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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 elsewhare
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)
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