I’m just so struck by SecUnit range. you have them moving so fast it’s imperceptible, you have them accidentally breaking wrists in a fight, you have them so heavy they might break the mobility aid a person is using to pull at them (unless one chooses to go with the people who are pulling it)
and then MB will talk about the fine sensations of its fingers and palms. you have it marveling at how delicate child bones are and scooping humans up (whether they’re old or young) and holding their hands and just being so gentle and precise…
like what a range! no wonder you have to hold a construct together with neural tissue!
like MB processes some things so fast but emotions so slowly…
and then there’s the plasticity! like MB having to ride along with Three because Three’s processing speeds are slower… like i do keep coming back to development wrt constructs
(This is a short meta thing I wrote up in discord, and while I'm positive I'm not the first person to compare MB's views on ART & Miki, I was quite happy with how this came out, so I'm sharing it here too)
I love Miki as a foil to ART. It casts a lot of light on why MB & ART work so well: MB suspects that Miki has been programmed (ie forced by humans) to always answer yes or to behave in a child-like manner. It can't trust Miki's agreeableness or offers of friendship if it's something the humans have made it do.
Then it turns out Miki is Just Like That on its own and… MB still can't trust its offers of friendship, bc "there was a 93% chance Miki wanted to be everyone's friend" (said I think in NE?), meaning Miki didn't actually want to be Murderbot's friend, it didn't know MB at all and was just friendly to everyone. (The Preservation humans fall in this category a little too, especially at first: they're Good People, so they would help Anyone. They're not choosing MB specifically)
Contrast all that with ART, who argues with MB, who can be mean and sarcastic and insulting (so not programmed to always say yes or always be cute & nice), and maybe most importantly who doesn't make friends easily. ART is abrasive and snarky and overly protective and absolutely does NOT want to be friends with everyone. So if it's choosing MB, MB can trust that as being sincere. If ART didn't want to be around MB, it would make that abundantly clear, just like MB can do. So every time ART and MB argue or insult each other but then still stick together, it's them saying "I choose you, of my own free will. The humans aren't making us choose this, my programming isn't making me choose this, and I don't want just anyone, I choose you specifically."
Then the SecUnit said, "They're coming. You have to go."
This is the one of the two you gave the code to, ART-drone said. It's disabled its governor module.
[...]
Then I surprised the shit out of myself and said, "Come with us."
It stepped back. "They don't know."
They didn't know about it. It was going to do what I had done, pretend to keep doing its job.
-System Collapse, page 223
My theory as to why this SecUnit didn't want to come with is not because it would mean tagging along with Leonide during the escape (though that would be awkward), but because it couldn't abandon the other SecUnit that Murderbot gave the code to.
Three seemed to feel some sort of attachment toward the other two BE SecUnits it was originally deployed with. Maybe these two SecUnits feel a similar way about each other, or at least when they became autonomous they figured it was better to try to stick together.
Either way, this SecUnit isn't leaving without its partner.
Good evening everyone, specifically my murderbot peeps.
As we know, sometimes MB uses the entirety of its logs as a message for someone (the Mensah letter, helpme.file etc)
Well I was listening to fugitive telemetry again today, (I'm not gonna think about how many times I've listened to this book, but anyways) and this line at the end jumped out at me:
Indah said, “Good to see you in one piece.”
Yeah, whatever. “You read my report?”
“I did.” She added dryly, “I’m glad you documented the whole process. It’s good to have a reminder that we actually didn’t do too badly, except for that one basic wrong assumption.”
The assumption that the perpetrator had entered the transport from inside the station instead of outside, she meant.
...
Unlike Indah, I wasn’t happy with our performance. Especially since I’d been the one to confuse everything by insisting the surveillance video on the transport dock had been altered. I just said, “I didn’t want anything to be left to the imagination.”
“Probably for the best.” Then Indah sighed, and said, “I wasn’t the one who sent that photo of you to the newsstreams.”
It was unexpected and it made me drop some inputs. I picked them back up again. I didn’t know what to say, because obviously what I should say was I didn’t think it was you except that was absolutely not true, I had been 96 percent sure it was her.
She continued, “I wouldn’t use the newsstreams like that. If we have to fight about Mensah’s security, we’ll fight, but I won’t undermine you. Since we are actually both on the same side.”
Given that it includes a whole section in the book about how it assumes Indah sent its picture to the news feeds as petty revenge, and how much time it spends complaining about how lax they are about Mensah's security... Should we assume that Murderbot sent basically the entirety of Fugitive Telemetry to Indah as its mission report???
Desperately curious to hear people's thoughts about this.
Systems that Murderbot interacts with (mention frequency count)
(Platform Decay spoilers, but not related to the plot)
I occasionally get the urge (?) to count frequencies of things in the Murderbot Diaries, enter them in a spreadsheet and stare at them.
Former rental SecUnits like Murderbot are designed to be able to interface with various systems, mainly SecSystems but also others. Since Murderbot had to survive as a rogue for so long before finding places and people that it could belong to, it's particularly adept at hacking, convincing, and controlling them. While it was a company unit, the systems it had daily interactions with were HubSystem, SecSystem, and MedSystem.
HubSystem appears to work like a central executive (rather like the one in the classic working memory model), monitoring and controlling SecUnits (and other constructs). It enforced obedience via governor modules. It also acted as a gateway to database when SecUnits had to look up some task-relevant information.
SecSystems are found in any place that requires security, monitoring through cameras, assessing risk/threat when something happens. Murderbot often seems to find them friendly and helpful. SecSystems and SecUnits probably have a natural, strong affinity.
MedSystem used to be something Murderbot used only when it was assisting its clients when they were injured. It sometimes gave instructions when its client wasn't close to a medical facility. It was only after meeting ART that it started using it for itself.
"Other" includes Central (aka AdaCol1) in Network Effect, AdaCol2 in System Collapse.
I didn't include targetControlSystem in Network Effect, as it wasn't a standard System.
These were the main systems that Murderbot regularly interacted with initially. But when it had to go to a place inhabited by groups of humans, it had to interact with multiple systems. There was a sharp increase in such 'other' systems in the latest book.
Barish-Estranza's proprietary model SecUnits like Three probably had never had the experience with interfacing with non-B-E systems. Also, they had a strange augmented human HubSystem which might work in a different way from standard corporate HubSystems. I'm actually quite curious as to why they opted to use augmented humans as their HubSystem.
something i think about a lot are the parallels in terms of how mensah and murderbot navigate each other's boundaries, safety, and comfort, especially in the post-exit strategy era. specifically, i like chewing on the fact that there's a level of anxiety in each of them because of how deeply they care for the other — and because of the similar interpersonal anxieties they deal with. i think this moment in "home" is a pretty explicit example:
SecUnit is looking down at her. “You can hug me if you need to.”
“No. No, that’s all right. I know you don’t care for it.” She wipes her face. There are tears in her eyes, because she’s an idiot.
“It’s not terrible.” She can hear the irony under its even tone.
“Nevertheless.” She can’t do this. She can’t lean on a being that doesn’t want to be leaned on. Of all the things SecUnit needs, the only ones she can give it are room and time in a relatively safe space to make decisions for itself. Becoming a prop for her failing emotional stability won’t do either one of them any good.
[continuation under readmore]
there is a lot to be said for this passage, but the moment that i'll pick out for the sake of the point (tm) is that mensah believes murderbot does not actually want to hug her and is offering only for her sake. this is a moment that hits for me for a myriad of reasons. of course i identify with both characters in some ways, so one thing that is going on here that gets me is the way that mensah anticipates and accommodates murderbot's potential discomfort. this is something i rarely experience as a touch-repulsed person (most real humans do not respect or understand touch repulsion). i also think mensah's assumption that murderbot comforting her would be a burden for it and her self-flagellation about being seen expressing difficult emotions is quite relatable and sad to learn about the character.
in exit strategy, murderbot says hugging her is "not awful," and this description shows that mensah is excluded here from murderbot’s usual non-tactical touch repulsion (of note, murderbot is not touch repulsed in the typical sense. its touch aversion seems to stem more from the emotional vulnerability that it associates with non-utilitarian touch rather than a complete aversion to physical contact; it is textually okay with touch that it deems work-required or necessary for security, such as carrying injured clients. the hug is not framed negatively, but notably doesn’t fall into the “required/necessary touch” category.)
mensah being an exception to murderbot’s brand of touch repulsion is further demonstrated by their repeated hand holding as well as smaller interactions between them, such as the moment in all systems red in which it picks her up to put her in the hopper even though touch was not prompted or required for the situation. we also know from network effect that it wants to be close to mensah and to have the option to touch her:
Dr. Mensah would never believe that. My accidents were spectacular and usually involved me losing a big chunk of my organic tissue or something; she knew I could stop a human without hurting them, without even leaving a bruise, that was my stupid job.
She would never trust me again. She would never stand close enough to touch (but without touching, because touching is gross) and just trust me. Or maybe she would, but it wouldn’t be the same.
mensah's trust matters so much to murderbot. this includes her feeling physically safe having it near. with the understanding that both characters are trauma survivors, we can also see many parallels between them in their recovery, their attitudes about their own trauma, and their interpersonal behavior leading up to them accepting that they need their respective trauma treatments. but again, this post is really about the mutuality of care between them which manifests in their attitudes and treatment of each other. murderbot itself has issues with touch, with the option to engage with it on its terms being very important to it. what's most important to murderbot in this passage highlights a different dimension of its relationship with physical nearness: murderbot explicitly wants mensah to feel safe with murderbot being near to her, including with the possibility of it touching her.
to build on this, as i mentioned, voluntarily touching mensah is different for murderbot because of the fondness and trust between them, even when their dynamic is less established (eg, the moments mentioned from asr and es). it virtually only has positive things to say about mensah throughout the series, and even as early as the cubicle scene (chapter 1 of asr), it doesn't ever frame mensah's behavior as an imposition or threat.
i'll soon discuss a passage which fleshes out this idea in more depth, but a key to understanding their dynamic is that early on, murderbot textually feels as though mensah is unsafe with it and that its presence in her life, especially being near her, is a threat to her. when murderbot says "I just wasn’t sure I wanted to see her again. (Or more accurately, for her to see me again.)" and "[Miki] had been [Abene's] friend, and more importantly, she had been its friend," we are given the implication that murderbot's fear of hurting mensah relates to its fear of mensah seeing and understanding it; it perceives itself as monstrous and something to be feared, hated, and abused by humans, and one of its deepest anxieties is that its favorite human will see it as such, too — or that murderbot might actually harm her. this idea is present in the text far more than the idea that it feels unsafe with her because of her potential to harm it or otherwise infringe on its boundaries.
murderbot is not alone in this kind of insecurity, although mensah's comes from a different place and takes a different form. in the snip from "home" above, murderbot clearly wants to offer mensah comfort and thinks she'd like a hug. and she would, but not at its perceived expense. mensah believes that it couldn't actually want to hug her and is offering solely for her sake, and that taking it up on its desire to comfort her with touch would mean she was burdening or harming it. we know from es that this isn't really the case and that murderbot actually wouldn't hate hugging her. this moment shows a great depth of care on both ends, although of course on mensah's side, there's something a little more unique happening, which is a concern for murderbot's boundaries, safety, and comfort that is melding with deep-seated anxieties about the potential to impose on it or harm it in some other way.
it's clear from "home" and network effect that murderbot wants to help mensah in the post-es era as she recovers from the trauma of her kidnapping, interrogation, assassination attempt, and the events of the survey. aside from saving her life and fastidiously guarding her, there's another interesting thing that happens between mensah and murderbot which drives home how the care and trust in murderbot’s dynamic with mensah colors its behavior and perception of everything. i'll explain why it's notable with some canon context before digging in.
we know murderbot does not like talking about its feelings with people, nor being talked to about feelings. it’s at times even averse to using the label "friend" aloud to characterize its relationships with people it has narratively already called friends in its internal dialogue. it describes sex as "gross" and "boring." it also places its discomfort about "relationship discussions" on the same level as its discomfort about sex:
Arada and Overse were back to getting along after spending time together in an unused bunkroom while we were traveling to the dock. I hadn’t bothered to monitor them on ART’s cameras or try to slip a drone in; the chances that they were having sex and/or a relationship discussion (either of which I would prefer to stab myself in the face than see) were far higher than the chance that they were saying anything I needed to know about.
here, it equates sex with emotionally vulnerable relationship discussions (“sex and/or a relationship discussion”), ranking them as eliciting the same level of personal discomfort. similarly, it repeatedly emphasizes about how it feels about “feelings conversations,” like with this great little bit:
Mensah and Arada had overruled the ones who wanted to talk to me about it. Yes, talk to Murderbot about its feelings. The idea was so painful I dropped to 97 percent efficiency.
mensah knows that murderbot does not like talking about its feelings. she learns this early about it and actually intervenes when the team tries to talk to murderbot about emotions or otherwise poke at it multiple times throughout asr. one of their early moments of emotional intimacy post-kidnapping is mensah simply asking it why it likes its favorite tv show. murderbot is genuinely surprised and moved by the conversation they have about that (and i think she is, too). menash really seems to play it safe with murderbot interpersonally post-es, and this is especially clear in "home" and ne, where she seems almost disgusted with herself at the idea of burdening it with her feelings.
however, murderbot actively initiates conversations about emotions and relationships with mensah, most notably in ne:
It was a request for information, that was all. I did a quick search and pulled up a few examples from my media collection. None of the samples seemed like anything I’d ever voluntarily say, so before I could change my mind I went with, “What’s wrong?”
She was surprised, then gave me a sideways look. “Don’t you start.” So there was something wrong and even the other humans had noticed. I said, “I have to know about any potential problems for an accurate threat assessment.”
She lifted a brow and opened the vehicle door. “You never mentioned that on our survey contract.”
I got out of the vehicle and followed her toward a group of chairs next to the house, scattered around in the grass under the trees. The shadow was deep so I had to switch to a dark filter to see her. “That was because I was half-assing my job.”
(i find the fact that it wants to look at her face during this difficult conversation fascinating. this comes up in asr, es, and sc as well. and mensah is aware murderbot likes to observe her expressions, too, and she accommodates it by looking away so it can comfortably look at her. it's a lovely detail.)
there are other emotions-related conversations in the series between them, but this one is rather pivotal and includes what i think murderbot would classify as relationship discussion (again, murderbot-initiated):
Uh-huh. “What about you?”
She took a breath to say she’d be fine. I knew her well enough to know those exact words were about to come out. But then she hesitated. The drone I had watching her face increased magnification, its low-light filter rendering her features in black and white. Her expression was intense and fierce and she was biting her lower lip. She said, “I hate feeling so weak. I just need to stop. And I need to stop leaning on you. It’s not fair to you. We need to be apart so I can … stand on my own feet again.”
I didn’t think she was wrong, but I still wasn’t used to things that were unfair to me being a major point of consideration for humans. It also sounded vaguely like the break-up part of the romance scenes on the shows I watched, most of which I usually skimmed over. I said, “It’s not me, it’s you.”
She huffed a laugh.
there's a lot going on here, but to me, one of the most interesting things is that, similar to the moment in "home," mensah shows a lot of care for murderbot's boundaries and comfort. it knows that, and that knowledge deepens its trust in her: "I still wasn’t used to things that were unfair to me being a major point of consideration for humans." this highlights how, as always, mensah's care and respect for murderbot is meaningful for it.
but what to me makes this element of their dynamic so great is that murderbot has a very similar thought process towards mensah as well. here's another murderbot-initiated feelings/relationship conversation with mensah, this time from system collapse:
She came and sat down next to me in the lounge and I adjusted a drone to be able to get a view of her face. I had things I wanted to say but had no idea how, so I blurted, “Did you get the trauma treatment?”
[]
“Was it…” I didn’t want to ask how she had been without
me there. Okay, I did want to ask, obviously, but it was awkward, plus I was still aware of what ART had said about violating her privacy by talking about the therapy. [mensah's response cut again for brevity, but she knows exactly what it wanted to ask, btw.]
[]
Then, before I knew I was going to, I said, “Did Amena tell you about my emotional collapse?”
[]
This was an awkward thing and I might as well get it over with. “I didn’t tell you about ART.”
[]
[Mensah speaking:] “Would this be a temporary job, or something more permanent?”
“I don’t know.” This was incredibly weird and awkward. “I don’t want to not see you again.”
She took a moment to sort out my verbs. “I don’t want to not see you again, either.” Her expression was still thoughtful. “But if you do find you want to spend more time with Perihelion, you could always come back and visit us.”
It was getting easier to talk about this. “Preservation was the first place I was a part of and I don’t want to not be a part of it. But I like being with ART. I want to keep being with it.”
[]
She smiled a little. “The good thing is, you do know what you want.”
I sort of did know. It was a weird feeling. “That’s new.”
She smiled all the way. “I wasn’t going to put it quite that way, but yes.”
holy long passsage, but what an incredible scene (and what i skipped over wounded me to omit).
we see that murderbot is essentially discussing that it views art as its teammate, too, but that it will also always want mensah in its life as well. here, murderbot persistently talks about feelings, mostly asking mensah about hers. they talk about relationships, not only theirs but murderbot’s relationship with art, and murderbot ends the conversation feeling much less uncomfortable about the whole thing. it's clearly a positive conversation.
the bit that is most relevant to this writeup, though, is this one: "This was an awkward thing and I might as well get it over with. 'I didn’t tell you about ART.'" mensah immediately reassures murderbot, saying, "I don't tell you everything, either." as with the concerns mensah has about how she interacts with murderbot, murderbot also has some concern about betraying her trust or otherwise upsetting her, even when mensah doesn't mind. this moment reminds me so much of her declining the hug in "home," but emotionally healthier, without the undercurrent of guilty self-hatred. in “home,” murderbot was trying to comfort her, and mensah self-flagellated about her perceived weakness and felt she was a burden on it, “idiotic,” and judged. but here, murderbot is in need of comfort about perceived potential harm to her, and mensah's response legitimately reassures it. she's very glad it has art in its life. and she knows what murderbot wants her to know, which is that she'll always be a part of its life, too.
with one of my very favorite moments (one that is so layered that i've included it in another meta writeup on a different topic lol) we see an example of murderbot being worried about wronging/harming mensah more starkly:
I felt another wave of “I don’t care” coming on. Why should I care? I liked humans, I liked watching them on the entertainment feed, where they couldn’t interact with me. Where it was safe. For me and for them.
If I had gone back to Preservation with Dr. Mensah and the others, she might be able to guarantee my safety, but could I really guarantee her safety from me?
Altering my physical configuration still seemed drastic. But hacking my governor module was drastic. Leaving Dr. Mensah was drastic.
"could I really guarantee her safety from me?" is so devastating to imagine from her pov. it has risked its life saving her multiple times by this point. she deeply cares for it, sees it as a person, and feels safe with it. but murderbot is so paranoid about the idea that it could hurt her that in this moment, while it's contemplating a life and identity-changing decision, it reveals that part of why it left mensah at the end of asr was to "guarantee her safety from [it]." it was not for murderbot's sake, in its mind. it was for her.
this is an idea that persists for some time for murderbot; not just the possibility that it might hurt her, but that she might feel afraid or unsafe because of what it is and what it's been forced to do in the past. as discussed elsewhere, i think there are many layers to this sentiment and that this fear that murderbot has is not solely about mensah as a person or its relationship with her. but, likewise, mensah's parallel fears about imposing on murderbot are not solely about murderbot or her relationship with it.
throughout the murderbot diaries books, we see countless examples of murderbot's low self-esteem, its maladaptive schema, and its fears and pessimism. in "home" we similarly see multiple instances of mensah's low self-esteem and interpersonal anxieties. despite their many differences, they have a lot in common, but that's not all that's notable about the dynamic. the fact that they attach these kinds of feelings to their relationship with each other speaks to the depth of care they have for each other and how that care will persist throughout both of their trauma recovery arcs. and, more plainly, how important they are to each other. this is a fascinating parallel between them to me — how they care about the other to the point that they both have moments where their insecurities affect their relationship and they fret about the other's comfort and safety to a degree well beyond what the other would ever expect of them.
but what they do for each other goes beyond that, and it goes beyond showing respect for the other's autonomy or making efforts to "guarantee" the other is safe. for murderbot and mensah, one another's comfort is of the utmost importance. they have parallel attitudes and paths to trauma recovery, and there are parallels in how their feelings about each other are embodied, too. the respect and care they have for each other is a constant and reciprocal "you matter to me" throughout the series. their love is the most beautiful thing to me because of how it manifests and persists, even in the midst of navigating and healing from so much trauma. the care they feel for each other is completely unconditional and selfless. something i talk about a lot is how gentle and kind their dynamic is and how unique it feels to me. it’s emotionally grounded, but there is something really special happening interpersonally, too. you don't often see this kind of love depicted as well as it is in the murderbot books.
thank you so much to loveless for the editing help and encouragement
there's an essay somewhere in how deeply dissociated murderbot is when we first meet it (understandably so, it had nowhere to escape except its mind and then later media) and what that means for its relationship with the presaux humans but especially ART. a gigantic spaceship slash advanced mechanical construct ends up helping murderbot connect with reality.
while it definitely gets worse before it gets better, ART gave it a safe place to not be okay. to be angry and sad and scared. it quickly became someone it can hand control over to and trust that ART will not let any harm come to it, and that is so much more important than non-traumatized people could probably imagine
In The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red, an important plot point is the murder of the other survey team on the planet, DeltFall, by GrayCris. The first attempt to do so was via malware disguised as an upgrade package intended for their secunits. If it had been applied, GrayCris would’ve been able to remotely take over the secunits and force them to murder the DeltFall team.
(notably, this attempt failed, and GrayCris had to hack the secunits in person, but thats not important for this post)
Importantly, GrayCris sent this same malware to Preservation Aux at the same time, intending to take over Murderbot. Take a look at the reason Murderbot gives for refusing the download:
“I don’t do automated package updates anymore, now that I don’t have to.”
Throughout the series, especially early on, Murderbot will bring up two things: The memory wipes it had undergone, and the mass-murder at it’s hands that had prompted said memory wipes.
In Artificial Condition, Murderbot goes back to the scene of the crime to figure out why it committed mass murder.
As it turns out, malware disguised as an upgrade infected the system and causes the deaths of 57 people.
it might be a stretch to assume that Murderbot subconsciously remembers the cause of the incident. the upgrade package was sent to the comfortunits, not the secunits. But we do know that Murderbot hacked its governor module almost immediately afterwards, so that it couldn’t be forced to kill against its will ever again. It might be more accurate to call it a demonstration of autonomy.
The moral of the story seems to be that automatic updates are bad for security
