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Fictional universe created by Isaac Asimov From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Foundation universe is the future history of humanity's colonization of the galaxy, spanning nearly 25,000 years, created through the gradual fusion of the Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation book series written by American author Isaac Asimov.
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The Foundation series is set in the same universe as Asimov's first published novel, Pebble in the Sky, although Foundation takes place about 10,000 years later. Pebble in the Sky became the basis for the Galactic Empire series. Then, at some unknown date (prior to writing Foundation's Edge) Asimov decided to merge the Foundation/Galactic Empire series with his Robot series. Thus, all three series are set in the same universe, giving them a combined length of 18 novels, and a total of about 1,500,000 words. The merge also created a time-span of the series of around 20,000 years.
The Stars, Like Dust states explicitly that the Earth is radioactive because of a nuclear war. Asimov later explained that the in-universe reason for this perception was that it was formulated by Earthmen many centuries after the event, and which had become distorted, due to the loss of much of their planetary history.[citation needed] This work is generally regarded as part of the Empire series, but does not directly mention either Trantor or the other Spacer worlds. One character is said to have a Visi-Sonor, the same musical instrument that is played by the clown Magnifico in Foundation and Empire.
Asimov integrated the Robot series into his all-encompassing Foundation series, making the robot R. Daneel Olivaw appear again twenty thousand years later in the age of the Galactic Empire, in sequels and prequels to the original Foundation trilogy; and in the final book of the Robots series, Robots and Empire, Asimov describes how the worlds that later formed the Empire were settled, and how Earth became radioactive (which was first mentioned in Pebble in the Sky).
The stand-alone novel Nemesis is also in the same continuity; being referenced in Forward the Foundation, where Hari Seldon refers to a twenty-thousand-year-old story of "a young woman that could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis". Commentators noted that Nemesis contains barely disguised references to the Spacers and their calendar system, the Galactic Empire, and even to Hari Seldon which seem to have been deliberately placed for the purpose of later integration into the Foundation universe.[1]
The foreword to Prelude to Foundation contains the chronological ordering of Asimov's science fiction books. Asimov stated that the books of his Robot, Empire, and Foundation series "offer a kind of history of the future, which is, perhaps, not completely consistent, since I did not plan consistency, to begin with." Asimov also noted that the books in his list "were not written in the order in which (perhaps) they should be read".[2] In the Author's Note, Asimov noted that there is room for a book between Robots and Empire and The Currents of Space, and that he could follow Foundation and Earth with additional volumes.
Forward the Foundation, Nemesis, and The Positronic Man do not appear in Asimov's list, as they were not yet published at the time, and the order of the Empire novels in Asimov's list is not entirely consistent with other lists. For example, the 1983 Ballantine Books printing of The Robots of Dawn lists the Empire novels as: The Stars, Like Dust, The Currents of Space, and Pebble in the Sky. Given that The Currents of Space includes Trantor and that The Stars, Like Dust does not, these two books possibly were accidentally reversed in Asimov's list.
While not mentioned in the "Author's Note" of Prelude to Foundation, the novels The End of Eternity (1955), Nemesis (1989), and The Positronic Man (1992) (written by Robert Silverberg) are related to the greater Foundation series.
The End of Eternity is vaguely referenced in Foundation's Edge, where a Gaian character in Foundation and Earth mentions the Eternals, whose "task it was to choose a reality that would be most suitable to Humanity". (The End of Eternity also refers to a "Galactic Empire" within its story.) Asimov himself did not mention The End of Eternity in the series listing from Prelude to Foundation. As for Nemesis, it was written after Prelude to Foundation, but in the author's note Asimov explicitly states that the book is not part of the Foundation or Empire series, but that someday he might tie it to the others.
In Forward the Foundation, Hari Seldon refers to a 20-thousand-year-old story of "a young woman that could communicate with an entire planet that circled a sun named Nemesis", a reference to Nemesis. In Nemesis, the main colony is one of the Fifty Settlements, a collection of orbital colonies that form a state. The Fifty Settlements possibly were the basis for the fifty Spacer worlds in the Robot stories. The implication at the end of Nemesis that the inhabitants of the off-Earth colonies are splitting off from Earthbound humans could also be connected to a similar implication about the Spacers in Mark W. Tiedemann's Robot books. According to Alasdair Wilkins, in a discussion posted on Gizmodo, "Asimov absolutely loves weird, elliptical structures. All three of his non-robot/Foundation science fiction novels – The End of Eternity, The Gods Themselves, and Nemesis – leaned heavily on non-chronological narratives, and he does it with gusto in The Gods Themselves."[3]
In The Robots of Dawn, Dr. Han Fastolfe briefly summarizes the story from "The Bicentennial Man" (1976), which was later expanded by Robert Silverberg into the novel The Positronic Man (1992).
The foreword to Prelude to Foundation contains the chronological ordering of Asimov's science fiction books. Asimov stated that the books of his Robot, Galactic Empire, and Foundation series "offer a kind of history of the future, which is, perhaps, not completely consistent, since I did not plan consistency to begin with." Asimov also noted that the books in his list "were not written in the order in which (perhaps) they should be read."[4]
The following works are listed in chronological order by narrative:
Asimov's novels covered only 500 of the expected 1,000 years it would take for the Foundation to become a galactic empire. The novels that were written after Asimov did not continue the timeline but rather sought to fill in gaps in the earlier stories. The Foundation universe was once again revisited in 1989's Foundation's Friends, a collection of short stories written by many prominent science fiction authors of that time. Orson Scott Card's "The Originist" clarifies the founding of the Second Foundation shortly after Seldon's death; Harry Turtledove's "Trantor Falls" tells of the efforts by the Second Foundation to survive during the sacking of Trantor, the imperial capital and Second Foundation's home; and George Zebrowski's "Foundation's Conscience" is about the efforts of a historian to document Seldon's work following the rise of the Second Galactic Empire.
Also, shortly before his death in 1992, Asimov approved an outline for three novels by Roger MacBride Allen, known as the Caliban trilogy, set between Robots and Empire and the Empire series. The Caliban trilogy describes the terraforming of the Spacer world Inferno, a planet where an ecological crisis forces the Spacers to abandon many long-cherished parts of their culture. Allen's novels echo the uncertainties that Asimov's later books express about the Three Laws of Robotics, and in particular the way a thoroughly roboticized culture can degrade human initiative.
After Asimov's death and at the request of Janet Asimov and the Asimov estate's representative, Ralph Vicinanza approached Gregory Benford and asked him to write another Foundation story. He eventually agreed, and with Vicinanza and after speaking "to several authors about [the] project", formed a plan for a trilogy with "two hard SF writers broadly influenced by Asimov and of unchallenged technical ability: Greg Bear and David Brin."[6] Foundation's Fear (1997) takes place chronologically between part one and part two of Asimov's second prequel novel, Forward the Foundation; Foundation and Chaos (1998) is set at the same time as the first chapter of Foundation, filling in the background; Foundation's Triumph (1999) covers ground following the recording of the holographic messages to the Foundation, and ties together a number of loose ends. These books are now claimed by some[7][8] to collectively be a "Second Foundation trilogy", although they are inserts into pre-existing prequels and some of the earlier Foundation storylines and not generally recognized as a new Trilogy.
In an epilogue to Foundation's Triumph, Brin noted he could imagine himself or a different author writing another sequel to add to Foundation's Triumph, feeling that Hari Seldon's story was not yet necessarily finished. He later published a possible start of such a book on his website.[9]
More recently, the Asimov estate authorized the publication of another trilogy of robot mysteries by Mark W. Tiedemann. These novels, which take place several years before Asimov's Robots and Empire, are Mirage (2000), Chimera (2001), and Aurora (2002). These were followed by yet another robot mystery, Alexander C. Irvine's Have Robot, Will Travel (2004), set five years after the Tiedemann trilogy.
In 2001, Donald Kingsbury published the novel Psychohistorical Crisis, set in the Foundation universe after the start of the Second Empire.
Novels by various authors (Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots and Aliens and Robots in Time series) are loosely connected to the Robot series, but contain many inconsistencies with Asimov's books, and are not generally considered part of the Foundation series.
In November 2009, the Isaac Asimov estate announced the publication of a prequel to I, Robot under the working title Robots and Chaos, the first volume in a prequel trilogy featuring Susan Calvin by fantasy author Mickey Zucker Reichert. The first book was published in November 2011 under the title I, Robot: To Protect, followed by I, Robot: To Obey in 2013 and I, Robot: To Preserve in 2016.[10]
The following works are listed in chronological order by narrative:
C | Year | Title | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
2011 | I, Robot: To Protect | New prequel I, Robot trilogy by Mickey Zucker Reichert | |
2013 | I, Robot: To Obey | New prequel I, Robot trilogy by Mickey Zucker Reichert | |
2016 | I, Robot: To Preserve | New prequel I, Robot trilogy by Mickey Zucker Reichert | |
1 | 1950 | I, Robot | The first collection of Robot short stories, all of which were included in The Complete Robot, except for the binding text, which is absent from The Complete Robot. |
1964 | The Rest of the Robots | Includes 8 Robot short stories that were not in I, Robot, as well as the novels The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun | |
1982 | The Complete Robot | Omnibus of I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots, although not including the binding text from I, Robot or the novels The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun from The Rest of the Robots | |
1986 | Robot Dreams | Includes "Robot Dreams" and other short stories. | |
1990 | Robot Visions | Includes "Robot Visions," "Too Bad," "Christmas Without Rodney," and other short stories and essays. | |
1995 | Gold | A collection of short stories and essays, including robot short stories "Cal" and "Kid Brother". | |
1993 | Predator | First book of Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series by author William F. Wu | |
1993 | Marauder | Second book of Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series by author William F. Wu | |
1993 | Warrior | Third book of Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series by author William F. Wu | |
1994 | Dictator | Fourth book of Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series by author William F. Wu | |
1994 | Emperor | Fifth book of Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series by author William F. Wu | |
1994 | Invader | Sixth book of Isaac Asimov's Robots in Time series by author William F. Wu | |
2 | 1992 | The Positronic Man | Robot novel based on Asimov's short story "The Bicentennial Man", written by Robert Silverberg |
3 | 1989 | Nemesis | The novel is set in an era in which interstellar travel is in the process of being discovered and perfected. |
1948 | "Mother Earth" | Short story set between the early Earth era and the era of the Robot novels, at a time when the Spacer worlds were first being colonised. Contains some minor inconsistencies with later stories. Published in The Early Asimov, or Eleven Years of Trying[11] | |
4 | 1954 | The Caves of Steel | The first Robot novel. It is contained in The Rest of the Robots, although not in The Complete Robot. |
5 | 1957 | The Naked Sun | The second Robot novel. It is contained in The Rest of the Robots, although not in The Complete Robot. |
1972 | "Mirror Image" | Written after having received numerous requests to continue the story of detective Elijah Baley and his robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw, featured in his earlier novels The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. Published in The Complete Robot and later in Robot Visions.[12] | |
6 | 1983 | The Robots of Dawn | The third Robot novel. Hugo Award nominee, 1984[13] Locus Award nominee, 1984[13] |
1987 | Odyssey | First book of Isaac Asimov's Robot City series by Michael P. Kube-McDowell | |
1987 | Suspicion | Second book of Isaac Asimov's Robot City series by Mike McQuay | |
1987 | Cyborg | Third book of Isaac Asimov's Robot City series by William F. Wu | |
1988 | Prodigy | Fourth book of Isaac Asimov's Robot City series by Arthur Byron Cover | |
1988 | Refuge | Fifth book of Isaac Asimov's Robot City series by Rob Chilson | |
1988 | Perihelion | Sixth book of Isaac Asimov's Robot City series by William F. Wu | |
1989 | Changeling | First book of Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series by Stephen Leigh | |
1989 | Renegade | Second book of Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series by Cordell Scotten | |
1990 | Intruder | Third book of Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series by Robert Thurston | |
1990 | Alliance | Fourth book of Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series by Jerry Oltion | |
1990 | Maverick | Fifth book of Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series by Bruce Bethke | |
1990 | Humanity | Sixth book of Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens series by Jerry Oltion | |
2000 | Mirage | First book of the Robot Mystery series by Mark W. Tiedemann. | |
2001 | Chimera | Second book of the Robot Mystery series by Mark W. Tiedemann. | |
2002 | Aurora | Third book of the Robot Mystery series by Mark W. Tiedemann. | |
2005 | Have Robot, Will Travel | Fourth book of the Robot Mystery series; written by Alexander C. Irvine. | |
7 | 1985 | Robots and Empire | The fourth Robot novel. Locus Award nominee, 1986[14] |
1993 | Isaac Asimov's Caliban | Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. | |
1994 | Isaac Asimov's Inferno | Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. | |
1996 | Isaac Asimov's Utopia | Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. | |
8 | 1951 | The Stars, Like Dust | The first Empire novel. |
9 | 1952 | The Currents of Space | The second Empire novel. |
10 | 1950 | Pebble in the Sky | The third Empire novel; however, it was Asimov's first full novel to be published. |
1945 | "Blind Alley" | Short story set in the Foundation universe. Published in the March/1945 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, and later included in the collection The Early Asimov (1972). | |
11 | 1988 | Prelude to Foundation | This is the first Foundation novel. Locus Award nominee, 1989[15] |
12[note 1] | 1993 | Forward the Foundation | The second Foundation novel (although it was the last written by Asimov himself). |
1997 | Foundation's Fear | The first book of the Second Foundation trilogy by Gregory Benford. | |
1998 | Foundation and Chaos | The second book of the Second Foundation trilogy by Greg Bear. | |
1999 | Foundation's Triumph | The third book of the Second Foundation trilogy by David Brin. | |
13 | 1951 | Foundation | The third Foundation novel. Actually, it is a collection of four stories, originally published between 1942 and 1944, plus an introductory section written for the book in 1949. Published, slightly abridged, as part of an Ace Double paperback, D-110, with the title The 1000-Year Plan, in 1955. |
14 | 1952 | Foundation and Empire | The fourth Foundation novel, made up of two stories originally published in 1945. Published with the title The Man Who Upset the Universe as a 35c Ace paperback, D-125, in about 1952. |
15 | 1953 | Second Foundation | The fifth Foundation novel, made up of two stories, originally published in 1948 and 1949. |
16 | 1982 | Foundation's Edge | The sixth Foundation novel. Nebula Award nominee, 1982;[16] Hugo Award winner, 1983;[17] Locus Award winner, 1983[17] |
17 | 1986 | Foundation and Earth | The seventh Foundation novel. Locus Award nominee, 1987[18] |
1989 | Foundation's Friends | Foundation's Friends, Stories in Honor of Isaac Asimov is a 1989 anthology of short stories set in the timeline of the greater Foundation series. It was edited by Martin H. Greenberg, with contributing authors including Ray Bradbury, Robert Silverberg, Frederik Pohl, Poul Anderson, Harry Turtledove, and Orson Scott Card. | |
2001 | Psychohistorical Crisis | Psychohistorical Crisis is a science fiction novel by Donald Kingsbury. An expansion of his 1995 novella "Historical Crisis", it is a re-imagining of the world of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, set after the establishment of the Second Empire. | |
18 | 1955 | The End of Eternity | Members of the time-changing organization Eternity seek to ensure that their own organization is founded as history says it was, by ensuring the conditions for that event happen as history says they happened. Asimov tied this novel into his broader Foundation Series, by suggesting in Foundation's Edge that it is set in a universe where Eternity had existed but was destroyed by Eternals, resulting in an all-human galaxy. |
In Foundation (1951), famed mathematician and psychologist Hari Seldon has developed the science of psychohistory, which uses sophisticated mathematics and statistical analysis to predict future trends on a galactic scale. He has predicted the unavoidable and relatively imminent fall of the Galactic Empire, and intends to establish the Foundation, "a repository of crucial, civilization-preserving knowledge" that will enable society to revive itself more quickly and efficiently.[19][20]: 23–24 The Time Vault, created and programmed by Seldon, is designed to open "at defining moments in galactic history", known as "Seldon Crises", and impart crucial knowledge through holographically recorded messages from Seldon.[21][22] A Visi-Sonor is a multi-keyed musical instrument that produces holographic visual effects as well as music. By incorporating his own mental ability to manipulate emotions, The Mule is able to use the instrument to brainwash others in Foundation and Empire (1952).[23][24] In the prequel novel Prelude to Foundation (1988), Eto Demerzel, the First Minister and chief advisor to Emperor Cleon I, is revealed to be the ancient sentient robot R. Daneel Olivaw from Asimov's Robot series, one of the last of his kind.[20]: 213–215
The 2021 Apple TV+ television series adaptation Foundation includes technological elements not featured by Asimov in the novels.[21] Though cloning does not factor in Asimov's novels,[25] the television series introduces a "Genetic Dynasty", surreptitiously administered for centuries by the regal Lady Demerzel, an expanded and gender-swapped version of the character from Prelude to Foundation and its sequel, Forward the Foundation (1993).[21][26][27] In the series, the 12,000-year-old Empire is ruled by a revolving trio of Cleon I clones: Brother Day, a Cleon in his prime; Brother Dawn, a young Cleon being trained to succeed Brother Day; and Brother Dusk, a retired and aging Cleon who serves in an advisory role.[28]
In the television series, an aura is depicted as a protective force shield technology forbidden to everyone except the Emperors, but in season two it is revealed that the Foundation also possesses the technology and has distributed it to their envoys. Jumpships are starships capable of faster-than-light travel, operated by Spacers, genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced humans made capable of remaining conscious and functional during jumps. Though jump technology is initially possessed only by the Empire, the Foundation is able to reverse-engineer their own version using the captured warship Invictus. Called whisper-ships, these starships are able to jump without requiring a Spacer to navigate.[29] In the series, The Vault has been sent to Terminus ahead of the colonists who establish the Foundation. The object, which hovers above the ground, is surrounded by a "null field" that disorients humans, preventing anyone from approaching until the Vault itself allows them to. The exception is Salvor Hardin, the Warden and protector of Terminus, who possesses an inexplicable immunity to the field.[21][22] The Star Bridge is a massive structure on Trantor that serves as a space elevator connecting the surface of the planet to a starship platform in geosynchronous orbit. Known as the "tether" or the "stalk", transit from the platform to the surface of the planet takes 14 hours. When the Star Bridge is severed by a terrorist attack in "The Emperor's Peace", the bulk of it crashes to the surface and kills 100 million citizens.[30] Trader and con man Hober Mallow possesses a castling device which allows two people of similar mass to switch places via a form of teleportation. Imperial General Bel Riose uses it to switch places with the Emperor clone Brother Day in the season two finale "Creation Myths", resulting in Day being vented into space and killed.[31][32]
Asimov notes in "The Psychohistorians" that there are "nearly twenty-five million inhabited planets in the Galaxy".[33]
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