Helicon
Helicon is the name of the home planet of Hari Seldon, discoverer and developer of psychohistory. Helicon was small in population and not particularly rich in resources, and tended to be bullied by its more powerful neighbours. The name Helicon may come from a river and mountain in Greece. It was noted for martial arts (called 'Twisting' in the Foundation Universe). Hari Seldon claimed that the best Twisters came from Helicon, although his objectivity is questionable. It may be covered primarily by land, as opposed to sea. Tobacco may be grown there, though the only evidence of this is Seldon's father's supposed occupation, labelled by the Encyclopedia Galactica 'a legend of doubtful validity'. In the seventh century of the tenth millennium of the Galactic Era, a large movement of Heliconians convinced themselves that Helicon was the only inhabited world in the Galaxy, in a manner possibly alluding to the Flat Earth Society.
Two indigenous species are known: the lamec, a beast of burden, and the greti, a dangerous animal. The names of these animals are most likely anagrams of camel and tiger, respectively. Further evidence can be inferred from local Helicon saying recited by Seldon: "If you ride a greti, you find you can't get off; for then it will eat you." This saying bears uncanny resemblance to the well-known Chinese proverb "騎虎難下" (He who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount).
Apart from Arcturus, it is the only known planet in the Arcturus Sector.
Read more about this topic: List Of Foundation Universe Planets
Famous quotes containing the word helicon:
“The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)