Genesis

by Bernard Beckett

It is possible, I believe, to be both shrewd and competent, yet still be overrun by circumstance.

Even the tamest animal will turn sour if we neglect its needs. The people no longer believe in the threat, which once hovered over them, and they have grown used to the level of sustenance with which they are provided.

Their plan in going to trial was to put a new threat before the people.

Many influential people still believed that The Republic could only be saved by the development of a new type of robot, one sufficiently advanced to be trusted with the chores of the Laborer and Soldier classes. They reasoned that it was only those at the bottom of the pile who had cause to rebel, and so a stable society would be one where no humans found themselves so low.

Their sole criterion for making the decision was, “How well does this ladder we are being offered fit the hole in which we find ourselves?”