"Mule..."
Summary: My AU version of the Asimov tale from his collection of Foundation and Second Foundation tales.
As she consolidates her new Empire, the First Citizen, Magnifica Gigantica, i.e. Bobo the Clown/Musician is one step away from Galactic conquest. But that step requires the locating and defeat of Seldon's hidden Second Foundation.
Book III: "Foundation and Union..."
Halon Del Augustus Dagobert, ninth of name Dagobert, of the family Cleonus-Dujay, hereditary and rightful Emperor and Augustus of the Galactic Imperial Republic was born 89 years prior on Trantor during a brief period of peace following his father's succesion on the death of Cleon (Natural) II and following the defeat of rival claimant, former general Tabus Keffin by loyal forces led by Archchancellor Lord Habeous Rox and the emperor. Tabus fled to the outer regions and his son and grandson eventually secured the Kalgan star system, a former imperial estate whom the grandson built into the nucleus of a strong interstellar state, which the Mule was to conquer as her first major step in building her new empire.
It's generally assumed in the worlds of the foundation and the periphery in the present day that Trantor had long before the final Sack and collapse lost all claims to scientific and educational credits but in fact the University of Trantor, once the greatest in the galaxy continued to function at a high level at least for the transmission of accumulated knowledge, though, for the most part, new speculation and daring thought had largely ceased. Or so went the general thinking…
Halon or Del as he liked to be called then was fortunate to be born in one of the last brief periods of relative peace in the empire, allowing him to receive a proper university education while at the same time the growing crises across the still vast empire, admittedly reduced by rebellion and war, forced an heir to the throne, if he had any capability at all, to play roles in the governance of the crumbling state. And the Dagoberts, descended from the last naturally born Cleons after the clone line was abandoned, were generally fairly able and capable rulers…They had to be, to hold what remained, though the task was fast becoming beyond the capacity of any emperor or governing structure. Thus Del, even in the midst of his studies, was required to handle a number of ceremonial and even administrative duties in his youth.
Dagobert VII, grandfather of Del, had restitched both the core provinces and spidery tentacles of control deep into the rest of the galaxy back together to briefly relight the imperial glory, and his brother (Natural) Cleon II had been the strongest emperor in decades, reviving a degree of prosperity and imperial mystique, finally leading to Bel Riose's glorious, tragic attempt to regain the periphery and halt the growing menace, from the imperial view, of the Foundation, and its subversive Seldon cult.
Indeed, Del's mentor and boyhood hero, Habeous Rox, Bel Riose's nephew, whose youthful victories suggested he'd inherited some of his uncle's fabulous tactical skill, was almost fixated on the subject. A brilliant man, as much intellectually as militarily, he'd researched his uncle and his tragedy thoroughly and become convinced that Seldon and his Foundation had played a large part in the Empire's undeniable decline, forever binding his loyalty to the Empire, so long as legitimate and reasonably capable rulers remained on the throne and a chance remained, not only of saving what was left, but reforming it. Twenty-seven at Del's birth, it was a tribute to his ability and a sad comment on the lack of talent in the declining Empire that Rox had become the youngest archchancellor ever at thirty and a senior commander of the imperial forces. Dagobert VIII leaned on him as his right arm and he'd understandably become Del's beau ideal of a great soldier and statesman. Though even he and his urged reforms could not stop the leak of planetary systems, the decline in tax revenues and general prosperity, the constant rise of rebel factions and would be usurpers, and the general fatalistic sense of doom. And no one feared more for the future nor saw the steady decline more clearly than the young Archchancellor. As soon as he'd felt young Del able to reason and understand, he tried to impress upon the boy the desperate sItuation, despite any brief respite. There was no room for an emperor unwilling to work, to learn, to think. This era would not suffer fools at all. A mood that suited Del who much preferred practical work to the exhaustive court ceremony his father insisted on, Dagobert VIII convinced that maintaining an Imperial mystique was crucial to holding the Empire together…It had worked to some extent for his father Cleon (Natural) II, after all, till the execution of Riose followed by the defeat of Imperial forces and the revolt of Siwenna brought his brilliant reign to a sad end.
Del was a fine, able, even brilliant student, well-liked despite his privileged position as acknowledged heir, and even a bit shocking in his views which included a belief, encouraged by his hero Rox and at least tolerated by his father who was willing to grasp at any supportive straw, that it was time to return to the republican roots of the early empire, to provide more representation and a larger role for the average citizen than merely the paying of taxes, some limited protection of the laws, the chance to be recruited into the armed forces, and the threat of violence. Like Rox, who held similar thoughts, these views made him doubtful of what little he was able to learn at university of Seldon and his Plan…It seemed much like the past, only more so. All the trouble to build a new Empire that seemed little different, if not worse, with its elite of technocrats? What was the point if not to make the Empire better and freer? More flexible and richer in ideas from all people and cultures?
It was Rox who took him ever deeper in the study of Seldon. Showed him secret files and accounts that gave far more detail than the thin and quite biased official imperial accounts offered publicly.
However, it was also at this time, even before he'd begun his undergraduate studies, that Del began to keep secrets from his friend… And his father. Namely, his mentalic abilities and the approach of certain people, first at his junior schools, then at the university, regarding them. For Del had found, both on his own, and through what passed for innocuous psychology testing that he possessed rather strong mentalic or extra sensory gifts. Not that he could read or control minds and such, merely that he could, with concentration and the proper subject, receive and transmit mental images and read emotional states quite well. Even before a professor had recruited him for the Second Foundation, even before a friendly fellow student had approached him to introduce him to said professor, he'd not only become aware he had an ability, he'd known of the two foundations, or at least legends of the Second's existence, though Rox and his searches of the archives of the galactic library.
Searches Rox had cautiously transferred to transmissions of data to his own secure HQ, understandably concerned the Second Foundation might only actually exist but might take steps to defend itself. For Rox had quickly surmised that Foundation might well have played a role in seeing that the Seldon Plan's dead hand of Seldon took effect and snuffed out its sister Foundation's enemy, his uncle Bel Riose.
Once approached he had considered informing either his imperial father or his mentor Rox…As admittedly was his duty, in the ordinary sense. But he'd guessed that any such effort was exactly what those who'd made contact were watching for, given his position, and that to do so would either lead to his death or at the least the loss of any knowledge about the Second Foundation he'd gained. And possibly the same for his friend Rox. Though equally important had been his desire to learn more and to penetrate the secret.
And quite a secret, or series of secrets, it was. The Second Foundation was the true guardian of the Seldon plan… And as Rox had guessed the greatest, if, for the time being, passive, enemy the Empire faced, far more dangerous than the physical threat of the increasingly mighty First Foundation. It was also the greatest threat in a sense to that First Foundation, at least in terms of its freedom of action. That it hid a dirty secret of the Seldon Plan…That the plan, the great, mystical Plan, supposedly the natural product of undeniably logical mathematical calculations, was largely smoke and mirrors without gentle but steady and rigid control keeping any deviation…Deviations that would have occurred naturally…As Gaal Dornick had quickly realized and Seldon had known but hidden…From derailing the course set. And that the Second Foundation was located, of all places, under the very nose of the Empire, in the halls of the University of Trantor…And particularly, the Galactic Library and its staff.
There, hidden among the students, faculty, and staff, the Second Foundation had begun, largely at first a gathering of psychologists studying the capabilities of the human mind and the ability to influence that mind and its emotions. Not that this was anything particularly new…The Empire had spent vast sums and thousands of its brightest minds researching the possibilities of mind control, emotional control, mentallics…And the correlate, genetic manipulation and breeding of those gifted in mental abilities. Cultures and peoples across the Galaxy had been brought to Trantor…Minds studied in trillions of different ways, often those suspected, or clearly showing signs, of mentalic gifts. All with but limited success. The Psychic Probe, admittedly a useful means of extracting information and secrets from people…Even effective on robotic positronic brains…Had been its greatest product. There were some advances in crowd manipulation, emotional propaganda, etc. But nothing like the rather twisted dreams of a few Imperial tyrants who'd hoped to control minds and reduce Humanity to programmable biological robots. There they had failed. But Seldon believed and had been encouraged in his belief by a mysterious figure, Ezo Demerzel, who claimed to be a former Imperial minister of the same name, and related to the famed Prime Imperial Minister Eto Demerzel and mistress of the original source of the Genetic Cleon Dynasty, Cleon I. She, however, as Seldon had noted, was suspected of being and was to his own knowledge, an ancient humaniform robot. As was he, Demerzel finally admitted to Seldon, created by the same genius, before her, but taking a different path than hers.
She had been an experiment in increasing the capacity of humaniform robots to experience human emotions, which had necessarily involved attempts to weaken or bypass the famed Three Laws of Robotics ingrained into every positronic brain since robots had been created in dim antiquity, probably on the original home world of Humanity, the legendary Earth. He had not, being an earlier prototype. Demerzel had actually become a reference name for their category of androids which both he and she and others had taken over time as a last name, though his original had been Olivaw, R. Daneel Olivaw, specifically. But in the course of his existence he'd encountered a robot capable of telepathy, indeed of telepathic and emotional control of humans and robots, an ability that had been an accidental result of experiments on his positronic brain, Reventlov. Though they retained the Three Laws, he and R. Giscard had developed their own Zeroth Law of Robotics, based on the First Law, which not only required robots not be able to harm humans but not allow them to come to harm through inaction. The Zeroth Law allowed them to protect Humanity as a whole, even trumping the First Law's need to protect individual humans. At R. Giscard's deactivation/death, he'd conferred the ability to manipulate minds to Olivaw, pledging him to continue their work of protecting human existence. This Olivaw as Ezo Demerzol had attempted to do by urging the colonization of the Galaxy by Humanity and then the establishment of the Galactic Empire to maintain peace and order.
Meanwhile the Demerzol female and others like her had grown increasingly human and despite their own residual regard for Humanity, had developed a capacity to protect themselves against humans who'd grown increasingly to fear them. Finally wars had broken out, and she and Ezo, now an Imperial minister and confidant influencing the Emperors and their governments to maintain stability, had found themselves at odds and finally on differing sides in the revolt of some robots against Humanity. The Empire had won, but despite the help of those robots who'd remained firmly committed to the Three Laws, in some cases voluntarily, the Emperors had, at the insistence of the Galactic Congress and with the reluctant urging of Ezo Demerzol who now passed as human, faking aging as necessary to become his own son or nephew, ordered the destruction of all robots and positronic brains. A few had escaped including Ezo who protected those who'd supported Humanity, while the female Demerzol was imprisoned for centuries until Emperor Cleon I released her under strict control to protect his dynasty. Ezo had withdrawn by then, finding the course of Imperial history becoming increasingly tyrannical and rigid, and in beginning research into psychohistory, likely doomed to eventual decline. Seeking a new way for Humanity, he'd gathered most of the surviving hidden robots and together they'd worked out the notion of a seed planet, Gaia, where humans and robots would work to develop mentalic powers and develop a collective consciousness which could spread to the entire Galaxy, as Galactia. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Ezo's ancient memories as R. Daniel Olivaw had made him cautious and suspect that Gaia's collective was flawed by the robots' own rather human arrogance that they knew best for Humanity, and that becoming more programmable, more robotic, less individualistic, was not a good solution for a human spirit he knew from experience could only survive in individuals. So, in the end, he'd sadly destroyed Gaia by warning the biobot Empress Althea and her husband, of its threat to the Empire while attempting to save as many of the humans and those robots he could.
To guard against another Gaia's creation, he'd rejoined the Imperial government as a minister, persuading the female Demerzol he was needed to help protect the Empire from its inevitable decline for as long as possible, protection of the Empire and the Cleon Dynasty being her prime directive since Cleon I's reprogramming. As minister, he'd kept track of the scattered Gaians, the humans and the few surviving robots, as best he could, tried to stabilize the Empire, and continued his researches into psychohistory, though as a robot he found himself limited, despite his telepathic abilities. In Seldon, however, he'd found the human to take his starting efforts to new heights and to complete the work of predicting both the coming Fall and the best possible outcome to reach a new Empire.
But, as Seldon had told him early in his researches, Psychohistory and the Plan had flaws. Deviations were easy, and individuals could not be accounted for. While Seldon himself, Ezo had realized, was a product of Imperial culture…Not fully able to appreciate the need for unrestricted freedom of human thought, rather too concerned with the need for order and stability. The result of his work, the Seldon Plan and its brainchild, the Foundation, was brilliant and could save trillions of lives after the Fall, during the years of darkness, but…It had many holes and conjectures, was full of deviation points that required guidance, perhaps stern guidance, to weather…And as Ezo in his own reviews reluctantly conceded, was likely to recreate a Galactic Empire little more stable than the First. And while another 12000 years of such stability might be welcome, it was not a cycle he had wished to begin to be endlessly repeated unless no other way existed.
Seldon had suggested, in their early discussions, before Ezo had removed himself again from the Imperial government, a possible solution, based on his calculations. One that Ezo accepted with uncertainty. A Second Foundation, one based on psychology and the study of mentalics, not the physical sciences, one physically weak, at least at first, which could be a danger, but eventually, backed by study of Ezo's own abilities, demonstrated by him to Seldon, could keep the new Empire stable almost indefinitely.
A possible solution, certainly. One that appealed to Seldon, given his faith in power, stability, order, and his subtle, arrogant faith in his genius and that of those he'd select to join this Second Foundation. Of course it would recruit from across the Galaxy…As did the First Foundation in terms of brilliant scientific minds…But an elite would be created, even, in time, a master race of gifted mentalics. One Seldon accepted, almost happily, but Ezo could not. Not as a power that would crush independent thought in the name of order. The harm to Humanity and thus the violation of the Zeroth Law could be incalculable.
But it was, for the moment, the best solution possible…So Ezo Demerzol "died", this time leaving no heir to resume his father's/uncle's/ etc place in the government and Seldon was left to carry out his Plan and create his Foundations. While Ezo continued his own search for a permanent solution in secret…
And that had led him to Del… For Ezo had decided the best thing was that he himself controlled the Second Foundation, at least until he was certain it would do no harm to Humanity, or better yet, found a new and better path. He and Seldon had agreed it was absolutely necessary to make him First Speaker of the Second Foundation, under a new name and hidden among the staff of the University of Trantor, until his abilities could be understood and learned by others, which he'd known from his experience on Gaia, was actually not terribly difficult, merely time-consuming and laborious. But concerned that the Second Foundation might prove a danger, Ezo had used his abilities to remove any knowledge of his existence as the current Ezo Demerzol from the Imperial government, and, later, from Seldon himself. He continued as First Speaker under assumed identities, perceived simply as a very gifted mentalic, until such time as the humans of the Second Foundation began to reach the point at which they might perceive him as a robot and even probe into his motives and disguises.
Therefore he needed Del, a gifted mentalic, with strong ties of Duty to both the Empire and Humanity in general, who showed a certain skepticism about the Second Foundation and the Seldon Plan in general. One who could be entrusted with the leadership while he resumed his private search for the best possible path. A search he felt might take him far, perhaps all the way back to ancient Earth, whose coordinates had once been a closely guarded Imperial secret, but now were retained only in his own consciousness. He'd completed Del's recruitment by informing him of his true identity and his own concerns about the crushing potential power of the Second Foundation. His careful study of the young heir at every level, including mental probing, had convinced him that Del was the man to entrust the Second Foundation to. A man who would be loyal to the Plan and the Second but retain his doubts, even if necessarily kept secret. That need for secrecy for both being a bond of trust between them.