Edric O

Mentat Edric O is the House Ordos Master of Assassins who assists the player in Dune 2000. He is rumored to be a thinking machine of Ixian design, traded to the Ordos in exchange for a fortune in Melange^[1]. If so, the fact that he is a man interfaced with a machine would allow its existence, as it is not "a machine in the likeness of a human mind". It is unknown if he was a Mentat-trained human augmented by technology or a human augmented by technology and then trained (or programmed?) as a Mentat.

Edric O could temporarily place his consciousness into a storage medium while his body was incapacitated and could communicate via a visual monitor, as evidenced by one of the Dune 2000 cut-scenes.

The Ix implanted a listening device in a knob on a mechanism in Edric O's head and presented its receiver to the Padishah Emperor. Edric discovered its presence and deactivated it, demonstrating that he was loyal (or at least more loyal) to Ordos rather than Ix. It also showed that he was capable of making decisions that were contrary to his creators' desires, meaning he had free will.

His later increasing use of melange spice expanded his abilities greatly but made him seem unstable, intoxicated by his new-found prescience. It enabled him to see a potential future in which all of the other factions would be set against each other and acted in a manner that made this future come to pass. It also allowed him to predict the narrow window of probability when their enemies would be at their weakest so Ordos forces could strike at them decisively with one blow.

He is replaced in Emperor: Battle for Dune by Mentat Roma Atani. He might have been eliminated by the Ordos, either because he was viewed as a threat or because his prescience overcame him and made him useless.

Trivia

• The name Edric was borrowed from the name of the Guild Steersman in Dune Messiah (1969).
• In Dune 2000 Edric O is played by actor Richard Marcus.