SecUnits in ASR and Their Fate
It’s been bugging me (well not so much) just how many SecUnits appeared in All System Red, and what happened to them. So, I decided to go through the book, making notes (as we do, of course).
One unit (Murderbot) assigned to the PreservationAux team
Three units assigned to the DeltFall survey team. One survives.
Four units (probably) assigned to the GrayCris team. Three survive.
There is a rule set by the bond company that any team must have one rental SecUnit per ten humans.
Murderbot and Pin-Lee had checked DeltFall specs that stated that they had three SecUnits.
The presence of GrayCris on the planet was hidden from both PreservationAux and DeltFall, so, they had no knowledge of the team’s size.
What happens to the units
At the door to the hub, I found their first SecUnit. It was sprawled on its back on the floor, the armor over its chest pierced by something that made a hole approximately ten centimeters wide and a little deeper. We’re hard to kill, but that’ll do it.
DeltFall Unit1 – killed with a mining drill
I hit the first one with three explosive bolts in the back and one in the faceplate as it turned toward me. It dropped. The other one I nicked in the arm, taking out the joint, and it made the mistake of switching its main weapon to its other hand, which gave me a couple of seconds. I switched to rapid fire to keep it off balance, then back to the explosive bolt. That dropped it.
Neither unit was dead. But they were incapable of reaching their cubicles in the ready room, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give them a hand.
DeltFall Unit 1 & 2 – incapacitated but not dead
One or both of these units could have been the ones belonging to GrayCris, but since MB would notice and mention that if they were wearing a different armour, my assumption is that these were DeltFall Units.
When Murderbot thinks that it has taken down remaining DeltFall SecUnits, it was attacked by another one. MB comes back online, terrified and angry to find its armour partially removed.
I shoved its hand up under its chin and took the pressure off its weapon. It had a split second to try to abort that fire command and it failed. The energy burst went through my hand and the join between its helmet and neck piece. Its head jerked and its body started to spasm. I let go of it long enough to kneel up, get my intact arm around its neck, and twist.
I let go as I felt the connections, mechanical and organic, snap.
GrayCris Unit 1 – taken down but probably not dead. (Will come back to this later.)
That was the fourth one that Murderbot saw in the DeltFall habitat where it had expected three. Yet it was not over.
I looked up and another SecUnit was in the doorway, lifting a large projectile weapon.
How many of these damn things were here? It didn’t matter, because I tried to shove myself upright but I couldn’t react fast enough. Then it jerked, dropped the weapon, and fell forward. I saw two things: the ten-centimeter hole in its back and Mensah standing behind it, holding something that looked a lot like the sonic mining drill from our hopper.
GrayCris Unit2 – killed with a mining drill.
Murderbot had said earlier that SecUnits are hard to kill but piecing their heart with something like a mining drill, leaving a hole the chest would do it. That’s what Dr. Mensah did to this unit in order to save Murderbot.
After PreservationAux have evacuated from their habitat, they return discreetly to see who the EvilSurvey was.
Five SecUnits piled out of the cargo pods, all armed with the big projectile weapons assigned to protect survey teams on planets with hazardous fauna, like this one. From the pattern on the armor chestplates, two were the surviving DeltFall units. They must have been put into their cubicles after we escaped the DeltFall habitat.
So, here we see 2 surviving DeltFall Units and 3 GrayCris Units, which did not include GrayCris Unit2.
By the size of their habitat and the number of SecUnits, including the one Mensah had taken out with a mining drill, they had between thirty and forty team members.
Since there is a rule of one unit per ten humans, the estimates of 30-40 team members suggest MB had observed four SecUnits belonging to GrayCris. Here, it is also confirming that one (GrayCris Unit2) was killed with a mining drill earlier, but no mention of the other one, suggesting that it (GrayCris Unit1) survived.
In the open area on the plateau were seven figures, four SecUnits and three humans in the color-coded enviro suits, blue, green, and yellow. It meant they had one SecUnit and probably twenty seven–plus humans back at their habitat, if they had followed the rule of one rental SecUnit per ten humans.
So, here, there are five SecUnits, four that MB could see and one it assumes to be with the remaining GrayCris humans.
She cut the comm off again. Then one of the DeltFall SecUnits started forward. She came back on to say, “This Unit will help you.”
This indicates that surviving DeltFall Unis were there, visible. So, there were 2 DeltFall Units, and 3 GrayCris Units (Unit1 from earlier, Unit2 and Unit3) in this scene, and one of the GrayCris Units was out of sight with the remaining GrayCris people.
We rolled over rock and brush until I wrenched its weapon away. After that it was easy to finish it off. Physically easy.
I know I said SecUnits aren’t sentimental about each other, but I wished it wasn’t one of the DeltFall units. It was in there somewhere, trapped in its own head, maybe aware, maybe not. Not that it matters. None of us had a choice.
DeltFall Unit 2 or 3 is now dead.
It is worth noting that it seemed as though MB would rather have killed one of the GrayCris units. It had more sympathy for units forcefully taken over by combat override modules than those controlled by HubSystem via a governor module. This may be because with the HubSystem control, there is still some level of autonomy, whereas combat override modules “turn a unit from a mostly autonomous construct into a gun puppet”.
GrayCris takes Mensah aboard their hopper as hostage, while MB pretends to be the dead DeltFall Unit and rides in the cargo with the other three units (1 DeltFall and 2 GrayCris). They land a few kilometres away from the GrayCris habitat, close to the beacon.
The two SecUnits were circling the beacon’s tripod, looking for signs of tampering, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I started to walk toward Mensah.
When the remaining DeltFall SecUnit whipped toward me and opened fire, I knew the light had dawned. I dove and rolled, coming up with my projectile weapon. I was taking hits all over my armor but scoring hits on the other SecUnit.
After this, the beacon is launched, causing massive explosion which knocks MB offline for a while. There were no further mention of the remaining SecUnits there. So, as far as we know, one of the DeltFall units survived, and 3 out of 4 GrayCris units also survived.
I expected a suit skin and armor, but the station units that helped us out of processing when we had catastrophic injuries gave me the gray PreservationAux survey uniform instead. I put it on, feeling weird, while the station units stood around and watched me. We’re not buddies or anything, but usually they pass along the news, what happened while you were offline, what the upcoming contracts were. I wondered if they felt as weird as I did.
Here, we have a glimpse of other units that Murderbot seemed familiar with. They were familiar only in the sense that their presence was no surprise to it but no familiar enough to have much interaction.
On re-reading All Systems Red, I noticed that while Murderbot did not show protective attitude towards its fellow SecUnits, and generally mistrusted them, it was unwilling to kill them. It expressed willingness to kill them while it had assumed that the DeltFall units had gone rogue and killed their clients, once it realises that they had lost autonomy to combat override modules it seemed more reluctant to kill them. It showed less sympathy towards GrayCris units which were ordered to carry out evil deeds by their humans, suggesting that it had expected them to exercise some control over their actions even if that meant they were punished by their governor modules.