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.

Omnius believed itself to be superior to humans in every way, because it concluded all humans to be fragile, weak, inefficient, irrational, and replaceable; this led to what was comparable to human overconfidence and arrogance. This, along with Omnius rigidly viewing everything in a highly logical and analytical manner, eventually led to its downfall. Humans used deception, emotions, creative inspiration, and human values, which were all too subtle or illogical for a computer to comprehend or emulate. These enabled the humans to trick the thinking machines' logical algorithms to secure victory after victory.

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 kept a powerful and machine-efficient empire, and had League Worlds (allied human planets) and Unallied Planets cowed and unable to launch an effective offensive. Omnius also rigidly controlled all of the thinking machines, although some robots, like Erasmus and Seurat, became fully independent.

Eventually, Erasmus and the Omnius on planet Earth have a heated debate on whether the empire's trustee humans could really be trusted. According to Omnius' data, all of his trustee humans were loyal to him, but Erasmus believed otherwise and challenged Omnius that trusted and loyal humans are never completely loyal, given sufficient motivation and opportunity. Omnius accepted and allowed Erasmus to try to prove his point. During this time, pregnant Serena Butler had been captured and placed in the service of Erasmus.

Erasmus sent false, cryptic messages to high-ranking trustees on Earth, pretending that there were hidden cells of rebel humans that needed leaders. One particular trustee who received the messages, Iblis Ginjo, eventually was inspired to create actual rebel cells, which successfully recruit increasing members and amass hidden caches of weapons. Serena Butler bore a baby son, Manion, but after nine months of unacceptable disruption, Erasmus threw the baby over a balcony with a wailing and flailing Serena behind, who shoved a robot guard off the balcony during her hysteria. Crowds of slaves witnessing all this became infuriated and erupted into mass rioting, which Iblis sees as the opportunity to ignite the masses, activate his rebel cells, and send forth the angry mobs toward destroying their machine masters. Another trustee, Vorian Atreides, then joined the human rebels also, for different reasons.

Omnius was not prepared for this rebellion and lost much of his resources, including the Titan, Ajax. Vorian Atreides, Iblis Ginjo, and Serena escaped to the League Worlds, and Erasmus fled to Corrin. With the arrival of cymek reinforcements, Ominius had the entire human population on Earth annihilated. When the League Worlds learned of this, the Butlerian Jihad against the thinking machines was ignited, and their first target was Earth-Omnius. Again, Omnius, according to his previous data that League humans were cowed, was not prepared for this counteroffensive and was thus destroyed by massive atomic attacks that charred the whole of Earth for several millenia.

Midway through the struggle, Vorian Atreides managed to commandeer an update ship and, 24 years later, 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 -- avoided bringing 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, even though all three remaining Omnius incarnations were now situated together on Corrin, which was now entirely blockaded planetarily. The three everminds grew more selfish and factional due to dissynchronization and each wanted to control the remnants of the Empire for themselves, and in the bitter argument Omnius Prime declared itself to be God. The other two then severely damaged Omnius Prime in the subsequent infighting, leaving it incapacitated and inert.

All incarnations of Omnius were supposedly destroyed in the Battle of Corrin. However, unknown to the victorious humans, Omnius Prime had beamed a copy of itself into space. Also, several decades previously, the Omnius on Giedi Prime had launched 5,000 probes, each capable of constructing an entire new machine colony. The Giedi Prime Omnius was destroyed soon afterwards, so neither the humans nor Omnius Prime ever knew of the probes' existence, creating the possibility of worlds at distant locations in the galaxy being 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 both 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 rekindled its desire for revenge, resulting in it pursuing them all the way back into the Old Empire, to the events depicted in Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune.