Spacer (Asimov)
Encyclopedia
In Isaac Asimov
's Foundation
/Empire
/Robot
series, the Spacers were the first human
s to emigrate to space. 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 robot
s 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 retcon
his own future history. The general pattern, however, is as follows:
In the vague period between Asimov's near-future robot stories (of the type collected in I, Robot
) and his Robot 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. 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. Unlike their Spacer predecessors, the Settlers detested robots, and so by the time of the Empire
novels, robotics is almost an unknown science.
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.
In Foundation and Earth
, Golan Trevize visits several of these worlds. We learn the eventual fate of Aurora
(The Robots of Dawn
) and also Solaria
, the setting of the earlier novel The Naked Sun
.
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) have 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 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.
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
's Foundation
The Foundation Series
The Foundation Series is a science fiction series by Isaac Asimov. There are seven volumes in the Foundation Series proper, which in its in-universe chronological order are: Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation's Edge, and...
/Empire
Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire Series
The Galactic Empire Series is a science fiction series containing three novels and one short story by the American author Isaac Asimov...
/Robot
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series
Isaac Asimov's Robot Series is a series of short stories and novels by Isaac Asimov featuring positronic robots.- Short stories :Most of Asimov's robot short stories are set in the first age of positronic robotics and space exploration...
series, the Spacers were the first human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s to emigrate to space. About a millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
thereafter, they severed political ties with Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, and embraced low population growth and extreme longevity (with lifespans reaching 400 years) as a means for a high standard of living
Standard of living
Standard of living is generally measured by standards such as real income per person and poverty rate. Other measures such as access and quality of health care, income growth inequality and educational standards are also used. Examples are access to certain goods , or measures of health such as...
, in combination with using large numbers of robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
s 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 retcon
Retcon
Retroactive continuity is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work. Retcons are done for many reasons, including the accommodation of sequels or further derivative works in a series, wherein newer authors or creators want to revise the in-story history to allow a course...
his own future history. The general pattern, however, is as follows:
In the vague period between Asimov's near-future robot stories (of the type collected in I, Robot
I, Robot
I, Robot is a collection of nine science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published by Gnome Press in 1950 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950. The stories are...
) and his Robot novels, emigrants from Earth establish colonies on fifty worlds, the first being Aurora
Aurora (planet)
Aurora is a fictional planet in Isaac Asimov's Robot Series. It was the first world settled by the Spacers, originally named 'New Earth'; it was located 3.7 parsecs from Earth.-Origins & development:...
, the last Solaria
Solaria
Solaria was a fictional human-inhabited planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Robot series.It was the last of fifty Spacer worlds colonized by humans in a first wave of interstellar settlement. Occupied from approximately 4270 AD by inhabitants of the neighboring world Nexon originally for summer...
, and 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. Unlike their Spacer predecessors, the Settlers detested robots, and so by the time of the Empire
Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire Series
The Galactic Empire Series is a science fiction series containing three novels and one short story by the American author Isaac Asimov...
novels, robotics is almost an unknown science.
Roger MacBride Allen
Roger MacBride Allen
Roger MacBride Allen is an American science fiction author. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and grew up in Washington, D.C., graduating from Boston University in 1979. His father is American historian and author Thomas B...
's Caliban
Isaac Asimov's Caliban
Isaac Asimov's Caliban is a science fiction novel by Roger MacBride Allen, set in Isaac Asimov's Robots/Empire/Foundation universe.-Plot summary:This series deals with a new type of robots who do not have the Three Laws of Robotics...
trilogy portrays several years in the history of Inferno, a planet where Spacers recruit Settlers to rebuild the collapsing ecology.
In Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...
, Golan Trevize visits several of these worlds. We learn the eventual fate of Aurora
Aurora (planet)
Aurora is a fictional planet in Isaac Asimov's Robot Series. It was the first world settled by the Spacers, originally named 'New Earth'; it was located 3.7 parsecs from Earth.-Origins & development:...
(The Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn is a "whodunit" science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. It is the third novel in Asimov's Robot series.It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1984.- Plot summary :...
) and also Solaria
Solaria
Solaria was a fictional human-inhabited planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Robot series.It was the last of fifty Spacer worlds colonized by humans in a first wave of interstellar settlement. Occupied from approximately 4270 AD by inhabitants of the neighboring world Nexon originally for summer...
, the setting of the earlier novel The Naked Sun
The Naked Sun
The Naked Sun is an English language science fiction novel, the second in Isaac Asimov's Robot series.-Plot introduction:Like its famous predecessor, The Caves of Steel, it is a whodunit story, in addition to being science fiction...
.
Wider connections
Asimov's novel NemesisNemesis (Asimov)
Nemesis is a science fiction novel by American writer Isaac Asimov. One of his later science fiction novels, it was published in 1989, only three years before his death...
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
Forward the Foundation
Forward the Foundation is a novel written by Isaac Asimov. It is the second of two prequels to the Foundation Series. It is written in much the same style as the original novel Foundation, a novel composed of chapters with long intervals in between...
, the Nemesis plotline is entirely unlinked with the rest of Asimov's science-fiction canon
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
. (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
Continuity (fiction)
In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, plot, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time...
difficult to accept.)
Further, another story within the story arc establishes the Spacers' mastery of myco-food (food derived from fungi
Mycology
Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their genetic and biochemical properties, their taxonomy and their use to humans as a source for tinder, medicinals , food and entheogens, as well as their dangers, such as poisoning or...
), which they then retain all through history up to their inclusion in the Imperium on Trantor
Trantor
Trantor is a fictional planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series and Empire Series of science fiction novels.Trantor was first described in a short story by Asimov appearing in Early Asimov Volume 1. Later Trantor gained prominence when the 1940s Foundation Series first appeared in print . Asimov...
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
Foundation and Earth
Foundation and Earth is a Locus Award nominated science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, the fifth novel of the Foundation series and chronologically the last in the series...
as a real example of menace to the Second Foundation itself.
In a somewhat similar vein, Mark W. Tiedemann
Mark W. Tiedemann
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....
'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
The Robots of Dawn
The Robots of Dawn is a "whodunit" science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov, first published in 1983. It is the third novel in Asimov's Robot series.It was nominated for both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1984.- Plot summary :...
and its sequel Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire
Robots and Empire is science fiction novel written by the American author Isaac Asimov and published by Doubleday Books in 1985. It is part of Asimov's Robot series, consisting of many short stories and novels....
, attempts to update Asimov's work to reflect more recent scientific and science-fictional speculation, for example explaining the lack of nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
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) have separated Spacers from the rest of humanity, to such an extent that the word "human" in the Three Laws of Robotics
Three Laws of Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov and later added to. The rules are introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories...
may no longer apply to them.
In his Lucky Starr
Lucky Starr series
Lucky Starr is the hero of a series of science fiction books by Isaac Asimov, using the pen name "Paul French". Intended for juveniles, the books were written in the middle of the Cold War and the series shows traces of this, both in educational intent and in the nature of the social forces involved...
series of juvenile (or in modern parlance, "young adult") novels, Asimov describes the "Sirians
Sirius
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek: Seirios . The star has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris...
" in terms which resemble those for the Spacers.