News Foundation Adaptation Series Officially Ordered by Apple

It's possible that machine learning might offer a glimmer of hope of predicting chaotic evolution in the case of certain classes of differential and difference equations:
Machine Learning’s ‘Amazing’ Ability to Predict Chaos | Quanta Magazine
(The Kuramoto–Sivashinsky equation is a fourth-order non-linear partial differential equation (PDE) that is used to model reaction–diffusion systems such as flame propagation, chemical reactions, and plasmas.)

 

Using an actor who plays a character to serve as narrator doesn't bother me. That doesn't automatically mean they are long lived and actually experience these things. It just means a familiar voice.

I thought the first episode was excellent. I love the layers they picked up from the various stories. They really put a lot of attention into it. Some things are very changed, but I think the feeling they invoke is exactly in line with what Asimov wrote, even if they have greatly strayed from his original. There is so much from Prelude and Forward that was layered in. Gaal's home planet foreshadows the religious issues on the periphery. It also hints that the Empire is crumbling. Gaal's speech in the second episode where she sits in on the meeting for Seldon includes some echoes of current diversity concerns. I think I missed something crucial in the 2nd episode so I need to rewatch it. I think it was interesting to explore more of what happened between Asimov's stories. Better to expand the stories than extend it out rather than skip too much.

 

Except I think Gaal Dornick's narration states she actually witnessed the events involving all the major players up to and including the Mule. I don't have the actual quote so I could be misremembering.

 

I enjoyed part 1 far more than I expected based on some of the commentary here and elsewhere. It hit all the main points that I remember, and was more faithful to this part of the story than I expected. Didn’t agree with some changes (the Vault) but it didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the show.

Can’t wait to see part 2

As I’ve said before, nowhere in the original trilogy are “coal powered starships” mentioned or implied. The most notable mentions of “coal” are in the first book.

By Salvor Hardin:
“He threw his cigar away and looked up at the outstretched Galaxy. “Back to oil and coal, are they?” he murmured—and what the rest of his thoughts were he kept to himself.”

By Wienis:
“I remember the time—I, myself—when the cities of Anacreon were warmed by the burning of coal and oil”

By Hober Mallow:
“No, by Black Space, no! My grandfather was a blood-poor son-of-a-spacer who died heaving coal at starving wages before the Foundation took over.”

That’s literally it.

Both Foundation and Empire & Second Foundation mention the Four Kingdoms falling back on “coal and oil” in brief narrations about the state of the Four Kingdoms around Hardins day.

In none of these comments do they mention “coal powered starships” nor is it implied. Essentially Anacreon as well as the rest of the Four Kingdoms were reduced to the technology of the day. I read this at 11-12 yrs old and just assumed the Kingdom had been kicked back to our tech level of 1979 since we weren’t a nuclear economy nor were we launching nuclear powered space vehicles.

Rocket ships predate Foundation in science fiction and they weren’t coal powered. So I really don’t know where this idea that Asimov was pushing that idea comes from. Maybe he mentioned it outside of the text, I don’t know.

 

Yeah, it's specified the other worlds don't have nuclear technology anymore, but what the non nuclear ships are powered by isn't outright stated. I mean, everything in the books is still ridiculous tech wise looking back on it today, but it was 80 years ago and atomic power was pretty much magic, which is how Asimov treated it in his books, having an entire religion develop around it.

 

I’m guessing this “slow” ftl mentioned in the ep2 trailer will be what The Four Kingdoms are reduced to as rocket engines don’t allow for interstellar travel in any practical sense.

 

I mean, atomic engines don't either. I suspect all the tech stuff is just going to be ignored/updated. Can't really do otherwise with a modern adaptation.

I wonder if they'll stick to the decentralized vs centralized theme of the books - ie. a major reason the Empire fell was because the core planets over specialized and everything needed was centralized on one planet - all city, all agricultural, all power generating, so when one planet fell the whole system collapsed - vs the foundation was decentralized everything, generalising production because they couldn't afford one planet specialization, so they miniaturized and decentralized everything such as power production, creating nuclear powered handheld tech.

 

Trantor has a huge population (40 billion in Foundation) and seemingly no agriculture (although I guess it could have hydroponics given enough water and artificial lighting). Lose the fast FTL mode for some reason and the food could run out very quickly. According to the fan wiki:

 

It's possible. One thing they have said is that they're updating this adaptation for the sociopolitical realities of the 2020s instead of the 1950s, explaining, for instance, why it's looking like the Empire's fall is precipitated by being too quick to lash out at a distance out of ignorance and fear, rather than losing interest in its outer reaches as in the original book. But the complex web of global trade, and its drawbacks, are also something we're facing today, both before the virus just with international politics being held somewhat hostage by China's strong trade relations, and moreso during the pandemic, as we're seeing disruptions ripple through the worldwide economy and cause what you'd expect to be unrelated consequences.

 

For a museum she could be a clone or an ai rendering.

At some point, the time vault is going to run out of Sheldon Crisises and just be a typical hacienda on the edge of the desert.

 

I just thought - what is replenishing the oxygen in Trantor's atmosphere if there is precious little in the way of plant life or oceans containing cyanobacteria? It sounds like a recipe for both a runaway greenhouse effect and asphyxiation. Water recycling and waste disposal for 40 billion people must also be a nightmare to handle. How is the empire controlling the population level - euthanasia, voluntary birth control, compulsory birth control, contraceptives added to the water supply and food?

Spoiler: False-flag act?

Arranging a terrorist act that kills 100 million is another way, I guess, although Brother Day isn't averse to a bit of killing, would he instigate such a false-flag scheme?

 

I'm now imagining what Foundation would be like with Sheldon Cooper instead of Hari Seldon. It would probably be more socially myopic, unknowingly rude, sarcastic, and condescending.

 

Meh, psychohistory not being possible according to today's science doesn't bother me much. Look at all we've discovered the last hundred years. God knows how many times mathematics and physics will disprove what we think we know now by the time Foundation is set.

And then 500 years later they discover psychohistory doesn't work after all

Although I always figured The Mule should have been enough of a hint.

 

Whether or not psychohistory works is irrelevant to the purpose of the Foundation. The second foundation is the guardian of the plan to stem the tide of the collapse of civilization that has its public face in the first foundation. It is the shortening of the 30,000 years to 1000 that is the entire purpose of the Foundations. Demerzel is the architect behind it anyway, not Hari Seldon. The Mule just reveals the sham of it all for a moment before that is swept back under the rug.

 

If I had to make up an answer off the top of my head I'd say something along the lines of O2 scrubbing being done by massive vats of genetically engineered biomass; an algae for example. Hell, there could be a whole layer of Trantor full of such vats that do nothing but cycle the air down from above. Disseminated and localised installations probably make more sense, but this society clearly has a fixation of centralised, over-specialized infrastructure.
Plus there could be any number of ways excess carbon could be locked in and extracted from the atmosphere. It's kind of frightening what can be achieved though relatively simple engineering if you're willing to brute force it, and building at scale is clearly not a problem for this Empire.

As for population control; the means is likely the same means that most civilizations (including ours) use; economic disparity. The attrition rates on the lower levels has to be significant enough to counter-balance any significant pressure on resources, or else they'd have eaten the rich already.

 

If I am not mistaken, they actually address this in the books themselves. If I recall correctly the Foundation is flabbergasted at some point because the holographic appearances of Seldon start talking about things that make no sense, aren't happening, etc.

The First Foundation and the Seldon Plan was always a fake. The Second Foundation were the true guardians of the "The Plan" and the architechts of the future.

 

I'm not sure of the dates but I think that plot twist comes from a later sequel written in the 80s after chaos theory started becoming understood in the late 70s. Originally, the Second Foundation was depicted more like an error-correcting mechanism.

 

You may be right. Been a long time since I read the Foundation series.

 

Yeah, what you're thinking of is The Mule - that's when the Foundation went to see what the Vault said and it was completely off. Then the 2nd Foundation fixed that by brainwashing The Mule, and making the Foundation think they destroyed the 2nd Foundation. Psychohistory and the Seldon plan were not fake, the encyclopaedia was fake. Seldon and the 2nd foundation did believe in the plan and the 2nd foundations job was to monitor it and make course corrections to it as needed.

Then in the 80's what's his name chose the hive mind over the Seldon plan using the logic that if Psychohistory actually worked, he shouldn't have had the option to make that choice in the first place, as psychohistory relies on the fundamental truth that no individual can affect the future, it is strictly determined by mass actions. By merely being given the option to choose, it showed psychohistory was inherently flawed.

 

Right. Thank you.

"What's his name" was, I believe, Golan Trevise.