Murderbot Quarantine Zone

I haven't done fandom on main since homestuck was still coming out and I'm not going back

[excavatinglizard]

Inner workings / kernel

[unidentifiedspoon]

network effect.png

[stealthetrees]

Obsessed with how Murderbot and Perihelion were literally made to be together. Secunits were designed to interface with multiple larger systems like hub and med systems and to be part of a much larger network of bots and programs. ART is, essentially, a hub system that can react and interact with the other pieces of its systems in ways most hub systems can’t. It has the capacity to feel emotions but lacks the experience and inputs to be able to fully understand some of them until it uses Murderbots systems. Murderbot doesn’t have a deep understanding of humans and how to pass as one which ART gladly provides. ART cares deeply about its crew but can’t follow them into dangerous situations but Murderbot can. “Mutual administrative assistance” takes on a much deeper and more intimate meaning when it’s taken with the context of a software programs and its hardware counterpart.

[bardbreakfast]

My boss also reads murderbot and when we talk abt it she will refer to it with he/him pronouns bc “the person that does the audiobooks is a man” and idk maybe I’m just #transgalaxybrained but I’m like “yeah but the voice is p gender neutral and also it is only ever uses and is referred to by it/it’s” like you’re literally changing the story which seems HARDER to me. wtf. Anyway–

[iubirea-bot]

How common does she think it/its audiobook performers are? Would she be calling it 'they' if the performer used they/them pronouns?? What if Kevin R Free transitioned?? What does she think an it/its voice sounds like???

[semi-imaginary-place]

MB is hilariously unreliable as a narrator. From the books because that's where MB's unreliable narrator is strongest:

Comany name? [redacted] "the company" and you know that all lowercase is spite

MB repeatedly complains that it's the cheapest flimsiest made unit, the Temu bot. But it's rental was probably really expensive and it and every other SecUnit we see is extremely high performing

1 line about how Ratthi is extremely popular and everyone seems happy. There's just an ever rotating cast of hookups and flings in the background that Murderbot is desperately trying to not notice.

For that matter polyamory seems to be the societal norm and you know there's polyvule drama happening that MB is erasing it's memory about.

In the second novella Perihelion is a complete mystery to MB, it's mostly just intimidated and like "ok this is my life now". Where as in Network Effect and "Rapport" we see that Peri is utterly enamored with Muderbot, it think MB is the best thing to ever happen.

MB has 0 self awareness and doesn't really know much about SecUnits or contructs in general it just contantly projects it's own feelings and opinions onto everyone else. Every other contruct is the series acts counter to what MB says.

For that matter it projects onto humans too. Murderbot has the emotional intellengence of a rock. It hates and fears itself and so projects that into believing everyone else fears it. And most humans don't. I'm not even talking about the hippie commune Preservation people, some of the rando Corporate Rim tertiary characters and Mihira and Tidelands people aren't particularly afraid of MB.

Unprocessed 2.0 emotions

[redacted]

Murderbot does not understand anything (besides security, hacking, and sanctuary moon) and frequently misunderstands things. Every time MB makes a claim not only will it likely be disproven, it will likely be disproven within that same book. Which makes me suspicious every time there is an obvious gap in the narrative, like the polycule drama MB spends like 1 sentence glossing over, or Miki's death. It dies so suddenly in the narrative and disappears so quickly from the narration I suspect Murderbot is once again suppressing it's emotions and memories about Miki. I'm reading System Collapse right now and Wells has upped her game and is planting giant neon flashing signs over all the gaps in MB's narration, [redacted].

[snakebites-and-ink]

Former living weapon absolutely dominating at laser tag

[fuguetelemetry]

if that fictionalized documentary at the beginning of Exit Strategy is to be believed, it’s crazy to think the original constructs started out as humans. that they were people who were catastrophically injured or terminal. that they weren’t human-form. they were used as instruments but got to choose their assignments and the people they would work with (friends), and could still communicate…

love that MB couldn’t make it more than two eps into that documentary. such big feelings.

[sleepyswampgoblin]

[lucy-vanpelts]

7 minutes in heaven in the criterion closet

[daftpatience]

ok last one for today hi secunit 3

[dooplissss]

honestly so funny that artificial condition is right after all systems red

book 1

mb: I'm a robot and robots aren't people, don't tell me I'm a person

book 2

art: robot that is undeniably a person

mb: god fucking dammit

[daftpatience]

finally. my network effect log (and full reference for my idea of MB's body yayy)

[amphibianshaped]

apparatus

[iubirea-bot]

love fics where Three opens up the tiniest bit and the dynamic between it and Murderbot immediately descends into

[mongeese]

The Murderbot Diaries are a power fantasy about being aromantic and still developing extremely important dedicated emotionally intimate partnerships where you are a top priority in a person's life, equal to their other family or romantic attachments despite your own emotional difficulties. And having guns in your arms

[iubirea-bot]

Lots of thoughts and feelings about the loose rogue in Platform Decay but the thing I keep coming back to is that it offers the hack after Murderbot tells it it has clients.

It walks up, says "hi", hears the unit it just met has humans its trying to protect, and says, "you don't have to, you could be free"

And then gets told, "I am free you dipshit, I'm still protecting these humans. Fuck off"

And after the interaction said humans all have a little conversation where they kind of wish there was more they could do for it. But besides MB hacking the security feed and giving it those codes, I think it managed to do something pretty significant for that unit just by telling it that there are humans that are worth protecting by choice

[iubirea-bot]

Knowing how to swear is also an important rogue secunit skill, and you know Three hasn't figured it out yet

[iubirea-bot]

I think Platform Decay might have all but confirmed my pet theory that Murderbot doesn't really have a hard boundary for touch (like it does for sex), but more of a controlled border. It doesnt actually hate being touched. It just wants to be able to say no.

Now, is it aware of this? Absolutely not. Maybe its just starting to suspect something. But its been chucking all the "things it doesn't like" into one big categorical pile and isn't about to start sorting through them until they become a tripping hazard.