I’ll get back to S1E09 when time permits; but in the meantime, S2E01 has dropped a bit early! What are ya doin’ here? You can come back to this!
Watching Foundation: S1E10
There’s Hari’s coffin floating through space as Gaal muses about sleep. It’s transmogrifying into the Vault.
Back on Terminus.
This is very Asimovian. Everybody is standing around while Hari exposition-dumps.
Hari: “History is written by the victor, and neither of you seems to be winning.”
The enmity? Thespin King murders Anacreon Huntress. But really it’s Cleon II with a plan that could span centuries.
Hari on the Invictus. He gave the problem of the Invictus to his model. That’s thin. It’s probably running a pseudo-random number generator. But how could you back-engineer the seed without ever encountering the ship?
“Well, I might have lied about that.” Funny.
Trantor:
12 and 13 ponder 14’s fate. 13 and 14 discuss 14’s situation.
14: “…living out a script written centuries ago.” There’s determinism. “We’re not people. We’re echos.”
Terminus. Hari: “ The Foundation was never about curating knowledge, it was about curating people.“
3 parts of a tripod.
“The human race is an ever-evolving story told over thousands of years by countless number of voices. But for a long time now that chorus has been suffocated and quietly erased. Because under the Genetic Dynasty, There is only room for one story. One voice.”
He implies that Cleons will lead to extinction. “We cannot become who we must become if the Empire is allowed to persist. That path leads to the annihilation of the human race.”
The three civilizations in a single-star system? I’m still dubious.
12:53 When Kier touched Hari, that looks more like an imperial shield than a hologram.
“It wouldn’t have been wise for me to have been sentient all this time.” Foreshadowing Azura’s fate.
16:04 and we’re basically done with the first crisis.
Trantor.
13 takes Azura for a walk.
“I know people hate me, consider me evil. But it is my detachment, My Indifference to suffering that allows me to rule effectively. The galaxy is so vast, the problems so large, that I must turn a blind eye to the individual.”
Interesting to see 13 musing about his ambitions as a child, which we saw in episode 1, and then discussing how they’ve evolved.
Legacy. Azura’s punishment. So dark! The last shot of her is tiny and shrinking as 13 walks away.
Terminus.
Mari is pissed at Hari. Salvor believed she was special but her lack of connection to the Vault belies that.
Salvor and Rowan discuss Phara and plant a tallyn oak in her honor.
We get a time-lapse of the tree growing. “In the months that followed, the children of the outer reach took Hari’s words to heart, setting aside hatred in favor of strength. It takes more power to build than to burn and Hari wanted them to build.”
Hugo and Salvor don’t have a lot of chemistry. But Salvor has more visions. And she sees a young Gaal. She goes up to the vault and disappoints us with nothing but a rhetorical question.
Chekov’s embryo rears its now-self-evident head. Salvor and Mari talk and we learn about Salvor’s genetic background. Salvor won’t be Mayor, she’s going on a Gaal hunt. This bit’s kind of slow and draggy.
A lot of this could have been at the start of season 2. Joanne says that this entire episode feels like the closing scenes of a movie. That gives me flashbacks to Return of the King which was painfully tedious at the end.
Back to Trantor. Before the episode, I was thinking about the plot in episode 9 and how dumb it was. What would have made it make sense? As we pointed out on the podcast maybe it was meant to fail. Why do that? If the frozen replacement Dawn has also been genetically altered but in a way less obvious and more sinister than the changes made to 14.
I wondered if Dawn was going to leap to his death here.
“All love is programming.”
Demerzel has her hand on 14s back here exactly like she did with 11 right before he was vaporized.
13 looks like he’s on the verge of letting 14 live. 12 remains a huge asshole.
And then goddamn it! Total shock! But in retrospect, I should have seen it coming.
“I am loyal, Empire to the Cleonic dynasty above all else,” says Demerzel
I wonder if the newly decanted Dawn will remember having his neck snapped.
I’m assuming that the shifting paints are figurative.
13 carrying 14 to the disintegration chamber is reminiscent of Demerzel bringing 11 back to bed the night before he was vaporized.
12 really seems torn up by this.
Olbrecht tells us that the plans undermining the Dynasty were more extensive than thought. The source material has been altered. That silly plan was the insurgents signing their work. I like that!
Still, the Dynasty isn’t any worse off than any inherited dynasty. Are they?
See? Disturbing.
Disturbing scene with Demerzel. I wondered if she was going to shut herself down with these tools we see. Nope. Instead, well, you should see that for yourself. This is clearly what a positronic crisis looks like. There’s some sort of conflict there. Maybe it’s a conflict with the programming to be loyal to the Cleons. Even if there was no order given, Demerzel must have known she was going against 12’s wishes. Maybe the three laws were overwritten by the dynastic programming but remnants are still there.
Synnax.
Gaal’s back.
That seatbelt isn’t going to be enough to survive reentry.
Just a rowboat in the middle of an ocean seems stupid. Looks like Synnax has been abandoned. But there’s a red light underwater. Now it’s like Gaal is chasing a laser pointer. My cat does that.
Not sure if this bit is annoyingly slow or if it wouldn’t work if they didn’t show us everything.
But we end with Salvor meeting Gaal 138 years in the future. Salvor’s been in stasis for “more than 100 years.” I wonder if there’s more to her story in the “present day.”
Lots of nice stuff in this episode, but the pacing is off. The bookkeeping and laying the groundwork for Season 2 is slow going.
Quick note: We’re skipping S1E09 for now; it’s the only episode I don’t have notes for from its original airing. S1E10 tonight before midnight, when the first episode of season 2 drops.
Watching Foundation – S1E08
Spoiler Alert, as always just in case you haven’t seen the episode yet!
Anacreon looks like the Genesis Planet. We see Phara as a child and her trauma during the Empire’s retaliation. I didn’t need to see that. Assholes. This is one of those things that is better left to the imagination.
Phara: “It blinked into orbit like a prayer. …the gods did not just approve of my plan to destroy the empire they engineered it.” “You simply have no concept of revenge, do you? I don’t care about mankind. This ship is going to be my voice.”
Hari and Gaal. Investigating “Feeling the future.” Gaal talks about her dream of a wave destroying her world. It drove her to learn math. Hari; “(math) proved that it wasn’t a dream at all it was a premonition.“
Gaal has an “Intuitive processing ability that puts you ahead of the math.” Hari wants to keep Gaal in the Dark. “This prescience of yours has the potential to skew psychohistory completely.” So the math can’t tolerate other predictions? This seems like magic trumping science. And mathematics in this show has already been too magical.
Hari says that the Foundation needs a second Foundation. On Helicon. And he calls Helicon “Star’s End” according to the closed captioning. That Apostrophe annoys me.
Where’s Hugo? He’s narcing on the Anacreonians to the Thespins. This is anticlimactic. This guy is no Han Solo; I expected something more dynamic.
But the mood of futility here isn’t bad. Standing in the desolation, crying out into the darkness, “Does anybody read me?”
We see C13 walking the spiral. A Trek of over 170 km with no food no water no rest. No nanobots or toys. A quick calculation, that’s over 100 miles. That’s not survivable. Did they flub the arithmetic again?
At the end of the Spiral, there’s a cave called the Womb that has water. If the Mother is willing the pilgrim will see a deeply personal vision.
C13 breaking Demerzel’s salt bracelet is a dick move. He wants to keep her with him but she looks stricken.
The crowd thins out quickly. Too quickly, since they implied about half made it to the end of the spiral. We meet a charming companion for C13. It would be nice if 13 could learn some compassion here. He gets some information about what others have seen.
C13 lies and says he’s from Baltaros. The gentleman is from “the manufacturing planet.” Badly polluted by making things for the Empire.
Back to Hari and Gaal. The Foundation was designed to draw fire. The Second Foundation must be kept secret.
Gaal: “If you’re not willing to trust me, then I am not going to Helicon.” Gaal is going to take her brain and go home. What starts off as a strong confrontation with Hari degenerates into a tantrum.
Now C13 is doing a Jesus imitation. And he falls to one knee. The wavy images of burned feet are a bit much. The pilgrim helps him up.
Back to the Invictus. Salvor’s finally trying something other than violence. Trying to peel off some of Phara’s men. She argues the plan will lead to the extinction of the Anacreonians. “Phara sees herself as a hand reaching out of Anacreon’s grave. But Anacreon children are still being born today.”
Phara does the Hawkeye thing with aplomb. Pretty good. “You do luck, I do skill.”
These computer components remind me of 2001 and TNG.
Salvor tries violence again. Gets herself and Lewis onto the bridge with no Anacreonians. Someone else got killed. Is this progress?
The individual work pods look cool but seem like form over function. Lots of circles on this ship. Significance?
They find the navigation pod. “Folding space is as much intuition as it is science. It’s like making a wish.” More magic over science. This seems especially anti-Asimovian.
This is a pattern. Gaal has an intuition that obviates mathematics. Humans can guide jump ships with wishes, “A cognitive leap that only a human brain can perform.” This is displacing science in favor of mysticism in a way that’s very non-Asimovian.
Salvor’s going to sacrifice herself to guide the ship to Terminus. And she gets snarky. “It might as well be the outlier.“
Terminus. The null field is expanding.
The Spiral. The old man gives up. C13 looks stricken. Grieves that the pilgrim will no longer be with him. Does he show some compassion for the pilgrim here? Maybe.
Alas, dear Yorick, I will smash your skull.
Here’s some more of the Shakespeare quote. “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rims at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?”
Reflecting on the demise of the Pilgrim maybe? Also, are skulls really that fragile?
But 13 makes it to the cave. He’s pretty messed up. And alone. “Fewer than half make it?” That must be the tourism bureau. People certainly wouldn’t sign up for the real rate of attrition.
Maniacal supervillain laughter as 13 enters the cave.
To the tribunal, C13 repeats the story the pilgrim gave him about the swirling salt. He claims to have seen a “birthroot flower.” A signal to the luminists that the world could sustain life. And a metaphor for three lives created out of one.
“Just like my brothers and I!” “This is a holy vision.” The tribunal decides his soul is not mired in stagnation. “…from this day forward no other zephyr will stand in your way.“
This is pitch-perfect political manipulation on C13’s part. It stands in stark contrast to his largely inept and tone-deaf early attempts. That makes this hard to believe. Or maybe it’s his ineptitude that forces his lies. There’s certainly a history of political leaders getting ahead on lies and nothing else!
Gaal resorts to hysteria and violence. Again. Gaal threatens suicide to get off the ship. At least we’ll get to see Synnax in 138 years. It will be wet.
Back to the Luminists. C13 is strutting oddly. “Zephyr Halima, thank you for inspiring me to take this journey of transformation.“ Twisting the knife.” Asshole.
Demerzel visits Zephyr Halima, she is visibly upset as she does it. Demerzel claims that she did not coach 13’s performance. Halima comes across as wise now.
Halima: “I’m not going to leave this room alive, am I?” Demerzel: “I must not be in possession of a soul, otherwise I might be able to disobey his commandments.” This was petty and cruel. And it implies a lot about Demerzel. She may not have the capacity to be the mastermind we were thinking she might be.
The Invictus. “Jumping into a planet’s orbit requires absolute precision.“Or luck. Remember who you’re dealing with.” Magic over science yet again.
What is moving the Invictus to Terminus supposed to accomplish? What’s the next step that will magically happen with Salvor presumably dead? “That’s all there is in a crisis, trying.” Once again an unimpressive aphorism from the formerly quotable Salvor Hardin.
The Anacreonians break into the bridge and shoot Lewis. Another casualty of Salvor’s attempts to save the day. She seems pretty slow to pick up this pattern.
Salvor’s gun misfires. So much for luck. Interesting.
And the Invictus jumps. It’s possible that showing Gaal awake during the jump in episode one was to tell us Salvor can survive this.
The spinning ship bothers me. It looked dumb when they did it on the Discovery and it looks dumb now.
Demerzel reports to C13. Killing Halima was unnecessary. “Your lack of understanding does not obligate me to explain, says C13. What an asshole. So much for developing compassion. From that little kid who might develop kindness, we end up with someone even more villainous than before.
Demerzel realizes that C13 saw that flower on her vanity. “Seeing nothing, I would not wish that emptiness on anyone.” Is the implication here that the Cs have no souls? It certainly positions them as an other in a way it would not have before. And it makes the allusion in the title a little too obvious.
The thought clearly festers. We see C13 feeling cold without vision. As if it wasn’t already obvious enough. I didn’t need to be told this twice but I get the writers wanting to show us this visual. I’ll excuse it for the emphasis. And we’re done.
I didn’t remember many of the things in this episode that annoyed me.
The Anacreonians and their hostages approach the Invictus. Phara is harsh and unforgiving. And sick? Or just beat up?
Great. “The most powerful weapons platform the Empire had ever built.” “A world-killer.” So the Invictus is the Doomsday Machine. Where’s Commodore Decker when you need him?
We get an explanation for why they needed Lord Dorwin. Good thing he didn’t die in that spectacular explosion!
Suiting up. And Lord Dorwin has a plan to send a message.
Floaty through space action. Hugo does a Frank Poole imitation. Unlike Frank, I think he’ll be back. But we get some cheap, momentary angst.
They’re going to jump to the Invictus because the outer defense systems can’t recognize anything as small as a human. That’s a plot-driven weakness. “If you miss the outer ring you’ll be lost.”
Above the Maiden. C13 sees Demerzel’s kneeling as betrayal even as she’s trying to cop a lame excuse. “Motherless atrocity that I am.”
C13 points out the obvious contradiction; Demerzel’s faith in Luminism contradicts her very nature.
He also thinks that Demerzel’s actions contradict her programming, which is supposed to be Loyalty to the Cleonic Dynasty.
Demerzel claims that she can’t act contrary to her programming. It’s odd that’s even a point of discussion but it’s also very Asimovian.
Halima is now the front-runner. C13 wants to know “what she actually wants from me.”
On the Surface, C13 and Demerzel approach a tent.
The Luminists are idiots. Sacrificing themselves on a ritual: “Walking the Spiral.” Demerzel claims she did this many years ago.
Negotiations begin. C13 thinks he can still barter his way out of the problem. That already didn’t work once. He’s not even negotiating in the right universe.
Halima wants the end of the Genetic Dynasty. Halima is playing a true believer here. I don’t think that’s sincere. “I don’t claim to see the future.” She turns nasty. “You are the reverberations of a dead man’s ego.“ and “The soulless creature cannot recognize itself.“
She’s haughty when she references Seldon’s “similar observation.” Then calculating and dismissive. Truth to power sure but also obnoxious and self-satisfied. She thinks she has the upper hand. For the moment, she’s right!
Back at the Invictus. Hugo ostentatiously floats away. There’s an obvious way he can get back, but I think the show wants us to believe he’s gone so he can save the day.
Salvor notices (senses?) something. a gun starts shooting. It looks like the gun is firing globs of molten metal. I don’t think that’s what the show intended, but either way, I’m thinking about the special effects and not the story. That’s a bad sign.
And Dorwin throws away his leverage by opening the door. Phara then executes him on the spot. Disconcertingly ruthless and brutal. “He served his purpose.”
Isn’t that dumb? Why wouldn’t the controls have similar safeguards to the door?
“The atmosphere is frozen.” Then what’s suspending the particles all making the light beams visible? They “restore atmosphere” and people take their helmets right off. If the atmosphere is frozen it must be near absolute zero.
The Invictus is randomly jumping. Salvor sounds smart when she puts the story together, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
The “much longer deaths” line is pretty good.
Above the Maiden again. Demerzel thinks Halima is reckless and threatening. C13 reminds us of Seldon’s prediction and refuses to play defense.
I don’t think “I will appeal to your gods” is an argument that will get you there. But Joanne points out Trump.
“I will walk the great spiral and let the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone decide what’s true.”
We get more with C14 and Azura. Sexy time.
She gives him corrective contacts as a gift. Says he can’t wear them because they will attract attention. Like schtuping the gardener isn’t going to attract attention.
He shows her another copy of himself who will take his place if there’s ever an accident. If they know he’s different the other Cs will kill and replace him.
But the interesting thing here is the subtext that Azura is connected to some sort of underground.
You can lose yourself in the scar. “Come with me.”
But it’s a real relationship. C14 and Azura are open enough with each other that it’s dangerous. (Spoiler, I’m wrong here.)
“We are Trantor. Nothing outside the palace walls is relevant.”
On the Raven. That isn’t a hologram, it’s a “Quantum consciousness protocol.” So Hologram Hari is AI Hari.
But if Hari was recorded and placed in the knife, what’s the deal with the Walt Disney coffin?
Hari says “FIRST” Foundation. Gaal was supposed to lead the First Foundation.
The Invictus. Salvor wants to fight. Akiva doesn’t. “I’m the only expert…” is an odd way of praising that thought.
There’s a fight. Akiva is pretty competent at fighting for someone who’s “not a fighter.”
Salvor gets to live because they might need her. Like nanobots guy didn’t have the same potential.
39:57. Strong intense speech from Phara.
Not a bad plan, but it begs the question. Is there a succession plan? All the Cs live in the same place. All the spare Cs are in the same place. The genetic source of the Cs is at the same place. Demerzel who is the only person who might be able to hold things together is in the same place. We never see anyone with any kind of agency except for one ambassador. Chop off the head!
With Hari gone, the Raven is shutting down. But Hari comes back just in time to save Gaal. There’s a lot of convenient timing on this show.
“The Foundation needs more than a man to inspire it. It needs a myth that can endure for centuries.”
“It worked” because the mortality projections were somewhat inaccurate. What was sigma? It’s a ridiculous claim. And reminds me of reactions to Nate Silver and the 2016 election. He wasn’t “wrong.”
Teevee Hari is egregiously arrogant. And he had Lethe Syndrome, which is essentially Space Alzheimer’s. The cognitive decline would have prevented him from becoming the mythic figure the Foundation needed.
Hari was “engineering the narrative.” When he had Raych kill him, he couldn’t foresee Gaal coming to his cabin. That’s a rational limitation of psychohistory.
Hari wants to move toward the debris field. Gaal thinks that’s insane. And it is.
Gaal: “I think I can feel the future.”
That is one tough piece of plexiglass.
From Wikipedia:
In Greek mythology, Lethe (/ˈliːθiː/; Ancient Greek: Λήθη Lḗthē; Ancient Greek: [lɛ́:tʰɛː], Modern Greek: [ˈliθi]), also referred to as Lemosyne, was one of the five rivers of the underworld of Hades. Also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. Lethe was also the name of the Greek spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion, with whom the river was often identified.
“The human mind can’t tolerate the discontinuity” of space folding.
Maiden, mother, and crone. There’s an interesting parallel between the Cleons and the Goddesses of Lumenism. The central themes of Luminism: are cycles, Ouroboros, and nature seeking completion.
The Luminists believe that the goddesses were once a single entity. That’s very Catholic. As is the fact that they are a trinity.
Demerzel is a Luminist, which seems odd. She bypasses the “How is it that you believe” by answering why. How is the more interesting question.
“The search for meaning is not always about the answer.”
“At every point in our lives, we have the power to choose our own path.” A Three-Laws robot does not always have the power to choose.
The goddesses guide us towards service and truth “as though towards the center of a great spiral.”
So spiritual geometry. Luminists are circles and Cleons are lines.
Zephyr Halima gained fame by spearheading the recovery after an earthquake. She has been a Zephyr for less than a year.
13 is expecting clamoring masses. Halima meets him alone. And highlights what 13’s trip means about the importance of Luminism to the empire. She’s a skilled politician.
By offering 13 a drink, she gets him to symbolically reject the faith and the opportunity to surpass his impure intentions even if Demerzel is the one to voice it.
“I’m afraid whatever impurities I may harbor will have to remain hidden.” The rejection said out loud.
“Something tells me that’s how you prefer it.” And Halima spikes the ball.
“Triple blessings to you all.” The Catholicism references are pretty loud too. Of course, they are.
“I don’t think anyone with pure intentions would wheedle their way onto my welcoming committee.” So he gets it but he should have seen it coming.
Back to Terminus.
“Empire ships are as good at preserving their peoples’ lives as they are at taking others’.”
Lord Dorwin is still alive. Where’s everybody else? Dead.
The Anacreonians straight-up murdering people is gut-wrenching. They’re suddenly a lot less nuanced.
Talk of the Invictus and redemption from Phara. That eye is disconcerting.
Phara’s trying to crew a ship. The librarian is also skilled in Astronautics.
The jump ship was shot down to capture Dorwin.
More straight-up super villainy from Phara as she shoots Jacenta’s husband in the leg.
14 is wooing the gardener again. “A foolish attempt to control the uncontrollable.”
12 and 14 hunt for “Ghillie raptors” with powerful camouflage.
“I’d rather mold it myself.”
Invictus is a legendary powerful warship. Phara’s found it.
“Thank Seldon.”
Salvor has a plan. “This is the first Seldon crisis.” She’s convinced herself that she’s part of the plan. “Hari put me here to stop the Anacreons, and he’s helping me figure out how.”
Back to the Maiden. 13 is bitchy about being greeted by “a heretic.” He throws his weight behind Zephyr Gilat which is probably counterproductive.
Desalination plants might have worked in a popular election but the enclave is a tight group of politicians. They might see through it and water for the people Might not bolster their self-interests.
He smiles at Halima like “I got you.”
Terminus. Abbas talks about Trantor. “Miracles everywhere.” Built on a mountain of lies. Why did he join the Foundation? He believed in a girl called Mari Hardin. “I got you out of it didn’t I?” Dodging the question.
Trantor: 14 doesn’t want 12 to know how many raptors he killed. 12 takes 14 to a brothel where the girls’ memories are wiped.
Didn’t get the obvious? They have to force the resemblance between this girl and the gardener. Of course, 12 gets a report from her after her time with 14.
Salvor gets another vision. This time she’s in the body of Gaal.
Hari to Raych. “It has to become impossible for you to remain onboard.” Hari can’t fix things. He’s a lot less certain than the Hari in the book.
“This whole thing collapses because you stay with her.” Sacrifices waisted. “An entire galaxy pivoting around the actions of an individual.” The cryopod was programmed for Raych.
Abbas martyrs himself to destroy the “Corvettes.” Salvor melts down. “Daddy!”
So many ways that 14 is different. He’s reaching out to people outside the family. He’s showing concern for other people and a willingness to put himself at risk. 14 is colorblind. But “Cleons are exact copies.”
Shadowmaster Olbracht finds the raptors that 14 hid. Probably realizes the color blindness.
Meanwhile, Salvor is growing toward seeing violence as a problem.
And we’re doubling down on the part of the episode recognizing that psychohistory doesn’t work. Maybe. But Salvor’s also starting to see herself as a piece of the plan which is problematic.
The Desalination system should not be front and center at a funeral. Just saying.
And Halima walks in to interrupt Gilat and steal the show. It’s classic politics. Gilat and 13 are appealing to reason. Halima wins hearts and minds by connecting on an emotional level.
Souls used to be like candle wax burned down and snuffed out. “The mother took the straight line of life and sewed it into a circle.” Reincarnation is not about ascending to the highest planes of enlightenment. There is no end because our capacity for growth is infinite. “Even a soul that appeared holy 400 years ago would not be holy today.” “We must embrace the value of transformation, of evolution, of difference!” “We rejoice that her soul is not bound to a single immutable body.“
It’s extra odd that Demerzel would be an adherent to this religion. Is it aspirational?
Also bowing and leaving 13 to stand is a powerful statement.
Salvor and Hugo are captured. Phara & Company take Hugo’s ship and leave with the hostages who can crew a jump ship.
In the Unfinished Business Department. I started these “Watching Foundation” posts while Season 1 was running. I’m going to try to wrap these up as I finish my Season 1 rewatch. Slightly edited thoughts from the initial watch. I’m not removing things that turned out to be wrong, I’ll add parenthetical comments.
Can I do it? It’s five more episodes in four days, let’s give it a try.
Watching Foundation – S1E05
Spoiler Alert! There may be plot complications!
You know how this works. Joseph’s Random thoughts about Episode 5, no post-podcast revelations this time. Simultaneously published at ComicsTheUniverseAndEverything.net.
The Black Hole story scares Gaal because of the Event Horizon. In her dream, she’s swimming in the darkness and that does not scare her; but the water stands for her religion and it’s telling that it’s in darkness.
Another interesting font.
They put those prayer stones into infants. Barbaric.
Upon Awakening is a religious notion on Synnax. Makes sense with the “Sleeper” being the central mythological character.
Shit. So much water! Keven Costner is going to show up, isn’t he?
They check the university for illegal activity. Gaal encounters “Instructor Sorn,” apparently a former Professor at the university. He knows Gaal from when she was a baby. “All analytical learning goes against the faith of the awakening.”
She just tries to save him from the seers. “Just drop the books and go…”
“They are just words on a page.” He gives her Kalle’s book of folding. “Furthering knowledge is the most noble work of humankind.”
Strong parallels between Synnax and the Galaxy. Sorn is channeling Hari.
“We did this, not your slumbering God.”
The door looks like a Star Trek delta. But otherwise, this is terrifying. Sorn is cleansed which is to say executed.
Gaal takes part in the execution and then immediately (?) dives to retrieve the book she wanted. Sure, NOW she raises a fuss about the rising water. And enters the math contest.
Gaal gets a message back from Hologram Hari. No, not that one.
There are sexism and bias. There’s resistance to Gaal’s solution because she’s a woman and from Synnax. “The beauty of Mathematics is that it’s pure.”
Hari says it’s “ingenious, elegant, and true.” A mathematician would not say “true.”
Gaal comes clean and complains about the rising water, but not she’s raising enough of a fuss and then she leaves for Trantor.
There’s not enough of a feeling of her awakening. Doing the priesthood’s bidding and then sneaking around. She seems like a hypocrite or a coward. Also, there’s more “Math is Magic.” 500 years old problems don’t get solved overnight just because someone found a scroll.
Gaal on a ship. It doesn’t make sense that the blood is still on her hands or the knife.
That was quite a meltdown. And “Raych Foss Arrival Protocol” screws up a beautiful theory.
There’s that font again. It would have been a nice touch if it had been specific to Synnax.
Salvor tries to talk sense into the Anacreonians. “Desperate people make mistakes.”
I feel like I’m watching Braveheart. I never wanted to watch Braveheart.
Meanwhile, the imperial ship arrives and the Anacreonians have hidden their cannon. Lord Dorwin isn’t going to last very long, is he?
I’m not sure what purpose it serves to have the computer fucking with Gaal.
That casket thing Hari’s in is going to keep him alive. Obviously? (turns out, no.)
Lewis: “We will devote our lives to protecting the empire.” It’s impossible that he’s that stupid. Is it a pose?
Why would Lewis suspect Gaal was behind Hari’s murder?
Raych is cryptic. Says not to lose faith in the plan. The show makes it plain that he’s speaking for Gaal’s benefit. There are too damn many executions on this show.
Phyra takes down the “standard imperial issue shield.” Which they already told us was going to happen.
Cheap pathos. Gaal’s attempting suicide. We’ve made a lot of characters female, but they wouldn’t write a male character with crippling despair. What the hell just happened?
The ship’s course was corrected. It’s inconceivable that it would be that violent within the ship without some sort of warning. And the timing is ridiculously convenient.
Mathematical technobabble is annoying and it’s unrealistic that what she does is accurate enough given the numbers that she’s throwing about. They want to show us Gaal is smart but the puzzles are annoying. The mission is almost scuttled because the computer is screwing with her rather than giving her information.
Back on Terminus, there’s a ridiculous amount of shooting with no one getting hit. These guys are worse shots than Storm Troopers.
Phrya has Salvor’s mom. This is too much of a repeat of the earlier encounter where they tried to show us that Salvor’s smart. But her Mom clearly understood what Salvor wanted it’s dumb to waste time apologizing. This is a lack of respect for the audience.
The fight scene is pretty well choreographed but maybe not because it’s so poorly lit. And the Grand Huntress of Anacreon should be more formidable.
Gaal goes to see with her own eyes. But she shouldn’t be able to see the stars. Letting this error slide is almost a convention, but making it a plot point just draws attention to it.
Terminus isn’t innocent. “Because of what your profit said, my home world burned.”
Lord Dorwin didn’t last very long, did he?
The blood is disappearing of course Hari is still alive. But what’s the deal with him phasing in and out? (In retrospect, this is Hologram Hari, Mark 1.)
Antiparallel vectors, by the way, have parallel but opposite directions.
After a long drought of official information, we finally have an approximate release date and a trailer (well… they call it a “sneak peek”) for Foundation Season 2. It looks spectacular! We’ll discuss it as part of our special Episode 50 coming soon.
So, new episodes of Foundation, Summer 2023. You can watch the trailer below, then join us for episode 50!
Getting caught up on these, still: Spoiler Alert! You know what to do!
That’s a crazy opening! C14 tries to commit suicide. I guess it didn’t take long for the mental health of the Cleon’s to become an issue. Maybe they should have let C11 live a bit longer and tried again.
Personal Shields Can Come in Handy.
He doesn’t die, but the young lady gardening runs away from him.
Funeral. For whom? “Faith is a sword forged in the fires of the infinite.” These ladies remind me of the Sisterhood of Karn from Doctor Who.
This is an odd sequence. It looks like some things are launched from the funeral which impact on a gas giant, making it all wibbley wobbly. The funeral must be taking place on one of the moons. Shift to Demerzel watching remotely.
Sexy time for C13. The Cs have a Kinetic field. Maybe Junior didn’t try to commit suicide after all. But he sure scared the crap out of that girl.
Demerzel interrupts sexy time. Brother Day is needed.
“Proxima Opal has passed.” That must be who the funeral was for. There is debate about her successor in the Conclave. It’s basically the political version of technobabble but the Cs aren’t happy about a possible candidate. Something about “Primary Octavo.” Unsurprisingly there’s a religious dimension to the Cs claim to rule.
“Luminism” must be a religion. Primary Octavo states that only individual beings have souls, excluding the Cs. No souls for you! Why not counter with the Cleons having a single soul? That makes the dynastic succession that much stronger. None the less it threatens their rule.
Back to Salvor and the Anacreonians.
The Anacreonians claim they want a navigation module. Salvor finally shows some indication of being smart. But “If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it already” reminds me of a bunch of things, not the least of which is Clara in “Deep Breath” (Doctor Who), which was a lot better.
Salvor and Phara go through the gate. “If she isn’t back within a watch, we’ll raze your city to the ground,” which wouldn’t take that much.
The Anacreonians are acting like terrorists.
Salvor sees the boy, but Phara does not.
Using the Vault to incapacitate Phara was smart.
“The stories about Salvor Hardin? They usually begin here. The warden and the ghost.”
We get a Direct refutation of old Hardin. Abbas says “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” Salvor calls it “an old man’s doctrine.”
Questions about the plan.
Abbas: “If you were better at math, you’d know that repeated luck was more than just luck, Salvor.” Maybe. Except that random events can cluster in a way that seems non-random to our brains.
Back to Trantor. We meet Shadowmaster Olbrecht. C14 wants the name of the girl in the garden. Was he trying to manufacture a meet-cute with a faux suicide attempt?
Salvor is channeling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead with the coins. Does she have some kind of mental powers?
Neutron bombs. 50% of the population on Anacreon died off within a week, 20-30% in the remaining year. But the use of neutron bombs changes a lot of assumptions; most of the infrastructure should be intact.
Salvor seems to intuit things about Phara. She wants to die. She wants everyone to die. Larken Keaen was the greatest hunter of Anacreon, so Phara must be the Grand Huntress of Anacreon.
Hologram Hari? Finally! But no, not that one.
The Outer Kingdoms are starting to fray away from the Empire. “Seldon all but gave you a to-do list and you ignored him!”
It’s even clearer that the “middle throne” is the actual emperor. I can’t believe these guys are a Kiwanis Club. President-Elect, President, and Immediate Past President.
Arguments about the plan. “I may be an outlier, Lewis, but I’m not the one screwing up the plan!” Lol, even though I’m feeling a bit sorry for Lewis.
Kubbra Sait is excellent. Real gravitas. “A weapon is only as good as the man who’s wielding it.” The music is briefly reminiscent of a motif in Doctor Who.
Trantor again. Gardener girl is Akuta Something? C14 is being a dick to her even as she’s being kind.
“If you’re not dead within the hour, have a kilogram of these sent to my quarters.”
Salvor has a vision of Seldon’s library. There’s THAT kid with THE knife. We’ve been seeing images of Raych.
Then they tell us what they’ve already shown in case we didn’t understand it.
Churchill from Doctor Who is a statistician. Thousands working. No results after 30 years? Claims the predictive models of Seldon are “counter factual.” Brother Day is having none of it. Lee Pace is fantastic here as he yells a statistician to death. Probably.
The philosophical divide seems to be couched as “Free will” vs. “predestination” rather than “Great Man” vs. “Bottom Up.” Although maybe that’s the same thing.
C13 gives 12 a rash of crap for his actions in episode 1. An almost complete repudiation. The discomfort Brother Dawn felt with the executions comes home to roost. “I will save our legacy.” Demerzel reinforces C13. “Certainly now the empire will no longer be rent by impulsive action.” He probably doesn’t get the sarcasm.
We see Dorwin. He’s sent to investigate the communications buoy and told to pay a visit to the Foundation. “The Empire will not be kept in the Dark.” Wowd Dowwin doesn’t sownd wight thow.
Meanwhile C14 is spying on Akuta using a drone that looks like a dragonfly. Creepy, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
Phara makes an argument that they really want the navigation module. To relocate from Anacreon. “You can’t negotiate with someone who’s willing to set the board on fire.”
Salvor thinks there’s a bigger picture that she’s missing. Reassessing is a sign of smart. She puts it together that the Vault is connected to Hari.
The Anacreonians are preparing to raze the city such as it is. Like a strong wind couldn’t do that.
“And the beginning of the end, as befitting its name, took place on Terminus.”
And in a Marvelesque precredits scene, a ship approaches Gaal Dornik’s escape pod.
You know how this works. Joseph’s Random thoughts about Episode 3, no post podcast revelations this time. Simultaneously published at ComicsTheUniverseAndEverything.net.
Cleon 1 with Demerzel 400 years previous. He’s dying and wistful, annoyed that although they’ve started the clone dynasty his ego will not persist. “Your continuity is assured,” Demerzel tells him. It looks like she gets to hold things together while Cleon 2 grows up.
19 years after the StarBridge bombing. The timing is interesting given that we’re just off the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Are we now looking at an analog of contemporary politics?
Sounds like it is Dusk’s final Day, foreshadowed by Cleon I’s flashback.
“The world is starting to see me at a distance” is a nice turn of phrase.
What is “ascension” exactly?
We parallel the passing of the torch metaphor with the tailor somewhat obviously.
Dusk is still questioning what happened with Anacreon and Thespis and pondering if he has anything left to say. “About anything. About whether any of this is truly within our power to control” juxtaposed against an image of Dusk casually swiping through holograms of planets.
They’re still thinking about Seldon though. Dusk is interested in preserving the “last remnants” of C1’s dream. Boy. This is maudlin.
Dusk is C11, called “the Painter” on the pedestal where his bust will go.
The final gift is a visit to the remnant of the StarBridge. The three wax nostalgic about C1 and Dawn claims “We will build something greater in his honor. For you.”
Demerzel looks stricken and weepy. They destroy the final remnant of the StarBridge as they leave. Dusk nods his assent but it’s thematically opposed to what he wants. All that debris entering the atmosphere is going to look spectacular though.
It’s not clear; is that glowing thing a permanent memorial?
Jump Ball?
Dusk visits the gestation chamber, “Even if Seldon wasn’t right there is something unnatural in that.” Then he paints a final piece of the mural. Is it Dawn and Day raising a newly ascendant Trantor?
Demerzel: “You are enough. It’s just that you always leave me.”
“You have grown into our greatness, Brother Dawn, now Day.” “Brother Darkness.” Holy crap. He senses something is wrong with the baby as Demerzel pushes him toward the light.
If it wasn’t obvious already, “ascension” is a euphemism for a ritualistic suicide.
This half of the episode is filled with imagery of Demerzel as a driving force, including carrying 11 to his final rest and transferring his ashes to the baby.
17 years later, Day has the Mural erased. Demerzel looks on but can’t stop it. There’s a real thread here about repudiating the past.
“We ignore the dead at our peril.”
Cut to the colonists arriving on Terminus. The Vault is already there. Young Salvor spends a lot of time staring at it. Evidently, they don’t have Apple TV+ on Terminus. They barely have walls. Lots of hints that Salvor is wise. “She’s aware.” I’m not convinced. Show, don’t tell.
There’s got to be a better way to test the field around the Vault than to torture a bird.
Warden again. Versus mayor? I don’t like it.
Something is up with the field. And we see Granite Hari foreshadowing Hologram Hari.
The Encyclopedists’ conversations are odd. There’s little point in writing about base 10 and not base 12 and there’s little point in writing about the sundial as opposed to the water clock. I assume that they’re planning for the fall of civilization rather than writing the encyclopedia at this point, but isn’t the point of the encyclopedia to WikiHow all this stuff so everybody after the fall has that information?
See? Smug.
And why does Louis Pirenne look so damn smug here?
Also, this whole thing is dumb. Where will the survivors be? Freaking everywhere! What if the survivors are on a planet with no water? What if the planet circles more than one sun? That way lies madness. If the survivors are thrown back into complete barbarism they’re not going to have libraries anyway! And probably they’ll just be thrown back to the point where they think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
And you CAN preserve every innovation because you’re writing a damn book! You have hundreds of years!
The field is expanding. Now with nose bleeds!
But Salvor is special in case you missed episode 1.
Hugo is supposed to be pretty likable, and either gives beer to children or tricks them into unloading his ship.
A sky full of spilled coins is a lovely image. But they’re using a telescope to look into space during the day. Tell me how that works or I’m going to assume that you screwed up the lighting.
There’s a kid and he’s running with a knife. That can’t be good. Teach your children not to run with scissors before you worry about water clocks.
Also, that looks like the knife that Rayce used to “kill” Hari. Significant? Maybe?
Hologram Hari appears in the Vault, No, not that one.
Anacreonian ships are appearing. And that thing seems more or less like an ordinary telescope. How does it work?
“Grow up Lewis!” Lol. Like in the books, he has more faith in the Empire than is warranted.
Jon’s observation: Salvor wants to know how much violence the colony can muster. In the book, Salvor is famous for “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Mari pulls out the prime radiant and shows it to Salvor. Like maybe she can understand it with absolutely no training. MATH ISN’T MAGIC! And having an individual as part of the plan undermines the idea of psychohistory or convinces me that this character they want to present as smart isn’t actually smart.
For a person who’s supposed to be famously quotable, “Different is not the same as special” is a bit of a sophomore slump.
“The Empire feared Hari because he could forecast the future. But in reality, all he was doing was examining the past.” No.
There’s that kid with the knife again. How is he connected to Maybel?
Also, “Vulcan” is better than “Vulcanian” but I prefer “Anacreonian” to “Anacreon.”
“The ghosts of the dead… surround us. And they are hungry for what’s ours.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
All Images from Foundation on Apple TV+ or Astounding Science Fiction.
If you followed my “Watching Loki” posts on Comics, The Universe and Everything, you know what this is. Comments, thoughts and predictions as I watch the episode or maybe as I watch it again. Stuff I think is interesting. Not a review or even an essay, although I’ll give my immediate impression at the end. I’m doing these this time as I’m preparing for the Stars End podcast but they won’t appear here until a couple of days after the newest episode is dropped. Maybe there’s even a bit of stuff I didn’t mention on the Podcast.
So, without further ado, here are my thoughts on the first two episodes.
S1E01 The Emperor’s Peace
Visually stunning. The opening reminded Joanne of the time travel scenes in ST4 but with much better graphics.
Partway through the figures, look as if they are made of sand and are eroding. That’s a nice visual indication of what is to come.
Wow, this looks good. But Star’s End isn’t at the edge of the Galaxy. Also, it doesn’t have an apostrophe.
Now, this looks like Star Wars with the land speeder.
There’s a creature called a Bishop’s Claw. As the kids approach “the Vault” I realize this is Terminus and we’re in for some non-linear storytelling.
Hmmm. “Kier.” “Gia.” “Poly.”
So, we meet Salvor Hardin before any other main character. Poly calls her “Warden.” I don’t know what that means. But the vibe here is strangely religious for Terminus and the Vault is altogether too mystical.
That is one impressive library.
“We have to remember the past and the ones who caused it all… A mathematician. A martyr. A murderer. And the most important player of all, Hari Seldon.”
There’s a sweet moment between Hari and Raych. Odd maybe, given what’s coming.
86,960,947 is prime.
86,960,957 is prime.
86,960,971 is prime.
86,960,987 is prime.
Gaal has to leave Synnax. “On Trantor, I’ll be safe.” More religion.
On the jump ship. Gaal meets Jerril who seems helpful. He mentions prayer stones.
There are odd scarred humans(?) attending to the passengers.
We see Gaal’s obvious genius when she talks about the gravity generators. “I won a math contest.”
Interesting visual for preparing for the jump and the jump itself. Gaal wakes up in the middle. That’s not supposed to happen according to Jerril. Only spacers can endure that without being driven insane.
The space elevator is impressive and nicely takes the place of Gaal’s trip to the tower and longing to see Trantor from Space. But here she seems more of a refugee than a tourist.
The projection of Brother Day has the same sand-like texture as the opening. That links the Empire to the erosion we saw earlier.
Caskets. From a “kerfuffle” between Anacreon and Thespis.
14 hours to descend and Gaal sees Trantor from space. Exposition 20:38.
We see the mural and Brother Day who is called Empire. That’s a nice device personifying the Empire so directly. Asimov did that especially well in the Mule story with both the Empire and Foundation.
And we’re shown the empire as evil assholes quite dramatically. They’re paranoid about “Raven” Seldon and are harsh censors. No ambiguity here. No shades of gray.
Brother Dawn learns a hunting song but it’s actually about “a boy’s first time with a woman.”
Day is again shown to execute people for tiny transgressions.
We see Demerzel. Nice visual Day, Dawn, and Dusk taking a bite in unison.
Gaal wants to see the Seer church on Trantor.
86,963,537 is prime.
86,963,549 is prime.
86,963,563 is prime.
86,963,567 is prime.
86,963,573 is prime.
It’s not praying. When Gaal’s nervous she “counts primes.”
Gaal meets Hari. The mathematics starts to bother me here. “Kalle’s Ninth Proof of Folding.” Gaal solved Abraxas. That’s evidently how she won her “math contest.” That has religious overtones (see below). And no one thought to use the ninth proof in five hundred years.
Kalle writes poetically so “serious scholars don’t read her.” But “reading between the lines” she’s talking about “rings of integers in non-Archimedean local fields.” I think that kind of hangs together based on a quick Google search but it’s far from something that normal folks could glean by “reading between the lines.”
There are shades here of Hardy and Ramanujan. The show has given us two unspeakably brilliant mathematicians and it’s important that one of them is a young lady of color. And they certainly sound like mathematicians here… “There’s a non-zero chance… but it’s not a number worth discussing.”
We get a quick definition of Psychohistory true to the books. Might be word for word. But we lose the sense that mathematics is hard work.
The prime radiant is cool, but it reinforces the “math is magic” theme.
“You know math is never just numbers. In the wrong hands, it’s a weapon in the right hands, deliverance.” “Stealing is a mercy.”
The Ancreonians give Day a weapon while the Thepians give a book of ablution honoring the peace. Exposition on the disagreement.
Subtle messages in the gifts. 36:47. Day and Dusk are training Brother Dawn.
Gaal goes to the Seer church. “The heretic and I will talk.” The religion on Synnax is extreme and all-consuming. The floor is covered with water.
Gaal in water. A dream or a memory of the removal of her prayer stones. Also, is it foreshadowing of the end of episode 2? The water is clearly a symbol of the Synnax religion. Gaal’s face turns out of the water as she has the prayer stones removed.
Those hoods they put on prisoners are brutal.
Courtroom scene. And Sig!
It “can only be proved to another mathematician conversant in ordinal analysis.”
Damn, Harris is great! And intense!
This loses a lot of the mathematics from the book. And Seldon “thanks the gods.”
Jerril tries to bribe Gaal and gives her the Prime Radiant. The Empire threatens to kill her. There’s water surrounding them as he tempts her to disavow the mathematics.
Spectacular shot.
She was awake on the jump ship; she is special.
The prime radiant again reinforces the idea that mathematics is magic.
Back to the trial. Encyclopedia Galactica. Saving our story.
It’s a nice moment when Gaal gets to speak truth to power.
It bothers me that one of the terrorists looks middle eastern. The other one doesn’t but still.
The orbital tower is falling snapped off the top. On Earth, the geosynchronous orbit is 22,300 miles. Stretched out that’s most of the way around the planet. (C = 24,900 miles).
Nice attention to detail; the fake sky is pixelated as the tower smashes through it.
I think they profoundly underestimated the devastation the fall of the star bridge would cause. Compare it to the size of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. This should be an extinction-level event.
“The tether wrapped around the planet like a Garrote.” Yup.
86,963,777 is prime.
86,963,791 is prime.
100 million deaths. Has Raych lost faith?
Lee Pace has a surprising amount of gravitas. More than he did playing Ronan which was overdone. It’s a lot subtler here. I would not have expected this watching Please Don’t Eat The Daisies.
Gaal bluffs Day. If you kill him the fall accelerates.
Seldon: “I see the value in difference, in the new.”
There’s something called a slow ship. A fundamental difference from the world in the stories.
“You lied.” “I hypothesized.” that’s pure Wrath of Khan stuff right there.
The seas on Synnax were rising. So Gaal Dorrnik here is a cross between Greta Thunberg and Srinivasa Ramanujan; a mathematical prodigy who wants to save her planet from destruction. The water doesn’t merely represent her home planet’s religion; there are a lot of levels here. On Synnax the rising water signals, one presumes, the growing threat of global warming AND the rampant anti-intellectualism that’s hastening the crisis.
Episode:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
S1E02: “Preparing to Live”
On a dwarf planet: a brutal takedown of a biohacking facility. And some torture to extract information.
Day (wanting to blame the Foundation): “Say they did it every hour on the hour until it becomes the air that we breathe.” These guys are the Bush administration.
800 odd days? Or 54 months?
Gail and Raych are like crazed weasels.
Then we have the Kobayashi Maru in a simulated cave. We get to see what a bishop’s claw looks like firsthand.
There were robot wars.
These assholes really are the Bush administration. More brutality. There is circumstantial evidence against the Anacreonian and Thepians. But that’s about it.
Brother Dusk is declining.
Gaal deposits an embryo and then talks to an engineer who refuses.
Dusk visits the Synnax priest. Wants to know if Gaal is a seer who can predict the future. Demerzel is injured on the way out. So not slow playing the Robot thing.
“The most advanced Math is like a sixth sense.” No, not necessarily.
Seldon seems to be using Tony Stark’s computer system.
Lots of aphorisms “Shame grows in darkness.”
But it’s notable here that Gaal is spending a lot of time swimming. She always swims in the dark. If the water is a metaphor for the religion on Synnax that says a lot. Not that this has been subtle. It isn’t.
Seldon never thought he’d be on the ship and he’s uncomfortable with the growing familiarity amongst the colonists.
Gaal says the mathematics is not complete. Rayce is upset.
Encyclopedia Meeting. Gaal is asking questions. This base 10 thing is a bunch of nonsense. It’s not the same thing as a different language. I get the point that they’re trying to make but damn it, that’s different. The writers must have scanned “The Crest of the Peacock” and didn’t understand it.
They’re shoehorning in as much math as they can. They either need to get a better consultant or listen to the good consultant they already have.
Demerzel repairs herself. We see she’s a robot.
Demerzel: “The rest of my kind didn’t die. They were destroyed by your kind.” Evidently, the “Robot Wars” weren’t very nice.
Dusk criticizes Cleon I (who has been stuffed) for arrogance. Not sure what the point of Taxidermy Cleon is, it’s odd.
“The Empire going to kill you,” says Dusk to the Anacreonian and Thepian ambassadors. But there’s plenty of reason to think Seldon is behind the Terrorist Attack
The Laundry. Yawn. Hari gets to make a speech.
“A theorem so abstract it might as well have been a prayer.” Damn it. Mathematics isn’t magic.
This handshaking thing is kind of trite.
Raych is out of sorts. Hari is trying to be gregarious and showing Raych to be a thief angers him.
Raych cries talking to Gaal in the holodeck.
Who’s really behind the star bridge? They don’t know. “The best face we can project outward now is one of strength.”
More brutality. Really over-the-top and disturbing and directed at people who aren’t responsible. These guys really are the Bush Administration.
Still, the little kid shows some humanity. Unfortunately, Demerzel tells him he’ll grow out of it.
A composite number means what? Raych “kills” Hari and takes something from behind Hari’s ear. Gaal is left in space counting primes (in the water yet again) and the episode ends? What the hell?
———-
Some thoughts from after we recorded the podcast. I think most people felt confused after this episode. In retrospect, I’m liking this episode more because it’s been so much fun to ponder what was going on in a Total Recall kind of way.
So, here’s a narrative that I think makes sense.
The key moment is when Gaal realizes that the math is incomplete. But here’s the thing: the math didn’t “have holes in it” because Hari didn’t finish. It was incomplete because he and Gaal are in the colony. We know from the books that predictions about the Foundation won’t work correctly if there are Psychohistorians on Terminus. They have to go.
So Hari realizes that he has to be murdered (or fake his death… something). He makes plans with Raych to do it. Then his personality shift, the wandering around the ship, reminiscing about his “son,” missing his favorite shirt, and awkwardly saying goodbye to people including the laundry workers all make sense as the actions of a condemned man or a man who’s planning suicide.
Raych’s behavior now makes sense too. Gaal gets the wet pneumatic tube treatment but she’ll still be gone. It explains his weepiness on the Holodeck during the sunset; he knows they’re not going to have those kids together. This also explains why Raych is suddenly so peevish with Hari.
The psychohistorians are now gone and the Foundation can develop as intended. This may not be right but it holds together, explains all the stuff that feels weird, and is consistent with the books. Where do we see Gaal again? I bet she’ll be central to founding the Second Foundation. Maybe Hari too. Eventually, we’ll learn that this was the ultimate plan all along.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Some Stuff From Wikipedia:
Abraxas (Biblical Greek: ἀβραξάς, romanized: abraxas, variant form ἀβρασάξ romanized: Abrasax) is a word of mystic meaning in the system of the GnosticBasilides, being there applied to the “Great Archon” (megas archōn), the princeps of the 365 spheres (ouranoi).[1] The word is found in Gnostic texts such as the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, and also appears in the Greek Magical Papyri. It was engraved on certain antique gemstones, called on that account Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms.[2] As the initial spelling on stones was Abrasax (Αβρασαξ), the spelling of Abraxas seen today probably originates in the confusion made between the Greek letters sigma (Σ) and xi (Ξ) in the Latin transliteration.
Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek: γνωστικός, romanized: gnōstikós, Koine Greek: [ɣnostiˈkos], ‘having knowledge’) is a collection of religious ideas and systems which originated in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects.[1] These various groups emphasized personal spiritual knowledge (gnosis) above the orthodox teachings, traditions, and authority of traditional religious institutions. Viewing material existence as flawed or evil, Gnostic cosmogony generally presents a distinction between a supreme, hidden God and a malevolent lesser divinity (sometimes associated with the Yahweh of the Old Testament)[2] who is responsible for creating the material universe.[3] Gnostics considered the principal element of salvation to be direct knowledge of the supreme divinity in the form of mystical or esoteric insight. Many Gnostic texts deal not in concepts of sin and repentance, but with illusion and enlightenment.[3]
Anacreon (/əˈnækriən/; Greek: Ἀνακρέων ὁ Τήϊος; c. 582 – c. 485 BC)[1] was a Greeklyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and erotic poems. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of Nine Lyric Poets. Anacreon wrote all of his poetry in the ancient Ionicdialect. Like all early lyric poetry, it was composed to be sung or recited to the accompaniment of music, usually the lyre. Anacreon’s poetry touched on universal themes of love, infatuation, disappointment, revelry, parties, festivals and the observations of everyday people and life.
Stars End: A Foundation Podcast 