Chapter 23 Chapter 16 The Real Answer

In an unknown world, in an unknown room! Someone's plan has completely succeeded. The chief speaker looked up at the disciples, and then said: "Fifty men and women, fifty martyrs! They knew that they would either be executed or imprisoned for life. Moreover, they could not accept the strengthening of willpower in advance—— Otherwise, it would be easy to detect. But they did not show a little weakness, they successfully completed the plan, just because they love the greater 'plan'." "Can't the number be reduced a little more?" the disciple asked in a puzzled tone.

The chief speaker slowly shook his head: "That's already the lower limit. If the number of people is less, the other party will not believe it. In fact, from a purely objective point of view, at least seventy-five people are needed to be enough." Absorb possible errors. But don't worry about it, have you studied the course of action drawn up by the Speaker's Council fifteen years ago?" "Studied, Speaker." "Have you compared it with the actual development?" "Yes, speaker." After a pause, the disciple continued, "I am very surprised, speaker."

"I understand that everyone has that experience. If you knew how much manpower was invested and how many months—indeed, how many years—it took to revise the plan to perfection, you wouldn't feel so bad about it. Amazed. Now tell me what it says—in plain language, and I want you to translate the mathematics into plain language." "Yes, speaker." The young man collected his thoughts, and then said, "In principle, the people at the first base must be convinced that they have found the second base and destroyed it. In this way , and everything is back to where we had hoped it would be. Henceforth, Terminus has returned to a state of ignorance of us, and will no longer consider us in any of their calculations. Once again we are safely hidden Get up, those fifty people are the price we paid."

"And what was the purpose of the Battle of Kargan?" "Let the base understand that they have the ability to overcome the physical enemy, to wipe away the blows brought to them by the mule, and to restore their self-esteem and self-confidence." "Your analysis here is incomplete. Remember, the Terminus people have rather ambivalent feelings about us - they think we have an advantage, so they hate and envy us; yet in their subconscious, they always rely on Our protection. If we were 'destroyed' by them before the Battle of Kalgan, there would be widespread panic throughout the base. Once Steltings attacked, they would lose the courage to face the war, and Steltings It will succeed. Only when the pride of victory is overwhelmed can the negative impact of our 'destruction' be minimized. Even if they wait another year, their sense of accomplishment will be cooled by more than half."

The disciple nodded, and said, "I understand. Then from now on, the trajectory of history will always follow Seldon's plan, and there will be no deviations." "Unless—" the chief speaker emphasized, "some other isolated, unforeseen accident occurs." "In order to prevent such things," the disciple went on, "we must exist. Just... just... the current situation, there is one thing that worries me, speaker. The First Foundation has invented a device that can generate mental noise , that is a powerful weapon specially used against us. At least, this situation has never happened before."

"Well said, but they can't find an enemy to deal with, so that device will never be useful. Just as EEG analysis becomes a useless science when our threats and stimuli are gone, other The scientific aspects of science will soon replace them, because they can bring more important and immediate rewards. Therefore, the first generation of psychic scientists of the First Foundation will also be the last generation; It will become an antique, forgotten by the vast majority of people." "Hmm—" the disciple pondered silently in his heart, and then said, "I think what you said is quite right."

"But young man, for your future work on the Council, what I would most like you to know is that over the past fifteen years our planning has been forced to take into account some delicate circumstances due to the need to deal with the conduct of individuals. For example , Yasuo had to cast doubt on him and make things ripe at the right time, but it was a fairly simple one. "Besides, we had to arrange a situation where no one on Terminus would prematurely suspect that their world was what they were looking for. The idea had to come from that little girl—Argadia— And no one other than her father will notice this intel. So she must be taken to Trantor to make sure the two don't touch before the time is right. These two are like hypernuclear Two poles, without one it wouldn't work, and the switch had to be pressed at the right time to get the line through. And I managed to do it! The final battle between the base and Kalgan, had to be handled extremely well. Definitely Let the base fleet be full of confidence, and make the Kalgan fleet timid before fighting, everyone wants to run away. I did this too!"

At this time the disciple said again: "I seem to feel that, speaker, you... I mean, all of us... have to rely on a key factor in our actions, that is, Dr. Daryl did not suspect that Arcadia was Our tools and I checked the calculations in this regard, and found that the chances of him being suspicious were about three hundred in a thousand. What would change if this happened?" "We have taken perfect precautions. Have you learned the theory of interference plateau? What does it represent? Of course it is not evidence of implanting a certain emotional tendency. Even the most sophisticated EEG analysis is completely impossible to detect This kind of change. This is the result of Laverte’s theorem, of course you should know. What can really be shown on the brain wave is the effect of taking out—removing—the original emotional tendency. That kind of change must be It will show up. Of course, Yasuo is in charge of keeping Darryl informed of all the details about Disturbance Plateau."

"However, under what circumstances can a person be brought under our control without showing up in the brain waves at all? Only if the person has no emotional tendencies at all in the first place, so the ablation process can be avoided. In other words, if the person is a newborn baby with a blank slate, we can do it. Fifteen years ago, when the project took its first steps, Ai, who was just born on Trantor, Gatia Darrell, that's one of those babies. She'll never know she's in control, and it's for the best because that control helps her build a good, intelligent character."

The chief speaker laughed lightly, and continued: "In a way, the irony of the whole incident is the most astonishing. In the past four hundred years, how many people have been caught by Seldon's sentence 'the other side of the galaxy? To this anagram, they each came up with a specific, physical science solution; literally taking a protractor and a ruler to measure a map of the galaxy, trying to find the 'other end'. In the end, instead of going around the edge of the galaxy a At 180 degrees, it is back to the original starting point. "The greatest danger for us is that it is indeed possible to deduce the answer based on physical concepts. You also know that the Milky Way is not a flat oval, and the outer edge of the Milky Way is not a closed curve. The Milky Way is actually a double helix, at least Eighty percent of the inhabited planets are located in the main spiral arm. The terminal star is located at the outermost end of the spiral arm, and we are at the other end - where is the other end of the spiral line? Of course, in the central region.

"However, this is so obvious that it seems like a completely irrelevant answer. If people who study this question can remember that Hari Seldon is a social scientist, not a natural scientist, and then adjust their thinking mode according to this, The answer should immediately come to mind. What does 'the other end' mean to a social scientist? The other end of the map? Of course not, that's just a mechanical interpretation. "The first base is located on the outer edge of the galaxy. This place was originally the place where the former empire was the weakest, least baptized by civilization, and where wealth and culture approached zero. Where is the other extreme of galactic society? Of course, the empire The most powerful, the most developed civilization, the place where wealth and culture flourish. "Here! This center! In Trantor, the capital of the empire in Seldon's time. "This is entirely a matter of course. Hari Seldon left a second base in order to maintain, improve, and advance his plans—many people knew, or at least guessed, fifty years ago that Arrived. And where is the most suitable place for this work? Naturally, it is in Trantor. The research led by Seldon was carried out here, and all the data collected for decades were gathered here. In addition, the purpose of the second base is to defend The Seldon plan, it is well known that the plan should not be destroyed by any enemy! But for the Terminus and the Seldon plan, where is the biggest source of threat? "Here! Right here on Trantor. The Empire is dying, but for three centuries the Empire still has the means to destroy the base—if they will. "A century ago, when Trantor fell to the enemy, was looted like never before, and the entire planet was turned into ruins, we naturally had a way to defend our base camp. In the devastation, only the Imperial Library and the surrounding campus were safe , this is a well-known fact in the galaxy. However, no one has noticed even such an obvious hint. "It was in Trantor that Ablin Meath discovered our whereabouts. We had to end his life early so that he could not tell the secret. To do this, we had to borrow an ordinary base woman, borrow her to defeat the mule's immensely powerful mutant powers. Of course, doing so will inevitably lead to suspicion on this planet - it is here that we first studied the mule, and thus formulated our plan to finally defeat him, and Arkadia was also born here, and this set off a chain of events that finally brought Seldon's plan back on track. "The secrets we exposed, all the loopholes, have not been discovered. This is all because the 'other end' that Seldon said meant something else, but others were self-righteous to explain it otherwise." The chief speaker was silent for a long time.The words he said to his disciples just now seemed to be explaining everything for himself.Now, standing in front of the window, he looked up at the impossibly intense flames in the sky, at the vast Milky Way, which would be peaceful forever. "Harry Seldon called Trantor 'The End of the Stars,'" he whispered again. "Why not a poetic image? The universe was once entirely dominated by this star; all the stars were once connected to it ; as the old saying goes, 'All roads lead to Trantor' - this is where the stars really end." Ten months earlier, the chief speaker had stood in the same spot, with a heavy heart, gazing up at the crowded starry sky - never more crowded than at the center of that vast mass of matter called the Milky Way. Area. Now, on that round, ruddy, plain face, the chief speaker—Prime Pavel—was a faint expression of satisfaction.