Foundation on Apple TV

[REBerg]

Spoiler

They are just humans, and it's kind of weird how much all of the power has gone into their heads.

Isn't that the case more often than not? Acquisition of power is generally followed by its abuse.

Brother Dawn is with his beloved as he is living his life instead of following the protocol..

I wondered about that. Have any other Cleons successfully escaped? Is that the real reason for having Dawn, Day and Dusk replacement copies ready to roll?

 

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Spoiler

I wondered about that. Have any other Cleons successfully escaped? Is that the real reason for having Dawn, Day and Dusk replacement copies ready to roll?

I talked in the previous one, where they revealed the Hall of Emperors about them all being slightly diverse, but as we know from the classic Jurassic Park "Nature finds its way." Genetic mutations isn't a big thing, expect that somehow Dawns code was altered some much that he's different from the rest.

It is going to be intriguing to see how his time in power as Brother Day is going to happen, and if he'll have Trantor to rule, when they get that "planet killer" running. Warden most certainly has story shield as we did find from Hari's case.

It also can be a case that somehow impurities got fed into the cloning machine and they caused the genetic mutations, and I also think there might be the case that Cleo I did spec the machine the introduce anomalies.

 

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The Art Of Foundation

Apple's big sci-fi series is, if nothing else, absolutely gorgeous to look at

kotaku.com

 

[Vince W]

No question, Foundation is gorgeous.

 

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8.1 on iMdb. 55 minutes in length. Interesting.

Spoiler: 1.08 - The Missing Piece

The atrocity of killing Anacreon is quite unbelievable. It was a living planet. Full of forests, and not much of seas. In other words it was kind of paradise we dream about. A planet that's not going to through a climate change through deforestation.

So, it's kind of hard to think that from such a place of beauty would be the birth place for the plot that killed the SkyBridge. It also explains why the expedition leader is called the Grand Huntress, when all of it is in the life style ... or rather was, before the Imperium forced them into the war.

As that part of the plot thickens, you'll start to think that maybe Hari was behind it all. That he had no choice but to make his predictions real, even though his mathematical model was false. If that's true then doesn't that make Hari equivalent to Hitler?

To try to avert to upcoming chaos Warden said, "If you strike Trantor, the entire Outer Reach will suffer."

The Grand Huntress wafted it off. "You simply have no concept of revenge, do you? I don't care about the mankind." But that's the thing, if the Genetic Dynasty nor its opposition doesn't care then surely the galaxy is going through hell in a very chaotic times.

But the way the Grand Huntress described all of things it really feels like the gods are in the play, moving pieces, causing chaos while humanity suffers.

The only conclusion that either one of them could arrive, without voicing it is that Gaal is an oracle, but in the classical terms it means "a voice of gods." So, you see there's a lot more fantasy than science, but it doesn't mean that it's not real. Psionic powers like telepathy or telekinesis could be the same, a gift from the gods.

Hari simply put it, "You're extraordinary." Funny thing is that he cocked up straight afterwards by claiming that Gaal's ability, her presence is going to "cock up the psychohistory." In other words, he confirmed that it's bulls biscuits, a simple lie, a hoax or a ponzi scheme, with Hari sitting on top of the pyramid.

No wonder why he built a ship that can incorporate within its shell his immortal soul. Maybe so that he can travel in space forever, making sure that both Foundations would survive the turmoil of thousands of years of chaos.

Why does that feel a bit like WH40k?

Hari explained the presence of the Second Foundation as a need to make sure that everything survives. Gaal didn't buy it. All she wanted to was to go to end her story at Terminus .. as if intended.

138 year trip is going to be a long one.

I thought for a while would the Emperor do the walk without his gadgets and Occam's Razor were saying no. Yet, he donned the costume and ditched everything to become a mortal. Demerzel told him that at the end he would be granted a vision, linking a gods in the play.

170 km trek in an arid desert, with no provisions is one way trip, and all he wanted to take with him was a salt crystal from the android's bracelet. Man that is not only an endurance test, but also test of your knowledge and ability to make yourself useful instead of being just talking head. For a pampered emperor that is an arduous task.

Yet, he was going through it as if he was on a Sunday stroll through the meadows. I certainly couldn't see him pissing in his sock in Bear Gryll's style and using whatever means to survive the trip. Maybe Triple Goddess is protecting him.

I loved watching him changing in the mortal costume, by caring for another mortal for as long as it lasted. He truly walked in the valley of shadow of death and survived to the end to be embraced by the gods.

It's kind of funny how he was so opposed to any of it at the beginning of the journey. But the transformation meant nothing as at the end, he just wished for his enemy to disappear and the instrument for that was the person who set him in the path of enlightement, Demerzel.

Irony but in the mythological terms the priestess claimed her to be a godly device, not just a Hand for the dynasty.

With Warden we have second oracle, a second pawn in the gods play. Also a second person that Hari couldn't predict, putting stops in his grand plan. What I couldn't guess was that the Invictus had gone through a mutiny and hence it had been abandoned.

Thing is Warden had felt the whole time that Invictus was a danger. Something she couldn't handle and the explanation on the bridge with hardwired people controlling the jumping and other things, the whole ship became a death trap ... to all of them.

Funny thing is that we know that Warden is the only person that can take the Null field. Therefore making her the best candidate to survive the trip, if the machine accepts her jacking in without a surgery.

I was surprised that it didn't happen. Does it mean she has a story shield?

Damn, no soul. Man....

Great episode

 

[ctg]

The length is starting to be consistent at around 55 minutes and the story-telling is much better. Imdb score is 8.8, interesting. I also noticed BSG, Caprica, Jessica Jones producer Jane Espenson on the credits as co-exec. In fact they have a lot of people involved into the project, including Asimov's family.

Spoiler: S01E09 - First Crisis

To be honest, the way Hari is portrayed in this is very different then what it was when I read the books at boy age. Back then he was a hero, but looking at the series he is definitely a villain. A mastermind behind the turmoil and as we've learned he's been playing the crisis game all on his own, with nobody knowing nothing about his influence in the events. Except Gall, of course, but she's disposed for next seven hundred years according to the computer. So whenever she gets back to civilisation it's going to be very different.

Whenever that is nobody is going to care about lies and facts, because the time is different.

Damn Lewis, that was some ballsy move. He might look dead but he's part of the machine now, for forever and again. Ain't no toilet breaks for him. No vacations, nothing. Just endless jumps.

The Warden claimed that she has no idea on how to get the behaviour back under the control, but the machine wasn't blinking lights. It was responding to her commands, giving her information and data on various things, making Invictus a working ship.

In my mind it becomes Terminus guardian, with its engines sent down to planet and the vessel offering an orbital platform for the Foundation colony.

I loved how she managed to find a way out and jump to the privateer vessel, with no fear. Just a determination on getting back to her people. The love was a secondary thought. Luckily she didn't shoot him down.

It surprised me that she thought Invictus as the guardian for the planet. The real twist is that she went down to planet, walked super close to the Vault and used Hari's box to reveal clearly a manmade thing hiding behind the levitating symbol.

That is very cool looking and it's certainly ultra technology, but at the same time it looks a bit alien. It certainly could fool everyone as nobody had seen anything like it before. It surprised me that it could also take punishment from the pew-pew's and shrug it off like nothing had done before.

Then they twisted the tale again by allowing Hari's clone to walk out from it as if he's a god.

Oh, Brother Dawn you're playing a dangerous game. We never see the bodyguards around him, but we most certainly know that most skilled are actively camouflaged. Still, I'm glad that he's smart enough of to con the system, but he's not wise enough to really see the darker side of the humanity.

What I don't know is that is his feeling because of the chemistry or because of his youth, but he certainly isn't blessed with the wisdom. That comes with the experience. Not that experience should come flushing down into the cutters of Trantor. But he acted smartly and had a boy like fascination on everything that was new to his eyes.

I don't doubt that he will find a new life in the scar, and maybe it will better than being an emperor, a dictator locked in palace from rest of the world. If he survives the double cross, which is interesting, because his love was so convincing. It was as if she really wanted him to get out ... so that the resistance could get their guy inside.

Man, what a twist. Maybe it is the only way for them to end the Dynasty, but when they're gone whose going to fill the power vacuum?

I was certain that he wasn't going to survive the meet with his doppelganger, but he did thanks to Brother Dusk and the invisible assassins. "Young, foolish and gullible." I have no better words, but it intrigues me did the others try similar things?

So, so many twists.

 

[REBerg]

Spoiler

As I've always said: A Dawn has got to get up pretty early while Day's away to pull the wool over old Dusk's eyes.

 

[BAYLOR]

I think it's cool that we've gotten both Foundation and Dune .

 

[Parson]

I've been steadily watching Foundation and I think what needs to emphasized is that this is a solid S.F. series. It is interesting, well constructed, and not predictable. But in keeping with the "not predictable" it owes the world to the Foundation story but not it's narrative. The narrative is very, very, other than the narrative in the book.

I'm happy to be watching it, and I will watch the next installment as well.

 

[ctg]

Spoiler

A Dawn has got to get up pretty early while Day's away to pull the wool over old Dusk's eyes.

I've read it hundred times, each time trying to get it, but I guess I'm too smart to really get it. But I have to say it is clever and it kind of plays into the narrative. It's just every time Day's in power, and that's like always, he's a supreme d1ck. So, here we are thinking that the boy's going to get it, but we really don't know what's in reserve, except a) the soulless man punishes the boy, because he's better than them ... or b) another twist that plays into Hari's game and it enables Dawn to take over the Dynasty, thus injecting his code into the line, while the history unravels a bit differently.

I know they're not going to go mental Preacher style and introduce us to mythic stuff, but what's happening is pretty mythical in general. Especially with Hari's clone walking out from vault and the Warden becoming a Chosen One.

There is a lot of stuff that is verging on the fantasy and the only way for us to know it's not is to remember the AC Clarke's golden words: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indisthinguisahble from magic." So, in those terms, what they're doing is pretty magical and when you wrap in the Soulless Man, what is happening is mythological.

We classify Asimov as one the "Big Three's" among Clark and Heinlein. Latter, which I haven't read at all for some reason. But overall he's known as a Grandmaster in Science Fiction. He was a fan first, like we all are, but you look at the stuff he wrote, and edited, there's fantasy. Not just hard SF.

So in those terms, what the Fruit Company is doing, is acceptable. It is a good story, epic is scale, somewhat grand in the way they are telling it, but they could go grander. We just don't know yet what's in the store, and how they going to reveal it. I just have a feeling that boy might get lucky and survive.

 

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Here's How Apple Brought Foundation's Worlds and Cultures to Life

Apple's sci-fi odyssey has big ambitions and a big scope to go with it.

gizmodo.com

 

[ctg]

Impossible scene.

8.6 and almost an hour long season finale. Overall score for the series is standing at around 7.4, which is interesting for knowing how much resistance there has been along the airing.

Spoiler: S01E10 - The Leap

You have to wonder where Hari is able to get access to all of the technology that is seemingly breaking the possible. Stuff that nobody else have known, and yet, it's all what is doing by being a supreme overlord of the Vault tech. None of the Foundation instruments were able to detect his transmission to Terminus. Yet, at the same time, it's all imperial technology. Some that might have been classified. But yet again, at the same time, Hari were able to access, maybe even get to built because of his status in the royal household.

Should we start calling him Little Finger?

He pulled the story on rivals, put the blame on the Dynasty and everyone bought it hook, line and the sinker. He said that "The Invictus was part of the plan. It was one of the first models I tested. Where everyone else found chaos, I found a pattern."

In my mind that leads to the Gods theory and them having a firm hand on the evolution of the human species throughout time. Hari blew that apart by telling the people that he'd planned the Terminus Foundation to be part of the rebellion. And therefore he'd lied in the trials.

Maybe we don't have to wait 700 years for the Gaal to arrive with the truth. Not that her arrival could be any sooner for Hari going in the brainwash mode as if he's the director of all things. A god.

"I found patterns." If that is true then it wasn't set by him, but he is most certainly exploiting the opportunity like a pothead dictator. Thing is, he told the truth about the Dynasty and "one script" to the people, but strengthened them with the idea of rebellion, as an alteration to that "one script."

Clever Hari. Very cunning. What is the end result of this machination?

Equally clever Warden started seeing through his lies, as if she was holding Gaal's soul within her, being part of the pattern that Hari is exploiting to his advantage and rebelling against it, as if she part of the equalising force.

Man, the mess in the palace. I don't know what to say. It amazed me ... or rather not that the Soulless Man was grateful for Brother Dusk for handing the Dawn fiasco. It surprised me even more that the Soulless Man released Dusk, and then listened him whining endless how he was feeling trapped in the palace.

Oh, the curse of a gilded gage, it is so terrible. I don't know how can you stand it?

Thing is Soulless Man shed a tear, when Dusk revealed their misfortunes and flaws on living in the palace. It made me think that it influenced his decision on releasing the rebel lady to under his guard. The curious thing is that he ended up talking about the Dynasty legacy, and how she had robbed him part of the family, before he revealed the threat of consisting 1551 people on gardener's extended social orbit.

That number is nothing, when you consider trillions living in the Imperium of Man, but on a personal level a big thing by making person to nothing. And then imprisoning them for rest of their lives.

To be honest, it would be cheaper to put a bullet in her brain and be done with the threat. Not Dynasty, because nothing bad can happen to them, ever.

It's good thing that Warden and her mum doesn't take Hari's BS kindly. She asked the right questions, even though she couldn't understand her being an avatar, but accepted that the visions are part of her being. She just doesn't know that her role is much different but she is the leader of the First Foundation.

I loved that Hugo took the leadership on Invictus, while following Hari's plan, because to be honest, it is a win for them to keep fighting the Imperium. To be the dead people at the heart of the rebellion, and at the same time being the opposing force to the Dynasty.

The biggest twist is that Mum took Gaal's egg and made Warden, thus fulfilling the part of the prophesy of Gaal being part of the equation. The balancing factor.

It's just this all go timey-wimey with her hunt for Gaal's pod. What happens to her when Gaal wakes up?

I have to confess, I shed a tear when she flew off, leaving behind the boyfriend. It brought me so many memories.

Court of Brothers vs Alien Brother. Man, what a setup. I hope you noticed that it was just them and the droid. Nobody else were allowed in the sin. Dusk were murderous, wanting blood, just like he was when he ordered death to the worlds.

The Soulless Man however were a bit kinder. He saw them as unity, as one family, flaws and all. But he also saw the flaw in the legacy, by ordering Dusk to become new Day ... until Demezerel took away the opportunity to change the history.

Maybe the biggest twist is that it was revealed that the genetic code had been altered in all of them. But how is that Day doesn't have a soul?

Computer, what happened to the 700 years? How could it have been so wrong?

Warden rolled hard, when she planted her ship and went to sleep for over hundred years on a hunch. How could she have known?

 

[zeph]

Spoiler: wtf

Am I alone in feeling seriously WTF about this Salvor Hardin is Gaal Dornick's daughter? So cringe and unnecessary. Despite his later anthroposophical leanings (Gaia etc.) Asimov was never sentimental or occult/mystical. This is exactly that.

 

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Spoiler

Am I alone in feeling seriously WTF about this Salvor Hardin is Gaal Dornick's daughter? So cringe and unnecessary. Despite his later anthroposophical leanings (Gaia etc.) Asimov was never sentimental or occult/mystical. This is exactly that.

No, you're not alone. It is a serious WTF moment, but you also have to assume that the change got a blessing from the family. In story wise it makes sense, but it also adds that mystical element that explains why she's extraordinary.

 

[REBerg]

I must say, the first season has laid a solid foundation for the series. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Spoiler

I had suspected that Demerzel, the android, is the real power in the Empire. When she broke the tie vote between Dusk and Day over the value of Dawn, by snapping Dawn's neck while comforting him, my suspicions were strengthened.
Demerzel has been the constant factor throughout the succession of Cleon clones, guiding them down the programmed path. As an android, she has no issue with maintaining genetic purity. Her religious beliefs, however, seem to be conflicting with her imperial directive, creating enough to stress to make her rip her own face off. Yikes!
I'm no genetic expert, but wouldn't environmentally induced elements mutate DNA over extended generations, even among clones? With both Dawn and Day exhibiting variations from Cleon I, the rebels may not be behind the mutations.
I hope that the next season features more Foundation and less Empire

 

[ctg]

Spoiler

I'm no genetic expert, but wouldn't environmentally induced elements mutate DNA over extended generations, even among clones? With both Dawn and Day exhibiting variations from Cleon I, the rebels may not be behind the mutations.

I'm not an expert either, but from what we know the mutations come all the way to the end as you age. And there is some speculation for why you shouldn't make babies at late age. But their code came from the Cleon I with some modifications.

As you say, Demez is the number one suspect behind the power, but as she told us (the viewers) she came to faith a long time ago, when she made the journey. All we know is that in the past they had Robot Wars, but that would include Ai's. They claim that she's the last one, chosen to serve the Dynasty and it has been told that she does it through her programming.

In that programming is also the laws that says to not harm people, expect she has acted as the executioner more than twice. I think she was the vessel that passed the Dusk's command to the grand fleet to bombard those two worlds. But ...

... is she conveniently also the heart of the rebellion, because she must have known those changes in the DNA. Is that plausible? That she is the vessel that had access, knowledge and the opportunity to alter the Source DNA? Or did Cleon I made sure that his clones were all a bit different?

 

[Elckerlyc]

Spoiler

Well, I kept having mixed feelings about this series right until the end. Not so much because of the level of faithfulness to the books, either high or low. Any adaptation for a different medium is likely to be adapted to some level. As along as it is done well (and it isn't Dune) it isn't necessarily a bad thing. I am not a purist at heart.
But in this case I don't feel it was done well. The writing seemed more aimed to dazzle the viewer with grand views, unexpected and even illogical twists and cruelties by Empire rule than to be consistent with logically, character driven plot turns. Too often I had responses like "Huh?", "Nonsensical" or "Can I go play outside now?"
At some level it was interesting enough to keep watching, but the level of enjoying it was barely above mediocre.
The notion of psychohistory is weird enough to be closer to magic than science. That's fine, but it is up to the writers to tell the story in such a way it becomes acceptable. A shame than that this veers off to the mystical side of things.

 

[zeph]

Spoiler

No, you're not alone. It is a serious WTF moment, but you also have to assume that the change got a blessing from the family. In story wise it makes sense, but it also adds that mystical element that explains why she's extraordinary.

Spoiler

A shame than that this veers off to the mystical side of things.

And this is a deviation from the original that I find particularly hard to stomach. Asimov's Salvor Hardin was a shrewd man with his feet firmly planted in reality. No sentimental wishwash, no hereditary special gifts, no visions. Asimov left the mystical side of things to the Second Foundation, the First Foundation wasn't supposed to have any knowledge of it, if Psychohistory was to work.

This just craps all over the original vision, trading reason and logic for Star Wars-like inter-generational family affairs. It's a soap opera in space. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but definitely antithetical to everything Asimov embodied.

 

[Droflet]

I had to see it, didn't I? Although I read the book that was back in the Cretaceous period so I don't remember much. This is very well produced with good casting and so on. But it's a story that spans a massive period of time, if my memory is holding up, and that will always present difficulties. I've got two more episodes to see. So far, so good.

 

[ctg]

Interesting information and somewhat spoilerific stuff. So watch it with a thought after you have finished the finale.