Omnius

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Omnius is the "evermind," or controlling intelligence, of the Thinking Machines in the Legends of Dune trilogy of novels and in Hunters of Dune, written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

In The Butlerian Jihad, it is told that Omnius arose when the "hedonistic" Xerxes, one of the Titans who had taken control of the known human universe, allowed his AI systems too much autonomy.

The sentient computer network seized control of an entire planet, followed quickly by others. The breakdown spread like a virulent infestation from world to world, and the computer "evermind" grew in power and scope. Naming itself Omnius, the intelligent and adaptable network conquered all the Titan-controlled planets before the cymeks had time to warn each other of the danger.

Omnius then set out to establish and maintain order in its own highly structured fashion, keeping the humiliated cymeks under its thumb. Once masters of an empire, Agamemnon and his companions became reluctant servants to the widespread evermind.

Before the war with humans which came to be known as the Butlerian Jihad, there were many copies of Omnius, one on each of the Synchronized Worlds (planets controlled by the thinking machines). Each Omnius received regular updates from every other, keeping all of the machine worlds synchronized with each other—hence the empire's name. Omnius controlled most of the Thinking Machines, although some robots, like Erasmus and Seurat, were independent.

Omnius believed itself to be superior to humans in every way; this overconfidence eventually led to its downfall. Unlike its perfect machines, humans were unpredictable, and Omnius made no serious attempt at investigating their haphazard ways. During the Butlerian Jihad, the humans used their unpredictability to secure victory after victory. Midway through the struggle, Vorian Atreides managed to commandeer an update ship and used it to infect many copies of Omnius with a virus. Omnius Prime (the main Omnius, located on Corrin), even after being cured by Erasmus, suffered lingering effects of the infection—it slowly went, as Erasmus put it, "insane." It began to make operational errors, unacceptable in the machine world, although Erasmus—in fear of his existence—refused to bring this fact to the attention of Omnius. Later, Omnius attempted to imitate humans, creating art and having its machine army march in parades. When all but two of the other everminds were destroyed in the great purge, Omnius Prime refused to synchronize with them because it feared another programming virus. The other everminds wanted to control the remnants of the Empire themselves, and in a bitter argument Omnius Prime declared itself to be God. In the subsequent infighting, the other two severely damaged Omnius Prime.

All copies of the Evermind were supposedly destroyed in the Battle of Corrin. However, Omnius Prime beamed a copy of itself into space, and many years previously the Giedi Prime Omnius had launched 5,000 probes capable of constructing machine colonies across the galaxy. The Giedi Prime Omnius was destroyed immediately afterwards, so neither the humans nor Omnius Prime were ever aware of the probes' existence, creating the possibility that worlds at distant locations in the galaxy had been colonized by Thinking Machines.

In Hunters of Dune, it is revealed that one of the Giedi Prime probes received the final transmission from Omnius Prime and was able to recreate the "evermind" and Erasmus. Omnius then began to recreate the Synchronized Worlds beyond the furthest reaches of human expansion.

Eventually the Honored Matres, in their quest for power, stumbled upon the new Synchronized Worlds. In a bumbling yet successful attempt to acquire advanced machine weaponry, they reminded Omnius of the existence of humanity and kindled its desire for revenge, resulting in it pursuing them all the way back into the Old Empire and in the events depicted in Hunters of Dune and the upcoming Sandworms of Dune.