Dune: Prophecy Explained - A Revenge Saga Set 10,000 Years Before Paul Atreides

The upcoming HBO series Dune: Prophecy explores the sect that will many centuries later come to be known as the Bene Gesserit. “We are 10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides and we like to call it 10,000 years BC, Before Chalamet,” joked star Emily Watson, referring to the star of Denis Villeneuve’s two blockbuster Dune films, in a recent interview with IGN.

Watson leads the show’s stellar ensemble as Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen, who runs a school on Wallach IX to train young women in the rituals and practices of the Sisterhood. House Harkonnen blames House Atreides for their fall from grace, fueling a lifelong rage within Valya to avenge her family and restore their standing within the Imperium. To this end, she is involved in the Sisterhood’s secret breeding program to control the bloodlines of the Great Houses. But now a prophecy foretells of a mysterious and powerful danger that threatens to destroy the Sisterhood.

“She's a very, very driven, damaged, traumatized, driven by vengeance young person, but is obviously very, very powerful, very talented, has got an awful lot going on. And she goes to try to get away from her family to the Sisterhood and it's there that there's a charismatic leader who sees her and goes, ‘I see you, you are special.’ And being told you're special when you're a young person is a very, very powerful thing to do to somebody and it gives her a sense of passion and really a sense of a vision and a mission,” Watson explained. “She has a mission, and she believes that her mission is more important than what we would naturally assume is the moral compass that we would recognize. So it's a properly messed up, complicated character, which I love, but it doesn't belong to a straightforward moral universe.”

Watson added, “She's kind of a puppetmaster, manipulating the balance of power in the human world across the universe. She's dictating the path that humanity is taking. And they have this program of what, basically it's really kind of eugenics about making sure the right people breed with the right people to get the best leaders the right path ahead. It's all pretty disturbing stuff, to be honest.”

What Is Dune: Prophecy Based On?

While the six-episode series, co-produced with Legendary Television, certainly derives much of its material from Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s novel Sisterhood of Dune, it is not a one-to-one adaptation. “Sisterhood of Dune by Brian and Kevin is our seminal text, but also the school's trilogy [is important]. So Sisterhood of Dune, Mentats of Dune, Navigators of Dune [are] all works that we've drawn from,” showrunner and executive producer Alison Schapker told IGN.

“We're telling a story over multiple time periods. So we were in the present with Valya Harkonnen as somebody who's already become the second Mother Superior and grown (the Sisterhood) and risen to power. And that's our present day story taking place. And we're also going to … be exploring the roots of Valya Harkonnen. And that happens 30 years prior to the present that we're telling.”

Schapker added, “The world, the characters, the characters’ backstories, their past [are] wholly informed and being adapted from the books. So those events which we will see over the course of the series will then have massive consequences in the present. And that's where we're able to create a bit ourselves in conjunction with the estate.” The showrunner also said that she and the creative team worked with Herbert (the son of Dune creator Frank Herbert) and co-author Anderson on fleshing out what they chose to depict in the show. (Herbert is credited as one of the executive producers while Anderson serves as co-producer.)

“You have the Great Houses, you have the schools like the Sisterhood, the Mentats, the Navigators. But they're all coming to power, and they're all jockeying for position in an Imperium that is still in the making. So I think of it as a time of great rebuilding, and also a time of great imagination, which is how Brian Herbert describes it. And I think that it's so exciting to see these schools as they're really growing their reach across the Imperium, and nothing is certain.”

Is Arrakis in Dune: Prophecy?

Fans of Dune and Dune: Part Two might be curious how the desert planet of Arrakis, source of all the all-important spice melange, might factor into Dune: Prophecy given that it was such a key setting in Denis Villeneuve’s films.

“Even 10,000 years before the films and before Paul Atreides, space travel is reliant upon spice, and it is considered a super valuable resource,” Schapker explained. But since Dune: Prophecy is a prequel set in the distant past, in a period of rebuilding with an Imperium in its early days, Arrakis isn’t as significant a factor here as it was in the two recent movies.

“I would say that Arrakis is present in our story, but from a distance. We're exploring other planets. And our story primarily takes place on Salusa Secundus, which is a very different planet than it is in the films, and is the current imperial seat of power, and then on Wallach IX, which is the Sisterhood's home base. And we're also going to explore the homeworlds of the Harkonnens and the Atreides.”

The showrunner continued: “We're going to different corners of the Imperium, and I think that's really fun. Because the Dune universe is bigger than Arrakis, although Arrakis is always exerting a pull. And I think you'll feel that in our first season, that Arrakis is present. It's haunting us. It's shaping, obviously, politics and society and the economy. And so it's very important, and I would never want to downplay Arrakis. But we're definitely trying to take you to new places. … I think it's fun to be in other environments than the desert.”

While Schapker said Dune: Prophecy adheres to the same “grounded sci-fi” approach and “hallucinogenic vibe” of Villeneuve’s films – “We view ourselves as taking place in that universe” – the fact that the show is set a hundred centuries earlier means some recognizable design elements from the movies will be tweaked here.

“We definitely try to vary the technology, and not have things be exactly the same. For example, that our thumpers are much bigger than the thumpers he uses in the movie, or our harvesters, if you look closely, are actually designed a bit differently. Our ships are a bit different. Our Heighliners are a bit different. But you also want to feel like you're in the universe. And so we were grateful to have just a powerful vision [from Denis Villeneuve’s films] guiding us, for sure.”

The Sisters at the Heart of the Sisterhood

While Dune: Prophecy features a wide array of characters, the series, as its official synopsis makes clear, “follows two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind.” Joining Watson is Olivia Williams, who plays Valya’s younger sister, Reverend Mother Tula Harkonnen.

“We love the idea that there's a sister relationship at the heart of the Sisterhood, and that that's a very different thing. Valya Harkonnen and Tula Harkonnen share a past and certain trauma, and have a dynamic that's very specific to that family. And there is a bit of an older sibling, younger sibling dynamic,” Schapker said. “There is a bit of that relatable older sibling driving things overtly, and younger sibling feeling maybe a bit diminished or in the shadow of.”

“They both have secrets that they are bound together by their past and things that are really deeply, deeply and profoundly shocking that other people don't necessarily know about them,” Watson said. “But also, Valya has always been the leader, she's always been the eldest who's brought Tula along with her. But Tula is the quiet one and is extremely surprising, let's put it that way.”

Because the series spans decades, two sets of actors portray the Harkonnen sisters, with Jessica Barden cast as young Valya and Emma Canning as young Tula. “That was such a challenge, but also the most exciting thing, to land our young sisters,” Schapker said of the casting process. “It's uncanny how much Jessica Barden looks like Emily Watson, and Emma Canning looks like Olivia Williams.”

Watson spoke with Barden before filming to make sure they had a similar take on the character of Valya. “She's a real firebrand and just her actual nature, Jessica's nature, was very inspiring to me. She's just incredibly forthright. And we spoke really about the anger, the absolutely uncontrolled sort of powerful anger inside (Valya), which she later in life learns to channel into the ways of the Sisterhood. But yeah, it was a really important moment for me talking to her, [learning] her understanding of what this character was like as a young woman.”

In the exclusive clip below, Mother Superior Valya Harkonnen and her sister, Reverend Mother Tula Harkonnen, review candidates to pair with incoming student Princess Ynez. (Credit: Courtesy of HBO)

Even as Dune: Prophecy chronicles the Harkonnen sisters in their younger days, it also shows Valya and Tula mentoring their acolytes in the present. Valya has a special bond with Sister Theodosia (Jade Anouka) and Tula with Sister Lila (Chloe Lea).

“At the school, the sisters will raise girl children and the policy is that they don't tell their charges who their actual biological families or parents or lineage is as a way to make the Sisterhood their family and make them feel like equals, and that this is the family that matters,” Schapker explained.

“On the one hand, (Lila) does think of the Sisterhood as her family, and it's all she's known. And Tula has very much been a mother figure to her. And on the other hand, she doesn't really have the full story of her origin. And there's a ritual that Lila is going to be asked to participate in that would unlock some of those answers for her, but at great risk. And so the question of who Lila is matters to the series, and how that plays out. Her desire to know those answers will very much affect how the story goes forward.”

Sister Theodosia’s origins are similarly murky. “You don't necessarily understand what the situation is yet, but Theodosia's circumstances are very unique, and she has come as an outcast from a very difficult, desperate past to the Sisterhood in a little bit in the same way that Valya did,” Watson said. “Valya kind of has recognized her as having the same kind of drive and almost it's as if really damaged people are very, very good candidates for this kind of devotion or drive that it needs to be a really, really good Bene Gesserit.”

Is Travis Fimmel the Villain in Dune: Prophecy?

An argument could be made that there are no real heroes in this tale, just ambitious characters who discover what they’re willing to do for power and control. Valya Harkonnen is playing a long game that involves rival sisters and several leading members of the Imperium, including Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong).

“Certain people will be in favor and in power,” Watson said of Valya’s intentions. “If they're no longer useful, then they will be removed. But they're allowed to think that they have power.”

But then Valya encounters someone who is not so easily controlled: Desmond Hart, played by Vikings and Raised by Wolves’ Travis Fimmel. Hart is a soldier in Corrino’s army who has come to the imperial homeworld of Salusa Secundus a deeply changed man after his experiences serving on Arrakis.

“He's tied to the prophecy that sort of sparks the series,” Schapker said. “He really is a mystery of the show. And who has empowered him or what has empowered him is a central mystery that our sisters have to find out.”

Valya instinctively perceives Hart as her enemy but, as Watson put it, “he is also an enigma wrapped in a riddle that I don't understand and that I cannot get a grasp on.” The Sisters’ power to discern truth from lies enables them to not experience fear – until Hart arrives. “He manages to infect us all with terrible fear somehow and I can't work out why. And I know Valya has the sort of presence of mind, call it what you will, to know that somehow there's a piece, there's a player somewhere that she can't discern and she hasn't found it yet, and she's going after it.”

This requires Valya to essentially play detective in order to remain ahead of her adversaries. “She's always one step ahead, moving on, ‘This is the plan,’ and she doesn't really care who she destroys in the wake of that,” according to Watson.

When Does Dune: Prophecy Come Out?

Dune: Prophecy debuts Sunday, November 17 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on Max. New episodes will debut on subsequent Sundays.

For more of IGN’s Dune coverage, check out our Dune: Part Two ending explained, as well as what to expect from Dune: Part 3.