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The Ixians are a society in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert in his Dune series of novels. This society is named after its home planet Ix
Its name is derived from the Roman numeral IX, and it specializes in the production of complex machinery including the Guild Heighliners and fighting machines.
Often these machines flaunt the proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad which forbids the making of a machine in the likeness of the human mind.
At the beginning of Prelude to Dune the Ixians are ruled by House Vernius. Elrood IX, who desired a Melange substitute and who wanted to pay back Dominic Vernius for two offenses against him (stealing a concubine - later to be called Shando Vernius from Elrood and making larger Heighliner ships, stripping Elrood of tax revenue), decided that a Tleilaxu invasion of Ix would kill two birds with one stone.
The Tleilaxu invade in House Atreides, on the (somewhat justified) pretext that House Vernius were creating thinking machines (a fighting Mek was created shortly before in the story) and are driven out of Ix in House Corrino. Some years later the Ixians are freed from the Tleilaxu.
By the time of Dune the Ixians are other than the Bene Tleilax probably the most successful of the fringe worlds that maintain a sophisticated technological base, having had their technological base rebuilt at the cost of House Corrino reparations. Their form of government seems to have been transformed into a meritocracy.
During the Famine times the Ixians became a major power in the known universe, with the invention first of no-ships which contain machines that duplicate the abilities of Guild Navigator, hide the people within from prescience; with the advantage of being far cheaper. It is the development of this cheaper form of space travel which fuels the scattering.
By the time of Heretics of Dune the power of the Ixians seems at its apex with their alliance with the Fish Speakers; but Bene Gesserit analysts see them as a failing power, because Ixian society has become a bureaucracy and no great inventions have come out of the workshops of Ix for centuries.
When the Honoured Matres conquer the Old Empire, the Ixians are reduced to being a barely tolerated technological combine.
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