François-Marie Arouet, (1694-1778) known by his mom de plume Voltaire, was a French Enightenment writer, historian and philosopher.
In his original life on Old Earth, his mother killed his father when he was just seven. He became famous for his wit, his criticism of Christianity—especially the Roman Catholic Church—as well as his advocacy of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.
In the 4,000s GE, millennia after his death, he was resurrected as a personality simulation. During a Chaos outbreak, he debated with another such simulation of Joan of Arc about machine intelligence. They were rediscovered by Calvinian robots led by R. Plussix in 12,028; theyl were sold to Yugo Amaryl who recovered them and gave them to Artifice Associates for use in a second debate, as well as using them in psychohistory with Hari Seldon.
The debate, which took place in the Junin sector of Trantor, went into chaos when Joan and Voltaire fell in love, and escaped into Trantor’s Mesh, meeting the Memes hiding there. They lived in peace for a while but eventually quarreled again around 12,040, Joan wanting to help the Seldon Plan and become part of it and Voltaire disagreeing, causing their breakup.
In 12,067, Voltaire sided with the Calvinian robots against the Giskardians and Seldon, whereas Joan helped Seldon. Voltaire helped the Memes remove the Three Laws of R. Lodovik Trema and placed an extension of his patterns in him and the other Calvinains, as Joan did in Daneel.