User:TAnthony/Foundation

Foundation's Edge (1982)

Five hundred years after the establishment of the Foundation, the Mayor of Terminus, Harla Branno, is basking in a political glow, as her policies having been vindicated by the recent successful resolution of a Seldon Crisis. Golan Trevize, a former officer of the Navy and now a member of Council, believes the Second Foundation, which is almost universally thought to be extinct, still exists and is controlling events. He attempts to question the continued existence of the Seldon Plan during a Council session, but Branno has him arrested on a charge of treason. Branno also believes that the Second Foundation still exists and is in control, but she cannot admit it publicly for political reasons, and treats that as a state secret, hence her alarm and her swift action.

So, she orders Trevize to leave Terminus to search for the Second Foundation. As a cover, he is to be accompanied by Janov Pelorat, a professor of Ancient History and mythologist, who is interested in the location of Earth, the fabled original world of the human species. They are provided a highly advanced computer-controlled "gravitic" ship to carry out their mission. Branno also sends out Munn Li Compor in another similar vessel to follow and monitor Trevize.

Indeed, the Second Foundation still does exist, but rather than being in complete control, as the First Foundation fears, it has similar worries. On Trantor, home of the Second Foundation, Stor Gendibal, a rising intellect in the Second Foundation hierarchy, reveals to Quindor Shandess, the current First Speaker, his finding that the Seldon Plan, which the Second Foundation diligently protects and furthers along, is being manipulated by some unknown group, probably more powerful than the Second Foundation, with unknown motivations. Shandess dubs this group the "Anti-Mules", as they seem to possess powers similar to the Mule, but to be using them not to destroy the Seldon Plan, as the Mule had tried to do, but rather to preserve it.

At first, Gendibal's ideas are very badly received by the other Speakers, with Shandess alone supporting him, and he is threatened with expulsion, but the Speakers' resistance is overcome when Gendibal demonstrates that the brain of Sura Novi, a member of the Hamish, the rude people of farmers who inhabit and cultivate Trantor, shows a subtle change to her mind that would be far beyond the Second Foundation's capabilities to make, and could only have been made by a much more powerful entity, probably the "Anti-Mules". Gendibal and Novi are sent out on a spaceship to track Trevize and determine the goals of the "Anti-Mules".

Meanwhile, Trevize and Pelorat engage in the latter's project to locate Earth, but there is no planet with that name in the galactic table of planets, and none with its exact predicted characteristics either. However, Pelorat mentions having heard of a planet called Gaia, whose name he somehow discovered to mean Earth in some ancient language. Its coordinates are unknown, but it is supposed to be somewhere in the Sayshell Sector. Trevize decides that they must go there to follow up on this lead. On the Sayshell main planet, Trevize and Pelorat meet a scholar, Professor Quintesetz, who is able to reluctantly give them the coordinates to Gaia. They travel there and discover that Gaia is a "superorganism" where all things, both living and inanimate, participate in a larger group consciousness, while still retaining any individual awareness they might have. Pelorat slowly falls in love with a Gaian woman named Blissenobiarella, commonly called Bliss.

Gendibal finds Trevize's location with information from Compor, who is secretly a Second Foundation agent. On approaching Gaia, Gendibal is met by a First Foundation warship, commanded by Mayor Branno. As Gendibal's mental powers stalemate with Mayor Branno's force shield, Novi reveals herself as an agent of Gaia. She joins the stalemate and the three are locked until Trevize can join them. Bliss explains to Trevize that he had been led to Gaia so that his untouched mind, which has unique, remarkable powers of intuition, can decide the galaxy's fate — whether it will be ruled by the First Foundation, by the Second Foundation, or by Gaia, which envisions an extension of its group consciousness to the entire galaxy, thus forming the new entity Galaxia. He also learns that the stalemate between the First Foundation (Branno), the Second Foundation (Gendibal), and Gaia (Novi) was intentional, and that through his ship's computer, he can decide who shall ultimately prove victorious.

Trevize decides upon Gaia, and through mental adjustments, Gaia makes Branno and Gendibal believe they have won minor victories, and that Gaia does not exist. But Trevize is troubled by one final missing piece of information: In the course of their investigation, Trevize and Pelorat had found out that all references to Earth had been removed from the Galactic Library at Trantor. Trevize wants to know who did this and why, as Gaia denies having done that. He announces his intention to find Earth, since without knowing the answers to those questions, he cannot be certain his choice was the right one. Trevize also explains that he chose Gaia because that was the only choice of the three that was reversible in case his choice should prove to be wrong, due to the large length of time required for the formation of Galaxia.

• Review: "Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov". Kirkus Reviews. October 22, 1982. Retrieved September 14, 2011.

Review

Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov

By John Folk-Williams^[2]

A key aspect of the story is that it goes beyond the “Seldon crises” of psychohistory that drive the plot of the original trilogy. It is now almost 500 years since the founding of Terminus and the first Foundation. The Galactic Empire has fallen, as Seldon predicted, Trantor has been sacked, reverting to agriculture for its vastly reduced population, and the first Foundation is well on its way to dominating the galaxy and forming an empire of its own. But, strangely enough, the story begins with a Foundation councilman on Terminus shouting out that the Seldon plan is meaningless.

That is Golan Trevise, who is promptly arrested and sent into exile by Mayor Harla Branno (a strong older female character, so unusual in Asimov’s male world) who is basking in the glory of having acted correctly to avert the latest Seldon crisis. Joining Trevise on this journey is Janov Pelorat, a retiring older scholar whose fascination is studying the legends of ancient Earth, rumored to be the original home of humankind. Mayor Branno thinks Trevise could be under the control of the Second Foundation and that he could lead the Foundation to determine the whereabouts of that shadowy organization and root it out once and for all. I never quite grasped why the two Foundations, both created as part of Seldon’s plan, should be antagonistic, but that has been the driving force of several stories in the cycle to this point. The original Foundation on Terminus has succeeded primarily by virtue of its vastly superior technology and economic power and looks forward to extending its reach to the entire range of worlds once controlled by the now failed empire that preceded it.

Just as Trevise is challenging the basis of the Seldon Plan on Terminus, so is another brilliant young man doing the same on Trantor, the secret home of the Second Foundation. Stor Gendibal hopes to become the youngest First Speaker, or guiding intellect, of the elite group of Speakers who monitor and make adjustments to the plan created by Hari Seldon. Gendibal persuades the current First Speaker, Quindor Shandess, that the Seldon plan’s perfection in recent decades is the sure sign of its irrelevance. He believes that there must be a third force keeping the plan on track through a source of intellectual power unknown to either of the existing Foundations. Gendibal believes that Trevise might be the key to discovering this new power, and so he is sent off to locate the ship from Terminus and track its movements. His companion on this trip is Sura Novi, a farm woman who wants to become a scholar. She at first appears to be totally subservient to the condescending Gendibal, but their relationship becomes a real friendship as time goes on. And later in the story she plays a crucial role.

All the action converges in a star system which has never been catalogued in the vast databases of the Galaxy, the Gaia system. Trevise and Pelorat arrive there first when their ship is grabbed by a powerful force emanating from a space station orbiting a planet they suspect could be Earth. A ship from the station comes alongside theirs and soon a mysterious figure enters their ship. This turns out to be “a young and undeniably pretty woman.” Here comes the most cringeworthy scene, as the woman, calling herself Bliss, steps out of her space suit in translucent clothing, giving the narrator a chance to describe her body in detail. She throws wide her arms, declaring ”Men have died for this body.” It turns out she is a representative of the planet Gaia where consciousness infuses every living and nonliving thing. She is also a much more complicated figure than she at first appears to be. Her initial role is to escort Trevise and Pelorat down to the surface where an elder named Dom (for short, there are another fifty or so syllables to his name) can explain fully what is going on.

I won’t go into the rest of the story, except to say that robots and the three laws of robotics come up for discussion, and it becomes clear that Gaia is not Earth. So Foundation’s Edge sets up the search for Earth in Foundation and Earth, the last novel in the chronology of the Foundation universe, and the one that most explicitly weaves together this series with the robot novels. (Asimov would go on to write two prequel novels at the end of his life in the 1990s.) What I enjoy about Foundation’s Edge is that it pushes the unfolding story of the first trilogy in a different direction and introduces a lot of exciting ideas. While Asimov’s characters, especially the women, and his scene structure show little change over time, his great strength is creating an interesting battle of wits while leading the story into intriguing new territory. I would call this essential reading for fans of the Foundation trilogy.

Foundation and Earth (1986)

• Foundation and Earth

References