Spoilers Foundation Adaptation Series on AppleTV+ (Discussion and Spoilers)

[Asbo Zaprudder]

According to "Prelude To Foundation" the robots were there all along. Even Seldon's wife was a robot.

Yeah, but let's not forget that they were an add-on to the original trilogy as was a bunch of other stuff. IMO some of it added to and some of it subtracted from this larger story. Robots and Eternity I'm ok about but I'm on the fence about the addition of Galaxia. I don't think it's as bad as some make it out.

The starships in the trailers appear to encompass black holes, which is a step forward from the nuclear powered and even fossil-fuelled starships of the books.

 

[oldtrekkie]

Yeah, but let's not forget that they were an add-on to the original trilogy as was a bunch of other stuff. IMO some of it added to and some of it subtracted from this larger story. Robots and Eternity I'm ok about but I'm on the fence about the addition of Galaxia. I don't think it's as bad as some make it out.

Galaxia is the end of history. What more is there to say about a superorganism the size of a galaxy?

 

[Cyrus]

I wonder if they'll take the whole saga or just the trilogy. In the case of the former then we might get a glimpse of Daneel Olivaw lurking in the shadow...

Demerzel is one of the characters in the series though now a female. I suspect she is not Daneel in this adaptation, just the prime minister.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Galaxia is the end of history. What more is there to say about a superorganism the size of a galaxy?

That's what some people didn't like. IIRC they thought it tyrannical for human individuals to have to submit to being part of a hive mind, whether benign or otherwise. I thought it smacked of being a new age cop-out. Everybody join hands and sing Kumbaya...

 

[Skipper]

That's what some people didn't like. IIRC they thought it tyrannical for human individuals to have to submit to being part of a hive mind, whether benign or otherwise. I thought it smacked of being a new age cop-out. Everybody join hands and sing Kumbaya...

But wasn't one of the reasons for creating Galaxia for defense against possible extra-galactic aliens?

It would be a good story for a book! Intergalactic Wars!

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

But wasn't one of the reasons for creating Galaxia for defense against possible extra-galactic aliens?

It would be a good story for a book! Intergalactic Wars!

I don't really remember. I found Foundation and Earth instantly forgettable. I think it was setting up Fallom and eir kind as the antagonists.

 

[Skipper]

I don't really remember. I found Foundation and Earth instantly forgettable. I think it was setting up Fallom and eir kind as the antagonists.

From Wikipedia:

Daneel continues to explain that human internal warfare or parochialism was the reason for his causing the creation of psychohistory and Gaia. Trevize then confirms his decision that the creation of Galaxia is the correct choice, and gives his reason as the likelihood of advanced life beyond the galaxy eventually attacking humanity. This danger is part of the conclusion to Asimov's book The End of Eternity, in which "Project Eternity", which manipulated human history to maintain human comfort, is destroyed to undo an extraterrestrial disaster—extraterrestrials giving humanity no hope of expansion, at which point the birth rate fell, and humanity became extinct.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Perhaps Trevize is mistaken and/or short sighted. This is the ending of Foundation and Earth:

"In all human history, no other intelligence has impinged on us, to our knowledge. This need only continue a few more centuries, perhaps a little more than one ten thousandth of the time civilization has already existed, and we will be safe. After all," and here Trevize felt a sudden twinge of trouble, which he forced himself to disregard, "it is not as though we had the enemy already here among us."

And he did not look down to meet the brooding eyes of Fallom - hermaphroditic, transductive, different - as they rested unfathomably, on him.

Daneel maintained that mankind has been divided since the dawn of civilization, and that this was his motivation for steering the development of Psychohistory and Gaia (and hence Galaxia). This division continues with human offshoots such as those from Solaria, although Fallom will likely absorb Daneel's consciousness and so would perhaps create a resolution.

We never got an Asimov-written sequel, of course, only prequels.

 

[Skipper]

I wonder why no other author wrote sequels (like it happened with the prequels)

 

[wayoung]

Likely whomever owns the rights didn't want to license them out.

 

[Skipper]

Likely whomever owns the rights didn't want to license them out.

But they did it for the prequels (and some of them were really bad)

 

[wayoung]

It's been forever, weren't they more interquels done by acclaimed writers like Orson Scott Card?

I'd say it's less... invasive... to a brand to have a few interquels/prequels written by acclaimed novelists as a curiosity than to have someone take over and do a new ending to a series. I say this as a fan of Dune having lived through it

 

[Skipper]

It's been forever, weren't they more interquels done by acclaimed writers like Orson Scott Card?

I'd say it's less... invasive... to a brand to have a few interquels/prequels written by acclaimed novelists as a curiosity than to have someone take over and do a new ending to a series. I say this as a fan of Dune having lived through it

Yep, but money is MONEY!

 

[wayoung]

Yep, but money is MONEY!

. If his family owns the rights they're already filthy rich (and more so with the Apple series coming) so it could be the income from more books isn't worth the dilution of the brand. They're not obligated to increase shareholder value like a public corporation is. More interested in the family legacy than on pumping out quick, short term profits.

The Herbert Partnership did it with Dune because they stuck Brian's name on every book. They wouldn't even let Byron write one despite all his lobbying. And even then it did dilute the brand to the point that the publishers cancelled a series partway through due to disappointing sales, and only started up again with the movie hype.

 

[Skipper]

Well ... we'll see what happens after the miniseries airs ...

 

[oldtrekkie]

Yeah, the re-written end of Dune. That was disappointing.

 

[JD]

You've watched a trailer?

There have been 3 trailers so far
Teaser 1

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Teaser 2

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Trailer

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and a First Look clip with interviews with David S. Goyer and the cast

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It's been forever, weren't they more interquels done by acclaimed writers like Orson Scott Card?

I'd say it's less... invasive... to a brand to have a few interquels/prequels written by acclaimed novelists as a curiosity than to have someone take over and do a new ending to a series. I say this as a fan of Dune having lived through it

It seemed to work out OK for Wheel of Time.

 

[E-DUB]

Some of the stories in this book are set in the Foundation universe. https://www.amazon.com/Foundations-Friends-Stories-Honor-Asimov/dp/0765328305

 

[tomalak301]

At the half hour mark I was struggling with the series and wondering if it was right for me. I haven't read the books, and I'm coming into this series pretty cold and no knowledge of anything, and it just felt like a lot of psycho-babble mixed in with gorgeous visuals and a show that was nice to look at but boring to follow.

Once the trial started, things started to pick up and when the attack happened the Show grabbed my attention. In a span of an episode I went from I don't know if this is a series worth following to I want to see what happens next because I'm intrigued.

Also, I saw Alexander Siddig in this series and that helped boost my enthusiasm, since there was a Star Trek connection with one of my favorite series.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Asimov melded Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with statistical thermodynamics as applied to human populations. Chaos theory blows the validity of Psychohistory out of the water. Sure, you can do Monte Carlo analysis to try to predict the future but there's no guarantee the predictions are going to converge no matter how precisely you have established the initial parameters. I haven't watched the first episodes yet to see how our current understanding fits into this adaptation. I'll drop by later with my musings whether anyone wants them or not.

ETA: Not shown as available yet in the UK. I blame Brexit.

One of the trailers shows Gaal Dornick manipulating the holographic representation of something that looks like a strange attractor. (If dynamical systems do not evolve to an equilibrium attractor state after a period of time but instead orbit it in parameter space, this unattainable equilibrium state is known as a strange attractor.) You can also manipulate one here while you are waiting for the episodes to become available:

Lorenz strange attractor (ibiblio.org)
The Lorenz attractor (marksmath.org)