Where does ‘Dune: Prophecy’ fit on the ‘Dune’ timeline?

If you thought Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies were the origin story of the messianic Paul Muad’Dib Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), Dune: Prophecy, the new HBO/Max series about the Bene Gesserit sisterhood of Frank Herbert’s Dune-iverse, is about to change that. But where does the series fall on the timeline of the Dune franchise?

Where on the Dune timeline does Dune: Prophecy fit?

Believe it or not, the plan to bring forth the Kwisatz Haderach, AKA the Chosen One, has been in motion for about ten millennia! Dune: Prophecy takes place 10,148 years before the birth of Paul Atreides and 116 years after the Butlerian Jihad.

Thousands of years before the events of Dune: Part One, there was a massive war between humans and thinking machines that tried to overthrow humanity and establish their dominion over the universe. The Butlerian Jihad was fought for many years until the thinking machines were finally defeated. After the Jihad, House Atreides emerged as an unlikely hero in the war while House Harkonnen was labeled a traitor and relegated to a cold planet. A new world order was established, with the Landsraad Council and Spacing Guild coming into greater power. It marked the beginning of the Corrino Empire as House Corrino began running the Imperium from the Golden Lion Throne on their home planet, Salusa Secundus.

With computers, AI, and even mechanical toys banned, the Schools of Dune began gaining prominence to fill the void left by the ban on thinking machines. There was the Mentat School, which trained an order of mentats, or human computers, the Suk School trained doctors, and there was the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, which on the surface trained women as truthsayers but secretly maneuvered to pull the strings of the Empire while also carrying out a cross-breeding of the Great Houses to produce better leaders.

What is Dune: Prophecy about?

Inspired by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson’s Dune: Sisterhood prequel novel, Dune: Prophecy is the origin story of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. It tackles how they established their shadowy control throughout the Imperium by masquerading as a school that trains young women while secretly orchestrating a genetics program to bring forth a Chosen One who would lead humanity on a path to avoid utter destruction.

In the first episodes of Dune: Prophecy, “The Hidden Hand,” we meet Valya Harkonnen (Jessica Barden), who is hell-bent on reinstating the lost glory of her house and joins the Sisterhood along with her sister, Tula (Emma Canning), as an acolyte. Valya’s voiceover takes us through the establishment of the Sisterhood by its first Mother Superior, Raquella Berto-Anirul (Cathy Tyson); it isn’t yet referred to as “Bene Gesserit” but only, “the Sisterhood.”

However, one night, as the Mother Superior lies on her deathbed, Valya is presented with a chance to usurp power and carry on the Mother Superior’s secretive work. She pays a high price for it, and it looks like, for the time being, Mother Raquella and Valya’s plans are on the right track. But as the timeline jumps into the future, where an older Valya (Emily Watson) is the second Mother Superior of the Sisterhood and Tula (Olivia Williams) is a Reverend Mother, a troubled vision from Valya’s past comes alive and threatens to ruin it all.

How and where to watch Dune: Prophecy?

The first episode of Dune: Prophecy premiered on HBO and Max on November 17, 2024. New episodes will drop weekly on Sundays until December 22, 2024.