Loving the synergy between this Reddit post and the new information in Platform Decay:
I've always thought of Murderbot as having the lived experiences and emotional capacity of a full adult, but the emotional maturity of a "forced to grow up too fast" adolescent.
As opposed to Perihelion, who by now also has had the lived experience of a gentle-parented young adult, but feels like it has reached only the emotional maturity of a child at this point in its life. My interpretation of its beef with Holism, actually, is that Holism is simply older and significantly further along its journey to emotional maturity, and Perihelion is being an aggro little brat to it bc it also wants to be "an adult" NOW, RIGHT NOW, with all the trust and decision-making "perks" that comes with. (Holism might not itself appear super mature to a human adult based on Seth's reactions to it, but the gap between them is definitely wide enough that ART can't tell the difference between how Holism is now and how it might be in the future.)
And perhaps Perihelion is more "preteen" by the time the events of PD occur, as it has been able to further interact with Murderbot and watch shows with it since we last saw them, learning and growing the whole time. I would imagine, in fact, that is it learning and growing far faster than any preceding University transports because it has this dog in its cheetah enclosure companion that is both more emotionally developed and overall sulky, traumatized, and struggling with being taken care of. (The University is taking many notes on all of this, I'm sure.)
Perihelion isn't being forced to grow up "too fast" in this case, it's just been given the opportunity to rise to the challenge of helping its friend accept the kind of love and self-worth that Perihelion has been familiar with all its life, while simultaneously learning a lot from this friend's more even-keeled, empathetic, and nuanced responses to other people as well as its more developed sense of responsibility. This has all accelerated the rate of Perihelion's development.
Meanwhile, Murderbot isn't "maturing faster" per se, so much as this friendship, and all its friendships, are slowly chipping away at all the many reinforced layers of fear and despair that has kept its maturity in a locked-up state. Its relationships are allowing it to actually feel, express, and act on the full range of its own emotions and understanding. From the outside, it may look like Murderbot is "maturing" into adulthood, but what's really happening on the inside is recovery and healing, which is beginning to finally integrate into its bearing and reactions the adult emotional maturity it already had but had thus far been unable to access.
Of course, it won't ever be human or have something like a "human maturity" (whatever that might be), but it's actually already pretty close to being the best possible version of itself and it's interesting that while Perihelion's path to maturity is defined by "growing," Murderbot's access to the maturity it already has is being slowly expanded by "healing."
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