Foundation

[Adonisus]

"All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance." -Edward Gibbon

As history as shown us, the inevitable fate of Empire is to decline. Armys become to powerful, politicians become too spoiled, economies become to strained, and outsiders become too powerful in spite of the Empire's perceived strength and stability. It happened to the Greeks, it happened to the Romans, it happened to the British....it is a continuous cycle, from birth, to growth, to staleness, to collapse. And what inevitably follows, is barbarism. As economies collapse, human desperation takes the lead over human compassion. Superstition takes the lead over Reason. We call these 'dark ages'.

Yet even in the darkest of times, there has always been a beacon of light amongst them. Obscure scholars laboring in crumbling temples, lone monks scribbling away in candlelit monasteries. Out of the darkness, there is Fire in the Night.

And as the Galactic Empire of Asimov's saga shows, the cycle will continue, ever onward......



The Russian-born Isaac Asimov.....if you don't know who he is, you are not a true SF buff. Asimov was (and still is) one of the most famous, most acclaimed, most celebrated, and most widely read science fiction author in human history. A true polymath, he was a member of MENSA and an insanely prolific author, being responsible for writing or editing well over five hundred books, both fiction and non-fiction. He contributed to the fields of science fiction, fantasy, detective fiction, and children's literature. He also wrote books on the subjects of popular science, Shakespeare, The Holy Bible, history, obscure trivia, astronomy and mathematics. He wrote what is considered by many to be the greatest science fiction story of all time: the short story Nightfall (which he later expanded into a novel with the help of Robert Silverberg). And most of all, he gave us the Three Laws of Robotics. Sadly, AIDS took him away from us in 1992, but his legacy is a mountain of classic science fiction.


This particular novel, which would expand into the Foundation trilogy (and eventually a series), is one of Asimov's best. It is part of a future history that Asimov developed, which is sometimes called the "Greater Foundation" series. This future history would also encompass Asimov's celebrated Robot stories, as well as his Galactic Empire trilogy.


The eponymous foundation of the novel's title is the creation of a visionary genius named Hari Seldon. Seldon has developed a form of mathematics called 'psychohistory', a new science that equates societal change to mathematical formulas, and can be used to calculate long term outcomes. Seldon has come to a sad, yet inevitable truth....the Galactic Empire is crumbling. Although on the outside it gives an image of stability and strength, in reality it is in a state of slow decay. Seldon's ideas are considered treasonous and he attracts the attention of the de facto rulers of the Empire: The Commission of Public Safety (as an aside, this is another sign of an Empire's fall: when it becomes a self-destructive Police State). He is arrested along with a young mathematician named Gaal Dornick. During his trial, Seldon reveals his tragic findings to the Commision: the inevitable collapse of the Empire within 500 years, followed by a 30,000-year period of barbarism.

But Seldon has a possible solution, though it is not a cure as it will only slow down the inevitable by about 500 years: A compendium of all human knowledge, an Encyclopedia Galactica. The Commision, afraid to make Seldon a potential martry, offers him the chance to go into exile with his followers in tow, to an obscure planet called Terminus.

What results is a saga of a thousand plus years. As the world around them collapses into darkness, Seldon and his followers (and their families) begin their massive project. They grow over the years, founding a new religion (Scientism, as fans call it), a booming economy, and become the scientific hub of the galaxy. However, they are challenged by various 'Seldon Crises' ( social and political situation that, to be successfully surmounted, would eventually leave only one possible, inevitable, course of action). Eventually, even the crumbling Empire will take notice.


The Foundation saga beat various other sci-fi and fantasy series (including LOTR) to win a special Hugo Award for best All-Time series in 1965. Asimov himself was amazed at winning the award, as he thought it had been specially created to honor Tolkien's novel. To this day, it is the only series in Hugo's history to be honored in such a way. It is argued by some to be Asimov's best...high praise considering the pile of classic fiction that Asimov created.

To some, it is the pinnacle of Asimov's legacy.

To others, it's just a damn good book.

[Daryn]

This is another one of those series that I've never had a chance to get into. I suppose that there really is no excuse for it now, they're all on audible now so I should be able to get them easily.

[Tha_Pig]

I read the Foundation series back in the eighties and it's still one of my favorites. It's amazing because of the epic scope of the story, taking several centuries. But at the same time, it manages to insert interesting characters and their personal lives into the action. I may probably re-read it one of these days, as my memory has started to fade.

[BIos_Reaper]

I am proud to say I recently read the Foundation book, and I can honestly say, Isaac Asimov remains today as one of my all time favorite authors. The book is outright amazing, though I keep thinking that he only created the Three Laws of Robotics to prove a point that a true synthetic intellect would bypass such a simple logic circle and thus only less complicated machine minds could be bound by it. However people choose to see it, still the book was outright amazing.

The way empires crumbled, nothing remains forever. I have based the rise and inevitable fall of my own nations off of similar theories but I never knew that Isaac wrote about it till recently. I will do my best to hunt down the remaining books in the series and read them from cover to cover. Though I sometimes wonder, will genii ever make a re-appearance? Will we, at some point, in the next year, decade, century, millenium? Receive another Isaac Asimov? I'd like to think humanity has potential, though en-masse we are a relatively silly animal by nature. Psychohistory was also a really clever idea, predicting the behavioral patterns of mobs via social and ethical psychiatry as well as mathmatical formulas for socio economic conditions.

Naturally the way he explained it, it could not anticipate an individual, and too many variations and the predictions would be way off. It was an amazing book, I'm surprised no one has mentioned it before now!