This section is presented in transcribed question and answer format. An unnamed Fremen priest interrogates the historian Bronso of Ix, who awaits execution for his heretical history of Paul Atreides, Emperor of the Known Universe in the year 10,208. Paul is the result of a centuries-long selective breeding program by the pseudo-religious sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit. Known as the “Kwisatz Haderach,” Paul possesses profound mental and physical capabilities, including prescience. Paul’s natural prescience was heightened further when he traveled to the desert planet Arrakis, known as Dune, where he was exposed to the spice, or melange, a psychoactive substance created exclusively by the planet’s gigantic sandworms. Paul’s abilities established him as the “Mahdi,” the messianic figure of the indigenous people of Dune, the Fremen. With the zealous support of the Fremen, Paul deposed the previous, corrupt Emperor Shaddam Corrino 12 years ago; since then, Fremen armies have perpetrated a violent religious war, referred to as the “Jihad,” to bring the universe under Paul’s governance. Paul’s efforts have cost billions of lives.

Bronso was condemned for tracing the political and secular arc of Paul’s rise to power, rather than ascribing to the new Empire’s official Fremen religion, of which Paul and his sister Alia are godheads.