Golden Path (Dune) - Rule of The God Emperor

Rule of The God Emperor

Being pre-born, Leto II inherited his father's prescient abilities. Whereas Paul had sought a way to save both the human species and his own humanity, Leto's prescience led him to decide that the path to surviving Kralizec needed a much more threatening predator of humans than the twelve-year Jihad which Paul had taken as his "terrible purpose". The first important step of the Golden Plan, which Paul sought to avoid, takes place in Children of Dune, when Leto takes a skin of sandtrout as his own. This act begins both his transformation into the half-man, half-worm God Emperor and the transformation of the spice-rich desert planet Dune into the paradise of Rakis.

By monopolizing the only remaining supply of the spice and ending further production, Leto II became an unrivaled power in the Imperium. By keeping the Imperium stagnant and contained in a Golden Age, Leto set the stage for a severely difficult age, which would become known as the Famine Times. The stated goal of Leto's predator-aspect was to "teach humanity a lesson that they will remember in their bones." Leto sought to teach the human race through a bad example: by becoming the greatest predator, his goal was to immunize the race against overcentralization, which resulted in The Scattering.

A number of technological advances by the Bene Tleilax and the Ixians could be credited to their drive to escape from the oppression of the God Emperor. The fruits of this oppression appeared in the Ixian navigation device (a substitute for living Guild Navigators) and the Tleilaxu artificial spice, while the God Emperor himself also encouraged the Ixians by specifically ordering them to create certain technologies.

During his lifetime of 3,500 years, Leto's body transformed into a hybrid of human and sandworm. One later side effect of this combination was the gift to the sandworm of "human adaptability". By driving all of the original sandworms of Dune to extinction, Leto became common ancestor to any new worms which would arise from his eventual death and release of sandtrout back into the environment of Arrakis.