Read Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (Revised Edition) for Free Online Page B

is Gaal Dornick, a young psychohistorian from a distant planet who arrives on Trantor to work with Seldon and is immediately plunged into intrigue that culminates in the trial of Seldon for treason because his calculations predict the fall of the Empire. Seldon defends the accuracy of his prediction and persuades his judges that he and the Empire will be better off if he is allowed to set up his Foundation on the planet Terminus, at the edge of the Galaxy, in order to compile a great encyclopedia that will contain all human knowledge. At the end, however, Seldon reveals to Dornick that he has manipulated the accusation of treason, the trial, and everyone involved in it in order to precipitate the crisis and persuade his 100,000 Encyclopedists and their families to establish his Foundation on Terminus.
    The second story, "The Encyclopedists" (called "Foundation" in the magazine version that launched the series in the May 1942 issue of Astounding ), takes place fifty years later. Terminus is metal poor but thriving with technology through the efforts of the scientists settled there. Outlying provinces of the Empire are being taken over by ambitious local rulers. One ruler, in a region called Anacreon, has decided to annex Terminus. The Encyclopedists on Terminus are too scholarly and impractical to respond with anything but futile force. They need psychologists, but Seldon had allowed none to emigrate. Mayor Salvor Hardin, who studied psychology briefly, is the next best thing, a politician. He notes that Anacreon and a rival system, Smyrno, no longer have atomic power, because civilization begins decaying first on the frontiers. He takes the entire government of Terminus from the Encyclopedists during Seldon's first filmed appearance in a Time Vault. Seldon offered no guidance before a crisis but had prepared commentary so that he could talk to the descendants of the Foundation scientists about the crises he predicted. At this time the long-dead Seldon announces that the Encyclopedia project was a fraud, that he had predicted what was to happen and set up the Terminus colony to influence the course of events without the knowledge of the Encyclopedists. The Encyclopedists' actions had been purposefully limited. Now they no longer have freedom of action, which is the essential condition of a Seldon crisis. A Seldon crisis is a turning point in the Plan he has conceived but never disclosed. Seldon describes their predicament: Terminus is an island of atomic power in an ocean of more primitive energy resources; the solution to the problem is obvious. It is not obvious, however, to anyone but Hardin. The story ends with the Anacreons landing and only Hardin aware that the invaders will be forced to leave Terminus in six months.
    In the third story, "The Mayors" (called "Bridle and Saddle" in the June 1942 Astounding ), which takes place thirty years later, the solution to the Seldon crisis in the previous story is revealed. Hardin played one barbarian kingdom against another by rousing their fears that sole possession of Terminus by any of them would make that kingdom too powerful. The other kingdoms forced the Anacreons to leave. Hardin then sold atomic devices to everyone. But he put atomic science, viewed by barbarians as a kind of magic, within a religious framework of faith and miracles. This has enhanced the military capabilities of the barbarians and conferred religious authority upon their rulers. The Anacreons attack Terminus, but the Anacreon priests are offended by the blasphemy against their religious center and lead a rebellion. Seldon appears again in the Time Vault. His warning this time: beware the spirit of regionalism (or nationalism) because it is stronger than spiritual power.
    In ''The Traders" ("The Big and the Little" in Astounding for August 1944) another fifty years have passed. The Foundation on Terminus has absorbed its barbarian neighbors and rules them with its scientific religion. Basically irreligious