Hari Seldon - Forward The Foundation

Forward The Foundation

This novel is actually told as a sequence of short stories, just as was the case with the original trilogy. They take place at intervals a decade or more apart, and tell the story of Hari's life, starting about ten years after Prelude and ending with his death. The stories contrast his increasingly successful professional life with his increasingly unsuccessful personal life.

Seldon becomes involved in politics when Eto Demerzel becomes a target for a smear campaign conducted by Laskin Joranum. He eventually takes Demerzel's place as First Minister, despite his reluctance to divide his attention between government and the development of Psychohistory. His career comes to an end when Cleon I is assassinated by his gardener (a random event Seldon could not have predicted) and the seizure of power by a military junta. Seldon eventually causes the fall of the junta by dropping subtle false hints about what Psychohistory foresees, leading to the Junta making unpopular decisions. However, an agent of the Junta inside Seldon's team, having deduced that Dors is a robot, builds a device that ultimately kills her, leaving Seldon heartbroken. Years later, Seldon discovers that his grand-daughter Wanda has telepathic abilities and begins searching for others like her but fails. Raych eventually decides to move his family to the planet Santanni, but Wanda chooses to remain with her elderly grandfather. However, just after they arrive a rebellion breaks out on the planet and Raych is killed in the fighting. His wife and child are lost when their ship disappears. Seldon eventually finds Stettin Palver, another telepath who becomes Wanda's husband and the pair are eventually instrumental in creating the Second Foundation.

Seldon mentions two indigenous species of Helicon: the lamec and the greti. The first is a hardworking animal, while the latter is dangerous as indicated by the native Helicon saying "If you ride a greti, you find you can't get off; for then it will eat you." The saying bears an uncanny resemblance to the age-old Chinese proverb "He who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount" (騎虎難下). The words lamec and greti are anagrams of camel and tiger, respectively.

In his old age, he gains the nickname Raven for his dire predictions of the future.