“Foundation,” Episode 9 finally mentioned the origin of human beings, i.e., planet Earth. Salvor Hardin’s father spoke about a single planetary system inhabited by humans. Anacreon, Thespian, and others coexisted peacefully during those times. But due to our rational thinking and quest for control, we waged war against each other. For the time being, the Imperial Empire maintained peace and order, but Cleon’s greed to rule forever brought distrust among the people. Anacreon and Thespian destroyed the space bridge, and the Empire retaliated. Cleon killed millions of Anacreon’s, and eternal destruction followed. Terminus became their last hope. The last hope to reunite humanity at the end of the galaxy.
‘Foundation’ Episode 9 Recap
Salvor Hardin failed to stop Invictus from a space jump. In the aftermath of the space jump, all the passengers went into a deep sleep. But it didn’t affect Salvor, like the null field from the vault in Terminus did not affect her. Salvor discovered that Lewis Pirenne sacrificed his life to save them. He hardwired himself to the ship to navigate the ship to the orbits of Terminus.
Salvor quickly gathered herself and tried contacting Terminus control. However, the comms weren’t working on Terminus, and Salvor felt danger. She spotted Hugo’s ship, the Beggar, and jumped towards it. She contacted Terminus again but didn’t receive a reply. Hugo arrived at the ship and informed her about his contact with the Thespian command. Salvor decided to go to Terminus to find out why they weren’t responding, while in the meantime, Hugo boarded Invictus to stop it from jumping again. On Invictus, Thespian arrested Anacreon’s general, but Phara Keaen escaped.
A Conspiracy Against the Empire
On Trantor, Brother Dusk found out about Dawn’s imperfections and defects. He staged a trap to catch Dawn red-handed. Dusk drew a visual mural and recorded Dawn’s achievement. In an earlier episode, Dawn shot six ghillie raptors while hunting with Dusk. All the clones of Cleon shot 3, but Cleon XIV violated the pattern. Dusk presented the mural, and due to his color blindness, Dawn only saw three ghillie raptors. He couldn’t fathom why brother Dusk would record such a trivial incident, but after Dusk left, Dawn used his correction device and witnessed six ghillie raptors on the wall.
Dawn fled the palace and reached the Desnian Sector to meet his lover, Azure. However, Azure captured Dawn and revealed that she was a part of the resistance who wanted to overthrow the Empire. The resistance had stolen Cleon’s DNA from the palace and had designed their own Cleon clone. They set a trap to steal nanobots from Dawn’s body to prevent the Empire from suspecting the resistance’s clone. The whole orchestra was a part of a larger conspiracy. The resistance altered Cleon XIV’s DNA to make him an imperfect clone who would ultimately decide to run away from the palace. They planned on capturing the clone and sending their own clone instead.
However, before they could succeed in their schemes, Brother Dusk raided the hideout and killed a resistance clone. The Empire’s soldiers captured Azura and Cleon XIV. But Dusk didn’t execute Cleon XIV because Brother Day exercised that authority. The fate of the imperfect Cleon rested with the Cleon who had just finished the Holy Spiral. Will he show empathy? Foundation Episode 10 will reveal the end.
‘Foundation’ Episode 9 Ending
Salvor arrived on Terminus and discovered that everyone on the planet had fainted due to the expanded null field emerging from the Foundation Vault. The null field did not affect her, so she decided to end it to save her mother and other Termini. She grabbed Hari Seldon’s prime radiant and approached the vault. At the pivotal moment, it was established that Gaal Dornick and Salvor Hardin shared the same history, had the same powers, and, for some reason, had the same destiny: to save the Foundation from the crisis. Salvor had never triggered the prime radiant before, but Gaal did in Episode 1. She used history and the past to alter the present and finally triggered the prime radiant. Hari’s device opened the vault and stopped the null field.
As the humans on Terminus woke up from their deep sleep, they all gathered near the vault. The Anacreon soldiers pointed guns at Salvor, but suddenly Thespian lancers arrived on Terminus and captured the Anacreons. Salvor saw a hidden door inside the vault and decided to enter it to find the answers. However, as she approached the gate, Phara Keaen, who stole a Thespian lancer, attacked the Thespians and destroyed their fleet. Phara pointed guns at Salvor to kill her. Phara’s general had a change of heart and decided to end this futile tussle. He requested Phara to drop the weapons, but blinded with rage, Phara started shooting at the vault. To save the Foundation, Salvor wielded the grand huntress’ bow and arrow and killed Phara Keaen. Suddenly, Hari came out of the illuminated gateway and greeted the Anacreon, Thespians, and Termini. He said seeing them together gave him new hope, and he probably intended to bring them together.
The First Crisis
In Episode 8, Hari’s digital consciousness informed Gaal about a second foundation on Helicon. Probably, before the arrival of the Deliverance, Hari hid his digital consciousness on Terminus and locked it inside the vault. The prime radiant unlocked the vault, and because only Gaal could crack the device, Hari might have imagined that when Gaal would arrive at Terminus, she would unlock his digital consciousness. He would be able to guide her to establish the Foundation. But because Raych Foss sent Gaal to another ship, Salvor fulfilled the responsibility of opening the vault. Probably, the destiny of Gaal and Salvor was connected in some way. Like Gaal flipped the prime radiant, Salvor flipped the coin. There was an apparent resemblance in their actions.
According to Hari’s calculations, Gaal was supposed to solve the first crisis and probably kill the grand huntress. But in Gaal’s absence, Salvor took command and united the humans on one planet. Salvor encouraged the Anacreons, Thespians, and Termini to band together and used their expertise to fix the Invictus. In the episode, she told Hugo that she doesn’t know why, but the Foundation needs the Invictus. She believed that the ship could end the crisis. Hari probably predicted that too, and that was why the ghost ship appeared near Terminus in the Anthor Belt, out of all the locations in the galaxy. The last episode of Foundation Season 1 will reveal the fate of the Terminus and the conspiracy surrounding the second Foundation on Helicon.
Foundation is a 2021 space science fiction series based on the sci-fi novel series written by Isaac Asimov.
