Robots and Empire

infobox Book |
name = Robots and Empire
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of first edition (hardcover)
author = Isaac Asimov
cover_artist =
country = United States & UK
language = English
series = Robot Series
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Doubleday
release_date = 1985
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 383 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-385-19092-1
preceded_by = The Robots of Dawn
followed_by = Isaac Asimov's Caliban

"Robots and Empire" is a 1985 science fiction novel written by Isaac Asimov. It is part of the "Robot" series.

This book reconciles two of Asimov's main series, the "Robot" series and the "Empire" series (continued later in the "Foundation" series), uniting them into a single future history in retcon fashion. We see the transition from a mixed humanity-robot universe, dominated by the increasingly robotic societies of the Spacer Worlds, to a human-only Galactic Empire one.

Plot summary

Earthman Elijah Baley, the detective hero of the previous books, died two centuries earlier. But his memory remains in the mind of his lover Gladia who, as a Spacer, has a centuries-long lifespan as opposed to the mere decades of Earthpeople such as Baley. It is discovered that Solaria, the homeworld of Gladia had been abandoned and is in effect empty of all inhabitants, save for the millions of robots that have been left behind. She meets a seventh-generation descendant of Baley's, Daneel Giskard (or D.G.) Baley, a Settler trader, who requests Gladia's assistance in visiting Solaria to unravel the mysterious destruction of Settler ships making landings there in order to take possession of the abandoned robots. Settlers are Earthpeople who have been colonizing other planets throughout the Milky Way Galaxy. Gladia agrees and is accompanied by the robots R. Daneel Olivaw and R. Giskard Reventlov (who also has secret telepathic powers which only Daneel is aware of), both formerly the property of their creator, the roboticist Han Fastolfe, but willed to Gladia after Fastolfe's death.

At the same time, Daneel and Giskard are engaged in a struggle of wits with Fastolfe's bitter archrivals, the roboticists Kelden Amadiro and Vasilia Aliena, Fastolfe's estranged daughter. Where Fastolfe supported the expansion of the Earth-based Settler civilization, Amadiro detests Settlers (as do most Spacers, who consider Earthpeople barbarians) and wishes to see them destroyed so that the Spacers alone can inherit the Galaxy. But for many decades Amadiro has been constantly thwarted in securing an anti-Settler policy (caused largely by Giskard's telepathic manipulation). Frustrated by his failure, Amadiro takes under his wing an ambitious protégé, Levular Mandamus, who engineers a plan to destroy Earth using a newly-developed weapon, the nuclear intensifier. They plan to make Earth uninhabitable by speeding up the otherwise slow natural radioactive decay process in the Earth's crust, thereby crippling Settler civilization.

Parallel to Amadiro's scheming, Daneel and Giskard slowly piece together the roboticist's genocidal intentions. The robots, sharing Fastolfe's humane vision of a Settler/Spacer Galaxy (or, failing that, a Galaxy where Settlers can thrive in spite of Spacers) attempt to stop Amadiro; but Daneel and Giskard are hampered by the Three Laws of Robotics, which prevent them from making a direct attack on Amadiro. Daneel, meanwhile, has formulated a Zeroth Law of Robotics, which he feels might help them to override the Three Laws and save Earth. The robots must feel their way through the ramifications of the Three Laws and the Zeroth in a race against time before confronting Amadiro. When Vasilia deduces that Giskard--whom she has long valued and wishes to take from Gladia--has telepathy, she confronts him and forces Giskard to make her forget his powers by altering her mind. This leaves the robots free to deal with Amadiro.

The robots locate Amadiro and Mandamus on Earth, where they find the two Spacers arguing over the best use of the nuclear intensifier at the former site of Three Mile Island. When Amadiro admits his intention to cause the deaths of Earthpeople, Giskard tampers with Amadiro's brain, causing irreversible damage (and thus, harm) to him. Now alone with the robots, Mandamus claims that his intentions regarding the nuclear intensifier were more benign than Amadiro's; Mandamus wants to draw out the radioactive catastrophe over decades, rather than the mere years Amadiro wanted, so that Amadiro could savor Earth's destruction within his lifetime. Giskard decides that it would be best for humanity to abandon Earth; he allows Mandamus to adjust the nuclear intensifier, changing the time scale of the catastrophe to one hundred fifty years, allowing humanity to evacuate Earth (though a significant population still exists into the time of "Pebble in the Sky"); then Giskard tampers with Mandamus's brain as well, ensuring Mandamus will have no memory of what happened. He predicts, correctly, that by forcing humanity's hand to leave Earth, vigor will be reintroduced and Settlers will spread out across space at a rate never before seen, until eventually all of the interstellar governments of these new colonies unite into one "Galactic Empire". However, by allowing Mandamus to proceed with his original plan, Giskard became instrumental in creating a radioactive Earth and placing the inhabitants of Earth under a grave threat in defiance of the Three Laws. The Zeroth Law does not prove to be enough to justify harming humans for the sake of a hypothetical future benefit. Under the stress of changing the course of humanity, Giskard himself suffers a fatal malfunction because he is not sure if his actions could cause the ultimate victory of the Spacers, and therefore, the death of humanity. But before he succumbs, Giskard confers his telepathic ability to Daneel, who takes on the burden of guiding the burgeoning Galactic civilization.

The Novel

In his memoir "I. Asimov" (1994), Asimov explains that following his commercial and critical success with "The Robots of Dawn", he decided to write "Robots and Empire" with the intentions of making Daneel, "the real hero of the series," the novel's protagonist; and that "Robots and Empire" would create a bridge to the later volumes of his future history. In this second aim, Asimov says he was dissuaded by Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rey, then-editors of Del Rey Books, which published the paperback editions of Asimov's books in the 1980s; the del Reys felt fans of Asimov's future histories would rather keep the "Robot" and "Empire/Foundation" universes separate. After getting encouragement from his editor at Doubleday, his hardcover publisher, Asimov proceeded with his plan.

Asimov wrote "Robots and Empire" in a nonlinear fashion (other examples of nonlinear plot-structuring in Asimov's novels can be found in "The Gods Themselves" and "Nemesis"). Flashbacks by the major characters alternate with the present-time storyline. The story pivots around the planet Aurora, where the heart of Amadiro's conspiracy against Settler civilization is developing; meanwhile, aboard D.G.'s starship Gladia, Daneel and Giskard visit the planets Solaria and Baleyworld before reaching Earth and the novel's climax. Asimov uses this planet-hopping itinerary most notably in most of the "Foundation" series volumes from "Foundation" onward. Unlike the detective fiction method of the previous Robot novels, where Elijah Baley uncovered the clues to a crime already committed, in "Robots and Empire" Amadiro's unfolding conspiracy against Earth and its discovery by the robots keep pace with each other right up to the final confrontation on Earth, where the robots have only moments to spare in thwarting Amadiro's evil machination.