Dune 2: Love and Betrayal

02 Chaos Across The Imperium

[Taking place after the movie Dune: Part One. Screenplay available here:  https://www.scriptslug.com/assets/scripts/dune-2021.pdf  ]

PAUL Do you know what the Great Houses fear most? Just what's happening here. The Sardaukar picking them off one by one. Only together can they stand against the Imperium. Would you bear witness? Testify that the Emperor moved against us here?

KYNES If they believed me...there would be general warfare between the Great Houses and the Emperor.

JESSICA Chaos. Across the Imperium.

Calls rang out across the Imperium and Known Universe. The shouts were near hysterical and filled with shock. Some were full of grief and some with great fear. The message quickly passed through to the great leaders, the Dukes and Counts, and their military leaders, councils and administrators.

"Duke Leto has been assassinated!"

"The Emperor and Baron colluded against House Atreides!"

Alarm rang out throughout all the Great Houses of the Landsraad and echoed also through the more numerous Minor Houses. Nicknamed "Leto the Just," Duke Leto had been popular and well-respected. He had a reputation for being an intelligent, honorable and just ruler. With no one else wanting such a visible role, Leto had bravely become the de facto spokesperson for law and order and the demands of the Great Houses against the great power of the Emperor. But as Thufir Hawat, Leto's Master of Assassins, had explained to the Duke's son, Paul, "A popular man arouses the jealousy of the powerful."

Homeworld Ginaz:

"House Atreides has been destroyed by the Emperor and Baron!" came the call at House Ginaz. "Duke Leto has been murdered!" (Ginaz is pronounced Hee-nazz)

An emergency meeting was quickly assembled.

"It has begun at last," Duke Juan Ginaz VII growled through clenched teeth, seated at the head of a large rectangular table, surrounded by a dozen of his top officers. "The great war – where the Emperor turns on the Houses – that we all feared would someday come upon us may finally be here."

The Duke leaned into the table, braced against outstretched arms with hands firmly gripping the table's sharp corners. His face was pale with grief, not wanting to believe his dear friend and strongest defender was now lost to him.

Long ago, House Atreides had nominated Ginaz for inclusion in the Landsraad as a House Major against the strong objections of Houses Corrino, House Harkonnen and House Moritani. In recent times, the two families had become even closer allies, sharing information and training. Even House Atreides' own Swordmaster Duncan Idaho was a trained Swordsmaster of Ginaz. Most recently, the two Dukes had formed a pact, guaranteeing aid to one another in times of peril. But alas, it was too late now for poor Leto.

"If the Emperor would eliminate Duke Leto and House Atreides, what is to keep him from coming after us next?" Ginaz' leader growled with a mix of fear and fury, great anxiety and distress.

The answer seemed obvious to all at the table.

"Nothing, Sire," his young advisor Mentat V Kim Taehyung of the Bantang Clan spoke calmly and logically, the only one seemingly unaffected emotionally by the tragic news. Mentats were highly trained from childhood in cold emotionless logic and analysis, with their computer-like brains. It made them great strategists and master advisors and clever assassins. (Yes, Star Trek stole the Mentat from Dune with the Vulcans – think logical Spock)

Mentat V warned, "House Corrino has ruled for more than 10,000 years, amassing riches, power and influence. The Emperor is by far the most powerful man in the Known Universe. A formidable force. Especially since we no longer have the alliance of House Atreides on our side."