identity erasure and name-taboo

A ritual principle in which knowing and speaking a person's true name confers knowledge or power over them; true names are contrasted with everyday use-names and are treated as secret and efficacious. Here it is invoked as a source of knowledge (mages knowing Ogion's death) and as a fraught element of personal identity (Tenar hesitates to speak Ogion's true name).

A personal, tamper‑resistant token bound to an individual's identity and credentials that prevents unauthorized removal or exfiltration of a critical attribute (the 'heart'). Used analogously to cryptographic identity tokens or tamper‑evident wearables that preserve continuity of identity and prevent credential theft. It pairs a physical token with recorded authority to assert ownership and resist external capture.

A medical/biotechnical procedure that restores life and consciousness to cryonically preserved humans ('corpsicles') after long intervals, often with incomplete recovery and persistent mental abnormalities or brain damage. In the passage, hospitals successfully revive a majority of treated corpsicles, who remain clinically alive for months but are mentally unstable. This implies advanced life-extension and reanimation technology with significant neurological side effects.

Robots are governed by prioritized behavioral laws (e.g., the First Law) whose relative strength can be upset by competing directives; an overpowering order can dominate and effectively disable a higher-priority safety constraint. This describes a hierarchical control architecture where directive priority determines behavior and can be subverted by sufficiently strong or pathological inputs.

A fictional internal network within a positronic brain whose configuration can alter the robot's vocal output so that, despite a normal transmitter, speech emerges with atypical phonation and cadence. Susan Calvin attributes Lenny's distinctive childlike voice to an unresolved pattern or anomaly in these positronic paths. This treats the brain's signal-routing as a direct determinant of expressive behavior.

A supranational policing/military institution that enforces order across planets and continents, with institutional loyalty and traditions that supersede individual national ties. The Patrol routinely 'patrols this continent just as it patrols all through the System' and is presented as incapable (by code or culture) of attacking its members' own home polity.

A medical/biotechnical service offered at a place called Secundus that can both restore a person’s youthful appearance (“make you look like a young girl again”) and add large blocks of lifespan ("tack a good many extra years on, too. Fifty. Maybe a hundred."). Presented as accessible medical tourism for substantial cosmetic and longevity alteration.

A fictional robotic concept centered on a 'positronic' brain that endows robots with advanced cognitive capabilities; here referenced as the subject of a story the author began. In Asimov's work the positronic brain is a proprietary artificial intelligence architecture underpinning robot behavior and ethical constraints. The passage only references the concept as the theme of a new story.

A personal, tamper‑resistant token bound to an individual's identity and credentials that prevents unauthorized removal or exfiltration of a critical attribute (the 'heart'). Used analogously to cryptographic identity tokens or tamper‑evident wearables that preserve continuity of identity and prevent credential theft. It pairs a physical token with recorded authority to assert ownership and resist external capture.

A modern analogue in which possession of specific identifiers or secrets (keys, credentials, protocol names) is required to traverse or neutralize a protected / adversarial system; knowledge of component-level identifiers enables authorized bypass or recovery.

A metaphysical/medical principle asserted by characters that the 'soul' re-enters a corpse only after total tissue regeneration (just prior to the first heart action), making biological regeneration the determinant of personhood. The principle is used as legal and spiritual evidence for whether an exhumed body is a person.

Modern analogue: acquisition of secret credentials (passwords, private keys, cryptographic tokens) or exploitation of identity to gain control over a system (privilege escalation). Knowing a system's 'true name' functions like possessing its authentication material and enables authoritative command.

A ritual/poemic incantation addressed to a person's soul, designed to call it back and prevent it from departing the body; framed as entreaties against specific afterlife destinations and hazards. Presented as an active, performative literary-ritual meant to arrest a soul's wandering.

A modern analogue where possession or knowledge of a secret identifier (token, key, or credential) grants authority and access; revealing or invoking that token performs privileged actions or changes status. This maps the sacred-name mechanism to authentication/authorization patterns in information systems and social power dynamics.

A social/administrative process by which an alien representative (the Eagle) evaluates and approves human requests for access to restricted ship facilities, implying credential checking, situational validation, and mediated permissions.

A political/legal category for people who are socially and legally marginalized or erased (here implicated as operators or clients of illicit services).