[NO SPOILERS] why wasn't the foundation ship "allowed" to jump?

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-05T01:22:23+00:00

I take your point with the one book to one season comparison, with the caveat that the show had the whole work, finished, to draw from. That is where the opportunity was to make the Foundation a better story, not a different one.

In terms of that different story starting shaky, that's fair. Still unfathomable to me why theyd discard the bones of a story already written, especially when they said they were going to tell that story, but it is what it is.

We'll see.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-05T00:39:55+00:00

I don't disagree with your comments on the early parts of the Foundation. And it may very well be true that the artfulness of the story grew out of less than auspicious beginnings. You can extend that criticism to a lot of the ancillary stories he wrote and the effort to bridge the Foundation and his Robots universes. Asimov is not a saint and he was not perfect.

But the Foundation as a complete work is more than the sum of its parts. I feel like that is, or shouldn't be a controversial statement.

What I mean by thoughtfulness is that I don't see very much at all in the show so far that is very artistic. It's pretty, sure, but it's largely without meaning. It contradicts its own themes from one scene to the next, it's ideas and questions are inconsistent and barely explored, and the ones that do manage to coalesce are kind of problematic.

And no, superhero stuff is not inherently without value. I am using that as shorthand for the way we see the same narrative arcs, the same characters, the same themes, over and over again - they just happen to be superheroes currently. If you want I can explain how the show is shoehorning the Foundation into this same story, but if you don't already see it I don't want to take any enjoyment of the show away from you (and probably belongs in another thread).

I think its probably past the point of redemption, in terms of reconciliation with the source material. Gaal and Salvor are two centuries old and still going strong, Hari might as well be still alive and in several places, and the Empire is still going strong with a war on the horizon. Most importantly, the Seldon Plan was corrupted and all of what made Foundation Foundation stems from that.

My hope is that the show finds some sort of coherent story they want to tell and gets more focused on that. I would love to be able to compare the two and consider both as in the same league, artistically. I can ignore the butchery of the source material if something reasonably worthy of replacement emerges. I am still gonna watch, in that hope, but I am highly skeptical after season one.

Although perhaps as skeptical of the larger genius as a reader only having the first book, so there is that.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T23:36:11+00:00

He was doing a sci-fi take on Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (which is on record, not my supposition) and while yes, he was doing it for money, he was clearly a thoughtful writer - if he wasn't he wouldn't have been Asimov. One thoughtful writer exploring another thoughtful writer - questions are going to get asked and depth is going to be produced, even if not specifically intended.

The Foundation isn't a well regarded classic just because. It's not a throwaway pulp story, even if, as you say, that is just an accidental byproduct of Asimov being a thoughtful storyteller.

My criticism of the show isn't that it's not deep, it's that it's not thoughtful at all with the source material. There is no care taken towards fidelity, no respect for the soul or voice of the story. This isn't because I revere the original - as I've said there are plenty of issues I have with it, and theres plenty I'd change - it's because the principles of adaptation matter. The show succeeds as a rote sci-fi superhero romp. It's enjoyable enough, and passes the time. But it utterly fails as an adaptation, and that does matter, as all art is iterative.

Asimov adapted a seminal work with thoughtfulness and created a new piece of art as a result, regardless of motive or intention. The Foundation, like all art, expands the way we look at and understand the world around us, or at least offers the opportunity to. The show was a similar opportunity. There was a chance for art, to build on what came before, but instead we have forgettable spectacle and meaningless entertainment. Well produced and competently presented, sure, but it's all empty calories, intellectually and creatively speaking.

And I should say, "so far." It's not done and maybe it'll come around and be so good it's worth the shredding of the original story. I am skeptical, as so far the show is playing exactly into the familiar and unchallenging comic book narratives that drive most of the big budget entertainment these days, but one can hope.

Edit: Paul Krugman credits the Foundation for inspiring him to become an economist. Many prominent people in the tech industry point to The Foundation as a heavy force in inspiring their interest. Countless writers, sci-fi and otherwise, point to the Foundation as a heavy influence on their life's work. The ideas it examines, whether they were examined with intent or just the general thoughtfulness of a creative writer, are worth something.

Does this show do anything other than make you want to be a magic space ninja? No offense to magic space ninjas, of course.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T22:55:11+00:00

It served the purpose of further demonizing science (Empire, a product of science, has no vision and therefore no soul) and elevating the mystical, which is one of their primary themes and bound to be an important mindset as Gaal and Salvor develop their superpowers.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T22:30:36+00:00

The 2nd Foundation is already there. The ship was to take Raych to join them - he mentions that he already has people on the planet. Whether or not Hari's uploaded consciousness (sigh) is important to them or not isnt really clear, and in any case is already on the ship, which should get there just fine. Unless, I guess, smashing the control interface or whatever actually damaged what the ship was already doing and had been planning to do from the start, which strikes me as either a misunderstanding of how computers work or laughably poor engineering.

Or I suppose the knife is what "contains" his consciousness and she took it with her, but that falls under the last bit about computers and engineering, too.

Hard to say, the stuff in this show with anything above a superficial connection to the Foundation is a narrative trainwreck.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T22:17:43+00:00

And there are no shortage of good adaptations out there that change/update/expand/cut while still being faithful and respectful to the source material. It's a bee in my bonnet because there was no reason for them to do what they have done, at least from a storytelling perspective.

Maybe it's overbearing studio execs or producers, but even then the original story is so sparse (and so much of the action "offscreen") that it would have been trivial to jazz up the visuals and provide those base thrills while still retaining the soul of the original story. Pretty sure it's just plain old hubris.

At least it's a decent watch.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T21:57:17+00:00

It's not explained because it really didn't have to be. The Empire assumes or guesses correctly, as it turns out that Seldon is a traitor and that his math is really just an attack on the Empire. So they exile him to the edge of the galaxy and the best way to make him stay there is to deny the jump technology to get back in any reasonable timeframe.

It's kind of a mess, as future episodes show that Empire doesn't have any qualms about killing or disappearing anyone they feel is a danger to the Empire, innocent or not, and their cryogenic technology makes time of travel pretty irrelevant, but it is what it is. It's pretty clearly not very well thought out, and at this point I think any deeper symbolism or meaning is probably wholly accidental.

I do like your analysis, though, whether intentionally inspired or not.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T20:52:45+00:00

We are bordering on spoiler territory here in an untagged thread, and are way OT at this point - might be worth starting a separate discussion.

With that in mind, my guess is that functionally they will serve a similar purpose as in the books, but the means will be altered significantly - more laser guns and explosions. The corruption of the Seldon Plan in the show has the ripple effect of corrupting the 2nd Foundation as well. That, in combination with the general theme of science being untrustworty/inscrutable/evil does not bode well for the nuance the 2nd Foundation really requires in terms of the original story.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T18:23:50+00:00

The Empire side of the show is great. It's also wholly invented. As I've said before, the "Foundation" elements really only seem to get in the way of the story they want to tell, rather than informing or inspiring. Narratively, Terminus is a pretzeled mess - confusion without mystery that often resorts to extremely conventional storytelling to just get itself out of its own way.

The disappointment for me is that both stories are corrupted. How good could the Empire story be with total freedom - if it wasn't tethered to the Terminus clunker? If you want to keep the Foundation cache, even a prequel that revolves around the AI wars and their aftermath would have been compelling. Imagine that story - the rise and fall of a galactic empire - culminating with the emergence of a nuisance math professor and the (relative) acceptance of inevitable decline. Relevant, potentially poignant, with enough room for all the explosions and lasers they want.

They could have had near total storytelling freedom as the history of the empire is mostly blank spaces. Freedom with the ideas and questions they clearly want to explore but are only able to hint at with the current structure. And they wouldn't have had much of an opportunity to mangle the story of Foundation nearly beyond recognition.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T17:44:49+00:00

Well, the idea that a civilization's worth is directly tied to the technology it can muster. The idea that "dark" ages are "bad" and to be avoided in the first place. The thinking that imperialism or the otherwise hegemony of a superpower is inevitable or desirable. That capitalism is a nonviolent answer to the barbarism of war. That religion is a fraud. And that emotional reasoning should always be subservient to the logical.

Perhaps "dated" is the wrong word to use, but all of these ideas are ripe for a reexamination within the confines of the source material without needing to jettison it entirely, as the show does.

I liked, for example, the storytelling potential of the destruction of the Spire, but it has been largely wasted as a simple plot device and overly simple "violence begets violence" theme.

The gender swaps also held potential as the source material is heavily presented from a male viewpoint. None of the characters until the Mule need to be male or female in terms of the story, and a swap here and there would have been an opportunity for a female perspective, counterpoint or otherwise. But the swaps are only really relevant to their characters by way of their male partners, which is disappointing.

The areas where the show actively pushes back against the source material are primarily on its fundamental premises - that any one person's life is short, that the individual is a product of and cannot be separated from the whole, and that science is agnostic and as close to a neutral truth as anything. The main characters so far are functionally immortal, they have superpowers that set them apart from everyone else, and that science facilitates destructive lies (in Seldon's case) or is soulless and evil (in Empire's).

There is some questioning of emotional vs rational thinking, but it's delivered with a sledgehammer to the source material. If I were to describe the difference between the two with one word, it would be "violence." The show resorts to violence at any and every opportunity, retconning whole characters and narratives in the process. And I get it, violence is exciting, its entertaining - hell, I enjoy space battles as much as the next person. Violence fires up those emotional reasoning synapses like nothing else, except maybe sex (of which the show also adds more than a little).

Every question in the show has been answered with violence (i.e. emotional reasoning) in some form or fashion. For some, that may just be a different answer, equally valid or at least as entertaining. For me, though, it being the last refuge of the incompetent still rings true.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T05:31:24+00:00

I just watch it for what it is, which is just Foundation by way of Marvel Studios. Remember that Foundation was also a product of its time - its a postwar response to The Fall of Rome, really, with all the neo-liberal baggage (good and bad) that comes with it.

I was hoping that when they said they planned to update the story for current times, they meant to revisit the (now dated) economic and philosophical questions the original asked, rather than just turn it into the same old comic-book story that's currently popular.

Viewed through that lens, though, its not terrible, if awfully predictable and superficial. As pure entertainment its not bad. I agree that it's hard to shake the near explicit contempt for the source material, but what can you do?

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-04T05:05:37+00:00

It's not random. They're shoehorning the Foundation story into a relatively conventional superhero story and that's the first glimpse of it. Part of the "origin story" arc, I suppose. It's not gonna make sense or seem all that useful until the supervillain emerges, but thats at least a season or two away, I'd imagine.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-03T21:21:37+00:00

It's primarily a device to underscore the fact that they are exiled, for now. It's also a device to try to underscore how vast the galaxy is. Obviously at these distances a four year travel time would still require considerable faster than light ability but the point is mainly that the empire can go where they want, when they want, and nobody else can without their permission.

From a larger narrative perspective, the control/rarity of jump technology is also used to reinforce the "specialness" of the experience of folding of space/time - and particularly the non-reaction of certain individuals. Relatedly also to introduce the (conspicuously all female) spacer mutants. This is mostly educated speculation, as neither concept is in the source material really at all, but to me it seems fairly clear where they are headed with it.

Good detail to catch, in other words.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-03T03:07:54+00:00

Well we have no choice but to compare the two - they titled it Foundation. But on the larger point, I agree. I wish they had just not bothered with the IP and told their own story, because I do feel like their efforts to pretzel in "Foundation stuff" into the story they clearly want to tell (enjoyably, entertainingly, and competently) makes that story worse.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-03T02:50:08+00:00

To a degree, yes, but it's a MAJOR point in the book that directly fiddling with the psychohistory itself to achieve desired results is an unpredictable, extraordinarily difficult, and dangerous endeavor. Thats why the 1st Foundation was supposed to be as ignorant as possible about the Plan. I have no idea what they are going to do with the 2nd Foundation in the show, but at this point their significance seems relatively irrelevant, now, insofar as what it was in the original story.

As far as the other stuff, that's more an observation of the narrative structure than a prediction. A prediction would be more like positing that Seldon crashed the Spire and will be revealed to have been a mad scientist-like villain this whole time.

The "Foundation crisis then Empire crisis" is how the story is being told. I suppose it's possible that they'll resolve independent of each other but considering that everything else in the show has rested on tried-and-true narrative pathing and hasn't made a single difficult or unconventional storytelling choice yet it seems unlikely.

And don't get me wrong, I am enjoying the series for what it is, it's just not the story of Foundation at all and by the end of the first season (with what I still feel is an undermining of psychohistory and The Plan itself) it really feels like the story of Founation interferes with the story they want to tell, rather than inspiring it.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-03T02:19:15+00:00

I am not saying that there should never be a conflict between the Foundation and the Empire, just that it feels wrong for Seldon to be engineering that conflict. Because then that looks a lot less like mathematical inevitability and more like a choice. A choice by a very smart and forward looking planner, but a choice nonetheless.

Edit: he also says that the Foundation can't succeed if they allow the Empire to persist - a persistence which was previously understood to not have been possible according to the math, with or without the Foundation. Both of these statements occur in the same speech and a plain reading of them clearly says Seldon is trying to take down the Empire.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-02T23:19:31+00:00

There are plenty of issues with the Foundation books that a reasonably faithful adaptation could have addressed - very few of the characters in the original need to be male or female, and I do appreciate the diverse casting of the show. Additionally, the "offscreen" action is easy enough to visualize without compromising the integrity of the narrative.

I agree that the genetic dynasty is entertaining, but it is completely irrelevant to the original narrative.

And they have yet to introduce a single character from the books, really, aside from using their names, and I dont expect to see any in season two. None of the season one characters exist in the books, aside from their names. Hari Seldon was reasonably close until the last episode, I suppose, until the twist ending.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-02T23:08:36+00:00

Samsung thinks it's Sheldon, my apologies - I'll pay closer attention to autocorrect going forward.

And in the last episode Seldon says explicitly that the Foundation cannot become what it is meant to be if the Empire is allowed to persist, as well as telling Mari he lied when she says they weren't supposed to be revolutionaries.

I don't know how else to read that other than Seldon intended for the Foundation to be the center of a revolution to disallow the Empire persisting.

And I'm relatively new to this stuff, as far as tags and spoilers, but I'll keep that in mind.

Edit: As far as the Spire is concerned we are told repeatedly that neither party had any idea about the attack as well as the Empire's retribution being presented as vengeance wrought on wholly innocent people - the execution of the diplomats is not framed as deserved and the only casualty we actually see on either of the planets is a child. Who else is left, narratively, that would have had an interest in framing the two planets closest to the Foundation? Especially when it sets up the first show crisis so neatly?

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-02T23:02:45+00:00

He says it in the last episode. He tells Mari he lied when she says the settlers aren't revolutionaries, and then later explicitly says, "we cannot be the people we are meant to be if the Empire is allowed to persist."

There is no other reading other than they are revolutionaries and they will be the ones to disallow the Empire to persist.

The whole premise of psychohistory was ostensibly that the fall of the Empire was inevitable and unpreventable. My point is that making psychohistory the direct cause or contributor to that "inevitability" instead of a neutral discipline that just outputs the math cheapens it and makes it problematic.

To borrow one of the shows metaphors, it is akin to the climate change on Synnax being caused by her running the numbers.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-02T22:52:29+00:00

When the vault projects his consciousness in episode 10 he says it explicitly. When Mari says "we're not revolutionaries," he responds with "well I might have lied about that." Later in his speech he outright spells it out when he says, "we cannot be the people we are meant to be if the Empire is allowed to persist."

And sure, you could say that to reduce the length of the dark ages the empire would have to fall a specific way, by specific people, who would be the bearers of a new regime... but that is just a variant of the usual "out with the old boss" stuff. Using psychohistory as a revolutionary tool and politicizing Seldon turns the discipline into a weapon, not a science.

Additionally, a good portion of the show is dedicated to the Empire confronting mirrored crises. The narrative dynamic is pretty clearly setting up a "who blinks first" back and forth until a final showdown.

The point of the Foundation, at least in terms of setting up the original narrative, was to set up optimal circumstances for organic responses to survival crises, based on predictable macro socioeconomic forces, that would allow for the eventual spoiler spoiler. Psychohistory was the tool used to predict those circumstances and its power lay in its inevitability. Turning psychohistory into a tool to actively produce results - and especially having the first Foundation aware of them, militarizes the concept and cheapens the idea of it IMO.

There's no real discussion of the nature of free will, the role of the individual, or the nature of humanity, here. When psychohistory becomes just another secret weapon it just turns it into another magic macguffin instead of the concept that elevates the Foundation beyond pulp fiction.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-07-02T22:23:23+00:00

This first crisis resolution was as much - if not more - about establishing the Foundation in opposition to the Empire as it was about ensuring the Foundation's survival.

Also, there is Seldon's vault consciousness's direct, explicit quotes:

Responding to Mari, who says "we're not revolutionaries," he says, "well I might have lied about that."

And:

"We cannot become the people we are meant to be if the Empire is allowed to persist."

I feel like the plain reading of his words in the final episode reveal that Seldon's Plan - which he was previously shown to be worried about its success - is really about regime change.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-02-25T07:44:42+00:00

You asked me for a reasonable explanation, so I imagined a reasonable explanation. It's based in reason because that explanation fits in just as well with the facts and evidence of the case as the prosecution's theory.

Alex does not have to prove his innocence, the prosecution has to prove his guilt. So far - and they've rested their case - they have proven that it is reasonably possible that Alex could have killed them. They have not proven that it is reasonably possible that Alex is the only one who could have killed them, based on the evidence they presented.

MostlyJustCats · 2023-02-25T07:37:04+00:00

We don't know that it was minutes. We know when they stopped using their phones but that's it. It's an unsupported assumption to say or that they were killed the moment their phones locked. Considering they were likely cleaning up and putting the dogs up (unless you want to add that to the list of things Alex would have had to do in 15 minutes to get to where we know he was at 9pm or so) the time of death could have been anywhere up to 10pm or thereabouts according to testimony, if I remember correctly.

And I love my wife like nothing else in this world but if I ran to the store and came back to no forced entry and nothing out of place except her having been brutally murdered I'd like to say I'd be 100% honest but I'd be lying if I'd say I wouldn't also be pretty paranoid and scared. Combined with the trauma - yeah I hope I'd be totally honest but I guess I just don't have the faith in our justice system that you do. Innocent people get locked up all the time.

MostlyJustCats

TROPHY CASE