[bigwavedave]

> I've always thought that the Missionaria Protectiva was coolest concept in Dune. The "religious engineering".

> The idea that over thousands of years the Bene Gesserit have seeded fake prophecy and religion throughout the universe to "primitive worlds". A Bene Gesserit visiting one of these worlds is trained to fulfill these prophecies and basically weaponize the locals.

> I don't know why it blows my mind but it does. Has modern scifi used this idea anywhere?

To anyone interested in Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere but hasn't yet read the Mistborn series, be aware please that my answer contains major spoilers for the first couple of books, so stop reading this comment now if that concerns you.

In the Mistborn series, there are two deities for this one specific planet- for reasons I won't go into, they created the planet and its humans together but one deity trapped the other in a metaphysical prison. To escape this prison, this second one uses the tiny amount of influence it still has to pervert the prophecies and teachings of the dominant religion over thousands of years to weaponize the local population, engineer rebellions, and cause a lot of people to believe they're some "chosen hero" who will defeat a fake threat manufactured by this 2nd deity, which all eventually causes the release of the 2nd diety from this metaphysical prison.

Not quite the same I guess, but they share some similar threads.