Speculation about the ending of Foundation and Earth

I have always found F&E to be the lesser of Asimov's works, I cannot identify with Trevize and his choice. In choosing Galaxia, what Trevize does is IMHO end humanity, by relinquishing the most precious thing that we, as humans posses: Free Will.

There is an imminent threat, but not from aliens from another galaxy, rather it is the subjugation of the human species to the will of a robo-humanoid "superior being".

This has been a very thought-provoking thread. I'm also disappointed with the ending of Foundation and Earth, but perhaps for different reasons than have been mentioned here.

I really like stories that involve human transcendence, showing us what we can become as a human race, what we should evolve towards. For that reason, I love Gaia and the concept of Galaxia. I do not believe that "free will" is a great asset to humanity. Usually it creates clashes (from minor conflict legal problems to war) over individual rights, with little consideration for a bigger picture. That's if you even believe free will truly exists - so much of who we are is based on where in the world we were born, how we were raised, our finances, etc.

Daneel has been one of my favorite characters throughout the robot series. Yet in the end, I feel he is going to be the greatest villain humanity has ever known. This is a travesty to the entire story. Daneel has always appeared so selfless and endlessly compassionate. Even the fact that he developed the Zeroth Law seemed a positive form of evolution for him. But at the end of F&E, he wanted to transcend even that so he wasn't bound by laws at all, and manipulated people into creating a situation where that would be possible for him. To what end? It is ironic that he creates Gaia to be whole and ideal, yet uses the abnormal and isolated Solarian society to achieve his own purposes.

And on the subject of Galaxia, Daneel came up with the idea in order to help him "shepherd" humanity more easily. Yet who put him in charge? Robots were never created to take over in that way. He reprogrammed himself, and put himself in a God-like position over his creators - by manipulating them, not getting their permission.

When you realize that Daneel was behind virtually every important aspect of history, from the expansion of Earth to the Galactic Empire, Foundation, and Gaia, it makes you wonder how vastly different human history would have been if he wasn't there. And would it have been better without his influence?

I really like the robot stories up until this one. The ending of F&E changed all of that for me. Now I think the whole of humanity would have been better off if robots were never invented in the first place.

Would humanity even be around if the robots hadn't been there to protect them?

Good question. I've reread the ending and I think what bothers me is that I interpreted the new Daneel/Fallom "being" to be a new threat to humanity. Trevize, who has such accurate intuition, has always distrusted Fallom and the last line makes him seem particularly creepy. Daneel now wants to overcome the Laws of Robotics so they won't inhibit him any more, yet to me that is what makes him altruistic. Now he is stepping into the unknown.

Consider an older story, "The Evitable Conflict", featuring Stephen Byerly, a humaniform robot who became a world ruler during Dr. Susan Calvin's time. He was a good ruler - not due to superior intelligence or mentalics - but because he was guided into right actions by the 3 Laws of Robotics. He was also humble and more than willing to seek advice from other people.

Daneel (started by Giskard) is much more manipulative. He doesn't truly seek humans' advice in what they want to do, he makes decisions and then alters the minds of people around him to fit those decisions. He keeps altering his brain to be more powerful, but he continues to be secretive. By the end, he went from my favorite character in the Asimov stories to an all-powerful God-like being controlling the fate of the universe.

Further, in his attempt to do what is best for "humanity", he has changed what "humanity" really is. It is implied that he altered the early Gaians to be more pliable to him, but I think he should have found a solution that didn't keep everyone subverted to his will.

But upon further reflection, maybe Daneel wasn't meant to be the "outside threat" hinted at during the last few pages of the book. The Solarians, with their powerful mentalics which have been ignored by all until now, could be a great threat to the rest of humanity if they chose to do something besides hide on their planet. Maybe that is what is meant by the last line, " 'After all', and here Trevize felt a sudden twinge of trouble, which he forced himself to disregard, 'it is not as though we had the enemy already here and among us.'

And he did not look down to meet the brooding eyes of Fallom-hermaphroditic, transductive, different-as they rested, unfathomably, on him."

This is reaching way back in the memory storage unit so I don't know what I'm saying but I'm thinking that Asimov was laying the groundwork for a major change to the concept. This was set in an all-human galaxy but what's to say it's an all-human universe? And if normal humans make contact with extra-galactics and get wiped out, Daneel would have failed. So he nudges them into becoming a superbeing perhaps more capable of dealing with other galaxies. This is, itself, extremely uncomfortable because of the notion that a collective would be better than our usual bickering selves (which often provides strength in diversity) but it at least preserves some of Daneel's benevolence. Basically, I think Daneel is so obedient to the Laws that he'll break them to better fulfill them. As a robot, he should be a strict constructionist but he really seems to have gotten the idea of the "spirit" of the laws. As you say, this derives from Giskard's mentalic "bug" which provoked the Zeroth Law (which also accords with the "collective over diversity" motif). It was a slippery slope right there.

(It could also be argued, on the other hand, that a second empire would be just another step in a cycle in which humanity might be stuck, necessitating more dark ages/empire loops and generally resulting in the ossification and degeneration of humanity. Maybe Fallom is an example of an internal threat needed to break the cycle and strengthen humanity by conflict but I really doubt this because it doesn't fit with Asimov's perspective.)

But, really, I remember being disappointed in the ending, myself, and I came to think that Asimov really did have to be kind of coerced into writing more Foundation novels and threw a mega-Mule-sized monkey wrench into it to try to forestall having to write more. When even that didn't work, I suspect he either didn't know how to go forward or didn't want to, hence the prequels.

On the other hand, Asimov wrote in the author's note to Prelude to Foundation: "Will I add additional books to the series? I might. [...] And then I can follow Foundation and Earth with additional volumes–as many as I like."

Very true - it's just that the number he may have liked is zero. It's just idle speculation on my part and, alas, we'll never know, as he didn't get a chance, really, to answer the question.

J-Sun said:

...I came to think that Asimov really did have to be kind of coerced into writing more Foundation novels and threw a mega-Mule-sized monkey wrench into it to try to forestall having to write more. When even that didn't work, I suspect he either didn't know how to go forward or didn't want to, hence the prequels.

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I think this is probably right. And remember, he was suffering increasingly from AIDS symptoms for a number of years toward the end and he probably found it easier to write novels that interpolated events in his universe rather than extrapolated events further forward. His illness had to have had an effect on his usually vigorous writing energy.

Bick said:

I think this is probably right. And remember, he was suffering increasingly from AIDS symptoms for a number of years toward the end and he probably found it easier to write novels that interpolated events in his universe rather than extrapolated events further forward. His illness had to have had an effect on his usually vigorous writing energy.

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Good point. That was one of the thing about reading I. Asimov that was so saddening and I tend to not think about if I can help it - the latter portion of the book dealt a lot with sickness and hospitals and just generally not feeling great, even if he wasn't being clear on what was going on. So there's no doubt it affected his writing. I sometimes even wonder, based on sometimes slightly different style and feel, if Janet (a published author herself as J.O. Jeppson as well as Janet Asimov - so not just because of her name) wasn't helping in some way at that point. (Not at the point of Foundation and Earth, but after it.)

Reading some sources, it seems he really only wanted 1 of the original 3 and would have been happy to leave it at 3. So would I! Twenty years later he seems to have restarted on the Foundation theme (and made the Robots too powerful and invasive) purely due to Publisher pressure.
While the 3 laws are a reasonable idea for a sentient Robot/Android (We have no idea even where to start in developing an Asimov type "robot brain") the later series perhaps shows that a Zeroth Law might be a terrible idea. It's creation of a god in our image to decide what's good for our descendants. It in a sense is godlike (or demon like) arrogance for anyone to decide what is good for the future of a sentient species. I have children. I hope I have raised them up properly. They are all adults now and they must decide, not me, what decisions for good or ill to make.

Ultimately are the later written books a satire? Or even the later two of the original trilogy. Do we want someone able make themselves like a god and manipulate our entire species?

Fortunately while we understand micro-economics, our inability to make any accurate prediction in Macro-Economics suggests we are a long way from Psycho-history. Macro-Economics seems logically a subset of the original first book's concept of Psycho-history. It's worth remembering too that the the original excellent trilogy started as separate short stories, were often a story was the last Asimov had intended. But also are not the original inspired by the Roman Empire and the Mule by Alexander the Great (massive rapid empire fell apart on his death, initially to 4 generals. Also he had some sort of sexual problem too). Then the Traders the Industrial Revolution + 1950s Japanese Electronics invasion. (third part 1948 and 1950 as short stories and book edition 1953)

1954 Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (founded 1946) renamed themselves Sony to sell miniature Transistor Radios to USA (the second mass production maker in the world of such). But the "Asian" electronics invasion started 1946 and US built in Obsolescence (buy a new model very year) Consumerism started in 1930s. In an Era when in the UK a family had one radio and few had cars, fridges, washing machines these common in USA. RCA 1930s slogan was "A radio in every room"!

Just to clarify about the AIDS. It was the result of earlier heart Disease.

Janet Asimov's edition of Asimov's autobiography, It's Been a Good Life, revealed that the myocardial and renal complications were the result of an infection by HIV, which he had contracted from a blood transfusion received during his bypass operation.

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I was left really puzzled two, after having read the ending to F&E. Although i agree with the hypothesis, that Daneel was somehow controling the acceptance of the three characters, i can not conclude that it was for the purpose of creating a robot controled universe through himself as a super-human/super robot, because, that decision has too much of an impact on the fundamental robotics laws.(i wish i could talk to asimov himself to atleast give me a hint about his ideea of what was to happen)
Regarding the last statement of Trevize and also his decision on choosing Galaxia. I think it refered to the fact, that even if the alien threat was not yet present, the humanity as a whole is in danger of loosing it's humanity(or the part that made it human), and the solarians (represented trough the solarian child) were the example of that fact. So maybe Trevize made it's decision in fear of the alienation inside humanity itself.

F&E, what a teaser. Like the greatest writer of all time, Asimov left me eternally hanging. What a jerk (jk)

It seems Daneel did not overlook the solarians, as he actively directed humanity and the galaxy for over 20 millennia. As I've re-read the series a few times now I've convinced myself:

-Trevize and the others were certainly emotionally handled by Daneel as to make them agree with Daneel's plan. Trevise's ability of perfect decision making is not equivalent to knowing why. His curiosity can be viewed as the innate portion of indecision.

-the solarians are not an enemy, but a farm. As the millennia continue, from where will Daneel find biological brains to replace and upgrade his own? The solarians are only as dangerous as a weapon cache. It is the user of the weapons that does the damage. At any point the solarians can be dealt with. Their tech is pathetic and they experience isolation as freedom. They are no direct threat. The infamous "stare" down between Trevize and the solarian child is just that- acknowledgement of the inevitable. The child is the death of individualism, Trev said it from the get go, "he'll be the destruction of us" (excuse the innacurate quote).

-Gaia is the body, Daneel the brain, solarians the hands, and humans are the moral heart. The heart may seem as the brain at times, but ultimately the heart merely guides while the brain decides, the hands move, and the body connects.



I really wish Asi had the time to write a few more down the line. The outside invaders would have been awesome to meet. The impending crisis with solaria also would have been awesome as well. After all, the solarians had stayed isolationists for 20 millennia, before someone de-activated their nuclear guardians, murdered a ruler, kidnapped a child, and exposed them to the existence of far superior tech.

Heh, I made an account on this site four years ago just to rant about F&Earth - it was my sophomore year in college and I remember being so incredibly angry at the ending of the book/series...I think the thread I made it still here actually (wow, this board moves slowly).

Randomly decided to check back on this forum after finding the original trilogy while clearing my bedroom closet...I'm glad to see some others out there feel the same way as I did (or at least, in similar ways, with some divergent corollaries). I must say, I hadn't thought about the Daneel as the universe's ultimate, manipulative villain when I read this book four years ago, but now...

...actually, best not to think about it. I was fairly successful in forcing myself to forget the last two books even happened, and I think I shall keep it that way. The Foundation trilogy (and even its somewhat inferior prequels) are too wonderful to be stained by the miserable finale (i.e., the destruction of individualism and free will in return for a dubious guarantee of security).

I've been working through the Foundation series over the last few weeks. And I too was disappointed with the ending of Foundation and Earth. I had read the books a couple decades ago, but I have no memory of F&Earth ending this way!

However, I think Asimov, with this ending, does leave the door wide open to go in many different directions. Perhaps Trevize, coming to understand his choice, intuitively realizes another problem. Perhaps Daneel is not a villain, but a victim or a tool in the hands of yet others. Perhaps Fallom is, at the very least, a partial product of another galaxy and Trevize suddenly realizes/suspects this, but obviously must not reveal that he knows. I think the story could go many ways.

In terms of individualism and free will, I think Asimov accomplished what good writers do all the time - he ruffled feathers and challenges thought.

I find it interesting that although other writers have written to fill in some of the story line, none have dared to continued it. I'm still cheering for the Second Foundationers.

I am surprised nobody mentioned this alternative meaning of the very end.
Daneel is a humanoid robot.
Bliss is a part of Gaia, a kind of mutant.
Pelorat is a human.
Fallom is a Solarian, another kind of mutant.

...and Trevize?

There is something strange about him, no?
As Gendibal is analyzing his mind in Foundation'Edge, if I remember well, he sees stranges "gaps" unlike he has ever seen. Asimov never explains exactly why he has been chosen, even Daneel at the end is not clear, just saying that they were looking for him. We don't know where Trevize gets his power to "feel" or "guess" things.
And after all, to confirm his choice of Galaxia, Daneel (and Gaia after him) needed some kind of perfectly neutral, distinct, being. A total outsider. Like a being from another Galaxy?

Fallom is staring at him because the reunion with Daneel allows her/him to feel that there is something very different about Trevize.
And Trevize doesn't dare to look back at him/her because he is also starting to understand that he himself might be the one from another galaxy.

This is how I understood the end, reading the french translation.

icone said:

This is how I understood the end

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Welcome to the chrons forums, icone.

icone said:

I am surprised nobody mentioned this alternative meaning of the very end.
Daneel is a humanoid robot.
Bliss is a part of Gaia, a kind of mutant.
Pelorat is a human.
Fallom is a Solarian, another kind of mutant.

...and Trevize?

There is something strange about him, no?
As Gendibal is analyzing his mind in Foundation'Edge, if I remember well, he sees stranges "gaps" unlike he has ever seen. Asimov never explains exactly why he has been chosen, even Daneel at the end is not clear, just saying that they were looking for him. We don't know where Trevize gets his power to "feel" or "guess" things.
And after all, to confirm his choice of Galaxia, Daneel (and Gaia after him) needed some kind of perfectly neutral, distinct, being. A total outsider. Like a being from another Galaxy?

Fallom is staring at him because the reunion with Daneel allows her/him to feel that there is something very different about Trevize.
And Trevize doesn't dare to look back at him/her because he is also starting to understand that he himself might be the one from another galaxy.

This is how I understood the end, reading the french translation.

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That's quite interesting. It's a few years since I read it last, so my memory isn't exactly crystal clear. Asimov wasn't well known for hidden meanings and subtle suggestions in his work though - clarity was what he most aimed for, so it's hard to say this is what he intended, but it's up to all readers to interpret as they will of course. I maybe need to do a Foundation re-read again... it's not a chore I have to say.

Welcome to Chrons by the way.

I had read the original Foundation trilogy a couple/three times over the years but had never followed up with Foundation's Edge and F&E. But I came across the 4th & 5th book in a used book store and picked them up.

While Asimov's writing is a bit simplistic, I enjoyed the books, loved the spaceship powered by galactic gravity and the Gaia entity. I thought the robot Daneel as some sort of super intelligence capable of controlling the whole of the galaxy from the Earth's moon over centuries as quite the stretch.

I am disappointed that there wasn't/hasn't been another couple of additional novels that built on moving the human race into the Gaia entity galaxy wide. I would have liked to see what could be made of something like this. As mentioned in other comments here, there appears to be some sort of belief that humans would not be humans if they were not capable of acting individually. But perhaps humans could be wired together as a Gaia type entity but still be able to maintain / compartmentalize some degree of individuality?

Which gives me the opportunity to ask if there have been other SF books where humans have populated the galaxy with a post-human [for want of a better description] 'hive mind' Gaia type society, while not becoming some sort of god being? Just to be clear, I am not imaging a queen/worker model like from say, the Ender's game books.

I don't recall reading anything like this in the many SF books I have completed but my memory may be faulty. In any case, it sounds like an interesting SF branch for more writers to consider.

Very late to the party here, but for me the enemy Trevize is referring to is without a doubt Solaria. I believe Asimov was thinking of a sequel with the Solarians as the bad guys.

After F&E there is still another 500 years to go till the Second Empire happens, and even if Galaxia can shorten that by a century or two there is plenty of time for further threats to the Plan. It makes sense for the Solarians to be the next big threat.

The Solarians obviously represent the exact opposite of Galaxia. They are the ultimate Isolationists who would be horrified by the Gaian concept of togetherness and that makes them natural enemies.

It isn't just their diametrically opposed philosophy that makes them a fitting enemy, though. They serve a narrative purpose too. They are the ultimate representation of the final obstable that Galaxia must overcome, the loss of individuality as life merges into a huge single organism.

Having lived for so long in isolation even from other spacers (remember that by the last Robot novel the Solarians have vanished and then we find in F&E that they have actually gone deep underground) the Solarians are reminded of the rest of the Galaxy by the visit from the Far Star. Their first visit from an outsider for thousands of years.

In the later Robot novels there is talk of unmanned ships run by specialised positronic brains. A natural weapon for the Solarians to use. Typical of their desire to have as little contact as possible with anyone else, even their own people, they could control fleets of them without ever leaving home.

I don't think it would ever have been about a fight with aliens from another galaxy as it brings up the age old problem with writing aliens. That you have to attach human like motivations to their actions to make them understandable at all, otherwise you get a bunch of weird things doing weird stuff for reasons we can't follow, which would be truly alien but would also be impossible to tell a story about.