It is the year 12,020 G.E. and Emporer Cleon, First of
that Name, sits uneasily on the Imperial throne. Here on Trantor, the great
multi-domed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created
a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity.
It
is a world so intricately woven that pulling one thread would unravel it
all. Cleon I is unnerved by this, for he knows there are those who would
see him fall – those he cannot touch. If only he had knowledge of what
lay ahead, then the Empire truly could be his.
When young Hari Seldon arrives on Trantor, he is unaware
of the perilous politics that are brewing. The thirty-two-year-old Outworld
mathematician has come simply to attend teh Decennial Convention and do
a little sight-seeing. But when he presents his paper on psychohistory,
his remarkable theory of prediction, little does Hari realize that he has
sealed his fate and determined the destiny of humanity. For Hari Seldon
possesses the prophetic power that is so desired by the Emperor. And now
suddenly, this naive and little-known Heliconian has become the most wanted
man in the Empire as he desperately struggles to keep his portentous theory
from reaching the wrong hands … while forging the key to the future –
a power to be known as the Foundation.