The Encyclopedia Galactica is a fictional or hypothetical encyclopedia of a future human

galaxy-spanning civilization, containing all the knowledge accumulated by a society with

quadrillions of people and thousands of years of history. The name evokes the exhaustive
and imperialistic aspects of the real-life Encyclopedia Britannica.
The concept and name of the Encyclopedia Galactica first appeared in Isaac Asimov's
short story Foundation (Astounding Science Fiction, May 1942), later republished as
"The Encyclopedists" in the short story collection Foundation (1951). Asimov's
Encyclopedia Galactica was a compendium of all knowledge then available in the
Galactic Empire, intended to preserve that knowledge in a remote region of the Galaxy in
the event of a foreseen Galactic catastrophe.
The Encyclopedia is later revealed to be an element in an act of misdirection, its real
purpose being to concentrate a group of skilled physical scientists on a remote, resource-
poor planet, with the long-term aim of revitalizing the technologically stagnant and
scientifically dormant Empire. Originally published in a physical medium, it later
becomes computerized and subject to continual change.
In his "Foundation" novels written and published in the early 1950's,
Isaac Asimov depicted the decline and fall of the Galactic Empire some
50,000 years from now--and the efforts of "psycho historian" Hari
Seldon's "Foundation" to save and revive Galactic civilization, under
the nominal pretext of compiling and publishing an _Encyclopedia
Galactica_ summarizing all of human knowledge, science, and scholarship.
It was assumed that Asimov's _Encyclopedia Galactica_ would be
wildly impracticable in real life. An encyclopedia incorporating 50,000
years of accumulated human knowledge and 50,000 years of recorded human
history on all the planets of a Galaxy comprising several million
inhabited worlds (as Asimov repeatedly described his Galactic Empire in
the "Foundation" books), assuming a level and depth of coverage
comparable to our current _Encyclopedia Britannica_, would at a very
minimum comprise several thousand printed volumes comparable in bulk to
a volume of the _Britannica_--maybe even a few MILLION such volumes! It
might require a building the size of the New York Public Library at 42nd
Street or the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington D.C.--to just
physically house it! Asimov himself, I suppose, might have vaguely
pictured his _Encyclopedia Galactica_ as being on microfilm or
microfiche--but even THAT might require a building the size of an
average suburban or small-town public library to hold it!
HOWEVER, an on-line _Encyclopedia Galactica_ resembling "Wikipedia"
would present no such problems! It could be as vast, extensive,
detailed, and in-depth as you could possibly wish, and present no
physical housing, space, or location problems! Everybody could access an
encyclopedia equivalent to a million _Britannicas_ from a laptop! Maybe
that's what Asimov was REALLY doing with his _Encyclopedia Galactica_
concept--he was simply predicting "Wikipedia"!
Another computer prediction tidbit from Asimov's "Foundation" books: In
the first chapter of the first novel in the series, _Foundation_,
originally published in 1950 or 1951, Asimov depicted a young
"psychohistory" student from the Galactic boondocks coming to Trantor,
the Galactic capital planet, to study under Hari Seldon, the inventor of
"psychohistory," a kind of mathematicized sociology for predicting
social trends. He gets into an argument with Seldon about some minor
point, whereupon the Grand Old Man whips out his "pad" (as Asimov called
it) from his pocket and, holding it in the palm of his hand, presses a
few buttons on its keyboard. Immediately, a series of equations flashes
on its screen. The student glances at the equations, and is convinced,
finally understanding that Seldon was right, after all. Writing in 1950
or 1951, Asimov thought we might have something like his "pad" thousands
of years from now, However, we already have his "pads" now, just 50 or
so years after he wrote _Foundation_!
Trantor. Capitol world of the Galactic Empire. Home of the Emperor. Once known as
the "Glory of the Galaxy". Administrative centre of the Empire. Land area of 75,000,000
square miles and was entirely covered by metal with the exception of the Emperor's
Palace. c10000GE domes were constructed covering the entire planet, again with the
exception of the Palace.
Hari Seldon established the second of his two Foundations on Trantor, which he
described, poetically, as Star's End. With their mentallic abilities the Second Foundation
was able to preserve themselves as Trantor and the First Galactic Empire crumbled about
them. After the fall of the Galactic Empire and the resulting de-metallisation of the
surface, the local non-Second Foundation inhabitants re-christened the world Hame.
Psychohistory-That branch of mathematics that deals with the overall reactions of large
groups of human beings to given stimuli under given conditions In other words, it is
supposed to predict social and historical changes.
Hari Seldon modeled his science of psychohistory on the kinetic theory of gases. Each
atom or molecule in a gas moves randomly so that the position or velocity of any one of
them cannot be known. Nevertheless, using statistics, the rules governing their overall
behaviour can be worked out with great precision. In the same way, Seldon intended to
work out the overall behaviour of human societies even though the solutions would not
apply to the behaviour of individual human beings.
Hari Seldon charted the future history of mankind after the fall of the Galactic Empire
using Psychohistory. This became known as Seldon's Plan. But, in order for his
mathematics to be valid, he had to make certain assumptions about the Galaxy and its
inhabitants. Those assumptions, as stated are;
that there would be no fundamental change in human society over the thousand years
of the Plan and
that human reactions to stimuli would remain constant.
TERMINUS
Terminus. The only planet of an isolated sun at the fringe of the Galactic spiral to which
the Seldon Project was exiled in order to work upon the Encyclopedia Galactica. Located
50,000 parsecs from Trantor, between Anacreon (50 light years away) and Smyrno, it is
described as a planet poor in resources, particularly mineral resources, and of negligible
economic value. A mild planet with a high water/land ratio. Terminus holds the
distinction of being the furthest inhabited planet from the central black hole. Terminus is
an ancient word meaning "the end of the line". Consists of 10,000 inhabited islands only
one of which is large enough to be considered a continent, the one that contains Terminus
City, the capitol. It remained unsettled for five centuries after its discovery until it
became the birthplace of the Encyclopedia Foundation Number One or, as it became
known, the First Foundation.
Terminus was first settled by members of Hari Seldon's Psychohistory Project, ostensibly
to prepare an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, hence the settlement's name -- the
Encyclopedia Foundation Number One. The Encyclopedists consisted of twenty thousand
researchers and their families who were transported from Trantor in half a dozen Imperial
Navy troop ships. Along with duplicates of most of the records from the Imperial Library,
the Encyclopedists were provided with equipment from the Imperial Corps of Engineers
for manufacturing and assembling prefabricated buildings, road building machinery,
automated farm machinery, and a nuclear power plant.
The population of Terminus continued to grow throughout the Spiritual Era. By 12,168
GE (100 FE) there were ten million people living on Terminus. Although some of the
increase was due to the large families which were common in the early days, a growing
proportion consisted of immigrants from the Four Kingdoms. Since the first Aid Treaties
were signed following the Anacreonian Crisis, natives of the Four Kingdoms had come to
Terminus to be indoctrinated into the hierarchy of the Church of Scientism. The most
intelligent and adaptable of these natives had been reassigned from the Temple School to
the Foundation's secular educational establishment, where they received the same
education as native Foundationers and were able to gain Foundation citizenship. This
population of resident, educated Outlanders formed a growing part of Terminus society.
Although they could be found in every sector of Terminus (administration, scientific
research, even the continuing compilation of the Encyclopedia Galactica), the Outlanders
made their greatest mark in the commercial arena.
Various authors have invoked the Encyclopedia Galactica in both science and in science
fiction. One example is its use by Carl Sagan in his 1980 book Cosmos, and his
documentary series of the same name, to refer to a text where hypothetical extraterrestrial
civilizations could store all of their information and knowledge. It was also a common
fixture in previous incarnations of the Legion of Super-Heroes comic books, and has
appeared in the Star Wars Expanded Universe and Superman comics set in the future.
Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) series frequently contrasted
the Galactica with the apparently more popular Guide. For example, the introduction to
the first book notes:
“In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the
Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the
standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and
contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older,
more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and second,
it has the words "DON'T PANIC" inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.”
In Arthur C Clarke's and Gentry Lee's Rama II (1989), Nicole des Jardins says to Richard
Wakefield "Just think, the sum of everything all human beings know or have ever known
might be nothing more than an infinitesimal fraction of the Encyclopedia Galactica."
The Encyclopedia Britannica distributed a series of five video documentaries entitled
Encyclopedia Galactica in 1993, with the titles "The Inner Solar System", "The Outer
Solar System", "Star Trekking", "Discovery", and "Astronomy and the Stars". The videos
were produced by York Films of England.