Chapters 5-6 Summary

Chapter 5, "Speaker," moves to Trantor, once the center of the Galactic Empire but reduced to ruins 250 years ago by "barbarians." Non-scholars call it "Hame" (a variant of "Home"). Quindor Shandess presides as "First Speaker" over the secretive Second Foundation, whose Golden Rule of "Do nothing unless you must, and when you must act—hesitate," is hard tested in history and now guides and corrects the First Foundation's movement towards establishing a flexible Second Empire. Shandess looks forward to meeting privately with bright young Speaker Stor Gendibal, whose opening statement is, "the Seldon Plan is meaningless."

Recruited as a boy, Gendibal takes to psychohistory and while in university aims at being First Speaker by age 40. At 31, this interview is crucial. Speakers communicate by gestures and mental-change patterns more than by words and cannot mask true opinions. Amiable Shandess, Gendibal knows, expects...