Hari Seldon Totally Explained

Everything about Hari Seldon totally explained

Hari Seldon is the intellectual hero of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series. In his capacity as mathematics professor at Streeling University on Trantor, he developed psychohistory, allowing him to predict the future in probabilistic terms. His prediction of the eventual fall of the Galactic Empire is the reason behind his nickname "Raven" Seldon. In the first five books of the Foundation Series, Hari Seldon made only one in-the-flesh appearance, in the first chapter of the first book (Foundation), although he did appear other times in pre-recorded messages in order to reveal a Seldon Crisis. After writing five books in chronological order, Asimov went back with two books to better describe the initial process. The two prequels—Prelude to Foundation and Forward the Foundation— describe his life in considerable detail. He is also the central character of the Second Foundation Trilogy written after Asimov's death (Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford, Foundation and Chaos by Greg Bear, and Foundation's Triumph by David Brin), which are set between Asimov's two prequels.

Biographical

Seldon was born in the 10th month of the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era (GE) (-79 Foundation Era (FE)) and died 12,069 GE (3 FE). (In Asimov's saga, the Galactic Era started when the Galactic Empire was founded at an unknown date roughly eleven thousand years in the future: the timeline can be deduced from some hints Asimov dropped in his other science fiction works, including the Robot series and the Empire series.) He was born on the planet Helicon in the Arcturus sector where his father worked as a tobacco grower in a hydroponics plant. He showed precocious mathematical abilities at a very early age. He also learned martial arts on Helicon that later helped him on Trantor, the principal art being Heliconan Twisting (a form seemingly equal parts Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga, and Submission Wrestling). Helicon was said to be "less notable for its mathematics, and more for its martial arts" (Prelude to Foundation). Seldon was the subject of a biography by Gaal Dornick.

Foundation

Using psychohistory, Seldon determined the right time and place to set up a new society, one that would replace the collapsing Galactic Empire by sheer force of social pressure, but over only a thousand-year time span, rather than the ten-to-thirty-thousand-year time span that would normally have been required. The Foundation is placed on Terminus, a planet entirely populated by scientists and their families. The planet was originally occupied to create the Encyclopedia Galactica, a vast compilation of the knowledge of a dying galactic empire.

Prelude to Foundation

As a thirty-two year old assistant professor of mathematics at Helicon University, Seldon visits Trantor from his native Helicon to attend the Decennial Mathematics Convention. He presents a paper which indicates that one could theoretically predict the Galactic Empire's future. At first, Seldon has no idea how this could be done in practice, and he's fairly confident that no one could actually fulfill the possibility. Shortly after his presentation, he becomes a lightning rod for political forces who want to use psychohistory for their own purposes. The rest of the novel tells of his flight, which lasts for approximately a year and which takes him through the complex and variegated world of Trantor. During his flight to escape the various political factions, he discovers how psychohistory can be made a practical science. It is in this novel that he meets his future wife Dors Venabili, future adopted son Raych Seldon, and future partner Yugo Amaryl.

Forward the Foundation

This novel is actually told as a sequence of short stories, just as was the case with the original trilogy. They take place at intervals a decade or more apart, and tell the story of Hari's life, starting about ten years after Prelude and ending with his death. The stories contrast his increasingly successful professional life with his increasingly unsuccessful personal life.
Seldon mentions two indigenous species of Helicon: the lamec and the greti. The first is a hardworking animal, while the latter is dangerous as indicated by the native Helicon saying "If you ride a greti, you find you can't get off; for then it'll eat you.". The saying bears an uncanny resemblance to the age-old Chinese proverb "He who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount" (騎虎難下). The words lamec and greti are anagrams of camel and tiger, respectively.
In his old age, he gains the nickname Raven for his dire predictions of the future.

- Footnote: 1. According to the Encyclopedia Galactica (Asimov's fictitious encyclopedia often cited in his future history novels), "It is thought that Seldon's birthdate,which some consider doubtful, may have been adjusted to match that of Cleon's" the last Galactic Emperor of the Entun Dynasty (Prelude to Foundation, p. 3).

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