Serena Butler, the daughter of Manion and Livia Butler , is a character in Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's Legends of Dune series, a trilogy of novels set during the Butlerian Jihad, the war against thinking machines only vaguely referred to in Frank Herbert's original Dune series. A beautiful and ambitious woman, Serena Butler and her murdered baby Manion Butler inspire the Butlerian Jihad, and become its namesakes. She was kidnapped by the machines and made a house slave to Erasmus and it was he who murdered her son when he decided that Manion Butler was becoming a distraction. Rescued by Vorian Atreides she returned to the League Worlds (planets ruled by the League of Nobles) and inspired the Butlerian Jihad.She was later relegated to a figurehead by the Jihad's Grand Patriarch Iblis Ginjo and was eventually sent by him officially as an ambassador to Omnius but secretly to provoke him to kill her, making her a martyr, as the Jihad was losing support. Although Erasmus stopped Omnius from killing her, one of ther Seraphim bodyguards stabbed her.