Superhero Trevize, Intuition Man, tries to find Earth, getting up to all sorts of adventures in the attempt. He’s intuited that if he finds Earth he will know why he chose Gaia at the end of Foundation’s Edge. Trevize, Pelorat, and Bliss find five different human planets, then Earth. And, as is usual for a science fiction journey narrative, each of these societies shows off some aspect of humanity, extrapolated to a logical conclusion.
Gaia: The book starts on Gaia to give a reminder of the kind of wholistic oneness of all life and time that Trevize has chosen. Then the journey begins.
Comporellon: A Soviet analogy, but also with some puritanical leanings—Victorian Soviets. Trevize and friends are trapped, but end up getting out through sexually satisfying their captor. The idea being communicated is that this repressed society bases power on taboo and might-makes-right. By flipping the power structure on its head (apparently Trevize is fairly demanding of his seduced, and rough, something she typically is to her lovers, and he impresses her) their captor cannot help but let them go—Trevize bested her in her strongest suit, therefore he’s too dangerous to keep around. What if he realizes that he’s better and tries to manipulate her into doing his will? He cannot stay. These taboo societies cannot integrate any excession from outside their scope—instead of integrating Trevize and friends, the idea is to ignore Trevize and friends by sending them away. Where Gaia is inclusive, from the littlest pebble to the most complex mind, and humble, Comporellon is exclusive and proud.
Aurora: Ecological disaster. At first everything appears alright, pastoral even. The husk of a robot is discovered, giving hope. But then packs of wild dogs appear. Made possible by mismanaged ecological balance on Aurora in the past—basically, pets weren’t regulated and when humans left dogs were already everywhere—these dog gangs threaten the heroes. Using weapons, the heroes escape back to the ship. The idea that on this dog-eat-dog world, a weapon capable of inflicting major pain can control the out-of-balance ecology, shows that past human error is dangerous to present humans. Here this idea applies ecologically to show the stupidity of unbalanced environments—even this slight unbalance of having no real predators for the dogs, who breed rapidly and overrun the planet. Where Gaia involves an understanding of the wholeness of the complex systems of an environment, Aurora forgot to limit dogs and ended up going to them wholly.
Solaria: Individual isolationism taken to the extreme. These fine physical specimens, super-human really, with superpowers of controlling vast energy flows, shun all personal contact and are able to breed with themselves, without a partner. Their isolated nature makes them paranoid and only the unexpected power of Gaia through Bliss saves the heroes. They also take away a child, Fallom, who would be dead if not for their intervention. Obviously, this planet bears out the old Aristotelian adage that “humans are by nature political beasts”, and to change that too much too widely is deadly, even with tranhumanistic biotechnology. Yet this planet raises the most interesting questions concerning Gaia, as Bliss is forced to kill twice, an act which Gaia doesn’t typically countenance. The necessity of death is well within Gaia’s comfort zone, but this double killing in self-defense and other-defense is a gray area that Asimov explores. This is where I started to really enjoy the novel. Bliss becomes a bit of a character here, conflicted over the killings she did, but unconflicted over the result—their escape and saving of the child Fallom. Gaia is all community, Solaria is all individual. The one forces the other to kill.
Melpomenia: A dead planet, the only life of which is a rapidly colonizing moss that feeds on traces of carbon dioxide in the thin atmosphere. The heroes overcome this infection through technology, and end up finding the coordinates for all 50 of the original Spacer Worlds, using them to project a sphere, at the center of which they believe they will find Earth. The idea here is that even a normal society—with civic structures, appreciation of the past, and a library—can turn their world dangerous and uninhabitable, yet technology can overcome the environmental danger. Where Gaia exists on a continuum, looking forever both forward and backward for guidance, by abandoning Melpomenia humanity has damned it, forgetting the future for the short term-comfort of abandoning a deteriorating, hard to live on planet.
Alpha: An idyllic, peaceful water world with a single island on which topless women live. This is a different type of isolationism than Solaria—this is isolation of a community. Though they have advanced biotechnology and weather controls, they live a simple life and enjoy music and good food and community. They are paranoid that their existence will be known by the larger galaxy. Sex, music, conversation, good food, customs, tradition. But with a dark side of the isolated community distrustful of outsiders trying to murder the outsiders. Trevize’s liaison with a local woman saves them as she falls for him and warns the heroes to leave before the hour of their death. Gaia, on the other hand, is open to the rest of the galaxy and actively trying to integrate all of the galaxy into itself, without the paranoia that leads to attempted murder. This episode shows that even advanced biological and weather technologies will not save humanity from itself, though it may help overcome some of the problems on the other worlds.
The Spaceship: In the spaces between these stories, life on the spaceship is examined and also found to be wanting. The superhuman Fallom doesn’t understand its own powers or place in the galaxy. Pelorat is lost in the past and present, ignoring the future. Trevize clings to his individuality and worries at trying to take that away from future humans. Bliss attempts to bridge all these gaps, yet is coming from such a different perspective that she cannot be fully understood by any of the others. In contrast, on Gaia everything is understood in community, and shared in the wholistic oneness of being. However, this snapshot of how that community will relate to the larger galaxy tends to show that it’s a process which will take both sides coming to terms with temporary measures in order to achieve the future utopia. In science fiction, this willingness to show the between-times, between one state and another of existence, showing the amount of work needed to bridge the gap, is rare and well appreciated here. However, the point is to show that if all were already Gaia this whole process would go much smoother.
Earth: Of course, Daneel shows up, explains all, and Trevize’s mind is laid to rest. Obviously Gaia is better than what the galaxy currently has to offer, and Trevize is convinced that if aliens from outside the Galaxy invade, Gaia becoming Galaxia is the best defense for humanity. So he agrees to the community oneness of all life in the end, but it was already quite obvious Asimov was leading him there: through political, historical, ecological, societal, and logical processes.
The theme, the discussion of the whole book seems to be fear of the other: extra-galaxials eventually, but also the dogs fear others, the Comprolleans imprison others out of hand, the Solarians kill outsiders and each other due to fear of others, Melpomenia serves to show the heroes fear of the unknown outsider of the moss, the people of Alpha fear others but have no fear amongst themselves, and even Daneel fears that others will guide the galaxy in a different direction than he intends. Gaia, the ever present counterpoint, serves to show that more understanding and context and history will overcome the needs that lead to these fears. It’s an interesting argument that this book lays out, and nothing like any other Asimov I’ve read before. I hope I can find more like it. This book is the first Asimov novel I really liked. He writes poorly still, but the storytelling carries the poor writing.
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