Foundation Season One

Demerzel kills the emperor (1 of 3).

 This is the third of three blog posts about the first season of Apple TV's Foundation series. Previously, I commented on each of the show's ten episodes (episodes 1-5, episodes 6-10). Here, on this page, I'll be reflecting on the overall story arc and assessing if Apple TV's Foundation series is capturing the essence of Isaac Asimov's original Foundation Saga. I seldom watch television and I did not subscribe to Apple TV until April of 2022, half a year after the show was released. Will I bother to watch Season Two?

 Robots. The original Foundation stories that Asimov wrote in the 1940s did not include robots. During that decade, Asimov also wrote and published many short stories about positronic robots. 

cover art by Michael Whelan

Eventually, Asimov suspected that he would be remembered most for his robot stories. Starting in 1986 with his novel Foundation and Earth, Asimov introduced positronic robots into his Foundation Saga. In my opinion, that was a triumphant addition to the Foundation Saga and I'm very pleased that Apple TV's Foundation series has been making the robot Demerzel an important part of the television show right from the very first episode. ✅

 Telepathy. However, the Demerzel robot in Apple TV's Foundation series is very different than Asimov's Demerzel. Two major features of Asimov's robots were 1) they were programmed with the Laws of Robotics and 2) the fact that robots could be endowed with telepathic abilities. Neither of these features of Asimov's robots were explicitly included in Season One of Apple TV's Foundation series. 😞

1942 interior art by Charles Schneeman

Instead, Apple TV's Demerzel was portrayed as having religious faith. There was explicit discussion in Season One of Apple TV's Foundation series of the question: does Demerzel have a soul?

 Religion. Back in 1942, Asimov imagined how the early Foundation on Terminus could make use of religious faith to control the militaristic "barbarian" peoples who lived on planets at the rim of the galaxy when the Galactic Empire began to crumble. So far, in Apple TV's Foundation series, several different religions have been depicted as existing in the Galactic Empire. Before I had seen a single episode of this TV show, I was puzzled by the big role for religion that had been included and I wondered if this would be part of transforming Asimov's science fiction story into a magical fantasy tale.

A vision in the Salt Pool.

 Cloned Cleons. One of the big changes made to Asimov's Foundation Saga was the insertion of the cloned Emperors. This leads to discussion of whether a cloned human has a soul. This issue gets tied up with the idea that the Emperor can't rule the Empire unless trillions of people believe that the Emperor has a soul. In Apple TV's Foundation, we are asked to wonder: will the Pope Proxima support the Emperor? The idea of collaboration being needed between religious "authorities" and politicians was raised by Asimov in his 1942 story "Bridle and Saddle".

psychohistory

So, it is not a surprise to see this issue included as part of Apple TV's Foundation series. However, it was strange to see this subject shifted over into the the context of the Emperor and the problems he faces during the decline of the Galactic Empire.

 Is it science fiction? Asimov's story of the falling Empire focused on psychohistorical forces such as scientific and technological stagnation. For Apple TV's Foundation series, the issue of stagnation was focused on the the person of the Emperor and the idea that a series of cloned emperors might contribute to the destruction of the Empire. However, if the true cause of the collapse of the Galactic Empire is Demerzel, then does it matter if there are cloned emperors who behaviorally stagnate? 

For me, it does matter because Asimov's explanation for the collapse of the Galactic Empire concerns an interesting mechanism that falls in the domain of science and technology. 

Halima the soul authority

In contrast, Apple TV's Foundation series goes off into fantasy religion and involves religious authorities who believe they are "soul detectors". This is one of my biggest problems with Apple TV's Foundation series: it seems to be morphing into a magical fantasy 🧙🧚 story rather than trying to stay within the bounds of Asimovian-style science fiction. 🤖

 Long Distance and Deep Time. Show runner Doyer has commented that Time is like a character in the Foundation Saga. Hollywood story tellers have always struggled to deal with complex stories that unfold across vast distances and long periods of time. In the previous century, science fiction story tellers like Asimov invented ways to tell complex stories like the Foundation Saga and their fans loved it. Apple TV's Foundation series has failed to capture the spatial immensity of the Galactic Empire. 😠

interior art by Charles Schneeman

As I explained previously, the way that people are moved around the galaxy by Goyer makes no sense. This is a constant distraction and a major failure in science fiction story telling. However, if you are doing fantasy, nothing matters... you can move people around your galactic stage on broom-sticks if you want to. 👻

 Psychohistory. A central science fiction element in the Foundation Saga is the fictional science of psychohistory. Asimov had fun with an audacious analogy in which human populations are treated like collections of molecules. Asimov noted that chemists can use statistical analyses to predict the properties of gasses, so let's imagine a science of psychohistory that can predict the future of civilizations. Due to the butterfly effect, I never took psychohistory very seriously and I like the idea that psychohistory was a smoke-screen for Daneel and his positronic robots who were secretly guiding Humanity into the future. 

cover art by Ed Valigursky

The only way that Asimov's Foundation Saga makes sense to me is if the Galactic Empire has had technological stagnation for many thousands of years. The explanation for that stagnation is that Daneel was at work, trying to prevent humans from disrupting his plans which involve first Gaia and then Galaxia. I like to think that Daneel did not want humans doing genetic engineering and altering "human nature". Psychohistory was fragile, and could not deal with changes in human nature. More importantly, Daneel needed a stable concept of "human" against which he could lean his programming of the Laws of Robotics.

I like the way Apple TV's Foundation series has gone ahead and equipped the Galactic Empire with technologies that Asimov could not imagine in the 1940s. However, they also show technology research and development continuing, even as the Empire if starting to collapse. Maybe Apple TV's Foundation series is going to blame the collapse of the Empire entirely on the Cleon Clones.

Daneel

I like to believe that the true power behind Daneel and positronic robots was based on telepathy and time travel technology. After Season One of Apple TV's Foundation series, we have only a fuzzy view of where things are going with the "mentalic" powers of Gaal and Salvor. However, I'm intrigued that there are suggestions of a "mentalic" ability to "look" forwards and backwards through time. How Apple TV's Foundation will merge these "mentalic" abilities with the science of psychohistory remains to be seen.

It may be that psychohistory was only good enough to predict the fall of the Empire; in Apple TV's Foundation series the predictions of psychohistory were quickly derailed by Gaal. In one interpretation, Gaal is playing the role of the Mule and she derailed the Seldon Plan right at the start of the Apple TV Foundation series.

✅ In terms of the entire Foundation story arc, at the end of Season One, Apple TV's Foundation series is basically where Isaac Asimov was after the first two Seldon Crises. 

Will he join the Church
of the Galactic Spirit?

 Towards Season 2. Terminus and the nearby planets of the galactic rim can now form the core of a new civilization based on advanced technology while the old Galactic Empire continues to crumble. However, Apple TV's Foundation series has shown that Seldon's plans for the future were quickly derailed by Gaal's unexpected mentalic powers. In Asimov's original story, The Plan™ was still on track at this point. As a fan of Asimov's Foundation Saga, this divergence by Apple TV's Foundation series does not offend me. I've always felt that psychohistory was used as a ruse by Daneel to hide the true means by which the future could be foreseen. It is interesting that Apple TV's Foundation series has introduced an alternative way to see the future: Gaal and Sal can perceive "visions" that even allow Sal to predict the outcome of a coin flip. However, Apple TV's Foundation series is science fiction then they show runner should explain to viewers how the strange visions of Salvor are based on some future technology.

New in Season Two: who is Yanna Seldon?

I want to know how this type of "mentailic ability" will be developed in coming episodes of the show. However, I don't like all the blood and violence in Apple TV's Foundation series and I doubt if the show runner even cares if there is a science-based explanation for Salvor's unique abilities. It is much easier for Goyer to simply make mindless comicbook fantasy rather than good science fiction in the Asimov style.

Let me out!

 Major Disapointment. Apple TV's Foundation series does not match my tastes in science fiction (I prefer hard science fiction). Every episode of this TV show abandons its opportunities to exploit reason and logic and instead glorifies comicbook-style fantasy adventure. It is painful for me to watch this show; the number one annoyance is the way people like Gaal are magically moved around the galaxy.

Will I watch Season Two? I doubt it. I wonder if Apple TV will hire someone to do a novel based on the series; I'd prefer to read the story and avoid the visual depiction of blood, death and violence that is in the TV series. Of course, I'd also need to find a way to protect my mind from Apple TV's mind-sapping "null field" of unexplained technobabble such as...

DNA repair nanobots

 Nanoparticle Regimen. When is a clone not a clone? In episode 10, the emperor announces that the rebels hid the secret message inside a droid un-cloned Brother Dawn by "corrupting his nanoparticle regimen". In this disjointed comicbook plot, if you don't want to explain something to the audience then just drop some technobabble into the simmering pot of nonsense. As a nerdy Sci Fi fan, I must take the flying technobabble as a challenge; is there some way to make sense of this? Maybe there are DNA detecting medical scanners that are able to look into the bodies of the clones and find random somatic mutations. Then the medical repair nanobots of the Galactic Empire can venture into cells and repair the altered DNA sequences. How the rebels could interfere in this "genetic cleansing" process remains a mystery.

the end of Terminus

 Can't Let Go. My guess is that the producers of Apple TV's Foundation were hoping that after Season One the viewers might have stuck in their mind some bit of eye candy from the show that would make it likely for them to return and pay to see Season Two. In my case, the lingering mental image is that of computer-generated extras, the population of Terminus, standing around in the volcanic tundra of Iceland watching Hari's reincarnation. The scene is so absurdly contrived that is seems like a joke. The risen Hari explains how the rebels of the Foundation can hide from the Evil™ Empire: "Take the Invictus to the far side of your star, activate the quantum drive, but maintain your position in subspace… the energy signature would read as a mega-flare." Sure, that'll work. 😏

Viewers are also explicitly told: "The Empire comprises tens of thousands of worlds." Never mind that in Asimov's imagined Galactic Empire there were 25,000,000 inhabited worlds and Asimov worried even that many would be too few for psychohistory to work. Hollywood story tellers can't deal with big distances, long time spans or a saga that sprawls across millions of worlds, so rather than tell Asimov's story, Apple TV's Foundation goes in another direction. For fans of Asimov, this is a source of annoyance.

Nullifying the Foundation.

 One Pill Makes you Reincarnate. Hari also "explains" the magical Vault™: "I swallowed a pill containing millions of self-replicating molecular machines. Those machines began breaking down my body tissue into all its constituent elements. Then those machines recycled those elements, scooping up more material, ice, micrometeoroids, et cetera, assembling the Vault..." ...while also crafting the magical null field which allows the story writers and viewers to turn off their brains and not question all the comicbook nonsense in Apple TV's Foundation. Science fiction is not about turning off your brain, but Hollywood is the land of the dumb blonde.

Related Reading: "The Problem with Apple TV's Foundation" by James Guild

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