in the far future, 3 clones, the Cleons, Brother Day, Brother Dusk, and Brother Dawn rule the Galactic Empire from the royal center of the Empire, the planet Trantor. They are genetically perfect replicas of ‘the perfect Emperor’ Cleon, and stability and peace are predicated on the clones being exact duplicates, flawless, of Cleon. Unknown to anyone but the clones, the real ruler is the last surviving robot, Demrezel, the shadow ruler who takes charge of each generation of clones and is the final authority.
But rebellions are beginning to take root in the Empire. A mathematician who practices mathematical psycho history. Hari Selden, is called to face Brother Day and predicts the Empire will fall within the next few generations and face 30,000 years of Dark Ages. The fall cannot be stopped, but the Dark Ages can be reduced to a single thousand years if the Emperors begin to follow the precepts of the Prime Radiant, the little pocket computer that contains all the math and proofs, and directions for the future. The Emperors refuse and threaten to execute Selden and his companion, Gaal, but they compromise with Selden and place him on a planet at the edge of the Galaxy, Terminus. There he creates the Foundation, the group of scientists and followers of Selden who will preserve and protect the knowledge of humanity and psychohistory.
In the course of time, Hari Selden dies (or so it seems) but he reemerges from a mysterious Vault that can only be physically approached by a few, as he emerges to deal with each of the Crises predicted by psychohistory. Hari and Gaal emerge in time at specific points over the next few hundred years, as Cleons rise and fall, using Hari’s artificial life and Gaal’s hibernation and waking techniques. They encounter Salvor Harden, who is important to help solve the Foundation’s first crisis, and Hober Mallow, who helps solve the second crisis. The third crisis is the worst, and defeats the equations: the rise of The Mule, a terrible psychopath who can control the minds of anyone around him and threatens the plans of the Foundation. The third crisis will be when the Foundation, and the mysterious Second Foundation, face the Mule, whom they may not be strong enough to defeat.
Note, I’ve run this through Narravo already but am respecting Jim’s wishes that humans work on this here.
I will say the Narravo pulled in a LOT of rich information and detail from the web, using specific jargon from the show (using the name of Gaal’s home planet e.g. which I do not mention here). That was interesting: Navarro does not have a wall around it preventing it from seeing anything in the outside world.
hi @GetSchwifty I have enjoyed the series but initially I was worried about spoilers so didn’t read your summary. I just realized that season 3 is only coming out one episode at a time and I just caught up, so I guess there’s no chance of spoilers.
Anyway, I feel like the series is immense and sprawling (its best aspect!*), and it may or may not have a complete storyform for the full series. In any case, we’ll have to wait until Season 3 is done to find out – not much sense trying to analyze before you know the end unless it’s super clear (which I don’t think this is?). I’m assuming Season 3 will be the last season, especially the way it seems to be wrapping up the Cleons with how much they’re ditching their old standards and behavior…
P.S. Did you ever read the books? I did, way back in high school, and unfortunately I remembered one really big spoiler that I wish I had forgotten!
\* It might do “sprawling across time” better than any other show.
Oh, I guess one point for a series storyform is that there definitely seems to be a Series Antagonist – Demerezel. Also a Series Goal – getting humanity through the fall of civilziation / dark ages.
Indeed. It looks as if the producers are planning 8 seasons but don’t know if it can be funded.
The original Foundation books may indeed be wrapped up by season 3. Of course, those were a series of novellas and short stories, collected into books, not a single planned story. Interesting example of how The Story Mind can create continuity the writer didn’t bother to make.
For more material they will have to go to the the books Asimov wrote from the 80s onward, as well as the other-written sequels. There is a lot of material and could bring in a lot more on The Robot Wars and R. Daneel Olivaw’s earlier career, for example.
I think sharpen the goal: force the unfolding of history to adhere to Hari Selden’s plan in order to shorten the dark ages of humanity after the inevitable collapse of Empire.
That sounds cool! But I think we’ll have to wait to see how it unfolds. It might even turn out more vague, like where it ends with the characters having hope for humanity, that kind of thing.
I did, and I remember the same spoiler, which will land soon enough in series 3. It was actually my least favorite thing about the books, but I have to say it works better in a dramatic presentation. I was surprised that they already put a Big Naked Clue about it during one of the Mule’s musings.