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The Second Foundation Revealed

The Mule finds it, the Foundation finds it, and both are wrong.

Isaac Asimov's Second Foundation (1953) turns on the search for the hidden Second Foundation. In Part I the Mule sends Han Pritcher and Bail Channis to find it; Channis turns out to be a Second Foundationer, and the trail leads to Tazenda and then Rossem.

Quick Facts

Part of
Second Foundation (1953)
Location
Trantor

Lore & Background

Both are false. The First Speaker reveals that Channis's knowledge was planted to mislead the Mule, that agents are already undoing his Conversions, and, in a moment of the Mule's despair, takes control of his mind and sends him back to Kalgan as a peaceful despot.

Reader's Guide

Anthor and the others were martyrs meant to mislead the Foundation, and its war with Kalgan was meant to restore its self-confidence. The real Second Foundation is on Trantor, and its First Speaker is Preem Palver.

Part II is set 60 years later. A cabal in the Foundation, wary of the Second Foundation's mental powers, hunts for it. Dr Darell builds a mind-static device that exposes Pelleas Anthor and his comrades as Second Foundationers, and the Foundation believes it has destroyed them.

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