“If the Podcast Can’t Put its Thumb on the Scale, What’s the Point of Having a Thumb?” I don’t know, but l do know that we talk about Foundation, S2E08, “The Last Empress” in this episode!
Just who is “The Last Empress?” In the real world, Roxanne Dawson deserves the gig! She directed the best two episodes of season one and with this outing, she’s outdone herself!
Could it be Enjoinder Rue? That would require a complicated plan involving Brother Dusk, a time machine, and a bottle of Focus Factor… but maybe.
How about Sereth? She seems to be on a path to becoming the next Empress, and she has more irons in the fire than anybody else, if you’ll excuse the expression. And we know the Empire may not last much longer. Next and last could overlap!
Maybe it’s Gaal. She seems to be High-Muckety-Muck–Elect of the Mentalics! Nothing could go wrong there… right?
And don’t write off Salvor! She’s learning how to explode rocks! Don’t mess with the warden!
Did I miss someone?
We’re pretty sure it isn’t the lady with the comically large statue from episode 206.
Do you want to know? Listen to the episode! We’ll make an educated guess! Let’s GO!
“It’s a Bloodless Podcasting Coup” in which we’re joined by friend of the show, Travis Johnson, as we talk about Foundation, S2E07, “A Necessary Death.”
That title sure sounds dreary so it’s hard to believe that it’s attached to an episode that’s just so compulsively watchable! This episode is so compulsively watchable that no fewer than three characters IN the show are themselves watching the show. And that’s last week’s episode! It’s so compulsively watchable that next week’s episode is rumored to consist of nothing but characters watching this week’s episode! It’s so compulsively watchable that one of our hosts has watched the episode so many times that he’s lost count of just how many! Want to know who watched so many times? You’ll have to listen to our episode (and then make an educated guess) to find out!
And meanwhile the pile of bodies at Tellum Bonds’s feet just… keeps… getting… larger…
You want to hear about this episode! Travis and we want to tell you about this episode! You don’t want to miss that and neither do we!
“It Takes a While Yet for the Decay to Reach the Podcast” in which we discuss Foundation, S2E06 “Why The Gods Made Wine.”
We hope that we haven’t spoiled you with all the great guests lately, but this week it’s back to just the three of us muddling along.
And speaking of spoiling, as always, we’re working on the assumption that if you’re listening you’ve watched the episode. It’s up to you, but if you don’t want the latest episode of Foundation to be as spoiled as a swig of sour milk you know what to do!
If you were hoping for a Hari-centric episode you should be careful what you wish for. It isn’t all Hari all the time though. Two moments with Hober flash by. Queen Sereth expediently and efficiently drops an audacious power play in front of a stunned and scowling Brother Day. Constant and Poly have barely started trying to see Trantor on 30 Altarian dollars a day when the Secret Police all crowd into their room.
The big chunks of the episode are dealing with the Mentalics on Ignus and a flashback to Hari and Dor… uh… Yanna’s brief time together.
But there’s not much humor in this one. It’s dark. Want a theme for the episode? Let’s get the full quote from the title drop. “The gods, made wine to compensate those who can’t afford revenge.” And I’m pretty sure we’re all out of wine.
“The Whole Point of the Podcast is that the Future Isn’t Set in Stone” in which we discuss Foundation, S2E05 “The Sighted and the Seen” This week media analyst, Fordham professor, and Renaissance human Paul Levinson joins the conversation! That Beatles reference below, Paul? That’s for you.
Here’s the usual spoiler warning. If you haven’t, go watch the episode. We’ll be here.
Foundation, Season 2 seems to be leaning even harder on comic relief and sexy time than it had been. Still, the plot wanders forward.
After a fairly dark opening, we get the comic relief from Gaal, Salvor, and Hari. The beggar crashes into a forest on Ignus reminiscent of Star Trek: Generations. Where’s Jordi LaForge when you need him? Salvor yells “I’m flying dead stick!” Hari replies, “Is that bad?” That’s pretty funny but it’s not the best line. They encounter an old friend and then a crowd of mysterious mentalics. Could they be the nucleus of the Second Foundation?
Meanwhile, Sereth and Rue drive their arc forward with the sexy time while the theme of memory is writ large. We learn who was behind the murder of Sareth’s Family while Day is becoming more unstable and Demerzel just keeps getting creepier. Rue manages to send Dawn and Dusk on a journey to see the Wizard, which is to say the vending machine version of Cleon the First. Imagine two Junior High School Elvis impersonators meeting the One True Elvis and you have the idea. Later they’re impressed by the size of C-1’s… uh… data.
It’s a lot to digest and we talk about it. You should join us! We can’t promise it will help, but a splendid time is guaranteed for all!
Do you know who liked milestones and writing? The Great and Glorious Az, that’s who! That should come as no surprise.
The Cover to Opus 100.
What does surprise me a bit is that his first book, Pebble in the Sky, wasn’t published until 1950. Isaac had been writing professionally for 11 years at that point. In 1969, after writing book #99, Asimov’s Guide to the Bible, Volume 2, he turned to a new subject, himself. His next book was entitled Opus 100. It presents an overview of his writing career from 1939 to 1969 organized by subject.
“Section Two: Robots,” for example, begins with an excerpt from a special issue of Science Journal entitled “Machines Like Men.” It proceeds into a history of Asimov’s robot stories beginning with “Strange Playfellow.” It’s highlighted with copious excerpts from not just the stories themselves but from his non-fiction as well. The section culminates in a full reprint of “The Last Question” because that story, in the words of Asimov, “represents my ultimate, thinking on the matters of computers/robots.“
I’ve only dipped into Opus 100, but it’s delightful! You might expect that from a beloved author, writing on what must be his favorite subject. You don’t have to take my word for that, here’s what Isaac said in the introduction.
The Back Cover
… I was about to have my ninety-second book published, and the question arose as to how many other books I had in press. As I began to tick them off, we all realized that My Hundredth Book was upon me.
Various suggestions were made, and finally, someone suggested that I make it a completely personal book in which I rattled on and on about myself and my writings, with selections from books, articles, and stories where those were appropriate.
I thought about it briefly and said “Any writer, who is a monster of vanity or egocentricity — like myself, for instance, — would love to write a book like that. But who would buy it?“
“You let us worry about that Isaac,” said Austin [Olney of Houghton Mifflin].
From Opus 100
The point here, of course, is that here we are at our 100th blog post, just a bit under two years and four months since we got started.
Sixty-Five of those posts introduced podcast episodes. Two of those episodes were about the Stars End Podcast itself, our very first episode and our 50th episode extravaganza.
Seventeen of our episodes were about episodes of the Apple TV+ series or the series as a whole. With three of the rest dedicated exclusively to interviews, and one dedicated to Asimov’s Foundation and Philosophy (which contains an essay by our own Dan Fried). The remaining firty-two were all about reading and then talking about Asimov’s work. Thus far we’ve talked about the entire Foundation Trilogy, both of the prequels, the four Robot Novels, and a handful of short stories and an essay.
Outside of introducing episodes, we’ve had 13 “Watching Foundation” posts with additional comments on the teevee episodes and nine posts with original pulp art from Astounding Science Fiction and Galaxy Science Fiction. Plus coming attractions, show news, and more!
Here are some highlights! We’ll start with posts about
Episodes of our Podcast.
in reverse chronological order.
It’s always a delight when a guest joins us on the podcast; the fresh perspective shakes things up and enhances the conversation. During our long journey through the Robot Novels, our in-depth discussions frequently brought us back to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data, and frequently the episode “The Measure of a Man.” We were therefore particularly happy and honestly, a bit star-struck to have Melinda Snodgrass join us for an episode. Melinda wrote “Measure” and as a TNG Story Editor was the show’s Data-whisperer. It was an excellent coda to an extensive canticle.
And speaking of milestones, we had a lot of fun with the special 50th Episode of our podcast. Like this, it’s a retrospective, but it also contains our single most surprising segment! It must be heard to be believed!
Another fun episode was our second wrap-up of the first season of Foundation the teevee show. That was the First Annual Stars End Hari Awards! The best part of that was all the folks who helped by contributing to the discussion, promoting the project, and voting.
Our Website is like an excellent glass of orange juice, it comes with pulp. That is unless you don’t like orange juice with pulp. In that case, you’ll need to come up with your own metaphor. The “excellent” part is non negotiable though.
What does that mean though? Most of the Asimov stories we talk about appeared first in pulp magazines and we relish those connections. When available we can give the stories some context. We explore the differences between the original publications and their anthologized versions, use the coming attractions and the summaries to help our listeners and we enjoy the illustrations. I don’t know about you, but I find stories without illustrations to be too dreary. I may be biased. Have you heard about my side project?
Anyway, while we read The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun, those posts looked like this.
Sometimes something will come up on the podcast that needs follow up, for example when we read “The Robot Chronicles” and discovered that Asimov said this about his short story, “Liar!”
This story was originally rather clumsily done, largely because it dealt with the relationship between the sexes… Fortunately, I’m a quick learner, and it is one story in which I made significant changes before allowing it to appear in I, Robot.
from “The Robot Chronicles”
Asimov’s ability to write female characters and his reticence to rewrite things had come up frequently and we were curious about what “significant changes” meant in this context. That led to this follow up.
One of the posts we’re proudest of here at StarsEndPodcast.com is our only (thus far) piece of fiction. Written by our own Jon Blumenfeld, It’s called “Dors” and it fills in some of the eponymous character’s back story. You should read it because it’s excellent. If that’s not reason enough, we’ve declared it canon here at Stars End and you never know when we’re going to rely on that to make some obscure point or other.
Those posts about pulp art started here with our “Foundational Readings” post and the first one covered all of Foundation, the first book of the Trilogy. Perhaps more importantly it contained a paene for Archive.org without which none of our Pulp Art posts could exist. While we read Second Foundation our attention was focused on the advent of the Apple TV Plus series, so there are more of these yet to come!
A quick programming note: This is the one-hundredth post on StarsEndPodcast.com. I have plans for a post or two to mark the occasion, but in the meantime, we’re deep into the second season of the teevee show and that’s why most of you are interested in this blog in the first place.
So, for now, let’s return to “Watching Foundation.” As always, Joseph’s initial reactions, wild theories, and a few digressions from watching the episode. One digression is more extensive than usual. You have been warned. Simultaneously published at ComicsTheUniverseAndEverything.net. Let’s go!
Watching Foundation S2E04
In the narration, “If your parents never met, you wouldn’t exist… everyone in the universe is the result of a unique set of pairings. And psychohistory doesn’t care about them at all.”
Kudos to saying the right thing about Psychohistory but on the larger point about whether or not you would exist this seems optimistic. I think if anything had even a minor effect on the circumstances of your conception you wouldn’t exist. I’m not going to research the probabilities involved here but my best guess is that if you’re lucky the resulting individual is as close to you as an identical twin. But it might be someone who’s as unlike you as any of your siblings. Or someone who doesn’t exist at all.
Constant and Poly are waking up on the Spirit. When we see Hober he’s still being played for comic relief.
According to a (very) quick internet search, constant sunlight wouldn’t be good for wine. This from Calwineries: “At the same time, too much direct sun exposure can burn the fruit and will lead to excessive sugar development. The result is unbalanced wines with a lack of acidity and too much alcohol.”
Now I’m pondering if a planet that’s tidally locked could support life.
Asimov wrote about a tidally locked planet in Foundation and Empire.
Radole was a small world – and, in military potential, perhaps the weakest of the twenty-seven. That, by the way, was another factor in the logic of the choice. It was a ribbon world – of which the Galaxy boasts sufficient, but among which, the inhabited variety is a rarity for the physical requirements are difficult to meet. It was a world, in other words, where the two halves face the monotonous extremes of heat and cold, while the region of possible life is the girdling ribbon of the twilight zone.
Such a world invariably sounds uninviting to those who have not tried it, but there exist spots, strategically placed – and Radole City was located in such a one. It spread along the soft slopes of the foothills before the hacked-out mountains that backed it along the rim of the cold hemisphere and held off the frightful ice.
The warm, dry air of the sun-half spilled over, and from the mountains was piped the water-and between the two, Radole City became a continuous garden, swimming in the eternal morning of an eternal June.
Isaac Asimov, in Foundation and Empire
What I really want is a science essay by Asimov that specifically discusses whether “ribbon worlds” could be habitable. I read “Time and Tide” from Asimov on Astronomy, which was pretty good, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. It might be more of a Clarke topic.
This website speculates that the exoplanet Gliese 581g could be habitable despite being tidally locked. It’s out of date though: the latest information is that Gliese_581g doesn’t even exist.
But I digress.
Constant and Hober have chemistry. These two are cute together.
They arrive on Terminus and head towards the Vault.
Trantor
We learn more about Queen Sereth’s motives: she wants the truth about what happened to her family; C-17’s denials clearly weren’t enough. “I know how to employ courtesan tricks.”
Surprisingly, it’s C-18 with whom she’s spending time. These two also have chemistry, a more casual and comfortable flavor than between Sereth and Brother Day.
That’s a great tree! Is it a Banyan?
Blunt as usual, Sereth brings up the assassination attempt. I know we’re supposed to be suspicious here, but was the timing really that suspicious? And she asks Dawn about whether Day had her family killed. This is less “courtesan tricks” and more “bull in a China shop.”
“I was a million steps from the throne” and “then one mysterious crash later, and suddenly there I am“ don’t mesh for me.
This Dawn claims he wouldn’t be capable of the assassination of Sereth’s family but “I am well prepared to think I could become capable of it.” That is an interesting admission.
It’s asymmetric but both of them are trying to play the other; the politics here is dense. Sereth ends with the notion that she and Dawn could have been paired. These two are certainly more age-appropriate for each other. The point of that seems obvious. Could there be something more subtle there? And is the kid always going to have problems stemming from romance?
Now a scene with Dusk and Rue. C-16 implies that dominion pigments are better than what the Empire usually has. Not sure if that changes anything from the gifting scene in the first episode.
They walk by a picture of the mural that has to be Demerzel. It must be her because the solar system motif from the jewelry box is behind the figure. It looks to me as though it depicts the positronic conflict from the last episode of season one. I’m sure we’ll be coming back to this.
They talk about their history together. “I thought I had lost count of my Cleons.“
“You might be the last Dusk, and the first grandfather Cleon” is pretty damn aggressive.
Then talk about how Rue doesn’t remember their time together because as we know, courtesans have their memories wiped. Allowing a courtesan to even know that there had been a liaison with one of the Cleons seems completely inconsistent with how those assholes conduct their business. It also seems like a dumb decision on their part that never would have happened except the writers wanted to go with this plot.
But memories and memory suppression are clearly recurring themes in this season.
Siwenna
“Love itself is inconsequential when measured against the scale of the Galaxy.” Gaal is quite the Ray of sunshine here. Is this her being an unreliable narrator?
Riose and his ship have arrived.
Boy, the transporters in this universe are really inefficient, and filled with unnecessary spectacle!
The first time through, I spent this sequence being sure that Glawin was going to die.
What’s with all these things that look like gigantic antlion sand pits?
This sequence doesn’t add much to the episode except Bel and Glawin are arguing at the end of it. Is that what Gaal was alluding to in her narration?
“By the time you recognize an atrocity, you may have already been complicit in one” is wise, but ominous.
Terminus. At the Vault.
Hober’s “It doesn’t work like this” is a hot take and a correct one.
“Governance depends on me continuing to govern.” Coward.
The vault, first of all, seems to use time lord technology. It’s bigger on the inside of course, but also time passed differently for Hober in the vault, two days rather than two minutes. Constant and Poly didn’t notice even though there was a similar gap between when those too entered. Are we supposed to take from this that time passes inconsistently inside the vault? Are the writers just being sloppy?
“We’re inside the mathematics of Hari Seldon.“ No, you’re literally inside Hari Seldon himself.
This does seem a lot like the inside of the prime radiant though.
Those blue contacts really make Isabella Laughland look intense.
“I see by your robes that the foundation has entered the religious phase.“ That’s a decent callback to the books. Then Hari pats Brother Constant on the head. Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl? Is it you? Who’s a good girl?
So Hari knows Director Sermak and he knows Hober Mallow but he doesn’t recognize Poly and he didn’t know that the Foundation had entered its religious phase. Sigh.
Poly gets that the Vault is a tesseract. This makes me want to go back and reread Heinlein’s “And he built a crooked house.”
Hari says he wants to prevent the coming war.
Siwenna
Bel and Glawin approach a dwelling.
“Fleet Supremus?”
We’ve swapped Onum Barr and Ducem Barr. Whoever he is, he’s been sending reports to the empire for 40 years.
Is an oval bookshelf one of those things that are supposed to look science fictional but aren’t?
“Books are for old men.”
Glawin, “Here’s to those who fight and ask why.” Ducem is beside himself with approval!
This is twice now. What are the writers implying?
Ducem shows Bel and Glawin some reruns. They quickly learned important stuff about the Foundation and its technology: jump ships, and personal shields. Bel is dubious.
The “Local Constabulary” arrives and Ducem asks to be shot in the head. Not sure that isn’t stupid. If nothing else it’s a waste of a good character… unless he has the imperial nanobots, maybe?
And again, with the laughably efficient transporters. A futuristic pneumatic tube seems like the worst possible way to attain orbit. Especially without a ship of some sort.
Terminus.
Hari offering Sermak wine that was literally made from his body is way too “on point.”
We learn that the prime radiant is “a quantum computer that exists in a state of superposition.” Quantum computers seem like magic, but maybe not that magic.
Hari is assigning people homework.
Sermak is dismissed out of hand. Constant and Poly get to be envoys to the Empire. Poly: “An agent of peace. Yes. That’s something worth being.”
“The honor is mine, my loyal child” is much better than a pat on the head. I was afraid he was going to scratch her behind her ears.
Fine suit. Now piss off. Lol.
And we learn hologram, Hari, like any AI, needs the three laws. He “had to” kill the warden. “For a god to be effective you have to be intermittently wrathful.”
Then, this, “I heard the warden on my doorstep. How long before he declared himself the only holy vessel worthy of my spirit?”
On the one hand, that’s an apt critique of organized religion. But it seems at odds with a policy of using an ersatz religion to expand the Foundation.
“Let no being presume upon my mercy.” *WINK*
I enjoyed Hober calling out Hari on his BS.
Hari in turn, calls religion “A developmental stage, that all successful civilizations go through.” But can you go through that stage legitimately if it’s all a con? Did the United States have a religious stage? Is it right, freaking now? Is the Church of the Galactic Spirit akin to the US’s current religious status quo with megachurches and pastors using the trappings of Christianity to their own ends?
Hober gets his own homework and it’s not being an agent of peace.
Trantor
Sarath, Rue, and the Handman are beneath the banyan tree. They are joined by someone who is wearing an utterly ridiculous outfit.
The new guy, Markley, is worried. We learn that Cloud Dominion can block or reverse a memory wipe and fool a memory audit. Clear implications here about Rue.
Sarath wants information both about her parents’ assassination, and the assassination attempt on Day. She’s cold and matter-of-fact. Everything we have seen of her personality thus far could have been a front.
Terminus.
The sun has gone down, so a decent chunk of time must’ve passed. Hober is leaving the Vault.
I don’t believe that Hari said Hober could take the Spirit. By the way, the bishop’s claw in the Spirit, is named Beki.
It’s actually Constant who calls out the sexual tension between her and Mallow. This could be foreshadowing that’s either good or bad. “I can’t help feeling that this is it” is ominous. [But the discussion on our podcast makes me think that Hober and Constant getting together could be equally ominous].
“Wenus” is funny. I did not expect to hear that name in the teevee show.
We end on a long wistful look between Constant and Hober and a bit more of Gaal’s narration. That narration always seems to be in counterpoint to what we’re seeing on the screen. “With few exceptions, attraction is entirely irrelevant to human history. It only matters on the small scale of the human heart.” I think this is the show trying too hard to misdirect us.
“The Podcast Itself is Inconsequential When Measured Against the Scale of the Galaxy” in which we discuss Foundation, S2E04 “Where the Stars are Scattered Thinly” We’re joined this week by Joel McKinnon, host of Seldon Crisis, another excellent Foundation Podcast!
As the season slows down a bit to focus on some of the significant plotlines we get the closest thing to a special Valentine’s Day episode that this show could possibly do.
from cryptogram.com/
Meanwhile, Gaal, as the narrator, tells us repeatedly that “Psychohistory does not give a damn about how you monkeys hook up.” I’m paraphrasing.
The narration notwithstanding the situation on Terminus is framed by Hober and Constant’s sexual tension. Will they or won’t they? Watch the episode!
We learn a lot about the situation with Queen Sereth. Sereth flirts with Brother Dawn! Rue flirts with Brother Dusk! It’s all about what Brother Day may or may not have done. Will anybody flirt with Markley? Only time will tell!
And we see Bel Riose’s story unfolding through the lens of his relationship with Glawin. “By the time you recognize an atrocity,” says Glawin “you may have already been complicit in one!” What does that mean? I don’t know, but it seems ominous!
At least we don’t see Day and Demerzel in this context; I don’t need to hear my skin crawl this week.
It all seems important! I’m pretty sure Gaal is an unreliable narrator here.
Also, enough is going on about wine to make for a reasonable freshman comp essay or at least a session or two with a good therapist.
We’ve got a lot to talk about! Don’t miss this one!
“Even He Said That Kind of Podcast Can Drive Someone Mad” in which we discuss Foundation, S2E03 “King and Commoner”
It’s an episode for old friends!
Remember Bel Riose from Foundation and Empire? We finally get to meet him in the AppleTV+ universe and he’s refreshingly like his counterpart from the source material, steadfast and impressive.
We also meet Hober Mallow who maybe has a sprinkling of his namesake from the book but appears to be a mashup of several other characters including a big dollop of the Outrageous Okona from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The good news is that he’s hilarious!
Also, Gaal is mystified by what’s going on with Hari’s “old friend” Kalle.
“The Podcast Squirms in my Grasp Like an Angry Cat”
A general, a priest, and a warlord walk into a bar. The priest says, “If you thought the season premiere of Foundation had a lot going on, buckle up!”
The second episode, “A Glimpse of Darkness,” zips by at a breakneck pace! Join us for the conversation! As always, there are lots and lots of spoilers. You have been warned! If you haven’t seen the episode yet, go watch it now or dive right in! It’s up to you!
This one has it all! Lightning! Fire! Spaceships! And importantly, several old friends! From the trilogy no less! You don’t want to miss this one or our discussion!
But this started like a joke, so we need a punchline. Uh… “Because their horns don’t work!”
“God Made Podcasts to Compensate Those Who Cannot Afford Revenge”
One of the things you can say about Foundation the TeeVee series is that they throw down one hell of a season premiere! And this one is fresh! It’s like a brand new TV show that isn’t a brand new TV show. Let’s talk about it!
It’s up to you, of course, but there are spoilers-a-plenty for Foundation, S2E01, “In the Shadow of Seldon” here. If you don’t want anything spoiled, run right over to the nearest screen and watch the episode! We’ll be here when you’re done!
We’ve proverbially hit the ground running! There’s already stuff we’re dying to learn in episode two! Can Gaal and Salvor work as mother and daughter? Why is the Vault opening? And could this be the beginning of the end for the genetic dynasty?
Lord Dowrin finally floats into the range of Empire Wi-Fi
But there’s a question that we have to ask ourselves in the next week. You’ve noticed that there are already two Hari Seldons wandering around. It’s a murder of crows and a parliament of owls. What do we call a group of Haris? Because I think there’s very little chance that particular guy is going to be content with just two.
Hari Seldon is called Raven Seldon, so let’s not mix the metaphor. A group of ravens is called a “rave,” an “unpleasantness,” a “conspiracy,” or a “treachery.” Which of these do you like best? Or do you have something even better in mind? Let us know and we’ll talk about it next week!
Featured collage compiled (mostly) from Apple TV+.
Stars End: A Foundation Podcast 