The Galactic Empire represents humanity’s attempt to maintain civilization through centralized governance and the periodic failure of that effort when institutions ossify. The Galactic Empire has ruled over humanity for 12,000 years but has grown old and unimaginative, and its leadership has begun to fail. Hari Seldon’s new science of psychohistory predicts that the Empire will collapse completely over the next 500 years, followed by a 30,000-year dark age when high technology is lost. The existence of the Galactic Empire—and Seldon’s efforts to ensure the continuity of civilization—embody Asimov’s proposition that the patterns of human history are inevitable. Throughout the stories, the status of the decaying Empire serve to mark the passage of time and the progression of Seldon’s plan in the face of civilizational decline.

The Foundation, created by Hari Seldon to protect civilization’s scientific knowledge, makes its home on the planet Terminus near the edge of the galaxy. There, scientists and politicians work on the Foundation’s interconnected projects, together called the Plan, which seek to minimize the worst effects of the anarchic dark ages that follow the collapse of the Galactic Empire. Among the Plan’s tasks are the assembling of a massive Encyclopedia Galactica that contains and preserves all human knowledge.