Golden path

The Golden Path is a plot element belonging to the science fiction saga Dune, by Frank Herbert. Developed mainly in the third and fourth books of the said saga, it continues to develop until the end of the saga.

Role in the saga

It acts as a plot thread that structures the entire saga. Leto II's vision of a humanity stagnant by the vision of her father Muad & # 39; Dib forces him to compress it and make it feel the oppression so that it reacts and expands throughout the universe. But after the expansion, danger looms, a forgotten Enemy who will face Humanity in Kralizec, the battle of the end of the universe.

Sons of Dune

In Children of Dune Leto II and Ghanima, the preborn children of Paul Atreides and Chani, have a vision that shows them the extinction of the human race, due to the confinement and little expansion of the Empire of the Known Universe. To avoid it, you have to build the Golden Path.

Once the sandtrout skin is accepted, Leto II's transformation into a human-sandworm hybrid begins. He looks for Muad & # 39; Dib, his father, in the desert and explains to him what he has done: & # 34; My skin is no longer my skin. & # 34; Paul Muad'Dib has also seen the need, but he has not been able to face the loss of his own humanity that the Golden Path claimed.

His new skin amplifies his movements, exerting superhuman strength, and makes him virtually invulnerable to any physical attack. Hybridization with the sandworm and participating in the melange cycle give him a millennial life expectancy, long enough for Leto II to guide humanity along the Golden Path.

God Emperor of Dune

For 3,500 years Leto II has established an empire in militarized peace, he has standardized customs, myths, and celebrations. His female warriors, the Fish-Speakers, crush any hint of resistance to their God-Emperor with fanatical valor. Leto, practically transformed into a gigantic sandworm, has assumed the divine figure of Shai-Hulud, the Worm that is God, the worms having been extinguished during the Arrakis ecological change project.

The Emperor's monopoly on melange, coupled with his irresistible military might, religious fanatics of their God keep all the old factions to a minimum, as well as the entire population of the Empire. Cultural manifestations decay in a stagnant empire, which remains without apparent changes century after century.

Since the union of his sister Ghanima and habit-breaker Harq al'Ada, Leto has run his own genetic program, searching for a quality in their offspring that will ensure that no prescient can return to life. freeze the future like his father did. And he succeeds in Siona, the daughter of his butler and distant nephew Moneo Atreides.

On Leto II's wedding day to Hwi Noree, Siona and the last of a long line of Duncan Idaho gholas that have accompanied the God Emperor during his millennial reign attack Leto and he plunges into the Idaho River. The sandtrout in its skin shed themselves in search of the water, starting the life cycle of the sandworms all over again. Arrakis will be desert again.

In his final agony, the God Emperor reveals to Duncan and Siona the consequences of his Golden Path. The Peace of Leto will be followed by major armed conflict, widespread Famine, and the collapse of the Empire. After that, the stagnant humanity will explode over the Universe looking for freedom. Siona is invisible to the prescient oracle, so her descendants and their actions cannot be predicted. Humanity will never fall into one hand again.

Heretics of Dune

Fifteen hundred years after the death of the Tyrant, Leto II, the people of the Scattering begin to return to the former Empire of a Million Worlds, the cradle of mankind. Among them come the Honored Matres, brutal imitations of the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers. Violent and combative, they come to the ancient empire to regroup and create a base on which to launch an attack on the Enemy that drove them out of the Scattering.

The Bene Gesserit receive the last legacies of Leto II: Sheeana, a descendant of Siona, with the incredible ability to communicate with the new descendant sandworms of Leto II, who according to her own words guard a "pearl of my conscience" inside of her. The worms and Sheena lead the sietch Tabr to the Bene Gesserit, where Leto has left them a message: Kralizec, the battle for the end of the Universe, is drawing near.

With Arrakis destroyed by the Honored Matres, no worm remains but the one carried off by the Bene Geserit. The control that Leto II's prescience could exert from the "pearls of consciousness" of the worms disappears with them.

Dune Chapterhouse

Mother Superior Darwi Odrade has a curious prescience that alerts her to everything that affects the survival of the Bene Gesserit. And throughout the novel she continually has visions of the dangerous Enemy that looms over them. Odrade's strategy is to integrate Honored Matres into the Sisterhood. To do this, she will use Murbella, the Honored Matre captured and trained in the Bene Gesserit ways, a powerful and deadly hybridization.

Dune Hunters and Dune Sandworms

In the continuation of the saga written by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, the nature of the Enemy that will confront Humanity around the New Brotherhood formed by Murbella with the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres after Odrade's death: Omnius and Erasmus, the overmind and robot who enslaved humanity and ultimately escaped after their destruction in the Butlerian Jihad.

The Matres accidentally found one of the new Synchronized Planets, in a parallel universe, and Omnius pursues them inexorably, after fifteen thousand years of preparation, with the largest fleet ever created, seeking the extermination of the human race. Kralizec, the battle of the end of the Universe predicted by Leto II has arrived. The existence of Humanity depends on its outcome.

Bibliographic reference

• Frank Herbert, Children of Dune. Editions Debolsillo: Barcelona, 2003. ISBN 978-84-9759-432-5
• Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune. Editions Debolsillo: Barcelona, 2003. ISBN 978-84-9759-748
• Frank Herbert, Herejes de Dune. Editions Debolsillo: Barcelona, 2003. ISBN 978-84-9759-731-9
• Frank Herbert, Dune Capitular House. Editions Debolsillo: Barcelona, 2003. ISBN 978-84-9759-770-8
• Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson Dune Hunters. Plaza & Janés, Barcelona, 2008. ISBN 978-84-01-33679-9