wait can you elaborate more on #’The existential horror of a countdown to having your memories erased and forgetting that there was ever anybody who cared about you’ being one of the central emotional conflicts in murderbot and thiago anthropology fic i don't remember that part
@elexuscal asked this too so tagging you—
well partially that’s because that part hasn’t been written yet lol :’’’’) some…day…….. I swear……..
But! That’s about my SecUnit OCs, SecUnit A and Sky. They are friends :) but they are also SecUnits stationed on a long-term assignment on this mining colony, and it’s a crappy life, governed SecUnits in a mine and all :’) It’s kind of a crappy life for the human miners too, which is why they are fighting to unionize, which is what drew Thiago there for anthropology research in the first place.
Before the start of the story, Sky was caught in a mineshaft collapse. The humans were evacuating the mineshaft, and Tahmineh, my human OC union organizer, was trying to get the humans out without giving any thought to the SecUnits. SecUnit A had to do some clever and desperate governor module workarounds to basically threaten Tahmineh into letting it go and try to retrieve Sky. Tahmineh sees this as mining equipment being callously programmed to prioritize rescuing mining equipment over human lives; SecUnit A sees it as Tahmineh callously not caring that once she evacuates all the humans from the area, Sky’s distance limit will trigger, and it will be killed.
Tahmineh angrily gives the order. SecUnit A rescues Sky. Sky is horribly injured, but gets the feeling that so blew Murderbot away: somebody came back for me. Somebody cared.
Unfortunately Sky was horribly injured in a way that was somehow extreme and proprietary enough that the cubicle was not able to repair it correctly, and its knee joint is now irreparably damaged. It walks with a limp and has SecUnit Chronic Pain. The mine owners are not happy with this and plan to return Sky to the manufacturer and exchange it for a working unit. So the next time a ship comes in from the SecUnit manufacturing company… that’s it. Sky is getting sent away, to either be scrapped or refurbished and reassigned. If it’s refurbished, that is absolutely going to come with the memory wipe, and reassignment is almost certainly not going to be back here. Which is kinder to hope for? To die, knowing you were loved, or to live to be reassigned to another same shit scenario, without even getting to carry with you the knowledge that anyone ever cared about you?
This is one of the things that Murderbot and Thiago walk into that make Murderbot not want to be involved but unfortunately it is now involved; and Thiago’s anthropological research goals and ethical standards are warring with his humanitarian impulses to help are also warring with his fear of waltzing in as a self-appointed outside savior; while the miners and SecUnits are both independently staring at them going, are you going to help or are you going to get out of the way?
