The Foundation was the originator of the Habitats, funding, designing and constructing twenty of them worldwide as well as recruiting people to live within them. They spent decades working to find and save as many cultures as possible.
Named after a series of stories and books written by Isaac Asimov, the Foundation was started after the nuclear bombs had been detonated during a war commonly known as World War II, which occurred on Earth during the pre-Catastrophe year of 1945 and the subsequent nuclear arms race.
The Foundation came into being as those who feared the worst-case scenario found each other and began planning. The name was chosen to reflect that many of the same issues presented in the stories were what this group of people was confronting: saving humanity from being plunged into the dark ages and losing all the knowledge and wisdom the species had known. They adopted a mantra, 'Hope for the Best, Plan for the Worst.'
The Foundation was an open secret in some circles but never acknowledged unless its members revealed themselves. Its members included some of the world's wealthiest, most intelligent and creative people, who chose to funnel resources towards the eventual goals.
These goals were originally conceived to create arks holding the genetic material of plants for the future. Eventually, the goals expanded to include the genetic material of as many animal species as possible, as well as data banks of the knowledge accumulated throughout humanity’s existence.
The Foundation purchased land and constructed twenty self-contained biospheres under mountains scattered around the globe called the ‟Habitats.” They chose to populate them with a diverse group of people who could restore humankind in the event of a disaster and worked to create a new culture, one of respect and equality through the Charter. To this end, they worked with psychologists, sociologists, and others to bring people into the habitats who would work cooperatively with each other and focus on community and individuality in a way that hadn’t originated organically in Earth's past.