Solaria

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Solaria was a fictional human-inhabited planet in Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Robot series.

It was the last of the fifty worlds to be colonised by the Spacers, settled in approximately 4400 A.D. by inhabitants of the neighboring world Nexon originally for summer homes. It was ruled by a Regent after it became independent around roughly 4500 A.D. The Solarians specialised in the construction of robots, which they exported to the other Spacer Worlds. Solarian robots were noted for their variety and excellence. They also exported their grain, which was used to make a delicacy known as the pachinka.

Ultimately, Solaria became totally dependent on robot labour; roughly 10,000 robots existed for every human. The world was extremely sparsely inhabited, with only 20,000 humans (and 200,000,000 robots) inhabiting 30,000,000 miles² (77,666,430 km²) of fertile land, divided into over 10000 huge estates (the exact number is unknown, since some of the estates were inhabited by couples). The population was kept stable through strict birth and immigration controls. 20,000 years later, the population was 1200—one human per estate.

By the time Elijah Baley visited Solaria around 4722 A.D., its inhabitants had evolved an isolationist culture in which its citizens never had to meet, save for sexual contact for reproductive purposes. All other contact was accomplished by sophisticated holographic viewing systems, with many Solarians exhibiting a phobia towards actual contact, or even being in the same room as another human. All work was done by robots.

Over the following centuries and millennia, Solaria became even more rigidly isolationist. Around 4920 A.D., Solaria cut off all contact with the rest of the Galaxy (although continuing to monitor hyperspatial communications). The human inhabitants vanished, giving the impression that they had died out, although they had in fact withdrawn underground; their estates continued to be worked by millions of robots. It was eventually forgotten entirely as the other Spacers died out, with any stray visitors to the planet being attacked and killed by robots programmed to view non-Solarians as non-human. During this time, the Solarians had extensively modified themselves through genetic engineering to become hermaphrodites. In a more important development, Solarians evolved small transducer lobes, a section of the brain about the size of a hen's egg. They were able to collect the kinetic energy of all nearby substances, and control (or destroy) objects, at a distance, by thought. Using these lobes, Solarians could provide for the energy needs of their entire estates.

In 499 F.E. (approximately 25,066 A.D.), Solaria was visited by Golan Trevize, Janov Pelorat and Blissenobiarella, who landed on the estate of Solarian "Ruler" Sarton Bander. They learned of the sociological developments of Solaria. Bander apparently took pleasure in having intellectual companionship, but to prevent them from providing information to the Galaxy about Solaria, he attempted to kill them, but was himself killed by Bliss. The visitors were able to escape, but not before discovering the child Fallom, successor to Bander, who they would ultimately bring with them to Earth. The child would stay on the moon to mentally merge with Daneel Olivaw. This event occurred in the novel Foundation and Earth. At the end of the book, it was suggested that the Solarians had modified themselves so much that they no longer counted as human, to the point that their behaviour could no longer be predicted by psychohistory. Another possible reading of that passage was that they were actually aliens.

[edit] Statistics

• Star
  • Planets: 3
• Planet
  • Position: Solaria III
  • Diameter: 15,000 km (9,500 miles), 1.24 that of Earth
  • Known locations: Helionia, on the northern continent.

Major and minor planets featured in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series
Anacreon | Aurora | Baley's World (Comporellon) | Earth | Gaia | Helicon | Kalgan | Korell | Delicass (Neotrantor) | Sayshell | Solaria | Siwenna | Tazenda | Terminus | Trantor (Hame)