Buzz Bloom said:
Can you be specific about the holes you see, or at least some examples?
When you say "this is less detained". what do you mean by "this"?
Regards,
Buzz
Original series is less detailed.
Figuring out how the Empire operated in the first place.
Because, inter alia, Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale.
In Foundation, we see Lord Chancellor as the only representative of Empire traveling to Terminus.
Well, few details then. But in Bridle and Saddle, we get a bit more:
Salvor Hardin said:
How the mighty had fallen! Kingdoms! They were prefects in the old days, all part of the same province, which in turn had been part of a sector, which in turn had been part of a quadrant, which in turn had been part of the allembracing Galactic Empire. And now that the Empire had lost control over the farther reaches of the Galaxy, these little splinter groups of planets became kingdoms with comic-opera kings and nobles, and petty, meaningless wars, and a life that went on pathetically among the ruins.
Lord Chancellor of Empire not wanting to bother suppressing Anacreon´s rebellion is plausibly explained - he was going to return to Trantor, little gain from poor Periphery.
But what were the governors of Province, Sector and Quadrant thinking? With the Periphery abandoned by Empire, their jobs would vanish - unless it was they themselves who became Kings, and that would also have involved suppressing Anacreon´s rebellion.
Perhaps Province, Sector and Quadrant were mere groupings on a map, and the actual administrative subordination was Prefect directly to Trantor?
Plausible, until...
We get the size of that "little splinter group of planets" still in Bridle and Saddle:
Isaac Asimov said:
The trip left him with an oppressive realization of the vastness of the kingdom. It was a little splinter, an insignificant fly speck compared to the inconceivable reaches of the Galactic Empire of which it had once formed so distinguished a part; but to one whose habits of thought had been built around a single planet, and a sparsely settled one at that, Anacreon's size in area and population was staggering.
Following closely the boundaries of the old Prefect of Anacreon, it embraced twenty-five stellar systems, six of which included more than one inhabited world. The population of nineteen billion, though still far less than it had been in the Empire's heyday was rising rapidly with the increasing scientific development fostered by the Foundation.
How did Trantor run the inconceivable reaches without intermediate level governors?
It´s finally in Dead Hand that these inconceivable reaches are specified:
Isaac Asimov said:
there circled the huge Imperial planet, Trantor. But it was more than a planet; it was the living pulse beat of an Empire of twenty million stellar systems.
Siwenna, of 20 planets, was one of roughly a million administrative units on its level.
How was Bel Riose going to get the ear of Emperor?
Worse, how was Bel Riose going to get the ear of Parliament? If it was a known politically sensitive matter to open any business with Parliament?
A plausible Empire should have decided the matter on the level of some intermediate governor. And decided to forbid Bel Riose to fight. Cleon and Brodrig discussed enough reasons - it is a plothole that they permitted Bel Riose to fight in the first place.
