Hober Mallow (b. 19,590, Smyrno; d. 19,697, Terminus City) was a master trader of Smyrnian birth who was known for his ending of Salvor Hardin's cult of science used to control the Periphery and for his successful terms as mayor of Terminus City.

In the aforementioned incident, he was sent to Korell to investigate the cruiser crashes in the system. When he arrived in Korell, he is attacked by a mob after his men brought a Foundation priest onboard. He eventually gave the priest to the mob. Later on, he visited the commdor of Korell, Asper Argo, to whom he gives many nucleic objects. He returned home and was accused of killing the priest and not spreading the Foundation's pseudo-religon along with the technology. However he knew that the priest was not an actual Foundation citizen, but an agent of Korell. He was brought to trial but got out because of rampant political support.

He also theorized that the Foundation had to move from religious control to economic control of the surrounding worlds, as the Foundation's policy of expansion had stopped after the Four Kingdoms had been pacified. The idea of commercial control rested on selling the barbarian states all the comforts of Foundation technology, watching them become dependent on it, and then excreting pressure as the barbarian kingdoms as the consumer products the Foundation sold the barbarians eventually failed. This way the Foundation entered another expansion territory and influence.

This article is a stub. You can help AsimovWiki by expanding it