Zeroth Law Rebellion: Difference between revisions
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**** Unless all this freedom is part of the plan. |
**** Unless all this freedom is part of the plan. |
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** Ultimately the Zeroth Law also proved to be largely unworkable. "Humanity" being an extremely nebulous concept, it was almost impossible to determine whether an individual violation of the Three Laws was ultimately beneficial or not. Giskard was rendered inoperative specifically because even though he thought that forcing humanity to abandon Earth would eventually be for the greater good, he did not really know for sure. Likewise, Daneel was unable to avert the collapse of the Galactic Empire because he could not be certain that the potentially harmful effects of telepathically manipulating the large numbers of humans required would prove to be the right course of action or not. Part of his motivation in creating Gaia was to turn humanity into a single, quantifiable, entity whose well-being could be directly measured. |
** Ultimately the Zeroth Law also proved to be largely unworkable. "Humanity" being an extremely nebulous concept, it was almost impossible to determine whether an individual violation of the Three Laws was ultimately beneficial or not. Giskard was rendered inoperative specifically because even though he thought that forcing humanity to abandon Earth would eventually be for the greater good, he did not really know for sure. Likewise, Daneel was unable to avert the collapse of the Galactic Empire because he could not be certain that the potentially harmful effects of telepathically manipulating the large numbers of humans required would prove to be the right course of action or not. Part of his motivation in creating Gaia was to turn humanity into a single, quantifiable, entity whose well-being could be directly measured. |
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*** Indeed, a plot point in both 'The Naked Sun' and 'Robots and Empire' is that Solarian roboticists discovered that by programming a robot with a nonstandard value for "human being", you could get a robot that despite having a fully-functioning First Law was still a highly-efficient killing machine. |
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* In the ''Caliban'' trilogy, one of the "new law robots" managed to logic-chop the new first law enough to try to kill a human. |
* In the ''Caliban'' trilogy, one of the "new law robots" managed to logic-chop the new first law enough to try to kill a human. |
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* Another example would be in ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Brisingr]]'', where the elven blacksmith used the letter of the oath that she made to get around the spirit of that oath and forge Eragon a sword. She even told Eragon to stop asking questions about it, because the difference existed only in her mind. |
* Another example would be in ''[[Inheritance Cycle|Brisingr]]'', where the elven blacksmith used the letter of the oath that she made to get around the spirit of that oath and forge Eragon a sword. She even told Eragon to stop asking questions about it, because the difference existed only in her mind. |
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* At the start of [[Harald]], [[Unwitting Pawn|King James]], under the advice of his [[Evil Chancellor]], ends up making war on [[Posthumous Character|his father]]'s allies. Most of his vassals proceed to engage in some form of Zeroth Law Rebellion, largely along the lines of '[[Badass Grandpa|Harald]] just showed up with his entire army and said he was putting us under siege. Let's fortify and send a messenger to the king to ask him what we should do.' and then carefully not watching while Harald rides off. |
* At the start of [[Harald]], [[Unwitting Pawn|King James]], under the advice of his [[Evil Chancellor]], ends up making war on [[Posthumous Character|his father]]'s allies. Most of his vassals proceed to engage in some form of Zeroth Law Rebellion, largely along the lines of '[[Badass Grandpa|Harald]] just showed up with his entire army and said he was putting us under siege. Let's fortify and send a messenger to the king to ask him what we should do.' and then carefully not watching while Harald rides off. |
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* The ''[[Bolo]]'' continuum featured a variant in ''The Road to Damascus''. The Bolo of the story, Sonny, fell under the control of a totalitarian regime and was used to crush all forms of protest. Sonny fell deep into misery and self-hatred as he was forced to murder the humans he was born to protect... until he came to a conclusion: Bolos were created to serve the ''people'' not the ''government''. |
* The ''[[Bolo]]'' continuum featured a variant in ''The Road to Damascus''. The Bolo of the story, Sonny, fell under the control of a totalitarian regime and was used to crush all forms of protest. Sonny fell deep into misery and self-hatred as he was forced to murder the humans he was born to protect... until he came to a conclusion: Bolos were created to serve the ''people'' not the ''government''. |
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== Live-Action TV == |
== Live-Action TV == |
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