S01.E03: The Mathematician's Ghost

[AnimeMania]

Brother Dusk reflects on his legacy as he prepares for ascension. The Foundation arrives on Terminus and finds a mysterious object.

Airdate: October 1, 2021

[AnimeMania]

What happened to the StarBridge this episode, did they blow it up?

I am surprised they couldn't fix the StarBridge.

They are growing babies in tanks like Tropic Fishies.

I can see why the writers were worried that you wouldn't care about the characters, because I am becoming less invested in them as the show continues.

[Anduin]

Interesting episode. That's all I can say. It seemed more about setting up stuff for other episodes than really being a proper story the way the first two were.

So the Anacreans snuck down beforehand, maybe to do some scouting and/or draw off any defenders the settlement might have? If so, that's good thinking. Did they anticipate their ships being seen? Maybe those were the decoy, while the real landing force came up using other planets and moons for cover? I don't know. There just isn't quite enough to go on.

Okay, so Hugo, the Aussie, popped by Corellia? I know George Lucas nicked that name from somewhere else. Was it Foundation and now they're nicking it back?

Next week I'm guessing we'll see what Gaal is up to, and what happened to Raych.

[Zonk]

I really like this show but there is really too little happening in one episode. I know what vibe they are going for and in principle I appreciate it, but not with weekly episodes. I may have to wait till all episodes are out and binge it.

I get that the drop everything at once model never caught on, since it's hard to build hype with it, but some Netflix- style- shows really need it. Why has nobody ever tried a daily release as a compromise? For a 10 episode a season show you could run episodes for two weeks from sunday to thursday, still rake in that sweet water cooler talk and likely build massive hype throught those two weeks. /tangent

So the Cleons have only been in charge for 400 years, not the 1200 the empire has existed? Last episode they made it seem like they've always been there.

Interesting how much emotion Demerzel has. Last week I wasn't so sure, but she seems to be on a similar level to a human and just surpresses a lot since everybody she loves dies and she keeps on living.

My complaints of the week:

- You settled on a planet with an alien artifact and you just said "yeah, that's fine, nothing to do here"? Not even one try to examine it with a drone?

- Why is that red dwarf casting yellow sun beams? It should be a lot more in the red spectrum. I know realistically it's because of filming restrictions, but just another reason why they should have changed it from the books to an orange or (better) yellow dwarf, like I already said last week. Wouldn't have made a lick of difference for the story.

- Magic girl can withstand the Null field but nobody tells her to investigate the weird artifact. Um, k...

- Looking through a Teleskope for far away star systems during the day. Yeah, that's totally going work..........

11 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

What happened to the StarBridge this episode, did they blow it up?

Yes.

11 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

I am surprised they couldn't fix the StarBridge.

Considering the damage it might be easier to build a new one.

3 hours ago, Anduin said:

Interesting episode. That's all I can say. It seemed more about setting up stuff for other episodes than really being a proper story the way the first two were.

Problem is, the last one was just as slow.

3 hours ago, Anduin said:

Next week I'm guessing we'll see what Gaal is up to, and what happened to Raych.

Since we didn't see Raych this week I assume he's been executed or in jail for Hari's murder.

Wondering what happened to Gaal though.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Zonk

[Jack Shaftoe]

This episode was laughably bad. The dialogue is even worse than before, the Foundation is literally a handful of primitive buildings, psychohistory is literally magic which can predict where exactly the settlers would land. Anacreon attacks with spaceships and commandos armed with bows and arrows?!? Salvor Hardin's mother think psychohistory is magic and expected her daughter to just magically know it. This, the dumb water clock/sun clock discussion and a myriad of other details tell me the writers have no clue what science actually is. They mention the encyclopaedia in passing - are we supposed to believe that this shanty-town is really working on what's in the source material the encyclopaedia to end all encyclopaedias?

There were anvils about Gaal being special, now Salvor is special too. Hollywood gonna Hollywood.

The pathos in the scenes with the emperors (I refuse to call them Empire) is off the charts but I don't really care about any of them. It doesn't help that the actress playing Demerzel is so wooden.

I will laugh so hard if Hari is alive and well in the Vault. It's the kind of twist I expect to go for.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Jack Shaftoe

[Anduin]

5 hours ago, Zonk said:

Problem is, the last one was just as slow.

There's slow, but then there's not reaching your goal at all. That's what I meant. Still, I like the show so far. A combination of pretty pictures and suggestions of big ideas can sometimes just click into focus.

[AnimeMania]

57 minutes ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

It doesn't help that the actress playing Demerzel is so wooden.

Maybe she is just rusty.😉"Oil can".

[Melina22]

I loved the first two episodes, and enjoyed the first part of this one, but they lost me once they moved to Terminus. 

6 hours ago, Zonk said:

Magic girl can withstand the Null field but nobody tells her to investigate the weird artifact. Um, k...

 

1 hour ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

Salvor Hardin's mother think psychohistory is magic and expected her daughter to just magically know it.

Both these things made no sense to me. Plus I was confused as to who these settlers were. Did they come on Hari's ship? If so, where are Gaal, Raysch and Hari's body? How long since they landed? Is there literally no one left who understands psychohistory? 

What was the deal with Salvor running around in the place with the flapping sheets after, apparently, a child and a devil's claw? Why did we have to spend so much time with her and her boyfriend? Why are the new villains so stereotypical? 

The first two episodes were so epic. The second half of this one seemed stilted and repetitive to me, with no interesting or charismatic characters. 

I'm not giving up - every show has its off episodes, but I hope this improves. Please don't disappoint me show. 

ETA The constant repetition of "The living know ghosts" or whatever, was getting on my last nerve. We get it already! 

Edited October 1, 2021 by Melina22

[Jack Shaftoe]

4 minutes ago, Melina22 said:

Plus I was confused as to who these settlers were. Did they come on Hari's ship?

Yes, they did. IIRC, something like 35 years are supposed to have passed since their landing.

 

[Zonk]

I somehow forgot my biggest complaint of the week:

Instead of feeling incredibly smart and smug about choosing what knowledge to preserve. Why don't you just do the following:

You make a book that teaches you how to read, with pictograms in it, that guide you through the process. Shouldn't be the hardest thing. In the end of the book you have a description of how to use a laptop with a little solar generator attached. Then you put that book into a box with a hardened laptop and a small solar generator and now you have the whole fucking galactic knowledge in there.

Suddenly people can decide for themselves what kind of clock they want to build, wether they are on the forest moon of endor, which makes sun dails pretty much useless, since it is a moon... or they are on Arrakis where water might be a bit of a problem.

Now you have time for actually important stuff, instead of smelling your farts all day. I mean that has been going for decades. It already started on the ship to terminus.

I assume this is the source material showing its age. Asimov probably couldn't conceive of near invinite storage in 1942, but if you adapt something today, this is really an important thing you ought to change. It just makes the characters look like complete morons otherwise.

 

 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Zonk

[Anduin]

6 minutes ago, Zonk said:

You make a book that teaches you how to read, with pictograms in it, that guide you through the process. Shouldn't be the hardest thing. In the end of the book you have a description of how to use a laptop with a little solar generator attached. Then you put that book into a box with a hardened laptop and a small solar generator and now you have the whole fucking galactic knowledge in there.

Suddenly people can decide for themselves what kind of clock they want to build, wether they are on the forest moon of endor, which makes sun dails pretty much useless, since it is a moon... or they are on Arrakis where water might be a bit of a problem.

Something akin to lego or ikea instructions, except for things more complicated than a wardrobe. That's a decent idea.

However, there actually is a book that exists, along those lines. It's called The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch. The problem is, at one point the author talked about making clothes. He included a picture of a woman sitting at a spinning jenny, but not an actual diagram. These people could learn from his mistake.

 

[marinw]

Silly question: Does Demerzel have more than one outfit? She's been wearing the same thing for 400 years.

What happened to Gaal? Why did Raysch kill Hari? 

I did like the world building on Terminus. Interesting that there is a statue of Hari.

[Melina22]

16 minutes ago, marinw said:

Does Demerzel have more than one outfit? She's been wearing the same thing for 400 years.

I know! Get a new dress already. I hope that pointy-hipped look doesn't come into style any time soon. 

That said, I really liked Demerzel in this episode. You could see why the emperors loved her - she was always there, 100% loyal, and loved them unconditionally. 

Then I remembered her in the last episode threatening to let a woman asphyxiate if she didn't tell them what they wanted to know. Demerzel is complicated.

Do the emperors have girlfriends? It doesn't appear that they do. They certainly don't appear to want children. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Melina22

[marinw]

I think the Vault IS the Foundation that moved backwards in time or something. Or it is the Foundation from a previous civilization.

Edited October 2, 2021 by marinw

[steph369]

9 hours ago, Zonk said:

I get that the drop everything at once model never caught on, since it's hard to build hype with it, but some Netflix- style- shows really need it. Why has nobody ever tried a daily release as a compromise? For a 10 episode a season show you could run episodes for two weeks from sunday to thursday, still rake in that sweet water cooler talk and likely build massive hype throught those two weeks. /tangent

 

Patience, grasshopper. 🙂 Some of us grew up having to wait a week for every program. I miss the anticipation. Something that has been lost since Netflix and other streaming services. People would talk about it at the water cooler during the week, even if it were a slow episode. And I do agree this one was excruciatingly slow. What it needs is better writing. It would have felt like a waste even if there had been another episode immediately following it. Viewers would probably fast forward through it to get to the next episode in hopes of more action. Sure hope it picks up next week. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by steph369

[Zonk]

8 hours ago, steph369 said:

Patience, grasshopper. 🙂 Some of us grew up having to wait a week for every program. I miss the anticipation. Something that has been lost since Netflix and other streaming services. People would talk about it at the water cooler during the week, even if it were a slow episode.

The thing is, shows used to be different. You had more self contained episodes, not 10 hours long movies that got split into 10 parts... turtle?

I have no problem with waiting a week for Ted Lasso (to name another Apple show), but it just doesn't work for Foundation.

And I think you could have anticipation and water cooler talks with a daily releases.

8 hours ago, steph369 said:

And I do agree this one was excruciatingly slow. What it needs is better writing. It would have felt like a waste even if there had been another episode immediately following it. Viewers would probably fast forward through it to get to the next episode in hopes of more action. Sure hope it picks up next week. 

I don't know. I would have liked it for the most part, if there was more directly after. I liked the atmosphere building. I don't think you could really cut anything in empires palace. That was all important information and shown quite beautifully, I might add.

You probably could have cut like one third on Terminus, but for the total episode that would have meant one sixth cut, which isn't a lot. Of course you could have improved the terminus stuff by making it a bit more logically consistent, like I laid out above, but that is mostly another matter.

[marinw]

12 hours ago, Melina22 said:

I hope that pointy-hipped look doesn't come into style any time soon. 

It's some weird Elizabethan interpretation. Maybe the pointy hips are ued to store spare battieries?

Edited October 2, 2021 by marinw

[FishyJoe]

I found this episode so confusing. The time jumps confused me. All the new/older characters confused me. The new places confused me. And I'm someone who is trying to pay attention and is used to hardcore science fiction. I can't imagine how bad it would be for a casual viewer. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by FishyJoe

[marinw]

On 10/1/2021 at 6:08 PM, Jack Shaftoe said:

the Foundation is literally a handful of primitive buildings

I liked the art direction of this epsiode after the baroque decay of Coruscant Trantor.

Edited October 3, 2021 by marinw

[Anduin]

If there's one problem I have with the colonists, they have a camp fire out in the open? Couldn't they have sheltered behind a hill? Also, pull your hood up. Your head will get cold. I'm not an outdoorsy sort by any means, but I've read enough fantasy to understand these things.

[Melina22]

1 hour ago, FishyJoe said:

I found this episode so confusing. The time jumps confused me 

What confused me the most was at the beginning of the episode, they jumped back 400 years. That was fine. But then they jumped 400 years into the future, which I assumed meant we were back with the Dawn, Day and Dusk from the previous episode. Fine. But then there was a Dark emperor, and I thought "Wait, there's four of them?" Eventually I realized that I was was watching the emperors from the previous episode several years in the future, and the Day I remembered was now Dusk. It didn't help that this was my husband's first episode, and I was trying to narrate which is difficult when you keep getting confused. 

Then in the second part, I couldn't figure out who the colonists were, who Salvor was, where Gaal was. I briefly thought Salvor was Gaal's daughter grown up but I guess not? Eh, it was confusing. 

[FishyJoe]

On 10/1/2021 at 8:19 PM, marinw said:

I think the Vault IS the Foundation that moved backwards in time or something. Or it is the Foundation from a previous civilization.

But why did they call it the vault? Calling something that kills people the vault seems like a really random name if you don't know anything about it.

[Glade]

I thought Salvor's parents were literally supposed to be the (poorly cast) older versions of Gall and Raych for the entire episode untill Salvor's mother talked about Gall in the third person... Aside from that confusion, this was interesting, albeit slow.

I also thought the vault was where they put the foundation, not some random thing that was already on the planet when they arrived. 

I hate Hugo so much; what a walking cliche copy/pasted from a thousand equally uninspired prices of fiction. 

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, Glade said:

I hate Hugo so much; what a walking cliche copy/pasted from a thousand equally uninspired prices of fiction. 

I like him. Part of it, fellow Aussie. I will nearly always* support the further Aussiefication of space. Part of it, if you're going to cast a charming rogue, make sure he has some charisma. I've seen boring executions of that particular archetype.

*Sam Worthington, are your ears burning? If so, good!

[johnmiller]

"Ascension" = Being zapped! Kind of like "Logan's Run."

So, Hari being killed by Raych, and Gaal being jettisoned into the void is just ignored, and we're not supposed to worry about it? Pretty odd.

I personally feel zero connection to who these latest characters are supposed to be. I was invested in the first two episode's characters, but I guess they're gone now, right?

[Melina22]

1 hour ago, johnmiller said:

I personally feel zero connection to who these latest characters are supposed to be. I was invested in the first two episode's characters, but I guess they're gone now, right?

In this, the episode reminded me of reading the books. You never had time to get attached to anyone. 

[ferjy]

11 hours ago, Melina22 said:

then there was a Dark emperor

Brother Darkness, lol. Talk about rubbing it in. 

 

[ferjy]

3 hours ago, johnmiller said:

"Ascension" = Being zapped! Kind of like "Logan's Run."

So, Hari being killed by Raych, and Gaal being jettisoned into the void is just ignored, and we're not supposed to worry about it? Pretty odd.

I personally feel zero connection to who these latest characters are supposed to be. I was invested in the first two episode's characters, but I guess they're gone now, right?

Logan’s Run is what I thought of too. “Carousel” was more fun though. 

I wasn’t confused this episode, but like you, I missed the characters we were just getting invested in and it was hard to care about the new characters. It was like starting a new show! I do believe we’ll see the original characters again (at least I hope so!). Not sure if time travel will be involved or if it will go back to the original timeline again to elaborate on what happened. 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by ferjy

[ferjy]

On 10/1/2021 at 7:08 PM, AnimeMania said:

Maybe she is just rusty.😉"Oil can".

They should oil her elbows while they’re at it so she can put her arms down. Good thing they have wide doorways or she’d be stuck in one room (with the one dress). 

 

[ferjy]

On 10/1/2021 at 9:47 PM, Melina22 said:

Do the emperors have girlfriends? It doesn't appear that they do. They certainly don't appear to want children. 

They give me the impression of being priest-like. They don’t need children since they are cyclically cloned, so they’re either celibate by choice (demand?) or they’ve been gelded? Or maybe the orgy scenes are still to come. 😉

 

[xaxat]

On 10/1/2021 at 8:17 PM, Zonk said:

Instead of feeling incredibly smart and smug about choosing what knowledge to preserve. Why don't you just do the following:

You make a book that teaches you how to read, with pictograms in it, that guide you through the process. Shouldn't be the hardest thing. In the end of the book you have a description of how to use a laptop with a little solar generator attached. Then you put that book into a box with a hardened laptop and a small solar generator and now you have the whole fucking galactic knowledge in there.

Nuclear waste can be hazardous for "Foundation" time spans, tens of thousands of years.  For decades, archeologists, linguists, and other scientists have worked to come up with a way to communicate "danger" to inhabitants of an unknowable future. It's really hard.

 

[Zonk]

Nuclear waste can be dangerous for a lot longer. With help of the foundation the dark ages will only last a thousand years, according to Hari. The problem with nuclear waste is that you have to communicate danger right away. You don't have time for the people to study a book or go through an interacive computer program.

People have worked out egyptian hieroglyphs with no other help but the rosetta stone, I'm sure they can work out something like this when they have a guide that was specifically made to teach it.

Also what other choice do you have? Chosing which clock to include doesn't change that you have to teach these concepts and ideas somehow.

Spending time on chosing things doesn't make sense and that isn't even mentioning that they have been at this for 20 years and are just now chosing a clock. At this rate they won't be done in 10.000 years.

I mean it's already extremely unrealistic, that a whole galaxy will fall into barberism for thousands of years. Really? Every planet? How would that ever happen? Knowledge is redundant with computers. Every planet will have countless servers with copies of Wikipedia and Sci-hub on them.

But I'm willing to suspend my disbelieve there. Where I'm not willing to suspend my disbelieve is with them having to chose what knowledge to include. With digital storage that simply is not a problem anymore.

[WildPlum]

Isn't Salvor really Gaal's daughter? There was the moment episode prior when Gaal was under the medical scanner and the doctor said something about the zygote being safe now and the dr sent her off to talk to someone else about it.

I thought that was why Salvor's "mother" showed her the glowy Rubix cube thing, she assumed Gaal's actual daughter could understand it.

I am sure Gaal and whats-his-name will be a plot point out further somewhere.

Edited October 3, 2021 by WildPlum

[Melina22]

46 minutes ago, WildPlum said:

I thought that was why Salvor's "mother" showed her the glowy Rubix cube thing, she assumed Gaal's actual daughter could understand it.

Well, that would make sense. It did occur to me, but then I thought I was mistaken. I wish it were clearer. 

[edhopper]

When the went forward, they had a caption that it was 19 years from the last episode. So Lee Pace is now playing the Cleon who was a child last episode.

[Melina22]

16 minutes ago, edhopper said:

When the went forward, they had a caption that it was 19 years from the last episode.

I didn't see that! That would have helped for sure. 

[paulvdb]

I find the font that they use difficult to read. And English is not my first language, so I often have to pause to read the onscreen captions like the one that said that it was 19 years after last week's episode.

[marinw]

So how long is a year? Every planet must have its own calander, so is there a standard time, like a Stardate? 

Edited October 6, 2021 by marinw

[Melina22]

2 hours ago, paulvdb said:

I find the font that they use difficult to read.

Me too! I remember after a flashback, we got a screen with a word I couldn't read. It looked like Novv, and at first I thought it was the name of a planet. After a bit I suddenly realized it said Now. 😁

So maybe this is why I didn't register the 19 year shift. Hopefully I'll get used to the font after a few more episodes.  

I love beautiful fonts, but to me the #1 rule is to be readable. 

[Anduin]

3 hours ago, marinw said:

So how long is a year? Every planet must have it's own calander, so is there a standard time, like a Stardate? 

In some SF, there's a baseline or standard world. The most important one around. Often Earth, but Star Wars uses Coruscant. In the real world, we still note stuff like day length and gravity with reference to Earth. My bet is that everyone uses both the Trantor and their local world's timekeeping.

[marinw]

I must ask: How does a Sun Dial work if your planet has more than one sun? Asking for a friend.

[Anduin]

6 hours ago, marinw said:

I must ask: How does a Sun Dial work if your planet has more than one sun? Asking for a friend.

Surely the light from one sun would be stronger than the other. Maybe it's closer or bigger or whatever. You measure time from that sun. That's my guess. Not everywhere is Tatooine. Anyone have any better theories?

[paulvdb]

21 hours ago, marinw said:

So how long is a year? Every planet must have its own calander, so is there a standard time, like a Stardate? 

Taking this to the book talk thread because they haven't specifically mentioned this on the show. The answer I give there is of course assuming they follow the books.

Edit: when a scifi show doesn't mention anything I always assume that our standard time is used or something close enough to it. Otherwise such captions and other mentions of time would be meaningless to viewers.

Edited October 7, 2021 by paulvdb

[Netfoot]

On 10/6/2021 at 4:57 PM, marinw said:

How does a Sun Dial work if your planet has more than one sun?

A clock has two hands, doesn't it?

 

[ferjy]

On 10/5/2021 at 8:15 PM, edhopper said:

When the went forward, they had a caption that it was 19 years from the last episode. So Lee Pace is now playing the Cleon who was a child last episode.

To elaborate and clarify (or confuse everyone even more 😁 ), it said “17 years later” after the baby was “birthed”. So the 17-year-old Brother Dawn we saw sitting in his room while the servant “painted” his wall was the baby we had last seen. Then Gaal narrated that Empire cycled through a generation of Cleons, so that 17-year-old Dawn became Day, Day became Dusk and Dusk became Darkness and was snuffed out... er... went through Ascension, and these are the ones we’re seeing now. So the baby we saw is now Brother Day (Lee Pace).

 

Edited October 8, 2021 by ferjy

[Zonk]

On 10/6/2021 at 10:57 PM, marinw said:

I must ask: How does a Sun Dial work if your planet has more than one sun? Asking for a friend.

Not very well. But like I said above, even worse if you are on a moon instead of a planet. Which isn't that much of a stretch as you might think. There are some massive gas giants with big moons in habitable zones out there.

[edhopper]

The sun dial / water clock debate was a not too bright writer's idea of how very bright people talk.

You can leave instructions for both, or more importantly, the concept of telling time, because neither device can be universal.

[marinw]

What if your planet is cloudy all the time? 

[JZL]

On 10/9/2021 at 8:23 AM, marinw said:

What if your planet is cloudy all the time? 

Then it would depend on whether they considered time as a helix of semi-precious stones, which would be utterly cromulent.

[Hanahope]

count me as a bit confused as well.  I got the time jumps back and forth well enough with the empire (it looks like the "dawn" 35 years later is a bit of an asshole - to erase the prior painting by 'brother darkness' - whom we previously knew as brother 'dusk'), but i too thought the empire was a lot longer than 400 years.  that seems rather brief.  even at only 1200 years, especially when the dire prediction is 30,000 years of 'darkness.'  

but i'm left wondering what happened to Gaal and Raysh.  while I can assume Raysh was maybe put to death, what happened with Gaal?  did her escape pod take her back to Trantor?  somewhere else?  will we see her again?  I hope the writers don't leave us hanging.

I did recognize Salvor's parents, well, the mother at least.  she was the one giving the budget review at the Foundation meeting, where Gaal had questions over various things.  With the father black, it is possible that Salvor is their daughter.  though i suppose it is possible she is also Gaal's daughter implanted in the other woman?  maybe that is why the woman thought Salvor might be able to read the math?  there seems to be a little bit of distance between the parents and the daughter, such that i did get the impression the daughter was more 'adopted' than 'genetic.'

and why do they call the dublesk "the vault"?  that would imply there is something stored in it, why would they think that?  and would they really believe the empire would come help them when they were banished?  I assumed 'banished' meant cut off on their own.  so no one is coming to help them.  

space travel and a decent amount of tech, but bows and arrows?  that seems odd.