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Phenotype posted:I've never read Foundation but I read a bunch of Asimov stuff when I was a kid. Should I read the books if I'm interested in the show? I remember his stuff being really dry, but then I was like 12. Oh, Asimov's works are dry all right. Most of his stories consist of reasoned, calm discussions between two people who sometimes get upset but rarely to the point of impoliteness. And I say this as a fan; Asimov was himself aware of his weaknesses as an author and the difficulties that would come with adapting his works to a more visual, dynamic medium. The showrunners basically have to take some liberties to make things interesting, and I wouldn't worry about book accuracy so long as they maintain the core elements of themes and characterization.
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Sep 24, 2021 00:01
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El Jeffe posted:Question for those who've read all the books: judging from the trailers, do they seem to be starting with the prequels? I only read the first three, and I know the female lead in the trailers is supposed to be Gaal Dornick, that guy in the first chapter of the first book who's never mentioned again after the timeskip (at least in the first 3 books). The first prequel covers Hari's time on the planet-city when he proposes the idea of psychohistory as something he could work on in the future, long before he ever published anything and gained notoriety. The second prequel is about him developing the idea of the Foundation and the discovery he made that led him to form the Second Foundation. Based on the dialog and Seldon's apparent age, I'm guessing the series starts where the first Foundation novel starts and maybe borrows some setting elements from the prequel novels without going into the plot. Aside from that, I figure the show is expanding on each sub-story's time period to bulk out the season. It might use each sub-story as the basis for a season or it might concentrate several into one character's lifetime, but either way I doubt this season will reach the second half of Foundation and Empire.
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Sep 24, 2021 02:24
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El Jeffe posted:I'd be very surprised if they even got to the end of the first book considering that Seldon seems to be the main character of probably this whole season, which is why I'm thinking season 1 might be pretty much entirely in the timeskip period between the events of book 1 chapter 1 and Seldon's death. So maybe season 2 will actually be about the events of book 1 post-Seldon, i.e. the entire book after the first chapter, and the show will be a sort of anthology-by-season. I'm not so sure. Seldon does a lot of talking during the trailer but not much doing. Which matches his role in the books.
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Sep 24, 2021 03:56
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Yeah, there's plenty of room to bulk out in each story's era and plenty of details we never really see, but the Foundation universe is good at implying hidden depths that an adaptation can bulk out. The main thing I would want the show to keep is the resolution to each story's conflict, which I would have to say is the single most memorable element of the whole extended series.
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Sep 24, 2021 18:09
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Loezi posted:It's been probably 15-20 years since I read the books, so my recollection of the specifics is real fuzzy, but I really enjoyed the first two episodes. The second episode's end was a bummer because I really enjoy Jared Harris, but hopefully we'll see more of him in flashbacks or whatever. Loving the thing they did with the emperor. Oh, that shouldn't be a problem.
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Sep 25, 2021 13:52
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I haven't seen the episodes since I don't have Apple+ (my plan is to wait until it's finished and then binge-watch the season), and so I don't know if the show disproves this, but I'm guessing Seldon faked his death to galvanize the First Foundation and also so he could continue building the Second Foundation in secret.
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Sep 25, 2021 20:37
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LinkesAuge posted:The following contains a lot of spoilery speculation / book spoilers/material: I believe in Foundation's Edge it turns out Mule is a lost child of Gaia, the psychic planet.
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Sep 25, 2021 21:23
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CornHolio posted:Really liking the visuals so far. I don't think the mechanics of space travel was really mentioned in the books, was it? It seems to generate a black hole or something and then use that to traverse time and space. Interesting and it makes me wonder if it's cribbed from a different Asimov work. I've read a decent amount of his works but it's been awhile and I don't remember anything like that. The Foundation series (along with a lot of other Asimov works) uses Hyperspace, which allows ships that are sufficiently far from any gravity well or large mass concentrations to cross through higher dimensions and move directly to any other point in the universe, assuming that point is also in a low-gravity vacuum. Theoretically, ships could move between galaxies as easily as they move between stars.
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Sep 27, 2021 23:48
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Data Graham posted:I don't know whether to blame the show or Asimov for this (lol if the latter) but one thing I'm irked about is that they characterize Seldon's whole deal as "mathematics" but then portray mathematic savants as being basically good at counting. Like they keep saying things like "Seldon's numbers were correct" and having Gaal recite prime numbers to herself, as though "mathematics" is about numbers, instead of abstract concepts and proofs and extrapolation of theoretical constructs into other theoretical constructs. But that's presumably what the audience expects "mathematics" to mean so they just keep harping on it. "I'm a mathematical genius, I can recite pi to a thousand places Asimov got a degree in chemistry and half his books were nonfiction works about astronomy and other scientific fields, so I'm pretty sure it's the showrunners using impressive arithmetic as shorthand for mathematical genius.
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Oct 2, 2021 14:55
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" *gets rejected from MIT because I have no ability to formulate a proof*
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twistedmentat posted:Yea I was thinking maybe this is just apple being petty for not using an apple device. My parents have a proper apple TV box and it looks amazing for them. It really depends on how strictly you define "hard science fiction." While Asimov invented things like positronic brains, hyperspace, and psychohistory, the rules for how each invention works are internally consistent and his stories typically focus on how those rules interact with unexpected situations. Whereas a series like Buck Rogers doesn't care about the rules and will rewrite them as needed to tell a thrilling story.
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Oct 2, 2021 20:22
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Nitrousoxide posted:The central conceit to the Foundation is a bit silly since they don't really need to make choices on what to save or not, They could store everything in a computer and then go to near lightspeed to get time dialation until the scheduled end of the dark ages and then spread their stored information around all in a matter of days from their perspective. You don't shorten a dark age by hoarding knowledge until the moment it's over.
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Oct 3, 2021 13:52
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snergle posted:its so much worse then using math to predict human future it uses history psychology and math in an unholy mish mash to do it. We have that already; it's called "sociology." Asimov has since admitted that he should have called it "sociohistory," but I think "psychohistory" has a better ring to it.
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Oct 4, 2021 22:50
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Proteus Jones posted:That may be more on the source material than anything. You never get a real sense of vastness from the books either to be honest. I do agree the show feels cramped and I'd love for episodes to maybe start with tiny vignettes illustrating the scale of the decay and fall of Empire. I figure there will be more opportunities to visualize the scale and decline of the Empire as the show reaches the Foundation and Empire stories. It sounds like the show is still focused on the first Foundation book, and all of those stories are much more focused on how the Foundation survives its early days of isolation. Bobbin Threadbare fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Oct 9, 2021 |
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Oct 9, 2021 18:48
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Regarding the "math as prophecy," that issue does get directly addressed in the books. Seldon needed the First Foundation to act predictably, so he filled it with people who would trust the mathematics but not analyze them. However, he also knew that his predictions would be less accurate as time passed, and so he set up the Second Foundation and filled it with people who would analyze the math instead of trusting it and guide things into place by working behind the scenes. One of the Second Foundationers explicitly points out that the Empire fell because it felt it couldn't and shouldn't change, and since Seldon knew that he also knew his plan would have to be adaptable.
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Oct 11, 2021 09:18
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Data Graham posted:It would be interesting to see if the show explores an idea like “this prediction didn’t come true” “oh wait, we just didn’t have enough data, here is the new prediction” and see how the powers that be / the general population responds in terms of how much credibility “math” loses or retains Vague book spoiler: If the show in any way follows the arc of the Foundation trilogy, it will.
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Oct 11, 2021 17:04
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Rutibex posted:Asimov never even finished the Foundation story. The whole idea of psychohistory goes off the rails and he focuses on psionic powers instead, but that never goes anywhere either. The second empire is never formed, he just leaves the story half way finished. I'm not sure how you're coming to that conclusion. Foundation's Edge decides the fate of humanity, and Foundation and Earth confirms and elaborates on that decision. We never see the decision carried out, sure, but the conflict is over. That's why Asimov only wrote prequels afterwards.
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Oct 14, 2021 03:33
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Rutibex posted:Book spoilers: At least in the books, the Empire's shield technology requires massive power plants, and so they can only use them to protect large targets like cities, cruisers, or whole planets. What the Foundation did was miniaturize atomic power cells so a person could wear a shield projector and every house could provide for its own energy needs. However, it's also possible to bypass a shield with the right kind of weapon.
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Oct 19, 2021 14:35
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Rutibex posted:This episode was my favorite so far and its was almost entirely new material. The emperor being unable to flirt without giving his crush the opportunity to murder him is cute. Middle Cleon getting owned by the salt priestess is great content. I am starting to get attached to these characters. They seem to have combined the first and second crisis. This means we might not see mayor Hardin, they could skip straight to the traders plot next season Probably for the best; combining the crises saves having to recast Hardin or figuring out decent old-person makeup.
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Oct 22, 2021 20:02
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Rutibex posted:"But the books aren't full of typical basic-bitch TV tropes. Its a space book with no space battles for christ sake. We got to spice it up a bit or no one will like the show!" The thing is, they could have had space battles and still stuck to book accuracy. The Four Kingdoms near Terminus seceded violently from the Empire, and regularly fought with each other during the early period. A plot focused on Anachreon's struggles for independence and domination would have slotted in nicely between the Seldon intro and Hardin's rise, and it would have made Hardin's force-without-violence approach stand out that much more against the usual fighting.
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Nov 14, 2021 01:29
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Rutibex posted:Trantor is supposed to be the city of ancient Rome, with its population of 1 million and its need to import grain from Egypt. Which makes the Second Foundation the Catholic Church? The Foundation sort of rolls through several Roman successors as time goes on, and it gets to be all of them because Seldon's Plan is forcing them to undergo major shifts as the political landscape around them changes. This regular reinvention is what allows them to continue to succeed where other states would become outdated and fall. They start out as the Catholic Church hoarding science and information and using religion to maintain their monopoly on technology, then move on to a mercantile state like Venice or Genoa. Then when they become powerful enough to rival what's left of the Empire they become a democratic nation-state. However, the historical comparisons end when the Mule shows up and the series becomes more about psychic powers.
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Nov 22, 2021 18:06
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