Ultimately the Empire sent an expeditionary fleet led by general Bel Riose to conquer the Foundation, in a short-lived period of renewed Imperial expansion not seen in centuries. This relative quiet allowed word of the First Foundation's expanding sphere of influence in the Periphery to come to the attention of Imperial officials. Cleon II's reign at least managed to stabilize the Empire from further decline for a generation. The Empire entered into a final renaissance of power under the last strong Emperor, Cleon II, if only because two centuries of civil wars over the throne had finally ended in exhaustion.

As a result, many in the inner provinces still openly derided the suggestion that the Empire was in a 'decline' at all. Two hundred years later, even more of the Periphery had degenerated into barbarian kingdoms, and the Empire only controlled the inner third of the galaxy - but this inner third was always its core power-base, controlling three-quarters of the entire galaxy's wealth and population. To influence events so that the interregnum period will be only 1,000 years and not 30,000, he created a small haven of technology in a corner of the galaxy (on the planet Terminus) called the First Foundation, whose job it would be to preserve knowledge from the collapse, thus reducing the time required for the next Empire to rebuild. He predicted that the empire would collapse within 300 years, leading to a 30,000 year period of anarchy before a Second Galactic Empire would be established. In the 12,000s GE, a mathematician called Hari Seldon, by the means of psychohistory, predicted the fall of the Empire. During these early centuries, whole sections of the Galaxy would now and then refuse to accept the end of their local indepence, and there were vicissitudes that went with the occasional rebellions, the dynastic wars, and some serious periods of breakdown, but the dominating kingdom that was this Empire survived all this and was officialised as an accepted Galactic Empire around 2,000 GE. The space navy of the Empire was called the 'Imperial Navy'. (Galactic Era), this Empire comprised millions of inhabited worlds with five hundred quadrillion residents, and was made possible by the ability of humans to travel through hyperspace. In the year 11,586 AD, or 1 GE, Emperor Frankenn the First was coronated, which marked the transition from the Trantorian Empire controlling half of the galaxy to a virtual Galactic Empire which slowly began to entirely dominate the Milky Way.

Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov