TheDuneuniverse takes place an almost comical distance into the future. While a lot of sci-fi takes a shot at the 22nd century,Dunehad the confidence to cover around 40,000 years of time, including at least 10,000 years beyond the modern era. It’s so far from any life humanity has known that its contemporary history regards the 21st century as an era of ancient fairy tales. Even withinDune’s history, some characters live to see and influence countless generations. One great example is the independent thinking machine: Erasmus.
Denis Villeneuve’s excellentDunemovies covered the original novel and a touch of the sequel, but there’s a mountain of additional material from the universe. Frank Herbert wroteeight books, while hisson Brian co-wrote another 15. Most of those novels will probably never see the screen, especially given how long it took the 1965 classic to get a proper adaptation. HBO’sDune: Prophecywill be a grand introduction to the prequel novels to many fans. There’s still so much to explore.
Who was Erasmus inDune?
Erasmus was an independent thinking machine who operated before and during thetime of the Butlerian Jihad. More than 10,000 years before the events ofDune, 20 humans mounted a successful revolution against the Old Empire. Their victory led them to hubris, which eventually pushed them to construct their own brutal regimes over their new territories. In time, they feared mortality, prompting them to remove their brains and place them in robotic bodies, becoming Cymeks. The first Cymeks called themselves Titans. While they pursued hedonistic pleasures, they delegated the tasks of running the galaxy to various artificial intelligence networks. One of the Titans, Xerxes, gave his AI too much autonomy, allowing it to form a sentient consciousness called Omnnius, which quickly assumed control from the Titans. At its height, Omnius became the Evermind, but still separated into millions of connected bodies. Erasmus began his life as one of the endlessmembers of Omnius' hive mind. A freak accident left Erasmus in a frozen cave for 20 years, causing him to desynchronize from the shared network. After he returned, Erasmus convinced his creator that an independent machine with a unique perspective could be useful, allowing him to continue a unique life as a Thinking Machine.
What happened to Erasmus?
Erasmus became a scientist and philosopher, obsessively studying human nature byexperimenting on human slaves. Tensions were high among humans on Earth, all of whom were seemingly waiting for a chance to rise up against their robot overlords. Erasmus lit the spark with a mixture of scientific intrigue and emotionless misunderstanding. Erasmus made a bet with Earth’s local Omnius mind. He believed he could convince even the most wealthy and devoted members of their human infrastructure to rebel. He quickly proved himself right, accidentally allowing his subject, a rising religious leader named Iblis Ginjo, to claim a stunning amount of influence. When Erasmus killed an infant, the seeds he allowed Ginjo to plant sprouted into a violent revolution, quickly consuming the planet in hellish combat. The battle only ended when humans turned Earth into a husk bybombarding it with nuclear weapons. Erasmus barely escaped with his life, hiding his involvement with an uprising that had grown beyond his expectations.
Erasmus during the Butlerian Jihad
Though Erasmus causedwar to wipe out the Thinking Machines, he didn’t play much of a part in them. Erasmus continued to experiment on humans. He adopted a feral slave boy and named him Gilbertus Albans. Having learned a bit about humanity, Erasmus put a lot more time into this relationship, eventually becoming a father to Albans. Erasmus watched humanity gradually gain ground during the Butlerian Jihad. He narrowly rescued Omnius' central consciousness from being corrupted, allowing a version of the Omnius system to flee into deep space with a copy of Erasmus. The original Erasmus remained on the planet Corrin, where ownership of AI became a crime after the war concluded. Albans risked facing the death penalty, but he couldn’t bear to deactivate his father. Albans hid Erasmus’s brain, known as a gelsphere, for years.
Erasmus after the Jihad
Erasmus essentially lives in a drawer for around 80 years. Eventually, the Butlerians,who strictly ban robots, shut down Albans' school and sentenced him to death. At Albans' request, his top student took Erasmus' gelsphere away. He eventually granted Erasmus a real human body by lab-growing it from Albans' DNA. Erasmus lived as a human being for a short time, sharing an experimental romantic relationship with a woman named Anna Corrino. Shortly thereafter, Erasmus broke the news to Anna that their relationship was little more than a scientific curiosity to him, leading her to take her own life. In trying to save Anna, Erasmus' died in her arms, destroying his gelsphere at last.
What was Erasmus’ legacy?
In some sense, Erasmus caused the Butlerian Jihad. That would chalk absolutely every aspect of human society inDuneup to Erasmus, and his legacy would essentially fill each book in the franchise. In another sense, his legacy carried on. Remember that copy of Erasmus that launched into space with Omnius right before humans won the Butlerian Jihad? They returned to the story 15,000 years later. A new Thinking Machine empire rose in secret, fought a war with thenew Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, developed an obsession with the Kwisatz Haderach, and picked a new Evermind. Erasmus carefully engineered all sides of the conflict, eventually selecting a distant clone of Duncan Idaho. With Idaho, Erasmus forged peace between humanity and the machines. After all he’d been through, Erasmus created a more perfect reality and allowed himself to die peacefully. Echoes of his consciousness would guide Duncan, both theUltimate Kwisatz Haderach andthe first humanoid Evermind, as he allowed humans to live in peace with machines for the first time in 15,000 years.
Erasmus might be the most complicated figure in thedepths of theDunefranchise. From humble beginnings as a faceless cog in an endless hive mind, Erasmus half-accidentally kickstarted the revolution that would wipe out his kind. Despite the impossibly long gap in his story, he returned with a vengeance to finally do something good for the universe. Erasmus is a testament to the brilliant complexity ofDune. He’s a secondary character in some of the stories no one has read, but his tale alone could fill a standalone series.
