The trilogy consists of:
- Dune: The Duke of Caladan (2020)
- Dune: The Lady of Caladan (2021)
- Dune: The Heir of Caladan (2022)
The main focus of the trilogy is on a rebellion called the Noble Commonwealth, led by Jaxson Aru, son of Malina Aru, the Ur-Director of CHOAM. Jaxson wants to overthrow House Corrino and transform the Imperium into something closer to the ancient League of Nobles. Jaxson is charismatic and driven, having managed to attract a number of powerful Landsraad nobles to his side (not that there's a shortage of people who have scores to settle with House Corrino). Meanwhile, Duke Leto Atreides learns of a new drug being produced on Caladan and sold throughout the Imperium and resolves to put an end to it, while also being secretly approached by Jaxson Aru about joining the rebellion. The Bene Gesserit recall Lady Jessica from Caladan and reassign her to Elegy to be the bound concubine of Viscount Giandro Tull. Paul is being tormented by dreams of a striking young woman with blue eyes in a desert.
The Caladan Trilogy contains examples of:
- Altar Diplomacy:
- Duke Leto decides that it's time to send out feelers for a possible political marriage for Paul, even though the boy is only fourteen. One possible match found by Thufir Hawat is June Verdun, a daughter of Duke Fausto Verdun of Dross. Leto sends Fausto a letter suggesting a possible match, only for Fausto to rebuff him in a scathing reply, claiming that House Atreides is too small for someone like him.
- Leto himself contemplates marrying Vikka Londine, the recently widowed daughter of Lord Rajiv Londine of Cuarte. He even likes Vikka as a person but doesn't like the price demanded by Count Fenring for the match. After pretending to join the Noble Commonwealth, Leto ends up visiting Cuarte and is once again courted by Vikka, but he's shocked when he learns that she had her husband killed by having him sent to Otorio despite knowing about the coming attack on the planet, and that her father is dealing in ailar. No long after Leto leaves the planet, Sardaukar arrive to Cuarte and raze it to the ground, killing both Lord Rajiv and Vikka.
- Anti-Armor: House Tull has developed shield nullifiers, which temporarily disable any body shields in the vicinity, leaving the wearer vulnerable to projectile weapons. The prototype nullifiers burn out after a single use, and shield generators recover after about fifteen minutes, but if the enemy is out in the open when the nullifiers go off, then they'll likely be mowed down by projectiles. Giandro Tull uses them with some effectiveness against the Sardaukar that have come to destroy House Tull and scour Elegy of life.
- Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better: A small and unimportant world called Issimo III is suffering from an environmental catastrophe. Earl Grandine has made several pleas in the Landsraad, but his house is too weak to be listened to. The Emperor has dispatched a token team of engineers to analyze the situation and try to render aid. Jaxson's original plan was to do even more harm to the planet in order to show Shaddam's incompetence. However, Duke Leto manages to convince him to instead send humanitarian aid and take credit. Jaxson ends up liking the idea of showing up Shaddam by offering real aid instead of an appearance of it. He uses the solaris stolen from Shaddan's treasury ship to pay for the goods. When Shaddam learns of this, he's furious and initially blames the leader of the engineers, even though they couldn't have possibly done more with what they were given. He wants to either send the Sardaukar to destroy everything brought by Jaxson or to bring even more, but his wife talks him out of it, pointing out that neither option will help his reputation. This battle is already lost. He should focus on others.
- Assassin Outclassin': Near the end of the trilogy, twisted Swordmaster Egan Saar manages to slip into Castle Caladan and attacks Paul and Duncan on a balcony, intending to kill Paul as commanded by Feyd-Rautha. Both manage to put up a good defense. Saar underestimates Duncan and ends up being pushed off the balcony to his death.
- Badass in Distress:
- Planning on infiltrating the Noble Commonwealth in order to provide intelligence to Emperor Shaddam, Duke Leto sends Gurney Halleck to Kaitain with a message informing the Emperor of his plan. However, Gurney is captured by Harkonnen men at a transfer station and taken to Lankiveil, where the Baron learns of Leto's plan and has first Rabban and then Piter de Vries torture Gurney. At one point, they deliberately let him escape his room and try to send a message as a way to rob him of hope. What they don't realize is that he and Duncan have left hidden spy-eyes on the planet, and one of the spy-eyes relays his message to a heighliner in orbit. Eventually, the message gets to Thufir Hawat, who mounts a one-man rescue mission.
- While on a training exercise in the southern continent of Caladan, Duncan ends up being captured by Chaen Marek's people. Marek tortures Duncan by forcing him to ingest new, untested strains of ailar, noting the effects.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: When Jaxson Aru is finally cornered with no way out, his mother Malina Aru gives him an option of going out on his own terms rather than be tortured and publicly executed. When the Sardaukar finally break in, they find Jaxson lying dead, having taken a lethal dose of the ailar drug, which Malina finds to be a fitting end, as ailar drug trade was one of the main ways Jaxson used to fund his rebellion.
- Blackmail: Back when Malina Aru gave Jaxson access to the innermost workings of CHOAM, he gained access to the Black Archives, which contain a treasure trove of blackmail material on dozens of noble houses. He managed to copy it on a memory stone and uses the information to secure the allegiance of many of the members of the Noble Commonwealth. The memory stone also acts as his failsafe. Should he die, the information would be released to the public, shaking the Landsraad to the core. Leto manages to destroy the stone with the help of Empress Aricatha. Jaxson has some of the Corrino-specific information hidden in a stone in his earring and tries to send it, but by that point he's deep in the most secure vault CHOAM has, so the signal goes nowhere.
- Child of Forbidden Love:
- There's obviously Paul. While Jessica was supposed to bear a child for Duke Leto, the child should've been a girl. She only gave him a son because of his grief for his first dead son.
- There's also Brom, the son of Xora and her Sardaukar lover. Xora befriends Jessica, as both are outcasts for defying the will of the Sisterhood, but in actuality she seeks to extract compromising information in order to put her back into the Sisterhood's good graces. She succeeds and is sent to Caladan as Jessica's replacement, where she's murdered by Feyd-Rautha's agent Egan Saar. In a twist, Mother Superior Harishka considers both Paul and Brom to be potential Kwisatz Haderachs and intends to have Brom watched and tested before finally having him go through the Agony. He doesn't survive.
- Colony Drop: The trilogy opens with many nobles arriving to Otorio for the grand opening of the Corrino museum on the planet. Duke Leto accidentally spots some workers acting weirdly and informs the Sardaukar. Their investigation leads them to uncover a plot to drop several container ships from orbit (left there after the museum was completed) moments before a projection of Jaxson Aru claims responsibility for the attack. Shaddam, his new Empress, Count Fenring, and a number of other nobles (including Leto and Archduke Ecaz) manage to escape in two shuttles, but everyone else in the vast museum and the surrounding city are wiped out. Leto is saddened by the loss of his own shuttle and its crew.
- Conspicuous Consumption: After levying his new spice surtax to help pay off the costs of the now-destroyed museum, Shaddam seeks to awe the people by minting billions of actual solari coins and loading them onto a treasury ship which will then take part in a parade through Kaitain. Anyone with any brains realizes that the effect will likely be the opposite of what Shaddam intends. Meanwhile, Jaxson Aru sees it as a perfect opportunity to deal another blow to the Corrinos. He replaces the treasury ship with a fake loaded with explosives and some of the coins to act as shrapnel and hide the theft of the real ship, the proceeds of which will go on to fund the Noble Commonwealth. The explosion kills and hurts hundreds, damaging Shaddam's reputation even more.
- Courier: When Leto decides to pretend to join the Noble Commonwealth in order to set them up, he sends Gurney Halleck to Kaitain with a message implanted in his arm in order to inform the Emperor of his plan. Unfortunately, Gurney ends up being kidnapped by Harkonnens at a Spacing Guild transit station. They take him to Lankiveil where Rabban and Pieter torture him, while also extracting the message and learning of Leto's plan. After Thufir Hawat rescues Gurney, he learns that the message never reached the Emperor. When the Emperor learns the truth, he's furious that the Baron has prevented the delivery of crucial information. It's one of the reasons he chooses to take Arrakis away from House Harkonnen and give it to House Atreides.
- Dire Beast: Malina Aru's prized spinehounds Har and Kar, developed by the Tleilaxu at her request. During her visit to Geidi Prime, Feyd-Rautha becomes enthralled by the beasts, so Malina decides to request a pair for him as well, as a good faith gesture to the Baron. Feyd loves the spinehounds, but during a hunt their instincts override their imprinted loyalty to him, and they try to attack him as well, forcing Swordmaster Egan Saar to kill them. When Malina learns of this, she's furious and blames Feyd for not properly imprinting himself on them, while Feyd blames her for sending him defective beasts. The Baron defuses the situation by suggesting the Tleilaxu are the ones who've made a mistake. Malina and Feyd accept that as a viable compromise.
- Disobeyed Orders, Not Punished: When Colonel Bashar Jopati Kolona is sent to lead a punitive assault on Caladan, he has personal misgivings, as his opinion of Duke Leto has been drastically changed of late by his honorable actions (he originally despised the Atreides after Duke Paulus and Emperor Elrood IX led an assault on his home planet Borhees in order to overthrow House Kolona but changed his mind after Leto returned Borhees and worked on reviving House Kolona). Still, he intends to do his duty and follow Emperor Shaddam's orders. Then Paul and Dr. Yueh present recordings of Duke Leto detailing his plan to infiltrate the rebellion and put an end to it from the inside. This is sufficient for Kolona to disregard his orders and pull the Sardaukar forces back until the matter is brought back to the Emperor. While Shaddam is pleased that Caladan wasn't unduly punished, he is disturbed at one of his most loyal soldiers taking it upon himself to countermand an imperial order. Still, he calls upon Kolona to lead an assault on Arrakis in order to strip the Harkonnens of their siridar fief.
- Fantastic Drug: Ailar, AKA the Caladan drug. Originally used by Muadh villagers on Caladan as part of their rituals by consuming the barra ferns containing the drug, it was discovered by a Tleilaxu named Chaen Marek, who has decided to turn the drug into a profitable business. Tleilaxu Master Arafa modified the fern to increase the drug's potency, unintentionally leading to a number of overdoses across the Imperium. Unknown to most, many of the proceeds from the drug trade go to fund the Noble Commonwealth, as the Tleilaxu support getting rid of House Corrino.
- FTL Travel: Besides the usual heighliner travel, Jaxson Aru reveals that CHOAM has a small secret fleet of ships equipped with ancient FTL drives of the kind used prior to the invention of the Holtzman engine in order to allow CHOAM leadership to be independent of the Spacing Guild. Sure, this method is significantly slower (often taking days or weeks to travel between stars), but it can be very useful regardless. Jaxson ends up adding one of these drives to the treasure ship he confiscates from Emperor Shaddam.
- The Gadfly: Lord Rajiv Londine of Cuarte is a loud critic of Emperor Shaddam, often giving scathing speeches at Landsraad meetings. Shaddam himself has called him a "gadfly" several times. When Duke Leto comes to Kaitain with the goal of increasing the influence of House Atreides, Count Hasimir Fenring makes him a proposal. Leto can court Londine's recently widowed daughter Vikka and form a marriage alliance between House Atreides and House Londine. Then he can quietly remove Rajiv from power and essentially rule two noble Houses. While Leto meets Vikka and likes her, he ends up rejecting Fenring's proposal. Eventually, Leto learns that Rajiv Londine is not only an active participant of the Noble Commonwealth, but he's also a major part of the ailar distribution network.
- Hot Consort: Empress Aricatha is incredibly beautiful and knows how to please her husband. Not only is Shaddam genuinely in love with her, but he is more willing to bring her in on matters of state and even installs a throne for her in the reception hall, so she could sit by his side. Secretly, she's been indoctrinated and groomed by CHOAM since a very young age. In the third novel, she ends up being killed and replaced by a Face Dancer with Shaddam being none the wiser.
- I Have No Son!: Ur-Director Malina Aru publicly denounces the actions of her son Jaxson and cuts off all ties between him and CHOAM.
- Iron Lady: Ur-Director Malina Aru is basically a noblewoman without a title (especially since the Aru family has largely been running the company for centuries). She runs CHOAM like a well-oiled machine. Even the Baron knows not to screw with her.
- It's Personal: Jaxson Aru's hatred for Shaddam didn't really take off until Shaddam somehow discovered the location of Otorio and decided to build his gaudy museum there. But what really set Jaxson off was when Shaddam's people casually paved over the olive grove where Jaxson had buried his father Brondon.
- La Résistance: The Noble Commonwealth started out several centuries ago as a secret cabal of nobles, led by the Aru family, in order to gradually transform the Imperium into a more equitable structure, more conducive to business and without the cruel whims of the Corrino emperors. However, Jaxson Aru was unhappy with the slow pace of the cabal, so he radicalized some of the members and began plotting to depose Shaddam and the entire House Corrino within his own lifetime using violent means.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Duke Fausto Verdun receives a letter from Duke Leto about a possible match between his own son Paul and Verdun's daughter June. However, Verdun replies in a scathing way that insults Duke Leto. Verdun claims that House Atreides only control a single unimportant planet and is too small for a marriage to his daughter. He insists that his own House already has a number of planets and wishes to increase that number by appealing to the Emperor. His arrogance and hubris end up costing him everything. When he goes before the Emperor, Reverend Mother Mohiam senses ambition, which Shaddam misinterprets as Duke Verdun being a member of the Noble Commonwealth rebellion. So he sends a punitive expedition of Sardaukar, which scours the planet Dross of all human life and wipes out House Verdun.
- Love Triangle: Sort of. After Jessica is recalled to Wallach IX and her contract with Leto is terminated, she begs to be sent back to Caladan, but the Sisterhood has other plans for her. She is to be sent to Elegy in order to become the bound concubine to Viscount Giandro Tull and convince him to reinstate the generous stipend his father used to provide to the Sisterhood. Jessica finds Giandro to be a kind, noble man, reminding her of Leto. And Giandro soon begins to develop feelings for her. However, it's clear to him that she still loves Duke Leto. Instead, they pretend to be a couple in public but maintain cordial relations in private. Jessica is even more put off once she learns that Giandro has joined the Noble Commonwealth. The triangle is resolved when the Sardaukar attack Elegy in order to destroy House Tull and kill everyone on the planet. Giandro makes sure that Jessica and the visiting Bene Gesserit make it off the planet before firing a lasrifle at a shielded Sardaukar in a Takin You With Me moment.
- Lured into a Trap: Baron Vladimir agrees to give the Noble Commonwealth a shipment of spice in order to demonstrate his allegiance to the rebellion. However, he has actually gone to Count Hasimir Fenring and then to Emperor Shaddam and offered to set a trap for Jaxson. The Baron brings Jaxson a ship full of spice, but when Jaxson boards it, some of the containers disgorge Sardaukar instead. Naturally, Jaxson has anticipated a double-cross. He dons a spacesuit and leaps out into the vast airless bay of the heighliner.
- Master of Disguise: Lord Rajiv Londine's chief administrator Rodundi turns out to be a Face Dancer. During the Sardaukar attack on Cuarte, Rodundi first takes the appearance of a female servant before killing and replacing a Sardaukar soldier, which allows him to flee the planet. He eventually takes on the appearance of the late Lord Rajiv in order to go to the Noble Commonwealth's headquarters on Nossus. When Jaxson takes refuge in a vault at the CHOAM headquarters on Tanegaard, Rodundi is at his side. When Empress Aricatha sneaks into the vault using a secret passage, the Face Dancer takes the appearance of one of Jaxson's guards and helps Frankos Aru and Aricatha escape, only to then stab the Empress in the back of the head and take her appearance. Frankos witnesses the "guard" leaning over Aricatha's dead body and tells Shaddam that his beloved wife is dead. But "Aricatha" then assists Leto in stopping Jaxson and tells the Emperor that Frankos was most likely in shock and seeing things.
- Misblamed: The Tleilaxu are still holding a massive grudge against Leto for the murder of their diplomatic delegation back in the Prelude to Dune Trilogy. They still don't know, of course, that it was actually a Frame-Up by House Harkkonen.
- Mistaken Identity: Feyd-Rautha sends his twisted Swordmaster Egan Saar to Caladan to hurt Duke Leto by killing his bound concubine Jessica. Saar isn't aware that Jessica has been recalled to Wallach IX and Xora has been sent in her place. Since the Duke isn't on Caladan, the palace staff refuse to put Xora in Jessica's old quarters, sending her to the city (much to her indignation). Saar learns that a woman claiming to be the Duke's concubine is staying at a local hotel. He sneaks into her room and fights her, eventually managing to decapitate her. It's not until he returns to Geidi Prime that he learns that Jessica wasn't on Caladan at all.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is on his way to the spaceport in order to go to the grand opening of the Corrino museum on Otorio. Then a group of Fremen hijack his transport and try to crash it into a building. They're stopped by Rabban and the Harkonnen guards, but the fight causes the transport to jerk and the Baron to hit his face. With his face bloodied, the Baron decides to skip the trip to Otorio. Had he gone as planned, it's very likely he would've perished in Jaxson Aru's Colony Drop on Otorio, which only a few dozen people survived.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Lethea, a former Kwizatz Mother, is near death and delusional. Unfortunately, her powers are still strong, and she often uses the Voice to cause the attending Sisters to kill themselves in various gruesome ways.
- Prequel: The trilogy leads up right to the original novel.
- The Emperor grants Duke Leto the siridar fief of Arrakis as reward for helping end Jaxson Aru's rebellion and as punishment to Baron Harkonnen for smuggling spice and preventing Gurney Halleck from delivering crucial information to Kaitain. Shaddam also begins to grow wary of Leto's rising popularity in the Landsraad and is considering playing the Atreides and the Harkonnens against one another to keep both in check.
- The Sisterhood begins to take an active interest in Paul as a potential Kwisatz Haderach after Brom's death during the Agony, while also instructing Jessica to give them an Atreides daughter as a condition to returning her to Caladan.
- Duncan tells Paul he's going on a one-man mission to Arrakis ahead of the rest of the House.
- Public Secret Message: After Jessica is recalled to Wallach IX and her contract with Duke Leto is terminated, the Sisterhood sends her to Elegy as the bound concubine of Viscount Giandro Tull. She later learns that Tull has joined the Noble Commonwealth. Tull sends a video message to Jaxson Aru and insists that Jessica stand by his side. Knowing that Leto is likely to see the message, Jessica uses the hand signals of the Atreides battle language to let Leto know that she still loves him. Leto ends up missing it entirely, and it's not until he shows the message to Paul that the latter notices the hand signals.
- Taking You with Me: When the Sardaukar attack Elegy with the intention of wiping out House Tull and everyone on the planet, Viscount Giandro Tull tries to hold them off with his shield nullifier prototypes, but there are just too many Sardaukar. So he sends Jessica and the visiting Bene Gesserit to the spaceport before grabbing a lasrifle. He ends up using it against a shielded Sardaukar, triggering a pseudoatomic explosion that wipes out thousands of people, including many enemy soldiers.
- Uriah Gambit: Leto is shocked to learn that Vikka Londine knew of Jaxson Aru's upcoming attack on Otorio and sent her verbally abusive husband Clarton to the grand opening of the museum, knowing he would be killed.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: While Jessica is ultimately welcomed back to Caladan by the end of the Trilogy, her relationships within House Atreides have been seriously damaged and will take time to heal and repair (if they can be at all). The schism's fallout is also implied to be one of the reasons why Thufir, Duncan, and the others so easily followed the Baron's false trail of evidence and so readily believed Jessica was the House traitor during the original Dune; the damage from her secret agenda and loyalties to the Bene Gesserit were still too fresh and raw in everyone's minds.
