At the beginning of this year, I purchased and devoured the never-expected sequels to Chapterhouse Dune. These were taken from Frank Herberts' notes on what he had called Dune 7.

If anyone hasn't read the book(s) and wants to, danger! Here there be
spoilers!

I actually loved it :-) I compensated for their writing style, but even
with that, I think it's the best thing they've done so far. It was
closer to Frank Herbert than anything else they've done.

But here's the thing I have a problem with: they didn't take the
creativity of the "Final Solution" far enough: they gave no metaphysical
justification for the Ultimate/Final Kwisatz Haderach. By which I mean
there was no monumentally fundamental change in the human universe such
that the reader could not imagine another Kwisatz Haderach being born
and taking control in some way. Frank Herbert would have taken things
further and would have done something that would have been more than
justification... it would have blown us away (probably more due to his
magnificent writing style than the event itself).

So I had to ponder the situation and consider the things that could have
really made everyone believe that Duncan Idaho was the Final Kwisatz
Haderach. I could only come up with one that was devastating enough.
They would have had to spend some time showing
1) Duncan exploring the tachyon net that the machines created
2) Not only coming to understand how it's done, but seeing that he
could do a much better, more extensive job
3) Duncan coming to a complete understanding of what the Tleilaxu did
to all of his previous incarnations and how that was now child's play to him
4) Creating a new, better kind of net that interpenetrated the whole
universe, not just a small sector (and possibly found its way into the
parallel universe they jumped into... maybe found its way into all
universes? a need for that would have to be justified)
5) Using that net to establish direct contact with all living beings,
but with a specific need to contact humans and machine consciousness
6) Permanently connecting human and machine consciousness to this new
net, done in such a way (DNA?) that all newborns and new-mades would
also be connected to the net
7) Tweaking every human's DNA better than the Tleilaxu ever did, such
that every human became a ticking timebomb and in the event of any
future Kwisatz Haderach coming into being, the impact of that would
immediately be propogated across the universe through the net, awaking
everyone else simultaneously and granting machine consciousness full
autonomy.

Then, just as he would finish doing that, he would inspect humanity more
closely and realize that over the course of evolution and with the Bene
Gesserit, humanity is actually on the verge of giving birth to multiple,
new Kwisatz Haderachs. At which point Duncan silently watches and
waits... and then several are born almost simultaneously, the trap is
sprung, and Kwisatz Haderach consciousness cascades throughout the known
universe and no human is ever limited again nor subject to the greater
powers of another. The intimidate fallout is that some people are slow
to realize what's happening and a handful of planets go into a complete
state of crisis as others attempt to establish equilibrium or counter
the grab for power of others. As these planets destroy themselves, all
of humanity becomes aware of this via the net that Duncan created, thus
simultaneously 1) making everyone aware of the dangers as it they
themselves had personally experienced a planet death, and 2) becoming
aware of the net's very existence and how to obtain information from this.

Simply to prevent the pain that everyone experienced as a result of the
few initial catastrophes, peace reigns and no one makes any moves. As
soon as someone attempts something, not only do those local to that
person react instantly and prevent violence, but others tuned in through
the net reach through and also prevent this.

With so much power and potential packed into such a small space as the
known universe, a new Scattering takes place, one that dwarfs the
previous one. Advancements in both technology and philosophy explode in
conjunction with the New Scattering, and the universe is never, ever the
same. And there is never the need for an Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach,
because all the rules of human interaction and growth have been
fundamentally changed... by the Final Kwisatz Haderach and what he put
in place.

d