The Bene Gesserit

The Bene Gesserit sisterhood is one of science fiction's most complex inventions: a secretive order of women who spent millennia building superhuman control over body and mind. They can detect lies, steady their own biochemistry, fight with lethal precision, and bend others through voice alone.

Their long breeding program aimed to produce a male they could control, the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul Atreides is that figure, but he arrives one generation early and beyond their reach — Herbert's portrait of how institutions' long plans escape the planners.