Finished: August 03, 2024
Why I read this
Having explored the universes of Dune, Hyperion, and Ender’s Game, and having left the genre for a moment I was itching to get back to something science fiction. There’s just something about the idea of vast new worlds teeming with new life and technology that inspires me more than most other things. One of my favorite dinner party type questions is to ask people the hypothetical that if it was revealed tomorrow that there was a mission leaving in a day or a week to Mars, or another planet and you were offered a one way ticket on it, would you take it? While many people have an easy time answering it with a flat, “no”, well justified by the fact that they could never leave everything behind, there are often the few that struggle to answer the question. The few where the adventure of a once in a life time opportunity to see something that has never been seen before, or do something that has never been done before has an aluring appeal. In my head I’ve always answered “yes” to that question, however, as I’ve aged the question gets harder and harder. Especially after finding someone with which I’d like to spend my life the question requires a second question of whether or not she could come with me where a “no” to the second cascades to an automatic “no” for the first. If she could (and would) come with me, I’m not sure I could resist the opportunity to experience being a part of those select few who will change our current society into one of science fiction.
Yet, until someone offers me a golden ticket to Mars, I’m left dreaming of all the things the universe might be now, and in the future. So, having a familiarity with some of the greats of science fiction, it was well overdue that I tackle some more of the works by Isaac Asimov, and what better place to continue than with Foundation.
What I learned
As much as I have picked on books compiled of short stories recently (Olive Kitteridge and A Visit from the Goon Squad), I managed to find myself with yet another collection of short stories in a common universe. The four chapters making up the history of the titular Foundation are separated by generations, and have few, if any, of the same characters or ideas, just a continuation on the main themes. These main themes being centered around the oddly historical and futuristic idea of the fall of empires and the resulting aftermaths.
Much like how the collapse of the Roman Empire, which dominated western human history for 1,000 years, sent humanity sprawling into almost another 1,000 years of dark ages, Asimov’s Galactic Empire, having existed for 12,000 years of total interstellar domination, promises a fall of much greater consequence diminishing human progress for at predicted 3,000 years. This fall is predicted by the professorial Hari Seldon, who has invented a method of psychohistory that can estimate, with great accuracy, the future of human history. Discovering the fall too late to stop it, Seldon initiates a plan to create a society of scientists and knowledge workers and set them on a path which, if successful, will reduce this dark age of humanity to roughly 1,000 years. This group of scientists becoming the society known as The Foundation.
The telling of this story is broken into four parts each separated by years, if not decades and instead of concentrating on the classic science fiction tropes, Asimov uses the setting of space as a backdrop to explore socio-economic problems. Similar to the way I.Robot collected a variety of stories highlighting the problems of creating artifical life, so too does Foundation ask questions about the rise and fall of empires and the methods of controlling the masses during such events.
Surprisingly there is no discussion about the normal technological advances required in a futuristic society such as how faster than light travel is discovered or any attempts to explain how any of the frequently referenced technological marvels can possibly function. There is no mention of multiple languages, or different species. Ultimately, everything in the world of Foundation is remarkably similar to today other than relatively straight forward technological advances (advances in nuclear power, interstellar travel, etc.). There are none of the typical divergences from traditional human society seen in groupes like Hyperion’s Ousters who have merged technology with their bodies to have become super-human, or techno-biological marvels such as the Tleilax in Dune who have incredible cloning capabilities. In Foundation, people live normal life spans, eat normal food, and wear normal clothes. Even the titles and structures of the society (mayors, kings, emporers, admiral, etc.) all remain at least close enough to modern titles that the function of each role is immediately apparent, something that I find hard to believe would not change dramatically over a period of 12 000 years. All of this to say, that maybe Asimov was more of a allegorist than truly a science fiction pundit.
In each of his four stories here, he presents a different challenge that could apply equally to a futuristic society as to a modern one. All of which review the different drivers of human history as they relate to large groups, force of arms and desire for conquest, technological suppremacy, religious fervor, or economic greed. Each chapter hosts a hero who shows that when applied properly, these levers can be all-powerful, often showing that the poor application of another lever by the always incompetent antognist can be remarkably ineffective. These chapters likely related closely to the challenges as Asimov’s times. Such as the absolute dominance of other groups that is possible with a technological advantage. He wrote Foundation just after the end of World War Two when nuclear power, and nuclear weaponry had just been discovered. Nothing could have exemplified the point made by Asimov that “only nuclear can challenge nuclear” than seeing the results of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those who have that level of technology would be unstoppable compared to those that do not. He then went on to live through the Cold War, seeing just how true it was that those countries that were technological advanced grew rapidly (USSR, USA) and those that were not, did not.
This can further relate to the modern situation of the war in Ukraine, just how Ukraine can hold out against a far larger power because of the technology supplied by the combined West, so too was the small society of Foundation able to hold out against their various, larger enemies.
It brings us to an eerie comparison that the domination of planets by the Foundation community is largely because of their nuclear power capabilities, as all the other planets have forgotten how to build and run these plants. It is eerily similar to our current situation where the West struggles so much to build new nuclear while China appears to be building reactor after reactor without challenge. Are we slidding backwards on technological advancement? Was Asimov able to see the major trends of the empires on Earth like Hari Seldon?
Regardless of their simplicity, the scenarios of Asimov prove that the man had a wonderful grasp on human psychology. He appeared to understand deeply what makes people tick and how groups tend to act. It brought me to the question of who really knows humans the best? Who understands humankind the best? Many would think it is sociologists, or psychologists, or even anthropologists, but I would make an argument that writters might hold this position. In the non-stop efforts of writing sometimes hundreds of books, filled with (hopefully) realistic characters writers must understand innately the things other professions have to learn in text books and studies. Whether it is Adams and his goofy reflections on the absurd, or Herbert with his great cycles of human history, in the end if you want to write good books, you have to write real people.
What I didn’t like
I am not sure that I really understood the concept of Deus Ex Machina until I had it drilled into my head by this book. For some reason it is not something I noted until halfway through Foundation that was also extremely present in I.Robot. Again and again Asimov creates a detailed scenario involving complex and detailed variables yet each time, our heros (who are often next to omnipotent) are able to find one single solution that magically works unilaterally. All problems are resolved, and our hero is elevated to mythic status. I greatly enjoyed the scenarios and many of the characters present within them, but at the end of the day the solutions felt unrealistic and too good to be true. Not once was one of our heros wrong about a single thing. Each time they did their Sherlock Holmes dance at the end of the scenario explaining how they knew everything all along.
Questions I asked
Since humans are generally predicatable on large scales (for example with sociological experiments, you can generally predict the behavior of large groups of people in favor of one action or another) is it possible that one day we could make broad predictions about the human race like Hari Seldon’s pyschohistory?
Is the US an Empire? Are we on the decline, or will we collapse one day?
Would humanity really change so little after such a long period of time (12,000 years)?
My Favorite Quote
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Salvo Hardin
Books I liked like this one
I Robot : Isaac Asimov (for a very similar feel in a different setting)
Dune The Butlerian Jihad : Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (a similar concept of a Galactic Empire)
Book Reviews for Mom 