Foundation

- -

Awaken, Sleeper. The First Speaker welcomes you home.

Thalis.

You've been one year in stasis. All is as you planned.

Awaken, Hari Seldon.

- - The Second Foundation welcomes you home.

Hari and I had finally established the Second Foundation on Ignis.

But we had a lot of catching up to do.

The Plan was still wildly off course. We needed to get it back on track.

We'd stay in cryosleep for all but a few weeks each year.

Awaken, Sleeper. Another year has passed.

When we were awake, Hari would teach the Mentalics about psychohistory.

Manipulating events through mass action.

Bending the arc of history, that is psychohistory's true power.

And I would teach them how to use their powers to fight the Mule.

As the years passed, we evolved from Tellem's children

into whirling blades in the current of time.

No. Don't. Don't bow.

Our religious era is over.

We expanded our reach,

seeking out other Mentalics like us and growing our numbers.

Soon, we had eyes and ears in every part of the galaxy.

Working in the shadows to ensure the First Foundation grew strong,

and Empire weakened according to the initial trajectory of the Plan.

But as the years went by,

we found ourselves up against one thing we couldn't control.

Time.

We still won't be ready in time.

The Mule doesn't show up for another half a century.

It's not him I'm worried about.

The Third Crisis was always the turning point.

If we don't have everything in exactly the right place,

even if we defeat the Mule, we won't be ready for what comes after.

Then we specialize.

We can't teach all the Mentalics all of psychohistory,

but we can teach parts of it to each of them.

That's good.

But we'd still need to be constantly updating our regression models.

Refining our socio-operations

so that we know we're influencing the right sectors.

We're not catching up fast enough.

We need to stay awake.

One of us needs to stay awake.

- Hari. -

Your battle is with the Mule.

It's my job to ensure that we're prepared.

Hari. Fuck.

There's only one way that's possible.

See you in a year.

- -

Welcome home, Gaal.

Where's Thalis?

Thalis passed away some time ago. He's First Speaker now.

His name's Preem Palver.

Where's Hari? How many years?

Since your first wake cycle...

148 years.

Hari?

Gaal.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

Why didn't they wake me sooner?

We needed more time. Yours is more valuable than mine.

I could've helped.

We could've traded places for a while, taken turns.

We could've found some way to...

You're always so angry with me.

Well, you always earn it.

The Mule?

No. Not yet. Soon.

But the a...

The Third Crisis is almost upon us.

Come.

What are these?

Oh. I made them.

Salvor, Yanna, Raych.

This is how I remember the past these days.

I can't see them clearly in here anymore.

But I can in here.

Come, come.

There's something I need to show you.

For most of my life, I believed, if executed properly,

my Plan would shorten the darkness.

You were never meant to be part of Second Foundation.

You were supposed to die centuries ago. Yet here you are.

You threw everything off course

and somehow managed to put it all back again.

This can't all be by accident.

There's something happening here. I... I can't explain it.

But I know you're at the center of it.

The road ahead is one you can travel on your own.

I'm not saying goodbye to you.

Then I'll have Preem do the eulogy.

- Hari. -

You'll like him. Now...

This is everything I know about the Eight Crises.

All the raw data, all my thoughts, secrets.

But the most important is this one.

The Invictus .

If the Mule is defeated,

this is where everything is headed.

I'll see you tomorrow.

I'm tired.

- Tomorrow. - Yeah.

- Okay. - Yes.

Be careful.

You lied to her.

I couldn't look her in the face and say goodbye.

Better this way.

Were I Gaal, I'd disagree.

Are you certain of this?

There'd be grace to die here.

Take me back to Oona's World.

Grant me another reprieve.

This body was your reprieve.

And you did all you could while you had it.

Then I'm certain.

No Spacers. No whisper-drive.

No jumpgate.

How?

Come with me. Let me show you.

Salvor said... She said someone wanted me to have skin in the game. Why?

Because we can't.

Hari?

He's gone.

He didn't say goodbye.

But I felt him leave.

I don't know how to sign yet, but I can read heartbreak.

Hari's gone and I want to make one for him.

One of those statues he was making.

He already carved his own. Didn't he?

Of course he fucking did.

Hari had carved himself into history.

And forged a path for us to follow.

We took that path together.

I learned Preem's language and the Plan was back on track,

but the fight was just beginning.

Where is the Second Foundation?

The Mule is here. We're out of time.

One hundred and fifty-two years ago,

you saw that if there were no Second Foundation,

we would completely diverge from the Seldon Plan.

We have dragged the Plan back.

The Third Crisis is landing right where it's supposed to.

Kalgan's something else.

The moment the Mule took it,

the Radiant did this...

Well, if it can get worse, it can get better.

Fix it.

It is not fixable.

Not by psychohistory at least.

It couldn't just be wrong?

You said the predictions have been less exact recently.

I believe that is due to some other unknown.

Something has been casting shadows in the math for years.

Kalgan then. It changed hands.

Couldn't that have caused some domino effect?

I always felt we were headed to nothingness.

Kiss the void, gentlemen.

For a century, this toy obeyed that toy.

It made us servants to its readings

which it promised would help us preserve our own skin.

Well, happy pay day to us.

We're fucked.

If you need me, find a way not to.

Even emptier in there than I thought.

We'll confer later.

For now, don't tell anyone else.

No one can know.

Demerzel. I think, in this moment...

...I understand what it's like to be you.

Empire?

I have toiled, and compromised, and sought a happy middle ground.

All for nothing apparently.

So if there is ash in my mouth at the end of a brief, pointless life,

you must taste bile in your long, pointless one.

Maybe you welcome the end.

If there's no Genetic Dynasty to maintain,

you are just a girl

with an open road before her.