Fictional History
Gaal Dornick is a character in Part I of Foundation. He is a young mathematician, newly awarded his Doctorate, and originates from Synnax. He has been invited to Trantor by Hari Seldon to join the psychohistory project. He meets Seldon shortly after arrival on Trantor, but is already under surveillance by agents of the Committee of Public Safety.
Seldon reveals to him that psychohistory has predicted the fall of the Imperium to be unavoidable, and that exile to the remote planet of Terminus is in fact Seldon's real goal. Gaal is arrested, interrogated and eventually joins Seldon in exile on Terminus.
Further details of Gaal's life are given in Forward the Foundation. After the exile, he carried the crises tapes recorded by Hari Seldon there. He also oversaw the construction and installation of the Time Vault. Gaal Dornick became one of the key workers with Stettin Palver on Seldon's Plan, reporting directly to Seldon on its progress as they refined it. After Seldon's death, he moved to Terminus. Seldon's own version of the Prime Radiant was bequeathed to him and shipped after Seldon's death.
Since Bor Alurin is stated to be the only social scientist present in the First Foundation, and the Prime Radiant appears later in possession of the Second Foundation, it's likely that he didn't stay permanently in Terminus.
Read more about this topic: Gaal Dornick
Famous quotes containing the words fictional and/or history:
“One of the proud joys of the man of letters—if that man of letters is an artist—is to feel within himself the power to immortalize at will anything he chooses to immortalize. Insignificant though he may be, he is conscious of possessing a creative divinity. God creates lives; the man of imagination creates fictional lives which may make a profound and as it were more living impression on the world’s memory.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)