#cawpost

[cawareyoudoin]

Just finished reading "Rapport" and HUH??????

This... I did not expect this to be very nearly stated out loud??? Damn. Alright then. To be fair, ART is probably a lot less emotionally stunted and more self-aware than Murderbot, it could admit it to itself.

No wonder Iris was so positively shocked to see "Peri's SecUnit" in person. Peri really talked it up, huh.

Also, Iris and Perihelion being siblings is so... Nice. Them growing up together... Her saying "our dads"...

I love that ART has the presence, cold blood, and willingness to sow destruction, similar to many sci-fi murderous supercomputers, but it was also raised lovingly in a human family, so it mostly uses its powers to protect its humans (and other entities it cares about). Sometimes still with extreme methods, but hey, that's how you know it REALLY cares.

[cawarart]

[cawareyoudoin]

It's been a while, and i've had some time to process it, but it still makes me giddy, and it's still so INCREDIBLY funny to me that the main character's potential love interest mutual-administrative-assistance/rapport-and-understanding/qpr/??? interest is a fuck-off huge-ass SPACECRAFT. I always think of that and giggle.

Before reading "Rapport", I was like "okay, I don't want to assume this isn't just humans projecting or something. I'm glad Murderbot has a non-human friend, even if it's having trouble saying the word". But NO! Friendship is one part of it, but they're intense about each other in a different way as well, whatever you call it, I don't know, doesn't matter, I have trouble distinguishing that myself. Whatever the specifics in-story, to the reader they are implied to be amenable to being in some kind of permanent important relationship.

And it's a human-shaped construct, and a SPACECRAFT. That's its body! It likes being a spacecraft, it doesn't need a human form! The feed is a fun device that allows characters to interact meaningfully but non-physically, and it has a big Presence in there and a lot of computing power, but it doesn't have a permanent body other than the ship. I just enjoy that a lot!

[cawareyoudoin]

I'm so happy about System Collapse still, because it exemplified why The Murderbot Diaries are very comforting to me. Because even if someone dies, it is never in vain, and the mission is achieved, and the mission is usually "save everyone you can".

Miki died saving its friends. 2.0 died saving 1.0, the colonists, and the day. Even though Three's friends are dead, it chose to help out, and saved the humans, and later Murderbot. None of Murderbot's humans died, it wouldn't let them, everyone who helped wouldn't let them. Murderbot hacked itself to not have to be a murderbot, and from then on, unless it's under extreme duress, it's as merciful as possible, incapacitating instead of killing, erasing memories instead of the person. And when it does kill, it's always understandable, and frankly, rather satisfying.

There are people who are prejudiced, and greedy, and cruel, and terrible things that happened, are happening, and will continue to happen. But Murderbot and everyone who allies with it try to chip away at the terribleness of the world. And it's working, even if, for now, at a small scale. It helps me feel like it's worth it to try.

Reading The Murderbot Diaries is like being wrapped in a blanket of assurance.

[cawareyoudoin]

HOLY SHIT!!! You gotta put on the best show this isolated underground colony's ever seen!

[cawareyoudoin]

Ok, this episode could be interpreted in many ways, but the one that came to mind the most prominently is "trying out new medicine for a mental condition". The way Zooble says at the end that they'll eventually find something that works makes me think this could be the intended reading.

[cawareyoudoin]

Wait, knowing the ~100 metres limit of being close to a living client would have to mean that combat override modules prevent that as well, since in ASR, the DeltFall SecUnits attacked Murderbot, seemingly without a human operator present close-by.

Which is... Ridiculous, when I think about it a little longer. The governor module killing SecUnits seems to be a failsafe for them running away or murdering their clients, but combat override modules make it easy to create a SecUnit that looks and acts like a rogue killing machine, at possibly any range.

Is the prevalence of rogue SecUnits in media caused by misreported combat override module takeovers? Of course there could also be lobbying by the companies renting them, to make sure people don't start empathizing, but even Murderbot seems convinced that rogue murderous SecUnits do happen, that that's the norm for rogues, which, with the SecUnits we've met so far, seems less and less likely to be accurate.

[cawareyoudoin]

You ever ship something in a divorced kind of way? Like, I do not think they should be together, but the relationship they had in the past and its breakup are very compelling to me?

Bonus points for potential unrequited feelings.