Set twelve years after Paul Atreides becomes Emperor, Dune Messiah explores the dark aftermath of his rise. Having accepted the role of messiah to the Fremen, Paul has unleashed a galaxy-spanning jihad that has killed 61 billion people. His prescient visions convince him that trying to halt the slaughter would lead to even worse outcomes, so he remains the religious and political center of a force he can no longer control, focusing instead on reshaping the Empire and securing his dynasty.
Three great powers—the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, the Spacing Guild, and the shape-shifting Bene Tleilaxu—join forces to topple him. They use the Guild Navigator Edric’s prescience to hide their plot, recruit Reverend Mother Mohiam and Princess Irulan, and present Paul with a Tleilaxu ghola, Hayt, grown from the cells of his dead mentor Duncan Idaho. Irulan secretly drugs Paul’s beloved concubine Chani to prevent an heir, while the Tleilaxu plan for Hayt to destabilize Paul emotionally.
A Tleilaxu-supplied “stone burner” atomic weapon blinds Paul, though his oracular vision lets him “see” by precisely following his foreseen life. Chani eventually conceives and dies in childbirth, triggering a command implanted in Hayt to kill Paul—but the trauma restores Duncan’s true consciousness, freeing him from Tleilaxu control. Chani’s twins, Leto and Ghanima, are born preternaturally aware. Rejecting an offer to resurrect Chani as a ghola, Paul thwarts the conspirators, then chooses to fulfill Fremen custom by walking blind into the desert, shedding his deified status and bequeathing power and Fremen loyalty to his children under the regency of his sister Alia.