[GeoAtreides]

>the Bene Gesserit sisterhood with their powers of prescience

no, the Bene Gesserit doesn't have prescience, the opposite maybe (postcognition)

>Spice melange, which can only be found on the planet Arrakis (aka Dune), is the drug that enables this enhanced mental cognition

no, for anyone not called Atreides spice just prolongs life; some mentats take sapho juice, but they don't need drugs. .

[defrost]

As I recall, perhaps erroneously, Guild Navigators are nominal humans who owe their ability to move ships to being spiced to their gills.

[GeoAtreides]

Yes, I forgot about the Guild Navigators. Technically they don't move the ships, they see the safe path to the destination.

[defrost]

I haven't read the book since I was 13 / 14 (ish) and that was some decades ago and not so long after it was first published, by my recollection there was a strong parallel between Spice (must flow) and Oil in a not so subtle way.

Via the Navigators, who lived in dense clouds of spice, transport across the Dune universe was possible - spice was as fundamental to trade and commerce as oil has been here on earth for the past century.

If that recollection was correct, it seems odd to overlook one of the key layers of the original work (as I recall it, of course).

[sometimelurker]

I think the navigators were also gmo'ed a bit

[Schlagbohrer]

The Bene Gesserit do have prescience, what are you talking about? It's why the god emperor later tries to breed humans who's actions cannot be foreseen and can therefore escape the oppression of the future-seeing Bene Gesserit.

[GeoAtreides]

I'm sorry, you must be mistaken. The Bene Gesserit do not have prescience. Further more, the God Emperor plan had two part: first, to encourage the Scattering and second to make sure humans are not visible to any and all prescients.