Hari Seldon appears during the 50th anniversary of founding Terminus.
TERMINUS— . . . Its location (see map) was an odd one for the role it was called upon to play in Galactic history, and yet as many writers have never tired of pointing out, an inevitable one. Located on the very fringe of the Galactic spiral, an only planet of an isolated sun, poor in resources and negligible in economic value, it was never settled in the five centuries after its discovery, until the landing of the Encyclopedists....
— ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA, 116th edition, published in 1020 F.E.
First published in Astounding Science Fiction (May 1942 issue), by Isaac Asimov, under the name "Foundation". Published concurrently in the UK's version of Astounding. This Science Fiction Novelette is the first work published in The Foundation Trilogy. It won the 2018 Retro Hugo for Best Novelette 1943.
The original publication has a short scene, which is removed for most subsequent publications, where Hari Seldon, nearly dead from old age, presides over the final meeting of his secret society. They've built two Scientific Refuges, each at opposite points of the galaxy; Terminus and Star's End. Their society's work is nearly done, and only the plans for revolts in Anacreon and Loris are left. That will take place fifty years into the future, and at that point, the Second Galactic Empire they've been working towards will have begun.
Time Skip to fifty years after the founding of the Encyclopedia Foundation Number One. Dr Lewis Pirenne, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Encyclopedia Committee, is busy working on the first volume of the Encyclopedia. They've nearly completed work on the first ever Encyclopedia Galactica. Unfortunately, his thoughts are interrupted by a meeting with Salvor Hardin, Mayor of Terminus. Mayor Hardin has come to complain that they've been cut off from the Galactic Empire due to all of the nearby systems having declared themselves independent polities. Dr Pirenne, however, considers such news to be worthless, since the Encyclopedia Foundation is a personal project of the Emperor.
The Foundation receives visits from both Haut Rodric and Lord Dorwin. Anselm haut Rodric, representative of the Anacreon Kingdom, admits that Anacreon wishes to turn this planet into landed estates for their nobility (to frighten him, Mayor Hardin drops hints of Terminus's atomic power). Lord Dorwin represents the Galactic Empire, and talks to the Encyclopedists about scientific research. Mayor Hardin's suggestion of doing independent research seems insuffewably cwude to the ambassador. Much better to read what previous archeologists wrote and decide which of them is right.
With the Board of Trustees foolishly placated by Lord Dorwin, Mayor Hardin prepares a coup and an actual solution to the threat of Anacreon invasion, one that isn't revealed until "The Mayors".
"The Encyclopedists" was reprinted in Foundation (1951), the compilation of the first four stories, as well as The 1,000 Year Plan, the compilation of the first three stories. It was also republished in Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 4 (1942) (1976).
"The Encyclopedists" provides examples of:
- All According to Plan: Hari Seldon appears on the Foundation's 50th anniversary to announce that, if all has gone according to plan, Terminus is now abandoned by the decaying empire. They are a small world of scientists and engineers, threatened by the vast and rapidly expanding reaches of their barbarian neighbors. Only one course of (obvious) action will keep them safe.
- Appeal to Authority: Mayor Hardin is repeatedly frustrated by the Board of Trustees deferring the problem of Anacreon's desire to conquer their planet by putting their faith in authority figures. First the Imperial Emperor, and then Hari Seldon. Seldon Hardin realizes that this is a symptom of the Empire's corruption; nobody is doing original scientific experiments, merely trying to imitate an expired Golden Age.
- Appeal to Force: When the Board of Trustees attempts to claim complete independence from local politics, Anacreon points out that the Empire isn't around to enforce said independence, implying that they are free to conquer Terminus with their more powerful military. Mayor Hardin is the only one who tries to find a solution to the Kingdom of Anacreon trying to annex the Foundation.
- Armor-Piercing Question: Hardin, tired of the Board refusing to budge from what they believe is Hari Seldon's plan, asks them why Seldon, whose branch of science required being able to predict human nature, brought only one psychologist with him when he founded Terminus and why that psychologist went out of his way to poorly train his students. He states the obvious: the Encyclopedia Galactica project clearly has another, hidden purpose, one that properly trained psychologists would have deduced or otherwise impeded.
- Artistic License – Nuclear Physics:
- In-Universe, Salvor Hardin makes a (deliberate) mistake in asking an ambassador from a nearby system if his planet has any plutonium (praseodymium in the original story) available for trade, since the reactors on Terminus could use more. When the ambassador brushes the question aside, it tips Hardin off that the ambassador's world has lost atomic power, since otherwise the man would know that atomic power plants haven't used plutonium in millennia. Since they defeated one of the other local kingdoms, it stands to reason that none of the local galactic powers have access to nuclear power anymore.
- Mayor Hardin requests Lord Dorwin (representative of the Galactic Empire) explain about the accident on Planet V of Gamma Andromeda from a year ago. In the original story, there was an explosion which leveled half the planet, whereas the updated story calls it a meltdown which caused severe contamination (the sequel has a similar incident and retcon on city scale). The Imperial representative doesn't know details, pointing out how the quality of technicians and technology has gone down. Concern about nuclear power plants exploding like a nuclear bomb was common in The '40s but is not considered a realistic possibility in the modern day, hence the change.
- Blue Blood: The first interaction Terminus has with Anacreon after the latter has declared themselves independent from the Empire is from Anselm haut Rodric. He's an envoy of the nobility, and the narrative emphasizes that "haut" indicates his rank.
- Brutal Honesty: Hari Seldon is blunt and to the point when he explains that the Encyclopedia that the inhabitants of Terminus has been working on for almost three generations is nothing but a fraud that's irrelevant to his greater plans and that he's intentionally set them on a course that will force them carry out his real plan to save the galaxy.
- The Coup: Salvor Hardin, mayor of Terminus City on the planet Terminus, is actually subordinate to the Encyclopedia Galactica's Board of Trustees. He uses the current crisis of annexation by Anacreon to take control from the Board, becoming the head of the Foundation. The next story, "The Mayors", starts nearly thirty years after the coup has succeeded.
- Distant Sequel: The events in this story take place in 50 F.E., fifty years since the events of "The Psychohistorians".
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The Four Kingdoms are named in this story as Anacreon, Smyrno, Konom and Daribow. The latter two are never mentioned again, and subsequent stories would name the kingdom of Loris as one of the four. An alternative reading is that Konom and Daribow are the two planets currently in dispute between Anacreon and Smyrno.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: The foppish Imperial diplomat Lord Dorwin normally speaks in a high-class English accent. When he views a book-film on archaeology during his tour of the Foundation, Salvor Hardin is amused to notice that Dorwin is so honestly excited that he "pronounced his r's".
- Encyclopedia Exposita: When published in Foundation (1951), this story is prefaced by the Encyclopedia Galactica entry for Terminus.
- False Reassurance: The Board of Trustees responds to threats from the neighboring kingdom of Anacreon by reminding them of likely intervention by the Galactic Empire, as assured by the official representative, Lord Dorwin. Then Hardin presents them with a summary of all the Lord's statements without the meaningless and off-topic talk. Turns out it amounts to literally not a word.
- Fictional Document: Mayor Hardin obliquely controls the Terminus City Journal, a newspaper that he uses to sway public opinion in his favour, such as creating the position of mayor to begin with.
- Fictional Field of Science: Symbolic logic is a field where language is parsed more simply, where words and concepts are transformed into symbols. Mayor Hardin uses it to analyze the various statements given to Terminus from Anacreon and the Empire, which finally proves to the Board of Trustees that they've been abandoned. Later stories would have Seldon mention similar symbols used by psychohistory.
- Founding Day: During the 50th anniversary of founding Terminus with the Encyclopedia Foundation, a hologram of the dead Hari Seldon appears and announces that the organization is a fraud, and Terminus was actually founded as the next Galactic Empire.
- Funetik Aksent: Lord Dorwin's Elmuh Fudd Syndwome is rendered as accurately as it can be in a textual format, with a number of letter substitutions causing "misspellings".Lord Dorwin said: "Mahvelous. Twuly mahvelous. You ah not, by chance, intewested in ahchaeology, ah you, Hahdin?"
- Graceful Loser: When the Board of Trustees' members find out the truth about the Foundation, they accept that they were wrong and request Salvor Hardin to advise them on what the Foundation should do. It is too late, since Hardin's coup has already happened, but Hardin admits that, for all that they are bad as leaders, they are still good scientists.
- Great Big Book of Everything: Creating the Encyclopedia Galactica was the stated purpose of the Encyclopedia Foundation. Every scientific fact and feat of engineering, and all of the history of the Empire stretching back for over ten thousand years, is available within it. However, Hari Seldon appears on their fiftieth anniversary to say that "The Encyclopedia is, and always has been, a fraud". Despite the fraudulent basis to the colonization of Terminus, the Foundation continues to write and publish volumes. Foundation's Edge mentions that it became a continually updated electronic database.
- Guile Hero: The internal narration from Mayor Hardin tells the audience that he didn't technically own the Terminus City Journal, he had oblique control over sixty percent of the public shares invested in the newspaper, granting him indirect ability to manipulate public opinion without any obvious/blatant mechanisms. It was, in fact, part of how he gained the title Mayor.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: The Board of Trustees represents a specific part of the decadence of the Galactic Empire: the excessive reliance on a greater authority.
- Impartial Purpose-Driven Faction: The Encyclopedia Foundation is said to be under the direct control of the Imperial Emperor. Due to this, they begin as a strictly neutral organisation of archivists and historians whose sole purpose is to maintain the Encyclopedia Galactica, a compendium of all human knowledge... or so their founder, Hari Seldon, claims. When his pre-recorded posthumous holographic message informs the Board of Trustees that said Encyclopedia was nothing but a convenient cover story and ultimately irrelevant to his long-term plans, the members who hadn't seen this coming are (not unreasonably) quite upset.
- Land of One City: Terminus has been colonized for only fifty years, and has not yet grown large enough to need a second city. When a much-larger galactic neighbor decides to conquer the planet, they're unable to fight back.
- Meaningless Meaningful Words: The planet Terminus is under the threat of annexation by more than one aggressive neighbors. The Galactic Empire sends an envoy who gives them what sounds like assurances that the Empire will not let this happen. However, when the Mayor of Terminus subjects the man's words to symbolic logic, stripping away all the meaningless political babble, he's left with... absolutely nothing. The man, in several days of talk, said nothing of any actual substance and none of his audience noticed.
- Monster of the Week: Salvor Hardin, mayor of the planet Terminus, tries to get the Encyclopedia Foundation to deal directly with the threat of the four neighboring kingdoms. Unfortunately, their leader, Lewis Pirenne, is an Obstructive Bureaucrat as dense as a brick. It takes Seldon's reveal that the Encyclopedia Galactica was a scam in order to set the colony of Terminus in motion before they're willing to deal with the problem. By then Mayor Hardin has already taken control of the situation.
- The Namesake:
- The original title was Foundation, referring to the Encyclopedia Foundation whose Board of Trustees make most of the decisions for Terminus. Actually, Hari Seldon refers to them as his Foundation to create a second galactic empire, and a companion Foundation at the opposite end of the galaxy.
- The revised title refers to the Board of Trustees, who are in charge of making the Encyclopedia Galactica.
- Naming Your Colony World:
- Smyrno is one of the Four Kingdoms nearby Terminus. It takes its name from Smyrna, part of the original Roman Empire that the series is based on. Its role as a centre for the Christian Church in Real Life parallels the early fate of the Four Kingdoms.
- Vega is mentioned for its export of tobacco, and is named for the star Vega, also known as Alpha Lyrae.
- N.G.O.: The Board of Trustees believe that the Encyclopedia Foundation shouldn’t be involved with local politics due to their Imperial charter to preserve all scientific knowledge in the galaxy and publish an Encyclopedia Galactica. The local galactic nations, however, point out that the Emperor and his navy is very far away, while they are very close. Each one is interested in taking Terminus's technology for themselves.
- Numbered Homeworld: Planet V of Gamma Andromeda is only mentioned because of its recent nuclear power plant disaster.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Lord Dorwin, a diplomat from Trantor, fooled everyone on Terminus with his foppish aristocratic behaviour. Mayor Hardin quietly recorded what the man said for five days, and subjected it to analysis. It turned out that in five days of discussion, Lord Dorwin had managed to avoid saying anything meaningful, and did it so smoothly and conversationally that no one noticed until Hardin had it analyzed.
- Oh, My Gods!: Mayor Hardin swears by the Emperor (not a god) and his big left toe.
- One-Word Title: Originally published in 1942 as "Foundation”.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: The foppish Imperial diplomat Lord Dorwin normally has a severe case of Elmuh Fudd Syndwome. When he views a book-film on archaeology during his tour of the Foundation, Salvor Hardin is amused to notice that Dorwin is so honestly excited that he "pronounced his r's".
- Orwellian Retcon: This story originally had a short scene where Hari Seldon, nearly dead from old age, presides over the final meeting of his secret society. This scene is replaced by "The Psychohistorians" in most subsequent publications, but Isaac Asimov Presents: The Great Science Fiction Stories, Volume 4 (1942) does include the original scene. The Encyclopedia Galactica entry for Terminus is also added.
- Prophecies Are Always Right: The long-dead Hari Seldon appears during the 50th anniversary of colonizing Terminus via hologram. He announces that the Encyclopedia Foundation is a fraud, and that Terminus was actually founded as the next Galactic Empire. He also points out that they're already in the middle of their first socio-political crisis, and the solution to their problem is "obvious".
- Proud Scholar Race: The Encyclopedia Foundation is obsessed with their Encyclopedia Galactica, a comprehensive book about everything that the Galactic Empire had learned about science and technology. So obsessed that they missed out on the fact that most of the population on Terminus don't actually have anything to do with the Encyclopedia. They're devastated when Hari Seldon appears on their fiftieth anniversary to say that the Encyclopedia was a fraud all along and he didn't care if it was ever published.
- Schizo Tech: The outer reaches of the galaxy — the entire Periphery in fact — has lost the knowledge of nuclear power. Their societies are forced to fall back on older coal and oil technologies, and whatever ships and technologies are left over from the Empire. The only planet/nation that seems to be capable of the science expected of a galactic civilization is Terminus, a colony founded only fifty years ago, which has kept the concepts of science and research alive, plus records of the Lost Technology."You are a small world of scientists surrounded by vast and rapidly expanding reaches of barbarism. You are an island of nuclear power in a growing ocean of more primitive energy" — Hari Seldon
- Space "X": Mayor Hardin has some tobacco imported from the Vega star system, so it's called a Vegan cigar.
- Stock Star Systems: 61 Cygni, Alpha Centauri, the third planet of Arcturus and Sirius are mentioned by Lord Dorwin as among the star systems that lay claim to being the homeworld of humanity.
- Technobabble: The original story used "praseodymium" (element of atomic number 59) as a component in nuclear power plants, which was replaced with plutonium when he republished the story in Foundation (1951) (the discovery of plutonium had been kept secret until the end of the war due to security concerns). Haut Rodric's inability to recognize the In-Universe nonsense is what clues Hardin into the fact that Anacreon doesn't have access to nuclear technology anymore.
- Violence Is Not an Option: Mayor Hardin initially tries to encourage the Encyclopedists to take arms and prepare to fight off Anacreon and any of their neighbors who might try to conquer Terminus. However, as the Board of Trustees dither and delay, it becomes impossible to rely on Terminus' military strength. Hari Seldon claims that the alternative is obvious, and Hardin agrees.
- We Will Spend Credits in the Future: Two-credit and half-credit coins are mentioned in this story, but the coins on Terminus are made from steel, since they have almost no metal at all.
- We Have Become Complacent: Hardin calls out the Board in that they're only concerned with recording knowledge and not using it to further new scientific pursuits. He also remarks on the decline of science in the rest of the galaxy, with the other worlds in the Periphery have regressed back into using oil and coal and the Empire choosing to limit nuclear power rather than put effort into training new engineers.
- Wham Line: Hari Seldon in his first appearance in the holographic simalcrum: "The Encyclopedia Galactica is a fraud and always has been!"
