Suk School

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Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, portrayed by Dean Stockwell in Dune (1984), bearing the mark of the Suk School

The Suk School is a prominent medical school in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Its doctors are the universe's most competent and trusted; those who have received the "Suk Imperial Conditioning" bear a diamond tattoo on their foreheads, wear their hair in a special silver ring and, at least theoretically, are incapable of inflicting harm.

“	Everyone knew you couldn't subvert Imperial Conditioning!	”
	— Feyd-Rautha, Dune

Dune

Dr. Wellington Yueh

The fallibility of Suk training is proven in Dune (1965), in a situation involving Dr. Wellington Yueh. The Harkonnen twisted Mentat Piter De Vries notes:

Hawat will have divined that we have an agent planted on him ... The obvious suspect is Dr. Yueh, who is indeed our agent. But Hawat has investigated and found that our doctor is a Suk School graduate with Imperial Conditioning — supposedly safe enough to minister even to the Emperor. Great store is set on Imperial Conditioning. It's assumed that ultimate conditioning cannot be removed without killing the subject. However, as someone once observed, given the right lever you can move a planet. We found the lever that moved the doctor.

To gain such leverage against Yueh, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen had abducted and tortured Yueh's wife Wanna; the doctor is thus compelled to betray House Atreides in exchange for her release. Even so, Yueh allows Paul and Lady Jessica to escape the attack and gives Duke Leto Atreides the means to kill the Baron (though the Duke fails to do so).

Legends of Dune

The origins of the school are explored in the Legends of Dune prequel trilogy (2002-2004) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Dr. Rajid Suk

During the events of Dune: The Machine Crusade (2003), Dr. Rajid Suk is "one of the most talented of the new battlefield surgeons" during the Butlerian Jihad. He accompanies Serena Butler and Xavier Harkonnen on their inspection of the Tlulaxa organ farms, seeking increased production of organs and limbs for the ever-increasing number of Jihadi wounded. Serena considers him a hero, as Rajid had made "extensive, even miraculous, use of products from the organ farms, saving thousands of the veterans injured in combat." Rajid urges the Tlulaxa to share their cloning technology with the League of Nobles to increase the organ supply. Grand Patriarch of the Jihad Iblis Ginjo discourages the request, suggesting that the League does not want to take away the "livelihood of the Tlulaxa civilization." In truth, Ginjo wants to protect the secret that he is aiding the Tlulaxa in supplementing their limited organ production with kidnapped slaves from various League planets, and blaming the attacks on the thinking machines. Rajid is later awarded the Manion Cross (by Serena herself) for his unparalleled service to the Jihad.

Dr. Mohandas Suk

The genesis of the school is revealed in Dune: The Battle of Corrin (2004). Doctors Mohandas Suk (B. 148 B.G.), grandnephew of Rajid Suk, and Raquella Berto-Anirul (granddaughter of Vorian Atreides, and Suk's lover) establish the Hospital for Incurable Diseases on Parmentier, a former Synchronized World recolonized by the League. The planet is being ravaged by the Demon Scourge, a catastrophic virus genetically engineered and unleashed by the thinking machines to destroy humanity. Mohandas and Raquella's work is hampered and their lives threatened by the antitechnology mobs of the Cult of Serena, and they barely escape the planet. Later, in 107 B.G., Mohandas and Raquella found the Humanities Medical Commission and travel to "more than thirty planets in their efforts to treat plague victims." In 88 B.G., they go to Rossak to help fight another outbreak of the Scourge. After that situation is resolved, Mohandas conceives a child with Raquella, but she chooses to stay on Rossak to lead the planet's Sorceresses in a new Sisterhood (later known as the Bene Gesserit). Mohandas tells Raquella of his plans:

We've been though a century of the Jihad, then the Scourge, and now this new epidemic. Humanity must be prepared to face all the tragedies the universe has in store for us. When our race is at stake, important victories are won in hospitals as much as on battlefields. We can take the best of us, the most talented researchers, the most skilled doctors, and form a medical school like none the League has ever seen. We must make sure that our doctors and facilities are such that no threat of machine, war, or plague can ever harm us again. — Dune: The Battle of Corrin

Mohandas sets out on his mission to establish such an institution, which later comes to be known as the Suk School.

Quotes

The following quotes are presented via epigraphs in various novels of the Dune series:

• One of the questions the Butlerian Jihad answered with violence was whether the human body is simply a machine that a man-made machine can duplicate. The results of the war answered the question. — Dr. Rajid Suk, Post-Trauma Analysis of the Human Species (Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, 2002)

• The beginning of healing is to enlist the recuperative powers of the body — whether it is the body individually and physically, or its various social and political forms. — Dr. Rajid Suk, Battlefield Notebooks (Dune: The Machine Crusade)

• Science is the creation of dilemmas in the attempt to solve mysteries. — Dr. Mohandas Suk, Speech to graduating class (Dune: The Battle of Corrin)

• Not everything is as it appears. — Dr. Mohandas Suk, Medical journals (Dune: The Battle of Corrin)

• The human body is a machine, a system of organic chemicals, fluid conduits, electrical impulses; a government is likewise a machine of interacting societies, laws, cultures, rewards and punishments, patterns of behavior. Ultimately, the universe itself is a machine, planets around suns, stars gathered into clusters, clusters and other suns forming entire galaxies. Our job is to keep the machinery functioning. — Suk Inner School, Primary Directive (Dune: House Atreides, 1999)

References

fr:École Suk