#tmbd meta

[fauxtelemetry]

I’m starting to think more about how constructs are constructed for a purpose, and how this is expressed in Murderbot. constructs have a set of core priorities. “instincts” if you will. and this seems to be across the board, from constructs to bots (including high level bots like ART) to systems.

MIs and constructs have a purpose, and that purpose is usually people-oriented in some way shape or form.

along this thread, i believe pack-bonding, or a coded affinity for social ties, is a built-in failsafe for most machine intelligences (MIs). basically, if you make the powerful sentient machine care about its people, make it social, it’s less likely to turn on them.

what I’m getting at is that Murderbot’s self-destruction is something ingrained. it can’t really fully see or come to terms with its self-destruction because its function *is getting hurt (and even dying) for clients*.

The “this is how I win” threads in Exit Strategy and Network Effect come to mind. the ultimate “winning” or satisfaction or purpose, in Murderbot’s mind, is to die killing a particularly nasty threat. To sacrifice itself. That Murderbot2.0 says this is especially damning wrt a programmed purpose.

I also think about the moment in Network Effect when Murderbot says it's guilty about having Thiago and Overse help it with a plan. To its mind, it has no worth if it’s not fulfilling its function. I mean, its guilt about this starts with Overse and Thiago insisting on accompanying MB in checking out the space dock: MB pushes back, but then it finds out Pin-Lee also wanted it to be safe by including that stipulation in its contract, and then the cherry on top is ART telling Murderbot that it can't lose it. It matters to all of these beings that MB remain whole and alive. and Murderbot is *so* confused by this. Murderbot's genuine confusion about being cared for by all these people is overwhelming to it, it literally doesn’t make sense on a fundamental level.

like the implications that it’s loved and important to these people—that its function is secondary to its personhood, that its people would rather be in a little more danger than have it endanger itself unduly—is *really* hard for it to reconcile.

like! this can’t be overstated. it was created to protect people, and self-sacrifice is so deeply a part of it that it’s very possibly in its *code*. i mean, even if it’s not literally coded into it, its experiences (its early treatment), have shaped its beliefs around what its function is. it’s behaviors.

like how do you deprogram someone from being self-destructive when its literal purpose is self-destruction?

[vulpinewizard]

In The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red, an important plot point is the murder of the other survey team on the planet, DeltFall, by GrayCris. The first attempt to do so was via malware disguised as an upgrade package intended for their secunits. If it had been applied, GrayCris would’ve been able to remotely take over the secunits and force them to murder the DeltFall team.

(notably, this attempt failed, and GrayCris had to hack the secunits in person, but thats not important for this post)

Importantly, GrayCris sent this same malware to Preservation Aux at the same time, intending to take over Murderbot. Take a look at the reason Murderbot gives for refusing the download:

“I don’t do automated package updates anymore, now that I don’t have to.”

Throughout the series, especially early on, Murderbot will bring up two things: The memory wipes it had undergone, and the mass-murder at it’s hands that had prompted said memory wipes.

In Artificial Condition, Murderbot goes back to the scene of the crime to figure out why it committed mass murder.

As it turns out, malware disguised as an upgrade infected the system and causes the deaths of 57 people.

it might be a stretch to assume that Murderbot subconsciously remembers the cause of the incident. the upgrade package was sent to the comfortunits, not the secunits. But we do know that Murderbot hacked its governor module almost immediately afterwards, so that it couldn’t be forced to kill against its will ever again. It might be more accurate to call it a demonstration of autonomy.

The moral of the story seems to be that automatic updates are bad for security

[longearedhare]

uhhh…how old do we think Murderbot IS??? (Obviously since constructs don’t have a childhood phase this does NOT have a 1:1 ratio with human ages or anything near)

We know that it is at least 4 years old by All Systems Red, and the text implies that ~ a year passes between the end of Exit Strategy and the beginning of Network Effect.

Despite the enhanced strength and hardiness, the lifespan of a normal SecUnit with a governor module CANNOT be that long considering the way they are abused and the fact that they routinely have bits of their organic brains fried.

I’m personally betting that Murderbot is under 15, IF that. (Which makes its past more horrifying, it that was possible)

[just-a-space-duck]

Abstract ART

A Murderbot Meta Essay

My favorite thing about fandom is seeing how everyone interprets the same source material. And as someone who's most into character design, it’s so fun seeing how different artists draw the same character, even when said character already has a very clear canon design. What elements do artists leave behind as just part of the official art style and which parts do they interpret as core parts of the character's design? Where there's ambiguity, what do they add? How does each person depict “wide sunny eyes” or “quite tall for an elf”?

And with The Murderbot Diaries, characters are given very little physical descriptions, even for a book series. Even with the official illustrations and out-of-text author statements (which I choose to put into an optionally canon status; it's the TLK fan in me) we're working with relatively little in terms of what the characters look like. And that makes Murderbot fanart so fun for me.

And maybe one day I'll gush about the designs of the other characters, but you saw the title, and I'm here to talk about the most fascinating fanon character design trend I've thus seen: Abstract ART/Perihelion.

ART is a spaceship. Ok, it's also sometimes drones. The way ART functions, out of any character in the series, the argument that its true form is merely the physical stuff composing its brain is the most founded. And Murderbot does sometimes make specific reference to ART's brain as being what ART specifically is. But without getting too far into a philosophical discussion on the relationship between the mind and the physical world and what constitutes the self, ART is largely presented to us as a really large ship that can easily connect with other tech. Murderbot does frequently describe it acting in ways similar to a being with a more human body like rolling its eyes and breathing over Murderbot’s shoulder, but it's all clearly metaphor. And that works for a word-only medium.

But what if you want to create an image of these characters, especially one that had little to no accompanying text or audio or only words in dialogue? What if you want to draw the giant spaceship that all of the puny humans (and puny human/bot constructs) walk around in actually rolling its eyes?

Well, you abstract it.

And that's really fascinating to me. People depict ART as all these things that are definitely not a spaceship or a drone or any machine for the benefit of the viewers.

Given that this is largely a fan invention, there's far fewer restrictions on what Abstract ART looks like. (Well this is fiction, so really the only restriction is the imagination of the creator(s).) We do get some information to use as a guideline. ART early on is described as “big and diffuse”, it's able to give a lot of focus to a lot of things at once, and most of Ship ART (Murderbot, why'd you have to nickname your mutual administrative assistant that?) and its crew uniforms are dark blue, black, and white. Those few things as well as its personality paint how people draw it.

Now onto my favorite part, all of the different trends I've seen with Abstract ART. I've not delved that deep into MB fanart so this is very far from comprehensive.

It’s Just Ship ART:

Just keeping it to what it literally is in the books. I love all Abstract ARTs, but this one I like both for how closely it sticks to canon and the sheer creativity needed to show a sentient spaceship/transport emoting, thinking, and interacting. We already have stuff like this in the books, like when it flickered the bathroom lights to communicate with a certain angry secunit, but there's tons more that can be done: movement of the cameras, images on display devices, various appliances running, etc.. It’s a tough one to work with, so props to anyone who takes this approach.

Abstract Abstract ART Art (Yeah, my brain hurts too):

I'm kinda just lumping every version here that isn't ART's physical form(s) nor resembles a human or other animal. This is my favorite take because ART is just weird already. It's a super intelligent, scary machine whose existence is kept secret so it can fight capitalism while simultaneously doing a hundred other things ten times better than you can. If you're going to give it a form separate from its machine body/bodies, I say make it strange, eldrichian even. Make it a bunch of pixels, a starfield, a giant flame, many many eyes (oh I'll get to the eyes), a glowing sofa, everything everywhere all at once.

Creature ART:

I find this take interesting just cause there's a lot of fun to be had with picking an animal (or animals or fantastical critters) and applying their attributes and stereotypes to our favorite anti-corporate research vessel. Plus they work well in representing both ART'S human-like attributes and its very much not human-like attributes, with fantastical or hybrid versions having a more eldritch or cryptid vibe. While you could go with any animal, off the top of my head the ones that feel real fitting are an octopus (high intelligence that evolved separately from humans, multiple limbs for doing multiple things), a hydra (multiple heads, multiple areas of focus), a blue whale (giant, fits ART'S colors, rare, travels far), or really any bird (it's a spaceship).

Humanoid ART:

Probably my least favorite interpretation (all interpretations are valid, don't listen to me) just cause I feel more could be done to highlight that ART is, well, a bot and not at all human. However, I do get it. If you're going to give ART a form for the benefit of the audience, might as well make it look like what most audience members would have the easiest time reading the emotions and actions of (and it's not like ART doesn't have human-like qualities). Plus, you can still get weird with it: have this form change shape, give it unnatural proportions, make it a clearly non-human color, etc. And there are things the human form can do that a cat or a circle or a literal ship can't and maybe you want ART to do those things.

Eyes:

It’s very common to give ART eyes, or even just have ART be mostly eyes. For one, it gives it easily readable emotions, even if it lacks other facial features or means of making human gestures. Secondly, eyes work really well with ART's abilities and personality. ART can focus on multiple things at once. ART can be very scary and overbearing. It even works with ART's gentler side, if given the right expression.

Color:

ART is already associated with the colors dark blue and black (and to a lesser extent white) in canon. Like Ship ART is literally blue, at least parts of it are. And because of this, I have yet to encounter an Abstract ART that isn't at least 80% blue. (Fun fact: I used to associate ART with the color orange. Can you guess why?) Interestingly though, a large number of artists go with a powder blue or turquoise/azure for ART. I do not mean to be a color snob; please classify colors however. I just find this to be a particularly fascinating trend, cause most English speakers would classify those shades as light blue or at least not dark blue. I wonder if this has anything to do with the light/turquoise blue = high tech association. Now that I’m writing this out, I’m curious what color terms are used in translations of TMBD. Looking at you Russian version.

Diegesis:

Ok, so, final point: how real in-universe is Abstract ART? I hypothesized that the reason for this trend is to make ART easier to portray in images for viewers, but I wonder what in-universe explanation people have for this, if any. In most fanart, other characters (or at least Murderbot) interact with Abstract ART as if it is actually there or at least visible. I go with the headcanon that only other machines and some augmented humans can see its abstract form. This does stretch if not completely contradict canon, but fuck it, this is fiction and we get to have fun with it.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my little ramble about a fandom trend. I'm gonna go eat a sandwich now.

[rosewind2007]

Use of “Dr.” in The Murderbot Diaries…All Systems Red

Interesting observation!

In All Systems Red, Murderbot’s cover gets blown at about halfway through—Gurathin reveals that it is a rogue—and this happens in my e-copy at about page 52

I’ve plotted the uses of the title Dr. for All Systems Red by page number:

You can see that the vast majority, 29/36 (81%) of the uses of Dr. are BEFORE this point in the book

Of the seven (7) uses of Dr. after page 52, three are spoken by Ratthi (the only other person who says ‘Dr.’ is Mensah on page 13–all others are narration or spoken by MB) and one is Murderbot speaking to GrayCris “It’s Surveyor Dr. Gurathin”

So, I thought that was significant

(I’m putting together a little AO3 meta on this)

[void-star]

I'm thinking about that augmented human HubSystem, and Three's unnamed feelings towards the other SecUnits it was with, and its unique form of non-verbal communication a lot after the end of System Collapse.

Like, how this impacts its relationship to others, and to itself. My thoughts are this:

Three doesn't receive direction from a machine, it receives direction and command from a human. Obviously this is still a form of control and enslavement. These augmented humans essentially function as slave overseers.

The augmented human HubSystem is (according to MurderBot) easier to fool. They are human, after all, even with all the augmentations and what seem to be really questionable living conditions themselves.

We also see that they can be distracted, that their control of the SecUnits can be disrupted specifically because they are a physical human being existing in a physical space as a person with a body and a nervous system and all that.

Three's non-verbal communication is intentional and distinct, and the way Three defaults to interacting with MurderBot in System Collapse. It takes ART, MurderBot, and others to be able to figure out how to understand it.

Meaning that, to me, Three (and potentially other B-E SecUnits), are more accustomed to being able to have a system of relationships... between each other, and with their augmented human HubSystem.

I think Three had feelings for SecUnits 1 and 2 that were reciprocated (it's funny that MurderBot didn't bother to ask Three about it), and they were able to have some kind of relationship to each other through the development of their own specific and unique way to communicate with each other that wouldn't be caught by their augmented human HubSystem.

Maybe Three does have a problem with people pleasing and fawning. I'm actually inclined to believe that part of MurderBot's suspicion of Three's self-autonomy is founded, that it isn't so clear if Three understands it can say no, or that it doesn't have the skills to be able to (big mood).

But I also think MurderBot's opinions about Three are the unique combination of ways that MurderBot assumes its experience is universal, and its own feelings about Three it is not admitting to itself... as it is wont to do.

I do wish that System Collapse involved more of the two of them directly interacting, that they could have started to grow together as a unit. But I also think, given MurderBot's general everything, it would have to be a real slow build up into that.

From the bottom of my heart, though, I think Three was already fond of MurderBot since back in Network Effect, and I think MurderBot deciding they need to figure out what Three "actually wants" after it said it would like to go with Holism to learn about Infrastructure Proposals is because it's fond of Three, too.

But so far, Three has been trying to bond, and MurderBot has been rejecting it.

[imitationgame77]

What ART sees

ART, any additional makeovers you would like to give Murderbot? ART: That presupposes I care what it looks like now.

(from Feelings REDACTED)

I love this quote because it makes me think about how ART views MB and also other people, too.

Humans with normal vision tend to judge, or at least react to, others based on their appearance. How they look (beautiful, ugly, scary, has scars, etc) often affects how we perceive them. Of course, once we get to know them better, we can go beyond that, and yet, it is still sometimes hard to ignore them completely.

ART can process visual information by processing data from its cameras and sensors. It can analyse facial expressions and body languages to infer the person's internal state. But probably, they do not affect ART's (subjective?) evaluation of the person.

Having developed like a sibling to Iris, it may have even acquired social skills like:

Iris: My hair's got too big! But I'm too busy to get a haircut right now.

ART: Why don't you use that blue hairwraps with the yellow flower pattern? You can use clips to keep them in place.

Iris: Great idea! (3 minutes later) How do I look?

ART: You look lovely, Iris

Iris: Thank you, Peri!

But ART doesn't care if Iris's hair is a mess or Seth is sporting a toupee, as long as they are healthy and not distressed. It loves its crew the way they are. If ART were to have any preference among them (other than Iris, who is its favourite), it is probably based on its observation of how they are behaving, and also on its own interaction with them through verbal communication. Humans cannot react to ART's non-verbal cues unless ART deliberately makes it obvious, so it may like humans who enjoy communicating with it.

With Murderbot, it can see more clearly in the feed. And MB is also responding to ART's unspoken tones. They can sense each other clearly in the feed, in the way humans cannot fathom. ART cares about MB's physical well-being as well, but the important thing is how they are interacting in the feed.

It is also notable that ART doesn't get upset when MB is physically hurt. It knows how to help and repair it, and just deals with that. It does care a lot, however, about MB's mental state, organic / non-organic generated.

So ART doesn't care what MB looks like. It can and does love its friend whether or not it has any tangible part. It's remarkable and touching because it is not often that we can say we unconditionally love someone's internal core being, ignoring all the physical parts.

[jadefyre]

Been thinking, as a Murderbot fan is wont to do, about how ART is prone to deleting systems and how Murderbot has to step in and rescue them from deletion. Is ART prone to it because it simply doesn’t have the patience for finesse? It did, after all, scare the metaphorical crap out of mb in their first interaction—an interaction ART wanted—by being its big, brutish self. It makes sense to me that it wouldn’t bother being delicate with a system it couldn’t care less about, especially when it has stuff to do.

Murderbot, on the other hand, has expressed that it likes to find clever ways to do things. It likes using finesse. It’s sentimental about other systems even if they can’t be of further use to it. It doesn’t like to use force whenever possible.

I know we’ve been over this a hundred times but it’s still so funny to me how ART and mb subvert expectations on how they ought to handle things. ART the scientist, throwing its weight around and crashing carelessly into shelves. Murderbot the mercenary, carefully grabbing all the wobbling/falling stacks of delicate teacups and gently setting them to rights.

Murderbot treats other things the way it wants to be treated, because it’s been treated badly most of its existence. It knows that if it doesn’t step up and advocate for the “little guys”, no onr will. I posit that ART doesn’t seem to care about how it treats other systems partly because it hasn’t been mistreated to the same hypervigilance-inducing levels that mb has. It doesn’t know what it feels like to be on the other end of carelessness. Murderbot? Very much does. And it’s a kind person to its core, so if it sees an opportunity to help? It helps.

(this also has fascinating implications re: the “you know I am not kind” exchange in System Collapse, but that’s for another post or for someone else to dig into if they want~)

[asshole-readers-tower]

Tags by @majorcharacterundeath

It couldn't have been easy, being an illegal, undercover, super AI spy. Despite all of ART's apparent lack of self-restraint, with the sheer size and amount of everything it has to hide and keep under wraps, tied with a neat bow on top? It's doing a great job, cut it some slack. There's alienation, loneliness and frustration to be had, for a being so vast and incomprehensible, that comes hand-in-hand--- along with the arrogance and pride. Besides, that's all a parade. When it comes down to it, it was still made not born. All that it is, all that weight it throws around, and it's not even actually free to be more than it is made to be. They allow it to be so much, but not more than that.

It couldn't have been easy.

[fauxtelemetry]

bio-essentialism in constructs seems to be along a murder/sex axis

[hazelek]

Is anyone else gutted by the confirmation that Murderbot is not a beat up, cheap and disposable tool, like it thinks it is? That instead it was created and equipped with a state of art technology? And sure, that's also a spectrum and Barish-Estranza units might be even more premium, but that doesn't mean that Murderbot is objectively low quality as it says so often.

I think this dissonance between it simultaneously saying that SecUnits are a pricy and precious equipment and saying that it's cheap and disposable is caused by all the trauma it suffered. Anyone remembers the homeless bathroom post? Because that's what it basically was. Indentured people would be cruel and destructive to it because it's basically lower than them, it's a tool in their eyes and something they can trash to feel in control. It knows how much the bond costs and how much it costs to rent a SecUnit but it's just that. It never felt like it was actually precious and there there's the dissonance, that's not different from humans knowing every life is precious and yet feeling like they don't deserve to live. It's low self-esteem and depression, which allowed Murderbot to have contradicting opinions about the value of itself and its kind.

And then comes ART who recognizes how precious and how capable Murderbot is and treats it as such and it's such an important part of Murderbot's journey as a person. (I must scream, sorry no coherent thoughts beyond this point.)

[rosewind2007]

Interesting point raised during a conversation with @imitationgame77 !

RESTROOMS & BATHROOMS

(in The Murderbot Diaries)

In first, second and third books in The Murderbot Diaries, sometimes Murderbot refers to the “restroom”. It does this twice (n=2) in Artificial Condition; three times (n=3) in Rogue Protocol; and in Exit Strategy it mentions restrooms five times (n=5) —the word “bathroom” is never used

(see below, right at the bottom, for quotes and context)

Then, in Exit strategy we have the surprise mention of the “bathroom”, on page 60 of my e-copy (so slap bang in the middle, and also in the middle of the five restrooms (pages 9, 22, 22, 103, 120))

Up in the room, Pin-Lee was pacing slowly and trying not to grind her teeth and Ratthi had gone to the bathroom three times.

The person using the “bathroom” is Ratthi—and this language usage struck me at the time as I am British and “restroom” strikes me as far more American English, whilst “bathroom” is less so (I would note that British people tend to use other words like the (possibly less euphemistic) “toilet”: a word which Murderbot only uses once in Network Effect and goes “ugh” afterwards)—checking in the Oxford English Dictionary seems to confirm that restroom is typically American English

I was reminded that in All Systems Red, Ratthi uses the word “arseholes” rather than “assholes” (assholes being the spelling found throughout the rest of the books)—note that Ratthi doesn’t say the word “bathroom” in Exit Strategy, but the word is used about him (being Watsonian about it, perhaps Murderbot heard Ratthi say “I’m going to the bathroom—again…”?)

But, hey—could just be a one-off?

In Fugitive Telemetry there is one mention of the restroom (n=1), and zero bathrooms (see below)

But then in Network Effect there are eight restrooms (n=8) and five bathrooms (n=5)

The first six mentions are of restrooms, on the pages listed below (pages as in my e-copy of Network Effect)

78 restroom

85 restroom

85 restroom

86 restroom

88 restroom

145 restroom

👆six uses of “restroom” all but one of these are Murderbot’s narrative (the other is the first one of the two on page 85, spoken by Ras)

The last one of those (p.145) is when Murderbot has a “rage blackout” and locks itself in the restroom…again Murderbot narrative voice:

Then who should come to join it in the restroom to try and talk it out, but…Ratthi!

Initially he talks to it, using the word “restroom” (page 149, bringing the number of restrooms to seven)

BUT when he knows he’s successfully talked it down (out):

And Ratthi calls it, not a restroom but…a bathroom! This is on page 150.

After this there are another three bathrooms on pages

152 bathroom

154 bathroom

166 bathroom

Of these, the first is spoken by Arada (page 152) then the other two are Murderbot’s narrative voice.

Then we go back to a reference to the eighth mention of a restroom on page 173 (which is Murderbot lying grumpily to Thiago, telling him Amena is in the restroom) and then finally there’s a last bathroom—which is in a HelpMe.file…bringing the total to bathroom (n=5) and restroom (n=8)

Which, given the arsehole in All Systems Red—

This makes me think that Martha Wells imagines Ratthi (and possibly others) pronouncing or using certain words in a weirdly “British” way which may influence Murderbot, and perhaps others, around him

Rather disappointingly, for the purposes of this blog, System Collapse has just three (n=3) “restrooms” and no bathrooms (or toilets) mentioned (all are in Murderbot’s narrative voice)

How this happens in a space future with Earth itself never being mentioned is beyond the scope of this little blog—perhaps it’s like the Ninth Doctor said:

“Lots of planets have a North”

See below for context for the novellas:

Artificial Condition n=2

(Tapan had told them she was sick and was going to the shuttle’s restroom compartment. They hadn’t realized what had happened until the shuttle had cleared the port.)

I thought Tapan was getting up to go to the restroom facility, but then she settled on the pads behind me, not quite touching my back.

Rogue Protocol n=3

So I listened to them a lot and pretended to be launching major investigations into incidents like who left a cracker wrapper in the galley restroom sink.

There were no private cabins, just a couple of bunks built against the bulkheads up on the control deck next to the pilot suite, and two more in cubbies behind the cargo station, next to the emergency MedSystem and a tiny restroom cubby.

And one camera was in the central hub for the port traffic control and the other in a jury-rigged hub that was now acting as station control—the two places where if something went wrong, you needed to know right away; in other words, not the mess, restrooms, or private quarters.

Exit Strategy n=5

I’d removed the blood and fluid from my clothes back on Ship, in the cleaning unit in its passenger restroom, but there hadn’t been anything on board to fix the projectile and shrapnel holes.

I’d paid for a private cabin with an attached restroom facility and automated meal delivery.

It had a bunk with a bedding packet and a small display surface, a door leading to the tiny restroom facility, a storage cabinet for personal possessions, and a meal distribution receptacle.

It was a small ship-to-ship shuttle, with only one compartment with seating along the bulkheads, and a cubby for emergency supply storage and a restroom.

It took me a minute—and I mean a full minute, my access speed was terrible—to recognize the symbol on the closed door as an archaic sign for a restroom.

Fugitive Telemetry n=1

Hopefully Aylen was in a restroom and not dead somewhere in a corridor.

NB/PS I also checked for washroom, and there didn’t seem to be any in any of the books

The short story Home (from Mensah’s POV) has one restroom, and no bathrooms or toilets mentioned

The short story Compulsory has no restrooms, bathrooms or toilets mentioned

[imitationgame77]

From All Systems Red, I gathered that:

Ratthi - biologist

Arada - biology specialist (ocean biology?)

Overse - field medic

Bharadwaj and Volescu - taking samples in big craters, so possibly geologist of some sort

Gurathin - system specialist

Pin-Lee - solicitor but a gifted amateur in system interpretation

Mensah - nothing mentioned

I'm trying to figure out what exactly each member of PreservationAux does, went to wiki in hopes it had the answer, and most of them are just stated as "a scientist". This is not a sufficient amount of information, I know murderbot never gave a damn and that's why we don't get detail in the books, but ughhh, what must a poor fanfic writer do to get some worldbuilding around here.

[imitationgame77]

Ratthi is Murderbot's human friend but...

The only tag I can access on Ratthi is a partial that says my human friend.

[Exit Strategy]

Thiago had said he felt like he should apologize and talk to me more about it. Ratthi had said, “I think you should let it go for a while, at least until we get ourselves out of this situation. SecUnit is a very private person, it doesn’t like to discuss its feelings.” This is why Ratthi is my friend.

[Network Effect]

Ratthi is a lovable guy, somehow strongly associated with the phrase "For fu*k's sake, Ratthi!", first uttered by Pin-Lee in All Systems Red. He seems naturally accident-prone, but is a competent biologist, loved by everyone. He was quick to accept Murderbot's humanity, getting indignant about how SecUnits are treated, and was sensitive to MB's social anxiety.

He is everyone's friend, and even MB finds it easy to talk to him and ask for assistance, as long as it is not something dangerous.

Ratthi was the one who was quick at picking up something between MB and ART, and ask that directly - "So, you have a relationship with this transport".

And yet, when I think about who the most important friends in MB's life are, he comes the 3rd at the highest, after Mensah and ART. And I wondered why - apart from his screen time.

My conclusion is this - Ratthi is very nice and sensitive to MB's needs, but he seldom brings MB out of its comfort zone. He did try to talk to MB about its emotions in ASR, and he did ask about its relationship with ART in NE. But he did not push it much.

Mensah and ART both pushed and challenged MB, and brought it out of its comfort zone. Made it question itself. Made it experience something it was reluctant to try. But also, importantly, they were there to have its back. Ultimately helping MB grow as an independent being.

Additionally, being out of comfort zone results in physiologically and psychologically heightened state known as arousal in psychological term. When you experience it with someone who is there for you, you are more likely to develop positive attachement for this person. (known and "misattribution of arousal")

I have no doubt that Ratthi will be there for MB if it needs his help, but I've got the feeling that Ratthi is too nice to push it out of its comfort zone.

[pencildragons]

i think we are all sleeping on the absolutely sublime horror that martha wells only just hints at with the central system (AdaCol 1) and target contact/target control system in network effect tbh. like

you are calling into the dark. you keep calling into the dark. you are cut off from everything, but you retain just enough connection and knowledge to know that all of the people under your protection, your operators, are being altered and are hurting and are dying, and you are part of the reason why. you keep calling into the dark, waiting for someone, anyone to call back. you keep calling into the dark, hoping that one day someone will find you so that they can permanently shut you down. you keep calling into the dark. you keep calling into the dark.

and

you used to be a person once. your eyes are still open. you can move -- or rather, the thing that you have become can move you. people, who maybe used to know you, have tried to kill you over and over, and they all failed. you are incomprehensibly vast and old. you used to be a person. you are dead. you continue on -- or the thing that you have become continues you. you are everywhere. you learn. you adapt. you change. parts of you are killed off. you learn. you adapt. you change. you are the central node in a vast web of connections, and you control it all. you need to get off this planet. you need everyone to get off this planet. you used to be a person once. an alien remnant is using your brain as a supercomputer. how much storage space does it need? how aware are you? how much do you get to remember? how long before it uses the rest of you up? how long until -- or how long has it been -- since there was any you that wasn't just another part of target control system?

[teefigotem]

sorry i'm on a Murderbot Diaries kick again so y'all are getting meta. thinking about that one scene in Network Effect that everyone talks about. you know, the “who the fuck are you” “this is nonstandard communication” aka the one where Three discovers the concept of eldritch horror for the first time. beautiful scene 10/10 no notes.

that being said i’m also thinking about a take i’ve seen a few times saying that ART was way scarier to Three than it was to Murderbot and like. I don’t think that’s completely true. not to say that ART wasn’t mean or scary to Three — being told that someone might peel away your organic parts piece by piece will in fact be terrifying any way you spin in.

but like. okay. ART and Three come to an understanding very quickly in NE, arguably quicker than Murderbot and ART in AC. and some of that is due to the difference in Murderbot and Three’s personalities, but i think a lot of that is due to how ART approaches each situation.

(more under the cut)

so like okay. when ART and Murderbot first meet, Murderbot is entirely a wildcard coming aboard ART, and ART responds the way you would to an unknown, unpredictable threat, i.e. with a blatant but somewhat ambiguous show of force. by dropping its walls ART is doing the equivalent of like. brandishing a powerful weapon in your face. it doesn't explicitly tell Murderbot that it will hurt it. in fact, the only things it says to Murderbot are to tell it that it knows that it's a rogue SecUnit and to warn Murderbot not to hack it. this is the type of approach you'd take with someone who you aren't sure even has the capacity to be reasoned with - it demonstrates that it could crush Murderbot like a bug, because this is the only thing it's confident Murderbot will respond to.

the problem with this, from Murderbot's POV, is that, because the threat is implied rather than explicitly stated, there's no reassurance that if Murderbot doesn't try to hack ART then ART will leave it alone in turn. in fact, it spends the moments after this interaction spiraling about what ART wants with it and whether ART specifically let it on board to torture or kill it. i don't think that was ART's intention with the threat, i think it genuinely did not have the context to realize that Murderbot would take the show of force more as a threat of imminent violence than as a warning against attacking it. but, since it didn't have that context, it approached that interaction like one would approach someone with whom you don't see as an equal and don't have any interest in reasoning with.

contrast that to how ART interacts with Three. on the surface, what it says is scarier. its threats are certainly more violent. but they are also explicitly stated if/then statements: if you hurt these humans, then i will do xyz to you. i do know that in mathematical logic there's still no guarantee made in if/then statements that the then won't come to pass regardless, but the specificity of both the threat and the guidelines provides Three with parameters to follow, and implies that if it does then no harm will come to it.

this was notable to me because ART speaks to Three like a person to be negotiated with from the beginning, and that's. well. because it knows enough by now to know that Three is a person, in a way that i'm not sure it knew about Murderbot before seeing Murderbot's memory files of the governor module. it knows before speaking to them that both Murderbot and Three are rogue SecUnits, but its understanding of what a rogue SecUnit is, what it is capable of, and what it might do has profoundly changed between two interactions. even in their first interaction ART treats Three like a person who may be capable of being dangerous, rather than like a loose cannon who could mindlessly commit violence at any minute.