Kralizec/XD

Kralizec is the long-foretold 'battle at the end of the universe.' And it was a term used by the God Emperor Leto II to denominate the chaotic period after his death, the Famine Times and The Scattering.

The Butlerian Jihad
Kralizec was a tradition of the Buddislamics. They believed that it first came when the Thinking Machines destroyed the Old Empire and enslaved humanity before the Butlerian Jihad. It was believed by them that with the advent of the Corrino Empire that the dark times had come to an end.

The Death of Leto II
After the statements over 13,000 years later by the God Emperor Leto II, concerning the great struggle human-kind would face after his death, the concept of a great change or struggle dominated the thinking of mankind for the next 1500 years. As human-kind spread throughout the cosmos during the Famine Times and the Scattering, and survived the death of Leto II, Kralizec became a future event that would spell the doom of mankind. As the Honored Matres bounded into the reborn Thinking Machines Empire, Omnius and Erasmus became aware of this great prophecy concerning the future of their human enemies.

Erasmus' Reasoning
The Thinking Machine ruler, Erasmus, was convinced humankind's great propensity for destruction and zeal for inflicting pain necessitated a universe-altering event like Kralizec.

During the Return of the Honored Matres, the Matres systematically destroyed world after world in their coming back to the Old Imperium. As an example of their great violence, in a revenge act against Miles Teg for killing some of their leaders on Gammu; the Matres completely destroyed every living human, creature, and thing on Rakis. This hell-bent destruction is what Erasmus sought to come to an end, and with machine domination or guidance he believed it would come to an end, for human-kind's own good.

Based upon the great rise of violence as human-kind absorbed the Matres back into known space, Erasmus believed in "mathematical projections", which said that the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach must arise, to bring order out of chaos. To further the desired goals of the Machine leaders, Omnius especially, wanted to control and dominate the remanants of human-kind, by using the Ultimate super-being.

On the Ithaca
According to the study of the galaxies that Erasmus had engaged in over the previous millennia, he believed that the Ultimate Kwisatz was aboard, or his or her ghola cells were aboard, the no-ship, the Ithaca. The machine leaders, in their guise as Daniel and Marty, quickly attempted to capture the vessel in their tachyon net, as it escaped from Chapterhouse. This proved unsuccessful, as the Ithaca's captain, Duncan Idaho, fold spaced to safety. Over the course of the next few decades, the Thinking Machine rulers tried time and time again to pin down and bring to Synchrony, the wandering starship, but proved unable.

During this time on the Ithaca, the Bene Gesserit Sheeana created gholas of powerful individuals from mankind's history, as she believed that when battle came with Daniel and Marty, that the gholas could lend their talents and abilities. Over the course of two decades, the gholas of Stilgar, Wellington Yueh, Liet Kynes, Chani, Jessica Atreides, Paul Atreides, Thufir Hawat, Alia Atreides, and Leto II, were created; as they were led by Duncan Idaho and a ghola of Miles Teg, through the cosmos.

Paolo
As a back-up plan, Omnius and Erasmus conceived a plan to decant their own duplicate of the first known Kwisatz of mankind, a clone of Paul Atreides, obtained from blood cells of the five millennia old Emperor's Blade. The clone/ghola which they created they named Paolo. They entrusted the decanting of Paolo to Uxtal, the lone-surviving Lost Tlelaxu scribe, who performed his work on Bandalong. The individual that oversaw the project for the Machine rulers, was Khrone, leader of the Enhanced Face Dancers. Khrone had an earlier decanted a ghola of Vladimir Harkonnen, who raised Paolo with a violent, manipulative, and negative personality; as opposed to his predecessor from 5000 years earlier.

Paolo did exhibit bits of prescience as he grew. The chief of these was a vision of an older version of himself looking up at him, as the one down on the ground slowly bled to death. When Paolo reached the age of 10, he and the reborn Baron were brought to Synchrony to have Paolo's martial arts training completed by Erasmus.

New Sisterhood
Meanwhile, it was known by Murbella, leader of the New Sisterhood, that the Matres had fled from a great Enemy that they had awakened centuries earlier by a way-faring Matre sub-leader named Lenise, and that the Matres had bounded their way back into the Old Imperium, to escape from It. During a purposeful large dose of melange, Murbella learned from Other Memory that the Lenise and her Matre faction had violently attacked, stole super-weapon Obliterators from, and then destroyed an outpost of the reborn Thinking Machine Empire.

From scouting reports from the edges of human-kind out in The Scattering worlds, she learned that the Machines had launched a million starship armada against humanity. That armada, guided by Omnius, began to destroy human-kind system-by-system, planet-by-planet towards the heart of the Old Empire, Chapterhouse and Junction.

Enhanced Face Dancers
The Enhanced Face Dancers, originally sent out by Hidar Fen Ajidica five thousand years earlier, had been intercepted by, and improved upon by none other than Erasmus. Erasmus had perfected the mimicking technique used by the Dancers, and had already begun sending them out into human worlds. to take over key positions of leadership. Khrone, leader of the Enhanced Dancers, also had a type of double agent program up his sleeves that all Face Dancers were engaging in.

When human-kind and machine-kind had sufficiently exhausted themselves in their all out war, the Enhanced Face Dancers would rise up and take hegemony over the universe. In the meantime, Khrone and his hundreds of millions of Enhanced Dancers did their bidding of their Machine Masters, and replaced many leadership positions throughout human-kind.

The Oracle of Time
Lastly, the prescience essence of the Oracle of Time, using her tens of thousands of years-old knowledge of the universe, believed that Kralizec was coming to human-kind. The Oracle had been searching for the Ithaca as well, for the entire 26 years that Duncan Idaho and crew, kept the no-ship hidden from the galaxies. The Oracle believed that when she could find the Ithaca, since she had seen through prescience that the Ultimate Kwisatz was aboard, that Kralizec would begin.

Paul versus Paolo
Finally, in 15,267 AG, twenty-six years after leaving Chapterhouse, the Ithaca was captured and brought to Synchrony, with all of the crew and the ghola children and teens aboard. Most of the entourage was led to the heart of Synchrony, in the capital building of the Cathedral.

Since the Machines had two duplicates of Paul Atreides, Omnius decided that Paul and Paolo would duel-to-the-death, and the victor would be ragarded as the Ultimate Super-Being, bringing change and victory for Machines—Kralizec. As the duel took place, Paolo mortally wounded Paul with a fatal stab wound. Paolo danced around in glee, and took the offered prize of Ultraspice, imbibing a huge dosage. Paolo went into a deep prescient vision, and saw all aspects of the universe simultaneously. Soon, Paolo found himself in an overdose, permanent trance; where he soon starved and thirsted to death.

Banishment of Omnius
Paul used his training as a Reverend Mother to self-heal his body, and willed his organs to re-accept the life fluids that had leaked out of them. As Paul came out of his near-death experience, he announced that the final ghola of Duncan Idaho, a human with no specialized breeding, was the universe's Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach. Immediately, the Oracle of Time appeared in Cathedral, and announced that Paul was correct, that Duncan was indeed the super-being. She also announced that her watching over the Guild Navigators had come to an end, and that she would be leaving the universe—and taking all vestiges of Omnius with her. Despite Omnius' protests, before all assembled, the Oracle disappeared to another dimension removing all aspects of the Machine Tyrant with her.

Death of Millions of Face Dancers
Immediately, Khrone and his Enhanced Face Dancer minions announced that their time of galactic hegemony was to begin. Since man and machine had near destroyed themselves, the Enhanced Dancers would simply stay in the leadership positions in mankind; and would now take over Synchrony, since Omnius was gone forever. Erasmus announced to all assembled that he had foreseen this moment millennia ago, and had installed a kill switch into all of the Enhanced Face Dancers. Erasmus turned on the tachyon net, and instantaneously killed each and every Face Dancer in the Known Universe. Literally, tens of millions of Dancers died through all of human-kind space, ending the Face Dancer threat forever.

Duncan Idaho
To test Duncan's abilities, Erasmus had an entire machine contingent attack Idaho. Duncan's latent abilities fully kicked in, and Idaho dispatched the Thinking Machines easily. Erasmus then suggested that Duncan and himself merge, and through the utilization of Duncan's abilities as the final Kwisatz Haderach, Erasmus entered into Duncan's nerve system as in Other Memory. Erasmus then asked for Duncan's help to pass away and die, which Erasmus did.

Last Ditch Stand at Chapterhouse
Simultaneously, the Machine armada had began their attack on the edge of human controlled space at Junction and Chapterhouse, and brought human-kind damage the greatest not seen sense the Butlerian Jihad. As the day of Kralizec began, Murbella and her daughter, Bashar Janess Idaho held a last-ditch 'line in the sand' in a human ship armada above the skies of Chapterhouse. Janess discovered that the ships and weapons that had been produced by the foundry star-ship yards of Ix had been sabotaged, as some of them did not functioned when humanity fired upon the Machines.

The day of Kralizec unfolded as the Machine ships attacked, but the Oracle of Time/Norma Cenva appeared with hundreds of Guild Heighliners, and completely destroyed the first wave of machine ships. Then the Oracle disappeared into fold space, leaving the human Armada dumbfounded. A few hours later, Murbella and the human fleet were equally astounded when the Machine ships just stopped functioning and drifted aimlessly over Chapterhouse, not realizing that the Oracle had given humanity a final gift of banishing Omnius permanently. Lastly, Janess and Murbella, as well as all of humanity's leaders found herself completely at a loss for words when thousands of people instantly died all around them, suddenly realizing they were Enhanced Face Dancers, and that Erasmus had killed them through the tachyon net.

Duncan Idaho
To humanity's great surprise, not only was the Man/Machine war completely over, but that there was also an Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach, to guide humanity and machine into tomorrow. Janess was filled with happiness, as it was discovered that now man and machine would live in complete harmony, with her father being both the new Evermind, as well as the super-being of mankind. A new order is formed where Duncan is now the supreme being in the universe, able to control machines and influence humans significantly. Mankind and Thinking Machines will work together in complete cooperation.

Behind the Scenes
In the end it is not a battle that occurs, except in the initial months-long attack by plague and starship that the Machines unleashed on mankind; but a great change that sees machines and humans united through Duncan Idaho.

Appearances

 * Children of Dune
 * Hunters of Dune
 * Sandworms of Dune