Hari Seldon created psychohistory to solve a civilization-level crisis: the inevitable collapse of the Galactic Empire. His goal was not to prevent the collapse, which he deemed statistically inevitable, but to compress the period of chaos ("The Interregnum") from 30,000 years to just 1,000, thus preserving knowledge, stability, and a path back to civilizational coherence. Why Psychohistory Was Created Problem: The Galactic Empire—vast, ancient, and brittle—was in terminal decline. Economic stagnation, bureaucratic decay, and political corruption would lead to its fall. Threat: Without intervention, humanity would plunge into a dark age lasting millennia. Objective: Develop a mathematically sound predictive science that could guide humanity through the collapse toward a faster reconstitution of order. How It Worked Foundation: Psychohistory is a fusion of mathematics, statistics, sociology, and history, built on the principle that while individual behavior is unpredictable, mass human behavior is statistically modelable—if the sample size is large enough and individuals are unaware of the predictions. Mechanics: It uses probabilistic modeling of societal behavior on a galactic scale. It doesn’t predict specific events, but projects statistically likely macro-outcomes. Core Assumptions: Populations must be large (trillions). Individuals must not know the projections (to avoid feedback loops). No significant unpredictable interventions (e.g., emergence of singular individuals or technologies that invalidate the model). Who It Impacted The Galaxy at Large: Psychohistory sought to guide all of humanity through decline and back to a second, more stable empire. The Foundation: A small group of scientists and thinkers was positioned at the periphery of the galaxy under the guise of an Encyclopedia project. In truth, they were the operational arm of Seldon’s plan.