The Last Question characters

Appears from the start

A maintenance technician serving Multivac in 2061. After celebrating humanity's command of solar power, he wonders how the enormous computer would answer the ultimate problem of whether entropy can be reversed.

Appears from the start

Adell's fellow Multivac attendant. Drinking with Adell after the solar-energy announcement, he argues about whether the stars must eventually run down and helps put their dispute to the computer.

Appears from the start

A vast computer whose underground workings support human civilization. Its attendants understand only small portions of it, but people rely on it to solve problems beyond unaided human calculation.

Appears from the start

A man traveling with his family through hyperspace to a new home on another planet. The journey prompts his children to ask whether humanity can continue moving to new suns forever.

Appears from the start

Two representatives of a far-future humanity spread across the galaxy. While discussing the exhaustion of stars, they consult the Galactic AC about whether cosmic energy can be restored.

Appears from the start

A diffuse consciousness from an era when human minds can move freely between bodies. It speaks with another mind, Dee Sub Wun, about the aging universe and appeals to the Universal AC.

Appears from the start

The collective consciousness into which all human minds have ultimately merged. Humanity has left physical bodies behind but remains unable to escape the approaching death of the universe.

Also known as Cosmic AC

Appears from the start

The remote culmination of the computers that began with Multivac. Existing beyond ordinary space and time, it continues working on the question that humanity has asked in many forms across the life of the universe.