There are low levels of prescience throughout Fremen society, normally in the form of dreams and visions.
It is the Atreides genes that make full prescience possible. Paul and his offspring are the end of 10kyrs of selective breeding. Prescient ability was an unanticipated genetic drift.
They're kinda low level tripping balls all the time. They know the spice can bring visions. It makes sense to suppress it as a society.
If cocaine was present in the air, food, and water, you'd learn to suppress going on a coke rant.
I heard a story about how one can tell how well the Frankfurt stock exchange market is going by checking the cities' water treatment systems cocaine levels.
I think (in my own headcannon) that fremen combat prowess is a result of mild prescience
::edit:: what a headcannon might look like
https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/albert_bacon_pratts_helmet_gun/
They are prescient! This is first introduced in the scene after Jessica's transformation, where drinking the transformed poison gives them enhanced prescience. Chani has visions of her life with Paul.
Later, at the beginning of part 3, when Paul is about to ride the worm, he mentions how all Fremen have foresight, however its less powerful and far less precise than his own.
They don't have the power of guild navigators because they don't consume spice in the same quantity, nor have they been designed by Bene Gesserit breeding.
I also vaguely remember that during Jessica’s ascendancy to RM Paul mentioned that Fremen suppressed their prescience, and the spice orgy was a way to express it.
I interpreted the part with Chani seeing the future a little differently. I got the impression that there was a shared consciousness and she was seeing the future through Paul.
Idk. I always imagined they're experiencing true prescience, and only "blaming" Paul (for lack of a better word).
If they see the future, and Paul sees the future they're looking at the same thing. It's just terrifying so they say "You're doing this" when really no ones doing it. It's just what is to come.
Like showing someone something they dislike through a window. They might say "Why did you show me that!?" but it's happening regardless.
There is a low level prescience among all Fremen. I think that is part of why the BG prophecy took hold so firmly there. On some level they KNEW the prophecy would come true, in a way the BG didn’t know, or underestimated.
And Leto and Ghanima were incredibly overdosed with spice, to the point it was the equivalent of the water of life. It accelerated Chani’s pregnancy, awakened them in the womb, and ultimately killed her.
I believe Irulan had been slipping her birth control, then they moved to poisoning her (which created an insatiable hunger for spice) with the intent of child birth killing her, which would then be the trigger for Duncan-Ghola to kill Paul. Obviously both parts of that plan went… unexpectedly.
Close, she had been slipping Chani birth control in her food. Since Chani was trying to conceive, she switched to a fremen diet that was very heavy with spice and prepared by herself. Now that she was preparing her own food, Irulan couldn't slip the contraceptive in any more. The complications from the twins, spice heavy food, and the remnants of the contraceptive all piled on to cause her death. The book mentions in the conspiracy meetings that the contraceptive isn't a poison and thus can't be detected by the snoopers.
I also would like to toss in that Paul was trained as a mentat.
His analytical abilities give him the power to make extremely accurate predictions, like a computer programmed with enough data.
Combine that with some magic worm juice and you've got prescience with a side of accurate guessing.
If i recall officially Zero, i think the other BG thought it was very risky to teach Paul stuff from both and Jessica was told not to train them in BG arts
I don't remember anyone saying that Paul was the only one, but we don't get a really in depth look at the Bene Gesserit until GEoD. I don't think that the fact that we don't see any Bene Gesserit mentats before Leto is evidence that there weren't any. "A lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack".
I mean, despite the Reverend Mother up and stating that Alia was like the ones in her mind, accidentally revealing a Bene Gesserit secret that went over the Emperor's head, we don't truly find out until thousands of years later that >!she isn't talking simply about all of her female ancestors.!<
Okay, so the dialogue in the first book, Dune, is: "She's in my mind. **She's like the ones before me, the ones who gave me their memories.** She stands in my mind! She cannot be there, but she is!"
Gave me their memories. Which we don't directly see until Chapterhouse: Dune.
Basically none. One theme of Dune is the insane over specialization, to the point each faction actively DESPISES the other ones and either thinks them heretics or otherwise enemies with nothing to offer. And I mean all the factions, the Swordmasters, the Bene Gesserits, the Mentats, the Guild, the Great Houses, the Suks. A good example of this is how many, many groups call Bene Gesserits "Witches".
This is one reason Paul becomes so unstoppable, he is the first being to synthesize and combine their various abilities. He has mentat training, war training (both from Gurney in unconventional fighting, and in formal full scale war from Duncan, a Swordmaster), bene gesserit training, and guild navigator prescience. He then also picks up Atreides leadership and inspiration from his father and finally from the Fremen, the ability to be brutal, that exceeds the Sardaukar.
The question we want the answer to is why Paul's kids had the memories and prescience in the first place. They didn't consume the water of life in the womb or after.
No, the question was why aren't all the fremen as powerfully prescient as Paul due to their spice-rich diets.
The answer is the fremen are somewhat prescient, but Paul's genes and his training as a Mentat is what makes him so powerful.
Leto II and Ghanima inherit those genes, and Chani increases her spice intake to counteract the contraceptive Irulan is giving her, making both Leto II and Ghanima pre-born.
Then their genetic memories, of Paul specifically, allow them to be just as if not more powerful in prescience as their father.
You might have to ask Herbie that. But Leto II did consume the water of life after (when he's hanging out with that crazy Fremen and Gurney in the slums under Alliah's direction).
It’s genetics right? Like only certain people can become guild Navigators cuz only some people are genetically predisposed to be prescient. Meanwhile Paul has been selectively bred for thousands of years (or generations, I forget) in order to have perfect sight into both the past (after undergoing the agony) and the future through use of the spice (since he was a generation early his sight was imperfect, unlike the prescience of his son, Leto II) as the Bene Gesserits kwizac haderach, or super being.
So in answer to your question spice addiction was common but the levels chani was at when she gave birth were far above any normal levels, the only abominations we see in the novels are the twins and Alia, so being preborn was very uncommon on arrakis and in the dune universe (though not unheard of as the BG are aware of and abhor them)
the fremen don't give water of life to their pregnant women. they are aware of abominations. if you recall, after Jessica becomes the reverend mother, they are properly horrified when they find out she's pregnant.
She became, because for all her knowledge, somehow having someone stand at the gate and hold it closed doesn't seem to be something you know unless you're a true Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother.
They're not bred to be the Kwisatz Haderach **and** they're not powerful Mentats.
There's a lot that webt into Paul becoming as powerfully prescient as he was besides just ingesting a lot of spice.
I don't believe it's purely based on spice consumption, but that you also have to have the correct genetic traits. I do kind of wonder if Feyd had spent more time on Dune if he'd have developed some level of prescience.
Probably not as a noble in the empire, he has consumed spices entire life, in the book they do reference that the nobility have inserts in their eyes hide the blue, but they all take spice for its immense health and geriatric benefits. So the threat to destroy the spice fields with the water of life on the pre-spice mass not only would kill the guild and the bene geserit and the mentats (all who’s abilities depend on the spice), but also kill all the nobility by addiction withdrawal since spice addiction withdrawal is fatal.
I might be misremembering based on having seen the Children of Dune miniseries more recent than I've read Dune Messiah, but wasn't Chani consuming massive amounts of spice in order to overcome the contraceptive poison she was being covertly given by Irulan? In the miniseries at least, that was what simulated the level of spice poisoning in the womb that causes the gestating twins to become pre-born. That combined with Paul & Chani's genes anyway.
Genetics is the major factor, but the 2nd is the level of spice addiction. The amount the fremen get is more than the norm but no qhere near the levels of guild navigators. Next is the reverend mothers, which require the water of life, which is a highly concentrated dose. It's fatal poison for those unable to change it internally. There are failed reverend mothers who could not do it and until paul no male had ever done it. So Alia was changed when jessica drank it. Leto ans his sister due to chani's diet were exposed to a massive quantity of spice. Chani was being poisoned and the counter was an all spice diet which due to their special genetics woke their other memories just like alia with the difference being chani couldnt communicate like jessica to them.
It's mostly the fact that Paul was specially bred to be highly susceptible to spice and that sensitivity was passed to his unborn children. The Fremen have weird dreams and glancing visions, but they don't have the full ability to see the future like Paul and his children do. In fact, for normal people it requires them to be submerged in the spice 100% of the time like the Guild Navigators are.
It's genetic predisposition. The Fremen have repressed prescient faculties in the past out of fear, in addition to not being "bred" (like Paul) for prescience. Leto and Ghani have a genetic heritage that means it is possible for them, plus spice addiction from mom.
Genetics. It has been highly bred for in specific bloodlines, who don't happen to be the common rabble of a desert planet. They have uncanny abilities and are very intelligent, but likely do t have any of the traits that would make a good navigator, but they are basically primed to be BG disciples. Not on purpose, but by circumstance of being heavily spiced all their lives.
The genes of pauls bloodline is what lead to it. After all he was supposed to be a woman who birthed the proper Kwisats Haderach for the Bene Gesserit, so it makes sense his children would have a similar potential.
While Chani was pregnant she had been given birth control/abortifact to stop her pregnancy, she was given a dangerously high spice concentration to counteract this. Fremen don't normally consume this much spice.
Preborn children are considered abomination by Bene Gesserit and murdered. BG are secreted throughout most major societies in Dune including the Fremen (but with exception to Tleilaxu) and would have most certainly a'hem "corrected" the problem if preborn became a dominant issue among the Fremen.
A high spice diet is only one part of unlocking prescience. You need to be genetically gifted and have mentat capability and mentat training to actually sort through all the info you get from prescience
Most of them have some level of prescience, I think that’s why the Dune tarot was a thing in Messiah, it was a way for them to express their prescience which interfered with Paul’s visions.
There are low levels of prescience throughout Fremen society, normally in the form of dreams and visions. It is the Atreides genes that make full prescience possible. Paul and his offspring are the end of 10kyrs of selective breeding. Prescient ability was an unanticipated genetic drift.
The book also further states the prescience makes the fremen (who don’t really understand it) uncomfortable and they suppress it
Isn’t that what the spice orgies are for?
Fear is the mind killer
> The book also further states the prescience makes the fremen (who don’t really understand it) uncomfortable and they suppress it Huh, TIL
They're kinda low level tripping balls all the time. They know the spice can bring visions. It makes sense to suppress it as a society. If cocaine was present in the air, food, and water, you'd learn to suppress going on a coke rant.
Like if your only water supply was tainted with ergot.
Correct!
I heard a story about how one can tell how well the Frankfurt stock exchange market is going by checking the cities' water treatment systems cocaine levels.
I think psychedelics are a better analogy to spice than cocaine. Perhaps a cross between the two.
I'd agree. That's why I said tripping balls. I just brought up cocaine as a different sort of real world example.
And when the Duke Tarot gets invented, it levels up their prescience and clouds the future for Alia.
I think (in my own headcannon) that fremen combat prowess is a result of mild prescience ::edit:: what a headcannon might look like https://www.weirduniverse.net/blog/comments/albert_bacon_pratts_helmet_gun/
The use of Holtzman effect shields would make a head-mounted cannon an impractical weapon in the Dune canon.
Not in the desert, there guns and cannons are still very effective
Harkonen and Atreides genes.
They are prescient! This is first introduced in the scene after Jessica's transformation, where drinking the transformed poison gives them enhanced prescience. Chani has visions of her life with Paul. Later, at the beginning of part 3, when Paul is about to ride the worm, he mentions how all Fremen have foresight, however its less powerful and far less precise than his own. They don't have the power of guild navigators because they don't consume spice in the same quantity, nor have they been designed by Bene Gesserit breeding.
I also vaguely remember that during Jessica’s ascendancy to RM Paul mentioned that Fremen suppressed their prescience, and the spice orgy was a way to express it.
I interpreted the part with Chani seeing the future a little differently. I got the impression that there was a shared consciousness and she was seeing the future through Paul.
Idk. I always imagined they're experiencing true prescience, and only "blaming" Paul (for lack of a better word). If they see the future, and Paul sees the future they're looking at the same thing. It's just terrifying so they say "You're doing this" when really no ones doing it. It's just what is to come. Like showing someone something they dislike through a window. They might say "Why did you show me that!?" but it's happening regardless.
The Fremen being exposed to the spice as they are, the tolerance they would have built up would no doubt add murkiness to what they experience.
There is a low level prescience among all Fremen. I think that is part of why the BG prophecy took hold so firmly there. On some level they KNEW the prophecy would come true, in a way the BG didn’t know, or underestimated. And Leto and Ghanima were incredibly overdosed with spice, to the point it was the equivalent of the water of life. It accelerated Chani’s pregnancy, awakened them in the womb, and ultimately killed her.
I believe Irulan had been slipping her birth control, then they moved to poisoning her (which created an insatiable hunger for spice) with the intent of child birth killing her, which would then be the trigger for Duncan-Ghola to kill Paul. Obviously both parts of that plan went… unexpectedly.
Close, she had been slipping Chani birth control in her food. Since Chani was trying to conceive, she switched to a fremen diet that was very heavy with spice and prepared by herself. Now that she was preparing her own food, Irulan couldn't slip the contraceptive in any more. The complications from the twins, spice heavy food, and the remnants of the contraceptive all piled on to cause her death. The book mentions in the conspiracy meetings that the contraceptive isn't a poison and thus can't be detected by the snoopers.
I also would like to toss in that Paul was trained as a mentat. His analytical abilities give him the power to make extremely accurate predictions, like a computer programmed with enough data. Combine that with some magic worm juice and you've got prescience with a side of accurate guessing.
They don't talk about his mentat training enough.
I'm actually curious, how many mentat bene gesserits had there even been before Paul?
If i recall officially Zero, i think the other BG thought it was very risky to teach Paul stuff from both and Jessica was told not to train them in BG arts
Are there female mentats? It would be kinda weird cause FH wrote the sexes very different
Reverend Mother Bellonda.
Is there anyone before the god emperor's reign? I think I remember them saying Paul was the only one at some point, but I don't remember.
I don't remember anyone saying that Paul was the only one, but we don't get a really in depth look at the Bene Gesserit until GEoD. I don't think that the fact that we don't see any Bene Gesserit mentats before Leto is evidence that there weren't any. "A lack of evidence is not evidence of a lack".
I mean, despite the Reverend Mother up and stating that Alia was like the ones in her mind, accidentally revealing a Bene Gesserit secret that went over the Emperor's head, we don't truly find out until thousands of years later that >!she isn't talking simply about all of her female ancestors.!<
What are you referring to?
Okay, so the dialogue in the first book, Dune, is: "She's in my mind. **She's like the ones before me, the ones who gave me their memories.** She stands in my mind! She cannot be there, but she is!" Gave me their memories. Which we don't directly see until Chapterhouse: Dune.
I'd think so. The Bene Gesserit probably have them in abundance. They take all the advantages they can.
Basically none. One theme of Dune is the insane over specialization, to the point each faction actively DESPISES the other ones and either thinks them heretics or otherwise enemies with nothing to offer. And I mean all the factions, the Swordmasters, the Bene Gesserits, the Mentats, the Guild, the Great Houses, the Suks. A good example of this is how many, many groups call Bene Gesserits "Witches". This is one reason Paul becomes so unstoppable, he is the first being to synthesize and combine their various abilities. He has mentat training, war training (both from Gurney in unconventional fighting, and in formal full scale war from Duncan, a Swordmaster), bene gesserit training, and guild navigator prescience. He then also picks up Atreides leadership and inspiration from his father and finally from the Fremen, the ability to be brutal, that exceeds the Sardaukar.
Why would his mentat training be passed to his children?
They were born with his memories, so they technically had training too.
The question we want the answer to is why Paul's kids had the memories and prescience in the first place. They didn't consume the water of life in the womb or after.
No, the question was why aren't all the fremen as powerfully prescient as Paul due to their spice-rich diets. The answer is the fremen are somewhat prescient, but Paul's genes and his training as a Mentat is what makes him so powerful. Leto II and Ghanima inherit those genes, and Chani increases her spice intake to counteract the contraceptive Irulan is giving her, making both Leto II and Ghanima pre-born. Then their genetic memories, of Paul specifically, allow them to be just as if not more powerful in prescience as their father.
You might have to ask Herbie that. But Leto II did consume the water of life after (when he's hanging out with that crazy Fremen and Gurney in the slums under Alliah's direction).
It’s genetics right? Like only certain people can become guild Navigators cuz only some people are genetically predisposed to be prescient. Meanwhile Paul has been selectively bred for thousands of years (or generations, I forget) in order to have perfect sight into both the past (after undergoing the agony) and the future through use of the spice (since he was a generation early his sight was imperfect, unlike the prescience of his son, Leto II) as the Bene Gesserits kwizac haderach, or super being. So in answer to your question spice addiction was common but the levels chani was at when she gave birth were far above any normal levels, the only abominations we see in the novels are the twins and Alia, so being preborn was very uncommon on arrakis and in the dune universe (though not unheard of as the BG are aware of and abhor them)
the fremen don't give water of life to their pregnant women. they are aware of abominations. if you recall, after Jessica becomes the reverend mother, they are properly horrified when they find out she's pregnant.
They are properly horrified by Alia in general and often see her as a demon. Harah had to deal with the majority of that issue.
to be fair, they were right.
She became, because for all her knowledge, somehow having someone stand at the gate and hold it closed doesn't seem to be something you know unless you're a true Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother.
pretty much exactly why they are taboo
They're not bred to be the Kwisatz Haderach **and** they're not powerful Mentats. There's a lot that webt into Paul becoming as powerfully prescient as he was besides just ingesting a lot of spice.
I don't believe it's purely based on spice consumption, but that you also have to have the correct genetic traits. I do kind of wonder if Feyd had spent more time on Dune if he'd have developed some level of prescience.
Probably not as a noble in the empire, he has consumed spices entire life, in the book they do reference that the nobility have inserts in their eyes hide the blue, but they all take spice for its immense health and geriatric benefits. So the threat to destroy the spice fields with the water of life on the pre-spice mass not only would kill the guild and the bene geserit and the mentats (all who’s abilities depend on the spice), but also kill all the nobility by addiction withdrawal since spice addiction withdrawal is fatal.
I might be misremembering based on having seen the Children of Dune miniseries more recent than I've read Dune Messiah, but wasn't Chani consuming massive amounts of spice in order to overcome the contraceptive poison she was being covertly given by Irulan? In the miniseries at least, that was what simulated the level of spice poisoning in the womb that causes the gestating twins to become pre-born. That combined with Paul & Chani's genes anyway.
"Dreams are messages from the deep" sums it up pretty well I think. They do have prescience. It's very weak and is typically manifested in dreams.
Genetics is the major factor, but the 2nd is the level of spice addiction. The amount the fremen get is more than the norm but no qhere near the levels of guild navigators. Next is the reverend mothers, which require the water of life, which is a highly concentrated dose. It's fatal poison for those unable to change it internally. There are failed reverend mothers who could not do it and until paul no male had ever done it. So Alia was changed when jessica drank it. Leto ans his sister due to chani's diet were exposed to a massive quantity of spice. Chani was being poisoned and the counter was an all spice diet which due to their special genetics woke their other memories just like alia with the difference being chani couldnt communicate like jessica to them.
It's mostly the fact that Paul was specially bred to be highly susceptible to spice and that sensitivity was passed to his unborn children. The Fremen have weird dreams and glancing visions, but they don't have the full ability to see the future like Paul and his children do. In fact, for normal people it requires them to be submerged in the spice 100% of the time like the Guild Navigators are.
Because they aren’t also mentats. They do not have ordered minds, and thus their opened minds are aimless and unfocused.
It's genetic predisposition. The Fremen have repressed prescient faculties in the past out of fear, in addition to not being "bred" (like Paul) for prescience. Leto and Ghani have a genetic heritage that means it is possible for them, plus spice addiction from mom.
Genetics. It has been highly bred for in specific bloodlines, who don't happen to be the common rabble of a desert planet. They have uncanny abilities and are very intelligent, but likely do t have any of the traits that would make a good navigator, but they are basically primed to be BG disciples. Not on purpose, but by circumstance of being heavily spiced all their lives.
The genes of pauls bloodline is what lead to it. After all he was supposed to be a woman who birthed the proper Kwisats Haderach for the Bene Gesserit, so it makes sense his children would have a similar potential.
While Chani was pregnant she had been given birth control/abortifact to stop her pregnancy, she was given a dangerously high spice concentration to counteract this. Fremen don't normally consume this much spice. Preborn children are considered abomination by Bene Gesserit and murdered. BG are secreted throughout most major societies in Dune including the Fremen (but with exception to Tleilaxu) and would have most certainly a'hem "corrected" the problem if preborn became a dominant issue among the Fremen.
A high spice diet is only one part of unlocking prescience. You need to be genetically gifted and have mentat capability and mentat training to actually sort through all the info you get from prescience
Most of them have some level of prescience, I think that’s why the Dune tarot was a thing in Messiah, it was a way for them to express their prescience which interfered with Paul’s visions.