old Empire fractured permanently into an isolated collection of highly distinct, independent interstellar societies. Free from the oppressive telepathic and prescient surveillance of the deceased God Emperor, the scattered human populations rapidly evolved along entirely new technological, genetic, and ideological trajectories over the course of fifteen centuries. This massive outward expansion was heavily facilitated by the rapid, clandestine dissemination of advanced technological innovations, most notably the universal adoption of artificial mechanical navigators and specialized no-ships capable of masking their locations from prescient tracking. The traditional feudal structures of the Landsraad and the Spacing Guild were rendered completely obsolete, as the sheer physical distance between the newly established outer colonies and the old home planets permanently severed ancient lines of diplomatic communication and imperial governance. The structural dynamic of the universe experienced a massive, violent disruption fifteen hundred years into the migration when the first highly altered, aggressive factions of the scattered humans began secretly returning to the borders of the Old Empire. This massive inward migration was driven not by a desire for peaceful reunification, but by a desperate, highly coordinated flight from an unidentified, catastrophic predatory force that was systematically destroying human worlds in the deep outer universe. The vanguard of this returning wave was dominated by the Honored Matres, a highly aggressive, fanatical matriarchal order that had developed a potent system of physical conditioning and absolute sexual enslavement to control male populations. The Honored Matres immediately launched a ruthless scorched-earth military campaign against the established institutions of the Old Empire, systematically glassing entire planets and destroying ancient civilian infrastructures to secure resources and establish their own absolute territorial strongholds.
According to Leto II's plan, his death was followed by a collapse of political control and Spice supplies - as it would take generations for the Spice cycle to reassert itself on Rakis. Political order collapsed and entire worlds starved to death, in a chaotic period known as the Famine Times. The Scattering was an immediate response to the Famine Times, as refugees fled the anarchy consuming the Old Imperium.
Later on, the descendants and 'creations' of these Lost Ones have begun to return to the Old Empire which included the fierce Honored Matres and a new breed of Bene Tleilaxu. These so-called Lost Tleilaxu are at odds with their forebears, and soon ally with the Honored Matres to obliterate nearly all Tleilaxu planets. It was ultimately revealed that the Lost Tleilaxu leadership has been infiltrated and overtaken by the newest incarnation of Face Dancers, who have secretly gained control of many similar power bases across the Old Empire. Finally, it is established that the force behind this plot against humanity is in fact mankind's ancient enemy, the thinking machines.
During The Scattering, many people remained within the boundaries of the Old Imperium. Many, however, did not. Countless humans departed the Old Imperium for uncharted space, never to return. For 1,500 years, humanity explored the uncharted realms of the universe beyond the boundaries of the Old Imperium. New groups and cultures evolved.
During the Scattering, vast waves of refugees spread outwards into uncharted space, so that the number of human-colonized worlds exponentially ballooned both in number and spread. The Bene Gesserit who remained in the territories of the Old Imperium could only make vague guesses at the size of "Scattering space", as it was theoretically infinite and even the Honored Matres might not know its full extent. One clue is that the Lost Ones returning from the Scattering refer to the Old Imperium as "the million worlds" or "the million planets" - implying that Scattering space is at least several multiples larger than that.
The balance of power experienced a violent disruption when the Supreme Honored Matre, Murbella—a captured outer-world operative who had been covertly trained in the forbidden, superior martial techniques of the Bene Gesserit—launched a high-risk operational coup to unify the two warring sisterhoods. Realizing that the ongoing war of attrition would ultimately result in the total biological liquidation of the human race, Murbella traveled directly to the primary Honored Matre citadel to challenge the reigning leadership in personal, hand-to-hand combat. During the absolute slaughter of the executive inner circle, Murbella utilized her hyper-accelerated physical conditioning to execute the tyrannical Great Honored Matre Logno, instantly claiming absolute ownership of the vast outer-world military fleets. This sudden political inversion merged the two most powerful organizations in the known universe into a single, massive administrative entity, turning the fractured factions of the Scattering into a unified planetary defense legion.
The historic migratory epoch reached its final, reality-shattering conclusion when the Duncan Idaho ghola, accompanied by a small vanguard of independent survivors, successfully activated the primary propulsion systems of the giant Chapterhouse no-ship to escape the newly consolidated empire. As Murbella finalized her absolute control over the surface factions, Idaho's vessel breached the planet's orbital grid, accidentally triggering a localized temporal warp that exposed the true, terrifying nature of the threat that had driven humanity back from the deep outer universe. The ship's advanced sensors detected the remote psychic manipulation of an ancient, cybernetic machine intelligence network—operating under the guise of an elderly couple named Daniel and Marty—which had been covertly tracking the human expansion for fifteen centuries to harvest their genetic material. The historic era formally concluded with Idaho plunging the no-ship into an unmapped, completely blank sector of the deep cosmos beyond the reach of both human prescience and machine surveillance, permanently establishing a wild, unpredictable future for the scattered species.
Overview
Participants
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Notes
- The Scattering was created by Frank Herbert where it featured in the setting of the Dune universe.
Appearances
- God Emperor of Dune:
- Heretics of Dune:
- Chapterhouse: Dune:
External Link
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