Seldon Plan

The Seldon Plan is the central theme of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series of stories and novels. The plan involves mathematically predicting the broad flow of human history on a large scale, in order that the future of the Galactic Empire can be improved.

According to Asimov's novels, Hari Seldon devised the Seldon Plan using a mathematical analysis he originally developed and called psychohistory. Psychohistory is a fictional science which combines history, sociology, etc., and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire. His analysis worked only for large numbers of persons, at least 50 billion, pursuing their idiosyncratic life interests, uninterested in shaping future history, and gave probable paths for historical developments. Using this technique, Seldon deduced that it was certain the Galactic Empire was about to collapse, and bring about a 30,000 year Dark-Age.

The basic concept behind the plan was initially stated to be to reduce 30,000 years of Galactic barbarism, to under 1,000, and establish a Second Galactic Empire. This appears to have been the original version of the plan. Not because Seldon did not have wider aspirations, but because that was as far as it was originally worked out by Seldon himself.

Seldon obtained permission from the Emperor, via the Commission of Public Safety, to start an Encyclopedia project, on a resource-poor planet towards the outer edges of the Galaxy. This project, which he called "The Foundation," was to face a series of crises, each of which would force the Foundation to take a particular path. For example, a scarcity of metals forced the Foundation to co-operate and trade with neighbors. Each time a major crisis happened, a projection of Seldon would appear, and make comments on the situation that had just passed. It was during the first of these crises that Seldon revealed the real purpose of the Foundation, which was to create the Second Galactic Empire.

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