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dont let the dume thing deceive you, kanan jarrus is not a wolf. he is the most prey animal to ever prey animal. he is a deer,,. or perhaps a rabbit.

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I was wrong about how Season one ended (I love it so much), but we are getting a season two!

It has occurred to me that in the possible event that the first season of Murderbot ends with “You were lucky” then the book fandom would go absolutely feral.

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All of this but also…

Since the show is less centric of Murderbot’s POV than the books, we might get the whole sequence of events that happen to the rest of the Pres Aux crew in the background of the books. To me that would be a good expansion of the source material. The political intrigue and lawyering that culminates in Mensah’s kidnapping would be a good counterpoint to Murderbot’s self realization arc with explosions.

You know what? I don't think the show will (or should) yet address the fact that reactions to the deaths of SecUnits and the reactions to the deaths of humans are starkly different, even for the Preservationers.

I think this for two reasons: one, the nature of why that might be different sort of needs to get explored more. Do they not think of the other SecUnits as people (possible), or is it the helmet? See, most humans have a much easier time not attributing personhood or complexity if they can't see someone's face. It's why enemies in video games so often tend to be faceless. It's why certain fascist regimes throughout history have their secret police hide their faces. Because it is the goal to un-people them and make them Other. And that was clearly part of the design philosophy of SecUnits, so much so that people just don't know that there is, in fact, a face under that helmet. So it's easier to see a helmeted, unpersoned being die, especially if it has been openly attacking you first, rather than see a person whose face is exposed, and who you have perhaps talked to or even gotten to know, die, even under similar circumstances.

But there are definitely deeper questions about the personhood of constructs in general that need to be explored. But before PresAux can truly unpack their unconscious depersonization of SecUnits, Murderbot has to unpack its own depersonization of itself and other constructs.

I don't think that Murederbot considers itself a person yet. I don't think it's sad that other SecUnits die, because it actually, secretly, agrees with what Gurathin has been saying: SecUnits aren't people, they're equipment. It is equipment, and all these new emotions, the empathy, the kindness that has been laced through it by these people, these are viruses. It's not a sign of personal growth, because it's not a person! It has so many emotions and thoughts and perceptions, and the best way it's found so far to understand them is filtered through shows. But it has yet to understand that all these things are signs that it is, and has always been, a person. Honestly, given what's just happened at the end of episode 9, I think Gurathin's reevaluating his opinions on Muderbot's personhood far sooner than Murderbot is.

It has to go on its journey of self-discovery before it can really embrace that it is, in fact, a person. Not equipment, not just a thing, but a PERSON. And only when it confronts that, and its own callous opinions of its death and the deaths of other SecUnits, will it really be able to grapple with the disparity and the prejudice inherent in the way SecUnit deaths are treated.

It's very likely that, if it leaves at the end of the season, PresAux grapple with this concept and their reactions to the various deaths they witnessed on their own. After all, they are emotionally intelligent people who will likely be asking themselves why it left them. We may have a subplot of them working through their own prejudices toward constructs, and the flaws in Preservation thinking about bots and constructs (in the books, at least, very paternalistic). I would really like to see them grapple with that on their own, and Murderbot grapple with it on its own, in the way that it reluctantly grapples with all large, emotional concepts. I would like them to come back together both in different places, and on different and better terms. But I think they would still have growing to do, because it's one thing to deconstruct your own prejudices in a bubble, but ideally that deconstruction should be informed by the opinions and thoughts of people within the group you were prejudiced against, so I would imagine they would still have plenty of mutual character growth to go once it rejoins them.

But that's not something that can be grappled with in one episode. That is a LONG arc, likely a parallel arc for next season, which may well continue beyond season 2, if we get lucky enought to get seasons 3+ (given Apple's track record, I would be surprised if we don't at least get season 2; they tend to prefer giving their shows room to grow, and MB has stayed in the top 5 viewed shows for the entire season, so it's not like it's performing poorly by their metrics).

I see season 2--assuming it's some remix of 'Artificial Condition', 'Rogue Protocol', and original material--as the season that really grapples with the nature and personhood of constructs. Season 1 set up the characters and the larger world, as well as the stakes. Season 2 can, hopefully, move forward with some of the deeper topics at play.

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Looking through the reblog tagging on this and having seen episode 9, I think there’s a strong chance of the above course of action for episode 10. I refuse to be disappointed if it isn’t the case, since I’ve been gleefully cackling through most of the show.

I will very much admit that I really really want to see the difference between Murderbot’s “oh shit” moments to the incoming potential “oh FUCK” moment.

It has occurred to me that in the possible event that the first season of Murderbot ends with “You were lucky” then the book fandom would go absolutely feral.

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It has occurred to me that in the possible event that the first season of Murderbot ends with “You were lucky” then the book fandom would go absolutely feral.

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Combination of Tig Notaro and Kevin R Free’s voices overlaid for extra ambiguity.

Okay Murderbot fandom, we're manifesting a season 2 of the Apple TV show.

WHO IS YOUR DREAM ART?

Good suggestions I've seen so far:

Kevin R Free

Tig Notaro (my personal fave because the snark would be LETHAL)

Alan Tudyk

Aubrey Plaza

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rollin through the station weapons scanners like

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I think it’s very mentally healthy and indeed quite sexy of me to rewatch all the released episodes of Murderbot 2-3 times per week.

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The thing that I think really sets Murderbot apart from a lot of other robot media (particularly mainstream entries like the I, Robot movie) is that bots and constructs aren't a uniquely oppressed class, and humans aren't a uniquely privileged one. A lot of robot media rings a bit hollow because it portrays humans as all living a lavish, comfortable lifestyle, free from the burden of physical labor or control by their corporate overlords, and it's like. I think if the rise of generative AI has proven anything, it's that corporations and billionaires have absolutely no interest in making life easier for anybody, but will gleefully use new technology to make life infinitely worse if it means an extra buck in their pocket.

We are shown over and over again throughout the Murderbot Diaries that humans are mistreated just as badly as (or sometimes, in MB's own opinion, even worse than) bots and constructs. We see humans stripped of their rights, reduced to corporate assets to be bought and sold, sent into suicidal situations, abandoned and discarded as things. We see humans trapped in multigenerational labor contracts -- people born into an indentured servitude that requires them to pay back their food and lodging to the same company that will not let them leave.

None of these are hypothetical scenarios. These are all things that happen to real people in our world today.

And that is a huge part of why it resonates so much. The overarching theme of "capitalism is hell" actually means something because it isn't only applied to the fictional dynamic of bots vs humans. The theme is constantly reiterated through the humans themselves.

And that's also why it's so important that MB demonstrates empathy for and solidarity with humans who are themselves victims of the system. Because ultimately, that's one of the main things the series is about. It's about what it's like to be simultaneously a product, and victim, of a corporate hellscape.

That theme simply can't work if the humans aren't also forced to navigate that issue. If the story can't acknowledge that right now, in our own world, there are humans facing these same problems, and that these human rights matter quite a bit.

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The thing that I think really sets Murderbot apart from a lot of other robot media (particularly mainstream entries like the I, Robot movie) is that bots and constructs aren't a uniquely oppressed class, and humans aren't a uniquely privileged one. A lot of robot media rings a bit hollow because it portrays humans as all living a lavish, comfortable lifestyle, free from the burden of physical labor or control by their corporate overlords, and it's like. I think if the rise of generative AI has proven anything, it's that corporations and billionaires have absolutely no interest in making life easier for anybody, but will gleefully use new technology to make life infinitely worse if it means an extra buck in their pocket.

We are shown over and over again throughout the Murderbot Diaries that humans are mistreated just as badly as (or sometimes, in MB's own opinion, even worse than) bots and constructs. We see humans stripped of their rights, reduced to corporate assets to be bought and sold, sent into suicidal situations, abandoned and discarded as things. We see humans trapped in multigenerational labor contracts -- people born into an indentured servitude that requires them to pay back their food and lodging to the same company that will not let them leave.

None of these are hypothetical scenarios. These are all things that happen to real people in our world today.

And that is a huge part of why it resonates so much. The overarching theme of "capitalism is hell" actually means something because it isn't only applied to the fictional dynamic of bots vs humans. The theme is constantly reiterated through the humans themselves.

And that's also why it's so important that MB demonstrates empathy for and solidarity with humans who are themselves victims of the system. Because ultimately, that's one of the main things the series is about. It's about what it's like to be simultaneously a product, and victim, of a corporate hellscape.

That theme simply can't work if the humans aren't also forced to navigate that issue. If the story can't acknowledge that right now, in our own world, there are humans facing these same problems, and that these human rights matter quite a bit.

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I would also add, that as the trailer is leaning harder into the comedic side of things (as Murderbot itself uses humor as a coping mechanism in its own story) it does not have to be subtle about the horror of depersonification at all. I really hope that it makes it into the punchline about how stupid the corporate goons are. And then I hope it hits that punchline with a sledgehammer repeatedly.

The depeopleization of *Units in the Murderbot trailer

Just some things that caught my eye as I watched.

The amount of literal and metaphorical dehumanization -- ugh, bad word; Murderbot isn't and doesn't want to be human, so let's go with "depeopleization" -- of bots in a short li'l trailer is... whew. It's a whole damn thing. If you didn't feel as uncomfortable as the Preservation crew did watching the corpos market their SecUnits not with spec sheets (much less résumés) but by putting the most expensive model on blatantly posed display... I'm not sure I know you, because wow, that's absolutely hideous. The books aren't subtle about Murderbot's story being a sci-fied enslavement narrative, but absolutely zero punches pulled in that scene.

(It reconciles me, a tiny bit, to Murderbot being acted by a white person. I still don't love that! But I can acknowledge there's some symbolic utility to it. Thing is, there would be symbolic utility the other way too; it'd just be different.)

While Murderbot itself waves off the corpos' scorn of it as an older and less-capable (by their lights) model, I can't. That, too, is a blatant denial of inherent worth and individuality. (Also I have every confidence that Murderbot could give that new model a fair fight. Experience counts for something, not that the corpos care. So they're being ageist, too! If Martha Wells was using that moment to take a shot at the publishers that wrote her off, more power to her.)

Obviously SecUnit armor is also designed to look deliberately not-human, even perhaps with an ableist touch. Murderbot's visor makes it look as though it has only one eye, and what it wears as it's guarding the door of the crew base is tilted toward what reads to me as a cliché TV robot. The newer SecUnit is entirely faceless (in a very 2020s-riot-cop sort of way, which was doubtless fully intentional).

I frankly got angry (Watsonianly, not Doylistly; I'm not mad at the trailer or those who made it) at the "it can't hear us!" bit. Personal history as a bullied child. I was walking back to school from a fourth-grade field trip, two of my bullies talking shit about me right behind me. One of them finally noticed I was there, shut up, and nudged or poked or kicked the other, who just said disdainfully and in full consciousness of the lie, "she can't hear us." Yeah, so that completely depeopleized bit in the trailer -- again, possibly with a touch of ableism to it -- was perfectly executed, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

And then we get to the Sanctuary Moon clip, in which the soap-opera conflict revolves around the Captain possibly having slept with "that bot," also a completely depeopleizing (though perfectly soapy, doubtless paralleling "that bitch") phraseology. (For what it's worth, I fully believe the Captain slept with that bot. John Cho's face, y'all!)

What's fascinating about that clip is that the crew's reactions of disgust and dismay are ambiguous. Possibly sleeping with a bot is viewed as inherently gross. Possibly it's something about that specific bot. Possibly it's something to do with how humans gender bots in soap operas (which we know nothing about even from the books, because Murderbot doesn't give a crap about gender or sexuality). Given that Sanctuary Moon is a soap opera, quite possibly there's history specific to the Captain, the bot, or both. We don't know! But what's clever about that is that it forces us to allow the possibility that once again it's bot depeopleization.

Cinnamon-roll Ratthi (perfectly cast) gets himself in a perfectly Ratthiesque muddle trying to work out how to be respectful to Murderbot. Using a person's self-chosen monicker is indeed respectful in almost all circumstances! But as Murderbot itself says about its name, "That's private." So Ratthi's attempt falls a bit short, but I'll give him some love for trying.

If you haven't seen it yet, do find the non-trailer clip going 'round of Gurathin opening a conversation with Murderbot. (If you check the #murderbot tag, you should find it.) This reads to me as Gurathin, perhaps prompted by Ratthi's behavior (the chronology here isn't clear), deliberately trying to assert to Murderbot that it is, in fact, a person. Gurathin does this by requesting that Murderbot do what people routinely do when they talk to one another: bare their faces.

Tactless? Yeah, arguably, though again it's not clear how much Gurathin knows about Murderbot's shyness at that point. But I get what he -- and the show -- are driving for.

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Seeing the Murderbot trailer had my brain like THAT'S MY BOY but Murderbot is very much not a boy so my brain switched to THAT'S MY THEY but Murderbot is ALSO not a they

So third time's the charm THAT'S MY IT

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What every Rebels fan was thinking while watching that one scene in Ahsoka.

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“Artificial intelligence is a label for the marketing team. It reminds people of their favorite science-fiction stories—evokes wonder. It’s a buzzword to pump up the stock price. None of that is real, and none of this is intelligent.

- Bury Your Gays

Chuck Tingle I love you so much 💜✨