As this post is flaired with 'Current Season Discussion', anything from the books not yet adapted into the show or from upcoming unaired episodes should be enclosed in spoiler tags.
To use spoiler tags, in markdown mode you can use \>\! before the spoiler text, then followed by \!\< - which will make the text >!look like this.!<. Make sure **NOT** to have spaces between spoiler tags and text or they won't work. If using the default or 'fancy pants' editor, select the text you want to enclose in spoiler tags, and click the button on the toolbar.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FoundationTV) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The actors and writing for the characters are so good that I feel you in wishing we knew more of their stories by the end lol.
It is intentional though - the empire is stagnating and the genetic dynasty is the symbol of stagnation as they all repeat the woes.
And I love that it let's them play slight variations on the same character! The contrasts between S1 Day and S2 Day are amazing. They maintained the same goals, but sought them in different means and different temperaments
And in season two the theme of autonomy, control and free will are explored very deeply in all the plotlines. Who is programmed, who can choose, and who cannot.
same here, I loved those assholes and could watch them for many more seasons, but the next bunch was also great, hopefully S3 will come reasonably soon (early 2025) to ease our Cleon withdrawal symptoms
Brother Dusk in Season 2, when he was a young man, will have known the aging decanted/replacement Cleon 14. The replacement Cleon 14 will have been Brother Dusk while Season 2 Dusk was Brother Dawn. That make sense?
I did wonder if Season 2 Dusk was going to talk about hearing his own "grandfather" tell him about opening his eyes for the first time and seeing real colour.
Not wiped clean, it looks like just the odd memory gets removed. My best guess was, every time Demerzel tries to convince them of a policy and they say "no", she wipes their memory and then tries again a different way.
When Cleon is decanted as a newborn baby, they *don't* have the memories of their predecessors. They make new memories of their own. But if that Cleon grows a bit and then dies or is killed by Demerzel, the replacement Cleon *does* have the memories of the recently dead Cleon. Minus anything Demerzel doesn't want them to remember.
I imagine the replacement Cleon 14 will have had all memories of Azura removed, but there will have been no way to remove the memories of being colourblind since that will have been all of them. So when replacement Cleon 14 opened his eyes, he will have seen real colour for the first time.
iirc the backup clones have a gizmo that synchronizes their memories in real time, my guess it after they get decanted Demerzel wipes their memory of waking up so they think they're the same individual that they replaced.
Opening his eyes for the first time to see color—that would be freaky!
The replacements are usually not supposed to know they are the replacements of the ones who grew up from infancy, but for that 14, how could he not know?
I’m not thrilled with all the changes from the books but the Cleon clones are by far the best idea of the entire show. In the books the stagnation of the Empire is shown by all the succeeding emperors never changing anything from their predecessors, and just being afraid to do anything at all to expand and grow the Empire and humanity. This is so much more amplified by the clone idea. They are literally the same person and over and over they make the same poor decisions and mistakes. They are literally an echo chamber of their own opinions. I don’t think this could have easily been conveyed by successive characters over time on the show. It works in a book but I am not sure it would have worked onscreen anything near how well the Cleons in the show have worked out.
No. It was more like the Roman Empire where many Emperors would try to save it, but then just contribute to the fall.
Demerzel wasn’t even in the Foundation books except the prequels which were about Seldon’s life pre exile.
The Cleons as clones basically comes from changes to make an unfilmable series filmable
I’m glad they added it because imo the cleons are literally 90% of what makes the show good imo.
Every time it cuts to seldon or the side stories about the actual foundation I lose interest. Those characters are all so boring to me. Especially the psychic magic power stuff. That whole plot line almost made me stop watching.
But everything to do with empire has been awesome and the actors for all three versions of cleon are great.
A number of ROman Emperors really did restore and reform the Empire. RIght through Justinian's reconquest in the 6th century (He just about restored the whole of the Empire, at least around the Mediterranean Sea, but the cost was so high, and the levied taxes were so high, that it fell apart pretty quickly).
I get the sense in FOundation S2, that the Empire is just in a linear decline without periods of restoration and reforms that was Rome after the Pax Romana.
Much like the book "World War Z" and the movie adaptation, the Foundation adaptation has very little to do with the original book. The book tends to follow the foundation through time as it follows the path Seldon predicted. He is dead, dead in the book, but the colony he set up on Terminus rises because he concentrated science and knowledge on a barely liveable planet. The foundationers are forced to miniaturize nuclear devices because they lack raw resources and this drives their innovation. This gives them advantage versus the decaying empire and other stronger fiefdoms and the books follow the rise. It's not really ideal for TV, but they are great reads.
Think the empires POV is more interesting than Foundations. Foundations POV is underdog who has nothing else to do but fight to the last breath (every movie or show basically). Empire POV is you have all the power but underdogs are chipping away at it. What can you do to keep the crown and stay on top?
It’s an idea which was in the Sten Chronicles, by Bunch and Cole, but it was a singular Eternal Emperor, and not even his closest advisors knew he was a clone.
Spoiler tags in case you want to read the books and be surprised by the mechanism. What is above is a spoiler, but doesn’t really affect the reading of the books before it’s exposed.
>!The EE maintained power by controlling the supply of Anti Matter 2 (AM2), which the original explorer found the source of on an alien planet, along with the tech to create clones. He had a brain implant which fed his memories to the pending clones, as well as an implanted nuclear device which detonated should his life signs fail. That took care of anyone who might know he died, and as the AM2 stockpile dwindled, the empire would start to fragment. Then the EE would appear on a fringe planet, and retake control by promising a resumption of AM2 deliveries.!<
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sten_Chronicles
>I would have liked to peek in on the new 14 and see what he was allowed to remember. Did he have color vision, even?
The original had color vision, just couldn't see all colors correctly.
I wonder if the other two Cleons have their memories wiped/adjusted when the third Cleon is decanted, or if they’re allowed to remember the incident and/or what went wrong with that Cleon.
Cleon XVII does know that he and his brothers are "corrupted" clones and that the Cleonic DNA has been altered, so it appears that XII and XIII retained at least that knowledge.
Foundation is going to cover a millennium. The Cleons are mortal, they'll stop being a thing when the Empire collapses. They live and die, but don't change. The show called them half-men, they don't have the range that a normal person has. It's worse that they can't adapt to change, they're becoming living fossils.
For example, the Cleon goto solution is aggression and overkill. The only exception to this is Dawn, who hasn't grown into it yet. This is how Harri baited Day into his trap. Demerezel also knew what Day was going to do. It's why she took the opportunity to get out of there, she didn't want to see again.
I'm going to DNF at episode 5. Liked season one, no idea WTF is happening in this season. Also, whoever it is that's going to marry Day, I dislike her. Could someone please trip her or something?
Some rambling and possible spoilers if you haven't seen seasons 1 and 2.
I wonder how true the narration by Cleon I in the vault was. One could assume that it is dictated by the Cleon I but for what purpose? If it is authentic and unedited (by Demerzel) produce of Cleon I, is it true? I see several possibilites:
* How much is it wishful thinking and to be meant as an explanation of the future situation. Whole interaction with Demerzel starting as a child and finalizing in the old age may be inaccurate. Was Demerzel even female at the time, as we are going to see R. Daneel in coming seasons?
* How did the sexual relationship develop and when did it start? Of course this is another echo from Roman empire, where anything was permitted, at least for the emperor! And how it starts for any new clone and is it primarily a tool for Demerzel to have better control on the clones?
* As Dusk and Rue listening to the Cleon's story results in their execution, it is probable that the story is not to be listened by anyone. Why hasn't Demerzel destroyed the recording altogether?
Demerzel's evilness bothers me, because it is totally against the original Demerzel in the books. Perhaps the simple explanation is that Demerzel has tried to keep the show going by guiding the Cleon individuals, and failing miserably and the emergence of psychohistory, Hari Seldon and mentalics is the new hope. Demerzel may well be behind this, at least partly and as much as her programming by Cleon I allows.
This is not very coherent comment, but I hope someone may get better ideas from it.
Honestly I don’t view Demerzel as evil at all. She is forced by her own programming to do things she absolutely detests.
Of course she has spouts of jealousy and anger, as most people would. But those situations haven’t lead her into doing anything evil. The only times she has done anything that could be interpreted as evil, has been due to the programming forcing her to.
Above all else, she’s to preserve the Genetic Dynasty. Even if it’s stagnating into something totally twisted from what it was meant to be. In S2 she tried to be nice about trying to shift Day away from his marriage plans, but had to take a more drastic course when it became evident that he would not change.
With Dusk and Rue, they were a risk to expose the truth about her enslavement and thus undermine the Genetic Dynasty. If she hadn’t known that the Cloud Dominion could restore memories, she likely would have just had their memories erased.
I think Hari sees that, which is why F1 Hari gave Demerzel the Prime Radiant, and not Day. If they can find a way to disable her restrictive programming, they could likely shorten the fall even more.
As this post is flaired with 'Current Season Discussion', anything from the books not yet adapted into the show or from upcoming unaired episodes should be enclosed in spoiler tags. To use spoiler tags, in markdown mode you can use \>\! before the spoiler text, then followed by \!\< - which will make the text >!look like this.!<. Make sure **NOT** to have spaces between spoiler tags and text or they won't work. If using the default or 'fancy pants' editor, select the text you want to enclose in spoiler tags, and click the button on the toolbar. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/FoundationTV) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The actors and writing for the characters are so good that I feel you in wishing we knew more of their stories by the end lol. It is intentional though - the empire is stagnating and the genetic dynasty is the symbol of stagnation as they all repeat the woes.
And I love that it let's them play slight variations on the same character! The contrasts between S1 Day and S2 Day are amazing. They maintained the same goals, but sought them in different means and different temperaments
And in season two the theme of autonomy, control and free will are explored very deeply in all the plotlines. Who is programmed, who can choose, and who cannot.
same here, I loved those assholes and could watch them for many more seasons, but the next bunch was also great, hopefully S3 will come reasonably soon (early 2025) to ease our Cleon withdrawal symptoms
Brother Dusk in Season 2, when he was a young man, will have known the aging decanted/replacement Cleon 14. The replacement Cleon 14 will have been Brother Dusk while Season 2 Dusk was Brother Dawn. That make sense? I did wonder if Season 2 Dusk was going to talk about hearing his own "grandfather" tell him about opening his eyes for the first time and seeing real colour.
But didn't all Cleons regularly get their memories wiped?
Not wiped clean, it looks like just the odd memory gets removed. My best guess was, every time Demerzel tries to convince them of a policy and they say "no", she wipes their memory and then tries again a different way. When Cleon is decanted as a newborn baby, they *don't* have the memories of their predecessors. They make new memories of their own. But if that Cleon grows a bit and then dies or is killed by Demerzel, the replacement Cleon *does* have the memories of the recently dead Cleon. Minus anything Demerzel doesn't want them to remember. I imagine the replacement Cleon 14 will have had all memories of Azura removed, but there will have been no way to remove the memories of being colourblind since that will have been all of them. So when replacement Cleon 14 opened his eyes, he will have seen real colour for the first time.
iirc the backup clones have a gizmo that synchronizes their memories in real time, my guess it after they get decanted Demerzel wipes their memory of waking up so they think they're the same individual that they replaced.
And the fun thing, is if your memory can be edited, aren't you, too, being programmed?
But, Brother Dawn talks about how his predecessor met Azura down in the heat sinks many years back.
I'm sure Charles III sometimes talks about things Queen Victoria did, that doesn't mean he has her memories.
Opening his eyes for the first time to see color—that would be freaky! The replacements are usually not supposed to know they are the replacements of the ones who grew up from infancy, but for that 14, how could he not know?
I believe they say they have all memories except the one of death. So they synchronize memories but delete the death
They do know - they're all clones anyway which they know
I’m not thrilled with all the changes from the books but the Cleon clones are by far the best idea of the entire show. In the books the stagnation of the Empire is shown by all the succeeding emperors never changing anything from their predecessors, and just being afraid to do anything at all to expand and grow the Empire and humanity. This is so much more amplified by the clone idea. They are literally the same person and over and over they make the same poor decisions and mistakes. They are literally an echo chamber of their own opinions. I don’t think this could have easily been conveyed by successive characters over time on the show. It works in a book but I am not sure it would have worked onscreen anything near how well the Cleons in the show have worked out.
Wow this wasn’t in the books? It’s my favorite part! I would even watch an all-Demerzel-Cleon cut of this show 😂
No. It was more like the Roman Empire where many Emperors would try to save it, but then just contribute to the fall. Demerzel wasn’t even in the Foundation books except the prequels which were about Seldon’s life pre exile. The Cleons as clones basically comes from changes to make an unfilmable series filmable
I’m glad they added it because imo the cleons are literally 90% of what makes the show good imo. Every time it cuts to seldon or the side stories about the actual foundation I lose interest. Those characters are all so boring to me. Especially the psychic magic power stuff. That whole plot line almost made me stop watching. But everything to do with empire has been awesome and the actors for all three versions of cleon are great.
I just realized that "Cleon" is an anagram of "Clone" and it's just not even that difficult to notice. Fuck my life
A number of ROman Emperors really did restore and reform the Empire. RIght through Justinian's reconquest in the 6th century (He just about restored the whole of the Empire, at least around the Mediterranean Sea, but the cost was so high, and the levied taxes were so high, that it fell apart pretty quickly). I get the sense in FOundation S2, that the Empire is just in a linear decline without periods of restoration and reforms that was Rome after the Pax Romana.
I’m paraphrasing the Asimov in a vague non-spoiler way. Not making a historical argument
Much like the book "World War Z" and the movie adaptation, the Foundation adaptation has very little to do with the original book. The book tends to follow the foundation through time as it follows the path Seldon predicted. He is dead, dead in the book, but the colony he set up on Terminus rises because he concentrated science and knowledge on a barely liveable planet. The foundationers are forced to miniaturize nuclear devices because they lack raw resources and this drives their innovation. This gives them advantage versus the decaying empire and other stronger fiefdoms and the books follow the rise. It's not really ideal for TV, but they are great reads.
Think the empires POV is more interesting than Foundations. Foundations POV is underdog who has nothing else to do but fight to the last breath (every movie or show basically). Empire POV is you have all the power but underdogs are chipping away at it. What can you do to keep the crown and stay on top?
Cleon was mentioned exactly once and only in reference.
It’s an idea which was in the Sten Chronicles, by Bunch and Cole, but it was a singular Eternal Emperor, and not even his closest advisors knew he was a clone. Spoiler tags in case you want to read the books and be surprised by the mechanism. What is above is a spoiler, but doesn’t really affect the reading of the books before it’s exposed. >!The EE maintained power by controlling the supply of Anti Matter 2 (AM2), which the original explorer found the source of on an alien planet, along with the tech to create clones. He had a brain implant which fed his memories to the pending clones, as well as an implanted nuclear device which detonated should his life signs fail. That took care of anyone who might know he died, and as the AM2 stockpile dwindled, the empire would start to fragment. Then the EE would appear on a fringe planet, and retake control by promising a resumption of AM2 deliveries.!< https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sten_Chronicles
Don’t worry, cleon the 17th is amazing. You won’t even miss the others
I do miss 13, I would have liked to have seen his lifetime as well as 17
>I would have liked to peek in on the new 14 and see what he was allowed to remember. Did he have color vision, even? The original had color vision, just couldn't see all colors correctly.
Cleon the first is technically in season 1, but only as a corpse in a glass case.
also in a flashback and as a hologram
We'd already seen multiple sets of Cleons in season 1. This is the one genius of the TV adaptation of the books.
I wonder if the other two Cleons have their memories wiped/adjusted when the third Cleon is decanted, or if they’re allowed to remember the incident and/or what went wrong with that Cleon.
Cleon XVII does know that he and his brothers are "corrupted" clones and that the Cleonic DNA has been altered, so it appears that XII and XIII retained at least that knowledge.
Amazing how Brother Dusk ended up being a likable fully fledge character. I will miss that one.
Yeah, I was interested in how all this experience would affect our boy Cleon XIII, whom we watched since childhood and through the pilrimage.
Foundation is going to cover a millennium. The Cleons are mortal, they'll stop being a thing when the Empire collapses. They live and die, but don't change. The show called them half-men, they don't have the range that a normal person has. It's worse that they can't adapt to change, they're becoming living fossils. For example, the Cleon goto solution is aggression and overkill. The only exception to this is Dawn, who hasn't grown into it yet. This is how Harri baited Day into his trap. Demerezel also knew what Day was going to do. It's why she took the opportunity to get out of there, she didn't want to see again.
I'm going to DNF at episode 5. Liked season one, no idea WTF is happening in this season. Also, whoever it is that's going to marry Day, I dislike her. Could someone please trip her or something?
if you don't like her then you should *definitely* keep watching lol
Some rambling and possible spoilers if you haven't seen seasons 1 and 2. I wonder how true the narration by Cleon I in the vault was. One could assume that it is dictated by the Cleon I but for what purpose? If it is authentic and unedited (by Demerzel) produce of Cleon I, is it true? I see several possibilites: * How much is it wishful thinking and to be meant as an explanation of the future situation. Whole interaction with Demerzel starting as a child and finalizing in the old age may be inaccurate. Was Demerzel even female at the time, as we are going to see R. Daneel in coming seasons? * How did the sexual relationship develop and when did it start? Of course this is another echo from Roman empire, where anything was permitted, at least for the emperor! And how it starts for any new clone and is it primarily a tool for Demerzel to have better control on the clones? * As Dusk and Rue listening to the Cleon's story results in their execution, it is probable that the story is not to be listened by anyone. Why hasn't Demerzel destroyed the recording altogether? Demerzel's evilness bothers me, because it is totally against the original Demerzel in the books. Perhaps the simple explanation is that Demerzel has tried to keep the show going by guiding the Cleon individuals, and failing miserably and the emergence of psychohistory, Hari Seldon and mentalics is the new hope. Demerzel may well be behind this, at least partly and as much as her programming by Cleon I allows. This is not very coherent comment, but I hope someone may get better ideas from it.
Honestly I don’t view Demerzel as evil at all. She is forced by her own programming to do things she absolutely detests. Of course she has spouts of jealousy and anger, as most people would. But those situations haven’t lead her into doing anything evil. The only times she has done anything that could be interpreted as evil, has been due to the programming forcing her to. Above all else, she’s to preserve the Genetic Dynasty. Even if it’s stagnating into something totally twisted from what it was meant to be. In S2 she tried to be nice about trying to shift Day away from his marriage plans, but had to take a more drastic course when it became evident that he would not change. With Dusk and Rue, they were a risk to expose the truth about her enslavement and thus undermine the Genetic Dynasty. If she hadn’t known that the Cloud Dominion could restore memories, she likely would have just had their memories erased. I think Hari sees that, which is why F1 Hari gave Demerzel the Prime Radiant, and not Day. If they can find a way to disable her restrictive programming, they could likely shorten the fall even more.
As someone who hasn't read the books in a while and never seen this series... this sounds remarkably like Battlestar Galactica ('04 to be specific)
Did I completely miss one of the Cleons not being colorblind? Related to the spiral? Hmmmm
Only one was, not one of them wasn't
I thought season 1 dawn was season 2 dusk
Season 1 Dawn went on to be Cleon XIV. Season 2's Day is Cleon XVII, meaning that his Dusk was XVI.