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labingiThe reason I call myself a science fiction fan is that I love science fiction's capacity to explore the human condition by comparing "us" (our in-group) to something different. This might be done via different cultures, technologies, biologies, environments, etc. I love it when a well-written story changes something and explores how that change ripples out, transforming how existence works for the characters and cultures under consideration. When a story does this well, I find it absolutely magical. I also find it's frustratingly rare. And, therefore, I am over the moon to have found this kind of sci-fi with Foundation's Cleons.
Spoilers for the Foundation TV series
Most commentary I've read on this series pinpoints the Cleon dynasty as the best thing about it, and I agree. At any given time, this dynasty consists of three clones of Cleon I, roughly twenty-five-ish years apart in age, who jointly rule the galactic Empire. They are designated as Brother Dawn, Brother Day, and Brother Dusk, according to their seniority, with Brother Day as the ruling emperor. Their progenitor's plan was the stabilize the Empire by providing a consistent, invariable line of succession. The problem with this should be clear: this system actively resists change, yet change is inevitable, not least in an extremely large interstellar bureaucracy with literally trillions of moving pieces. This means the emperors ultimately contribute to the stagnation of the Empire, being ill-equipped to confront the core issue of its decline.
That said, its decline is not fundamentally their fault. As the series mathematical prophet Hari Seldon notes, psychohistory does not track the movements of individuals, even powerful ones, but of large, collective phenomena. At the end of the day, the Cleons simply don't have enough power to either sustain the Empire or destroy it—though they do have enough power to significantly hasten or delay its fall. They represent its decline but don't entirely define it.
But even without the sweeping spectacle of the Empire's decay, the Cleons are an enthralling lens to throw over our humanity. The key change from our norms is, of course, that they're clones and a very particular set of clones, predestined to function as emperor. But they are also as human as anyone else, and thus their difference throws fascinating ripples into the pool of our normative expectations. Here are some of the implications, all well explored, and some brilliantly.
Their conception of family is radically shifted—yet human.
The Cleons and their ancient robot counselor/servant Demerzel are each other's only family. There are always exactly four of them (the Cleons plus Demerzel), except for the single day when the new Dawn is decanted and the old Dusk becomes Night and is euthanized. Then, for a few moments, five of them are in play.
Demerzel plays a multifaceted role that is part mother, part nursemaid, part teacher, protector, counselor, and slave. (She lives under at least some version of Asimov's Laws of Robotics, which constrain her to a high degree of obedience.) But while she is sometimes imperiously ordered around, it's clear the Cleons have a great deal of respect for her, much as people generally do for an elder who raised them. From the small child holding her hand to the old man discussing the nature of life and death with her, she is a through-line in their lives. And while I've heard diverging fan theories, it seems clear to me that there is love between them. They're a family.
The three Cleons themselves fall loosely into roles of son, father, and grandfather, though they refer to each other as "brother," all being direct clones of the first Cleon. I want to give the series credit for having Brother Day (Cleon XIII) explicitly state that he sees his younger brother as his son. Particularly in characters occupying a "villain" spot, many writers would have ignored that kind of emotional intimacy, but these didn't. In fact, further props that the writers let him say out loud that the three of them love each other. Of course, they do: they are a tight and insular family, and this is not only "told" but "shown": in the daily details, the conversations, the dinner table, the disagreements, that time little boy Dawn (Cleon XIII) admitted he was scared and Day's response is to hug him—and that Day (Cleon XII) is kind of a scary bastard, which makes his show of plain affection all the more compelling. They are outside our normal family roles and yet much of their daily experience is very recognizably that of a family in all its complex, loving messiness.
They're surprisingly—but plausibly—grounded.
My dad, who was a child psychiatrist, once remarked to me that to grow up fundamentally healthy, a child needs (at least) one stable, reliable adult. The Cleons have three: Day, Dusk, and Demerzel. (I feel like I'm in The Sandman.) They're all odd and flawed, but they are also all basically stable and loving to the Dawns, at least under normal circumstances. This system, in fact, works well to produce adults who are surprisingly well adjusted for fairly autocratic emperors of 15 trillion people. That is to say, they are also corrupt, entitled, elitist, murderous, tyrannical, and cold-bloodedly utilitarian—but much less than I'd expect. That sort of nigh absolute power (or illusion of it) is the kind of thing that produces sadists like Joffrey in Game of Thrones. And that the Cleons are not.
They are, in fact, hard-working, disciplined, and reasonably politically perceptive. They have the basic mental framework of people who have been raised with an authoritative (vs. authoritarian or permissive) combination of loving care and discipline. In essence, they're fairly normal. (Cleon XIV has some additional fears and constraints related to being in imperfect Cleon copy, but that's an exception.) This basic balance is on good display with Brother Dusk's (Cleon XI) concerns about Day (XII)'s genocidal solution to a terrorist attack. (I said XII was a scary bastard.) It shows in Dawn (XIV)'s typical adolescent romance and general angst about his destiny. And it shows very interestingly when Day (XIII) goes on a life-threatening pilgrimage, a political move that ends up being genuinely transformative. On this trek, he falls into conversation with ordinary working-class man who assumes him to be the same. The remarkable thing is how normal their conversation is. Day has no difficulty keeping up his end; he laughs quite naturally at the man's joke. He is deeply moved when the man helps him when he stumbles, and—most telling—when the man stumbles in turn, he immediately moves to help him, without any thought or hesitation. It's an instinct. It's the instinct of a person who grew up in a fairly normal family, where people do, in fact, help each other. (If they're in the in-group.)
As a side note, one implication of their system (not explicitly explored) is that the incoming Day becomes reigning emperor of the galaxy and first-time parent of a newborn on the same day! All I can say is that must be one hell of a first year (even with Demerzel doing the bulk of the parenting). And it's probably great training for the stress of being emperor.
They are both powerful and deprived.
At the same time, it goes without saying the Cleons' social experience is very strange. It's an odd union of extremes. On the one hand, they have the power of life and death over billions by fiat—and sometimes use it. On the other hand, their own lives are so constrained that, in some respects, they resemble slaves. Each is born into his imperial destiny, in far more rigid way than the typical heir of an emperor. There can be no abdication in favor of a relative: each one is "it" for his generation. Though they do have unconscious replacement clones being uploaded with data from the present brothers, these will only come into use if the brother himself is dead.
Moreover, while they rule over thousands of worlds, they typically never leave their home planet. In fact, it appears they only rarely leave their palace grounds. They're allowed to leave—at least Day and Dusk are, but it's considered folly, for the plausible reason that it's not safe; there's no shortage of people who would like to assassinate the emperor. Spending most of seventy-five-ish years in the grounds of a single palace seems to me quite a manacle. Even though the grounds are large and lavish, a human being needs a wider range.
A human being needs other things, too, that Cleons' security needs apparently deny them. For one thing, people need to know other people. The Cleons have their core four, but that's not really enough for a healthy community, and beyond that, their personal relationships seem extremely attenuated, on the level of being acquainted with this or that servant. They have a vast array of concubines but routinely erase their memories of any encounters, which puts the Cleons in the painful position of getting to know lovers who never get to know them. I'd assume they form an attachment to some of these people, and it must hurt to never have that attachment returned. No wonder Dawn (XIV) fell into an illicit romance with a gardener. In fact, he voices his dissatisfaction with the concubine situation.
I may be reaching here, but I suspect another mild deprivation comes from their invisible body shields, which repel sudden contact. Dune-like, they can be penetrated by slower pressure (which, as my partner notes, is kind of a security problem). Given Day (XIII)'s rather intense response to a concubine penetrating his shield even slightly, I'm inclined to think their shields somewhat dampen physical sensation—probably not totally or they wouldn't negotiate their physical environment as ably as they do. But if they do spend a significant portion of their lives slightly physically numbed, that may constitute a certain degree of sensory deprivation. Again, the series doesn't really go into this; I'm just conjecturing from what little we get on the topic.
A Plausible Anger
The Cleons are under a lot of pressure. They are trying to manage a crumbling empire of thousands of worlds, massively more than they can conceptualize as human beings. They are understandably unpopular with large swaths of their subjects and probably adored by very few. Day (XIII) states outright that they are hated and viewed as monsters. One major religion even questions whether clones can be truly human or have souls. Their lifestyle at the center of the empire, as my partner put it, is like having a giant red target tattooed on their heads while living behind several meters of protective plexiglass. Though their power is immense, their daily lives are also frustrating, constrained, and probably somewhat lonely. And they must certainly live in a low-grade state of fear all the time.
Thus, it is not surprising that they are prone to anger. It simmers beneath the surface all the time (at least, for the Days and Dusks; the Dawns may be a bit more flexible, depending on how fully the pressure cooker has got to them). This makes for good drama because an angry emperor of 15 trillion subjects is an accident waiting to happen.
A Case in Point for Individuality
It also makes good drama to see how this anger plays out differently with different Cleons. In season 1, we principally follow XII and XIII. XII, who is a scary bastard, as I've noted, is prone to outbursts of temper. He's not stupid, and he's capable of reasoned and strategic conduct, but when he snaps, he snaps, whether its yelling in frustration, genocidally bombing planets for being connected with a handful terrorists, or smacking Day (XIII), which has to be way out of protocol. Day (XIII) is an interesting counterpoint. He certainly carries every bit as much anger, but he defines himself, to some extent, against the model of XII. He watched the genocide as a child and has to carry the consequences of his brother's having made two planets' worth of vengeful enemies. And he's decided to go a different route. When Day (XIII) is angry, he tends to go still and simply stare—and then a short while later execute a chess move that slices the jugular (pardon mixed metaphor). He is also a scary bastard in his way. This difference within the similarity highlights a core tension for the clones. They are supposed to be the same, but they never will be or quite want to be.
In an interview I'm not going to bother to track down (sorry), Lee Pace, who plays all the Days, noted that the Cleons really do see each other as one and the same person, who is the emperor, and at the same time, are conscious of being individuals desiring individuality. I think he nailed a fundamental part of what makes them compelling: their basic sense of selfhood is different from ours, and yet they are very recognizably human.
Here abruptly ends this ramble on the Cleons. I expect I will follow it up with some (slightly) less rambling discussion about why these things I've noted matter and how it makes science fiction, and so on. But for now, I think this is long enough.
Spoilers for the Foundation TV series
Most commentary I've read on this series pinpoints the Cleon dynasty as the best thing about it, and I agree. At any given time, this dynasty consists of three clones of Cleon I, roughly twenty-five-ish years apart in age, who jointly rule the galactic Empire. They are designated as Brother Dawn, Brother Day, and Brother Dusk, according to their seniority, with Brother Day as the ruling emperor. Their progenitor's plan was the stabilize the Empire by providing a consistent, invariable line of succession. The problem with this should be clear: this system actively resists change, yet change is inevitable, not least in an extremely large interstellar bureaucracy with literally trillions of moving pieces. This means the emperors ultimately contribute to the stagnation of the Empire, being ill-equipped to confront the core issue of its decline.
That said, its decline is not fundamentally their fault. As the series mathematical prophet Hari Seldon notes, psychohistory does not track the movements of individuals, even powerful ones, but of large, collective phenomena. At the end of the day, the Cleons simply don't have enough power to either sustain the Empire or destroy it—though they do have enough power to significantly hasten or delay its fall. They represent its decline but don't entirely define it.
But even without the sweeping spectacle of the Empire's decay, the Cleons are an enthralling lens to throw over our humanity. The key change from our norms is, of course, that they're clones and a very particular set of clones, predestined to function as emperor. But they are also as human as anyone else, and thus their difference throws fascinating ripples into the pool of our normative expectations. Here are some of the implications, all well explored, and some brilliantly.
Their conception of family is radically shifted—yet human.
The Cleons and their ancient robot counselor/servant Demerzel are each other's only family. There are always exactly four of them (the Cleons plus Demerzel), except for the single day when the new Dawn is decanted and the old Dusk becomes Night and is euthanized. Then, for a few moments, five of them are in play.
Demerzel plays a multifaceted role that is part mother, part nursemaid, part teacher, protector, counselor, and slave. (She lives under at least some version of Asimov's Laws of Robotics, which constrain her to a high degree of obedience.) But while she is sometimes imperiously ordered around, it's clear the Cleons have a great deal of respect for her, much as people generally do for an elder who raised them. From the small child holding her hand to the old man discussing the nature of life and death with her, she is a through-line in their lives. And while I've heard diverging fan theories, it seems clear to me that there is love between them. They're a family.
The three Cleons themselves fall loosely into roles of son, father, and grandfather, though they refer to each other as "brother," all being direct clones of the first Cleon. I want to give the series credit for having Brother Day (Cleon XIII) explicitly state that he sees his younger brother as his son. Particularly in characters occupying a "villain" spot, many writers would have ignored that kind of emotional intimacy, but these didn't. In fact, further props that the writers let him say out loud that the three of them love each other. Of course, they do: they are a tight and insular family, and this is not only "told" but "shown": in the daily details, the conversations, the dinner table, the disagreements, that time little boy Dawn (Cleon XIII) admitted he was scared and Day's response is to hug him—and that Day (Cleon XII) is kind of a scary bastard, which makes his show of plain affection all the more compelling. They are outside our normal family roles and yet much of their daily experience is very recognizably that of a family in all its complex, loving messiness.
They're surprisingly—but plausibly—grounded.
My dad, who was a child psychiatrist, once remarked to me that to grow up fundamentally healthy, a child needs (at least) one stable, reliable adult. The Cleons have three: Day, Dusk, and Demerzel. (I feel like I'm in The Sandman.) They're all odd and flawed, but they are also all basically stable and loving to the Dawns, at least under normal circumstances. This system, in fact, works well to produce adults who are surprisingly well adjusted for fairly autocratic emperors of 15 trillion people. That is to say, they are also corrupt, entitled, elitist, murderous, tyrannical, and cold-bloodedly utilitarian—but much less than I'd expect. That sort of nigh absolute power (or illusion of it) is the kind of thing that produces sadists like Joffrey in Game of Thrones. And that the Cleons are not.
They are, in fact, hard-working, disciplined, and reasonably politically perceptive. They have the basic mental framework of people who have been raised with an authoritative (vs. authoritarian or permissive) combination of loving care and discipline. In essence, they're fairly normal. (Cleon XIV has some additional fears and constraints related to being in imperfect Cleon copy, but that's an exception.) This basic balance is on good display with Brother Dusk's (Cleon XI) concerns about Day (XII)'s genocidal solution to a terrorist attack. (I said XII was a scary bastard.) It shows in Dawn (XIV)'s typical adolescent romance and general angst about his destiny. And it shows very interestingly when Day (XIII) goes on a life-threatening pilgrimage, a political move that ends up being genuinely transformative. On this trek, he falls into conversation with ordinary working-class man who assumes him to be the same. The remarkable thing is how normal their conversation is. Day has no difficulty keeping up his end; he laughs quite naturally at the man's joke. He is deeply moved when the man helps him when he stumbles, and—most telling—when the man stumbles in turn, he immediately moves to help him, without any thought or hesitation. It's an instinct. It's the instinct of a person who grew up in a fairly normal family, where people do, in fact, help each other. (If they're in the in-group.)
As a side note, one implication of their system (not explicitly explored) is that the incoming Day becomes reigning emperor of the galaxy and first-time parent of a newborn on the same day! All I can say is that must be one hell of a first year (even with Demerzel doing the bulk of the parenting). And it's probably great training for the stress of being emperor.
They are both powerful and deprived.
At the same time, it goes without saying the Cleons' social experience is very strange. It's an odd union of extremes. On the one hand, they have the power of life and death over billions by fiat—and sometimes use it. On the other hand, their own lives are so constrained that, in some respects, they resemble slaves. Each is born into his imperial destiny, in far more rigid way than the typical heir of an emperor. There can be no abdication in favor of a relative: each one is "it" for his generation. Though they do have unconscious replacement clones being uploaded with data from the present brothers, these will only come into use if the brother himself is dead.
Moreover, while they rule over thousands of worlds, they typically never leave their home planet. In fact, it appears they only rarely leave their palace grounds. They're allowed to leave—at least Day and Dusk are, but it's considered folly, for the plausible reason that it's not safe; there's no shortage of people who would like to assassinate the emperor. Spending most of seventy-five-ish years in the grounds of a single palace seems to me quite a manacle. Even though the grounds are large and lavish, a human being needs a wider range.
A human being needs other things, too, that Cleons' security needs apparently deny them. For one thing, people need to know other people. The Cleons have their core four, but that's not really enough for a healthy community, and beyond that, their personal relationships seem extremely attenuated, on the level of being acquainted with this or that servant. They have a vast array of concubines but routinely erase their memories of any encounters, which puts the Cleons in the painful position of getting to know lovers who never get to know them. I'd assume they form an attachment to some of these people, and it must hurt to never have that attachment returned. No wonder Dawn (XIV) fell into an illicit romance with a gardener. In fact, he voices his dissatisfaction with the concubine situation.
I may be reaching here, but I suspect another mild deprivation comes from their invisible body shields, which repel sudden contact. Dune-like, they can be penetrated by slower pressure (which, as my partner notes, is kind of a security problem). Given Day (XIII)'s rather intense response to a concubine penetrating his shield even slightly, I'm inclined to think their shields somewhat dampen physical sensation—probably not totally or they wouldn't negotiate their physical environment as ably as they do. But if they do spend a significant portion of their lives slightly physically numbed, that may constitute a certain degree of sensory deprivation. Again, the series doesn't really go into this; I'm just conjecturing from what little we get on the topic.
A Plausible Anger
The Cleons are under a lot of pressure. They are trying to manage a crumbling empire of thousands of worlds, massively more than they can conceptualize as human beings. They are understandably unpopular with large swaths of their subjects and probably adored by very few. Day (XIII) states outright that they are hated and viewed as monsters. One major religion even questions whether clones can be truly human or have souls. Their lifestyle at the center of the empire, as my partner put it, is like having a giant red target tattooed on their heads while living behind several meters of protective plexiglass. Though their power is immense, their daily lives are also frustrating, constrained, and probably somewhat lonely. And they must certainly live in a low-grade state of fear all the time.
Thus, it is not surprising that they are prone to anger. It simmers beneath the surface all the time (at least, for the Days and Dusks; the Dawns may be a bit more flexible, depending on how fully the pressure cooker has got to them). This makes for good drama because an angry emperor of 15 trillion subjects is an accident waiting to happen.
A Case in Point for Individuality
It also makes good drama to see how this anger plays out differently with different Cleons. In season 1, we principally follow XII and XIII. XII, who is a scary bastard, as I've noted, is prone to outbursts of temper. He's not stupid, and he's capable of reasoned and strategic conduct, but when he snaps, he snaps, whether its yelling in frustration, genocidally bombing planets for being connected with a handful terrorists, or smacking Day (XIII), which has to be way out of protocol. Day (XIII) is an interesting counterpoint. He certainly carries every bit as much anger, but he defines himself, to some extent, against the model of XII. He watched the genocide as a child and has to carry the consequences of his brother's having made two planets' worth of vengeful enemies. And he's decided to go a different route. When Day (XIII) is angry, he tends to go still and simply stare—and then a short while later execute a chess move that slices the jugular (pardon mixed metaphor). He is also a scary bastard in his way. This difference within the similarity highlights a core tension for the clones. They are supposed to be the same, but they never will be or quite want to be.
In an interview I'm not going to bother to track down (sorry), Lee Pace, who plays all the Days, noted that the Cleons really do see each other as one and the same person, who is the emperor, and at the same time, are conscious of being individuals desiring individuality. I think he nailed a fundamental part of what makes them compelling: their basic sense of selfhood is different from ours, and yet they are very recognizably human.
Here abruptly ends this ramble on the Cleons. I expect I will follow it up with some (slightly) less rambling discussion about why these things I've noted matter and how it makes science fiction, and so on. But for now, I think this is long enough.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-28 03:54 am (UTC)The Cleons do seem to have long-term interactions with staff and administrators, so aren't 100% isolated and bubbled, but definitely close to it.
I'm looking forward to the second season.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-28 02:44 pm (UTC)