It is the year 12,020 G. E. and Emperor Cleon, First of that Name, sits uneasily on the Imperial throne. Here on Trantor, the great multi-domed capital of the Galactic Empire, forty billion people have created a civilization of unimaginable technological and cultural complexity. It is a world so intricately woven that pulling one thread would unravel it all. Cleon I is unnerved by this, for he knows there are those who would see him fall - those he cannot touch. In only he had knowledge of what lay ahead, then the Empire truly could be his.

When young Hari Seldon arrives on Trantor, he is unaware of the perilous politics that are grewing. The thirty-two-year-old Outworld mathemetician has come simply to attend the Decennial Convention and do a bit of sight-seeing. But when he presents his paper on psychohistory, his remarkable theory of prediction, little does Hari realize that he has sealed his fate and determined the destiny of humanity. For Hari Seldon possesses the prophetic power that is so desired by the Emperor. And now suddenly, this naive and little-known Heliconian has become the most wanted man in the Empire as he desperately struggles to keep his portentous theory from reaching the wrong hands...while forging the key to the future - a power to be known as the Foundation.