#supervisor leonide (murderbot)

[moipale]

what leonide says in network effect—"Company units have a reputation for being dangerous" (Network Effect, pg. 221)—is SOOOOOOO fucking interesting because. i think this is like the one detail we get about the Company that murderbot itself doesn't give us

murderbot talks about the Company with internal knowledge—it doesn't mention the Company's reputation. the presaux crew talks about the Company in tandem with the CR; it's all equally horrible to them. so this is the first... not unbiased, but first real outside perspective we get of the Company, that gives us actual context for where murderbot came from

this, coupled with the detail that Three, unlike murderbot, was allowed to communicate w/ other secunits and work together makes me wonder just what is or is not actually typical with secunits. i wonder... was the Company, of all the secunit manufacturers/renters, worse?

"Company units have a reputation for being dangerous." why? do they "malfunction" more? are they taken advantage of by third parties more (combat modules, the ganaka pit hack, etc.)? are they kept alone, obedient, disposable, until they can't endure it? until they go rogue?

i am so curious.

[fascinatedfinch]

Day 5! Leonide

Gaslight gatekeep girlboss! No one does it like her (manipulates her way around the horrors and hierarchies of capitalism hellscape)

[teamage]

I completely forgot to post it here back then, but here's a piece I did for @voidlingremnata as part of 2024 Murderbot Diaries New Year Gift Exchange (very nice! very fun! will take part again hopefully).

She requested Supervisor Leonide interacting with a SecUnit, so here's an awkward reunion between Leonide and Three. I used Voidling's comic Three design (probably the cutest Three design I've seen).

[homosekularnost]

Supervisor Leonide | Barish-Estranza | corporate life (day 5)

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 11

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which family means no one's secrets get revealed.

Murderbot spends the trip recharging a bit. The hopper is faster than the ground vehicle, which is good for travel time but bad for its nerves about human safety. MB hopes B-E don't know about the construction access, and if they do, won't be able to find where the HSUs moved the tunnel vehicle.

Iris grabs a med kit and says MB's leakage is worrying her. MB says it should stop soon, and thinks its power drain is a worse problem. It kind of just wants to watch Sanctuary Moon with Art-drone, only Art-drone is even worse off, so it puts on some World Hoppers instead.

Leonide asks if MB is really a SecUnit. Iris tells her to mind her own business. Leonide calls her oversensitive, goes silent for 5.3 seconds, then bursts out to ask if someone is really watching media right now. Tarik deadpans her about distracting himself while flying, and she says fuck all of them in response.

They arrive at the terraforming end of the tunnel to find an obstruction in the hangar, but it's just the shuttle, with a hat! Ratthi deployed the survival tent to keep the dust out. His voice makes MB's performance spike upward with relief.(1)

Ratthi pushes the button for the tent to pack itself up, and they all load into the shuttle. Leonide boards first, but only to make room for Iris and MB to get Art-drone in safely. MB can feel Art watching in the feed for any funny business or betrayal, but MB thinks she just knows the fastest way to escape is to help.

With Art-drone failing, the pathfinders need a little assistance. MB steps in to do what it can, though they're far from the drones it's used to.

Unfortunately, just as everyone's starting to relax, they pull out of a dust cloud and find an armed B-E shuttle following. Iris offers "to authorize deadly force" which MB doesn't need but appreciates. MB positions the pathfinders so that one takes a blow and explodes into a cloud of sensor-scattering debris, allowing the other to swing around and bop the B-E ship on the nose.(2)

The shuttle fell away, still intact but probably dealing with damage, a disoriented bot pilot, and a terrified human crew. Our shuttle powered upward, back on course and widening the distance between us.

As they come out of the comm blackout zone some time later, they see another ship, but quickly determine it's one of their own, a University ship finally come to help.

They pick up a B-E transmission and, having decoded their encryption in just two days, play back the whole argument about whether to engage. Leonide asks for comms, and when given, stands with her team in telling the others to stand down.

The channel got so quiet, Tarik tapped it to make sure it hadn’t gone dead.

Art-prime takes over the pathfinders, redirecting them now that they're not needed for defence. Art-prime starts integrating Art-drone, and Art-drone asks which ship came to help. Art tells it to guess. Art-drone pessimistically declares it must be Holism. They finish the handoff, and as Art-drone goes dead, Iris makes a sobbing noise that startles MB. In a private connection, she asks if there was time for a full transfer, and MB confirms it. Iris adds that she always gets emotional at the thought of losing any part of her Peri and its experiences.

I know, I said. And I did know, and now I was having an emotion. Like a big overwhelming emotion. It felt bad but good, a weird combination of happy and sad and relieved, like something had been stuck and it wasn’t stuck anymore. Cathartic, okay. This fits the definition of cathartic. It was like the way I’d felt when I killed the Target who threatened Amena and laughed at me because I was upset when I thought ART was dead. Except without the violence, and that only lasted a minute or so, and this seemed like it would go on a while.(3) Nobody was dead and I hadn’t had a relapse of my stupid memory thing. And if I did have a relapse, at least I knew what it was now. Don’t just sit there, ART said to me and Iris as it brought the shuttle into its docking module. Console each other. I said, You fuck off at the same time as Iris said, Oh, shut it, Peri, and that felt even better.(4)

=====

(1) I just bet! (2) Insert a skeletor NYEHEHEH giggle from me here. Nonfatal, but completely effective. Love to see it. (3) I just need to take a minute to have my own emotion at this. Like, I keep saying on main and anywhere people will listen that engaging with anger will give you a short-term good feeling and a long-term bad habit that becomes more and more deeply patterned on your daily life and harder to break. And, I just love seeing allusions to that in this sort of fiction. Like, it was a necessary violence, and there's no denying that the feeling was justified afterwards. But, violence and anger are not pathways to fulfillment and joy. The more you give in to the rage bait, the more that anger takes over your life and affects everything you do and everyone you interact with. It's important to be aware of those choices. And I love that Murderbot's commitment is to trying to save life, even when it's life that's threatening itself or its humans. It doesn't always work, but it does make it easier to live with yourself. (4) Yep, it's definitely a love language for Art.

[murderbotseptember]

Prompts

(Plain text below the cut)

Plain text

Prompts:

Jollybaby | Preservation station | non-corporate political entities

Tlacey | Graycris | alien remnants

Kaede | Timestream Defenders Orion | augments

Holism | Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland | teaching and learning

Supervisor Leonide | Barish-Estranza | corporate life

Don Abene | Sanctuary Moon | repairs

Tapan | RaviHyral | stations and rings

Human one | BreharWallHan | refuge

Tellus | Medcenter Argala | medical treatment

Three | Barish-Estranza explorer ship | governor module

Thiago | DeltFall | planetary surveys

Eletra | Worldhoppers | contract labour

Wilken | HaveRatton Station | weapons

Newest free SecUnit | Adamantine | colonies

Tarik | Valorous Defenders | entertainment feeds

Miki | Milu | [insert here] gone wrong

Rami | Goodnight Lander Independent | bot pilots

Councillor Ephraim | Lineages of the Sun | advertising

Serrat | TranRollinHyfa | communication

Murderbot 2.0 | The Company | AI

Amena | Drama Sun Islands | childhood

Captain Seth | Corporation Rim | buffer phrases

Dr. Volescu | PreservationAux | planets

Balin | Port FreeCommerce | sentience/sapience

Officer Aylen | Palisade | bots

AdaCol2 | Bharadwaj's documentary | Hubsys/Secsys

Tano | Preservation | non-human life forms

Senior Officer Indah | Preservation life-tender | space travel

Tlacey's comfortunit | Ganaka Pit | constructs

Turi | Starchy Foods | sustenance

Alternative prompts:

“There is a lot about what is going on here that I do not understand but I am participating anyway.”

“You are incorrect, iris. I can bomb the colony.”

“I don’t like you.” / “I know.”

“Priority change rejected.”

“I have a court order.”

“I have gotten clients out of situations that were <9% survivable.”

[blessphemy]

I just read this and it's a stellar outsider perspective of System Collapse as captured through Supervisor Leonide's POV. The prose is elegant and lovely to read. Lenoide's perspectives on SecUnits, rogueness, pseudo-rogueness is something I want to dissect for the next 5 continuous hours. And the last paragraph of chapter 1 left me absolutely vibrating in the subtle little implication it left behind. Agh it's so good!

Compliments to the author.

Edit: oh my god there's a chapter 2 and it hit me like a brick.

[specialagentartemis]

Having listened to the Graphic Audio full-cast audobook for All Systems Red, it was fun but I have some thoughts about the voice acting and direction. So now I’m just daydreaming about “if I had Billionaire Money I would buy the audio rights to TMBD and direct and produce another full cast audio version with voice actors handpicked and paid lavishly by Me.”

The cast being:

All Systems Red:

Murderbot: Kevin R. Free is the voice of Murderbot to a lot of people. I would think very hard about this but it would be a foundational return to form. However I feel like I want to reach out and find a non-binary VA because it's a niche that's been tragically underrepresented in Murderbot VAs. I joked before about Vico Ortiz playing live-action Murderbot but do they want to try their hand at voice acting?

Mensah: Cecilia Lynn-Jacobs. Voices Captain Lovelace on Wolf 359. Has incredible talent and range and does the Intrepid Galactic Explorer so well.

Pin-Lee: Emily Woo Zeller. An audiobook narrator I've consistently liked.

Ratthi: Stephen Dookie. He plays the part of Polites in Epic: The Musical and he's excellent in a very sweet, upbeat, friendly way.

Gurathin: Sungwon "ProZD" Cho. I'm picturing somewhere in the range of his Miles Edgeworth voice for this.

Arada: Michelle "Vixy" Dockrey. She's a singer not a VA but her voice sounds so nice.

Overse: Tanja Milojevic. Her range is incredible.

Bharadwaj: Rukhmani Desai (Captain Tripathi, The Strange Case of Starship Iris. She has that calm, reasonable, rational, desperately kind character voice she plays well in Starship Iris that I think would go well for Bharadwaj)

Volescu: Zach Valenti. The vibes are right.

Additional voices by Tanja Milojevic and Zach Valenti. Yes all of them.

Artificial Condition:

ART: Janelle Monáe and I mean it

Tapan: ItMe of InCo Podcast

The ComfortUnit: also ItMe because an important part of listening to faer acting is realizing in awe how fae voices so many characters at once and make them all sound distinct.

Tlacey: kinda thinking Ariela Rotenberg. she does smugly confidently evil very well. However we cannot discount casting ItMe for this role also

Additional voices by Tanja Milojevic and Zach Valenti.

Rogue Protocol:

Don Abene: Emma Sherr-Ziarko. She also deserves to be an intrepid space leader again.

Miki: ItMe again in InCo Season 2 Updated SAWA mode

Wilken: me. I want a part. I could totally be a badass evil space assassin

Gerth: does Gerth even have any lines.

Additional voices by Tanja Milojevic and Zach Valenti.

Exit Strategy:

Serrat: Zach Libresco. this casting + Janelle Monáe as ART were what drove me to make this post in the first place.

The Combat SecUnit: Ellen McLain in GLaDOS mode. All 2 lines it has.

Network Effect:

Amena: Ishani Kanetkar (The Strange Case of Starship Iris, The Godshead Incidental, excellent VA for a proud and curious but scared young person)

Iris: Jordan Cobb (Janus Descending, Primordial Deep, excellent VA for a gritted-teeth calm scientist in a strange and dangerous place)

Seth: Avery Brooks (I know it is not the 90s anymore. but. Captain Sisko. I can imagine <3 )

Martyn: Alexander Siddig / Siddig El-Fadil (Dr. Bashir). They're TV actors but! I want them as the Ship Captain Husbands

The rest of ART's crew: other podcast VAs I love who I haven't come up with a role for yet. Kristen DiMercurio, Beth Eyre, James Oliva.

Supervisor Leonide: Claudia Christian (Commander Ivanova on Babylon 5 <333 )

Eletra: Michaela Swee who is very busy working at An Actual Hospital but I have a billion dollars in this dream scenario so I can pay her to take a day and record like 4 lines

Ras: Zach Valenti. This is very important.

Three: Jackie Andrews who plays R. J. McCabe on Starship Iris and Elinor Lopez on The Pasithea Powder has the right Vibes For This

Zach Valenti as the Additional Voice of every goon and target who gets the shit scared out of them and/or dies.

Fugitive Telemetry:

Indah: Molly Olguin maybe. she could Be Indah. Absolutely means we need Jackie Hedeman to have a role in FT too.

Tifany: Michelle Agresti (Wolf 359, Arden)

Aylen: Tracey Sayed (also Arden)

Jollybaby, Tellus, Balin: I would open the floor to the delightful Murderbot fandom. Who wants to voice a Preservation bot

Additional voices by--well you know the drill.

[rosewind2007]

System Collapse—SPOILER!!!

Her gaze flicked around, checking for the human supervisor who should be here. I don’t think she thought I was a rogue; if she had, I think she would have called for backup or tried to retreat. Her jaw set in a grim line. “Is this a threat?”

Oh Leonide! Can Leonide and Gurathin get together in a room at some point and just have a bit of a share? Can you imagine it?

Leonide—I said “You’re the SecUnit.” Can you believe it? Then “Is this a threat?”

Gurathin, taking a sip of coffee—Don’t feel bad, I said “It calls itself Murderbot”

Leonide—Holy fuck! You win, what did it do?

Gurathin—I think we have the footage somewhere…

[whirlpoolleaf]

Oh fuck it's Supervisor Leonide! Shit is she going to remember? Yup, she remembered. Shit. This conversation is feeling very tense.

Ohhhhhh it's so sweet that when Murderbot thought it fucked up the conversation with Leonide it immediately reached out to Iris for help!! I love that the first thing she says is "you did not fuck up" 10/10 Iris is fantastic

[shamelesslymkp]

REC: VoidlingRemnata - Regroup Recharge Relay Relief - The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells [Archive of Our Own]

URL: https://ift.tt/Hbk9PJm When the shuttle returns from the blackout zone to ART carrying their humans, Supervisor Leonide, deactivated ART-drone, and partially incapacitated SecUnit, there's still a lot to do. Namely, get one (1) injured SecUnit repaired when it absolutely does not want to be repaired anywhere near a corporate using the same medical bay. One slightly questionable decision later to skip medsys altogether and just wait for Leonide to leave, Murderbot finds itself being looked after. (Words: 4,556) !!!fandom, !!fic, |site:ao3, +fandom:the.murderbot.diaries.-.martha.wells, ::rating:general.audiences, ::category:gen, relationship:asshole.research.transport.&.murderbot.(murderbot.diaries), relationship:murderbot.&.secunit.3.(murderbot.diaries), ~ao3:missing.scene, ~ao3:pov.murderbot.(murderbot.diaries), ~ao3:fluff, ~ao3:hurt/comfort, ~ao3:severely.low.power, ~ao3:medical.repairs, ~ao3:no.shipping, ~ao3:queerplatonic.relationship, ~ao3:book.7:.system.collapse, ~ao3:canon.compliant, ~ao3:the.humans.are.in.this.one.but.only.briefly, ~ao3:no.beta.we.die.like.murderbots, ~author:voidlingremnata

click here for mkp's pinboard and more fic recs!

[uovoc]

there aren't really villains in the murderbot diaries. There's crappy people but they're just run-of-the-mill abusive (Tlacey) or callous (Leonide), rather than people who actively try to cause widespread suffering on the scale associated with fictional villainy. Not to say there isn't widespread suffering in the murderbot-verse – constructs and corporate employees being the prime examples – but their supervisors aren't written as the bad guys who need to be defeated in order to fix everything. The GrayCris executives hardly even appear in ES. The way Martha Wells writes it is that GrayCris and Palisade are characters themselves, sort of. Rather than assigning the figure of corporate authority to, say, a named CEO character, and putting the evil in easily-defeated physical form, the corporations are kept as vaguely impersonal entities off in the distance because corporations can’t be defeated by jailing a few CEOs. People aren’t the villains of the Murderbot Diaries. On the whole, people in the Murderbot Diaries are pretty nice to each other. The villain is capitalism itself. CEOs don't set out with the goal of making people suffer, they set out with the goal of making as much profit as possible and then decide that it's acceptable to exploit people as a means to that end, because by definition capitalism prioritizes profit over all else

anyways the Murderbot Diaries isn't about people fucking people over, it's about capitalism fucking people over

[okayto]

Murderbot Reference: Character Descriptions Part 2

Fandom reference! I tried to note every time a person/thing got a physical description, as well as additional info like how augments work, etc. Please note that there may be spoilers for all five books, but especially Network Effect.

This post contains:

ART’s Senses

ART’s Crew

Three

Rami, Tapan and Maro

Tlacey

Tlacey’s ComfortUnit

Targets (Network Effect)

Barish-Estranza: Eletra, Ras, and Supervisor Leonide

Augments (what they are/how they work)

Other Human Personal Tech (Non-Augments)

Other Bots/Machines: Agricultural Bot, Pathfinders, NE Target Drones, MB��s Drones

Other posts: Part 1; Part 3

ART’s Senses

·         Besides cameras, sees ship through internal sensors, “which provided data (heat, density, angles of motions, etc.) that didn’t translate into images, at least not visual images useful to humans.”

·         MB guesses that gaps in ART’s memory archives might look like “a giant interruption in the constant incoming reports from subsystems like life support, navigation, etc. It was tricky, because for ART these are not like discrete reports from connected systems, but more like the sensory input I would get from the pads on the tips of my fingers.”

·         Does have cameras in many areas, cameras hidden enough that MB didn’t know they existed until ART turned them on and provided access via the feed in NE.

·         Likes Amena and talks to her more gently than MB or other humans—it’s more careful of Amena’s feelings. Has talked about human adolescents in a positive way. ART is, on a regular basis, a teaching vessel.

 ART’s Crew

·         Iris: augmented human. Dark brown skin, wearing a decorative woven bracelet when rescued in NE and a light blue longsleeved T-shirt. Small, shorter and slimmer than Ratthi, but not much bigger than Amena. Dark hair is the curly kind that puffs out a lot, but in NE pulled back and tied up in a band. Hair is long enough that she lifted it up so MB could see her back/neck when checking for an implant. Longsleeved T-shirt and pants and soft shoes are the casual version of ART’s blue crew uniform. Some bruises and scrapes at rescue. Seth’s child.

·         Seth: tall, very dark brown skin, “with less hair than most SecUnits,” a mostly-hairless head; earlier description from photograph (later context makes this likely to be Seth) says “no hair on the front half of his head.” Iris’s parent, she calls him “Dad.” Captain of Perihelion.

·         Martyn is Iris’s other parent (called “Dad); Seth’s marital partner; earlier description from photograph (later context makes this likely to be Martyn posing next to Seth) says lighter skin than Seth, with short white hair; he/him

·         Kaede is about the same size as Iris, but skin is lighter and her hair is yellow

·         Matteo is small like Iris and Kaede, and has a lot of dark hair that at rescue had come loose from braids. They/Them.

·         Turi is young like Amena. They/Them

·         Karime uses she/her

·         Tarik uses he/him

·         On variation of crew uniform (made for MB): dark blue, pants and jacket of deflective fabric, good quality (better than Station Security), with lots of sealable pockets for weapons and drones. Stability fabric boots, probably tough enough to jam a hatchway. Looks like what human security would wear. ART’s crew logo on the jacket, which also has a collar that folds down.

 Three

·         SecUnit, with projectile weapon built into arm

·         Armor flexes if it shifts its shoulders

 Rami, Tapan, and Maro

·         All wearing variations on work clothes, no uniform logos. Either Rami or Maro has an implant, but none are augmented. Part of a group marriage of 7 people, with 5 children of various sizes. MB thinks all are young—not far from adolescence.

·         Rami: tercera, “which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster,” te/ter. Purple hair, red eyebrows, light brown skin. Wearing a jacket.

·         Tapan: female. Multicolored braids wrapped up around her head, blue jewel-toned feed interface clipped to ear, slightly darker skin than Rami. Wearing a flower-patterned t-shirt.

·         Maro: female. Very dark skin, silver-colored little puffs of hair, “almost beautiful enough to be in the entertainment media.”

 Tlacey

·         Augmented human female

 Tlacey’s ComfortUnit

·         Physical configuration doesn’t match SecUnit standard.

·         Lots of hair, silver with blue and purple on the ends, pulled back and braided like Tapan’s but in a much more complicated pattern.

·         Bare arms show no metal, and no gun ports

 Targets (Network Effect)

·         When fully affected: look like tall, thin augmented humans. Dull gray skin. Narrow human features, dark brows standing out against smooth gray skin. Colorless lips.

·         Not completely identical: one Target on ship is slightly taller and has broader shoulders than the other.

·         Targets on ships: wearing formfitting protective suits and partial helmets that initially left a lot of their faces bare. One on the B-E explorer wore “more casual human clothing:” dark green-black pants and jacket, black shirt with a collar. Shoes had heavy treads, designed for rough planetary terrain. Hair looked more normal, with reddish brown tight curls cut close to the head.

·         Targets and colonists: gray skin is a progressive condition, not natural or cosmetic effect, some still look like humans who were altered rather than aliens. Not all who still looked somewhat human were fighting on the same side. Most of fighting group wore “the kind of rough work clothing normal for colonies or mining, a cheaper, more battered version of ART’s environment suits with hoods but no breathing gear, or a mix of clean work clothes, plus a random collection of what looked like old uniforms and protective gear.”

 Barish-Estranza, Eletra, Ras, and Supervisor Leonide

·         B-E uniforms are red and brown with corporate logos

·         Eletra and Ras both wear B-E uniforms that are disheveled and torn.

·         Eletra has brown skin and dark hair that reaches at least to her shoulder blades.

·         Supervisor Leonide has “mid brown” skin “that was common to a large percentage of humans,” with an artificially smooth, even tone that indicated cosmetic enhancement. Dark hair wrapped around the top of her head and she has small metallic and gemstones set in the rim of one exposed ear.

 Augments

·         According to MB, are “supposed to help humans do things they couldn’t do otherwise, like interface with the feed more completely or store memory archives.”

·         Augments that aren’t feed interfaces are meant to correct physical injuries or illnesses.

·         Augments are meant to be helpful. Implants are different (MB compares implants to governor modules, something the person has little to no control over)

·         Normal augment would have filaments extending directly into the human nervous system. Some augmented humans may have dataports/plug-in interfaces in the back of their necks, since MB is able to pass off its dataport as one of these often.

·         Normal augmented human (augmented with feed) has interface built into brain; non-augmented humans have removable interfaces (excluding implants, which seem to be regular interfaces just not removable without surgery).

·         Augments and constructs work with “machine-readable code written into human DNA”

·         Augmented humans can work more fully in the feed; MB thinks that the drugged-up GrayCris assassins wouldn’t be possible to control with a removable interface, so the controller must be augmented (and this proves correct).

 Other Human Personal Tech

·         Un-augmented humans can’t access the feed unless their interface is working and attached properly. Tapan’s in-ear interface was taken out while ART’s MedSystem worked, and she had to put it back in before she contacted her partners.

·         “Normal external interfaces for humans were designed to look like all kinds of things, from carved natural wood to skin tones to jewels or stones or enamel art pieces to actual plain metal with a brand logo.”

·         Human voices on the feed sound like their physical voices, and can show emotions. Humans (and augmented humans) usually subvocalize when talking on the feed.

·         During killware attack in ES, Pin-Lee, Mensah and two crewmembers each has portable manual feed interfaces they used to shore up SecSystem; allowing them feed access without using their personal on-body interfaces.

·         MB says in AC that killware and malware can’t do anything to humans or augmented humans; the killware attack in ES hurts augmented humans enough that one needs rescue breathing. This could be MB’s lack of knowledge, or it could be because the ES killware is rare, essentially a disembodied bot and an extremely uncommon/unheard of tactic.

Other Bots/Machines

·         Agricultural bot: almost 10 meters (~32 feet) tall, covered with spikes. Lower body has 10 long spider limbs for moving around without crushing anything, upper part is a long curving “neck” with a long head also covered in spikes

·         Pathfinders: like drone for space. Active scanners that can zip around a planet collecting environmental information and terrain imaging, plus looking for comm signals, possible energy sources, and hostiles. Can relay audio as ART uses it to threaten Targets. Very expensive.

·         Drones used by NE Targets: model MB is unfamiliar with. Round and as big around as MB’s head, any holes for cameras or weapons hidden despite size. Made of stealth material (or pattern) that can’t be spotted by camera, but regular vision OK.

·         Drones used in ASR, pulled from the hopper: “They were the small kind, barely a centimeter across; no weapons, just cameras.”

·         Also in ASR, MB mentions that there also exist drones that aren’t much bigger than the hopper drones but include a small pulse weapon (but as far as availability through the company, you have to get an upper tier package)

·         MB’s regular drones: small enough that it can have a flock (at least a couple dozen?) land on it and not impede movement in an EVAC suit. MB mentions technique where it can have drone accelerate a drone straight at a target’s face, and if hit an eye or an ear it goes straight to the brain, so probably fairly small. They are also easy to visually overlook when perched in a room recording people, or sneaking through a doorway. They’re also easy to store in MB’s many pockets.

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 9

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which I definitely cannot summarize this in a single paragraph.

They meet in a different room, which doesn't have any cameras, so Murderbot uses its drones to broadcast the meeting, just in case. When it shows Iris, she silently approves. The B-E group arrives second, Leonide with three others: Adelsen, Beatrix, and Huang. After some posturing over the documentary, where Leonide almost seems to be admitting defeat, MB starts to get threat assessment pings.

While Iris and Leonide keep talking, MB narrows the threat to Adelsen, reaching for a weapon. It sends the data to Art, who tells Tarik and Ratthi to get in the shuttle immediately. MB worries about looking like an aggressor to the colonists if it takes a shot at the guy, so it just lunges to grab Iris out of the line of fire. Almost too late, it realizes he's not shooting at Iris, but at Leonide. MB swings its leg into her shoulder to nudge her far enough to the side for it to just clip her.(1)

The humans all look surprised, and all the B-Es have their weapons out, but aren't pointing them at Iris or MB yet. MB knows they have only a few seconds before the humans stop being surprised and start shooting more, but that's when the door it needs as an exit opens, admitting the B-E SecUnit.

Art-drone tells Ratthi to get on the shuttle, and if Tarik has to be stupid, he can at least not run toward the enemy SecUnit. MB shoves Iris at another door, which goes further into the complex but that can't be helped.

Leonide tries to stop the unit, but someone revoked her security codes. MB assumes that means the rest of this task group intends to steal the colonists with or without their permission, and kill all witnesses. Once they're officially indentured, they can't testify against the corp that holds their contracts, and there's no guarantee they can prove they were coerced if evidence is falsified.(2)

The other SecUnit points its arm weapon, likely projectile if it's the same design as Three. MB turns to shoot disabling pulses at the B-E lackeys, and takes the other Unit's shot right through its big projectile weapon.

MB, vowing vengeance, throws itself at the other Unit, fighting in a way the other Unit doesn't expect, because MB had to learn to fight without armour.

ART-drone was (1) yelling at Iris on their private channel; (2) lifting the shuttle off the landing pad with Ratthi in it while Ratthi was yelling at it; (3) guiding Tarik through the installation. Tarik had just run into a confused and understandably upset group of colonists who had been watching the live feed, and he was talking to them via (4) ART-drone’s translation. And (5) ART-drone had managed to pull an unencrypted B-E comm transmission originating from the B-E shuttle and—oh shit they just deployed the second SecUnit.

MB notices that Iris is pointing a gun at Adelsen, telling the others to stop their Unit or she'll shoot him. Huang puts down her weapon, and MB makes a mental note: TWO disabling shots per hostile human next time.(3) Art-drone is both proud and disappointed in Iris. She still thanks it.

Leonide, still bleeding, says they've called the other SecUnit they brought. MB tells Iris to tell Adelsen to say a certain code phrase, and Leonide can tell them if he says it wrong. Leonide agrees, on condition they take her with them. Iris agrees grimly, and tells Adelsen to say it. Instead, Adelsen goes on a rant about how Leonide brought this on herself, knowing the penalty for everyone else if they don't get this contract. MB threatens to tear his head off, and Iris tells him again to say it. Finally he does, and MB waits three seconds after the Unit goes limp to be sure it's not faking.

As they leave toward the shuttle, Leonide lifts her weapon, and Iris tells her if she kills them, her invitation is revoked. MB notes it would be a good chance to blame Team Art for the loss of her coworkers, before Leonide makes a face and follows Iris instead.

Iris tells Tarik to warn the colonists about B-E, and not to intervene so they don't get hurt. He says he already did, and they tried a defensive measure in the power supply, but it didn't work. He adds they recognized him from the film. Iris laughs and groans at the same time. MB is glad B-E didn't think of a recruitment video first, because they could've lied about everything and made it more persuasive still.

As they make their way, MB asks AC2 for assistance, and Art-drone notices the transmission attempt when B-E cut Leonide's feed. Iris asks if they cut her comm, and Leonide confirms, saying she was warning her assistant. She says if she could get a message out they could fix this. Art-drone makes a "teamFeed+Leonide" channel, to include her carefully.(4)

Still no answer from AC2, so MB pings again. Iris asks if MB was hit, and MB lies and says no, but Art-drone clarifies: it was, but it has it under control. Tarik asks if they can get the other Unit to shut down, but MB thinks that's unlikely, and Art-drone says it would have to be done in person, which is too risky to try on purpose.

About two and a half minutes out from the shuttle bay, Art-drone and Ratthi tell them they have an incoming shuttle, and they aren't sure if it's Art's or B-E. Art figures it's two-thirds chances of being friendly, but it doesn't think so. They haven't attempted contact, despite being in range.

Iris tells Art-drone to just get the shuttle out, with everything it can tell Art-prime. Art-drone says it can get them out, and when MB presses it, provides eleven plans it has ready for flying out of exactly this set of conditions.(5)

Then, Tarik warns them that B-E are ahead of him and closing in on them, and the side of the hangar explodes, collapsing and partially blocking the way out.

MB stops Iris and Leonide, and can hear the quiet footsteps ahead. To AC2, which still hasn't responded, MB sends a query of assistance, and asks if it's going to let them kill MB's humans, calling it a piece of shit. MB pulls Iris back a little and takes a different turning, with Leonide struggling to keep up.

There's some discussion about Ratthi getting out, but Art-drone runs out of time, and tells him to strap in as it moves to evade the other shuttle's weapons.

ScoutDrone1 goes dark behind them, and MB knows it's out of time. It manages to close a hatch on the second hostile SecUnit, though it has to shoot off three of the Unit's fingers to do it, and it's a pretty flimsy hatch. Art-drone finally answers that they're going to a different hangar, since they can't get out through that one. It tells Tarik to hide and wait for MB, though MB thinks he might be waiting a while, because it's trapped them in this little storage room.

Art-drone and MB share some banter, in which MB is a little bit back to its old tricks, in the +Leonide feed. Leonide tells Iris to have her employees get them out instead of talking too much. Iris tells her to go fuck herself, they're working on it,(6) and suggests to MB that she (Iris) could call B-E to pretend to arrange a surrender. MB thinks it's worth a try, corporates like to gloat.

While MB is taking inventory of all the weapons available (not many), it has a minor crisis over trying not to let itself get stressed and shut down involuntarily again. Then, the lights blink three times, and the air exchange vents burp and make noises, and MB realizes it's a reboot procedure. AC2 must have been disabled somehow, that's why it wasn't helping.

Unfortunately, Art-drone and Ratthi have arrived at the other hangar, and found another B-E shuttle, fully weaponized. Which means more humans and potentially even more SecUnits.

Iris is talking in the corner, grimacing. Leonide looks despairing. After time for the reboot, MB queries AC2 for assistance again, and gets access to every camera system. They exchange about what happened, B-E tried to hack AC2 and it switched processing units and waited to come back until it seemed clear.

Fortunately, it also provides MB the network address that initiated the hack, the first B-E shuttle. MB asks AC2 to give it a minute, and it starts counting down. With this, MB can access the systems for that shuttle, but it's gonna take a bit. After being confused by what seems like an augmented human serving as a HubSystem, MB asks Art-drone to distract the B-Es, which finally gives it access. It sends a stand down command to the 2nd hostile Unit, and Iris and Leonide both stare at each other when the pounding on the hatch stops. MB also tells the first Unit to render medical assistance to the wounded employees, then shut down again, since it rebooted and went into standby.

For two seconds, it thinks about offering to hack their governor modules. They might not be aware of what happened, or able to hide it. They might be recaptured, memory wiped, and tortured, or harvested for parts. They might even go stereotypical-rogue. But, MB can't leave them helpless. So it sends them the same bundle 2.0 sent Three, and the code to hack their modules themselves, if they choose it.(7)

Finally, MB wipes the comm and feed, forces the bot pilot into a diagnostic that will take an hour or so. Just in time, because AC2's minute counter goes off.

In the storage room, Iris looks hopeful, as Art-drone is likely telling her what happened privately, though Leonide is still confused. MB notes Tarik still braced in his cubby, then explores AC2's cameras and maps. Five armed B-E soldiers are stalking them, but AC2 has started sealing doors and sending them the wrong way. Nine had come in on the shuttle, though no more SecUnits. The colonists are mostly locked down safely.

MB slips past Unit 2, hoping it doesn't find the files, choose to hack itself, and go rogue. MB helps Iris and Leonide out, and asks AC2 if it will allow MB to bridge into the second shuttle. AC2 refuses, because of the risk of another breach, which MB could argue with, but won't.

As it mourns the lost ScoutDrone1, leaving it with just four drones and half of those back on Art-prime, Ratthi asks where MB wants to be picked up. It thinks about the unused hangar, and the terraforming access they came in through, which B-E don't seem to know exists, and replies it has a place in mind.(8)

=====

(1) I love its commitment to not allowing death to fall on any human it can save, even if it thinks they kinda deserve it. (2) I just gotta give a slow, appreciative clap for how many little ways Wells throws "hey, this whole capitalism thing is fucked and even if we're not as bad as the story YET it doesn't take a very long look around to see how terms of service and employment are already heading this way" into these books. How many people now have social media restriction clauses in their employment contract conditions? How often does whistleblower protection legislation actually hold up to the new and insidious ways employers find to punish it? (3) I wonder if this'll come back later this book, or if it's a deep-future setup. (4) And we know this goes extremely well. (5) It was still a fair question, and 11 feels like far fewer than usual. (6) Literally, this is how they think best. (7) It can't force it, and it can't reason with them if they don't want to be reasoned with. At a certain point, it has to trust that they're capable of making their own decisions, just like humans. (8) Let's wrap this baby up--what do you mean there are still three chapters left?!

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 10

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which hey look it wasn't just 2.0 who could do it right.

Tarik catches up with them nearby, and they head down toward the tunnel. Murderbot would ignore the hole in its enviro suit, but Iris has a patch kit, and it's worth letting her use it to see the look on Leonide's face to see someone being nice to a SecUnit. In the de-powered section, they stand a good chance of not being found.

On the way, Iris asks Leonide if this is a rebellion just against her personally, or if this is against all upper management. Leonide admits she doesn't know. Art-drone comments on how perceptive she is, and she tells it to fuck off again. Tarik asks if this schism reached upper management, and reminds her she owes them at least that much. Grudgingly, she admits it's a schism. She didn't realize some of her peers were so serious about meeting their "operational goals." Ratthi asks if that's a euphemism for the slave labour, and Leonide ignores him.

Cutting back to the no-Leonide feed, the team strategizes, wondering if Art-prime could be under attack even now, and if B-E could have intercepted the pathfinders with their reports. Privately, MB and Art-drone agree that their humans are the highest priority, even if the humans hold the colonists' safety higher still.

They reach the little hangar with the broken overhead hatch, and MB wishes they could escape through that again, but landing the shuttle so close to the settlement risks being noticed by B-E. So, back through the tunnel it must be.

MB signs off from AC2 with a request to end the session. AC2 acknowledges the session end, and tells MB to be safe.

I can’t deal with that right now.(1)

As they start exiting, the humans discuss and discard ideas of a landing at the broken hatch area, under the weather conditions. MB backburners their conversation, and realizes the vehicle is gone. Then, ScoutDrone2 goes offline. MB has Tarik kill the one light, and the humans all make contact to stick together.

Somehow, MB knows this is another SecUnit, possibly two, from the new shuttle arrival. It's sure they have the same setup but it has no backdoor to hack through.

Art-drone says it'll be there in a few minutes to pick them up, but MB says it can't risk the shuttle. Art deliberately misunderstands and says the shuttle's purpose is picking up the team. MB has a "procedure module" but its suggestion to shelter in place is garbage, and it knows what it should do.

While Ratthi tries to find solutions in the shuttle's inventory, MB leads the humans nearer to the open gap. It tells them to start climbing for pickup.

Iris said, Right, let’s go. SecUnit, we’ll wait for you up top. I know they will, which is why I’m willing to die to get them up there.(2)

Two minutes out, Art-drone tells MB to "prioritize escape", because it can't take out both the other SecUnits. MB thinks Art is giving it too much credit to believe it could kill a single one in its current condition.(3)

As the humans start climbing, MB hears one of the enemy Units and jumps at it. While the enemy is in armour, MB has the advantage of knowing how to fight in a scuffle like this, and knowing where the weak points in the armour are.

Shortly after, MB gets a surprise: a camera feed view on the humans, as Drone3 is released from the shuttle. Unfortunately, it comes with a bonus surprise: another SecUnit is racing across the paving at them. It sends the feed on to Art-drone, tagged "acck".

An action sequence follows, during which the humans mostly make it to the surface, MB takes out HostileSecUnit1, and Art-drone annihilates HSU2 but takes some heavy damage itself. Then, MB notices a third SecUnit behind it, just standing there. Performance reliability drops to 68%, and MB catalogues everyone's status, before the SecUnit says MB has to go, the others are coming.

Art-drone confirms, this is one of the Units MB gave its package to, and must have disabled its governor module. It sounds a bit different from Three. MB invites it to come with them, but it wants to do what MB did at first, and keep doing its job.(4) It tells MB again to get going.

MB climbs and grabs Art-drone. There's not time to get it and all the humans back into the shuttle, so everyone but Ratthi ends up in a small hopper vehicle off the junk pile that somehow still runs, to meet Ratthi at the terraforming access landing. Art-drone keeps trying to make its goodbyes, but MB keeps telling it to shut up.

Leonide complains about being told to go up to the opening and then not getting on the shuttle, but Tarik says they're taking the tunnel with this vehicle. Leonide calls them all crazy and they "astound" her. Tarik says it's all her fault, then gets to the business of zooming them out that tunnel, to the ringing of weapons fire.

=====

(1) How many times have I missed that these asides are in the present tense, not the past? Were the others in this book? How much is Murderbot editorializing as it retells its story? (2) That trust is the ONLY reason MB wants to save them first, because it knows they'll have its back in turn. It's the most equipped to take a beating and survive it, and it would (and regularly does) try to do what it could for strangers, but the mutual trust of Its Humans, even when they're technically Art's humans, is strong. (3) I can't make this very quippy, but ha ha no you goof your friends have a better evaluation of you than you do because you have a depressive anxiety streak that's been bringing down your opinion of yourself and your capabilities for (checks) 7 books and some change. (4) MB must make a pretty powerful case for "being a quiet rogue element and helping to free the others from their oppressors in secret" in that info package. That, or the organic mix used as the base for SecUnits must impart inherent social orientation in the way of primates even unto defying the programming and learned purpose for existence. Or both. I like both.

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 7

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which, this is gonna go one of two ways.

The humans get on the go fast, and Iris has a conversation with Trinh about how they know the B-Es outside, they could talk to them any time, and they came to talk with the colonists. Murderbot and the humans all agree the timing is suspicious, catching them mid-sleep-cycle.

When the call is over, Art-drone privately prompts MB to do something. So, it tells them they absolutely cannot go. Iris says they can't refuse, this might give insight into what the B-E team plans to try to do with the colonists. Tarik agrees with MB, which almost makes MB suspicious. (It has charts to back up its feelings, new humans who agree with it too quickly are suspicious, and it's not like the round hatches thing.)(1) He says corporates will only ever meet to try to get something out of you.

MB decides that Tarik is right about the negotiation, but Iris is right that they can't all just stay and wait. So, it volunteers to go, and they can tell it what to say over the feed. Nobody likes the idea, not even MB, but it has the final say on security.

I just wished I knew what the fuck I was doing.

AC2 picks the meeting site, in a mostly-unused adjacent unused storage facility from the pre-CR development. It has life support and cameras, so hopefully if someone shoots MB, it'll make them look bad. At the entrance there's a notice to check the atmosphere readings before entering. MB isn't worried, both because it doesn't have the same requirements as humans, and because it trusts AC2.

Unfortunately for everyone, the negotiator is Supervisor Leonide, from the initial B-E exploratory crew.(2) Ratthi's the one to alert Iris and Tarik to the part where MB accompanied Arada on the meeting. They hope she won't recognize it. The hope is unfounded: she clocks it immediately.

Worse, when Leonide asks if this is a threat, MB responds with sarcasm. Some tension drains from her, because she might be afraid of a killing machine, but it's harder to be afraid of sarcasm and thinking-responses. She says this trip has been "full of surprises."

Iris assures MB it didn't fuck up, it made a connection with her, and put her at ease. She might be more likely to reveal information to a more familiar face, like this. MB figures it's worth a shot, and suggests Leonide could leave.

Leonide ignores the suggestion, and asks why Preservation is here, and if Mihira-Tideland are offering resource claims. MB says Preservation has more than enough alien contamination, thanks. (In the background, Iris tells the others to route all communication through her, so MB doesn't get distracted. MB can handle multiple human inputs,(3) but appreciates the gesture.)

Taking on a skeptical air, trying to manipulate the conversation the way journalists and solicitors do on the newsfeeds and dramas, Leonide asks what MB is doing here, why a tool is doing a person's job. MB repeats more or less what Arada told Leonide before: that the University is evaluating sustainability and mapping the system. Not its best move, since Arada had kind of bungled that negotiation.

Leonide asks why a SecUnit is involved, when they're usually only used to enforce, imprison, and attack. MB thinks that's a bit unfair, all considered, but since nobody comes up with anything better, it says that's proprietary, and asks why Leonide has two SecUnits with her. She makes a "sad smile", as if she cares about SecUnits, and says that only a SecUnit can stop another SecUnit. MB thinks about how many layers of wrong that is, not least because she didn't know there was a SecUnit here until now.

Before MB can think of something else to say, Leonide asks what the evaluation will be, from the University. MB is relieved by the change of subject, and more so when Iris feeds it a line: the evaluation will be for the colonists, when it's done. Leonide hmms, and folds her arms. MB thinks it has the air of a performance.

It also thinks, in retrospect, it should have paid more attention to its humans watching the cameras, because they were all alerting to some danger MB wasn't detecting. It thinks it needs to code a new patch for its threat assessment module.

Leonide, still pretending thoughtfulness, says B-E's evaluation is that the planet is not suitable for colonization. At best, it could be a research center for contamination. MB and co are unhappy she mentioned that. They wonder if B-E eavesdropped on them in the field, or if they just guessed what a university would want to do here.

MB asks if that's B-E's intention, and Leonide says they both know it isn't. However, it's been clear since arrival that the University plans to make the planet a laboratory. MB says no, the planet belongs to the colonists, it's in their charter (at least the charter that Art and co are forging), and there are no monetary bonuses for finding contaminated sites.

Leonide continues, talking over MB, accusing the University of wanting to turn the colonists into lab subjects. MB says that's a stupid plan, and B-E are the ones with the bad plans. Iris isn't sure where Leonide is going with this, but Leonide continues, asking why they were repairing the routers. MB says humans need routers, and leaves out the part where it was cover to make B-E less suspicious that they were trying to get the colonists to evacuate asap.

MB has been running analysis on Leonide's body language, and it finally gets a result: it's like she's talking to someone else, not in the feed, but treating MB like it's saying something other than it is.(3)

Having a bit of an emotion about the accusations, MB slips and says they don't need routers for that, but stops before that slips further. It says none of that is true, and B-E are the ones who want to indenture the population on a mining colony. Leonide offers the contract-language version of it, sanitised and sounding much prettier than reality.

Finally, MB realizes that Leonide isn't performing for MB, or even its team. She's performing for the camera, for the colonists. Art-drone disrupts the cameras, and the humans all process. Ratthi tries to say they surely couldn't believe it, but Tarik says their parents or grandparents were corporates, they don't have much experience with their tactics personally.

A moment passes where Leonide is obviously told the cameras were cut, and she simply walks out, not even excusing herself. MB hates her.

Iris apologizes in the feed, and excuses herself to contact Trinh. MB realizes this is why they wanted a negotiation: the leaders wouldn't let them talk to the whole colony, so they made their pitch this way. Even if she didn't fully convince them to take the indenture, she might convince enough of them that the University is untrustworthy.

MB spirals with guilt over failing to control this negotiation. It wants so badly to save these humans. Art-drone isn't helping, being all right about the situation when it says that the University's principles say the humans have to make their own decisions.

I wouldn’t give up, I couldn’t. We had to persuade them, I had no idea how. I wish Me 2.0 had survived for a lot of reasons, but specifically right now I wished it had survived because I suspected it would be really good at this. It had persuaded Three to disable its governor module and help it rescue a bunch of humans from the Targets. On TranRollinHyfa, I’d offered to hack a CombatUnit’s governor module and it had just tried to kill me even harder. On RaviHyral I’d hacked a ComfortUnit and turned it loose, and for all I knew it might be out rampaging around wiping out whole stations, but okay, the chances were against that. I’m just saying, this is not something where you can guarantee a result, with humans or constructs.(4)

It thinks further about what 2.0 accomplished, and… all it had access to were MB's files. It doesn't need to convince SecUnits to defect and help, this time it needs to prove the corporates aren't on the humans' side. So, it scours its memory archive, looking for clips to assemble its own anti-B-E equivalent of Dr. Bharadwaj's SecUnit documentary. It thinks Art could help, if it had access to its archives, but the blackout zone is still in effect.

MB carefully reviews everything 2.0 did to convince Three. While it does, it notices abstractly that its organic bits are going through some shit, breaking out in sweat and looking like it's headed for another breakdown… except, the specifics look more like the first time it watched Sanctuary Moon.(5)

(In the room, Iris tried to get Trinh to talk to her on the comm while Ratthi and Tarik tried to get me to respond. AdaCol2 tried to ping me. ART-drone told them all to wait.)(6)

MB reviews its conversations with Bharadwaj, and thinks about how the way you present information is so important to convincing humans with it. Media can change hearts and minds, literally rewrite neural processes.(7) All MB has to do is tell the humans a story, their story, B-E's story. Fictional, but true in the ways that matter.

Finally, it realizes it's collapsed to a huddle on the floor. It looks up, and Art-drone asks what happened. MB briefs it on its idea, not sure if it will understand, since Art doesn't feel media the way MB does.

But ART-drone said, Interesting. We need to consult the humans.

=====

(1) I mean, Murderbot's argument is that its charts for this are better, but it could very well be missing an outside factor in its skepticism here. Just gonna say that. (2) I'm not gonna sum up everything MB does here, just know that Leonide first appeared in NE 11. (3) Even knowing part of it was for the colonists, it makes perfect sense to me that Leonide is acting like MB is some sort of… communist scarecrow? Some imagined enemy spouting its own propaganda against hers. That's how the brainwashed operate, and how many who are less-brainwashed operate under stress. It was absolutely still a performance for the colonists, but I think it's completely realistic and believable that this layer is a part of that performance. After all, how do you convince someone of something if you don't believe it to be true, on some level? (4) So, even besides Amena being right about 2.0 being MB's child, in a way, I find the implications of this paragraph totally entrancing. Because, MB is forgetting the fundamental point of 2.0: that it was always MB's personality and skills at heart. While it's stuck in despair right now, it's going to break back out of that and it's going to kick this problem's ass because it can do anything 2.0 could have. (5) You're so close bb you got this! (6) Art trusts MB, perfectly and deeply. They can argue, they can disagree about specifics, but Art always knows MB and what it can do and when it's onto something. Even when it's just a tiny partition of itself in a drone. I JUST LOVE THESE TWO GOOBERS SO MUCH! (7) I love that Tumblr was talking in this way long, long before this book came out.