Bene Tleilax
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The Bene Tleilax or Tleilaxu are a secretive society in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert in the Dune series of novels. The Bene Tleilax are genetic manipulators, equivalent in power to a major house in the Imperium. They solely control a number of planets in the Imperium, but they are originally connected with the planet Tleilax, the sole planet of the star Thalim.
Not organized along feudal lines (as most of rest of the Imperium is), the Tleilaxu are secretive and very little is known about them although in Heretics of Dune their society is said to be a meritocracy. They are chiefly known for their biological products such as artificial eyes, gholas, and face dancers.
The use of "Bene" before their name suggests that they are an order of some kind, like the Bene Gesserit; this becomes clear in the last two books of the series.
Bene Tleilax Histories
The founder of the Bene Tleilax was a Master named Xuttuh. In the last two books, the core of the Tleilaxu is revealed: they are Zensufi, a distant offshoot of Buddhism and Sufism, and are organized along theistic lines. They have spent thousands of years concealing this fact, waiting for their ascendancy, which they believe to be occurring in Heretics of Dune.By the events of ', the Bene Tleilax had been all but eradicated...save for one Master, Scytale, presumedly a ghola of the original Scytale of ' (though the Scytale from Dune Messiah was a face dancer whereas the one in Chapterhouse: Dune was a Master) who was captured by the Bene Gesserit. What he never told them is that in a tube implanted in his chest were cell samples from his entire order, plus many characters from earlier Dune novels: essentially, even though he was the only one left, he could single-handedly resurrect his Order.
The ancestors of the Bene Tleilax show up in Butlerian Jihad series by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. There, they are a civilisation of human merchants known as the Tlulaxa who specialise in slaves and replacement organs. They claim that the organs are grown artificially in organ farms. In reality, the vast majority of the organs are harvested from slaves. The Tlulaxa also have working organ farms, but they are used mainly as a front, providing only a small fraction of the replacement organs.
Bene Tleilax Technologies
The Bene Tleilax are masters of biological science and control the secrets of a number of important technologies in the Dune universe.Sligs
One of the earliest successes of Tleilaxu genetic engineering, the slig is a hybrid livestock animal - a cross between a large slug and a Terran pig - first mentioned in Heretics of Dune, and considered a delicacy: 'The sweetest meat this side of heaven.' pg. 145 Most people had thoughts that they were "tank-bred mutations", "ugly creatures who excreted slimy, foul-smelling residue, and whose multiple mouths ground incessantly on garbage"Heretics of Dune pg. 140, even though they enjoy devouring the flesh of these beasts (marinated slig medallions in rich Caladan wine sauces are considered a prime delicacy). Despite being the producers of sligs, the Tleilaxu do not consume them themselves. pg. 372Ghola
A ghola is a clone, grown in an axolotl tank from the DNA from a dead body of another person. At the time of Dune, gholas have no access to the lives of the person from whom they were cloned, but after Dune Messiah, the Tleilaxu discover that a ghola can recover his or her genetic memory during a carefully staged moment of great stress. Much later in the series, it is revealed that the masters of the Tleilaxu have been using this knowledge gained in Dune Messiah as an improvised device for immortality: at their death, they are cloned; their clone recovers its memories, and the masters, in their serial incarnations, have memories stretching back thousands of years. The surviving Masters of Heretics of Dune are clearly the longest-lived characters in the saga, after Duncan Idaho who is the first ghola to recover its memories. Scytale himself by the events of would be over 5,000 years old through his serial incarnations.
Axolotl Tank
An axolotl tank is essentially a brain-dead woman whose womb is used as a tank to create gholas and other creatures. The Bene Tleilax's use of their women in this capacity is why no one has ever seen a Tleilaxu female.
In Heretics of Dune, it is revealed that the Tleilaxu have developed the ability to grow the spice melange in axolotl tanks, breaking the monopoly on spice that Arrakis held for thousands of years which strongly determined the economics and the politics of the Imperium.
In , the Bene Gesserit have acquired axolotl tank technology and are able to use it to make gholas for their own purposes.
The axolotl tank is similar to the reproductive "stumps" in Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive.
Face Dancer
Face dancers are sterile creatures, with full sentience, but with a genetically programmed loyalty to the Tleilaxu masters. They are used by the Tleilaxu throughout the universe to impersonate key people after killing the originals.
Over the course of the series, the Tleilaxu try to create more perfect mimics, to the point where the face dancers lose their ability to mimic and their awareness of themselves as face dancers, so perfectly do they mimic their subjects. At that point, the face dancer effectively becomes the person he or she is mimicking, and passes beyond the control of the Tleilaxu, as happens in the book "Heretics of Dune".
Tleilax Master
Masters are the real minds of the Bene Tleilax. They have the ability to regain their genetic memory with ease, allowing them to live forever, using the axlotl tanks to create gholas of themselves. They are often described as short, dwarf-like characters with gray skin, elfin features and pointy teeth.Tleilaxu Masters control their Face Dancer minions through whistled commands. In Heretics of Dune, the Master Tylwyth Waff attempts to control the perfectly mimicked Face Dancer copy of High Priest Hedley Tuek but fails due to the copy's complete assimiliation into its new form.
Further, Masters usually implant some form of whistled command in any ghola they create. In Dune Messiah, the Master Bijaz controls the ghola Hayt through a specific whistling intonation that renders Hayt open to implanted commands.
Contaminator
One of the two units offered by the Bene Tleilax in the computer game , the Contaminator is essentially a hideously-deformed mutant spawned from the Tleilaxu Flesh Vats. They carry a lethal virus, capable of turning human beings into additional Contaminators. As this process only works in close combat, they are best taken out at range.
These are not found in any of the original books.
Leeches
These also are from a Dune computer game. They are the other unit of the Bene Tlielax forces offered to the three Great Houses during the War of Assassins, the Tleilaxu Leech is a biogenetic tank that creates replicas of itself by implanting its larvae in enemy vehicles. These constantly damage the host vehicle until the larva is fully mature. The infant larvae can be removed by attacking the host vehicle or using the Atreides Repair Vehicle to remove them surgically or use an infantry engineer. Another fact is that Leeches are extremely fast and can regenerate while stationary, making them efficient for hit-and-run tactics.
References
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