A long time in the future
humanity has stretched out over the
known universe and a vast galactic
empire has been formed. No alien races have been encountered and humanity has had a free reign over all the planetary systems it has reached. Using the advanced technology of Terraforming the inhospitable planets have been converted to Earth type environments and colonised.
The Empire is all-powerful, a huge economic and military power that has provided security and wealth for all its citizens for millennia. But this is far from Utopia, corruption has reached the very highest layers in society and The Emperor himself has been seen to be part of a debauched tyrannical hierarchy at odds with early principles of the Empire. The early signs of trouble are there but it is difficult for anyone to imagine that such as strong political regime can be threatened.
On Trantor the capital planet of the empire one man an enlightened thinker and mathematician Hari Seldon has developed a new science called Psychohistory. Seldon has worked out that despite individual humans action being difficult to
predict and thus essentially random, history and thus the future does not depend on the actions of individuals but in the
collective action of population masses. By using complicated mathematical models Seldon has worked out a system to predict the actions and reactions of mass populations to the extent that within a high level of probability the future of man can be mapped out.
Using this new predictive science Seldon has made an horrific discovery. The Empire will fall and a dark age will follow.
Centuries of moral and technological decline and destructive wars will plague the galaxy. Seldon in possession of such
knowledge feels he has to act and ward off the worst effects of the coming catastrophe. He realises that although he can predict the future to try and change it directly would be a disaster. He decided that the best he can do is save the collective knowledge that humanity has gathered and wait over the coming centuries for a time when it can be re-introduced to the next stable political collective.
With this in mind he sets up a colony of scientists 'The Foundation' on the planet Terminus on the very edge of the known Empire. Their official task is to compile the Encyclopedia Galactica a vast database of all known human knowledge but the colony has also been created to keep an eye on events and act appropriately to save it's own position in order to survive the turmoil to come.
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