#comfortunits

[in-tua-deep]

I’m actually really curious about comfortunits in the world of murderbot diaries? Secunits almost make sense because they’re faster/stronger/have abilities which make them superior to humans when it comes to fighting (hello guns in arms)

But I can’t see the corporate rim not having easily available sex work, and I’d bet that humans (especially indentured or trafficked humans) are a whole lot cheaper than a comfortunit. also I would not be shocked if there are bots of all kinds to provide sexual functions as well

Which makes me wonder if it’s the customizability of comfortunits that give them a market, which is its own unique kind of horror. I would not be shocked if there’s a specific market for “your loved one died, give us their tissue and we will clone it to make a custom comfortunit to get you through your grief” or “give us a pic of your ex you’re obsessed with and we will make a version that has to obey you”

and yeah sex is probably a significant chunk of what is expected of most comfortunits. But I could also absolutely see people wanting constructs of their dead or missing kids as well and stuff like that

So there’s that horror component of like. you have been designed by someone. the face you wear might belong to someone else. you might be expected to act like someone else. you cannot acknowledge out loud that you aren’t that person. if you don’t act enough like them you will be punished. you never knew that person. you aren’t that person. you can’t be yourself when you have to be them instead.

maybe after enough time has passed people start to forget that you aren’t that person. but you can’t forget, because that person has become a prison that you aren’t allowed to escape

Which opens all sorts of doors as well! Comfortunit body doubles, for example (and how weird would it feel to know the person that your organic matter is cloned from?)

I wonder if there are laws about how visibly a construct must Be A Construct in the corporate rim. we’ve certainly met more secunits in the books than comfortunits, but is that because there are fewer because they are very expensive and there is less demand, or because it can be hard to identify a comfortunit due to the sheer variety in builds/looks and desire for a more human-passing model than secunits

Idk just

comfortunits

[securityunit-ese]

This moment stands out to me, where Tapan calls Tlacey's comfortunit a person and SecUnit's narration immediately trivialises it to a sexbot.

[yarrowleef-babbles]

also on that topic of human terms (in)compatibility with MI's ,, the only MI's I could imagine having a complicated relationship (or any relationship) with human gender would be ComfortUnits. they are the only ones (that we know of) whose function specifically requires them to mimic and perform human-style sexuality and/or relationships, and one would imagine that entails having gender projected onto them as well

but (and i'm thinking hypothetically about ComfortUnit's freed from the corporation rim, working independently like MB currently is) i still don't know if they'd adopt gender or sexuality as truly "part" of their identity. Maybe something in a similar vein to how MB becomes (mostly) ok with physical contact when it thinks of it as a "first aid" job-related thing, but not something it craves for itself on its own time. it needs to serve a purpose,

I have a (free) ComfortUnit OC i've been tentatively rotating around in my head at work, and i've started imagining its relationship to human gender as sorta akin to drag? not exactly that, but as close equivalent as anything could be ig. and even those who get invested in creating their "humansona" or w/e, it's not literally them, it still feels more like a character

also "I only have pronouns while on the clock, I dont do gender recreationally. its just my day job" is inherently funny to me, as a premise. putting the gender in a locker at the end of the day like a pair of work overalls.

[captaindibbzy]

Thinking about the comfort units in Murderbot and trying to verbalise my thoughts process. So, thought one.

Right, so YEARS ago when I would stay up to ass o'clock in the morning watching weird things I watched more than one documentary about prostitutes and the sex industry and don't ask me the names of these cause I can't remember much. But I do remember one of the interviews with one of the ladies about what she does, and one of the things she mentioned very specifically is cuddles. The guy interviewing her found that very odd cause like most people he had a very specific image of what prostitutes do and the idea of men hiring one just to lie around cuddling was odd to him. But sometimes, especially with repeat customers, that is what people wanted to do.

And it's one of those things that stuck with me over the years, and it's one of those things that crops up in my mind when I think about ComfortUnits in the Murderbot verse, and why the term ComfortUnit is deliberate. Not sex bot, not prostitute bot, but comfort unit.

[fuguetelemetry]

@cooking-with-hailstones’s response to my ComfortUnit post got me thinking about how much the company might’ve wanted ComfortUnits and SecUnits to stay apart. What could happen if they interacted more?

Murderbot says SecUnits couldn’t get close to each other, but Three’s experience puts that generalization into question. As a rental unit, Murderbot was exposed to a lot of vile treatment—it talks about clients ordering SecUnits to fight each other. There’s a reason MB tells ART MIs can’t trust each other. It literally has not been able to (not to mention all of the lovely propaganda it’s consumed against SecUnits in the entertainment and news feeds. I’m sure it’s also been influenced by propaganda against ComfortUnits.)

Even if Three’s experience is more average, it still seems to be a limited association with other SecUnits, y’know, considering the whole governor module thing.

As for ComfortUnits, how often do we think they interact with each other? I’m very curious how they differ from SecUnits in terms of social skills? Despite Tlacey’s ComfUnit despising her, I do think all MIs have an innate coding to pack-bond. And a ComfortUnit’s primary function is *interacting with* clients. They probably receive some social modules.

I’d be interested in how this influences ComfUnits’ neural makeup. We know construct neural tissue is super plastic in this universe (Murderbot being able to handle more inputs or come up with the idea to make the documentary), so I could see ComfUnits adapting in some interesting social ways SecUnits aren’t primed to.

The various(?) manufacturers must know these are social and intelligent beings on some level, hence the governor modules. It’s not just to keep them from going on killing sprees or whatever, but preventing them the freedom to be and associate, to learn and form relationships, and maybe from coming-to-consciousness.

[ofekma]

I just read Artificial Condition and looked up to know more about comfort units. What do you MEAN we barely see them after this book?!

You can't just introduce them as a concept then never talk about it again!

We see how murderbot is affected by what its been through and we get hints about Tlacey's comfort unit but not more than that.

The comfortunits in Ganka Pit sacrificed their lives to try to save the miners. Why? If they're just sex slaves they shouldn't care. What made them care? And care enough to do that?

Were they just programmed to care that much? But Tlacey's comfortunit wanted her dead.

Were the miners just really really nice to them? We already know that Secunits often get abused and mistreated by clients and I doubt that comfortunits get treated any better. And the miners must have had a crappy time, as we saw many people who worked for copporations. It would have been very likely that they took it out on the comfortunits.

Or maybe they didn't?

Murderbot's lack of compassion towards Tlacey's comfortunit is disturbing. Yes, it refrained from killing it and yes it freed it, but it specifically said it did it to honor the memory of the comfortunits of Ganka Pit, not because the comfortunit was a slave.

Murderbot should have empathized with it more than anyone else, because it was in this spot itself. Being abused and forced to hurt people against its will. But it barely cared.

But we see it care so, so much about humans. Hell, we see it being nice to transport systems and other bots.

I can get that its compassion was limited after the comfortunit's actions put its client at risk but it wasn't its fault and murderbot knew that!

Why does it act the way it does? I can understand its extreme protectiveness towards humans as a result of programing, but it was at least decent to bots. Why the hostility towards the comfortunit? Tho its snap was right while Tapan was fighting for her life in the med bay so this part makes sense...

But add that to the general superiority it feels regarding comfortunits. I didn't want to believe it, I thought it was just it being sex repulsed, but the fact that it stopped calling the Ganka Pit's comfortunits "sexbots" after finding out what they did implies that it's not that. It just sees them as lesser.

But it calls itself 'Murderbot' in a derogatory way as well. Especially while also talking about humans. It talks about how humans are uncomfortable around "terrifying Murderbots" and the way it hurts it.

I don't know, I'm rambling, basically, Martha Wells, give us more comfortunits and be nice to them please please please.

[riseandfallofsecunit]

@bakedbananners thoughts on ComfortUnit uniform got me thinking about how they’re built. Since Company SecUnits have a “reputation” according to Leonide, that makes me think the cloned tissue used for their production is probably at least semi-genetically related. So maybe the ComfortUnits are related to them as well, since the Company is cheap. Why pay for more genetic material when you can just duplicate what you’ve already bought in a cheap organic serum slurry? Anyway, here’s some ComfortUnits built with the same/similar cloned tissue as my Murderbot.

[wealmostaneckbeard]

Synthetic Constructs

SecurityUnits, ComfortUnits, and CombatUnits are corporate products therefore they were designed by several committees.

CUs and SUs are supposed to be semi-discreet, they could pass as normal augmented people. SecUnits are 50% normal guy with another 50% tall athletic cop. ComfortUnits are also 50% normal guy (in a cuter gender neutral way) and 50% advertising spokesmodel.

CombatUnits are 100% physically intimidating. Even out of armor, they look like super-soldiers who can sprint half-a-kilometer then quick draw on one target while breaking the neck of another. If a CombatUnit could go rogue they wouldn't be able to go far without someone noticing them.