Isaac Asimov’s stories, 1942 · the Apple TV+ series, 2021 onward
Jared HarrisHari Seldon · 2025
Lou LlobellGaal Dornick · 2025
Lee PaceBrother Day · 2025
Laura BirnDemerzel · 2025
Terrence MannBrother Dusk · 2025
In the bell curve: Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp and Isaac Asimov at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1944, two years after the first Foundation story (US Navy photograph, public domain). Asimov’s psychohistory could forecast crowds, never one person. Drop the people below and watch where they land.
Philadelphia, 1942–1945
The first Foundation story was published in Astounding Science Fiction in May 1942.
During the war Asimov worked as a civilian researcher at the US Navy Yard in Philadelphia. Robert Heinlein, who had signed on to run a materials-testing laboratory at the yard, brought him in.
Asimov tested materials, among them dye markers for airmen downed at sea: tubes of fluorescent chemicals.
Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp and Asimov were photographed together at the yard in 1944. The picture first ran in the yard’s own paper, Air Scoop, on 9 August 1944.
After the war Asimov was drafted into the Army for nine months.
The old yard is now an office and industrial campus with public streets. Reach it from the south end of Broad Street.
Psychohistory
In them, psychohistory forecasts only large-scale developments. It cannot predict an individual. So try it. Each of the ten bins is a real place, in time order: Asimov’s Manhattan and Philadelphia on the left, the series’ shoots from 2019 to 2023 on the right.
Landed Predicted, for 0 balls
0 balls dropped. Drop one and see where it lands.
No ball yet. Drop one, or open any bin.
Valletta and Sliema
Live marketplace results for boat trips round Valletta’s two harbours, past Fort Manoel and the Kalkara shore. Check each route.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare cruisesThe Mall, Floriana
Malta’s first five-star hotel, on The Mall in Floriana at the gateway to Valletta. Fort Manoel is across Marsamxett Harbour; Kalkara is across the Grand Harbour. Pictured: Fort Manoel, 2009.
Check rooms
The outlier
In the stories, Hari Seldon’s plan fails to predict the Mule, a mutant who can read and bend other people’s emotions.
On the board, the Mule button sends one ball straight down the left edge, past every pin, into a bin the curve gives almost nothing: Columbia, where the stories began.
Isaac Asimov graduated from Columbia University with a degree in chemistry in 1939. In 1942 he was 22 and a Columbia chemistry graduate student. He came back to Columbia for his doctorate, which he received in 1948.
In 1938 he had taken his first story to the editor John W. Campbell Jr. The Foundation stories were inspired by Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
A working university on Broadway at 116th Street. The campus walks are open; the buildings are for students.
Back to the boardThree seasons
The series’ Empire is ruled by three clones at once: Brother Dawn, the youngest (Cassian Bilton), Brother Day on the middle throne (Lee Pace) and Brother Dusk, the oldest (Terrence Mann). Here each one names a season of the shoot.
November 2019
A crew of about 250 films close to Reykjavík.
January 2020
Shooting starts at Troy Studios; more than 500 production jobs.
Late 2020 – early 2021
A planned two-week water shoot in the Kalkara tanks grows to five weeks of filming on Malta.
Season 1
The series films at Fort Manoel.
Svatý Mikuláš, near Kutná Hora · Adults 180 CZK
A guided tour of 13 rooms in the château on the second season’s location list. The park is open all year, free.
See opening daysFrom Prague
Live marketplace results for day trips from Prague to the Bohemian Paradise rock towns. Check which include the Prachov Rocks.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare tripsEnd of the experiment
Columbia’s campus, the old Navy Yard, Reykjavík, Tuineje, Santa Cruz, the Prachov Rocks and Kačina are open to visit. Troy Studios and Malta Film Studios are working lots, seen from outside; Fort Manoel is seen from the water.
10 places you can visit in five countries. No page read here ties any of them to a particular scene or planet.
Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.
Building reference · Public access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. A working university on Broadway at 116th Street. The campus walks are open; the buildings are for students.
Site reference · Public access · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. The old yard is now an office and industrial campus with public streets. Reach it from the south end of Broad Street.
New York and Philadelphia · Havemeyer Hall, the chemistry building, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Isaac Asimov graduated from Columbia University with a degree in chemistry in 1939.
A working university on Broadway at 116th Street. The campus walks are open; the buildings are for students.
New York and Philadelphia · League Island, South Philadelphia; now the Navy Yard business campus
The first Foundation story was published in Astounding Science Fiction in May 1942.
The old yard is now an office and industrial campus with public streets. Reach it from the south end of Broad Street.
Stay
A hotel at the gate of Valletta, across the water from Fort Manoel and Kalkara.
The Mall, Floriana
Malta’s first five-star hotel, on The Mall in Floriana at the gateway to Valletta. Fort Manoel is across Marsamxett Harbour; Kalkara is across the Grand Harbour. Pictured: Fort Manoel, 2009.
Check roomsGo there
Kačina’s rooms, Malta’s harbours and the Bohemian rock towns.
Svatý Mikuláš, near Kutná Hora · Adults 180 CZK
A guided tour of 13 rooms in the château on the second season’s location list. The park is open all year, free.
See opening daysValletta and Sliema
Live marketplace results for boat trips round Valletta’s two harbours, past Fort Manoel and the Kalkara shore. Check each route.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare cruisesFrom Prague
Live marketplace results for day trips from Prague to the Bohemian Paradise rock towns. Check which include the Prachov Rocks.
Live marketplace results · itineraries change
Compare tripsWhat’s on
Nothing dated for the series is listed at these places now.
No current dated events are listed. Check providers for the latest programme.
Take it home
Where the plan began.
Isaac Asimov
The first book, gathering the stories Asimov began in Astounding in May 1942.
Find the bookDates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.
Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.
10 of 10 places · 15 of 15 stories
Havemeyer Hall, the chemistry building, Morningside Heights, Manhattan
Asimov, a Columbia graduate student, builds his stories on Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Psychohistory forecasts only large-scale developments, never an individual.
League Island, South Philadelphia; now the Navy Yard business campus
The first Foundation story appears in Astounding Science Fiction; that year Asimov goes to work at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.
Heinlein, de Camp and Asimov are photographed at the yard for Air Scoop.
Seldon’s plan fails to predict the Mule.
Reykjavík and the land close around it, south-west Iceland
A crew of about 250 films close to Reykjavík.
National Technology Park, Castletroy, Limerick
The series’ Empire is ruled by three clones at once: Brother Dawn, the youngest (Cassian Bilton), Brother Day on the middle throne (Lee Pace) and Brother Dusk, the oldest (Terrence Mann).
Shooting starts at Troy Studios; more than 500 production jobs.
Triq Santu Rokku, Kalkara, on Malta’s Grand Harbour
A planned two-week water shoot in the Kalkara tanks grows to five weeks of filming on Malta.
Manoel Island, Gżira, in Marsamxett Harbour
The series films at Fort Manoel.
Tuineje municipality, south Fuerteventura
Filming in the Canary Islands, mainly in Tuineje and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Santa Cruz, Tenerife’s capital, on the north-east coast
Santa Cruz de Tenerife is one of the two main Canary Islands locations.
Prachovské skály, near Jičín, Bohemian Paradise
The second season shoots in the Czech Republic, the Prachov Rocks among its locations.
Svatý Mikuláš 51, near Kutná Hora
Kačina château is on the second season’s location list.
The 2023 report names Kačina again among 41 Czech filming days.
Every place in Foundation leads somewhere else.
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