Hey, other Murderbot fans, I've got a question for you. I've been looking in my reread, but I can't find any actual explanation of what Preservation’s guardianship thing actually means, or why it’s there.
I mean, we know what Murderbot thinks of it, but it was just kind of jarring-- we're introduced to Preservation as being basically this utopian society, with all of these wonderful things (which is not what Murderbot is thinking of it as, but it would literally never think of anything by those terms), but then we're just hit in the face with the whole 'bots still have owners, but we call them guardians instead so it's okay!' thing.
It's just completely contrary to everything else we know about Preservation. Especially considering that all the people who are shown to be absolutely against the idea of owning a clearly intelligent and sapient being (namely the entire PresAux crew) seem to be just… perfectly fine with this renamed slavery?
I've been thinking about it, and came up with some (read: multiple essays' worth of) worldbuilding about why it might exist, as well as how and what effects my theories would have on Preservation culture and society.
I've written out the why guardianship exists part, which is going to be long so under the cut it goes!
Okay, so here's what we know (that's relevant to this idea of mine):
Preservation is very against the idea of owning another sapient being. (See: the entire PresAux's crew's reaction to being forced to take Murderbot in the first place, and how they react once they realize their SecUnit is actually a person.)
Preservation was created from a colony that was abandoned by the company that initially seeded the planet once the colony 'failed', and only survived due to the kindness of a passing colony ship. This is the single thing that kept them from corporate slavery. (See: the explanation in Fugitive Telemetry.)
Bots are required to have guardians in Preservation space. (See: the reason Murderbot states for its reluctance to go to Preservation in the first place, as well as the entirety of Fugitive Telemetry.)
Bots are also treated as people, like (though not quite the same as) humans. (See: JollyBaby. Also see: Murderbot itself, though it's not technically a bot so that's slightly less relevant. Also see: Balin. There's definitely more examples of this, but these are the ones I thought of.)
Companies in the Corporation Rim can (and have attempted to and apparently have legal right to!) claim humans as salvage. (See: the entire plot of System Collapse.)
Preservation has a system in place for refugees, and is evidently a very popular place for them. (See: the conversation between Indah and the refugees in Fugitive Telemetry. Also see the common fanon that Gurathin came to Preservation as a refugee, from the "[Gurathin] came later" quote in Exit Strategy, though I don't really count fanon as evidence.)
Companies are excessively greedy and will do anything to get more money, and the laws in the Corporation Rim do absolutely nothing to hinder this and do frequently help it. (See: the plot of the entire freaking series. I probably don't need to source this, but I figured I should state it anyway.)
(I have not done as much fact-checking on this as I should, so, while the main ideas are all definitely correct, I'm not totally sure on all the details; I'll go back and check and add my citations later. I just want other people's opinions on my theory first!)
So, the conclusion I've come to is this:
Guardianship is a legal loophole to keep companies from claiming freed bots (and humans!) as salvage.
I posit that guardianship is a response to a company getting bold and attempting to claim a free bot (or human, as I'll detail in a moment) as salvage from a young Preservation Alliance.
The way I imagine this went is that the company argued that a free bot was 'abandoned', the same as the Adamantine colony was 'abandoned'-- there is clearly extensive legislature is place regarding what can and can't be declared salvage, which we don't see because Murderbot isn't a lawyer and doesn't care. But there has to be a legal basis, or I doubt Barrish-Estranza would take the risk of trying to claim the colonies as salvage-- plus, PUMNT wouldn't have known to draw up the charter and try to protect the colonies in the first place if there wasn't a history of this happening.
(The question then becomes, can a company salvage something --or someone-- if they are not in the Corporation Rim at the time of filing?
The answer is most likely that they legally can't, but do so anyway. That seems to be a common theme in the CR. See: GrayCris. Just as a whole.
This question isn't really relevant to my argument about guardianship, just a 'fun' little thought.)
Anyway. If a company tried to a pull something like this, Preservation's laws would likely not be enough if the individual they were trying to claim as salvage was not in Preservation territory at the time of the claim being filed. And, whether or not Preservation won that particular claim, they would of course become wary of something like this ever happening again.
And, as any lawyer (or just law nerd) would know, the best way to beat an extremely powerful entity backed by the governance like the CR is is to never let them try in the first place.
So they invented guardianship. Guardianship is legally filed twice-- once in the Corporation Rim (when who or what the guardianship is being filed for is 'bought') and once in the Preservation Alliance (when they are brought back to Preservation). These are two separate sets of laws.
The CR version is basically just the certificate of purchase and informing the overarching legal system of the CR about said purchase. (I have a worldbuilding thought for why this is required, but that's less related to guardianship so I'll drop that in a reblog or separate post later.)
The Preservation version, however, is much more extensive and far less predatory in nature. I imagine that the reason we never hear Murderbot complaining about the extensive paperwork (because we all know it would) is because it was still rebuilding its memory while the emergency injunction for its guardianship was filed, and Pin-Lee probably handled the rest on its behalf. (She does say that she's its legal counsel at the end of Exit Strategy, and I have worldbuilding and headcanons for the Preservation legal system, too.) It's very similar to what I imagine Preservation's refugee and fosterage paperwork look like, with extensive protections for the guarded party and strict legal restrictions for the guardian. I have an idea of what this paperwork would look like and what all of these rules would entail, which I'll add if anyone's interested (and probably if no one is-- I want to talk about it!).
Now, I figure that guardianship is not just something that bot (and construct!) refugees have-- I imagine it extends to human refugees, too! (Which Murderbot never mentions because it was definitely zoned out watching Sanctuary Moon while Pin-Lee and the specific guardianship lawyers explained all of this. Which Pin-Lee, of course, knew, but she had to do her legal due diligence anyway. Three asked a lot of questions while they were filing its. But it also didn't need an emergency injunction the same way Murderbot did.)
Guardianship for bots and humans would, of course, be different-- in the CR, humans can actually be freed, whereas bots just become salvageable. Regardless, guardianship is just the first stage of becoming a Preservation citizen-- bots go through the same process, but it's all designated guardianship because, well. The above.
I have a lot more guardianship thoughts. I'm going to be reblogging this with a lot more essays on how I think it works-- everything from the actual legal processes (plural! There's more than one way to obtain guardianship!) to the cultural effects of having guardianship (in regards to both the guardian and the guarded party, as well as the way the entire process affects the culture of Preservation) to the way it probably worked for Murderbot (which was... definitely not the norm).
Anyway, those are my thoughts for why guardianship exists! I'm open to other theories and ideas, though!
