Foundation and Empire

Foundation and Empire is the second book in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation science fiction series. Published in 1952, the novel continues the saga of the collapse of the Galactic Empire and the rise of the Foundation that tries to shorten the dark times ahead. Each of the book’s two sections describes an attempt by a rogue outsider to conquer the Foundation. The second section, “The Mule,” won a retrospective Hugo award in 1996. The Foundation series is considered one of the most important in the history of science fiction; it won a Hugo for Best All-Time Series in 1966 and has been adapted for television.

The ebook edition of the 2004 Del Rey/Random House reprint of Foundation and Empire forms the basis for this study guide.

Plot Summary

Imperial general Bel Riose visits scholar Ducem Barr on the distant planet Siwenna, searching for information about the mythical magicians of the equally mythical Foundation. Barr, who hates the Empire but whose family is under threat from Riose, shows the general a walnut-sized force-field generator. The amazing device was brought to Siwenna decades earlier by a mysterious trader.

Barr’s research shows that a Foundation was established centuries in the past by psychohistorian Hari Seldon, whose work predicted the collapse of the Empire and a 30,000-year dark age. Along with a sister organization at the far end of the galaxy, the two Foundations are meant to stitch civilization back together, preserving high technology and shortening the barbarism to a mere thousand years.

Riose probes the Foundation for weaknesses. Its leaders realize that this is a crisis predicted by Hari Seldon. They must act quickly. Riose requests reinforcements, which the emperor denies. Undaunted, he encircles Foundation territory with carefully placed garrisons. His men capture a Trader, Lathan Devers. He seems uninvolved in Foundation affairs, but privately he allies himself with Barr.

Imperial secretary Brodrig questions Devers, on whom Psychic Probes fail to work; instead, Brodrig simply bribes him to reveal the true nature of the Foundation. Devers claims the Foundation can transmute ordinary metals into precious ones, and that once Riose controls the Foundation, he can conquer the Empire. Brodrig promptly allies himself with Riose and provides the general with much-needed reinforcements.

Riose and Brodrig’s efforts prove so successful that the Foundation teeters on the edge of conquest. The Emperor, suspicious of such success, has them arrested for treason and executed. The Foundation thus escapes the latest Seldon Crisis and barely lifts a finger to do so, fulfilling Seldon’s psychohistorical predictions.

Eighty years later, the Foundation has vastly increased its control over the remains of the Empire, but it also has deteriorated into the very tyranny it sought to expel. A mysterious military figure, the Mule, arises to threaten the Foundation and the Trader planets. Possessed of strange powers, the Mule may not be human, but his military victories cause a fifth Seldon Crisis and call into question the accuracy of psychohistory.

Foundation leaders refuse to believe that anyone can defeat them: The Seldon Plan, they declare, makes their work foolproof. Trader planets set aside their own plan to rebel against the Foundation and instead deal with the Mule. They win several battles; meanwhile, the Foundation suffers defeats.

While visiting a resort planet on their honeymoon, a historian named Bayta and her husband Toran befriend a street clown, Magnifico, who says he served the Mule as court jester. Magnifico is terrified of the Mule, whom he describes as enormous, cruel, and possessed of strange powers. Foundation psychologist Ebling Mis teams up with the trio, and they try to learn more from Magnifico about the Mule.

The Foundation’s Time Vault plays a message, recorded 300 years earlier, from Hari Seldon. He predicts that the Foundation is now despotic and the Trader planets are in rebellion, but that no other threats appear on the timeline. Listeners are in an uproar: Seldon has failed to predict the Mule.

The Mule’s forces bombard the Foundation’s home planet and force it to surrender. Trader planets fight on, but one by one they give in to the Mule. Bayta’s group travels to Trantor, the ruined capital planet of the collapsed Empire, hoping to find information that can help the Foundation. There, in a frenzy of inspired research, Mis works out the location of the far-off Second Foundation, which must be alerted about the Mule.

Before Mis can inform the team, Bayta kills him. She confronts Magnifico, whom she accuses of being the Mule. Magnifico admits as much and explains that he grew up as a rejected mutant, discovered that he has the power to control people’s emotions, and used that power to conquer the galaxy.

He confesses that his one weakness is Bayta, the only person who ever treated him as a friend. He left her mind intact so he could enjoy her natural friendship. This gave her room to figure him out and thwart him. As a final act of friendship, the Mule releases her and Toran, though he warns them that they can’t defeat him.

The story is continued in the next book, Second Foundation.