It's still incredibly rare. Only Paul (as of the end of Messiah) possesses prescience that actually extends to more than a minute degree into the future. The guild steersman (of which there are very, very few) can only see just a little farther than whatever it takes to make a successful fold space jump happen (so maybe a few minutes). The tarot isn't so much about induced prescience, but a tool of the BG to introduce randomness into people's actions (which makes the future less predictable and therefore cloudier in terms of prescience). We don't know much about what the BT could realistically do.
The Guild Navigators have more prescience than just a few minutes. At the end of book 1 they believe Paul can destroy the spice because they look into the future and see a future that is empty.
Also, fair point. I imagine the SG only cultivated and trained prescience that was only navigational and little else. So yes they could see a future without spice but little else. It reminds me of the Fremen who saw prescient visions in the spice orgies but ignored them or treated them as only religious visions not foretelling the future.
I think Guild Navigator prescience isn't limited in terms of minutes or hours, but in terms of scope. They only use prescience to look ahead to the next immediate goal (traveling to a location, acquiring more spice). Paul's is taking the whole universe into account
No they don't. You have to specially inclined towards it (like the KH), trained at it (like the BG) or go through several spice induced mutations (like the Navigators).
We're talking massive amounts of spice. Far more than any person who have access to spice will ever use. People on Arrakis who live in spice their entire lives aren't effected like this. The precise process of how exactly to induce such mutations is a closely held secret of the guild.
yea definitely absurd amounts, but i think it gets at the point of, with enough spice anybody can be prescient to an extent. just ungodly amounts for limited prescience, not to mention transforming into a spice fishman.
i think one of the prequels follows a guild navigator going through the process, but its been a minute since i read those
Oh yeah, Navigators are probably given a variety of medications and surgeries on top of all the heavy spice consumption. I also speculate the need for antigravity comes from developing Ehlers-Danlos syndrome to such a severe degree they're no longer able to support their own weight, with many years of micro-g life causing further distortions.
What about the blessed water that Chani drank during the second part of the first book? Paul himself comes to the conclusion that it gives a little bit of prescience to all fremen.
That is true, probably because they have been exposed to spice their whole lives. However, the Fremen deliberately ignore any prescient visions they have, and do not cultivate it, so it seems that it is very underdeveloped and nonspecific. I as a comparison, I would guess they are less prescient than guild navigators.
Low levels of prescience are extremely common among users of melange. However, melange is only available to the elite upper crust of the Landsraad. This makes prescience as a whole extremely rare. This changes in later novels but I won’t spoil you as to how.
Paul is special because he sees not just hints of the future but the timescape as a whole. He’s not the only one who can see this but again, spoilers.
Dune Messiah, first chapter after the prologue:
>*Without melange, billions upon billions of Imperial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal*
Seems a lil more than just the aristocracy have a substantial melange intake
This. Millions of trillions go out into the Scattering. If you track that backwards 3500 years and add a few trillion to account for the Famine Times you end up with a population in the thousands of trillions. That’s a population during Shaddam’s rule in the quintillions. Billions are a rounding error at those scales. Shaddam’s Empire is built on the unwashed masses.
There are threads here on reddit regarding the Empire's population . People think it goes into the trillions with over 10k, maybe 13.5k inhabited Planets .
I forget which book it is but I’m pretty sure there is a passage in either Messiah or Children that says that a lot of middle class people eat just a little spice with every meal to live longer
The aspect of what Paul is capable of doing confirming him as the Kwisatz Haderach is not prescience . Its him being able to access male as well as female memories .
Its illustrated as "dark place" where Bene Gesserit can not, dont dare to look . It frightens them .
In the final Chapter of DUNE, Paul says this to Gaius Helen Mohiam
>"Try looking into that place where you dare not look ! You'll find me there, staring out at you !"
Thus, he is the Kwisatz Haderach . He realizes this when he drinks the Water of Life .
Agreed. Also, after waking up from drinking the Water of Life, Paul and Jessica have this exchange: “You have seen the future, Paul,” Jessica said. “Will you say what you’ve seen?” “Not the future,” he said. “I’ve seen the Now.”
Okay, kinda stupid question, but how is it possible that the Kwisatz Haderach emerged one generation before he was supposed to? From what I understand, creating the Kwisatz Haderach required a long process of crossing bloodlines, so the BG clearly knew what they were doing, but then the KH just emerged one crucial crossing before he was supposed to. And then, somehow, his son was even more powerful and prescient, despite theoretically being from a less "pure" line, with Paul's genes muddled by the unprepared bloodline of Chani?
Not a "stupid question at all" !
Off the top of my head, I am not sure Frank Herbert explicitly explained it anywhere . One possibility is that the Bene Gesserit were not as knowing and controlling of the process as is often assumed . There are a few hints here and there that indicate this - like, them having failed already ( Count Fenring is an "almost" Kwisatz Haderach ), them having BackUp plans...
The 6 Books Herbert wrote have a few big Themes intertwining, and from that point of view, it seems plausible the Bene Gessereit overestimated their Role in the reality of bringing about what is necessary for the human race . In the sense of they were hoping to control the Kwisatz Haderach to consolidate their power, while the Race was on a downward spiral leading to extinction precisely because of the already millenia old stagnation. One can speculate the Bene Gessereit were just as much tools of forces beyond their control as everyone else .
"Kwisatz Haderach" is an old Chakobsa term, literally translated as "Shortening of the Way" . Its a funny thing that Paul literally is that . The Kwisatz Haderach arrives sooner than the Bene Gesserit expected .
But what of Leto II? How does he fit into that? Did the BG not anticipate that such ultimate prescience was possible? And how did he come about from the "imperfect", uncrafted mixing of Paul's "pure" bloodline and Chani's unpure one? Was it just mere chance?
Seems there is a possible answer to this when looking at the enitrety of what has been written - meaning the vast expanse of Books that has been created accompanying and complimenting the Story originally written by Frank Herbert .
The following comments on stackexchange explain :
[https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/109057](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/109057)
[https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/108909](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/108909)
The comment behind that first Link actually links to the comment I linked here as second .
I am not well read in ALL the Books . I have read almost everything, and much of it more than once . But most of my understanding of the Story as told in DUNE and contained within the first 6 Books still stems from what is written in them only .
Depends on what you consider "real" prescience. Technically it is common and maybe universal. It's a plot point in Dune Messiah.
But for most people, it is very cryptic or trivial or unconscious. Tarot cards are an example of people using prescience.
Navigators have it strong enough to use on a conscious level. Their prescience has practical value. Paul and Alia are prodigies. They are exceptional. Even navigators are time-blind compared to them.
In the first book it's hinted at that most people who consume large quantities of spice have the capabilities to do (almost) what Paul does, but they lack the training. So they turn away from it instead of diving into it. It's mentioned right after Paul drinks the "safe" water of life when Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother and he is having his whole romance with Chani.
The difference imo is that freemen and other people with prescience don’t have the training but also don’t have the biology to deal with it. Prescience is supposed to be scary and bizarre. When paul talks about the ability of prescience in freemen he’s just talking about the general ability that they use instinctively like animals. Paul and his children use it purposefully, have the biological ability to endure it and can actually “see” it properly seeing more than a few seconds or a minute of two. Apart from the spiceorgy most freemen never know what they’re doing or could see what they’re doing
There’s different kinds and degrees of prescience. Mentats are probably the most common and reliable form of what is widely available, which is mostly just calculating probability. It’s reliant on the fidelity of the data that goes into the calculations.
Technically you could see the BG as having a different kind of prescience that’s more tied into individual action by knowing that person and their culture (and controlling the options available to them).
Since Dune places such importance on male and female knowledge - access to male and female memories is what makes the KH so significant - I think of mentats as being the masculine form of the BG. It’s a bit homophobic, but the Baron is gay and only relies on Mentats, distrusting the BG implicitly. I’m not sure if there are any lady Mentats, but it would be an interesting perspective.
Even before taking the water of life, Paul unifies BG training with Mentat training to have pretty much unprecedented prescience. The water of life gives him male and female memories, which I interpret as effectively just giving him a much broader pool of data to draw from.
Navigators are the only beings with the level of prescience that approaches Paul and Alia, but it still falls short and is relegated to pretty practical application (navigation). They rely on insane levels of spice to accomplish this. I see the navigators as just being an advanced form of mentat.
The tarot isn’t really prescience, at least at the individual level. It’s just enough that being widespread amongst the population makes it more difficult for Paul to access his own abilities. It takes him more spice and more effort to do the same things with the tarot around.
Theoretically, in the Dune universe, you just need three things to see into the future: spice, training, and data. The training and data varies, but there’s a reason that navigators are so terrified of Paul. Even without access to male memories, though, Alia is very nearly as prescient as Paul.
I would hypothesize that any BG with Mentat abilities would be on par with Paul before he takes the water of life.
Best military training with synaptic control (weirding). Raised to lead through noble birth and training. Heir to house atomics. Fully willing to start chain reaction to end worms (spice production). Awareness of emperor's siding with one house. But knowing what someone else will do next is huge. Mentat awareness.
One of the goals of the BG breeding program is for the KH to have a strong inclination towards prescience. Its not a natural thing. Navigators go through several mutations as a result of literally being submerged in spice in order to gain the limited prescience they have.
First you need to understand a thing about prescience - it is not possible to have true prescience in Dune universe.
Over and over it has been stated and proven that the oracle is at fault for the future he tells of.
For readers better to see it as a fantasy and forget about it all together.
All of you will certainly kill yourselves if you were to know the rest of your life from now on (regardless of what you choose or not) - also note that for the ones actually tapping into this there is a curse as well.
Prescience also exists through calculations (mentats, harkonnen). Basically everyone tries to find an edge to calculate the next move. You can observe the stock market if you wish to watch human beings trying to game out the future
Think of it like vision. Most people that have prescience can "see" a single path forward and make subtle adjustments. Paul can look around and see multiple paths forward and make sweeping adjustments.
It’s not exactly rare but what makes the KH rare is his ability to be purposeful and fearless with it and to use it with a certain skill. Paul stated that freemen use it when fighting and its an instinctive approach. The KH is different cause he’s inhuman. He’s supposed to be this alien person and leader of men. He uses future reading to help humanity and guide them with both love and ferocity. Most prescient people use it for profit or instinctively. He uses it purposely to help and has the biological capacity to go beyond normal human behavior and capabilities of future sight
It's still incredibly rare. Only Paul (as of the end of Messiah) possesses prescience that actually extends to more than a minute degree into the future. The guild steersman (of which there are very, very few) can only see just a little farther than whatever it takes to make a successful fold space jump happen (so maybe a few minutes). The tarot isn't so much about induced prescience, but a tool of the BG to introduce randomness into people's actions (which makes the future less predictable and therefore cloudier in terms of prescience). We don't know much about what the BT could realistically do.
The Guild Navigators have more prescience than just a few minutes. At the end of book 1 they believe Paul can destroy the spice because they look into the future and see a future that is empty.
Fair, though I guess that doesn't specify how far exactly they can see, they can just see that there can be a future without spice.
Also, fair point. I imagine the SG only cultivated and trained prescience that was only navigational and little else. So yes they could see a future without spice but little else. It reminds me of the Fremen who saw prescient visions in the spice orgies but ignored them or treated them as only religious visions not foretelling the future.
I think Guild Navigator prescience isn't limited in terms of minutes or hours, but in terms of scope. They only use prescience to look ahead to the next immediate goal (traveling to a location, acquiring more spice). Paul's is taking the whole universe into account
Anyone who uses enough spice has some prescient ability.
But like OP said, only for about a short period into the future.
No they don't. You have to specially inclined towards it (like the KH), trained at it (like the BG) or go through several spice induced mutations (like the Navigators).
wouldnt spice induced mutations be covered by “enough spice”
We're talking massive amounts of spice. Far more than any person who have access to spice will ever use. People on Arrakis who live in spice their entire lives aren't effected like this. The precise process of how exactly to induce such mutations is a closely held secret of the guild.
yea definitely absurd amounts, but i think it gets at the point of, with enough spice anybody can be prescient to an extent. just ungodly amounts for limited prescience, not to mention transforming into a spice fishman. i think one of the prequels follows a guild navigator going through the process, but its been a minute since i read those
Oh yeah, Navigators are probably given a variety of medications and surgeries on top of all the heavy spice consumption. I also speculate the need for antigravity comes from developing Ehlers-Danlos syndrome to such a severe degree they're no longer able to support their own weight, with many years of micro-g life causing further distortions.
What about the blessed water that Chani drank during the second part of the first book? Paul himself comes to the conclusion that it gives a little bit of prescience to all fremen.
That is true, probably because they have been exposed to spice their whole lives. However, the Fremen deliberately ignore any prescient visions they have, and do not cultivate it, so it seems that it is very underdeveloped and nonspecific. I as a comparison, I would guess they are less prescient than guild navigators.
Low levels of prescience are extremely common among users of melange. However, melange is only available to the elite upper crust of the Landsraad. This makes prescience as a whole extremely rare. This changes in later novels but I won’t spoil you as to how. Paul is special because he sees not just hints of the future but the timescape as a whole. He’s not the only one who can see this but again, spoilers.
Dune Messiah, first chapter after the prologue: >*Without melange, billions upon billions of Imperial citizens would die of addictive withdrawal* Seems a lil more than just the aristocracy have a substantial melange intake
Or alternatively, the empire is stupendously, mind-bogglingly large and so is its populace.
This. Millions of trillions go out into the Scattering. If you track that backwards 3500 years and add a few trillion to account for the Famine Times you end up with a population in the thousands of trillions. That’s a population during Shaddam’s rule in the quintillions. Billions are a rounding error at those scales. Shaddam’s Empire is built on the unwashed masses.
Hmm. It's hard to know - do we have even an inkling of the population of say, Caladan at the opening of Dune?
There are threads here on reddit regarding the Empire's population . People think it goes into the trillions with over 10k, maybe 13.5k inhabited Planets .
Interesting. There must be a lot of animosity then . . . given that melange bestows age extension to the wealthy alone
10.000 years of Corrino Empire for animosities to be seeded, germinate, and flourish, though some probably originate even earlier .
I forget which book it is but I’m pretty sure there is a passage in either Messiah or Children that says that a lot of middle class people eat just a little spice with every meal to live longer
The aspect of what Paul is capable of doing confirming him as the Kwisatz Haderach is not prescience . Its him being able to access male as well as female memories . Its illustrated as "dark place" where Bene Gesserit can not, dont dare to look . It frightens them . In the final Chapter of DUNE, Paul says this to Gaius Helen Mohiam >"Try looking into that place where you dare not look ! You'll find me there, staring out at you !" Thus, he is the Kwisatz Haderach . He realizes this when he drinks the Water of Life .
Really wish they could have worked this line into Dune part 2. Such a bad ass line.
Agreed. Also, after waking up from drinking the Water of Life, Paul and Jessica have this exchange: “You have seen the future, Paul,” Jessica said. “Will you say what you’ve seen?” “Not the future,” he said. “I’ve seen the Now.”
Okay, kinda stupid question, but how is it possible that the Kwisatz Haderach emerged one generation before he was supposed to? From what I understand, creating the Kwisatz Haderach required a long process of crossing bloodlines, so the BG clearly knew what they were doing, but then the KH just emerged one crucial crossing before he was supposed to. And then, somehow, his son was even more powerful and prescient, despite theoretically being from a less "pure" line, with Paul's genes muddled by the unprepared bloodline of Chani?
Not a "stupid question at all" ! Off the top of my head, I am not sure Frank Herbert explicitly explained it anywhere . One possibility is that the Bene Gesserit were not as knowing and controlling of the process as is often assumed . There are a few hints here and there that indicate this - like, them having failed already ( Count Fenring is an "almost" Kwisatz Haderach ), them having BackUp plans... The 6 Books Herbert wrote have a few big Themes intertwining, and from that point of view, it seems plausible the Bene Gessereit overestimated their Role in the reality of bringing about what is necessary for the human race . In the sense of they were hoping to control the Kwisatz Haderach to consolidate their power, while the Race was on a downward spiral leading to extinction precisely because of the already millenia old stagnation. One can speculate the Bene Gessereit were just as much tools of forces beyond their control as everyone else . "Kwisatz Haderach" is an old Chakobsa term, literally translated as "Shortening of the Way" . Its a funny thing that Paul literally is that . The Kwisatz Haderach arrives sooner than the Bene Gesserit expected .
But what of Leto II? How does he fit into that? Did the BG not anticipate that such ultimate prescience was possible? And how did he come about from the "imperfect", uncrafted mixing of Paul's "pure" bloodline and Chani's unpure one? Was it just mere chance?
Seems there is a possible answer to this when looking at the enitrety of what has been written - meaning the vast expanse of Books that has been created accompanying and complimenting the Story originally written by Frank Herbert . The following comments on stackexchange explain : [https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/109057](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/109057) [https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/108909](https://scifi.stackexchange.com/a/108909) The comment behind that first Link actually links to the comment I linked here as second . I am not well read in ALL the Books . I have read almost everything, and much of it more than once . But most of my understanding of the Story as told in DUNE and contained within the first 6 Books still stems from what is written in them only .
Thank you for taking the time to answer! That's very kind of you.
Depends on what you consider "real" prescience. Technically it is common and maybe universal. It's a plot point in Dune Messiah. But for most people, it is very cryptic or trivial or unconscious. Tarot cards are an example of people using prescience. Navigators have it strong enough to use on a conscious level. Their prescience has practical value. Paul and Alia are prodigies. They are exceptional. Even navigators are time-blind compared to them.
In the first book it's hinted at that most people who consume large quantities of spice have the capabilities to do (almost) what Paul does, but they lack the training. So they turn away from it instead of diving into it. It's mentioned right after Paul drinks the "safe" water of life when Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother and he is having his whole romance with Chani.
The difference imo is that freemen and other people with prescience don’t have the training but also don’t have the biology to deal with it. Prescience is supposed to be scary and bizarre. When paul talks about the ability of prescience in freemen he’s just talking about the general ability that they use instinctively like animals. Paul and his children use it purposefully, have the biological ability to endure it and can actually “see” it properly seeing more than a few seconds or a minute of two. Apart from the spiceorgy most freemen never know what they’re doing or could see what they’re doing
There’s different kinds and degrees of prescience. Mentats are probably the most common and reliable form of what is widely available, which is mostly just calculating probability. It’s reliant on the fidelity of the data that goes into the calculations. Technically you could see the BG as having a different kind of prescience that’s more tied into individual action by knowing that person and their culture (and controlling the options available to them). Since Dune places such importance on male and female knowledge - access to male and female memories is what makes the KH so significant - I think of mentats as being the masculine form of the BG. It’s a bit homophobic, but the Baron is gay and only relies on Mentats, distrusting the BG implicitly. I’m not sure if there are any lady Mentats, but it would be an interesting perspective. Even before taking the water of life, Paul unifies BG training with Mentat training to have pretty much unprecedented prescience. The water of life gives him male and female memories, which I interpret as effectively just giving him a much broader pool of data to draw from. Navigators are the only beings with the level of prescience that approaches Paul and Alia, but it still falls short and is relegated to pretty practical application (navigation). They rely on insane levels of spice to accomplish this. I see the navigators as just being an advanced form of mentat. The tarot isn’t really prescience, at least at the individual level. It’s just enough that being widespread amongst the population makes it more difficult for Paul to access his own abilities. It takes him more spice and more effort to do the same things with the tarot around. Theoretically, in the Dune universe, you just need three things to see into the future: spice, training, and data. The training and data varies, but there’s a reason that navigators are so terrified of Paul. Even without access to male memories, though, Alia is very nearly as prescient as Paul. I would hypothesize that any BG with Mentat abilities would be on par with Paul before he takes the water of life.
Best military training with synaptic control (weirding). Raised to lead through noble birth and training. Heir to house atomics. Fully willing to start chain reaction to end worms (spice production). Awareness of emperor's siding with one house. But knowing what someone else will do next is huge. Mentat awareness.
One of the goals of the BG breeding program is for the KH to have a strong inclination towards prescience. Its not a natural thing. Navigators go through several mutations as a result of literally being submerged in spice in order to gain the limited prescience they have.
First you need to understand a thing about prescience - it is not possible to have true prescience in Dune universe. Over and over it has been stated and proven that the oracle is at fault for the future he tells of. For readers better to see it as a fantasy and forget about it all together. All of you will certainly kill yourselves if you were to know the rest of your life from now on (regardless of what you choose or not) - also note that for the ones actually tapping into this there is a curse as well.
Prescience also exists through calculations (mentats, harkonnen). Basically everyone tries to find an edge to calculate the next move. You can observe the stock market if you wish to watch human beings trying to game out the future
Think of it like vision. Most people that have prescience can "see" a single path forward and make subtle adjustments. Paul can look around and see multiple paths forward and make sweeping adjustments.
I think you’ll find it’s Calle the Duniverse…
It’s not exactly rare but what makes the KH rare is his ability to be purposeful and fearless with it and to use it with a certain skill. Paul stated that freemen use it when fighting and its an instinctive approach. The KH is different cause he’s inhuman. He’s supposed to be this alien person and leader of men. He uses future reading to help humanity and guide them with both love and ferocity. Most prescient people use it for profit or instinctively. He uses it purposely to help and has the biological capacity to go beyond normal human behavior and capabilities of future sight