Murderbot Diaries stuff is also going on this blog now. Tag is #murderbot if you’d like to block!
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Murderbot Diaries stuff is also going on this blog now. Tag is #murderbot if you’d like to block!
burgerbot i would do anythign for yoyu
Just reread Fugitive Telemetry and upon a reread I think Murderbot is a tiny bit misinterpreting Senior Officer Indah's behavior towards it. Murderbot thinks it's because it's a SecUnit, which is obviously not wrong, but I think there's another facet of this which isn't on Murderbot's radar: once Indah starts thinking of it as a person, she's probably thinking of it as This Arrogant Asshole From the Corporation Rim who thinks Preservation Security are a bunch of incompetent hippies, tells them how to do their jobs and keeps complaining about them not having the dystopian levels of mass surveillance that it's come to expect from working in the CR, and is upset that they said no to giving it access to a bunch of data that violates privacy laws.
I can see how, from the perspective of a cop who has grown up in Preservation culture, this must be incredibly annoying, and means even setting aside any prejudices over a SecUnit being a deadly weapon, it kind of comes across to Indah as someone who she can't trust to follow basic standards of professional ethics if it thinks it knows better.
And Murderbot doesn't really consider this as a possibility because it's not used to being seen as a person at all, let alone seen as one by the Corporation Rim, so the idea that someone else would see it as a Corporate Person just never crosses its mind.
Yessss, this is especially clear in this exchange:
[ID: two photos of a passage from Fugitive Telemetry that read:
"Yes, I've had experience with investigating suspicious fatalities in controlled circumstances."
Indah's gaze wasn't exactly skeptical. "What controlled circumstances?"
I said, "Isolated work installations."
Her expression turned even more grim. "Corporate slave labor camps."
I said, "Yes, but if we call them that, Marketing and Branding gets angry and we get a power surge through our brains that fries little pieces of our neural tissue."
Indah winced. Mensah folded her arms, her expression a combo of "are you satisfied now" and "get on with it."
End ID]
Indah absolutely is looking at MB as a snobby Corporate Person, with the way she sneers out 'corporate slave labor camps,' like MB was intentionally sugar-coating the reality of CR slave labor camps, as if it and any other SecUnits were the ones making the decision to enslave the human workers on their contracts. She clearly forgot (or never fully understood before) that MB was a slave from the moment it came online, and one that was routinely tortured for literal thought crimes. A slave with no end of indenture to work towards or any amount of pay to slowly try to save up to buy its freedom, no future except an endless expanse of violence and pain. If MB uses a softer term like 'isolated work installation' it is because it learned the hard way not to tell it like it is, and when called out on that, it throws the true horror of its existence within the CR into Indah's face (much like it did with the memories of governor module punishments when it first met ART and ART also initially treated it like it was some inherently evil corporate actor).
I think you're right that in the intervening weeks (months?) since it arrived at the end of Exit Strategy, Indah had learned from her first mistake of treating MB like Not A Person (the deadly weapon comment early on for which Pin-Lee was going to get her removed from her position of authority). But she still doesn't trust MB, and unless you get that very direct reminder of how horribly the CR actually treats constructs, I think it can be all too easy to see that SecUnits are physically powerful and then mentally equate that to them having any kind of actual power in those slave labor camps they're forced to guard.
Indah's change in attitude throughout FT is one of my favorite secondary character arcs, and I have to think this specific conversation, in addition to just working through the murder case with MB, was a big turning point for her. She went from 'this isn't even a person, it's a weapon'/'fine it's a person, but it's a bad corporate person who uses its gun arms to enslave poor innocent human workers' to 'oh you really are a person who just wants to help, and you get shot in the back by bigots even when you do help, and I will help you press charges if you want' over the course of basically one criminal investigation. And Martha Wells is able to show us that progression even though MB itself doesn't seem to be fully aware of it!! Gosh I just love this book <3
i'm rereading the murderbot diaries and murderbot's utter conviction that it and gurathin are bitter enemies is still so funny. buddy. gurathin got over this months ago. he's just a quiet guy.
one-sided antagonism is so delicious. murderbot diaries i also very much enjoy how surreal it must be for gurathin / to know that the heavily armed rogue secunit holds a grudge against him / and also know that all it will ever choose to do about this is make frowny faces and flip him the bird. / (tags via space-mouse)
Gurathin, like three books from now: hey we’re friends right
Murderbot: no. we fucking hate each other.
Gurathin: awesome check this out it’s gonna make you so fucking mad
MB: I don’t like you
Gurathin, knowing MB calls its best friend “asshole research transport”: Uh-huh.
MB: in order to do my job I need help committing a felony(s)
Gurathin: terrible plan, I'll get my coat
Tano (toph avatar voice): when do I get my life changing field-trip with SecUnit
I love your MB drawings sm
I’ve doodled MB a bit and felt conflicted on how to do the hair and you just nailed the vibe perfectly
waaa thanks!!! heres some doodles about Amena styling murderbot's hair from system collapse that i hadn't shared yet 🥺
this is all still before platform decay's length/colour/texture change and i was thinkin about how "amena made my hair fluffy" could be interpreted
from network effect. i imagine ART is like an eldritch horror but for bots
thinking about a previously foul-mouthed grace having to completely overwrite his vocab once he started teaching
all systems red
: system system
: acknowledge: identity?
: confirm: yes / no _
emotional support secunits
My murderbot hyperfixation demands I make some fanart soooo here we go. As soon as I read this scene in Network Effect I had to draw it for obvious reasons 💎 ✨
Requested by @@elamarth-calmagol on the post of all of murderbot's vocal dialogue in ASR
explodes . pretend screencaps from my fake murderbot movie
Murderbot's Voice - 1 - All Systems Red - Audio
a study of how Murderbot comes across sans inner voice
all MB's verbally spoken lines in All Systems Red = 12 mins out of a 3 hour audiobook
[transcript version here]
So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous. Also, if I’m not in the armor then it’s because I’m wounded and one of my organic parts may fall off and plop on the floor at any moment and no one wants to see that.
one last fancomic to finish off the year, from asr this time!!
Murderbot's Voice - 1 - All System's Red
A study of how MB comes across sans inner voice
Murderbot has 1,611 spoken words in All Systems Red, out of the ~39,500k of the book: