WARNING: The following contains SPOILERS for Rick and Morty season 5, episode 2, “Mortiplicity.”
The Rick and Morty episode “Mortiplicity” centered on the Smith family facing a cataclysmic ” Asimov Cascade Failure” — but what is that a reference to (and is it a real thing)? In an episode full of clever pop culture references, the Asimov joke is both the most obscure and the most meaningful. The made-up term is a reference to the writings of a classic sci-fi author and philosopher, Isaac Asimov.
Rick and Morty season 5, episode 2 continued the animated series’ trend of focusing an adventure on a particular genre theme. In this case, “Mortiplicity” pokes fun at the robot subgenre of science fiction. Rick’s reckless use of decoy families causes the aforementioned cascade: as he explains using a whiteboard, when the “squids” killed the first decoys, this triggered a chain-reaction of decoys checking on the decoys they made, only to discover those decoys had produced another generation of decoys, etc. The premise itself reflects Rick and Morty‘s unique brand of sardonic, wacky adventures, but much of the thematic content — particularly relating to robotics and identity politics — is cribbed from iconic sci-fi stories.
While Rick and Morty season 5, episode 2 explicitly references Highlander, and its content has as much to do with movies like Ex Machina and Blade Runner as it does the ’80s fantasy cult film, the ideas of “Mortiplicity” are very much rooted in Isaac Asimov’s writings. While Asimov isn’t as well-known as some of his sci-fi contemporaries — like Robert A. Heinlein or Philip K. Dick, for example — Asimov was incredibly influential on the genre, particularly in the depiction and characterization of robots.
Isaac Asimov (1920 – 1992) was a biochemist in addition to being a prolific writer, and his written works comprise a wide variety of genres and formats, including both fiction and nonfiction. Belonging to the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Asimov is perhaps best known for writing the rules of robotic ethics: the Three Laws of Robotics. These appeared in his book I, Robot, which is a collection of short stories that collectively provide a fictional history of robotics. (Asimov is sometimes misattributed to the Will Smith movie I, Robot; however, the movie is only loosely based on ideas presented in Asimov’s collection — including some characters and the iconic Three Laws. The movie is not a direct adaptation.) These laws are the foundation of Asimov’s then-unique approach to characterizing robotics of the future, as he believed robots would be created with inherent safeguards to protect themselves as well as their creators. The first law states that a robot may not injure a human; the second is that they must obey orders, unless doing so would violate the first law; and the third states that a robot must protect itself without violating the previous two laws. The Rick and Morty reference to an “Asimov Cascade Failure” is just a joke referencing these basic laws, but applied to an extreme example created by Rick’s unchecked hubris.
While many associate Asimov with I, Robot and concepts of robot identity in relation to humans, there is actually another major science-fiction trope that originated in his writings: the positronic brain. Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation likely recall that Data often referenced his positronic brain (Asimov was referenced by name several times throughout TNG as well). The writer’s influential concept for robotic CPUs essentially imagined that a futuristic technology would allow the machines to form memories and even a sort of artificial consciousness. The Rick and Morty season 5 episode extended the basic ideas in Asimov’s writings as a clever wink to the knowing audience. Rather than explain who Asimov is, or restate the iconic Three Laws, the episode just namedropped the author, then later made a pun about “Rule 34” — there is no official 34th rule in Asimov laws, so the episode was both greatly extending the scope of the Laws while also making a cheeky reference to a well-known internet maxim. The Rick & Morty episode ended with the cascade seemingly resolved — but it will be interesting to see if any more of Rick’s creations gain sentience further down the line.