Isaac Asimov's Caliban
Encyclopedia
Isaac Asimov's Caliban (1993) is a science fiction
novel
by Roger MacBride Allen
, set in Isaac Asimov
's Robots
/Empire
/Foundation
universe.
. The Three Laws are integral to the functioning of a positronic brain
, but these robots have gravitonic brains, into which it is possible to build any set of laws. For example, some gravitonic robots have already been built with the New Laws of Robotics which are designed to make them partners rather than slaves to humanity.
Caliban, the robot of the title, is an experimental gravitonic robot who was created with no laws at all. The intent was to keep him under carefully controlled laboratory conditions and see what laws he evolved for himself, but he escaped from the laboratory, and soon found himself pursued by the police (who believed that he had attempted to murder his creator) and attacked by a group of criminals who liked ordering robots to destroy themselves.
The novel begins with Sheriff Alvar Kresh supervising a crime scene involving what appears to be an attempted murder of a prominent Inferno roboticist, Dr. Fredda Leving. Kresh's robot sidekick, Donald, accompanies him wherever he goes, and is reluctant to follow the implications raised when Kresh sees two sets of robotic footprints leading out of the lab, for this implies that a robot committed the crime of assault on a human being.
Settlers were asked to come because Inferno's ecology is unstable and requires expert technical work to try and reterraform
the planet to shift the planet away from potentially disastrous extremes. Tonya Welton, the leader of the Settler faction, inserts herself into the investigation's hierarchy and claims that Governor Chanto Grieg wanted her involved because Leving Labs was closely associated with the Settler effort to set up a centralized terraforming depot on the island of Purgatory.
It is later revealed during a lecture by Dr. Leving, that this is so the New Law robots she proposes can be safeguarded and kept from mingling with the human population as a whole, since they are designed to aid in terraforming work, and therefore represent a great investment of time and materials in order to construct.
Simcor Beddle's Ironhead movement stages a hit-and-run attack on a plantation near Settlertown, and they crop up once or twice more as the story progresses. The Ironheads nearly successfully start a riot when Beddle castigates Dr. Leving after one of her lectures on the nature of robots and how they affect human beings. It is her thesis that the superabundance of robotic labor has caused humans to become indolent and nearly incompetent at accomplishing even trivial tasks. She also claims that robots themselves do not qualify as a very good successor to humanity given that their sole purpose is to serve humans.
It is revealed that some members of Leving Labs have both personal and professional secrets to hide: Gubber Anshaw is romantically involved with Tonya Welton, while Jomaine Terach is aware of the creation of Caliban and the fact that he lacked the Three Laws of Robotics. Sheriff Kresh is aided in this respect when Caliban encounters a robot at a shipping depot and recounts his entire life history (about five days' worth). While the robot nearly seizes in brainlock and ends up precipitating a minor catastrophe by hyperwaving for help, the story the robot tells confirms what Kresh later uses to get the truth out of Terach.
Caliban escapes the City of Hades (the capital of Inferno), but is located by both Dr. Leving and Sheriff Kresh. Kresh uses the occasion to finger the true culprit in the assault on Leving, who turns out to have been Ariel, Tonya Welton's personal robot. She had switched serial numbers with another robot after a test had been run on her brain and comparing it to a normal Three-Law robotic brain. She, like Caliban, had been programmed without the Laws of Robotics, but had been purely a stationary unit. In switching the serial numbers, Ariel was able to have a set of robotic legs placed on her, allowing her to masquerade as a "normal" robot.
Kresh rightly believes that Ariel presents far too great of a danger to human beings, and shoots her. However, he is convinced that Caliban does not present the same danger based on clues about his behavior, and allows him to remain functional. Caliban then goes with Dr. Leving to the island of Purgatory.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by 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...
, set in Isaac Asimov
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 Robots
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...
/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...
/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...
universe.
Plot summary
This series deals with a new type of robots who do not have the Three Laws of RoboticsThree 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...
. The Three Laws are integral to the functioning of a positronic brain
Positronic brain
A positronic brain is a fictional technological device, originally conceived by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Its role is to serve as a central computer for a robot, and, in some unspecified way, to provide it with a form of consciousness recognizable to humans...
, but these robots have gravitonic brains, into which it is possible to build any set of laws. For example, some gravitonic robots have already been built with the New Laws of Robotics which are designed to make them partners rather than slaves to humanity.
Caliban, the robot of the title, is an experimental gravitonic robot who was created with no laws at all. The intent was to keep him under carefully controlled laboratory conditions and see what laws he evolved for himself, but he escaped from the laboratory, and soon found himself pursued by the police (who believed that he had attempted to murder his creator) and attacked by a group of criminals who liked ordering robots to destroy themselves.
The novel begins with Sheriff Alvar Kresh supervising a crime scene involving what appears to be an attempted murder of a prominent Inferno roboticist, Dr. Fredda Leving. Kresh's robot sidekick, Donald, accompanies him wherever he goes, and is reluctant to follow the implications raised when Kresh sees two sets of robotic footprints leading out of the lab, for this implies that a robot committed the crime of assault on a human being.
Settlers were asked to come because Inferno's ecology is unstable and requires expert technical work to try and reterraform
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
the planet to shift the planet away from potentially disastrous extremes. Tonya Welton, the leader of the Settler faction, inserts herself into the investigation's hierarchy and claims that Governor Chanto Grieg wanted her involved because Leving Labs was closely associated with the Settler effort to set up a centralized terraforming depot on the island of Purgatory.
It is later revealed during a lecture by Dr. Leving, that this is so the New Law robots she proposes can be safeguarded and kept from mingling with the human population as a whole, since they are designed to aid in terraforming work, and therefore represent a great investment of time and materials in order to construct.
Simcor Beddle's Ironhead movement stages a hit-and-run attack on a plantation near Settlertown, and they crop up once or twice more as the story progresses. The Ironheads nearly successfully start a riot when Beddle castigates Dr. Leving after one of her lectures on the nature of robots and how they affect human beings. It is her thesis that the superabundance of robotic labor has caused humans to become indolent and nearly incompetent at accomplishing even trivial tasks. She also claims that robots themselves do not qualify as a very good successor to humanity given that their sole purpose is to serve humans.
It is revealed that some members of Leving Labs have both personal and professional secrets to hide: Gubber Anshaw is romantically involved with Tonya Welton, while Jomaine Terach is aware of the creation of Caliban and the fact that he lacked the Three Laws of Robotics. Sheriff Kresh is aided in this respect when Caliban encounters a robot at a shipping depot and recounts his entire life history (about five days' worth). While the robot nearly seizes in brainlock and ends up precipitating a minor catastrophe by hyperwaving for help, the story the robot tells confirms what Kresh later uses to get the truth out of Terach.
Caliban escapes the City of Hades (the capital of Inferno), but is located by both Dr. Leving and Sheriff Kresh. Kresh uses the occasion to finger the true culprit in the assault on Leving, who turns out to have been Ariel, Tonya Welton's personal robot. She had switched serial numbers with another robot after a test had been run on her brain and comparing it to a normal Three-Law robotic brain. She, like Caliban, had been programmed without the Laws of Robotics, but had been purely a stationary unit. In switching the serial numbers, Ariel was able to have a set of robotic legs placed on her, allowing her to masquerade as a "normal" robot.
Kresh rightly believes that Ariel presents far too great of a danger to human beings, and shoots her. However, he is convinced that Caliban does not present the same danger based on clues about his behavior, and allows him to remain functional. Caliban then goes with Dr. Leving to the island of Purgatory.