What Is The Second Foundation? How Foundation Season 3 Makes Major Changes To The Original Book

This article contains spoilers for "Foundation" season 3, episode 3, "When A Book Finds You."

"Foundation" is back for season 3, and the arrival of the Mule is heating things up. It's also expanding the story quickly, including the establishment of the Second Foundation. (Does that mean the show title should be changed to "Foundations" now, or at least get the asterisk treatment, "Thunderbolts*"-style?)

The Second Foundation is a very big deal in author Isaac Asimov's story. In fact, as the seven-book series plays out, the Second Foundation becomes much more important than the First Foundation. Expect it to soak up the limelight and play a major part in the show moving forward.

But does the Second Foundation that Hari Seldon (Jared Harris) and Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) are forging on Ignis in the show hold up to its page-printed predecessor? There are some clear connections, but like all things with this impressive but wildly twisted adaptation, there are also a lot of changes. Let's take a closer look at the latter.

The first and most obvious shift for the Second Foundation, compared to the books, is its location. In "Foundation" season 2, Gaal, Hari, and Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) end up on the warm, jungle-strewn world of Ignis, where they discover a unique world of mentalics (telepaths who can use their minds to influence and control others). They are led by Tellem Bond (Rachel House), who has attracted mentalics to the planet and captivated them to her will.

By the end of the season, Tellem and Hardin are dead. (Hari dies, too, but he comes back again, a factor that influenced how they handled the character's arc in season 3.) And Ignis? That remains important.

As season 3 starts, Hari and Gaal are still on Ignis, going through what has to be a trippy cycle of cryosleeping for years and waking up occasionally for brief stints to instruct the fledgling mentalic colony in preparation for their psychohistoric future. Again, all of this happens on Ignis — a planet off in the middle of nowhere with no geographic bearing on the larger story. Nothing could be further from the books.

In the source material, the Second Foundation is established early (before the First Foundation) by Seldon (no Gaal Dornick) and his family, friends, and followers as they build out their mathematical concept of psychohistory and lay their plans for resetting the empire in the future. And the spot Seldon chooses as a home for the Second Foundation? The books tease this location for an extremely long time, famously hinting that the group is hidden at "Star's End." At various points in the story, this is thought to be the opposite end of the galaxy from the First Foundation, or the center of the Milky Way's inward spiral. (Two different but incorrect ways to physically interpret the "Star's End" clue.)

In reality, the Second Foundation is always right on the imperial capital planet of Trantor itself. It is the "opposite end" of the Foundation socially rather than geographically, and the center of everything for millennia of human history. The group is initially hidden in the Galactic Library in the heart of the bustling 40 billion-person planet metropolis. Later, it endures in the smoldering ruins and reclamation projects of the defeated capital planet, too. It is never on or near a place called Ignis.

There is a heavy cult-like atmosphere with the Second Foundation in Apple TV+'s show. Its followers gather in secret to awaken their god-like cryosleepers who plan out the future — oh, and everyone can control minds. Yep, that's Cult 101 stuff right there. As the season progresses, we're seeing more structure to the operation. For instance, in episode 2, we met the leader of the group, Preem Palver (Troy Kotsur), who functions as the First Speaker of the mentalic colony. Overall, though, the group is wild and scattered in their operations.

In the books, by the time we meet the Second Foundation, the tone couldn't be more different. It is a well-ordered group of academics living in a preserved library, hidden in the midst of rural reclamation projects in the ruins of Trantor.

Nevertheless, the way these groups operate still ends up being pretty close to how they do in the books. (That's part of the adaptive magic of this show.) In the Apple TV+ version, Gaal says in season 3, episode 2, "We can't teach all of the mentalics all of psychohistory, but we can teach parts of it to each of them." That concept comes straight from the source material. In the prequel book "Forward the Foundation," Hari Seldon himself says this:

"We will have one Foundation that will consist largely of physical scientists, who will preserve the knowledge of humanity and serve as the nucleus for the Second Empire. And there will be a Second Foundation of psychohistorians only — mentalists, mind-touching psychohistorians — who will be able to work on psychohistory in a multi-minded way, advancing it far more quickly than individual thinkers ever could. They will serve as a group who will introduce fine adjustments as time goes on, you see. Ever in the background, watching. They will be the Empire's guardians."

Regardless of location, origin story, or cult-like overtones, at its core, the Second Foundation is the same in both the show and the books. It is the mentalic counterpoint to the First Foundation, the "thumb on the scale" that can adjust history as needed — and trust me, it will be needed as the story moves forward.

"Foundation" is streaming on Apple TV+.