Chapter 18 first quarter

Trantor! Eight thousand years in the past, it was the capital of a powerful political entity in the galaxy.This regime continues to expand outwards, forming an increasingly large alliance of planetary systems.Twelve thousand years later, a political system covering the entire galaxy was established here, and Trantor was the center, heart and epitome of the Galactic Empire. It is absolutely impossible for anyone to think of the Empire without thinking of Trantor. Trantor's material civilization was truly at its peak after the empire's decline had come a long way.In fact, because the metal of Trantor's surface was always shining brightly, no one noticed at the time that the Empire had lost its momentum and its future was hopeless.

Trantor reached its culmination when it became a single metropolis around the globe.The total population at this time is fixed (by law) at 45 billion, and the only green areas on the surface of the planet are the site of the Imperial Palace and the Galactic University/Library complex. The entire surface of Trantor is covered with metal, and the desert and fertile soil are buried under the metal without discrimination. Above it are crowded residential areas, various administrative agencies, computerized precision factories, and huge warehouses for storing food and spare parts.All mountains were leveled, every fault was filled in, and the city's innumerable underground corridors stretched all the way to the continental shelf.As for the ocean, it has become a huge subterranean aquaculture farm - the only local food and mineral resource (though not self-sufficient, of course).

All the resources that Trantor needs depend, for the most part, on communications with the "Outer Worlds."Members of this extremely complex transportation network include thousands of space stations on Trantor, tens of thousands of warships, 100,000 space merchant ships, and millions of huge space freighters. There is no other city in the galaxy with as much metabolism as Trantor, nor any planet that uses more solar energy or emits waste heat as obsessively.On the night side of Trantor world, countless shiny radiators protruded into the thin upper atmosphere, while on the other side, on the day side, the same radiators were completely retracted into the metal layer.As the planet rotates, radiators slowly rise as night falls somewhere, and sink one by one as dawn breaks.Therefore, there is an artificial asymmetry in the landscape on the surface of Trantor, which has almost become its patented symbol.

At the height of Trantor, it ruled the Empire! It's pretty poorly governed, but no one, or any world, can run the empire well enough.The territory of the empire is too vast, and it is impossible for a single world to dominate the world.Even the most powerful emperor will feel helpless.On the way to the fall of the empire, those in power are cunning politicians and stupid and incompetent people. They regard the crown as a private bag, and bureaucracy has developed into a subculture of corruption and bribery. Under such circumstances, How could Trantor run the empire well? Yet even when things hit rock bottom, the whole system still needs a source of power, so the Galactic Empire cannot live without Trantor.

Although the empire is declining step by step, as long as Trantor is still Trantor, the core of the empire will still exist, and it can continue to maintain the false appearance of the golden age-the government maintains tradition and power, and the hearts of the people are full of pride and pride. Unexpected things happened—Trantor finally fell to the enemy, and was burned, killed and looted on a large scale.Tens of billions of residents were killed, and millions of survivors faced mass famine. The Barbarian fleet blasted the solid metal surface to the brim, and even melted it away in many places.Until this day, no one really thought the empire was down.On this world that once dominated the galaxy, the survivors of the catastrophe had to dismantle the remaining metal surfaces one by one in order to survive. After another generation, Trantor transformed from the greatest planet in human history to an unimaginable one. ruins.

The "Great Cataclysm" happened more than two hundred years ago, but people in other parts of the galaxy have never forgotten the grand occasion of Trantor's past.Trantor will always be a popular subject of historical fiction, the most precious symbol of collective memory, and it will always be preserved in aphorisms and idioms, such as "Starships fall on Trantor", "Looking for a needle in a haystack, Trantor looking for a man", "This thing has nothing to do with as unique as Trantor" and so on. Everywhere in the rest of the galaxy, in every corner...

But not in Trantor alone! Here, the Trantor of yesteryear has been forgotten, the metallic surface almost entirely gone.Trantor is now an agricultural world, populated by a few subsistence farmers.Space merchant ships rarely come here, and even if one does land occasionally, it may not be very popular.The name "Trantor", although it still appears in formal occasions, is no longer commonly used in everyday language.The dialect used by the Trantorians today refers to this world as "Amu", which translates to Galactic Standard and means "Mother Planet". These thoughts came and went in the mind of Kundo Santis, and he thought of many more.Now he was sitting securely, in a comfortable doze.In this state, his mind can operate automatically, producing many chaotic streams of consciousness.

He has served as the chief speaker of the Second Foundation for more than twenty years, and as long as his mind is still strong enough to continue to engage in political struggle, he can sit in this position for another ten to twelve years. He can be regarded as the mirror image of the mayor of the terminal star, but the two are extremely different in various aspects.The mayor of Terminal Star is the ruler of the first base, and his prestige resounds throughout the galaxy. For every world today, the first base is the only base.But the chief speaker of the second base is only known to his colleagues around him.

In fact, it is the second base that really controls the real power of the galaxy, and the leaders of the second base are the chief speakers of all generations.In the fields of physical power, technology, and weapons, the First Foundation has supreme achievements; but in the fields of spiritual power, mind science, and mind control, the Second Foundation undoubtedly has absolute authority.When there is a conflict between the two sides, no matter how many starships and weapons the First Base has, if the minds of those who control these forces are controlled by the Second Base, then what is there to fear?

However, how many more days can this secret power make him complacent? He is the twenty-fifth generation chief speaker, and compared with previous chief speakers, his reign has slightly exceeded the average number of years.Should he no longer be attached to this position, and should the younger generation have a chance to make their mark? For example, the Candiba speaker, who is the newest member of the round table, is also the one with the sharpest mind.The two of them will be meeting tonight, an opportunity Santis is eagerly anticipating: and should he also be eagerly anticipating that Candiber may one day succeed him as chief speaker?

The standard answer to this question is that Sandys has not yet seriously considered abdicating. He really likes this position. Now, he sat there silently.Although he is quite old, he is still able to perform his duties perfectly.His hair was already grey, but since it had always been very light and had been cut to only a few inches, the change in color was not noticeable.His blue eyes were starting to fade, too, and he wore drab clothes that were meant to mimic the clothes of Trantor farmers. If he wanted, the Chief Speaker had the means to mingle among the Eminem without showing his footing at all.His spiritual power is always with him, and he can focus his eyes and mind on someone at any time, and that person will act according to his mind, but he has no memory of it afterwards. But that rarely happens, almost never.The golden rule of the Second Foundation is: "Don't act rashly unless absolutely necessary; when you must act, still think twice." Thinking of this, the chief speaker sighed softly.They lived in the former campus of Galaxy University, the majestic historical site of the ruins of the imperial palace, not far away.Looking around once in a while, one can't help but wonder what the golden rules are really worth. Before and after the catastrophe, this golden rule was almost abandoned.If Trantor is to be protected, Seldon's plans for the Second Empire must be sacrificed.Although saving 45 billion lives is an act of great mercy, but in this way, the core of the First Empire will not disappear, so the entire plan will definitely be delayed.Centuries later, there will be even greater disasters, and perhaps the Second Empire will never emerge... The early Chief Speakers, who had definitely calculated the event in the decades preceding the Holocaust, struggled to find any resolution.Saving Trantor and establishing the Second Empire are absolutely impossible to achieve the best of both worlds.The lesser of two evils, so Trantor must be destroyed! At that time, the Second Foundation people still took great risks and managed to preserve the Galaxy University/Library, but this move brought endless troubles.While no one has ever been able to prove that the existence of the Galactic University/Library was the main reason for the mule's short-lived galactic history, many people still intuitively believe that the two must be involved. What a close call! It almost made it all go down the drain. After decades of turbulent years of catastrophe and rebellion, the second base began to enter its golden age. Before that, and for two hundred and fifty years after Seldon's death, the Second Foundation had lurked like gophers in the Galactic Library, bent on keeping out of the eyes and ears of the Empire.They appear as librarians in a declining society, where the world pays less and less attention to the increasingly misnamed Galactic Library.The abandoned library just so happens to be the perfect home base for the Second Foundation. It was a life in isolation, they just had to protect the Seldon Project wholeheartedly.At the same time, at a certain point in the galaxy, the First Base had to fight waves of stronger enemies in order to survive, without the assistance of the Second Base at all, and almost no understanding of the Second Base. The second base was liberated because of the catastrophe, which is another reason why the second base acquiesced to the catastrophe. (Young Candib—only he had that kind of courage—recently said that, in fact, was the cause at all.) After the baptism of the catastrophe, the empire officially declared its demise. Since then, the survivors on Trantor have never trespassed on the site of the second base.Now that the Galaxy University/Library has escaped the catastrophe, the Second Base will naturally not allow it to be disturbed by the "Great Revival", and even the ruins of the imperial palace have been preserved by the way.Except for this place, there is no metal surface left in the whole world, and the countless huge and intertwined corridors underground have all been covered up, buried, distorted, destroyed, and abandoned.All the projects are buried under earth and rocks, except here, where the old green space is still surrounded by a large circle of metal. It can be regarded as a huge monument to a generation of great achievements, a burial mound of former empires.However, in the minds of the Trantorians—the Amu people—the place is an ominous place, full of unjustly dead souls, and it must not be disturbed casually.Therefore, only the Second Foundation personnel were left to shuttle through the ancient corridors, and they were the only ones who could touch the gleaming titanium metal. Even so, the second base's hard work was almost in vain due to the appearance of the mule. The mule had visited Trantor himself, and what would have happened had he known the world for what it was?The traditional weapons wielded by the Mule are infinitely more powerful than those of the Second Foundation; his psychic strength is also on par with his opponents.The Second Base has always been bound by the golden rule, and they also know that any hope of winning the present may well be the harbinger of greater setbacks to come.Based on these two reasons, the second base people always feel that their hands are tied. If Beda Darrell hadn't made a prompt decision, the consequences would have been disastrous.And she did that heroically, with little assistance from the Second Base. Then came the Golden Age, when successive generations of Chief Speakers found a way to be proactive, finally stop the Mule's pan-galactic assault, and take control of his mind.Decades later, when the first base became more and more curious, suspicious, and guarded against them, the second base, after some hard work, finally succeeded in making the opponent retreat.Among them, the nineteenth-generation speaker and the greatest chief speaker in history, Prim Pafo, personally completed a well-designed plan to eliminate all crises in one fell swoop; The future fate of the Seldon Plan. For the past 120 years, Second Foundation has been restored to its former state, hidden somewhere in the sanctity of Trantor.They no longer have to avoid the eyes and ears of the Empire, but they still need to hide and seek with the First Foundation.Today's first base is almost as powerful as the Galactic Empire in the past, and in terms of technological progress, it is better than blue. Thinking of this, the chief speaker closed his eyes comfortably, entered a state between dream and waking, and experienced a sense of relaxation that seemed real and unreal. Everything will get better and better if the rain is over and the sky is blue.Trantor is still the capital of the galaxy, because the Second Foundation is here.Compared with those emperors back then, they are more powerful and more controllable. The First Base is always just a puppet, controlled by the Second Base to make all its actions correct.No matter how powerful they are, as long as the spirits of the key people are under control when necessary, they can only obediently obey orders, and they will not show any tricks. One day, the Second Empire will be born, but it will definitely not be a replica of the First Empire.It will be a federal empire with considerable autonomy for its members, so there will be no centralized government with strong external power and internal power in the middle.The structure of the new empire will be looser, more elastic and resilient, and therefore more adaptable.Behind the scenes, the men and women of the Second Foundation will be responsible for guiding this regime forever and ever.At that time, Trantor would still be the capital of the empire, and the leadership of 40,000 psychohistorians would be greater than the 45 billion administrators... The chief speaker woke up with a start, realizing that it was almost sunset.Did you talk to yourself just now? Did you say anything out loud? If a member of Second Base needs to know more and speak less than others, then a speaker in leadership needs to know more but speak less; Or, you need to know the most and say the least. He gave a wry smile.The temptation to serve Trantor's allegiance was always so strong that one would equate the goal of establishing the Second Empire simply with achieving galactic supremacy for Trantor.Seldon had foreseen this, and had warned of it, five centuries before. The chief speaker didn't fall asleep for long.It was not yet time for him to see Candib. Sandys had high hopes for the private meeting.Kendibal was young enough to see Seldon's plan with new eyes, and he had a mind sharp enough to see what no one had seen before.It's not out of the question that Sandys might learn something from what the youngest speaker had to say. No one was ever quite sure how much valuable advice the great Prim Pavel received from the young Cole Benchom when he received that junior.At that time, Benchum was not yet thirty years old, and he made a special trip to report to Pavel the feasible plan to deal with the First Base.Benchum never mentioned the story of that meeting afterwards, but in the end he did become the chief speaker of the twenty-first generation, and was regarded as the greatest theorist after Seldon.Some people even believe that the real hero of the great achievements accomplished in Pafo's era is actually Banchum, not Pavo himself. Sandys began to wonder what Chandib was going to say, as if playing a guessing game with himself.According to the tradition of the Second Base, when an outstanding young junior has the opportunity to face the chief speaker alone for the first time, the first sentence should be to report his intention of coming.Of course, they will never waste the precious opportunity of meeting for the first time for trivial matters.If someone does this, the chief speaker is likely to think that he does not have enough weight, which is tantamount to self-destructive and unwise. Four hours later, Candib finally appeared in front of him.The young man didn't show the slightest nervousness, but waited silently for Sandys to speak first. Then Sandys said: "Speaker, you have requested a private interview with me to report an important matter to me. Would you please give me the general outline first?" In a steady tone, as if he was describing the content of the dinner, Candiba said smoothly: "Chief speaker, the Seldon plan is meaningless at all!"