Asimov wrote this story circa 1950 when the series was being prepared for publication in book form by Gnome Press, who felt that the series began too abruptly. The Psychohistorians is the only part of the Foundation Trilogy that was not originally published in Astounding Magazine and was, in fact, the last part of the trilogy that Asimov wrote, though, chronologically, it describes the earliest events. Several fascinating conclusions are reached during Seldon's conversation with Dornick: for example, that the Psychohistorians of Trantor maneuvered the Commissioners to move the Foundation to Terminus and that the Foundation is an active rebellion against the authoritative Empire, which Seldon says "has lost whatever virility and worth it once had." He and his team are exiled to Terminus, a small planet on the periphery of the galaxy, to work on the encyclopedia. The commission is satisfied that Seldon's project is not a threat to the Empire but wants to quiet him. This will be done, he says, by the production and dissemination by his team of an Encyclopedia Galactica which will contain all human knowledge.
The purpose of his project is to influence events so that the interregnum period will be only 1,000 years and not 30,000. Seldon predicts that Trantor will be destroyed within 300 years as the climax to the fall of the Galactic Empire, leading to a 30,000 year period of anarchy before a Second Empire is established. They finally arrest Seldon and Gaal Dornick, a young mathematician who has just arrived to join the project.Īt Seldon's trial more details come out. He has set up a project which is increasingly harassed by Imperial officials from the Commission of Public Safety, the actual rulers of the Empire. The only one who realizes this is Hari Seldon, a mathematician who has created the science of Psychohistory by which it is possible to predict future events by extrapolating from historic trends. Though it has endured for so long and appears outwardly to be strong and stable, the empire has been imperceptibly declining for centuries. Gaal always had wanted to go to Trantor, the capital planet of the 12,000 year old Galactic Empire. The story begins on Synnax, with Gaal Dornick.
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