House Corrino schemes to return to the throne, while the Bene Gesserit make common cause with the Tleilaxu and Spacing Guild to gain control of the spice and the children of Paul Atreides.

He seizes power from his regent mother and allies with the Bene Gesserit, who promise to marry him to Ghanima and support his bid for coronation as Emperor.

The novel chronicles the continued struggles of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood against the violent Honored Matres, who are succeeding in their bid to seize control of the universe and destroy the factions and planets that oppose them.

Now they must survive the Honored Matres, whose reckless conquest of the Old Empire threatens Bene Gesserit survival.

The situation is desperate for the Bene Gesserit as they find themselves the targets of the Honored Matres, whose conquest of the Old Empire is almost complete.

The Matres are seeking to assimilate the technology and developed methods of the Bene Gesserit and exterminate the Sisterhood itself.

Now in command of the Bene Gesserit, Mother Superior Darwi Odrade continues to develop her drastic, secret plan to overcome the Honored Matres.

The Bene Gesserit are also terraforming the planet Chapterhouse to accommodate the all-important sandworms, whose native planet Dune had been destroyed by the Matres.

In Bene Gesserit captivity, Scytale possesses the Tleilaxu secret of ghola production, which he has reluctantly traded for the Sisterhood's protection.

The Bene Gesserit have two other prisoners on Chapterhouse: the latest Duncan Idaho ghola, and former Honored Matre Murbella, whom they have accepted as a novice despite their suspicion that she intends to escape back to the Honored Matres.

Lampadas, a center for Bene Gesserit education, has been destroyed by the Honored Matres.

Before doing so, he reveals Rebecca, a " wild " Reverend Mother who has gained her Other Memory without Bene Gesserit training.

Lucilla is then " betrayed ", and taken before the Great Honored Matre Dama, who tries to persuade her to join the Honored Matres, preserving her life in exchange for Bene Gesserit secrets.

Meanwhile, Murbella collapses under the pressure of Bene Gesserit training, giving in to " word weapons " that the Bene Gesserit had planted to undermine her earlier Honored Matre identity.

Murbella realizes that she wants to be Bene Gesserit.

Odrade believes that the Bene Gesserit made a mistake in fearing emotion, and that in order to evolve, the Bene Gesserit must learn to accept emotions.

Odrade next calls a meeting of all the Bene Gesserit, announcing her plan to attack the Honored Matres.

Under cover of Odrade's diplomacy, the Bene Gesserit forces under Teg attack Gammu with tremendous force.

A descendant of XyWrite called Nota Bene ( word processor ) is still being actively developed.

Later in God Emperor of Dune, Herbert establishes that despite Leto's many restrictions on them, the Bene Gesserit still train young noblewomen for a price.

Scytale, still a prisoner of the Bene Gesserit on the wandering no-ship Ithaca, manages to negotiate permission to grow a ghola of himself.

Jessica gives birth to Leto's daughter, Alia ; whom the Bene Gesserit call an Abomination because Jessica, while still pregnant, underwent the ritual spice agony, thus inadvertently awakening Alia to full consciousness in the womb.

He passes the test, and Mohiam ( though still furious over Jessica's choice to disobey the Sisterhood and bear a son instead of a daughter ) is somewhat intrigued by the potential she sees in 15-year-old Paul, as she notes he has survived more pain than any other Bene Gesserit inductee.

There are about 80 Karaites living in Istanbul, Turkey, where the only Karaite synagogue in Turkey, the Kahal haKadosh Bene Mikra, is still functional in the Hasköy neighborhood in the European part of the city.

Much is still unknown about these strange creatures except for clues given by the Bene Gesserit Lucilla, and various encounters with them by the Matres themselves.

The Bene Gesserit, Ixians, and Tleilaxu find themselves seeking ways to regain some of their former power or unseat Leto altogether.

However, Murbella, the combined Mother Commander of both the Honored Matres and Bene Gesserit, is able to access the Other Memories of the Honored Matres to find that these tendencies come from the Tleilaxu females ' retribution towards males from the millennia of abuse they suffered as axlotl tanks.

After Corysta raises the child for months, the Matres find out and attempt to use Corysta's attachment to coerce her into revealing the location of the Bene Gesserit homeworld, Chapterhouse.

Further afield, in India the Telugu Jews claim descent from Ephraim, and call themselves Bene Ephraim, relating similar traditions to those of the Mizo Jews, whom the modern state of Israel regards as descendants of Manasseh.

Sometimes called " witches " due to their secretive nature and misunderstood powers, the Bene Gesserit are loyal only to themselves.

The Bene Gesserit choose to use indirect methodologies to further their goals, rather than wield overt power themselves.

The Tleilaxu themselves step into the foreground in 1969's Dune Messiah, as their Face Dancer Scytale enters into a conspiracy with the Bene Gesserit, Spacing Guild, and House Corrino to topple the rule of Paul Atreides.

In Dune Messiah, the Face Dancer Scytale reveals to a Reverend Mother that the Bene Tleilax created their own Kwisatz Haderachs, and discovered that Kwisatz Haderachs will die before becoming their opposites ( and so can be killed by manipulating them into betraying themselves ).

Similar traditions to the Mizo Jews exist among the Telugu Jews, in South India, who claim descent from Ephraim, and call themselves Bene Ephraim.

She finds that the Bene Gesserit have already integrated themselves into Fremen society and implanted the myths of the Missionaria Protectiva into Fremen culture.

While positioning themselves to " serve " mankind, the Bene Gesserit pursue their goal to better the human race by subtly and secretly guiding and manipulating the affairs of others to serve their own purposes.

They consider themselves to be Bene Yisrael (" Children of Israel "), a term used universally by Jewish denominations for the Jewish people as a whole, but do not call themselves Yehudim, the usual Hebrew word for Jews, considering it to denote only mainstream Jews.

In addition to his already-superhuman prescience and Bene Gesserit-like abilities, Leto acquires the superhuman speed, strength, and invulnerability of the sandworms themselves.

Only the Bene Gesserit perceive the Golden Path and are therefore faced with a choice: keep to their traditional role of hidden manipulators who quietly ease tensions and guide human progress while struggling for their own survival, or embrace the Golden Path and push humanity onward into a new future where humans are free from the threat of extinction.

He takes control of both the empire and the Bene Gesserit breeding program in Children of Dune, and begins his own transformation into a sandworm to give himself the time he needs for his Golden Path to be fully realized.

Now aware of Leto's Golden Path, the Bene Gesserit widen their goals of advancing mankind and saving it from extinction.