Location from Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Nearby kingdom and the first military threat to Terminus — a breakaway province that regressed to barbarism and thought it could bully the Foundation with swords and ships.
Anacreon represents the pattern that defined the Foundation's first century: a nearby kingdom, formerly an Imperial province, that lost its technology as the Empire withdrew and compensated with aggression. The kings of Anacreon saw Terminus as a defenseless academic colony and planned to annex it for its nuclear technology. They were half right. Terminus was academic. But Salvor Hardin — the first Mayor — understood that the Foundation's technological edge was a weapon more powerful than any fleet. He gave Anacreon nuclear power plants operated by Foundation-trained priests, creating a religious dependency that made military conquest unnecessary. When Anacreon's king tried to use his new warships against Terminus, the priests shut everything down with a word. This was the First Seldon Crisis: the realization that the Foundation would survive not through force but through making itself indispensable. Anacreon became a client state, its independence an illusion maintained by Foundation-controlled technology.
A habitable world of moderate development, its cities showing the decay of former Imperial infrastructure. Stone buildings patched with cruder materials, landing pads cracked and weedy, power systems running on fossil fuels where nuclear plants once operated. The royal palace is a converted Imperial administrative complex, its original clean lines cluttered with feudal additions — banners, throne rooms, dungeons. The military installations are more functional, reflecting a culture that prioritized warships over plumbing.
Also known as: the Kingdom of Anacreon