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james_davis_nicollFoundation: (The Mule Finds?)
Can anyone make out what the title is for this?
Worried about the Second Foundation, the Mule puts his imperial expansion on hold, focusing on consolidation while carrying on a seemingly pointless quest to find the Second Foundation.
SPOILERS
While the Mule's search for the Second Foundation fails to produce its location, the Mule has evidence it exists; someone has been modifying the minds of strategically located figures in his empire. Believing he must find and destroy the Second Foundation before it destroys him, the Mule assigns two men - Han Pricher, who is utterly under the Mule's control and Bail Channis, who is not - to look for and find the Second Empire once and for all.
Interestingly, the Mule's reason for sending Channis out is the same one Cleon II used to justify call Bel Riose back: Channis is ambitious and energetic and can be trusted to work hard if a sufficiently large reward, such as being named the Mule's heir, is dangled in front of him.
The Mule isn't as trusting as he appears, which isn't very, and he takes the trouble to have a tracer placed on Channis and Pricher's ship. I don't know if the original story is like this but in this episode, I thought Channis's true nature was strongly hinted at in the scene where a subordinate finds the tracer.
Channis decides on some pretty slender logic that the Second Foundation will be found on Tazenda, which is in a plausible region of space given the meager description of the Second Empire's location, and whose name sounds a bit like Star's End.
As the Mule's right hand man, Pricher would be an excellent target for subversion and he knows it. As far as he can tell, he has not been interfered with; sadly he also was unable to tell any difference between his current state and how he thought before the Mule got his mental claws into him so this result is not as reassuring as it might be.
Tazenda rules a small but respectable little empire and rather than dash straight into a nest of hostile telepaths, Channis et al do a little snooping on an agricultural world named Rossem. Rossem appears to be a pleasant but backward example of bucolic rusticity and if Channis is on the right track, there is no evidence of it.
At this point, Channis and Pricher start arguing over which of them is the secret Second Foundation meat puppet. Pricher claims Channis is being controlled by the Second Foundation, that it was the Mule who planted the tracer and with whom Pricher has been communicating while Channis claims it is poor Pricher who has been duped, that it was the Second Foundation (presumably using stolen Foundation technology) who planted the tracer and that Pricher has been talking to the Second Foundation while under the impression it was the Mule.
The Mule arrives, showing that Pricher is correct. Channis tries to bluff the Mule, claiming that he must have been tampered with by the Second Foundation. The Mule reveals that he has known Channis was a Second Foundationer himself all along and in fact that was the reason he gave Channis the mission. Further, the Mule so believes Channis led the Mule to the real Second Foundation as part of a cunning gambit that the Mule has had his fleet depopulate Tazenda from orbit.
One of the least convincing psychic battles ever depicted on radio ensues. Pricher goes down fast, having the same resistance to psychic crossfire as a wet cardboard does to cannon fire, but Channis puts on a pretty good show before being overwhelmed. He tells the Mule the Mule has killed millions for no reason; the true Second Foundation homeworld is Rossem, not Tazenda.
Suddenly another Second Foundationer appears! This man is far more powerful than Channis and as it turns out the Mule as well. He takes the time to explain how neither Rossem nor Tazenda are the homeworld of the Second Foundation, how Channis willingly had his mind altered to believes the very lies now being exposed and how even as the men are talking, Top Men from the Second Foundation are undoing the Mule's mental compulsion back in the Mule's empire and removing evidence of the Second Foundation(actually, it sounds like they are erasing knowledge about the Mule as well, which is going to be very confusing given that there will be physical evidence of the Mule's empire).
Mentally overpowering the Mule and papering over some of his more egregious emotional problems is trivial for the Second Foundationer and the poor Mule is sent off to live out his life as a minor despot on Kalgan.
Channis is warned his generation will have to deal with the next major problem. The Foundation will remember that the Second Foundation and that knowledge is going to cause trouble.
I cannot help but feel there had to be a better way for the Second Foundation to have handled the Mule and his empire and the fact that they did handle the situation the way they did demonstrates a dangerous addiction to convolution for its own sake.
Why mindsculpt Channis into thinking Rossem is the Second Foundation if Old Dude is going to explain that it isn't a few minutes later (or at all)?
Kudos to Old Dude for showing the usual Foundation callous indifference to casualties. I was a bit worried there was Channis blubbed but that must have been a side-effect of his mental redecoration. I notice that Old Dude took the time to treat the pitiful Mule rather than just killing him and I wonder if it was because unlike the vapourised millions of Tazenda, the Mule is a fellow telepath?
Probably the Foundation would be unhappy to hear how Channis dismisses them as a mere tool.
Can anyone make out what the title is for this?
Worried about the Second Foundation, the Mule puts his imperial expansion on hold, focusing on consolidation while carrying on a seemingly pointless quest to find the Second Foundation.
SPOILERS
While the Mule's search for the Second Foundation fails to produce its location, the Mule has evidence it exists; someone has been modifying the minds of strategically located figures in his empire. Believing he must find and destroy the Second Foundation before it destroys him, the Mule assigns two men - Han Pricher, who is utterly under the Mule's control and Bail Channis, who is not - to look for and find the Second Empire once and for all.
Interestingly, the Mule's reason for sending Channis out is the same one Cleon II used to justify call Bel Riose back: Channis is ambitious and energetic and can be trusted to work hard if a sufficiently large reward, such as being named the Mule's heir, is dangled in front of him.
The Mule isn't as trusting as he appears, which isn't very, and he takes the trouble to have a tracer placed on Channis and Pricher's ship. I don't know if the original story is like this but in this episode, I thought Channis's true nature was strongly hinted at in the scene where a subordinate finds the tracer.
Channis decides on some pretty slender logic that the Second Foundation will be found on Tazenda, which is in a plausible region of space given the meager description of the Second Empire's location, and whose name sounds a bit like Star's End.
As the Mule's right hand man, Pricher would be an excellent target for subversion and he knows it. As far as he can tell, he has not been interfered with; sadly he also was unable to tell any difference between his current state and how he thought before the Mule got his mental claws into him so this result is not as reassuring as it might be.
Tazenda rules a small but respectable little empire and rather than dash straight into a nest of hostile telepaths, Channis et al do a little snooping on an agricultural world named Rossem. Rossem appears to be a pleasant but backward example of bucolic rusticity and if Channis is on the right track, there is no evidence of it.
At this point, Channis and Pricher start arguing over which of them is the secret Second Foundation meat puppet. Pricher claims Channis is being controlled by the Second Foundation, that it was the Mule who planted the tracer and with whom Pricher has been communicating while Channis claims it is poor Pricher who has been duped, that it was the Second Foundation (presumably using stolen Foundation technology) who planted the tracer and that Pricher has been talking to the Second Foundation while under the impression it was the Mule.
The Mule arrives, showing that Pricher is correct. Channis tries to bluff the Mule, claiming that he must have been tampered with by the Second Foundation. The Mule reveals that he has known Channis was a Second Foundationer himself all along and in fact that was the reason he gave Channis the mission. Further, the Mule so believes Channis led the Mule to the real Second Foundation as part of a cunning gambit that the Mule has had his fleet depopulate Tazenda from orbit.
One of the least convincing psychic battles ever depicted on radio ensues. Pricher goes down fast, having the same resistance to psychic crossfire as a wet cardboard does to cannon fire, but Channis puts on a pretty good show before being overwhelmed. He tells the Mule the Mule has killed millions for no reason; the true Second Foundation homeworld is Rossem, not Tazenda.
Suddenly another Second Foundationer appears! This man is far more powerful than Channis and as it turns out the Mule as well. He takes the time to explain how neither Rossem nor Tazenda are the homeworld of the Second Foundation, how Channis willingly had his mind altered to believes the very lies now being exposed and how even as the men are talking, Top Men from the Second Foundation are undoing the Mule's mental compulsion back in the Mule's empire and removing evidence of the Second Foundation(actually, it sounds like they are erasing knowledge about the Mule as well, which is going to be very confusing given that there will be physical evidence of the Mule's empire).
Mentally overpowering the Mule and papering over some of his more egregious emotional problems is trivial for the Second Foundationer and the poor Mule is sent off to live out his life as a minor despot on Kalgan.
Channis is warned his generation will have to deal with the next major problem. The Foundation will remember that the Second Foundation and that knowledge is going to cause trouble.
I cannot help but feel there had to be a better way for the Second Foundation to have handled the Mule and his empire and the fact that they did handle the situation the way they did demonstrates a dangerous addiction to convolution for its own sake.
Why mindsculpt Channis into thinking Rossem is the Second Foundation if Old Dude is going to explain that it isn't a few minutes later (or at all)?
Kudos to Old Dude for showing the usual Foundation callous indifference to casualties. I was a bit worried there was Channis blubbed but that must have been a side-effect of his mental redecoration. I notice that Old Dude took the time to treat the pitiful Mule rather than just killing him and I wonder if it was because unlike the vapourised millions of Tazenda, the Mule is a fellow telepath?
Probably the Foundation would be unhappy to hear how Channis dismisses them as a mere tool.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 05:10 pm (UTC)Reminds me of a story. This was back in the Seventies.
Barry Gehm and I were exploring an SF convention in Detroit. We entered a room where Science Fiction Oral History Association exhibit was playing tapes. We listened for a little while, and recognized the dialogue: the story was Heinlein's "Universe." Hugh Hoyland, the protagonist, was conversing with the bicephalic Joe-Jim.
Barry became excited. "Did they make a movie out of 'Universe'?" I could tell what he was thinking. Maybe there was a decent SF movie that had escaped his notice! What might the special effects have been like?
I was sorry to have to disappoint him. "No, this is a tape of an old radio show."
An expression of scorn clouded Barry's face. "Oh!" he said with contempt.
"It's easy to do two-headed mutants on RADIO!"
no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 09:05 pm (UTC)I'm more impressed that in the chaos and anarchy of the ship, everyone manages to stop and get their hair coiffed just so.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-15 09:10 pm (UTC)