Asimov Question

[Shroom Man 777]

I have read the Foundation stories, but not the Robots series. Um... why did Robots fall into disuse during the last days of the Empire, when all this Hari Seldon and Foundation stuff started? The Robots were 3 Laws safe and I don't think they rebelled or anything, yet the only robots we see in the Foundation stories are in... Solaris, was it? The place where people had testicles and ovaries. And mind powers.

Why is this so?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, if memory serves, the humans that built the Empire weren't very Robot friendly, and didn't really use lots of robots for starters. Also, I recall that the Golden Age of the Empire was long gone, and the Empire was beginning to lose technology, or stopped using them entirely.

Now, Solaris is a relic of the old Spacer Empire led by Aurora. They are all that is left of the Spacers, since they went underground and just disappeared altogether by Robots and Empire.

Well, to be frankly honest, the Trantorian Empire was founded by humans with known anti-robot bias. It's no surprise they stopped using them altogether somewhere along the line.

[PainRack]

The robots also decided to go into hiding, as to remain behind would cause humans to become overdependent on them and the resultant collapse....... Beside, these robots are so godlike that they CHOSE a universe where there are no aliens whatsoever, and dumped the Trantorian Empire in it.......

[Lancer]

Erm, no. It's implied that the robots fought wars of extermination against alien races to ensure that the Settlers could safely expand, as the First Law is only binding to human life.

[Darth Raptor]

Human expansion into the greater galaxy went in two waves. The first were the Spacers, who colonized only a handful of worlds (like, thirty or something) and used robots extensively. They also rigidly controlled their population growth, and were more or less out-bred by the baseline humans of the Galactic Empire. By the time of the Foundation trilogy, the hermaphroditic Solarians are all that remains of Spacer civilization, but at their height, the Spacer Worlds dominated the known galaxy, and relatively backwards and myopic Earth played to their tune (albeit grudgingly).

The Galactic Empire(s) are borne of the second wave of human colonization. The Settlers, as they're called, are baseline humans from Earth. They're the ones to expand out into the greater galaxy, and they were never quite fond of robots. Pre-Imperial Earth did use robots (naturally, they were invented there), but they fell out of favor almost immediately and it was mostly through pressure by the Spacers that they kept using them. Once the Empire emerged as the dominant galactic superpower, they dispensed with them quickly and much later, forgot most of the related technology.

[Johonebesus]

How much of that was due to the psychic android who was able to accept the "zeroth" law and decided to guide and protect humanity?

[Batman]

How much of that was due to the psychic android who was able to accept the "zeroth" law and decided to guide and protect humanity?

Retroactively, a lot if not most of it. Earth's dislike for robots was there from the very first Robot novel if only as an extension of their dislike for the Spacers, but it wasn't until the later Robot novels and the extended Foundation trilogy that Daneel's influence in humans abandoning robots happened. The original Foundatation stories simply didn't have robots because...they didn't have robots.
Darth Raptor? 50.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Erm, no. It's implied that the robots fought wars of extermination against alien races to ensure that the Settlers could safely expand, as the First Law is only binding to human life.

What? Where was this mentioned?

[RedImperator]

Because the Robot series and the Foundation series were never intended to be a part of the same universe, and when Asimov tried to stitch them together later, it created a huge gap in logic that had to be explained away by turning R. Daneel Olivaw into a living god who manipulated the entire galaxy, which is why I just pretend the Foundation series stopped at Second Foundation.

[Batman]

Erm, no. It's implied that the robots fought wars of extermination against alien races to ensure that the Settlers could safely expand, as the First Law is only binding to human life.

What? Where was this mentioned?

The never to be sufficiently damned second Foundation trilogy. The one NOT written by Asimov.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I have read the Foundation stories, but not the Robots series. Um... why did Robots fall into disuse during the last days of the Empire, when all this Hari Seldon and Foundation stuff started? The Robots were 3 Laws safe and I don't think they rebelled or anything, yet the only robots we see in the Foundation stories are in... Solaris, was it? The place where people had testicles and ovaries. And mind powers.

Why is this so?

In the 1980s, legendary Science Fiction writer Isaac Asimov was replaced by a robot.


...And not a good robot, either. This robot was allowed to violate the first law and bring harm to humans, but only by writing writing novels under the name "Isaac Asimov". It's a petty vengeance, but it was his to take on all mankind.

Seriously, Asimov had a case of the "oh shit, I'm gonna die"s and maybe a dash of "I need money. Better cash in on my good stuff", and decided to resurrect the Robot series and the Foundation series. Then he had the brilliant plan to wed these two mutually exclusive SF universes together using the literary gluing technique known as "massive inconsistencies", and to top it all off he hammered on an ending no one could possibly like.
I mean, really. Galaxia?

I didn't even get to the shoddy pacing, the flat characterizations, and the dirty-old-man-service sex scenes that almost read as if they were written by a virgin. My advice is to stop at Second Foundation (the third Foundation book) and whatever the second Robot book was after Caves of Steel and pretend that the rest of the books are just speculative fanfiction and ignore them.


Although, I will speculate that R Daneel Olivaw may consider humans subsumed by Galaxia not to be human anymore as they are just cells in a larger, inhuman organism, which gives him a great motive and opportunity to KILL ALL HUMANS!!

[Shroom Man 777]

Yeah, I totally don't get the amount of titties in that Foundation and Earth[/] book. Oh, and hermaphrodite testicles.

[Molyneux]

I have read the Foundation stories, but not the Robots series. Um... why did Robots fall into disuse during the last days of the Empire, when all this Hari Seldon and Foundation stuff started? The Robots were 3 Laws safe and I don't think they rebelled or anything, yet the only robots we see in the Foundation stories are in... Solaris, was it? The place where people had testicles and ovaries. And mind powers.

Why is this so?

In the 1980s, legendary Science Fiction writer Isaac Asimov was replaced by a robot.


...And not a good robot, either. This robot was allowed to violate the first law and bring harm to humans, but only by writing writing novels under the name "Isaac Asimov". It's a petty vengeance, but it was his to take on all mankind.

Seriously, Asimov had a case of the "oh shit, I'm gonna die"s and maybe a dash of "I need money. Better cash in on my good stuff", and decided to resurrect the Robot series and the Foundation series. Then he had the brilliant plan to wed these two mutually exclusive SF universes together using the literary gluing technique known as "massive inconsistencies", and to top it all off he hammered on an ending no one could possibly like.
I mean, really. Galaxia?

I didn't even get to the shoddy pacing, the flat characterizations, and the dirty-old-man-service sex scenes that almost read as if they were written by a virgin. My advice is to stop at Second Foundation (the third Foundation book) and whatever the second Robot book was after Caves of Steel and pretend that the rest of the books are just speculative fanfiction and ignore them.


Although, I will speculate that R Daneel Olivaw may consider humans subsumed by Galaxia not to be human anymore as they are just cells in a larger, inhuman organism, which gives him a great motive and opportunity to KILL ALL HUMANS!!

Uhh...I quite enjoyed that ending, actually. Partial, consensual hive-minding like that (with individual humans retaining their individual minds, but linked to a larger entity) is generally a pretty cool idea if it's done well (like, say, in A Miracle of Science).

[The Kernel]

Because the Robot series and the Foundation series were never intended to be a part of the same universe, and when Asimov tried to stitch them together later, it created a huge gap in logic that had to be explained away by turning R. Daneel Olivaw into a living god who manipulated the entire galaxy, which is why I just pretend the Foundation series stopped at Second Foundation.

Olivaw didn't become a god until much of the "EU" Foundation knockoffs came into effect. If you just take Foundation and Earth, Robots and Empire and Forward the Foundation into consideration, R. Daneel made attempts to nudge the human race in one direction or another, but there was little evidence of large scale changes. The biggest impact he had was laying the seeds for Psychohistory and Gaia, which while seemingly large, were mostly carried out by others besides him.