ed die Fedaykm And then, in 10193, he led die Fedaykin out of die desert and m a single stroke destroyed die combined forced of House Comno and House Harkonnen How could one man create tau among all die sietches of Arrakis and then turn a group of warriors once devot ed to resisting change into a force that changed not only their own planet but every known world m die Impenum and beyond' 1o say such a man was a military genius with the ability to inspire fanatic devotion in his fol lowers is to understate the case Yes Muad Dib was all of this But he must have been much more So magnetic wdb his personality so great must have been his deeds that he was able to convince an entire people devoted to "the ways of the fathers that Muad'Dib s way was that way The Fremen were indeed a superstitious people, but those supersti bons were a powerful force of conservatism A man could not simply walk into a Fremen sietch and state that he was the fulfillment of then: beliefs The Fremen would need proof and wonderous proof it would have had to have been Thus, the very fact that Muad'Dib was able to form the Fedaykin and smash two powerful armies is compelling evidence for the many stones that exist concerning his life among die Fremen Specific stones may, indeed, be fictional but the general nature of die events that are described must be true Paul Muad'Dib s final years during die Second Jihad and the founding of universal government from the planet Arrakis are considered less dian believable by many scholars because they are laced with constant ATREIDES PAUL MUAD DIB 99 ATREIDES PAUL MUAD DIB reference to his prescience and his final act of self-banishment after the abortive attempt on his life by the combined forces of the Spacing Guild, the House Comno, and the Bene Gessent As to Muad'Dib's being prescient, there is little reason to suppose that he did not have some such power It must be remembered that he had ingested more melange than any other living being in his time It is documented that this mind-expandmg drug had as one of its effects the ability to reason through a series of complicated facts to accurate predic tions of future e\ents Both the Guild and the Bene Gessent used melange for exactly this reason In fact, it was Muad'Dib's control of this vital drug that led to these two group!*' participation in the assassination attempt Given Muad'Dib s place within the Bene Gessent breeding program and his mental training through Thufir Hawat, it is not impossible to conclude mat under the influence of melange he was capable of such vast reasoning power that his visions of die future were far greater and more vivid than these others, paler imitations This is not to argue that the future is some fixed chain of events which Muad'Dib was able to foresee It simply suggests that he was able to see with greater clarity than any other being the com plicated chain of events that led to future happenings and that he took advantage of this "sight