A Review on "The Foundation”

Isaac Asimov’s “The Foundation” series is considered to be one of the best science-fictional masterpieces ever written. In this article, I will try to explain the reasons I find the trilogy astonishing.

In 1945, World War 2 ended, and left a huge impact on society. That event affected almost everything that followed it. Most of the literature in second part of the 20. century has traces of the war. Heroism is one of those traces.  

Most of the creations in the field of cinema and literature depend on a key factor: Presence of a hero. A hero who has high moral standards, a hero capable of defeating the villains, a hero that never does anything wrong. A literature or cinematic piece whom existence depends on the hero, or heroes is desperate. There may be found lots of examples to my point. However, Foundation does not create heroes. Everyone present in the novels does unapprovable things occasionally. Characters are truly relatable. Instead of the characters, storyline is the key factor that keeps the novel continue.

In 1900, Max Planck introduced a completely new brand of science to the world: Quantum Mechanics. Philosophical propositions of quantum mechanics were groundbreaking. Before the revolution, dominant philosophical view on the predictability of future was rather “deterministic”. “Determinism” is a natural consequence of Newtonian Mechanics and means that if beginning and the content of the process happening is known, the future, or the outcome of the process is predictable. Although quantum mechanics has replaced classical mechanics in certain places, determinism still works in the macroworld we live in. As an example; if the current position of Earth is known (beginning) and laws of classical mechanics are also known (content), the position that the Earth will be in 6 months can be predicted with high accuracy. Idea of determinism caused scientist of that time to think that we found the key to the universe. Then, quantum mechanics and its probabilistic worldview came and shook the world. In quantum mechanics, there is uncertainty instead of predictability. That, naturally affected scientists of that time.

Isaac Asimov was a scientist. I think that to be one of the reasons he is such a great writer and his novels are considered to be one of the best of all time. Isaac Asimov was born with quantum mechanics in 1920. He naturally gave place to his opinions in Foundation. We will come back to that.

In the Foundation, there is a strange man named “Hari Seldon”. Although he may seem like a hero in the beginning, he is not. He is a realistic character. He is a mathematician. Before Seldon, a branch of mathematics called “psychohistory” was formed. Hari Seldon took an undeveloped branch and made it a properly defined form of science. Psychohistory is capable of accurately predicting future of human masses. However, fate of the individuals cannot be predicted. Seldon used his models to predict the future of the current dominant power, Galactic Imperium. He predicted that the Imperium would fall approximately 300 years later, and Trantor, the capital city would turn into ruins. Predictably, no one believed his science to be true. He gathered hundreds of families around the cause to decelerate the fall. Emperor sent them to exile on Terminus, a remote planet from the center of the Imperium. First Encyclopedia Foundation, later known as The First Foundation, was built on Terminus as planned.

Usually, one of the reasons that a people is connected to a movie or a book is the characters in it. We make connections to them and they become a part of the storyline. In the Foundation, Asimov makes a brave decision and decreases the impact of the characters in order to increase importance of the storyline and the philosophy. Hari Seldon, one of the main characters in the trilogy, has approximately 30 pages only. Book never depends on the characters and their actions. Instead, the “Crisis Solvers” behave in patterns, they make similar decisions to their ancestors. A generation of governors deciding which way the Foundation goes creates a perception of a true saga, not just a book.

When the book was written, quantum mechanics and its probabilistic worldview was still being discussed.  In the Foundation, discussion can be seen as well. In the first book, Foundation, Hari Seldon’s great plan works almost perfectly. At this point, determinism works. Future is predicted accurately. But in the second book, Foundation and the Empire, antagonist arrives. A powerful mutant named “The Mule”. There are several reasons that this villain is named after an unimportant animal. Surprisingly, he gives this name to himself. First reason is that he finds himself stubborn, like a mule. Second reason, however is more surprising. He is infertile, like a mule. He is extremely intelligent; he travels with the protagonists for so long. His mutant powers include emotional manipulation. He can control emotions of others, but not their thoughts. With this aspect of him, I find The Mule similar to famous fascist leaders of the WW2. Just like Hitler and Mussolini, Mule controlled and brainwashed an entire society to serve his purposes. Also, the book was written in 1952, 7 years after the war, which is another reason to this similarity.

However, birth of The Mule was not predicted by Seldon Plan. Therefore, The Mule succeeded to destroy the First Foundation and started searching for the Second Foundation. In the second book, probabilistic view seems to take the place of determinism since everything happening in the second book is unplanned and spontaneous.

The third book, The Second Foundation, tells the story of searching the Second Foundation. Lots of things happen, and in the end, Second Foundation takes control again, and determinism takes back its place.

This discussion, predictability of future, is what makes this series important. Also, big impact of Roman history and story of its fall on the book makes it even greater.