Quantification for the Foundation [Foundation quotes]

[chornedsnorkack]

The technology could be lost rapidly throughout 25 million worlds if crucial parts of it were previously concentrated in a small number of places, and when these were cut off, the rest was unusable.

We KNOW that the Empire after 1 FE STILL had the know-how to build new atomic stations - because one was built in Terminus by 50 FE.

We know that by 155, NO one in the Empire could build a new nuclear station. Not a large nuclear station supplying Navy, not a small town nuclear station, not a new warship. Cleon II, his father, or any of the 9 or more usurpers in the 50 years after Stannell VI would gladly have commissioned brand new warships - but they couldn´t, and the need to capture power station intacts restricted their battle options.

Stannell VI died 50 years ago as of Mallow visit - thus about 105.

Now, in 50 FE, we hear about the nuclear station explosion on Gamma Andromeda V.

Several million people killed. At least half of planets turned into ruins.
Reasons included shortage and poor training of engineers.

Hardin critizises the adopted reactions. Not training of new engineers - but strict restrictions on atomic energy. Much like Japan or Germany.

Now, we are told that the reactors on Siwenna, even small ones, were "built to last forever".

If the bulk of atomic stations all around the Empire, including Siwenna or Anacreon, were "built to last forever" sometime during the 20 000 year history of Galaxy, even as late as 500 or 200 BFE, then there would have been very little need to build completely new atomic stations in the last centuries before the Fall. There would have been very few engineers around whose education included actually building a new atomic station, and these would have been taught in a small number of schools.

Some of these few were sent to Terminus to build their only nuclear power stations.

And then, after Gamma Andromeda, strict restrictions on use of atomic power (in Empire) would have meant that all engineers with skills to actually build new reactors were unemployed and the subject was no longer taught at any schools at all (except Terminus...).

By 105, when Stanell VI died, civil wars broke out and occasions arose to replace war damage to ships or on ground, the last nuclear engineers, say graduating age 25 just after return of Lord Dorwin, would have been 80. Too old to do an effective job, or teach pupils who could....

[Murazor]

III - THE MULE (310-311 F.E.)

11. Bride And Groom.

Bayta's first sight of Haven was entirely the contrary of spectacular. Her husband pointed it out - a dull star lost in the emptiness of the Galaxy's edge. It was past the last sparse clusters, to where straggling points of light gleamed lonely. And even among these it was poor and inconspicuous.
Toran was quite aware that as the earliest prelude to married life, the Red Dwarf lacked impressiveness and his lips curled self-consciously.
[...]
Haven was an angry crimson blaze, and the second planet was a ruddy patch of light with atmosphere-blurred rim and a half-sphere of darkness. Bayta leaned over the large view table with its spidering of crisscross lines that centered Haven II neatly.
[...]
Haven II was rushing up at them now. The landlocked sea wheeled ponderously below them, slate-gray in the lowering dimness and lost to sight, here and there, among the wispy clouds. Mountains jutted raggedly along the coast.
The sea became wrinkled with nearness and, as it veered off past the horizon just at the end, there was one vanishing glimpse of shore-hugging ice fields.

You might remember the Association of Independent Traders briefly mentioned by Devers in the previous section. Since they and Haven II are to an extent relevant to the plot of The Mule, some description would seem to be in order that may save me from posting some kilometric quotes.

The Trading worlds are twenty seven small and sparsely populated worlds, which seem to be generally inhospitable (of the couple we know, one is an artic rockball in which people live underground and the other is a tide locked type, half molten and half frozen in which only a narrow intermediate area is colonized). Their inhabitants are Traders who rejected the rising control of the Merchant Princes and set shop on their own, which saved them when the Foundation turned into a full blown dictatorship.

As a result, at the start of this, the Traders are a small group, regarded as a low intensity rebellion by the Foundation mayor, but they are economically powerful and rather over-militarized for their size.

Toran adjusted the controls unnecessarily and decided to relax. He was one interstellar jump, and then several milli-microparsecs "on the straight" before manipulation by hand was necessary.

I've heard a number of times people comment that Asimov didn't include computers explicitly until Foundation's Edge (and never mind passing mentions before), so that must mean that everything is calculated by hand using sliding rulers and such.

For the record, that's false, at least at this point in time. Toran pilots a small private starship and he can still trust the automated controls to take care of things for a while and even for making one hyperjump.

They burst into the open and Bayta said suddenly, "Oh, my-"
The cave city was in daylight - the white daylight of a young sun. Not that there was a sun, of course. What should have been the sky was lost in the unfocused glow of an over-all brilliance. And the warm air was properly thick and fragrant with greenery.
Bayta said, "Why, Toran, it's beautiful."
Toran grinned with anxious delight. "Well, now, Bay, it isn't like anything on the Foundation, of course, but it's the biggest city on Haven II - twenty thousand people, you know - and you'll get to like it. No amusement palaces, I'm afraid, but no secret police either."
"Oh, Torie, it's just like a toy city. It's all white and pink - and so clean."
"Well-" Toran looked at the city with her. The houses were two stories high for the most part, and of the smooth vein rock indigenous to the region. The spires of the Foundation were missing, and the colossal community houses of the Old Kingdoms - but the smallness was there and the individuality; a relic of personal initiative in a Galaxy of mass life.

The largest city in the planet has twenty thousand people. And the global population is later implied to be "some hundred thousand Traders". And Haven is one of the three strongest worlds in the Trader coalition, possibly the strongest, period.

"I married her," said Toran simply.
"Well, that's another thing altogether, boy." His eyes darkened. "It's a foolish way to tie up the future. In my longer life, and more experienced, I never did such a thing."
Randu interrupted from the comer where he stood quietly. "Now Franssart, what comparisons are you making? Till your crash landing six years ago you were never in one spot long enough to establish residence requirements for marriage, And since then, who would have you?"
The one-armed man jerked erect in his seat and replied hotly, "Many, you snowy dotard-"
Toran said with hasty tact, "It's largely a legal formality, Dad. The situation has its conveniences."
"Mostly for the woman," grumbled Fran.
"And even if so," agreed Randu, "it's up to the boy to decide. Marriage is an old custom among the Foundationers."
"The Foundationers are not fit models for an honest Trader," smoldered Fran.
Toran broke in again, "My wife is a Foundationer."

This commentary fits surprisingly well with the fact that the Traders were generally solitary star wanderers going from planet to planet like a modern freighter goes from port of call to port of call, and spending too little time anywhere to create a family. Though it is obvious that there must be exceptions, the combination of this tradition and a somewhat hazardous job explains the generally small population figures described for the Independent Traders.

"Well," Bayta's eyes misted with thought as she curled her bare toes into the white softness of the rug and nestled her little chin in one plump hand, "it seems to me that the whole essence of Seldon's plan was to create a world better than the ancient one of the Galactic Empire. It was failing apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation - and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistribution of the goods of the universe."
[...]
The girl said softly, "It's an old story. You all know it. For almost three centuries every human being of the Foundation has known it. But I thought it would be appropriate to go through it - just quickly. Today is Seldon's birthday, you know, and even if I am of the Foundation, and you are of Haven, we have that in common-"
She lit a cigarette slowly, and watched the glowing tip absently. "The laws of history are as absolute as the laws of physics, and if the probabilities of error are greater, it is only because history does not deal with as many humans as physics does atoms, so that individual variations count for more. Seldon predicted a series of crises through the thousand years of growth, each of which would force a new turning of our history into a pre-calculated path. It is those crises which direct us - and therefore a crisis must come now.
"Now!" she repeated, forcefully. "It's almost a century since the last one, and in that century, every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is theirs."

Brief exposition about the current state of things in the Foundation. Though the source is biased (a member of the illegal democratic opposition married to a member of the Trader quasi-rebellion), the content appears to be true and consistent with the state of things we already saw during the period of the Riose war.

Toran drove on fervently, "The trouble with you, Dad, is that you've got a provincial outlook. You think because some hundred thousand Traders scurry into holes on an unwanted planet at the end of nowhere, that they're a great people. Of course, any tax collector from the Foundation that gets here never leaves again, but that's cheap heroism. What would you do if the Foundation sent a fleet?"
"We'd blast them," said Fran, sharply.
"And get blasted - with the balance in their favor. You're outnumbered, outarmed, outorganized - and as soon as the Foundation thinks it worth its while, you'll realize that. So you had better seek your allies - on the Foundation itself, if you can."

So, unsurprisingly, the Traders are very much in the minority here and if they haven't been crushed like ants before, it is because the Foundation cannot be bothered to send a fleet to do the crushing, because the Traders simply aren't worth the expense at this point.

He said, "Your little suggestion of Foundation's interest in us, Toran, is to the point. There have been two recent visits lately - for tax purposes. The disturbing point is that the second visitor was accompanied by a light patrol ship. They landed in Gleiar City - giving us the miss for a change - and they never lifted off again, naturally. But now they'll surely be back. Your father is aware of all this, Toran, he really is.

Not much to comment here. Just that we are never given much detail about different kinds of warships used by the Foundation and I'd like to quote every factoid we get, such as this use of light patrol vessels.

"Well, there is one - a new one. In this past year or two, there has come word of a strange man whom they call the Mule."
"The Mule?" She considered. "Ever hear of him, Torie?''
Toran shook his head. She said, "What about him?"
"I don't know. But he wins victories at, they say, impossible odds. The rumors may be exaggerated, but it would be interesting, in any case, to become acquainted with him. Not every man with sufficient ability and sufficient ambition would believe in Hari Seldon and his laws of psychohistory. We could encourage that disbelief. He might attack."
"And the Foundation would win."
"Yes - but not necessarily easily. It might be a crisis, and we could take advantage of such a crisis to force a compromise with the despots of the Foundation. At the worst, they would forget us long enough to enable us to plan farther."

*insert famous quote about the best plans of mice and men*

"In what way, Randu? What do you want of us?" The young man cast a quick inquisitive look at his wife.
"Have you had a honeymoon?"
"Well… yes… if you can call the trip from the Foundation a honeymoon."
"How about a better one on Kalgan? It's semitropical beaches - water sports - bird hunting - quite the vacation spot. It's about seven thousand parsecs in-not too far."

A trip of twenty three thousand light years is not too far away. Close enough for a young married couple of relatively limited means to make the trip for a honeymoon without raising suspicions.

Not particularly surprising, but it gives us context for what inter-stellar travel is like in this time period.

"What's on Kalgan?"
"The Mule! His men, at least. He took it last month, and without a battle, though Kalgan's warlord broadcast a threat to blow the planet to ionic dust before giving it up."

Another one of those quotes that can be interpreted as supportive of planetary destruction technologies, particularly since it seems that the broadcast was supposed to be a credible threat, rather than random boasting.

Given Kalgan's relative proximity to the Foundation and its status as a world that barely suffered the effects of the Fall, it is more believable than if -say- the guys in Askone had threatened with doing the same.

12. Captain And Mayor.

They stepped back with a ceremonious bow as the captain started forward. His escort stopped at the outer door, and he entered the inner alone.
On the other side of the doors, in a large room strangely simple, behind a large desk strangely angular, sat a small man, almost lost in the immensity,
Mayor Indbur - successively the third of that name - was the grandson of the first Indbur, who had been brutal and capable; and who had exhibited the first quality in spectacular fashion by his manner of seizing power, and the latter by the skill with which he put an end to the last farcical remnants of free election and the even greater skill with which he maintained a relatively peaceful rule.
Mayor Indbur was also the son of the second Indbur, who was the first Mayor of the Foundation to succeed to his post by right of birth - and who was only half his father, for he was merely brutal.
So Mayor Indbur was the third of the name and the second to succeed by right of birth, and he was the least of the three, for he was neither brutal nor capable - but merely an excellent bookkeeper born wrong.
Indbur the Third was a peculiar combination of ersatz characteristics to all but himself.
To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was "system," an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was "industry," indecision when right was "caution," and blind stubbornness when wrong, "determination."
And withal he wasted no money, killed no man needlessly, and meant extremely well.
[...]
And Captain Pritcher in strict obedience to protocol bent one knee nearly to the ground and bowed his head until he heard the words of release.
"Arise, Captain Pritcher!"
[...]
Captain Pritcher's expressionless face did not soften. He remained stiffly erect. Protocol required that a subject honored by an audience with the mayor may not sit down - a point perhaps needlessly reinforced by the fact that only one chair existed in the room, the one underneath the mayor. Protocol further required no statements other than those needed to answer a direct question.

Some particulars concerning the Foundation's transition from corrupt democracy to fascist dictatorship, as well as the ruler during the time of the Mule's ascension and the ceremonials that now adorn the position of Mayor of Terminus.

He lifted a pink, scented jelly-globule to his lips. It was his one vice, and but dolingly indulged in. Witness the fact that the mayor's desk lacked that almost-inevitable atom flash for the disposal of dead tobacco. For the mayor did not smoke.

Even ashtrays are atomic! Truly, it is the world of the future.

More seriously, I wonder about the atom flash thingy. Low power disintegrator/incinerator or some such thing?

"Hm-m-m. So! So!" The mayor fell into a reverie, and slowly with twenty-four strokes of his stylus drew six squares in hexagonal arrangements upon the blank top sheet of a pad, which he tore off, folded neatly in three parts and slipped into the wastepaper slot at his right hand. It slid towards a clean and silent atomic disintegration.

Well, if even the wastebasket slash paper shredder is a disintegrator, so must be those "atom flash" ashtrays mentioned before.

"Excellence, there is a rat hole in space that, it seems, does not pay its taxes."
"Ah, and is that all? You are not aware, and have not been told that these men who do not pay their taxes, are descendants of the wild Traders of our early days - anarchists, rebels, social maniacs who claim Foundation ancestry and deride Foundation culture. You are not aware, and have not been told, that this rat hole in space, is not one, but many; that these rat holes are in greater number than we know; that these rat holes conspire together, one with the other, and all with the criminal elements that still exist throughout Foundation territory. Even here, captain, even here!"
The mayor's momentary fire subsided quickly. "You are not aware, captain?"
"Excellence, I have been told all this. But as servant of the State, I must serve faithfully - and he serves most faithfully who serves Truth. Whatever the political implications of these dregs of the ancient Traders - the warlords who have inherited the splinters of the old Empire have the power. The Traders have neither arms nor resources. They have not even unity. I am not a tax collector to be sent on a child's errand."

An opinion about the threat potential of the Independent Traders to the Foundation, made by a senior officer of the Foundation intelligence service.

"Yes, captain, but you omit the fourth crisis. Come, captain, we had no leadership worthy of the name then, and we faced the cleverest opponent, the heaviest armor, the strongest force of all. Yet we won by the inevitability of history."
"Excellence, that is true. But this history you mention became inevitable only after we had fought desperately for over a year. The inevitable victory we won cost us half a thousand ships and half a million men. Excellence, Seldon's plan helps those who help themselves."

Consequences of the Riose war. After over a year of conflict, the Foundation lost half a million men and half a thousand ships, though it is unknown whether this counts the totality of casualties of the Foundation side during the totality of the conflict or just citizens of Terminus itself.

13. Leutenant And Clown

If, from a distance of seven thousand parsecs, the fall of Kalgan to the armies of the Mule had produced reverberations that had excited the curiosity of an old Trader, the apprehension of a dogged captain, and the annoyance of a meticulous mayor - to those on Kalgan itself, it produced nothing and excited no one.

For future reference, Kalgan appears to be approximately the same distance from both Haven II and Terminus.

Kalgan was - Kalgan. It alone of all that quadrant of the Galaxy seemed not to know that the Empire had fallen, that the Stannells no longer ruled, that greatness had departed, and peace had disappeared.
Kalgan was the luxury world. With the edifice of mankind crumbling, it maintained its integrity as a producer of pleasure, a buyer of gold and a seller of leisure.
It escaped the harsher vicissitudes of history, for what conqueror would destroy or even seriously damage a world so full of the ready cash that would buy immunity.
Yet even Kalgan had finally become the headquarters of a warlord and its softness had been tempered to the exigencies of war.
Its tamed jungles, its mildly modeled shores, and its garishly glamorous cities echoed to the march of imported mercenaries and impressed citizens. The worlds of its province had been armed and its money invested in battleships rather than bribes for the first time in its history. Its ruler proved beyond doubt that he was determined to defend what was his and eager to seize what was others. He was a great one of the Galaxy, a war and peace maker, a builder of Empire, an establisher of dynasty.
And an unknown with a ridiculous nickname had taken him - and his arms - and his budding Empire - and had not even fought a battle.
So Kalgan was as before, and its uniformed citizens hurried back to their older life, while the foreign professionals of war merged easily into the newer bands that descended.

Some historical background about Kalgan, later capital of the Mule's Union of Worlds, and later still adversary of the Foundation in the post-Mule period.

However, it is worth noting that in order for this setup to keep working after the fall of the Empire, there must have been significant amounts of people with the means to do interstellar tourism

"Don't overdo it," she had said at first, but Toran was of a dying-red star. Despite three years of the Foundation, sunlight was a luxury, and for four days now his skin, treated beforehand for ray resistance, had not felt the harshness of clothing, except for the brief shorts.

Wonder what this treatment involves. There is not much in the books about the state of healthcare or biosciences.

Apparently, she was watching a spindly figure, feet in air, who teetered on his hands for the amusement of a haphazard crowd. It was one of the swarming acrobatic beggars of the shore, whose supple joints bent and snapped for the sake of the thrown coins.
A beach guard was motioning him on his way and with a surprising one-handed balance, the clown brought a thumb to his nose in an upside-down gesture. The guard advanced threateningly and reeled backward with a foot in his stomach. The clown righted himself without interrupting the motion of the initial kick and was away, while the frothing guard was held off by a thoroughly unsympathetic crowd.
The clown made his way raggedly down the beach. He brushed past many, hesitated often, stopped nowhere. The original crowd had dispersed. The guard had departed.
"He's a queer fellow," said Bayta, with amusement, and Toran agreed indifferently. The clown was close enough now to be seen clearly. His thin face drew together in front into a nose of generous planes and fleshy tip that seemed all but prehensile. His long, lean limbs and spidery body, accentuated by his costume, moved easily and with grace, but with just a suggestion of having been thrown together at random.
To look was to smile.
[...]
The clown smiled, but it only saddened his beaked face, and when he spoke it was with the soft, elaborate phrasing of the Central Sectors.
"Were I to use the wits the good Spirits gave me," he said, "then I would say this lady can not exist - for what sane man would hold a dream to be reality. Yet rather would I not be sane and lend belief to charmed, enchanted eyes."

Enter the Mule, stage right.

"Oh, no, not he. He's but a windlet that blows the dust about my ankles. There is another that I flee, and he is a storm that sweeps the worlds aside and throws them plunging at each other. A week ago, I ran away, have slept in city streets, and hid in city crowds. I've looked in many faces for help in need. I find it here." He repeated the last phrase in softer, anxious tones, and his large eyes were troubled, "I find it here."
"Now," said Bayta, reasonably, "I would like to help, but really, friend, I'm no protection against a world-sweeping storm. To be truthful about it, I could use-"

Asimov does some extremely subtle foreshadowing here, I realize for the first time. Read this, then go read the Mule's stated reasons for his defeat at the end of Foundation and Empire.

It was the beach guard, with a fire-red face, and snarling mouth, that approached at a run. He pointed with his low-power stun pistol.

Apparently, a non lethal weapon, less unpleasant than the far more (in)famous neuronic whip.

Then there was a bustle, and a rough order in the distance. A corridor formed itself and two men strode through, electric whips in careless readiness. Upon each purple blouse was designed an angular shaft of lightning with a splitting planet underneath.

Interesting insignia these guys carry there, lol.

Other than that, another non lethal weapon, apparently designed for crowd control purposes. It is not completely clear what the electricity adds to the whip.

He raised his voice and kept it from shaking, "I'm sorry, lieutenant; this man is mine."
The soldiers took the statement without blinking. One raised his whip casually, but the lieutenant's snapped order brought it down.
His dark mightiness swung forward and planted his square body before Toran, "Who are you?"
And the answer rang out, "A citizen of the Foundation."
It worked-with the crowd, at any rate. The pent-up silence broke into an intense hum. The Mule's name might excite fear, but it was, after all, a new name and scarcely stuck as deeply in the vitals as the old one of the Foundation - that had destroyed the Empire - and the fear of which ruled a quadrant of the Galaxy with ruthless despotism.

Though its territorial holdings are smaller than this, it would appear that the Foundation's area of influence spans roughly a quarter of the galaxy in this period.

The lieutenant kept face. He said, "Are you aware of the identity of the man behind you?"
"I have been told he's a runaway from the court of your leader, but my only sure knowledge is that he is a friend of mine. You'll need firm proof of his identity to take him."
There were high-pitched sighs from the crowd, but the lieutenant let it pass. "Have you your papers of Foundation citizenship with you?"
"At my ship."
"You realize that your actions are illegal? I can have you shot."
"Undoubtedly. But then you would have shot a Foundation citizen and it is quite likely that your body would be sent to the Foundation - quartered - as part compensation. It's been done by other warlords."
The lieutenant wet his lips. The statement was true.

Considering Asimov's inspirations for the Foundation's cycle, this reminds me of the ways in which early Republican Rome reacted to abuse of its citizens by foreign nations.

[Murazor]

One thing which I could never quite bring myself to believe regarding Asimov's storyline is how a galaxy virtually filled to the brim with human-populated worlds could lose so much technology in such a short timespan. I understand that the plot is historically grounded in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but that analogy can only be fitted so far to a galactic society which had endured steadfastly for 22,000 years. Which kind of social force could be responsible for such widespread decay? It simply makes no sense.

One of the cleverest things from the non-Asimov novels (Brin's Foundation's Triumph, maybe?) was something about how the Fall is not some kind of unavoidable tragedy, but rather a deliberately engineered debacle, to allow Daneel to give a singular human (this would be Trevize) the chance to choose between the Seldon Plan or Galaxia, while still rigging the game to make sure that Galaxia would be chosen and without humanity at large being aware.

Man, it is downright disturbing just how easy it is to build sinister manipulative Daneel scenarios.

[Batman]

Actually, once you accept the Zeroth law, it's pretty much built in (as is the other Foundation Trilogy's explanation for why there is no other intelligent life in this galaxy). Daneel needs to keep all of humanity safe yet is still hampered by the first law, and is thus limited in what he can do (which Asimov expands on at length in the OT expansions) so he needs a human to make the ultimate decision for him.

[Simon_Jester]

One thing which I could never quite bring myself to believe regarding Asimov's storyline is how a galaxy virtually filled to the brim with human-populated worlds could lose so much technology in such a short timespan. I understand that the plot is historically grounded in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but that analogy can only be fitted so far to a galactic society which had endured steadfastly for 22,000 years. Which kind of social force could be responsible for such widespread decay? It simply makes no sense.

One of the implications is that the decay had been going on for millenia, but in ways very hard to diagnose for people living within the system.

Look at the kind of 'scholarship' we see in the Imperial envoy sent to the Foundation at the beginning of the Foundation's existence. They really don't have a concept of science or research other than, well, glorified librarian-work. Librarians are important, but they can't maintain a technological society by themselves.

Another issue is that the system may be highly interdependent. If certain critical parts and tools and knowledge to keep the overall galactic 'machine' running exist only at special central locations, what happens when politics and bureaucracy interfere at those locations? How many civil wars can be fought over a provincial capital before its industry and institutions of learning are wrecked beyond easy repair? How long will education continue to function in a government where every senior official is more concerned with the prospects of the latest coup?

Wait several generations and you could lose a lot that way, especially when the effects of damage from open warfare are factored in (as at Siwenna).

I've heard a number of times people comment that Asimov didn't include computers explicitly until Foundation's Edge (and never mind passing mentions before), so that must mean that everything is calculated by hand using sliding rulers and such.

The term in English is "slide rule;" trust me, I own two.

So Mayor Indbur was the third of the name and the second to succeed by right of birth, and he was the least of the three, for he was neither brutal nor capable - but merely an excellent bookkeeper born wrong.
Indbur the Third was a peculiar combination of ersatz characteristics to all but himself.
To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was "system," an indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was "industry," indecision when right was "caution," and blind stubbornness when wrong, "determination."
And withal he wasted no money, killed no man needlessly, and meant extremely well...

I find this very amusing.

"Hm-m-m. So! So!" The mayor fell into a reverie, and slowly with twenty-four strokes of his stylus drew six squares in hexagonal arrangements upon the blank top sheet of a pad, which he tore off, folded neatly in three parts and slipped into the wastepaper slot at his right hand. It slid towards a clean and silent atomic disintegration.

Well, if even the wastebasket slash paper shredder is a disintegrator, so must be those "atom flash" ashtrays mentioned before.

The Mayor's wastebasket may be used to dispose of sensitive documents; a disintegrator might well be rational here if not everywhere else.

"Don't overdo it," she had said at first, but Toran was of a dying-red star. Despite three years of the Foundation, sunlight was a luxury, and for four days now his skin, treated beforehand for ray resistance, had not felt the harshness of clothing, except for the brief shorts.

Wonder what this treatment involves. There is not much in the books about the state of healthcare or biosciences.

Melanin supplements?

Then there was a bustle, and a rough order in the distance. A corridor formed itself and two men strode through, electric whips in careless readiness. Upon each purple blouse was designed an angular shaft of lightning with a splitting planet underneath.

Interesting insignia these guys carry there, lol.

Other than that, another non lethal weapon, apparently designed for crowd control purposes. It is not completely clear what the electricity adds to the whip.

Electric shocks?

Also, I don't get the joke in the insignia, the one you laugh out loud at.

[Murazor]

14. The Mutant.

The "hangar" on Kalgan is an institution peculiar unto itself, born of the need for the disposition of the vast number of ships brought in by the visitors from abroad, and the simultaneous and consequent vast need for living accommodations for the same. The original bright one who had thought of the obvious solution had quickly become a millionaire. His heirs - by birth or finance - were easily among the richest on Kalgan.
The "hangar" spreads fatly over square miles of territory, and "hangar" does not describe it at all sufficiently. It is essentially a hotel - for ships. The traveler pays in advance and his ship is awarded a berth from which it can take off into space at any desired moment. The visitor then lives in his ship as always. The ordinary hotel services such as the replacement of food and medical supplies at special rates, simple servicing of the ship itself, special intra-Kalgan transportation for a nominal sum are to be had, of course.
As a result, the visitor combines hangar space and hotel bill into one, at a saving. The owners sell temporary use of ground space at ample profits. The government collects huge taxes. Everyone has fun. Nobody loses. Simple!

If caravan camping for spaceships generates enough income to make folks rich as hell, despite huge taxes and all that, Kalgan really must see quite a lot of tourism.

Probably helps that this "hangar" would appear to be the only one of its kind in the planet (state sponsored monopoly, perhaps?).

He was an expert at what he was doing now and if his preliminary study of the hangar registry had failed to give specific information beyond the doubtful indication of a specific wing - one containing hundreds of ships - his specialized knowledge could winnow those hundreds into one.

The hangar here contains more than one wing, each seemingly containing several hundred ships.

The ship he stopped at was sleek and obviously fast. The peculiarity of its design was what he wanted. It was not a usual model - and these days most of the ships of this quadrant of the Galaxy either imitated Foundation design or were built by Foundation technicians.

Which comes to say that there is significant ship-building activity beyond the Foundation. Not a complete surprise, but things seem to have improved considerably since the early Fall.

This was a Foundation ship - if only because of the tiny bulges in the skin that were the nodes of the protective screen that only a Foundation ship could possess.

The context is unclear about the specific meaning. It could be that only the Foundation has shield technology at this point, period. But it could also mean that only Foundation civilian ships are expected to carry forcefields. Or several other things, such as some kind of limitation by treaty.

The electronic barrier strung across the line of the ships as a concession to privacy on the part of the management was not at all important to him. It parted easily, and without activating the alarm, at the use of the very special neutralizing force he had at his disposal.

Not clear here if the "electronic barrier" is just a trigger for an alarm if someone crosses or also some kind of forcefield. Considering that the Foundation developed shield piercing stuff earlier on, both are possible.

So the first knowledge within the ship of the intruder without was the casual and almost friendly signal of the muted buzzer in the ship's living room that was the result of a palm placed over the little photocell just one side of the main air lock.

I am vaguely amused by the fact that the spaceship has a doorbell. It's logic enough, I guess, but it is kind of a cute detail.

"And who has not?" Magnifico's voice was a mysterious whisper. "There are those who say it is a world of great magic, of fires that can consume planets, and secrets of mighty strength. They say that not the highest nobility of the Galaxy could achieve the honor and deference considered only the natural due of a simple man who could say 'I am a citizen of the Foundation,' - were he only a salvage miner of space, or a nothing like myself."

Since this is the Mule still playing the part of the fool, no one should put much stock in these flamboyant descriptions. Still, we might as well add these "fires that can consume planets" along with the other less than solid stuff that suggests planetary destruction capabilities.

"I'll inform you that this is a Foundation ship and consequently Foundation territory by international treaty."

This was briefly mentioned early in the Mallow section of Foundation, during one of the discussions concerning lost Trader ships. Apparently, the Foundation has strong armed its neighbors into giving its vessels extraterritorial status since very early on.

"I might ask you that," said the stranger, coolly, "since you're the one under false pretenses, not I."
"How so?"
"You're the one who claims to be a Foundation citizen when there's not an authorized Trader on the planet."
"That's not so. How would you know?"
"Because I am a Foundation citizen, and have my papers to prove it. Where are yours?"
"I think you'd better get out."
"I think not. If you know anything about Foundation methods, and despite your imposture you might, you'd know that if I don't return alive to my ship at a specified time, there'll be a signal at the nearest Foundation headquarters so I doubt if your weapons will have much effect, practically speaking."
[...]
He said, "News travels quickly, especially when it is apparently beyond belief. I don't suppose there's a person on Kalgan who doesn't know that the Mule's men were kicked in the teeth today by two tourists from the Foundation. I knew of the important details before evening, and, as I said, there are no Foundation tourists aside from myself on the planet. We know about those things."

Pritcher is a reliable source, meaning that with no Foundation presence in the planet, those hundreds (or more) vessels and swarms of tourists all hail from other "barbarian kingdoms". Only they are not so barbarian anymore, if even middle classes can once again afford to travel to other star systems.

He waved aside questions, and continued more quickly, "I went back to his birthplace for this, and questioned people who for their knowledge will not live long. Few enough are still alive. They remember the baby born thirty years before - the death of his mother - his strange youth. The Mule is not a human being!"
And his two listeners drew back in horror at the misty implications. Neither understood, fully or clearly, but the menace of the phrase was definite.
The captain continued, "He is a mutant, and obviously from his subsequent career, a highly successful one. I don't know his powers or the exact extent to which he is what our thrillers would call a 'superman,' but the rise from nothing to the conqueror of Kalgan's warlord in two years is revealing. You see, don't you, the danger? Can a genetic accident of unpredictable biological properties be taken into account in the Seldon plan?"

So... Pritcher claims to have visited the Mule's birthplace and learned enough to know that he is a mutant of some kind with unspecified superhuman powers. However, he apparently didn't get even a cursory physical description or the Mule's attempt to present himself as his own court jester would have backfired horribly.

It also would seem to contradict the Gaian origin of the Mule presented in Foundation's Edge, since Gaia was a well guarded secret at this point, unless Pritcher just got it wrong and mistakenly visited the birthplace of some other mutant.

Also, it'd seem that mutants with freaky powers are not an altogether unknown ocurrence, since a training intelligence officers accepts the fact with little supporting evidence and our couple here don't go all lol-wut, even seemingly believing the Mule when he describes himself as an ubermensch who can kill people with his eyes.

It is very intriguing, this. Wish that we had some more info about the matter.

It was after the last jump, when within neutral-flight distance of the Foundation, that the first hyperwave news broadcast reached the ship.
And there was one news item barely mentioned. It seemed that a warlord - unidentified by the bored speaker - had made representations to the Foundation concerning the forceful abduction of a member of his court. The announcer went on to the sports news.

At this point in time, the Foundation would seem to have continuous hyperwave broadcasting within its territory, much like modern radio/television. This is a considerable step up above the previous state of things.

15. The Psychologist.

There was reason to the fact that the element known as "pure science" was the freest form of life on the Foundation. In a Galaxy where the predominance - and even survival - of the Foundation still rested upon the superiority of its technology - even despite its large access of physical power in the last century and a half - a certain immunity adhered to The Scientist. He was needed, and he knew it.
Likewise, there was reason to the fact that Ebling Mis - only those who did not know him added his titles to his name - was the freest form of life in the "pure science" of the Foundation. In a world where science was respected, he was The Scientist - with capital letters and no smile. He was needed, and he knew it.
And so it happened, that when others bent their knee, he refused and added loudly that his ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors' time the mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots.
So it also happened, that when Ebling Mis decided to allow Indbur to honor him with an audience, he did not wait for the usual rigid line of command to pass his request up and the favored reply down, but, having thrown the less disreputable of his two formal jackets over his shoulders and pounded an odd hat of impossible design on one side of his head, and lit a forbidden cigar into the bargain, he barged past two ineffectually bleating guards and into the mayor's palace.
The first notice his excellence received of the intrusion was when from his garden he heard the gradually nearing uproar of expostulation and the answering bull-roar of inarticulate swearing.

I fucking love Ebling Mis. My favorite character in the series, bar none.

Slowly, Indbur lay down his trowel; slowly, he stood up; and slowly, he frowned. For Indbur allowed himself a daily vacation from work, and for two hours in the early afternoon, weather permitting, he was in his garden. There in his garden, the blooms grew in squares and triangles, interlaced in a severe order of red and yellow, with little dashes of violet at the apices, and greenery bordering the whole in rigid lines. There in his garden no one disturbed him - no one!
Indbur peeled off his soil-stained gloves as he advanced toward the little garden door.
[...]
"Look here, Indbur, those unprintable minions of yours will be charged for one good cloak. Lots of good wear left in this cloak." He puffed and wiped his forehead with just a trace of theatricality.
The mayor stood stiff with displeasure, and said haughtily from the peak of his five-foot-two, "It has not been brought to my attention, Mis, that you have requested an audience. You have certainly not been assigned one."

Pictured, Mayor Indbur the Third.

"Seldon crisis!" Indbur exhibited first interest. Mis was a great psychologist - a democrat, boor, and rebel certainly, but a psychologist, too.
[...]
"I have your reports here," replied the mayor, with satisfaction, "together with authorized summaries of them. As I understand it, your investigations into the mathematics of psychohistory have been intended to duplicate Hari Seldon's work and, eventually, trace the projected course of future history, for the use of the Foundation."
"Exactly," said Mis, dryly. "When Seldon first established the Foundation, he was wise enough to include no psychologists among the scientists placed here - so that the Foundation has always worked blindly along the course of historical necessity. In the course of my researches, I have based a good deal upon hints found at the Time Vault."
"I am aware of that, Mis. It is a waste of time to repeat."
"I'm not repeating," blared Mis, "because what I'm going to tell you isn't in any of those reports."
"How do you mean, not in the reports?" said Indbur, stupidly. "How could-"

All things considered, it is unsurprising that the Foundation has attempted to replicate psychohistory, considering its enormous value. It is perhaps somewhat surprising that five hundred years into the Seldon Plan they haven't managed it, though the Second Foundation might be to blame for this.

I rather liked Donald Kingbury's interpretation of the whole thing in his "Psychohistorical Crisis". A book which I recommend, by the way.

Dashing his hat on the floor, so that clods of earth scattered, he sprang up the stairs of the dais on which the wide desk stood and shoving papers violently, sat down upon a comer of it.
Indbur thought frantically of summoning the guard, or using the built-in blasters of his desk. But Mis's face was glaring down upon him and there was nothing to do but cringe the best face upon it.

Inbuilt blasters in the desk seems... surprisingly badass for an idiot bureaucrat like this kind of character to be honest.

"It certainly is," gloated Mis, "but what are you going to do about it? Let me tell you about the Time Vault. That Time Vault is what Hari Seldon placed here at the beginning to help us over the rough spots. For every crisis, Seldon has prepared a personal simulacrum to help - and explain. Four crises so far - four appearances. The first time he appeared at the height of the first crisis. The second time, he appeared at the moment just after the successful evolution of the second crisis. Our ancestors were there to listen to him both times. At the third and fourth crises, he was ignored - probably because he was not needed, but recent investigations - not included in those reports you have - indicate that he appeared anyway, and at the proper times. Get it?"
[...]
He said, "Officially I've been trying to rebuild the science of psychohistory. Well, no one man is going to do that, and it won't get done in any one century, either. But I've made advances in the more simple elements and I've been able to use it as an excuse to meddle with the Time Vault. What I have done, involves the determination, to a pretty fair kind of certainty, of the exact date of the next appearance of Hari Seldon. I can give you the exact day, in other words, that the coming Seldon Crisis, the fifth, will reach its climax. "
"How far off?" demanded Indbur, tensely.
And Mis exploded his bomb with cheerful nonchalance,
"Four months," he said. "Four unprintable months, less two days."
"Four months," said Indbur, with uncharacteristic vehemence. "Impossible."
"Impossible, my unprintable eye."

Unprintable is my new favorite swear word. Have to use it somewhere one of these days.

Not really a very meaty chapter in technical matters. We only get some stuff about early attempts to replicate psycho-history, in the whole, though Mis and the Mayor get some really funny characterization.


16. Conference.

When the twenty-seven independent Trading worlds, united only by their distrust of the mother planet of the Foundation, concert an assembly among themselves, and each is big with a pride grown of its smallness, hardened by its own insularity and embittered by eternal danger - there are preliminary negotiations to be overcome of a pettiness sufficiently staggering to heartsicken the most persevering.
It is not enough to fix in advance such details as methods of voting, type of representation - whether by world or by population. These are matters of involved political importance. It is not enough to fix matters of priority at the table, both council and dinner, those are matters of involved social importance.
It was the place of meeting - since that was a matter of overpowering provincialism. And in the end the devious routes of diplomacy led to the world of Radole, which some commentators had suggested at the start for logical reason of central position.

Self-explanatory. Some details about the (very) loose coalition formed by the Independent Trading worlds and the outrageously inefficient way in which they handle their common affairs.

Radole was a small world - and, in military potential, perhaps the weakest of the twenty-seven. That, by the way, was another factor in the logic of the choice.
It was a ribbon world - of which the Galaxy boasts sufficient, but among which, the inhabited variety is a rarity for the physical requirements are difficult to meet. It was a world, in other words, where the two halves face the monotonous extremes of heat and cold, while the region of possible life is the girdling ribbon of the twilight zone.
Such a world invariably sounds uninviting to those who have not tried it, but there exist spots, strategically placed - and Radole City was located in such a one.
It spread along the soft slopes of the foothills before the hacked-out mountains that backed it along the rim of the cold hemisphere and held off the frightful ice. The warm, dry air of the sun-half spilled over, and from the mountains was piped the water-and between the two, Radole City became a continuous garden, swimming in the eternal morning of an eternal June.
Each house nestled among its flower garden, open to the fangless elements. Each garden was a horticultural forcing ground, where luxury plants grew in fantastic patterns for the sake of the foreign exchange they brought - until Radole had almost become a producing world, rather than a typical Trading world.
So, in its way, Radole City was a little point of softness and luxury on a horrible planet - a tiny scrap of Eden - and that, too, was a factor in the logic of the choice.
The strangers came from each of the twenty-six other Trading worlds: delegates, wives, secretaries, newsmen, ships, and crews - and Radole's population nearly doubled and Radole's resources strained themselves to the limit. One ate at will, and drank at will, and slept not at all.

A good description of another of the Trading worlds, the weakest. Considering that it is later stated that the cold side of the planet has rivers of liquid oxygen within twenty miles of the planetary capitol, it is likely that there is some kind of technology at work keeping the ribbon territories atmospherically stable for human life.

Still, not a lot of people in the planet, if the people arrived for a conference is enough to nearly double the population.

"We came fight through the war-zone to get here-on purpose. We traveled about a light-minute or so, in neutral, right past Horleggor-"
"Horleggor?" broke in a long-legged native, who was playing host to that particular gathering. "That's where the Mule got the guts beat out of him last week, wasn't it?"
"Where'd you hear that the Mule got the guts beat out of him?" demanded the pilot, loftily.
"Foundation radio."
"Yeah? Well, the Mule's got Horleggor. We almost ran into a convoy of his ships, and that's where they were coming from. It isn't a gut-beating when you stay where you fought, and the gut-beater leaves in a hurry."
[...]
"Anyway." said the pilot from Haven, after a short pause, "As I say, we saw the Mule's ships, and they looked pretty good, pretty good. I tell you what - they looked new."
"New?" said the native, thoughtfully. "They build them themselves?" He broke a leaf from an overhanging branch, sniffed delicately at it, then crunched it between his teeth, the bruised tissues bleeding greenly and diffusing a minty odor. He said, "You trying to tell me they beat Foundation ships with homebuilt jobs? Go on."

For all that there is ship-building outside Foundation territory, Foundation vessels are still regarded as the best around. To the point, that the Traders actually believe that they themselves must be supplying the Mule in secret his warships.

Fran said authoritatively, "More than that, maybe. This is real strategy. This is the kind I like." He clawed loudly at the skin of his abdomen. "But don't you forget that the Mule is a smart boy, too. What happened at Horleggor worries me."
"I heard he lost about ten ships."
"Sure, but he had a hundred more, and the Foundation had to get out. It's all to the good to have those tyrants beaten, but not as quickly as all that." He shook his head.
"The question I ask is where does the Mule get his ships? There's a widespread rumor we're making them for him."
"We? The Traders? Haven has the biggest ship factories anywhere in the independent worlds, and we haven't made one for anyone but ourselves. Do you suppose any world is building a fleet for the Mule on its own, without taking the precaution of united action? That's a… a fairy tale."

According to this moderately well informed source (official representative of the Havenite government), the Mule's forces devoted a hundred ships to a single (apparently major) battle and lost ten of 'em.

Also, pretty much confirmed that the Mule is building his own warships, instead of relying in Foundation technology, something of an ongoing theme for the character.

Randu said quickly, almost before he sat down, "We three represent about half the military potential of the Independent Trading Worlds."
"Yes," said Mangin of Iss, "my colleague and I have already commented upon the fact."
"I am ready," said Randu, "to speak quickly and earnestly. I am not interested in bargaining or subtlety. Our position is radically in the worse."
"As a result of-" urged Ovall Gri of Mnemon.
[...]
"It's true, though, that we've tried, isn't it? It's true that there's not much purpose to our meeting unless we do reach him, isn't it? It's true that so far there's been more drinking than thinking, and more wooing than doing - I quote from an editorial in today's Radole Tribune - and all because we can't reach the Mule. Gentlemen, we have nearly a thousand ships waiting to be thrown into the fight at the proper moment to seize control of the Foundation. I say we should change that. I say, throw those thousand onto the board now - against the Mule."

Finally, some very specific facts.

The Independent Traders have put together a combined fleet of nearly a thousand warships.

Approximately half of this comes from three of the twenty seven worlds, Iss, Mnemon and Haven II.

Therefore, assuming that each of these are roughly equal in strength, Haven probably contributed in the order of one hundred and fifty warships to the Trader combined fleet.

He said, "A month ago I sent my nephew and my nephew's wife to Kalgan."
"Your nephew!" cried Ovall Gri, in surprise. "I did not know he was your nephew."
"With what purpose," asked Mangin, dryly. "This?" And his thumb drew an inclusive circle high in the air.
[...]
Randu shook his white head, "Not of my doing. Nor, willfully, of my nephew's, who is now held prisoner at the Foundation, and may not live to see the completion of this so-skillful job. I have just heard from him. The Personal Capsule has been smuggled out somehow, come through the war zone, gone to Haven, and traveled from there to here."

And we finally have specific figures for calculating superluminal speeds.

In a month, Toran and Bayta go from Haven II to Kalgan (seven thousand parsecs), spend four days in Kalgan proper, leave for Terminus with Pritcher and the Mule (another seven thousand parsecs), are arrested and send a message that then does quite the trip itself before the month is over.

So, our low end here is 14000 parsecs (~45.000 light years) in 26 days, tops. This ignores the Capsule's journey and assumes everything to happen as quickly as possible. Result: ~640.000 c.

"And?-"
Randu leaned a heavy hand upon the heel of his palm and said, sadly, "I'm afraid we are cast for the same role that the onetime warlord of Kalgan played. The Mule is a mutant!"
There was a momentary qualm; a faint impression of quickened heartbeats. Randu might easily have imagined it.
When Mangin spoke, the evenness of his voice was unchanged, "How do you know?"
"Only because my nephew says so, but he was on Kalgan.
"What kind of a mutant? There are all kinds, you know."
Randu forced the rising impatience down, "All kinds of mutants, yes, Mangin. All kinds! But only one kind of Mule. What kind of a mutant would start as an unknown, assemble an army, establish, they say, a five-mile asteroid as original base, capture a planet, then a system, then a region - and then attack the Foundation, and defeat them at Horleggor. And all in two or three years!"

Again with the mutant stuff as if the matter were significant.

Sounds like the Mule being a mutant is treated as serious shit, rather than him being some kind of circus freak.

Ovall said baldly, harshly. "Mnemon has been bombarded from space by treacherous attack."
Randu's eyes narrowed, "The Foundation?"
"The Mule!" exploded Ovall. "The Mule!" His words raced, "It was unprovoked and deliberate. Most of our fleet had joined the international flotilla. The few left as Home Squadron were insufficient and were blown out of the sky. There have been no landings yet, and there may not be, for half the attackers are reported destroyed - but it is war - and I have come to ask how Haven stands on the matter."

For a small note of interest, the thousand ships apparently represent most rather than all the military force of the Independent Traders.

"This Mule is a madman. Can he defeat the universe?" He faltered and sat down to seize Randu's wrist, "Our few survivors have reported the Mule's poss… enemy's possession of a new weapon. A nuclear-field depressor."
"A what?"
Ovall said, "Most of our ships were lost because their nuclear weapons failed them. It could not have happened by either accident or sabotage. It must have been a weapon of the Mule. It didn't work perfectly; the effect was intermittent; there were ways to neutralize - my dispatches are not detailed. But you see that such a tool would change the nature of war and, possibly, make our entire fleet obsolete."

New tech, developed by the Mule using Kalganian resources.

We aren't given much more detail than this about the technology, but a nuclear power jammer in a galaxy in which everything is powered by "nuclear" energy certainly is a powerful concept.

[Murazor]

Double post.

[Murazor]

We know that by 155, NO one in the Empire could build a new nuclear station. Not a large nuclear station supplying Navy, not a small town nuclear station, not a new warship. Cleon II, his father, or any of the 9 or more usurpers in the 50 years after Stannell VI would gladly have commissioned brand new warships - but they couldn´t, and the need to capture power station intacts restricted their battle options.

Not entirely true.

It was commented during the Riose war that several of Riose's ships were modern, made in the previous fifty years, though Riose generally considered contemporary warships to be effectively worthless (particularly in regards to power supply).

Broadly accurate, however, and some interesting thoughts timeline-wise. Fits pretty well.

[Connor MacLeod]

That could simply reflect they either can't build the 'old style' reactors as they use in 'modern' warships. Whether that is a reflection of purely technological decline - EG they can't build to the same level of capability as they used to (inferior materials, less efficient reactions, etc.) or its a different type of reactor entirely (nuclear/atomic doesn't neccesarily refer to one single thing, but could refer to a category or type, or even just the fact it involves particles/atoms/nuclei/whatever. Language is open ended like that.)

[chornedsnorkack]

3.

In the ancient days when the Galactic Empire had embraced the Galaxy, and Anacreon had been the richest of the prefects of the Periphery, more than one emperor had visited the Viceregal Palace in state. And not one had left without at least one effort to pit his skill with air speedster and needle gun against the feathered flying fortress they call the Nyakbird.

The fame of Anacreon had withered to nothing with the decay of the times. The Viceregal Palace was a drafty mass of ruins except for the wing that Foundation workmen had restored. And no Emperor had been seen in Anacreon for two hundred years.

The time of Imperial domain are regarded here as the "ancient days"... although it has been less than a century since Seldon's death and Anacreon has been an independent kingdom for less than fifty years.

Or parse it "ancient days when... Anacreon had been the richest of the prefects". Last imperial visit was 200 years ago - "ancient days" 120 BFE.
For the 170 years between last imperial visit 120 BFE and Anacreon´s rebellion 50FE, Anacreon was presumably a loyal part of Empire - but impoverished. Regarded as a safe and suitable spot to exile Seldon in 1 FE. Every single nuclear power station throughout Anacreon and other 3 prefectures was shut down by 50 FE and unknown time before - unlike Siwenna where large numbers remained functional even after no one could build new ones or repair existing ones if damaged. But many nuclear stations that had existed were not demolished or heavily damaged - restoring the old stations was the main way Foundation used to restore nuclear power in next 30 years.
Also recall Hardin´s reference to "last remaining" trade route. Since Anacreon was the first to rebel, the other trade routes may have been broken because refueling station, navigational aids or other such features were not maintained.

Moreover, the fact that the palace was allowed to decay in such a way suggests that the situation was extremely dire at some point (although it could have been destroyed during the revolt as a symbol of Imperial authority).

Or that since the emperors no longer planned to visit the palace in state, spending money on what was, for the Empire, an unimportant civil servant was waste or, worse, giving airs to someone who did not deserve them.

[Boeing 757]

And we finally have specific figures for calculating superluminal speeds.

In a month, Toran and Bayta go from Haven II to Kalgan (seven thousand parsecs), spend four days in Kalgan proper, leave for Terminus with Pritcher and the Mule (another seven thousand parsecs), are arrested and send a message that then does quite the trip itself before the month is over.

So, our low end here is 14000 parsecs (~45.000 light years) in 26 days, tops. This ignores the Capsule's journey and assumes everything to happen as quickly as possible. Result: ~640.000 c.

Nice catch. Homir Munn also replicated that same feat:

At any rate, the week-long trip now meant conversation rather than introspetion.... The calculations were not difficult. The "Space Route Handbook" was quite explicit on the Foundation-Kalgan route.

If Kalgan is located 22,834 lightyears away from Terminus, and Munn covered that distance in a week, it comes out to an average speed of approximately 1.2 million(c). That jives rather well with the figure that you found. Any differences could reasonably be explained away by ships of various models, better star-charts or (in)competent pilot skill. Note also, that should probably include a day or two of travel-time for escaping Terminus's gravity-well.

[Boeing 757]

One thing which I could never quite bring myself to believe regarding Asimov's storyline is how a galaxy virtually filled to the brim with human-populated worlds could lose so much technology in such a short timespan. I understand that the plot is historically grounded in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, but that analogy can only be fitted so far to a galactic society which had endured steadfastly for 22,000 years. Which kind of social force could be responsible for such widespread decay? It simply makes no sense.

One of the implications is that the decay had been going on for millenia, but in ways very hard to diagnose for people living within the system.

Look at the kind of 'scholarship' we see in the Imperial envoy sent to the Foundation at the beginning of the Foundation's existence. They really don't have a concept of science or research other than, well, glorified librarian-work. Librarians are important, but they can't maintain a technological society by themselves.

Another issue is that the system may be highly interdependent. If certain critical parts and tools and knowledge to keep the overall galactic 'machine' running exist only at special central locations, what happens when politics and bureaucracy interfere at those locations? How many civil wars can be fought over a provincial capital before its industry and institutions of learning are wrecked beyond easy repair? How long will education continue to function in a government where every senior official is more concerned with the prospects of the latest coup?

Wait several generations and you could lose a lot that way, especially when the effects of damage from open warfare are factored in (as at Siwenna).

Yeah, I think you have a good point there actually that I should have thought on a little more. All those factors accumulating throughout the millenia could have taken their toll in many ways seemingly unremarkable or unimportant at the time that they began, so everyone just shrugged them off and continued about his business. Worse yet, since the end result culminated millenia after this civil strife took ground, the internal rot could have been so insidious that someone living say 5000 years after the "turning" point may not have noticed a single thing to be lacking. It has happened before in human history, and who knows, it may (hopefully not) happen again.

[ryacko]

Probably helps that this "hangar" would appear to be the only one of its kind in the planet (state sponsored monopoly, perhaps?).

Probably a natural result of air traffic control restrictions.

So... Pritcher claims to have visited the Mule's birthplace and learned enough to know that he is a mutant of some kind with unspecified superhuman powers. However, he apparently didn't get even a cursory physical description or the Mule's attempt to present himself as his own court jester would have backfired horribly.

This is all explained by the fact that the mule can alter minds.

So, unsurprisingly, the Traders are very much in the minority here and if they haven't been crushed like ants before, it is because the Foundation cannot be bothered to send a fleet to do the crushing, because the Traders simply aren't worth the expense at this point.

I must add later on it shows that the trader ships are more effective against the mule then the Foundation. Each character cannot be presumed to speak the truth, and who would expect that a barren world of encyclopedians would go on to bring about the Second Empire?

I must remind you sir, that it is the Foundation Fleet that has been defeated in open battle five times, and that the ships of the Independent Trading Worlds have won your victories for you?

When Seldon spoke as well, it appears that the traders would theoretically be strong enough to force a compromise towards democracy after a minor civil war.

[Batman]

Probably helps that this "hangar" would appear to be the only one of its kind in the planet (state sponsored monopoly, perhaps?).

Probably a natural result of air traffic control restrictions.

Um-how so? Planets are big, and while so are Foundation verse spaceships on occasion, civilian spaceships (especially the kind apparently catered to by this 'hangar') are not, and there would be plenty of space for a number of such facilities without running into any air traffic control problems.

So... Pritcher claims to have visited the Mule's birthplace and learned enough to know that he is a mutant of some kind with unspecified superhuman powers. However, he apparently didn't get even a cursory physical description or the Mule's attempt to present himself as his own court jester would have backfired horribly.

This is all explained by the fact that the mule can alter minds.

No, it's not. It could be explained by that. Not the same thing. We never get any indication that the Mule hacked Pritcher's mind to cover up his appearance. Besides, as Asimov retconned the Mule to be of Gaia it's dubious Pritcher ever went to his real birthplace anyway, as Murazor noted, so the Mule probably never saw any need to bother.

[ryacko]

Um-how so? Planets are big, and while so are Foundation verse spaceships on occasion, civilian spaceships (especially the kind apparently catered to by this 'hangar') are not, and there would be plenty of space for a number of such facilities without running into any air traffic control problems.

I couldn't find a mention about landing patterns, but I imagine it is noisier then aircraft, and perhaps involve a greater

No, it's not. It could be explained by that. Not the same thing. We never get any indication that the Mule hacked Pritcher's mind to cover up his appearance. Besides, as Asimov retconned the Mule to be of Gaia it's dubious Pritcher ever went to his real birthplace anyway, as Murazor noted, so the Mule probably never saw any need to bother.

The reader's perspective through the events of Foundation and Empire are never through the mule's eyes. He could have hacked the minds of his native village. He could have suppressed their curiosity into finding out what the mule looks like, afterall, no one throughout the novel seemed interested in what the Mule looked like. The extent of the Mule's powers aren't very well defined.

Which book was this retcon?

[Murazor]

The reader's perspective through the events of Foundation and Empire are never through the mule's eyes. He could have hacked the minds of his native village. He could have suppressed their curiosity into finding out what the mule looks like, afterall, no one throughout the novel seemed interested in what the Mule looked like. The extent of the Mule's powers aren't very well defined.

Which book was this retcon?

Foundation's Edge.

And no, he really -really- couldn't have suppressed shit if he is Gaian-born.

[Batman]

Um-how so? Planets are big, and while so are Foundation verse spaceships on occasion, civilian spaceships (especially the kind apparently catered to by this 'hangar') are not, and there would be plenty of space for a number of such facilities without running into any air traffic control problems.

I couldn't find a mention about landing patterns, but I imagine it is noisier then aircraft, and perhaps involve a greater

And yet there's numbers of airports in often not all that large countries in the real world. I doubt they're noisy enough to make that a problem to the point that there can only be a single facility on the entire planet. In fact, I very much expect that to be physically impossible if the noise is the only problem.

No, it's not. It could be explained by that. Not the same thing. We never get any indication that the Mule hacked Pritcher's mind to cover up his appearance. Besides, as Asimov retconned the Mule to be of Gaia it's dubious Pritcher ever went to his real birthplace anyway, as Murazor noted, so the Mule probably never saw any need to bother.

The reader's perspective through the events of Foundation and Empire are never through the mule's eyes. He could have hacked the minds of his native village.

Or he could not.

He could have suppressed their curiosity into finding out what the mule looks like

Or he could not.

, afterall, no one throughout the novel seemed interested in what the Mule looked like. The extent of the Mule's powers aren't very well defined.

Oh don't get me wrong, I know that such a feat would be easily within his powers. I'm just saying that there's absolutely no indication he actually ever did it.

Which book was this retcon?

That'd be 'Foundation's Edge/Foundation and Earth' (I'm reasonably certain it was Edge but I'm not 100% certain which one of them the definite Mule origin reveal happened in).

[Boeing 757]

Noise-levels always present problems when it comes to building more airports in urban environments owing to complaints and so forth, but that is usually solved by situating them in areas which are sparsely populated, or often on the periphery of cities. To boot, air/spacecraft could be made to comply with noise-abatement procedures so as to alleviate any noise issues. Furthermore, air traffic control's sole purpose for existing is to maintain order in the skies so that collisions won't happen in busy airspace...so that is hardly the reason for having built only one port. There should also be more than ample room on an earth-like planet for such necessities. It's truly rather bizarre that Kalgan only sports a single spaceport, but that is probably only so because the Mule is a tyrant and wants to control his subjects totally.

[Boeing 757]

Ghetto Edit: guys, after rereading that quote more thoroughly, it does clearly imply that there are other air/spaceports on Kalgan. The "Hangar" is just a one-of-a-kind "hotel + parking ramp" deal, that is all.

[chornedsnorkack]

Following closely the boundaries of the old Prefect of Anacreon, it embraced twenty-five stellar systems, six of which included more than one inhabited world. The population of nineteen billion, though still far less than it had been in the Empire's heyday was rising rapidly with the increasing scientific development fostered by the Foundation.

Anacreon's population and holdings, that we can use to calculate the typical dimensions of a Prefect. If Anacreon is representative of the galaxy at large, we can guess a galactic population in the order of 20 quadrillions (roughly 2% of the figure mentioned by Seldon). Although the Fall must have resulted in a sharp rise of mortality, a true demographic disaster is only hinted a few times and it is entirely possible that Anacreon is not representative. In support of this, we know that the densely populated Core worlds didn't suffer badly in the first centuries of the Fall (at least, until the Empire finally collapsed).

Seldon has no sense of scale.

19 billions is relatively reasonable. For 32 inhabited worlds, it means an average of 600 millions - less than that at the Fall. Comparable to the population of 1940-s India or China - and India showed how a large population could be ruled for far, far away even with 18th century technology. Thus Anselm haut Rodric, a "subprefect", may have been a governor of a world - similar to a viceroy of India.

But the Empire...

If the Empire had around a million prefectures, you´d expect higher administrative levels - province, sector, quadrant - to have some importance in the story.

There are none. You never hear of a unit of over 30 systems mentioned.

Hardin frowned. "When will all this happen?"

"If you're really interested, the ships of the fleet left Anacreon exactly fifty minutes ago, at eleven, and the first shot will be fired as soon as they sight Terminus, which should be at noon tomorrow. You may consider yourself a prisoner of war."

As mentioned previously, hyperspace jump mechanics demand that for an accurate jump one must travel far away from the stellar gravity well. Tentative acceleration (and power generation per unit of mass) figures might be calculated using this information.

The Anacreon fleet had Jumped lightyears away in 50 minutes after departure. Getting far enough to Jump took only a few tens of minutes... it may have been the planetary gravity well that mattered, not the stellar one.

Hardin also spent 6 days touring the outer provinces of Anacreon - visiting 8 "principal" worlds of Anacreon. That means 18 hours average for travelling one world to another plus stay on ground. Compare 13 hours Anacreon to Terminus - where Terminus is further from Anacreon than the provinces.

Hardin looked up coolly. "Order them yourself, Wienis, and see who is playing with forces too great for whom. Right now, there's not a wheel turning in Anacreon. There's not a light burning, except in the temples. There's not a drop of water running, except in the temples. On the wintry half of the planet, there's not a calorie of heat, except in the temples. The hospitals are taking in no more patients. The power plants have shut down. All ships are grounded. If you don't like it, Wienis, you can order the priests back to their jobs. I don't wish to."

The Foundation-created priesthood shows its true power. As the priests are the only ones with the knowledge to operate the technology provided by the Foundation, Salvor Hardin found the way to freeze the Four Kingdoms at will.

"Very good, but how are you going to give the orders? Every line of communication on the planet is shut down. You'll find that neither wave nor hyperwave will work. In fact, the only communicator of the planet that will work – outside of the temples, of course – is the televisor right here in this room, and I've fitted it only for reception."

An interesting question. How did the temples deactivate all the communication systems they didn't control? This implies that either all the equipment includes remote control devices or that the temples are nodes/repeaters for the planetary communications... something that is unlikely, considering the range and accuracy of Imperial hyperwave comms.

Or the temples and priests did control all communication systems.

Wienis´ brother and father had been sorely lacking very basic distrust. Anacreon, 30 years ago, had had working warships to win an interstellar war lightyears away in two weeks, hyperwave communication systems to communicate with outlying planets, fleets and Terminus, private transport ships to transport peasants to the manors to be founded on unused fertile lands on Terminus... and no priests. In these 30 years, the kings had neglected to maintain basic military communications by the lay engineers who would still be in their 50-s yet... to the extent they could not even contact their military base nearby.

[Boeing 757]

Following closely the boundaries of the old Prefect of Anacreon, it embraced twenty-five stellar systems, six of which included more than one inhabited world. The population of nineteen billion, though still far less than it had been in the Empire's heyday was rising rapidly with the increasing scientific development fostered by the Foundation.

Anacreon's population and holdings, that we can use to calculate the typical dimensions of a Prefect. If Anacreon is representative of the galaxy at large, we can guess a galactic population in the order of 20 quadrillions (roughly 2% of the figure mentioned by Seldon). Although the Fall must have resulted in a sharp rise of mortality, a true demographic disaster is only hinted a few times and it is entirely possible that Anacreon is not representative. In support of this, we know that the densely populated Core worlds didn't suffer badly in the first centuries of the Fall (at least, until the Empire finally collapsed).

Seldon has no sense of scale.

19 billions is relatively reasonable. For 32 inhabited worlds, it means an average of 600 millions - less than that at the Fall. Comparable to the population of 1940-s India or China - and India showed how a large population could be ruled for far, far away even with 18th century technology. Thus Anselm haut Rodric, a "subprefect", may have been a governor of a world - similar to a viceroy of India.

But the Empire...

If the Empire had around a million prefectures, you´d expect higher administrative levels - province, sector, quadrant - to have some importance in the story. There are none. You never hear of a unit of over 30 systems mentioned.

And why exactly should it have any bearing on the story? Asimov didn't delve too much into this subject (and rightly so), but from that throwaway quote about "sectors" and "quadrants" being seemingly larger than "prefects" and "provinces", we can presume that they have their space divided into regions that hold much more than thirty systems. I hope I needn't go over why this makes sense. If they have a million prefectures it would make it infinitely harder for their governors to be held accountable by the Trantorian leadership, whereas splitting everything up into more expansive administrative units shall allow the emperor and his bureaucrats to implement laws quicker and in a more coordinated way. Somewhat of a necessity for a galactic empire spanning tens of millions of systems....

Hardin frowned. "When will all this happen?"

"If you're really interested, the ships of the fleet left Anacreon exactly fifty minutes ago, at eleven, and the first shot will be fired as soon as they sight Terminus, which should be at noon tomorrow. You may consider yourself a prisoner of war."

As mentioned previously, hyperspace jump mechanics demand that for an accurate jump one must travel far away from the stellar gravity well. Tentative acceleration (and power generation per unit of mass) figures might be calculated using this information.

The Anacreon fleet had Jumped lightyears away in 50 minutes after departure. Getting far enough to Jump took only a few tens of minutes... it may have been the planetary gravity well that mattered, not the stellar one.

Hardin also spent 6 days touring the outer provinces of Anacreon - visiting 8 "principal" worlds of Anacreon. That means 18 hours average for traveling one world to another plus stay on ground. Compare 13 hours Anacreon to Terminus - where Terminus is further from Anacreon than the provinces.

Ah no, not really. They departed fifty minutes ago according to Wienis, but it took them hours to reach the jump point. The jump itself is instantaneous and requires no time according to our sense of time, thus we can exclude it from having consumed time. Considering that their Estimated Time En Route is thirteen hours, their minimum time could be anywhere from six and a half to twelve hours to reach the jump point.

Also, as others have already stressed, it takes them sometimes a day or more to escape a star's gravity-well. The bigger the star or the closer to it, the more time that is needed. Sometimes they spend hours traveling to a jump point, whereas in other instances it has taken them days. It is hard to determine what exactly an average time. If you need examples of them spending days transiting to the jump point, look at The Stars, Like Dust, Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. Don't get me wrong though--they have reached their destination and jump point before in only hours just like in the examples you bring up--but there are enough other examples to disprove that their average travel time is just hours. It can vary greatly in many cases.

[Murazor]

17. The Visi-Sonor

Magnifico fairly hurled himself out of his seat and caught the multi-keyed instrument. He fingered the myriad knobby contacts and threw a sudden back somersault of joy, to the imminent destruction of the nearby furniture.
He croaked, "A Visi-Sonor - and of a make to distill joy out of a dead man's heart." His long fingers caressed softly and slowly, pressing lightly on contacts with a rippling motion, resting momentarily on one key then another - and in the air before them there was a soft glowing rosiness, just inside the range of vision.
Ebling Mis said, "All right, boy, you said you could pound on one of those gadgets, and there's your chance. You'd better tune it, though. It's out of a museum." Then, in an aside to Bayta, "Near as I can make it, no one on the Foundation can make it talk right."
[...]
Mis said in a conversational tone to Bayta, "Ever hear a Visi-Sonor?"
"Once," said Bayta, equally casually, "at a concert of rare instruments. I wasn't impressed."
"Well, I doubt that you came across good playing. There are very few really good players. It's not so much that it requires physical co-ordination - a multi-bank piano requires more, for instance - as a certain type of free-wheeling mentality." In a lower voice, "That's why our living skeleton there might be better than we think. More often than not, good players are idiots otherwise. It's one of those queer setups that makes psychology interesting."
He added, in a patent effort to manufacture light conversation, "You know how the beblistered thing works? I looked it up for this purpose, and all I've made out so far is that its radiations stimulate the optic center of the brain directly, without ever touching the optic nerve. It's actually the utilization of a sense never met with in ordinary nature. Remarkable, when you come to think of it. What you hear is all right. That's ordinary. Eardrum, cochlea, all that. But - Shh! He's ready. Will you kick that switch. It works better in the dark."
In the darkness, Magnifico was a mere blob, Ebling Mis a heavy-breathing mass. Bayta found herself straining her eyes anxiously, and at first with no effect. There was a thin, reedy quaver in the air, that wavered raggedly up the scale. It hovered, dropped and caught itself, gained in body, and swooped into a booming crash that had the effect of a thunderous split in a veiling curtain.
A little globe of pulsing color grew in rhythmic spurts and burst in midair into formless gouts that swirled high and came down as curving streamers in interfacing patterns. They coalesced into little spheres, no two alike in color - and Bayta began discovering things.
She noticed that closing her eyes made the color pattern all the clearer; that each little movement of color had its own little pattern of sound; that she could not identify the colors; and, lastly, that the globes were not globes but little figures.
Little figures; little shifting flames, that danced and flickered in their myriads; that dropped out of sight and returned from nowhere; that whipped about one another and coalesced then into a new color.
Incongruously, Bayta thought of the little blobs of color that come at night when you close your eyelids till they hurt, and stare patiently. There was the old familiar effect of the marching polka dots of shifting color, of the contracting concentric circles, of the shapeless masses that quiver momentarily. All that, larger, multivaried - and each little dot of color a tiny figure.
[...]
SNIP AWESOME HOLOMUSIC
[...]
And then - there seemed a frightened pause, a hesitant, indrawn motion, a swift collapse. The colors fled, spun into a globe that shrank, and rose, and disappeared.
And it was merely dark again.
A heavy foot scratched for the pedal, reached it, and the light flooded in; the flat light of a prosy sun. Bayta blinked until the tears came, as though for the longing of what was gone. Ebling Mis was a podgy inertness with his eyes still round and his mouth still open.
Only Magnifico himself was alive, and he fondled his Visi-Sonor in a crooning ecstasy.
"My lady," he gasped, "it is indeed of an effect the most magical. It is of balance and response almost beyond hope in its delicacy and stability. On this, it would seem I could work wonders. How liked you my composition, my lady?"

This musical instrument, which somehow sends information directly to the brain (the musical imagery), is probably an ancestor of some kind of the direct mind-machine interface that can be found in Foundation computers a couple centuries down the line.

Also, the Mule is a gifted musician, though it probably helps that the man is capable of directly manipulating the emotions of his audience.

"Good!" he said. "His state of fear is almost fixed, and I doubt that his mental strength would possibly stand a psychic probe. If I'm to get anything out of him otherwise, he's got to feel absolutely at ease. You understand?"
[...]
The psychologist paused, and smiled, "A little surface probe that doesn't hurt. It wouldn't touch but the peel of your brain."
There was a flare of deadly fear in Magnifico's eyes. "Not a probe. I have seen it used. It drains the mind and leaves an empty skull. The Mule did use it upon traitors and let them wander mindless through the streets, until out of mercy, they were killed." He held up his hand to push Mis away.
"That was a psychic probe," explained Mis, patiently, "and even that would only harm a person when misused. This probe I have is a surface probe that wouldn't hurt a baby."
[...]
"The Mule? Well, I'll tell you - I used a surface probe and got little. Can't use the psychic probe because the freak is scared blind of it, so that his resistance will probably blow his unprintable mental fuses as soon as contact is made. But this is what I've got, if you'll just stop tapping your fingernails-
"First place, de-stress the Mule's physical strength. He's probably strong, but most of the freak's fairy tales about it are probably considerably blown up by his own fearful memory, He wears queer glasses and his eyes kill, he evidently has mental powers."
"So much we had at the start," commented the mayor, sourly.
"Then the probe confirms it, and from there on I've been working mathematically."

Some interesting observations about the Probe technology. There are apparently several types of different intensity and effectiveness, with the most powerful variant (the Psychic Probe proper) being potentially hazardous for resisting subjects and capable of turning people into vegetables.

Indbur swore at him, "Because by the dust-clouds of space, the Foundation will win - the Foundation must win."
"Despite the loss at Horleggor?"
"It was not a loss. You have swallowed that spreading lie, too? We were outnumbered and betreasoned-"
"By whom?" demanded Mis, contemptuously.
"By the lice-ridden democrats of the gutter," shouted Indbur back at him. "I have known for long that the fleet has been riddled by democratic cells. Most have been wiped out, but enough remain for the unexplained surrender of twenty ships in the thickest of the swarming fight. Enough to force an apparent defeat.

More talk about the battle of Horleggor, mentioned in the chapter before.

So, supposing that all the relevant characters are right about the forces involved in the engagement, this major clash involved a hundred and ten ships in the Mule's side which ended with him losing ten ships. The strength of the opposing Foundation fleet is undetermined, but the defection of these twenty ships was apparently what decided the battle.

18. Fall Of The Foundation.

The first to arrive was Mayor Indbur III, driving his ceremonial ground car through the hushed and anxious streets. Arriving with him was his own chair, higher than those that belonged there, and wider. It was placed before all the others, and Indbur dominated all but the empty glassiness before him.
The solemn official at his left bowed a reverent head. "Excellence, arrangements are completed for the widest possible sub-etheric spread for the official announcement by your excellence tonight."
"Good. Meanwhile, special interplanetary programs concerning the Time Vault are to continue. There will, of course, be no predictions or speculations of any sort on the subject. Does popular reaction continue satisfactory?"

It seems fairly obvious at this point that sub-etheric communications are just a different designation for hyperwave communications, so no sense in trying to find any difference between methods of superluminal communication.

"Excellence, I regret them, too, but I must ask you to rescind your order that the ships of the Independent Traders be distributed among the fleets of the Foundation."
Indbur had flushed red at the interruption. "This is not the time for discussion."
"Excellence, it is the only time," Randu whispered urgently. "As representative of the Independent Trading Worlds, I tell you such a move can not be obeyed. It must be rescinded before Seldon solves our problem for us. Once the emergency is passed, it will be too late to conciliate and our alliance will melt away."
Indbur stared at Randu coldly. "You realize that I am head of the Foundation armed forces? Have I the right to determine military policy or have I not?"
"Excellence, you have, but some things are inexpedient."
"I recognize no inexpediency. It is dangerous to allow your people separate fleets in this emergency. Divided action plays into the hands of the enemy. We must unite, ambassador, militarily as well as politically."
Randu felt his throat muscles tighten. He omitted the courtesy of the opening title. "You feet safe now that Seldon will speak, and you move against us. A month ago you were soft and yielding, when our ships defeated the Mule at Terel. I might remind you, sir, that it is the Foundation Fleet that has been defeated in open battle five times, and that the ships of the Independent Trading Worlds have won your victories for you."
Indbur frowned dangerously, "You are no longer welcome upon Terminus, ambassador. Your return will be requested this evening. Furthermore, your connection with subversive democratic forces on Terminus will be - and has been - investigated."
Randu replied, "When I leave, our ships will go with me. I know nothing of your democrats. I know only that your Foundation's ships have surrendered to the Mule by the treason of their high officers, not their sailors, democratic or otherwise. I tell you that twenty ships of the Foundation surrendered at Horleggor at the orders of their rear admiral, when they were unharmed and unbeaten. The rear admiral was your own close associate - he presided at the trial of my nephew when he first arrived from Kalgan. It is not the only case we know of and our ships and men will not be risked under potential traitors.

Four months into the Mule war, the Foundation keeps getting its collective ass kicked by enemy forces thanks to the Mule messing with the minds of the folks in charge (such as the rear admiral mentioned here, who must have been manipulated during the trial) with the visi-sonor concerts arranged with the help of Ebling Mis and Mayor Indbur himself. Meanwhile, the Independent Traders though a whole lot weaker are still unaffected by the Mule and remain combat-effective.

"I am Hari Seldon! I do not know if anyone is here at all by mere sense-perception but that is unimportant. I have few fears as yet of a breakdown in the Plan. For the first three centuries the percentage probability of nondeviation is nine-four point two."
He paused to smile, and then said genially, "By the way, if any of you are standing, you may sit. If any would like to smoke, please do. I am not here in the flesh. I require no ceremony.
"Let us take up the problem of the moment, then. For the first time, the Foundation has been faced, or perhaps, is in the last stages of facing, civil war. Till now, the attacks from without have been adequately beaten off, and inevitably so, according to the strict laws of psychohistory. The attack at present is that of a too-undisciplined outer group of the Foundation against the too-authoritarian central government. The procedure was necessary, the result obvious."
[...]
"-that the compromise worked out is necessary in two respects. The revolt of the Independent Traders introduces an element of new uncertainty in a government perhaps grown over-confident. The element of striving is restored. Although beaten, a healthy increase of democracy-"
[...]
"-a new and firmer coalition government was the necessary and beneficial outcome of the logical civil war forced upon the Foundation. And now only the remnants of the old Empire stand in the way of further expansion, and in them, for the next few years, at any rate, is no problem. Of course, I can not reveal the nature of the next prob-"

What we get concerning Seldon's wrong prediction for the fifth crisis suggests that an attack of the Independent Traders with possible help of the barbarian warlords (the Traders originally intended to attack in alliance with the warlord of Kalgan) would have been defeated, but would have given the democratic resistance the opportunity to shake things up.

"Then the Mule is an added feature, unprepared for in Seldon's psychohistory. Now what's happened?"
In the sudden, frozen silence, Bayta found the cubicle once again empty. The nuclear glow of the walls was dead, the soft current of conditioned air absent.
Somewhere the sound of a shrill siren was rising and falling in the scale and Randu formed the words with his lips, "Space raid!"
And Ebling Mis held his wrist watch to his ears and shouted suddenly, "Stopped, by the "Ga-LAX-y, is there a watch in the room that is going?" His voice was a roar.
Twenty wrists went to twenty ears. And in far less than twenty seconds, it was quite certain that none were.
"Then," said Mis, with a grim and horrible finality, "something has stopped all nuclear power in the Time Vault - and the Mule is attacking."
Indbur's wail rose high above the noise, "Take your seats! The Mule is fifty parsecs distant."
"He was," shouted back Mis, "a week ago. Right now, Terminus is being bombarded."
Bayta felt a deep depression settle softly upon her. She felt its folds tighten close and thick, until her breath forced its way only with pain past her tightened throat.
The outer noise of a gathering crowd was evident. The doors were thrown open and a harried figure entered, and spoke rapidly to Indbur, who had rushed to him.
"Excellence," he whispered, "not a vehicle is running in the city, not a communication line to the outside is open.
The Tenth Fleet is reported defeated and the Mule's ships are outside the atmosphere. The general staff-"
Indbur crumpled, and was a collapsed figure of impotence upon the floor. In all that hall, not a voice was raised now. Even the growing crowd without was fearful, but silent, and the horror of cold panic hovered dangerously.
Indbur was raised. Wine was held to his lips. His lips moved before his eyes opened, and the word they formed was, "Surrender!"
Bayta found herself near to crying - not for sorrow or humiliation, but simply and plainly out of a vast frightened despair.
[...]
The next day, the ugly, battle-black ships of the Mule poured down upon the landing fields of the planet Terminus. The attacking general sped down the empty main street of Terminus City in a foreign-made ground car that ran where a whole city of atomic cars still stood useless.
The proclamation of occupation was made twenty-four hours to the minute after Seldon had appeared before the former mighty of the Foundation.

A bunch of things here:

1) We see the effects of the Mule's nuclear inhibitor weapon first hand. As commented previously, its effects are fairly devastating in regards to resistance efforts since it deactivates all nuclear-powered technology and that's just about everything in the Foundation. Delivery method is unknown, but seeing that the Mule's ships are reported to be beyond the atmosphere and don't land until the next day, its range is at least orbital.

2) The Mule's warships were fifty parsecs from Terminus a week before the attack. Supposing that they spent the whole week in their journey, the sustained superluminal speed is of about 8500 c. This is a daft assumption and an unprintably low end value, but whatever. Listed for the sake of thoroughness.

3) More surprising is that the attack apparently was a surprise, seeing that half an hour before the attack, Indbur didn't know a thing about the Mule's fleet being anywhere near Terminus or its star system. The clear implication is that these guys must have shown up in force very close to the planet in the relatively few minutes before Seldon's apparition, defeated the Tenth Fleet of the Foundation and taken position right outside the atmosphere.

4) The Mule is an opportunistic son-of-a-bitch. Smart, too. By making the attack happen at the time Seldon is scheduled to appear, he can use the natural despair caused by a wrong prediction to enhance the intensity of his manipulation and pretty much incapacitate everyone in the Foundation's government in a single stroke. Brilliant, brilliant move.

19. Start Of The Search

The lonely planet, Haven - only planet of an only sun of a Galactic Sector that trailed raggedly off into intergalactic vacuum - was under siege.
In a strictly military sense, it was certainly under siege, since no area of space on the Galactic side further than twenty parsecs distance was outside range of the Mule's advance bases. In the four months since the shattering fall of the Foundation, Haven's communications had fallen apart like a spiderweb under the razor's edge. The ships of Haven converged inwards upon the home world, and only Haven itself was now a fighting base.

State of things for Haven a while after the conquest of Terminus and the fall of the Foundation.

She had time to register a violent mental reaction of distaste to the pronounced presence of various cultured-fungus dishes, which were considered high delicacies at Haven, and which her Foundation taste found highly inedible - and then she was aware of the sobbing near her and looked up.

Food made from fungi and yeasts are something of a theme for Asimov. I remember the idea also appearing in the Seldon prequels, the Lucky Starr novels and probably several others. However, it is not an unreasonable dietary adaptation for a world in which people live in cave cities.

"Torie, I was at City Hall today - at the Bureau of Production. That is why I was so late today."
"What were you doing there?"
"Well…" she hesitated, uncertainly. "It's been building up. I was getting so I couldn't stand it at the factory. Morale just doesn't exist. The girls go on crying jags for no particular reason. Those who don't get sick become sullen. Even the little mousie types pout. In my particular section, production isn't a quarter what it was when I came, and there isn't a day that we have a full roster of workers."
"All right," said Toran, "tie in the B. of P. What did you do there?"
"Asked a few questions. And it's so, Torie, it's so all over Haven. Dropping production, increasing sedition and disaffection. The bureau chief just shrugged his shoulders - after I had sat in the anteroom an hour to see him, and only got in because I was the co-ordinator's niece - and said it was beyond him. Frankly, I don't think he cared."
"Now, don't go off base, Bay."
"I don't think he did." She was strenuously fiery. "I tell you there's something wrong. It's that same horrible frustration that hit me in the Time Vault when Seldon deserted us. You felt it yourself."
"Yes, I did."
"Well, it's back," she continued savagely. "And we'll never be able to resist the Mule. Even if we had the material, we lack the heart, the spirit, the will - Torie, there's no use fighting-"

And once in Haven, the Mule starts giving concerts and the effects keep piling. Asimov really offered enough clues to discover the Mule's identity before the story climax and it is a shame that I didn't pick the details in my first reading.

He said to Ebling Mis - whose clear, little eyes seemed to have no further interest than the red-filled goblet in his hand - "There's a saying on Haven that when the cave lights go out, it is time for the righteous and hard-working to sleep."
"Do you sleep much lately?"
"No! Sorry to call you so late, Mis. I like the night better somehow these days. Isn't that strange? The people on Haven condition themselves pretty strictly on the lack of light meaning sleep. Myself, too. But it's different now-"

Another interesting note about life in a world. Really, living in these cave cities seems not to different from living in, say, a dome colony in the Moon.

"Do you feel it, too, then? This miserable sense of defeat?"
Ebling Mis nodded slowly, "I do. It's a mass psychosis, an unprintable mob panic. "Ga-LAX-y, Randu, what do you expect? Here you have a whole culture brought up to a blind, blubbering belief that a folk hero of the past has everything all planned out and is taking care of every little piece of their unprintable lives. The thought-pattern evoked has religious characteristics, and you know what that means."
"Not a bit."
Mis was not enthusiastic about the necessity of explanation. He never was. So he growled, stared at the long cigar he rolled thoughtfully between his fingers and said, "Characterized by strong faith reactions. Beliefs can't be shaken short of a major shock, in which case, a fairly complete mental disruption results. Mild cases-hysteria, morbid sense of insecurity. Advanced cases - madness and suicide."
Randu bit at a thumbnail. "When Seldon fails us, in other words, our prop disappears, and we've been leaning upon it so long, our muscles are atrophied to where we can not stand without it."

Some interesting observations that have some bearing in regards to versus debating.

In a nutshell, the Foundation of this time period reacts badly to feeling that Seldon has failed them.

"By the only way anyone can be licked - by attacking in strength at weakness. See here, Randu, the Mule isn't a superman. If he is finally defeated, everyone will see that for himself. It's just that he's an unknown, and the legends cluster quickly. He's supposed to be a mutant. Well, what of that? A mutant means a 'superman' to the ignoramuses of humanity. Nothing of the sort.
"It's been estimated that several million mutants are born in the Galaxy every day. Of the several million, all but one or two percent can be detected only by means of microscopes and chemistry. Of the one or two percent macromutants, that is, those with mutations detectable to the naked eye or naked mind, all but one or two percent are freaks, fit for the amusement centers, the laboratories, and death. Of the few macromutants whose differences are to the good, almost all are harmless curiosities, unusual in some single respect, normal - and often subnormal - in most others. You see that, Randu?"

And this is the most detail we ever get about mutants in the galaxy, which is not near enough to satisfy my curiosity.

"There might be. Evidence for mutation rests on Captain Han Pritcher of what used to be Foundation's Intelligence. He drew his conclusions from the feeble memories of those who claimed to know the Mule-or somebody who might have been the Mule - in infancy and early childhood. Pritcher worked on slim pickings there, and what evidence he found might easily have been planted by the Mule for his own purposes, for it's certain that the Mule has been vastly aided by his reputation as a mutant-superman."

Heh.

Even in-universe, Pritcher's investigation is considered as potentially bogus.

"Think, man. The Mule defeated the navies of the Foundation at will, but he has not once managed to force the much weaker fleets of the Independent Traders to retreat in open combat. The Foundation fell at a blow; the Independent Traders hold out against all his strength. He first used the Extinguishing Field upon the nuclear weapons of the Independent Traders of Mnemon. The element of surprise lost them that battle but they countered the Field. He was never able to use it successfully against the Independents again.
"But over and over again, it worked against Foundation forces. It worked on the Foundation itself. Why? With our present knowledge, it is all illogical. So there must be factors of which we are not aware."

The nth repetition of the fact that the thousand ships fleet of the Independents is much weaker than the Foundation navy.

He did not turn. It was as if the slump of his back, the nervous groping for one another of the hands behind him that spoke. He said, "We escaped easily after the Time Vault episode, Ebling. Others might have escaped as well. A few did. Most did not. The Extinguishing Field could have been counteracted. It asked ingenuity and a certain amount of labor. All the ships of the Foundation Navy could have flown to Haven or other nearby planets to continue the fight as we did. Not one percent did so. In effect, they deserted to the enemy.

In short, the Mule seems to have reached enough people to compromise an overwhelming majority of the Foundation officer corps.

"They always held the power, too. Listen, Ebling. We have reason to believe that the Mule or his tools have already been in contact with powerful men among the Independent Traders. At least ten of the twenty-seven Trading Worlds are known to have gone over to the Mule. Perhaps ten more waver. There are personalities on Haven itself who would not be unhappy over the Mule's domination. It's apparently an insurmountable temptation to give up endangered political power, if that will maintain your hold over economic affairs. "
"You don't think Haven can fight the Mule?"
"I don't think Haven will." And now Randu turned his troubled face full upon the psychologist. "I think Haven is waiting to surrender. It's what I called you here to tell you. I want you to leave Haven."

Since there is little doubt that the Mule and his forces at this point could simply drown what's left of Trader resistance in ships and wreck the planets (through saturation nuking, if nothing else), the only reasonable conclusion is that the guy truly wants a conquest as bloodless as possible.

[Murazor]

Seldon has no sense of scale.

19 billions is relatively reasonable. For 32 inhabited worlds, it means an average of 600 millions - less than that at the Fall. Comparable to the population of 1940-s India or China - and India showed how a large population could be ruled for far, far away even with 18th century technology. Thus Anselm haut Rodric, a "subprefect", may have been a governor of a world - similar to a viceroy of India.

But the Empire...

If the Empire had around a million prefectures, you´d expect higher administrative levels - province, sector, quadrant - to have some importance in the story. There are none. You never hear of a unit of over 30 systems mentioned.

And why exactly should it have any bearing on the story? Asimov didn't delve too much into this subject (and rightly so), but from that throwaway quote about "sectors" and "quadrants" being seemingly larger than "prefects" and "provinces", we can presume that they have their space divided into regions that hold much more than thirty systems. I hope I needn't go over why this makes sense. If they have a million prefectures it would make it infinitely harder for their governors to be held accountable by the Trantorian leadership, whereas splitting everything up into more expansive administrative units shall allow the emperor and his bureaucrats to implement laws quicker and in a more coordinated way. Somewhat of a necessity for a galactic empire spanning tens of millions of systems....

Second Foundation (the book) actually mentions that Sectors (capital S used in the text) have populations in the trillions during the Interregnum period.

This is obviously a huge range, but using 2 trillion for a low end, you'd still need 333 planets with Earth-like populations or 3333 planets with populations around the average planetary pop for the kingdom of Anacreon. And there are over two orders of magnitude of wiggle room, so I'd say that Sectors as administrative divisions that span anywhere from hundreds to many thousands of worlds has some support.

[chornedsnorkack]

"Gold!" Ponyets frowned. "The metal itself? What for?"
"It's their medium of exchange."
"Is it? And where do I get gold from?"

The startled reaction suggests that this is highly unusual in the Milky Way, even in such a time of decadence.

Compare similarly startled reaction of Anselm haut Rodric 85 years ago, when asked about the medium of taxes - "Gold, of course!".

Recall that gold standard spread through the world in just a few decades from 1870s on. Most of the world was on silver standard before the move to gold standard.

The Periphery might have been switching from gold standard to a different standard in the century in between.

As for the local authorities making their own money, like steel coins of Terminus - it is not just a sign of decaying empire. British Empire NEVER had empire-wide money. The 13 Colonies were using Spanish dollars before Revolutionary War - not British pounds sterling. Canada went to Canadian dollar in 1850-s. British India had rupees as current coin - NEVER pound sterling.

"All right, then," said Ponyets, "so much for theory. Now what exactly
prevents the sale. Religion? The Grand Master implied as much."
"It's a form of ancestor worship. Their traditions tell of an evil past
from which they were saved by the simple and virtuous heroes of the past
generations. It amounts to a distortion of the anarchic period a century
ago, when the imperial troops were driven out and an independent government
was set up. Advanced science and nuclear power in particular became
identified with the old imperial regime they remember with horror."

Askone's cultural oddities, that has fallen even lower than the Four Kingdoms. While Salvor Hardin managed to restore technology dressing it as holy magic, Askone has chosen to demonize science. It is possible that this was actually what the rebel leaders intended after breaking away from the Empire, in order to avoid unrest when they realized that they lacked the ability to keep Imperial technology in working condition.

Indeed a contrast. In Four Kingdom, the imperial troops stayed and their Governor stayed on top as King. Whereas in Askone, a rebellion occurred against the troops and the troops were driven out (whether or not the troops were at that point loyal to Empire).

[Simon_Jester]

Which comes to say that there is significant ship-building activity beyond the Foundation. Not a complete surprise, but things seem to have improved considerably since the early Fall.

This is a sign that the Foundation is achieving its original mission- by preserving knowledge of advanced technology through the ages when it totally collapsed, they provide a baseline for other people to imitate and copy. The secret of building a 'nuclear motor' is probably not lost any longer, at least not in societies that have much commerce with the Foundation. Sooner or later someone would figure out how to duplicate the basics.

Pritcher is a reliable source, meaning that with no Foundation presence in the planet, those hundreds (or more) vessels and swarms of tourists all hail from other "barbarian kingdoms". Only they are not so barbarian anymore, if even middle classes can once again afford to travel to other star systems.

Hundreds of planets full of aristos could supply a LOT of tourism, you know... That's a pretty big upper class even if they only make up 0.1 or 0.01% of the population.

Also, it'd seem that mutants with freaky powers are not an altogether unknown ocurrence, since a training intelligence officers accepts the fact with little supporting evidence and our couple here don't go all lol-wut, even seemingly believing the Mule when he describes himself as an ubermensch who can kill people with his eyes.

He did just conquer a planet and a small empire in two years. People might believe very strange things about him under the circumstances. Although, yes, you do have a point that there must be some precedent for exotic individuals with freakish and exceptional abilities.

I rather liked Donald Kingbury's interpretation of the whole thing in his "Psychohistorical Crisis". A book which I recommend, by the way.

And what is that?

Again with the mutant stuff as if the matter were significant.

Sounds like the Mule being a mutant is treated as serious shit, rather than him being some kind of circus freak.

Noted. This is partly Asimov's era showing through. The idea that rare individuals might show 'superman' genetic ability was relatively common in science fiction at the time. Since learning more about genetics we've gotten more conscious that there are a lot of ways to get your genes wrong, more than there are to do it right, and that being a mutant doesn't mean having comic-book powers.

But that is now, and this was then.

Yeah, I think you have a good point there actually that I should have thought on a little more. All those factors accumulating throughout the millenia could have taken their toll in many ways seemingly unremarkable or unimportant at the time that they began, so everyone just shrugged them off and continued about his business. Worse yet, since the end result culminated millenia after this civil strife took ground, the internal rot could have been so insidious that someone living say 5000 years after the "turning" point may not have noticed a single thing to be lacking. It has happened before in human history, and who knows, it may (hopefully not) happen again.

Indeed, Seldon asserts that all this is exactly what has happened in the beginning of the first novel.

But the Empire...

If the Empire had around a million prefectures, you´d expect higher administrative levels - province, sector, quadrant - to have some importance in the story.

There are none. You never hear of a unit of over 30 systems mentioned.

It's very vague just how much territory and power a lot of senior Imperial officials control, so I wouldn't say we know that.

Or the temples and priests did control all communication systems.

Wienis´ brother and father had been sorely lacking very basic distrust. Anacreon, 30 years ago, had had working warships to win an interstellar war lightyears away in two weeks, hyperwave communication systems to communicate with outlying planets, fleets and Terminus, private transport ships to transport peasants to the manors to be founded on unused fertile lands on Terminus... and no priests. In these 30 years, the kings had neglected to maintain basic military communications by the lay engineers who would still be in their 50-s yet... to the extent they could not even contact their military base nearby.

Many of the devices Anacreon owned in 50 F.E. would have been 'legacy' technology from Imperial times, probably equipment that is slowly falling apart and being cannibalized for spare parts. The sudden arrival of tech-priests who can maintain the devices and construct new ones would revolutionize the system. Wait thirty years, and I'm not surprised that the equivalent of communication sets and Internet connections no longer work properly without a Foundation priest typing in the access codes or otherwise authorizing it.

"The Mule? Well, I'll tell you - I used a surface probe and got little. Can't use the psychic probe because the freak is scared blind of it, so that his resistance will probably blow his unprintable mental fuses as soon as contact is made. But this is what I've got, if you'll just stop tapping your fingernails-
"First place, de-stress the Mule's physical strength. He's probably strong, but most of the freak's fairy tales about it are probably considerably blown up by his own fearful memory, He wears queer glasses and his eyes kill, he evidently has mental powers."
"So much we had at the start," commented the mayor, sourly.
"Then the probe confirms it, and from there on I've been working mathematically."

Some interesting observations about the Probe technology. There are apparently several types of different intensity and effectiveness, with the most powerful variant (the Psychic Probe proper) being potentially hazardous for resisting subjects and capable of turning people into vegetables.

Also, we learn that the Mule can resist the Probe easily and make it see whatever he wants it to see. I wonder if the Second Foundationers could do the same...

A bunch of things here:

1) We see the effects of the Mule's nuclear inhibitor weapon first hand. As commented previously, its effects are fairly devastating in regards to resistance efforts since it deactivates all nuclear-powered technology and that's just about everything in the Foundation. Delivery method is unknown, but seeing that the Mule's ships are reported to be beyond the atmosphere and don't land until the next day, its range is at least orbital.

They may have taken some time in orbit to organize the landings properly.

2) The Mule's warships were fifty parsecs from Terminus a week before the attack. Supposing that they spent the whole week in their journey, the sustained superluminal speed is of about 8500 c. This is a daft assumption and an unprintably low end value, but whatever. Listed for the sake of thoroughness.

It is common in war to have the following happen: "He can't be here! His army was X miles away yesterday!"

This is never because it's physically impossible for an army to move that fast. The Romans and Napoleon's Frenchmen never moved faster than a determined man could hike. The Mongol hordes never moved faster than a determined cavalryman could ride. Rommel never moved faster than a car could drive. I doubt the Mule moved faster than anyone thought a ship could fly.

What causes this is that we expect armed forces to spend a great deal of time consolidating, organizing, repairing equipment, and otherwise getting ready for any move. We expect that if the enemy is keeping their distance right now, they will continue to do so until the situation changes, and that we will get advance warning of any move they make. So when someone decisive and intelligent makes a move that strikes farther than you expect, you start saying "He can't be here! He was 200 miles away yesterday!" when you know perfectly well that any damn fool could hop in a car and make the trip in four or five hours if it was just them personally making their move.