#Demerzel is an android who survived a war with between androids + humans and their subsequent outlawing

[athalantan]

Icb I ever considered an alternative— obvs it’s My.st.ra who’s 🤝 with Cleon from Fou.nda.tion.

For reference there’s an empire in Fou.nda.tion. Ages ago, an emperor named Cleon decided to found a genetic dynasty by cloning himself. The ouroboros of the end result is astounding. There are always 3 Cleon’s: Dusk (oldest), Day (middle), and Dawn (youngest). Although they’re clones, a new Dawn is decanted as an infant at the same moment a Dusk is euthanized. Prev Day becomes the new Dusk, and prev Dawn becomes the new Day. Dusk advises Day. Day rules the empire. Both (especially Day) raise the new Dawn.

The themes of personal identity and ouroboros are so delicious. They are all Cleon; they are all the same person. They’re perfectly synchronized down to the moment they lift their forks. Yet they are each individuals shaped by their own experiences. They are each other’s brothers and fathers and grandfathers while also being each other. In that sense they are also their own brother and father and grandfather — while also being none of that because they’re a clone of the same man. A new one is born the very same moment another dies: an endless cycle like the sun wheeling across the sky. They are at once always alive and always dead. It’s even in the way they’re always addressed not as emperor or your majesty or your serenity or your radiance or as anything other than Empire. Not only are they are seen as one with each other but they are seen as one with the empire they were cloned to rule. As Demerzel put it: Empire does not have individuated sentience.