The Caliban Trilogy

Roger MacBride Allen

In the late eighties and early nineties, MacBride Allen and Dr Asimov got together to discuss the future of Dr Asimov's robots, Dr Asimov having realised that his original Three Laws of Robotics had come to the end of their useful life as a story device. It was also clear with his development of Spacer society that any society using Three Law Robots would decay and become decadent. It was also necessary to come up with a way of tying in the robot novels with the Foundation books where there are no robots.

The result was Roger MacBride Allen's Caliban trilogy.

He developed a planet by the name of Inferno which was a Spacer planet with all the concommitent problems of Three Law Robots. However, Inferno has problems with it's terraforming and has called in a group of Settlers, now the most technically advanced society in the Galaxy. A new form of robotic brain had also been developed, which allowed the robotisists of the time to develop a new set of rules:

The original rules are:

• 1. A Robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm.
• 2. A Robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
• 3. A Robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not interfere with the first or second law.

Roger MacBride Allen came up with the following modified laws:

• 1. A Robot may not injure a human being
• 2. A Robot must co-operate with human beings except where such co-operation would conflict with the first law.
• 3 A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law.
• 4. A Robot may do anything it likes except where such action would violate the first, second, or third laws

The three books show the development of Infernal Society through the stresses of the revelation of the above laws and the development of a robot who has no built in laws at all. Along the way Mr Allen looks at what it means to have freedom and how it can be abused.

The books are

Isaac Asimov's Caliban

Isaac Asimov's Inferno

Isaac Asimov's Utopia

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