In this review, it is assumed that you have read the first two books of the Foundation Trilogy, “Foundation” and “Foundation and Empire” and are familiar with the story up to the end of the second book.
Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy is very easy to read, but there are many clues that you have to pick up in between the lines in order to fully understand the gist of the story, and this is especially true in the third book of the trilogy. You have to read deeply as to the how and why of the story, why the Mule, and then later, the Foundation itself wants to search for the Second Foundation. This book also explains the difference between the two Foundations, and why the First sees the second as an enemy.
The story begins with the Mule in his palace, after conquering a good portion of the Milky Way galaxy, being the Kalgan sector and the Foundation itself. It was planned by Foundation’s founder, Hari Seldon, to avert 30,000 years of barbarism in the galaxy after its unavoidable downfall, reducing it to 1,000 years before another Empire arises, and the Foundation slowly organized the breakaway regions into a unified sector with the Foundation running things for 300 years for one crisis to another with Hari Seldon’s hologram guiding them, until the Mule appears, who successfully conquers a good portion of the galaxy. The Mule had the ability to use his own mind to take and control other people’s emotions and turning his most bitter enemies into loyal allies.
The Mule, physically small and weak, with a miserable childhood, looks in the sky at the stars he conquered, but he is dissatisfied. He wants them ALL! There is only one obstacle that he has to encounter, the mysterious Second Foundation, supposedly at the opposite end of the galaxy from the First Foundation, a place no one knows where exactly, and no one has ever been, and no one has knowingly ever met a citizen of that institution. It is totally unknown, the only thing known about it is that unlike the First Foundation, that deals in the physical sciences and the predictions of the human masses, this Second Foundation deals with the psychological aspect of the human individual, and it members have mental powers equal to that of the Mule. For this reason, the Mule must search for it, and destroy it, for the rest of the galaxy to be his.
As the Mule makes his plans, there are Interludes after the first six chapters of a meeting of Second Foundationers “in a dark room” with a meeting of individuals who communicate with each other by mind reading, and here, you start to get what the Second Foundation really is. It is a meeting of the minds, using psychology, as opposed to physical science. They make their plans on how to deal with the Mule.
The Mule sends out two of his followers: Hans Pritcher, a Foundationer who fell under the Mule’s control, and the freely uncontrolled Bail Channis, and they go from planet to planet at the other end of the galaxy to search for the Second Foundation. But the Second Foundation knows of this search and devises a way to outwit the Mule at his own game.
The story then switches over to the First Foundation, on the planet Terminus, where we met a rambunctious 14 year old girl name Arcadia Darell, granddaughter of the famous Bayta Darell, who outwitted the Mule by killing Ebling Mis who almost revealed the location of the Second Foundation to the Mule, thus depriving him of his long sought for prize. Arcadia ends up running away with a visitor, Homir Munn, who visits Kalgan to meet the “successor” of the Mule, and his “partner” and through Acadia’s influence, visits the Mule’s sacred palace to gather information for a book about the Mule. Homir Munn is arrested while Arcadia escapes, having the Kalgan empire searching for her.
The story switches again over to the Second Foundation, and here, they work on a new concept of ruling the galaxy by Mental Science, a concept never before used by man. Since time began, any society only achieved a maximum of 55% stability, (no corruption for example, which is impossible) and would eventually, but always fail. This new concept would keep everything in line, just as the Second Foundation, when the First Foundation goes off the track by unpredictable forces like the Mule, the Second Foundation would push it back on track again, to continue on the Seldon Plan of new galactic rule.
The First Foundation starts to see what the Second Foundation is doing, and fears it, even more so than the Mule. So, they set on a mission to search and destroy it, so they will have the final say in the Seldon Plan.
Conflicts with the Kalgan Sector start to flare up, and there is a search for the main culprit, Arcadia Darell herself, who, for the first time in her life, starts to fear what is chasing her and runs into the arms of a Preem Palver, and at the end of the book, there is a surprise ending.
War between Kalgan and Foundation ensues.
At the end, the Second Foundation is located, or so they think. The real location of the Second Foundation comes as a surprise to the reader.
The secret of Arcadia Darell’s personality and influence is also revealed, for she played a major role in the story. The end of the Foundation Trilogy is sort of a surprise ending in a sense that you don’t expect the concept of Mental Science in the story, especially with the control of emotions like that of the Mule, or beyond like the Second Foundation. What was expected, especially in the first two books was simply a new empire in a thousand years being run like the way any civilization was also run, by physical science, laws, and basic human behavior in the form of “normality.” Asimov, however, start to go beyond this and delve into Mental Science, in the form of insuring mental stability in each human being, or so I believe.
Thirty years after this trilogy, Asimov released a fourth book, “Foundation’s Edge,” which delves into this even deeper.
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