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Foundation and Empire 1952 is the middle book in the original Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov, coming between Foundation (1951), and Second Foundation (1953). It is based on a pair of stories originally published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1945—the first was called "Dead Hand" and was published in April, and the second was called "The Mule," published in the November and December issues.

Plot

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Book One: The General

The Foundation on planet Terminus is attacked by a new threat from the Empire, an ambitious general by the name of Bel Riose. Riose scores several notable military victories against the Foundation, which at this time is ill equipped to meet the new threat, for lack of strong Foundation leaders. The leaders of Terminus send a mission to Trantor, still the Empire’s capital, to plant a subversive rumor with the emperor against Bel Riose. Before that mission can succeed, Bel Riose is arrested and therefore neutralized as a threat to the Foundation. The emperor had seen the general’s success as a threat to his own position, and so moved to squash his rival. It is further revealed that this is just the sort of thing that Hari Seldon predicted—that when a threat emerged from the empire in the form of a strong general, that threat would be neutralized from the center of the empire. Hence the rules of psychohistory are upheld once again.

Book Two: The Mule

The second story, which takes up the bulk of the book, deals with another, later threat to the Foundation from a mysterious figure known as The Mule. In the years since the threat from Bel Riose, the remnants of the Empire have completely fallen apart. Trantor, the old capital, is just a shadow of its former self, and the Foundation seems fairly secure in its position, even though it is currently led by an incompetent hereditary ruler. Then the armies of The Mule appear, challenging Foundation forces, and winning just about every battle. Indeed, it seems that at crucial moments The Mule is able to convince Foundation forces to surrender their ships without a fight and come over to his side. But the Mule is fighting not just the Foundation, but also independent traders—worlds that exist at the periphery of Foundation power and who resent the Foundation’s power and arrogance. But even the trader fleets are unable to match the Mule in battle.

The story follows a small number of people trying to deal with this threat from the Mule. Bayta is a Foundation woman, who marries a trader named Toran at the beginning of the story. Han Pritcher, a Foundation intelligence officer, deduces early on that The Mule is a mutant of some kind, and that is why he hides his identity. Also involved in this investigation is a budding psychohistorian named Ebbling Mis. These investigators visit the time vault of Hari Seldon, knowing that no one else has ever mastered psychohistory with the same skill as Hari Seldon, but unfortunately The Mule is a crisis that Seldon never anticipated. This disheartens everybody, shaking their confidence in psychohistory.

The Mule continues to win battle after battle, even converting Han Pritcher over to his cause. Bayta, Toran, Ebbling Mis, and a man named Magnifico, who was the Mule’s clown and court jester before the Mule’s opponents got hold of him, journey to the remnants of the decaying planet Trantor, the old imperial capital. They hope that Ebbling Mis can use what is left of the libraries there to learn enough about Hari Seldon’s psychohistory to figure out what went wrong and what to do about it. Ebbling Mis comes to realize from his studies that Hari Seldon’s theory had always assumed that human nature would remain unchanged over the centuries, which means his theory cannot deal with the intervention of a mutant like the Mule. Ebbling Mis figures that the crucial test of the Mule’s power will not come by confronting the First Foundation, where Seldon's plan deposited all physical scientists. Instead, the Mule will face his greatest test against the Second Foundation on the other side of the galaxy, because that is where all the social and psychological scientists have been preserved, and so that is the Foundation that will best deal with a threat from a mutant like the Mule. But if the Mule can attack the Second Foundation before it is ready for him, he will probably win. Fortunately for the Second Foundation, their location is unknown—Hari Seldon took great pains to keep it a secret, saying only that it would be located "at the other end of the galaxy, let us say, at Star's End."

In the last pages of the book, Ebbling Mis is about to reveal the location of the Second Foundation when Bayta suddenly shoots him dead. She explains that she has figured out that Magnifico, the Mule’s clown, is in fact the Mule himself, and that if Ebbling Mis had revealed the location of the Second Foundation, he would have been handing the galaxy to the Mule. Magnifico confirms that she is correct, and that by killing Ebbling Mis she has defeated his plan for now. He further reveals that he was raised in enough squalor and isolation to develop a hatred for almost all people. But he was born with the ability to manipulate the emotional states of people, and that is the weapon that he used to conquer the First Foundation—he would simply impose upon his enemies a feeling of despair and defeatism, and the enemy would come over to his side. This was how he got Han Pritcher to come to work for him. In fact, he was using his special ability to goad Ebbling Mis, a talented mathematician, to learn enough about Hari Seldon and psychohistory to discover the location of the Second Foundation.

The Mule's failing was that he did not use his power on Bayta, because she was the only human he ever met who accepted him for himself, without forcing him first to use his powers, and he liked that. The Mule is an ambitious man, who is willing to kill innocents if it will bring him closer to his goal of galactic conquest. But, in the end, he spares the lives of Bayta and Toran—they have defeated his plan, but they cannot threaten him further, and he does not kill just for the sake of killing.

Related Works

In the third book in the trilogy, Second Foundation (1953), the Mule continues his search for the Second Foundation, which leads the two sides to a final confrontation.