Butlerian Doctrine
The universal ban on thinking machines that emerged from the Butlerian Jihad.
The generations-long Butlerian Jihad ended with this doctrine enshrined at the center of civilization. No machine may be built in the likeness of a human mind. Breaking that rule ranks among the gravest crimes a person or institution can commit. The prohibition remade nearly every institution that came after it. Mentats emerged to replace computational machines with trained human minds. Guild Navigators turned to prescient, spice-fueled navigation instead of machine-guided flight. The Bene Gesserit built their disciplines around human potential rather than artificial augmentation. Ix kept producing advanced technology after the Jihad. It took great pains to maintain, in public at least, the fiction that none of it crossed the doctrine's line. The Imperium's response to a genuine violation was not something anyone wanted to test. Ten thousand years on, the doctrine stood largely unchallenged. It was a standing reminder of how close the species had once come to wiping itself out through its own inventions.
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