Foundations

Some time back I picked up the three original trilogy novels in the famous foundation series by Issac Asimov – Foundation, Foundation and the Empire, and Second Foundation. I was impressed and happy. I enjoyed what I read.

Here below is the summary of the three novels. I have liberally picked extracts from various places in the novels. Hope you enjoy it.

The first Galactic empire had lasted tens of thousands of years. It had all the planets of the Galaxy in a centralized rule. Human beings had forgotten if there was any other form of existence. Except, Hari Seldon.

The seat of the power of this first Galactic empire was at Trantor. The whole planet was a big city. It was more under the earth than above it. It was all concrete, metal, high buildings, all connected to each other. It was inhabited by 40 billion people. The entire population was almost all devoted to the administrative necessities of the Empire. The enormity of the scale can he had from the fact that daily, fleets of ships in tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor. The only place on the Trantor where one could still see bare earth was the Emperor’s palace. Most people spent their entire life never feeling the need to see open skies or bare earth. Such was the life.

The empire that Trantor administered was colossal, stretching across millions and millions of worlds across the entire length and breadth of double spiral that was the Milky way.

It’s fall was colossal, too – and a long one, for it had a long way to go.

It had been falling for centuries before one man became really aware of that fall. That man was Hari Seldon.

Hari seldon was last of the great scientists of the first empire. It was he who brought and perfected the art of psycho-history. Psycho-history was the science of human behavior reduced to mathematical equations.

The individual human being is unpredictable, however the reaction of human mobs, could be treated statistically. The larger the mob, the greater the accuracy that could be achieved. The size of the mob that Seldon worked with was no less than the population of the entire Galaxy, which in his time was numbered in the quintillions.

Seldon saw in the glitter and glaze of first empire the signs of its decay and decline. His equations told him that the empire would fall and that left to itself, the Galaxy would endure thirty thousand years of anarchy, before a unified government would rise again.

It was too late to stop that fall, but Seldon embarked upon the task of plotting the social and economic trends of the time, and the future, to reduce the gap between the complete collapse of the first empire and the rise of the next, to a thousand years instead of thirty thousand.

Seldon, setup two colonies of scientists that he called “Foundations”. Intentionally, he set them up at two ends of the Galaxy. One Foundation was setup in full public view. The existence of the other, the Second Foundation, was shrouded in secrecy.

The First Foundation started with a small community of Encyclopedists lost in the emptiness of the outer periphery of the Galaxy. Their stated objective was to document the scientific inventions, discoveries and advancements of the First Empire, so that the knowledge is not lost with the loss of the empire.

As the empire rotted, the outer regions fell in the hands of independent kings and warlords. The Foundation was threatened by them, by playing one against another, by cleverly playing the basic needs of the people against the expansionist needs of their rulers, Foundation continued to hold on to its sovereignty and also started dominating the surrounding worlds. As the sole possessor of the atomic power among worlds which were loosing their sciences and falling back on coal and oil, they even established an ascendancy. The Foundation became religious center of the neighboring kingdom.

Slowly the Foundation developed a trading economy, as the encyclopedists receded in the background. Their traders dealing in atomic gadgets which not only the Empire in its hay days could have duplicated for compactness, penetrated hundreds of light years thru’ the periphery.

At the end of two hundred years foundation was the most powerful state in the Galaxy except for the remains of the Empire which concentrated in the central third of the Milky way.

It was obvious that the Foundation will have to face the last lunge of the dying Empire before it could go on unobstructed to fulfill its destiny. The empire did strike, but the suspicion, treachery, selfishness, lack of vision and lack of moral, the basis of Seldon’s prediction of the fall of the empire, took care of it and the Empire retreated.

Then the Foundation faced something that even the great Saldon hadn’t predicted, the overwhelming power of a single human being, a Mutant. The creature known as the Mule was born with the ability to mould people’s emotions and to shape their minds. His bitterest opponents were made into his devoted servants. Armies could not, would not fight him. Before him the First Foundation fell and Seldon’s schemes lay partly in ruins.

The Mule knew that the only thing remaining between him and the rule of the entire Galaxy is the Second Foundation. But before he could deal with it, he must find it.

Since Mule was not catered for in the Seldon Plan, and since his continuity on the Galactic scene was endangering the Seldon plan, the Second Foundation had to reveal its existence, worse, it had to use portion of its powers to subdue the Mule. Like Mule, Second Foundationers had perfected the art of mind control. While Mule was born with it, Second Foundationers had learned it.

The Mule was allowed to preside over the territory he had conquered till he died. Shortly after Mule’s death, First Foundation broke away from Mule’s Union of Worlds and gained independence. Seldon’s plan again came back on track, or did it?

With Second foundation revealing itself to counter Mule, First Foundation had learned of them and First Foundationer’s actions got influenced by that knowledge. That in itself could be the death of Seldon’s plan. Remember, Seldon’s plan was based on the spontaneous behavior of a huge number of people, if the same people became aware of the plan or the actors that were directing the plan, their behaviors would no longer be spontaneous and that would mean curtains to everything.

The loss of spontaneity at First Foundation, because of the knowledge of existence of Second Foundation, could have manifested in two ways - One, people would have abandon their purposeful stride and would have started depending on an external agency to help them in their crisis. Second – Knowledge of Second Foundation’s guardianship and control would have aroused is some, not complacency, but hostility. Hostility that would not end till Second Foundation is destroyed. Infact that suited second foundation as well!

Second Foundation had a formidable task of molding the collective consciousness of First Foundationers such that they, on their own will, believe in the destruction of Second Foundation and also in their own strength.

Second Foundation worked on some select First Foundationers, controlled their minds and setup situations such that the First Foundationers were convinced that Second Foundation has been destroyed.

Second Foundation knew that First foundation must carry on with its business as usual, without the overbearing shadow of Second Foundation, such that when the time comes for the establishment of 2^nd Galactic empire, First Foundation can supply the physical infrastructure and Second Foundation can supply the mental infrastructure to rule over it.

The Seldon plan was back on track.