Okay okay okay okay. So I read Rogue Protocol yesterday, slept on it, it's still fucking me up whatever. I am so stuck on Murderbot's reaction to Miki. It's so, it's so so resonant with my experiences and what I've seen. The pity, the bitterness, the objective view of Miki's situation soaked in complicated emotions that MB has to work through, the jealousy, oh my god the jealousy. Miki has no specialization, it speaks like a child, it's infantilized, it can't pretend to be a human, it's just a bot, it's stupid, it can't see that it's a pet. "Friend"? Friendship is built on mutual respect. Who could respect Miki? MB certainly doesn't. It respects Miki's autonomy of course, but that's a different kind of respect. That's a base level of respect for sentient beings. It thinks of Miki as a naive idiot, nowhere near the level that Murderbot is operating on. And yet. And yet, Miki is afforded something MB has never* received. Miki is treated as part of its human group, Miki is protected, Miki is loved. Even though MB denies this love until it is proven without any doubt. Proven through Don Abene's respect for Miki's autonomy, something I don't think MB realized humans could have for bots. After all, if humans can't respect a construct's autonomy, something so much more like them than a bot, how could they ever think of bots that way? MB has to hide everything about itself to gain respect and autonomy. Why does Miki get it without doing anything at all?
Being autistic myself and having known all kinds of other autistic people, this hits sickeningly close to home. This is a thought process I am well familiar with, one that I return to in my darker moments even with the knowledge that it's illogical and cruel. There's a sense of superiority you build up as a shield, to explain away all of the ways you're different, to pretend the things that you want aren't there. And when someone who doesn't match that, who is "worse" than you gets those things you've convinced yourself you can't have, it breaks you. And I know this isn't just an autistic experience, I see it everywhere. I see it in trans people, people of color, people with other disabilities, the working class, I see it everywhere, so many underprivileged people feel this way. Some people have confronted it and some have let it morph them into something worse, a cruel pos trying desperately and failing to be "the good one." It's tragic. And my god is it lonely.
It's not surprising that Murderbot is going to Preservation Alliance after this book. After all, *these are the humans who treated Murderbot as a person. Even knowing what it is. Dr. Mensah is the first person it met who wanted to protect it, not the other way around. It needs a reminder that it isn't uniquely unlovable, whether it realizes that or not.
