Houses Minor
The popular name for the planetary gentry, those landowners, politicians, entrepreneurs, and performers who were confined by economic circumstance to one planet or planetary system. The Houses Minor were far more numerous (some estimates have reached as high as one million; other commentators limited the number of Houses Minor to about 100,000, using economic and political factors to decrease the possibilities) and far more diverse than the Houses Major; they cannot be described except in the broadest of terms. In general, however, they consisted of those
persons or families who had reached an economic status of relative luxury compared to those around them, or who had entrenched themselves as a persistent political power in the lives of the citizens of at least a planetary continent, but who had not yet transcended planetary status. Many of the Houses Minor were employed by the Houses Major; none of the Houses Major served others except in
transitory political alliances.1Dune Encyclopedia, p 430
Houses Major
Officially, the “Recognized Houses,” those Houses accorded individual voting status in the Imperial Landsraad, the legislature of the empire. Although all of the noble houses technically belonged to the Landsraad, a practice developed at an early date in the history of the empire of according only certain of the more influential houses separate voting privileges; all other, lesser houses belonged to “Circles of the Empire,” each Circle being accorded a certain number of votes representing each sector or system in the known universe. These circles elected representatives to sit at each session of the Landsraad, the representation being rotated on a regular basis. The different circles had differing methods of electing representatives.2Dune Encyclopedia, p 373
In Dune: Houses on Fire, Minor Houses will need to maneuver their way to controlling an entire planet and develop a second Primary Domain before they can be considered ‘worthy’ of inclusion in the rarefied rank of Houses Major.
Index of Houses
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