Foundation and Empire (The Foundation Trilogy #2)

by Isaac Asimov

the essential point in running a risk is that the returns justify it.

‘The times make the man,’

‘Patrician, are you a loyal subject of the Emperor?’ Barr, who had maintained an indifferent silence till then, wrinkled a noncommittal brow. ‘I have no cause to love Imperial rule.’ ‘Which is a long way from saying that you would be a traitor.’ ‘True. But the mere act of not being a traitor is also a long way from agreeing to be an active helper.’ ‘Ordinarily also true. But to refuse your help at this point,’ said Riose, deliberately, ‘will be considered treason and treated as such.’ Barr’s eyebrows drew together. ‘Save your verbal cudgels for your subordinates. A simple statement of your needs and wants will suffice me here.’

‘Because I have faith in the principles of psycho-history. It is a strange science. It reached mathematical maturity with one man, Hari Seldon, and died with him, for no man since has been capable of manipulating its intricacies. But in that short period, it proved itself the most powerful instrument ever invented for the study of humanity. Without pretending to predict the actions of individual humans, it formulated definite laws capable of mathematical analysis and extrapolation to govern and predict the mass action of human groups.’

‘Attack now or never; with a single ship, or all the force in the Empire; by military force or economic pressure; by candid declaration of war or by treacherous ambush. Do whatever you wish in your fullest exercise of free will. You will still lose.’ ‘Because of Hari Seldon’s dead hand?’ ‘Because of the dead hand of the mathematics of human behaviour that can neither be stopped, swerved, nor delayed.

the huge Imperial planet, Trantor. But it was more than a planet; it was the living pulse beat of an Empire of twenty million stellar systems. It had only one function, administration; one purpose, government; and one manufactured product, law.

The entire world was one functional distortion. There was no living object on its surface but man, his pets, and his parasites. No blade of grass or fragment of uncovered soil could be found outside the hundred square miles of the Imperial Palace. No water outside the Palace grounds existed but in the vast underground cisterns that held the water supply of a world. The lustrous, indestructible, incorruptible metal that was the unbroken surface of the planet was the foundation of the huge metal structures that mazed the planet. They were structures connected by causeways; laced by corridors; cubbyholed by offices; basemented by the huge retail centres that covered square miles; penthoused by the glittering amusement world that sparkled into life each night. One could walk around the world of Trantor and never leave that one conglomerate building, nor see the city.

the whole essence of Seldon’s plan was to create a world better than the ancient one of the Galactic Empire. It was falling apart, that world, three centuries ago, when Seldon first established the Foundation – and if history speaks truly, it was falling apart of the triple disease of inertia, despotism, and maldistribution of the goods of the universe.’