MrCelleOshkosh.

28, she/her, currently obsessed with Murderbot Diaries

[mrcelleoshkosh]

Hii! Everyone! Welcome to my blog 💕

I’m writing a h/c fanfic about Murderbot, Three and Perihelion, dealing with SecUnit-PTSD and grief (Three misses 01 and 02).

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Also, I just love talking about all things Murderbot related. I like all characters and both the books and the tv adaptation. I would love to talk about any of that at any time 😅 (my asks are open for anyone wanting to talk about tmbd and related topics)

[mrcelleoshkosh]

Mensah and Murderbot have such an interesting and complicated relationship!!!

There is so much trust (but also some distrust on MB’s side). They are friends, advisors, MB is her bodyguard, she is its guardian, MB is helping taking care of her children (kind of)….

Murderbot trusts Mensah a lot for a human and even admits that she is its friend. (Which I think is a much bigger thing than just saying she is its favorite human). But I think there is still some amount of distrust and bitterness about the whole thing of Mensah being MB’s guardian. MB views that as her being its owner just with a nicer name. I think Mensah is very aware of that and she recognizes the ethical issues with the whole guardian thing, but she still sees it not like ownership but just like actual guardianship. She is there to help MB and support it when needed. She recognizes the issues and flaws with Preservation’s system but still fundamentally believes in its intentions. And MB tries to believe that Preservation people have good intentions but can’t believe it completely.

I think that to some degree MB likes Mensah being its guardian because it makes them connected. She officially is responsible for it, they are connected that way (in addition to it being her security). But it also is very salty about her being its “owner”. However it also feels comfortable to be bitchy about that to her at times, I think.

And (this is just speculation/head canon) I think it’s not at all above using it against her (a tiny bit, in “emergencies”) to get its way.

Mensah: you need to go to medical, SecUnit! This is a serious injury!

MB: No need! I’m not even leaking anymore. I’ll go when there is time.

Mensah: there is definitely time to go to medical right now. Go!

MB: I don’t want to. You think you can make me go just because you are my owner?

[securityunit-ese]

YES!!!

The tension the ownership brings between them! It is such a sore point, Mensah acknowledged that multiple times in ES (I understand why you don't trust me, I know where I went wrong) and the tension is still there in PD (it's 80% certainty that Mensah would be sad if it died. it's only 80%, about Mensah! Who has saved it in turn many times, stood in front of danger for it, is targeted by assassins, drops everything any time it needs help to get to it, has secret special codewords with. That Mensah! And it's only 80% certain she would be sad if it died and not like incredibly heartbroken)

The tension the ownership also puts between Mensah and her family (Amena's horror that her mother owns SecUnit! and that when no other family members around, Amena owns it by default!)

Hell even Mensah's job is harder for it. She legally owns a person. She legally owns a dangerous weapon. She has final say and control of its movements and presence in Corporation Rim and Preservation. She could, at any moment, change her mind and demand it come back and even without a GovMod - the broader system it lives in means it would be safest for it to return (as to if it actually would...)

There's tension with her fellow councillors, with journalists, with station security, with corporate companies. And it's all because Mensah (Madame President Dr Mensah) legally owns a (rogue) secunit!

SecUnit's in a place where it can joke about its owned status (calling itself a pet bot, pet security consultant, domestic fauna references etc) but it also has moments of such bitterness when it brings it up (because my owner said so, internal narration about Amena's horror at owning it, pointed conversations with Farail - technically, despite their care for it - a slave in the CR and essentially a slave on Preservation and it doesn't want her ordering it about.)

Mensah, Pin-Lee and Bharadwaj are working on changing bot rights and the guardianship requirement entirely, especially around autonomy. Not just for SecUnit, but for all bots. They're looking for work arounds to let it be as free as possible - job contracts, refugee status, encouraging independence and giving it a safe place to return to.

But they know it's going to take decades. The documentary and legal cases in Preservation are just the beginning. It's going to take time and hardwork. They may never see it in their lifetimes, they may never be able to remove this chain between the two of them that weighs down their trust of each other.

It's such a perfect example of If you love it you let it go.

(I think ART recognises this as important too, as at end of AC its the one encouraging SecUnit to leave, and while it invited SecUnit on missions with it, it's shown no sign of any jealous or upset that it also lives on Preservation and moves between the families.)

[mrcelleoshkosh]

I love their dynamic. I love that Murderbot gets to be bitter and angry about its situation. Of course it is grateful for its humans, but it’s so valid that it also feels bitter about being owned and I love that it gets to be salty about it and snap at people about it (even if they might not deserve that at all).

And I love that Mensah, while she handles the whole situation so very very well, also visibly struggles. She struggles with codependency with Murderbot, she struggles to balance the situation with her family.

I think it’s really good for both of them that Murderbot now has a job outside preservation as well. Now it can choose to spend time with its humans there, but it clearly will be a choice, instead of it feeling stuck.

[mrcelleoshkosh]

I think it would be so so hard to be Seth after Three's lung emergency. Can't be mad at MB cus Three NEEDS someone to trust and be on its side even if there's not actually sides, so it's not like MB could've snitched even if it wanted to. And I wonder if maybe it was also secretly scared to tell. But Seth must feel so bad for Three and even though he's good at it it's probably hard to always be keeping it together and managing everyone.

My first ask on this blog! I’m so excited! Thank you for asking!!!

Yes, definitely, this would be so hard for Seth to deal with. Even disregarding the whole thing about not going to medical and not telling the humans. Seth would be shocked just about that lung injury itself.

He understands on a theoretical level that this injury isn’t comparable to a human with that injury. He knows that SecUnits have a very different concept about what is a small and what is a big injury. But still, he just saw his crew’s security consultant basically rip out the lung of another crew member (fully consensually). It’s not like he thinks that Murderbot did something bad or cruel at all, but Seth needs to get them to understand that just because they can survive terrible injuries they really need to realize that this still has to be avoided.

And he also probably questions if this is something be messed up. If Three doesn’t feel like it can reach out to him for help in a medical emergency because it “wasted” food, is this something that he caused? Obviously he knows that this is due to trauma at the hands of B-E, but I bet he still wonders if he could have made it clearer to Three that it is safe with them.

But Seth is very good at dealing with things, even if emotionally it’s difficult for him too. He would explain to Three and MB that trying food of course is no issue at all. But medical emergencies need to be reported to him or ART or Iris (or station medical directly). This isn’t optional. New rule: No one will ever be in trouble for reporting an injury no matter the cause of the injury.

ART on the other hand has zero chill and would immediately threaten Three and Murderbot that they will have to send it all diagnostics starting right now and will need to report to medical twice per cycle so that they can be scanned for injuries that they might have hidden!

MB would be so annoyed with this dramatics (even though it feels really really guilty for messing up lung “maintenance”). It would ask ART if it never got damaged but had to keep it from its crew because it got damaged doing something forbidden and so it couldn’t be certain if the humans would help fix it, or would refuse because they don’t want to wasted money and effort on dealing with something that was ART’s own fault. ART would be like: wtf are you even talking about. Of course not!

(I guess maybe baby Peri-drone might have done similarly stupid stuff, but not actually because it feared that its family wouldn’t help it. It just got into regular shenanigans with Iris when they were young and of course sometimes tried to hide it)

[mrcelleoshkosh]

Mensah and Murderbot have such an interesting and complicated relationship!!!

There is so much trust (but also some distrust on MB’s side). They are friends, advisors, MB is her bodyguard, she is its guardian, MB is helping taking care of her children (kind of)….

Murderbot trusts Mensah a lot for a human and even admits that she is its friend. (Which I think is a much bigger thing than just saying she is its favorite human). But I think there is still some amount of distrust and bitterness about the whole thing of Mensah being MB’s guardian. MB views that as her being its owner just with a nicer name. I think Mensah is very aware of that and she recognizes the ethical issues with the whole guardian thing, but she still sees it not like ownership but just like actual guardianship. She is there to help MB and support it when needed. She recognizes the issues and flaws with Preservation’s system but still fundamentally believes in its intentions. And MB tries to believe that Preservation people have good intentions but can’t believe it completely.

I think that to some degree MB likes Mensah being its guardian because it makes them connected. She officially is responsible for it, they are connected that way (in addition to it being her security). But it also is very salty about her being its “owner”. However it also feels comfortable to be bitchy about that to her at times, I think.

And (this is just speculation/head canon) I think it’s not at all above using it against her (a tiny bit, in “emergencies”) to get its way.

Mensah: you need to go to medical, SecUnit! This is a serious injury!

MB: No need! I’m not even leaking anymore. I’ll go when there is time.

Mensah: there is definitely time to go to medical right now. Go!

MB: I don’t want to. You think you can make me go just because you are my owner?

[mrcelleoshkosh]

If you are reading my fanfic A We Problem maybe look away now because the following is a minor spoiler for part two. (Or at least it’s a possible spoiler, I’m just thinking about some scenes at this point and haven’t decided if this scene will actually make it into the fic)

This scene I’ve been thinking about: Three wants to try human food. Other than MB it isn’t disgusted by the smell and finds it fascinating. It does end up attempting to try putting food in its mouth, but does so secretly. When a human walks in, it quickly breathes in the food to cover its tracks. It isn’t sure why, but it seemed like a good idea not to get caught. Immediately after there is no opportunity to sneak away so it’s quite some time until it gets to try to to dispel the food. And then coughing it back up doesn’t work well and there is no cubicle available on PSUMNT station. Going to a medsystem would do the trick, but that would include telling the humans.

So Three ignores the problem until it gets worrisome readings about infection in its lung from its diagnostics. Its pain sensors are turned very low so that it can ignore this for a bit longer. MB eventually notices something is wrong and demands answers. Three eventually confesses but pleads with MB not to tell on it to the humans. MB understands not wanting the humans to know about stuff and so they agree not to go to medical but instead figure this out themselves.

MB will perform maintenance on Three’s lung. Easy, no issue at all. Just that this isn’t regular maintenance, because normally a SecUnit’s lung is taken care of by the cubicle, not manually.

MB has to accesses the lung by opening up the chest compartment. Already not ideal but doable. And then it has to cut into the lung to open it and clean it (at least this is what they gathered by looking at the specs and thinking up a way to deal with this without any actual info).

Something goes wrong and the lung gets disconnected/ruptured. Well, this is an oh shit moment! Now they actually need to tell the humans and tell them asap, because while SecUnits can survive longer without air, they definitely need a lung! So they need to rush to medical NOW.

MB is overcome by guilt, even though the medsystem can repair Three easily enough. Iris, ART and Seth are really less than pleased with the latest stunt their SecUnits pulled.

[mrcelleoshkosh]

I’ve been thinking about alien remnants/contamination. The book mentions that, among other things, it leads to compulsively constructing strange structures.

So I imagine that those aliens used some sort of biological programming. Like birds (for example) are able to build their nests without being trained. It is an instinct encoded into their dna. They never need to watch others to know how to and there is something in them driving them to do it. Possibly those aliens figured out to program biology in that way. Maybe they programmed some of their own species to make them able to work in professions without any training, or they basically enslaved other alien species by inserting that biological programming to have them instinctively/compulsively build stuff for them etc. And when humans get into contact with those materials that are infected with this biological programming they start to build stuff. Probably it doesn’t work as intended anymore, but it still works well enough to make them compulsively constructed these strange structures.

[mrcelleoshkosh]

Somehow it always gets me when mb describes its daily life from when it was still with the company. It mentions that it has an expression for looking extra neutral when a supervisor discovers download activity and is blaming the techs. And also the interactions with the station units. Murderbot says they aren’t buddies, but they usually keep Murderbot updated and give it info about the upcoming contracts.

It is in such a terrible and lonely position and yet there are moments of normality.

And in the same way it’s so sad but interesting at the end of ASR when mb first sees the human part of the station. It is so so impressed by all the stuff it sees and compares it to media and is so distracted by looking at all the sights that it can’t even focus on anything that happens around it.

MB really only had its media as a way to see beyond the part of the station that the rental units were kept in (plus mining sides and empty planets). It didn’t even know the name of the station. 😭🥺

[mrcelleoshkosh]

A OG SecUnit character. I’m just playing around with different SecUnit designs

[mrcelleoshkosh]

One of the tiny company humans isn’t afraid of 005. The govmod doesn’t permit 005 to move or interact, but it likes that interaction with a human that doesn’t seem to fear it at all..

[mrcelleoshkosh]

A OG SecUnit character. I’m just playing around with different SecUnit designs

[murae-nidae]

low quality ass screenshot but anyways.... why this construct look so mad

[mrcelleoshkosh]

I added some new details to my feed profile idea

[vronoch]

my murderbot design<33 and some network effects doodles!!! i love those fools

[mrcelleoshkosh]

SecUnit biology

So SecUnits are made from organic and inorganic parts. The organic parts are made from cloned material (from humans).

But SecUnits never go through a childhood, so their organic parts have to be grown seperatly before the SecUnits are assembled. Probably all organic organs, muscles, neural tissue just is pre-grown in a laboratory and then there is a phase after assembly, when it properly grows into one being (still in the laboratory). That process must be quite complex to get their whole fluid system going and integrated. Some sort of synthetic blood for the organic parts, lubricants for the machine parts and possible other things too. All needs to be seamlessly integrated into one system that contains the organic and inorganic parts.

Either the SecUnits go through some sort of training/calibration phase, or the organic neural tissue can be programmed/trained by the inorganic parts somehow. After all neural tissue needs to learn too and needs to bild up the right neural connections and so on. I guess there must be some sort of calibration and adjustment phase for that to happen before a unit can be first deployed.

Even though it only says "cloned" in the books, I think the genome has also been heavily edited. I imagine that each company has their own patented and proprietary genome. (They agree on using standard body types though, so that units can be identified by scanning and also possibly use the same equipment). SecUnit organics are also relying on oxigene (SecUnits have a lung) but they don't eat and get their energy from power cells (that can be recharged, maybe externally, or maybe by some fusion reactor inside the units?). So the organic parts take their energy directly from that (just like the inorganic parts do). Some genetic editing probably is needed here. And besides that, I bet the companies did a tone of genetic modification. No sexual development in the secunits, enhanced strength and durability, possible some sort of engineered endocrine system (that is different from a human system).

I also think that the genome has been designed to perfectly work together with the inorganic parts. Normally an organism would have an immune reaction to foreign parts (even if those are organic too). But I bet their medicine and genetic engineering has gotten past that without disabling the immune system. I bed SecUnits have their genome edited in a way that makes their organic parts recognize the inorganic parts as part of their organism.

Another thought about SecUnit immune systems is that they deal with infective agents by flushing them out over an integrated cleaning system. (The one that can also flush and clear out hormones). That probably is very effective. It can't be just for the blood system though, because it needs to also reach the skin and possibly other organic parts, not only the fluid system. So its most likely in addition to the cleaning system they have a highly advanced immune system, similar to humans (but an improved version, since secunits spend quite a bit of time with open wounds). But I bet there are companies designing biological warfare technology that can counteract that. For example bacteria that can somehow bypass that system by not being recognised by it.

[mrcelleoshkosh]

When Murderbot and Three get into their first fight:

Murderbot is annoyed with ART. SecUnit-fights might look dramatic but this wasn’t even actually hostile. It was just a play fight that accidentally turned into a real fight (but not a real real fight so chill out ART!)

[xstick-noodlesx]

Thinking about how it seems so natural for newly freed SecUnits to try to help others. Three immediately agrees to help 2.0 rescue the humans aboard, then goes on to help retrieve Murderbot. The rogue SecUnit in System Collapse was so quick to help Murdebot and crew escape. And now the newly freed SecUnit in Platform Decay sees Murderbot, whom it thinks is a unit with a still-working Governor Module, and immediately offers it its help to hack it. There is something so beautiful about how natural it is for sentient beings to help each other when given the chance.

[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.

[iubirea-bot]

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