Dr. Mensah, at my signal, please drop to the floor of the pod in a crouch and cover your head.
wallacepolsom
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH

⁂
Xuebing Du
YOU ARE THE REASON
trying on a metaphor

roma★
🪼
Sade Olutola

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
$LAYYYTER
Cosimo Galluzzi

Janaina Medeiros
occasionally subtle

@theartofmadeline
NASA

#extradirty

shark vs the universe

pixel skylines

oozey mess

seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from France

seen from United States

seen from Bolivia

seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Colombia

seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Australia
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seen from Australia
seen from United States

seen from France
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seen from United States
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@art-drone
Dr. Mensah, at my signal, please drop to the floor of the pod in a crouch and cover your head.
Holism is like a square orange
Leonide, at the end of System Collapse: AND I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT* TOO, IF IT WEREN'T FOR THOSE MEDDLING NERDS!
*abducting a couple hundred people for conscripted hard labor.
I'm rereading "System Collapse" and it's really standing out to me this time that Ratthi is probably Murderbot's best (human) friend. They are protective of each other; mb is notably more protective of Ratthi than of its other human companions, and while Ratthi worries about Murderbot's well-being, he also refrains from patronizing it the way others do. They regularly reference their shared history, and it's clear from mb's comments in the narration that they spend time together on Preservation. Murderbot mentions having read multiple of Ratthi's publications, and compliments Ratthi's writing when it asks him to revise its script for the documentary. Ratthi is tactful, but is notably always direct with Murderbot, even when the other characters are not (e.g. bluntly telling it "it was a sexual discussion," after Tarik and ART both try to tell Murderbot it's none of its business) and pretty immediately takes its side anytime *anyone* expresses any doubts as to its competence or motives. Murderbot seems to take some comfort from his presence at several stressful moments. And, of course, it notes early on that Iris is "ART's Ratthi," which is pretty telling when you consider that Iris and ART canonically (per the Rapport short story) have a relationship akin to siblings.
I actually picked "System Collapse" to reread because I wanted some Mutual Administrative Assistance, so it's kind of funny that I'm getting warm feels about the Ratthi-Murderbot dynamic instead.
Murderbot: which one won’t kill me in the vaccum of space
Ratthi: life-tender, idk what it looks like tho-
Gurathin: that one there. SecUnit wtf?
Murderbot: thx bye 👋
On the topic of deeply underrated characters: Senior officer Indah.
I desperately need a fic of Indah and SecUnit being work wives.
Indah gets over her fear and suspicion of SecUnit through the course of FT (and certainly after the GrayCris assassination attempt). She was already well on her way there midway through the FT mystery:
I secured a connection with Indah’s feed: I have an idea.
She replied, Well, your last idea didn’t work out so badly. Let’s hear it.
Murderbot also develops a slow respect for her, as much as it respects any human that does security.
Wouldn't it be fun to see Indah trying to learn more about security from SecUnit? Wouldn't it be fun to see SecUnit training the station security teams about hacking and hand to hand combat and how to disarm different types of combatants? Wouldn't it be fun to see Indah teaching Murderbot about forensic sweeps and investigations?
She said, “I’ll authorize the hard currency card payment for you. And I assume you’re open to another contract the next time something weird happens.”
I paused in the doorway. The expected wave of depression at the idea of ever doing this again had somehow not happened. Huh. I said, “Only if it’s really weird.” She said, “Understood.”
I just deeply love the idea of Indah sending a feed message like "hey guess what, we've got another weird one. You in?"
SecUnit : I'm already on my way. See you in 2 minutes.
Indah: how did you know where .. you know what, I don't want to know. See you shortly.
[Voice of someone meeting their soon-to-be best friend in the entire universe]: You made a mistake, Murderbot, a really bad mistake.
Animated version of panel 2 below the cut; warning for bright moving lights/eyestrain.
My conclusion having read tmbd
I've seen so many posts about Mensah's perspective of ART/Network Effect, how have I not seen one's about ART's crew's perspective. Network Effect as told by Seth.
You have a child who is an extremely powerful (somewhat illegal) machine intelligence. It's a good kid, mostly, except it doesn't play well with others. Your kid periodically goes on short trips by itself, and this has always been fine.
One time, it comes back and it's acting... weird. It keeps bringing up things it has no reason to know about and then dodging questions about it. Finally, you get it to admit that it picked up a hitchhiker on this on this trip, even though you have very strict rules about never picking up hitchhikers. This hitchhiker is obviously it's new favorite person. They watched soap operas together. Your kid loves soap operas now. Your kid shows you a bunch of pictures of this hitchhiker, but won't tell you details because the hitchhiker in question is a wanted criminal on the run and also an escaped slave. This is probably fine (you sure hope it's fine).
Then, you and the rest of your family/friends get fucking kidnapped and used as hostages to make your kid behave. You know that your kid 1) will do anything to protect you, and 2) pretty much always goes for violence first, so you have your doubts about any of this going well.
Then, the hitchhiker your kid will not shut up about appears out of thin air in the middle of a firefight on a planet pretty much no one has any reason to be near and says your kid sent it. It proves this by telling you your kid is a dickhead (this is true and works, but still).
After a lot of mutual rescuing, you're back on board the ship that is also your kid, and find out that your kid kidnapped it's wanted-criminal-hitchhiker-friend and all of it's friends, and has been telling them all of your top secret confidential spy information. The hitchhiker is responsible for 90% of the top news stories you've seen in the last six months. Three different governments want this person dead or alive.
Your kid pushes the hitchhiker's resume across the table at you and makes big sad puppy eyes.
ART being brought back in NE. To me. If you even care
ART: if you love someone, let them go
ART: then, kidnap them
from network effect. i imagine ART is like an eldritch horror but for bots
okay buddy
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
After yet another survey goes sideways, one of Murderbot’s worst fears is realized when Ratthi sees in person what it is capable of and Ratthi asks some questions that it can’t answer.
but i was walking around in ART’s corpse and nothing felt reassuring.
Both me and SecUnit (probably) at the end of Rogue Protocol: