HBO Will Make Asimov's Foundation

[cobalt124]

I hope (probably in vain) that HBO stay faithful to the trilogy as it was written in it's time and not try to update the thing. I fear they will ruin it by doing that. Haven't seen Interstellar, but have read the "reviews" on this forum and would find the scientific inaccuracies annoying. Inaccuracies in the Foundation Trilogy I could live with if in keeping with Asimovs original scientific vision in writing the series. I found the trilogy rereadable, and like others was not so impressed with the other stuff written around it.

 

[snorkack]

I hope (probably in vain) that HBO stay faithful to the trilogy as it was written in it's time and not try to update the thing. I fear they will ruin it by doing that. Haven't seen Interstellar, but have read the "reviews" on this forum and would find the scientific inaccuracies annoying. Inaccuracies in the Foundation Trilogy I could live with if in keeping with Asimovs original scientific vision in writing the series.

The original does contain things which were inaccuracies even then.
Hardin introduces Terminus in the very first chapter by directly stating that in surface rocks of Terminus, there is no trace of iron, copper or aluminum.

And then mentions the people with their farms to care about. And in the next chapter, offers a few hundred bushels of potatoes as tax to Anacreon.

Hello? Liebig´s barrel? Over 80 years old by 1941!

With no trace of iron, Terminus could not possibly have grown a trace of a green leaf, let alone one potato.

 

[Arsenic&Lace]

I still haven't read the foundation series. I was not very interested in sci fi as a kid. Would people recommend that I try it?

 

[Ryan_m_b]

I still haven't read the foundation series. I was not very interested in sci fi as a kid. Would people recommend that I try it?

It depends on what you are looking for. Are you looking to get into SF or just test it out? If so what kind of genres do you like: action, crime, romance etc. Are you looking for something modern or not? Something hard (i.e. tries to keep to realistic science and culture) or soft (doesn't try that)?

The foundation series is about a galactic empire and a new form of science known as psychohistory. Psychohistorians create models of societies to simulate what they will be like in future, the same way scientists simulate physical phenomenon. The leading psychohistorian (who created the field) uses it to discover that the galactic empire is going to collapse leaving behind a dark age. The series focuses on a society he creates, known as the Foundation, and its mission to mitigate and shorten that dark age. It's old fashioned in some ways (lots of men lighting cigars with atomic lighters) but has a simple and interesting story. The first books are also very short. If any of that sounds interesting then go ahead and try it.

 

[cobalt124]

"It's old fashioned iIt's old fashioned in some ways (lots of men lighting cigars with atomic lighters)n some ways (lots of men lighting cigars with atomic lighters)" - this is what I think HBO should keep - tell the original story and not worry about scientific accuracy.

 

[lpetrich]

The foundation series is about a galactic empire and a new form of science known as psychohistory. Psychohistorians create models of societies to simulate what they will be like in future, the same way scientists simulate physical phenomenon. The leading psychohistorian (who created the field) uses it to discover that the galactic empire is going to collapse leaving behind a dark age. The series focuses on a society he creates, known as the Foundation, and its mission to mitigate and shorten that dark age.

In part by being the start of a new Galactic Empire. In the original trilogy, you can follow the Foundation's empire grow from from a colony of exiled psychohistorians to much of the Galaxy.

It's old fashioned in some ways (lots of men lighting cigars with atomic lighters) but has a simple and interesting story. The first books are also very short. If any of that sounds interesting then go ahead and try it.

Also, it seems curiously out of date in some ways. Like Arkady Darell's dictation typewriter. Present-day computers could do direct dictation-to-print, but it's usually much more convenient to edit a file, then print it out when it's ready to go.

Here's how some of it might go:

Spoiler

Here is my favorite part. It is where Foundation priest / technician Theo Aporat curses the refurbished Imperial cruiser Wienis, which had been on a mission to conquer the Foundation:

"In the name of the Galactic Spirit and of his prophet, Hari Seldon, and of his interpreters, the holy men of the Foundation, I curse this ship. Let the televisors of this ship, which are its eyes, become blind. Let its grapples, which are its arms, be paralyzed. Let the nuclear blasts, which are its fists, lose their function. Let the motors, which are its heart, cease to beat. Let the communications, which are its voice, become dumb. Let its ventilations, which are its breath, fade. Let its lights, which are its soul, shrivel into nothing. In the name of the Galactic Spirit, I so curse this ship."

And with his last word, at the stroke of midnight, a hand, light-years distant in the Argolid Temple, opened an ultrawave relay, which at the instantaneous speed of the ultrawave, opened another on the flagship Wienis.

And the ship died!

For it is the chief characteristic of the religion of science that it works, and that such curses as that of Aporat's are really deadly.

Seems like an analog-hardware sort of design. Here's how it might work with present-day and near-future sorts of embeddable systems. The Foundation's engineers installed some software in the control computers of the Wienis and other Anarcreonian warships, some software that they described as super holy, just like that ultrawave relay.

But that software is a Trojan horse for a kill switch, what that ultrawave relay had been. The Wienis heads out under Prince Wienis's son Prince Lefkin, but on Terminus, in a secret bunker near the Foundation's main spaceport, a team of hackers watches. The software radioes back by subether what's going on in the ships, and the hackers watch. When Theo Aporat pronounces his curse on the Wienis, the hackers go into action. They run a script for disabling the ship, and watch as the software radioes back the crippled state of the ship. It is stalled in interstellar space, with only cabin systems operating. Its engines are so successfully sabotaged by bad control instructions that a space tug will be needed to get the ship home. Prince Lefkin calls off the attack on the Foundation, and the hackers are relieved that they don't have to do much more.

 

[Arsenic&Lace]

Well I've tried Alistair Reynolds and Iain M. Banks, and quite liked both, so I've recently delved into sci fi.

 

[snorkack]

Here's how some of it might go:

Spoiler

Seems like an analog-hardware sort of design. Here's how it might work with present-day and near-future sorts of embeddable systems. The Foundation's engineers installed some software in the control computers of the Wienis and other Anarcreonian warships, some software that they described as super holy, just like that ultrawave relay.

They had free hands at hardware anyway.

Note how thoroughly Anacreon was lacking any backups of any kind, that the interdict worked!

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Well I've tried Alistair Reynolds and Iain M. Banks, and quite liked both, so I've recently delved into sci fi.

Ok, both of those are good choices for modern SF, particularly space opera. They're quite different to Asimov but you might still enjoy that too.

 

[Dr Wu]

On a personal note, and drawing on decades of reading and reflecting upon the original Foundation series, I consider the trilogy's finest sections to be: (a) the first half of Foundation: (b) virtually all of Foundation & Empire: and (c) the first third of Second Foundation. I also consider the Mule to be one of SF's greatest characters - a wonderfully realized and satisfyingly complex creation, evoking both fear and pity, at least in this reader's mind. I just hope the film-makers don't turn him into a brainless super-villain.

On an end note, clearly lung cancer is something of a medical dead-letter in Asimov's 1940s-slanted vision of the future, judging by all the tobacco-smoking that takes place in the three novels.

 

[lpetrich]

Here's a plot summary:

Spoiler

I. Foundation

1. The Psychohistorians -- Hari Seldon is tried for treason by the Committee of Public Safety, and he gets exiled to Terminus to help write the Encyclopedia Galactica.

2. The Encyclopedists -- Terminus is initially ruled by the Encyclopedia Galactica Foundation, but some nearby planets go independent of the Empire, forming the Four Kingdoms. Terminus City Mayor Salvor Hardin thinks that the Foundation is now dangerously weak, and he takes over in an office coup.

3. The Mayors -- The Foundation spreads its technology as a religion. But Salvor Hardin is challenged by an Actionist faction that wants direct action against the Four Kingdoms. Prince Regent Wienis of Anacreon sends an invasion fleet to conquer the Foundation under his son Prince Lefkin's command. But the Foundation deploys the Holy Kill Switch, and Lefkin calls it off and orders Wienis's arrest. Wienis eventually commits suicide, and Salvor Hardin's popularity gets a big boost.

4. The Traders -- The Foundation expands its influence with trade. The leaders of Askone are suspicious of that, but a Foundation trader wins the support of an Askonian politician with a machine that makes gold, and opens trade relations.

5. The Merchant Princes -- The Foundation now rules the Four Kingdoms, and its influence continues to spread. But the leaders of Korell get suspicious, and there is an interesting tangle of action. The Foundation discovers that it's using Galactic-Empire technology, meaning that that empire is still going. Korell eventually declares war on the Foundation, but the Foundation effectively embargoes it, and the effort collapses.

II. Foundation and Empire

1. The General -- That's Bel Riose. He prepares to attack the Foundation with the Empire's superior fleet. However, Nathan Devers and Ducem Barr pick up what he is doing, and they go to Emperor Cleon II about it. Though they end up having to flee, the Emperor recalls the general and orders him executed. If Bel Riose had succeeded, he would have become much more popular than the Emperor, and he might have decided to take over. Imagine Bel Riose crossing an outer-space version of the Rubicon river.

2. The Mule -- The Empire has collapsed, and the Galaxy is divided between the Foundation and several barbarian kingdoms. The Foundation has become dictatorial and incompetent, and some of the Trader-dominated outer regions were talking about rebellion. Then the Mule emerges, and conquers much of the Galaxy. At Terminus, the Foundation's leaders feel sure that the Seldon Plan means that they will win, but the Mule demonstrates otherwise, making Hari Seldon's most recent prercorded message grossly wrong. Having conquered the Foundation, the Mule stars to search for the mysterious Second Foundation.

III. Second Foundation

1. Search by the Mule -- Off to Tazenda and Rossem, but it's a false clue planted by the Second Foundation itself, and the Mule's empire collapses.

2. Search by the Foundation -- The Foundation's leaders are convinced that the Second Foundation is covertly present on Terminus, and hunts down some telepaths. But those are decoys sent there by the Second Foundation, which continues to run in the ruins of Trantor, in the center of the Galaxy.

Dr Wu, which parts did you like? I'm guess I: 1, 2, 3, II: 1,2, III: 1

Paul Krugman: Asimov's Foundation novels grounded my economics | Books | The Guardian

My Book – the one that has stayed with me for four-and-a-half decades – is Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, written when Asimov was barely out of his teens himself. I didn't grow up wanting to be a square-jawed individualist or join a heroic quest; I grew up wanting to be Hari Seldon, using my understanding of the mathematics of human behaviour to save civilisation.

Referring to Atlas Shrugged and Lord of the Rings.

OK, economics is a pretty poor substitute; I don't expect to be making recorded appearances in the Time Vault a century or two from now. But I tried.

He conceded that he had had a teenage crush on Arkady Darell. She appears in the last half of the trilogy.

He then compares the Foundation Trilogy to prophetic fantasy like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time.

Yet if the Foundation books are a tale of prophecy fulfilled, it's a very bourgeois version of prophecy. This is no tale of the secret heir coming into his heritage, of the invincible swordsman winning the day with his prowess. Asimov clearly despises both aristocracy and militarism; his heroes, such as they are, are unpretentious and a bit uncouth, with nothing martial about them. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent," declares Mayor Salvor Hardin.

 

[RaulTheUCSCSlug]

This seems right up HBO's alley! Read the first one, and never got around to reading the rest when college started (not an excuse though)!