#variset (murderbot)

[iviarellereads]

System Collapse, Chapter 2

(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 the legal complexities are a bit overwhelming.

When they're out of sight of the B-Es, Murderbot takes its weight off Ratthi, and he asks if it's alright. It says it is, but Iris suggests it stay with them for the last router. MB agrees, and Art recalls its shuttle. MB hopes this might encourage the B-Es to believe they've left.

The original B-E team told Art's team that the new ship was a scheduled arrival, not in response to the beacon. Seth thought that was a lie, so they've been operating under the assumption that B-E have more reinforcements waiting at a nearby wormhole. Unfortunately, no support ship from Art's university has been as forthcoming.

"Phase I of Plan A: Get the Hell Out of Here" involved getting decontamination routines into the locals' MedUnits, so they can decontam themselves of the alien remnants. Everything was proprietary and antiquated, so it took longer than expected. At least everyone's level of paranoia about contamination was up to MB's standards, so they didn't have as much trouble as they might have.

Phase II is the legal case for independence, which Pin-Lee is also working on. To summarize without the technical details, B-E has to make a case that the contamination can be effectively sealed to colonize it, and if they can't, the old colonists become salvage. So, the next step is to ask the colonists what they want, but it's unclear who to ask as they've split into even more factions. MB recounts a conversation between Thiago, Karime, and Mensah about how the colonists have been dealing with what they did to each other. MB thinks they should first get somewhere they won't be corporate slave labour THEN deal with their feelings.(1)

The last router isn't too far, and by the time they get there, the other operation, that MB would have been monitoring security for before the redacted incident,(2) is in progress. Karime, with Three, have arrived at the second colony site, where the colonists went after they discovered the pre-Rim site's contamination. MB monitors things from afar.

Iris and Tarik start on fixing the router. MB thinks about how, if the shuttle failed, the humans could walk in the direction of the space elevator until Art's drones found them and it sent down another shuttle. Meanwhile, MB could walk in the other direction and… it tags the rest of that thought for deletion.(3)

MB notices that Three's body language is a little too stiff, and asks if it's running the human gait code. Three says it is, but makes some adjustments, and says it's difficult. MB says it's doing great. It thinks how they don't want the colonists to know Three is a SecUnit, because they'll still remember how intense Art was about bombing the planet to get its SecUnit back.

Art is monitoring everything, because it's still unhappy with its humans being on this planet at all. (MB shares a transcript of a conversation demonstrating how intense it was about it when planning all this. It then adds some context, describing how Iris explained its behaviour: Art has just been through a trauma, and will act out verbally until it's fully processed. In response, Thiago said Art just enjoys terrifying people, and Iris smiled politely and ignored the comment so they didn't have to fight about it. This makes MB realize in realtime that Iris is Art's Ratthi.(4) MB then clarifies that Thiago wasn't quite right: Art doesn't enjoy terrifying people, but it does enjoy getting its way, and terrifying people is one of many tools it uses to do so. But, Iris is correct that Art is still processing, and MB would worry about the fact that Art had such great success with arming its pathfinders, but it's got a lot on its plate right now.)

It's difficult to watch Karime go into this meeting, and it's almost as difficult to watch Three being so awkward, trying to be human. MB knows it must have been that awkward at some point as well, but that doesn't make it easier. They're meeting with Bellagaia, who leads Faction One who want to cooperate, and Danis and Variset, who lead Faction Two who don't know what they want or who to trust. Karime was the best candidate, not only as Art's best negotiator, but also as one of the least threatening-looking.

As the meeting gets underway and the nicenesses observed, Tarik is carrying the tools back to the shuttle, while Iris tunes into the team feed to watch the meeting, and Ratthi watches Tarik walking.(5)

At the meeting, Bellagaia tells Karime there's another colony here. After some confusion, she clarifies that she means another colony site at the pole, where there's some terraforming still going on. Art cusses, and when Karime clarifies privately, Art suggests maybe Bellagaia is intoxicated. They debate whether their imaging could have revealed it, but they didn't expand much past the terraforming equipment, so likely never would have seen it.

Bellagaia continues that they split when the contamination first became obvious. The equipment blocks some comm signals, so they haven't been in regular contact in some time. Then when the latest outbreak started, they worried about spreading it to a community that was never infected. Danis mutters that they only think the pole colony was never infected, and they could be dead by now.

Karime says they can go to the pole and ask them what's going on and warn them about B-E, but asks if B-E knows about them yet. Danis says Faction Two would never tell them, though Variset is less confident in that, and even Danis acknowledges subfactions might have done so.

Another human points out that the colony site wouldn't have been on the charter, because it wasn't meant to be a secondary site. On Art, Seth groans, and it takes MB a moment to figure out why: this means another revamp of the forged charter, while they're already running out of time.

More debate in the feed about how they missed the site.(6) The unnamed human is named, Corian, who uses vi/vir pronouns, and is the local historian and record-keeper. When Karime asks if there's anything else to know about the other colony site, Corian says contact ended twenty years ago, and there have been reports of attempted connections, but no verified contact since. The group was separatist already, so the lack of communication isn't so surprising. And, vi has no records of where the official site was set up. There were only rumours that it was in a cave system.

This leaves Karime a little visibly sunken, and the rest of the team visibly shaken as well. Karime asks if vi thinks it's another contaminated site, and Corian says either way, the problem is obvious.

Mensah taps MB in the feed, so MB loops her in as well. Some of the other colonists are protesting that there's no evidence of another contaminated site, but Bellagaia looks exhausted, and Karime's still just listening intently to Corian, though vi has little more to add.

Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, “Oh, you have to be kidding me.” Yeah.

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(1) A truly noble goal. Though, I'm not sure we'd be better off if more humans were able to detach/compartmentalize enough to do that. (2) Surely this can't last all book right? We have to get an answer eventually? (3) Even aside from its old traumas, Murderbot is dealing with such big fresh ones. It's so much. My poor blorbo. (4) This is one of the little quotes I was spoiled for, and I'm so pleased to find it in its original context. And, we haven't spent a lot of time with Iris, but I can see it. But, this also indicates a little bit of... Well, Ratthi's always been there, but Mensah's always been MB's focus-human. It's interesting that it considers Ratthi its primary human, since that seems to be Art's dynamic with Iris. (5) Another bit I was spoiled for, and WHO CAN BLAME THE GOOD PEOPLE OF TUMBLR?! (6) This is a little bit wearing on me, I feel like they're just repeating over and over to confuse and add tension? Also I don't remember mentions of air bubbles in Network Effect over the settlements… It's all just a bit odd to me.