Foundation 1.6: Folded Variations

Well, the three-hour first part of the Dune movie debuted on HBO Max tonight, but of course I watched the latest episode of Foundation on Apple TV+ first.  And I was greeted by something straight out of Dune -- interstellar travel via the folding of space.  In Dune this is done by members of the Space Guild.  In Foundation, the folding is done by Spacers, a nod to Asimov's work, in which people who went to space, in the original robot novels, were Spacers.

Brother Day travels via folded space to a distant world.  The more interesting action, and I expect the more ultimately important, takes place back on Trantor.   Brother Dawn, now a young man, differs from his clonal twins.  He's a better shot than Brother Dusk ever was, and Dawn is color blind.   Color blindness is usually the result of genetics.  If that's the cause of Dawn's inability to see red, that means something went wrong with the oft-used duplication process.  Certain drugs can also cause color blindness.  If that's the cause of Dawn's faulty vision, the big question is who caused it.  A genetic cause would implicate the robot Demerzel.  An environmental cause could be due to anyone in Dawn's vicinity once he came out of the tube.

Dawn also seems in love with the lovely gardener.  Now in Asimov's novel, a gardener kills the Emperor, much to a young Hari Seldon's horror.  But that gardener was a muttering old man, an individual who slipped through the lines of Hari's predictions.* Will the young, lithe gardener do the same to Brother Dawn?  I hope not, they make a nice couple.  But I'm going to keep an eye on her.

*Note added 24 October 2021:  In effect, that gardener presaged the Mule.

And speaking of Hari?  Of course we learned nothing more about what we saw at the end of last week's episode.  But I am used to that.  We do see that Hari planned the stabbing, with a very reluctant Raych.  But everyone and their favorite grandparent guessed that already.

Alright, I'll be watching and reviewing here Dune tomorrow.  If I don't see you then, I'll see you next week with my review of Foundation 1.7.

See also Foundation 1.1-2: Mathematician, Man of the People, and Cleon's Clones ... Foundation 1.3: Clonal Science Fiction, Hari Seldon as V. I. Lenin ... Foundation 1.4: Slow Hand, Long Half-Life, Flipped Coin ... Foundation 1.5: What We Learned in that Final Scene ... Foundation 1.7: Alternate History/Future ... Foundation 1.8: Divergences and Convergences ... Foundation 1.9: Vindication and Questions ... Foundation Season 1 Finale: Right Up There