Foundation - Isaac Asimov

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FOUNDATION

ISAAC ASIMOV

To the memory of my mother (1895 -- 1973)

Contents

Introduction <>

Part I The Psychohistorians <>

Part II The Encyclopedists <>

Part III The Mayors <>

Part IV The Traders <>

Part V The Merchant Princes <>

THE STORY BEHIND THE “FOUNDATION”

By ISAAC ASIMOV

The date was August 1, 1941. World War II had been raging for two years. France had fallen, the Battle of

Britain had been fought, and the Soviet Union had just been invaded by Nazi Germany. The bombing of

Pearl Harbor was four months in the future.

But on that day, with Europe in flames, and the evil shadow of Adolf Hitler apparently falling over

all the world, what was chiefly on my mind was a meeting toward which I was hastening.

I was 21 years old, a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University, and I had been writing

science fiction professionally for three years. In that time, I had sold five stories to John Campbell, editor of

Astounding, and the fifth story, “Nightfall,” was about to appear in the September 1941 issue of the

magazine. I had an appointment to see Mr. Campbell to tell him the plot of a new story I was planning to

write, and the catch was that I had no plot in mind, not the trace of one.

I therefore tried a device I sometimes use. I opened a book at random and set up free association,

beginning with whatever I first saw. The book I had with me was a collection of the Gilbert and Sullivan

plays. I happened to open it to the picture of the Fairy Queen of lolanthe throwing herself at the feet of

Private Willis. I thought of soldiers, of military empires, of the Roman Empire -- of a Galactic Empire --

aha!

Why shouldn’t I write of the fall of the Galactic Empire and of the return of feudalism, written

from the viewpoint of someone in the secure days of the Second Galactic Empire? After all, I had read

Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire not once, but twice.

I was bubbling over by the time I got to Campbell’s, and my enthusiasm must have been catching

for Campbell blazed up as I had never seen him do. In the course of an hour we built up the notion of a vast

series of connected stories that were to deal in intricate detail with the thousand-year period between the

First and Second Galactic Empires. This was to be illuminated by the science of psychohistory, which

Campbell and I thrashed out between us.

On August 11, 1941, therefore, I began the story of that interregnum and called it “Foundation.” In

it, I described how the psychohistorian, Hari Seldon, established a pair of Foundations at opposite ends of

the Universe under such circumstances as to make sure that the forces of history would bring about the

second Empire after one thousand years instead of the thirty thousand that would be required otherwise.

The story was submitted on September 8 and, to make sure that Campbell really meant what he

said about a series, I ended “Foundation” on a cliff-hanger. Thus, it seemed to me, he would be forced to

buy a second story.

However, when I started the second story (on October 24), I found that I had outsmarted myself. I

quickly wrote myself into an impasse, and the Foundation series would have died an ignominious death had

I not had a conversation with Fred Pohl on November 2 (on the Brooklyn Bridge, as it happened). I don’t

remember what Fred actually said, but, whatever it was, it pulled me out of the hole.

“Foundation” appeared in the May 1942 issue of Astounding and the succeeding story, “Bridle

and Saddle,” in the June 1942 issue.

After that there was only the routine trouble of writing the stories. Through the remainder of the

decade, John Campbell kept my nose to the grindstone and made sure he got additional Foundation stories.

“The Big and the Little” was in the August 1944 Astounding, “The Wedge” in the October 1944

issue, and “Dead Hand” in the April 1945 issue. (These stories were written while I was working at the

Navy Yard in Philadelphia.)

On January 26, 1945, I began “The Mule,” my personal favorite among the Foundation stories,

and the longest yet, for it was 50,000 words. It was printed as a two-part serial (the very first serial I was

ever responsible for) in the November and December 1945 issues. By the time the second part appeared I

was in the army.

After I got out of the army, I wrote “Now You See It--” which appeared in the January 1948 issue.

By this time, though, I had grown tired of the Foundation stories so I tried to end them by setting up, and

solving, the mystery of the location of the Second Foundation. Campbell would have none of that,

however. He forced me to change the ending, and made me promise I would do one more Foundation story.

Well, Campbell was the kind of editor who could not be denied, so I wrote one more Foundation

story, vowing to myself that it would be the last. I called it “--And Now You Don’t,” and it appeared as a

three-part serial in the November 1949, December 1949, and January 1950 issues of Astounding.

By then, I was on the biochemistry faculty of Boston University School of Medicine, my first

book had just been published, and I was determined to move on to new things. I had spent eight years on

the Foundation, written nine stories with a total of about 220,000 words. My total earnings for the series

came to $3,641 and that seemed enough. The Foundation was over and done with, as far as I was

concerned.

In 1950, however, hardcover science fiction was just coming into existence. I had no objection to

earning a little more money by having the Foundation series reprinted in book form. I offered the series to

Doubleday (which had already published a science-fiction novel by me, and which had contracted for

another) and to Little-Brown, but both rejected it. In that year, though, a small publishing firm, Gnome

Press, was beginning to be active, and it was prepared to do the Foundation series as three books.

The publisher of Gnome felt, however, that the series began too abruptly. He persuaded me to

write a small Foundation story, one that would serve as an introductory section to the first book (so that the

first part of the Foundation series was the last written).

In 1951, the Gnome Press edition of Foundation was published, containing the introduction and

the first four stories of the series. In 1952, Foundation and Empire appeared, with the fifth and sixth

stories; and in 1953, Second Foundation appeared, with the seventh and eighth stories. The three books

together came to be called The Foundation Trilogy.

The mere fact of the existence of the Trilogy pleased me, but Gnome Press did not have the

financial clout or the publishing knowhow to get the books distributed properly, so that few copies were

sold and fewer still paid me royalties. (Nowadays, copies of first editions of those Gnome Press books sell

at $50 a copy and up--but I still get no royalties from them.)

Ace Books did put out paperback editions of Foundation and of Foundation and Empire, but they

changed the titles, and used cut versions. Any money that was involved was paid to Gnome Press and I

didn’t see much of that. In the first decade of the existence of The Foundation Trilogy it may have earned

something like $1500 total.

And yet there was some foreign interest. In early 1961, Timothy Seldes, who was then my editor

at Doubleday, told me that Doubleday had received a request for the Portuguese rights for the Foundation

series and, since they weren’t Doubleday books, he was passing them on to me. I sighed and said, “The

heck with it, Tim. I don’t get royalties on those books.”

Seldes was horrified, and instantly set about getting the books away from Gnome Press so that

Doubleday could publish them instead. He paid no attention to my loudly expressed fears that Doubleday

“would lose its shirt on them.” In August 1961 an agreement was reached and the Foundation books

became Doubleday property. What’s more, Avon Books, which had published a paperback version of

Second Foundation, set about obtaining the rights to all three from Doubleday, and put out nice editions.

From that moment on, the Foundation books took off and began to earn increasing royalties. They

have sold well and steadily, both in hardcover and softcover, for two decades so far. Increasingly, the

letters I received from the readers spoke of them in high praise. They received more attention than all my

other books put together.

Doubleday also published an omnibus volume, The Foundation Trilogy, for its Science Fiction

Book Club. That omnibus volume has been continuously featured by the Book Club for over twenty years.

Matters reached a climax in 1966. The fans organizing the World Science Fiction Convention for

that year (to be held in Cleveland) decided to award a Hugo for the best all-time series, where the series, to

qualify, had to consist of at least three connected novels. It was the first time such a category had been set

up, nor has it been repeated since. The Foundation series was nominated, and I felt that was going to have

to be glory enough for me, since I was sure that Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” would win.

It didn’t. The Foundation series won, and the Hugo I received for it has been sitting on my

bookcase in the livingroom ever since.

In among all this litany of success, both in money and in fame, there was one annoying side-effect.

Readers couldn’t help but notice that the books of the Foundation series covered only three hundred-plus

years of the thousand-year hiatus between Empires. That meant the Foundation series “wasn’t finished.” I

got innumerable letters from readers who asked me to finish it, from others who demanded I finish it, and

still others who threatened dire vengeance if I didn’t finish it. Worse yet, various editors at Doubleday over

the years have pointed out that it might be wise to finish it.

It was flattering, of course, but irritating as well. Years had passed, then decades. Back in the

1940s, I had been in a Foundation-writing mood. Now I wasn’t. Starting in the late 1950s, I had been in a

more and more nonfiction-writing mood.

That didn’t mean I was writing no fiction at all. In the 1960s and 1970s, in fact, I wrote two

science-fiction novels and a mystery novel, to say nothing of well over a hundred short stories -- but about

eighty percent of what I wrote was nonfiction.

One of the most indefatigable nags in the matter of finishing the Foundation series was my good

friend, the great science-fiction writer, Lester del Rey. He was constantly telling me I ought to finish the

series and was just as constantly suggesting plot devices. He even told Larry Ashmead, then my editor at

Doubleday, that if I refused to write more Foundation stories, he, Lester, would be willing to take on the

task.

When Ashmead mentioned this to me in 1973, I began another Foundation novel out of sheer

desperation. I called it “Lightning Rod” and managed to write fourteen pages before other tasks called me

away. The fourteen pages were put away and additional years passed.

In January 1977, Cathleen Jordan, then my editor at Doubleday, suggested I do “an important

book -- a Foundation novel, perhaps.” I said, “I’d rather do an autobiography,” and I did -- 640,000 words

of it.

In January 1981, Doubleday apparently lost its temper. At least, Hugh O’Neill, then my editor

there, said, “Betty Prashker wants to see you,” and marched me into her office. She was then one of the

senior editors, and a sweet and gentle person.

She wasted no time. “Isaac,” she said, “you are going to write a novel for us and you are going to

sign a contract to that effect.”

“Betty,” I said, “I am already working on a big science book for Doubleday and I have to revise

the Biographical Encyclopedia for Doubleday and --”

“It can all wait,” she said. “You are going to sign a contract to do a novel. What’s more, we’re

going to give you a $50,000 advance.”

That was a stunner. I don’t like large advances. They put me under too great an obligation. My

average advance is something like $3,000. Why not? It’s all out of royalties.

I said, “That’s way too much money, Betty.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said.

“Doubleday will lose its shirt,” I said.

“You keep telling us that all the time. It won’t.”

I said, desperately, “All right. Have the contract read that I don’t get any money until I notify you

in writing that I have begun the novel.”

“Are you crazy?” she said. “You’ll never start if that clause is in the contract. You get $25,000 on

signing the contract, and $25,000 on delivering a completed manuscript.”

“But suppose the novel is no good.”

“Now you’re being silly,” she said, and she ended the conversation.

That night, Pat LoBrutto, the science-fiction editor at Doubleday called to express his pleasure.

“And remember,” he said, “that when we say ‘novel’ we mean ‘science-fiction novel,’ not anything else.

And when we say ‘science-fiction novel,’ we mean ‘Foundation novel’ and not anything else.”

On February 5, 1981, I signed the contract, and within the week, the Doubleday accounting system

cranked out the check for $25,000.

I moaned that I was not my own master anymore and Hugh O’Neill said, cheerfully, “That’s right,

and from now on, we’re going to call every other week and say, ‘Where’s the manuscript?’” (But they

didn’t. They left me strictly alone, and never even asked for a progress report.)

Nearly four months passed while I took care of a vast number of things I had to do, but about the

end of May, I picked up my own copy of The Foundation Trilogy and began reading.

I had to. For one thing, I hadn’t read the Trilogy in thirty years and while I remembered the

general plot, I did not remember the details. Besides, before beginning a new Foundation novel I had to

immerse myself in the style and atmosphere of the series.

I read it with mounting uneasiness. I kept waiting for something to happen, and nothing ever did.

All three volumes, all the nearly quarter of a million words, consisted of thoughts and of conversations. No

action. No physical suspense.

What was all the fuss about, then? Why did everyone want more of that stuff? -- To be sure, I

couldn’t help but notice that I was turning the pages eagerly, and that I was upset when I finished the book,

and that I wanted more, but I was the author, for goodness’ sake. You couldn’t go by me.

I was on the edge of deciding it was all a terrible mistake and of insisting on giving back the

money, when (quite by accident, I swear) I came across some sentences by science-fiction writer and critic,

James Gunn, who, in connection with the Foundation series, said, “Action and romance have little to do

with the success of the Trilogy -- virtually all the action takes place offstage, and the romance is almost

invisible -- but the stories provide a detective-story fascination with the permutations and reversals of

ideas.”

Oh, well, if what was needed were “permutations and reversals of ideas,” then that I could supply.

Panic receded, and on June 10, 1981, I dug out the fourteen pages I had written more than eight years

before and reread them. They sounded good to me. I didn’t remember where I had been headed back then,

but I had worked out what seemed to me to be a good ending now, and, starting page 15 on that day, I

proceeded to work toward the new ending.

I found, to my infinite relief, that I had no trouble getting back into a “Foundation-mood,” and,

fresh from my rereading, I had Foundation history at my finger-tips.

There were differences, to be sure:

1) The original stories were written for a science-fiction magazine and were from 7,000 to 50,000

words long, and no more. Consequently, each book in the trilogy had at least two stories and lacked unity. I

intended to make the new book a single story.

2) I had a particularly good chance for development since Hugh said, “Let the book find its own

length, Isaac. We don’t mind a long book.” So I planned on 140,000 words, which was nearly three times

the length of “The Mule,” and this gave me plenty of elbow-room, and I could add all sorts of little touches.

3) The Foundation series had been written at a time when our knowledge of astronomy was

primitive compared with what it is today. I could take advantage of that and at least mention black holes,

for instance. I could also take advantage of electronic computers, which had not been invented until I was

half through with the series.

The novel progressed steadily, and on January 17, 1982, I began final copy. I brought the

manuscript to Hugh O’Neill in batches, and the poor fellow went half-crazy since he insisted on reading it

in this broken fashion. On March 25, 1982, I brought in the last bit, and the very next day got the second

half of the advance.

I had kept “Lightning Rod” as my working title all the way through, but Hugh finally said, “Is

there any way of putting ‘Foundation’ into the title, Isaac?” I suggested Foundations at Bay, therefore, and

that may be the title that will actually be used. *

You will have noticed that I have said nothing about the plot of the new Foundation novel. Well,

naturally. I would rather you buy and read the book.

And yet there is one thing I have to confess to you. I generally manage to tie up all the loose ends

into one neat little bow-knot at the end of my stories, no matter how complicated the plot might be. In this

case, however, I noticed that when I was all done, one glaring little item remained unresolved.

I am hoping no one else notices it because it clearly points the way to the continuation of the

series.

It is even possible that I inadvertently gave this away for at the end of the novel, I wrote: “The End

(for now).”

I very much fear that if the novel proves successful, Doubleday will be at my throat again, as

Campbell used to be in the old days. And yet what can I do but hope that the novel is very successful

indeed. What a quandary!

*Editor’s note: The novel was published in October 1982 as Foundation’s Edge.

PART I

THE PSYCHOHISTORIANS

HARI SELDON--... born in the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era; died 12,069. The dates are

more commonly given in terms of the current Foundational Era as -- 79 to the year 1 F.E. Born to middle-

class parents on Helicon, Arcturus sector (where his father, in a legend of doubtful authenticity, was a

tobacco grower in the hydroponic plants of the planet), he early showed amazing ability in mathematics.

Anecdotes concerning his ability are innumerable, and some are contradictory. At the age of two, he is said

to have ...

... Undoubtedly his greatest contributions were in the field of psychohistory. Seldon found the field

little more than a set of vague axioms; he left it a profound statistical science....

... The best existing authority we have for the details of his life is the biography written by Gaal

Dornick who. as a young man, met Seldon two years before the great mathematician’s death. The story of

the meeting ...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA*

* All quotations from the Encyclopedia Galactica here reproduced are taken from the 116th

Edition published in 1020 F.E. by the Encyclopedia Galactica Publishing Co., Terminus, with permission

of the publishers.

His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before.

That is, not in real life. He had seen it many times on the hyper-video, and occasionally in tremendous

three-dimensional newscasts covering an Imperial Coronation or the opening of a Galactic Council. Even

though he had lived all his life on the world of Synnax, which circled a star at the edges of the Blue Drift,

he was not cut off from civilization, you see. At that time, no place in the Galaxy was.

There were nearly twenty-five million inhabited planets in the Galaxy then, and not one but owed

allegiance to the Empire whose seat was on Trantor. It was the last halfcentury in which that could be said.

To Gaal, this trip was the undoubted climax of his young, scholarly life. He had been in space

before so that the trip, as a voyage and nothing more, meant little to him. To be sure, he had traveled

previously only as far as Synnax’s only satellite in order to get the data on the mechanics of meteor driftage

which he needed for his dissertation, but space-travel was all one whether one travelled half a million

miles, or as many light years.

He had steeled himself just a little for the Jump through hyper-space, a phenomenon one did not

experience in simple interplanetary trips. The Jump remained, and would probably remain forever, the only

practical method of travelling between the stars. Travel through ordinary space could proceed at no rate

more rapid than that of ordinary light (a bit of scientific knowledge that belonged among the items known

since the forgotten dawn of human history), and that would have meant years of travel between even the

nearest of inhabited systems. Through hyper-space, that unimaginable region that was neither space nor

time, matter nor energy, something nor nothing, one could traverse the length of the Galaxy in the interval

between two neighboring instants of time.

Gaal had waited for the first of those Jumps with a little dread curled gently in his stomach, and it

ended in nothing more than a trifling jar, a little internal kick which ceased an instant before he could be

sure he had felt it. That was all.

And after that, there was only the ship, large and glistening; the cool production of 12,000 years of

Imperial progress; and himself, with his doctorate in mathematics freshly obtained and an invitation from

the great Hari Seldon to come to Trantor and join the vast and somewhat mysterious Seldon Project.

What Gaal was waiting for after the disappointment of the Jump was that first sight of Trantor. He

haunted the View-room. The steel shutter-lids were rolled back at announced times and he was always

there, watching the hard brilliance of the stars, enjoying the incredible hazy swarm of a star cluster, like a

giant conglomeration of fire-flies caught in mid-motion and stilled forever, At one time there was the cold,

blue-white smoke of a gaseous nebula within five light years of the ship, spreading over the window like

distant milk, filling the room with an icy tinge, and disappearing out of sight two hours later, after another

Jump.

The first sight of Trantor’s sun was that of a hard, white speck all but lost in a myriad such, and

recognizable only because it was pointed out by the ship’s guide. The stars were thick here near the

Galactic center. But with each Jump, it shone more brightly, drowning out the rest, paling them and

thinning them out.

An officer came through and said, “View-room will be closed for the remainder of the trip.

Prepare for landing.”

Gaal had followed after, clutching at the sleeve of the white uniform with the Spaceship-and-Sun

of the Empire on it.

He said, “Would it be possible to let me stay? I would like to see Trantor.”

The officer smiled and Gaal flushed a bit. It occurred to him that he spoke with a provincial

accent.

The officer said, “We’ll be landing on Trantor by morning.”

“I mean I want to see it from Space.”

“Oh. Sorry, my boy. If this were a space-yacht we might manage it. But we’re spinning down,

sunside. You wouldn’t want to be blinded, burnt, and radiation-scarred all at the same time, would you?”

Gaal started to walk away.

The officer called after him, “Trantor would only be gray blur anyway, Kid. Why don’t you take a

space-tour once you hit Trantor. They’re cheap.”

Gaal looked back, “Thank you very much.”

It was childish to feel disappointed, but childishness comes almost as naturally to a man as to a

child, and there was a lump in Gaal’s throat. He had never seen Trantor spread out in all its incredibility, as

large as life, and he hadn’t expected to have to wait longer.

The ship landed in a medley of noises. There was the far-off hiss of the atmosphere cutting and

sliding past the metal of the ship. There was the steady drone of the conditioners fighting the heat of

friction, and the slower rumble of the engines enforcing deceleration. There was the human sound of men

and women gathering in the debarkation rooms and the grind of the hoists lifting baggage, mail, and freight

to the long axis of the ship, from which they would be later moved along to the unloading platform.

Gaal felt the slight jar that indicated the ship no longer had an independent motion of its own.

Ship’s gravity had been giving way to planetary gravity for hours. Thousands of passengers had been

sitting patiently in the debarkation rooms which swung easily on yielding force-fields to accommodate its

orientation to the changing direction of the gravitational forces. Now they were crawling down curving

ramps to the large, yawning locks.

Gaal’s baggage was minor. He stood at a desk, as it was quickly and expertly taken apart and put

together again. His visa was inspected and stamped. He himself paid no attention.

This was Trantor! The air seemed a little thicker here, the gravity a bit greater, than on his home

planet of Synnax, but he would get used to that. He wondered if he would get used to immensity.

Debarkation Building was tremendous. The roof was almost lost in the heights. Gaal could almost

imagine that clouds could form beneath its immensity. He could see no opposite wall; just men and desks

and converging floor till it faded out in haze.

The man at the desk was speaking again. He sounded annoyed. He said, “Move on, Dornick.” He

had to open the visa, look again, before he remembered the name.

Gaal said, “Where-- where--”

The man at the desk jerked a thumb, “Taxis to the right and third left.”

Gaal moved, seeing the glowing twists of air suspended high in nothingness and reading, “TAXIS

TO ALL POINTS.”

A figure detached itself from anonymity and stopped at the desk, as Gaal left. The man at the desk

looked up and nodded briefly. The figure nodded in return and followed the young immigrant.

He was in time to hear Gaal’s destination.

Gaal found himself hard against a railing.

The small sign said, “Supervisor.” The man to whom the sign referred did not look up. He said,

“Where to?”

Gaal wasn’t sure, but even a few seconds hesitation meant men queuing in line behind him.

The Supervisor looked up, “Where to?”

Gaal’s funds were low, but there was only this one night and then he would have a job. He tried to

sound nonchalant, “A good hotel, please.”

The Supervisor was unimpressed, “They’re all good. Name one.”

Gaal said, desperately, “The nearest one, please.”

The Supervisor touched a button. A thin line of light formed along the floor, twisting among

others which brightened and dimmed in different colors and shades. A ticket was shoved into Gaal’s hands.

It glowed faintly.

The Supervisor said, “One point twelve.”

Gaal fumbled for the coins. He said, “Where do I go?”

“Follow the light. The ticket will keep glowing as long as you’re pointed in the tight direction.”

Gaal looked up and began walking. There were hundreds creeping across the vast floor, following

their individual trails, sifting and straining themselves through intersection points to arrive at their

respective destinations.

His own trail ended. A man in glaring blue and yellow uniform, shining and new in unstainable

plasto-textile, reached for his two bags.

“Direct line to the Luxor,” he said.

The man who followed Gaal heard that. He also heard Gaal say, “Fine,” and watched him enter the

blunt-nosed vehicle.

The taxi lifted straight up. Gaal stared out the curved, transparent window, marvelling at the

sensation of airflight within an enclosed structure and clutching instinctively at the back of the driver’s seat.

The vastness contracted and the people became ants in random distribution. The scene contracted further

and began to slide backward.

There was a wall ahead. It began high in the air and extended upward out of sight. It was riddled

with holes that were the mouths of tunnels. Gaal’s taxi moved toward one then plunged into it. For a

moment, Gaal wondered idly how his driver could pick out one among so many.

There was now only blackness, with nothing but the past-flashing of a colored signal light to

relieve the gloom. The air was full of a rushing sound.

Gaal leaned forward against deceleration then and the taxi popped out of the tunnel and descended

to ground-level once more.

“The Luxor Hotel,” said the driver, unnecessarily. He helped Gaal with his baggage, accepted a

tenth-credit tip with a businesslike air, picked up a waiting passenger, and was rising again.

In all this, from the moment of debarkation, there had been no glimpse of sky.

TRANTOR--...At the beginning of the thirteenth millennium, this tendency reached its climax. As

the center of the Imperial Government for unbroken hundreds of generations and located, as it was, toward

the central regions of the Galaxy among the most densely populated and industrially advanced worlds of

the system, it could scarcely help being the densest and richest clot of humanity the Race had ever seen.

Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate. All the land surface of

Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city. The population, at its height, was well in

excess of forty billions. This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to the administrative

necessities of Empire, and found themselves all too few for the complications of the task. (It is to be

remembered that the impossibility of proper administration of the Galactic Empire under the uninspired

leadership of the later Emperors was a considerable factor in the Fall.) Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of

thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor....

Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor

increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the monotonously

numerous revolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial policy became little more

than the protection of Trantor’s delicate jugular vein....

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

Gaal was not certain whether the sun shone, or, for that matter, whether it was day or night. He

was ashamed to ask. All the planet seemed to live beneath metal. The meal of which he had just partaken

had been labelled luncheon, but there were many planets which lived a standard timescale that took no

account of the perhaps inconvenient alternation of day and night. The rate of planetary turnings differed,

and he did not know that of Trantor.

At first, he had eagerly followed the signs to the “Sun Room” and found it but a chamber for

basking in artificial radiation. He lingered a moment or two, then returned to the Luxor’s main lobby.

He said to the room clerk, “Where can I buy a ticket for a planetary tour?”

“Right here.”

“When will it start?”

“You just missed it. Another one tomorrow. Buy a ticket now and we’ll reserve a place for you.”

“Oh.” Tomorrow would be too late. He would have to be at the University tomorrow. He said,

“There wouldn’t be an observation tower -- or something? I mean, in the open air.”

“Sure! Sell you a ticket for that, if you want. Better let me check if it’s raining or not.” He closed a

contact at his elbow and read the flowing letters that raced across a frosted screen. Gaal read with him.

The room clerk said, “Good weather. Come to think of it, I do believe it’s the dry season now.” He

added, conversationally, “I don’t bother with the outside myself. The last time I was in the open was three

years ago. You see it once, you know and that’s all there is to it. Here’s your ticket. Special elevator in the

rear. It’s marked ‘To the Tower.’ Just take it.”

The elevator was of the new sort that ran by gravitic repulsion. Gaal entered and others flowed in

behind him. The operator closed a contact. For a moment, Gaal felt suspended in space as gravity switched

to zero, and then he had weight again in small measure as the elevator accelerated upward. Deceleration

followed and his feet left the floor. He squawked against his will.

The operator called out, “Tuck your feet under the railing. Can’t you read the sign?”

The others had done so. They were smiling at him as he madly and vainly tried to clamber back

down the wall. Their shoes pressed upward against the chromium of the railings that stretched across the

floor in parallels set two feet apart. He had noticed those railings on entering and had ignored them.

Then a hand reached out and pulled him down.

He gasped his thanks as the elevator came to a halt.

He stepped out upon an open terrace bathed in a white brilliance that hurl his eyes. The man,

whose helping hand he had just now been the recipient of, was immediately behind him.

The man said, kindly, “Plenty of seats.”

Gaal closed his mouth; he had been gaping; and said, “It certainly seems so.” He started for them

automatically, then stopped.

He said, “If you don’t mind, I’ll just stop a moment at the railing. I -- I want to look a bit.”

The man waved him on, good-naturedly, and Gaal leaned out over the shoulder-high railing and

bathed himself in all the panorama.

He could not see the ground. It was lost in the ever increasing complexities of man-made

structures. He could see no horizon other than that of metal against sky, stretching out to almost uniform

grayness, and he knew it was so over all the land-surface of the planet. There was scarcely any motion to be

seen -- a few pleasure-craft lazed against the sky-but all the busy traffic of billions of men were going on,

he knew, beneath the metal skin of the world.

There was no green to be seen; no green, no soil, no life other than man. Somewhere on the world,

he realized vaguely, was the Emperor’s palace, set amid one hundred square miles of natural soil, green

with trees, rainbowed with flowers. It was a small island amid an ocean of steel, but it wasn’t visible from

where he stood. It might be ten thousand miles away. He did not know.

Before very long, he must have his tour!

He sighed noisily, and realized finally that he was on Trantor at last; on the planet which was the

center of all the Galaxy and the kernel of the human race. He saw none of its weaknesses. He saw no ships

of food landing. He was not aware of a jugular vein delicately connecting the forty billion of Trantor with

the rest of the Galaxy. He was conscious only of the mightiest deed of man; the complete and almost

contemptuously final conquest of a world.

He came away a little blank-eyed. His friend of the elevator was indicating a seat next to himself

and Gaal took it.

The man smiled. “My name is Jerril. First time on Trantor?”

“Yes, Mr. Jerril.”

“Thought so. Jerril’s my first name. Trantor gets you if you’ve got the poetic temperament.

Trantorians never come up here, though. They don’t like it. Gives them nerves.”

“Nerves! -- My name’s Gaal, by the way. Why should it give them nerves? It’s glorious.”

“Subjective matter of opinion, Gaal. If you’re born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and

work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky

over you might just give you a nervous breakdown. They make the children come up here once a year, after

they’re five. I don’t know if it does any good. They don’t get enough of it, really, and the first few times

they scream themselves into hysteria. They ought to start as soon as they’re weaned and have the trip once

a week.”

He went on, “Of course, it doesn’t really matter. What if they never come out at all? They’re

happy down there and they run the Empire. How high up do you think we are?”

He said, “Half a mile?” and wondered if that sounded naive.

It must have, for Jerril chuckled a little. He said, “No. Just five hundred feet.”

“What? But the elevator took about --”

“I know. But most of the time it was just getting up to ground level. Trantor is tunneled over a

mile down. It’s like an iceberg. Nine-tenths of it is out of sight. It even works itself out a few miles into the

sub-ocean soil at the shorelines. In fact, we’re down so low that we can make use of the temperature

difference between ground level and a couple of miles under to supply us with all the energy we need. Did

you know that?”

“No, I thought you used atomic generators.”

“Did once. But this is cheaper.”

“I imagine so.”

“What do you think of it all?” For a moment, the man’s good nature evaporated into shrewdness.

He looked almost sly.

Gaal fumbled. “Glorious,” he said, again.

“Here on vacation? Traveling? Sight-seeing?”

“No exactly. At least, I’ve always wanted to visit Trantor but I came here primarily for a job.”

“Oh?”

Gaal felt obliged to explain further, “With Dr. Seldon’s project at the University of Trantor.”

“Raven Seldon?”

“Why, no. The one I mean is Hari Seldon. -The psychohistorian Seldon. I don’t know of any

Raven Seldon.”

“Hari’s the one I mean. They call him Raven. Slang, you know. He keeps predicting disaster.”

“He does?” Gaal was genuinely astonished.

“Surely, you must know.” Jerril was not smiling. “You’re coming to work for him, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, I’m a mathematician. Why does he predict disaster? What kind of disaster?”

“What kind would you think?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the least idea. I’ve read the papers Dr. Seldon and his group have

published. They’re on mathematical theory.”

“Yes, the ones they publish.”

Gaal felt annoyed. He said, “I think I’ll go to my room now. Very pleased to have met you.”

Jerril waved his arm indifferently in farewell.

Gaal found a man waiting for him in his room. For a moment, he was too startled to put into words

the inevitable, “What are you doing here?” that came to his lips.

The man rose. He was old and almost bald and he walked with a limp, but his eyes were very

bright and blue.

He said, “I am Hari Seldon,” an instant before Gaal’s befuddled brain placed the face alongside

the memory of the many times he had seen it in pictures.

PSYCHOHISTORY--...Gaal Dornick, using nonmathematical concepts, has defined psychohistory

to be that branch of mathematics which deals with the reactions of human conglomerates to fixed social

and economic stimuli....

... Implicit in all these definitions is the assumption that the human conglomerate being dealt with

is sufficiently large for valid statistical treatment. The necessary size of such a conglomerate may be

determined by Seldon’s First Theorem which ... A further necessary assumption is that the human

conglomerate be itself unaware of psychohistoric analysis in order that its reactions be truly random ...

The basis of all valid psychohistory lies in the development of the Seldon. Functions which exhibit

properties congruent to those of such social and economic forces as ...

ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA

“Good afternoon, sir,” said Gaal. “I-- I--”

“You didn’t think we were to meet before tomorrow? Ordinarily, we would not have. It is just that

if we are to use your services, we must work quickly. It grows continually more difficult to obtain recruits.”

“I don’t understand, sir.”

“You were talking to a man on the observation tower, were you not?”

“Yes. His first name is Jerril. I know no more about him. “

“His name is nothing. He is an agent of the Commission of Public Safety. He followed you from

the space-port.”

“But why? I am afraid I am very confused.”

“Did the man on the tower say nothing about me?”

Gaal hesitated, “He referred to you as Raven Seldon.”

“Did he say why?”

“He said you predict disaster.”

“I do. What does Trantor mean to you?”

Everyone seemed to be asking his opinion of Trantor. Gaal felt incapable of response beyond the

bare word, “Glorious.”

“You say that without thinking. What of psychohistory?”

“I haven’t thought of applying it to the problem.”

“Before you are done with me, young man, you will learn to apply psychohistory to all problems

as a matter of course. --Observe.” Seldon removed his calculator pad from the pouch at his belt. Men said

he kept one beneath his pillow for use in moments of wakefulness. Its gray, glossy finish was slightly worn

by use. Seldon’s nimble fingers, spotted now with age, played along the files and rows of buttons that filled

its surface. Red symbols glowed out from the upper tier.

He said, “That represents the condition of the Empire at present.”

He waited.

Gaal said finally, “Surely that is not a complete representation.”

“No, not complete,” said Seldon. “I am glad you do not accept my word blindly. However, this is

an approximation which will serve to demonstrate the proposition. Will you accept that?”

“Subject to my later verification of the derivation of the function, yes.” Gaal was carefully

avoiding a possible trap.

“Good. Add to this the known probability of Imperial assassination, viceregal revolt, the

contemporary recurrence of periods of economic depression, the declining rate of planetary explorations,

the. . .”

He proceeded. As each item was mentioned, new symbols sprang to life at his touch, and melted

into the basic function which expanded and changed.

Gaal stopped him only once. “I don’t see the validity of that set-transformation.”

Seldon repeated it more slowly.

Gaal said, “But that is done by way of a forbidden sociooperation.”

“Good. You are quick, but not yet quick enough. It is not forbidden in this connection. Let me do

it by expansions.”

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FOUNDATIONISAACASIMOVCopyright©1951Tothememoryofmymother(1895--1973)ContentsIntroductionPartIThePsychohistoriansPartIITheEncyclopedistsPartIIITheMayorsPartIVTheTradersPartVTheMerchantPrincesTHESTORYBEHINDTHE“FOUNDATION”ByISAACASIMOVThedatewasAugust1,1941.WorldWarIIhadbeenragingfortwoyears.Francehadf...

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Foundation - Isaac Asimov

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