Second Foundation

This third foundation book continues directly where Foundation and Empire left off.
The "second foundation" was discovered when they came out to stop the "Mule". This discovery, however, caused others to put down their guard. They figured they wouldn't have to work very hard, because if anything bad happened, the second foundation would save them. However, while they had theories as to the whereabouts of the second foundation, nobody was sure.

Some people, however, thought that the "mind control" abilities of the second foundation were an affront to personal freedom. They sought out to discover this second foundation to destroy it. The second foundation was playing right along with them. If people knew there were others still guiding them, they may continue to get lax. Thus, the second foundation encouraged a "discovery" and "destruction" of the "second foundation". This coupled with an easy war victory helped people that the first foundation was the ruling power, and that there was no second foundation that could step in and help steer history in the right direction. This allowed the second foundation to continue to exercise its full control, for people were now acting in their best interest.

From the "quotes" of fictional works in the books, it is obvious that the foundation plan had succeeded in the future. It would be interesting to see how the "philosopher kings" did manage to make it in to power. Was the "psychohistorian" really powerful enough to plan and predict the course of events for the next 1000 years? Or was it simply a guise to steer history in that direction. (If people are expecting the plan to be predicted, and a clandestine group steers it that way, there are bound to be more and more believers.)