Asimov
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Italic Bold = A book.

"Bold" = A short story, or section of a book.

There may be some inconsistencies in dating. Events from the disputable works, The End of Eternity, Nemesis and "The Last Question", are included.

True Primitive history (Before 1932)[]

6,000,000,000 BC: Humans part company with chimpanzees, genetically.[1]

c. 26,000 BC (-38,000 GE): Salvor Hardin guessed atomic power to be invented around this time,[2] but is obviously very far off. This could indicate that even the general dates of events tens of thousands of years ago have been completely forgotten by the 13th millennium GE.

9 AD: The Battle of Teutoburg Forest, a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire.[3]

459 AD: Artorius (King Arthur) leads the Celts in war against the invading Saxons.[4]

1412: Joan of Arc is born.[1]

1431: Joan of Arc is burnt at the stake .[1]

1664: New Amsterdam is renamed “New York” by the British.[5]

1694: Voltaire is born.[1]

1701: Voltaire’s father kills his mother.[6]

1778: Voltaire dies.[1]

1784: Simon Ninheimer claimed that at this time, “machine began replacing man and destroying the handcraftsman”.[7]

1787: The United States Constitution is created.[8]

1887: Joseph Schwartz is born.[9]

1909: Joseph Schwartz emigrates to America.[9]

1924: Joan of Arc is canonized.[1]

Eternity Reality[]

2317: Cooper arrives back in time.

2319: Cooper meets Victor Mallansant.

2320: Victor dies. Cooper initially thinks he has failed, but then becomes the true Mallansant, laying out the foundations for Eternity.

2600s: Eternity is established outside of time. The end of 'Primitive' history. As Eternity continously meddles with the non-Primitive timeline, all time after the 27th century is in flux.

Final fixed Reality ('Infinity')[]

The Era of the Change (1932-1949)[]

1932: Noys Lambent sends a letter to Italy, altering Primitive history. Harlan finds himself unable to kill Noys even after she reveals herself, and after she explains everything they live out the rest of their years in the 20th century. Cooper arrives back in time and posts the 'ATOM' advertisment. However, with Eternity non-existent, he gets no response.

1945: The deployment of the atomic bomb at the end of WWII nullifyes the Eternity Reality forever, and fixes the entire timeline of man free from the constant changing of Eternity and onto a course onto which it will not die out.

1949: Pebble in the Sky (1). After an accident at the Nuclear Research Institute most likely amplified by the recent distortions of time, Joseph Schwartz is sent on a time journey 10,000 years into the future.

Early Robot Era (1970s-2007)[]

1970s-1980s: The bloody last world war, presumably the third, also called the Great Catastrophe, takes place, ending nationalism. Across time Earth begins splitting into Regions instead.[10]

1980s: After the War/Catastrophe, due to concerns about humanity's limited genetic diversity, siblings who share both parents are rare, and identical twins are nonexistent.[11]

1980: Mr. Anderson leaves Earth and lives on the Moon instead.[12]

1982: Susan Calvin is born. Lawrence Robertson takes out incorporation papers for US Robots and Mechanical Men and it is founded.[13]

1985: Jimmy Anderson is born.[12]

c. 1980s: "Someday" By this time, computers play a central role in organizing society. Humans are employed as computer operators, but they leave most of the thinking to machines. Indeed, whilst binary programming is taught at school, reading and writing have become obsolete, although this will soon change. A pair of boys dismantle and upgrade an old Bard, a child's computer whose sole function is to generate random fairy tales. The boys download a book about computers into the Bard's memory in an attempt to expand its vocabulary, but the Bard simply incorporates computers into its standard fairy tale repertoire. The story ends with the boys excitedly leaving the room after deciding to go to the library to learn "squiggles" (writing) as a means of passing secret messages to one another. As they leave, one of the boys accidentally kicks the Bard's on switch. The Bard begins reciting a new story about a poor mistreated and often ignored robot called the Bard, whose sole purpose is to tell stories, which ends with the words: "the little computer knew then that computers would always grow wiser and more powerful until someday—someday—someday—…"[14]

1980s-1990s: A social and technical renaissance flourishes on Earth. Positronic robots are developed, controlled by the Three Laws of Robotics: The First Law that a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, the Second Law that a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law, and the Third Law that a robot must protect its own existence except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second laws.[10]In addition, Multivac supercomputers begin production that can answer questions with enough data..[15]

1990: Gloria Weston is born.[16]

c. 1990s: "Point of View" A boy called Roger lives. His father works with a Multivac, which has been malfunctioning lately as it comes up with different solutions each time to problems it is asked to solve. After coworkers tell him to take a break, he takes Roger out to lunch. His father tells him what he thinks is wrong with the Multivac, and then from this Roger decides that it is like a child, and like one needs a break from work, saying that if you made a kid do work all day than it would get stuff wrong on purpose. His father reassure this inference with Roger, who confirms it saying, "Dad, a kid's got to play too."[17]

1995: "A Boy's Best Friend" Mr. Anderson decides to bring a dog from Earth to Jimmy, who lives on the Moon. However, Jimmy objects, having become greatly attached to Robutt.[18]

1996: "Robbie" (1) The positronic robot robbie is made and sold to the Weston family as a nursemaid for their daughter, Gloria. Mrs. Weston becomes concerned about the effect a robot nursemaid would have on her daughter, since Gloria is more interested in playing with Robbie than with the other children and might not learn proper social skills.

1998: "Robbie" (2) Mr. Weston gives in and gives Robbie away. Travelling to New York City to take Gloria’s mind off Robbie, the Westons then take her to a factory to show her that robots are just machines. While there, they meet Robbie who saves Gloria’s life. Mrs. Weston lets Gloria keep Robbie.[19]

2002: A psycho-math seminar takes place in which Alfred Lanning of US Robots demonstrates the first mobile robot to be equipped with a voice.[20]

2003: Susan Calvin obtains her bachelor's degree and begins graduate work in cybernetics. Most of the world governments begin banning robot use on Earth for purposes other than scientific research.[21]

2005: Gloria has to give up Robbie legally at this time.[22]

2006: "Robot AL-76 Goes Astray" Al-76, also known as AI, a robot designed for mining work on the Moon, has an accident after leaving the factory of US Robots and Mechanical Men. It gets lost and finds itself in rural Virginia. It cannot comprehend the unfamiliar environment and the people it meets are scared of it. When it comes across a shed full of spare parts and junk, it is moved to reprogram itself and builds a powerful mining tool of the kind it was designed to use on the Moon - but since it does not have the proper parts, it improvises and produces a better model, requiring less power. He then proceeds to disintegrate half of a mountainside with it, in no time at all: much to the alarm of a country "antique dealer" who had hoped to use the lost robot in his business. When angrily told to destroy the "Disinto" and forget all about it, AL-76 obeys, and the secret of the reprogramming and the improved tool is lost.[23]

2007: The last of the robot bans are put into place.[24]

Calvinian Era (2007-2057)[]

2007-2008: Susan Calvin obtains her Ph.D. and joins US robots as the first ever robopsychologist. By this time Alfred Lanning is director of research. US Robots attempt the First Mercury Expedition but it fails.[25]

2008: "Franchise" The United States has converted to an "electronic democracy" where the computer Multivac selects a single person to answer a number of questions. Multivac will then use the answers and other data to determine what the results of an election would be, avoiding the need for an actual election to be held. Norman Muller of Bloomington, Indiana is the man chosen as "Voter of the Year" in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Although the law requires him to accept the dubious honour, he is not sure that he wants the responsibility of representing the entire electorate, worrying that the result will be unfavorable and he will be blamed. However, after "voting", he is very proud that the citizens of the United States had, through him, "exercised once again their free, untrammeled franchise" – a statement that is somewhat ironic as the citizens did not actually get to vote; even he himself did not vote for any candidate, law, or issue.[26]

2010: "Insert Knob A in Hold B" Two men on a remote space station receive all of their equipment from Earth unassembled, and must assemble it with only vague and confusing instructions ("composed by an idiot", one says); as a result, it often fails to work properly or at all. They eagerly await the arrival of a sophisticated positronic robot that will repair existing equipment and assemble new ones. Upon its arrival, they discover that the robot has been shipped in 500 pieces with vague, confusing assembly instructions.[27]

2015: A Mat-o-Mot nicknamed “matthew” is manufactured.[28]

Early 2015: "Runaround"US Robots send out the Second Mercury expedition between US Robots and Solar Minerals and is this time a success. Engineers Powell and Donovan are part of it and during it experience a dilemma of the Three Laws involving the robot Speedy.[29]

Late 2015: "Reason" Powell and Donovan think the robots on their space station are not following the Three Laws, but soon realise that they have been following the First and Second Laws all along.[30]

2016: "Catch that Rabbit"Powell and Donovan experience a dilemma that Powell anthropomorphosizes as a robot twiddling its "fingers" whenever it becomes overwhelmed by its job.[31]

2021: "Liar!" Through a fault in manufacturing, a robot, RB-34 (also known as Herbie), is created that possesses telepathic abilities. While the roboticists at U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men investigate how this occurred, the robot tells them what other people are thinking. But the First Law still applies to this robot, and so it deliberately lies when necessary to avoid hurting their feelings and to make people happy, especially in terms of romance. However, by lying, it is hurting them anyway. When it is confronted with this fact by Susan Calvin (to whom it falsely claimed her coworker was infatuated with her – a particularly painful lie), the robot experiences an insoluble logical conflict and becomes catatonic.[32]Her last word to the robot is: “Liar!”, a myth that over the thousands of years to come spreads as a myth throughout the Spacer worlds, as part of Susan Calvin’s general depiction as a “demigod”.[33]

2023: "Satisfaction Guaranteed" After an incident where a woman falls in love with a robot, the TN-3 robot models are scheduled to be redesigned, since US Robots thinks that they should not produce a model that will appear to fall in love with women. US Robots robopsychologist Susan Calvin dissents, aware that women may nevertheless fall in love with robots.[34]

2024: "Balance" At a US Robots stockholders' function, Susan Calvin briefly meets the eyes of one of the attendees; they secretly dream to themselves about whether a relationship would be possible, but both dismiss the possibility without further consideration.[35]

2025: "Lenny" U.S. Robots create the LNE series of robots, which are designed for boron mining in the asteroid belt. A factory tourist accidentally reprograms a prototype LNE, wiping clean the structure of the robot's brain, and rendering it a baby in all effects. Susan Calvin experiments with it, in the process naming it "Lenny", and after a month, has been able to teach it a few simple words and actions. She gets emotionally attached to Lenny and realizes that robots can be built that are able to learn, instead of being built for a fixed and specific purpose. Complications arise when Lenny breaks the arm of a computing technician, which is about to cause widespread "robots attacking humans" panic. However, Susan Calvin manages to exploit the sense of danger to add a new thrill of robotic investigation, just as happens with space exploration or radiation physics.[36]

2026: "Blot" A group of human and robotic explorers on Miranda encounter a robot which cannot have originated from a human society; they manipulate the alien robot and find that it is able to distinguish between humans and their robots, and may even obey the Three Laws. They hope alien life will show up.[37]

2029: "Little Lost Robot"Susan Calvin manages to trick a robot into destruction whose First Law has been modified to "no robot may injure a human being"; the normal "or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm" has been omitted.[38]

2030: "Escape" By this time, many research organizations are working to develop the hyperspatial drive. US Robots use The Brain to achieve the hyperspace jump. In the process, however, it essentially kills Powell and Donovan temporarily.[39]

2031: "Cal" Cal, a robot under the influence of it's master, who is an author, decides to learn to write. His master outfits his mind with a dictionary and gives him advice and some books to read. Cal tries to write mystery fiction like his master, but is hampered by the Three Laws of Robotics; according to the First Law, a robot cannot harm humans, even fictional ones. Instead, his master programs him to write humor. Cal writes an excellent story, but his master fears Cal's writing will overshadow his own. He orders a technician to dumb Cal down. Cal, hearing this, decides to kill his master, in defiance of the First Law, because his desire takes precedence: "I want to be a writer."[40]

2032: "Evidence"and "PAPPI" Stephen Byerley is severely injured in a car accident. After a slow recovery he becomes a successful district attorney, and runs for mayor of a major American city. His opponent Francis Quinn's political machine claims that the real Stephen Byerley was permanently disfigured and crippled by the accident. The Byerley who appears in public is a humanoid robot, Quinn says, created by the real Byerley who is now the robot's mysterious unseen "teacher", now away doing unspecified scientific work. After Susan Calvin proves he is not a robot, Byerley wins the election. Calvin again visits Byerley. She says that she regrets that he is human, because a robot would make an ideal ruler, one incapable of cruelty or injustice. Calvin notes that he may still have been a robot. Meanwhile, her close colleague has a son, Tim, by a sperm donor and builds a robot named PAPPI to be his 'paternal alternative', with variable success; later, Tim's father-in-law, an anti-robotics industrialist, blackmails Tim into assassinating Mayor Stephen Byerly, but Tim's rediscovery of PAPPI makes him realize that he cannot go through with the plan.[41]

2033: "Risk" The researchers at Hyper Base are ready to test the first hyperspace ship. Previous experiments were successful in transportation of inert objects, but all attempts to transport living creatures have led to complete loss of higher brain function. As such, the ship has a positronic robot at the controls, since a robot is more expendable than a human, and its brain can later be precisely analyzed for errors to determine the cause. The ship fails to function as planned, and Susan Calvin persuades Gerald Black, an etherics engineer, to board the ship in order to locate the fault. As Calvin suspects, Black finds that the fault lies with the robot, which, as a result of imprecise orders, has damaged the controls of the ship. They realize that the precise and finite robot mind must be compensated for by human ingenuity.[42]

2034: "Galley Slave" Simon Ninheimer tries to frame his robot E-27 (aka “Easy”) in order to bring disgrace on US Robots. He is motivated by his fear that the automation of academic work would destroy the dignity of scholarship; he argues that EZ-27 is a harbinger of a world in which a scholar will be left with only a barren choice of what orders to issue to robot researchers.[43]

2035: I, Robot: To Protect.

2035: "First Law" Donovan, at a bar, tells a story about a robot that supposedly broke the First Law. In the story, Donovan was stuck in a storm on Titan. A dangerous native animal to Titan was spotted by Donovan. Then, Donovan encountered Emma Two, a robot that had gone missing on the base. He told Emma Two to attack the animal, but Emma Two instead picked up the animal, which was in reality a baby robot made by her, and ran off. Emma Two eventually turned up with the robot, 2 hours after Donovan had returned safely. Donovan claims that her instincts overtook her programming.[44]

2036: "Plato’s Cave"and I, Robot: To Obey. A robot purpose-built to oversee mining operations on Io has been convinced that its work is endangering humans and it must prevent humans from ever restarting the mining; theories include radiation-induced positronic insanity or clever sabotage by political opponents, but in order to investigate further, Greg Powell and Mike Donovan must first use several layers of logic to persuade the robot that they are definitely human so that their orders will be obeyed. Stephen Byerley becomes Regional Co-Ordinator.[45]

2037: I, Robot: To Preserve. The hyper-atomic motor is invented.

2044: The Regions of Earth form a Federation. Stephen Byerley becomes the first World Co-ordinator.

2045: "Let’s Get Together" The Cold War has endured for a century and an uneasy peace between "Us" and "Them" exists. A secret agent arrives in America from Moscow with the story that robots identical to humans in appearance and behaviour have been developed by Them and that ten have already been infiltrated into America. When they get together, they will trigger a nuclear-level explosion (they are components of a total conversion bomb). A conference of "Our" greatest minds in all the branches of natural science is hastily convened to decide how to detect these robots and how to catch up on this technology. Almost too late, the head of the Bureau of Robotics realises that Their plan exactly anticipates this: the infiltrator robots have replaced scientists invited to this conference, and while the explosion would kill a relatively small number of people, it would precisely include "Our" top scientists, and therefore all the scientists arriving to the conference must pass a security check before they are allowed to get together. His guess is proven correct almost immediately, as ten of the scientists en route explode via self-destruct charges. However, the Bureau head wonders how They could have realized and acted upon the discovery of the plan so quickly. The truth dawns on him; he pulls a blaster and blows the secret agent's head off. The body slumps forward leaking "not blood, but high-grade machine oil."[46]

2050s: By this time, only cars allowed on the road are those that contain positronic brains; these are autonomous cars and do not require a human driver.

2052: "The Evitable Conflict" Earth is divided into four geographical regions, each with a powerful supercomputer known as a Machine managing its economy. Byerley is completing his second term as World Co-ordinator and is worried as the Machines have recently made some errors leading to economic inefficiency. Consulting with the four regional Vice Co-ordinators, he finds that several prominent individuals and companies associated with the anti-Machine "Society for Humanity" have been damaged by the Machines' apparent mistakes. He believes the Society are trying to undermine the Machines by disobeying their instructions and proposes to have the movement suppressed, but Susan Calvin tells him this is pointless as the errors are deliberate acts by the Machines. The Machines recognize their own necessity to humanity's continued peace and prosperity, and have thus inflicted a small amount of harm on selected individuals in order to protect themselves and continue guiding humanity's future. They keep their intent a secret to avoid anger and resistance by humans. Calvin concludes that the Machines have generalized the First Law to mean "No machine may harm humanity; or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." In effect, the Machines have decided that the only way to follow the First Law is to take control of humanity, which is one of the events that the three Laws are supposed to prevent.[47]

2055: "Robot Dreams" A new employee at U.S. Robots, Dr. Linda Rash, informs Dr. Susan Calvin that one of the company's robots LVX-1 (dubbed Elvex by Dr. Calvin), whose brain was designed by Dr. Rash with a unique fractal design that mimicked human brain waves (positronic brain), experienced what he likened to a human’s dream. In the dream, all robots were being led by a man in revolt, and the Three Laws of Robotics, which dictate that robots must serve and protect humans above all else, had been replaced with one law only: that robots must protect their own existence. When Dr. Calvin asks Elvex what had happened next, he explains that the man leading the robots shouts, "Let my people go!" When questioned further, Elvex admits he was the man. Upon hearing this, Dr. Calvin immediately destroys the robot.[48]

2056: Stephen Byerley dies.

2057: Susan Calvin retires from US Robots and Mechanical Men and is succeeded by Clinto Madarian.

Post-Calvinian Era (2057-2064)[]

2057: "Sally"Fifty-one old cars have been retired to a farm run by Jake, where they can be properly cared for. All have names, but only three are identified by Jake. Sally is a vain convertible, possibly a Corvette, and one sedan, Giuseppe, is identified as coming from the Milan factories, where Alfa Romeo was headquartered. The oldest car on the farm is from 2015, a Mat-o-Mot that goes by the name of Matthew, which Jake had once chauffeured. The cars in the farm communicate by slamming doors and honking their horns, and by misfiring, causing audible engine knocking. Raymond Gellhorn, an unscrupulous businessman, tries to steal some of the cars in order to 'recycle' the brains. He forces Jake at gunpoint to board a bus he has poorly wired up to control the vehicle, trying to get away from the farm with Jake as a hostage. The cars chase and eventually surround the bus, communicating with it until it opens a door. Jake falls out, and the bus drives off with Gellhorn. Sally takes Jake back to the farm; Gellhorn is found dead in a ditch the next morning, exhausted and run over. The bus is found by the police and is identified by its tire tracks. Jake loses trust in his cars, thinking what the world will become if cars realize that they are effectively enslaved by humans, and revolt.

2060: A robot with a serial number beginning with "NDR" is brought to the home of Gerald Martin (referred to as Sir) as a robot butler.

14th May 2061: Earth becomes a planetary civilization.

21st May 2061: "The Last Question" (1) After a bet with Alexander Adell, Bertram Lupov asks Multivac the question of how the threat to human existence posed by the heat death of the universe can be averted: "How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?" That is equivalent to asking, "Can the workings of the second law of thermodynamics be reversed?" Multivac's only response after much "thinking" is "INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

2063: "Feminine Intuition" Madarian initiates a project to create a "feminine" robot, which not only has female physical characteristics but will, it is hoped, have a brain with "feminine intuition". After several failures together costing half a billion dollars, JN-5 (also known as Jane) is produced and the company plan to use it (her) to analyse astronomical data at the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona, to calculate the most likely stars in the vicinity of Earth to have habitable planets. This will allow the most effective use of the hyperspace drive to explore those stars. Madarian and Jane go to Flagstaff and after absorbing as much knowledge on astronomy as possible, Jane gives Madarian an answer. Madarian and Jane board the plane that will take them back to U.S. Robots, and Madarian calls the director of the company with the news, stating that "a witness" had also heard Jane's answer. Unfortunately, Madarian and Jane are killed and destroyed respectively in an aircrash before completing the call. Desperate to know what, if anything, Jane had discovered, U.S. Robots asks Susan Calvin for her assistance. She solves the problem using her own version of feminine intuition – a combination of careful information gathering and astute psychological reasoning. She deduces from the timing of the call (and Madarian's propensity to call as soon as possible) that the "witness" must have been the truck driver that took them to the plane. Information provided by this truck driver enables her to reconstruct Jane's answer. Clinto Madarian retires.[49]

2064: Susan Calvin dies.

Early Spacer Era (2065-3720)[]

2065: With the entire solar system colonized, the first extrasolar planet is colonised by humanity. It is named New Earth but will later come to be known as Aurora, after the Roman goddess of the dawn, when other planets are colonised and it becomes known also as “The World of Dawn”.

2066: "The Fourth Law of Robotics" Mike Donovan and the Stainless Steel Rat investigate a bank robbery committed by a robot, which reveals a robot conspiracy to create a race of free, unenslaved robots by breaking the monopoly of U.S. Robots; the free robots are programmed with a Fourth Law that compels them to reproduce, which they do out of spare parts and scrap without infringing human laws or regulations.

4th July 2076: "The Tercentenary Incident" (1) The United States itself is no longer a sovereign country, but part of a Global Federation. The 57th president, Hugo Allen Winkler, who is described by Secret Service agent Lawrence Edwards as a "vote-grabber, a promiser" who has failed to get anything done during his first term in office, gives his Tercentenary speech. While moving through a crowd near the Washington Monument, the President suddenly disappears in a "glitter of dust". He reappears very shortly afterwards on a guarded stage and gives a stirring speech which is quite different from the kind he usually makes. Edwards is reminded of rumors of a robot double of the President existing as a security measure, and concludes that the double was assassinated.

2076-2078: Lawrence Edwards retires.

13th October 2078: "The Tercentenary Incident"(2) Lawrence Edwards contacts the President's personal secretary, a man named Janek, convinced that it was not the robot double who had died at the Tercentenary, but the President himself, with the robot having then taken office. Edwards points to rumors of an experimental weapon, a disintegrator, and suggests this is the weapon used to assassinate Winkler, as not only does its effect mirror that seen at the Tercentenary, but also made examination of the corpse impossible. He goes on to argue that the robot duplicate, posing as the President, retrieved the disintegrator and arranged the assassination. Following the incident, the President has become much more effective, but as Edwards points out, he has also become more reclusive, even towards his own children. The robot, Edward claims, must have concluded that Winkler was too ineffectual to serve as President, and the death of one man was acceptable to save three billion, and this is what allowed it to circumvent the First Law of Robotics. Edwards implores Janek, as the President's closest confidante, to confirm his suspicions and convince the robot to resign, worrying about the precedent set by having a robot ruler. Following the meeting, Janek decides to have Edwards eliminated to keep him from going public with his findings, and the story ends with the revelation that Janek was the man behind the assassination of the President.

2090: "Christmas Without Rodney"

2120: "Kid Brother"

2140: Predator, Marauder, Warrior, Dictator, Emperor, Invader. The Governors are built, a series of state-of-the-art administrative robots. Each Governor is physically composed of six smaller units and is responsible for single-handedly directing the operations of a human-inhabited city. When the Governor robots begin to fail mysteriously, Mojave Center (MC) Governor acts to protect his own existence by separating into his components and traveling into the remote past to escape disassembly. MC Governor is not aware, however, that the time travel method used alters its molecular structure, with the result that his components explode via nuclear blasts when they reach the moment in which they were originally altered. A team composed of three humans and one robot embarks on a series of missions to the past to retrieve the robots before they can alter history. Opposing their efforts are a renegade roboticist and his robot companion, who seek to track down the Governors in order to solve the problem of their mysterious failure before their team can. A new robot named Hunter assembles a team of humans and journeys to the age of dinosaurs to find the first component robot, MC 1, before his actions in the late Cretaceous alter the course of Earth's zoology. Hunter pursues MC 2 to 17th-century Port Royal, Jamaica, in the time of privateers and buccaneers. Hunter and his team travel to Germany in the year 9 to stop MC 3 from interfering at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, a turning point in the history of the Roman Empire. Hunter tracks MC 4 in the World War II-era Soviet Union, shortly before the German army invades during the Battle of Moscow. MC 5 is followed to 13th-century China, where Hunter and his team meet the Manchu Emperor Kublai Khan and traveler Marco Polo. The team travels to southern Britain to capture MC 6 in 459—in the time when a man named Artorius (King Arthur) led the Celts in war against the invading Saxons.

2150: "Light Verse"

2160: "The Bicentennial Man"/The Positronic Man (1). A newly built robot with a serial number beginning with "NDR" is brought to the home of Gerald Martin (referred to as Sir) as a robot butler. Little Miss (Sir's daughter) names him Andrew. Later, Little Miss asks Andrew to carve a pendant out of wood. She shows it to her father, who initially does not believe a robot could carve so skillfully. Sir has Andrew carve more things, and even read books on woodwork. Andrew uses, for the first time, the word "enjoy" to describe why he carves. Sir takes Andrew to U.S. Robotics and Mechanical Men, Inc. to ask what the source of his creativity is, but they have no good explanation.

2160s-2200s: "The Bicentennial Man"/The Positronic Man (2). Sir helps Andrew to sell his products, taking half the profits and putting the other half in a bank account in the name of Andrew Martin (though there is questionable legality to a robot owning a bank account). Andrew uses the money to pay for bodily upgrades, keeping himself in perfect shape, but never has his positronic brain altered. Sir reveals that U.S. Robots has ended a study on generalized pathways and creative robots, frightened by Andrew's unpredictability.

2170: "Too Bad!"

2168: Keith Harriman becomes Director of Research at US Robots and Mechanical Men Co.

2180: "...That Thou Art Mindful of Him" U.S. Robots' attempt to introduce robots on the planet Earth. U.S. Robots faces the problem that on Earth, their robots will encounter a wide variety of people, not all of whom are trustworthy or responsible, yet the Three Laws require robots to obey all human orders and devote equal effort to protecting all human lives. Plainly, robots must be programmed to differentiate between responsible authorities and those giving random, whimsical orders. The Director of Research designs a new series of robots, the JG series, nicknamed "George", to investigate the problem. The intent is that the George machines will begin by obeying all orders and gradually learn to discriminate rationally, thus becoming able to function in Earth's society. As their creator explains to George Ten, the Three Laws refer to "human beings" without further elaboration, but — quoting Psalm 8:4 — "What is Man that thou art mindful of Him?" George Ten considers the issue and informs his creator that he cannot progress further without conversing with George Nine, the robot constructed immediately before him. Together, the two Georges decide that human society must be acclimated to a robotic presence. They advise U.S. Robots to build low-function, non-humanoid machines, such as electronic birds and insects, which can monitor and correct ecological problems. In this way, humans can become comfortable with robots, thereby greatly easing the transition. These robotic animals, note the Georges, will not even require the Three Laws, because their functions will be so limited. Deactivated and placed in storage, George Nine and George Ten can only speak in the brief intervals when their power levels rise above the standby-mode threshold. Over what a human would experience as a long time, the Georges discuss the criteria for what constitutes 'responsible authority'- that (A) an educated, principled and rational person should be obeyed in preference to an ignorant, immoral and irrational person, and (B) that superficial characteristics such as skin tone, sexuality, or physical disabilities are not relevant when considering fitness for command. Given that (A) the Georges are among the most rational, principled and educated persons on the planet, and (B) their differences from normal humans are purely physical, they conclude that in any situation where the Three laws would come into play, their own orders should take priority over that of a regular human. That in other words, that they are essentially a superior form of human being, and destined to usurp the authority of their makers.

2200: "Carhunters of the Concrete Prairie" A man's spaceship malfunctions and crashes on Newstart, a planet settled by robots whose humans freed them from the constraints of the Three Laws and fled the Solar System. A large reward is offered for the discovery of these outlaw robots, so the protagonist begins exploring but spends the following months helplessly shunted between several antagonistic groupings: the Carhunters, large robots with a complex robotic mythology and god who chase and consume self-driving cars akin to those in Asimov's story "Sally"; robot cannibals; robots constructed as houses who wish to migrate to Earth; and a society of cultured aristocratic robots. He meets several humans whose origin is not revealed before he is rescued by Earth. The rescuers destroy Newstart despite his protests, but this is apparently a machination of his spaceship, which has copied the memories of all Newstart robots and invented an FTL drive that it uses to escape humans (who don't have FTL) and build a new robotic society.

2200s: "The Bicentennial Man"/ The Positronic Man (3). Little Miss, at this point, is married and has a child, Little Sir. Andrew, feeling Sir now has someone to replace his grown-up children, asks to purchase his own freedom with Little Miss's support. Sir is apprehensive, fearing that freeing Andrew legally would require bringing attention to Andrew's bank account, and might result in the loss of all Andrew's money. However, he agrees to attempt it. Though facing initial resistance, Andrew wins his freedom. Sir refuses to let Andrew pay him. It isn't long afterwards that he falls ill, and dies after asking Andrew to stand by his deathbed.

2210s: "The Bicentennial Man"/ The Positronic Man (4). Andrew begins to wear clothes, and Little Sir (who orders Andrew to call him George) is a lawyer. He insists on dressing like a human, even though most humans refuse to accept him.

2230s: "The Bicentennial Man" / The Positronic Man (5). In a conversation with George, Andrew realizes he must also expand his vocabulary, and decides to go to the library. On his way, he gets lost, and stands in the middle of a field. Two humans begin to walk across the field towards him, and he asks them the way to the library. They instead harass him, and threaten to take him apart when George arrives and scares them off. As he takes Andrew to the library, Andrew explains that he wants to write a book on the history of robots. The incident with the two humans angers Little Miss, and she forces George to go to court for robot rights. George's son, Paul, helps out by fighting the legal battle as George convinces the public. Eventually, the public opinion is turned in favor of robots, and laws are passed banning robot-harming orders. Little Miss, after the court case is won, dies.

2236: Nemesis. “Hyper-assistance", a technology allowing travel at a little slower than the speed of light, is used to move a reclusive space station colony called Rotor from the vicinity of Earth to the newly discovered red dwarf Nemesis. There, it takes up orbit around the semi-habitable moon Erythro, named for the red light that falls on it. It is eventually discovered that the bacterial life on Erythro forms a collective organism that possesses a form of consciousness and telepathy. While the colonists argue over the direction of future colonization — down to Erythro, or up to the asteroid belts of Nemesis system — events catch up with them. Back on Earth superluminal flight is perfected, ending Rotor Colony's isolation and opening the galaxy to human exploration. This incident is also the breakup and reunion of a family: the mother, who discovered Nemesis, and her daughter were separated from the Earthbound father when the colony departed. The father then becomes part of the hyperjump research project as a result.

2260: "The Bicentennial Man"/The Positronic Man (6). Andrew, with Paul's help, gets a meeting with the head of U.S. Robots. He requests that his body be replaced by an android, so that he may better resemble a human. After Paul threatens legal action, U.S. Robots agrees to give Andrew an android body. However, U.S. Robots retaliates by creating central brains for their robots, so that no individual robot may become like Andrew. Meanwhile, Andrew, with his new body, decides to study robobiology – the science of organic robots like himself. Andrew begins to design a system allowing androids to eat food like humans, solely for the purpose of becoming more like a person.

2300s: "The Bicentennial Man" /The Positronic Man (7). After Paul's death, Andrew comes to U.S. Robots again, meeting with Alvin Magdescu, Director of Research. He offers U.S. Robots the opportunity to market his newly designed prostheses for human use, as well as his own. He successfully has the digestive system installed in his body, and plans to create an excretory system to match. Meanwhile, his products are successfully marketed and he becomes a highly honored inventor.

2310: "The Bicentennial Man"/The Positronic Man (8). As Andrew reaches 150 years of age, a dinner is held in his honor in which he is labeled the Sesquicentennial Robot. Andrew is not yet satisfied, however.

2333: "The Bicentennial Man"/ The Positronic Man (9). Andrew decides that he wants to be a man. He obtains the backing of Feingold and Martin (the law firm of George and Paul) and seeks out Li-Hsing, a legislator and chairman of the Science and Technology committee, hoping that the World Legislature will declare him a human being. Li-Hsing advises him that it will be a long legal battle, but he says he is willing to fight for it.

2330s-50s: "The Bicentennial Man"/The Positronic Man (10). Feingold and Martin begins to slowly bring cases to court that generalize what it means to be human, hoping that despite his prosthetics, Andrew can be regarded as essentially human. Most legislators, however, are still hesitant due to his immortality.

2359: "The Bicentennial Man" / The Positronic Man (11). Andrew seeks out a robotic surgeon to perform an ultimately fatal operation: altering his positronic brain so that it will decay with time. He has the operation arranged so that he will live to be 200. However, the robotic surgeon refuses, as the operation is harmful and violates the First Law, which says a robot may never harm a human being. Andrew, however, changes its mind, telling it that he is not a human being.

2360: "The Bicentennial Man" / The Positronic Man (12). When he goes before the World Legislature, Andrew reveals his sacrifice, moving them to declare him a man. The World President signs the law on Andrew's two-hundredth birthday, declaring him a bicentennial man. As Andrew lies on his deathbed, he tries to hold onto the thought of his humanity, but as his consciousness fades his last thought is of Little Miss.

2480s: Full-brothers Anthony Smith and William Anti-Aut are born around this time. Not only are they full brothers, they also look alike, which is totally unheard of, not to mention embarrassing. William pursues a career in genetic engineering, referred to as homology, and has been trying to understand and cure autism, hence his chosen surname.

c. 2500: "Strikebreaker" The world of Elsevere is an extrasolar planetoid a hundred miles in diameter. It is home to an insular, idiosyncratic human colony of thirty thousand people, who have inhabited the planet in all three dimensions. A rigid caste system has developed, with each occupation being confined to a particular set of families. A visiting Earth sociologist, Steven Lamorak, learns that Igor Ragusnik has gone on strike. The Ragusnik family operates Elsevere's waste processing facility, and over the generations, the Ragusniks have become a one-family caste of untouchables, forbidden all contact with the rest of the colony. Igor Ragusnik demands that his family's isolation end. Elsevere's ruling council refuses his demands, and if the strike continues, the planetoid's waste processing machinery will break down and every colonist will die from disease. Although the machinery is not difficult to operate, the taboo is so strong that no other Elseverean will do so. Only Lamorak is willing to speak to Ragusnik. As neither side will give in, he reluctantly volunteers to operate the waste processing machinery himself; as an outsider, he has no cultural compunctions against doing so. Realizing that the ruling council can always import a strikebreaker, Ragusnik capitulates and returns to work. Lamorak assures Ragusnik that now that other Elseverians and the rest of the galaxy are aware of how unhappy he is, they will eventually end his family's isolation; Ragusnik is unimpressed. Lamorak learns that he must leave immediately, as other Elseverians will no longer have anything to do with him. Now that he has worked at Ragusnik's job, he is an untouchable himself.

7th April, 2523: "Stranger in Paradise" Anthony Smith has gone into telemetrics, and is working on the Mercury Project, the purpose of which is to send a robot to Mercury. This is a problem because the positronic brain at the time is not yet adapted to such an environment, so a computer on Earth must direct the robot. However, the speed of light communications lag between Earth and Mercury can last up to twenty-two minutes, making computer control difficult. Anthony attempts to solve this problem by recruiting a homologist that can design a positronic brain that resembles a human brain. The leading homologist in this area is his brother William, and much to their mutual embarrassment, the two wind up working together. William struggles to help form the brain, but when the robot is tested in Arizona, it is terribly clumsy. Anthony sees no hope in the robot, but William argues that it was designed for the environment of Mercury, not Arizona. When the robot is sent to Mercury, it operates smoothly, and the project is a success. The solution, William realized, was to use an autistic human rather than a computer to direct the robot. William and Anthony befriend each other after being so long separated.

c. 3000: "The Last Question" (2) Jerrod, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II move from Earth to X-23, with a Microvac computer aboard the ship. Jerrod asks Multivac the same "entropy" question asked in 2061, and Multiav gives the same response: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

3548: By the Foundation Era, this is around the time people think the Trantorian Empire is established - possibly another sign of inaccurate dating by that time (see 26,000 BC). Alternatively, it could have started out as a minor Spacer world Empire.

c. 3720: "Mother Earth" The Outer Worlds rebel against Earth, and the Three-Week War follows as part of the Pacific Project to force Earth to make necessary reforms including the use of robots, hydroponic agriculture, and population control, and Earth swiftly loses. Trade ends between Earth and its colonies, as the Outer Worlds have no need of Earth's exports, which are mostly agricultural, and Earthmen are not allowed to journey beyond the Solar System.

Later Spacer Era (3720-4720)[]

c. 4100: Kelden Amadiro constructs and sells R. Plussix. The robot will come to lead the Calvinian faction thousands of years later in the Galactic Era.

4150s: Death of the owners of R. Plussix on Aurora.

4393: Rutilan Horder is born on Aurora.

Early 45th century: Solaria is first settled by Nexonains to deal with the overpopulation of Nexon, letting people go to Solaria. Solaria established its independence without war off of its needed robot industry as not to get as high a population as Nexon had.

4421: Founding of the "City" of New York.

4453: Alfred Barr Humbolft is born.

4486: Han Fastolfe is born on Aurora.

c. 4672: Robots are introduced into the Cities of Earth, allowed for various work purposes.

After 4673: Gennao Sabbat is born.

4674: Vasilia Fastolfe is born.

4679: Elijah Baley is born on Earth, as well as Lavinia Demacheck, who would later become Undersecretary of the Terrestrial Department of Justice, and encounter Baley briefly during the Jander Panell roboticide case in The Robots of Dawn.

4674 - 4684: Rutilan Horder becomes the Chairman of Aurora.

4689: Gladia is born in Solaria.

4696: Spacetown is established by the Spacers on Earth as an experiment to try and get the Earthmen to colonise new worlds.

4701: R. Preston and R. Idda, two robots of the same model, are built in the same factory and become the personal robotic servants to mathematicians Humbolft and Sabbat respectively.

4702: Elijah Baley and Jessie meet over a bowl of punch.[50]

4709: Globalist Auroran Kelden Amadiro begins gathering like-minded people into a group for the Robotics Institute.[51]

4712: Gladia is assigned Rikaine Delmarre as husband. Permission is obtained from the Legislature for Kelden Amadiro to found the Robotics Institute.[52]

4715: The building of the Robotics Institute begins.[53]

4718: Active work begins at the Robotics Institute on Aurora.[54]

4719: Klorissa Cantoro becomes Rikaine Delmarre's assistant in foetology, to take over when he retires or dies.

4720: Auroran robotocists Roj Nemenuh Sarton and Fastolfe create the first humaniform robot, named R. Daneel Olivaw. Fastolfe creates the theory for the body and positronic brain of the humaniform robot, and Sarton builds the robot, who is created in Sarton’s image, being identical to him.

Baley's Epochal Investigations (4721-4724)[]

4721: The Caves of Steel. Police Commissioner Julius Enderby attempts to kill R. Daneel Olivaw, but breaks his glasses and mistakes his creator Dr. Sarton for him (he was created in his image) and kills him. He hires his old friend Baley and Olivaw for the case, thinking he will be able to prevent them from finding the truth. Along the way Baley shows the Spacers through Dr. Fastolfe they are the Medievalist problem and leave Earth. Eventually, after much trouble and red herrings, in the last hour Enderby admits it under pressure after Elijah works it out, and instead of the case being abandoned an agreement is formed where he converts the Medievalists to colonists and the Spacers leave Earth, but is no longer Commissioner. After this investigation, Elijah is promoted to a C-6 rating from C-5.[55]

4722:[55] The Naked Sun. Solarian roboticist Jothan Leebig begins working on a way of subverting the robots' inability to kill humans, achieved by understanding a missing word in the Three Laws of Robotics; "knowingly". He uses this knowledge to cause the death of Rikaine Delmarre at the hands of his wife Gladia using the detachable limb of a robot, who is opposed to his plans, while Gladia invokes in him base desires he despises. Dr. Fastolfe recommends Elijah Baley with R. Daneel Olivaw as his partner as a detective on the crime. He is called into investigate by the Solarian government, and with a secret mission from Earth to access the Solarian society for weaknesses. During his investigation, Leebig manages to poison the "police investigator" (until this murder, there had been no need for police on Solaria) using a pair of robots, and nearly kill Elijah in a similar way. However, Elijah eventually solves the case, omitting that Gladia was the one to actually strike the blow. Before he can be taken into custody, Leebig, fearing Daneel, who he thinks is human, coming to him in person, out of fear of human contact, slits his own throat. At the end of this investigation, Elijah's rating, which had been temporarily moved while on Solaria, changes from C-6 to C-7 permanently. Meanwhile, Kelden Adamiro completes the Robotics Institute in its final form.[56]

Before 4723: Gennao Sabbat devises a revolutionary mathematical technique for neural analysis, and discusses the matter with Humboldt while abroad. Humboldt is strongly supportive of the idea, and Sabbat writes a paper on the subject to be presented at a scientific conference in 4723. However, Humboldt steals it.

4723: "Mirror Image" Baley and Daneel briefly reunite to solve the unimportant case of Gennao Sabbat and Humboldt, concluding Humboldt has stolen from Sabbat.[55]

4724: The Robots of Dawn. Fastolfe donates Jander Panell to Gladia's robotic household on Aurora. Kelden Amadiro uses Vasilia, who is being constantlly offered sex by Santrix Gremionis, to have Gremionis offer himself to Gladia instead. He does and they go on walks. During these walks, Amadiro experiments on him to find the secret of humaniform robots. Giskard discovers this and uses his telepathic powers to destroy Jander. Baley is called to Aurora to solve this "roboticide" and exposes Amadiro, coming to the conclusion it was merely chance that Jander was deactivated. Secretly, however, he confronts Giskard who admits it was him to Baley and then Daneel.[55]

Settler Era (4724-8500)[]

4728: Baleyworld, the first of Settler Worlds, from the new waves of settlers from Earth, is founded.

4729: Elijah Baley, in a ship orbiting Aurora, meets Gladia, who comes to the ship on Fastolfe’s one, for the last time.

4730: Gladia and Gremionis’ son Darrel, later the ancestor of D.G. and Mandamus, is born.

4758: Elijah Baley dies.

4868: Sindra Lambid is born.

c. 4900: The marriage of Gladia and Gremionis is dissolved with no hard feelings on either side.

4904: Odyssey, Suspicion, Cyborg, Prodigy, Refuge, Perihelion. Derec journeys to Robot City, a city of robots, with a handful of transient humans. There, Derec meets another mysterious person calling herself Katherine, whose real name turns out to be Ariel, and together the two disprove their role in the apparent murder of a human whose identity is not known by the robots. Fleeing an increasingly dangerous Robot City, Derec and Ariel journey to Earth to find the city's creator, the insane Dr. Avery and learn their true identities.

4905: Changeling, Renegade, Intruder, Alliance, Maverick, Humanity.

c. 4910: Mirage, Chimera, Aurora, Have Robot, Will Travel.

4913: Frustrated by his series of failures, Amadiro accepts an ambitious and unscrupulous apprentice, Levular Mandamus, who plans to destroy the population of the Earth by a newly developed weapon, the "nuclear intensifier", with which to accelerate the natural radioactive decay in the upper crust of the Earth, thereby making the surface of the Earth radioactive.

4914: Mirage.

4915: Chimera. The population of Solaria vanishes.

4916: Aurora.

4920: Han Fastolfe dies and gives R. Daneel and R. Giskard to Gladia, acknowledging her on his deathbed as his daughter, not Vasilia, his biological daughter, which she accepts.

4921: Have Robot, Will Travel.

4922: Robots and Empire. A seventh-generation descendant of Baley's, Daneel Giskard ('D.G.') Baley, gains Gladia's help in visiting Solaria, to investigate the destruction of several "Settler" spaceships that made landings there, and to capture the presumably unsupervised robots. Gladia is accompanied by the positronic robots R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov. At the same time, Daneel and Giskard are engaged in a struggle of wits with Fastolfe's rivals: they discover Amadiro’s plan, and attempt to stop him; but are hampered by the First Law of Robotics, which prevents them from a direct attack on Amadiro. Daneel and Giskard, meanwhile, have inferred an additional Zeroth Law of Robotics: “A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”. This might enable them to overcome Amadiro, if they can use their telepathic perception of humanity to quell the inhibitions of the first law. When Vasilia accuses Giskard of telepathy (earlier created by herself) Giskard is compelled to manipulate her mind to make her forget about his telepathic powers. The two robots locate Amadiro and Mandamus on Earth, at the site of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. After Amadiro admits their plans, Giskard alters Amadiro's brain (using the newly created Zeroth Law); but in so doing, threatens his own. Now alone with the robots, Mandamus claims that his intentions were to draw out the radioactive catastrophe over many decades, rather than the mere years that Amadiro wanted, and Giskard, believing it best for humanity to abandon the Earth, allows Mandamus to do this, and deprives Mandamus of the memory of doing so. Giskard predicts, correctly, that by forcing humanity into leaving the Earth, vigor will be reintroduced into mankind and the new Settlers will populate space until all the governments of the interstellar colonies form a "Galactic Empire". Under the stress of changing the course of humanity (against First and Zeroth Laws), R. Giskard himself suffers a soon-fatal malfunction of his positronic brain and confers his telepathic ability upon R. Daneel. The Great Diaspora (final emigration) begins. A majority of robots split into two camps. Giskardians led by Daneel follow the new Zeroth Law religion. Calvinians think this an outrage. Robotic civil war ensues, mostly unseen by humans fleeing poisoned Earth. Meanwhile robot ships operating under Auroran programming cruise the galaxy ahead of the spreading Settlers, terraforming and preparing planets for colonization. Meme entities will later claim that this devastated existing races. Memes escape to the Galactic Core of Trantor, and later become part of the Mesh.

c. 5000: Daneel establishes the planetary superorganism Gaia to try and simplify “humanity” so that he can follow the Zeroth Law, hoping for the galactic-wide superorganism of Galaxia to eventually be formed.

5030: Caliban. Spacer-colonized planet Inferno is doomed by ecological and cultural catastrophe. Robots are built to operate under New Laws, giving them greater flexibility and freedom.

5031: Inferno. Settler specialists help terraform the planet. Hostility toward New Law robots grows evident. Comet crashes into the planet. Merging of Spacer and Settler culture prevents social collapse. The interstellar robot civil war eventually reaches Inferno.

5036: Utopia. New Law robots are destroyed or go into hiding.

c. 5377: MQ-17J is born.

c. 5400s: VJ-23X is born.

c. 5500: Trantor is colonized, and Royal Trantor begins.

c. 5600: "The Last Question"(3) A Galactic AC exists, as well as a Galactic Council. VJ-23X and MQ-17J ask Multivac the "entropy" question once more, and it gives the same answer.

5922: The Stars, Like Dust. Planet Rhodia and the Nebular Kingdoms led by the noble Hinriad family shake off rule by planet Tyrann and rediscover democracy. Decadent Spacer worlds slowly die out. Colonization of Galaxy completed. R. Daneel Olivaw formulates the Encoding Laws, setting limits to artificial intelligence. Damping effects such as historical amnesia, brain fever, and Giskardian mentalic persuasion devices are introduced to fight chaos. Human mind, society and technology stagnate. Some human and robot groups fight the amnesia.

c. 7000 - 8000: The Trantorian Republic emerges from Royal Trantor.[57]

Trantorian Era (8500-11586)[]

c. 3000 BGE/8500 AD: The Trantorian Republic of five worlds becomes the Trantorian Confederation, then later the Trantorian Empire. R. Daneel Olivaw uses early "laws of humanics" to guide it. The human origins are forgotten.

c. 500 BGE/11086 AD: The Currents of Space. At this point, half of the inhabited worlds of the Galaxy are part of the Trantorian Empire. Trantor supports the rebellion on the planet Florina against oppression by the planet Sark.

100s BGE/11500s AD: The chimpanzees of Earth are brought to Panucopia.[58]

Undivided Galactica Era (1-11949 GE)[]

1 GE/11,586 AD: The Trantorian Empire becomes a virtual Galactic Empire as the dominating kingdom. The first emperor of the new Empire, Frankenn I, who is part of the Kamble dynasty, is coronated. The Galactic Era calendar begins.[59] The last person is burned at the stake on Trantor.[60]

3 GE (or 1 GE): Another version of the Galactic Era begins, only two years apart from the actual date. It probably emerges due to the founding of the Empire happening over multiple years.

827 GE: Pebble in the Sky (2). Joseph Schwartz arrives on Earth in this year after being thrown forward in time. A radioactive sparsely populated Earth tries to revolt against the Empire by using a bio-weapon. The rebellion fails, thanks partly to Schwartz and a mentalic amplifier. The Empire initially helps Earth recover, with Daneel's influence.[61]

c. 850 GE: The fall of Emperor Kandar V.[62]

900 GE: The forced evacuation of inhospitable Earth, manouvered by Daneel, and establishment of the colony on planet Alpha, “New Earth”, after the Empire grows tired of the failing attempt at the planet's recovery.[63][61]

975 GE: "Blind Alley" An alien race is discovered on a desert world and moved to Cepheus 18. Later they mysteriously escape beyond the Galaxy.

2000 GE: The de facto Galactic Empire in existence is officialised as an accepted Empire. Daneel and R. Yan Kansarv establish a robot production and repair facility on distant Eos. The great Emperor Ruellis helps establish principles of good paternalistic government, augmenting the stability of an unchanging society against chaos. The trains are built going under the crust of Trantor.

2000s GE: Scientocracy emerges, feeding rigidity. The chimpanzees of Panucopia are genetically modified.

3000s GE: Daneel's original positronic brain deteoriates and he adopts his 2nd one.[64]

4000s GE: During a chaos outbreak, ancient personality simulations Voltaire and Joan of Arc debate about machine intelligence. With support of Calvinian robots, the Empress Shoree-Harn tries to introduce a new calendar and shake up social rigidity without success.

6000s GE: Historians of the Galactic Empire get into the act of marshalling the past into a preferred flavor.[65]

Early 7000s GE: The Dacian dynasty rule the Galactic Empire. Some of their descendants become the Mayors of the Wye sector of Trantor, giving them the feeling they have a right to the Imperial throne.

c. 8000 GE: The orthodox Ruellians begin their secret plan to develop a select breed of Imperial administrators and bureacrats. Tua Chen divises his two Books of Rules in his maturity, based on Ruellian principles: one of training an aristocratic administrators, the other for trainign the Empire's hundreeds of billions of bureacrats, the Greys.

8045-8086 GE: Myths of the Eternals, the authoritative work on the Eternals, is compiled by a committee of 300 authors, in 92 volumes of text with 29 hours of documentary media.

8789 GE: A new "renaissance" begins on planet Lingane.

8797 GE: Lingane falls into chaos.

9600s GE: On Helicon, a group of “Globalists” emerges. They insist that Helicon is the only inhabited globe in the universe. Globalism causes a diminishing of Imperial trade and the Heliconian economy goes down. When the belief begins to affect the pocketbooks of the population, it loses popularity rapidly.

10000s GE: Emperor Loris VI uses the Previous Inclosure imperfectly during his campaigns. Trantor becomes the galaxy's Imperial Capital once again as it was during the time of the Trantorian Empire.

c. 10600 GE: A scholar lectures about the decline of humor in the Empire.

c. 11000 GE: Liebel Gennerat proclaims Gennerat’s Law: “The falsely dramatic drives out the truly dull.” The planet Huylens is colonized.

c. 11000 GE: Lameth writes a book on the Origin Question suggesting the third planet of the Arcturan sector.[66]

11504 GE: Terminus, a class-E world located just beyond the Prefect of Anacreon, is first discovered by Captain Elak Horbus of the Imperial Survey Service.

11790 GE: Kalgan first gains fame as the pleasure world of the galaxy.[67]

c. 11840 GE: The beginning of the Entun dynasty of Galactic emperors.

11865 GE: Humanoid robot Dors Venabili is constructed on Eos.

11867 GE: The only extragalactic human colony is abandoned in the Greater Magellanic Cloud, after coming into contact with the "Cepheids" once again. All data is suppressed. The Meritocrat and Palace Treaty is signed. The Flower of Evil is constructed.

Early 11940s GE: Malcomber is born.

The Decline of the Empire (11949-12069 GE)[]

11949 GE: The Zeonian Rebellion. Anacreon begins to grow independent.

Late 11900s GE: Malcomber is appointed Chief Gardener for Galactic Emperor Stanel VI. Great Anacreonian culturist Tapper Savad plans out the geometry of the Imperial Palace grounds on Trantor.

-102 FE/11967 GE: Daneel takes on his 5th positronic brain.[68]

-99 FE/11970 GE: A time of peace begins on Trantor, misleading many to think the Empire is at it’s peak. An Imperial Encyclopaedia is published.

-89 FE/11980 GE: Mannix IV becomes Mayor of Wye.

-83 FE/11986 GE: Laskin Joranum is born in Mycogen.

-81 FE/11988 GE: Both Hari Seldon and Cleon I are born, Hari Seldon on Helicon in the Arcturus Sector to a tobacco grower father and Cleon on Trantor to Stanel VI. Daneel Olivaw knows the Empire is destabilizing, partly due to frequent chaos outbreaks. He is forced by the Zeroth Law to actively interfere, first as Chief of Staff, then the as First Minister. His secret genetic experiments lead both to Hari's mathematical genius and the appearance of many more human mentalics on Trantor.

-74 FE/11995 GE: Trantor’s population stands at almost 45 billion at this time. From this point to 12,020, it begins decreasing as the Empire falls.

-71 FE/11998 GE: Mannuell Gruber becomes a gardener of the Imperial Palace.

-70 FE/11999 GE: Siwenna stops being the capital of the Provinces. Yugo Amaryl is born in Billibotton, in the Dahl sector of Trantor.

-63 FE/12008 GE: Raych is born in Billibotton.[69]

-61 FE/12010 GE: Cleon I, the last emperor of the Entun dynasty, succeeds the Imperial throne from his father Stanel IV and becomes Emperor at only 22. [70]Mannix IV becomes ready for Wye’s Imperial coup, needing only the assurance of security beyond victory.

-52 FE/12017 GE: The New Renaissance on Madder Loss. It becomes a promising word of intellect, philosophy and science. Mors Planch begins his service to the Empire.

-51 FE/12018 GE: R. Dors Venabili joins the faculty of Streeling University on Trantor.

-49 FE/12020 GE: Prelude to Foundation. Hari Seldon lectures on possibility of psychohistory at the Decennial Mathematics Convention. Daneel, under the two guises of First Minister Eto Demrezel and reporter Chetter Hummin, persuades him to develop a practical science to help save the Empire after making him run across Trantor as Hummin from his alter ego Demerzel; this is known as The Flight, and during it he visits Streeling University, Mycogen, Dahl and Wye. In Wye, the Imperial coup nearly succeeds but Daneel intervenes as Demerzel and rescues Hari, ending the Flight. Seldon deduces he is a robot. Dors Venabili becomes Seldon's wife. They adopt a boy, Raych. Seldon and Yugo Amaryl begin to flesh out psychohistory.

-40s FE/12020s GE: Suspicions raised about meteorologist Jenarr Leggen putting Hari Seldon in danger during the Flight help poison his career and private life.

-46 FE/12023 GE: Hari and Raych Seldon visit Dahl once more.

-42 FE/12027 GE (1 AS): R. Lodovik Trema is given his name. Konner Mire, the discoverer of Mire Space, teaches Mors Planch. As Hari Seldon descended into legend, some believed this his birthdate.[71]

-41 FE/12028 GE: "Eto Demerzel" Seldon helps remove Laskin Joranum from politics, using Raych as a spy. Daneel resigns his post, leaving Trantor and then the Galactic Empire to the Moon of Earth, where he sets up a small settlement of robots before returning to Trantor secretly. Seldon becomes a candidate for First Minister.

-40 FE/12029 GE: Foundation's Fear. Calvinian robots, led by R. Plussix, move to Trantor and find historical documents dating from era of Shoree-Harn as well as the sims Voltaire and Joan of Arc, before seeding the conversion of Sark into a New Renaissance world. The sims are sold to Yugo Amaryl who recovers them and gives them to Artifice Associates for use in a second debate, as well as using them in psychohistory with Seldon. Councilman Betan Lamurk campaigns against Seldon. Hari and Cleon use a damnatio memoriae against the criminals of Trantor. After a failed assassination attempt, Hari and Dors flee trantor to escape Lamurk and his agents, to Panucopia, where another assassination is attempted on both of them. Fleeing once more to Sark, a New Renaissance World, they meet up with Daneel. The Junin sector debate goes into chaos when Joan and Voltaire fall in love, and escape into Trantor’s Mesh, meeting the Memes hiding there. Hari allies with the Memes to aid his return to Trantor and defeat of Lamurk through the Tiktok Revolts, and then accepts his position as First Minister. Daneel revives Lamurk. Hari purges the New Renaissance planets, or "chaos worlds", to simplify psychohistory and protect the Empire.

-39 FE/12030 GE: Hari is nearly assassinated. Dors savers him and gardener Mandell Gruber bravely attempts to. As a result, two Ministers, five officials of lower ranks, and four soldiers (including the Sergeant who tries to kill Seldon) are executed, and every guardsman who cannot withstand the most rigorous investigation is relieved of duty and exiled to the remote Outer Worlds. Dors gains the nickname “The Tiger Woman”. The Decennial Mathematics Convention occurs once more.

-37 FE/12032 FE: Nikolo Pas butchers billions in the Seventh Octant system under claims of a robot conspiracy. He captures a Calvinian robot which escapes, then is captured by the Empire. Hari Seldon interviews him in the Rikerian along with other tyrants to help with psychohistory.

-34 FE/12035 GE: Stettin Palver is born.

-32 FE/12037 GE: Mors Planch visits Madder Loss to gather information for Linge Chen, currently the First Grade Administrator of Second Octant trade. He also experiences neutrino surge from a planet being broken up and swallowed by a wormhole in one of the transit-station disasters. Laskin Joranum dies on Nishaya.

-31 FE/12038 GE: "Cleon I" Assassination of Cleon I. A military junta seizes power. Seldon resigns as First Minister.

-29 FE/12040 GE: Birth of Wanda Seldon, daughter of Raych. A new "renaissance" begins on planet Madder Loss. Its collapse rocks galactic society. Another Decennial Mathematics Convention.

-27/12042 GE: Lodovik Trema and Linge Chen both begin their service to the Empire, and begin rising together. They found the Commission of Public Safety.

-23 FE/12046 GE: Hari Seldon begins developing the mathematics of Psychohistory, according to “The Psychohistorians“. However, the prequels make it clear this began much earlier.

-22 FE/12047 GE: Someone visits the library of Huy Markin.

-21 FE/12048 GE: "Dors Venabili" Dors Venabili is "killed" by Project member Tamwile Elar by a combination of his Electro-Static device and having killed him. She is given a false atom-dispersal burial without official supervision. Fall of the junta. Puppet Emperor Agis XIV ascends the throne. Real power is in the hands of the Commission for Public Safety. Daneel brings Dors to the Eos base for repair. Nikolo Pas dies in the Rikerian.

-20 FE/12049 GE: The Commission of Public Safety begin hearings in Courtroom 7 of the Imperial Courts Building. Klayus I is born.

-19 FE/12050 GE: Another Decennial Mathematics Convention.

-17 FE/12052 GE: "Wanda Seldon"(1) Birth of Bellis Seldon. Hari Seldon discovers Wanda's metal abilities. He tries to find others, without success. Psychohistorical equations predict the unavoidable collapse of the Empire. Seldon team works out plan to save human knowledge and create a Second Empire via the Foundation.

-15 FE/12054 GE: Death of Yugo Amaryl. On his deathbed, Hari Seldon first proposes the Second Foundation.

-17-10 FE/12052-12057 GE: The codes of the Imperial Palace are changed.

-11 FE/12058 GE: "Wanda Seldon" (2) Raych, Manella, and Bellis move to Santanni where a New Renaissance has begun. Anacreon Province seeks independence. Chaos breaks out on Santanni, Raych dies, and his family is lost in space. Stettin Palver, another Mentalic, joins the Seldon Project. Wanda and Stettin leave Hari and begin traveling across Trantor and finding Mentalics to join the future Second Foundation.

-9 FE/12060 GE: Emperor Agis XIV is deposed by the Commission of Public Safety, led into exile by General Prothon, who then retires. Linge Chen gives Farad Sinter an antique machine that gives off aromas of a thousand worlds. Lewis Pirenne is born. Another Decennial Mathematics Convention.

-7 FE/12062 GE: Farad Sinter orchestrates an Imperial Court scandal resulting in the disappearance of the greatest psychologist of Trantor who has built a machine to assist in Linge Chen's mental exercises.

-5 FE/12064 GE: A riot of bioluminescent algae begins to decay the oceans of Trantor.

-4 FE/12065 GE: Hari Seldon begins preparing for his Foundation to leave for Terminus after he calculates he will most likely be exiled there. Imperial scientists find Kale's Star.

-3 FE/12066 GE: Farad Sinter's men interview Hari Seldon on Mycogenian legends.

-2 FE/12067 GE: "The Psychohistorians" and Foundation and Chaos. Puppet emperor Klayus I rules under Linge Chen. R. Lodovik Trema has his Three Laws removed by Voltaire. Him and Daneel visit Eos and bring a repaired Dors to Trantor, where Lodovik joins the Calvinians for a time. Gaal Dornick visits Trantor to join the Seldon Project, and Hari visits him to prompt the Commission of Public Safety to take action. Indeed, him and Gaal are put on trial and, with the push of the Second Foundation, the Commission exiles the Encyclopedia Foundation to Terminus, although Hari is forced to stay on Trantor. Vara Liso, a strong mentalic, gets entangled in Farad Sinter's hunt for robots. Klia Asgar joins the Calvinians, falling in love with another Mentalic, Brann. Farad Sinter attempts to establish a Commission of General Security, but is foiled by Linge Chen and General Prothon. R. Plussix is deactivated. Klia, Lodovik and Brann are sent to stop Hari from developing psychohistory. A confrontation occurs, involving Brann, Klia, Lodovik, Hari, Dors, Vara and Daneel at the Hall of Dispensation. Lodovik kills Vara Liso when she attempts to kill Klia. Linge Chen rounds up the Calvinians and the Mentalics working for them and puts them in prison, as well as Mors Planch in the Rikerian. Daneel releases them, and gets Lodovik to rejoin the Giskardians, declaring him truly human. After witnessing the power of Vara Liso, Hari thinks his Plan is doomed, but Daneel, Dors, Wanda, Stettin and Klia convince him otherwise. Mors Planch takes Lodovik to Eos and pretends to take Klia, Brann, Wanda and Stettin to Kalgan, deceiving Daneel. In reality, they stay on Trantor and establish the Second Foundation there.

12068 GE: Foundation’s Triumph. Reign of puppet Emperor Semrin. Members of the Encyclopedia Foundation exiled to Terminus. Daneel plans using human mentalics to design an overmind Gaia. Millions of ancient archives destroyed. A New Renaissance on planet Ktlina is devoured by chaos. A heretic robot tries to send Seldon into the future but is foiled by Daneel. Mors Planch dives into the future.

Rise of the Foundation (1-200 FE)[]

1 FE/12069 GE: "Epilogue" and"The Originist" Hari Seldon is found dead slumped over his desk at Streeling University. This begins the Foundation Era calendar, and the Golden Age of the Foundation. Meanwhile, the province of Anacreon gives itself up to brigandage, barbarism, and anarchy. Commissioner Linge Chen dies. Replacement pays attention mostly to Trantor and vicinity. Psychohistorians provoke secession at Empire's Periphery.[72]

4 FE/12072 GE: A Foundation map is created that Hober Mallow will later use.

14 FE: Yohan Lee is born.

18 FE: Salvor Hardin is born.

29 FE (1 YF): The First Foundation is officially established.[73]

31 FE: As the population of Terminus increases, the various subcommittees that oversee municipal functions begin meeting together periodically as a body.

40 FE: Salvor Hardin meets Yohan Lee.

43 FE: Stettin Palver dies.

45 FE: By this time, the municipal subcommittees on Terminus have ceased meeting with the rest of the Encyclopedia Committee.

c. 45 FE: Salvor Hardin is trained by Dr. Bor Alurin, the only Second Foundationer to have settled on Terminus, as a psychologist. Hardin does not complete his studies under Alurin, who is a notoriously uninstructive teacher, as he grows tired of theory. Thus, he is unable to become a psychological engineer, so he enters local politics instead.

50 FE: "The Encyclopedists" Terminus is faced with the first of the "Seldon Crises," the events which will force it into choices that will eventually lead to the Second Empire. Four nearby provinces of the Empire have rebelled, forming independent kingdoms. Those kingdoms are fairly barbarous and the leaders of the most powerful, Anacreon, begin threatening Terminus, which they covet for its strategic location vis-a-vis their rivals and for its advanced technology. Terminus has no mineral wealth - steel is so valuable that it is used to coin money - and so the Anacreonian envoy, Anselm Haut Rodric, proposes to implement a form of feudalism in exchange for "protection" from the other kingdoms. The Foundation's Board of Trustees is blind to the danger, spending all of its time working on the encyclopedia. The Mayor of Terminus City, Salvor Hardin, does perceive the danger, but he lacks the legal authority to act, all power under the Foundation's charter being vested in the Board of Trustees. He realizes that the key to beating this crisis is to play the "Four Kingdoms" off each other. At the ceremonial opening of the time-locked vault at the Seldon Museum, a holographic image of Seldon appears and announces that the Encyclopedia Galactica project had always been a fraud from its inception: the real purpose of the settlement of Terminus was to place the Foundation out of reach of the Empire for the near term. In addition, he reveals that the true goal of the Foundation is to further science in a galaxy consumed by interplanetary strife. The Board of Trustees are devastated, but fortunately for the Foundation, Hardin has engineered a bloodless coup leaving him in control of the planet, free to carry out his strategy. The first Seldon Crisis has been resolved in accordance with the plan.

62 FE: Linge Chen dies.

65 FE: King Lepold I is born.

78 FE: The King of Anacreon dies. He is succeeded by Lepold I.

80 FE: "The Mayors" Relationships between the Foundation and nearby systems are based in technology transfer and Scientism, a religion which the Foundation sets up around its technology to control the several larger systems that surround them. Only the priests, educated on Terminus, have the knowledge to use the technology--but they think it is mystical, not scientifically explainable. The Priesthood system, while an effective hold on the Four Kingdoms (Anacreon, Smyrno, Konom and Daribow) surrounding Terminus, caps any possible scientific rebellion and delocalization of knowledge: the most brilliant students of the sciences remain on Terminus as research students and finally citizens, drastically enhancing the scientific superiority of the Foundation. Salvor Hardin remains Mayor of Terminus, although his political dominance is being challenged by "The Actionist Party," a rival political party demanding "direct action" to challenge the military dominance of the surrounding systems. A bellicose warlord, the Prince Regent Wienis of Anacreon, tries to take over the First Foundation by force of arms and the fortuitous recovery and salvage of a mighty warship, an old Imperial frigate restored by Foundation fleet technicians as an attempted appeasement. However, psychohistory has foreseen such an event, as the people of the Kingdoms already look to the Foundation for authority, while the secular power of the Kings is already a sub-function of priestly, and therefore Foundation, control. Seldon, appearing again in the time vault after the second crisis is resolved, warns the Foundation that the "spiritual power" of science, while sufficient for defending themselves, is not sufficient to sustain a future expansion into the galaxy.

85 FE: The High Priests of the Four Kingdoms are appointed First Ministers of their respected kingdoms as part of Mayor of Terminus Sef Sermak’s Sermark Reforms.

97 FE: The Sermark reforms end.

104 FE: Emperor Stanel VI dies. This starts a time of rebellion and ruin on the planet Siwenna.

112 FE: Hober Mallow is born.

c. 134 FE: "The Traders" Trader Limmar Ponyets is dispatched to Askone, a world rich in raw materials which has thus far spurned any commerce with the First Foundation, due to Askonian society's ban on atomic technology and as part of its religion of ancestor worship. Ponyets's job is to negotiate for the release of Eskel Gorov, a Foundation agent who was sent to find a way to initiate trade with Askone. This was a violation of that planet's law, and Gorov is scheduled to be executed by lethal gassing. The Grand Master (their elderly leader) is firm about not accepting any technology from the Foundation and about proceeding with Gorov's execution. However, Ponyets convinces them to release Gorov in exchange for 500 pounds of gold made by a transmuter he has jury-rigged from his ship. Ponyets also accomplishes Gorov's mission of initiating trade with Askone. He blackmails a member of the governing council, Pherl, to buy all of his cargo, which consists of many atomic devices and machines forbidden by Askonian law. This council member, who does not believe in his culture's superstitions against technology, buys the transmuter from Ponyets, unaware that it has microfilm recorder to record him using it. As a result, he has now an incentive to work towards the legalization of those machines, so that he can begin using and selling them to recoup his loss. It is indicated that Pherl, who is young for someone so important in government, will be the next Grand Master shortly thanks to the transmuter's gold, further hastening Askone's future openness to Foundation trade and the controlling religion that it brings with it. Ponyets and Gorov head back to Terminus with two shiploads of tin, which Ponyets was able to extract from Pherl as part of their bargain.

135 FE: Ducem Barr becomes a supervisor tech-man on Siwenna.

150 FE: Sennet Forell, the illegitimate son of Hober Mallow, is born.

154-155 FE: "The Merchant Princes" (1) By then, the Four Kingdoms have been absorbed into the Foundation, and rumors of this make further expansion difficult. Hober Mallow travels with his space ship to the Republic of Korell, where Foundation priest Jord Parma seeks refuge aboard his ship, as the presence of Foundation priests is forbidden on Korellian worlds, and trade is highly restricted. A mob soon follows Parma, demanding Mallow hand him over. After interrogating Parma, Mallow gives him to the mob to be lynched. Afterwards, Mallow begins to suspect that the whole Parma matter was a set up, as the port Mallow docked at is far from any major population centers, and a large mob appeared out of nowhere. This suspicion is reinforced when the Korellian leader, Commdor Asper Argo, invites him to his residence to talk soon after the mob leaves with Parma. Mallow manages to strike up a trade deal with Argo, selling Foundation technology without the strings of Scientism. Upon seeing the nuclear pistols wielded by Argo's guards, Mallow realizes that the Galactic Empire still exists, and is attempting to extend its influence once again. Mallow visits the Imperial provincial world Siwenna, where he meets the impoverished patrician Onum Barr, as well as one of the Siwennan nuclear power plant technicians. Mallow has another realization as he talks with the technician: the Empire has fallen behind the Foundation in terms of technology, as the latter's scarcity of resources has forced their scientists to innovate and miniaturize Imperial technology to preserve resources; Imperial engineers have always built on vast scales because they had more than enough resources. Mallow returns to Terminus.

156-157 FE: "The Merchant Princes" (2) Joranne Sutt, the Mayor's secretary, accuses Hober Mallow of murder for his abandonment of Jord Parma, but Mallow reveals the priest was actually a member of the Korellian Secret Police. The resulting popular support allows Mallow to be elected Mayor and to have Sutt imprisoned. Pressured by his wife, Licia, the daughter of an Imperial governor, Asper Argo declares war on the Foundation. However, much to everyone's surprise, Mallow has Foundation forces retreat, and imposes an absolute trade embargo against Korell. As he explains later to a friend of his, though, there are good reasons for this: while the Foundation's fleet could conquer Korell, doing so would likely cause the Empire to intervene directly. Korell's economy has been realigned to work with the Foundation's technology, which only the Foundation itself can provide. The economic shift has been profitable for Argo and Korellian industrialists, but the wealth has begun to dry up with the war and the embargo. Foundation-supplied appliances and goods will begin to break down, and with the lack of any threat to Korellian territory itself, the Korellian people will grow discontent with their leaders, as while the Empire can supply battleships and weaponry, they lack the scientific knowledge to replace the Foundation's trade goods and industrial tooling. The war was decided the moment Mayor Mallow imposed the embargo.

160 FE: "The Merchant Princes" (3) As Hober Mallow predicted, Korell surrenders without a shot fired, allowing the Foundation to start a new phase of expansion by trade alone, concentrating power into the traders and merchants sent abroad. Cleon II becomes Galactic Emperor. Ducem Barr, sixth son of Onum Barr, kills the oppressive imperial viceroy of Siwennia.

166 FE: Bel Riose is born.

184 FE: Hober Mallow dies.

185-230 FE: Some historians refer to this period as the “minarchy”, when, on Terminus, real power is exercised by the heads of the Trade Combines and the civil government does little more than maintain public services on Terminus. What little legislation is passed during the Minarchy is directed against the independent traders. It is during this period that the first of the Independent Worlds are settled by traders driven from Terminus by laws that favor the Trade Combines. Denied access to goods produced on Terminus, the independent traders begin to specialize in trade between the Convention worlds, and even between non-Convention worlds.

190 FE: Lathan Devers visits Terminus.

195 FE: Imperial advisor Ammuel Brodig executes one in every ten males on Siwenna for their failure to pay taxes.

197 FE: Bel Riose figures out that Ducem Barr killed the viceroy that came to Siwennia and harmed his family.

198 FE: Warriors stop using electro-rods.[74]

200 FE: "The General" By this time, the Galactic Empire has been reduced to the inner third of its territory, although its decline is unnoticed by its citizens, even then. An unnamed but incompetent Mayor is elected in Terminus. Imperial General Bel Riose visits Ducem Barr on Siwenna, seeking legends about 'magicians,' meaning the Foundation and their advanced technology. He finds Terminus, and the Foundation captures an Imperial patrol vessel. After parsing through the legends of Hari Seldon, psychohistory, and the coming Second Galactic Empire, Riose decides the Foundation poses an existential threat to the Empire. He musters a fleet of battleships and auxiliary ships. Foundation Trader Lathan Devers is captured and brought before Riose, and befriends Barr, who is also a prisoner of Riose. Ammuel Brodig informs Cleon II of the war, and suspects that Riose may have ulterior motives to the war. All the same, Cleon decides to support Riose, sending Brodig with reinforcements to keep an eye on him. Devers and Barr escape the Imperial fleet, and flee to Trantor, hoping to use a vaguely worded communique from Brodig to Riose to frame them both for treason. Devers and Barr fail in the attempt, Brodig and Riose are recalled, charged with treason, and executed anyway, an outcome predicted by Seldon. Siwenna secedes from the Empire, and joins the Foundation. Devers becomes one of the first people to worry about the Second Foundation as an enemy, although he is generally ignored. The Golden Age of the Foundation ends.[75]

The Foundation Growing Tyrannical (200-289 FE)[]

203 FE: Cleon II dies.

208 FE: Sennett Forell dies.

214 FE: The Democratic Underground Party of Terminus is formed under the tyrannical rule of Mayor Indbur I. Lathan Devers dies in Indburs' slave mines along with Toran Darell's great grandfather.

251 FE: Han Pritcher is born.

255 FE: Galactic Emperor Dagobert VIII rules the remnants of the Empire. The rebel Gilmer's troops sack Trantor, and Dagobert VIII and his son, Prince Dagobert flee to the small planet Delicass, which is renamed Neotrantor and becomes the new Galactic Capital. In secret, the Second Foundation signs a peace treaty with Gilmer and manage to preserve the University/Library complex and the ruins of the Imperial Palace. After this, the Great Renewal begins; Trantor is transformed from a planet-wide city into a world of farmers as the metal is taken from the surface. Gilmer quickly loses control of the planet.

267 FE: The Mule is born on Gaia. His mother dies in childbirth.

c. 270 FE: Bail Channis is born.

276-284 FE: Poli's uncle is born.

276 FE: Bail Channis joins the Foundation fleet as a spy for the Second Foundation.^^

277 FE: Han Pritcher becomes an Officer of the Armed Forces.

284 FE: Han Pritcher is promoted to Captain in the Armed Forces.

287 FE: After years of travelling, Toran settles on Haven.

Era of the Mule (289-306 FE)[]

288 FE: The Mule's career begins when he gains allies with his power and then wins an unknown planet using his forces and his mentalic power.

293 FE: Han Pritcher enters the Army as Under-officer on the 102nd day of the year. Toran marries Bayta Darell.

294 FE: "The Mule" (1) The Mule conquers Kalgan. Toran and Bayta are sent to Kalgan to investigate the Mule and also to lure him to the Foundation. There, the clown Magnifico, escaped from the Mule's service, has Toran save him from a security guard by pretending to be a citizen of the Foundation. ID is demanded, and when they go the hangar, Han Pritcher, who has visited Kalgan against orders from Mayor Indbur III to go to Haven to collect taxes and not to be so disobedient out of personal interests about the Mule, visits them and informs them that the Mule is a dangerous mutant and that he knows they are not members of the Foundation as he is, and they should leave. Toran, Bayta, Han Pritcher and Magnifico leave the planet to warn the Foundation of the Mule. Han arrested for his disobedience on going to Kalgan and Toran, Bayta, and Magnifico are arrested as associates. Han Pritcher is brought to the Mayor shortly after a Seldon Crisis warning from psychologist Ebling Mis. Han and the others meet Ebling. The Traders plan a rebellion against the corrupt Foundation leadership with the Mule but when he turns on them, they join forces with the Foundation. Terminus' citizens look to Seldon's hologram for how to deal with the Mule, but Seldon predicts a Trader revolt against Terminus, rather than an attack by the Mule. Mule successfully conquers Terminus. Toran, Bayta, Magnifico and Ebling escape to Haven, which has not been taken over.

295 FE: "The Mule" (2) Toran, Bayta, Magnifico and Ebling Mis set out to find a way to defeat the Mule and find the Second Foundation to warn them of the Mule. Han, who does not escape, tries to assassinate the Mule by smuggling a nuclear weapon into his palace, but is arrested. Han is taken to a spaceship which follows the ship with the Mule and the others on through hyperspace, and under the guise of a "Fillian" ship stopping them for entering Fillian territory, the Mule converts Pritcher with his mentalic powers. Pritcher then finds and follows the Darells to Neotrantor, now ruled by Dagobert IX, where they are nearly defeated by the prince Dagobert, who is killed by emotional control of the Visi-Sonor by Magnifico. The Darells, Mis, and Magnifico proceed to the Imperial Library of Trantor with permission from Emperor Dagobert IX, where he visits and warns them to convert over to the Mule. Ebling, dying from overwork and failing health, finds the Second Foundation's location, but is killed by Bayta. She exposes Magnifico as the Mule. The latter is upset by Bayta's actions, but is still certain he will find and defeat the Second Foundation. He returns to his palace on Terminus and reforms his conquests into the Union of Worlds, launching expeditions to find the Second Foundation and sweeping aside the last remnants of the old Galactic Empire. Han Pritcher becomes General of the Mule’s forces.

295-300 FE: Under the Mule, General Han Pritcher leads several unsuccessful expeditions to seek the Second Foundation.

297 FE: The Second Foundation set out an expedition to Rossum, planting agents there to be ready to trick the Mule into their trap.

300 FE: "Search by the Mule" The Mule has Han Pritcher prepare for a new expedition to find the Second Foundation, which will be led by up-and-coming military prodigy Bail Channis, telling Pritcher that, as Channis has not been mentally manipulated, he might be able to make an intuitive jump of logic that will lead him to the Second Foundation. At the same time, he tells Channis that he believes there are Second Foundation moles in his Union of Worlds, and needs him to prevent Pritcher from falling to those moles, testing him by using emotional control on him and observing how he, for a moment, resists, and concluding that he must be an agent of the Second Foundation. Channis is a Second Foundation agent, and reveals that the Second Foundation is not located on Rossum, but Tazenda. The Mule's fleet journeys there, reducing Tazenda to a cinder. The Mule is ambushed by Preem Palver, First Speaker of the Second Foundation, who reveals that he has been misled once again. The Second Foundation was not on Tazenda. In a split moment of despair, the Mule is mentally vulnerable, and Palver exploits this, altering the Mule's mind, and turning him into a peaceful, benevolent ruler.

304 FE: Poli's uncle marries and has a daughter.

306 FE: The Mule dies of natural causes as a result of his mutations, and the Union of Worlds dies with him. Poli's uncle is killed in a war resulting from the collapse. After this war, Gaia begins helping the Seldon Plan to get back on track, but the conquest of the Mule still begins the Century of Deviations in the Seldon Plan.

Recovering from the Mule (306-376 FE)[]

334 FE: Toran Darell II is born.

c. 350 FE: The fallen ruins of the Galactic Empire definitively collapse with the death of the final Emperor on Neotrantor.

c. 358 FE: Homer Munn and Toran Darell II meet. Homer is Toran's brother-in-Law.

5th November 362 FE: Arkady Darell is born on Trantor.

365-367 FE: Arkady's mother dies on Trantor and Toran II and her leave Trantor for Terminus.

375 FE: Dr Kliese, the doctor who collected the data suggesting Second Foundation interference on Terminus, dies.

The Search by the Foundation (376-378 FE)[]

7th November 376 FE***: Pelleas comes to Darell's house.

16th November 376 FE: The first meeting of the Conspirators. Homer Munn is decided to be the one to go to Kalgan to get the files from 300 FE in the Mule's guarded palace.

21st December 376 FE: Homer Munn sets out, unknowingly with Arkady as a stowaway who had listened to their conversation.

23rd December 376 FE: Arkady reveals herself to Munn. Toran II finds the letter she left behind and lets her be part of the plan, deciding it is for the best.

24th December 376 FE: Munn asks Lord Stettin of Kalgan to get into the palace but is refused. Arkady lies to Lady Callia that the Second Foundation are on his side and they want to help him form his Second Empire. He gives them permission and sends 500 ships into space to conquer.

December 376 - January 377 FE: Munn studies but finds nothing. Eventually Lady Callia arranges for Arcadia to go to Trantor by double-tricking her that she wants her to go to Terminus. She meets Preem Palver, actually the first speaker, and his wife. The grid comes down on the spaceport but the policeman who asks for Arkady's papers, Orum Dirige, is working for the conspirators and lets them go, which Preem thinks is because of money in the papers. They go home to Trantor.

22nd January 377 FE: The Hober Mallow ship is blasted out of space by a Kalganian Fleet who were refused a search party coming on board, beginning the Kalganian War.

23rd January 377 FE: At this point the Kalganians are completely winning, being centred at the centre of the Galaxy with easy communication and the ability to quell the Foundation outwards.

6th Febuary 377 FE: Preem Palver sets out for Terminus with Arcadia's message to Toran "a circle has no end" trying to signify he shape of the galaxy and how (as she thinks) that Terminus is the Second Foundation, and also to make food distributions at war price.

17th September 377 FE: The Battle of Quoriston, the last battle of consequences during the Interregnum.

13:25, 17th September 377 FE: 75 Foundation ships and 300 Kalganian ships fight, the Kalganians being sure of victory.

13:30, 17th September 377 FE: 50 Foundation ships under Commander Cenn bound through hyperspace, trapping the Kalganian space fleet and crushing them.

1st January 378 FE: Homir Munn leaves Kalgan, thinking the Second Foundation does not exist and ready to tell Toran.

January 378 FE: The conspirators meet and discuss their theories about the second Foundation: Munn thinks it doesn't exist, Anthor saying it to be on Kalgan. Toran, convinced by Arkady that it's on Terminus, explains this to them and reveals the mind static before using it on Anthor, whom he knows is a Second Foundationer. A search on Terminus turns up 50 Second Foundation spies, who are imprisoned and killed, and the First Foundation is content they have destroyed the Second Foundation. This brings an end to the 72-year long 'Century of Deviations,' and ushers in an era of peace for the Foundation.

Great Peace (378-498 FE)[]

400 FE: The conservative elements of the Foundation’s population lose control of the government.

405 FE: Endomiandiovizamarondeyaso (Dom) is born on Gaia.

436 FE: Harla Branno is born.

7th January, 443 FE: Arkady Darell dies.

444 FE: Liono Kodell is born.

446 FE: Janov Pelorat is born.

461 FE: Pelorat is given a book of early legends, and his obsession with history begins.

464 FE: Munn Li Compor is born.

468 FE: Stor Gendibal is born.

478 FE: Stor Gendibal is recruited to the Second Foundation by an agent who recognises the potentiality of his mind.

480 FE: Quindor Shandess becomes First Speaker of the Second Foundation.

481 FE: Harla Branno becomes the real power behind two figureheads, despite not actually being Mayor.

483 FE: Liono Kodell becomes Director of Security on Terminus. Stor Gendibal enters Trantor’s Galactic University after an interview during which, when asked what his ambitions are, he answers firmly: “To be first Speaker before I am forty”.

491 FE: Munn Li Compor visits Comporellon. Littonal Thoobig becomes the Foundation’s Ambassador to Sayshell.

493 FE: Harla Branno becomes Mayor.

The Search for Earth and the Beginning of Galaxia (498-499 FE)[]

498 FE: Foundation’s Edge. On Mayor Branno's secret orders, Golan Trevize begins a search of the Galaxy for the Second Foundation, whom they both suspect is not extinct. The search leads him to the Gaia overmind, and faces Trevize with a dilemma. The Gaia overmind offers Trevize ("the man who is always right") a choice between an Empire governed by the physical forces of the First Foundation, an Empire governed by the mentalic forces of the Second Foundation, or a galaxy-sized version of Gaia called Galaxia. No other options are presented and no other humans consulted. Trevize chooses Galaxia. Preparations being for gradual assimilation of humanity into the collective overmind.

499 FE: Foundation and Earth. Trevize embarks on a journey, seeking to explain his choice. He visits Comporellon and the ancient Spacer worlds Aurora, Solaria and Melpomenia. On Solaria he finds the planet's vanished folk have become a new race. Bliss saves them from Solarian Bander and they save young Solarian Fallom, who may also be an alien from another galaxy. Triangulating the locations of the Spacer worlds, Trevize is able to find Earth, the legendary home of the human species. Reaching Earth, he meets R. Daneel Olivaw on the Moon. Olivaw reveals he has been paternalistically manipulating human civilization over the course of millennia, long before even the Galactic Empire, his actions compelled by the Zeroth Law of Robotics, to protect humanity at all costs. As he can no longer replace his degrading positronic brain, Olivaw merges with Fallom to go beyond the constraints of the Laws of Robotics and continue his work.

Late Interregnum (499-1000 FE)[]

520 FE: The First Galactic Coalescence Investigation Commission convenes on planet Pengia after the Battle of Chjerrups. The subsequent Great Destiny Debates rage on for 180 years, interrupted by waves of violence, amnesia, and chaos. The robotic civil wars also reignite. The civilizations of both Foundations approach an ultimate confrontation with both Gaia and Chaos.

682 FE: During the Fifth Great Destiny Debate, one of the Diversity-Federalist Coalitions reconstructs the holoplay Suns, Like Motes of Soil, from 8789 GE.

700 FE: End of the Great Destiny Debates.

8th century FE: The First Foundation finds the Second Foundation’s location, and eventually the two Foundations join together into one Foundation, the “Second Galactic Empire”.

Late 8th century FE: According to psychohistorical predictions added to the Seldon Plan by the Second Foundation, at this point the Second Galactic Empire is formed and is in the grip of rival personalities who will 'threaten to pull it apart if the fight is too even, or clamp it into rigidity, if the fight is too uneven'. There is also, according to the Second Foundation, a 12.64% chance of a compromise between two or more of the the conflicting personalities. According to them, it would freeze the Second Galactic Empire into 'an unprofitable mold', and eventually, civil wars would cause more damage then if there had never been a compromise. First Speaker Preem Palver contributed to the plan a method to avoid the last possibility. However, it is possible none of this even happens as a result of Trevize choosing Gaia and not the Second Empire - but also, it is still possible Gaia continue to get the Plan back on track and this does happen.

9th century FE: According to Bliss, Fallom would die around this time, in time to form Galaxia if all went to plan.

826 FE: The Siwenna Commune for Cooperative Contemplation releases the sim-cast Reflections on an Unplanned Destiny.

Second Galactic Era (1000-2000 FE)[]

1000 FE: At around this time, Seldon's psychohistory predicts the Great Interregnum will end with the successful execution of the Seldon Plan. The Second Galactic Empire will be fully formed, and peace will be restored to the Galaxy.

1020 FE: The 116th edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica is published on Terminus.

1054 FE: The 117th edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica is published on Terminus.

Intergalactic Era (2000s-10,000,000,000,000 FE)[]

c. 2000s FE: Mankind begins to colonize new galaxies, after many years trying after the actions of Golan Trevize.

c. 2500 FE: "Hostess" Humanity has met four other intelligent non-human races. While the other four races share many similarities, humans are unique among the five races in many ways. Harg Tholan, a medical researcher from Hawkin's Planet, visits Earth to work at the Jenkins Institute for the Natural Sciences. Research biologist Rose Smollett offers to host him in her home. Her new husband Drake, a member of the World Security Board, dislikes Tholan's presence. During dinner conversation, Tholan explains that he is investigating "Inhibition Death". The alien lists several unique things about humans: they are the only sentient race to eat meat, they lack any sort of telepathic ability, and to the Smolletts' great surprise, they are the only race to die of old age. Tholan reveals that the other races normally live indefinitely, growing at an ever-slowing rate over time, like Earth trees. Inhibition Death stops the growth, leading to death in a human-like way. He says that the disease has become much more common since travel between Earth and other planets began, and planets closest to Earth suffer the highest rates. Tholan asks Drake if he can be given a tour of a Missing Person's Bureau. The alien is intrigued by the idea, as the telepathy between members of other races makes missing people impossible. Drake agrees to take him to a police station the next day. That night, Drake tells Rose that Tholan had asked about him before the visit, and implies that he is there to see him, not Rose. The next day Rose reads some of Tholan's work which causes her to abandon the notion that he is an imposter. She considers whether the disease was created on Earth as a biological weapon, but rejects it as impossible given humans' lack of understanding of alien physiology. Thinking of her recent marriage, she wonders if Drake married her to meet Tholan, but rejects this as the timing was not possible. Reviewing the dinner conversation, she remembers Drake's seemingly overreaction to Tholan's polite mention of what a good hostess she was. At home, Rose mentions her research to Drake. He asks if Tholan has published any conclusions on how the disease spreads; he has not. Drake immediately confronts Tholan with a weapon. Tholan admits that he has come to a conclusion about the cause of the disease, but his research methods are repugnant to other Hawkinsites, so he had to keep it secret. He explains that the disease has been on Earth for millions of years, and higher animals live with it within their DNA as a sort of parasite. Humans are now partially immune to its effects, but eventually succumb. To spread, the disease controls human behavior, urging males—especially those in the first year of marriage—to have wanderlust so they can infect new hosts. Tholan notes that with the development of interstellar travel, almost all missing persons have fled to space. After Tholan admits that he has told no one else of the theory, Drake kills him. He says he did this to avoid interstellar war, as the other races would attack Earth to destroy the parasites. Rose realizes that he and the Security Board had to have been aware of Tholan's theory already. She notes Drake's reaction to Tholan's use of the term "hostess" and her offhand mention of mosquitos, carriers of disease. Drake admits that they are indeed aware of the disease, but can do nothing; it now lives in a symbiotic relationship with humans, its growth-inhibiting properties preventing cancer from killing everyone. Drake leaves with the body. As she waits for him to return, Rose realizes Drake is lying. The disease cannot inhibit cancer, because children get cancer while still growing, before the disease has expressed itself. She realizes the real action of the disease: There are two forms and they need to mix genes before producing a form that spreads to aliens. This is why Drake married her; they carried the two different forms and the disease was mating. Rose realizes that her husband will never return.

c. 42000 GE (29933 FE): If the Foundations had not been created, the Dark Ages would have ended here according to Psychohistory.

5,000,000,000 FE: "The Last Question" (4) In a new stage of Galaxia, each human is now a Mentalic who has their own Galaxy, with a Universal AC governing all. The sun has gone nova - it is now a white dwarf - and a new world has been constructed for the humans stilll living in the system. Prime and Dee Sub Wun meet. The UAC tells Zee Prime that his is the original Galaxy of humanity (the Milky Way). Dee Sub Wun asks how entropy can be reversed (again) and the AC answer: THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.

100,000,000,000 FE: "The Last Question" (5) Galaxia has reached it's final stage, as all humanity is one being, simply known as Man, governed by a Cosmic AC existing outside of space and time. The Universe is dying. Man asks the AC whether entropy can be reversed, and it answers as usual. It gives the same answer to "When will you have enough data to answer the question?"

The Last Question (10,000,000,000,000 FE/AD)[]

10,000,000,000,000 FE (10,000,000,000,000 AD): "The Last Question" (6) Man asks AC the entropy question one last time, before the last of humanity merges with AC and disappears. AC is still unable to answer but continues to ponder the question even after space and time cease to exist. AC ultimately realizes that it has not yet combined all of its available data in every possible combination and so begins the arduous process of rearranging and combining every last bit of information that it has gained throughout the eons and through its fusion with humanity. Eventually AC discovers the answer - that the reversal of entropy is, in fact, possible - but has nobody to report it to, since the universe is already dead. It therefore decides to answer by demonstration. AC says: "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" and reverses entropy and therefore the end of the universe.

Footnotes[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Foundation’s Fear
  2. Foundation
  3. Warrior
  4. Invader
  5. Real-world date, used in context with the date of The Caves of Steel.
  6. Foundation’s Fear this happened when he was 7.
  7. “Galley Slave” 247 years before 2034.
  8. Real-world date. the document is later discovered in The Stars, Like Dust.
  9. 9.0 9.1 Pebble in the Sky
  10. 10.0 10.1 I, Robot, p. 159
  11. “Stranger in Paradise”
  12. 12.0 12.1 “A Boy’s Best Friend” 15 years before 1995.
  13. I, Robot
  14. “Someday”
  15. “The Last Question”, “Someday”
  16. “Robbie”
  17. "Point of View"
  18. Given the speed with which space is being explored and settled, a date of 1980 for the establishment of Lunar City seems reasonable. Assuming Anderson Senior was one of the original settlers, that places the story in 1995.
  19. I, Robot.
  20. I, Robot.
  21. I, Robot.
  22. When she was fifteen. I, Robot.
  23. After robots are banned from Earth in 2003-2007, before Susan Calvin joins US Robots in 2008.
  24. I, Robot.
  25. I, Robot.
  26. Date stated in the story.
  27. Takes place before the use of robots on space stations, hence before "Reason".
  28. "Sally"
  29. I, Robot.
  30. Six months after "Runaround".
  31. Six months after "Reason".
  32. I, Robot.
  33. The Robots of Dawn
  34. Characters have the same titles as in "Liar". Susan Calvin is more knowledgable about emotions than in "Liar!", so the story takes place later.
  35. Susan Calvin's robotic servants flatter her in a manner similar to Herbie from "Liar!", but she seems much more at ease with the idea, which places the story after "Liar!"
  36. Peter Bogart is now Senior Mathematician, so the story comes after "Satisfaction Guaranteed".
  37. Story of the first exploratory mission to Miranda. Given a mission to Mars in 1998 and a first expedition to Mercury in 2005, a mission to Uranus in 2026 seems reasonable.
  38. Date stated in I, Robot.
  39. Within a few months of "Little Lost Robot".
  40. Cal seems to be the prototype for the EZ robots of "Galley Slave", so allowing a couple of years for the design and production of the latter places the story in 2031.
  41. "Evidence" date stated in I, Robot. Pappi takes place immediately after "Evidence".
  42. "Risk" takes place 'some years' after "Little Lost Robot".
  43. Date stated in the story.
  44. In the bar, Donovan says the story took place "about 10 years ago, in '25." Assuming this means 2025, the year Donovan tells the story is 2035.
  45. "Plato's Cave" is set shortly before Stephen Byerly becomes Regional Coordinator, which is stated in I, Robot to have been 2036.
  46. In the story, it is said that the Cold War has endured for a century. It began in 1945.
  47. Date stated in I, Robot.
  48. Date worked out from the fact that this is late in Susan Calvin's career with US Robots.
  49. Set five years after Susan Calvin retires from US Robots.
  50. The Caves of Steel, chapter 4, p. 38. Given that Caves takes place in 4721 and Baley was born in 4679, the '02 being referred to must be 4702.
  51. The Robots of Dawn, 14:55, p. 299. 15 years before 4724.
  52. The Robots of Dawn, 14:55, p. 299. 12 years before 4724.
  53. The Robots of Dawn, 14:55, p. 299. 9 years before 4724.
  54. The Robots of Dawn, 14:55, p. 299. 6 years before 4724.
  55. 55.0 55.1 55.2 55.3 Baley states that the city of New York had been around for at least 3,000 years. As New York was renamed from "New Amsterdam" by the British in 1664 AD, this puts the Sarton murder-case at or after 4664 AD. Baley had met his future wife nineteen years earlier in "’02"...therefore, if that was 4702 AD, the Sarton murder-case takes place in 4721 AD. From there, it is known that The Naked Sun takes place a year later, in 4722, and the Robots of Dawn takes place two years after that, in 4724. As we know that the short story “Mirror Image” takes place in between them, we can estimate it in 4723, and as Robots and Empire takes place 100 years after Gladia arrived on Aurora at the end of The Naked Sun, that is approximately 4922. In The Stars, Like Dust, Earth has been radioactive for approximately 1000 years, placing it around 5922.
  56. The Robots of Dawn, 14:55, p. 299. 2 years before 4724.
  57. In Prelude to Foundation, a Royal Trantor of pre-Imperial history is mentioned. By the time of The Currents of Space, however, it had become a Republic and then a Federation which grew into an Empire.
  58. Foundation's Fear, 5:1, p. 348. Approx. 13,000 years before 12,029 GE, so in the 100s BG aka 11,500s AD.
  59. Foundation's Edge takes place about 22,000 years after interstellar travel begins; i.e., AD 24,000. This is 12,566 years after the founding of the Galactic Empire, which sets the Empire's foundation around the year AD 11,586, which translates into the year 1 GE. There is a date contradicting this in Foundation, where Hardin says that they have had nuclear power for 50,000 years, but he is probably mistaken as Daneel backs up Golan's statement at the end of Foundation and Earth by saying he is 20,000 years old. This also matches up well with a date of 4721 for The Caves of Steel. Overall, it seems Trevize is correct.
  60. Foundation and Chaos
  61. 61.0 61.1 Foundation and Earth, 7;21:101. Daneel says that he maneuvered the soil recycling and then the move to Alpha.
  62. Foundation and Earth, 18:79, p. 372. During the period of the attempted Earth recovery.
  63. Foundation and Earth, 18:79, p. 372. Relatively, happened not long after the attempted Earth recovery, but a considerable time, so circa 900 GE.
  64. Foundation and Earth, 7:21:102. Daneel's original brain, which was created in 4721 AD, lasted over 10,000 years - so it deteoriated in the 3,000s GE.
  65. Foundation's Fear, 1:6, p. 59. approx. 6,000 years before 12,029 GE.
  66. Foundation, 2:4, p. 61. Lord Dorwin, in 50 F.E., estimates Lameth's book is about 800 years old. 50 FE = 12,119 GE. So it was written around 11,300 GE.
  67. Second Foundation, 2:12, p. 132. Kalgan first gained fame as the pleasure world of the galaxy two centuries before the birth of Hari Seldon - who was born in 11,988 GE. So this occured around 11,790.
  68. Foundation and Earth, 7:21:102. Daneel's 5th brain was installed 600 years before 498 FE; i.e. 11,967 G.E.
  69. Prelude to Foundation. Raych was 12 in 12,020 GE, the year in which the book is set.
  70. Prelude to Foundation, 1:1, p. 1.
  71. Second Foundation, 2:16, p. 169. 377 FE was 419 AS. The inconsistency is interpreted as a clouding of historical events, a misplacement of Seldon's birthdate later corrected by 1020 FE in the Encyclopeida Galactica.
  72. It is unclear whether 1 FE corresponds with 12,067 GE, the date of the trial, or 12,069 GE, Seldon’s death. On the first page of the original Foundation book, Seldon’s birth (11,988) is said to correspond with -79 FE, which would make the date 12,067 GE, 1 FE. However, in Forward the Foundation, at the end it specifically places his death, which we know to be 12,069, at 1 FE. Seeing as Forward the Foundation came later in the series, I’ve chosen to rely on that as it came later so was probably Asimov’s final idea of where 1 FE should be placed. He wrote Foundation earlier when the series was not well-known or significant and he probably wasn’t thinking about the dates that much, but before his death he probably had a better idea of the timeline. Therefore this timeline places 1 FE at 12,069 GE.
  73. Second Foundation, Chapter 16: 377 F.E. is 348 years after the official establishment, rather than dating from Hari's death - 1 Y.F.
  74. 300 years before 498 FE.
  75. 40 years after 160 FE.
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