Foundation, on Apple TV+

Individuals have free will, so they can’t be predicted. However, the course of societies and civilizations can be projected with astonishing mathematical accuracy. Such is the contention of mathematician Hari Seldon, who pioneered the study and application of Psychohistory in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels. Seldon calculates the Galactic Empire will fall in roughly 500 years, but that is not a message the authorities want to hear. However, his followers believe they can drastically shorten the coming dark age if they implement his grand plan in showrunner David S. Goyer’s first season of Foundation, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

Young genius Gaal Dornick journeys from a backwater planet to the seat of the Empire on Trantor, at the invitation of the great Hari Seldon, unaware of his status as a dissident pariah (she was a man in the book, but whatever). Much to her surprise, Dornick is soon arrested along with Seldon, but the Imperial inquisition will offer him a deal, just like he expected. The Psychohistorians will be allowed to assemble their great encyclopedia of human knowledge, but they must do so in exile, on the most remote planet of the known universe: Terminus.

This tracks pretty closely with “The Psychohistorians,” the first part of the original Foundation novel (you can hear William Shatner’s LP reading here), but as soon as the Foundation settlers leave on their journey, Goyer and co-writer Josh Freidman drastically depart from Asimov. In fact, it often feels like they were trying to adapt Dune instead, even though they lacked the rights.

Much of Apple’s Foundation is devoted to the courtly intrigue surrounding the genetic clones of Emperor Cleon the 1st. The Foundation books only had two Cleons (appearing in the prequels) and the first was no great shakes, but in this re-envisioning, the Empire is up to its 13^th Cleon, known as “Brother Day” who shares the throne with “Brother Dusk,” an older clone who can offer the wisdom of his experience, and “Brother Dawn,” a younger clone that will be groomed to succeed him. (These characters are original to the series, but the succession of clones over centuries is sort of reminiscent of the Duncan Idaho clones in God Emperor of Dune.)

Eventually, Brother Day will be drawn into an intrigue involving a powerful religious order that somewhat resembles the Bene Gesserit (without the overt powers). As they rule over Trantor, the Genetic Emperor[s] will have the wise counsel of Demerzel, who survived an ancient war against robots (sort of like Dune’s Butlerian Jihad). Meanwhile, Salvor Hardin (also gender-switched) oversees the security of Terminus. It is a role she is uniquely suited to, since she is largely immune to the disorienting field that surrounds the mysterious “the Vault,” a “big dumb object,” in the science fiction tradition of 2001’s obelisk that never registered on any of their planetary surveys.