Solaria

Lore & Background

The Solarians specialised in building robots, which they exported to the other Spacer worlds and which were noted for their variety and excellence; they also exported grain used for a pastry called pachinka. About 20,000 people once lived alone or in married couples on vast estates, with thousands of robots for every Solarian, and births and immigration were strictly controlled. Solarians hated physical contact and spoke to one another only by hologram.

Reader's Guide

Trevize's group took Bander's child, Fallom, with them, because the Solarians would have executed a surplus child who had not yet developed the transducer lobes. By then the population had fallen to about twelve hundred, one person per estate.

A few hundred years after Elijah Baley's visit, the Solarians withdrew from the galaxy and went underground. They genetically altered themselves to be hermaphroditic and able to use telekinesis, and built robots to kill any foreigners who landed. In 499 F.E., Golan Trevize, Janov Pelorat and Bliss landed on the estate of Sarton Bander, who tried to kill them and was killed by Bliss in self-defence.