Year 12067 of the Galactic Era. By this time, humankind has established a colossal Galactic Empire in space, settling about twenty-five million inhabited planets. It would seem that under the Emperor’s rule, this multi-billion world is guaranteed eternal prosperity, yet the forecasts of Seldon — the founder of the science of psychohistory — paint the bleakest picture of the future. The Empire is degrading, and humankind will be thrown into a thousand-year period of chaos. And no one but Seldon himself can solve a task on a grand scale: how, despite the coming barbarism and ignorance, to preserve all the knowledge accumulated by humankind and, after the chaos period ends, found a Second Empire.