Foundation and Empire

General Bel Riose of the Galactic Empire visits the ancient mansion of scholar Ducem Barr on the planet Siwenna. Over tea, Riose explains that he’s been stationed out in these far reaches to keep him away from an ambitionless Imperial court that has little stomach for conquest or maintaining its crumbling empire. Riose knows that Barr’s father spoke to a “magician” and demands to know more about these semi-mythical figures.

Barr reminds Riose that his father, Imperial senator Onum Barr, was exiled during the Great Massacre on Siwenna. At the time, Ducem Barr was a high-level Imperial functionary; he hints that he may have been involved in the subsequent assassination of the regional viceroy. During that time, Onum met a trader from the outer galaxy who possessed a personal “force-shield” untouchable by Imperial weapons. Onum later acquired the shield, which no longer works; it hangs on Ducem Barr’s wall. Riose examines it skeptically; it is no bigger than a walnut.

Barr explains to Riose that, two centuries earlier, psychohistorian Hari Seldon predicted the demise of the Empire, and he built his two Foundations to shorten the resulting dark ages to a mere 1,000 years. Barr’s research, however, has collected evidence of only one of the Foundations.

Riose stands and declares that, based on rumors he pieced together, he can locate that Foundation. He warns Barr that his explanation had better bear fruit, or there will be trouble on his return. Watching Riose leave, Barr whispers, “if you return” (17).

The extremely wealthy Sennett Forell is widely believed to be the illegitimate son of Hober Mallow, a recent leader of the Foundation. At a meeting of major Foundation traders, Forell crows that his own ships, having captured the spacecraft of a visiting Imperial dignitary, sold it for a tidy profit. Another council member worries that using violence violates the ways of the Foundation, and that the government and mayor have become weak. Still another declares that this meeting of traders is the real government.

Forell explains that the leader of the small visiting fleet isn’t an outlier princeling seeking trade but an Imperial general of great skill who is widely loved by his men. His motives surely aren’t innocent; it is possible he will bring the fourth Foundation crisis, which involves a direct military attack by the Empire.

If it is a crisis, then it’s been predicted by Hari Seldon, and there is a solution. But “it must be once again as in all past crises by a method other than pure force” (23). The weak spot in the enemy must be found and exploited. For that, the group needs to recruit spies from among their young traders.

Riose summons Barr to his headquarters, where he asks the scholar to help prevent the Foundation from conquering the Empire. Barr replies that, even if he wanted to help, he cannot. According to Barr, the Foundation, despite its tiny size, is unstoppable. Hari Seldon’s psychohistory, on which the Foundation is based, “proved itself the most powerful instrument ever invented for the study of humanity […] The place, time, and conditions all conspire mathematically and so, inevitably, to the development of a Second Galactic Empire” (29).

Riose protests that he has free will to act or not, which ought to counter the long-dead Seldon’s predictions. Barr retorts that it is not individuals but entire societies whose movements are calculated by psychohistory. Riose is unconvinced: “I’ll take that challenge. It’s a dead hand against a living will” (30).

Emperor Cleon II twists uncomfortably in his bed, suffering from the pains of an undiagnosed mystery illness. His long reign has been peaceful, but his sons and courtiers wait eagerly for signs of his impending death. He trusts only his secretary, Brodrig, who is hated by all factions and therefore proves dependable.

Brodrig informs Cleon that military governor Bel Riose, an ambitious leader popular among his men, has requested reinforcements to augment his 10 ships so that he can make war against a group he calls the Foundation. Cleon thinks there is more to this request than meets the eye; he tells Brodrig to convene a Council of Lords to discuss it.

Outer planets once again feel the tread of Imperial boots as Riose prepares for war against the Foundation. He brings the reluctant Barr to his headquarters, where he presents to the scholar a 3D map of the local region. It shows how Riose’s forces have carefully encircled the planetary systems controlled by the Foundation. No such encirclement in history has ever been defeated.

Barr says that this attack will nevertheless fail. Riose’s request for reinforcements has been denied. His men, however, have captured a Trader named Lathan Devers. Tall, bearded, and breezy, Devers sits while Riose grills him about the Foundation. Devers admits he has heard folk tales about Seldon and a Second Empire, but he doesn’t take them seriously.

Barr points out that Devers seems unconcerned about a war against the Foundation, as if confident that the old stories are true. Devers shrugs it off, claiming he doesn’t much care which “fat slobs” end up ruling his realm. Riose gets called away; Barr and Devers are marched to a holding cell and left there.

Devers suspects that Barr is trying to win him over so that he will reveal what he knows about the Foundation. Barr shows him proof that he is the son of the man whom Foundation mayor Hober Mallow befriended 40 years earlier, and Barr himself is the man who killed the Imperial viceroy who massacred his family. It is more than enough to convince Devers to trust him. 

Tiny space vessels appear suddenly among the ships of the Imperial armada, darting and weaving. The armada destroys two; the rest disappear.

As Imperial representative, Brodrig visits Riose and tells him that the general’s elaborate preparations for battle against the minor barbarian forces of the so-called Foundation seem overblown. Riose counters that he is a careful soldier, not some two-bit fictional hero.

Brodrig asks what Riose has learned from the captured Trader. Riose says the man apparently has no connection to the inner workings of the Foundation, but the small devices he sells may have some use. He would know more if the Imperial court deigned to release to him some truly able technologists. Also, for some reason his Psychic Probe fails when used on the Trader.

The Imperial representative wants to question the Trader alone. Riose says he is welcome to do so, but the prisoner is on another planet. Meanwhile, the attack will begin within the week.

Imperial sergeant Mori Duk is big, enthusiastic, and not too smart. Bribed by Devers with a small food freezer for his wife, Duk obligingly brings audiobooks and news of the front to Devers and Barr in their holding cell.

Devers is frustrated by captivity: He wants to get into the field and fight Riose. Barr reminds him that, per Devers’s own stories about the Foundation, inaction is their way. Devers argues that Riose is a force of nature in himself. Barr replies that Brodrig is vastly more influential; he is an evil man who has the emperor’s ear and controls all access to the ruler.

Devers wonders if Brodrig can be bribed; Barr thinks he is too shifty to stay bribed. Duk returns: He announces a forthcoming visit by Brodrig, who intends to interview them. Duk warns that Brodrig is known to be a vicious man who shoots people for entertainment, terrorizes the emperor, and wants to eliminate Riose.

Brodrig appears at the cell. Coldly, he explains his concerns about Riose’s desire to battle an apparently unimportant planet. He offers Devers a huge bribe to explain why the Foundation is so important. Devers tells him the Foundation knows how to transmute ordinary metals into vital ones—“tungsten out of aluminum and iridium out of iron” (62). Once this power is in his hands, Riose will dominate the Empire and become emperor within two years.

Brodrig pays off Devers but warns him not to inform Riose on pain of a gruesome—and, to Brodrig, a most entertaining—death. After the Imperial secretary leaves, Devers expresses surprise that it was he who was bribed, not Brodrig.

Later, Riose has Barr and Devers brought to his office. He announces that, though difficult, the fighting is going well for the Imperium, and the Foundation planets are slowly coming to heel. He asks Devers why he is so pliable when all other Traders have been nearly impossible to kill or capture: “You are unique, amazingly unique—in fact, suspiciously unique” (65). Devers says he simply wants to be on the winning side.

At gunpoint, Riose demands the two men’s power bracelets. He intends to use the Psychic Probe once more on Devers. Barr suddenly hits Riose with a desk ornament; Barr and Devers quickly exit the room. Unaware of the attack, Duk escorts them to their cell, but they point Riose’s gun at him and demand to be taken to Devers’s trade ship. Duk, incensed that they have harmed the general, rushes them, but Barr shoots him dead.

They escape in Devers’s ship, which is too fast for Riose’s forces. Devers realizes his story to Brodrig was too good, and that the secretary has joined Riose. Devers’s ship speeds toward the galactic center.

Temporarily lost in space, Devers struggles to make contact with his group, the “Association of Independent Traders” (68). He wants to warn them of Brodrig’s entry into the war, but Barr counsels quiet waiting. Devers suggests that Barr simply has nothing at stake, but Barr retorts that the Psychic Probe would have revealed secrets within his brain that could ruin entire planets, and that his escape from Riose already may have sealed his family’s doom.

Devers grumbles that their six months in captivity has gotten them nowhere. Barr brings out a message capsule that he stole from Riose’s desk: “Does that count as something?” (72). Devers uses special tools to probe the capsule. It is less sophisticated than Foundation versions and soon yields to his efforts. It reveals a message from Brodrig to Riose, saying that the secretary’s forces have captured another planet, and that their plans are bearing fruit.

Barr thinks the message is merely the crowing of a courtier who now thinks he is a general. Devers, however, re-locks the capsule, which randomizes its key and can no longer be opened by anyone except Riose and the emperor, who has every subordinate’s key. If they show the capsule to the emperor, he will realize that his trusted lieutenant Brodrig is betraying him. They head for the capital at once.

Stars “as thick as weeds” shine brightly in the skies of the Imperial capital planet, Trantor (76). The surface, entirely covered in metal, consists of a single, continuous building in which 40 billion bureaucrats sweat daily over quadruplicate forms and the other minutiae required to control a galaxy-wide empire of 20 million star systems.

Devers fills out dozens of forms; he and Barr undergo examinations, questioning, and taxation. The ship undergoes elaborate inspections. As an Imperial subject, Barr’s identity papers are in order, but Devers’s aren’t, so he bribes the official. They enter Trantor proper.

Stunned by the sheer, oppressive size of Trantor, Devers realizes he is out of his league. He leaves the negotiations to Barr, who knows the lingo and how to bribe high-level officials correctly.

A month of work gets them to an Imperial court commissioner, who accepts a splendid bribe but then announces that he is a lieutenant with the police. The police have been monitoring their activities, the emperor assumes they are assassins, and now they will be arrested. A brief firefight erupts, but Devers and Barr, safe within their personal forcefields, make short work of the lieutenant.

They escape to their ship and take off quickly, pursued by Trantorian Secret Service troops. Devers’s ship is much quicker, and they jolt painfully through hyperspace—Barr briefly losing consciousness—to a spot several light-years away. Still in pain, Barr hands Devers a newspaper he stole as they escaped. The paper says the war is over and that Barr’s home planet, Siwenna, is in revolt.

Devers and Barr attend a ceremony at which delegates sign a treaty handing Siwenna from the Empire to the Foundation. Captured Imperial ships hover overhead and fire a salute. At the after-party, Sennett Forell collars Devers and Barr for an explanation about their trip to Trantor. Barr assures them that they never saw the Emperor, and that the subsequent trial of Riose and Brodrig were none of their doing. Both were guilty of treason, but not for the reasons brought at trial; it was a political frame-up.

Barr declares that all of the Foundation’s intrigues, bribes, lies, and appeals made things worse. Seldon’s predictions would come true, no matter who was in charge. Riose’s achievements, or those of any rising political star, were destined to doom him: Most emperors are dethroned by underlings, and Riose’s success put him in the crosshairs of the emperor, not the Foundation; the emperor had to eliminate him: “The Foundation wins again” (87).

Forell wonders what would happen if the general and the emperor were the same person. Barr answers that emperors who become preoccupied with faraway wars soon get dethroned. Thus, the empire cannot expand; it can only maintain itself or contract.

Forell asks if this means there are no more threats to the Foundation. Barr suggests that the Second Foundation might pose a risk. Devers thinks there might be greedy people within the Foundation itself.