I haven't read most of the sequels, so these plot points are news to me. But in the original Dune, or at least in the Lynch version, don't they find the H-S operator ? Because it cannot be an automaton.
The ideas that war is the father of many things (Heraclitus) and its creatures grow over man's head (Golem, Sorcerer's Apprentice) is not exactly new. I could probably dig up even older cultural knowledge from ancient Indian culture. The evolutionary dynamic of hunter and hunted is also old news.