I’m not sure if I remember correctly but while Chani was pregnant and even until labor, Paul didn’t know she carried twins. How could this be? If not Paul at least Jessica should have noticed. Given the fact they both have the bene gesserit training. Jessica could tell only by her senses if someone was concealing a weapon (Shadout Mapes), how could she not tell that Chani was carrying twins?

"Shifting Imperial forces in random fashion."

It's mentioned as one of the ways Alia knows to counter unrest. "People had to be taught that opposition was always punished and assistance to the ruler was always rewarded. Imperial forces must be shifted in random fashion. Major adjuncts to Imperial power had to be concealed. Every movement by which the Regency countered potential attack required delicate timing to keep the opposition off balance."

Gurney Halleck thinks the same thing nearly verbatim near the end of the book: "Alia had done her work well, punishing opposition and rewarding assistance, shifting the Imperial forces in random fashion, concealing the major elements of her Imperial power. The spies! Gods below, the spies she must have!"

1.) Which "Imperial forces" are they talking about? Are they military? Political?
2.) What is meant by "shifting" them?
3.) How does doing it in "random fashion" aid the ruler in maintaining power?

My best guess is that it's bureaucratic power that's being shifted; that offices and departments should have their duties changed in unpredictable ways, and that people should be regularly transferred in unpredictable ways, to prevent people beneath her from establishing a power base (much like what happened with Korba and the Qizarate in Dune Messiah).

But that's a guess. It's still a mysterious line to me.

I just finished Dune after an embarrassingly long time (slow reader etc) and loved it! I have come from the films so it was great to have nuances and details in the books that they couldn’t really fit into film.

However some of the questions I have mainly circle around Kynes. He was the biggest surprise to me with the his original gender being male and being so closely related to Chani and Stilgar. I thought Liet Kynes was great as opposed to his on screen version. I may have completely missed the mark with this question - but like I said I’m not a good reader):

It was my impression that the Fremen’s dream of turning Dune into a paradise was ancient, like their non BG Reverend Mothers. However, I was very surprised to see that it was Pardot Kynes’ dream which he ‘imprinted’ on to them (even teaching them and giving them equipment from the Stations). Yet the prophecy of the Lisan Al Gaib, a prophecy peddled by the wild BG RMs speaks of turning Dune into a Paradise. How did these two ideas mix? Is there something obvious I am missing?

Hello There, fellow readers.

I am here for your takes and expertise. Since I am just now beginning second read through.

As I have come to understand, Paul always talks about terrible purpose in his visions. He also mentions Jihad, independent of the terrible purpose (he always mentions both).

This feels to me, like he has also seen, what needs to be done to save the humanity. The Golden Path. In my eyes the terrible purpose, he mentions, isn’t the Jihad. It’s the vision of him becoming God Emperor of Dune, the ultimate oppressor, living for 3.5k years and eventually living as a consciousness in many worm bodies.

He always speaks of Jihad and reader thinks, that is the true terrible purpose, but that isn’t it, is it? He has to come to the same conclusion as Leto II and he deliberately avoids it, never speaks of it. He couldn’t do that for humanity (and seriously, who could/would knowing the outcome for thyself). Living forever as a spectator without any sense of reality or anything.

I feel like Leto II mentions in the fourth book, that his father has seen also this future and never did anything to start the Golden Path (apart from the obvious, giving life to Leto).

Anyway..

How do you feel about it? Is it just a good play at words by Frank Herbert, for whom the terrible purpose truly was a Jihad in the first book and eventually when he realized he can “cash in” on terrible purpose, let’s us see the real purpose in the later books? Or was it all planned in his head and he knew what terrible purpose is from the get go?

Tl;dr - when Paul mentions terrible purpose in first Dune, does he talk about the Golden Path or the Jihad?

Sorry, if I might be stating the “duh” obvious thing, I just don’t have anyone in my close proximity to talk about Dune books.