This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please share your thoughts on the matter at this article's entry on the Articles for deletion page.
Feel free to improve the article, but the article must not be blanked, and this notice must not be removed, until the discussion is closed. For more information, particularly on merging or moving the article during the discussion, read the guide to deletion. Find sources:"Spacer"Asimov–news·newspapers·books·scholar·JSTOR%5B%5BWikipedia%3AArticles+for+deletion%2FSpacer+%28Asimov%29%5D%5DAFD
Spacers were the fictional first humans to emigrate to space in Isaac Asimov's Robot and latterly related Foundation and Empire series. In these stories, about a millennium thereafter, they severed political ties with Earth, and embraced low population-growth and extreme longevity (with lifespans reaching 400 years) as a means for a high standard of living, in combination with using large numbers of robots as servants. At the same time, they also became militarily dominant over Earth.
Asimov's novels chronicle the gradual deterioration of the Spacer worlds and the disappearance of robots from human society. The exact details vary from book to book, and in at least one case—the radioactive contamination of Earth—later scientific discoveries forced Asimov to retroactively reconfigure his own future history. The general pattern, however, is as follows:
In the vague period between Asimov's near-future Robot short stories (of the type collected in I, Robot) and his novels, immigrants from Earth establish colonies on fifty worlds, the first being Aurora, the last Solaria, and all fifty inscribed in the Hall of the Worlds located on Melpomenia, the nineteenth. Sociological forces possibly related to their sparse populations and dependence on robot labor lead to the collapse of most of these worlds; their dominance is replaced by new, upstart colonies known as "Settler" worlds.
Although Asimov never listed all the fifty Spacer worlds, some of them can be inferred from the author's and others' novels and short stories. Some of them are:
Solaria, colonized by Spacers from the nearby planet Nexon
Tethys
Theia (from Mark W. Tiedemann's Chimera)
Wider connections
In Asimov's short-story collection I, Robot, it is mentioned that the first extra-solar Earth colonies had recently been settled, in the wake of Gregory Powell and Mike Donovan's initial historic hyperspatial jump in "Escape!". In the novel The Robots of Dawn, it is established that the planet Aurora was originally known as "New Earth," during the first few centuries following its colonization by Earthmen (in the Tau Ceti star system), and was the first planet settled by Man outside of Earth's solar system. Therefore, it can be inferred that Aurora/New Earth is that same very first extrasolar colony settled during the timeframe of the stories featured within I, Robot, during the mid-21st Century.
Asimov's novel Nemesis hints that the Spacers may have been descendants of human beings selected by a non-human intelligence for their mental characteristics. However, except for a brief mention in Forward the Foundation, the Nemesis plotline is entirely unlinked with the rest of Asimov's science-fiction canon. (The internal logic of the Robot-Empire-Foundation saga demands that robots be present on Earth prior to the Spacer worlds' colonization, yet Nemesis contains no robots, making the continuity difficult to accept.)
Further, another story within the story arc establishes the Spacers' mastery of myco-food (food derived from fungi), which they then retain all through history up to their inclusion in the Imperium on Trantor in the sector of Mycogen. The Spacers' control of myco-food makes the farming operations of Solaria seem more puzzling, until we remember that Solaria was aberrant even by Spacer standards and remained so in the later book Foundation and Earth as a real example of menace to the Second Foundation itself.
In a somewhat similar vein, Mark W. Tiedemann's "Robot Mystery" trilogy also portrays the Spacers as a group genetically distinct from Earthpeople and their Settler descendants. Tiedemann's trilogy, set between The Robots of Dawn and its sequel Robots and Empire, attempts to update Asimov's work to reflect more recent scientific and science-fictional speculation, for example explaining the lack of nanotechnology in Asimov's robot-ridden society. According to Tiedemann's Aurora (2002), the cumulative effects of genetic alterations (due partly to nanotech devices since abandoned) separated Spacers from the rest of humanity, to such an extent that the word "human" in the Three Laws of Robotics may no longer apply to them. In Robots and Empire, Gladia stated Spacers are too genetically different from Earthmen to interbreed, although it was never proved. This might explain why the remnant of Aurorans failed to dissolve in the wider population even after twenty thousand years.
In his Lucky Starr series of juvenile (or in modern parlance, "young adult") novels, Asimov describes the "Sirians" in terms which resemble those for the Spacers.
Roger MacBride Allen's Caliban trilogy portrays several years in the history of Inferno, a planet where Spacers recruit Settlers to rebuild the collapsing ecology.
Settlers
Settlers are human colonists that replaced the earlier Spacer emigrants who were in dominance in the vague period between Robot series near-future short stories (of the type collected in I, Robot) and novels.
Emigrants from Earth establish colonies on fifty worlds, the first being Aurora, the last Solaria, and the Hall of the Worlds located on Melpomenia, the nineteenth. However, sociological forces possibly related to their sparse populations and dependence on robot labor lead to the collapse of most of these worlds; their dominance is replaced by new, upstart colonies known as Settler worlds in the Milky Way galaxy. Comporellon was the first colonized world of the Settlers. Unlike their Spacer predecessors, the Settlers detested robots, and so by the time of the Empire series, robotics is almost an unknown science.
The Settlers were born from a movement founded by noted Earth hero and police officer Elijah Baley, who had some years earlier, become the first Earth born human in centuries to travel beyond Earth (to the Spacer colony world Solaria and later colony Aurora to investigate murders) and to walk under open skies as opposed to remaining in the underground cities all Earthmen then lived in. The experience of doing so had a profound effect on Baley, who upon his return from Solaria, he began gathering young risk takers, willing to reject the stasis of life within the cities and struggle against the now culture wide agoraphobia now experienced by all Earth born humans. Over time the movement began to grow and progressed from simply practicing to overcome the agoraphobia and began studying manual agriculture, determined to learn how to survive without robotic aid.
The governments of Earth took a dim view of Baley's movement, but his status as a hero to the public and his political connections with the Spacers kept the early Settlers unmolested and they gradually grew to become a major force in Earth's politics and led by Baley's son Ben Baley they managed to achieve their goal, settling what would be named 'Baleyworld'. From there the Settler's expanded with a far greater speed than the Spacers ever demonstrated and soon surpassed their long living cousins in number of planets held, if not in technology, which prompted concern and threats from the conservative side of the Spacer government.
Unlike the Spacers who took a haughty view of Earth, the Settlers revered the Homeworld, turning to Earth to arbitrate any disputes between them and believing their connection to Earth's past made them superior to the advanced but now stagnant Spacers.
In the novel The Robots of Dawn, Asimov reveals why the majority of Settlers came from the short-lived Earth population, as opposed to Spacer worlds, which would have used humaniform robots in the process.
By the time of the sequel, Robots And Empire, the number of the Settler worlds exceeded a hundred ("about half" of the "hundreds of... planets... recorded and studied").
Roger MacBride Allen's Caliban trilogy portrays several years in the history of Inferno, a planet where Spacers recruit Settlers to rebuild the collapsing ecology via terraforming.
(In Asimov's novel Nemesis, the main colony is a member of the collection of orbital colonies known as the Fifty Settlements. It should not be confused with the later Settlers that are the matter of this article, as it is possible that the Fifty Settlements were the basis for the fifty Spacer worlds in the Robot stories.)
The Caves of Steel is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. It is a detective story and illustrates an idea Asimov advocated, that science fiction can be applied to any literary genre, rather than just being a limited genre in itself.
Foundation and Earth is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series. It was published in 1986, four years after the first sequel to the Foundation trilogy, which is titled Foundation's Edge.
The Foundation series is a science fiction book series written by American author Isaac Asimov. First collected in 1951, for thirty years the series was a trilogy: Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation. It won the one-time Hugo Award for "Best All-Time Series" in 1966. Asimov began adding new volumes in 1981, with two sequels: Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth, and two prequels: Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation. The additions made reference to events in Asimov's Robot and Empire series, indicating that they were also set in the same fictional universe.
The Robot series is a series of 37 science fiction short stories and six novels by American writer Isaac Asimov, featuring positronic robots.
The Galactic Empire series is a science fiction sequence of three of Isaac Asimov's earliest novels, and extended by one short story. They are connected by their early place in his published works and chronological placement within his overarching Foundation Universe, set around the rise of Asimov's Galactic Empire, between the Robot and Foundation series to which they were linked in Asimov's later novels.
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov. The rules were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they had been foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. The Three Laws, quoted as being from the "Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition, 2058 A.D.", are:
Nemesis is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. One of his later science fiction novels, it was published in 1989, three years before his death. The novel is loosely related to the future history of his Robot Series, Empire Series, and Foundation Series, into which Asimov attempted to integrate his science fiction output. This novel is connected to Asimov's other works by several ideas from earlier and later novels, including non-human intelligence, sentient planets (Erythro), and rotor engines.
R. Daneel Olivaw is a fictional robot created by Isaac Asimov. The "R" initial in his name stands for "Robot," a naming convention in Asimov's future society. Daneel appears in Asimov's Robot and Foundation series, most notably in the novels The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, The Robots of Dawn, Robots and Empire, Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation and Earth as well as the short story "Mirror Image". He is constructed immediately prior to the age of the Settlers, and lives at least until the formation of Galaxia, thus spanning the entire history of the First Empire, the Second Empire run by the Second Foundation, and finally the group consciousnesses of Galaxia, although this last is uncertain as no book about this was ever written.
Robots and Empire is a science fiction novel by the American author Isaac Asimov and published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, which consists of many short stories and five novels.
The Naked Sun is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, the second in his Robot series. Like its predecessor, The Caves of Steel, this is a whodunit story. The book was first published in 1957 after being serialized in Astounding Science Fiction between October and December 1956.
The Robots of Dawn is a "whodunit" science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. It is the third novel in Asimov's Robot series.
Mark W. Tiedemann is an American science fiction and detective fiction author. He has written novels set in Isaac Asimov's Robot universe, and within his own original universe, known as the Secantis Sequence.
Elijah "Lije" Baley is a fictional character in Isaac Asimov's Robot series. He is the main character of the novels The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn, and of the short story "Mirror Image." He is seen in flashbacks several times and talked about frequently in Robots and Empire, which is set roughly 160 years after his death. He is further mentioned in passing in "Foundation and Earth" as a "Culture Hero". Besides Asimov's works he appears in the Foundation's Friends story "Strip-Runner" by Pamela Sargent, and "Isaac Asimov's 'The Caves Of Steel'" poem by Randall Garrett.
Isaac Asimov's Caliban (1993) is a science fiction novel by American writer Roger MacBride Allen, set in Isaac Asimov's Robot/Empire/Foundation universe.
"Mother Earth" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was written from September 1 to October 10, 1948, and published in the May 1949 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. It was republished in Asimov's 1972 short story collection The Early Asimov.
This is a bibliography of books by Isaac Asimov organized by series chronologically and by series timeline.
Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn is the final novel in the Lucky Starr series, six juvenile science fiction novels by Isaac Asimov that originally appeared under the pseudonym Paul French. The novel was first published by Doubleday & Company in 1958. It was the last novel to be published by Asimov until his 1966 novelization of Fantastic Voyage, and his last original novel until 1973's The Gods Themselves. Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn is the only novel by Asimov set in the Saturnian system.
Isaac Asimov's Robots and Aliens is a series of novels written by various authors and loosely connected to Isaac Asimov's Robot series. Each volume is complete in itself, but they form a continuing series. The series follows the action of the novels of the Isaac Asimov's Robot City series, with the same protagonists Derec and Ariel, and many other characters. The plot deals with the Three Laws and encounters between robots and different varieties of alien life.
Robots is a 1988 Interactive movie directed by Doug Smith and Kim Takal. Its screenplay, by Peter Olatka, is based on Isaac Asimov's Robot series. It stars Stephen Rowe as Elijah Baley, Brent Barrett as R. Daneel Olivaw, and John Henry Cox as Han Fastolfe.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
