#ig that's just how it is for secunits in this series but still

[elkian]

I got System Collapse for Christmas and after reading it I decided to reread the series and I'm rereading Network Effect and like.

The bit where Three volunteers for the rescue mission... Three's inner monologue feels less "mature" than Murderbot's. Maybe it's the 4-something years of being jailbroken and watching soap operas, maybe it's their differing deployments, base personalities, maybe Three is actually chronologically/experientially much younger, idk.

But Three is flailing. It has no clue what's going on or what to do. Depending on how B-E would respond to the broken governor module, it may have put itself in horrific danger on the chance to save its clients, on the word of killware with some fun stories. Three is relatable because I, too, tend to flounder in social situations where I don't know The Script.

Three is peeing its goddamn pants at ART's general everything, which is fair, especially since it's much more agitated than it was when Murderbot came aboard, and Three has had free will for like 20 minutes, not the multiple technical years MB had.

And while scared of this obscenely, impossibly powerful AI - after having finished helped its clients and done its specific task - with no real external motive:

Three looks at a situation where someone -the root of the killware that freed it, come what may- someone it technically doesn't know. Not a client, not even a human. Someone whose loss is making the terrifying transport incredibly upset; someone is in trouble.

And Three, who doesn't know the protocol for a situation as absolutely buck wild as this, approaches ART while ART is angry, and volunteers to help.

Can you imagine the fucking gumption of that? Three doesn't even know what it means to want things - it's never been allowed to want things before. It is terrified and confused and at a total loss. And it steps up to the scariest, angriest person in the room and says: let me help.