Location from Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Isolationist sector of Trantor — a religious community that preserved ancient Earth memories while the rest of the galaxy forgot humanity's origin world entirely.
Mycogen is a time capsule sealed inside a world-city. While the rest of Trantor evolved, merged, and forgot, the Mycogenians preserved their identity through rigid cultural isolation. They farm micro-organisms — hence the name — and trade their unique food products for the resources they cannot produce internally. Their economy is self-sufficient enough to maintain independence; their culture is insular enough to resist assimilation. What makes Mycogen significant is what they remember. In a galaxy that has forgotten Earth entirely — that debates whether humanity even had a single origin world — the Mycogenians preserved fragmentary memories of Aurora, the Spacer worlds, and the robots that served humanity before the Empire. These memories are sacred texts to them and archaeological gold to anyone who encounters them. Seldon visited Mycogen during his flight across Trantor and saw the robot in their temple. That encounter helped connect the Foundation saga to the Robot novels — a link the Mycogenians had unknowingly maintained for twenty thousand years through sheer cultural stubbornness.
A sealed sector with controlled entry points. Inside, the architecture is deliberately austere: white walls, clean lines, no decoration beyond religious symbols. The inhabitants wear identical skullcaps and robes, their heads shaved, their manner formal and guarded with outsiders. The Mycogenian temple — the Sacratorium — is the sector's heart: a cavernous space housing the robot they worship as a relic of Aurora, the original Spacer world. The air smells of the micro-organisms they farm, a faint yeasty tang that permeates everything.
Also known as: the Mycogenian Sector, Mycogen Sector