After Stephen Kolek\u2019s 4th straight good game after coming over from the Padres, there was talk of him being in the rotation next year. First up, Anne Rogers<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cHopefully, it\u2019s a good kind of runway into next year,\u201d Kolek said. \u201cThis year\u2019s still going. I\u2019ll at least get another [start], and we\u2019re going to fight to the end. For now, it\u2019s focusing on today, and tomorrow, we\u2019ll worry about tomorrow. As the future goes on, we\u2019ll worry about that whenever it comes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI think I can\u2019t reiterate enough how excited we were to get both he and Bergert,\u201d Royals manager Matt Quatraro said. We all know how much Freddy (Fermin) meant to us as a team and to this organization. But to get two quality starting pitchers that are young and have a lot of control left is really exciting for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Thompson also profiled Carlos Est\u00e9vez<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Est\u00e9vez is just the fifth Royals pitcher to reach the 40-save plateau. The right-hander joins an exclusive list that includes Greg Holland (twice), Jeff Montgomery, Dan Quisenberry (twice) and Joakim Soria (twice).<\/p>\n \u201cI knew there were some great names up there,\u201d Est\u00e9vez said. \u201cBut man, only five guys, that\u2019s really cool to be on that list.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Royals assistant GM Scott Sharp could potentially be in the mix for the Nationals GM<\/a>:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Nationals are continuing to their attempts to get a front office in place before the offseason. Per a report from Ken Rosenthal and Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic, the Nats recently interviewed Eddie Romero, assistant general manager of the Red Sox. In a tweet, Ghiroli also mentions Royals assistant general manager Scott Sharp, though it\u2019s unclear if Sharp has interviewed for the job.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Listicle? At CBS Sport, R.J. Anderson wrote about \u201cMLB rookies not living up to the hype<\/a>\u201d. Hm\u2026 who was #1?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Why you know his name:<\/strong> Caglianone had a prolific career as a two-way player at the University of Florida, shattering Matt LaPorta\u2019s career program record for home runs by swatting 75 in 165 games. The Royals selected him sixth overall in the 2024 Draft based on his middle-of-the-order upside. (I\u2019ve often compared his ceiling to a poor man\u2019s Yordan Alvarez or a more famous Anthony Santander.) They\u2019ve since had him ditch pitching in favor of playing the outfield.<\/p>\n How he\u2019s performed to date:<\/strong> Caglianone debuted in early June as the Royals sought improvement over what they had received from their middling collection of right fielders. Unfortunately, he hasn\u2019t cleared the bar. Through his first 53 games, he\u2019s hit .152\/.228\/.277 with just six home runs and nearly three times as many strikeouts as walks. Caglianone\u2019s 40 OPS+ falls between the figures posted by Hunter Renfroe (36) and Mark Canha (52). Renfroe and Canha, for those wondering, were two pieces of Kansas City\u2019s aforementioned right-field situation pre-Caglianone. Both were released by the Royals because of their failures to perform at the plate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Kevin O\u2019Brien, the Royals Reporter, posted \u201cThree Encouraging Royals Takeaways From the Mariners Series<\/a>\u201d:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Safe to say, Ragans\u2019 performance was encouraging, especially in the first inning. He absolutely dominated All-Stars Randy Arozarena, Cal Raleigh, and Julio Rodriguez, inducing all of them to strikeout on only 11 pitches (with most of them fastballs).<\/p>\n Pitcher List\u2019s Nick Pollack recapped Ragans\u2019 first inning on Twitter. Safe to say, his reactions during Ragans\u2019 inning pretty much matched my enthusiasm at the stadium while watching him in person on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Both Craig Brown (Into the Fountains<\/a>) and David Lesky (Inside the Crown<\/a>, $) had posts about Wednesday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For OT today, we\u2019re going to finish off our three week trek through Isaac Asimov\u2019s Foundation trilogy. If you missed the first two parts, they are here (Novel One: Foundation<\/em><\/a>) and here (Novel Two: Foundation and Empire<\/em><\/a>). Today, it\u2019s time for the novel three: Second Foundation<\/em>. Check out that first link if you want to read the intro and disclaimers. Also, remember two weeks ago when I wrote:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n That means the initial plan is to do one book a week for the next three weeks. Fortunately, the Royals are still in playoff contention, so they should provide more than enough to talk about if you don\u2019t care to talk about the books.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n How awkward\u2026 Anyhoo, onto part three!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Novel 3: Second Foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Book 1: Search by the Mule<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Characters:<\/strong> The Mule, General Han Pritcher, unconverted Bail Channis, and First Speaker of the Second Foundation<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Plot\/Notes: The Mule desires to find and destroy the Second Foundation, the only remaining threat to him. To find it, he sends loyal Han Pritcher and unconverted man Bail Channis. The latter is sent because The Mule has noticed his best generals have been \u201ctampered with\u201d and he wants someone unconverted and ambitious to go along. Channis thinks he\u2019s found it on Tazenda, but Pritcher thinks he\u2019s a spy. The Mule arrives and reveals Channis is, indeed, a Second Foundationer, who releases Pritcher from his control by The Mule. After a mental battle, Channis is defeated by The Mule and reveals Rossem as the location of the Second Foundation. But then the First Speaker appears. He informs The Mule that Channis had false information planted and the Second Foundation fleet is on its way to Kalgan to undo The Mule\u2019s control. The First Speaker defeats The Mule, alters his mind, and sends him back to Kalgan as a benevolent ruler.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The book starts 5 years after Foundation and Empire<\/em> with The Mule in the driver\u2019s seat, consolidating his power: \u201cPolitically, the Union is quiet. Economically, it is prosperous. Few would care to exchange the peace of the Mule\u2019s steady grip for the chaos that had preceded, On the worlds that five years previously had known the Foundation, there might be a nostalgic regret, but no more. The Foundation\u2019s leaders were dead, where useless; and Converted, where useful.\u201d<\/em> The Mule has always been a little mad, but he\u2019s obsessed with ruling the galaxy \u201cRevenge on all; on a humanity of which he wasn\u2019t a part; on a Galaxy in which he didn\u2019t fit\u201d. The Second Foundation is the only thing that stands in his way. But he\u2019s not wholly driven by revenge: \u201cI intend to unite the Galaxy now \u2013 and reach Seldon\u2019s thousand-year goal in three hundred\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The first chapter, Two Men and the Mule, has The Mule sending Han Pritcher and a new character, Bail Channis, to search for The Second Foundation. Channis gets a modern nature and nurture description: \u201chis emotional make-up had been unadjusted by the Mule; it remained exactly as it had been formed by the original shape of its heredity and the subsequent modifications of his environment\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s a lot of exposition in the first chapter, setting up the rest of the book. The Mule tells the loyal Pritcher that he gets Channis because Han \u201clost your native motivations, you lost something, some subtle drive, that I cannot possibly replace\u201d. Meanwhile, he tells Channis that he is being sent out there because of his initiative as the Second Foundation has been subtly tampering with his men: \u201cloyalty is left intact, but initiative and ingenuity are rubbed out\u201d. He teams them up while pitting them against each other. So the loyal and capable Pritcher believes there is no Second Foundation and Channis ambitiously wants to find it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Asimov removes all doubt about its existence with \u201cInterludes\u201d at the end of each of the first four chapters, scenes from \u201cThe Executive Council of the Second Foundation\u201d. They are described as \u201cscientists with a psychological orientation\u2026 whose fundamental conception of scientific philosophy is pointed in an entirely different direction from all of the orientations we know\u201d for whom \u201cspeech as known to us was unnecessary\u201d. It\u2019s even pointed out that the translations in the interludes lose some of the meaning so that us primitive humans can follow along. They talk about how they were lucky a single human (Bayta) and The Mule\u2019s affection for her blinded him and allowed them to get the upper hand. However, Seldon\u2019s entire plan hangs by a thread so they take a huge risk: \u201cWe must allow the Mule to find us \u2013 in a sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The book then slows down and doesn\u2019t feel as \u201ceasy\u201d as the rest of the trilogy. I think we\u2019ve really reached the point where Asimov just wanted to be free of this universe. We get a lot treknobabble, uncharacteristic of Asimov. However, we also get more characterization, like when Channis is asking about some scifi widget called a hypertracer: \u201cThat\u2019s not enough. I\u2019m not a Foundation man. What is it?\u201d The scene gives us exposition mixed with Channis characterization with a splash of nostalgia for the older books. Asimov does this so well even in the slow scenes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Channis thinks he\u2019s discovered the Second Foundation between some bad wordplay and a new gadget called the Galactic Lens. But it feels forced to Han Pritcher and contrived to the reader. There\u2019s a plot with the hypertracer that leads the reader and characters to think something is up, but even the explanation doesn\u2019t really wash later on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Then we fiddle around on the poor backwater planets of Tazenda and Rossum for a while: \u201cthe men of Tazenda came and with dismay watched their hard struggle for existence become harder\u2026 and the peasant had learned how to hide his grain and drive his cattle into the forest, and refrain from having his hut appear too ostentatiously prosperous\u201d. There\u2019s talk of \u201cpeasant virtues\u201d and perhaps a complaint of the modern (50s) times that still echo today: \u201cI am convinced there is no suffering among the population and that their uncomplicated lives manage to contain a well-balanced happiness lacking in the sophisticated populations of the advanced centers\u201d and \u201cAll these have brought mechanical efficiency to their subjects at the cost of more intangible values. Tazenda brings happiness and sufficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s some tete a tete between Pritcher and Channis and then internal Pritcher monologue exploring the nature of the emotional control: \u201che \u2018felt\u2019 his emotions; certainly he seemed no different to himself, but would he feel any difference\u201d and his confidence in his skills ebbed and flowed: \u201cthe age that he had felt creeping over him of late had not yet deprived him of his own capacity for making smooth the blunders of others\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The conflict appears to come to a head with a Princess Bride-<\/em>style showdown<\/a> where Pritcher arrests Channis for treason: \u201cPerhaps because I can be trusted. Or aren\u2019t you in the market for logical reasons?\u201d \u201cOr perhaps because you can\u2019t be trusted. Which is logical enough, as it turns out.\u201d \u201cAre we matching paradoxes, or is this all a word game to see who can say the least in the most words?\u201d (\u201cTruly, you have a dizzying intellect.\u201d<\/em>) When Channis again has Pritcher doubting his own sanity, The Mule arrives and does a classic Poirot-esque unwinding of the story: Channis is indeed a Second Foundation man and The Mule knew it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n This leads to a mental battle, the likes of which I\u2019m not sure had been put down in print before: \u201cWhat followed thereafter is difficult to describe by one with the normal complement of senses and the normal incapacity for emotional control. Essentially, this is what Channis realized in the tiny space of time involved in the pushing of the Mule\u2019s thumb upon the trigger contact.\u201d Channis released Pritcher from his control so both were against The Mule. Channis thought he had won when The Mule knocked Pritcher unconscious.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Mule and Channis banter on for a little longer: \u201cThe days of the dying Empire\u2026 was a time of absolutes, of the great final generalities, at least in thought. It was a sign of decaying culture, of course, that dams had been built against the further development of ideas.\u201d Channis thought he had been stalling for time while The Mule was probing his mind. He had already sent his fleet to destroy Tazenda. And then he mentally tortures out of Channis that the Second Foundation is actually on Rossum: \u201cIt is because your Second Foundation miscalculated me to the very dregs of the end\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n But then the First Speaker of the Second Foundation arrives (and it\u2019s not entirely clear where this took place). He heals Channis and explains that emotional control \u201cis implicit in the human brain\u201d but \u201cthe faculty of direct emotional contact tended to atrophy with the development of speech a million years back\u201d. They foresaw The Mule, \u201cseeing man in the kingdom of the blind\u201d, but they underestimated him: \u201cwe allowed only for a megalomania \u2013 not for an intensely psychopathic paranoia as well\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Mule lashes out: \u201cLet the Galaxy Protect itself as best it can, since it stirred not a whit for my protection when I needed it.\u201d Then he explains to The Mule that Channis volunteered to have his mind wiped and false information planted. The Second Foundation men are already on their way to unprotected Kalgan to cause a revolt. And when The Mule despairs about this, the First Speaker adjusts his mind to make him a benevolent ruler and forget all about the Second Foundation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Book 2: Search by the Foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Characters:<\/strong> Toran Darrell II and his daughter Arkady Darrell, \u201cuncle\u201d Homir Munn, young scientist (2F) Pelleas Anthor, Lord Stettin and Lady Callia (2F) of Kalgan, and Trantor farmer and First Speaker Preem Palver (2F)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Plot\/Notes: A resistance in the First Foundation believes there is a Second Foundation, they defeated The Mule, and have tainted many people in the First Foundation, led by neuroscientist Toran Darrell II, son of Bayta. New conspirator, Palleas Anthor, tries to sneak in the window but ends up in the window of Arcadia Darrell, Toran\u2019s daughter. She listens in on them and stows away with librarian Homir Munn, who goes to visit Kalgan and research The Mule.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is the most complete book in the entire trilogy and also the most different from all the others. Once again, the book starts out with a history of the Foundation. This time, it\u2019s written through the eyes of the granddaughter of a previous main character with a good female teenage voice. And by good voice, she\u2019s the star of the book: it treats her as an adult with complex thoughts and feelings, but while adjusting for age and not being condescending. Anthor jokes \u201cI should think you\u2019d know everything before he tells you\u201d and she confidently retorts \u201cI usually do\u201d before lecturing him: \u201cBecause you advertise what you\u2019re trying to hide, silly. If I have a secret, I don\u2019t put tape over my mouth and let everyone know I have a secret. I talk just as much as usual, only about something else.\u201d Asimov establishes her extreme competency early on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n After the character introduction, we\u2019re taken to the Second Foundation where the First Speaker is talking to an apprentice for Speakerhood. Using the Prime Radiant, the teacher shows the student the equations that make up the Seldon Plan (\u201cneither complete nor correct\u201d) and how it has been thrown off course. He then challenges the student to add his own piece to the plan and help get it back on track as it is still in danger of failing. All the while he is dishing out Asmiov-style epigrams like turning the Socratic \u201cI know that I know nothing\u201d on its ear: \u201cthe most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise\u201d. It mirrors an academic environment as the First Speaker is proud of his little specialized section, which was peer reviewed before being added, similar to modern academia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The idea of the mental adjustment comes full circle and is given a purpose: \u201cAll the suffering that humanity ever knew can be traced to the one fact that no man in the history of the Galaxy\u2026 could really understand one another. Every human being lived behind an impenetrable wall of choking mist within which no other but he existed… Because they did not know one another, and could not understand one another, and dared not trust one another, and felt from infancy the terrors and insecurity of that ultimate isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPsychohistory had been the development of mental science, the final mathematicization thereof, rather, which had finally succeeded. Through the development of the mathematics necessary to understand the facts of neural physiology and the electrochemistry of the nervous system, which themselves had to be, had to be, traced down to nuclear forces, it first became possible to truly develop psychology. And through the generalization of psychological knowledge from the individual to the group, sociology was also mathematicised.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n We reach the final theory of Asimov\u2019s work from the last book and a half: \u201ca ruling class of psychologists\u201d and how society \u201cwould fear its development and fight against it\u201d. It\u2019s a different type of dystopia. As one review summed it up: \u201cin the Second Empire it will be done with Science and For Your Own Good\u201d. This was the full plan and these are the heroes we had been rooting for all along. The Salvor Hardins and Hober Mallows were just rough children in this grand plan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Asimov paints Arkady as smart, if not smarter, than the adults. And these are not the incompetents of a Roald Daal where the children look good by comparison – the adults are also capable. Many of the adults mention something about her being very intelligent, sometimes even moreso than other characters, even at her age. And her actions are mostly smart and clever. I wonder if that idea was out of the norm at the time or if there was a higher opinion of teenagers then. And a woman? In the early 50s?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Arkady helps Asimov break out of the Seldon formula: \u201cfor the first time in the history of the Plan, it is possible for the unexpected actions of a single individual to destroy it\u201d. In short, the stakes of the entire Seldon plan rest on Arkady. While this plays like more pop scifi than anything written so far in the trilogy, it\u2019s arguably the most complicated and complex idea, as well.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For instance, when it is discovered that she spies on them and stows away with the timid, stuttering \u201cuncle\u201d Homir Munn, housekeeper Poli: \u201ctried vainly to put emotion into words but ended by thrusting a sheet of paper and a cubical object at him\u201d. It\u2019s not just a good turn of a phrase for description but revisits the idea of emotion and words from before. And, while the characters are still not overly complicated, save for Arkady, there are bits like this sprinkled in: \u201cthe house was somehow very lonely at night and Dr. Darell found that the fate of the Galaxy made remarkably little difference while his daughter\u2019s mad little life was in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The conspirators decide not to recall her, thinking it would appear even more suspicious. Then we pan to Arkady capably handling Homir Munn and the stowaway situation. The scene shifts to Lord \u201cPoochie\u201d Stettin and Lady Callia of Kalgan. The planet, changed by The Mule, was still home to the \u201cmost stable industry\u201d: amusement. Arkady and Callia swapped gossip about Callia\u2019s interest in the Foundation, Arkady\u2019s visit, and Munn\u2019s research on The Mule. Asimov peels back some layers about the varied worlds of the Foundation, no longer the monolith from earlier in the series, through Arkady\u2019s eyes: \u201cthe Foundation was a suburban town, a comfortable house, the annoying necessities of education, the uninteresting eternities of a quiet life\u201d. Arkady then plants the idea with Callia that Kalgan may be the center of the new Empire and that\u2019s Munn\u2019s true mission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Asimov ends the chapter, playing with the reader through Arkady, the lightly unreliable narrator, using words that can be used another way, in retrospect: \u201cBut Arcadia was delighted. She knew what had happened. Or, at any rate, she thought she did.\u201d It\u2019s odd- you know there are twists coming. But this isn\u2019t the modern practice of littering the stage with a thousand Chekhov Guns so that the reader has no idea which handful will go off. Asimov rarely clutters up the prose or plot- it\u2019s very straightforward. It all makes satisfying sense looking back and doesn\u2019t feel like he\u2019s hiding anything. He\u2019s so adept at using the tools on stage, even taunting the reader a little with the mention of \u201can endless cycle of double-double-double-double-crosses\u201d (later in the book). We know to expect an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist, but it\u2019s not the one we expected. You don\u2019t feel cheated – it\u2019s still satisfying even as it is unexpected. But we\u2019ll get back to that in a bit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Back on Terminus, Poli laments \u201cthat\u2019s the trouble with people; they just don\u2019t remember\u201d, talking about food rationing and taxes, and reminding us that some things don\u2019t change. And she delivers a strong anti-war: \u201cYou\u2019d think if they had sense, people would just never want to start it again; just have nothing to do with it\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meanwhile, Toran reflects on his life: \u201cBut she had died. Less than five years, all told, it had been; and after that he knew that he could live only by fighting that vague and fearful enemy that deprived him of the dignity of manhood by controlling his destiny; that made life a miserable struggle against a foreordained end; that made all the universe a hateful and deadly chess game.\u201d Personally, I\u2019ve always wondered about what would happen with different life choices. What if I wasn\u2019t married or had a family – how would that impact what drives me?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n On Kalgan, Stettin grows tired of Munn\u2019s library research which gives no new information about the new empire. In their argument, Munn threatens \u201cI\u2019ll have you re … remember, my l … lord, that I am a citizen of the Foundation\u201d and Stettin throws it back at him, while calling back to The Mule: \u201cA threat to frighten children. A horror with which to beat back an idiot.\u201d Too late, they realize Stettin plans to take Arkady as his bride, a member of a prominent family of the Federation. Callia appears to help Arkady escape but, the Lady\u2019s eyes betray her and Arcadia realizes \u201cshe was running from a single, frail woman who had helped her escape\u2026 an entity she knew, certainly and finally, to be a woman of the Second Foundation\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n During the escape, she frantically starts wondering who or what to trust. It reminds me of and could have inspired a significant set of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine<\/em> episodes (Homefront<\/a>, Paradise Lost<\/a>) with a brilliant scene about how only 3 aliens caused mass hysteria on Earth. She goes to a spaceport and is overcome with panic: \u201cConsider then the complete psychic isolation of a single unit of this terribly intent mob that does not know where to go; yet at the same time feels more intensely than any of the others possibly can, the necessity of going somewheres; anywhere!\u201d Once Lady Callia is revealed, we, as readers, switch from wondering if the Second Foundation even exists (maybe these interludes and chapters are happening on another plane or at another time in history) to seeing them everywhere, just as Arcadia did.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The panic lasts one chapter, aptly called Anxiety, before the reader, like Arkady, is calmed by Mamma and Pappa (Preem Palver). They use their folksy empathy to understand why she was running from Stettin and their underestimated \u201cflyover\u201d slyness to bribe a guard and escape a locked-down airport. They escape Kalgan just as Stettin starts a war with the Foundation. Arkady stays safely on Trantor until the conclusion of the book. There, one of my favorite epigrams (or maybe just a proverb) of the series is delivered: \u201cNo one should talk before breakfast. You\u2019re not in a healthy condition with no food in the stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In one of the war chapters, there\u2019s a scene that would look great in modern cinema. The Mayor and Dr. Darrell are looking at a 3-dimensional battle map of the galaxy. The Mayor chiding the opposition for their lack of strategy. But then the scene shifts to \u201cthe Lord of Kalgan stood before a twin of the Galactic model which the mayor and Darell had inspected. Except that where the mayor frowned, Stettin smiled.\u201d How far have we come that the mayor isn\u2019t even given a name because of his insignificance, even as leader of one of the most powerful forces in the galaxy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The war lasst 4 chapters: Beginning of War, War, Ghost of a World (interlude), and End of War. The plucky Foundation rose up yet again, as explained by Stettin\u2019s first minister Lev Meirus:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI have told you often, sir, that you are not the Mule. You may control ships and guns but you cannot control the minds of your subjects. Are you aware, sir, of who it is you are fighting? You fight the Foundation, which is never defeated \u2013 the Foundation, which is protected by the Seldon Plan \u2013 the Foundation, which is destined to form a new Empire. The men and women of Kalgan and its subject worlds believe utterly and deeply in the Seldon Plan as do all the inhabitants of this end of the Galaxy. Nearly four hundred years of history teach the fact that the Foundation cannot be beaten…You are not [The Mule]. What is worse, the people know that you are not. So your ships go into battle fearing defeat in some unknown way. The insubstantial fabric of the Plan hangs over them so that they are cautious and look before they attack and wonder a little too much. While on the other side, that same insubstantial fabric fills the enemy with confidence, removes fear, maintains morale in the face of early defeats. Why not? The Foundation has always been defeated at first and has always won in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n Meirus is yet another piece of Asimov\u2019s wonderful writing puzzle, placed at the beginning of the story and end of the story to give exposition. But he doesn\u2019t feel forced either time: he serves a purpose each time and feels realistic both in character and in mood. This is the genius of Asimov\u2019s writing: he doesn\u2019t load the story down with too many extra pieces and each gets a lot of use without feeling contrived. In the third person limited perspective, readers are only shown the pieces that are important.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The ending comes off a little hokey as it\u2019s basically what Wayne\u2019s World<\/em> did with a Scooby Doo<\/em> ending, a \u201ctrue\u201d ending, and then the real ending. As with the war, there were 3 chapters: \u201cI know\u201d, \u201cThe Answer that Satisfied\u201d, and \u201cThe Answer that was True\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The first comes back around to a technique introduced back in the initial meeting that Arkady is spying on (encephalographic record). That\u2019s just how Asimov does this: multi-purposed sections. While you\u2019re trying to keep up with Arcadia early on, he\u2019s introducing a technique that will come back as a major plot point later. But it all feels pre-mapped and well-planned.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Homir returns to the conspirators with the conclusion that there is no Second Foundation. Anthor accuses him of being tampered with by the Second Foundation. They take the readings and Homir has been tampered with. After a scuffle, he\u2019s knocked out, and Anthor claims to know where the Second Foundation is (\u201csuccessive shocks have a decreasing effect\u201d). He claims it\u2019s on Kalgan, after all, that\u2019s where everyone who was handled was. Darell says that\u2019s not quite it as he invented a wartime device that shielded one from mind control and he knows where the Second Foundation really is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n He proposes it\u2019s on Terminus due to an encoded message from Arkady \u201ca circle has no end\u201d and that they\u2019ve been tampered with all along. Everyone is skeptical, but he has a second weapon that only works on those with the extra sense (\u201cis there any weapon of attack that will be effective against a normal, sighted man which is useless against a blind man\u201d \u201cA light in the eyes\u201d). And he uses it on Anthor, knowing he\u2019s of the Second Foundation. Anthor admitted he\u2019s been going by the plan all along, but that he couldn\u2019t improvise or risk ruining the entire plan. Toran said he\u2019s been skeptical since Anthor came to him from Kleise (who was the subject of a passage earlier in the book where Toran is given character by anguishing about his past). Toran gets worried and asks Arcadia how she knows. She said it just came to her – that worries him greatly, as it sounds like something a tampered person would say. However, he scans her and her brain waves are normal, to the relief of both.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Finally, in \u201cThe Answer That Was True\u201d, we return to the First Speaker and Student for exposition. First, fifty martyrs from the Second Foundation were sacrificed for the greater good:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cEssentially, it was necessary for the men of the First Foundation to be thoroughly convinced that they had located and destroyed the Second Foundation. In that way, there would be reversion to the intended original\u2026 They hated and envied our supposed superiority; yet they relied on us implicitly for protection. If we had been \u2018destroyed\u2019 before the Kalganian war, it would have meant panic throughout the Foundation. They would then never have had the courage to stand up against Stettin, when he then attacked; and he would have. Only in the full flush of victory could the \u2018destruction\u2019 have taken place with minimum ill-effects.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n You can hear Asimov\u2019s satisfaction about how he could finally write about individuals again in this story and how many intricacies \u201cwere forced into our plan of the last decade and a half simply because we dealt with individuals\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There\u2019s some commentary on the Mind Static device and how science progresses:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThey have no one to use it against. It has become a sterile device; just as without the spur of our own menace against them, encephalographic analysis will become a sterile science. Other varieties of knowledge will once again bring more important and immediate returns. So this first generation of mental scientists among the First Foundation will also be the last \u2013 and, in a century, Mind Static will be a nearly forgotten item of the past.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n For the final twists: the First Speaker reveals that Arkady was tampered with from birth on Trantor, so that\u2019s why her brain waves didn\u2019t show any issues. Finally, on the last page, it is revealed that Preem Palver was the First Speaker and Trantor was, indeed, the Second Foundation (and \u201cAll Roads lead to Trantor\u201d, looping us back around to the Fall of the Roman Empire<\/em>). And so the Foundation was back on track for the Seldon Plan. From another review: \u201cAs with many of Asimov\u2019s other stories, he ties up all of the mysteries in a neat little bow toward the end.\u201d And he even gives a nod to it on that final page: \u201cThe First Speaker had long since stopped speaking to the Student. It was an exposition to himself, really\u201d and, of course, the reader.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The story is not without its flaws. Overall, Stettin is a much weaker adversary than The Mule. Heck, it\u2019s even admitted in the story. But the real boogeyman of the Second Foundation has a real sense of danger to it. The enemies continue to escalate appropriately. Yes, a lot of the characters are still wooden. But the overall story is the best in the entire series. Arkady\u2019s probably the best character in the series. Many facets of the story are honed in a way that felt like Asimov\u2019s previous works were working towards this. The major final plot twist of Trantor was a perfect example of hiding things in plain sight, as Arkady told us about at the beginning of the story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Here\u2019s a soundtrack we haven\u2019t revisited in more than 3 years. It\u2019s one of my favorite soundtracks, but I\u2019ve also used so many of the good tracks off of it in the past.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As I\u2019ve done the last year or so, let\u2019s link to all of the times I\u2019ve revisited the game:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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