Since reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series as a young teenager I have wanted to realise this world as a computer game. I started by creating a web-based space-battle game in PHP, sadly this game didn’t make it into the 21th century. As my knowledge of technologies and appreciation for other games has grown, so have my ideas for a Foundation game which I would like to outline here. Any further unqualified references to ‘Foundation’ will indicate the civilisation controlled by the player in the game whereas the oeuvre of Foundation novels will use the term ‘Foundation series’.
Although the Foundation series was, initially, a trilogy there have since been a number of sequels, prequels and contributions from other authors which have created a massive and unified universe spanning over 20’000 years of galactic history. Asimov creates a chance to explore various methods of governance and the pressures of an evolving society by founding a colony of scientific researchers on a distant planet where they will be able to preserve the knowledge of a falling empire in the form of a Galactic Encyclopedia.
The player would take on the role of the benevolent ruler of Terminus City as they land and begin to prepare to research and compile the knowledge for their encyclopedia. Constructing buildings, training scientists and researching technologies using materials supplied by the distant Empire would form the body of this phase of the game. Over some short time however, the player will become cut off from the resources of the Empire and become reliant on nearby provinces who have regressed away from the Empire into an almost barbaric (and threatening) state. Spurred by elements within the player’s city and by the visit of an unhelpful and clearly myopic ambassador from the Empire, the player will notice a choice between the purely noble scientific endeavour of the original goal and the threat of total destruction.
Terminus is a planet on the outskirts of the galaxy.
Choices of this kind will be presented in the form of what buildings can be constructed, what units can be trained, what trade can be bartered and what diplomatic dialogues can be actioned. Depending on the phase of the game the Foundation will be under different pressures requiring different types of macro management of the civilisation.
It is at the point where the player decides to dedicate resources to political espionage, subterfuge and trickery in order to play the neighbouring threats off against themselves that the Seldon Crises are introduced. In the series of books key moments in the history of the Foundation are marked by the appearance of Hari Seldon, its founder, as a hologram in a usually sealed vault. In his first crisis-cast we learn that the future of the colony has been mathematically predicted but that at key moments decisions must be made which will make-or-break the future of the Galaxy. So to, in the game, dramatic shifts in social feeling and the response of governmental methodologies combined with external pressures will be marked by Seldon’s visits in the Time Vault.
Giving hints to the player via the Seldon Crises and by providing a visual indicator of the feelings and social stances of the Foundation and its neighbours I would guide the player through these choices while still allowing free-reign of micro-management and experimental strategies. At any point the player can visit and interact with the leaders and peoples of any provinces within or nearby the Foundation’s sphere of influence.
After the first crisis has been averted the player will be able to explore and organise ‘Scientism’ (an artificial religion based on the worship of technology) as a way of manipulating the neighbouring kingdoms without diluting the Foundation’s technological superiority. Scientism, however, turns out to unify areas of potential expansion against the Foundation as much as it brings the local area under its control.
Economic lures must be used as bait for further expansion by trading Foundation produced technology, gadgets, trinkets and information for wealth and materials. It is the products of this trading empire, with the Foundation as its capital, that will allow the Foundation to broaden its modest military into a force capable of resisting, at least partially, the approaching enemies.
The remnants of the Empire are threatened by stories of an upstart at the periphery who believe that they are intended to “inherit the galaxy”. A conquesting general of the Empire must be slowed, militarily, by Foundation forces while political agents must sow the seeds of doubt to the Emperor himself and infiltrate the general’s army in order to defeat him. The player will construct and deploy a fleet and meet the enemy in battle giving strategic orders to the commanders in the field. The enemy, though, is too numerous and the territory they occupy is too vast to fend-off indefinitely, the player must also engage in direct infiltration of the general’s headquarters in order to depose him. The player is rewarded for the military campaign based on how little territory they conceed to the AI.
It is at this point, where the Foundation becomes the dominant power in the galaxy, that the first game would end, although there exists ample inspiration for furthering the story in sequel games including the threat of an unbeatable enemy, The Mule.
The series of books covers a lot of ground and a lot of time. The themes of the game should reflect the responsibility of building a society from next-to-nothing to the dominant force in the galaxy over a dynamic and socially interesting background; the collapse of the previous empire and the need to preserve its knowledge, dealing with political change through different methods of governance, the influence and manipulation of external parties, technological dependence, trade, psychohistory (the mathematics of prophecy), freedom and the sacrifice of personal gain in lieu of an improvement for the whole of a society.
The Foundation universe includes a number of factions with unique societies and technologies that would fit well into an RTS. The Foundation are ingenious, the Spacers have legions of robot servants, the Gaians operate as a hive-mind and can control the environment and the Empire has massive resources.