Admittedly, I chose to put down the books by the end of the third novel. I did read summaries of the next few to make sure I got the whole story, so someone will be able to correct me on my feelings if they are off-base.
But as far as the whole *point* of the Foundation and Psycho-history is concerned, I never once got the feeling that they was necessary, and that was something I was hoping for somewhere in the first three novels.
That point being the inevitable downfall of civilization–the descent into barbarism that was supposed to be shortened to 1000 years or so.
I just never felt that sort of existential threat at all. It was as if the progress of technology was so vast and inbred into civilization, that maybe that barbarism was just the lack of nuclear power/tech, and the ability to jump in space.
But almost right away we are presented with the Foundation owning all these things and able to use them, and from then on out it becomes a matter of keeping them in the right hands, and out of the wrong ones, all while ensuring that the Plan goes through.
But in the midst of all this, I just really felt like there was no threat, outside of the Mule, that would have merited such a drastic dive into pyscho-history and the Plan. Was it just that, without the Plan and Hari Seldon, that civilization would have literally been reduced to hunter-gatherer status, isolated worlds and the like? Or was the floor of barbarism just so high to begin with, that merely returning to the current height of civilization would have just taken 30,00 years?
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It just felt like the threat was presented as a bigger problem than it turned out to be
by WillitGoUp