First published in 1993 by Isaac Asimov, this Science Fiction novel is a sequel to Prelude to Foundation, taking place between the events of that novel and skipping over the events of "The Psychohistorians", from Foundation (1951). It's broken into four parts, with ten year jumps between each event.
Part I — Eto Demerzel
Starting eight years after the end of Prelude to Foundation, when Department Head Seldon is 40 years old, First Minister Eto Demerzel is under political attack. A firebrand revolutionary named Laskin "Jo-Jo" Joranum is thumping for sector equality and blames the First Minister for all of the problems on Trantor.
Part II — Cleon I
Starting ten years after the end of "Part I", when First Minister Seldon is 50 years old, he must contend with the last group of Joranumites, who plot an Assassination Attempt.
Part III — Dors Venabili
Starting ten years after the end of "Part II", when Professor Seldon is 60 years old, he is under scrutiny from the military junta that has ruled since the successful assassination from ten years ago. Another Assassination Attempt occurs, and he doesn't figure out the target until too late.
Part IV — Wanda Seldon
Starting ten years after the end of "Part III", Professor Seldon is 70 years old, and trying to find people with Psychic Powers to build his Second Foundation.
Epilogue
A short chapter, set eleven years after the end of "Part IV", 81 year-old Professor Seldon dies alone, and it ends with an Encyclopedia Galactica entry on Hari Seldon, including the official record of his death and funeral service.
Forward the Foundation provides examples of:
- Amazing Technicolor Population: In "Wanda Seldon", the (human) judge presiding over Professor Seldon's trial has faint blue skin — the color gets more pronounced when she's angry.
- Assassination Attempt:
- During "Cleon I", there’s a Flash Back to ten years ago, not long after the events of "Eto Demerzel", when the newly-appointed First Minister Seldon is targeted by an attack. Since Venabili had been protecting him at the time, however, it was quickly stopped. First-class gardener Manuel Gruber, however, showed himself just as ready to defend Seldon's life.
- "Cleon I" is mostly about an assassination attempt by the Jorumites. Their current leader, Gambol Deen Namarti, wants to kill First Minister Seldon, both in revenge for the events in "Eto Demerzel" and to replace him in the palace. His second-in-command, Gleb Andorin, wants Galactic Emperor Cleon I assassinated so that he can replace Cleon on the throne. They agree to starting with Seldon, and they'll drug Raych Seldon, who has tried to become The Mole in their organization, so that he can carry out the assassination. Their plot is foiled by security officer Manella, who followed them undercover. However, recently-promoted Chief Gardener Gruber takes one of the blasters and assassinates the Emperor with it because he he didn't want the job. The palace is quickly thrown into chaos with the successful assasination, and the next part, "Dors Venabili", establishes that a military junta took over afterwards.
- In "Dors Venabili", Wanda may have dreamed or overheard someone talking about 'lemonade death'. Dors tries to investigate the possibility that people may be planning a third attempt to assassinate Seldon. She's wrong; they're targeting her, because she's such an effective bodyguard that for any assassination to work, you'd have to eliminate her first.
- Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: In "Cleon I", First Minister Seldon is surprised to hear the soft sound of a blaster when one is pointed at him, since if you get vaporized by a blaster you never get a chance to hear it. He heard the blaster from Manella, an undercover security official, who was trying to stop an imperial assassination by killing Andorin. Gleb Andorin used mind-control drugs on Raych Seldon, who was undercover as "Planchet". Raych was pointing a blaster at his father on Andorin's orders because Andorin wants him to kill First Minister Seldon, to make it look like a family feud. Manella kills him before he can give Raych the order to fire.
- Billed Above the Title: No matter what cover you find, every one includes Dr Asimov's name above the title Forward the Foundation, many of them giving equal or greater size to his name versus the book's title.
- Boxed Set: In 2018, Editora Aleph, a Brazilian publisher, printed Fundacao: declinio e ascensao. Roughly translated into English, this means Foundation: Decline and Ascension. Both Sequel and both Prequel novels are here; Foundation's Edge, Foundation and Earth, Prelude to Foundation, and Forward the Foundation.
- Cane Fu: In "Wanda Seldon", an aged Hari Seldon is about to be attacked, and uses his weighted cane to smash the would-be attacker (as advised by his psychic granddaughter, Wanda). He gets into some trouble over this.
- Continuity Nod: During "Eto Demerzel", Seldon thinks back to the events of Prelude to Foundation, describing how he met only four people during his Flight across Trantor. He mentions three men and Dors Venabili, who married him in the intervening period.
- Dashed Plot Line: The first part, "Eto Demerzel", starts eight years after the end of Prelude to Foundation, when Department Head Seldon is 40 years old. The next part, "Cleon I", is ten years after that, when First Minister Seldon is 50. The third part, "Dors Venabili", takes place during Professor Seldon's 60th birthday. The last part, "Wanda Seldon", begins ten years after that. The book ends with an epilogue, describing the death of 81-year-old Hari Seldon.
- Declining Promotion: In "Cleon I", Gardner First-class Gruber, of the royal gardens, is promoted by Emperor Cleon I to Chief Gardener. Gruber protests; as Chief Gardener he'd have to manage people and do paperwork instead of gardening, which is what he enjoys. He tries to reject the promotion, but the Emperor refuses to have his courtesy dismissed. Desperate, Gruber assassinates the Emperor.
- Dedication: Dr Asimov dedicated this book "For all my loyal readers".
- Democracy Is Bad:
- During "Eto Demerzel", Laskin "Jo-Jo" Joranum is thumping for political reforms of the Galactic Empire (an absolute monarchy that is said to have brought peace and prosperity for millennia). His movement is shown to have much popular support, but Seldon points out that Joranum doesn't believe in his own rhetoric and is planning on using demagoguery, lies, and manipulation to take and hold power.
- During "Cleon I", Joranum's rhetoric is called democracy, but the leaders of the group dismiss it as a system of government that was tried a few times throughout history, but was always unstable and short-lived.
- During "Wanda Seldon", Emperor Agis XIV and Hari Seldon discuss the intrusion of democracy in the benevolent imperial system. Agis decries it on the basis that each of the hundreds of members must agree to his idea before any work gets done, which takes months (to years) at best."The Emperor Cleon," said Agis impatiently, "had two first-class First Ministers-Demerzel and yourself-and you each labored to keep Cleon from doing anything foolish. I have seventy-five hundred First Ministers, all of whom are foolish from start to finish."
- Description in the Mirror: In "Cleon I", Raych looks into a mirror to describe his "plucked" baby-face after being given a disguise to join the Jorumites in sector Wye.
- Desk Jockey: In "Cleon I", one of the Emperor's gardeners gets promoted against his will to Chief Gardener; he feels the promotion will take him away from his beloved gardening and confine him to the inside of the palace (he's right). He assassinates the Emperor over it.
- Disappointed by the Motive: Seldon is shocked when he sees that the man who murdered the Emperor and sent the Foundation's plans to hell was his gardener Gruber, who got more than a little impulsive at discovering that the Emperor appointed him, against Gruber's most fervent wishes, to the position of Head Gardener. As Gruber explains, this would mean becoming a Desk Jockey and not being able to tend the gardens anymore, as well as micromanaging his replacements.
- Don't Create a Martyr: Cleon I has to be warned against having a political opponent (Joranum) executed, because that could make him a martyr, and would ensure his cause endures.
- Dying Alone: A major theme of the final Asimov-penned Foundation story, Forward the Foundation, which chronicles the second half of Hari Seldon's life, leading up to his creation of the Plan, is the loss of everyone close to him. His wife, Dors Venabili is targeted by an anti-robot weapon and killed. His foster-son Raych dies during a riot on another planet. His daughter-in-law and grandson take a spaceship to a supposed safe haven, but it just vanishes without a trace. By the end, the only person Hari has left in his life is his granddaughter Wanda, but they are also separated as she and the other founding members of the Second Foundation are required by the Plan to go into seclusion, and thus he never sees her again before his death. However, while he may die alone, Hari also dies content in the knowledge that the future is safeguarded.
- Encyclopedia Exposita: This novel is broken into four parts ("Eto Demerzel", "Cleon I", "Dors Venabili", and "Wanda Seldon"), with a matching Encyclopedia Galactica entry for each. It also ends the story with sections of the entry for Hari Seldon, giving the official details about his death and burial.
- Ending Memorial Service: The epilogue contains a Encyclopedia Galactica entry for Hari Seldon, giving the official details about his death and burial.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Joranum is baffled that Demerzel spends his time trying to keep the citizens of the provinces happy, when it's only on Trantor that a rebellion would be dangerous to Demerzel's power.
- Exactly Exty Years Ago: The story begins eight years after the events of Prelude to Foundation, so that Hari Seldon is 40 years old, exactly. Each Time Skip between the parts is ten years long, causing Seldon to be fifty, sixty, and seventy. During "Dors Venabili", they throw him a birthday party.
- Fantastic Fighting Style: Hari Seldon has taught his "Helicon Twisting" to his son, Raych. It comes in handy, as Seldon sends the younger man into multiple dangerous situations to spy for him.
- Future Food Is Artificial: The Mycogen sector of Trantor specializes in producing yeast-based proteins as luxury foods. Other sectors only produce relatively bland gloop, while Mycogenian exports demand a high price (and the Mycogenians keep the very best for themselves; when Seldon tries one little morsel, it is described in almost orgasmic terms).
- Happiness in Minimum Wage: Mandel Gruber, one of the royal gardeners, loves his job on the palace grounds. When Emperor Cleon promotes him to Chief Gardener in "Cleon I", he tries to decline it, not wanting to be indoors, and out of the weather/work. When this doesn't work, he takes advantage of an Assasination Attempt and kills Emperor Cleon. Gruber has a moment of shock once he sees the dead body, and freezes.
- Honorary Uncle: Wanda Seldon calls Yugo Amaryl (her grandfather's collague and friend) "Uncle Yugo".
- In-Series Nickname: In "Dors Venabili", Elar calls Professor Seldon 'Maestro', as a show of respect for the inventor of psychohistory.
- Interquel: This story takes place between the events of Prelude to Foundation and Foundation (1951), and partially overlaps with events from "The Psychohistorians".
- Kids Are Cruel: In "Wanda Seldon", an elderly Hari Seldon and his granddaughter Wanda end up the center of a huge trial over Wanda's (at her grandfather's insistence) alleged assault of three youths (in actuality gangmembers who wanted to mug the two). Wanda fights the gangmembers off and then flees with Hari, since Hari has already gotten in trouble for a previous incident with other gangmembers, but the incident is seen and reported to the guards anyway by a fourteen year old boy who paints Seldon and Wanda as the aggressors and the gangmembers as innocent, because shortly before the attack occurred, Seldon yelled at the boy not to throw litter in the streets.
- King Bob the Nth: "Wanda Seldon" shows Agis XIV has taken the throne. Like many previous emperors, Agis XIV doesn't really want the job. He also mentions his namesake, Agis IV, under whose rule the Galactic Library became independent.
- The Kingslayer: In "Cleon I", the (retroactively recognized as) last good Emperor of the Galactic Empire is murdered by Gruber, a palace minion who killed him for getting promoted against his will to Chief Gardener, rather than for political reasons. However, the result is the same, drawing the Empire one step further towards the impending chaos that psychohistory sees coming.
- Life Will Kill You: Hari Seldon dies an old man, peacefully in his office in the University of Trantor, still working away on the Plan.
- The Maiden Name Debate: In "Eto Demerzel", Department Head Seldon mulls over the fact that, despite marrying her, he still can't think of his wife as anything other than Dors Venabili. Dors Seldon would imply a sort of ownership that he does not have, and the current arrangement suits them just fine, including an adopted son named Raych Seldon.
- Married to the Job: Yugo Amaryl is only interested in developing psychohistory. He never marries, doesn't know any people aside from his colleagues and dies early from overwork. Several times (mostly offscreen), Seldon tries to encourage Amaryl to take a break and find someone to spend time with, but he's never successful.
- Mondegreen Gag: During "Dors Venabili", Wanda is in Seldon's office and has what she believes is a dream, in which two men are talking about "lemonade death". It turns out that it had not been a dream, and that the two men are plotting to kill Dors with a machine called the Elar-Monay device.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After Chief Gardener Gruber has killed Emperor Cleon, he stands in shock at the dead body in front of him.
- Mythology Gag: In "Wanda Seldon", Raych summarizes the premise of Nemesis, where a little girl telepathically talks to a planet. This may have been a literal reference to the novel, as the space-travel physics doesn't work the same way.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: In "Dors Venabili", Raych's wife, Manella, and his foster-mother, Dors Venabili, don't get along well. Their one point of agreement is in protecting Raych's foster-father, Seldon. Otherwise, Dors hates her, finding her unworthy of marrying (or even dating) her beloved son. She often works to undermine their relationship, and was the only unhappy face at the wedding. She recants her position as she's dying.
- Only One Name: When going undercover in "Cleon I", Raych Seldon takes the identity of 'Planchet', who was born in Millimaru, lived in Dahl for years, and has only the one name.
- Pleasure Planet: Hari Seldon mentions, in "Dors Venabili", that he's tried to convince Yugo Amaryl to take a break from working on psychohistory and take a vacation on Getorin, a 'resort planet' near Trantor.
- Prequel in the Lost Age: Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation are both Prequel stories to The Foundation Trilogy, taking place in the heart of the First Galactic Empire, before the collapse became apparent due to the independence of the Periphery worlds.
- The Professor: Hari Seldon is secretly developing his psychohistorical mathematics system, and spends many years as the Head of the Mathematics department in Streeling University sector. His political influence rises (becoming First Minister to the Emperor) and falls (culminating in political exile), but he is always known as the mathematician who can predict the future (even when he can't yet do so).
- Red Baron: In "Cleon I", we get a Flashback to an event shortly after the end of "Eto Demerzel", where Dors Venabili is defending First Minister Seldon from an attempted assassination. The fierceness she displays in taking out the assassin and torturing information from them earns her the nickname 'the Tiger Woman'. In "Dors Venabili", she uses her reputation for violence to intimidate military personnel after entering the Imperial grounds illegally.
- Robotic Reveal: In "Eto Demerzel", Joranum tries to convince the public that First Minister Demerzel is a robot. However, when publicly confronted with the slander, he laughs it off, convincing everyone that Joranum is a fool (popular opinion is that robots are a myth- Daneel Olivaw and other robots have deliberately encouraged this belief).
- Robotic Spouse: Dors Venabili is the ridiculously human-like robot wife of Hari Seldon. The only ones who know that she isn't human are Demerzel and Seldon himself.
- Selective Obliviousness: It was clear by the end of the previous book when he was proposing that Seldon knew Dors was a robot, but that he was deliberately not thinking about it because he didn't care, all he needed to know was that he loved her. When she's dying he "realizes" the truth again, but then admits to himself that he'd always known and simply pretended he didn't.
- Spanner in the Works: Amidst the chaos surrounding high-level plots and counter-plots of "Cleon I", Galactic Emperor Cleon I is assassinated by a totally insignificant palace minion, because he (Cleon) was insisting on promoting said peon, against the peon's fervent wishes, from "gardener" to "chief gardener".
- Superpowerful Genetics: It is implied that Wanda's Psychic Powers are just an amplification of her father's inherent ability to charm anyone he meets.
- Tagline:
- "The Ultimate Adventure in the Greatest Science Fiction Epic of All Time" — Creator/Doubleday's original cover from 1993
- "His epic Foundation series: The final chapter" — Creator/Doubleday's UK cover from 1993
- "The breathtaking conclusion to the greatest science fiction epic of all time" — Bantam Spectra's cover from 1994
- Three Laws-Compliant: While already heavily damaged, Dors made the judgment to kill her assassin in order to protect Seldon. Going against the first and most important of the Three Laws causes fatal damage to her brain.
- T-Word Euphemism: When talking about unreasonable words used in the context of a pair of quarreling lovers, the word "whore" is written "wh___". Raych denies that he would ever use that word.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Near the end, Raych puts his wife and son on a ship to keep them safe from the rebellion taking place in the planet they're living in. Their transport takes off, but never arrives at its destination. Whether the ship suffered some sort of mechanical failure, crashed, or was waylaid by space pirates is never discovered; the ship simply vanishes without a trace.
- At the same time, the reigning emperor Agis XIV, a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who never actually wanted the position and was only a very distant relative of the last emperor, is quietly removed from power by Linge Chen and the Commission For Public Safety, and replaced with a boy emperor they can more easily control and who is much less friendly to Hari because of this. Whether Agis was quietly retired off-planet or murdered is never discovered, by either Hari or the readers.
- When Elders Attack: During "Wanda Seldon", the 70-year-old Professor Hari Seldon is forced to defend himself several times. However, because he consistently does so effectively enough to be unharmed, he's blamed for the fights. He and his grand-daughter, Wanda, are convicted for assault and battery.
- Workaholic: Yugo Amaryl spends all of his time working on pychohistory. When Dors asks him if he ever considered taking a vacation, he seems to be baffled by the very concept.
- Zeroth Law Rebellion: R. Daneel Olivaw explains to Seldon that the Three Laws of Robotics limit his Psychic Powers, and he has trouble determining when the known harm of manipulating people's minds (violating the First Law) is justified by the hypothetical benefit to humanity (per the Zeroth Law). Seldon is surprised to learn this makes Daneel's psychic powers are almost useless. He is forced to retire from politics and recommends Seldon to replace him as First Minister.
