Vorian Atreides

Vorian Atreides is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. The ancestor of Paul Atreides, Vorian is a key character in the Legends of Dune trilogy created by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Family history
The Atreides family line goes all the way back to the Greeks on Old Earth. Vorian was the thirteenth son of the Titan Agamemnon, one of the twenty Titans who conquered the Old Empire, and was a Human Trustee in Omnius' Machine Empire. He began the family house of the Atreides and was Muad'Dib's ancestor.

Life with the thinking machines
Vorian's main role in the thinking machine empire was to accompany the robot Seurat on one of Omnius' update ships, the Dream Voyager, travelling around through the Synchronized Worlds and delivering various updates of the computer evermind. He was entirely loyal to his father, General Agamemnon, and absolutely believed everything that he said, because he wished to become a cymek and a Titan like him. He had read only General Agamemnon's biographies on human history, so he thought that the thinking machines were only trying to restore order in the universe and to rule benevolently, while in reality the machines completely destroyed human populations often numbering in the billions. Vorian was one of the most prominent hrethgir trustees.

Serena
He met Serena Butler while she was a slave in the household of the robot Erasmus. He fell in love with her, which resulted in Vorian questioning his loyalties. He then fled with her, after the murder of her baby, Manion Butler, to fight with the League of Nobles.

Xavier Harkonnen
After his escape from the synchronized worlds, Vorian became fast friends with Xavier Harkonnen, which is ironic because of the later Atreides-Harkonnen feud. After Xavier assassinated the Grand Patriarch, Iblis Ginjo, Commander/Supreme Bashar Vorian was the only person who tried to clear his name.

Abulurd Harkonnen
As the youngest grandson of Xavier Harkonnen, Abulurd was the only one of the Butler brothers to believe the truth given to him by Vorian. The old supreme commander took Abulurd under his wing, and they became lifelong friends while fighting the thinking machines. In 88 B.G., Vorian demanded to reopen the old files, wanting to begin a new investigation in order to clear the Harkonnen name. Vorian's love for the Harkonnen name ended when the Atreides-Harkonnen feud began at the "Bridge of the Hrethgir" during the Battle of Corrin. Abulurd refused to give Vorian the codes needed to re-activate the weapons systems of the Army of Humanity's fleet since he wanted to save the millions of human slaves that Omnius had surrounded the planet with as a human shield. Vorian relieved Abulurd of duty and then finally after the battle had him face charges of treason, although Vorian thought a charge of cowardice would disgrace the young officer more. Abulurd was then exiled to the cold planet of Lankiveil. Thus, the investigation into Xavier Harkonnen's innocence never took place. This event sparks a feud between the two families which continues for the next ten thousand years.

Military service
After Vorian turned to the League of Nobles and joined humanity in its fight against the Synchronized Worlds, he became a major military figure in the Butlerian Jihad. He served with the Army of Humanity for about 135 standard years (he lived much longer than the average human because of the life extension treatment he had received from his father), and rose so high in the Army of Humanity that they had to create a new rank for him, Supreme Commander. After the Army of Humanity switched to Old Earth ranks, he became Supreme Bashar. During his military career, he had many relationships with different women at each port, and may have fathered several children. One of his relationships was with a woman named Karida Julan, who became the grandmother of Raquella Berto-Anirul who later established the Bene Gesserit school. This ended when he landed at Caladan (the home of House Atreides in the original series) and fell in love with a woman there named Leronica Tergiet, with whom he had two sons (Estes and Kagin) before marrying her years later. She would pass away from old age long before him, and he later marries the Kepler woman Mariella, with whom he begins a large family.

Post-Jihad
After the Jihad, Vorian left for an anonymous, solitary journey across the Known Universe in order to escape from his former military life. He apparently left with no fanfare in a ship resembling the Dream Voyager, his old update ship.

In the novel Sisterhood of Dune, it is revealed that Vorian moved to the backwater world Kepler, where he lived in a settled valley with his second wife, Mariella, and several generations of family members. During the novel, while Vorian is away, the residents of the valley capable of manual labor are seized by slavers from the planet Poritrin. Vor kills several slavers, and tracks the slave ships to the city of New Starda, where he buys and frees them before seeking revenge against their surviving captors.

Vor travels to the capital of the new Corrino Imperium and meets with Emperor Salvador I, grandson of his former comrade, Viceroy Faykan Butler. He is warmly welcomed by the Salusan populace, and he is asked to take the throne from the Corrinos. Although he declines to do so, Salvador and his brother Roderick become nervous, fearing that Vor might incite a revolution against House Corrino. They demand that he retreats into a deeper exile, and, in exchange, will station Corrino military forces around Kepler. Vor agrees to this, and travels to the planet Arrakis. Unbeknownst to him, he is followed by Griffin Harkonnen, the ambitious grandson of his former friend Abulurd. Griffin confronts Vor in a Buddislamic Free Men sietch deep in the Arrakeen desert, but the two reconcile.

However, Vor is also being followed by two children of Agammemnon, who are technically his half-siblings. These twins, Hyla and Andros, have survived for years in an isolated robotic outpost. Hyla and Andros eventually catch Vor in the desert, and kill Griffin. Pursuing Vor, attempting to convert him to their beliefs in a new Time of Titans, they are swallowed with the sand around them when a sandworm arrives. Vor sends a message of condolence to Griffin's sister, Valya Harkonnen, who spurns the offer and plans revenge.