Foundation Audiobook (Book 1 of Foundation Trilogy), by Isaac Asimov read by Scott Brick -
By means of psychohistory, Seldon has discovered the decline and eventual fall of the Empire, angering the aristocratic members of the Commission of Public Safety, the de facto rulers of the Empire. The Commission considers Seldon's views and statements treasonous, and he is arrested along with the young mathematician Gaal Dornick, who has arrived on Trantor to join Seldon's group. Seldon is tried by the Commission; he defends his beliefs, explaining his theories and predictions, including his belief that the Empire will collapse in 300 years and while a Second Empire will eventually rise it will only come after a 30,000-year dark age. He informs the Commission that an alternative to this future is attainable and explains to them that creating a compendium of all human knowledge, the Encyclopedia Galactica, may not prevent the inevitable fall of the Empire but would reduce the dark age to one millennium.