The Cult of Celebrity
Throughout Asimov’s book are patches of imagery which have become just a little too discomforting as a result of events in the second decade of the new millennium. One example is the following, which situates the logical conclusion of fostering a cult of celebrity around political leaders and allowing them to be endowed by their followers with the power to create their sense of reality. What once seemed firmly ensconced within the limitations of science fiction or fantasy no longer seems quite so absurd:
“The Foundation has fostered this delusion assiduously. We’ve put all our scientific backing behind the hoax. There isn’t a festival at which the king does not preside surrounded by a radioactive aura shining forth all over his body and raising itself like a coronet above his head. Anyone touching him is severely burned. He can move from place to place through the air at crucial moments, supposedly by inspiration of divine spirit. He fills the temple with a pearly, internal light at a gesture. There is no end to these quite simple tricks that we perform for his benefit; but even the priests believe them, while working them personally.”
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
Entries listed in the text’s official history of all discovered knowledge, the Encyclopedia Galactica, appears often enough—and, more importantly, is referenced often enough by characters in the story—to rise to the level of imagery. These quotations from this apparently quite massive volume serve an important role in developing the backstory of the larger mythology of the series and does so in an efficient manner of shorthand:
"TRADERS... and constantly in advance of the political hegemony of the Foundation were the Traders, reaching out tenuous fingerholds through the tremendous distances of the Periphery. Months or years might pass between landings on Terminus; their ships were often nothing more than patchquilts of home-made repairs and improvisations; their honesty was none of the highest; their daring...
Through it all they forged an empire more enduring than the pseudo-religious despotism of the Four Kingdoms…”
The Creation of the Encyclopedia
The Encyclopedia Galactica created in the face of statistically analyzed expectations that the Empire is on the verge of a decline and fall. This will in turn produce a state of anarchy which is expected to last more than twice as long as the Empire itself has stood. The mathematician proposing this calculation insists that there is nothing that can be done to prevent the inevitable fall, but steps can be taken to reduce the duration of the dark ages to follow. Once again, Asimov’s prose rings eerily close to circumstances in America two-thirds of a century after publication:
“The sum of human knowing is beyond any one man; any thousand men. With the destruction of our social fabric, science will be broken into a million pieces. Individuals will know much of exceedingly tiny facets of what there is to know. They will be helpless and useless by themselves. The bits of lore, meaningless, will not be passed on. They will be lost through the generations. But, if we now prepare a giant summary of all knowledge, it will never be lost. Coming generations will build on it, and will not have to rediscover it for themselves. One millennium will do the work of thirty thousand.”
A Strange Chapter
Late in the book—very late—there is a very short chapter. In fact, most of the chapters in this book are shorter than average, but this one is idiosyncratically short: a mere five paragraphs and each of them are diminutive as well. It is far from pure imagery, but close enough to stick out from anything in the rest of the entire book and an illuminating example of the power of cutting prose down to the bare bone to let the imagery itself say everything:
The senior lieutenant of the Dark Nebula stared in horror at the visiplate.
“Great Galloping Galaxies!” It should have been a howl, but it was a whisper instead. “What’s that?”
It was a ship, but a whale to the Dark Nebula’s minnow; and on its side was the Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire. Every alarm on the ship yammered hysterically.
The orders went out, and the Dark Nebula prepared to run if it could, and fight if it must,—while down in the hyperwave room, a message stormed its way through hyperspace to the Foundation.
Over and over again! Partly a plea for help, but mainly a warning of danger.
