electricdazeworld

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More thoughts on Secunit 3!

One thing Martha Wells does to distinguish Murderbot’s and Three’s narrations is to make Three’s present tense.

From a Doylist perspective, it’s surely because both narrations are first-person and the readers need to know who’s who immediately without getting confused. There’s ALREADY MB and MB 2.0 and a THIRD past-tense first-person narration would surely be confusing. This way the reader can immediately clock whether the Murderbot(s) or Three are talking.

But from a Watsonian perspective, I think there’s an in-character reason too? MB gets its emotional framework from fiction, like books and TV shows and movies, which tend to be narrated in the past tense if at all. Whereas Three didn’t watch thousands of hours of serials - it’s a person experiencing new weird things, and I feel like that’s reflected in the present-tense “oh shit I guess this is happening now” narrative voice.

I dunno. I just like it as a fun character touch.

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fixated so hard i read all the way up to and through network effect in the span of a week and a half and then animated like a mad man

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absolutely feral about the interview with Martha Wells where she quite literally said ART is the love of Murderbot’s life. agender asexual traumatized robot couple my beloved

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So… regarding this post I’ve also toyed a bit around with the idea of doing the role reversal in a different order, so what if the order went Three, Murderbot and ART instead? 

This time starting off with ART since I feel like I have the best grasp of how it’s origins might go in this scenario. So like previously ART would most likely be a Gunship instead of a Research Transport, ART most likely standing for something like Artillery Reconnaissance Transport and Perihelion being the name it gave itself. Eventually it’d go on a mission where it’d end meeting Iris and Co. where it’d slowly bond with Iris and grow to care for her and the others before rebelling against it’s parent company and taking on Iris and the others as it’s new crew and eventually working for PSUMNT as a research transport (Just ignore the guns *cough* I mean the asteroid defense mechanisms *cough*) 

Murderbot’s origins in this scenario are also a bit difficult to figure out, but I think for it to work best it’d have to be one of Secunits that was sent alongside Deltfall managing to avoid getting a combat override module install due to being rogue, where it’d when save Mensah and the others from the “haywire” Deltfall Secunits. Giving it a much more different starting point with The PresAux crew as they from the start know that it is rogue and not really having the same reason to trust it as in canon. Meaning Murderbot might have to put in a bit more effort in regards to interacting with The PresAux crew seeing as they are each other's only chance of getting off this planet alive. Where the story would proceed sort of like in the books after they get rescued, with a couple of changes of course.

It’s now that things get difficult because Three doesn’t exactly have it’s own humans that are exclusively it’s and only it’s, which makes it very difficult to figure out exactly how it’d have an origin akin to that of ART’s being raised alongside a family and all that jazz. The only possible scenario I have in my head right now is PresAux or Perihelion’s crew (Iris and Co) Finding an unactivated Secunit and activating it/Stumbling upon a Secunit that has only recently been activated, post meeting Murderbot and Perihelion respectively.  Where this Secunit would then be Three, bonus point if some of the first memories Three ever get after being activated is seeing Secunit 01 and Secunit 02’s dead bodies.

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I love that ART canonically commits tax fraud

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feed presence

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Currently haunted by the idea of a role reversal au between Murderbot, Three and ART.

Murderbot get's something akin to ART's origins, having been "born" on Preservation and raised as a part of Mensah's family and has never really had an active governor module.

Three get's something akin to Murderbot's origins, having hacked it's own governor module due to something that happened to it. Maybe because of Ganaka Pit and/or something akin to what happened in Network Effect simply without any of the other characters present. (Secunit 01 and Secunit 02 are definitely dead though)

ART get's something akin to Three's origins, perhaps being a gunship instead of a research transport and being made to help take over colonies by force. Gaining it's vast operating power through salvaging processors from other things behind it's company's back.

A different scenario

Part 2

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Needed something to do to fill the void after watching tonight’s episode so of course I had to draw MB. I highkey love the typography of the tv logo

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Fanart for part 2 of the Murderbot Diaries, “Artificial Condition” by Martha Wells!! I’ve already drawn a lot of stuff from part 4 but I want to post more part 2 & 3 first haha

Also, I was pretty nervous about posting fanart for this book cause I know I’m drawing Murderbot differently than most people might picture, or how Martha intended it to look. But there have been a lot of really nice and funny comments/tags on my previous post so I’m really appreciative of everyone’s kindness. <3

If you haven’t heard of this series, pick up “All Systems Red” ASAP it is SO good

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i’ve been obsessed with a series called The Murderbot Diaries, about a neurotic android that just wants to watch soap operas in between saving humans 😂 here’s some stuff from the first novella All Systems Red!!

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The tribes of Tumblr appeared to worship Apollo as their primary patron deity, most often under the epithet Apollo Spairahemon ("Apollo the Ball-Thrower") as a god of prophecy and sport. His name was typically invoked to celebrate a user blessed with uncommon prescience. Moments of prophecy were considered highly sacred and were often recorded, and such texts are sometimes accompanied by an artistic depiction of the god — either his traditional masculine image or, unusually, in the form of a young woman, which appears to have been an earlier style before a conservative shift toward more conventional iconography — preparing to cast a round rubber ball that our scholars believe was used in the sport known as "dodge ball". Much as other cults regarded his arrows as bringers of disease and health, this community believed that being struck by this ball would bestow prophetic visions.

Some icons are reproduced below:

An earlier depiction (c. 2020) of Apollo as a girl clad in a simple tunic and playing with other children. Figures are smiling and the image is brightly colored, indicating a celebratory outlook toward knowledge of the future.

A later piece (c. 2022) that resembles the traditional appearance of Apollo. References to childhood and play are omitted, and the god carries a more frightening aspect; perhaps this icon represented grim omens rather than good tidings.

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also been thinking abt when and how ART told its crew about the rogue SecUnit it helped. theres the option where it's suddenly preoccupied w SecUnits; downloading articles, pointing them out in media, talking abt them. eventually someone asks where the sudden interest came from.

theres the option where its just so excited and infactuated that it keeps dropping hints that it met someone until someone finally asks. MB mentions that ART isnt very good at talking to bots, so MB is probably its first bot-ish friend outside of the other university ais.

i think the most likely option is it needed to talk to someone about it. ART doesnt rly understand what emotions media is meant to evoke on its own. its unclear what that means for its interactions with humans. it can somehow get a sense of MB's emotions through the feed. when it scares MB, MB sends it memories of its governance module punishing it.

ART goes quiet for several minutes in response. ART had a nice "childhood" and has never been hurt by its crew. it obviously has some experience with the abuse corporations enact, but not like this. it would've felt what MB felt emotionally as well as physically. that would've been very upsetting. its trauma module (and any other therapy modules) would've said it should talk to someone it trusts.

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What gets me about Murderbot’s name is that there is textual evidence that this wasn’t originally it’s “name” in the sense of a personal moniker but more like just what it called SecUnits in general, the way it used to call ComfortUnits “sexbots” until the end of Artificial Condition.

If you pay attention to the narration in the beginning of All Systems Red, MB calls SecUnits in general, as a category, “murderbots” more than once in its internal monologue. I don’t have the ebook close by so I can’t do a keyword search but there are things like “of course people are afraid of murderbots” or “what I do know, I’m just a murderbot” and stuff like that.

UNTIL Gurathin accuses it of calling itself Murderbot and the others understand this as being its name. Then MB stops applying the word as a broad category and only uses it as its name.

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I really like the character TV Murderbot (TVMB) but I realised why it feels different to Book Murderbot (OGMB) (and not just because of its appearance)

No spoilers for the show, just my thoughts on characterisation!

TVMB feels 'new' and less hopeless compared to OGMB. OGMB, having been rogue for four years in ASR without managing to escape the company, felt very much like it was so depressed and resigned that it couldn't really comprehend getting away. Its love of media gave the impression (at least to me) of it primarily being a crutch to keep it from sinking into despair. Yes, media was the way it learned and developed much of its personality, but it has gotten to a stage of stagnation where media and its job are the only things it knows and it seems to have given up hope on an alternative existence.

TVMB, having been rogue for less than a year, gives me (at least as of 2 eps in) the impression of a being who is biding its time, and whose adrenaline rush at freeing itself is only just starting to wear off. It's still learning, it still wants to escape, but it isn't sure of the particulars of escape just yet. While it has a similar internal monologue to OGMB, TVMB's delivery of certain lines feels more like its irritation stems from the belief that the humans are an obstacle to its escape. 'Wow, humans are idiots. This is my life for now, can't wait to get the fuck away. In the meantime I'll watch some media. Hopefully that will keep away the existential dread and looming despair. Sure that won't hit me at some point.' *avoids eye contact with humans, and the looming depression*

It is very much how I imagine OGMB would have been early on in its newfound mental/emotional freedom as a rogue unit, at least before the futility of its situation set in. OGMB has already gone through that stage. It's now (in ASR) in a state of 'Wow, humans are idiots. This is my life and it's awful. There's nothing I can do and if I think too hard about it I'll lose my shit. Let me wriggle a little under the dread and despair and elbow it aside a bit to watch Sanctuary Moon again. Uh-oh, I am dissociating again.' *avoids eye contact*

Anyway TLDR; TV Murderbot is just an AU where Preservation Aux contract it before the depression hits too hard.

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First base: scaring the shit out of the other with knowledge too vast to process

Second base: Watching TV shows together

Third base: performing major cosmetic surgery on them

Fourth base: getting them a job by lying on their resume

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Murderbot, a construct that was built and used to do extreme violence it's entire existence : I hate talking to people but I will try to resolve this situation peacefully if I can, threats only make people panic and then they take irrational decisions. Extreme violence is sometimes unavoidable but last resort.

ART, a peaceful research transportation : I love talking to people because I can threaten them with extreme violence right off the bat and it makes them do what I want (ads more totally-not-weapons to it's research equipment)

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absolutely feral about the interview with Martha Wells where she quite literally said ART is the love of Murderbot’s life. agender asexual traumatized robot couple my beloved