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In the classic Dune series, Paul Atreides became a super being with the ability to see the future; something the Bene Geserit called a Kwisatz Haderach. The Spacing Guild Navigators had consumed the spice, melange, for most of their lives and attained enough prescience to safely fold space. Their intense and extended exposure to the spice mutated their bodies.

Paul had just started consuming the spice, and had not consumed as much as the navigators. His body was still had a human shape, unlike the navigators.

After Paul Atreides began taking spice, how far into the future could he see?

And how far into the future could the navigators see?

Why would Paul be able to see further than the navigators?

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    Well.. youtube.com/watch?v=B8-eiBqri0U
    – K-H-W
    Commented Dec 23, 2018 at 8:10
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    Note that the SG navigators do not themselves fold space; the correct wording is that they can navigate "folded space", which is accessed using Holtzman drives.
    – cryptarch
    Commented Dec 23, 2018 at 8:27

1 Answer 1

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In short, the spice gifts prescience to all who use it in heroic quantities (Chani, for example sees Paul in her visions) but only the true Kwizatz Haderach, the product of a millennia of careful breeding, is capable of navigating (lol) the possible futures to use prescience to its fullest. The Guild, by comparison, are mere dabblers. Their limited prescience is a side-effect of them using the spice to avoid danger while using the Holtzman drive.

“I’ll pull their fangs presently,” Paul said. And he thought then about the Guild — the force that had specialized for so long that it had become a parasite, unable to exist independently of the life upon which it fed. They had never dared grasp the sword . . . and now they could not grasp it. They might have taken Arrakis when they realized the error of specializing on the melange awareness-spectrum narcotic for their navigators. They could have done this, lived their glorious day and died. Instead, they’d existed from moment to moment, hoping the seas in which they swam might produce a new host when the old one died.

The Guild navigators, gifted with limited prescience, had made the fatal decision: they’d chosen always the clear, safe course that leads ever downward into stagnation.

Dune

Note that even Paul, with his visions, isn't capable of seeing as far as his son (the God Emperor, Leto II) into the future, largely because his upbringing and moral compass limit him from exploring decisions that take him outside of his comfort zone.


As to the extent of their visions, the Navigators can only see to the next "nexus", a deflection point where their decision has ramifications on the production of spice in the future. As the book opens, we seen them running headlong toward just such a nexus. Paul's arrival is blinding them to the future, hence their willingness to allow House Harkonnen to attack House Atreides.

When the Arrakis Affair boiled up, the Spacing Guild made overtures to the Bene Gesserit. The Guild hinted that its navigators, who use the spice drug of Arrakis to produce the limited prescience necessary for guiding spaceships through the void, were “bothered about the future” or saw “problems on the horizon.” This could only mean they saw a nexus, a meeting place of countless delicate decisions, beyond which the path was hidden from the prescient eye.

Dune: Appendix III

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    Yeah, I've sometimes thought of it this way (although Herbert didn't say exactly this): "The spice can multiply your latent psychic/precognitive potential by, let's say, a factor of ten thousand. The Kwisatz Haderach has far more inherent potential than anyone born before him ever got from their own genes -- therefore, once he's using spice regularly, he can see a great deal further."
    – Lorendiac
    Commented Dec 24, 2018 at 1:14
  • I'm not sure seeing far is stressed as much as seeing broad. He sees possibilities. Many thousands of them, all at once. Some are clear, others hidden in shadow, and where he goes can sometimes be decided on a single word spoken just so. Leto also sees that, but chose a strict Golden Path early on, compared to Paul reluctantly taking his terrible purpose.
    – user15742
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 3:02
  • @fredsbend - Paul sees the beginnings of the Golden Path and the possibility of bonding with the worms in order to achieve near immortality, but rejects it as unnecessary. Leto, by comparison, sees the path and its necessity for the survival of the human race. He sees farther than his father.
    – Valorum
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 8:27
  • Well, will see. I'm reading the series a second time, and only on the first book.
    – user15742
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 11:26
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    @fredsbend - Paul and Leto II have a conversation in the desert. Paul asks if there was 'no other way' and Leto explains that there wasn't its clear that Leto's prescience is greater than Paul;s
    – Valorum
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 11:50

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