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Pallas
One of the Outer Worlds. (3-12-49)
Palley, Orum
Member of the underground democratic opposition on Terminus, and
fellow-conspirator in Han Pritcher's plot to assassinate the Mule. (11-II-20)
Palver, Joramis
Grandfather of Stettin Palver, two years younger than Hari Seldon, at one time
invited to join Seldon's psychohistory project. (9-IV-24)
Palver, Preem
Nineteenth First Speaker of the Second Foundation who gained his post at the age
of forty-two and, concerned at the First Foundation's research into psychology,
devised a plan to lead the First Foundation into believing that they had
destroyed the Second. (12-II-8-10,15,18,19,22; 13-5-17,12-48)
In the guise of a trading representative of a Trantor farming cooperative, and
with his wife, who was also a Speaker, he visited Kalgan during the expedition
there of Homir Munn and Arkady Darell and while Kalgan was preparing for war
aganist the Foundation. From there he escorted Arkady to a safe refuge on
Trantor, and, while taking farm produce to the beleaguered Terminus, was
initially arrested as a spy by Foundation forces, but after being released was
able to carry the refugee Arkady's message to her father which led to the First
Foundation's action against the Second Foundation's members on Terminus.
Palver, Stettin
History graduate of the University of Langano, met by Hari Seldon on Trantor. An
accomplished Twister, he was initially employed as a bodyguard by Seldon, but
became one of the key members of the covert Second Foundation when it was
discovered that he had mental powesr similar to those of Wanda Seldon.
(9-IV-24,25,26,30,31,32,34)
Pandaral, Genovus
Senior Director of the executive board of Baleyworld. (4-III-9-35)
Pandion
One of Gladia Delmarre's robots on Aurora. (3-6-23)
Panell, Jander
Second and last humaniform robot designed and built on Aurora by Han Fastolfe,
and while on loan to Gladia Delmarre induced into mental freeze-out by Giskard
Reventlov to prevent knowledge of humaniform robots being gained by Kelden
Amadiro's anti-Earth Globalists. (3-2-7 etc.)
Parma, Jord
Agent of the Korellian Secret Police employed as an agent provocateur by Jorane
Sutt in an attempt to discredit Hober Mallow. (10-V-4)
Participation
Gaian artefact designed to allow the user to experience a different aspect of
the object's consciousness or, in the case of animate objects, to perceive
ecological balance. (13-17-74)
Paul, Gerhard
One of the minor leaders of the anti-robot Mediaevalists of Earth. (1-12)
Pelorat, Janov
Professor of ancient history at Terminus University with an interest in the
Origin Question, having spent some thirty years collecting myths and legends
about the lost planet Earth. His academic interests having meant that he had
never before left Terminus, he was sent by Harla Branno with Golan Trevize
ostensibly on a quest to find Earth. On their arrival at Gaia he was immediately
attracted by the Gaian woman Bliss, and accompanied her and Trevize back into
space when Trevize was required to decide who of the two Foundations, or Gaia
itself, would have the major influence on the future of the galaxy. On their
return to Gaia, he originally intended to remain there with Bliss, but instead
accompanied her and Trevize in a renewed, and ultimately successful, search for
Earth. (13-3 etc.; 14)
Pelot's Nebula
Object in Trantor's sky. (12-I-2)
Periphery
Area at the edge of the galaxy where were located the Four Kingdoms, Askone,
Korell, Santanni and Terminus. (10-II-1)
Pherl
Favoured councillor of Askone, via whom Limmar Ponyets negotiated the first of
the Foundation's interplanetary trade agreements after the influence of the
Foundation's priesthood had run its course. (10-IV-4,5,6)
Pirenne, Lewis
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Encyclopedia Committee. His dogmatic
insistence on adhering to the status of Terminus as a neutral, state-supported
scientific institution at a time when the Periphery was in open revolt with the
Empire led to Salvor Hardin's coup. (10-II)
Planchet
Identity adopted by Raych Seldon during his investigation of the death of Kaspal
Kaspalov. (9-II-12)
Pohang
Chamberlain at the court of the Khan of the Tyranni. His desire to be paired
with Artemisia oth Hinriad caused considerable anxiety. (6-20)
Poli
Maid employed by the younger Toran Darell. (12-II-7)
Ponyets, Limmar
Foundation ecclesiastical trainee turned independent trader sent by the
Foundation to Askone to negotiate the release of the imprisoned Eskel Gorov. In
the course of doing so, he secured the first of the Foundation's interplanetary
trade agreements. (10-IV)
Poochie
See Stettin, Lord. (12-II-12)
Prescott
Personnel officer at New York Yeast at the time of the murder of Roj Nemennuh
Sarton. (1-15)
Preston
Alfred Barr Humboldt's personal robot. (Mirror Image)
Prime Radiant
Device, designed by Hari Seldon and built by Yugo Amaryl, used to contain and
display the Seldon Plan as it was continually developed firstly by Seldon's
psychohistory researchers and subsequently by the Second Foundation.
(9-II-3,IV-3,19; 12-II-8; 13-5-18)
Pritcher, Han
Captain of the Information Section of the Foundation War Department, a rank he
had been unable to go beyond because what to him seemed initiative was, to a
Foundation governed by a reactionary plutocracy, insubordination.
Ordered by Indbur III to collect unpaid taxes from Haven, he went instead to the
seemingly-strong Kalgan to investigate its sudden conquest by the Mule, and
accompanied Bayta and Toran Darell and, unknowingly, the Mule, to Terminus,
where he was arrested. Almost immediately Terminus fell to the Mule's forces,
and Pritcher joined the underground resistance movement, attempting a suicide
bomb attack on the Mule's palace. There he was met by the former warlord of
Kalgan, installed on Terminus as the Mule's viceroy, and learned that he had
been betrayed. From there he was flown to intercept the Darells, Mis and the
Mule on their way to Trantor so that the Mule could "convert" him.
As, in effect, the Mule's second in command, Pritcher was promoted first to
Colonel and later General, meeting the Darells briefly on Trantor. Five years
later he was sent, with Bail Channis, by the Mule to continue the search for the
Second Foundation. After the Mule was reconditioned by the Second Foundation's
First Speaker on Rossem, Pritcher continued to serve the Mule until the latter's
death a few years later, when he succeeded the Mule for a while as First Citizen
of the Union. After his attempt to lay siege to the rebelling Terminus nothing
further is heard of him. (11-II-12,14,18,20,21,24)
Probe, Psychic
See Psychic Probe.
Psychic Probe
Device used primarily for the interrogation of suspected criminals, the
correction of mental disorders and the removal of "criminal impulses". Employed
not at all by Earth's police and hardly ever on Aurora, it was used with some
impunity by the Foundation, despite it officially being outlawed except for
medical pruposes, and the fact that 20,000 years of technological progress
seemed to have done little to lessen the dangers of its use. (3-2-7,8-32,17-74;
5-prologue,epilogue; 11-I-2,6,II-17; 13-1-3; 14-II-5-20)
Psychohistory
The idea of a mathematical "Laws of Humanics" parallelling the Laws of Robotics
was first posited on Aurora by Giskard Reventlov and Han Fastolfe, though both
realised that it was well beyond existing knowledge. It did not resurface until
the Galactic Empire was in decline when, at the Decennial Convention on Trantor,
Hari Seldon presented a paper of the theoretical potential of psychohistory as a
mathematics of social change, dealing with the reactions of very large human
populations to social and economic stimuli. This was siezed upon by various
factions as a means of furthering their own political ends, but it was Daneel
Olivaw, then acting the role of Eto Demerzel, Chief of Staff to Cleon I, who
encouraged Seldon to develop psychohistory as a means of securing a more humane
galaxy after the inevitable fall of the Empire, and of giving some quantifiable
meaning to the concept of humanity which he and Giskard Reventlov had introduced
in their Zeroth Law of Robotics.
Seldon and his close associate Yugo Amaryl came to realise that psychohistory as
a purely predictive science was of little practical use in the upheavals which
would inevitably accompany the disintegration of the Empire, and that what was
needed was a more prescriptive science. The idea, devised by Seldon and Amaryl,
for a Second Foundation of psychohistorians who would covertly continue to
develop the Seldon Plan and ensure that the First Foundation of physical
scientists stuck to it, became a reality when first Wanda Seldon, then Stettin
Palver, Bor Alurin and others were found to have mental powers of the kind that
would be needed by the Second Foundation.
To the rest of the galaxy, psychohistory was largely a metaphor for a supposedly
complete Seldon Plan which had already assured the future success of the
expanding Foundation, while to the Second Foundation hidden on Trantor it meant
their continuing work of ensuring that the Foundation, and the galaxy, developed
in a way which it considered appropriate.
Psychohistory had two fundamental axioms; that the number of people to whom it
was being applied should be large enough for a statistical treatment of them to
be valid, and that humanity should not know the results of the application of
psychohistory before the results were achieved. It was not until after Golan
Trevize had intuitively decided in favour of Galaxia, and met Daneel Olivaw,
that he recognised the hitherto unknown inherent weakness of psychohistory, that
it only held as long as there was only one intelligent species in the galaxy.
After the resolution of the Gaia crisis the Foundation believed that neither the
Second Foundation, nor psychohistory, really existed and that their destiny was
in their own hands, but with that resolution all interpretations of
psychohistory became obsolete through the continuing development of Gaia towards
the galactic consciousness of Galaxia. (3-5-21,22,19-84; 4-III-9-36; 8; 9;
13-1-3; 14-VII-21-104)
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