To say that the core of apple tv+ diverges from its source material would be an understatement.
An adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s classic sci-fi novels, the Foundation is less interested in following its source material verbatim than creating a story within Asimov’s universe that would be good for television. the basic plot remains the same: mathematician hari seldon (jared harris) predicts the fall of the galactic empire thanks to his theory of psychohistory. Knowing that the fall is inevitable, he lays the foundation to preserve knowledge and hopefully civilization for years to come.
foundation takes this story and modifies it quite heavily, which makes sense considering the scale of asimov’s work. the foundation books are collections of interlocking stories and novels whose events span hundreds of years, not to mention an entire galaxy. characters who appear in one story may be long dead in the next, and so much happens between stories that we never fully “see” on the page. These elements make creating a completely faithful television show quite challenging, which explains several of the showrunner David S. goyer’s options to deviate from the books.
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These are the most important changes the foundation has made so far. The following contains massive spoilers for the show and the books, so consider yourselves warned!
pulling on the prequels
The opening episode of The Foundation sticks closely to “The Psychohistorians,” the first Foundation story, which recounts the Hari trial and Gaal Dornick’s (Lou Lloyd) journey to Trantor. However, the show incorporates some characters and elements from the Asimov Foundation prequels into this story. Neither Hari’s adopted son Raych (Alfred Enoch), the Emperors’ Minister Demerzel (Laura Birn), nor the Prime Radiant appear in “The Psychohistorians.” their presence here helps expand the foundation’s cast of characters, as the cast of “the psychohistorians” is quite sparse and varies greatly from other foundation stories.
the emperor(s)
Speaking of not appearing in “the psychohistorians”, let’s talk about one of the most blatant changes made to the foundation: the emperors. Brother Dawn (Cooper Carter), Brother Day (Lee Pace), and Brother Dusk (Terrence Mann) are genetic clones of Emperor Cleon at three different stages of his life cycle. Emperor Cleon appears in the Foundation prequels (although not in “The Psychohistorians” or the Foundation itself), but he does not clone himself. in fact there is no cloning in the foundation novels so that is a massive departure. however, having a genetic dynasty allows for character continuity throughout the season, which is helpful when it comes to foundation scope.
gaal dornick and synnax
gaal is one of many pivotal characters who have been gender-swapped for this series, with others like demerzel and salvar hardin (leah harvey). but perhaps the biggest change in his character is that he now has a personality. In “The Psychohistorians”, Gaal is essentially a surrogate audience used to introduce the reader to Trantor and Hari. all we know about him is that he is a gifted mathematician from the distant planet synnax.
On the show, Gaal is still a talented mathematician and is still from Synnax. however, she has a more defined backstory involving the tensions between religion and science in synnax, which have made her an outcast. asimov never discusses the culture of synnax, so everything on the show about the church of the seer and the purges of scientists is brand new. These changes give the founding universe more texture and make Gaal a more engaging character.
trantor and the starbridge
Do you know the whole sequence where the anacreon and thespis terrorists destroy the trantor starbridge and cause it to crash into the planet in spectacular fashion? none of that happens in the foundation. in fact, the star bridge doesn’t even exist in its foundations. Asimov’s novels were very light on big action sequences and planetary carnage, but his inclusion here helps to visualize the problems facing the galactic empire.
anacreon and thespis
since the starbridge incident is a fabrication for the show, the political fallout and subsequent bombing of anacreon and thespis are also deviations from asimov’s books. That said, the planet of Anacreon figures heavily into later founding histories, specifically “The Encyclopedists” and “The Mayors.” thespis, meanwhile, straight up does not exist. The name may be a reference to Asimov’s short story “Fair Exchange?” About a time traveler trying to save the musical score of Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera Thespis.
journey to the end
the founding journey from trantor to terminus is not in the founding novels, so basically everything that happens in gaal and hari’s story is brand new. Gaal and Raych never meet in the books, let alone start a romantic relationship. Hari doesn’t make the journey to the end, nor does Raych kill him. (he dies in the books, but is not shown).
the vault
We learn a little more about the mysterious vault in the term in the third episode of the foundation, “the ghost of the mathematician”. the vault was already finished when the foundations arrived, and it projects a null field that prevents living beings from approaching it. this is very different from asimov’s work – the vault is entered on the second floor of the foundation, “the encyclopedists”, but it is not an anomaly. it is simply described as a room that will open on the fiftieth anniversary of arrival at the terminal.
tough savior
changes related to the vault also modify the character of salvar hardin in various ways. Salvador is the main character of “The Encyclopedists” and the following story, “The Mayors”. In these, Salvador is the first mayor of the terminal city. however, in the show, salvador serves as the terminal’s guardian. she keeps her people safe and has a strange connection to the vault. She also has a love interest in Hugo (Daniel Macpherson), who is not in the books.
Perhaps the most striking change is that Salvador is more of a warrior than a politician on the show. In the books, Salvador famously says that “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” However, it is Salvador’s father, Abbas (Clarke Peters), who utters that line in the foundation’s fourth episode, “Barbarians at the Gate.” The show’s version of Savior seems to think otherwise: she dismisses her father’s advice as “old man doctrine,” prepares to fight off invading Anacreon forces, and regularly carries weapons. In short, she is a far cry from her book counterpart.
the base
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in “the encyclopedists”, the foundation focuses solely on building the galactic encyclopedia; They have no knowledge of the imminent fall of the empire until the end of the story, nor do they know the psychohistory or Hari’s true intentions in creating the foundation. . meanwhile, the foundation’s version of the program already knows its role in preserving civilization after the fall. this is a big change, as one of the main tenets of hari’s psychohistory is that populations should not know they are being analyzed, as this will change their behavior.
terminal problem
While the relationship between Anacreon and the Foundation is quite contentious in Asimov’s Foundation, it never reaches the level of direct attack that we see in episode 4, “Barbarians at the Gate.” Since the empire doesn’t bomb Anacreon in the books, the resulting fallout is a show-only creation, much like the character of Phara (Kubbra Sait). It looks like the upcoming anacreon attack on the terminal city will be the first rare crisis the foundation has to deal with, though it’s clear this crisis will take a different form on the show than it does in the books.
brother dawn is fighting
As noted above, the three clones (and the clone) are generally new additions to the base universe. This means that everything about older brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton) and his differences from his fellow Emperors is made up for show. Brother Dawn’s story, as he grapples with his agency as a member of a genetic dynasty, also introduces two new characters to the world: Shadow Master Obrecht (Mido Hamada) and Azura (Amy Tyger), whose presence develops. the political workings of trantor.
first crisis
Episode 5, “Upon Awakening”, marks the beginning of an all-out conflict between the Foundation and the Anacreons, which Gaal’s narration at the end of Episode 4 implied as the beginning of the fall of the Galactic Empire. this makes it the first of many rare crises the foundation will endure to keep civilization afloat.
The first occasional crisis in the books occurs in the “The Encyclopedists” story, when planets nearing the end, including Anacreon, sever ties with the empire and threaten its foundations. As mayor, Salvador manages to prevent an escalation of the conflict through diplomacy and by giving the rebellious kingdoms access to nuclear technology. Meanwhile, on the show, the crisis is far from over and Salvador can’t stop it. like much of the rest of the series, this is a huge departure from the books. keep in mind, however, that the foundation’s strong focus on dialogue and diplomacy may not have been as engaging on screen as it is on the page. Thanks to this change, we get to see some great battle scenes, and the show continues to show off its impressive visuals.
gaal come back!
turns out gaal being shot into space wasn’t the end of his story. he just spent the last 30 years in cryosleep, which means he’s caught up with the show’s current timeline and presumably we’ll be seeing a lot more of it. This is a relief: Gaal’s new backstory is one of the Foundation’s most compelling book-to-show switches, and Lou Lloyd continues to deliver a stellar performance.
Asimov’s novels see Gaal traveling to the end after Hari’s death, but here Gaal is headed to a completely different place: Hari’s home planet of Helicon. this could be the way the show moves towards second base: instead of introducing entirely new characters to lead an entirely new base, why not have a character we’re already familiar with fill the same role? p>
wait a minute… is hari back too?
You really didn’t think it would be the last we’d see of hari, did you? After all, there’s no way Apple TV will bring in Jared Harris for just two episodes.
however, i thought we’d see hari reappear in his vault’s pre-recorded messages like we do in “the encyclopedists” and “the mayors”. Instead, we get something completely different: Hari reappears with Gaal on Raych’s ship, failing worryingly. Whether Hari is still alive or something strange is going on remains to be seen, but it’s clear that his character is now on a very different trajectory than in the books.
a whole new world
Episode 6, “Death and the Maiden,” features the brother’s one-day trip to the maiden, a moon whose inhabitants practice the religion of luminism. Central to luminism is the belief in three goddesses – mother, maiden and crone – and their cycle of rebirth. in theory, it sounds similar to the cycle of the emperors. However, Zephyr Halima (T’nia Miller), a candidate to succeed the late Next Opal as leader of Luminism, believes that as clones, none of the Emperors have souls. naturally, brother’s day is not a fan.
luminism and the three moons (mother, maiden and crone) are exclusive inventions. As with Synnax’s Seer’s Church, these additions lend depth to the diverse cultures that make up the massive world of the foundation. luminism in particular emphasizes the role religion plays in the galactic empire, perhaps as a way to establish the church of science that figures prominently in several founding stories. however, given the massive changes being made to the final plot, it seems less and less likely that we’ll see that story any time soon.
the undefeated
At this point, the final story has completely departed from the books in such a way that it’s hard to draw comparisons to the source material beyond character and place names. However, Phara’s plan to use the destroyer Invictus to attack Trantor has some similarities to Asimov’s “The Mayors”. In that story, Anacreon Prince Regent Wienis wants to turn a refitted Imperial Battlecruiser to its foundations. Still, there are several differences between this plan and Phara’s: Wienis isn’t even a character on the show, Phara is attacking Trantor instead of Terminal, and she’s using kidnapped Foundation members to help her do it. We’re definitely in uncharted waters here.
vision of the savior
the foundation keeps insisting that salvador is special and an outlier, and in “death and the maiden” we get to see a little more of what that could mean. Salvador gets a glimpse of what happened when Raych killed Hari, giving us a little more insight into one of the show’s most pressing mysteries.
The most interesting thing about this sequence is the fact that salvador appears to be reliving events from gaal’s perspective. She wears Gaal’s clothes and witnesses Hari’s death just as Gaal did. this establishes a connection between two of the show’s protagonists that does not exist in the books. it also suggests that save may have mentalic abilities, a theory that becomes even stronger when you consider how she could sense phara’s thoughts and predict the outcome of coin tosses in episode 4. mentalics, who are key to founding the second foundation , are not introduced until later in the series.
Who else could be a mentalic?
Interestingly, the books see Wanda, Raych’s mentalic daughter, playing a pivotal role in the creation of the Second Foundation. While Raych and Gaal are not in a relationship in the books, the second episode of The Foundation revealed that Gaal is pregnant. her son may play a role similar to wanda’s in the future, especially now that she travels to the helicon instead of the end.
There is also the possibility that Gaal is a mentalic herself. in the first episode, she woke up during a jump through space and was able to process it, which is not something the normal human mind should be able to do. perhaps she, as a savior, is a special outlier. This would be another big step away from her character in the books, but it would help establish second base earlier in the show, which seems to be the direction her arc is taking.
everything is revealed…
Episode 7, “Mysteries and Martyrs,” finally gets to the heart of why Raych killed Hari. like hari, or rather hari’s conscience, he tells gaal, he had lethe syndrome. she knew that once his cognitive decline began, the members of the foundation would no longer believe in him, so she chose to die so that the memory of him would persist as a myth. Like Hari’s death at the hands of Raych, Hari’s lethe syndrome is not in Asimov’s foundational novels. however, the foundation sees him as something of a mythical figure, an image aided by the pre-recorded messages he left in the vault.
another big reveal (and big departure from the books) is that gaal realizes she can sense the future, essentially confirming that she is a mentalic, albeit with different powers than the telepaths in the novels. it seems that this is what differentiates her from her and to salvador from other members of the foundation, and she continues to prepare us for a modified version of the second foundation.
the second foundation
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why have hari and gaal rushed towards hari’s homeworld helicon during the last few episodes? in the eighth foundation episode, we finally get confirmation that it’s because hari intends to set up a second foundation, one that the foundation in terminus will know nothing about. hari says that he will be located in helicon, at the end of the star.
in asimov’s second foundation, “star’s end” is not on helicon. It actually refers to Trantor, with the name coming from the in-universe saying, “all roads lead to Trantor, and that’s where all the stars end.” The second foundation remains on Trantor even after the fall of the empire and the sacking of the planet, something the show may be moving towards with the Invictus storyline. However, before we can learn more about the Second Founding and why the version of the show is on Helicon, Gaal leaves Hari behind and begins the journey back to Synnax.
the vault opens
virtually none of the events leading up to the opening of the vault in the foundations occur in the book. The vault of time featured in Asimov’s short story “The Encyclopedists” is just a room that everyone knows will open and play a message from Hari addressing the Foundation. there is no null field. the main radiant is not required to open it, and the anacreons and thespins are not present for the message.
Hari’s message in “The Encyclopedists” contains information that members of the Foundation already know on the show: the empire is dying and the Foundation in terminus is tasked with carrying on civilization after the fall. Hari delivers this news via hologram, unable to interact with the foundation. However, the Hari that emerges from the vault in the show is able to see and react to what happens at the end, similar to the projected consciousness of him that he spoke to Gaal in earlier episodes.
Are we making the revolution now?
In the Foundation season finale, Hari (or at least his conscious ghost) reveals the true plan for the Foundation in Terminal, which is…revolution. about. Essentially, Hari’s plan is to survive the empire by building a new one, starting with the foundations, anacreon, and thespis. To make sure they don’t get attacked, they’re going to build more destructive ships like the Invictus. furthermore, they use the invictus to simulate a flare, which would signal to the empire that life in the outer range has been destroyed.
this revelation apparently contradicts what hari told the emperors at his trial, which is that he was not trying to undermine the empire. to be fair, he also lies in his judgment in the book, saying that he simply wants to establish a foundation in terminus to compile an encyclopedia. the encyclopedists know nothing about the fall of the empire, but the groundwork in the show does, which makes the reveal that they’re supposed to survive the fall feel somewhat hollow. the foundation’s union with thespis and anacreon is also new to the show, potentially setting up a showdown with the empire for season 2.
everything in the family
It’s official: Salvador is Gaal and Raych’s daughter, so she’s been reliving Gaal’s memories and seeing her parents when they were kids. the family bond, which definitely doesn’t exist in the books, unites two of the show’s protagonists and explains her mental abilities. However, Salvador being Raych’s daughter somehow corresponds to an element of the novels. wanda, raych’s daughter, is mentalic, as a savior. she continues to play an important role in the founding of the second foundation.
where do we go from here?
Seeing as the show jumped 138 years into the future in its final minutes, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what the second season of the foundation may entail, though all signs point to more foundations to come. now that gaal and salvar have reunited in synnax, they can start their own branch. there is also the loose end of the second foundation in helicon to explore.
As for the empire and the founding in terminus, their fates are a bit more uncertain. An interesting hint for the future is the introduction of a young Poly Verisof (Jairaj Varsani). Poly is the High Priest of Anacreon’s Church of Science in “The Mayors”. Since they make a big deal about his presence in this episode, we may see a version of that story next season.
another interesting tidbit is demerzel’s collapse, where he rips his face off to reveal his robot skeleton. Given that the show incorporates robots and mentions robot wars, it’s clear that the foundation is also quietly adapting Asimov’s robot series. perhaps we’ll see more elements of those stories interwoven in future seasons.
final verdict
adapting a work as extensive as the foundation was always going to be difficult. David S. goyer and his team adopted a number of strategies to mitigate these challenges. the creation of the cleonic genetic dynasty allows for continuity over long periods of time and gives the foundation more than one adversary. Gender-swapping characters like Salvador, Gaal, and Demerzel result in women playing a larger role in the Foundation than they do in the books. incorporating material from the sequels and prequels gives the story a more grounded feel and broader scope.
However, there are also several departures from the novels that make it difficult to associate the show with its source material. Save is a completely different character, regardless of gender, and the plot of Invictus is based right on the edge of Star Wars territory. Since that story took up most of the final episodes of the season, it became apparent how much was being changed from the books and how much of Asimov’s story we wouldn’t see as a result.
It’s completely understandable if you’re frustrated by these changes because at some points the program is basic in name only. however, the most important ideas of foundation, most importantly, the perseverance of humanity, are still very much present. overall, the show and the books are two completely different beasts, and they will surely diverge even more in the second season. As long as we get the mule, I think I’ll be fine.
all episodes of foundation season 1 are now streaming on appletv+. (opens in a new tab)
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