Prelude to Foundation

SELDON, HARI-… it is customary to think of Hari Seldon only in connection with psychohistory, to see him only as mathematics and social change personified. There is no doubt that he himself encouraged this for at no time in his formal writings did he give any hint as to how he came to solve the various problems of psychohistory. His leaps of thought might have all been plucked from air, for all he tells us. Nor does he tell us of the blind alleys into which he crept or the wrong turnings he may have made…

As for his private life, it is a blank. Concerning his parents and siblings, we know a handful of factors, no more. His only son, Raych Seldon, is known to have been adopted, but how that came about is not known. Concerning his wife, we only know that she existed. Clearly, Seldon wanted to be a cipher except where psychohistory was concerned. It is as though he felt-or wanted it to be felt-that he did not live, he merely psychohistorified.

Encyclopedia Galactica

91.

Hummin sat calmly, not a muscle twitching, still looking at Hari Seldon and Seldon, for his part, waited. It was Hummin, he thought, who should speak next.

Hummin did, but said merely, “A robot? Me?-By robot, I presume you mean an artificial being such as the object you saw in the Sacratorium in Mycogen.”

“Not quite like that,” said Seldon.

“Not metal? Not burnished? Not a lifeless simulacrum?” Hummin said it without any evidence of amusement.

“No. To be of artificial life is not necessarily to be made of metal. I speak of a robot indistinguishable from a human being in appearance.’. “If indistinguishable, Hari, then how do you distinguish?”

“Not by appearance.”

“Explain.”

“Hummin, in the course of my flight from yourself as Demerzel, I heard of two ancient worlds, as I told you-Aurora and Earth. Each seemed to be spoken of as a first world or an only world. In both cases, robots were spoken of, but with a difference.”

Seldon was staring thoughtfully at the man across the table, wondering if, in any way, he would give some sign that he was less than a man-or more. He said, “Where Aurora was in question, one robot was spoken of as a renegade, a traitor, someone who deserted the cause. Where Earth was in question, one robot was spoken of as a hero, one who represented salvation. Was it too much to suppose that it was the same robot?”

“Was it?” murmured Hummin.

“This is what I thought, Hummin. I thought that Earth and Aurora were two separate worlds, co-existing in time. I don’t know which one preceded the other. From the arrogance and the conscious sense of superiority of the Mycogenians, I might suppose that Aurora was the original world and that they despised the Earthmen who derived from them-or who degenerated from them.

“On the other hand, Mother Rittah, who spoke to me of Earth, was convinced that Earth was the original home of humanity and, certainly, the tiny and isolated position of the Mycogenians in a whole galaxy of quadrillions of people who lack the strange Mycogenian ethos might mean that Earth was indeed the original home and that Aurora was the aberrant offshoot. I cannot tell, but I pass on to you my thinking, so that you will understand my final conclusions.”

Hummin nodded. “I see what you are doing. Please continue.”

“The worlds were enemies. Mother Rittah certainly made it sound so. When I compare the Mycogenians, who seem to embody Aurora, and the Dahlites, who seem to embody Earth, I imagine that Aurora, whether first or second, was nevertheless the one that was more advanced, the one that could produce more elaborate robots, even ones indistinguishable from human beings in appearance. Such a robot was designed and devised in Aurora, then. But he was a renegade, so he deserted Aurora. To the Earthpeople he was a hero, so he must have joined Earth. Why he did this, what his motives were, I can’t say.”

Hummin said, “Surely, you mean why it did this, what its motives were.”