Who's Who in Asimov E

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Earth: By the time the Spacer worlds had reached their peak, Earth had a population of eight billion people, crammed into huge, high-density, enclosed and air-conditioned cities, organised by sections and supported largely by hydroponics and yeast culture. Work such as farming and mining was done by robots which were primitive compared with their Spacer counterparts, and foodstuffs, largely processed, and other produce were strictly rationed according to a supposed meritocracy, with highly-classified citizens relatively well off while those declassified were left near-destitute.; Earth's people, of necessity regimented to the urban life, had become extremely agoraphobic, never willingly venturing outside the cities until the movement to encourage emigration to colonize the galaxy had started, and reactionary, with much opposition to the robots which were becoming more common, and resentment of the Spacers' power and perceived arrogance.; It was largely through the efforts of Elijah Baley, Giskard Reventlov and Han Fastolfe that Earth became more outward-looking, and by the time of the Settler colonizations, robots had been phased out except outside the cities, which at this time were powered almost entirely from orbiting solar power stations. After the death of Fastolfe, who had done so much to moderate Spacer attitudes towards Earth, Kelden Amadiro and Levular Mandamus were able to implement their plan to destroy Earth with a network of nuclear intensifiers located at near-surface outcrops of naturally radioactive elements. Although Giskard prevented Amadiro from destroying Earth outright, he concurred with Mandamus that Earth should gradually become uninhabitable to provide optimal conditions for humanity's expansion into and colonization of the galaxy.; Through the years leading to the establishment of the Galactic Empire, Earth's surface was increasingly affected by pathogenic levels of radiation, mistakenly attributed by some to nuclear war, and its population had dwindled to some twenty million. Politically it had become a backwater, with all real power having long since moved to Trantor, and was ruled by an authoritarian theocracy known as the Society of Ancients, self-styled the "Brotherhood", who still saw Earth as central, and racially superior, to the rest of humanity, while among the "Customs" imposed on its people was compulsory euthanasia at the age of sixty. After the collapse of the Ancients' extremists plan to launch a bacteriological war on the rest of the galaxy, an attempt was made, sponsored by the Empire with the encouragement of Daneel Olivaw, to replace Earth's radioactive soil, and when this failed its remaining population was moved to a specially-made island on the nearby world of Alpha.; By the time of the Foundation, Earth had been forgotten save as the object of speculation by mystics and by scholars with an interest in ancient history, and as vague references in the various origin myths which prevailed in different parts of the galaxy. Earth was only located when Golan Trevize, accompanied by the mythologist Janov Pelorat and the Gaian Bliss, searched for a rational explanation for his intuitive support of Galaxia. All Earth legends discovered by Pelorat said that Earth was unapproachable for one reason or another, and on their arrival at Earth they found that the mythological references to an Earth which had become radioactive and uninhabitable were true. There they found Daneel living in secluded semi-retirement on the Earth's moon. (1; 4-V; 5-11; 6-1,2; 7; 14-VII)
Edard: Stannell II's successor as Emperor. (7-6)
Einstein: Sage of ancient times to whom much traditional wisdom was attributed. (6-3)
Elar, Tamwile: Mathematician of West Mandanov University, and a member of Hari Seldon's psychohistorical research team at Streeling University. Co-designer of the Electro-Clarifier used in the Prime Radiant, and discoverer of a number of equations used to avoid chaotic effects in psychohistorical analysis. His role as an agent of the military government led by Dugal Tennar, attempting to take control of the psychohistory project, was uncovered by Dors Venabili, who killed him when he exposed her to the fatal effects of the Electro-Clarifier. (9-III-6,9,10,13,26)
Electro-Clarifier: Device, invented by Tamwile Elar and Cinda Monay, for increasing the data handling capacity of the Prime Radiant. While it had no adverse effects on humans, a more powerful version of the device was used by Elar to kill Dors Venabili. (9-III-6,21,22,24,26)
Elyut: Captain of the security forces at Trantor's embassy on Sark. (5-14)
Emotional Control: See Mentalics.
Encyclopedia Galactica: Project designed by Hari Seldon, with the support of the Galactic Library, ostensibly to collate and publish the sum of human knowledge to date. None but Seldon and those who were to become the Second Foundation knew at the time that the Encyclopedia project was a front for what was to become the Foundation, and that the 100,000 people engaged on it were to be the founding generation of a new, technocrat Empire. The fraud was not revealed until the first operation of the Time Vault on Terminus, some fifty years after Seldon's death, by which time sociopolitical changes in the Periphery meant that there was no way back to the old Empire for the new Foundation, only forward as an independent entity, albeit one with a sense of destiny. (9-IV-2; 10-I,II)
Endeavor: Sarkite liner sent to Florina to take Samia back to Sark. (5-8)
Endelecki, Mian: Biophysicist consulted by Hari Seldon during his attempts to find a genetic basis for the mental abilities of his granddaughter Wanda. (9-IV-6,7)
Enderby, Julius: Commissioner of New York Police, having been a student friend of Elijah Baley, and a leading member of the extreme conservative Mediaevalist movement while publicly co-operating with Roj Nemennuh Sarton's project to use humaniform robots to study the psychology of Earthpeople. His murder of Sarton, in mistake for Daneel Olivaw, led to the removal of the Spacers from Earth. (1; 3-1-3)
Ennius, Lord: Procurator of Earth in the ninth century of the Galactic Empire. Ironically, his preference for peaceful solutions to the problems of a historically rebellious Earth's relationships with the rest of the galaxy could have led to the Zealots' bacteriological war succeeding were it not for the fortuitious appearance of Joseph Schwartz. (7-3,4,6,20)
Eos: Administrative centre, and largest city, of Aurora, with a population of 20,000. Named after the Greek goddess of the dawn. (3-5-21,9-38)
Epsilon Eridani: Comporellon's star. (13-12-44)
Erlking: One of Arkady Darell's schoolteachers. (12-II-7)
Ery: Sector of Imperial Trantor. (9-IV-34)
Esbak: Superintendent of University Hall at the University of Earth during Biron Farrill's studentship there. (6-1)
Eta Carina: Auroran ship. (Mirror Image)
Eternals: Human beings who used a Temporal Field, starting in the 24th century and powered from a far-future time when the Earth's sun had turned nova, to journey through time. Initially the Eternals facilitated intertemporal trade, but later used their time-travelling capability to adjust, in minimalist fashion, human history in ways calculated to minimise human suffering.; When future Earthpeople discovered that the Eternals had delayed the development of hyperspatial travel for so long that intelligent life had evolved elsewhere in the galaxy and colonized it they, with the co-operation of an Eternal, destroyed Eternity and ensured that hyperspatial travel was developed instead of the Temporal Field.; In Gaian mythology, former robots who had become human enough to realise why their overprotectiveness was so resented by humans, and who became able to freeze time and select a reality which best suited humanity. This was a reality in which only a single planet was capable of bearing a complex ecology and evolving a technologically-capable species. This may have been a mythologized allusion to Giskard Reventlov and Daneel Olivaw. (The End of Eternity; 13-17-74)
Euterpe: One of the Outer Worlds. (4-II-5-14)