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Summary - Season 6, Episode 2: The Mayors and Traders

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    The Mayors and Traders
    Season 6 , Episode 2
  • In 80 FE (30 years after Seldon’s last appearance) the space around Terminus has fractured into four kingdoms, and Sef Sermak and the newly formed Action Party demand that Hardin’s only course of action is to resign because of his perceived inaction.

    Hardin recounts the events that have got them to this point, including Anacreon establishing bases on Terminus, but Hardin was able to engineer a political play, working with the other three kingdoms, to get Anacreon to abandon Terminus.

    Following that, Hardin established a new religion that shrouds nuclear power in mysticism; with the actual intent to limit knowledge and retain control.

    The prince regent of Anacreon, Wienis, has captured an older imperial battle cruiser, and he now demands that Terminus fixes it. Despite protests, Hardin agrees to fix it and even name it the Wienis.

    Hardin travels to Anacreon to witness King Leopold’s coming-of-age ceremony. He tries to remain anonymous, but is spotted by Wienis, taken to his chambers, and arrested as a prisoner of war ahead of Anacreon’s planned attack on Terminus.

    Despite his apparent predicament, Hardin remains unphased. At the stroke of midnight, all of the power on Anacreon goes out, the king’s ceremony is halted, and aboard the Wieins, the religious element realizes that attacking Terminus is tantamount to an attack on their own religion and demands that Wienis is arrested.

    Desperate, Wienis demands that Hardin is executed by the guard, which they refuse, and when he takes a weapon and tries to do it himself, Hardin is surrounded by a force field. Wienis feels like there’s no other option and turns the gun on himself.

    Back on Terminus, Hardin is hailed as a hero, and as he predicted there is another message from Seldon. Seldon had also predicted that this crisis would come and be resolved by using spirituality to conquer the region., but warns that they do not grow over confident, and reminds them that there is a second foundation on the other side of the galaxy.

    In another section, a trader named Limmar Ponyets receives a message that a colleague, Gorov, has been arrested on Askone for illegally trading goods. This is further complicated by the fact that Gorov isn’t just a trader, but an agent of the Federation.

    Ponyets meets with the Askonian Grand Master to negotiate a reprieve from Gorov’s death penalty. The Grand Master insinuates that he may be able to trade for Gorov, but does not tell him what for initially, but soon finds out that they only care about gold, to which Ponyets is able to trade them a gold from a transmuter that he built himself in exchange for Gorov’s release.

    Ponyets’ next move is to talk to Pherl, the youngest member of the Askonian council. He works out a deal in secret to trade the transmuter itself. Ponyets then exploits the fact trading is punishable by death on the planet and shows Pherl a secret recording that he had made, forcing him to pay for Ponyets’ entire cargo full of trinkets designed to increase reliance on the Federation.