“Dune: Prophecy ”trailer teases the origin of the Bene Gesserit: 'Power comes with a price'

The new series launches this fall on Max.

Mastering the gom jabbar is one thing, and soon enough Dune fans will get to see how that test and its practitioners came to be. Later this year, the new Max series Dune: Prophecy will explore the origins of the Bene Gesserit — and the first trailer for it is finally here.

The Bene Gesserit show up in director Denis Villeneuve's recent Dune movies in the form of characters Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Reverend Mother Helen Gaius Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling), and Lady Margot Fenring (Lea Seydoux). They have also trained Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh) since her birth. As fans know, the organization has long been manipulating both the biology and culture of the Dune universe, arranging dynastic marriages for preferred genetic outcomes, as well as seeding religious myths among various planetary populations — such as the "Lisan al-Gaib" for the Fremen of Arrakis — for future use.

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But unlike Villeneuve's movies, Dune: Prophecy is not based on Frank Herbert's 1965 sci-fi novel. Instead, it is more directly inspired by Sisterhood of Dune, a 2012 novel by the late author's son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Set centuries before the story told in the first Dune, that book shows the Bene Gesserit in a much earlier phase of their existence.

Says Emily Watson's Valya Harkonnen in the trailer, "10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides, before the universe would know us as the Bene Gesserit, we founded a sisterhood." The Bene Gesserit spread their influence across the Imperium, whispering in the ears of its rulers, but, as she ominously intones, "power comes with a price."

The footage features the group seeking to install one of their own on the throne — a task that won't be easy.

"This is us playing God," warns Jade Anouka's Sister Theodosia. "And we will be judged for it."

Dune: Prophecy stars Watson and Olivia Williams as Harkonnens and early members of the fledgling Sisterhood, alongside Anouka, Aoife Hinds, Chloe Lea, and Faoileann Cunningham. Mark Strong stars as Emperor Javicco Corrino, an ancient ancestor of the character played by Christopher Walken in Dune: Part Two.

Dune: Prophecy premieres this fall on Max.

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