#secunit three

[tinmate]

Three doesn't look at the ceiling when talking to Perihelion but looks straight ahead

Once it gets comfortable around people, it's rarely still, liking to drum it's fingers on surfaces or swing it's legs or shift it's weight from one foot to another

People assume that, because of it's name, it'd be a math nerd and while it likes math, it's really into science and economics.

It bonds with SecUnit over historical dramas. It doesn't comment on the lack of historical accuracy in the moment but has fun picking apart the inaccuracies with Peri/Holism later

While SecUnit prefers to be off alone with ART in it's downtime, Three likes to hang out with the other humans. It may not actively engage but it likes being in the same room, a nerdier version of parallel play (like SecUnit, it's favorite humans are big nerds which suits Three just fine because it is also a nerd)

The humans ask if it wants to keep it's name private but, unlike SecUnit, it likes having other people use it's name. This makes it feel known and wanted. Not an interchangeable, nameless, easily replaceable secunit but an individual. The humans don't want any secunit, they want Three. The use of it's name also keeps secunits One and Two memorialized. You can't help but remember that Three was once part of a set

It calls MB by it's feed name mostly but sometimes "1.0" to annoy it. It calls it "SecUnit" when talking aloud or to clarify for the benefit of the humans, which weirds some humans out ("Aren't you....both secunits?" "No. That's SecUnit. I'm Three") but is perfectly logical to other constructs, bots, and the humans that have known it longest.

It has a customer service smile. SecUnit decidedly does not.

It has a favorite color. That color is white. SecUnit thinks that's the most boring color in existence, second only to brown, but Three is very pleased to have decided on a personal color.

Like SecUnit, Three doesn't tend to talk aloud much. Unlike SecUnit, Three doesn't tend to use verbal words in the feed.

Three doesn't curse but, when it feels so inclined, insults like Shakespeare himself is writing it's lines.

Three looks like a cinnamon roll but could kill you

It's best friends with Gurathin.

[douche-canoe-regatta]

It dawned on me today that Three fully emerged as a consciousness due to the HelpMe.file. That's why it likes nonfiction; its first experience with media was a documentary.

Three took a HUGE leap in accepting the wild story 2.0 shared as true. It absolutely makes sense for it to compare its first media experience with, say, Sanctuary Moon and have trouble understanding that....it's fake, but also real, well parts of it but that's not important, so anyway you have to suspend your sense of disbelief to understand - we'll get back to that later - oh wait, no, that OTHER thing is true (or your existence is a lie) so uh... here's a nature documentary I guess

[avatar-roko]

there is no protocol for this

[silas-lehnsherr]

I think it would be absolutely hilarious if Three goes with them to Preservation Alliance. Imagine it from the perspective of the other people on the station. First this group goes on a survey mission that goes very wrong, and it eventually leads to there being a rogue SecUnit hanging around openly insulting your security and being a bit of a menace. Then the SecUnit leaves with some of them, gets kidnapped, and has to be rescued by the former leader of the alliance (who, by the way is the one who brought that asshole SecUnit with her in the first place), and then when they return it’s with a whole new rogue SecUnit, this one they basically stole. I can see them being like “what are you doing, collecting them.”

[shorroh]

Secunit guns.

[asthedeathoflight]

In love with graphic audio Three actually. Like obv I knew that there was Three pov but the va for Three's performance makes it feel so distinct from mb or 2.0 and i am. Very endeared. Also I knew this already but it really drives home Martha Wells pulling a "every time Murderbot has claimed it is a certain way because its a secunit was potentially bullshit, because heres a secunit who's just Normal." Masterclass in paying off unreliable narration without saying it overtly. Also very funny.

[cat-dragron-arts]

Hands you Three and Holism and various other doodles. Notes on my design for Holism under the cut for those who are interested!

Hello nerd, welcome to my ramble zone. I love having ART be this very abstract, sharp shape and I wanted Holism to have the same feeling but to the left. So, here are my thoughts comparing Holism and ART's designs :]

Holism is more square shaped while ART is overall rounder.

Holism is much more 'rigid' in feeling, it doesn't change its shape as often as ART does.

Holism has larger, more angular eyes that always stay outside of its main 'body', ART on the other hand has smaller, more oval eyes that can be either outside or inside its 'body'.

Holism always looks disinterested about whatever it is looking at though that isn't always the case. ART's eyes are very expressive in comparison.

[mayhaps-a-blog]

Thinking about Murderbot again (as one does) and like. We're introduced to SecUnits, to bots at all, through Murderbot's lens, so we assume that they're all anti-social, kind of misanthropic, and can't trust each other because of the governor module - because that's what Murderbot believes and has lived experience to show us, the audience, to prove it.

But if you think about it!

We start to meet other bots - ART, Miki, even Three eventually, and they're... not like that? ART is friendly with its crew and not worried about Murderbot at all (probably because it could crush it like a bug, but you know), Miki is openly friendly to everyone, Three mentions having friendly connections with other bots, there's even mention that the station bots share gossip and news with each other and SecUnits... so it's actually just Murderbot, maybe.

But if you think about it, it makes sense.

Most bots are unlikely to be pitted against each other. Sure, SecUnits are forced to fight sometimes, but they can't threaten a client and probably aren't allowed to kill each other because that's expensive. Sure, hostile takeovers can happen, but again, they're expensive and difficult and don't seem to profit anyone, so most wouldn't try it. What happened to Murderbot specifically was a mistake on the attacker's part, after all.

So most bots would have the perspective that yes, sure, they're all slaves in a shitty system where random humans can make them hurt each other, but really, most humans don't bother and most bots don't get enough direct human attention that they really have to worry about it. Sure, they could be played against each other, but it's probably pretty safe for a shipping bot to gossip and make friends with the folks coming through - who's going to order a SecUnit to act against a shipping bot, really? Who's going to pay enough attention to care? They're bots.

But for Murderbot, being ordered against its fellow bots - and its own clients! - isn't just a remote nightmare possibility, it's a REALITY. That HAPPENED to it! So of course it can't trust itself - can't trust another bot - when it knows, it KNOWS, what could happen.

It's just interesting to think of Murderbot, our original perspective character and thus kind of taken as the "normal" for bots, as actually being the most incredibly paranoid bot in the story. That every other bot just thinks is kind of weird XD

[ghostcashewart]

another murderbot comic- this time, one of my favorite bits with Three! it's truly out here doing its best.

[rowan-ashtree]

thinking about Three....

what if your body wasn't your own. what if your MIND wasn't your own. what if a stranger offered to free you and showed you what good things can happen when you are safe and can trust people. what if you could suddenly turn off the thing that killed (your friend? coworker?) secunit 2. what if everything changed in 90 seconds. what then?

what if your body and mind were very suddenly your own. what if protocol was your lifeline, and suddenly you didn't have protocol and didn't need a lifeline. what if nothing was standard and everyone was scared, but you knew you could help. what if your second and third choices ever were to help people you've never seen before, all because a stranger showed you what good things can happen when you are safe, and you made your first ever choice: to trust it. what then?

what then?

[sanctuarymoonfan397]

is this anything

[silas-lehnsherr]

Having now finished System Collapse, I can’t stop thinking about the SecUnits that Murderbot has freed. If we take the idea that Three had a much better/friendlier relationship with the other SecUnits it was stationed with (which seems to be somewhat likely) than Murderbot ever had, I wonder what that could mean for the SecUnit we see at the end of the book that had chosen to go back to pretend it isn’t rogue. What if B-E SecUnits operate differently than the company Murderbot came from? When 2.0 first contacts Three, it assumes that this SecUnit has the same protocol as it does (i.e. not being allowed to speak to other units), but what if there was no such restriction on the B-E SecUnits. What if they were often allowed to communicate with each other? I don’t think it would for warm fuzzy reasons, but from a security standpoint, it would make sense if you have a group of SecUnits, they are allowed to share information and coordinate where necessary. I’m sure there was some of that going on in Murderbot’s company as well, but maybe instead of it being a you can communicate in ‘x’ scenario, with the B-E SecUnits it’s more of a general rule, something they don’t need specific permission for or something. Add in to that the possibility that the B-E SecUnits might be used to working with the same units on a regular basis, I could see the argument that genuine connections may have been formed amongst what I’ve been thinking of as squads or teams (for example, you have these three SecUnits that are used to working together/possibly have been deployed together for an extended period of time). My point is that ever since finishing the book, I can’t help but wonder if part of the reason that the SecUnit at the end goes back is (in part) for the other members of its team. Like it is now free, so it goes back to free the others. And then this becomes a thing. These rogue units, pretending to still be perfectly ‘normal, nothing to see here’ are steadily freeing the units they encounter/work with on a regular basis. We know that Murderbot does not do this, but if the B-E units have a better relationship with each other, I think not would be an interesting narrative arc.

I would also find it hilarious if they keep passing the helpme.file among themselves, each one passing it onto the next bot in the line (maybe adding in some of their own memories of being free as well) as they free more and more units until Murderbot becomes an almost mythic figure to them. It would hate this, but I think it would be hilarious. (It also has the added narrative weight of having the bot standing up and freeing themselves opposed to being saved by some well meaning humans. Something that is not common to these types of stories.)

[parhelionstudio]

Murderbot, Three, and ART off on some sort of adventure!

[shorroh]

Three my beloved

[shayberri789]

Thinking about the significance of Three getting a pov in The Murderbot Diaries

Do you consider yourself a murderbot? Does Mbot think of you so? Is this a leftover from "all secunits are murderbots barely holding themselves back sike we are caring beings deserving kindness and freedom"?

Or is it because Three is the only secunit mbot got a recording from? Did three start taking a log when it encountered 2.0 and send it to mbot with 2.0 to assure it that its humans were safe? 2.0 didn't ask for that. Three did it voluntarily, for a secunit it doesn't really know. And it was important enough to mbot for it to include the recording in the book/log. There aren't even any ART recordings/logs in book, but you KNOW it has hundreds of them. But three is there, why?

[fandom-space-princess]

(this never happened, and constructs cannot dream.)

Three thinks One might have liked to tell stories. It always had the best after-mission reports. It found ways to be subtly creative, dryly funny, right up to the limits of what was allowed. If it had been able, Three thinks it would have had a lot to say.

(you can't change the past. your ability to imagine a better one is constrained by your nature.)

Two was always very quiet, even when it didn't need to be. Three can believe that, given the chance, it might choose to do nothing but listen.

(they're gone, and you're here. you wonder what names you might have chosen for yourselves, if you had lived to be three in practice, instead of only you, Three, in name.)

you cannot dream of them. you cannot go back. but there is nothing stopping you now from remembering them as they might have liked to be remembered, and that will have to be enough.

-----------

Three misses them :(