Seldon Crisis

A Seldon Crisis is a fictional socio-historical phenomenon in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series of science fiction novels. They are part of the field of psychohistory, and refer to a seemingly catastrophic social and political situation that, to be surmounted, would eventually leave only one possible, inevitable, course of action.

They are named after Hari Seldon, who founded the field of psychohistory, and who appears as a pre-recorded hologram at the climax of each crisis. Before his death, he used psychohistory to predict and manipulate each event. A Seldon Crisis usually involves both an external pressure (such as threat of attack) and an internal pressure (such as threat of revolt). Both pressures will come to a head simultaneously, and be resolved with the same action.

There are at least eight Seldon Crises.

Encountered fifty years after the foundation of the Encyclopedia Foundation Number One, as the Foundation was originally known, the surrounding areas of the Galactic Empire had rebelled and declared themselves independent kingdoms. The new nations were known as the Four Kingdoms, the largest of which was the Kingdom of Anacreon. The new barbarian kingdoms would inevitably try to absorb the militarily weak and resource-poor First Foundation, with Anacreon actually establishing a military base in an unoccupied portion of Terminus as a prelude to outright annexation. The solution to the crisis was, as Hari Seldon said in his first recorded message to the Foundation, obvious; as the only source of atomic power in the Periphery (as the edge of the galaxy was known), to allow any one kingdom to gain control of the Foundation would be tantamount to suicide on the part of the other Kingdoms, as such a move would quickly be followed by the annexation of the rest of the Kingdoms. Thus, the three other Kingdoms united against the Kingdom of Anacreon, jointly ensuring that no nation assume control of the Foundation and forcing Anacreon to recall its soldiers. In this and the next crisis, the Foundation was guided by Salvor Hardin.

Occurring approximately thirty years after the first crisis, the Kingdom of Anacreon, still the largest of the Four Kingdoms, once again planned to conquer the Foundation in order to gain its technological resources. Having grown in power since the original Crisis, even the other three kingdoms united were not enough of a deterrent to forestall attack. Aware that this was always a distinct possibility, the Foundation had since spread a cult of science through the barbarian kingdoms. Providing technological aid to the Four Kingdoms in a further attempt to forestall hostility, the Foundation had withheld all scientific explanation on the functioning of their technology, the equipment was operated by technicians who only had an empirical knowledge of the science surrounding the feats that were accomplished. Furthermore, the technicians and populace were indoctrinated into a religion that placed all science within the realm of magic and Terminus in the role of a religious capital. This religion was ingrained deeply enough into the mentality of the populace that the common people of the kingdoms would oppose any attack on Terminus by their leaders because it would be regarded as "sin," and the soldiers of Anacreon rebelled when they learned what their leaders were planning.

...
Wikipedia