[PLENTY OF SPOILERS]
Well after reading the entire series twice and a few of Brian Herberts prequels just for the heck of it I’ve come up with a few points of discussion.
First and formost the Golden Path. I’m trying to pin down exactly what it was. As far as I can tell it hinges on two thesis statements from the books. One being “To know the future is to become trapped by it.” and “Knowing there is a trap is the first step in avoiding it.”
As far as I can figure the prescient ability Spice has on humans trapped the species in a predictable future that could be manipulated by whoever saw it. Leto II took it upon himself to destroy that ability and free humans from being confined by it. That in a nut shell is the Golden Path.
Leto had to cut the dependancy of humanity on the spice which he accomplished by enforcing the fact that whoever controlled the spice controlled the species. After Leto died, no one was willing to be supressed like that again and thus they worked on creating other sources of spice (the axotl tanks, transplanting worms, stockpiles).
Also everyone was crowded around Arrakis due to the spice dependancy, so Leto banned space travel to a point where everyone wanted to get as far away from the known galaxy as possible (the Scattering).
He also needed to get rid of those who could see the future in the first place. First off the Kwisatch haderach, which was easy because after everyone could see what Mua’dib and Leto were capable of they became utterly opposed to creating another one. Then the Guild Navigators, who as a simple matter of time became replaced by the Ixian navigation devices.
Is there anything else to it that I’m missing?
Also in Dune Messiah the Tleilaxu mention that they had made their own Kwisatch haderach who killed himself. Is there any more information on what exactly happened here?
The Bene Gesserit, why were they looking for the ultimate human? Was it a prophecy or just for the hell of it? Does the name “Bene Gesserit” mean anything?
I’ll be back with more, but currently I have to header.
I’ve read all six novels as well as the first volume by Brian Herbert, and I think that Frank could have quit at the end of the first novel and everything would have been just fine. Failing that, Chilren of Dune could have ended it too. It strikes me as all too convenient that he should pick up the story 3500 years later with God Emperor with the only characters from the first books being Leto II and Duncan Idaho, both of whom weren’t fleshed out all that much relative to even the supporting characters in the first book.
I believe the Scattering is what happened AFTER Idaho managed to assasinate Leto II. He was no longer around to rein everyone in, so humanity scattered throughout the galaxy. Those who went away took the various abilities of the people in the former imperium and did with them as they saw fit, and brought into being, among other things, the Honored Matres. Whether or not they had Melange is irrelevant, since the only purpose that served is to help the Navigators plot a better course. Who needs that when you don’t have any clear plan as to where you’re going anyway?
Even though the Golden Path was explained when Taraza (was it Taraza or Odrade that found Leto’s message?) found Sietch Tabr, I don’t know what it is either. Like so many other things in the latter five books in the Dune Saga Herbert wrote, it seems to have not gotten its full attention, like that weapon that the Honored Matres were talking about (the charge or whatever it was). Don’t forget the Jews that got a bit of attention in the fifth or sixth book, either, ie the woman who managed to become the equivalent of a reverend mother without any Bene Gesserit training.
Don’t you get the impression, having read all of Frank Herbert’s novels in the series, that the last four and a half books or so were an afterthought? It struck me that the whole story lost its direction somewhere in the second novel. Dune itself may have been comparable to Lord of the Rings, but I don’t think the whole series warrants that description in the least. Once the Honored Matres burned “Rakis,” he might as well have just stopped typing.
That’s to say nothing of The Butlerian Jihad or the other prequel books.