English & Literature
Who is Dr. Vasilia Fastolfe/Aliena from The Robots of Dawn and what is their importance? The_Robots_of_Dawn English & Literature Dr. Vasilia Fastolfe/Aliena | The Robots of Dawn
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The estranged daughter of the famous roboticist Dr. Han Fastolfe, Vasilia, who who is named for his mother, is beautiful like her own mother and, vehemently rejecting Fastolfe's surname, has become a noted roboticist on her own. She is pretty, with curly golden hair and none of her father's homeliness. Her face shows a cold determination. She deeply resents her father having raised her personally rather than putting her in a proper institution as is normal on the Spacer planet Aurora, and using her as a test subject on how the human brain develops. She terms him a monster, dedicated only to developing psychohistory, a way of predicting the future. As a young scientist, Vasilia inadvertently gives R. Giskard Reventlov, a "normal" robot who serves as her childhood nanny, the ability not only to read but also influence human and robotic minds. She suggests that her father murders R. Jander Panell in order to investigate the responses of his grieving human "wife," Gladia Delmarre/Solaria, who resembles Vasilia physically.