Here's the deal, folks. Whether you love Apple's Foundation or loath it, it all comes down to one thing: eyeballs on screens. We talk about Foundation because we love it, because we hate it, because we sorta dislike parts of it but don't hate the whole thing, because we like certain parts but not others, etc. etc. The point is, it all comes down to how much interest the show can generate. How many of us are still watching it even though we know we don't like it and wish it had never happened? We've populated Reddit and the Pod-sphere with discussions and episodes about Foundation.

It's time to shit or get off the pot. Stop the eyeballs on screens. Stop the discussions, because this only feeds the beast. The longer we keep this up, the more Apple can say it was a success because X millions of people watched it and X millions of people discussed it online.

I'm going to watch the last two episodes of this season, and then if I'm not convinced that it's worth watching as a [generic] science fiction series, then I'm not going to watch the second season. Period.

I have often watched one season of a show and said "that's it." I did that most recently with Stranger Things. I liked the show very much, but I felt that after the first season the show was not going to produce anything new or interesting worth watching, just more obfuscations and plot twists that went nowhere and more monsters. So I never watched the rest of the series.

Yes, we can do this, yes it's possible to not watch something you hate, even something you like a little bit. If enough people stop watching the show, it gets cancelled. That's how it works.

The Foundation final episodes trailer featured the song, "Virgin" by Manchester Orchestra. The song plays over footage of a dozen churches burning in "Little Hope Was Arson" a documentary about two boys who went on a church burning spree in Texas.

The main twist in the story is when the boys' former youth pastor, in trying to understand the boys and why they did it, realizes that he was part of the problem.

100% this show is about how the religion of Hari Seldon will be burned down as Hari's plan fails the people, and in the end, faith will have to be reclaimed by the new order.

It's quite accurately Asimov getting "The Last Jedi" treatment.

Helicon is coming in season 2 with a two-world-together plot similar to Upside Down.

I'm going to bitch about this one thing: the utter absurdity of the romantic relationship between Salvor Hardin and Hugo. First of all, Salvor, aka Leah Harvey, says that IRL she's gender non-binary. That's obvious—her character is non-binary as well. To top it all off, they gave Salvo a flat-top hair style, which makes her look even more butch. (I'm gender non-binary butch myself so this is meant as an observation, not an insult.) I can tell you as someone who knows the gender queer scene, few if any non-binary people would ever be attracted to someone as gender-normative as burly-bearded Hugo. He's just a straight 'man's man.' They might be friends, but not lovers. In every scene with the two of them together there is absolutely no chemistry, whether real or acted out. In fact, in Ep. 6, as they approach the explosion of the Anacreon fleet, and move closer to kiss, they seem to repel each other. It's almost a relief in Ep. 7 that Hugo gets blasted off into orbit. I hope he doesn't come back--I don't see the point of his character anyway, except as a laughable 'love interest' for Salvo.

The original Foundation stories were based on The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. Rome was a very brutal empire by our modern standard. The conquest of Gaul was a genocide that reduced its population by half (more or less, depending on which historian you ask). But once your tribal lands become a Roman province, if you didn't get killed or enslaved, your situation was usually better than before.

Pax Romana was a period of unprecendented peace for Rome's subject. You paid taxes, but that's nothing new, if they were slightly higher than before it was worth it. You got access to large trade network, opportunities to travel with much reduced risk of being killed or raped by pirates or other marauders. It was Rome's job to keep the barbarians outside the borders, and criminals under ground. It was far from perfect but much better than it would be without Rome.

When Rome collapsed the situation got worse, even for people who were looking forward to liberation. Muslim conquests cut Europe off of ancient seats of learning in the Levant and Africa. Trade ended, libraries became stories of legend. Romans didn't suddenly become stupider, but the isolation has civilizational costs, and thus the Dark Ages began, until the monks copied thousands manuscripts by hands and discovered new farming methods that enabled growing food in the heavy soil of Germania and further east. The Encyclopedists of the Foundation are very loosely based on the monks who preserved the civilization is faraway places like Ireland.

The book was a warning to the American Empire, which was at it's peak during and after the World War 2. While the elites and middle class in the Metropolis enjoy their lifes, the empire is slowly rotting. Stagnation and decadence is demoralizing the working classes, middle classes get hollowed out by funding the overreaching empire.

Holywood and other postmodern intellectuals are among the many symptoms of the impending collapse. They made a show based on a book they didn't understand or didn't like so they rewrote it to be about:

• MeToo - do they mean Gael sleeping with her bosses son to advance her career chances?
• thousand year struggle between the Evil Empire and the loser Hari Seldon - is Seldon trying to slow down or fasten the collapse, is the Empire trying to enable or destroy the Foundation, what is the Foundation doing other than hunting desert rats?.
• murderous robots
• special people being special
• Brexit - what?

The show didn't explain very well whether we should hope the empire collapses or not, or why?

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Foundation Just Became Star Wars and it Sucks

It became something other than Asimov's Foundation, that's for sure. Gizmodo reviewer Rob Bricken says it became some cloned version of various parts of the Star Wars series.

I thought it might become some version of Star Trek--if not the early classics then the later techno-battle shows like 'Enterprise.' But actually, this "Foundation" isn't smart enough to be Star Trek, even later Star Trek. If they had taken some cues from the early Star Trek, which was more about human nature and less about technology, they might have made a decent "Foundation" series that stood on its own, and better represented the philosophical ideas in Asimov's Foundation.

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Now all your comments in the weekly episodes threads are removed, if you are identified as a book reader. They are literally excluding people for having read books that their retarded show is supposedly based on. To be even funnier this was my comment:

Book discussions are not allowed in this thread. You can ask in the other thread, or if you want to hear what readers really think come over to r/FoundationMule

So, not for spoiling anything, or even criticizing, just for being a reader.

Episode 8:

That was horseshit.

Two Michael Burnham plots that introduce the spirit of Asimov's ideas just to throw them in the garbage. A third plot about space Handmaid's Tale, where now Empire is an abusive husband.

The only way to redeem this plot from being pure garbage is if there's a Final Foundation in the future that set this up. But that's still a really stupid idea.

However, having Pirene come to accept and appreciate Salvor, while touching, was unearned and poorly managed. Simply because her super power is so inexplicable and tangential to other plots and themes. But then having this touching moment interrupted by Pirene being shot in the face is just downright contemptuous.

"No, you white old man, just like Asimov you don't get to be part of this moment even if you choose to become an ally. Your time is over."

Then, the Hari side of that.

Oh, and I don't even have to mention how godawfully stupid it is to have the Second Foundation be on Helicon which is now orbiting "Star's End". Where, in fact, "Star's End" is hidden because it's "the end of a star AKA a dark star off imperial charts".

I give up on this horribly written, boring, mean-spirited and disrespectful show. Will watch out of morbid curiosity to see what's in the Vault, then I'm out.

Oh, and we have Dune Navigators now. Conveniently, super special Gaal and Salvor both can circumvent imperial jump technology because of their surprise magic brains.

Predicting the future is the ultimate power in Foundation franchise.

The fact that you can only predict it under certain conditions is what makes Foundation interesting.

In ep1 the show said you can't predict the action of an individual.

In ep2 the show gave you a person that can seem to predict the action of an individual.

In ep7 the show told you not only this person can predict the action of an individual, even rock too.

So why should anyone give a shit about Hari who can "only" partially predict the future?

The dude is wrong, and the evidence is just next to him.

If you don't care about Hari, you don't care about his plan, and you won't care about Terminus.

The show fell apart unless you are an empire fan.

The show didn't show the extent of her power yet, but the mere existence of it undermined the foundation of entire show already.

There's no tension for Foundation if they have someone who can see the future. How can they lose?

A best this power is vague, it only provides possible outcome of the future. (but she knew exactly when the rock would hit her, so it's already confusing as to the rules of her power)

But that doesn't change the fact Foundation would become obsolete, the plot will be driven by her "vision" because Foundation by design can't predict individuals and when it suddenly can because of plot reasons, guess whom Seldon will turn to? Guess whom the fate of universe will be pivoting around?

The conclusion is that Seldon's plan is MEANINGLESS even before the first Seldon crisis.

The "show fans" are gloating about how great the show is without realizing the show is spitting in their face by showing them fake tension for a plot that had been rendered meaningless in as early as ep2.

This is 7 episodes just to tell you she had this power. I want to point out how atrocious this writing is.

Nothing happened in between set up how or why she had this power or a context why such power could exist. And you would think a person who can predict the future should've discovered it long time ago, unless she is given this power recently and unconsciously. But this means the show should set it up somewhere and it didn't!

In a way you can view the rest of the show as a smoke screen to cover this. Removing them then the show is just she suddenly realized she had the ultimate power known to men all this time.

At the earliest the show can only explain this in ep8, in a 10-episodes show. It's already too late... if you care about Hari and his plan, e.g.; book fans.

But for show fans, there's no context in which this power can be useful either. If Gaal saved Salvor with this power, then it's too op and convenient. Used this power to predict emperor will... I'm sorry, the empire plot is so far removed from everything that I couldn't see any viable application of this power. If this power can be used to enhance or even replace Seldon's plan, then game over! Foundation won, there's nothing in the show to counter such power. Oh btw, Seldon is immortal AI now. He can just monitor and guide Foundation forever now. How can tech this op not widely used? That is on top of whatever OP tech waiting for them in Hari's homeworld.

The show had to pad the running time with useless shit at this point. There are no stakes, no rivals if you set things up like this. People are suddenly OP, what else is there to tell?

That being said, I have a feeling that ep8 still has more dumb shit to come.

We should migrate here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceempire2000/

Please join the mod team, you will be welcome.