The Corrino Emperor, Shaddam IV, has come to fear the Atreides, due in part to the popularity of Duke Leto Atreides (Shaddam's cousin and the leader of House Atreides) with the noble houses of the Imperium, represented in the Landsraad assembly. In addition, the Duke and his talented lieutenants, Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck and Mentat-assassin Thufir Hawat, are making the fighting force of House Atreides equal in effectiveness to the dreaded Imperial Sardaukar, although they are considerably smaller in number.  The Emperor decides that House Atreides must be destroyed, but he cannot risk an overt attack on a single House. Instead, Shaddam uses the centuries-old feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen to disguise his assault, enlisting the brilliant and power-hungry Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in a plan to eliminate the man he fears.  The Atreides are forced to accept the lucrative fief of the desert planet Arrakis, also known as "Dune," replacing the Harkonnens. Dune is the only known source of the spice melange, the most valuable commodity in the universe: it is needed by the navigators of the Spacing Guild for interstellar travel, it is used by the secretive and powerful Bene Gesserit sisterhood to awaken the genetic memories of their ancestors, and it greatly extends the human lifespan and expands awareness. Without spice production, all interstellar activity would cease, and the Landsraad, the federation of Great Houses, would crumble.  Complicating the political intrigue is the fact that both Paul Atreides, the Duke's son, and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the Baron's nephew and heir, are essential parts of the Bene Gesserit's secret, centuries-old breeding program to create a prescient superhuman — and male equivalent to a Bene Gesserit — called the Kwisatz Haderach. The Bene Gesserit had planned to breed an Atreides daughter with Feyd-Rautha to unite the two bloodlines and produce their long-awaited prize. But instead of bearing a daughter as ordered, the Lady Jessica fulfilled her beloved Duke's wishes for a son and bore Paul. This was a tremendous setback for the breeding program, as the Bene Gesserit knew of the Emperor's plans to destroy House Atreides, putting their most valued bloodlines in great jeopardy, just as they were so close to reaching their goal. Further, there were signs that Paul might actually be the Kwisatz Haderach, born one generation before expected. (This may have been literary foreshadowing, in that Kwisatz Haderach means "Shortening of the Way".) The prospect of a rogue Kwisatz Haderach beyond Bene Gesserit control was terrifying to the Sisterhood.  The transfer of control of Arrakis creates another pretext for conflict between the Harkonnens and the Atreides and removes Duke Leto from his power base on his home world of Caladan. While they anticipate a trap, the Atreides are unable to withstand a devastating Harkonnen attack, supported by Imperial Sardaukar disguised as Harkonnen troops and aided by a traitor within House Atreides itself, the Suk doctor, Wellington Yueh.  Captured, Duke Leto dies in a failed attempt to assassinate the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen using a poison gas capsule planted in a fake tooth by Dr. Yueh, but Paul and Jessica escape into the deep desert. With Jessica's Bene Gesserit abilities and Paul's developing skills, they manage to join a band of native Fremen, ferocious fighters who ride the giant sandworms that dominate the desert planet. Paul emerges as the Kwisatz Haderach, and Jessica's knowledge of the secret religious myths of the Fremen, planted by the Bene Gesserit Missionaria Protectiva long ago, enable him to become acknowledged as the Lisan al-Gaib, the religious and political leader the Fremen have been waiting for. Paul unites millions of the Fremen into an unstoppable military force, including the Fedaykin.  Paul seizes control of Arrakis and the spice, defeating the Sardaukar legions Shaddam had brought to Arrakis and avenging his family in a duel to the death with Feyd-Rautha. He forces Shaddam to abdicate and becomes Emperor in his place, establishing an Atreides dynasty.

 

It depicts a group of Atreides soldiers trapped in a cave in the Shield Wall outside Arrakeen. One of the soldiers, a master story teller, recounts tales of Caladan, the ancestral homeworld of House Atreides. A group of Fremen warriors find the soldiers shortly after, and discover that the soldiers have all drowned - a fate that has never happened previously on the desert planet of Arrakis.

 

Twelve years after the events described in Dune, Paul Atreides rules as Emperor of the Known Universe, following a universal jihad he unleashed by accepting the role of Messiah to the Fremen. While Paul is the most powerful Emperor ever known, he is ironically powerless to stop the lethal religious excesses of the juggernaut he has created.  Although sixty billion people have perished, Paul's prescient visions indicate that this is far from the worst possible outcome for humanity. Motivated by this knowledge, Paul hopes to set humanity on a course that will not inevitably lead to stagnation and destruction, while at the same time acting as ruler of the Empire and focal point of the Fremen religion.  The situation is further complicated by the conspiracy of powerful interests who hope to reverse the events that brought House Atreides to the throne, including the remnants of the displaced House Corrino, the Bene Gesserit who have lost control of their Kwisatz Haderach, the Spacing Guild, now utterly beholden to Paul, and the Bene Tleilax. The Atreides dynasty is unstable because Paul has not produced an heir. Seeking to force Paul to sire a child with her, his consort the Princess Irulan has been secretly giving contraceptives to his beloved concubine, Chani. Paul is aware of this, but he has foreseen that the birth of his heir will bring Chani's death, and he does not want to lose her. Chani then conceives after switching to a traditional Fremen fertility diet, preventing Irulan from being able to tamper with her food.  The conspirators, including Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Guild Navigator Edric, the Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale and Irulan herself, give Paul a gift he cannot resist: a Tleilaxu-grown ghola of Duncan Idaho, his childhood teacher and friend, now called "Hayt". The conspirators hope the presence of Hayt will undermine Paul's ability to rule by forcing Paul to question himself and the empire he has created. Furthermore, Paul's acceptance of the gift weakens his support among the Fremen, who see the Tleilaxu and their tools as unclean.  Further complicating the situation is the physical maturity of Paul's powerful sister, Alia, who finds herself irresistibly attracted to Hayt/Duncan. Alia and Hayt investigate the appearance of a female corpse near the city; Hayt realizes that the fact that no-one has been reported missing implies a Tleilaxu plot in which the woman has been replaced by a Face Dancer. Hayt also takes this opportunity to steal a kiss from Alia. She is outraged, but Hayt just laughs that he took nothing more than she offered, a fact she admits to herself privately.  Paul Muad'dib demands to see Mohiam, who fears she will be killed, but instead discovers Paul wants to bargain with her: Paul offers to produce a child by artificial insemination in return for the survival of Chani and her child. Mohiam, desperate to regain the Atreides genes for the Bene Gesserit breeding program, would have to violate the Butlerian taboos against the use of machines. Furthermore, she realizes no child born in this way would be a candidate for the Imperial throne, and that the Bene Gesserit could never admit the existence of such a child without risking their position in the Empire. She decides that she must consult with the Mother School of the Bene Gesserit on Wallach IX.  Six weeks later Chani is seen by a medic, and discovers her pregnancy has become complicated because of the contraceptives introduced to her system. Realizing that only Irulan could be the perpetrator, Chani wishes to kill her but is prevented by Paul. She questions whether it is sensible for Paul to continue to spar with Hayt. Paul replies that the Tleilaxu have made him better than they could know, and that it may be possible to restore Hayt's memories as Duncan Idaho. Unknown to Paul, this is precisely the Tleilaxu plan; to restore Hayt's memories as Idaho, thus proving to Paul that they could clone and restore Chani to him after she dies in childbirth.  The daughter of Otheym, one of Paul's Fedaykin death commandos, asks Paul to visit her father in secret; while Paul realizes that the girl Lichna has been replaced by a Face Dancer, his prescient visions show that revealing this will lead to futures he wishes to avoid. Paul is forced to admit the Lichna duplicate after she asks to be taken into Paul's household, although he places her under guard; he then visits Otheym.  Otheym reveals evidence of a conspiracy against Muad'dib among the Fremen, some of whom are distrustful of following the Atreides, and gives Paul his little Tleilaxu servant Bijaz, who, like a recording machine, can remember faces, names, and details. Paul accepts reluctantly, seeing the strands of a Tleilaxu plot. As Paul's soldiers attack the conspirators, the Tleilaxu set off a stone burner, an atomic weapon that destroys the house and blinds Paul. Paul is able to continue in leadership by fixing his actions precisely in line with what his previous oracular visions showed him; by moving through his life in lockstep with his previous visions, he can see even the slightest details of the world around him. The disadvantage of this is his inability to change any part of his destiny so long as he wishes to appear sighted.  The unraveling of the conspiracy reveals that Korba, a former Fedaykin and now high priest of Paul's church, is among Paul's enemies. While Korba tries to deny this, persuading the Fremen Naibs of his innocence, Paul arrives to confront him directly and Korba is put into Stilgar's custody.  Hayt interrogates Bijaz but the little man, secretly a Tleilaxu Master, uses planted conditioning words and whistled tunes to control the ghola. He programs Hayt to offer Paul a bargain when Chani dies: Bijaz offers Chani's return as a ghola, and the hope that Duncan Idaho might be reawakened, in return for Paul sacrificing the throne and going into exile. Unknown to Hayt, this also activates a hidden compulsion that will force him to kill Paul given the appropriate circumstances. Hayt comes across Alia, who has overdosed herself with spice in the hope of enhancing her prophetic visions. Her peril provokes a fierce emotional response from Duncan, and Alia realizes that Duncan loves her; he admits the truth.  News is brought that Chani has died giving birth to two healthy children, whom Paul later names Leto II and Ghanima. Like their aunt Alia, they are pre-born (fully conscious with Kwisatz Haderach-like access to ancestral memories) due to in utero exposure to the spice. News of the birth is delivered to Paul and his reaction to it triggers the compulsions in Hayt's mind, and he attempts to kill Paul. Reacting against its own programming, Hayt's body remembers itself, and a new consciousness arises that is a mix of Duncan Idaho and Hayt, unconditioned by the Tleilaxu programming. Paul is unsurprised by this, having foreseen it.  Because Paul only foresaw the birth of a daughter (and not twins), his prophetic visions fail, rendering him totally blind. As he nears a crucial decision point in time, he is thrust into a deadly standoff. Scytale, disguised as Otheym's daughter, holds a knife to the necks of Paul's children. He offers to revive Chani as a ghola in return for Paul's abdication. Paul receives a prescient vision from the perspective of his newborn son, and is able to throw a dagger and kill Scytale.  With Paul's visions gone, he is now blind, and he chooses to walk into the desert in the Fremen tradition, winning the fealty of the Fremen for his children, who will inherit his mantle of Emperor. Paul leaves Alia as regent for the twins.  Duncan examines the irony that Paul and Chani's deaths enabled them to triumph against their enemies. Duncan realizes that Paul escaped deification, walking into the desert as a man, while guaranteeing Fremen support for the Atreides line. Stilgar interrupts Duncan to suggest he should go to a distraught Alia, and Duncan goes to comfort her. Before Idaho goes to comfort Alia, Stilgar reports that he has carried out Alia's orders to execute Reverend Mother Mohiam, the Navigator Edric, Korba, and "a few others." Because the key players of the conspiracy are now dead, Paul's children are left in a relatively safe situation. With Paul's family secure and his most trusted associates in power, the Empire and House Atreides appear to be in safe hands.

 

It is nine years since the Emperor Paul Muad'dib walked into the desert blind. The ecological transformation of Dune continues apace and some of the Fremen are even doing without stillsuits in the less arid climate. Fremen have started to move out of the Sietches and into the villages and cities. Millions of Fremen now, thanks to the Jihad, have experience of life off planet or out of the desert opening their minds to new possibilities, yet also causing them to forget the old ways. It is a time of great social change and economic growth on the new capital planet of the Imperium, as more and more pilgrims arrive each day to experience the planet of Muad'dib and Alia. The book opens with a meeting of the high council of the Imperial house. Those present — Alia, Duncan Idaho, Princess Irulan (who since the death of Paul, has taken the role of caregiver to the Atreides children) and Stilgar — lament the fact that they have lost the initiative in the political arena. Paul Atreides had been powerless to control the Jihad and had left only the shadow of his religious mantle. Now Alia and her council are even less capable of controlling it. They are finding themselves tightening their grip on politics and ritual, yet only losing more control.  The two young children of Paul, Leto II and Ghanima, are not normal nine year old children. Like Alia, they were forced into consciousness before birth and remember the lives and memories of all their ancestors. The children are very troubled because they have come to the conclusion that Alia has become possessed by one of her ancestors (become an 'Abomination'), and fear that a similar fate awaits them. They also realized that the quickening transformation of Dune will kill all the sandtrout and bring to an end the Giant Worms, and inevitably to the spice, a fact that only they and Alia know.  Leto has an additional fear as well: he has started to have dreams which he is coming to believe are prophetic, like his father had when he was a similar age. He fears being locked into an early prescient vision as he suspects happened to his father before him. He also has the added pressure that Alia is pushing him to enter into the spice trance, in order to unlock the door to prophetic visions, because she feels the need for such visions, in order to rule the empire, yet struggles to achieve them at all for herself.  Things have reached a heightened note of tension because Lady Jessica is coming to Arrakis to visit her grandchildren from her self-imposed retreat on Caladan. Alia fears this utterly because she has indeed become possessed by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and is sure that her mother will notice, despite her erroneous belief that no one has yet recognised the change in her. The Baron is leading her far away from the Atreides way of doing things, she has even taken a lover behind Duncan's back, a priest called Javid.  Out in the desert, a new religious figure has arisen among the Fremen, who preaches against the injustices of the religious government and the changes among the Fremen. He is called 'The Preacher', and some even believe he is actually Paul Atreides.  Meanwhile on Salusa Secundus, fallen House Corrino is plotting again for power. Princess Wensicia, younger sister of Irulan, rules in the name of her son, Farad'n. She has plans for her son to become Emperor, and has hatched a plot to assassinate the twins.  Jessica arrives on the planet already wary. She has been approached by the Bene Gesserit, and forced to recognise that she has been ignoring important duties. She makes her peace with the sisterhood, and is apparently welcomed back. With the warnings of the Sisterhood, she arrives back on Arrakis fearing that Alia and her grandchildren have fallen into abomination. At the landing field she meets Alia, and recognises straight away that for Alia, at least, this is true. Alia is actually relieved by this - the time of concealment is over.  A situation develops where everyone but Stilgar and Duncan Idaho have plans for the twins, but what no-one realizes is that the twins are pawns of no one, and have plans of their own.  Jessica arranges a meeting with Ghanima. She sees no signs of abomination on either of the twins, but Leto shows signs of concealing something so she excludes him from the meeting. Jessica and Ghanima meet truly as grandmother and granddaughter, and do not hide the love between them, straight away finding a common cause. Jessica learns the twins are aware Alia has fallen into abomination, and their speculation that undergoing the spice trance was Alia's fatal mistake. She quickly confirms that Ghanima is not possessed but still worries about Leto. Ghanima calms her fears on that score, but Ghanima admits she worries for him.  Jessica next talks to Leto. Their meeting is far more confrontational. Leto controls the path of the conversation. First he reveals to her his understanding of how she had been manipulated by the Bene Gesserit into coming to Arrakis through the conditioning of her training. Leto orders her to let herself be kidnapped.  Leto talks to Stilgar and shakes up his universe. First he shakes up Stilgar's presumptions about him, Leto, by pointing out his memories and experiences go back far further than Stilgar, and that he is most suited to be Emperor. He lets Stilgar know that he is starting to have dreams of prophecy. He tells Stilgar that in one future, he is killed at the spot they are talking. He orders Stilgar to flee with Ghanima into the desert if that happens. He also undermines Stilgar's support for Alia, pointing out the flaws in her thinking, the destructive place it will take the Empire and the Fremen, and the fact she is no longer his friend. He makes Stilgar realize that change is coming and that traditional thinking was not the absolute guide Stilgar had thought it was.  At Jessica's first reception with Alia, an assassination attempt is made on Jessica's life by minions of Alia/The Baron. Only with the help of old fedaykin companions of Paul is Jessica able to escape into the desert. A rebellion breaks out among the Fremen inspired by this latest injustice, a rebellion made all the more dangerous and legitimate because the mother of Muad'dib supports it and so counterweighs Alia's own religious mantle. Jessica presses for Alia to be tested for possession.  At this time the twins choose to go out into the desert during the night. They do this even though they are aware that an attack will be made on their lives, prewarned by a vision of Leto's. The twins are attacked by two Laza Tigers, but they manage to kill the tigers, despite an injury to Ghanima. They then institute their own plan; Ghanima uses a hypnotic technique to convince herself that her brother was killed by the tigers, and goes back to Sietch Tabr grief stricken. As a beneficial side effect of this hypnotic technique she finds that it gives immunity from the voices within.  Meanwhile Farad'n has been told about the assassination attempt on Leto and Ghanima. He is shocked, not so much at the attempt, but at the clumsiness of it. But now he realizes the stakes involved.  Duncan meanwhile is aware that Alia is cuckolding him with Javid, which he naturally enough finds heartbreaking, but he is utterly distraught with the realization that Alia is suffering from possession. He comes to realize that Alia is possessed when she suggests to him to get rid of Jessica. He realizes that on top of the fact that it is not the sort of behaviour an Atreides indulges in, that if she was in contact with her mother within her mind she would not even consider this, so obviously she is prevented from this. He concludes that she is possessed. Alia implies to Duncan she would like her mother to disappear. Duncan offers to make it happen, and Alia 'reluctantly' agrees.  Duncan does make Jessica disappear but not as Alia expects. Duncan 'kidnaps' Jessica and takes her to Salusa Secundus, where she is to meet an interesting pupil. Jessica, unsure of Duncan's motives, asks who he serves. He says the Preacher. She asks if it is her son. He answers 'I wish I knew.'  Duncan and Jessica arrive on Salusa. Farad'n informs Jessica with some compassion that her grandson has been killed, though her granddaughter survived. The Bene Gesserit have formally protested to the Landsraad concerning the Corrino assassination attempt. Farad'n uses the situation to force his formal confirmation of power from his mother in front of witnesses. Jessica and Farad'n make a bargain. Jessica will announce that she has come to Salusa of her own free will. Farad'n will send his mother off into exile. Jessica will train Farad'n in the ways of the Bene Gesserit. The Bene Gesserit promise Farad'n the throne with Ghanima as his mate. Duncan attempts to commit suicide when he hears that Alia has offered herself as wife to Farad'n, an offer Farad'n was not foolish enough to accept.  Alia dresses as a commoner and goes to witness a speech by the Preacher in order to determine whether or not he is in fact Paul, her brother. Partway through the speech, the Preacher directs himself at Alia, seeing through her disguise, and eventually whispers in her ear that she is his sister. Alia is momentarily paralyzed by the revelation while the crowd disperses.  Duncan and Jessica talk. Duncan Idaho formally withdraws from Atreides service. He insults Jessica and advises Farad'n that he should send Jessica back to the Bene Gesserit.  Leto knew that in past centuries there was once a renegade tribe of Fremen called the Iduali or "Water Insects" who lived at a place called Jacurutu, also Fondak. He discovered there was a hidden village, or sietch, close to the site of old Jacurutu called Shuloch, which was inhabited by the same Iduali tribe. The Iduali, centuries before, killed other Fremen to take their water. In retaliation the Fremen of Dune massacred the Iduali renegades and declared their sietch taboo, but the surviving Iduali still secretly lived there. Jacurutu/Fondak/Shuloch was in most people's minds just a legend, and it thus an ideal hiding place. Leto thinks, rightly, that when his father was blinded by a stone burner and went off into the desert to die, that if anyone took him in it had to have been men of Jacurutu. Leto went to Jacurutu to seek asylum as well as his father.  Leto finds Jacurutu, but as he tries to infiltrate the camp he is captured. When he wakes up, he discovers that he has been captured by Gurney Halleck and a certain Namri. They tell him he has come to school. He is forcibly injected with Spice Essence, and so undergoes the Spice Trance. Gurney thinks it is on Jessica's instructions but it is really Alia's.  Leto goes through the transformatory experience. Leto experiences fascinating and overwhelming oracular visions of possible futures. He nearly loses his mind, but in the end he manages to get through it. In all these futures but one, humanity goes extinct. This future is the one he has deemed the Golden Path.  In his vision of the Golden Path, he sees the way out of his dilemma. He does this by seeking allies within the ancestors for the future, principally an old ruler from the distant past named Harum. These allies within join with him in order to make the Golden Path happen. After his experience he is tested by Namri, and survives the first test. Before they can test him again, he escapes into the desert. When they discover Leto gone, Namri and Gurney argue. Namri brags to Gurney that he has been serving Alia, not Jessica as he thought, and attacks him. This was a serious mistake: Gurney kills him and easily escapes from Jacurutu.  Alia and Duncan meet up again. Alia is shocked to learn her mother is not dead and is indeed training Farad'n. She is not aware that this was deliberate 'treachery' on Duncan's part, instead she thinks it is his innocence, that led him to take her literally. However, Alia/The Baron decides to arrange an accident for Duncan, seeing him as too dangerous. Duncan, as a mentat, sees through her clumsy plot, pretends to agree with her plans, and then escapes in a thopter.  Leto's escape is not a complete one. He discovers that Namri had cut the heel pumps in his stillsuit and he has lost half his water. So he goes to Shuloch on his own terms. He meets a party of the men of Jucurutu/Shuloch, and through subterfuge gets Muriz, the leader, to offer him hospitality rights.  Leto discovers that these Jacurutu Fremen are trapping Giant Worms for sale and transfer off world. This presents him with the opportunity to make his vision real. Leto sacrifices his humanity and, for the sake of the survival of the human race, chooses to accept the body of a sandworm. He delves into a pool of sandtrout, which form a living skin around him. He then explores the desert with his new, near-invulnerable body with which he runs through the desert at tremendous speed and possesses the strength of many men. Leto is no longer fully human, and his powers have become superhuman.  Leto travels through the desert until he comes across the Preacher. He puts himself across the path of the worm which the Preacher and his guide are travelling on. Despite the guide's urging, the giant worm refuses to ride over Leto, recognising the sandtrout on Leto's body. Leto greets his father. It is a terrible moment for Paul Atreides, facing a son who had the bravery to do what he would not.  Stilgar has been maintaining his neutrality between Alia and the rebels. But Duncan Idaho deliberately provokes Stilgar into a rage by killing Javid, and then insulting Stilgar. The maddened Stilgar kills him. Stilgar immediately recognizes Idaho's plan. By killing him, Stilgar has no choice but to become a rebel to escape the vengeance which Alia would be forced to display for the public murder of her husband. By his actions, Idaho forced Stilgar to flee, taking Ghanima away from Alia's reach.  Alia hears of Duncan's death. She does the expected Fremen thing and orders her forces to find Stilgar and kill him. After doing this, and much to the internal Baron's surprise she grieves for Duncan, and for a moment returns to being just Alia.  While conflict continues between the rebels and the loyalists and as Stilgar flees from hiding place to hiding place, Leto spends his time moving through the desert wrecking the ecological transformation of Arrakis by destroying the reservoirs (qanats) that were being used to feed it. He is seen as a desert demon. Leto shows up yet again at Jacurutu and kills any Jacurutu men who opposed him, and the rest surrendered. Jacurutu accepts his orders with religious awe: he wears the skin of Shai-Hulud. Among his orders, Leto tells Jacurutu to plant an oasis garden, as he planned to settle down and live there.  After long conflict, Alia manages to recapture Ghanima through treachery. She offers Ghanima as bride to Farad'n. Ghanima agrees to this wedding, but only so she can get close enough to Farad'n, who, she believes, had her brother assassinated, to kill him. Farad'n arrives on Dune for the ceremony.  Leto makes his move. He goes to Arakeen as The Preacher's guide. Paul as the Preacher makes a virulent speech against Alia, which provokes a priest to kill him in front of the eyes of Alia, Farad'n and Jessica. At this point Leto arrives with Ghanima, to everyone's shock. He says the keywords to awaken Ghanima's secret memories. She asks him if the plan worked, and he says "well enough." Alia orders the guards to seize him, but he throws them aside, and they are too scared to enter the room. Leto advances on Alia, and the twins offer her their help conquering her inner lives, as they have. But Alia fragments totally, and different voices in different languages pouring out of her. Leto realizes that the Baron's hold over her is too strong, and provides two options: to the Baron, a Trial of Possession, an ancient ritual that would guarantee the Baron's undoing; and to Alia, the open window, high above the temple steps. As a helpless Jessica looks on, Alia regains control of her body long enough to leap out the window to her death.  Leto makes himself Emperor. He uses his new near-invulnerable body to establish himself as undisputed Emperor, scaring all the Fremen naibs into submission. He ingests poisons, lifts heavy weights, and survives wounds from blades in order to prove this power. In the end all the naibs come to Arakeen to surrender leadership to him.  Leto reveals the Golden Path to Farad'n, whom Leto renames "Harq al-Ada" ("Breaker of Habit"). Farad'n accepts a post as Royal Scribe, and gives Leto his legions of Sardaukar in their agreement that Farad'n will be the father of Ghanima's children, and that Leto will thus take over the Bene Gesserit breeding program. The seemingly immortal and omnipotent Leto is left as Emperor of the Known Universe, with Ghanima at his side.