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The first thing the new Barish-Estranza explorer had done was power up to ART and try to intimidate it/us. (I know. I was below 66 percent operating capacity at the time and I thought it was a bad idea.)

ART had dropped its main weapon port and transmitted, Targeting lock acquired.

The explorer had replied something to the effect that they didn't mean to be intimidating and was the widdle academic transport crew scared, but in corporate speak, and ART had replied, it's so easy for ships to disappear out here.

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The more confidently certain Murderbot is that no bots have genders or any interest in sex or romance the less likely it sounds. Really? None of them?

Like how bot pilots can only communicate in images?

Or how a human could never really be friends with a bot?

Or how SecUnits are never friends with each other?

It keeps making these sweeping generalisations about things it doesn't have a lot of data outside of its own lived experience to support, and its experience is not universal.

At this point I would not be surprised if Iris hit MB in the face with the revelation that ART hates Holism because they were involved before Holism fucked around and left it for Sum Total.

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So it's established that if MB tries to upload itself into ship hardware it has a Bad Time™. And we've also seen that ART can split off an iteration of itself that can run on whatever super high-tech they've managed to fit in a fairly-compact drone. And the kernel that MB restored it from was hidden in the galley "in a data storage area hidden in a layer under the usual space for food production formulas." Which. If I understand correctly, ART isn't doing Star Trek food replication, this is just a recipe database and MB is describing it like a weirdo who doesn't eat human food (which it is). So ART can fit a compressed copy of its kernel into the spare room in its recipe data storage. Even if every recipe had a high-definition video tutorial the storage can't be that big. Not by MB's standards, who was designed to download and process thousands of hours of surveillance footage, copy proprietary client databases, all that jazz.

So: if (for example) something catastrophic were to happen to ART's ship-body (solar flare caused an EMP like in one of MB's shows and it's destroying everything electrical? Got clipped by an asteroid and is now hurtling towards a star? Picked a fight with a bigger gunship?) could ART download a copy of itself to either be kept dormant/safe in MB's onboard storage or to actually run on its hardware?

And later, when they've got ART a new body to inhabit (after there are hijinks on a planet, naturally, and they work out how to share space and ART hilariously eats shit the first time it tries walking, and reassure the humans that ART isn't dead, and Iris super breaches the no-hugging clause but MB lets it go just this once because ART has never had the experience of hugging its sister before but this is one time only, understand? and ART also gets to experience being dumped firmly into the back seat when combat happens (cool) and also gets to experience being shot (markedly less cool) and they fight over the pain sensor like an old married couple with a thermostat), how easy would it be to transfer it back out cleanly if it's gotten all up in MB's organic neural tissue? Especially once ART works out that it's expandable and elastic (almost makes up for these rickety processors! Almost.)?

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ART's social skills

ART in any format is absolute shit at talking to other bots, says Murderbot in System Collapse.

Is that so? How does it talk to other bots/systems?

[ART meeting systems]

ShuttleSecSys tried to analyze ART and almost got itself deleted. I took over ShuttleSecSys, turned off the alarms, and deleted the entire trip out of its memory.

(Artifical Condition)

The SecSystem tried to block ART and I quickly put up a wall and deleted its memory of the contact. (ART really did not care to be challenged by other resident systems and I didn’t want the friendly SecSystem deleted.)

(Network Effect)

Okayyy, that was a rather aggressive response. But then, unlike SecUnits who are designed to interact with systems, ART is not built to be compatible with other systems. No matter how politely ART approaches them, they are not likely to appreciate its presence.

[ART interacting with other bots]

Plus ART, who was already cozying up to said bot pilot and would be keeping an eye on the shuttle during the brief trip. (ART’s idea of “cozying” being somewhat overbearing, I had already had to intervene once to assure the bot pilot that the big mean transport had promised not to hurt it.)

(Artificial Condition)

Size-wise, it's like a rhino trying to be friendly with a rabbit. Whatever it does might come across as overbearing.

A message came back: I could help you learn about it, if you’re interested. ART said, Stop talking to it. I think it’s just bored, I said. I don’t give a shit, ART said.

(System Collapse)

Holism is like your old classmate from primary school days that you never particularly got on that well, comes along, spots that you have made a best friend at university, and tries to ask out this said-friend while you are sitting together. A bit insensitive!

[ART introducing itself to SecUnits]

When it met Murderbot:

Then, through my feed, something said, You were lucky. I sat up. It was so unexpected, I had an adrenaline release from my organic parts.

[...]

It said, You’re a rogue SecUnit, a bot/human construct, with a scrambled governor module. It poked me through the feed and I flinched. It said, Do not attempt to hack my systems, and for .00001 of a second it dropped its wall.

(Artificial Condition)

When it met Three:

Contact requested: transport designated Perihelion, registered Pansystem University of—

Response, Transport: Who the fuck are you?

This is nonstandard communication. The contact is a transport bot pilot, but transport bot pilots can’t/don’t communicate this way.

(Network Effect)

Transport, on private channel: If you even think about harming them, I will disassemble you and peel away your organic parts piece by piece before destroying your consciousness. Do we understand each other?

(Network Effect)

ART is ... being very pragmatic there. It's not threatening. It's telling them how it's not a good idea to even think about destructive behaviour. (Though it could have been a little more tactful.)

Still, poor Three. It must have been terrifying.

[ART to non-crew humans]

Target Three, sarcastically: “If the ship speaks, why didn’t it come in person?”

Perihelion’s drone: You don’t want to meet me in person.

The Targets react with astonishment and some dismay.

(Network Effect)

What do they expect. They had kidnapped its best friend.

The first thing the new Barish-Estranza explorer had done was power up to ART and try to intimidate it/us. [...]

ART had dropped its main weapon port and transmitted, Targeting lock acquired.

The explorer had replied something to the effect that they didn’t mean to be intimidating and was the widdle academic transport crew scared, but in corporate speak, and ART had replied, It’s so easy for ships to disappear out here.

There was a pause, indicating a scramble to adjust operational parameters, then they made the mistake of trying to intimidate back with something like Oh yeah well you’ll get damaged, too, and I am not exactly an expert on nonfictional human interactions but that just obviously wasn’t going to cut it.

ART transmitted, You can make this complicated situation simple for me. Which I can tell you was not any kind of posturing, it 100 percent meant that.

Barish-Estranza must have picked up on that subtext because they backed down and now they think ART is a human commanding officer who’s a giant asshole.)

(System Collapse)

They (Barish-Estranza) started it /shrug

This shuttle wasn’t armed, and a quick look through their security archive said nobody had planted any explosives or anything. She was bluffing.

ART-drone said, “I wouldn’t recommend it. I lack a sense of proportional response. I don’t advise engaging with me on any level.”

(System Collapse)

Again, ART is stating facts.

ART doesn't do smarmy corporate talk. It speaks its mind, calls spade a spade, like a Yorkshire person. Don't harm or steal its humans or its SecUnit bestie then you'd be safe.

Does it have good social skills?

I refrain from answering that question. It certainly gives extra purpose for Murderbot to stay with it. (To be the social facilitator for bot / system interactions.)

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21 Days

One thing that really fascinates me about the relatively short time Murderbot and ART spend together in Artificial Condition is that when you consider what they are and what they're doing during that trip, it's not actually that short after all.

To get the obvious out of the way: They're a bot and a construct, they don't have human sleep cycles. I'm not sure if we can assume they were "awake" the entire time (minus of course the surgery), but let's just generously assume that it extends the time they spend together by roughly a third (we don't know how long the days they're going by actually are, probably not the 28-hour Preservation Standard Days) compared to what it would be like for humans spending 3 weeks together. There's also the consideration that their much faster processing power draws time out even further, but I think that gets a bit too technical and ambiguous to properly consider, but it's something to generally keep in mind.

Which brings me to my next point, which is how they spend those 3 weeks together, which is where Rogue Protocol provides some interesting context:

I had spent three other transport trips, including the one with ART, mostly without moving.

We're aware of course of the time that was interrupted, but it's safe to say that it really did spend most of the time just sitting in its favorite chair, watching media with ART.

And then there's this part:

I had been in Miki’s feed, the connection so intimate even though I’d had my walls up.

Watching media together goes hand in hand with ART sitting in its feed, a connection that Murderbot specifically describes as intimate, that Murderbot metaphorically compares to being squished in a chair. And they spend almost 21 (literally!) entire days like this.

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i think one of the most important things you learn about making connections with others is that a significant portion of the time people just do not know theyre doing what theyre doing

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It seems like the older I get, the more irrationally angry casual censorship makes me. And it isn't just the "unalive" "grape" alleged filter-dodging vernacular, but the way normal words will be peppered with asterisks, or screenshots will have words like "gay" "hell" "fuck" etc either partially or entirely blurred. Who is this helping? What is the purpose of it, except to reinforce shame and elevate a flimsy perception of purity and safety, however those things manifest. It's so tiresome and I'm sick of it.

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i googled my favorite XKCD and the front page of google had some RPGnet forum posts you made the week I was born.

I enjoy how this tells me almost nothing about your actual age – you could be anywhere between ten and thirty and this would be a plausible scenario.

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To be completely fair to all the parents who never told their kids they were queer, I know multiple people with an openly bisexual parent who genuinely had no idea because they assumed the parent in question was straight and doing a very committed bit.

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One of my disco elysium habits is that I keep interacting with Kim knowing full well I don't have any new dialogue options so I'm just constantly being like hey Kim. Oh it's nothing

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The thing about Zac is that he's so "yes, and" I think he'd much sooner incorporate an insane rumor into his backstory than deny anything

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since they’re on Earth, do the Transformers celebrate pride? Do they even know what LGBTQIA means?

Happy Pride :>

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Trying to get past measurehead is so funny cause your two options are like becoming a phrenologist or trying to punch him & almost certainly failing & Kim's just standing over there for all of this like detective surely we can figure out literally anything else

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I don’t believe tsw*ft is a revolutionary or even interesting artist but she *is* the only artist who has her own folder on my phone dedicated to lyrics that make me incandescent with rage so from a perverse conceptual perspective I guess something is working

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Phil: “This place sucks. This place sucks. I hate Antarctica so much. It’s so shit. Nothing can spawn here, dude. Fuck, It’s just a death- death zone.

Also Phil: “But it’s home 🥺”

Bonus from Techno: “It’s terrible but it’s home. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!”

Source: Taking over the world

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idk why people are still trying to do "hear me out"s on tumblr

you could talk about wanting to fuck the space needle on here and people would still call you a poser for insisting on fucking "conventionally attractive architecture" as if that's a coherent, easily-recognizable category

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link and.. sidon.

they are just besties

look at them

aww