Foundation Episode 9: Ending Explained! Is Hari Seldon Alive on Terminus? Is Phara Dead?
Foundation Episode 9 is available on Apple TV+! If you want to know the explanation of the end of episode 9, read on! Our faithful companion Gaal begins the penultimate episode of the first season of Foundation by asserting that the story itself is the greatest invention of mankind. We then see a teenage Salvor asking her father where people are from.
Because it’s an easy question, with an easy answer. Ironically, Abbas mentions as a theory the notion that, in the past, humans only existed on one planet, with Earth being mentioned as a possible start. The conversation gets deeper when teenage Salvor wonders how people can hate each other if they are all from the same place.
Foundation Episode 9 Ending Explained
Back on Terminus, Hugo arrives with his Thespian allies just in time to see Salvor open the Vault, and everyone on the planet awakens from their coma. However, a stalemate ensues between the Anacreon and the Thespies. Salvor pleads with them to come to an agreement, but Phara continues to shoot the vault until the Great Hunter receives an arrow in the neck. At the end of Episode 9 of Foundation, Hari Seldon is seen coming out of the Vault, which is now open.
So it looks like Hari Seldon finally arrived at Terminus decades after the Foundation team arrived. However, from his demeanor, it looks like he arrived just in time, as he congratulates everyone present for sticking to his plan.
Thus, the end of episode 9 of Foundation proves that Hari had planned to make the Anacreons, the Thespies and the members of the Foundation collaborate from the start. However, the mathematician is not alive, and the version of him that emerges from the Vault is probably a similar hologram to the one talking to Gaal on the Crow.
The Great Hunter of Anacreon, who leads her people in an attempt at revenge for the widespread destruction of their planet, is ultimately killed in this episode. Finally, to stop her firing at the Vault, the Guardian of Terminus shoots Phara with his own bow. The fact that the rest of his army gives up without thinking shows that they too are likely relieved by the death of their maniacal leader.
