Dune Messiah picks up the story begun in Dune some twelve years after Paul conquered the Emperor’s forces and took the reins of power. During that time, the Jihad power, foreseen and dreaded by Paul, began and spread from world to world; by the time Dune Messiah opens, it still continues, though it is in its dying moments. Several results are quite important to the novel; however, in terms of the overall background, the one which may be most important—the mingling and revitalization of the gene pool throughout the Empire—is mentioned but not stressed. One result that does play an important role in this novel, of course, is the spread of a religion centered around Paul and, to a lesser extent, Alia; another is a general solidification of Paul’s position as Emperor. Negatively, there exists the destruction done to the Fremen way of life and to individual Fremen. Finally, there are a number of rebellions and conspiracies against Paul, engendered by his power, his cult, and the means by which they were attained and solidified; the most prominent of these is, quite naturally, the one involving the Princess Irulan, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Edric of the Space Guild, and Scytale of the Tleilaxu Face Dancers; between them, they represent most of the powerful elements in the old Empire. It is on these results of the Jihad which much of the action and interest of Dune Messiah centers.
The story in Dune Messiah is more scattered, less simple, and less action-oriented than that in Dune. In the first novel, although things happened to Paul and shaped him, he was nevertheless an active force who had a direct part in shaping the action and its direction; in this second novel, he seems to be playing a waiting game, allowing a number of factors to mature and come together before acting to bring about a foreseen culmination. Thus, a summary of events might be outlined in this way:
Representatives of the Space Guild (Edric), the Bene Gesserit (Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam), the Bene Tleilaxu (Scytale), and the Emperor’s household (Princess Irulan) meet to plot against Paul Muad’dib.
Chani tries to convince Paul to produce an heir with Irulan since she has not conceived again; Paul recalls a conversation earlier that day with Irulan on that same subject.
Scytale visits Farok to gain information; before he leaves, he kills Farok and his son.
At a council meeting, Paul decides to sign a treaty giving refuge to Great Houses in hiding and to accept an ambassador from the Space Guild.
The Space Guild ambassador (Edric) is presented at court; he presents Paul with a Bene Tleilaxu ghola with the features of Duncan Idaho.
Paul has the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam arrested from the Guild heighliner which brought Edric to Arrakis.
Irulan visits the Reverend Mother in her cell.
Edric again visits Paul.
Alia and the ghola view a dead body to find clues as to who it was and who killed her, and to talk at length during their return.
Paul has a dream of a falling moon, which he discusses with the ghola.
The Reverend Mother is brought before Paul so that he might bargain with her for Chani’s life, offering artificial insemination of Irulan in exchange (a long-forbidden thing).
Scytale visits Edric to arrange the next step in their plot.
Paul is summoned to Otheym’s by Scytale in the guise of Otheym’s daughter so that he might be given information about conspirators.
Paul walks through the city alone to meet his guide, watching the Evening Rite at Alia’s Fane on the way; he meets the guide, who takes him the rest of the way.
Otheym informs him of treachery and sends the dwarf Bijaz, who has been imprinted (mentally) with names, etc.; he waits to leave until his vision of the moment is completed in reality.
As Paul had foreseen, a stone burner destroys Otheym’s house, blinds Paul and others, and kills still others; he continues acting through his knowledge from his visions.
Alia presides over the trial of Korba, the head of the Qizarate (the religious arm of the Empire), for conspiracy, including the stealing of a sandworm and the use of the stone burner.
Hayt (the ghola) and Bijaz confront one another, Bijaz “keying” Hayt for the job he was made to do.
Hayt prevents Alia’s death from an overdose of melange.
Paul takes Chani and a large company of others to the desert, to Sietch Tabr.
Chani dies giving birth to twins.
Paul, by his actions, forces Hayt/Duncan Idaho to break through to reclaim his past as Idaho.
The moment when Paul’s vision ends arrives, and he is left totally blind.
Scytale comes into the room of birth to force Paul to bargain with him.
Paul’s son—just born—links with him telepathically, revealing to him the whole male line at the same time, and lends him his eyes.
With this borrowed vision, Paul kills Scytale by throwing a crysknife.
Following Fremen tradition, Paul walks alone into the desert.
This sequence of events is not as simple and straightforward as the sequence in Dune; in fact, although these events do appear in this order in the novel, and although they seem to follow one another chronologically, they seem to lack the kind of causal relationship that would make them a true story-sequence. In a sense, these events seem leading, for the most part, toward Paul’s death through the machinations of the conspirators introduced in the first section of the novel. However, the fact that Paul walks alone into the desert after killing Scytale indicates that the conspirators have failed, a failure which goes beyond not killing him, and that, therefore, this chronology must have other purposes than the apparent one. To look at these means moving from action and events into the areas of character and theme, into the details with which these events are filled out. Thus, from Paul’s perspective, these events represent bringing the forces with which his empire and his religion—and he, himself—must contend into an alignment which will permit a culmination of his career that will also consolidate what he has gained and change the direction of history. In this sense, the most important event in the novel, the event toward which Paul has been aiming, is not his death but rather the birth of his children. The significance of this will be discussed in more detail in the Critical Essay section, for it has much to do with the unity and continuity of Dune and Dune Messiah.
As the story summary indicates quite clearly, the major thematic concern of the novel lies in the political sphere. But while the story line emphasizes the political conspiracy against Paul, the novel as a whole brings many other elements to bear in its exploration of this theme. One of these elements, which is barely suggested in the story summary, involves the changes in the Fremen way of life brought about by the Jihad and by following Paul as their leader. One of the first of these results that is noticeable is the fact that many of the Fremen that we see are crippled in some way: Farok has lost an arm; his son is blind; Otheym’s daughter is a semuta addict; Otheym himself caught the splitting disease on Tarahell; in fact, the entire area of the city in which they live is composed of veterans of the Jihad, most of whom seem to be scarred in some way. Perhaps even more important than the physical scars, however, are the mental scars some of them carry. Farok is the primary example of this, although it is clear that he is not alone. He speaks of the nobility of his people in the past tense, feeling that now they have been degraded and cast out. He is bitter that his son has lost his eyes and that, consequently, no Fremen woman will have him. He is bitter about the number of the dead and maimed, blaming Muad’dib and doubting that he knows or cares about the number. He feels that the companionship and the closeness of mind and spirit of the sietch have been lost. He is bitter about his poverty even though he admits that it represents wealth he could not at one time even imagine; he feels he has lost the true wealth that was his in the sietch. He has been changed by his experiences in profound ways, one of the most important of which can be seen by the way that he holds his door open when Scytale arrives, allowing the moisture within to escape; the rapidity with which Paul is greening Arrakis and the overwhelming amounts of water seen on other planets have destroyed the vision and one of the basic values which held the Fremen society together before the influence of the Jihad. Because of all these things, he is willing to enter into a conspiracy against the Emperor, who was also a sietch mate, and to forsake the ties of the sietch; this extends even to helping smuggle a sandworm off Arrakis in an attempt to break Paul’s monopoly, an act that would earlier have been totally unthinkable. Farok, of course, is not the only Fremen who is unsatisfied but rather is a representative of many, for the conspiracy is spread throughout Fremen society and beyond it; consider, here, Irulan’s statement that many are looking backward with longing toward her father’s reign. In addition to these factors, the Fremen Naibs have, for the most part, gone soft. They seem to feel that they have been displaced in their positions of leadership among their people and, thus, lost. Some of them, of course, like Farok, have become a part of the conspiracy. Most of those who have not entered into it seem only to sit back and allow things to happen, without taking any leadership responsibilities. By the end of the novel, most of those involved in the conspiracy have been uncovered and dealt with. It is toward the remaining Fremen that Paul’s final gesture is aimed: By walking alone into the desert to give his water to Shai-hulud, he reaffirms the Fremen tradition and his bond with it, thus also reminding the Fremen of the way that gave them strength and purpose, as well as insuring their loyalty.
The motives of the others who are involved in the reaction against Paul’s empire are extremely mixed. Irulan, for example, becomes involved because she wishes to bear the child of the kwisatz haderach and because she feels the actions against her father quite strongly, although this is by far the lesser of the two forces motivating her. Even her desire to bear Paul’s child is a complex desire: She wants it because it would proclaim her place and remove the slight of being a wife in name only, because she is a Bene Gesserit who has been ordered to preserve the bloodline in a controlled way, because she would thus be able to be a formative figure in founding a new political dynasty, and, if her “conversion” at the end of the novel is any true indication, because she loves and admires Paul. Naturally enough, it is this child that the other conspirators offer her to bring her into the fold. The Space Guild, represented by Edric, obviously resents the control placed on them by Paul’s ability to destroy the spice; after all, before Paul came to power, the Guild could dictate its terms in any situation because they had a monopoly on travel between planets, as well as other devices, whereas Paul can now dictate his terms to them because he controls the spice they need so badly, not only for navigation but also for life itself. While Irulan represents a link with Paul’s household, Edric’s contribution to the conspiracy is the inability of one prescient to “see” another through his visions, thus hiding their meetings and many of their other activities. In a sense, vengeance and loss of power are also the motivations of the Bene Gesserit and especially of the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. Whereas they had previously been able to control the directions of the Empire and of the individual Great Houses, now they have been discredited and have no foothold in the Empire. They also resent Paul and Alia, at least partly because they cannot control them, although Reverend Mother Mohiam’s failure to admit the possibilities of Paul’s being the kwisatz haderach contributed heavily to this situation. In addition, they are trying to regain some measure of control through the children—that is, if Irulan bears a child of Paul’s, then the breeding line will be known, and, through her, they can direct the child; although they hesitate at artificial insemination, they seem to consider the possibility of using a Tleilaxu ghola of Paul for this purpose. In fact, should it become possible/necessary to use gholas, they seem interested in mating Paul with Alia to see what would result.
The motives of the Bene Tleilaxu are much more obscure than those of any other group reacting against the Empire of Paul Muad’dib. Mentioned only briefly in Dune, and their function never clearly delineated in either novel, they seem to be a guild of scientists whose science cuts across the boundaries of what we call the hard and the soft sciences. For example, they have produced artificial eyes, have perfected the technique of regrowing bodies from cells of the original (that is, in making a ghola such as that of Hayt/Duncan Idaho), and have worked in controlled and accelerated mutation to the point where they developed their own kwisatz haderach. However, in addition to these achievements in the hard sciences, they also seem to be particularly interested in psychology, for one of the reasons that they developed their kwisatz haderach was, apparently, to study his reactions and psychological processes; their interest in and manipulation of the ghola of Duncan Idaho reveals both an extensive knowledge of the human mind and a desire to know more. Their Face Dancers seem to have been another biological experiment which was turned into an excellent tool for the intrigues which seem to have been rampant throughout both the old and the new empires. Their role in the conspiracy seems to be largely that of an interested observer, using an opportunity to gain further knowledge of human psychology and of political systems in practice; whereas the other members of the group of four have something against Paul personally, only Scytale indicates compassion for him and some regret at what he is about to do. Not only is the Face Dancer an excellent tool, for he can enter many places unknown, but also he seems to be the prime mover of the entire plot; this point is not stressed, but it seems quite clear in our first introduction to him.
Although they have no representation in the meeting which opens the novel, the Qizarate, the priesthood of the religion focused around Paul, is also heavily involved in the conspiracy, as well as being responsible for a fair share of the unrest in the Empire. They are not so much against Paul as they are for gaining power for themselves; this is particularly true of Korba, the Panegyrist and a member of Paul’s Council. It is certainly not that they have lacked power; indeed, since Paul’s reign began, they have steadily increased their power as the Jihad spread the new religion from world to world. In addition, however, the religious and political arms of the Empire are inextricably interwoven. Not only is the Qizarate Panegyrist on the highest Council of the Empire, but by far the largest portion of the “civil service” jobs are filled by members of the religious order. Furthermore, the priesthood also serves as a spy system, presumably to inform the Emperor, but also to give information to the religious hierarchy. Apparently, having tasted power and seeing it increase rapidly, Korba and others close to him have acquired a desire for more. Another factor underlying the Qizarate’s involvement in the conspiracy seems to be the fact that Paul rather firmly limits what they can do in, and with, his name. Both he and Alia (who is the high priestess), for example, mock Korba’s pomposity about leading the pilgrims in prayer and his attempts to cast a religious coating over his spy system. Both ignore his advice and have as little as possible to do with religious duties; in this latter area, Alia must bear a greater portion of service than Paul, and she dislikes it intensely. Since the Qizarate, and Korba particularly, take themselves and their mission exceedingly seriously, these attitudes disturb them a great deal.
Thus, a large portion of the book is devoted to portraying the various stages and methods which these groups use to maneuver Paul into a position where they think he will be vulnerable and likely to satisfy their desires. Although Paul does not seem to be particularly concerned about the various facets of this conspiracy, many of his actions, direct and indirect, suggest that he is much more aware of them than his opponents seem to believe. For example, although he cannot “see” the actions of a Space Guildsman through his prescience, he can tell where one has been and what possible directions he will go. Although, because of the Guildsman’s cover, he cannot tell exactly what Irulan was doing on her trip to Wallach, both he and Chani know positively that secret decisions were made during it. Twice, Paul is able to penetrate the disguise of the Face Dancer. Even before he goes to Otheym’s house, he is aware that he will be blinded. He apparently knows why Chani has not conceived, for she does so as soon as a new diet is ordered for her. And he carefully brings the major conspirators along into the desert when Chani is to give birth. Not only is he aware of such details as these, but he is also aware of the pattern, or the multitude of possible patterns, of which they are only parts. While there are limitations on Paul’s prescient powers—he cannot “see” where Tuptile is, he expects Chani to bear him only one child, and he had not foreseen Bijaz when he visits Otheym’s—it is clear that he has chosen one of the patterns that the future could take and is following that pattern as closely as he possibly can, down to the point of not leaving Otheym’s until the proper words have been spoken. His success in following this pattern can be measured by his exact descriptions of the scene after the explosion or at the beginning of Korba’s trial.
There are a number of significant factors in his choice of this pattern of events which he is following so carefully. As early as the first indications in Dune of the role he is to play among the Fremen, Paul wishes that he could simply back out of the situation into which he has been thrust. However, he also realizes that this is not one of the real choices, that his entrance into the world of Arrakis has set in motion certain forces that not even his death could halt. His final decision to lead the Fremen against the Harkonnen and the Emperor and on into the Jihad, while the results would be shattering, is due to his vision that this is the least of the possible evils, that even greater destruction would follow from any of the other possible courses he might take. Nevertheless, though he is ruthless and direct when the need arises, he is fully aware of the destructiveness of his reign; he does not like what he must do, nor does he like what is being done in his name. Thus, since his early involvement with the Fremen, one of his strongest motivations seems to have been finding the best possible moment to withdraw from the situation, with death his only means of doing so. At the same time, however, he is also aware that his reign marks a turning point in human history. Although it is not clearly specified, it seems probable that this turn might be good, bad, or indifferent, depending on how various situations turn out. Another element which is not specified in Dune Messiah is the path which Paul would like to insure that the Empire will follow. It would seem, though, that the most important step in establishing this path is the birth of an heir, a child of Chani’s. It also seems important that the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilaxu, the Space Guild, and the Qizarate be rather firmly discredited and lose some of their power and sureness of themselves. It is necessary also that the power and belief of the Fremen be cemented into loyalty to the House of Atreides so that they will support Paul’s heirs. Finally, it is necessary for Paul to die when these things have been accomplished, or to accomplish them in dying. It is probable, of course, that his death in the Fremen way will not only firmly establish Fremen loyalty but also, through the religion, cement the loyalty and belief of many others. Given these factors and these desired results, much of the political action of the novel can be seen as maneuverings to bring these things to pass.
There are several other elements related to government interspersed throughout the novel. There are also the thematic threads of religion and of Paul’s development, which are quite prominent in Dune Messiah. However, since these things seem to have a direct bearing on the unity and continuity of Dune and Dune Messiah, they will be discussed in some detail in the Critical Essay section of this study.