Ixians of Ix

A society that created technological products that nearly broke the laws of the Butlerian Jihad. The Ixians are the ultimate rebels and rule-breakers of the galactic economy. Ixians are constantly playing a high-stakes game of chicken with the entire universe – and they absolutely break the laws whenever they think they can get away with it. The Ixians are a highly secretive, scientifically advanced society that inhabits the planet Ix (which received its name because it is the tenth planet in its star system, using the Roman numeral X). Unlike the rest of the feudal Imperium, which embraces a quasi-medieval lifestyle, the Ixians live in massive, high-tech underground cities. They are completely obsessed with machines, industrial manufacturing, and cybernetic research. They are the ones who build those incredible Ornithopters, personal defensive shields, and the invisible No-ships.

Because the Butlerian Jihad strictly commands “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind”, the Ixians are viewed with intense suspicion by the Emperor and the religious Bene Gesserit. To bypass the law, the Ixians design highly advanced automated factories, mechanical
navigation systems, and recording devices that are incredibly complex but technically do not possess actual conscious artificial intelligence. They build hardware that walks right up to the absolute brink of being a “thinking computer”, testing exactly how far they can stretch the definition before the rest of the galaxy unites to destroy them.

Frank Herbert used the Ixians to show that human curiosity and the desire for technological progress can never be fully suppressed. Even under the threat of absolute religious execution, there will always be a group like the Ixians hiding in the dark, tweaking wires, and waiting for the right moment to bring the machines back.