Location from Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Refuge world during the Mule's conquests — where the remnants of the Foundation regrouped and where Bayta Darell unmasked the Mule, saving the Seldon Plan through individual action.
Haven became important precisely because it was unimportant. When the Mule's emotionally controlled armies swept through the Foundation's territory, the unconquered remnants fled to worlds too insignificant to attract attention. Haven was the largest of these refuges — a place where defeated Foundation leaders tried to organize resistance while knowing they had no counter to the Mule's ability to convert enemies into fanatic followers. The critical moment happened here: Bayta Darell, acting on intuition rather than calculation, killed the clown Magnifico's guardian rather than let the Mule — who was Magnifico — reach the Second Foundation. It was an individual act in a universe supposedly governed by mass statistics. Seldon's plan accounted for populations, not persons. Bayta's choice was the one thing psychohistory could never have predicted, and it saved everything. This is Foundation's deepest theme crystallized in a single location: the tension between statistical inevitability and individual free will.
An out-of-the-way world with scattered settlements and dense forest cover. Haven's cities are built for concealment rather than display — low buildings under tree canopy, underground facilities, camouflaged landing pads. The architecture has a temporary quality, as if the inhabitants always expected to leave in a hurry. The main settlement clusters around a natural harbor, its docks handling both ocean vessels and atmospheric craft.
Also known as: Haven