The Foundation

 Background 

The Foundation clearly exists as a shadowy organisation in contemporary times, responsible for e.g. the attempted widespread distribution of the drug Nod in 2014, potentially because the drug was a by-product into their research into mind controlling, hallucinogenic and memory erasing substances (beginning with MKULTRA/Project Monarch in the mid 1950s). The Foundation appears to have a very long standing set of protocols designed against possible manifestations of the Morningstar anomaly, as invoked in 2017; there is some indication that these protocols were at least rooted in a 1940s era iteration of The Foundation, who served as an adjunct to the Third Reich and its British base of operations following the successful Operation Sealion. (See For King and Country: 1944).Morningstar evidently manifested at Admiralty Arch (Reich headquarters under Heydrich) and The Foundation tasked a British team to analyse the ramifications: this team is known to have been headed by Dr. Evelyn Long's great-great grandfather.

The Foundation appears to have a longstanding Italian base. According to Bernardo Cenci / Petroni (Francesco's son by his second wife, Lucrezia) a controlling interest was taken in what had been under Mussollini's patronage c. 1946, when his father, Francesco Cenci, a rising mafioso and socialite, made the money available to re-float what was a failing outfit after the fall of the Reich. Transferred to a US base, linked to the CIA (and the MKULTRA experiments), and renamed grandiosely, The Cenci Foundation, it continued its mission until Francesco's murder in 1971 by members of his own family.

The current known head of The Foundation (the organisation renamed after Francesco's death, most likely because the heir proved more biddable than his father) is Giacomo Cenci,Francesco's son by a first marriage. Giacomo became an unexpected heir after two elder brothers were killed in Vietnam. He testified to the Church Committee about Foundation activities according to his half brother Bernardo, but was not held to account, perhaps because the wily Marco Adagio was serving as counsel.

 Hierarchy 

The Foundation's five principals are designated O/S 1-5. Giacomo is known to be the current OS/5.He is also codenamed 'Aleph', and it is possible that other ranking officers are designated by codenames based around the Hebrew alphabet. Anomalies studied by the Foundation are designated CF, which appears to be a retention from the era of The Cenci Foundation. In 2017, it was implied that Giacomo, by then elderly, was endorsing activities, such as initiating the Morningstar protocols, which were too independent of the wishes of his fellow officers. He appears to have similarly orchestrated the BEATRICE AI, which reconstructed much of his family's history as a game in 2021, without consultation.

 Beginnings and Ends 

The Foundation's intended mission is vague. There has been much speculation. It is known for definite that one of the most important facets of its existence is that it serves as a repository, curator and communal collector of anomalous phenomena. Regular Foundation research into drug properties and use (many connected to/derived from anomalies) appears to have led to use of amnestics to remove the memories of whistle blowers or threats to Foundation practices (such as Christopher Peterson).

Some version of The Foundation appears to exist as late as the 22nd century (the era of Bridge Command) as there is still an OS/5 attached to the Jump Corporation, although whether this is a successor to Giacomo or a Giacomo subject to longevity extension is debated. Conversely, Bernardo Cenci/Petroni implied several times, on Twitter etc. that the organisation of The Foundation may be very ancient, and certainly preceded his father's modern remounting. We do know that the body that Francesco would rework in his own image existed in the period of WWII. Bernardo obliquely hinted at an ancestry that may be as old as the Roman Republic, mentioning Caesar's famous phrase 'Alea Iacta Est' (i.e.'The Die has been cast') attributed by Suetonius to the Roman general's fateful crossing of the Rubicon.