Second, his legend is persistent, and many ATREIDES, PAUL 81 ATRHDES, PAUL parts of it are consistent with known history. The Second Jihad, for example, would have required a single, immensely powerful focusing element, probably the lens of one man's visionary eye. A jihad will always acquire its own momentum soon after its launching, becoming as it grows an ungovernable whirlwind which must spend its fury before it will dissipate But a jihafcl always, too, requires its impetus from the spiritual force of one man's charisma. The Second Jihad developed almost immediately after the Battle of Arrakeen and very likely had as its center the same genius who had crushed House Harkonnen and the Imperium together with a rag-tag band of desert nomads.7 This genius would have been of heroic proportion; indeed, it is eaj,y to visualize a superstitious people naming htm Messiah. The name of Paul Atretdes would have suited him as well as any.8 Finally, the House Corrino quickly and deliberately attached itself to the man it called Paul Atreides. Virtually every surviving document whose author purports to have seen Paul in the flesh was written by a direct-line member of the House Corrino. It is not uncommon, of course, for a ruling or aspiring family to claim mythological descent. But ooae of the plethora of documents and fragments of documents still existing that are supposed to have been written by the Princess Irulan Corrino-Atreides claims that her family is genealogically tied to Paul's. Rather, they seem to indicate, somewhat haughtily, that she was his virgin wife; similarly, die writings of her nephew, Harq al-Ada, indicate no blood kinship between House Corrino and Paul Atreides.9 This is a very interesting revelation. In combination with the reasonable assumption Aat the Corrinos, like anyone, would have been able to claim lineal descent from a purely fictional god-hero, and for political purposes would have claimed it, leads to the conclusions, first, that Paul Atreides existed; and, second, that he was powerful enough for the Corrinos to have wished kinship ties with him.10 Granting, then, that Paul Atreides lived, what was his lineage7 The legendary lineage claimed for him (see genealogy chart) is clearly fantastic. It absolutely cannot be accurate; it should be dismissed out of hand. Even the Harkonnen-influenced histories11 leave no doubt that his purported grandsire, the Siridar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, was impotent, could not conceivably have fathered the woman known to us as "Lady Jessica Harkonnen," Paul's mother. In fact, the Baron, having no direct heirs of either sex, was in the process of dividing Arrakis's governmental responsibilities between his nephews when the Fremen forces overran Arrakeen in 10193. Nor is mere much more likelihood that Paul was in truth connected to the Atreides family by blood, as the Red Duke was, together with all members of his immediate family then on Arrakis, assassinated in the 10191 coup.