Spoiler warning, obviously! As usual, Joseph’s notes, thoughts, and musings from watching the episode. Simultaneously published at StarsEndPodcast.com.

Watching Foundation S2E02

Open on The Beggar floating in a storm on Synnax.

The reckoning begins. Gaal ripped Hari out of the Raven. He has been sentient ever since. So that awful black-and-white bit when AI Hari was in the knife handle went on for 138 years. Hologram Hari from the Vault said, “It would be bad for me to have been conscious this entire time,” and that was only thirty-five years or so. On the other hand, Hari was in the knife handle before Gaal got to the Raven. Why wasn’t he conscious then? Maybe it was the abruptness of the transfer. Maybe the Raven’s system woke him up. If that’s the case, why wasn’t he downloaded out of the knife?

The second smartest person in the galaxy didn’t realize that would happen. Besides, she told him she was upset about Raych. She’s had what, an extra day to get her head together? And in the meantime, she’s met her daughter who’s older than she is. Shouldn’t she still be off her game?

“We don’t have time for this Hari,” she tells him. “ I looked at the math. The plan’s gone off course.” This is true but the ship is about to sink again. Isn’t not dying a higher priority?

The plan has gone off course because there’s supposed to be a Second Foundation. This, of course, is exactly what we said on the podcast last week.

In quick succession, Hari meets Salvor, AI Hari calls Hologram Hari “the other one,“ and we learn war between the Empire and the Foundation is imminent.

Finally, they focus on what’s about to kill them all. Hari fixes the computer from the inside while Salvor fixes the external stuff. They get off the planet.

Evidently, you can fix a starship by stabbing and punching it. “Last refuge of the incompetent.”

Also, there’s no way Salvor wouldn’t be thrown off the outside of the ship. The mother and daughter hug was sweet though.

Siwenna, a planet in The Outer Reach

We see a woman (Brother Constant) dressed like a monk in red robes. She has a pendant that looks like the vault. Another monk is awoken from a drunken stupor. He uses “Dear Seldon,” as an exclamation like “Dear Lord.“ Together, they find the corpse of a third monk who was “killed for his beliefs in the teachings of Hari Seldon.“ Killed by lightning.

“They can keep their gods. We are just shining a light on the great force that underlies everything.” That’s objectively funny. How can any religion find that threatening?

Followed by “(Our aura’s) not much use against lightning.”

“Avoid lightning.”

That’s the same joke as, “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”

“Then don’t do that!”

Trantor

Demerzel and C-17 are musing about a former imperial dynasty. Under that dynasty, Cleon tells us the empire was four times as large. That doesn’t make sense. Maybe this means that the so-called Galactic Empire doesn’t span the entire galaxy, departing from the books. But if that’s true, how was the Empire not already in decline? Losing 75% of your Empire is a big deal. Are the producers just leaving space for aliens? Is this the equivalent of a typo?

Demerzel reports that the memory audits on Dawn and Dusk were clean. That only means that they have no recollection of hiring someone to kill C-17. He wants this “loophole“ closed. It seems to me they have an extra step here.

Demerzel suggests sending Bel Riose to check on the Foundation. We quickly learn that he is smarter than C-17 and prone to, let’s call it “creatively interpreting his orders.”

We see the three Cleons sitting at a meal. They’re being coached to act in unison, something 11, 12, and 13 did reflexively. This is the genetic drift. DNA can apparently be corrected, so why is it even a problem? The glib answer Dusk gives doesn’t satisfy me. C-17 is more determined than ever to marry and end the Genetic Dynasty. Dawn and Dusk aren’t happy.

Back to the Beggar.

That whole give a man a fish thing is too cliché. I’m not unpacking everything here.

But interestingly, Hari points out that the three of them are “decades from Terminus without a jump ship or access to a gate.” Is that why Salvor was in cryo-sleep? Did the Beggar travel for decades with a hull breach? This seems dubious.

Hari says, “First Foundation needs to be kept in the dark. Psychohistory predicts the natural patterns of humanity. Introduce too much information into the system, and you disturb it, which is why the system requires a counterpoint.” He means the Second Foundation. This is straight from Asimov’s books but it’s also why Hari and Gaal never should have been sent to Terminus to begin with. I think the writers may have listened to season two of our podcast.

And now Gaal is admitting that her and Salvor‘s abilities are two sides of the same coin as it were.

The big turning point is about 150 years in the future.

Trantor.

The Cleons dine with Sereth, C-17’s fiancé-designate, called “Dominion” here, and her chief of staff, Enjoinder Rue.

Dawn says he has always been fascinated by planetesimals. Theoretically, more than 1000 in the Cloud Dominion are populated. Planetesimals aren’t like Pluto and Ceres. They’re much smaller than that. Sedna, Phobos, and Vesta are some of the larger ones. They’re too small to have a reasonable gravitational field and there’s no way you could go skating on one. They’re not exactly prime real estate.

“…can’t you simply decant a new one of you and take their knees?” Barbaric.

There’s lots of verbal sparring and jabs. They discuss succession and the plan to replace the Genetic Dynasty. Sereth then pokes Brother Dawn with a metaphorical stick.

And she’s really too direct. “Won’t I be accomplishing what yesterday’s (assassination) attempt sought to do but could not?”

“Assassination by procreation” is a nice turn of phrase though.

Day and Sereth are casual and joking as the two visit C1 and the pickles. Then she quotes a forbidden poem about an uprising. She’s arrogant and thinks she has the upper hand here. She might be overreaching.

The two discuss getting rid of the spare pickles and future clones. This is clearly the plan I had postulated. Is it Luminism and Demerzel behind it? Then talk of intercourse, sterility, and combining genetic material.

Jockeying for advantage. Dominion is small. Empire shrinking. “There are rumors. But the integrity of your hermetically sealed lineage was corrupted some time ago.”

Is Sereth a Luminist? Could she be behind the plan rather than Demerzel?

Siwenna

The two monks are doing a membership drive, and we get to see “the magicians who fly through the air and cannot be touched.” The crowd which was initially hostile, turns curious too quickly. This is a real carnival sideshow, snake oil stuff. Their religion doesn’t appear to be exactly Scienceism since it presents Hari in religious terms, underpinned by mysticism.

The cleric is called “Poly.” That IS Poly Verisof.

There’s one guy in a straw hat that gets focused on. I wonder if he’s a Foundation plant.

I absolutely love the fact that their communicators print out text on strips. That seems silly but it’s consistent with the novels. They are being called back to Terminus because the vault is opening.

“The second coming of Seldon means the second crisis.”

And here is the real importance of the Invictus. The Foundation now has jump ship technology.

Back on The Beggar.

Gaal is afraid that if she goes to the turning point, she won’t be able to find her way back. Have we had any evidence that visits to the future were more than visions?

Then Gaal is inspired by her religion in which she doesn’t believe. She wants to suffocate herself in hopes of getting a vision of the future. Sigh.

Hari agrees, Gaal needs to drown. Maybe we’re not actually done with that reckoning.

But she does have a vision. She sees the Mule who sees that she is from the past. He asks “Are you from the Age of Empire, before Hober Mallow pierced its hide?” The Mule is the source of the coming darkness. And the Mule learns the location of the Second Foundation from Gail. Back in the present, they find Ignis and it’s suspiciously close to them. Then they decide to go there and start the Second Foundation. Seems dumb.

I hope they’re saving the Mule for season three. There’s too much going on here. [And in retrospect, post-recording, I think we may have seen the Warlord of Kalgan, a separate character from the Mule rather than the Mule himself.]

The clerics arrive back on Terminus.

Poly is called the “first witness” and “the ten-year-old half-feral child with a front-row seat to Revelation.”

There is a Director; is there a mayor?

The Warden intends to meet with Hologram Hari when he leaves the vault. Poly, the leader of the church, isn’t invited. The Director dismisses the church as “just recruitment.“

There’s a real left/right dynamic building between Poly and the Director. This could be the Church of the Galactic Spirit versus the Merchant Princes. “I believe in the prophet.” “ I wonder how you’re spelling it.”

Also, Poly is a drunk.

Brother Constant is the director’s daughter.

Now everyone is at the Vault.

The warden approaches the Vault and appears to be praying as he tries to talk to Hologram Hari. This religion is a strange mix of proselytizing, posturing, and propaganda. Thinking about modern religions, though maybe that’s not so strange a mix.

The Vault does not want to talk to the warden. It wants to talk with Hober Mallow. What happens to the warden here is, I think, unintentional; it’s a consequence of channeling enough energy to speak through him.

Back on The Beggar.

Gaal is worried they’re playing into the Mule’s hands. She and Salvor have a heart-to-heart and Gaal reveals something else about her vision.

All Images from Foundation on Apple TV+.