War and Plutocracy

Ach, I don’t really want to do this tonight, but I really should before I start the next book. Here it goes…

Ponyets was successful in selling the transmuted gold. More importantly, he also sold the (nuclear) transmutation device to a lower official, so that he could use the gold to secure the Grand Master…ship? when the current one died. Using as blackmail the holographic (is that the right word?) tapes he has taken of the transaction, (if they were released, the atomic nature of the item would spell death for both of them) Ponyets forces the man to purchase more of his products.

We learn after the next time skip that the man did ascend to the position of Grand Master, and the religion was established on Askone successfully, giving the Foundation control of it.

The size of the next time skip is not directly stated, but, according to wikipedia, 95 years have passed since the last Seldon Crisis (the attack by Anacreon), and the previous chapter was set 20 years before this one (which is called “The Merchant Princes”).

We join a trader, Hober Mallow, as he goes to the planet of Korell to trade. There, he sells them atomic convenience items, which help around the house and increase efficiency in factories 100-fold. He also discovers that the planet is being supplied with atomic weaponry by the [weakened, but still extremely powerful] Galactic Empire.

After a series of complicated political events that I couldn’t accurately record without a ton of time wasted, Mallow becomes the Mayor [president, more-or-less] of the Foundation (now including Terminus, the four kingdoms, and Askone) and also its religious leader during a three year “war” with Korell. While it has enough power to destroy the Foundation (with its Imperial ships), the failing atomics (which leav many without power, and the factories no longer fit for producing) eventually force it to join the Foundation for the upkeep of its newfound power source.

This establishes a plutocracy (a system of gov. where the rich rule) in the Foundation.

While this occurs, Mallow takes a trip to the empire, where he finds that civil wars are common, the army is corrupt, and innovation has stalled. The people there (in a fairly backwater system) consider him to be one of the wizards from the periphery that they have heard of, as he has a personal shield with a walnut-sized nuclear source (So they don’t know where the human species originated, but they know what a Walnut is? Really?)

The next book is Foundation and Empire, where, according to the introduction, the Empire goes to war with the Foundation.

There were some signs of advancement in this chapter, which I was glad to see (even if they were a little ridiculous, such as jewelry that makes your entire body glow). This was perhaps the least interesting of the chapters to me, however. The Seldon crisis this time doesn’t seem to escalate as far as the others did (the war was bloodless).

It was interesting to see, though, what was so much science-fiction at the time this was written. One of the seemingly important advancements is something that is called “video chat” these days (I think). I don’t think that our current system would hold up well in the void of space, but it still isn’t nearly as far-fetched as it was.

Hmm…That time typing would have been better spent on my Dracula paper, wouldn’t it [have]? Ah well.