Leto Atreides II
Encyclopedia
Leto Atreides II (ˈleɪtoʊ əˈtreɪdiːz; 10,207-13,725 A.G.) is a fictional character
from the Dune universe
created by Frank Herbert
. Born at the end of Dune Messiah
(1969), Leto is a central character in Children of Dune
(1976) and is the title character of God Emperor of Dune
(1981). The character is brought back as a ghola in the Brian Herbert
/Kevin J. Anderson
sequel
s which conclude the original series, Hunters of Dune
(2006) and Sandworms of Dune
(2007).
Leto is the son of Paul Atreides
and his Fremen
concubine
Chani
, and the twin brother of Ghanima. Leto is named for his paternal grandfather Duke Leto Atreides I
, who is killed in the Harkonnen
/Imperial
invasion of the desert planet
Arrakis
(Dune) during the events of Dune
(1965). Leto II is the second child of Paul to bear that name, the first having been killed as an infant by the Emperor's Sardaukar
in Dune.
called a stone burner, Paul is at a disadvantage when the Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale
holds a knife over the newborns and threatens their death if Paul does not surrender his Empire to the Tleilaxu. Paul suddenly finds that he is able to see through the eyes of the infant Leto, allowing him to aim and throw a crysknife
that kills Scytale.
bloodline, the twins are "pre-born", meaning that as fetuses in their mother's womb they had been awakened to consciousness and to their genetic memories
; they had been born as fully matured human beings in the bodies of infants. At the start of the novel, Leto is not prescient to the degree that his father Paul had been, but he senses the test his father had faced — to embrace a prescient vision of the universe is to set the universe on that path, a terrible responsibility that comes with terrible power. At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul had forsaken that responsibility by walking into the desert — his time as the Fremen
messiah
had shown him that he was not strong enough to be messiah/tyrant to the universe. Leto believes that he must face the same test.
At the same time, the Imperium created by Paul is ruled by his sister Alia Atreides
as regent. The horror of the pre-born — the reason the Bene Gesserit
call them "abomination
s" — is that they are easily possessed by the ego-memories of their ancestors. When Bene Gesserit awaken to their "other memories" in the ritual of the spice agony, they are adults with fully formed personalities, and can withstand the inner assault of their forebears; the pre-born have no such defense. Like Leto and Ghanima, Alia had been pre-born, and she succumbs to the pressure under an intense dose of spice. Among her ancestors is the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
, still hungry for revenge against his enemies, the Atreides. Alia is possessed by him, and unconsciously turns against the Atreides empire, plotting to kill Leto and Ghanima and to tear down the Imperium in a bloody civil war.
Independently, Leto and Ghanima both solve the problem of the pre-born. Leto constructs his own personality out of an executive committee of his ancestors; with all (the important ones) possessing him, none can possess him individually. Following an assassination attempt by House Corrino
, Leto disappears into the desert leaving Ghanima behind. As part of Leto's plan, Ghanima hypnotizes herself to believe that Leto had been killed; the intense mental discipline this demands builds a safe haven in Ghanima's mind for her own personality to safely develop.
Leto finds Jacurutu, a sietch that has been forbidden to anyone by Fremen law. There he faces the test his father had refused to take, and embraces prescience, its visions, its attendant power, and the terrible price it will extract — to follow his vision, Leto will become a symbiote with the sandworm
, setting the universe on the Golden Path, a future in which humanity's survival is assured. After consuming massive amounts of spice, he allows many sandtrout to cover his body, the concentration of spice in his blood fooling the creatures:
This layer gives Leto tremendous strength and speed, acting as a living powered exoskeleton
and also protection from mature sandworms, who mistake his sandtrout-covered body for a lethal mass of water. He calls it a "living, self-repairing stillsuit of a sandtrout membrane," and soon notes that he is "no longer human." Leto returns to wrest the Imperium from Alia and take his rightful place as Emperor.
A little more than 3,500 years have passed, and in God Emperor of Dune Leto is now almost fully transformed into a sandworm. He is almost invulnerable to physical damage; his single weakness that he shares with the sandworms, an intense vulnerability to water, is a secret. "Leto's peace" has kept the universe quiet for that time, and the entirety of human society has become an audience for him. He is their emperor; he is their god. His all-female army of Fish Speakers keeps order and act as priestesses. Leto believes that a female army is a nurturing disciplinarian, while a male army is essentially predatory, always turns against its civilian support base in the absence of an enemy, and has "a strong tendency toward homosexual activities."
Desolate Dune is gone; Arrakis is now a verdant planet with a great river named after Duncan Idaho
. Except for Leto, the sandworms are extinct, and all that is left of the "ocean without water" bahr bela ma is a desert preserve set aside for Leto alone. This remnant is called the Sareer and is about the size of California
. The old institutions, the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax
, the Spacing Guild
, the houses Major and Minor, the Landsraad
, the technocrats of Ix
, and CHOAM
, have all faded from power in the face of Leto's hydraulic despotism: since he has absolute control of the spice on which the whole universe depends, he has the universe in the palm of his hand, and ruthlessly enforces his simplistic order.
Leto has taken over the Bene Gesserit's breeding program for himself, the same program that produced his father, the Kwisatz Haderach
. His Golden Path is nearly assured now, and his long rule has begun to bore him; the trap of prescience is an existence without surprises. To ensure that humanity will survive, Leto has spent millennia enforcing quiescence on humanity: people rarely travel, rarely fight in wars, rarely do anything but live and worship him. This repression has created in humanity a deep and urgent need to explode upon the universe, scattering itself beyond the reach of any single tyrant. Leto seeks a solution in which he might die without destroying his people; if a god commits suicide, his worshippers would commit suicide with him. The only option is revolution, so Leto breeds for the person who will overthrow him: Siona Atreides, the daughter of his majordomo, Moneo. Siona is the first human to carry a gene that makes her invisible to prescience, and thus uncontainable by it. Since she cannot be seen in a vision, she cannot be controlled by a vision. The tyranny of prescience will end with Siona — humanity can never again be bound by a powerful prescient like Muad'dib or the God Emperor himself.
Siona's partner in revolution is Duncan Idaho
, the constant companion of Leto throughout the long millennia. For his entire reign, Leto has had a ghola of Duncan in charge of his Fish Speaker army. The Duncans represent the old Atreides loyalty, along with everything vital in humanity, so something in the Duncans always rebels against the holy blasphemy Leto has created; many Duncans die trying to kill Leto. When Siona finally arrives, she finds in Duncan a justification for revolt.
Meanwhile, the rest of the universe is scheming to kill Leto as well. The Bene Tleilax try many ham-fisted schemes; the technocrats of Ix are smarter. They craft a human to seduce Leto. First they create Malky, a being of perfect evil, a Devil to Leto's God. Malky is a charming Lucifer
, and as ambassador to Leto's court he plumbs the depths of Leto's piety. In Dune Messiah
, the Face Dancer
Scytale
reveals to a Reverend Mother that the Bene Tleilax created their own Kwisatz Haderachs, and discovered that Kwisatz Haderachs will die before becoming their opposites (and so can be killed by manipulating them into betraying themselves). Malky's purpose is to get Leto to turn on his holy creation, but he fails because what the Ixians don't realize is that Leto, more than anyone, knows the blasphemy he has created.
At the same time as Leto is breeding a psi-invisible human, Ix invents another solution: no-chambers. A no-chamber is an electro-mechanical construct that hides its contents from prescient vision. Inside the first no-chamber, the Ixians grow their next attempt: Malky's niece, Hwi Noree, who shall replace him as Ix's ambassador. Hwi is the opposite of Malky, a creature of pure goodness. Where Malky failed, Hwi succeeds. Leto falls in love with her, and plans to marry her. He is not alone in loving her, however, for his current Duncan has also fallen to her charms. By this chain of events, Leto weakens his godhood enough to allow Siona's revolt the possibility of success.
Leto planned to wed Hwi in what remains of an old Fremen village near the former Sietch Tabr, but changes his mind at the last instant to use the Museum Fremen's Tuono Village, the place where Moneo had sent Siona and Duncan in an attempt to keep the peace and keep Duncan alive, safe from the God Emperor's wrath. However, that is not to be.
The Royal Peregrination, the journey on foot for any of Leto's trips, to Tuono has all the appearance of a normal trip. However, Siona and Duncan, both well aware of the God Emperor's coming and his schemes to breed them, are primed for rebellion, not quiet acceptance. Siona uses her power over Nayla
, Leto's pet Fish Speaker, to set in motion his demise. At the point of the Sareer's guardian wall that opens to allow for the passage of the Idaho River, Nayla, caught in her faith in Leto, opens fire on the bridge with a lasgun, destroying it as Leto and Hwi are crossing, dropping them into the Idaho River. The water destroys Leto's sandworm body, decomposing it into the sandtrout that will lock up the water in their bodies, recreating the conditions for the sandworms to re-appear, each with a pearl of Leto's consciousness and adaptability inside it. Leto dies, his last vision that of the Golden Path, shining brightly in humanity's future. His total reign spanned 3509 years.
After Leto's death, driven by the Famine Times and the pent up desires of thousands of years of Leto's peace, which bred stagnation and isolation, humanity explodes out into the universe in waves of migration known as The Scattering(as predicted and forced by Leto's Golden Path).
The sandworms which once again travel Dune after Leto's death carry, in his words, "a pearl of his awareness locked forever in an endless dream." They (and Leto) are worshipped as the Divided God, and their existence keeps humanity locked on Leto's Golden Path. In Heretics of Dune
, the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit Taraza (and her immediate successor, Odrade) manage to save one sandworm from Rakis before it is destroyed by the Honored Matres
.
(2006). Even at a very young age, this Leto shows signs that he may be more than he seems. During an assassination attempt, he appears to transform into a small sandworm and defends himself before reverting to an innocent one-year-old. Genetically he is noted to be very unusual; as he grows older, he displays an uncanny intelligence, but is very withdrawn. The current Duncan ghola notes that it had been cruel to bring Leto back without his twin sister, who had been so much of the original's life.
In the concluding novel Sandworms of Dune
(2007), Leto (like Sheeana) can control the worms. After his memories are returned, he leads the seven sandworms being transported on the Ithaca to wreak havoc in Synchrony, homeworld of the thinking machines
. At the conclusion of the battle, all seven worms fuse together into one massive worm; Leto steps inside, and they descend below the planet's surface. While it is stated that Leto had foreseen the conflict with Omnius and the thinking machines, the ultimate fate of the Golden Path, or the worms' status on Synchrony, is left open.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
from the Dune universe
Dune universe
Dune is a science fiction franchise which originated with the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert. Considered by many to be the greatest science fiction novel of all time, Dune is frequently cited as the best-selling science fiction novel in history...
created by Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
. Born at the end of Dune Messiah
Dune Messiah
Dune Messiah is a science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the second in a series of six novels. It was originally serialized in Galaxy magazine in 1969. The American and British editions have different prologues summarizing events in the previous novel...
(1969), Leto is a central character in Children of Dune
Children of Dune
Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, third in a series of six novels set in his Dune universe. Initially selling over 75,000 copies, it became the first hardcover best-seller ever in the science fiction field...
(1976) and is the title character of God Emperor of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
God Emperor of Dune is a science fiction novel by Frank Herbert published in 1981, the fourth in the Dune series. It was ranked as the #11 hardcover fiction best seller of 1981 by Publishers Weekly.-Plot introduction:...
(1981). The character is brought back as a ghola in the Brian Herbert
Brian Herbert
Brian Patrick Herbert is an American author who lives in Washington state. He is the elder son of science fiction author Frank Herbert....
/Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin J. Anderson
Kevin J. Anderson is an American science fiction author with over forty bestsellers. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and with Brian Herbert is the co-author of the Dune prequels...
sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
s which conclude the original series, Hunters of Dune
Hunters of Dune
Hunters of Dune is the first of two books written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to conclude Frank Herbert's original Dune series of novels....
(2006) and Sandworms of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Sandworms of Dune is the second of two novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to conclude Frank Herbert's original Dune series of novels. They have stated that it is based on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series...
(2007).
Leto is the son of Paul Atreides
Paul Atreides
Paul Atreides is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Paul is a prominent character in the first two novels in the series, Dune and Dune Messiah , and returns in Children of Dune . The character is brought back as two different gholas in the Brian Herbert/Kevin J...
and his Fremen
Fremen
The Fremen are a group of people in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. First appearing in the 1965 novel Dune, the Fremen inhabit the desert planet Arrakis and are based on the desert-dwelling Bedouin and Kalahari Bushmen. In Herbert's novels, Arrakis is the sole known source...
concubine
Concubinage
Concubinage is the state of a woman or man in an ongoing, usually matrimonially oriented, relationship with somebody to whom they cannot be married, often because of a difference in social status or economic condition.-Concubinage:...
Chani
Chani
Chani is a fictional character featured in Frank Herbert's novels Dune and Dune Messiah . Known mainly as the Fremen wife and legal concubine of protagonist Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, Chani is the daughter of Imperial Planetologist Liet-Kynes and his Fremen wife Faroula, and later the mother of...
, and the twin brother of Ghanima. Leto is named for his paternal grandfather Duke Leto Atreides I
Leto Atreides I
Duke Leto Atreides I is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He features in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert and in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson....
, who is killed in the Harkonnen
House Harkonnen
House Harkonnen is a powerful noble family in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. The Harkonnens are featured prominently in the original 1965 novel Dune, and are also a major presence in both the Prelude to Dune and Legends of Dune prequel trilogies by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson...
/Imperial
Shaddam Corrino IV
Shaddam Corrino IV is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He is Padishah Emperor of the known universe in Herbert's 1965 novel Dune. Shaddam's accession to the throne is chronicled in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.Born...
invasion of the desert planet
Desert planet
A desert planet is a single-biome planet on which the climate is mostly desert, with little or no natural precipitation. Desert planets are known to exist; Mars is often considered a prime example. Indeed, many terrestrial planets would be considered desert planets by this definition...
Arrakis
Arrakis
Arrakis — informally known as Dune and later called Rakis — is a fictional desert planet featured in the Dune series of novels by Frank Herbert. Herbert's first novel in the series, 1965's Dune, is popularly considered one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time, and it is...
(Dune) during the events of Dune
Dune (novel)
Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel...
(1965). Leto II is the second child of Paul to bear that name, the first having been killed as an infant by the Emperor's Sardaukar
Sardaukar
The Sardaukar are a fictional fanatical army from Frank Herbert's Dune universe, primarily featured in the 1965 science fiction novel Dune, as well as Brian Herbert and Kevin J...
in Dune.
Dune Messiah
Chani dies giving birth to Leto and his twin sister Ghanima near the end of Dune Messiah. Blinded by the blast of a nuclear weaponNuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
called a stone burner, Paul is at a disadvantage when the Tleilaxu Face Dancer Scytale
Scytale (Dune)
Scytale is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. In the novel Dune Messiah , Scytale is a Tleilaxu Face Dancer who participates in the conspiracy to topple the rule of Paul Atreides. He later returns as a ghola and Tleilaxu Master in Heretics of Dune and...
holds a knife over the newborns and threatens their death if Paul does not surrender his Empire to the Tleilaxu. Paul suddenly finds that he is able to see through the eyes of the infant Leto, allowing him to aim and throw a crysknife
Crysknife
A crysknife is a fictional weapon in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. According to the 1965 novel Dune, it is made from the crystal tooth of Shai'Hulud, the giant sandworms that live below the sands of the desert planet Arrakis....
that kills Scytale.
Children of Dune
In Children of Dune, Leto and Ghanima are nine years old. Because of the melange ingested by their mother, which causes unusual effects for the AtreidesHouse Atreides
House Atreides is a fictional noble family from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. One of the Great Houses of the feudal interstellar empire known as the Imperium, its members play a role in every novel in the series. It is suggested within the series that the root of the Atreides line...
bloodline, the twins are "pre-born", meaning that as fetuses in their mother's womb they had been awakened to consciousness and to their genetic memories
Genetic memory
Genetic memory may refer to:*Genetic memory , present if the state of a biological system depends on its history in addition to present conditions*Genetic memory , a memory present at birth that exists in the absence of sensory experience...
; they had been born as fully matured human beings in the bodies of infants. At the start of the novel, Leto is not prescient to the degree that his father Paul had been, but he senses the test his father had faced — to embrace a prescient vision of the universe is to set the universe on that path, a terrible responsibility that comes with terrible power. At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul had forsaken that responsibility by walking into the desert — his time as the Fremen
Fremen
The Fremen are a group of people in the fictional Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. First appearing in the 1965 novel Dune, the Fremen inhabit the desert planet Arrakis and are based on the desert-dwelling Bedouin and Kalahari Bushmen. In Herbert's novels, Arrakis is the sole known source...
messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
had shown him that he was not strong enough to be messiah/tyrant to the universe. Leto believes that he must face the same test.
At the same time, the Imperium created by Paul is ruled by his sister Alia Atreides
Alia Atreides
Alia Atreides is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Introduced in the first novel of the series, 1965's Dune, the character was originally killed in Herbert's first version of the manuscript. At the suggestion of Analog magazine editor John Campbell, Herbert kept...
as regent. The horror of the pre-born — the reason the Bene Gesserit
Bene Gesserit
The Bene Gesserit are a key social, religious, and political force in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. The group is described as an exclusive sisterhood whose members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman powers and...
call them "abomination
Abomination (Dune)
Abomination, in the context of the Dune series written by Frank Herbert, refers to one who acquires full consciousness as a fetus as a result of being exposed to the ritual spice agony, gaining all their ancestral memories before birth .The spice agony ritual involves a Bene Gesserit acolyte drinking...
s" — is that they are easily possessed by the ego-memories of their ancestors. When Bene Gesserit awaken to their "other memories" in the ritual of the spice agony, they are adults with fully formed personalities, and can withstand the inner assault of their forebears; the pre-born have no such defense. Like Leto and Ghanima, Alia had been pre-born, and she succumbs to the pressure under an intense dose of spice. Among her ancestors is the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
Vladimir Harkonnen
The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is a fictional character from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. He is primarily featured in the 1965 novel Dune, in which he is the secondary antagonist, and is also a major character in the Prelude to Dune prequel trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson...
, still hungry for revenge against his enemies, the Atreides. Alia is possessed by him, and unconsciously turns against the Atreides empire, plotting to kill Leto and Ghanima and to tear down the Imperium in a bloody civil war.
Independently, Leto and Ghanima both solve the problem of the pre-born. Leto constructs his own personality out of an executive committee of his ancestors; with all (the important ones) possessing him, none can possess him individually. Following an assassination attempt by House Corrino
House Corrino
Imperial House Corrino is a fictional noble family from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. The Corrinos come to power after mankind's victory against the thinking machines at the Battle of Corrin , and rule until deposed by Paul Atreides approximately 10,000 years later during the events...
, Leto disappears into the desert leaving Ghanima behind. As part of Leto's plan, Ghanima hypnotizes herself to believe that Leto had been killed; the intense mental discipline this demands builds a safe haven in Ghanima's mind for her own personality to safely develop.
Leto finds Jacurutu, a sietch that has been forbidden to anyone by Fremen law. There he faces the test his father had refused to take, and embraces prescience, its visions, its attendant power, and the terrible price it will extract — to follow his vision, Leto will become a symbiote with the sandworm
Sandworm (Dune)
The sandworm is a fictional form of desert-dwelling creature from the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. They first appear in the 1965 novel Dune, considered to be among the classics in the science fiction genre, and are iconic of the Dune series.In the series, the sandworms called Shai-Hulud...
, setting the universe on the Golden Path, a future in which humanity's survival is assured. After consuming massive amounts of spice, he allows many sandtrout to cover his body, the concentration of spice in his blood fooling the creatures:
This layer gives Leto tremendous strength and speed, acting as a living powered exoskeleton
Powered exoskeleton
A powered exoskeleton, also known as powered armor, or exoframe, is a powered mobile machine consisting primarily of an exoskeleton-like framework worn by a person and a power supply that supplies at least part of the activation-energy for limb movement.Powered exoskeletons are designed to assist...
and also protection from mature sandworms, who mistake his sandtrout-covered body for a lethal mass of water. He calls it a "living, self-repairing stillsuit of a sandtrout membrane," and soon notes that he is "no longer human." Leto returns to wrest the Imperium from Alia and take his rightful place as Emperor.
God Emperor of Dune
Desolate Dune is gone; Arrakis is now a verdant planet with a great river named after Duncan Idaho
Duncan Idaho
Duncan Idaho is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Introduced in the first novel of the series, 1965's Dune, the character became a breakout character as the readers liked him and was revived by Herbert in 1969's Dune Messiah...
. Except for Leto, the sandworms are extinct, and all that is left of the "ocean without water" bahr bela ma is a desert preserve set aside for Leto alone. This remnant is called the Sareer and is about the size of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The old institutions, the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax
Bene Tleilax
The Bene Tleilax or Tleilaxu are an extremely xenophobic and isolationist society in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. Genetic manipulators who traffic in biological products such as artificial eyes, gholas, and "twisted" Mentats, the Tleilaxu are a major power in the Imperium...
, the Spacing Guild
Spacing Guild
The Spacing Guild is an organization in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. With its monopoly on interstellar travel and banking, the Guild is a balance of power against the Padishah Emperor and the assembled noble Houses of the Landsraad...
, the houses Major and Minor, the Landsraad
Landsraad
The Landsraad is a fictional organization in Frank Herbert's Dune universe. It is the assembly of all noble Houses in the Imperium.-Overview:...
, the technocrats of Ix
Ix (Dune)
Ix is a fictional planet featured in the Dune series of science fiction novels written by Frank Herbert, and derivative works. In Dune it is noted that Ix is classed with the planet Richese as "supreme in machine culture," and that Ixian solido projectors "are commonly considered the best." In...
, and CHOAM
CHOAM
The Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles is a fictional universal development corporation in Frank Herbert's Dune universe, first mentioned in the 1965 novel Dune...
, have all faded from power in the face of Leto's hydraulic despotism: since he has absolute control of the spice on which the whole universe depends, he has the universe in the palm of his hand, and ruthlessly enforces his simplistic order.
Leto has taken over the Bene Gesserit's breeding program for himself, the same program that produced his father, the Kwisatz Haderach
Kwisatz Haderach
In Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe, Kwisatz Haderach is a term which refers to a prophesied messiah and superbeing. In the series, the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal secret society, hope to create a male who can survive the deadly ritual spice agony that changes a capable female acolyte into...
. His Golden Path is nearly assured now, and his long rule has begun to bore him; the trap of prescience is an existence without surprises. To ensure that humanity will survive, Leto has spent millennia enforcing quiescence on humanity: people rarely travel, rarely fight in wars, rarely do anything but live and worship him. This repression has created in humanity a deep and urgent need to explode upon the universe, scattering itself beyond the reach of any single tyrant. Leto seeks a solution in which he might die without destroying his people; if a god commits suicide, his worshippers would commit suicide with him. The only option is revolution, so Leto breeds for the person who will overthrow him: Siona Atreides, the daughter of his majordomo, Moneo. Siona is the first human to carry a gene that makes her invisible to prescience, and thus uncontainable by it. Since she cannot be seen in a vision, she cannot be controlled by a vision. The tyranny of prescience will end with Siona — humanity can never again be bound by a powerful prescient like Muad'dib or the God Emperor himself.
Siona's partner in revolution is Duncan Idaho
Duncan Idaho
Duncan Idaho is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. Introduced in the first novel of the series, 1965's Dune, the character became a breakout character as the readers liked him and was revived by Herbert in 1969's Dune Messiah...
, the constant companion of Leto throughout the long millennia. For his entire reign, Leto has had a ghola of Duncan in charge of his Fish Speaker army. The Duncans represent the old Atreides loyalty, along with everything vital in humanity, so something in the Duncans always rebels against the holy blasphemy Leto has created; many Duncans die trying to kill Leto. When Siona finally arrives, she finds in Duncan a justification for revolt.
Meanwhile, the rest of the universe is scheming to kill Leto as well. The Bene Tleilax try many ham-fisted schemes; the technocrats of Ix are smarter. They craft a human to seduce Leto. First they create Malky, a being of perfect evil, a Devil to Leto's God. Malky is a charming Lucifer
Lucifer
Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...
, and as ambassador to Leto's court he plumbs the depths of Leto's piety. In Dune Messiah
Dune Messiah
Dune Messiah is a science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the second in a series of six novels. It was originally serialized in Galaxy magazine in 1969. The American and British editions have different prologues summarizing events in the previous novel...
, the Face Dancer
Face dancers
A Face Dancer is a type of human in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. A servant caste of the Bene Tleilax, Face Dancers are shapeshifters, and their name is derived from their ability to change their physical appearance at will.-Background:...
Scytale
Scytale (Dune)
Scytale is a fictional character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. In the novel Dune Messiah , Scytale is a Tleilaxu Face Dancer who participates in the conspiracy to topple the rule of Paul Atreides. He later returns as a ghola and Tleilaxu Master in Heretics of Dune and...
reveals to a Reverend Mother that the Bene Tleilax created their own Kwisatz Haderachs, and discovered that Kwisatz Haderachs will die before becoming their opposites (and so can be killed by manipulating them into betraying themselves). Malky's purpose is to get Leto to turn on his holy creation, but he fails because what the Ixians don't realize is that Leto, more than anyone, knows the blasphemy he has created.
At the same time as Leto is breeding a psi-invisible human, Ix invents another solution: no-chambers. A no-chamber is an electro-mechanical construct that hides its contents from prescient vision. Inside the first no-chamber, the Ixians grow their next attempt: Malky's niece, Hwi Noree, who shall replace him as Ix's ambassador. Hwi is the opposite of Malky, a creature of pure goodness. Where Malky failed, Hwi succeeds. Leto falls in love with her, and plans to marry her. He is not alone in loving her, however, for his current Duncan has also fallen to her charms. By this chain of events, Leto weakens his godhood enough to allow Siona's revolt the possibility of success.
Leto planned to wed Hwi in what remains of an old Fremen village near the former Sietch Tabr, but changes his mind at the last instant to use the Museum Fremen's Tuono Village, the place where Moneo had sent Siona and Duncan in an attempt to keep the peace and keep Duncan alive, safe from the God Emperor's wrath. However, that is not to be.
The Royal Peregrination, the journey on foot for any of Leto's trips, to Tuono has all the appearance of a normal trip. However, Siona and Duncan, both well aware of the God Emperor's coming and his schemes to breed them, are primed for rebellion, not quiet acceptance. Siona uses her power over Nayla
Nayla
Nayla may refer to:*Nayla Moawad, Lebanese politician*Nayla , fictional character from Frank Herbert's novel God Emperor of Dune...
, Leto's pet Fish Speaker, to set in motion his demise. At the point of the Sareer's guardian wall that opens to allow for the passage of the Idaho River, Nayla, caught in her faith in Leto, opens fire on the bridge with a lasgun, destroying it as Leto and Hwi are crossing, dropping them into the Idaho River. The water destroys Leto's sandworm body, decomposing it into the sandtrout that will lock up the water in their bodies, recreating the conditions for the sandworms to re-appear, each with a pearl of Leto's consciousness and adaptability inside it. Leto dies, his last vision that of the Golden Path, shining brightly in humanity's future. His total reign spanned 3509 years.
After Leto's death, driven by the Famine Times and the pent up desires of thousands of years of Leto's peace, which bred stagnation and isolation, humanity explodes out into the universe in waves of migration known as The Scattering(as predicted and forced by Leto's Golden Path).
The sandworms which once again travel Dune after Leto's death carry, in his words, "a pearl of his awareness locked forever in an endless dream." They (and Leto) are worshipped as the Divided God, and their existence keeps humanity locked on Leto's Golden Path. In Heretics of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Heretics of Dune is a 1984 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, fifth in a series of six novels. It was ranked as the #13 hardcover fiction best seller of 1984 by The New York Times.-Plot introduction:...
, the Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit Taraza (and her immediate successor, Odrade) manage to save one sandworm from Rakis before it is destroyed by the Honored Matres
Honored Matres
The Honored Matres are a fictional matriarchal organization in Frank Herbert's science fiction Dune universe. They are described as an aggressive cult obsessed with power, violence and sexual domination...
.
Sequels
More than 1500 years after his death, Leto II is brought back as a ghola onboard the no-ship Ithaca in Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's continuation of the original series, Hunters of DuneHunters of Dune
Hunters of Dune is the first of two books written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to conclude Frank Herbert's original Dune series of novels....
(2006). Even at a very young age, this Leto shows signs that he may be more than he seems. During an assassination attempt, he appears to transform into a small sandworm and defends himself before reverting to an innocent one-year-old. Genetically he is noted to be very unusual; as he grows older, he displays an uncanny intelligence, but is very withdrawn. The current Duncan ghola notes that it had been cruel to bring Leto back without his twin sister, who had been so much of the original's life.
In the concluding novel Sandworms of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Sandworms of Dune is the second of two novels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson to conclude Frank Herbert's original Dune series of novels. They have stated that it is based on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series...
(2007), Leto (like Sheeana) can control the worms. After his memories are returned, he leads the seven sandworms being transported on the Ithaca to wreak havoc in Synchrony, homeworld of the thinking machines
Thinking machines (Dune)
Thinking machines is a collective term for artificial intelligence in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert. The Butlerian Jihad a human crusade against thinking machines is an epic turning point in the back-story of the Dune universe...
. At the conclusion of the battle, all seven worms fuse together into one massive worm; Leto steps inside, and they descend below the planet's surface. While it is stated that Leto had foreseen the conflict with Omnius and the thinking machines, the ultimate fate of the Golden Path, or the worms' status on Synchrony, is left open.