So, I’m re-reading the Dune series again, and just finished God Emperor.
I think I have the basics of Leto’s Golden Path down:
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Without his intervention, the Ixians (or someone like them) would have created self-replicating killer machines that would have hunted down every last human being.
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Leto’s overlordship delayed that invention throughout his reign
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His breeding program also developed Siona Atreides’s prescient-invisible genes, which, coupled with
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the Ixians’ invention of the No-globe/No-ship ensures that, even if such machines are released upon humanity, all the eggs are no longer in one basket and someone, somewhere, will forever be beyond their reach, untraceable, so humanity will survive.
In addition, the specific nature of Leto’s reign means that:
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humans will, one hopes, never again be nostalgic for an idealized past (since he will, for millennia, be recalled as a despot, so there will be no “good old days” for them to wish for)
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the forced tranquility made everyone restless, ensuring an explosion that results in the Scattering after his death (furthering the goals of “not all the eggs in one basket”), as everyone reacts to the sudden release from his rule
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He has, all along, been applying selective pressure to breed some exceptionally healthy humans (the Atreides line, in particular) that will be able to fend off threats from Ixian death machines, future tyants, etc.
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The Famine Times that follow his death will cause so much pressure on the survivors that they will be strengthened even more (weeding out the weak in a drastic way)
All that I got. But I still haven’t figured out one thing:
- since Ix and the Guild are working on computer hypernavigation (no need for spice-guzzling Guild navigators) and the Tleilaxu are working on artificial melange, why does Leto need to go back to the sand to start up the worm-spice cycle again? Aren’t they past the need for worms? What’s the point in having a “pearl of his awareness” scattered among each of the worms?
Why is Leto’s returning to the sand an important part of his Golden Path?