Dune Messiah

An epigraph from the scriptures of Paul’s spiritual cult establishes that he and his sister Alia are human, despite their extraordinary abilities.

An excerpted passage from Bronso of Ix’s controversial history describes Paul’s ascent to power. The son of one of the Great Families tracing its roots to Greece, Paul was trained in the Bene Gesserit tradition by his mother, the Lady Jessica, who suspected he was the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul also trained as a “Mentat,” a profession of extreme logic and cognitive conditioning.

As Emperor, Paul controls the production and distribution of spice, which is essential to the Bene Gesserit’s powers of “observation and human control” and the Spacing Guild’s monopoly on interstellar travel (navigators use spice-induced prescience to plot safe courses at lightspeed) (9). Spice is also highly addictive, and withdrawal is lethal. Bronso’s history indicates that many attribute Paul’s ultimate downfall to his political enemies or to the plotting of Korba the Panegyrist, the head priest of the Qizarate, the priesthood of the Fremen religion. However, Bronso insists: “Only through the lethal nature of prophecy can we understand the failure of such enormous and far-seeing power” (10).

On the planet Wallach IX, the Bene Gesserit leader Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam hosts a meeting of conspirators against Paul. Scytale, a shape-shifting Face Dancer of the genetically altered Bene Tleilax order, reflects on his sympathy for Paul and his suspicion of the other conspirators. Also present is Edric, a “vaguely humanoid” Spacing Guild navigator who must always remain in a tank of spice gas.

Conversing in the mirabhasa language, which allows for subtle inflections and layered meanings, Gaius Helen Mohiam, Scytale, and Edric persuade Princess Irulan Corrino—the daughter of the deposed Emperor Shaddam, a Bene Gesserit sister, and Paul’s consort—to join their plot. Irulan’s marriage to Paul is purely political, and Scytale deduces that she wants to give birth to Paul’s heir to establish her role in the new dynasty. However, Paul is loyal to Chani Keynes, his Fremen true love. Knowing that the Bene Gesserit want to preserve Paul’s bloodline for themselves, Irulan secretly feeds Chani contraceptives. Scytale declares the need to manipulate Paul into destroying himself by reinforcing Paul’s religious and political significance.

Scytale and Gaius Helen Mohiam engage in a subtle power struggle through minute facial expressions and voice modulations; Scytale impresses the Reverend Mother, who initially underestimates him. Although Scytale and Gaius Helen Mohiam despise the less intelligent Edric, his participation is necessary because his own powers of prescience shield the conspirators from Paul’s discovery (Paul is otherwise able to see the events of the past, present, and future). Irulan realizes that she will not be protected by Edric’s prescience if she does not commit to the conspiracy.

Scytale outlines the plot: They will give Paul a ghola—a replicated human grown from the corpse of a deceased person—of Paul’s childhood mentor Duncan Idaho, who died saving Paul’s life. The ghola, called Hayt, will “poison Paul’s psyche” and romantically distract Paul’s sister, Alia (27). Additionally, Scytale plots to manipulate the Qizarate and to steal a sandworm and attempt alternate spice production. The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles (CHOAM), the economic entity of the universe, will support whoever offers them the best chance at profit.

In the city of Arrakeen, Paul’s seat of power on Arrakis, Paul returns to his chambers after a solitary walk. Paul longs for normalcy and weighs the risks of venturing out alone. His stillsuit—a water reclamation garment that allows Fremen to live in the desert—makes him feel connected to a past version of himself. Chani arrives with coffee; Paul won the coffee pot when he killed a man for the first time. His defeat of the Fremen man Jamis helped him gain acceptance by the Fremen. Paul reflects on his contributions to the Atreides legacy and “all the death and violence going on in his name” (34).

Chani proposes that Paul impregnate Irulan, believing that the pregnancy would “disconcert [their] enemies and put Irulan in a vulnerable position” (37). The suggestion is painful for Chani, as she truly loves Paul and their first child was killed in the war that made Paul emperor, but she insists that Paul needs an heir. Paul recalls meeting with Irulan earlier, when he rebuffed her threat to have an affair by granting his permission to do so if her affairs produced no children. Briefly, Paul wonders why he cannot see Irulan’s future. Paul refuses Chani’s request as well, saying it would threaten Chani’s own position if Irulan became pregnant.

Chani senses Irulan has begun some plot against Paul and tells him that they have been away from the desert too long. She also admits that she visited the Fremen stronghold of Sietch Tabr to address her infertility. Paul, who has seen a future in which Chani dies in childbirth at Sietch Tabr, privately laments his prescience and his role as a hero and god. Paul feels trapped by fate and burdened by the responsibility to ensure the survival of humanity, which is only one of the many potential futures he has seen. Paul is devastated by the violence done in his name and his inability to control his zealous militia but has seen humanity’s destruction in alternate paths in time. Paul wonders whether he has doomed Chani to her fate through his choices and fears his own hubris in attempting to terraform Arrakis into a lush paradise, which has upset some traditional Fremen. Chani senses Paul’s distress and comforts him. 

In an epigraph, Paul describes the mutually assured destruction of the atomic weapons of the Great Families and describes his fear that human weapons will be developed.

Disguised as Duncan Idaho, Scytale visits a Fremen general named Farok, now an informant in the plot against Paul. Despite gaining immense wealth in the war to subjugate the universe, Farok misses the old Fremen ways and hates the changes Paul has brought to Arrakis. Farok describes his disillusionment with Paul as the Fremen messiah and encountering an ocean for the first time while campaigning on a distant planet, which Farok claims “healed [him] of the Jihad” (64).

Farok’s son—who lost his eyes in war when a stone burner, a kind of illegal atomic weapon, exploded—plays music to secretly implant data about the Fremen traitors and sandworms into Scytale’s subconscious via a technology called “distrans”; the knowledge is later recalled with a spoken command.

Farok describes Paul’s fortress and summons a woman essential to the plot. The woman, Lichna, is the daughter of the loyal Fremen warrior Otheym and addicted to a substance called semuta; Farok’s son gave her the semuta so she would overlook his blindness, which is reason for social exile in Fremen culture. Farok asks why Scytale needs Lichna for his plot. Scytale murders Farok and his son with poisoned darts, then transforms to look like Farok to gain Lichna’s trust, indicating he will soon murder her, too.

Alia senses that the Imperial Council meeting will go poorly. Alia was born fully conscious and prescient, having become a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother in utero when the Lady Jessica performed the ritual while pregnant. The ritual connects the new Reverend Mother to the memories of millennia of other Reverend Mothers. Paul is the only man who has ever survived the ritual, and so has access to both male and female memories. Still, Irulan fears that Edric’s prescience will not shield her from Alia.

Also in attendance are Korba the Qizara, the empire’s head priest, Irulan, Chani, and Stilgar, a powerful Fremen leader and ally, now Paul’s minister of state. Korba leads a call to prayer from a balcony for millions of pilgrims below after Paul declines to do so himself. Stilgar asks whether Paul will accept a treaty with the Spacing Guild regarding a secret haven for “defeated Great Houses” (72). Stilgar fears that they will attempt spice production at the secret location, but Alia wants to avoid further violence under the Atreides banner. Irulan suggests withholding spice as a negotiation tactic, but Chani counters that Paul would be blamed for the resulting collapse of space travel. Stilgar asks if Paul could identify a future that would lead to the location of the sanctuary. Paul admits the paradoxical nature of prescience; any attempt to discover the haven might result in its further concealment; a similar paradox protects the conspirators against him. Paul fears that Korba will use this fact to increase Paul’s religious mysticism.

Paul agrees to sign the treaty on the condition that CHOAM abandon their challenge to a new tax Paul has levied. CHOAM wants to establish a constitution, but Paul believes this will undermine his control, which he feels is necessary to maintaining humanity’s survival. Irulan brings up Paul’s lack of an heir, and Paul fantasizes about running away to Sietch Tabr to live in peace with Chani. Paul fears that any deviation from his current path will plunge humanity into catastrophe. Paul rejects Irulan as the mother of his heir on the grounds of her Bene Gesserit loyalties. Confirming that he cannot see guild steersmen in his prescience, Paul accepts the offer of a Spacing Guild ambassador on Arrakis.