#Perihelion Crew

[alex-van-gore]

[ID: a digital drawing of Iris, a young woman with warm brown skin and long black hair in twists fallen over her shoulder. The drawing is styled after Mucha’s “The Iris.” She is wearing a long flowy dress in light blue and purple. She is standing surrounded by large blue Iris flowers, on a background of a rocky planet on a vast stylised universe with various planets in soft pink, purple and yellow. Under the main drawing are two more smaller panels, one depicting ART, in red on purple space with stars, and a brown plaque reading the name “Iris”. /end ID]

[psumnt-studentcouncil]

Ratthi: "So, how's living with the in-laws going?"

Murderbot: "You mean ART's crew? It's been good, I guess"

Murderbot, processing what Ratthi just asked it: ...

Murderbot: "THEY'RE NOT MY IN-LAWS-"

[foxprints]

SecUnit character design sheet!

[heyitsrink]

Murderbot using the strategy "talk to the humans" as a way to tell ART how it feels (...:

[chelshiart]

SO lemme present to you my mass effect crossover idea

[fingolfinwiththesteelchair]

It is a beautiful day, and you are a horrible research transport vessel. Things are progressing as normal (i.e. it's boring) when a SecUnit pings you, lies right to your metaphorical face, and then tries to bribe you with human media to give it a ride. This is as unexpected as it is unprecedented, and the sheer nerve of it is really to be admired. There's no protocol to this, so what should you do?

Now, this is against a bunch of rules, and could be dangerous if you weren't so impressive and incredible, and you're technically an employee (and can probably rewrite the Univeristy charter at will (until someone notices and puts it back)) so those rules are for other entities.

So, what you should do is allow the rogue SecUnit with a broken governor module and a sketchy story aboard. If you check the files it dumps and find zero (0) malware (which is confusing), and it doesn't even try to trash the place or lay in wait to ambush a crew member, then you've got a good candidate!

Next, what you're going to want to do is absolutely nothing. Just watch it patrol your halls until it's time to leave. Continue staring at it while you're undergoing embarkment procedures. Maybe analyze it a little (you've got plenty of processing power to spare) when it finally sits down and starts watching media. Allow it to settle in and get comfortable while you stare at it and get further and further from port.

Now that you two are alone (intimacy is key!) and you've determined that watching media is all the SecUnit is going to do, it's time to make contact! Make sure to open by telling it it's only survived due to dumb luck, and letting it know you could melt its brain into putty. This starter will work to develop conversation naturally and smoothly, just like you've seen the humans do, and it will be smooth sailing from there!

This has been Perihelion's guide to making friends/finding life partners/fuck off Holism I had to work hard for this find your own

[torpublishinggroup]

Murderbot is MurderBACK in the next installment of Martha Wells’s NYT bestselling Murderbot Diaries series System Collapse 🤖🚀

WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Following the events of Network Effect, our favorite lethally cybernetic television fiend has done the previously unthinkable: agreed to accompany the sentient spaceship Perihelion (dubbed ART by Murderbot, short for Asshole Research Transport) and crew on its next mission. 

Unfortunately, they’re not going to get too far. 

Having failed to harvest dangerous artifacts from their target planet by way of Murderbot misadventure, the Barish-Estranza corporation is much angered and determined to recoup their considerable losses. And when you’re a lethally opportunistic space corp, blood and muscle are valuable currency. 

Murderbot, ART’s crew, and the Preservation humans have planetside work to do as Barish-Estranza seeks to claim the planet’s beleaguered colony as a conscripted workforce. 

But for Murderbot, the challenge is as internal as it is external. Something is deeply, deeply wrong with it. Normal operational parameters are unmet, but with the corp’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams en route, Murderbot needs to resolve its issues, and fast!

[unheavenlycreatures]

More memes from the TMBD universe, this time ft. the groupchat of the crew of the Perihelion

[agrioxoiros]

Hera would distress the fuck out of Perihelion i think

Hera: hey did you ever run simulations where you killed your entire crew just to feel like you had some control over your situation?

ART, who couldn't even handle fictional crewmates dying in a show: what the fuck

[the-yearning-astronaut]

I keep getting stuck in a loop, thinking about Murderbot staying aboard the Perihelion, with ART's crew -- who all know what it is. It's the first time it'll be on a ship as itself, not as equipment, or pretending to be something it's not. It won't be in hiding, either. Will it find an out-of-the-way corner to call its own? A closet or storage unit or something? Or will it continue to use the crew lounge, like it did when it was just ART and itself? Will the crew insist it take its own cabin in the crew quarters, since it's ostensibly part of the crew now? How will it react to that?

Murderbot didn't like having things until it had a chance to pick out its own clothes, and now it has clothing preferences and a security blanket favorite jacket and it doesn't mind wearing the Perihelion crew uniform despite the logo. It hasn't seemed to care much about its travel accommodations in the past, one way or another, though it's mentioned a few times now that it takes comfort in the way ART's medical tables are heated. (the parallel between ART keeping the medical table warm for Murderbot and Murderbot turning up its own core body temperature to provide comfort sure is Something)

I'm just thinking about Murderbot having a space to call its own. Not a cargo container or company cubicle but an actual room. And maybe it doesn't know what to do with it at first because it doesn't exactly need sleep or anything the way humans do... But still, it eventually finds itself with a second jacket. A pair of soft sweat pants with the Perihelion logo up the right leg. Its satchel hangs from the back of a desk chair. It might start collecting things that it finds interesting or aesthetically pleasing or that remind it of something or someone -- especially now that it knows, even if it won't acknowledge, that it has somewhere to keep them.

(maybe it's a place it could come to call home?)

[elexuscal]

An Educational Experience

A ficlet prompt by Gamebird [for some reason tumblr will not let me @ you directly, sorry]: Three is very intimidated by ART, but it somehow gets to the point where it can ask it about educational modules. How did that conversation play out?

======

"Perihelion?"

Yes?

I had prepared what I was going say. Preparation was wise in unfamiliar situations. Yet despite my preparation, I did not speak. Somehow could not. Wished that my buffer could offer an appropriate response.

0.5 seconds passed. 1 seconds. 2 seconds. 3 seconds.

If my governor module were still active, it would have demanded a response.

The Perihelion is not a governor module. It is nearly as unforgiving as one. (Nearly.) I brace for the demand to continue speaking, but it does not come.

After 9.8 seconds, I say, "I am not prepared to operate as a free agent."

No, it agrees.

Muscles in my back move reflexively. I unclench them. Perhaps communicating via the feed will be easier. My modules lack protocols for existing outside the context of Barish-Estranza. It would be helpful if there were alternative protocols I could utilize instead.

I can provide you with my own crew's standard operating procedures.

That would be helpful, thank you. I had found that statements of gratitude were still advisable, even without governor module compulsion to be respectful to (most) clients. It seemed even more prudent considering what I was going to ask next. If there were any other documents similar to HelpMe.file, that would also be useful.

I am afraid that we are rather lacking in other personnel memoirs from rogue SecUnits.

Sarcasm is a common communication device, which I have seen hundreds if not thousands of humans use. In Perihelion's case, it seems to compose of approximately 70% of its communication strategy.

I am aware of that. (I attempt to keep any frustration or other negative emotions I may be feeling out of the feed; I almost certainly fail.) I seek other informational texts and documents to supplement my educational modules.

Perihelion's feed shifts with a new emotion; excitement, perhaps, or interest. Something like this?

Suddenly I am staring at The Perihelion's full media library. No, not full, I realise after a moment of reflection; this is a curated selection. Documentary films and serials, audio-explainers, academic texts, and other books, all labelled #Educational.

They hold potential answers to all my questions.

If I could find them. With over 17,000 items, I do not know where to begin. I do not know how to even begin constructing a query.

"Thank you, Perihelion," I say. "On further consideration, I will begin by reading your crew's operational procedures."

Wait, Perihelion says, and then 0.07 seconds later, please. Apparently it is capable of using courtesy terms, if it wants to. That was too much selection. Try this. The media library refreshes. Now there are only three options; all mid-length educational serials. Do any of these interest you?

The three titles listed, including their summaries, are:

Building Ourselves Up From dams to space-stations, farms to terraforming facilities, how do engineers build the machines that keep society ticking?

Seeking The Final Horizon For millennia before we ever left our birth planet, humanity marvelled up at space. Take a tour of the cosmos, exploring moons, stars, black holes, nebulae, and more.

Suds! The Dirt On Soap Water, fat, and ash. That sounds gross, but we rub it over our bodies every day. Learn about the many ways soap is made and used across the universe.

I consider. They are all so different. How could I choose?

But I must. There are only three of them. It is a reasonable request.

The first documentary, on infrastructure, is clearly the one most related to our current situation. We-- by which I meant, the crews of The Perihelion and the Preservation ship Safe Harbour-- are assisting the humans in rebuilding their infrastructure. But judging from the demo footage next to the documentary's description, this serial was composed to many shots of coordinators, tunnels, and walls.

I had seen a great deal of corridors, tunnels, and walls since initial deployment.

In comparison, the soap documentary intrigued me a great deal. I like soap. Or I like The Perihelion's soap. It did not sting on the skin, but felt gentle and soothing. It came in a variety of shapes and colors and textures. Every time I showered, there was a new option to try. But this was such an unimportant thing to learn about.

Finally, there was the space documentary. I had some basic knowledge regarding space science, but nothing more. I could see how this knowledge could be relevant. And The Perihelion was a deep-space research vessel. It would most likely be pleased if I selected that option. In fact, perhaps, as I thought of it, the choice may have been a test to see if I would make the correct selection.

"Seeking the Final Horizon, please."

Did you only pick that one because that was the one you thought I'd like?

I do not answer. I had not wanted to lie outright. I realise belatedly that my silence may as well be as good as a confession.

You can select something else if you prefer.

I do not know if I would like to. I already decided. Surely that is sufficient?

Never mind, the transport says, indulgently. You can watch the others afterwards, if you are still interested.

The documentary begins playing. I sit down on the soft bunk. Because there is nothing gained from standing up now, and because I can. I watch the first two episodes. They total to 85 minutes.

I had known before that space was vast. I had known that large objects exerted a gravitational pull. I had know that same gravitation pull created worm holes. I knew that wormholes were necessary for faster-than-light travel between systems. I had known all of that, yet this documentary weaves it all together, so that it is no longer disparate facts, but a single cohesive explanation.

I had not known that space could be so beautiful.

[mattapparentlystumbltourneys]

Virtual Character Tourney - Battle for 9th! (and 10th!)

Propaganda below (May contain spoilers!)

Kasane propaganda:

HER DREAM WAS TO ONE DAY BECOME A REAL VOCALOID AMD SHE FINALLY DID IT!!!!!! ITS NOT A VOCALOID VOICE BANK BUT ITS A FULL SYNTH V VOICEBANK!!!!! AND A NEW DESIGN!!!!! SHE DID IT SHE GOT HER DREAMS!!!!!! YOURE NEVER TOO OLD TO ACCOMPLISH YOUR DREAMS!!!!!!!

Kasane Teto is a vocal synth, she started out as an april fools joke to parody VOCALOID, with her voice bank in UTAU. although she did start out as just a joke a lot of vocaloid fans grew to really love her and she became rather popular. Kasane Teto is to UTAU as Hatsune Miku is to VOCALOID. But recently on Kasane Teto's 15th anniversary, April 1st 2023, she got moved from UTAU to SynthV. With her voice bank now in SynthV she also got a new character deign alone with how her voice and her singing sounds much more clear and human like than her UTAU voice bank which sounded a lot more mechanical/robotic.

ART propaganda:

ART (Asshole Research Transport, nicknamed by Murderbot), formally known as the space ship The Perihelion (in italics but this is a Google Form), also known as Peri (nicknamed by it's human family) is a super illegal highly advanced AI that was created by a university. It grew up with two human dads and a human sister. It and its crew go on research trips that are cover for allying with people and communities at the edges (and beyond) of the capitalist hellscape that is the Corporate Rim. It also goes on espionage missions by itself, without its human crew and family, posing as an automated cargo ship. It was during one of these missions that it picked up Murderbot, a super-duper illegal bot-human security unit construct that had hacked the torture device implanted in all bot-human constructs so that it could disobey orders and walk away from its "owners" without dying. Murderbot uses its illegal freedom to watch television, a habit it passes on to ART. Turns out ART doesn't like shows where human crew members get hurt.

ART is the AI that controls/is the research and teaching vessel Perihelion. (Perihelion is usually what people call it, but the protagonist of the series calls it ART so that's the name I put. ART stands for Asshole Research Transport.) It is extremely intelligent and advanced and also extremely sarcastic and condescending. 100% earned the name ART. ART will do absolutely anything for its crew!! It was developed and "raised" alongside the captain's daughter, Iris, and they're like siblings. Its crew calls it Peri. They do corporate espionage on the side to help bring down said corporations. It has a "debris deflection system" which is definitely not a weapon because ART isn't legally allowed to have a weapon. Definitely just for debris, don't worry about it. It's friends with the aforementioned protagonist, Murderbot, and ART is very good at bullying it into actually leaving its comfort zone when it needs to. They care about each other a lot, and they like to binge watch TV shows together. I don't want to write too much but I just love it a lot.

Ene propaganda:

She's blue. Headphone actor and yuukei yesterday are also bangers

Epic gamer cybergirl. Miku adjacent

She's a girl that was forced to become digital but is still a good friend. She may not have a body anymore but she's still important to the plot.

Murder-Bot 2.0 propaganda:

Sapient computer virus made from bits of two other AI characters (the original Murderbot and a spaceship AI). Unlike its not-parents, it is genuinely just code and doesn't have a physical body. Its only physical presence is through its effects on the machinery it infects, and it considers its "body" to be the code rather than any combination of physical objects. Also it was literally made to cause problems on purpose, does so enthusiastically, gives several people including its creators existential crises, and saves one of its creators (and other people from the (literal) fallout of the other creator learning the first one got killed)

Murderbot 2.0 is sentient killware created by Murderbot and ART with the purpose of being sent on a suicide mission. It has some of Murderbot's memories, but not all because it doesn't have any hardware of it's own to store that much information in. It travels by hopping in between other computer systems (mostly bots and bot-human constructs). It named itself Murderbot 2.0. It freed a security construct named Three. It's nicer and more open than both its parents.

EDI propaganda:

EDI is the AI of the Normandy starting with Mass Effect 2. Through dialogue EDI can become more human-like in her way of thinking, developing different kinds of relationships with the crew. In Mass Effect 3 she uploads herself into a body so she can freely move around and can be taken to missions, but she is still part of the ship's system.

Holly propaganda:

Due to a pay dispute with Holly's original actor, Norman Lovett, Holly was instead played by Hattie Hayridge during seasons 3-5. This was explained briefly in the show as them having gone through a "computer sex change". This makes Holly canonically trans do not @ me.

holly is the silliest most specialest ai ever. she has an iq of 6,000 but sometimes it seems like his iq is more like 6. they're possibly transgender (do computers have gender??) (i am panicking over pronouns while writing this propaganda) - holly goes from appearing like a man to appearing like a woman with no real explanation(??) and nobody questions this (the show is from the 90s btw). he's hilarious and sometimes lies to the crew for no reason other than 'its a laugh, innit'. shes everything to me <3

Holly is the computer of Red Dwarf, a Tenth Generation AI hologrammatic computer who appears as a floating head on a screen. Can be downloaded onto various other devices. also literally transgender.. meets a female appearing parallel version of itself in a parallel universe and then goes through a sex change after falling in love with her. transgender computer ftw

Tama propaganda:

Tama is the eyeball of Kuruto Ryuki and investigates dream worlds with him. She's his bi emotional support eye who regularly ties him up to help him with stress relief and loves to affectionately tease him. She laughs at bad jokes and has AE10D1F ("Ryuki" in hexadecimal) in her likes on her profile.

OKAY anyway uhm she's like aiba in that she's a little Ai eyeball that helps you investigate except sadly no animal theme. instead she has a domintrix vibe instead!!!! she is so cool… also ermm she's a lot more. Human than aiba. Not literally/physically like uhh emotionally. I haven't finished aini but like she does look out for your best interest! what a good Ai partner i don't kno

She's voiced by Anairis Quiñones and she's an absolute legend

Lyla propaganda:

she is a humanoid ai programmed to help spider-man gather info. she can simulate human emotions and has a high intellect

[psumnt-studentcouncil]

'After officially becoming a member of Perihelion’s crew, Murderbot discovers the peculiar and unique world of the Pansystem University of Mihira and New tideland, the wonders of its parent polity, and a whole new society of rogue constructs.'

Welcome to Free Agent Society! An assorted compilation of stories of the constructs at the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland (mostly Station Campus).

These stories are mostly OC-centric, but the main storyline looks to get into the worldbuilding of the university and its parent polity. What happens when an anti-corporate corporate polity lets constructs live freely, and how does this affect the culture of this place? What could come from an alliance between Mihira and New Tideland and Preservation? What happens when you let Murderbot direct a movie? Who and why did they let Three invent intoxicants for constructs? These stories look to get into these questions!

There’s also a few chapters detailing OC backstory, but they promise to add to the worldbuilding as a whole, and maybe answer some questions that canon has left up to interpretation.

The chapters aren’t published in chronological order, but you can read them in publishing order and understand them perfectly fine!

In honor of the first chapter, here's an artwork that I commissioned from @crabs-brencil featuring Penta!! Thank you so much!!

I hope you like the fic! It'll update weekly for now, the frequency of the updates is subject to change but it'll still be at least semi-regularly!

If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to send me an ask via here!

[foxprints]

Not sure who it beat the futz outta but I'm sure they deserved it

[cpu-gpu-smackdown]

Edgar (Electric Dreams) VS ART/Perihelion (The Murderbot Diaries)

About Edgar: Edgar is so sweet and adorable, everyone who watches Electric Dreams (1984) loves him (a movie that is streaming free in Tubi and PlutoTV and also several versions on YouTube in full, I might add). Edgar touches hearts and souls because he has a heart and soul.

About Art/Perihelion: Grew up with a human family! Has two dads and a sister! Loves its crew and also loves the super-duper illegal best friend, that it performed surgery on so the BFF (named Murderbot) could pass as human and get a job so that Murderbot could perform subterfuge of its own and find out more about its tragic past. Later it is biologically(!!!) hacked and plays dead to get the aliens to kidnap Murderbot to save ART's crew.

[hearsayhorizons]

Holism’s introduction and the confirmation that there are more ships/intelligences on ART’s level with their own idiosyncrasies and quirks has a real possibility of opening up that coven/school house fertile field of fanfiction that makes people grab other series and hold on tight (not that we weren’t doing that already with this one).

Perihelion’s secret function is in confirming lost colonies and providing initial response for the purposes of safeguarding “”assets”” from predation.

Based on its interactions (attempted interactions) with SecUnit, Holism’s function/special interest is to provide infrastructure after Perihilion’s crew has argued/forged their way into securing long-term protection for those people. 

Perihelion is a secret agent ship and befriended Murderbot, who watches thrillers and other media. Holism the infrastructure/”look at this neat thing!” ship is probably going to find a receptive contact in Three, who seems most comfortable with nonfiction and educational materials (some other good poster pointed out that Three’s interests are tied to its introduction to freedom and choice via Murderbot 2.0’s autobiographical files; I want to put a pin in that for later).

This establishes a thematic setup I want to play with. I was going to fiction this up, but I have weather-related migraines and it is WEATHER lately.

My contribution is [namepending]. Once you have safety, once you have infrastructure, you look at connections and community. And you know what would be a great way to jumpstart an ambassadorial program or knowledge exchange? A university where everyone is doing something new, going somewhere new, where you might have interactions that last a few years and still mean a lot to you later, OR they might help define how you choose to live forever—there’s no knowing, even in real life, how experiences as a young OR older person going to school will influence you.

Why does that student wear something no one else does? Why do those hand gestures stand out? That’s an unusual set of facial features. But no one, literally no one, is going to look at a batch of shaky college students and assume they’re all from a/a variety of colonies 40+ years out of contact with the wider world.

So yeah, I know ART is already the Magic School Bus with weaponized pathfinders, but I posit that our next/a great fanfiction point is... [pending], much more a school bus. Maybe ferrying back and forth between colonies to keep the info exchange open too, but I think the university would be SO useful to give colonists a knowledge base without overwhelming them or forcing them to assimilate into other cultures.

Now, I imagine that just like Amena has to do some learning modules before she can join the University, there’d be sims and modules for incoming students or people going between colonies. And just like System Collapse chapter 8, you hit them where it works—right in the media. So this [pending] has a huge collection of, and is interested in, games.

As a side note, part of me thinks a fully mechanical system like ART would be a bit better able to perceive/use games without a SecUnit filter than media; sure, there’s music and mechanics meant to emotionally motivate the player, but non-visual novels non-dating-sims (eg: “game games”) have goals, mechanisms, more hard input than media.

Remember my pin from earlier re: Three’s interest tied to its path to freedom? I posit a SecUnit (either one of the two freed at the end of System Collapse, or someone else if there’s...)

Actually, if I’m already spitballing fanfic bullshit and ComfortUnits presumably have resources for interacting on a more emotional basis with clients, the CU. I want that construct on [pending]. The odds of that happening are miniscule unless it was maybe at a wit’s end, didn’t know what to do with itself like other units after having its freedom foisted on it.

Yeah, so, it has access to surreptitious funds secured by Tllacey. Maybe IDs. It doesn't have weapons and I get the vibe that no one would be looking as hard for a rogue CU, so I don't imagine it's hacking or has to hack anything. Maybe it can't, since it isn't a security system.

But it IS probably meant to be fluent in current events, folklore, random shit random clients care about. Ergo the Ganaka pit bit.

It searches for SecUnit activity in the news. Oh, or maybe info on ART, maybe it picked something up during its last scene. Murderbot does have a whole aside in SC panicking about the news and what info about the kidnapping could mean for the University’s colony-saving scheme, but that doesn’t go anywhere given the timeframes. So, maybe there is something there, some way to pull the ComfortUnit back in.

It finds the University. It finds, or [pending] finds it, and [pending]’s whole schtick is orientating confused people. It introduces CU to some sims, some games, maye interactions in reality or through games with young people.

I posited in previous posts that SecUnit probably wouldn’t be super into games because the ability to passively exist alongside an atmosphere presented by a story or music is the appeal of its media; it is an actor DOING things during its day job. But CU has presumably been always acted-upon in its day job. So now it has a risk-free method to DO things. Maybe it prefers solo games, or it participates in group games where its identity as a CU comes up only as far as it is comfortable.

I’m sure my [pending] would be thrilled to have a contact/friend who can both communicate comfortably with newcomers while also relating really hard to them. Plus, I feel like the CU construct just sort of gets set loose and abandoned by Murderbot and the narrative. Sometimes those loose ends happen, but I kind of see a way we could work it back in now that we know there are more ships and they want filters/friends/units.

Now I just gotta find a name for [pending].

I do think I have the first few lines of the fic, though:

The shuttle came within range of the bigger ship annotated in the smart glass: Perihelion.

This is you. I transmitted an image of a young human and what the news broadcast identified as another human.

Oh, fuck off.