Yokim Sarns

Yokim Sarns was Dean of the Galactic University on Trantor. When Gilmer attacked that city-world, the students and faculty of the university took its defense into their own hands, and Sarns, despite his utter lack of military experience, found himself general of their militia. As the commander of the only force in the field effectively resisting Gilmer, Sarns was brought into the confidence of Dagobert VIII, Emperor of the Galaxy, who offered him a spot on the ship which would evacuate Dagobert and his court when the fall of Trantor became immanent. Sarns turned the Emperor down and asked only to be returned to his "army's" lines.

After the rest of Trantor fell, the university population continued to resist Gilmer effectively. Gilmer was tempted to destroy their campus from orbit, but decided instead to meet with Sarns and negotiate a ceasefire. Sarns and Maryan Drabel, the librarian of the Imperial Library and aide-de-camp to Sarns in the University's militia, gave Gilmer a tour of the university campus and library, which they had explained was what they had fought so bravely to protect. Sarns was delighted to find that Gilmer was so intimidated by the accumulated learning of galactic history that he agreed to extremely generous ceasefire terms without Sarns's needing to employ the mind-touch.

Sarns was in fact First Speaker of the Second Foundation. Upon obtaining Gilmer's promise to respect the University's neutrality, Sarns was delighted: The Second Foundation no longer had to fear imperial interference, and, since Gilmer had so thoroughly looted the planet that it was no longer attractive enough to other warlords to put it in danger of a second sack (as Hari Seldon had predicted there would be a 70% chance), he believed the Second Foundation would be able to operate quite openly and unmolested until the First Foundation extended its control to Trantor several centuries later, barring any low-probability scenarios such as a non-Second Foundationer learning to use the mind-touch--"And"--he smiled broadly, even a little smugly--"what are the odds of that?"