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Robot Series
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Isaac Asimov's most famous contribution to Science Fiction are his positronic robots. These stories tend to share several similarities, but are overall inconsistent with each other. Many of the same themes are explored in each story, with human and robot interaction usually creating the plot. While initially a separate setting compared to other stories, Dr Asimov started crossing continuity between his multiple settings towards the end of his life.Recurring characters often serve as a way to group the stories: Mike Donovan and Gregory Powell, field specialists for US Robots, who were used to introduce the Three Laws of Robotics. Susan Calvin, chief robopsychologist at US Robots, whose interview provides the Framing Device for the I, Robot collection. Multivac, a proto-internet giant mainframe that was sentient from the start. Usually runs on vacuum tubes rather than the positronic brains of his other robots. Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw, human and robot detectives who first appear in The Caves of Steel.Starting in 1987, with Isaac Asimovs Robot City, Dr Asimov started giving permission for other creators to play in his sandbox. A 1988 VHS Game, Isaac Asimov's Robots was authorized, as well as the later 2004 film I, Robot. The latter film began as an unrelated movie, and was rewritten to include Asenion elements not limited to the I, Robot novel. | |
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A Boy's Best Friend | |
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First Law | |
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Mirror Image | |
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Stranger in Paradise | |
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...That Thou Art Mindful of Him | |
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The Rest of the Robots | |
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Applied Phlebotinum | |
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Applied Phlebotinum: The "positronic" brains of these robots is a nonsense word based on the positron. These brains operate based on having multiple objectives, and the "three laws" are the objectives with the MOST priority. | |
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Miraculous Malfunction | |
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Miraculous Malfunction: In "Light Verse", a house-cleaning robot is terrible at house-cleaning but these defects allow it to create astonishing works of art. | |
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Heterosexual Life-Partners | |
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Heterosexual Life-Partners: Mike Donovan and Gregory Powell, the nearly inseparable field specialists for US Robotics. The two men work together in stressful conditions, and typically take their vacations together, too. While no ages are given, it's implied that the two maintain a working relationship for decades. | |
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Benevolent A.I. | |
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Benevolent A.I.: Pretty much all the robots in the stories, thanks to the Three Laws of Robotics. A vast majority of all robots exist completely harmlessly aiding and giving peace to human life. The only subversions are entirely due to extreme circumstances or, much more commonly, human error. | |
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Logic Bomb | |
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Logic Bomb: The only time that the classic logic bomb ever worked is in "Liar!", where Dr Calvin confronts the robot with evidence that its "harmless lies" have caused harm to human beings. Said robot locks up and breaks down since it can't figure out a way to avoid harm to humans. | |
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Hollywood Law | |
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Hollywood Law: In "Galley Slave", when, in the course of a lawsuit against U.S. Robots, the defense counsel calls the plaintiff as a defense witness, the judge warns him that he does not have as much latitude questioning his own witness as he would questioning an opposing witness. In Real Life, the opposite is true. | |
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Mental Picture Projector | |
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Mental Picture Projector: The short story "Think!" featured an auditory equivalent, allowing two people with electrodes hooked up to their skulls to communicate thoughts directly. The scientists involved were rightly sceptical and perform several tests to make sure they aren't imagining things. When they try a control test, by directly connecting the input electrodes to each other, the scientist on the receiving end suddenly looks terrified and pulls the electrodes apart moments afterward. Apparently, he heard the machine itself start to think... | |
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Fantastic Racism | |
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In all robot stories, there is Fantastic Racism of humans toward robots (in the Bailey novels, Earth-bound humans have taken to addressing robots as "boy" in imitation to how racist Americans used to refer to black people). | |
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Complete-the-Quote Title | |
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Complete-the-Quote Title: "—That Thou Art Mindful of Him" takes its title from a Biblical psalm which asks "What is Man that thou art mindful of Him?". The question "What is Man?" (or as we'd more likely say now, "What is the definition of a human being?") is central to the story. | |
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Standard Sci-Fi History | |
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Standard Sci-Fi History: This series begins 20 Minutes into the Future, with the positronic brains as a technology that facilitates basic Artificial Intelligence (see "Robbie"). They're used to facilitate humanity's expansion into the solar system (see "Runaround") and eventually develop Hyperspace travel (see "Little Lost Robot" and "Escape!") so that they can expand into the larger galaxy. The division between the space exploring robot users and the bigoted Earthers drives a social wedge between the two groups. The colonies begin to call themselves Spacers to distinguish between themselves and the Earthmen. By the era of Elijah Baley, the loose association of Spacer societies has calcified. Scientists don't share their theories/experiments because they want all the credit for themselves, robots provide all of life's necessities, and there is no threat to struggle against. During this decadence and decay, Baley encourages the overpopulated people of Earth to explore new planets without relying on robots (becoming known as the "Settlers"). Thus, a new era of interstellar exploration is begun while the first "empire" slowly collapses. | |
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Absurdly Dedicated Worker | |
| Robot Series / int_782b8a66 | comment |
Absurdly Dedicated Worker: In his short story "Risk" a robot pilot is to test a hyperspace drive and is given instructions to "pull the stick back firmly — firmly" until the drive engages. The drive doesn't engage, so the robot is stuck in that position and its human operators have to try to get it to stop but it just won't stop pulling because the drive hasn't engaged because the robot pulled back "firmly" with its full strength, damaging the control. | |
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Long-Running Book Series | |
| Robot Series / int_98ce21fe | comment |
Long-Running Book Series: His first "robots" story was "Robbie", from 1940. Dr Asimov started publishing collections of his short stories in 1950, as well as publishing novels in that setting, totaling eleven before his death in 1992. However, he and his estate have been authorizing dozens of books since the late 1980s, allowing many authors to continue expanding the scope of the series, and Dr Asimov tied together several characters/plots, making The Empire Novels and Foundation part of the same continuity. | |
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Absent Aliens | |
| Robot Series / int_a9c7258a | comment |
Absent Aliens: In most of Isaac Asimov's Robot Series and Foundation Series, characters would encounter absolutely no aliens. The lack of aliens came from a meta-reason: Astounding Science Fiction editor John W. Campbell wanted stories with human supremacy over aliens and Asimov decided to bypass this demand by not having aliens at all. There were, however, elements that explained why the aliens were absent or stayed hidden. The short story "Victory Unintentional" had three robots sent to explore the surface of Jupiter and contact the Jovians living there. The aliens are so impressed by the robots, they promise to leave space to the obviously superior species. | |
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Failed Future Forecast | |
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Failed Future Forecast: The short story "Let's Get Together" contemplates the Cold War lasting past the 20th century. | |
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Inevitably Broken Rule | |
| Robot Series / int_c44b1c65 | comment |
Inevitably Broken Rule: The series mostly explores the ramification of his Laws of Robotics in specific circumstances rather than having them broken. However, a few examples occur where the robots do break the First Law. "First Law": Mike Donovan tells a pub about a robot, MA-2, that broke the First Law because it was a mother, who was protecting her offspring. "Little Lost Robot": This story is about a robot whose First Law had been modified, and because of that, it attempted to kill Dr Calvin. "Lenny": The titular LNE model ended up with a ruined positronic brain, unable to properly process even the most basic parts of the Three Laws. It ends up accidentally breaking someone's arm. | |
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Shout-Out | |
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Shout-Out: The short story "Too Bad" is about a miniature robot injected into somebody's bloodstream to cure cancer. It even states that a miniature submarine was considered, and rejected as too expensive, which acts as a reference to Fantastic Voyage, which Dr. Asimov wrote the novelization to. | |
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Robot Series |
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