Foundation (Apple) [** SPOILERS **]

corkie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117955894#Comment_117955894

Axioms

• "that the population whose behavior was modeled should be sufficiently large
• that the population should remain in ignorance of the results of the application of psychohistorical analyses because if it is aware, the group changes its behaviour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychohistory_%28fictional%29

So far, I have read through the first seven novelette's linked above, hope I'm not spoiling the TV series for myself.

But as it is adaptation, which is pulling content from across Asimov's novels. Merging of the 'robot' and 'foundation' stories didn't happen till later books.

Foundation: All Major Changes The Show Makes To Isaac Asimov's Books

Talisman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117956325#Comment_117956325

Thanks for that link. It appears that they have changed loads in their tv adaptation, it's hard to see where they are going with some of the changes. I must read the books again before diving into the series.

somuj

Utter nonsense. How anybody is supposed to know what's going on is beyond me.

Might read the first book. Don't like giving up on Scifi till after the first season.

Talisman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117958136#Comment_117958136

I don't think you'll get much insight by reading the first book, Foundation. It's a short read but its content deals with events on Terminus and the surrounding systems in the years after the project is established.

From what I've read about the tv series, it's a twist on the story of the Foundation books and built on the material in the Galactic Empire and Robot series of books.

corkie

Yes the novelettes, I have been reading (linked previous page). Deal with events from terminus on.

There is a missing link from the wiki.

Second Foundation "...And Now You Don't" Part 3 (Currently reading part 2, which let me know of the 3rd).

It is clear from the early path the series has taken, that it is an adaptation that varies from what is in the first 3 wriiten novels(novelettes).

Source of all again: - https://www.reddit.com/r/asimov/comments/a7wlf5/all_the_issues_of_astounding_science_fiction_in/

Audio Drama instead?

The Foundation series audio drama, 1973, complete (8 parts)

by

BBC Radiophonic Workshop

VinLieger

While i loved the 3rd episode, expecially the last days of brother dusk and how the whole cleon cycle works im still not on board with how many changes theyve made,

Spoiler Warning

the latest one giving the foundation access to the psychohistory calculations whether they can read them or decypher them doesnt matter it changes the entire purpose and idea of the plan. Im also assuming Gaal Dornick is off to startup the 2nd foundation

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117958136#Comment_117958136

See this is the opinion im expecting from the vast majority of those who are watching it but also haven't read the books. The entire show makes no sense due to a severe lack of exposition so far at least.

Edit: im giving up on trying to get the fecking spoiler tags working, sorry for anyone who gets spoiled but blame the new site being utter trash.

Slydice

3: Aaaaaah 🙂 Everything is so Sci-Fi-ey 🙂 The house design

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of the warden looks sooo old school scifi

Right so, guessing then that

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The Vault could well be Aliens or the empire like the show say.. yeah maybe.. also the thought came to mind that maybe it's a previous civilisations version of Foundation and this is the second time this has happened! That'd be cool.

Guessing that the arrival

Spoiler Warning

of the Anacreons is down to maybe a war kicking off with /within the Empire or.. maybe Gaal ended up over with them and so now they have come to help or hinder

corkie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117964485#Comment_117964485

Thanks for posting, seriesguide didn't have the episode airing for another few hours.

Spoiler Warning

In PC Browser. To spoil text, look to the icon on the left handside of the typed text. Click on it, then the quote symbol + spoiler icon.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058199126/how-can-i-a-users-guide-to-the-new-site#latest

On the latest episode, I don't want to comment on the theories because of recently reading the foundation trilogy, Anacreons but looks like they are following

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the path of the first sheldon crisis

Talisman

I have just watched the first two episodes and think it's amazing. They have altered so much but I think they had to modernise the story and make elements futuristic by today's standards. I watched it with my son and it was interesting to get his reaction to the story so far, he picked up on a few things but his speculation about what he thinks is going on is way off the mark so it will be interesting to see how he reacts when things are revealed.

The Vault - it looks futuristic by today's standards which was needed because Alexa/Google/Siri would make the technology stack envisioned by Asimov seem like a cave painting by comparison.

The destruction of the Star Bridge and its fallout is like a callback to what happened 20 years and the resulting 'War on Terror'. I suppose that is one way to get the show to resonate with the audience and catch more people's attention. The original story line would seem banal by comparison.

Daneel/Demerzel - there's so much depth to the character already. I think changing the character to a female works in tandem with the clone emperors setup, the system of government is different so the character is the power behind the throne. There has been no mention of the fact that the character pre-dates the empire by several thousand years. There were a few nice touches like evidence of the Robot Laws when she protected Brother Dusk in the temple without concern for her own safety. However, I'm not sure how the raid at the lab happened with Demerzel present because those weapons didn't look like "phasers set to stun" so the situation was a clear violation of the First Law. A few things that were said to Brother Dawn leave things open to interpretation for future twists/reveals.

Seldon's death:

Spoiler Warning

Seldon had Raych kill him in order to remove himself from the equation, he hadn't expected to be on the ship. There was a device behind Seldon's ear which Raych removed which I presume was some neural transfer tech. It will presumably explain things to Gaal and help to establish Second Foundation.

Salvor Hardin's lineage and the Vault:

Spoiler Warning

Salvor is possibly the daughter of Gaal and isn't affected by the field around the Vault because it's coded for their DNA or perhaps she shares Gaal's mental powers and is able to block it out.

fritzelly

I'm confused - why was Gaal ejected off the ship and what has happened to her?

Talisman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117965322#Comment_117965322

In the books, Seldon didn't travel to Terminus. He started the another project. I think this change to the storyline in episode 2 is to establish the myth of Seldon and also have Gaal establish the second project. I don't want to say too much more because it will spoil the future series.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117964649#Comment_117964649

Good guess and unless they are massively straying from the books your wrong about the vault, the books clearly state what it is prior to it "opening" and i think the changes to it are one of the best adjustments so far especially for a TV show audience.

Spoiler Warning

Your first theory about the anacreons is right, the empire is in serious decay and as we learned cannot be contacted anymore so the outer edges of the galaxy are a law unto themselves now. Also Gaal is not with the anacreons

Tristram

Very strong start with the first two episodes. Bit of a change of pace with the third but excited to see where it goes.

bnt

One central theme from the books that I expect to survive relatively unscathed:

Spoiler Warning

the Vault coming in to play during the forthcoming crisis on Terminus. In the books it's how Seldon intervenes, long after he's dead, to "nudge" the Foundation in the correct general direction. So I expect that he was behind the Vault, and we'll see his face again in recordings.

In the books there was no real mystery about the purpose of the Vault, but in the series to date, there is. To get the Vault created, shipped to Terminus ahead of the "slow ship", then have it set up like that with the Null Field technology, suggests that Seldon had Imperial help. Who do we know who is high in the Imperial ranks, who might be sympathetic to the Seldon Plan? There is more than one possibility.

Minor spoiler: part of the overarching plot of the books (and presumably the 80-episode plan) derives from the limitations of Seldon's Psychohistory approach. It's like a weather forecast: as time goes by, predictions of the future become less accurate, and the chances of something unforeseen become greater. When Asimov was writing these stories, Chaos Theory (including the "butterfly effect") and behavioural sciences (including recent Nudge Theory) were in their infancy, but I think he was aware of them in general terms. In Chaos Theory, complex behaviour can result from a simple setup: it can be completely deterministic (no randomness) but still unpredictable and chaotic. Nudge Theory is about humans can be influenced by indirect, non-confrontational interventions. My memory of the later books is spotty, but I expect the show to lean more on such "human factors" than Asimov did in the 1940s.

corkie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117965322#Comment_117965322

As her story-line is different to the books (which include a gender swap) no one knows what the TV Series has planned for her. As decades have now past in Terminus only by the use of cryogenic suspension can we expect to see her again.

Spoiler Warning

the cryogenic suspension could be a smart plot device to allow Gaal to continue to be important to the ongoing narrative in the TV series, allowing her to reemerge decades later.

^^^ https://screenrant.com/foundation-episode-2-ending-explained-gaal-hari-death/

Spoiler Warning

Llobell does feature in some capacity, though. As season 1's narrator, Loubell's voice can be heard at various intervals during episode 3. This is a call back to Dornick's role in the Foundation book series, too, where Dornick ends up being Seldon's biographer.

^^^ https://www.techradar.com/news/foundation-episode-3-recap-the-past-always-comes-back-to-haunt-you

Talisman

Demerzel got another level in episode 3, the robot is there because they choose to be and not due to servitude.

Cleon I: I always assumed you'd stay on after I was gone. But it occurred to me, in the near-darkness of my life that I shouldn't take anything for granted.

The conversations with Cleon I and Brother Dusk the day before his ascension have a little hint of the Zeroth Law about them.

To Cleon I: I'm loyal to the Empire.

To Brother Dusk: Empire is always on my mind.

Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.

The relationship with Cleon I is so much more than with the clones. The clones, Brother Day in particular are out of touch with the Empire. From the previous episode it seems that they only begin to realise their own humanity and question their role in their twilight years. They are really only a shadow of Cleon I.

Brother Day: We are the great dream of Cleon I, not the Star Bridge.

There's more than a touch of hubris to that suggestion.

I wasn't sure how the Salvor Hardin could be a gun wielding character because "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" is the their motto in the books. The Anacreon occupation of Terminus is a good opportunity to evolve the character.

Forget the Plan. Seldon's gone. When are any of you gonna start thinking for yourselves?

The connection to the Galactic Empire is gone so this is the end of the Encyclopedists cycle and presumably Hardin is going to get the settlers thinking outside the box from this point forward.

Spoiler Warning

Seeing as Seldon's involvement in politics on Trantor was ignored for the series they might avoid that path with Hardin. They could skip over Hardin as Mayor of the settlement and get straight into trading with the other planets of the periphery. I don't recall the Hugo character appearing in the books but the fact that he's a trader helps get the ball rolling and they will now have to sustain themselves without the support of the empire.

corkie

Spoiler Warning

Daniel MacPherson's Hugo is another wholly original character for Foundation's TV show. There is no similar character in any of Isaac Asimov's novels.

+

Much like Gaal and Raych's relationship (in episode 2) is a new inclusion in the TV adaptation, so too his Salvor and Hugo's. There's a distinct lack of romance in Asimov's book series early on, so this is the TV series' way of rectifying this.

^^^ Daniel MacPherson's Hugo + romance

At this stage I think we should add spoilers to the thread title. This is getting hard to read.

corkie

Just for the sake of completeness anyone reading the novelettes linked earlier in thread.

You may have notice that there was one missing? 'The Psychohistorians'

The Psychohistorians is the only part of the Foundation Trilogy that was not originally published in Astounding Magazine and was, in fact, the last part of the trilogy that Asimov wrote (though, chronologically, it describes the earliest events). Asimov wrote this story circa 1950 when the series was being prepared for publication in book form by Gnome Press, who felt that the series began too abruptly.

https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Foundation

William Shatner reads Foundation by Isaac Asimov Vinyl Side 1

William Shatner reads Foundation by Isaac Asimov Vinyl Side 2

Above are youtube links, but that chapter of the books is included in the audio drama.

JimmyVik

I cant tell you how much ive been longing for the last 35 years or so for a tv series based on foundation.

I also cant tell you how dissapointed i am with this series after the first 3 episodes. I had such high hopes. Dashed.

Slydice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117969433#Comment_117969433

I'm in two minds about that.. Not sure if there's enough posts to keep two threads alive but have been thinking of starting a non-book-readers thread.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117978703#Comment_117978703

Since the tv show couldn’t film the books as written you were always going to be disappointed.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117982267#Comment_117982267

No. Im always happy to see any adaptation and never compare the book to the screen version.

I even liked I, Robot and Bi-centennial man.

But Apples foundation is just drivel dressed up in a tiny bit of nice gfx, disguising cheap sets.

Its so far off the mark.

corkie

@JimmyVik Your not alone in not liking this series.

Mixed positive and negative reviews on rotten tomatoes.

David S. Goyer Talks ‘Foundation,’ Taking Liberties With Source Material & Stepping Away From Superheroes [The Playlist Podcast]

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117983194#Comment_117983194

I think i'll give it the 10 episodes and see what i think then, but usually ive my mind made up on a series by episode 3 or 4 :)

So 4 better be good.

EoinMcLovin

https://tvline.com/2021/10/07/foundation-renewed-season-2-apple-tv-plus/

----

JP Liz V1

Is it worth a look? I don’t know the source material

Talisman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991132#Comment_117991132

Like the books upon which the series is based, it's a slow burner. The visuals are great and I'm enjoying how they have adapted the material, but a few people I know that haven't read the books are wondering when the story will begin.

corkie

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

@EoinMcLovin Thanks for posting the renewed link.

Episode 4 out of possible 80.

this is a real slow-burn and with so many episodes still planned by Apple, it remains to be seen whether that slow burn actually has some good pay-off later on down the line.

This episode was a far better one. Hints of plot lines are coming out and the characters/world building is paying off.

I do not like the cinematography though (of all episodes so far). All these lingering slow shots are meant to build atmosphere but all they really do is slow everything to a crawl and pad the runtime