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"Anger, desperation, vengeance, regret, forgiveness. It is difficult to sum up one's life in a single word."
―Vorian's private journals, Arrakis period[src]


Supreme Bashar Vorian Atreides [b. 223 BG] was the first person to hold the name of Atreides and the true forerunner of House Atreides, creating its symbol of the hawk and paving the way for its political success through his prominence among the Great Houses of the League of Nobles, and later the Landsraad League.

Vorian was the son of the Titan General Agamemenon, but changed loyalties and escaped the thinking machines and cymeks amid the chaos of the rebellion on Earth in 201 BG, fleeing to the League captial of Salusa Secundus with Serena Butler and future Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo and thus becoming one of the key instigators of the ensuing Butlerian Jihad.

Despite initial distrust due to his status as the son of Agamemnon during the Battle of Earth (200 BG), he won many further battles for the League and became a prominent military commander who rose to the rank of Primero and then Supreme Commander of the Army of the Jihad. He then served as Supreme Bashar of the Army of Humanity, his most famous victory in that role being that of the Vengeance Fleet in the Battle of Corrin (88 BG), the same event which sparked the Atreides-Harkonnen feud with his fight with Abulurd Harkonnen.

Biography[]

Early life (223-203 BG)[]

Vorian Atreides was born on Earth in 223 BG to a female human slave of the thinking machines who had been impregnated with the sperm of the Titan leader General Agamemnon, of whom Vorian was his thirteenth son. Though he was aware that his lineage stretched back to the Greeks, Vorian never knew his mother, and spent little time with his warring father, despite growing a close bond with him.

Due to his lineage, intelligence and charisma, Agamemnon's thirteenth son became his most promising, and earned a position as a human trustee in Omnius' empire. Vorian's main role was to accompany the independent robot known as Seurat on one of Omnius' update ships, which the young human jokingly named the Dream Voyager, a title which stuck for both Vorian and Seurat. The Dream Voyager travelled between the Synchronized Worlds and delivered update gelspheres to different incarnations of the evermind to the machine-controlled worlds.

Vorian was initially loyal to his father, whom he admired greatly. Per his father's wishes, Vorian initially desired to become a cymek and realize Agamemnon's dream of becoming the heir of the Titan leadership after his dreamed death in battle. After surviving an encounter with the League Armada above Giedi Prime shortly after its liberation using his quick thinking in 203 BG, he was rewarded by his father with life extension treatment that dramatically slowed down his body's aging process, as Omnius had allowed this but had not yet permitted Agamemnon to make Vorian a cymek.

Change of loyalties (203-201 BG)[]

Vorian Atreides: "Once I may have been your enemy, but no longer. I am Vorian Atreides."
Iblis Ginjo: "Atreides? The son of Agamemnon?"
Vorian Atreides: "That burden I must bear. To redeem myself, I will make certain Serena is safe. Omnius will bring in reinforcements soon, even if they come from other Synchronized Worlds. Don’t let a few days of giddy success blind you to what the thinking machines can do. Your revolt here is doomed."
— Vorian Atreides and Iblis Ginjo[src]

Shortly after Agamemnon gave him the life extension treatment, Vorian met and began to fall in love with Serena Butler, the daughter of Manion Butler, Viceroy of the League of Nobles, who had been captured from Giedi Prime's liberation and brought to Earth, becoming a slave in the household of the robot Erasmus. It was Serena's defiant attitude and questioning nature that began Vorian's questioning of his father's subjective historical accounts.

Vorian and Seurat made their seventh mission to Walgis in 202 BG. After beginning to research the details of Agamemnon's memoirs via the more pragmatic records of Omnius aboard the Dream Voyager rather than the distorted accounts given in the history books of the Titans, Vorian became disillusioned with his biological father, learning of the Generals' sheer brutality during the Hrethgir Rebellions and his cold-hearted execution of his first twelve sons, and had wary thoughts of confronting him. Shortly after, Vorian and Seurat returned to Earth to find that a widespread revolt had begun, sparked by the murder of Serena's child by Erasmus and led by former human trustee Iblis Ginjo. Seurat allowed him to leaeve the Dream Voyager but warned him to be wary of the violence.

Vorian searched for Serena, coming to the household of Erasmus, and found her and Ginjo together amidst the chaos. It was at this moment that he finally decided to end his alleigance to the thinking machines, telling Iblis and Serena that he was able to take them off-planet aboard the Dream Voyager. After deactivating and removing Seurat and narrowly escaping the pursuit of Agamemnon, the three decided to flee to Salusa Secundus, capital of the League of Nobles, where he pledged to serve the free humans in their fight against the Titans and thinking machines.

To the League, however, Vorian was still of questionable loyalty, despite the fact that he had been thoroughly interrogated and even examined by doctors for implanted espionage devices. He was finally proclaimed clean after he was blessed by Zufa Cenva, who, as the Supreme Sorceress of Rossak, could detect lies when they were spoken. However, Segundo Xavier Harkonnen, who had encountered Vorian near Giedi Prime where he had been tricked by the machine trustee, still wondered if the machines could have somehow anticipated all precautions and concealed something in his brain, such as machine components that could be somehow be triggered.

Serena Butler insisted that all humans should be freed from machine control, and this should start with Vorian, who she insisted could still be a valuable ally with inside information. Vorian had already provided exhaustive information on thinking machine warships during his interrogation, and their armor and their integral weapons took a position in the following Battle of Earth under strict controls in certain areas, and watched at all times.

During the Battle of Earth, Segundo Harkonnen had given him strict orders to accompany the warhead-carrying ships until they dropped their nuclear payloads. However, Vorian happened to detect a lone update ship exiting Earth's atmosphere. He was faced with a dilemma and felt obligated to abandon his post; should the update sphere pass through, all vital information, along with the orders to annihilate the humans, would be loaded to all the Evermind copies. The bombers he guarded were left undefended and became a short a work for the robotic vessels, while he was accused as a coward and a traitor, but he knew he did the right thing.

Soon after, he boarded the vessel, which by chance, was guided by Seurat. Vorian stunned his old friend with an Electronic scrambler and apprehended the gelsphere. When he returned to Xavier Harkonnen's ballista, he was about to put on trial for treason, when he presented the silvery sphere, explaining the benefits of his move.

Butlerian Jihad (201-108 BG)[]

Main article: Butlerian Jihad

Rise in the Army of the Jihad[]

In subsequent decades, Vorian emerged as a major military figure in the Butlerian Jihad, with his trademark being bold and highly inventive tactics. During his long years of service, he became close friends with Xavier Harkonnen, whose military talent was equally formidable yet stylistically very different. Grown in a life of absolute order and loss of individuality, Vorian still tried to become more of a human, therefore being very free-minded and avoided formalities and chains of command, unlike Xavier. Vor's knowledge of machine thinking, programming knowledge and innovative skills helped the Jihad.

Vorian first distinguished himself in battle during the Battle of Bela Tegeuse, the very first organized attack of the Army of the Jihad which took place in 198 BG. He returned to Bela Tegeuse in 197 BG to find that the thinking machines had rebuilt their industries and reestablished their base, as if nothing had happened there. Vorian was therefore the first to discovery that the struggle and loss of human life, the Jihad had made no progress. After being promoted to segundo in 196 BG, he rose to the rank of Primero by 185 BG along with Xavier.

As Primero[]

In 179 BG, he proposed that the Army of the Jihad had to devote its resources and military strength to defending the Unallied Planets that refused to fight the thinking machines as well as the League Worlds. At first the Jihad Council resisted this, but Vorian went on to show tactical projections of how Omnius was moving, the pattern by which he was taking strategic star systems on the fringe, and so the thinking machines would have bases from which they could launch massive strikes against Salusa Secundus and other key League Worlds. Iblis Ginjo, now the Grand Patriarch, saw the proposal as a chance to expand League territory.

Vorian commanded the space defense during the Battle of IV Anbus in 177 BG, which was one of the first of these new defenses, with Xavier commanding the land defense. As the battle climaxed in the space above the planet, the Primero managed to drive off the machine fleet using a programmed signal which persuaded the machines that the jihadi fleet was much large. Shortly after this, a cymek fleet appeared when the jihadi ships were forced to suppress the over-heated Holtzman shields, and after Vergyl Tantor, Xavier's adoptive brother, was taken by the Titans, Vorian exchanged bitter remarks with his father and former idol, Agamemnon, who led the fleet.

In 176 BG, Vorian devised the defensive plan for the assault of the thinking machines on the wealthy planet of Poritrin, which used empty hulks of battleships and other defenses. The gambit worked, although most credited Savant Tio Holtzman for the idea rather than Primero Atreides, and the machines were fooled and eventually retreated, without any serious damage or loss of life on Poritrin ensuing. In 175 BG, he placed an Earth-Omnius update reprogrammed with false data on the derelict update ship near Earth, which was inhabited only by a still-inactive Seurat, and restarted the ship. This led to a widespread shutdown of many Synchronized Worlds as the virus infected each, until Erasmus stopped the Dream Voyager and destroyed it near Corrin.

When Vorian and other soldiers of the Army of the Jihad visited the ocean world Caladan, an Unallied Planet, in order to establish a League base there in 174 BG, he used the moniker of 'Virk' and flirted with the local woman Leronica Tergiet. Eventually they had a brief affair, and she was left pregnant, before Vorian had to leave the planet.

In 165 BG, Vorian and Xavier travelled to Kolhar. After Xavier sacrificed himself in 164 BG to kill Iblis Ginjo, and concurrently had his aide Paolo deliver the message of Iblis's corruption to Atreides, who had returned to Caladan while testing one of the new spacefolding ships of VenKee Enterprises. Vorian was the only person who tried to clear his name.

As Supreme Commander[]

In the following years he remained the most longeval member of the Army of the Jihad until he reached the supreme rank of Supreme Commander of the Jihad. In the following years, Vorian sent Leronica with their twin sons Estes Atreides and Kagin Atreides to Salusa Secundus, and they never married. In 137 BG, his granddaughter with Karida Julan, Raquella Berto-Anirul, was born.

Meanwhile, Supreme Commander Vorian befriended Xavier's grandson, Abulurd Butler, the lesser loved son of Quentin Butler and became his patron through his advancement in the military ranks. Abulurd became the first person to know the truth about his grandfather when Vorian revealed Xavier's true role in the Tlulaxa organ scandal, and Vorian approved when Abulurd decided to change his surname to his inherited one of Harkonnen.

During the Omnius Scourge which devastated the League in 108 BG, Vorian visited the planet Parmentier and met with his granddaughter Raquella Berto-Anirul. It was Raquella that, while thinking about recently deceased Dr. Hundri Arbar, noticed the effects of spice on the disease and after a brief investigation she realized that spice benefited or even immunized the patients. She notified Vorian about it, who brought the news to the League Parliament.

Great Purge[]

Main article: Great Purge

When news about Omnius's massive fleet against Salusa Secundus arrived following the end of the Scourge, he convinced the League to use spacefolders to launch a broad and coordinated nuclear strike against all Synchronized Worlds while this would happen. Corrin would be the last target, and by the time the robotic fleet arrived on Salusa, they would be mindless without the existence of Omnius. This plan later became known as the Great Purge. Vorian appointed Xavier's grandsons Faykan Butler and Abulurd Harkonnen to evacuate the planet while pulse-atomics were constructed and new nuclear warheads were being manufactured frantically on all League industrial planets, while Kolhar shipyards supplied the jihadi capital ships with spacefolder engines. To reduce the spacefolding hazards, he secretly ordered Norma Cenva to install the last computerized navigation systems she had kept after they were banned. Vorian also conceived an innovative weapon: satellites armed with pulse-scrambler transmitters. They would be set around Corrin, preventing therefore an Omnius update gelsphere to leave the planet during the final assault.

Inspired by the update method of Omnius, Vorian devised a network of scouts and messengers; flurries of the small ships bearing reports and records converged at established rendezvous points, dispatching buoys with their detailed data and logs. Other scouts from other battle groups would retrieve and disseminate them, keeping the commanders apprised of the progress.

Vorian was on board the LS Serena Victory during the battle itself. When the Purge fleet arrived near Corrin, the first machine ships had already returned and the Jihad commanders realized their forces were not enough. Quentin Butler volunteered for a suicidal strike but was prevented by Vorian. The rest of the machine fleet was returning. As a last measure, they launched the scrambler satellites around the planet. When all of the machine fleet was positioned in defense above Corrin, Vorian ordered activation of the satellite network. As a result, no machine could leave without damaging itself and Omnius remained trapped, being able only to reinforce his existing forces, diminishing the resources of the now-isolated planet.

Aftermath (108-88 BG)[]

After the Jihad, Vorian inherited the Old Imperial rank of Supreme Bashar, equivalent to that of his former Jihad rank of Supreme Commander. He watched the League of Nobles falling in slumbering laziness and bureaucracy, deciding that the thinking machines did not pose a threat any more, and they neglected the danger of the cymek empire, who rebelled from Omnius' Synchronized Worlds years ago. Vorian was viewed as a relic of another past age of unrest and violence, and his callings to vigilance and a final coup against Omnius were annoying at best.

In 107 BG, Vorian recruited Raquella and her fellow doctor Mohandas Suk to help form the Humanities Medical Commission or HuMed, on Parmentier, which he intended to replace the Jihad Medical Commission, after he rediscovered their location and generously sent them whatever aid or equipment they needed, including guards to keep them safe. He proposed an ambitious new mission to eradicate the last known stronghold of the cymeks on Hessra, where the three remaining Titans, Agamemnon, Juno and Dante, dwelt, in 106 BG, but was labeled a warmonger and actually shouted out of the assembly chamber. Vorian was sidelined and cut out, a symbol of the bloody past and an obstacle to a naively bright future.

After Omnius made another attack on the League worlds in 88 BG with the invention of piranha mites, and their subsequent neutralization by Abulurd, it was learned that his old friend, Quentin Butler was now among the cymeks as a captive. Vorian left all documents and proofs concerning Xavier's death to Abulurd and resigned from the Army of Humanity and moved to Hessra.

Vorian presented himself to his father Agamemnon, as defecting from the League and that he wished to join the cymeks. He played a major role in the destruction of the last remnants of the Titans, when he infiltrated his father's fledgling empire and plotted the death of the remaining Titans with the help of the captured Quentin Butler, who died killing the last, Dante, after killing Juno and Vorian throwing Agamemnon's brain canister out of the window. On his return to Salusa Secundus, he was welcomed back to the Army of Humanity and was awarded by Faykan Butler, who was now Viceroy, with a title made for him, Champion of Serena, a reward for his defeat of the cymeks. Public apprieciation of Vorian was heightened greatly by this new victory.

Battle of Corrin (88 BG)[]

Main article: Battle of Corrin

Abulurd noticed that this experience made Vorian different. While the Supreme Commander was famed as a cunning tactician using innovative ideas and deceit against the machines, now he seemed more direct and determined. Abulurd compared him to a hawk, and Vorian decided that the Hawk would be the symbol of his family. Vorian was now more determined to press the League for the final strike against Corrin, using his newly gained prestige and seeing support from the Cultists. Vorian pushed for a final attack, commanding the LS Serena Victory against the thinking machines.

In a desperate bid to repel the League forces, the independent robot Erasmus recommended that some two million human slaves (including a clone of Serena Butler) be put into orbit and linked with the pulse satellites that keep the thinking machines on Corrin. Erasmus then warned the human forces that should they pass the limit, the cargoes would explode, making them responsible for the deaths of two million innocents. While Erasmus had hoped that this Bridge of Hrethgir would weaken the resolve of the free humans, Vorian's determination to defeat Omnius at any cost saw him order the forces through the defense network, a decision that was protested by a horrified Abulurd Harkonnen. Abulurd's disgust led him to disobey direct orders and disable the automated weaponry of the fleet.

After discovering their lack of artillery, a furious Vorian decided to use Pulse Atomics against the defense forces and push forward. Upon crossing the threshold that should trigger the death of the two million slaves, the fleet was happily surprised to see nothing occur, as unbeknownst to Vorian a trigger had been defused by Erasmus upon his discovery that his human ward Gilbertus Albans had joined his beloved Serena Butler clone in orbit.

Seurat contacted Vorian and asked him to lower the LS Serena Victory's shields. Vorian, moved by his sentimentality, did so, and Seurat opened fire. Vorian realized that his old friend, the only "person" that he had through all these years, attempted to trick him, and immediately opened fire, destroying Seurat's Update Ship.

When the orbital battle opened a way, Vorian guided his command shuttle toward the center of the main square of Corrin's primary city; the remnants of the mechanical army massed in a protective formation around a central shielded dome. He sent a wave of kindjal attack flyers against the last stronghold of Omnius, softening it up and removing any ground robot defenses. However the dome "healed" itself with each blast, sealing a flowmetal layer over the gap, but finally it crumbled under the massive detonations by Ballistas.

The next move after Vorian landed was for the Ginaz mercenaries to complete their surgical strike. Viceroy Faykan Butler had also landed and was strutting around the battlefield, surrounded by other nobles (who wanted history to record that they had been there personally), while enraged Cultists of Serena raced through the city in an orgy of destruction. Then, he learned that Rayna was buried under the citadel he just bombarded, so engineers and soldiers supported by Ginaz mercenaries went to the rescue when suddenly the plaza cracked open, like a snake bursting out of its hole, the silvery, tentacular growth of the Central Spire lunged out of the rubble and shot skyward. It formed a parabolic dish and vomited a flash of light through the atmosphere out into space and splattered into puddles across the broad, rubble-strewn plaza.

After Rayna was found alive, and the mercenaries arrived at their target with three surgical pulse-warheads, Vorian and Viceroy Butler retreated with all of the other personnel standing at a safe distance. The battle concluded with the destruction of the last surviving thinking machines and the liberation of many of the surviving slave humans.

When the Battle was over, Abulurd was sentenced to death, but Vorian proposed that Abulurd be named a coward and banished from the League to which his brother Faykan Butler agreed. He also sentenced that Abulurd would obligatorily retain the shameful name of Harkonnen; Vorian sworn that for ever his descendants would spit upon the name Harkonnen. After that, it was impossible for Abulurd to recover his grandfather's memory. Abulurd was exiled to the backwater planet of Lankiveil where his family carried on the bitter legacy of his downfall, thus beginning the feud with House Atreides.

Kepler period (88-5 BG)[]

"I have already contributed more than my share to history. For more than two centuries I influenced events and fought the enemeis that were defined for me. Finally I turned by back and walked away. All I wanted was to fade quitely into memory, but history refuses to let me alone."
―Vorian Atreides, The Legacy Journals, Kepler period


When the war hero Faykan Butler formed the new Corrino Imperium, Vorian began to feel a lack of interest. While he was granted permission to use his rank fo Supreme Bashar as long as he lived, he had no desire for further battle, and took his ship and a generous reward from the new Emperor, turned his back on the League of Nobles, and headed off for the frontier in an anonymous, solitary journey across the Known Universe in order to escape from his former military life, in a ship resembling the Dream Voyager which he ultimately christened the New Voyager.

Vorian retreated on the backwater planet of Kepler where he lived in a settled valley with his second wife, Mariella Atreides, who he married in 75 BG. Their son, Clar Atreides, was born in 51 BG, and in the decades that followed, several generations of family members. In 5 BG, while Vorian was away, the residents of the valley capable of manual labor were seized by slavers from Poritrin. Vorian killed several slavers, and tracked the slave ships to the city of New Starda, where he bought and freed them before seeking revenge against their surviving captors.

Arrakis period (5-4 BG)[]

Vorian traveled to meet with Emperor Salvador Corrino I, grandson of his former comrade, Viceroy Faykan Butler. Warmly welcomed by the Salusan populace, he was asked to take the throne from the Corrinos. Although he declined to do so, Salvador and his brother Roderick Corrino became nervous, fearing that Vorian might incite a revolution against House Corrino. They demanded that he retreated into a deeper exile, and, in exchange, they would station Corrino military forces around Kepler. Vorian agreed to this, and travelled to Arrakis. Unbeknownst to him, he was followed by Griffin Harkonnen, the ambitious grandson of Abulurd. Griffin confronted Vorian in a Zensunni Freemen sietch deep in the Arrakeen desert.

The Naib told Griffin and Vorian they had to fight to end their blood feud. During the fight, Griffin revealed to Vorian that his wife was dead, catching him off guard and ultimately getting him at his mercy, although he decided not to kill him out of honor, supposedly ending the feud and the two were placed in the desert. However, Vorian was also being followed by the twins Hila and Andros, two children of Agamemnon who had survived for years in an isolated robotic outpost. They eventually caught Vorian in the desert, and killed Griffin. Pursuing Vor, attempting to convert him to their beliefs in a new Time of Titans, they were swallowed with the sand around them when a sandworm arrived. Vorian sent a message of condolence to Griffin's sister, Valya Harkonnen, who spurnned the offer and planned revenge.

Climax of the Atreides-Harkonnen feud (4 BG - 1 AG)[]

Lankiveil & Caladan[]

Feeling guilty for Griffin's death, Vorian attempted to give at least some help to the struggling Harkonnen family by secretly giving a large infusion of funds to Sony and Verygl Harkonnen's whaling business which had been slowly losing power on Lankiveil.

After this travel, Vorian travelled back to Caladan for the first time in decades to meet his descendants with Leronica, among whom were the young men Orry Atreides, Shander Atreides and Willem Atreides, who he met. Following Orry's marriage to Tula Harkonnen, who had obscured her last name, she murdered him on their wedding night, per the orders of her elder sister, Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen. Vorian travelled back to Lankiveil with Willem, revealing to Sonya and Vergyl Harkonnen that he was Atreides. The parents revealed that Tula had gone to Chusuk, and there Willem attempted to kill her but Bene Gesserit protected her and brought her to Wallach IX.

Salusa Secundus & Corrin[]

Vorian went next to Salusa Secundus on a ship he christened the New Voyager to ask Roderick Corrino, who had since become Emperor after being assassinated by Josef Venport on Arrakis, and who was currently dealing with the ongoing galactic civil war, to accept Willem into a role in his court. He then told his operatives to wait for two weeks before spreading the rumor in the Imperial Court that he'd gone to Corrin, by which time he would have arrived and his preparations would be complete.

Coming back to Corrin gave Vorian great pain, as the place where he had spent much of his youth as a human trustee and also the location of the Battle of Corrin where Abulurd had betrayed the Army of Humanity during the crucial moment of the Bridge of Hrethgir. After inoculating himself against residual radiation from the old atomic attack, Vorian landed the New Voyager in a cleared area not far from the largest settlement. He donned protective filmgoggles against the harsh light of the sun, and emerged into what had once been the glorious machine capital.

After reaching the large settlement, Vorian introduced himself to a hard-bitten woman called Korla, the self-anointed Queen of Trash, who now served as planetary ruler and the leader of a group of scavengers. While Vorian gave Korla his real name, because he wanted to be sure the Harkonnens could follow the clues, it was clear that neither Korla nor any of the other scavengers believed he was truly the legendary Hhero of the Jihad. That evening, Korla invited Vorian to dine with her in an underground dwelling formed out of the frozen flowmetal to create a cavelike, sheltered place.

Valya soon arrived on the planet. In her initial confrontation with Vorian, her Truthsayer Cindel attempted to tell her that he had in fact not killed Griffin after he once again affirmed this, but she dismissed this, thinking that he had tricked himself into thinking this or arranged his death without actually killing him.

Vorian then fought Valya as Willem, who had in fact followed Vorian against his wishes, duelled Tula. Valya attempted to use a method of Voice on Vorian to freeze his muscles, but his mental strength was too strong for this. Valya attempted to protect Tula from Willem, who had nearly killed her, but Vorian prevented this by throwing himself against her. Willem did not kill her, however, as she revealed that she carried his brother's child. At the last moment, Korla arrived and also interfered, forcing an end to the fighting. Vorian left the planet and Valya believed him dead after his ship exploded, but he did in fact survive.

Aftermath (Post 1 AG)[]

Vorian was from this moment on believed to be dead by his Caladanian relatives, although in reality he survived and decided to once again begin a new life. Meanwhile, his relatives continued the Atreides-Harkonnen feud, Willem Atreides founding House Atreides itself in Vorian's honor and in opposition to House Harkonnen, which was gaining more and more power under Danvis Harkonnen.

At some point after this, Vorian wrote Memoirs Without Shame, Battle Memoirs and Turning Points in History, as well as his extensive Legacy Journals, which were published in the new Empire.

Relationships[]

Agamemnon[]

While a human trustee on Earth, Vorian held deep respect and great admiration for his father, the cymek General Agamemnon, viewing him through the Titans' propaganda of their great victories, which twisted the true facts of historical events. Agamemnon was also proud of his son and thought that finally he had produced offspring worthy of becoming a neo-cymek. After Vorian saved the Dream Voyager in 203 BG, Agamemnon was permitted by Omnius to give Vorian life extension treatment, which was incredibly painful for his son, making Vorian initially believe he was being punished. After Erasmus' house slave Serena Butler hinted to Vorian that his view of his father and the thinking machines was distorted, he looked into the true files and saw the true atrocities which Agamemnon had committed.

This was one of the key factors that led to his realisation that he was on the wrong side and his change of loyalties during the Rebellion of Earth, betraying his father, who he had for so long admired. Following this and Vorian's serving in the Butlerian Jihad against the Synchronized Worlds, the General felt extremely vengeful against his son, wishing to keep him alive to punish him for his disobediance. Father and son reunited in battle multiple times but neither ever captured the other. When Agamemnon and the two remaining Titans, Juno and Dante, rebelled against Omnius, Agamemnon realized that he would be able to have no further children and Vorian was his only hope. Thus, when his son arrived on Hessra in 88 BG and claimed to have changed his loyalty once more to the Titans, the General was compelled to trust his son out of his secret hopes, although he feigned mistrust.

At the last, when Vorian had his father and his former idol at his mercy, he decided not to give him an eternity of torture as Primero Quentin Butler wished in his vengeance, but a quick death, out of the last bit of mercy he held for the General, but also as a punishment in itself - Agamemnon would not die the glorious murder in battle he had long dreamed for, but in an unremarkable and utterly insignificant fashion. Vorian's father pleaded in his last moments for him to join him, saying that they could create a new Time of Titans together, but Vorian ignored these pleas and killed the Titan.

Later family[]

During his military career, Vorian had many relationships with different women on numerous planets such as Karida Julan and a lot of others. This ended when he landed on Caladan and fell in love with a barmaid named Leronica Tergiet. He fathered twins with Leronica, Estes and Kagin Atreides. Because of his role in the war, the kids grew with a surrogate father, Kalem Vazz but after his death, Vorian married Leronica and the kids learned their true heritage. However there was always a distance between father and sons and they broke off connections after Leronica's death.

Later he discovered he had also sired a daughter during a brief relationship on Parmentier, who herself gave birth to Raquella Berto-Anirul, the founder of the Bene Gesserit.

Seurat[]

Vorian's closest companion on Earth was his fellow crewmember on the Dream Voyager, the independent robot Seurat, who attempted to learn more about humans through him and often told jokes to Vorian in an attempt to imitate a human sense of humor. Even when Vorian changed his loyalty to the humans who resisted the thinking machines, Seurat considered this nothing more than a bad practical joke, the same way he considered Vorian deactivating him during the Battle of Earth and stealing his Omnius update.

When Vorian reawakened the independent robot decades later to spread his Omnius virus, Seurat continued to retain an affection for Vorian despite his clear new allegiance to the League of Nobles, and when he had the opportunity to kill Vorian a few years later, he decided against it after a verbal jest between the two. However, the independent robot was ultimately loyal to Omnius and the thinking machines, and finally betrayed Vorian during the Battle of Corrin by firing against him from the Dream Voyager.

Erasmus[]

On Earth, Vorian had a friendly but not very close relationship with the independent robot Erasmus, discussing Serena Butler with him when she was captured from Giedi Prime and brought to Earth as Erasmus' house slave.

Serena Butler[]

When the Viceroy's daughter Serena Butler was captured from the liberation of Giedi Prime and brought to Earth as Erasmus' house slave, Vorian felt his first ever true feeling of love towards her, despite her initial disgust at a human who willingly held alleigance to the thinking machines. Serena was the root inspiration of his change of loyalties to the League of Nobles, telling him that he was being fed a distorted version of the history of the Titans, and that he was a slave who did not see his own chains.

However, Vorian saw after not long on Salusa Secundus that a romantic relationship between them would be impossible, although over the years he did become good friends with both her and her former love Xavier Harkonnen, who along with Vorian was the first to know of Serena's true intentions by travelling to Corrin as a supposed envoy to the Synchronized Worlds in 164 BG through a message which the Priestess sent to the two men who had once loved her.

Xavier Harkonnen[]

Vorian first met Xavier Harkonnen following the liberation of Giedi Prime when he was still loyal to Omnius and was delivering an Omnius update to Giedi Prime, deciding to trick the Tercero into thinking the Dream Voyager was a stolen machine ship and that he was a League human before escaping swiftly, the action which earned him the reward of life extension treatment by his father. They reunited after the return of Vorian, Serena Butler and Iblis Ginjo to Salusa Secundus, and despite the naturally bitter feelings that continued between them they eventually became good friends, both being promoted to the rank of Primero (although Xavier technically outranked Vorian by one level).

When Xavier sacrificed himself to kill Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo in 164 BG, he decided to send word to Vorian on Caladan, as he was the one who he trusted most. In the years following Xavier's death, Vorian was regretful that the truth about Xavier had to be withheld from the public, replaced by propaganda of a vile traitorous man who had killed the noble Grand Patriarch, but recognised that if he tried with any effort to convince the people of the truth of the actual events it would turn attention away from the real enemy of the evermind Omnius. Although Vorian convinced Viceroy Faykan Butler to set up a task force to look into the truth surrounding Xavier in order to clear his name, this was disbanded after Vorian observed that the actions of Xavier's grandson Abulurd at the Bridge of Hrethgir which caused his disgrace made this impossible.

Abulurd Harkonnen[]

In the later years of the Butlerian Jihad, Vorian developed a friendship with Abulurd Butler almost as great as that he had once had with his grandfather Xavier Harkonnen, especially as he was the only of Xavier's grandchildren to truly have any respect for the truth about their grandfather and devotion to one day clearing his name one day after Vorian revealed the truth to them, Abulurd being told last in 108 BG. When Abulurd retook the name Harkonnen, Vorian was one of the few to respect and even approve of this brave decision, although he also noted in a private conversation that it was also foolhardy and was bound to set Abulurd's career back.

After participating in the Great Purge which ended the jihad together, they fought the pirahna mites which were sent from Corrin to Salusa Secundus nineteen years later, which resulted in Vorian proudly promoting his good friend's grandson. The relationship between Vorian and Abulurd was, however, finally ruined during the Battle of Corrin, in which Abulurd not only argued with his commander and friend to at the last refuse to allow the billions of human captives at the Bridge of Hrethgir to die, a decision which Vorian viewed as completely necessary, but sabotaged the weapons of the Vengeance Fleet to delay their passing of the Bridge, an action which in the end did not actually kill anyone due to the concurrent sabotage of the independent robot Erasmus on Corrin. This was perhaps the most tragic part of the betrayal - its absolute uselesness due to Erasmus' successful sabotage.

Following the human victory at the Battle, Vorian was the one to recommend that Abulurd not be executed for treason but exiled to the distant world of Lankiveil for cowardice, which he told Abulurd he thought was indeed a worst fate, especially as Abulurd had once privately vowed to Vorian that he would never be a coward. Vorian refused to look at Abulurd during the trial or during his confrontation with his former friend before his being sent to Lankiveil, viewing his betrayal as one not only of his military duties but of their friendship, and declaring that from that day on the name of Atreides would spit on the name of Harkonnen, all of the Harkonnens on Lankiveil being forced to keep the disgraced name, although this was an extent of Vorian's anger which he later regretted and attempted to reconcile by helping the Harkonnen family retain power in the whale fur economy of Lankiveil in 3 BG.

Valya Harkonnen[]

Vorian was the one person in the Known Universe who Valya Harkonnen, great-granddaughter of Abulurd Harkonnen, hated the most, as he had caused her family's downfall during the Battle of Corrin. Her hatred for Vorian led to her wish to eliminate all of the Atreides, repeatedly putting this plan above her loyalty to the Sisterhood due to her rage towards him. One of the main reasons why Valya spent a year training as a Swordmaster at the Ginaz School was because she wished to use these skills in her upcoming fight with Vorian. The rest of Valya's family were significantly less passionate in their hatred for Vorian and all of the Atreides, most of all her parents and her uncle, but did not attempt to stop her from pursuing her vengeance against him and his family.

Behind the Scenes[]

Appearances[]


Preceded by
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Tercero in the Army of the Jihad
200 BG - 196 BG
Succeeded by
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Preceded by
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Segundo in the Army of the Jihad
196 BG - 185 BG
Succeeded by
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Preceded by
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Primero in the Army of the Jihad
185 BG - 164 BG
Succeeded by
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Preceded by
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Supreme Commander of the Army of the Jihad
164 BG - 108 BG
Succeeded by
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Preceded by
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Supreme Bashar of the Army of Humanity
108 BG -
Succeeded by
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v  d  e
House Atreides


v  d  e
Army of the Jihad
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