List of Foundation series characters
The Foundation series is a science fiction book series written by American author Isaac Asimov. First published as a series of short stories and novellas from 1942 to 1950, and subsequently in three collections, for nearly thirty years the series was a trilogy: Foundation ; Foundation and Empire ; and Second Foundation. It won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Asimov later added new volumes, with two sequels, Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth, and two prequels, Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation.
The premise of the stories is that in the waning days of a still powerful Galactic Empire, the mathematician Hari Seldon spends his life developing a theory of psychohistory, a new and effective mathematics of sociology. Using statistical laws of mass action, it can predict the future of large populations. Seldon foresees the imminent fall of the Empire, which encompasses the entire Milky Way, and a Dark Age lasting 30,000 years before a second empire arises. Although the momentum of the Empire's fall is too great to stop, Seldon devises a plan by which "the onrushing mass of events must be deflected just a little" to eventually limit this interregnum to just one thousand years.
The plot of the Foundation series spans centuries, and its various characters each appear in one or two of its nine installments. Charles Elkins described its characters as "undifferentiated and one-dimensional" speaking with an "impoverished vocabulary". He wrote that their consciousness "shows absolutely no historical development and hence fails to evoke in the reader any feeling for the future universe they inhabit". Elkins argued that characterization in general is subordinated to the overall conception of Asimov's project. James E. Gunn wrote that though the series of lead characters Lathan Devers, Salvor Hardin, Limmar Ponyets and Hober Mallow "may seem interchangeable", they are "as differentiated as the personages in most histories."
Through the eyes of the characters the inevitability of the forces of history, made manifest in the Seldon Plan, is demonstrated to the reader repeatedly. Elkins sees the characters in Foundation not as "tragic heroes. They are nondescript pawns, unable to take their destiny into their own hands." Only those elite few characters who understand the Plan can be considered free, with the Mule through his non-human psychic powers as the only exception. But while Elkins attributes the Foundation series a sense of "pervading fatalism", Gunn and Nicolas David Gevers point out that the obstacles presented in Asimov's galactic history are overcome by active individual characters "through the initiative and competence which the Foundations nurture in their citizens". Donald E. Palumbo asserts that it is exactly the "flatness of character and setting" which permit the series "to be a masterpiece". The heroism and depth of individual characters is consciously taken back by Asimov for the true hero of the series to stand out: "the sublime history of humankind itself".
An eight-part radio adaptation of the original three novels, called The Foundation Trilogy, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1973.
In 2021, Apple TV+ premiered a television series adaptation of the novels, Foundation, created by David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman. In 2023, Asimov's daughter Robyn Asimov, an executive producer for the series, said:
Ducem Barr
In the Foundation and Empire story "The General", Imperial General Bel Riose of Siwenna coerces Ducem Barr to aid him in his persecution of the Foundation, which Riose hopes to destroy both as a perceived threat to the Galactic Empire and to further his own ambitions. Barr is Riose's best choice as an "expert" on the Foundation, his father Onum having met Foundation-aligned Master Trader Hober Mallow during the events of "The Merchant Princes" in Foundation. Barr aligns himself with Lathan Devers, a Foundation trader who has let himself be captured by Riose to disrupt the general's operation from the inside. When Devers' machinations are exposed, Barr helps him escape further interrogation by knocking Riose unconscious and fleeing the planet with Devers in tow. They travel to the Imperial capital planet, Trantor, and plot to implicate Riose and Emperor Cleon II's Privy Secretary Ammel Brodrig in a nonexistent conspiracy to overthrow Cleon. Though Barr and Devers are caught by the Secret Police, they escape and later learn that Riose and Brodrig have been arrested for treason and executed.Josh Wimmer and Alasdair Wilkins of Gizmodo described Barr as an old revolutionary and assassin who "hates the Empire like no other character in the series", and sees the Foundation's predictions about the fall of the Empire as the vengeance he could never have imagined for his lost family and ruined planet. In the last chapter, Asimov uses the character of Barr to explain the political dynamics of why Riose would never have been able to defeat the Foundation: a strong emperor's sense of self-preservation would never allow him to tolerate a subordinate who develops potentially threatening power. Wimmer and Wilkens called Barr a "great character... and his world-weary pragmatism coupled with supreme faith in the Seldon Plan is an intriguing combination."
Barr is voiced by Peter Howell in episode four "The General" of the 1973 BBC Radio 4 adaptation The Foundation Trilogy.
Barr is portrayed by Jesper Christensen in season two of the 2021 Apple TV+ television series adaptation Foundation. In the 2023 episode "A Glimpse of Darkness", Barr witnesses a presentation on Siwenna by High Claric Poly Verisof and Brother Constant of the Church of the Galactic Spirit, extolling the virtues of the Foundation and Seldon's predictions. He records it using special technology in his left eye. In "Where the Stars are Scattered Thinly", Bel Riose and his husband/second-in-command Glawen Curr visit Barr to follow up on the recording. Barr, an Imperial loyalist, has been sending reports to the Empire for 40 years, none of which have been acknowledged until now. Riose and Curr learn that the Foundation has provided the clarics with auras, protective force shield technology forbidden to everyone except the Emperors, and whisper-ships, a Foundation-created type of jumpship which can perform faster-than-light travel without requiring a Spacer to navigate. When a mob of villagers arrives for the Imperials, Barr helps them escape and asks Riose to shoot him to death, so that he may avoid interrogation and torture. Riose kills Barr and flees.
Bail Channis
In the Second Foundation story "Part I: Search by the Mule", the Mule has yet to find the elusive Second Foundation. He sends his agent Han Pritcher on his sixth search, this time accompanied Bail Channis, the only one of the Mule's followers who is "Unconverted", or not influenced by the Mule's psychic powers to serve him. The Mule tells Pritcher that Channis's untainted mind will allow him to be more capable of making intuitive leaps which might help in the search. In fact, the Mule has determined that Channis is a Second Foundation agent who intends to lead the Mule into a trap. Secretly followed by the Mule and his fleet, Channis leads the search to the desolate planet Tazenda, a plausible location for the Second Foundation. On a nearby world, Rossem, Pritcher draws his atomic blaster on Channis, who he now suspects to be an agent of the Second Foundation. Pritcher is correct, but Channis possesses a psychic ability similar to the Mule's and uses it to free Pritcher from the Mule's control. The Mule appears, and reveals that his fleet has destroyed Tazenda. The Mule uses mental torture to extract the true location of the Second Foundation from Channis's mind: Rossem. The First Speaker of the Second Foundation arrives and informs the Mule that he has been defeated. Channis had been preprogrammed to believe that the Second Foundation is on Rossem, but it is not. Second Foundation agents have traveled to Kalgan and the Foundation worlds to undo the Mule's Conversions and orchestrate an insurrection, and his fleet is too far away to prevent it. When the Mule experiences a moment of despair, the First Speaker is able to seize control of and alter his mind: he will return to Kalgan and live out the rest of his life as a peaceful despot. Channis's mind is later restored by the First Speaker.Channis is voiced by Trader Faulkner in episode seven "The Mule Finds" of the 1973 radio adaptation The Foundation Trilogy.Introduced in Foundation and Empire in "The General", Cleon II is the last great Emperor of the Galactic Empire. Threatened by the rising power and popularity of one of his own generals, Bel Riose, Cleon has him recalled and executed for treason. Wimmer and Wilkins described Cleon II as "the aging, infirmed emperor whose great mind has been let down by his faltering body." Nicholas David Gevers suggested that Cleon II is based on the Byzantine emperor Justinian I.
In the prequel novel Prelude to Foundation, Emperor Cleon I learns of mathematician Hari Seldon's nascent concept of psychohistory, which might theoretically make it possible to predict the future. Brought before Cleon, Seldon emphasizes his belief that developing it as a science is likely impossible. Subsequently, interest in Seldon's work by unknown parties puts him in danger, convincing him of psychohistory's potential importance. Wimmer and Wilkens described Cleon as "basically decent but woefully inadequate" but also "a fairly entertaining character, who has me absolutely convinced that ruling a whole galaxy could be just a drag if you were born at the wrong time".
In Forward the Foundation, Seldon and his foster son [|Raych] thwart the scheme of populist Jo-Jo Joranum to become Cleon's First Minister and then overthrow him. The emperor subsequently appoints Seldon as his First Minister. Joranum's associate Gambol Deen Namarti's own plan to assassinate Seldon using a drugged Raych is also foiled, but Cleon is killed by a gardener trying to avoid promotion. A military government subsequently takes over, lasting for a decade.
In the 2021 television series adaptation Foundation, the 12,000-year-old Empire has been ruled for 400 years by a revolving trio of Cleon I clones: Brother Dusk, a retired and aging Cleon who serves in an advisory role; Brother Day, a Cleon in his prime; and Brother Dawn, a young Cleon being trained to succeed Brother Day. Though cloning does not factor in Asimov's novels, the television series introduces a "Genetic Dynasty", surreptitiously administered for centuries by the regal Lady Demerzel, secretly a unique, ageless robot.
Cleon II is voiced by William Fox in episode four, "The General", of the 1973 radio adaptation The Foundation Trilogy.