The second story, "The Encyclopedists" (called "Foundation" in the magazine version that launched the series in the May 1942 issue of
Astounding
), takes place fifty years later. Terminus is metal poor but thriving with technology through the efforts of the scientists settled there. Outlying provinces of the Empire are being taken over by ambitious local rulers. One ruler, in a region called Anacreon, has decided to annex Terminus. The Encyclopedists on Terminus are too scholarly and impractical to respond with anything but futile force. They need psychologists, but Seldon had allowed none to emigrate. Mayor Salvor Hardin, who studied psychology briefly, is the next best thing, a politician. He notes that Anacreon and a rival system, Smyrno, no longer have atomic power, because civilization begins decaying first on the frontiers. He takes the entire government of Terminus from the Encyclopedists during Seldon's first filmed appearance in a Time Vault. Seldon offered no guidance before a crisis but had prepared commentary so that he could talk to the descendants of the Foundation scientists about the crises he predicted. At this time the long-dead Seldon announces that the Encyclopedia project was a fraud, that he had predicted what was to happen and set up the Terminus colony to influence the course of events without the knowledge of the Encyclopedists. The Encyclopedists' actions had been purposefully limited. Now they no longer have freedom of action, which is the essential condition of a Seldon crisis. A Seldon crisis is a turning point in the Plan he has conceived but never disclosed. Seldon describes their predicament: Terminus is an island of atomic power in an ocean of more primitive energy resources; the solution to the problem is obvious. It is not obvious, however, to anyone but Hardin. The story ends with the Anacreons landing and only Hardin aware that the invaders will be forced to leave Terminus in six months.