Golden Path
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The Golden Path is Leto II's strategy to prevent humanity's 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.
Through prescience, Paul Atreides and Leto II foresaw that humanity would be destroyed if it remained confined within the known universe of the Imperium. Though the Imperium's population was many trillions, Leto II's rule proved that humanity was still confined within a space that could be controlled by a single interest. Although rarely addressed directly, it was often suggested that this lack of exploration and growth would cause the eventual destruction of humanity. There is a strong hint in the series that the "great enemy" that destroys humanity would be intelligent machines built by humans, other hints involve an actual alien civilization. The Dune universe books written by Frank Herbert all reflected that no such aliens had ever been encountered, though humans were haunted by the chance that it might happen someday.
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Leto II and the Golden Path
Paul's son, Leto II, inherited his father's prescient abilities; seeing his father's failure to make the changes needed to save humanity, Leto II chose to sacrifice himself. In devoting himself to the Golden Path, he gave up his right to a normal life, and his own humanity.
The stagnation of the Old Imperium was caused by its utter dependency on the spice, the only source of which was the planet Dune. Since it proved impossible to transplant the sandworms of Dune to other planets, the citizens of the Old Imperium could not "Duniform" (or "Dunify" but duniform is more accepted since it came from the word "terraform") other worlds into centres of spice production. The spice was also proved impossible to synthesize by artificial means during Imperial times. Due to this dependency on melange, it becomes increasingly apparent that the human race was in severe danger of stagnation and eventual extinction.
From the realization of this truth (through prescient visions), the Golden Path was born. By destroying spice production, and controlling the only remaining supply of the spice, Leto II ruled his Imperium with an iron fist. He was deliberately oppressive, engineering in humanity a longing for freedom and an end to absolute futures. Yet, in oppressing humanity to spur on this desire for freedom, as well as rekindling human ingenuity, Leto II also created a need and desire for his own godhead. Such a strong desire for a Kwisatz Haderach-style ruler was counterproductive to his plans; Leto has to destroy the human need for those like his father and himself. Leto knew that he had to be the first, last and only human to rule with such absolute power. The problem with that notion is that, once opened, this type of Pandora's Box can 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 sandtrout, 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 as 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 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; however, he did not. 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 (a substitute for living Navigators) 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.es:Senda de Oro