楔子
The Galactic Empire Was Falling.
银河帝国正走向覆亡。
It was a colossal Empire, stretching across millions of worlds from arm-end to arm-end of the mighty multi-spiral that was the Milky Way. Its fall was colossal, too ?and a long one, for it had a long way to go.
这是一个庞大的帝国，从银河每条巨大旋臂此端至彼端，其间数百万个世界，皆为帝国的势力范围。因而，帝国的覆亡也是一个巨大的、漫长的过程。
It had been falling for centuries before one man became really aware of that fall. That man was Hari Seldon, the man who represented the one spark of creative effort left among the gathering decay. He developed and brought to its highest pitch the science of psychohistory.
衰落进行了数世纪之后，才终于有人察觉到这个事实。此人就是哈里·谢顿，在整体性衰微中，他代表着唯一的一点创造性火花。在谢顿手中，心理史学这门科学发展到了登峰造极的境界。
Psychohistory dealt not with man, but with man-masses. It was the science of mobs; mobs in their billions. It could forecast reactions to stimuli with something of the accuracy that a lesser science could bring to the forecast of a rebound of a billiard ball. The reaction of one man could be forecast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again.
心理史学的研究对象并非个人，而是人类群体。换句话说，它是研究群众（至少数十亿之众）的科学。它能预测群众对于某些刺激的反应，精确度不逊于初等科学对撞球反弹轨迹的预测。虽然直到目前为止，没有任何数学能够预测个人行为，数十亿人口的集体反应却另当别论。
Hari Seldon plotted the social and economic trends of the time, sighted along the curves and foresaw the continuing and accelerating fall of civilization and the gap of thirty thousand years that must elapse before a struggling new Empire could emerge from the ruins.
哈里·谢顿描绘出当时的社会与经济趋势，从这些曲线中，他看出文明正在不断地、加速地衰退，而必须经过三万年的过渡期，另一个崭新的帝国才会从废墟中诞生。
It was too late to stop that fall, but not too late to narrow the gap of barbarism. Seldon established two Foundations at "opposite ends of the Galaxy" and their location was so designed that in one short millennium events would knit and mesh so as to force out of them a stronger, more permanent, more benevolent Second Empire.
阻止帝国的覆亡为时已晚，却还来得及设法缩短蛮荒的过渡期。于是，谢顿建立了两个基地，分别安置于“银河中两个遥相对峙的端点”。它们的位置经过特别设计，在短短一个仟年之间，许多事件会一环扣一环地发生，以促使一个更强大、更巩固、更良善的第二帝国早日实现。
Foundation (Gnome Press, 1951) has told the story of one of those Foundations during the first two centuries of life.
《银河帝国：基地》所叙述的故事，就是其中一个基地最初两个世纪的历史。
It began as a settlement of physical scientists on Terminus, a planet at the extreme end of one of the spiral arms of the Galaxy. Separated from the turmoil of the Empire, they worked as compilers of a universal compendium of knowledge, the Encyclopedia Galactica, unaware of the deeper role planned for them by the already-dead Seldon,
这个基地设在端点星，该行星位于银河系某个旋臂的尽头。起初，它是一群科学家的殖民地。他们远离了帝国的动荡社会，以编纂一套汇集天地间所有知识的巨着《银河百科全书》，却不知道自己扮演着更具深意的角色，而这一切，都是已故的谢顿一手计划的。
As the Empire rotted, the outer regions fell into the hands of independent "kings." The Foundation was threatened by them. However, by playing one petty ruler against another, under the leadership of their first mayor, Salvor Hardin, they maintained a precarious independence. As sole possessors, of nuclear power among worlds which were losing their sciences and falling back on coal and oil, they even established an ascendancy. The Foundation became the "religious" center of the neighboring kingdoms.
随着帝国逐渐瓦解，银河外围区域纷纷独立称王，基地开始遭受这些王国的威胁。然而，在首任市长塞佛·哈定领导下，基地设法让这些小小“君主”彼此牵制，而能勉强维持一个独立的局面。由于其他世界科学中落，退化到石油与煤炭的时代，唯独基地拥有核能，因此享有难得的优势。最后，基地竟然成为邻近诸王国的“宗教”中心。
Slowly, the Foundation developed a trading economy as the Encyclopedia receded into the background. Their Traders, dealing in nuclear gadgets which not even the Empire in its heyday could have duplicated for compactness, penetrated hundreds of light-years through the Periphery.
随着百科全书的任务退居幕后，基地慢慢开始发展贸易体系。基地所研发的核能装置，小巧程度远超过帝国全盛时期的工艺水准。负责推销这些商品的基地行商，足迹遍至银河外缘数百光年。
Under Hober Mallow, the first of the Foundation's Merchant Princes, they developed the techniques of economic warfare to the point of defeating the Republic of Korell, even though that world was receiving support from one of the outer provinces of what was left of the Empire.
侯伯·马洛是基地第一位商业王侯，在他的领导下，基地发展出经济战，并藉此击败科瑞尔共和国。该国虽有帝国外缘某个星省的援助，最后仍然无条件投降。
At the end of two hundred years, the Foundation was the most powerful state in the Galaxy, except for the remains of the Empire, which, concentrated in the inner third of the Milky Way, still controlled three quarters of the population and wealth of the Universe.
两百年后，基地俨然成为银河系中最强大的政权，只有苟延残喘的帝国能抗衡之。此时，帝国的主体集中于银河内围三分之一处，却仍然控制着全银河四分之三的人口与财富。
It seemed inevitable that the next danger the Foundation would have to face was the final lash of the dying Empire.
基地面临的下一个威胁，似乎必然是垂死帝国的最后反扑。
The way must he cleared for the battle of Foundation and Empire.
基地与帝国之战，无论如何终将登场。
——《银河百科全书》