Golden Path
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The Golden Path is Leto II's strategy to prevent humanity's nearly inevitable destruction in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. The Golden Path is an important theme in the novels Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune.
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The terrible future
Through their prescience Paul Atreides and Leto II came to the grim realization that in most possible futures humanity would be destroyed. The threat from this future was so grave as to be nearly insurmountable. The Old Imperium was huge with populations in the mega-trillions; but no matter how large it was from our perspective, the Old Imperium was tiny and stagnant by the standards of the universe. Therein lies one of the lessons of Dune, “no matter how huge the space, if the size is fixed and does not grow, then humanity will stagnate.” Even the huge space that was the Old Imperium was not large enough to prevent humanity from dying out from its own stagnation.
It is obvious that the Golden Path’s first goal was to save humanity from some horrible force that invades and destroys it. Theories abound in fandom as to who or what that danger is.
- Some believe that the destruction would be a Bene Tleilaxu experiment that had gone haywire… or escaped their control.
- Alternatively, the destruction might be some sort of hunter-seeker - a machine created by the Ixians which broke free of their control. It seems the idea is more along terminator-style machines, rather than the small remotely-operated hunter-seekers seen in Dune and Heretics of Dune. Compare with golem.
- Others believe that it may just be an un-earthly intelligence, spawned by evolution on another world.
- The most recent set of theories involve the notion that invading force is comprised of thinking machines that fled humanity at the time of the Butlerian Jihad. These thinking machines fled to the farthest reaches of the universe to rebuild and advance themselves beyond the reach of humanity after the Butlerian Jihad. This last theory fits the model being used in the more recent sequels/prequels by other authors, defended by the truism: “humanity’s mistakes coming back to haunt them.” According to this belief, the Butlerian Jihad represents a "war against the machines" that never ended but merely went on a 15 millennia hiatus.
Paul Atreides and the Golden Path
Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides saw this terrible future; but was only able to make the first steps towards a future where humanity survived. He unleashed the Fremen on the universe spreading their genes across the universe; and saw to it that a son and daughter would survive him. But he was not willing to make the sacrifice that his son Leto II chose to make.
Leto II and the Golden Path
Paul Atreides had two children - Leto II and Ghanima - and Leto inherited his prophetic powers. Seeing his father's failure to make the changes needed to save humanity Leto II chose to sacrifice himself. His sacrifice created what we now call “The Golden Path”. In a way, he fulfilled the Bene Gesserit plan to save humanity… but NOT in the way they predicted or wished.
The stagnation of the Old Imperium was caused by its leash-like attachment to the energy world of Dune. Since the sandworms of Dune were un-transplantable, the citizens of the Old Imperium could not “dunify” many worlds into energy planets. The spice (during the times of the Old Imperium) was also impossible to synthesize. All things considered it can be dangerous to live in any universe where space travel depended on a substance that was also a narcotic. Indeed, no matter what the course, humanity was in peril.
Thus grew the plan of Leto II. By removing the spice from the Imperium and oppressing the people (oppression always feeds the desire for freedom) for long enough, he created a longing to be free of him. But to oppress the people long enough in order to create the "longing to be free" as well as rekindle human ingenuity, Leto II also created a need and desire for his very own godhead. Such a strong desire for a Kwisatz Haderach-styled ruler was counterproductive to his plans. To put it simply: Leto knew that he had to be the first, last and eternally ONLY human to rule with such power. The problem with that notion is this: once opened, this type of Pandora’s Box could rarely be shut.
Leto’s Golden Path took its shape by creating three great hybridizations.
Changing the worm
One of the great requirements of a person who wants to live many millennia is the need to find a form that would support this quest. Though grotesque and undoubtedly painful, Leto II found a way to combine his body with that of the sand trout… and grow into a sandworm. Slowly over the creeping of 3,500 years his body transformed into a hybrid of human and sandworm biology. The first of three great hybrids. The obvious benefit of this was his long lifespan. The “not so obvious” effect of this combination was the gift to the sandworm of human adaptability.
The fates of sandworms and humans had been tied together for millennia… and would thus be tied even closer. By killing off all of the original sandworms of Dune and keeping himself as the only one, Leto II was forcing all sandworms that would ever be, to be his descendants. Leto II always lamented his inability to have children… and thus he created his own descendants. Although imbuing the sandworm with more ganglia (nerve tissue) made them more cantankerous, Leto II also made them adaptable to new worlds and habitats. The sand trout could then be transplanted to other planets throughout the universe, just like it was shown in Heretics of Dune. The spice cycle could begin anew anywhere where there was ample water for the sand trout to grow in. Once the sand trout were at certain numbers and with ample dryness caused by the encysting of them beneath the surface - the sandworms would appear. And the spice cycle would begin.
During this time, Leto II took from the Bene Gesserit their prized breeding plan. Over the period of the 3,500 years of his life, he manipulated multiple mutations to breed into the Atreides (first and foremost) total invisibility to any all-seeing prescience. Thus, during the far-off future, no person, no matter how prescient, would ever be able to track down ALL humans and wipe them out. Some would escape… some would live. More than that—into the Atreides were bred greater nobility, honor, passion and other “wild talents”. These were wild talents that, when combined with the scattering and the Honoured Matres, would produce some of the great wealth of talents that would be needed in the distant future.
Taken on the surface each of these talents were enormous gifts to humanity, but considering the future that awaited humans, it is obvious how necessary they would become. Prescient invisibility, transplantable sandworms, passion for living, desire for freedom, and the added tools to move its people throughout the universe, were just peripheral blessings of the Golden Path.
Blending Atreides and Bene Gesserit
The second great hybridization that the God Emperor created was the most hidden one of them all: the blending of Atreides and Bene Gesserit. Whereas the Atreides were too small and feudal to rule humanity, the Bene Gesserit lacked a desire to get their hands dirty, or the passion to rule (which the Atreides, consequently, had). It may seem like a convenient choice based upon desirable bloodlines; but the reason why the God Emperor also included such nobility into his breeding scheme is so that one day in the future (during the conquest of the Old Imperium by the Honored Matres) the Bene Gesserit would all be children of the Atreides. We are presented with the greatest face of this in Mother Superior Darwi Odrade. Odrade - a female descendant of Siona, was the bearer of a name that was, itself, a descendant of the name “Atreides”. No more were the Bene Gesserit crafters and schemers who did their work behind the throne. No more were the Atreides guided by their passion for justice and the feudal nobility. That is why the God Emperor finally compels (in the caves on Rakis) the Bene Gesserit to act and take the sword by its handle. Where once there was a secret society (the Bene Gesserit) and a macho ruling family (the Atreides) there was born the noble, purpose-driven, proud, yet wizened Bene Gesserit Sisterhood whose members were all children of the Atreides.
Creation of the Fish Speakers
The last great hybrid that Leto II gave humanity came from the Fish Speakers. What was originally a desire to create a horde of fanatical warrior women to oppress humanity became one of Leto II’s greatest gifts to humanity. By flooding the scattering with his Fish Speaker warrior fanatics he was actively seeding the universe with nascent Honored Matres. The God Emperor could easily see that the Bene Gesserit would be the only hope of saving humanity. The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, however, was too slow to grow and did not cover enough space to be numerous enough to actively defend humanity. By Odrade’s accounts, the Honored Matres really were “good for them [the Bene Gesserit].” By seeding the universe with trillions and trillions of Honored Matres that would one day hybridize themselves and their wild talents with the Bene Gesserit, Leto II gifted the Bene Gesserit with enough numbers to finally “think big” and act upon those thoughts. In short- the Scattering was an enormous Bene Gesserit boot-camp, created to train new and talented sisters who would one day save humanity.
The other results of the rule of Leto II were present in the patterns of science in the Tleilaxu and the Ixians (both in the scattering and at home in the “Old Imperium”). By oppressing the Tleilaxu and the Ixians, Leto II drove their inventiveness. The main reason why it is doubtful that the "great enemy" would originate with the Tleilaxu or Ixians is that the God Emperor would have seen it, and simply destroyed the Ixians and Tleilaxu while he had the chance. But he didn’t. Leto II kept each people — Tleilaxu and Ixian — alive for a reason, they (and their resulting creations) actually helped save humanity. By his oppressiveness, Leto II, forced Ix and Tleilax to become inventive in ways that they never thought possible. The fruits of this oppression appeared in the Ixian navigation device and the Tleilaxu artificial spice. More than that, their people who were sent out into the scattering also invented and created, and the results of that were shown in Chapterhouse Dune: super face dancers, futars, the “secret” Honored Matre weapon.
Conclusion
Hybrids. Weapons. Tactics. People. Ideas. The theme of the books has always been the same: What does it mean to be human? By driving and creating the Golden Path, Leto II creates the greatest thing that is encompassed within the very essence of the meaning of life to a human: survival. "No matter what is said, no matter what I say- the Golden Path is simply that… survival. Nothing more, nothing less."