All Systems Red / Platform Decay - Survival blanket
The first scene Martha Wells wrote for Murderbot was the one where it makes it way into the ready room, wraps itself up, leaking fluids and all alone in a cubicle.
It is isolated and all alone when Mensah approaches it in concern, the only human to do so.
And it just doesn't know how to respond to someone caring about it. No-one has ever cared to ask before and it's being perceived: it hunches down and tries to hide itself from her, tugs its hands tighter around itself and insists it is fine:
Mensah doesn't believe it is fine, but she listens to it and leaves it sitting, injured and wrapped up in a survival blanket, alone:
Platform Decay - together
SecUnit makes its way to the boat. Even before it arrives, it's not alone. It reaches out to its humans. Strange humans help it to safety. It is wrapped up in a survival blanket and its wounds hidden from view. It doesn't have to do any of this, this is all done for it:
Everyone is concerned, including strangers it has never spoken to before. It is surrounded by friends and so incredibly not alone.
Sofi, Mensah's daughter, asks it if it's okay, just like her mother did all those cycles ago:
And instead of withdrawing, instead of tightening the survival blanket to hide itself from view. It reaches out and opens up itself to being touched and to being seen.
And when it says it is fine, it is believed, because they can see it and they can be with it. It is sitting there, injured and wrapped up in a survival blanket, but it isn't alone. Because it has Mensah's family with it:
