The Fall of the Galactic Empire
Twelve thousand years of empire, ending as Seldon said it would.
The fall of the Galactic Empire is the backdrop of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Hari Seldon's psychohistory predicts it as unavoidable, and the Foundation is set up on Terminus to shorten the dark age that follows from thirty thousand years to a single millennium.
Quick Facts
- Predicted by
- Hari Seldon
Lore & Background
In "The General", part of Foundation and Empire, Bel Riose, a capable Imperial general, makes war on the Foundation. The Emperor Cleon II recalls and arrests him for treason; Ducem Barr explains that only a strong emperor with a strong general could have threatened the Foundation, but a strong emperor cannot allow strong subjects.
Reader's Guide
The Foundation becomes the dominant power in the galaxy through its trading network, until the Mule, whom psychohistory did not foresee, conquers it.
About a hundred years later, after a final phase of decline and civil war, the Empire has ceased to exist. Trantor suffers the Great Sack by a barbarian fleet and only a rump state of 20 agricultural planets remains, while most of the galaxy breaks into barbaric kingdoms.
More in Narrative Arcs & Events
Elsewhere in Foundation
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